Archive

September 24, 2025
2025-09-24 AN_head.png

Will AI save the US Economy?

  • European policymakers and investors see Donald Trump’s economic policies harming Republican prospects in the 2026 midterms and the 2028 general election.
  • The Trump Administration is placing a good deal of faith in AI as a panacea. But the US may not have the skilled labour or the power-generating capacity to fuel an AI boom.
  • Nor is it clear whether the current Administration is preparing for the related socio-economic disruption from which the MAGA faithful would be far from immune.

By Alastair Newton

September 09, 2025
2025-09-10 US_head.png

Fed: Politics Vs Fundamentals

  • President Trump’s current preference for rate cuts is not unconditional. Higher-order logic suggests this would not override fundamental resilience or fairly prove “TACO”.
  • Political pressure is state-dependent, with the messenger mattering more than the objective truth beneath any message. Trump’s Chair will have a stronger hand.
  • Brazil suffered President Lula’s pressure, but he still supported his “Golden Boy’s” turn from dovish dissent to forceful rate hikes. Fed pricing ignores the potential for change.

By Philip Rush

September 08, 2025
2025-09-08 AN_head.png

France: Déjà Vu?

  • Despite the near certainty that the Bayrou government will fall on 8 September, investors are wary, rather than spooked, reckoning that they have seen all this before.
  • They are likely correct to judge that compromises will then be found, allowing the 2026 budget to be passed by a new centrist government.
  • However, this would again only be putting off the day when a real crisis point is reached.

By Alastair Newton

August 26, 2025
2025-08-26 AN_head.png

Russia/Ukraine: What Now?

  • A week after the event, it is clear that the Trump/Putin summit presented the latter with a big win at little, if any, cost.
  • Donald Trump is unlikely to come up with anything that will bring Mr Putin to the negotiating table in good faith once his latest two-week ‘deadline’ expires.
  • Furthermore, Mr Trump remains philosophically inclined to favour Russia, a leaning that probably poses a greater risk to Kyiv than Mr Putin himself does.

By Alastair Newton

By country