My head is full of grizzly mania, the Russian bear is trapped in Ukraine’s military bear trap and the black gold bears are laughing all the way to the bank as Brent tanks to $76 and West Texas settled at $71. Does this week define the new geopolitics of black gold for the rest of […]
With Russian troops digging trenches to prepare for an expected winter standoff, it would be easy to conclude that fighting will slow in Ukraine until after the ground thaws in the spring. But evidence from the Ukrainian battlefields point to a different trajectory. As a career US special forces officer who conducted field research on […]
Originally published October 2022. Productivity, sustainability and resilience. This summer I left central London and lived for a month in suburban Austin, Texas. It was an adjustment. In London, I was used to having a coffee shop close, a convenience store closer and a pub closest of all. In Austin, things are different. Like many […]
After reaching extraordinary valuations, zeitgeist stocks are yet to return to reasonable levels. In the classic Christmas film Miracle on 34th Street, Kris Kringle is on trial for claiming to be the real Santa Claus. His defence lawyer says, “If this court finds that there is no Santa, I ask the court to judge which […]
‘Flexible working’ could mean many things. To employers such as the train-operating companies, it might mean unions which are prepared to change rigid rostering systems dating back decades. To other employers it might mean employing people who are prepared to put in extra hours when necessary or are prepared to switch tasks as demands change. […]
A global economy at a standstill, populations confined and hospitals overcrowded are the consequences of an unprecedented health crisis. A rescue plan is needed and recovery measures are crucial. The health and economic situations have imposed crisis management, leading to supply-chain disruptions. Companies must be saved or face the consequences. Policymakers still remember the great […]
Drones are already shaping the face of our cities – used for building planning, heritage, construction and safety enhancement. But, as studies by the UK’s Department of Transport have found, swathes of the public have a limited understanding of how drones might be practically applied. It’s crucial that the ways drones are affecting our future […]
It surprises me, a man of pen and paper, that Twitter requires regular maintenance and without the attention of veteran software engineers could easily crash, leaving millions of twitterers to write notes on paper. And would they be able to write with a pen, or would they need to cut words out of a book […]
We are now a year on from the first central banks shifting into tightening mode and raising policy rates to bring inflation back under control. This central bank tightening trend broadened and accelerated in spring 2022 in response to the exogenous shock to commodity prices when Russia invaded Ukraine. So, as we reach its first anniversary, […]
Originally published September 2021. Building a commitment to egalitarianism on our genetic uniformity is building a house on sand. – Paige Harden Paige Harden is a University of Texas-Austin behavioral geneticist who does not deny that inborn determinants of IQ can result in unequal social outcomes. Yet Harden considers herself a progressive. In certain quarters, reconciling hereditary […]
