Blain's Morning Porridge

THE BATTLE FOR HAMBLE I am delighted to announce the launch of a new book –  The Battle For Hamble. It’s an in-depth look at the Hamble Gravel Quarry, an example of everything that is wrong with Broken Britain’s inept planning process, bureaucracy, and how greedy corporates arbitrage the system to their own ends. I’ve written about the quarry many times in the Morning Porridge. This morning I thou...

Blain’s Morning Porridge April 13th, 2026: Trump declares a Global Trade War. Good Grief! “Don’t send your sons to win wars that politicians started.” That was an interesting weekend. Trump announces a blockade that will impact the whole Global Economy – and South East Asia and China in particular. At least Europe got some good news from Hungary. More instability forecast before Trump inevitably T...

Blain’s Morning Porridge April 9th, 2026: The End of Exceptionalism “I saw a death-head sticker on a Cadillac.” There is something deeply unstable underlying current markets. They don’t feel right. Something has changed. What could it be? It’s likely to be how Trump’s misjudgements in Iran and over NATO have reset expectations and accelerated the end of the American Age. The implications are huge....

Blain’s Morning Porridge 8th April 2026 – THE BATTLE FOR HAMBLE      I am delighted to announce the launch of a new book – The Battle of Hamble. On April 9th  The Battle of Hamble  is published by Windshift. It’s a new book by Bill Blain available on Amazon and from local bookstores. It’s a tale of greedy corporates, bad planning, economic illiteracy, and plucky Hampshire villagers fighting back. ...

Blain’s Morning Porridge April 8th, 2026: The Big Risk is No Longer Oil – Its Political Credibility. “It you attack Persia a mighty empire will fall.” Trump took the Off-Ramp. Markets are soaring, off to the races as the threats of global slowdown, recession and stagflation recede. But, for all the military power and competency on display – it’s a strategic defeat for the USA. That has massive imp...

Blain’s Morning Porridge, April 7th 2026 – Reflections on a morning after the night before…. “You can get along without money, you can lose your dividends…” We think we know the patterns – how markets resonate and repeat. But…. Do we? Every so often the Earth’s polarity shifts – but its never happened in recorded history so we don’t really know. Every so often the World’s basis changes. Make merry...

Blain’s Morning Porridge, April 2nd, 2026 – Markets set to be roiled by Trump’s Iran Consequences “To go into any war without a Plan B is bad decision making. To declare war without Plan A defies logic.” Oh dear. Last night’s explanation of the War did not go well. What changed except a more unstable and fractured global economy and rising trade, supply chain and conflict risks? When markets are p...

Blain’s Morning Porridge April 2026 – Artemis II, Space X, Data Centres and Competition. “Space will end up being one of the places that keeps making Earth better.” Hype and reality seldom mix. Elon Musk is the exception that proves the rule. The Space X IPO is set to make him the first trillionaire – but what if Competition is already eating his lunch in space-based datacentres before he’s even l...

Blain’s Morning Porridge March 31st, 2026 – Escalating the Iran War into a Water War! “I hold at your neck the gom jabbar, the high-handed enemy. It’s a needle with a drop of poison…” Who needs nukes to win an Oil War when Water is the key? The Front-Line Gulf States are highly vulnerable to a Water War on their desalination plants. Yesterday Trump threatened to strike Iran’s water infrastructure...

Blain’s Morning Porridge, March 30th, 2026 – Stage 2 of American Divergence and the Risk of Global Stagflation  “Events dear boy, events…”  The global economy is inevitably slowing from the deepening Hormuz oil shock. The Americans intend to press on despite the rising costs. While the global economy burns, President Trump is mulling multiple plans to achieve his version of victory. The rest of th...

Blain’s Morning Porridge, March 27th, 2026 – The Economic Implications of the Iran War “Armchair generals talk about tactics. Soldiers worry about logistics.” The cost of Trump’s War on Iran is extraordinary - $1 bln a day plus. War Stocks are being consumed at incredible speed. A request for an additional $200 bln of DOD funding is in the works. The nature of war has changed – it could prove phen...

Blain’s Morning Porridge March 26th, 2026 – The Truth is Out on Social Media “Do no evil was the biggest lie ever heard in the valley.” Social media is deliberately addictive? Who knew? While markets barely reacted to yesterday’s Product-Liability award against Meta and Alphabet in California, the growing pushback against Big Tech will see valuation multiples diminish over the long run as increase...

Blain’s Morning Porridge 18th March 2026: What Matters? Energy Security and Defence “Sometimes it is necessary to lose a battle to win a war” The last two weeks have been fascinating. Iran increasingly looks a strategic blunder by Trump in the wider global hegemonic struggle between the USA and China. It increases the likelihood of instability, trade and economic disruption and the threat of kinet...

