Fearless commentary on finance, economics, politics and power

The UN is a dead man walking, yet BRICS members unrealistically hope for reform. What organizations could be models for moving forward?

Those resources include the world’s largest deposits of lithium, huge deposits of oil and gas, rare earth minerals, gold and silver, and the world’s largest freshwater reservoir. 

POTUS Trump seems to have TACO’d again, delaying any renewed attacks on Iran until after the US midterm elections while Ansar Allah hit Saudi airports and oil facilities and took most of the key Yemeni highland city of Taiz, and explosions rang out in the Strait of Hormuz.

Worker-managed firms not only reduce inequality but are in the main very efficient.

U.S. interference and right-wing gains across Latin America have eroded democratic legitimacy, calling into question elections elsewhere.

Democratic participation requires more than voting rights, including material security, practical knowledge, social belonging, and agency.

OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman have put together a string of incredibly no good, terrible, horrible news cycles in recent weeks, and yet investors are pouring tens of billions more into the money pit even as safety researchers exit the company, the US Senate holds hearings, and proposes legislation, the company’s president scales back […]

Iran escalated dramatically in the Persian Gulf, Ansar Allah blasted Saudi airports and took a key city in Yemen, and Trump threatened a major escalation before the midterms in partnership with Israel.

Hudson and Desai discuss the probable AI crash in the context of US tech policy, historical bubbles, and the contrast with China’s approach.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, owners of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, have made an aggressive push into the AI market with Muse, an “agentic AI” product that is rapidly racking up downloads, claiming big user numbers and pushing past ChatGPT while it has safety experts warning of serious dangers to users.

A useful discussion of the key China policy measures that have enabled it to achieve and maintain a dominant position in exports.

We have discussed the science and art of diet and the science and technology of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) here several times before.  The arguments continue, as does the research.  On 29 September 2026 McGill University and the McGill Office of Science and Society hosted their annual Trottier Public Science Symposium: Ultra-Processed Foods: Processing the Facts […]