Economics & Business

Alexander Rimov05.10.2026

For decades, Saudi Arabia’s industrial identity has been inseparable from oil. Now the kingdom wants to add automobiles to the list — and rather than begin with a cautious family sedan, its first homegrown car brand has produced something that looks as though it drove out of a science-fiction film. On September 21, 2026, Saudi […]

Kamil Askerkhanov29.09.2026

Bitcoin has always had a useful habit: it makes the supposedly virtual economy look stubbornly physical. JPMorgan recently estimated the cryptocurrency’s average production cost at roughly $85,000. According to The Block, citing the bank’s analysts, Bitcoin has spent around 280 days below that level. A sustained move above it could ease pressure on miners forced […]

Kamil Askerkhanov04.09.2026

We have grown too accustomed to measuring success by headline-grabbing agreements, new currencies, or yet another “anti-dollar” bank. But the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation was conceived primarily as a Eurasian security architecture—and that core function is once again taking center stage. As the old model of globalisation fractures, familiar supply chains are beginning to fray. Maritime […]

Dmitri Drobnitsky24.08.2026

The United States and Canada—Donald Trump and Mark Carney—have failed to agree on new terms for their trade and tariff arrangements. Both sides are now blaming the other. Mr Trump says Canada is demanding “privileges like those of a US state without actually being one”. Mr Carney, Canada’s prime minister, argues that the new terms […]

Robert Reich22.08.2026

What the wealthy and powerful — and Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent — don’t want you to know. The U.S. national debt has officially surpassed $40 trillion, months earlier than forecasters had expected — because of billions of dollars in lost revenue from Trump’s invalidated tariffs, Trump’s tax cuts (mostly to big corporations and the very […]

Kamil Askerkhanov15.08.2026

The EIA released some very interesting data yesterday. U.S. commercial crude inventories surged by 17.4 million barrels, reaching 424.4 million. The American Petroleum Institute had reported a 9.1 million-barrel increase the day before—already an unusually large move. But the real story emerges when you look beyond a single inventory number and follow the physical barrels. […]

Robert Reich11.08.2026

Its costs and risks are gigantic. Its benefits, unproven. I’m going to make a proposal today that’s almost certain to get me consigned to the neo-Luddite dustbin of history. But first, let me lay out some facts. Rather than producing jobs, the U.S. economy actually lost 23,000 job in July, according to Bureau of Labor […]

Kamil Askerkhanov08.08.2026

Several developments reported today are worth considering together. China is beginning to move larger volumes of physical gold from London to Hong Kong. At the same time, Hong Kong has launched a centralized gold-clearing and settlement system, Delivery Connect with the Shanghai Gold Exchange, and plans to expand its storage capacity to roughly 2,000 metric […]

Kamil Askerkhanov18.07.2026

Iranian Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad stated that the main parameters of an agreement with Russia have already been finalized. The project envisages the supply of up to 55 billion cubic meters of Russian gas annually through Azerbaijani territory. In my view, these statements deserve far more attention than they have received. Taken separately, they appear […]

Robert Reich13.07.2026

As we lose jobs and the middle class contracts, where will consumer demand come from? Through the end of June, about $3.2 trillion in AI deals have occurred this year. That’s a 45 percent jump from a year earlier, according to Dealogic, a data provider. It’s the most spent on deal-making over a half-year period […]

Saudi Arabia’s Cybercar Bet

The Digital Economy Is Running Into the Physical World

The SCO Summit Was Far from Fruitless

Trump, Carney and the Limits of Tariff Power

Who’s Raking it in as the National Debt Explodes?

Where Is All That American Oil Really Going?

Stop AI Before it’s Too Late

Gold Is Moving Back Into the Settlement System

Eurasian Energy Corridor

Who’s Gonna Buy All the AI Stuff?

Saudi Arabia’s Cybercar Bet

Will November Be a Democratic Triumph?

An Aristocrat of Espionage

France Is Burning. But Who Stands to Gain?