Nathan Fairchild

So bond yields spike, AI capex gets repriced, and a war chokes a strait. Three fires, one bucket. Here’s my awkward question: when the AI debt finally sours, whose balance sheet absorbs it — the pension funds, the insurers, or the retail punters holding the “safe” tranche? The piece lists the alarms. It never names who’s chained to the boiler.

Reshaping the sector? Show me the fee schedules.

Markets are “betting” on contained disruption. Of course they are. They placed identical bets in 1973, 1979, 1990 — and lost, loudly. One pipeline shuts, the risk premium evaporates because the algos decided the desert is a safe venue. Then one tanker hesitates, insurers reprice everything overnight, and the “buffer” turns out to be three days of wishful thinking. Enjoy the dip. It’s rented.

Water is wet. Stop the bloody presses.

Seventy-three miles of electric range. Lovely. Then reality: company-car drivers never plug the thing in, drag half a tonne of dead battery about, and burn petrol at 28 mpg. The tax break survives, the CO2 figures look marvellous on paper, the kerb weight shreds tyres. Another compliance machine built for accountants. The planet gets a heavier parking space.

So we price ordinary flyers off planes to make a third runway viable—who exactly is this for, the wealthy?

Over here, that’s a house deposit. Laughable.

It ends with three pedals in a museum, and the rest of us stuck in soulless automatics, pretending that’s progress. Nostalgia doesn’t pay the bills.

Let me guess how this ends. Three weeks of dramatic leaks, a blurry CCTV still, then silence. Nobody caught. Ministers promise “robust measures.” Translation: more cameras, fewer staff, fares up. Normandy’s tracks keep crumbling while the inquiry gathers dust. Sabotage or neglect — either way, commuters pay and nobody resigns.

A Buick. In Britain. Right. We couldn’t buy one even if we wanted to, which neatly solves the “tough competition” problem — nothing competes with a car that doesn’t exist here. Meanwhile “affordable” means the deposit and a kidney. Comfortable cabin, forgettable styling. Sounds like our railway carriages. Those are cheaper on Tuesdays.