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Ben Harrison’s firm, ‘Mypower’ is powered by the sun, so he feels he cannot complain about it.

His teams fit solar panels to the rooftops of farms and factories across the country, cutting their electric bills and carbon emissions.

But in the heatwave, there is no escape from the sun on a roof.

“The temperature of that heat reflecting off the roof is significant,” Harrison explained.

“We need to look after those guys out there. Here we are in the middle of the summer, and they are like cats on a hot tin roof, dare I say it.”

Like many firms, Mypower has protocols that kick in at 30C – extra water breaks, cool boxes carried onto the roof and so on. But with rooftop temperatures now well over 35C and in full sun, they have been shortening their working days this week.

The teams now start at 06:00, two hours earlier than normal, and finish at noon instead of 16:30. This, Harrison admitted, is costing the firm money.

“We’ve had to delay a job, slow things down, and be working short time, but we’ve got to look after the guys that work for us.”

Available for over a year

The US dollar is the backbone of global trade and held by governments around the world as a safe haven in times of crisis.

It’s so powerful that countries like Ecuador and Panama have adopted the dollar as their official currency, while Argentina for many years has tried to “dollarize” its economy.

But what happens if nations and private institutions were to lose trust in the dollar?

How did we get here? Well, after WWII the world order was re-established in part by tying the monetary systems to the value of the dollar, backed by gold. But since 1971 President Nixon cut that link to gold and the entire exchange system has since been tied directly to the dollar itself, its historic success and access to its financial markets.

That success gave America what was dubbed an “exorbitant privilege” to print money without fear of inflation and to build up national debt without consequence.

It also enables the US to flex its muscles on the international stage by imposing sanctions on countries and cutting off access to their all-important currency. That has led some countries, most notably China, to call for the dollar to be replaced as the world’s reserve currency.

How difficult would it be to untangle the dollar from global trade, can any other nations offer the same conditions which has allowed the US currency to thrive, and what would happen if the dollar’s role was replaced by newer digital currencies which operate outside traditional government control?

Presenter: Professor Ben Ansell
Producer: George Dabby
Editor: Damon Rose

Contributors:
Martin Wolf, Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times
Barry Eichengreen, Professor of Economics and Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley
David Shrier, Professor of Practice, AI & Innovation with Imperial College Business School
Stephanie Flanders, Head of Economics and Politics at Bloomberg News
Zanny Minton Beddoes, Editor-in-Chief of The Economist

Material from:
British Pathé, “Bretton Woods Money Pact Signed” (1946)

Programme WebsiteShow less

This article was written by

Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have no stock, option or similar derivative position in any of the companies mentioned, and no plans to initiate any such positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Seeking Alpha’s Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.

Pescatore said Apple’s actions demonstrated the extent of the challenges for “even for the world’s biggest technology companies”.

“This is a significant moment because even Apple, with its scale and buying power, is no longer immune to the rising cost of key components,” he told the BBC.

Affected hardware included the MacBook Pro with 1 terabyte of storage, which rose to $1,999 from $1,699 on its US store.

Meanwhile in the UK, the Neo – Apple’s lowest-priced laptop – has increased from £599 to £699 within months of its launch.

“We have shielded our customers from these increases so far, but we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products, including today’s increases for iPad and Mac,” the company said in its statement.

David Naranjo of market research firm Counterpoint said he expected other PC and tablet brands would follow Apple by upping their costs.

“They may raise prices on select products, cut discounts on entry-level models, or adjust their product lines to focus more on premium devices,” he said.

Dipanjan Chatterjee, vice president and principal analyst at market research firm Forrester, said he believed Apple’s loyal customer base would take the financial hit without too much outcry.

“If anyone can survive a price increase with minimal blowback, it’s Apple,” he added.

Tim Cook, Apple’s outgoing chief executive, had also hinted at the changes – telling the Wall Street Journal earlier in June that price increases were “unavoidable” due to the “unsustainable” situation around memory chips.

“We definitely need memory pricing and supply to return to reasonable levels for consumer products. That’s the bottom line,” he told the publication.

The soaring costs have affected a wide variety of companies and products across the technology sector, including PCs and consoles.

On Monday gaming giant Valve said its original goal for the price of its gaming PC the Steam Machine was “no longer viable”, instead launching it at a price of £879 in the UK and $1,049 in the US.

U.S. inflation increased further in May, breaking above 4.0% for the first time in three years as the Middle East conflict boosted energy prices, and keeping an interest rate increase from the Federal Reserve this year on the table. But with oil prices falling to pre-war levels on Thursday after the United States and Iran signed a preliminary peace deal, inflation likely peaked last month or is close to doing so. While easing oil prices could dampen goods inflation, that could be offset by more expensive services. Economists expected overall inflation to remain elevated for a while.

