As Brits start returning to the pub, one of the big topics being discussed over frosty pints is bound to be the housing market. Homes have massively increased in price over the last few decades – much faster than the incomes. Getting on the property ladder seems an ever more remote prospect, regardless of how […]
Most assets look very bubbly these days: bonds, properties, rare art, gold, stocks – almost regardless of what investors have bought in the last few years, they have seen extraordinary returns. Last year alone, despite (or perhaps because) of the pandemic, shares in many American tech firms soared by hundreds of percent. This is not […]
As the world debates how firmly societies should close to limit the spread of a pandemic, it might not seem the most opportune time to publish a book extolling the virtues of openness. Johan Norberg, the Swedish author and congenital optimist known for Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future, thinks otherwise. The […]
This pandemic has turned the world upside-down. The usually gregarious Italians now “no longer greet one another, passing by with lowered eyes”, according to one gloomy report. My fellow Swedes, who pathologically retreat from emotional connections and shy away from conversations with strangers, now respectfully greet their neighbours and others they meet on their strolls […]
The unofficial battle cry of Bitcoiners and other crypto enthusiast is to HODL – a mis-spelled, all-caps version of “hold!”. Through good times and bad, the upright bitcoiner “stacks sats” and dreams of utopian citadels. Much like in other ideological echo chambers, the ideals of the typically nerdy and vaguely libertarian crypto-enthusiasts are well-cemented and impervious […]
