If you want to know who the Democratic nominee to be President will be, watch Iowa and New Hampshire. Why? Because it is extremely rare for the eventual candidate to fail to win one of those two two states. How rare? Well, let’s look at the history for a second: 2016 – Clinton won Iowa 2012 – Obama won both 2008 – Obama won Iowa 2004 – Kerry won both 2000 – Gore won both 1996 – Clinton won both…
So… there’s an old white man, whose 2020 Presidential election price on Betfair is wrong. Perhaps very significantly wrong. And no, I’m not talking about Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump or Joe Biden. I’m talking about the Vice President, Mike Pence. On Betfair right now, he’s currently at 150-1. The traditional bookies have him at 100/1. Yeah, you might say, but Mueller’s over, and Trump’s not getting impeached. And his favourable numbers with Republicans are off the charts. So, why…
From the outside the UK economy looks pretty healthy. Unemployment is low and economic growth has been more consistent than any of its EU peers. Little wonder its politicians regard it as a success story. There’s only one problem. The UK economy is built on an edifice of consumption and debt. The work we do? It’s selling things to each other that have been made abroad. It’s a dangerously fragile situation, where we congratulate ourselves on maxing our credit cards…
There’s this parody of Guardian readers children’s parties, where pass the parcel involves presents with every layer, and nobody is ever eliminated from musical chairs. This “all must have prizes” mentality seems to have reached US politics, as it appears that everyone won the midterms: the Democrats, the Republicans, Nancy Pelosi and President Trump. Who really won, and – ummm – does it matter? I’m diving into the numbers and letting you know who should be pleased. Robert Smithson Robert…
Demographics discussions can depress. The problems – ignored by most politicians – seem vast but distant. Better to let someone else, elected later, worry about them. But we can diminish the demographic drag. We just need to do a few things. Admittedly, we need politicians to do politically unpopular things. In this video, we look at what they are, and how they help. Robert Smithson Robert tweets as ‘@MarketWarbles’ Follow @MarketWarbles Tweet
Look in any company report, and you’ll see pages of details about executive compensation. And the biggest part of this is – however dressed up – share options. Get the share price moving, and management is set to make serious money. But what if share options made companies, and the economy, more fragile and encouraged poor decisions. This time, we’re talking about the dark side of share options. Robert Smithson Robert tweets as ‘@MarketWarbles’ Follow @MarketWarbles Tweet
In my last demographics piece, I looked at the boost developed countries got from falling fertility freeing up females from childcare duties. (I adore alliteration.) This piece looks to the recent past, to the experience of Japan, and asks what next? And the picture isn’t, if we’re going to be honest, a pretty one. Rising life expectancy, and birth rates below replacement almost everywhere mean that population pyramids will continue to invert. Old people produce less economic output than young…
In the old days, careers would be long, mortgages cheap and job titles easy to understand. But the nature of working is changing. Our grandparents would struggle to understand what we do… YouTuber, anyone? Income inequality has risen. Job security has disappeared. Is this the result of rapacious capitalists? Is it because of globalist politicians and George Soros? Or are there fundamental forces at work: do the people who employ us just know too much about our economic output? Computers,…