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I love this boy – and he is a boy, 16 years old, younger than both of my sons! (19 and 17)… And he has taken the phenomenally brave decision to suspend his GCSE’s for one year and moved to San Francisco in order to pursue his dream of setting up a visionary AI company, called Beem. 16 years old and he has already secured a $1 million dollar start up investment, and formal acknowledgement that in any venture created he will be majority shareholder!

He has just spoken on Radio 4’S, “The World at One”, with Sarah Montague, and given one of the slickest most naturally professional interviews I’ve ever heard. Modest and ambitious; a genius but with concern for the application of his Project before any personal consideration… He’s meeting our Prime Minister tomorrow, and already has the maturity and insight to say to Keir Starmer, that it is an awful shame that he, as literally a fledgling entrepreneur, has had to relocate to San Francisco instead of developing his vision here, with both state backing if necessary and more importantly, state facilitation and the freedom to act without second guessing an amateurish tax regime that appears to be learning on the job.

He says, “It’s built on something called proactive context which means it learns about what you do or what you like and it can remind you to do certain things. It keeps the human in the loop as much as possible but handles all the grunt work.”

It is acknowledged internationally that the UK is a world leader in creative applications of AI, and we have a pedigree of pioneering successes in the tech sector – but I’m with Christina caffery in arguing that the overbearing attention on the promotion of competition at the expense of fostering the growth of international titans, in any given sector, lowers the growth potential and Investment scale necessary for achieving the supremacy the we have seen in some of the US tech giants. Not all tech wizzes need to be “Tech Bros”… Some of them can be unassuming and quite quietly wonderful!

#AI #technology #entrepreneur #vision

Ahh, politics, politics… Again with the rhetoric, Keir Starmer has today launched the latest Strategic Defence Review, SDR, which by any level of assessment is a bit of a damp squib. Treasury estimates of Defense spending during the course of this Parliament, come in at roughly £350Bn, of which only a paltry £10Bn is considered new additional funds resulting from the SDR.

In the Spring Statement 2025, the government announced a £2.2 billion uplift to the MOD budget for 2025/26, as part of the commitment to increase NATO-qualifying defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027. That commitment remains, though the uplift is now £5Bn. Real-terms defence spending fell by 22%, between 2009/10 and 2016/17 (from £59.1 billion to £46.2 billion in 2024/25 prices), then rising to nearer its 2010 levels.

A relevant commitment to “upto” a dozen SSN-AUKUS class submarines, likely carrying a tactical nuclear capability, is welcome, though with the lead time required, are unlikely to be in place until the late 2030s. Some German military analysts have estimated that Russia could rebuild its current fighting force to a level capable of preemptively attacking a NATO member state, by 2029. I have written elsewhere (also received like a damp squib), rather than live in fear of an anticipated attack at some random date in the future, we should preemptively attack Russia, particularly now whilst its fighting forces are depleted. As reminded again recently, by Polish Foreign Secretary, Radek Sikorsky, who quoted US General Mattis: “Why do we need 300 million Americans to defend 500 million Europeans from 150 million Russians?” I would add, strategically, that Russian GDP is 24.5 times smaller than the combined GDP of NATO members, and that a number of these member states have tactical nuclear weapons readily deployable.

It appears that £1.5Bn is to be spent on ammunition, yet analysts estimate that £8Bn is needed for full warfighting capability – whether that be now (particularly in the replenishment of ammo given to Ukraine), or before the end of the Parliament. The Navy and the RAF appear to have done relatively well out of this SDR, whilst the Army are getting enhanced electromagnetic defense capabilities and a consideration towards military housing. For every 100 British soldiers who are recruited, 130 are currently leaving. Addressing this is critical, as is reversing the complete disinclination of current UK youth to participate in the military, for a whole host of socio-economic, and political reasons…

#strategicdefencereview #aukus #Russia #MOD

On the back of my post last week discussing “Economics as Applied Philosophy”, and a generous invitation to speak, here I am explaining it to MBA students at the University of Kent.

I choose two out of arguably an infinite number of applications, one expressing a true macro scale (the economic rationale underpinning the geopolitics of conflict); and the other representing a true micro scale (the economic audit that comprises the Periodic Review in the water industry, reporting to Ofwat).

So, here’s me being important… apparently I’ve saved corporations “billions” rather than the “millions” that I showed, but hey what’s a consonant between friends? I’m the first speaker for around 15-20 minutes, from minute 4 or so…

Awkward marketing on their side in that they keep the cover slide up on screen, instead of the speaker talking..

https://lnkd.in/em7DJKs9

#economics #appliedphilosophy

I’ve always taken it as a matter of pride to be interested in International affairs. I think as an Economist, the dots you join are not sectoral, or discipline based, or regional, or intellectual, or even psychological… I’ve always believed Economics to be fundamentally this: “applied philosophy” (the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline.)

