Penultimate chapter of Material World!

Why the World Needs More #Copper — a Lot More #Copper bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Why is BHP bidding for Anglo American?
More evidence of the rise (renaissance might be a better word) of the Material World. So yes, do read this excellent Financial Times piece. But also READ MY BOOK. Material World. Seriously, just do it ft.com/content/ca3368…

Must read from Ed Conway. Number living in extreme poverty globally rising again. The world is fragmenting. Are multilateral orgs 'more concerned with climate change than the plight of the poor?' thetimes.co.uk/article/bond-b…

Interesting. What most people would actually classify as 'public investment' is a fair bit lower than the official total we're usually told about...

For my money, the biggest risk here is pace of delivery. The Government is simply rolling out policy for green industry like SAF far too slowly when compared to the Americans or Europeans.

Fascinating read in ⁦The Times and The Sunday Times⁩
by ⁦Ed Conway⁩ - what the developing world is thinking about us (rather than the other way round)

thetimes.co.uk/article/324b14…

✍️I wrote something about the single most important issue we’re not talking enough about.
The bond between the rich world & the rest is broken.
But we’ve been so fixated with domestic issues, from Brexit to the cost of living crisis, we’ve barely noticed thetimes.co.uk/article/324b14…

Love to see it

As scrutiny of Central Asia and the Caucasus has grown, the UAE have emerged as a new hub for reexport of Western goods to Russia. Here's UK exports to the UAE. The trend of these exports has been rising since Russia invaded Ukraine and just spiked in Feb. '24. Ed Conway

The PM’s new pledge to raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP reminds me of this (to me at least) unexpected nugget.
As recently as the mid-1980s, the UK govt was still spending MORE on defence than it was on the health service.
Interesting chart showing how things have changed👇

5yrs ago Europe was cost-competitive w/ China & US on certain key chemicals.
Not anymore.
Raising the q: 'Why on earth would you be investing here for new science, new technology, new capacity?'
Stark words from Peter Huntsman on EU deindustrialisation👇
utech-polyurethane.com/news/peter-hun…

Thanks in no small part to the Marshall Plan!

Interesting as the latest news on the public finances is (deficit higher than exp in Mar) I find these kinds of charts far more interesting👇
Just LOOK at how much WW1 & WW2 cost the UK.
Nothing, even Covid, got anywhere close. Well done Office for National Statistics (ONS) for posting historic charts like this

Much of the trip has focused on sanctions circumvention & human rights. Also a fair bit on biz - I'll come on to later.

On the former, some Stans have been used to launder goods to Russia. Ed's thread on Azerbaijan shows how this works.

Our graph too.
twitter.com/EdConwaySky/st…

Good to see David Cameron talking about these issues in Kyrgyzstan. Right now part of the answer to how Russia is managing to equip its war machine is by importing sanctioned items via the Caucasus & Central Asia.
Including items from the UK!

Truss is totally obsessed with Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England, who she paints in her book as the chief villain her downfall + the very epitome of 'deep state Britain'. But it turns out she's never even met him, nor even asked to meet him while it was all going on.