This article was originally published in September 2020. Commercial space enthusiasts, we have lift-off! On 10 September, NASA announced that it is soliciting proposals for private entities to collect lunar rocks and soil. Basically, NASA is offering to buy these materials from the corporations that gather them. This project has enormous implications for the future […]
Originally published June 2021. What is the duration of the present moment? How is it that this present moment is replaced by ‘the next moment’? Within every organism, sentient or not, there are thousands of chemical processes that occur with their own characteristic time periods, but these time periods start and stop at different times […]
People really dislike inflation. Today, with US annual inflation still above 8%, one in five Americans consider it the country’s biggest problem – spelling trouble for the Democrats at the November mid-terms. Inflation is also the top concern for voters around the world, while in the UK, the public wanted the Government to deal with […]
Originally published June 2022. Our writer set out to find out if this is actually true. “Daddy, why are you writing about women’s boobs?” I turn puce as my 11-year-old stares me down. I stay silent and she repeats the question. My wife looks as me as if I have burned her shoe collection. My daughter […]
The High Pay Centre has just published its latest report on the remuneration of FTSE-100 CEOs. As usual, the report shows median pay which, by most people’s standards, is pretty colossal. At £3.4m, this figure is over 100 times that of the median UK worker and has increased since the pandemic. Given the cost-of-living crisis, this is […]
Is investors’ preference for them warranted? An important issue for investors is that of how to structure their exposure to commercial real estate. A common allocation strategy is to tilt real estate portfolios towards well-located, high-quality properties in economically important markets, such as New York, Tokyo or London (ie, gateway markets). Several economic mechanisms can […]
Comparing farmland and property. This commentary argues that farmland values may double over the next 10 years, while over the same 10 years residential and commercial property values are unlikely to increase. What happens to farmland in times of inflation? Farm profits tend to rise strongly in times of inflation. Craigmore farm revenues have grown […]
A few years ago, the chess website Chess.com temporarily banned US grandmaster Hans Niemann for playing chess moves online that the site suspected had been suggested to him by a computer program. It had reportedly previously banned his mentor, Maxim Dlugy. And at the Sinquefield Cup earlier this month, world champion Magnus Carlsen resigned without […]
Unfair, excessive and bad in law. In this very special series of exclusive articles for The Property Chronicle, Australian property legend Norman Harker reflects on his extraordinary 50-year life in real estate. He will pull no punches partly because, as he freely admits, Norman has a limited life expectancy of five years from December 2018 due […]
A tribute to the American biologist, naturalist andwriter Edward Osborne Wilson. Originally published June 2022. On Boxing Day, 2021, the world lost one of its greatest biologists. Boxing Day was apt, for Edward Osborne Wilson’s passions were communicated with verbal pugilism. Complacency and defeatism were his bug bear and not just as a great entomologist. […]
