A weekly letter on money, markets and history, for investors whose interest goes deeper than the share price.
On September 8, a 27-year-old British researcher sat on a park bench in San Francisco’s Alamo Square and announced on X that he’d quit his job.
In the spring of 1381, more than a third of England vanished. Compared with a count taken four years earlier, the number of taxable adults in the kingdom had…
On the morning of August 19, the United States Treasury announced it would start buying back its own debt at twice the previous rate.
Welcome to the fifth and final edition of this American Capital series. We started with a bankrupt republic that built a reputation for paying its debts, and…
Welcome to the fourth edition of this American Capital series. We started with a bankrupt republic that quickly built a reputation for paying its debts, and a…
Welcome to the third edition of this American Capital series. Last week, we looked at the era of currency chaos.
Welcome to the second edition of my American Capital series. Last week, we covered how the US began as a bankrupt republic, quickly earned a reputation…
Last week I saw a large heavily tattooed man in his 60s handling a sheet of uncut US dollar bills worth $1 million.
The scoreboard for H1 2026 is in. If you only read the headlines, you’d think AI infrastructure and the chip trade were the whole story of this year’s first…
Somewhere off the coast of Yap, in the Caroline Islands out in the Pacific, there is a sunken fortune nobody has seen in more than a hundred years.
I moved to Australia as both a young man and an economic refugee. Having graduated university right as the Great Recession (AKA US subprime mortgages)…
