HS2 will damage the home counties

High-speed rail may hurt intermediate places: The role of long-haul economies.

This is a long-term study of the impact of the Shinkansen trains in Japan.

DeFi, or how to start your own crypto-currency bank

This is a great article. It goes through why lending cryptocurrencies on the ETH blockchain is not exactly straighforward, but is at least possible even for those without the ability to program (not sure about Solidus).

What’s interesting is that the whole thing is centred around stablecoins: DAI, Tether and USDC. Getting hold of these is not that easy, and transaction costs are high, but they clearly have more utility as a store of value and especially a means of payment that BTC.

I strongly suggest that you sign up to Net Interest

Risk

Risk is what is left when you think that you have thought of everything.

— Carl Richards.

McKinsey report confirms that the rich have got richer

As reported in the FT.

Who would have thought it??

Amazon Prime is an evil money-laundering scheme

Yes it is!.

Amazon leans on Marketplace sellers not to undercut prices available via its own website. It’s hardly a surprise to find out that Amazon takes all available steps to exercise some leverage over sellers that use its own platform, but it is worrying. I try to find alternative sites (such as eBay) which offer an alternative service. eBay for books is surprisingly good.

Poor Julius

It’s kind of hilarious and awesome to think that someone who was once the most powerful and ambitious person in the world, Julius Caesar, is now mostly known because his name is used for a salad dressing.