Finance

The equity premium is not pi — it is not a constant and cannot be looked up

The returns you see are the markets that survived — the losers were quietly erased

Evaluate government announcements by long-run commitment, not short-run numbers

Fix the base and design first — arguing about rates is a distraction

Every government faces three levers — and must pick at least one

Debt interest is a tax today, not a problem for grandchildren

Long-duration savings vehicles require policy certainty — frequent rule changes destroy the incentive to save

Income inequality can fall while wealth inequality rises — the asset price mechanism that traps social mobility

Spend heavily now, promise implausible cuts later — a structural pattern in UK fiscal planning

Headline fiscal numbers overstate real impact — always find the net after behavioural and compensating effects

Every tax is ultimately paid by people — the question is which people and how obviously

Every provider must offer a plain-vanilla baseline — the OTC moment for personal finance

Insure large catastrophic risks only — take the highest excess you can afford

Soft behavioural nudges are insufficient when suppliers actively re-complexify around them

Society obsesses over the financial extremes and ignores the vast vulnerable middle

Financial product complexity is often deliberate — opacity is the product

The mortgage market profits from borrowers who forget to refinance on time

Act as if markets are efficient — not because they are, but because the assumption protects you.

A 1% annual fee doesn't cost 1% — it costs a quarter of your final pot.

Financial media's incentive structure guarantees bad forecasts — by design

Four sociological markers that signal speculative mania — regardless of asset class

Master theory, history, psychology, and business — then everything else follows

Separate survival money from growth money — never mix them

Design for the worst 1-2% of times — that's when compounding breaks

Your future earnings dwarf your portfolio — so own more stocks when young

Interest rates are a dull sword swung in the dark — blunt, delayed, and paradoxically capable of causing the opposite of what's intended

Inequality earned by creating value is a feature; inequality extracted through monopoly or monetary policy is a bug

Zero rates systematically transfer wealth from cash-poor savers to leveraged asset owners — every cycle tightens the ratchet

Ultra-low rates keep dying firms alive, blocking creative destruction and killing productivity growth

Interest is crystallised impatience — the inescapable price tag on every transaction across time

Crashes are more frequent since 1980 — understand why before assuming the next one

Remove the punch bowl before the party peaks — not after the crash

Confidence is the mechanism of crash recovery, not just a byproduct

Debt is the multiplier that turns a bubble into a great crash

Every great crash follows: bubble → resolution → aftermath

Distinguish capital that builds value from capital that merely shuffles ownership.

Wealth buys political rules that protect wealth — the self-reinforcing loop that stalls reform

Three questions that surface the emotion driving any money behaviour.

Judge high-conviction operators by their mechanisms, not their magnitude

Cutting spending in a weak economy compounds the original damage rather than clearing it.

Wages across sectors are the fastest proxy for where real productivity actually lives.

Headline GDP growth tells you nothing about living standards — check disposable income.

Push past fair and you lose the deal; accept unfair and you lose the return

The ultra-rich own everything you transact through — and you've never heard of them

Banks vacuum up the best economists; society gets the rest

Ask your mum before you read the textbook — real financial lives beat models

QE money flows to the rich, who buy your assets, making you poorer — on repeat

Eighty per cent in BTC/ETH/SOL, no leverage, ten per cent for the casino.

Treat your house as quality-of-life storage, not as wealth creation.

Know your goals before your money knows your hand