Funding the Future

I recently sat down with Steve Keen to explore a deeply uncomfortable truth: the global economic system is far more fragile than mainstream economics admits.

In the resulting conversation, we explained why supply chains are not resilient, why energy underpins everything, and why even small disruptions can trigger systemic collapse, which we think might be coming our way, soon.

This is not a temporary shock. It is a structural failure, and the policies we rely on may be making things worse.

As a result, the question we addressed was, " What can we do now?"

In the course of a few weeks, the US military has used somewhere between eight and ten years' worth of Tomahawk missile production. The United States can manufacture approximately one hundred Tomahawk missiles per year. It has fired many hundreds, and possibly a thousand, in this conflict alone. Those stocks cannot be replenished quickly. They cannot be replenished at all in the near term. And without them, and other critical weapon supplies, the USA has no credible capacity to restart a war with Iran.

This is not a temporary logistics problem. It is a structural failure, and neoliberalism created that. The US military, like the US economy, has been run on just-in-time principles:

In addition, more than half of every US missile is manufactured outside the United States, across global supply chains that are now disrupted by the very conflict those missiles were used to fight. Aluminium, a critical component, is, for example, in short supply precisely because the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has constrained the materials needed to make the weapons that were supposed to open it.

The damage goes beyond missiles. Maybe three complex radar systems have been destroyed in the Middle East, each taking up to seven years to replace. The B-52 bombers flying missions from the UK are operating well beyond their operational lifespan. So are the refuelling tankers that support them.

As a result, the Financial Times is reporting that Trump himself appealed for peace via Pakistan, a reality that Pete Hegseth and the White House press operation will never publicly acknowledge.

Meanwhile, Iran's military model, based on low-cost, simple, rapidly replicable weapons, has proved devastatingly effective against the world's most expensive and over-engineered military power. Low-tech warfare has beaten the neoliberal military. Now, as a result, time favours Iran. It can replenish its arsenal quickly. The USA cannot.

The conclusion is stark: US military hegemony has been structurally weakened, and not just temporarily set back. It will take years, and possibly a decade, to rebuild. And in that window, the United States cannot threaten, coerce, or intervene with the credibility it once had. The world has changed. This video explains exactly how and why neoliberalism is the ideology that brought the world's biggest military power to its knees.

Yesterday might mark a turning point in global history, and not because of what happened, but because of what did not.

For the first time in my life, I found myself relieved that genocide had been avoided. That alone tells us how dangerous this moment has become.

We are now told there is an Iran peace deal. The United States is presenting this as a success. It is not. Strip away the rhetoric, and this looks like a retreat. After huge cost and escalation, the US has stepped back from a weaker position than the one it started from.

In this video, I explain why that matters.

First, the deal itself appears to favour Iran. Claims that Iran “begged” for peace look implausible. Instead, this is a fragile ceasefire born of failed escalation.

Second, this signals a shift in global power. Iran has held the combined pressure of the US and Israel at bay, not through overwhelming force, but through strategy and economic leverage, especially via oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz.

Third, the wider consequences are profound. NATO’s credibility is shaken. Europe can no longer rely on US leadership. And new global alignments may now begin to emerge.

Fourth, markets are dangerously complacent. Share prices have risen, and oil has stabilised, but the risks of supply disruption, renewed conflict, and economic instability remain very real.

Finally, this conflict exposes a deeper issue: our dependence on fossil fuels. Energy and fertiliser supply chains remain fragile, and the risk of shortages has not gone away.

The conclusion is simple. The US is no longer the uncontested centre of global power. Iran has gained influence. Old alliances are under strain. And the new world order has not yet been formed.

Everything has already changed.

The question is whether we are willing to recognise that — and respond.

Donald Trump agreed to this plan because he had no choice. He had to back down from the genocide he threatened. But what if this “peace” is nothing more than a pause in a conflict that has not been resolved?

In this video, I examine the contradictions at the heart of this deal. The United States appears to have secured none of its strategic objectives. Iran emerges stronger, not weaker. Israel’s role is uncertain, and its compliance is far from guaranteed.

This raises a fundamental question: is this peace, or is it a retreat dressed up as diplomacy?

I also explore the wider implications — from the growing importance of the Strait of Hormuz to the shifting balance of power in the Gulf, and the weakening of US credibility on the global stage.

Markets may be pricing in certainty. But the reality is that uncertainty has increased, and the risk of renewed conflict remains very real.

This may not be the end of the war. It may be the beginning of something far more significant. 

