It’s that time of the year again: when the pundits look back and either tell you “I told you so”, or “mea culpa”, or some variant in between. I don’t really like looking back – except where the past holds some lessons for the future – but it sure has been an “interesting” year. Bond…
A massive reform of the US tax code is underway. Britain could learn lessons from our American friends. Mr Trump’s corporate tax cut clears the Senate In the wee hours of Saturday 2nd December the US Senate passed a bill to cut corporate income taxes (taxes on company profits – what the British call corporation…
Loved and followed by private investors, one of Britain’s – if not the world’s – most popular and successful investors and entrepreneurs, Jim Mellon, talks to PR and IR expert Stefania Barbaglio about the next big things in the investment sphere. With technology developing at an incredible speed, this shaping of economy and society is…
We think of money as an objective reality – but in fact it is just a conceptual construction of the human mind. It does not exist in nature; animals have no notion of it; even humans managed to live for countless millennia without it. The history of money is the history of civilisation. It has…
This morning a deal has been struck in Brussels. But will the Tory ultras buy it? And will Labour gain ground if they don’t? Sufficient progress? The breakthrough deal that was supposed to happen on Monday (04 December) was supposedly scuppered by the Ulster Unionists. In fact, much opposition to Mrs May’s original deal was…
Which would you rather own – $42,000 in a bank account, four bitcoins on your hard drive or a kilo of gold bullion under your bed? Cash versus gold Cash is useful stuff but you wouldn’t want to carry too much of it: it is bulky and can be easily lost or stolen. Money in…
Two trips to Australia in two weeks is not a recipe for a Juvenescent life. Bottom line, if you have to do it, go Emirates. It’s way better than BA, sadly, which has dropped all pretence of service in favour of short term profits. I went the second time to speak at a conference known…
UK government finances are under extreme pressure. But there is no need to panic – yet. Chronicle of a death foretold Mr Hammond, Chancellor of the Exchequer, rose to the despatch box on Wednesday like a condemned man given one last chance beneath the gallows to plead for his life. It would have to be…
Has anyone invited you to invest in bitcoin recently? Do you really know what it is? And why did the Chinese ban it? The future of money My lead article in the December edition of the Master Investor magazine will be entitled The Future of Money. Not very Christmassy, you might think. But we need…
“There are certain things that cannot be adequately explained to a virgin by either words or pictures. Nor can any description I might offer here even approximate what it feels like to lose a real chunk of money you used to own.” – Fred Schwed, US Investor “The only difference between the taxman and…
