Trump’s card – what’s up the global sleeve?
The president has a plan to make the world pay the US protection money. Frances Coppola explains. Tariff Man is back. And he’s on a mission. President Trump wants to
Malnutrition is a weapon of war
Generations of Gaza’s population have been below the breadline since Israel came into being as a state. Frances Coppola explains. “Famine, what famine? There’s no famine in Gaza. Look at
The illusion of stability
Economic calm is always the precursor to a storm. Economics says stability is the sign of a healthy economy. There may be shocks that temporarily knock an economy out of
The cost of killing crisis
The economics of war do not add up to anything good. Frances Coppola tallies. Wars are costly. Not just for the participants, but for everyone. Human lives are destroyed, productive
The price of free speech (or why we can’t always shut the fuck up)
Sometimes the profane, inarticulate and wrong have to be heard. We don’t, however, have to take them seriously or at any cost. Frances Coppola explains. GB News has sacked the
Paradigm Shift
Our collective memories of the lessons learned from wars and crises past have faded. Frances Coppola looks for future guidance. The longer our financial and economic system goes without a
Pecked to death
Frances Coppola on the power of salacious rumour. On Friday 10th March, a bank died. Silicon Valley Bank’s sudden failure sent shockwaves across the world. How could an apparently sound
From bank vaults to the crypt
The Coppola column Crypto currencies are dead. Long live the crypto currency? The crypto industry has had a terrible year. The prices of cryptocurrencies have crashed and major crypto companies
Growth… a tale of make believe
Where is the fairy dust when you need it? Frances Coppola goes looking. Ah, the lovely economic growth fairy. It flutters around the world, resting briefly here, lingering longer there,
Inflation is a supply-side problem
When you damage the supply side of an economy, the result is inflation. This ought to be obvious. But forty years of monetarist orthodoxy seems to have rendered people unable
Rent asunder
Everybody wants to own their own home and there’s no turning back. Frances Coppola explains. Housing is expensive. So expensive that many people can’t afford to buy homes, and rent
A ray of hope
Petrodollars to solar sense: what will be the conversion rate? Frances Coppola speculates. Slowly but surely, the world is giving up on fossil fuels. First coal, then oil, and finally
Brake the bank
The Coppola Column How governments could weaponise digital banking against “undesirables.” And how to prevent it. In the past 50 years, financial services have changed beyond all recognition. Not just
What’s love got to do with it?
Broken trust has to be fixed. Frances Coppola explains why there is no substitute. The foundation of human society is trust. Right from the start of their lives, humans trust
Learning from the pandemic
Frances Coppola warns that looking back is not the best way to move forward During the Cold War, there was a genre of disaster fiction along the lines of “life
What will time tell?
Covid infection is, for most people, a rough few days. A side effect of mass containment could atrophy our humanity. Frances Coppola evaluates the prospects. The fight against the coronavirus
Beware Brits bearing myths
Greece’s slide into depression became a cautionary tale told by Tories to get the UK to do its austerity duty. But a decade on, where there is now hope in
A twist in the old’s story
Productivity in the UK workforce is struggling to serve the nation’s growing number of pensioners. Frances Coppola asks: where is technology when you need it? On 5 June, two women born
Making money
Why creating money is for the few more than the many. Writes Frances Coppola. Sovereignty has become a buzz-word. We are told that the principal reason for the UK’s decision
Whoops apocalypse: analysis or parody? Discuss
Who knew that the flap of a cardboard box full of desk contents could herald a hurricane that would tear through global politics. Frances Coppola follows the money. “Do you