The Enlightenment gave us something extraordinary: the idea that reason, evidence, and the equal moral worth of every human being should guide how we organise society. Neoliberalism replaced that with markets. It reduced people from moral equals to economic actors, stripped public services in the name of efficiency, weakened democratic accountability, and narrowed the boundaries of political thought until Margaret Thatcher's "There Is No Alternative" became conventional wisdom rather than a political choice.

The consequences are now impossible to ignore. Careful reasoning is being replaced by crude slogans. Evidence is losing ground to belief. Nuanced debate has given way to hostility. And the backlash against neoliberalism's failures is not producing a return to Enlightenment values, it is producing the conditions for fascism: demands for loyalty over accountability, indifference to consequences, and the deliberate promotion of inequality for the benefit of an elite.

Thomas Hobbes warned us centuries ago about what happens when the social order breaks down. We are approaching that point. But as this video argues, the current path is not inevitable. Change is possible, but it requires us to recommit to evidence-based decision-making, rebuild democratic institutions, constrain markets, and put care, not profit, at the centre of politics. Can we do that still? That is the question.

Iran will claim moral victory simply by surviving as a functioning state, echoing the Viet Cong's defeat of US military power in Vietnam. That shifts the entire power dynamic in the Gulf.

Meanwhile, the USA faces a visible and humiliating strategic loss that will damage its military credibility, destabilise US domestic politics, and accelerate the decline of American global dominance.

The consequences will ripple out far beyond the Middle East.

NATO, the alliance that held Western unity together for 80 years, faces collapse as European nations begin to distance themselves from Washington.

The 80-year USA-Israel alliance is in jeopardy.

The United Nations, the World Bank, and the IMF may all need to be rebuilt from scratch, just as they were in 1945.

The UK, clinging to a "special relationship" that is becoming untenable, will be left dangerously exposed without a functioning navy, an air force heavily dependent on the US, and a foreign policy with no clear direction.

Only China benefits. Its economy is insulated, its energy supplies are stable, and its relationship with Iran gives it a strategic foothold at the centre of the new world order. The Chinese curse that "may you live in interesting times" has never felt more appropriate. This is what the end of the American century looks like.

This video makes the case for a return to Smith's original insight: that care, empathy, and collective well-being must be the foundations of political economy, and not the pursuit of personal wealth at any cost. If we want an economy that works for everyone, we need to reclaim Adam Smith from those who misrepresented him.

The ideological roots of this agenda lie in neoliberal economics, shaped by Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, and actively promoted today by organisations such as the Atlas Network and the Tufton Street network of think tanks. Their programme deliberately weakens social cohesion, normalises inequality and insecurity, and strips public services to the bone. The Tory government between 2010 and 2024 put this into practice as a matter of deliberate policy and Labour has done precious little to reverse it.

Economic stress fuels resentment, and the elite redirect that resentment toward scapegoats from minority ethnic groups, to women, and LGBTQ+ people, all to maintain their hold on power and wealth.

The result is the rise of authoritarian politics across the UK and beyond. It is profoundly revealing that recent polls suggest large numbers of Church of England attendees would vote for Reform, a party whose values are, in every meaningful sense, completely alien to the Christian tradition.

Easter's core command is not complicated: love your neighbour as yourself. That is not a partisan slogan. It is a universal ethical imperative shared across religions and humanitarian traditions alike. If Easter means anything, it requires us to choose renewal over division, to rebuild public services, to resist the politics of exclusion, and to name the forces that profit from our fragmentation.

What if everything you think about money is wrong?  And does  it matter for the UK economy if it is?

Right now, a litre of petrol costs around 150p. Of that, 52.95p is fixed fuel duty and around 25p is VAT sojust over half the pump price is tax. The remaining cost is the oil itself, plus refining, distribution, and retail margins. If oil rises from $110 to $200 a barrel, which is an 82% increase, the most likely pump price is around 192p per litre, and it could hit 221p in a worst-case scenario. That could be a devastating hit to the cost of living when UK families are already struggling.

But let's be clear, this oil price crisis is not being caused by UK tax policy. Fuel duty and VAT are not the drivers of this price rise; the disruption to global oil markets is. But that means the government has a real choice because it could cut fuel duty, as other countries have already done, to stabilise prices and protect people. A cut from 53p to 30p per litre could make a material difference. On top of that, it could also look at rationing, speed limits, or other demand-reduction measures used elsewhere in the world.

The choices here are political. The question is whether the government will act.