What am I rambling on about now? 😂🤦🏻 Well, I’ve spoken before about the modern siloing of Economics – microeconomics being curtailed by the rigidities of linear regression; macroeconomics being subject to the vagaries of the bond market and yield curve analysis (which in my book has a lot more going for it than the straightjacket of linear regression!)

However this isn’t enough. Economics is much more than this – as can be seen, again, by a conference on the relationship between China and India, hosted by the wonderful Chatham House, of which I’m proud to be a member… Applied philosophy if it is to be useful, (as per my argument for this designation for Economics), is predicated on everything. Everything. Sociological subtleties between one county and another (eg Lancashire vs Yorkshire in cotton vs woolen production, which of course was also based on geographic attributes)… Right down to why do I consider it necessary to arm myself against my fear of you invading me? (Tensions over the China/India border).. running on of course to, where do I buy my weapons from? Will I get a better deal from a country that wants me to act as a proxy on their behalf… in arming myself more comprehensively do I present as a more secure trading partner or a more volatile one? Am I contributing to my own industrial development, through enhanced weapons technology that can translate to domestic industry? Will my safety enhance my prosperity or promote a rivalry in productivity and trade that I hadn’t foreseen (the emergence of other southeast Asian economies as China moves up the value curve).

The world is changing. Trump has inadvertently switched on a macrocosm of geopolitical and geo-economic activity, through his ignorant blunderings. We may well come to thank him when the dust settles…

Treason. If I was an American this is what I would be saying that my President was guilty of. There will always be ups and downs, but as far as everybody was concerned the American economy was functioning as it should, subject to policy variations, inflections on interest rate adjustments, exposure to foreign currency movement and generally subservient to, and subject to, the bond market (US Treasuries ) – which as the debt and budget management provider of first/last resort, all seemed to be a perfectly reasonable proposition…

And then President Trump comes along and based on mercantilist perspectives on trade – and his own unknowable psychology – he decides to play a version of Russian roulette with the world economy. Again, based on zero sum methodology, that simply has no place whatsoever in international trade – or diplomacy. In fact not only does it not have a place, it is precisely the worst way imaginable to approach your allies, whether it be from an economic or a political standpoint. Janet Yellen today described Trump’s measures as the worst act of self-harm on a perfectly functioning economy.

Technical economics sometimes finds it hard to discount for ephemeral variables such as pride – yet this is precisely what is on show in China’s refusal to dance to Trump’s music. As far as I’m concerned – why should they? (Other than the pretty obvious reasons of trying to avoid the continuation and magnification of self inflicted wounds, through the application of somewhat similarly extortionate tariffs on imports from the US… But what’s a chap supposed to do, right?)

One thing that screams out is – where are all these constitutional protections that academic lawyers in jurisprudence have always so celebrated in the US Constitution? How can a guy, that in so many other instances one imagines could easily be sectioned, be allowed to wreck havoc in the international economy, embarrass his nation, and present as entirely transactional, relationships cultivated over a century of goodwill between allies?

I’d say hand me the popcorn, as this is some show – except that tariffs on corn, maple syrup and the wood pulp for the box it comes in, have now pushed the price of the popcorn up to more than the movie…

#chaos #economics #geopolitics #trump #treason

Europe can simply not live under the threat of continued Russian intimidation. I’m with Zelenskyy. Europe needs its own Army.

As an Economist who also works in the geopolitical realm, yet who happens to be a former soldier – for me it is truly more straightforward than I think politicians and diplomats are leading us to believe. Offense, or the threat thereof, is almost always the best form of Defense. Mutually Assured Destruction, whatever the minor variations it has undergone during and post Cold War, essentially remains the backbone of nuclear realpolitik. European NATO member armies, Russia knows, have been dangerously underesourced.

Building up of European Defense budgets to 3.5% of GDP should be considered critical to National Security. In the case of Britain where we are currently moving towards 2.5%, an additional 1% would represent circa £30 Billion pounds. This is absolutely not an insignificant sum, yet in comparison to living under the subjugation of ongoing threat posed by Russia, it really is a price we can’t afford to not pay. From my very first involvement with the British Army, as a junior Officer Cadet, to, after leaving and rejoining – when I left 10 years ago, manpower had reduced from 130,000 to roughly 77,000 (now circa 73k). Given perhaps roughly only 1/3 of these are deployable Infantry, our current numbers are tactically of limited use. Let alone the degradation in ammunition supplies that we have permitted (given to Ukraine and not replaced).

Like Churchill in the late 30s, I would say we should re-arm and “up-arm” now, and I personally would go so far as to say we should attack Russia first. I for one don’t like living with the threat of a boot on my throat.