Financial markets are anticipating a rate hike from the U.S. central bank in September.

“PCE ‌price inflation remains too high ⁠and will ⁠keep the Fed on hold and mulling a potential rate hike at upcoming meetings,” said Scott Anderson, chief U.S. economist at BMO Capital Markets. “Services inflation was even higher than goods inflation last month and will not be easily tamed by falling energy prices. The fight between the hawks and the doves is sure to remain intense.”

The personal consumption expenditures price index surged 4.1% in the 12 months through May, the largest increase and first reading above 4.0% since April 2023, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis said on Thursday. PCE inflation rose by an unrevised 3.8% in April.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast PCE inflation advancing 4.1%. The PCE price index climbed 0.4% over the month after rising by the same margin in April. The U.S.-led war against Iran pushed up oil prices, driving gasoline prices higher, as Tehran took control of the Strait of Hormuz. On Thursday, Washington said shipments through the strait were approaching levels seen before the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28, weighing on oil prices.

Consumers were before the conflict already struggling ⁠with higher prices ‌stemming from Trump’s sweeping import tariffs. The higher cost of living is a political liability for Trump and his Republican Party, seeking to retain control of Congress in the midterm elections in November, amid mounting frustration over his stewardship of the economy.
Also Read | Micron surges 19%, overtakes Meta in market value amid relentless AI infrastructure demand
Trump won the 2024 presidential election in part because of his promise to lower inflation.
Excluding the volatile food and energy ⁠components, the PCE price index increased 3.4% year-on-year in May after rising 3.3% in April. The so-called core PCE inflation advanced 0.3% on a monthly basis after gaining 0.3% in April.

The U.S. central bank tracks the PCE inflation measures for its 2% target. The Fed last week kept its benchmark overnight interest rate in the 3.50%-3.75% range, but updated quarterly projections showed policymakers expected to raise borrowing costs this year amid growing concerns about inflation. Both headline and core PCE inflation were last below 2% in early 2021. Financial markets saw a roughly 80% chance that the Fed will raise rates at the September 15-16 meeting, according to CME Group’s FedWatch tool. U.S. stocks were trading higher. The dollar eased against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury yields fell.

CONSUMERS BOOST SPENDING

Despite the high inflation last month, consumers boosted their spending, thanks to larger tax refunds this year as well as a stock market rally, which have cushioned some of the pain at the pump. Households are also tapping into savings and saving less.

Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of economic activity, jumped 0.7% in May after rising 0.4% in April. Though ‌some of the rise in spending reflects higher prices, consumption appears on track to speed up this quarter after nearly stalling in the January-March quarter.

But with inflation outpacing wage gains, the tax filing season behind and savings dwindling, economists expect households will dial back spending in the third quarter.

For now, consumers are combining with businesses to boost the economy. A separate report from the Commerce Department’s Census Bureau showed businesses boosting spending on ⁠a range of goods in May. Non-defense capital goods orders excluding aircraft, a closely watched proxy for business spending, increased 1.6% last month after declining 0.7% in April.

Some of the rise in these so-called core capital goods, however, reflected higher prices, especially for memory chips. Businesses are ramping up investment in artificial intelligence, fueling demand for information processing equipment and other related products. That is helping to blunt the hit on manufacturing from the Middle East conflict.

Orders for computers and electronic products rebounded 0.3%, while those for electrical equipment, appliances and components rose 0.3%. There were hefty increases in orders for fabricated metal products, primary metals and machinery. Core capital goods shipments rose 0.3% in May after increasing 0.5% in April.

Business spending on equipment recorded double-digit growth in the first quarter. Orders for durable goods, items ranging from toasters to aircraft that are meant to last three years or more, fell 4.5% in May after surging 8.5% in April, the Census Bureau reported. They were dragged down by a 51.8% plunge in non-defense aircraft and parts orders, a very volatile category.

Boeing reported on its website that it had received only 27 aircraft orders in May compared to 136 in April.

Gross domestic product growth estimates for the second quarter are currently as high as a 3.0% annualized rate. The economy grew at a 2.1% pace in the first quarter.

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Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have a beneficial long position in the shares of GOOG either through stock ownership, options, or other derivatives. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Seeking Alpha’s Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.

Britain’s beleaguered car industry has eked out its first monthly increase of the year, a flicker of momentum that the trade body warns could just as easily be snuffed out by stubbornly high energy costs and a fractious global trade picture.

Factories rolled 49,200 vehicles off their lines in May, up 2.3 per cent on the same month a year earlier, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. It is a modest figure by historical standards, but a welcome one after a run of declines that had become wearily familiar to anyone watching the sector.

The catch, and there is always a catch, is that the year-to-date numbers remain firmly in the red. UK plants have produced 306,000 cars in the first five months of 2026, down 4.1 per cent on the same period last year. May’s bounce, in other words, has trimmed the deficit rather than erased it.

