The problems raised by dynamic pricing for those measuring inflation are explored in this Bank Underground piece. But it raises an interesting question: what will inflation even mean in a new world of dynamic and personalised pricing which seems to be on the way bankunderground.co.uk/2026/04/16/w...

What machines taking over pricing means for central banks

Anthony Savagar, Misa Tanaka and Jagdish Tripathy With increased availability of big data and computing power, more firms are adopting algorithmic and AI-powered pricing to adjust prices rapidly in…

bankunderground.co.uk

This Harper's article is good on what is probably America's greatest problem today - it's transformation into a gerontocracy which represents an aging constituency that controls the political system, to the detriment of younger generations harpers.org/archive/2026...

The Old Guard, by Samuel Moyn

Confronting America’s gerontocratic crisis

harpers.org

Jim Tomlinson reviews 'A Neoliberal Revolution? Thatcherism and the Reform of British Pensions', by Aled Davies, James Freeman and Hugh Pemberton @hugh-pemberton.bsky.social academic.oup.com/ehr/advance-... @manchesterup.bsky.social

A Neoliberal Revolution? Thatcherism and the Reform of British Pensions, by Aled Davies, James Freeman and Hugh Pemberton

Pension provision is a running sore of British public policy. While the current ‘triple-lock’ guarantees the real value of the state pension, that pension

academic.oup.com

We all want a better country, but first we have to ensure we actually have a country. Enough with the endless faffing around www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Former Nato chief to say UK's national security 'in peril'

Lord George Robertson will use a speech to accuse

bbc.co.uk

How should the UK government manage the economic fallout from the Iran war? Useful suggestions here from the IfG www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/...

Managing the economic consequences of the Iran war | Institute for Government

How should the government respond to the crisis in the Middle East?

instituteforgovernment.org.uk

An excellent and devastating analysis from Lawrence Freedman, concluding: "The US will never be irrelevant but while it wields its power so incompetently and counter-productively then its international influence will be correspondingly diminished." open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/t...

The causes and consequences of Trump’s defeat

The Islamabad negotiations were supposed to conclude the Iran War in such a way that the US and Israel would have something to show for the thousands of lives lost and ruined, the vast quantities of o...

open.substack.com

For anyone without a vested interest in sustaining the Trump administration, it is all too obvious that the USA made a catastrophic mistake in Iran Donald Trump is the war’s biggest loser www.economist.com/leaders/2026... From The Economist

Donald Trump is the war’s biggest loser

There is a reason he wants an exit from Iran

economist.com

It appears the strategy for Making America Great Again is dependent on making everywhere else poorer. TBC: I thought this war was going to be short/sharp. POTUS was intoxicated by US tech. Maybe they could do this quickly. But we’re now at world recession, food crises, oil rationing & a 4 day week

Interesting historical evidence from Romania that banning abortion doesn't actually stop abortions, but it does rather successfully kill women suffering complications from illegal abortions ourworldindata.org/cdn-cgi/imag...

Trump's media backers urge him on. Better a long war than a short war apparently 🤦 www.wsj.com/opinion/iran...

Opinion | Don’t Let Iran’s Hostage-Takers Win

Stopping the war weeks short would vindicate their Hormuz strategy.

wsj.com

Reading Foreign Affairs atm is to dive into a sea of bafflement that the USA can have so spectacularly blundered in the Middle East

Matt's upset by people choosing to look at inconsistencies and inaccuracies rather than address his arguments (possibly because the latter depend on the former 🤔). Established book publishers being staunchly woke sounds awfully like code for being unable to find a publisher.

On the precipitate Orbanification of the USA

👇

Peter Ricketts@lordrickettsp.bsky.social · 6mo ago

A powerful Report. I agree with their most striking conclusion: “Preparing for a ‘worst-case scenario’ whereby Europe can no longer rely on US support in the event of a crisis, the Government must work with European partners to invest in its own capabilities to offset this potential withdrawal”.

The #1 lesson of the CSPS fiasco is the one lesson the government almost inevitably won't learn - put an end to endless contracted-out failures by bringing public services back in house and re-learning the art of managing and delivering them effectively

Capita pledges pension-scheme ‘lessons’ for huge DWP contract

Richard Holroyd tells MPs the firm will sign a charter with the departments that are members of the Synergy shared-services cluster

civilserviceworld.com

The WSJ has finally reported on widespread concerns that Trump's circle is making money by front-running his market-moving pronouncements www.wsj.com/finance/inve...

