By SIMON CONSTABLE
By SIMON CONSTABLE
Listen here.
Photo credit: Robin Horsfall
The intro is a shortened version of a clip by Richard Wagner, EEF OAL-1, licensed via Wikimedia Commons, performed by:
Conductor: James Allen Gähres
Ensemble: Ulm Philharmonic
Location: CCU Einsteinsaal, Ulm
Opera: The Valkyrie (Die Walküre)
Movement: Prelude from Act 3
Date 3 June 2014
The horn sound is Horn of Tokyo Metro 6000 series circa 1969
SourceTrainz addons file by JIRCTRAINZ?
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
The thunderclap outro is a shortened version of a clip by Jonathan Hunt, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
Listen here.
John and I discuss the pending food shortages that will cost the poor disproportionately, as detailed in my recent column for Briefings Magazine.
That and more. Listen here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
For much of history, a bad harvest could be the difference between life and death. Fortunately, since World War II, grain production has generally kept pace with the global population. But over the past five years, reserves of corn, wheat, and soybeans have dwindled by up to 11 percent, spurring a double-digit price increase worldwide. Two major drivers of the increase are severe weather, which has caused crop destruction, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has created interruptions in food production. All of this might sound bad, but it may only be the warm-up for something worse. Read more here.
FINANCIAL FLASHBACK
A look back at Wall Street Journal headlines from this month in history
By Simon Constable
• 30 YEARS AGO: Kidder Discloses Scam in Bonds, Fires Top Trader
In April 1994, investment bank Kidder Peabody accused its chief government-bond trader, Joseph Jett, of scamming the company. The affair added to the company’s already tarnished reputation, which had resulted from Wall Street’s insider-trading scandals less than a decade before.
Jett had allegedly created false profits of $350 million to help boost his bonus to more than $9 million. He was accused of doing so by trading in so-called Treasury strips, or zero-coupon fixed-income securities, temporarily producing phantom profits.
The storm around Jett, who was dismissed by Kidder, came after the insider-trading troubles in 1986. Then, arbitrager Ivan Boesky was accused of insider dealing or trading on nonpublic information, by joining with a Kidder investment banker. Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
Entrepreneur and company director Alan Quinn joins us today for an update on Scotland’s economic, social, and legal malaise. Notably, we touch on the new hate crime laws in Scotland, which can mean a prison stay of up to seven years in prison. Author JK Rowling has already asked the police to arrest her after she described several transgender women as men.
We also discuss the increasingly dire government-caused housing crisis in Scotland, and the contrast in efforts by Glasgow and Aberdeen’s local councils in fostering business growth.
BBC story on the Scottish hate laws and JK Rowling’s response is here or c51j64lk2l8o.
Guardian story on the likely temporary relief from rent control, and how it will almost-certainly lead to massive increases in rent costs is here or https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/feb/11/tenants-scotland-face-big-rent-rises-mass-evictions-from-april-emergency-protections-expire.
The intro is a shortened version of a clip by Richard Wagner, EEF OAL-1, licensed via Wikimedia Commons, performed by:
Conductor: James Allen Gähres
Ensemble: Ulm Philharmonic
Location: CCU Einsteinsaal, Ulm
Opera: The Valkyrie (Die Walküre)
Movement: Prelude from Act 3
Date 3 June 2014
The thunderclap outro is a shortened version of a clip by Jonathan Hunt, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.