Blain’s Morning Porridge 16th March 2026 – Market Sentiment will Tumble on Unwinnable Wars “This is not Franklin Delano Roosevelt we’re dealing with here” Suddenly global markets are reeling – waking up to the reality of the unwinnable Iran War. What will a dramatic shift in sentiment mean for stocks, bonds and commodities as stagflation beckons, and Trump finds himself isolated? There is a growin...

Blain’s Morning Porridge Friday 13th March 2026 – Forget Iran, worry about Climate Whiplash and El Nino. “Out of the frying pan into the fire. Chaos begets chaos. Instability begets instability.” While global markets are fixated on the Gulf, cast a weather eye on the Eastern Pacific where a Super El Nino climate event is developing. It could lead to Climate Whiplash events in terms of flood, storm...

Blain’s Morning Porridge March 12th, 2026 - Winning the Economic War “I flew B-52 and bombed them with the blues..” The War in Iran is a kinetic feature of the economic/hegemonic struggle between the USA and China.  President Trump will lose because his Iran war is unwinnable. Iran won’t lose because it does doesn’t have to win.  That’s a recipe for a forever war, and a definition of asymmetric wa...

Blain’s Morning Porridge 10th March 2026 – Stalemate in Iran, what’s the next risk?  “They make a desert and call it peace.” Pretty much as was expected Donald Trump has declared his war almost over. Its not. It has destabilised the global economy. What might be roiled in its wake? One area to watch is how a liquidity default-storm in Private Credit could infect global bond and equity markets, cau...

Blain’s Morning Porridge March 9th, 2026 – What’s the plan? Keep bombing? What? “I love the smell of napalm in the morning…. smells like victory.” Global disruption – how likely is it to end quickly? Trump’s objective was to install a regime that will do his bidding in Iran. The appointment of Khamenei v2.0, the lack of a clear opposition, or defectors, makes a swift closure increasingly less like...

Blain’s Morning Porridge 1st March 2026 – AI, Politics and Populism, Luddites and Social Revolution “You say you want a revolution, well, you know we all wanna change the world..” As the US and Israel attack Iran, confirming the Fire Horse threat of escalating conflict risks, do we also face a second social threat from AI triggering widespread social and wealth-inequality protests? Does 2026 risk...

Blain’s Morning Porridge Fed 25th, 2026: What is the US Yield Curve Really Telling Us? “When there is a lack of honour in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned.” Does the steepness of the US yield curve tell us the US Economy is about to boom, or inflation is about to sink the Treasury markets? To figure out which, you need to interrogate the witnesses and look at what the eviden...

Blain’s Morning Porridge Feb 24th, 2026: Iran could be the flashpoint for market dislocation “Do not defy the fates and bring shame on Rome.” Markets aren’t much concerned about Iran. US Military might is expected to prevail, cowing the Ayatollahs into acceptance of Trump’s maximalist demands. What could possibly go wrong? Trump is no student of history, and may not understand the gamut of militar...

Blain’s Morning Porridge Feb 23rd, 2026 – Private Credit and Treasury Wobbles... Relax…. “Apart from that Mrs Lincoln, did you enjoy the show?” Sometimes you just have to laugh. The Tariff Judgement against Trump raises elevated Chaotic Tantrum risks in Treasuries, while markets fear what wobbles in private credit might conceal. Everything in markets are connected – when something cracks in credit...

Blain’s Morning Porridge, Jan 20th, 2026: Corruption and Justice – Action Required. “America may be blind, but the world will see who is involved and complicit.” The difference between successful democratic economies and autocracy is that the rule of law works better. Autocracies trend towards corruption and inefficiency. Insider dealing and corruption is a fact of the financial markets – punishin...

Blain’s Morning Porridge Feb 19th, 2026 – Tariffs hoist Trump on his own Petard “And I would have gotten away with it, if it wasn’t for these pesky kids...” Sometimes you have to laugh. Tariffs have been the cornerstone of Trump’s economic miracle, allowing him to deflect, discombobulate and distract voters from economic truths. Now the NY Fed says tariffs are a consumption tax – even MAGA voters...

Blain’s Morning Porridge Feb 18th, 2026 – Defence Spending, Resilience and Growth “To save the village it was necessary to destroy it.” The Russians have captured the FT, apparently! The headline that Gilts are about to crash because the Government will borrow more to increase defence spending is Pravda 101. The reality is Gilts should rally on increasing the strategic deterrence that defence spen...