Feb 23, 2026 In his sophisticated 20 January address to the Davos World Economic Forum, Canada’s prime minister and former Bank of England governor Mark Carney offered an insight into the disintegration of the global economy which went well beyond the usual strictures on Trump for mental instability or megalomania. While Canada, like other middle-sized … Continue reading On Mark Carney and the Fate of Liberal Economies
China
Mar 05, 2026 I. What is happening to the ‘rules-based international order’ despairingly invoked by bewildered European leaders? The broad answer is that we are living through the retreat of American hegemony, masked by bluster and marked by contradictions. The retreat has two aspects, economic and geopolitical. Economists talk about Trump’s tariffs breaking up the … Continue reading What comes after America’s retreat?
~by Sean Paul Kelley Couple of random notes this Friday morning, mostly economics related, some silver news and my personal reaction to portions of the discusssion in Ian’s “Is Virtue An Advantage Or Disadvantage For Societies?” post. First, econonomics. It looks more and more like we are heading into a 2008-style credit crisis/crunch. Don’t believe […]
I stand second to few in my admiration for how well China has done. But the super boosters are super tiresome. If China had been a small nation, the best they would have done is parallel Japan: do very well, then the US breaks your legs. Reminds me of Americans in 1950 or 95. They […]
In my long post about silver prices, I talked about a reversion to the mean. This is something that frequently happens in life: something overshoots the norm and then it swings back and overshoots the abnormal. Slowly but surely it finally settles smack in the middle of the bell curve, to use a shit metaphor. […]
~by Sean Paul Kelley The Chinese rail network now carries 23 million passengers a day. Multiply that by 365 and it carries 8.365 billion passengers a year. And does not account for the increase in passengers during major holidays. Now consider these two facts. First, India’s rail network carries 23 million passengers a day also. […]
The period around 1980 was pivotal to the fate of nations. In the West Thatcher and Reagan came to power and finished the destruction of the post-world War II order, setting the West on a new path. This process had been ongoing since 1968, but the form of the new consensus was not clear until […]
Jaysus on a popsicle, Mary and all the Saints do I have some egg on my face. Since January 27 silver has been on one seriously wicked ride. I’ve been banging my head to Metallica’s Whiplash for the last ten days. So, WTF happened? In short: from where I sit the paper markets are trying […]
~by Sean Paul Kelley Everyone is talking about gold topping $5k an ounce. The yellow metal is captivating and big moves by it tend to suck all the oxygen out of the media space regarding other metals. In 2025 gold rose a whopping 64% against all comers, i.e the dollar, the S&P 500, oil, Bitcoin […]
Marco Garofalo and Thomas Prayer The US administration raised US import tariffs in April, reigniting trade tensions. This sparked concerns about cheaper exports being diverted to other markets, potentially lowering global prices. Using detailed product-level data, we build a novel timely indicator to consistently track trade prices across countries. Chinese export prices have risen less … Continue reading Monitoring trade prices in the wake of trade tensions