The Well-Timed Trades Made Moments Before Trump’s Policy Surprises

The president’s critics have raised concerns about the action in oil futures, S&P 500 ETF options and prediction markets.

wsj.com

You can just hear him moaning "Don't bring me problems, bring me solutions" www.wsj.com/politics/ele...

Trump Tells Aides He Wants Speedy End to Iran War

The president has said that he wants to wrap up the conflict in the coming weeks.

wsj.com

This is a very good discussion of how the USA has driven itself into an escalation trap from which the most plausible exit is to a much poorer and less safe world, one in which the USA has significantly degraded strategic power not just in the ME but across the board acoup.blog/2026/03/25/m...

Miscellanea: The War in Iran

This post is a set of my observations on the current war in Iran and my thoughts on the broader strategic implications. I am not, of course, an expert on the region nor do I have access to any spec…

acoup.blog

This is a very useful worked example of the UK's Byzantine and out-of-control planning system. We need to sweep the whole thing away and start again www.samdumitriu.com/p/anatomy-of...

Anatomy of a Planning Refusal

When 7,500 pages isn’t enough detail

samdumitriu.com

I see the Wall Street Journal is studiously ignoring this FT story about Trump insiders front-running his market shifting posts, and making huge profits www.ft.com/content/1171... via @FT

Traders placed $580mn in oil bets ahead of Donald Trump’s social media post on Iran talks

Thousands of Brent and WTI contracts changed hands 15 minutes before president’s message on Truth Social

ft.com

If this is an off-ramp from Trump then do not forget: 1. Go faster on energy transition. 2. A new security relationship with Europe/reconfiguration of NATO. 3. Deepen our economic alliances in Europe and with other "middle-rankers". 4. Greater resilience through stock-piling essential materials.

This will be that 4 Dimensional Chess Thinking I've heard so much about

Bill Grueskin@bgrueskin.bsky.social · 6mo ago

From an essay titled, “God Is A Comedian” substack.com/home/post/p-...

Translation: we have made a colossal blunder, need the victims to help, but can't bring ourselves to admit it www.wsj.com/opinion/iran...

Opinion | Iran Attacks the Gulf Arabs. Will They Fight Back?

These states can do more to help as Tehran blocks and targets their energy.

wsj.com

Who has the cards now, Donald? www.wsj.com/opinion/amer...

Opinion | America Bombs Iran, and Zelensky Suddenly Holds Aces

‘You don’t have the cards,’ Trump said a year ago. Today U.S. allies implore Ukraine for drone help.

wsj.com

Trump on 13 March: "We have already destroyed 100% of Iran’s military capability." Today, after 5 more days of relentless bombardment: 'Extensive damage' at Qatar industrial site as Iran retaliates for strike on gas field - BBC News ww.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c24d410m3g4t?app-referrer=deep-link

'Extensive damage' at Qatar industrial site as Iran retaliates for strike on gas field

Qatar's Ras Laffan refinery was among a list of sites Iran threatened would be targets after an earlier attack on its South Pars gas field facilities.

bbc.co.uk

"The world has become a very dangerous place because its most powerful country is under the control of a ten-year-old boy". From Francis Fukuyama open.substack.com/pub/persuasi...

How Not To Do Regime Change

Nearly two weeks in, it’s clear just how ill thought-through Trump’s regional war is.

open.substack.com

Government bonds - historically a safe bet … until they suddenly aren't cepr.org/voxeu/column...

Given Trump's relentless anti-NATO rhetoric, it's a delicious irony that the stark shortage of American mine counter-measure vessels is "in large part, because it has been able to rely on NATO allies to carry much of the MCM burden" www.fpri.org/article/2026...

The Mine Gap: America Forgot How to Sweep the Sea - Foreign Policy Research Institute

On the morning of April 14, 1988, the USS Samuel B. Roberts, an Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate cruising through the Persian Gulf, struck a mine. The

fpri.org

One of the weird things about Labour is that for a while now it has been squandering its once overwhelming support amongst younger voters in favour of pandering to pensioners who, ironically, disproportionately vote Rightwards www.ft.com/content/53f6... via @FT

Labour must not lose my generation of voters

The defeat by the Greens in Greater Manchester demonstrates the danger of failing to address economic burdens

ft.com

He goes to a different school.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 6mo ago

TRUMP: I've spoken to a certain president, who I like actually, a past president, he said, 'I wish I did it.' But they didn't do it. I'm doing it. Q: Which president? TRUMP: I can't tell you that. It would be very bad for his career even though he's got no career left.