Why everyone is talking about gold
Why is gold, which pays no income, so prized in uncertain times? Taylor contrasts it with dividend-paying shares and interest-paying bonds, explains 'safe haven' demand, and then makes the sharper point that the same instability can hurt gold: when conflict pushes up inflation and central banks raise rates, a metal with no yield starts to look like dead weight against a savings account. The piece uses a fall from $5,600 to $4,600 an ounce to show a safe haven is not a safe be
Don't sweat the small stuff
Parkinson's Law of Triviality, or 'bikeshedding', is the hook: we agonise over a £350 bike shed while nodding through a £10m nuclear plant because the small decision is easier to have an opinion on. Taylor applies it to personal finance (haggling over a phone contract while ignoring the pension) and to the national narrative that blames young people's finances on brunches rather than graduate pay, student loans and house prices. It is a light, thought-provoking piece rather t
Why you can't escape the dollar
A primer on why the dollar dominates and why that matters beyond holiday spending money. Taylor explains dollar-invoiced trade (over half the global total, much of it never touching the US), foreign exchange reserves and dollar-denominated debt, then shows the sting: when the dollar strengthens, energy costs rise for importers like the UK and debt repayments balloon for developing countries, squeezing spending on schools and hospitals. The network-effect framing, everyone use