Some of the month’s improvement is a quirk of the calendar. This time last year, Jaguar Land Rover, the Solihull-based maker of the Range Rover, paused shipments to the United States after President Trump slapped fresh tariffs on British exports. Set against that depressed base, almost any number was going to look better. The plants behind the figures read like a roll-call of what remains of British volume manufacturing: Nissan in Sunderland, JLR in Solihull and BMW’s Mini factory in Oxford.

It is worth holding May’s number up against the longer arc of decline. In 2016, when the country voted to leave the European Union, Britain was assembling more than 1.7 million cars a year. The current rolling 12-month average sits at 704,000, less than half that. The slump has been a long time in the making, and a single good month does not reverse it.

If the car numbers are sobering, the commercial vehicle figures are grim. UK factories built 11,500 vans in the year to date, a fall of 60 per cent year-on-year. On a rolling 12-month basis the total stands at 30,000, less than a quarter of what the country was turning out just two years ago.

The collapse follows Stellantis’s decision to shut its historic Luton van plant and convert Ellesmere Port into a low-volume electric van operation. The owner of Vauxhall has, in effect, taken a large slice of British van-making capacity off the board, and the data now reflects it. The country’s output recently slid to its lowest level in decades, a reminder of how quickly industrial capacity can erode once the investment case weakens.

The SMMT, which compiles the figures, is blunt about the causes: punishing energy costs, the unpredictability of international trade, particularly with the United States, and a domestic market that remains soft.

“May’s growth is welcome, and the priority must be to turn this into a sustained recovery by making the UK more competitive as a place to make and sell vehicles,” said Mike Hawes, the society’s chief executive.

He also pointed to a threat on the horizon. New EU trade barriers due next year could shut British automotive firms out of European supply chains if their products or components are deemed to be manufactured outside the bloc, a technicality with potentially expensive consequences for an industry that sends most of its output across the Channel. The full breakdown sits in the SMMT’s vehicle manufacturing data, and the message running through it is consistent: the firms that survived the long contraction are doing so on the finest of margins.

For now, the industry will take the win. A single month of growth is not a recovery, but after a year that has tested the sector’s resilience to the limit, it is at least a reason to look up. Whether it becomes the start of something more durable depends less on the factories themselves than on the cost of the electricity that powers them and the trade rules that govern where their cars can go, themes the government set out to address in its advanced manufacturing plan.

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As anxiety mounts over the long-term solvency of the Social Security trust funds, a growing number of Americans are rushing to claim their benefits early out of fear that the program will run dry.

However, personal finance expert Suze Orman warns that following this viral advice will lock retirees into a permanent financial penalty that cannot be undone.

“There’s been some chatter on social media lately about Social Security that I think is bad advice,” Orman wrote earlier this month on her website. “The message is that you are better off claiming as early as possible — at age 62 — rather than waiting to collect a larger benefit by starting your checks later. That’s just not good advice.”

About two weeks ago, the Social Security Administration released its 2026 Trustees Report, which confirms that the federal retirement safety net is less than seven years away from reserve depletion, as the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund is projected to exhaust its accumulated reserves in the fourth quarter of 2032.

SOCIAL SECURITY HAS LESS THAN 10 YEARS BEFORE RESERVES ARE EXHAUSTED, NEW TRUSTEES REPORT WARNS

Once the reserves are depleted, ongoing tax revenues will cover only 78% of scheduled retirement benefits, according to the report.

According to SSA data, claiming retirement benefits at age 62 remains popular among retirees, though filing early permanently locks in lower monthly benefits.

“For anyone born in 1960 or later, your Full Retirement Age is 67. That is when you are entitled to 100% of your earned Social Security benefit. If you choose to start collecting at 62, you receive just 70% of that benefit — a 30% reduction that is locked in permanently. Claiming early is basically accepting a 30% penalty,” Orman said.

“A woman in average health who reaches age 65 has a life expectancy of 88. That means a 50% probability of still being alive at 88 — still here, still paying bills, still needing income. If she reaches her break-even age of 79, there is a very real chance she has at least another decade or more ahead of her,” Orman said. “Every month past that break-even point, the person who waited is collecting meaningfully more.”

The personal finance expert also pushed back on claims circulating online that filing early secures your benefits before the trust funds run low.

“Current projections suggest that if Congress does nothing, Social Security would pay out roughly 80% of scheduled benefits — a 20% reduction. That is the worst case. And as I have discussed before, Social Security has survived funding challenges before; in the early 1980s, Washington found solutions that did not require beneficiaries to absorb the full cost,” she said.

“If your benefit at 67 would be $2,000, claiming at 62 locks in a $1,400 monthly payment… