Sovereign Finance

Rob’s comments below are in italics. Derek’s comments below are in normal font. As we said last time, over the next series of episodes, we’ll discuss chapters from our forthcoming book, Unravelling the Money Puzzle. The first chapter is “What’s in it for you?” So why would you bother? What’s In It For You? Why would you bother with this? Essentially, we’re all pitched into life in the society we l...

Rob’s comments below are in italics. Derek’s comments below are in normal font. We thought we’d do a bit of a roundup of recent goings-on today. What do people need to know? Well, in the week since our last recording, there have been more or less daily reversals in the apparent American stance regarding the discussions with Iran. It was more or less a surprise that we actually got the memorandum o...

Rob’s comments below are in italics. Derek’s comments below are in normal font. We’re going to chat today about a book you’ve been reading - Ecocivilization: Making a World that Works for All by Jeremy Lent. Now I’ve been rather crafty here, nudging you to read this because I know you’ll read it much faster than I will! That way we can have this conversation and you can tell me what it’s all about...

Rob’s comments below are in italics. Derek’s comments below are in normal font. Derek and I know each other through an American consultant called Perry Marshall . Perry was originally a marketing guy but has transitioned into an all-around business expert. You attended one of his seminars this week, specifically on AI. We thought we would unpack what you had learned and how we, and anyone listenin...

Rob’s comments below are in italics. Derek’s comments below are in normal font. You were telling me before we hit record that you’ve been reading a book called ‘Going to Tehran’. You were saying that if the people in the American establishment had read it, it would have saved everyone a lot of heartache! Yes, it’s called ‘Going to Tehran’. It’s by Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett, obviousl...

Rob’s comments below are in italics. Derek’s comments below are in normal font. Today is the first of May — the Celtic festival of Beltane. We’re at the halfway point between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. I mention it because, amid all the dark stuff going on, we need to remember to pay attention to what’s in front of us and around us. Right. I’ve made a similar adjustment myself. Ge...

Rob’s comments below are in italics. Derek’s comments below are in normal font. It’s been about 10 days since we last spoke on the show. We thought we’d do a bit of a catch-up on what’s going on. We’ve had a ceasefire of dubious intent, some negotiations that were clearly theatre. What do we need to update people on? Well, let’s start with that. A lot of people breathed a sigh of relief when Trump...

Rob’s comments below are in italics. Derek’s comments below are in normal font. It’s the 27th of March as we record. We’re going to discuss what’s going on and what the likely impact will be. We’re now just at the end of the fourth week of the conflict in the Middle East — or Western Asia, as it’s increasingly being called. ‘Middle East’ is a funny term anyway, isn’t it? It was obviously coined wh...

Rob’s comments below are in italics. Derek’s comments below are in normal font. Today is the 20th of March — the spring equinox, halfway between the shortest day and the longest day. I like to mark these things. Lots are going on in the world, and we thought we’d do a bit of an update. Yes. In the last couple of days, I came across a couple of quotes that, in different ways, were very pertinent to...

Rob’s comments below are in italics. Derek’s comments below are in normal font. We were talking last week about the outbreak of war in Iran. There’s going to be an economic knock-on effect, and we thought we’d speculate about what it might look like. Well, I wanted to cover one or two events from last week. We’re now March 13th, which is day 14 of this war in Iran. In many ways, it has continued t...

Rob’s comments below are in italics. Derek’s comments below are in normal font. Today, as we record, is the 6th of March. The war in Iran that has long been predicted broke out on Saturday? It was the day after we recorded our last piece. In the last episode I made a few remarks about the fact that it was looking increasingly likely that the United States was talking itself into open conflict with...

Rob’s comments below are in italics. Derek’s comments below are in normal font. You were just about to launch into a long spiel about Bitcoin and some reservations about it before we started recording. This has stemmed from some revelations about the Epstein files. Shall we start there? Yeah. There was a very interesting interview released today by James Corbett with Aaron Day. It’s an hour-long c...

Rob’s comments below are in italics. Derek’s comments below are in normal font. As we record it’s Monday, 23rd of February. I want to comment on what seems to me the most critical cliffhanger in the world at the moment — the movement of two American battle groups closer and closer to Iran, along with lots of threatening rhetoric. It’s difficult to know what will happen. It seems quite suicidal to...

Rob’s comments below are in italics. Derek’s comments below are in normal font. We’re talking about a book you’ve been reading today. What is it, and what do we need to know? It’s called The Great Global Transformation , written by a chap called Branko Milanovic. I got it on a whim when Amazon recommended it — people who bought this also liked that — which, apart from being a clever upselling tech...

Rob’s comments below are in italics. Derek’s comments below are in normal font. We were talking last time about marketing and sales for sovereign entrepreneurs who want a guide to how to market and sell themselves and their services to trade on their own terms. In editing the show, I reflected that we talked about a lot of tactics, but there’s actually a foundation: the best marketing is a busines...

Rob’s comments below are in italics. Derek’s comments below are in normal font. We’ve had the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos recently and various other events. We thought we’d review what’s gone on from a Sovereign Finance lens. Where do we start? Well, I just wanted to point out that in the last few days, gold has broken the £4,000 an ounce mark. It’s down slightly from that, but the short...

Rob’s comments below are in italics. Derek’s comments below are in normal font. We’re going to talk about marketing today, which is my wheelhouse and probably yours as well. Many people are always in search of the next marketing secret or hack. So what do we have to say about it? Whatever you’re doing in business, unless you’re finding customers and they’re actually making a purchase from you, you...

Rob’s comments below are in italics. Derek’s comments below are in normal font. We were originally going to cover entrepreneurship, sales and marketing in this conversation. That is coming next time, but we felt compelled to comment on some goings-on. So what are those goings-on that we need to talk about? Right, well, there are five that are worthy of comment. Obviously, one is the ongoing situat...

Rob’s comments below are in italics. Derek’s comments below are in normal font. I’ve come across some numbers regarding the United States’ current financial position. Now, of course, the debt numbers we’re talking about run into the trillions. Bear in mind that a trillion dollars represents in round figures the lifetime earnings of a million people. I will put a link into the episode we did on big...

Rob’s comments below are in italics. Derek’s comments below are in normal font. Editor’s note: this episode contains two discussions covering current affairs, one from 12th December 2025, and one from 5th January 2026. (The Editor got distracted by Christmas!) We’ve published them together as one backs up the other regarding our stance on the dollar. There is an audio interlude between the two seg...

Rob’s comments below are in italics. Derek’s comments below are in normal font. We’re going to get back to a core topic today: the nature of money. At some point in the sovereign finance journey, everyone realises that the money that you thought was real in your pocket isn’t as real as you were led to believe growing up. So what else do we have to say on this? First, at the end of the day, money i...

Rob’s comments below are in italics. Derek’s comments below are in normal font. The UK budget was announced on 26th November 2025, which we broadly regard as a PR exercise for the powers that ought not to be. The budget isn’t really a budget because they don’t break down where the money comes from and where it’s going. Could you elaborate on that Derek? A good starting point would be this post tha...

Rob’s comments below are in italics. Derek’s comments below are in normal font. We’re going to talk about interest rates on bonds today. What’s going on that people need to know about here? Well, a few years ago, we did a piece on this. What I said was that the interest rates being commanded were a result of several different factors. One of them is the basic rate for basically hiring some money f...

Rob’s comments below are in italics. Derek’s comments below are in normal font. We thought we’d do a bit of a roundup of current affairs and goings-on today. What’s going on that people should be aware of? Well, the short answer is, of course, more of the same! I was leafing through my journal over the past three or four months. I’ve been saying more or less the same things every time. We’re like...

Rob’s comments below are in italics. Derek’s comments below are in normal font. We were talking in the conversation last time about energy and how energy is generally misunderstood or misused. We left last week’s conversation by saying that, at some point in the future, we’re going to hit limits in how we generate energy at the moment. If it’s going to be a transformation, we might need to use les...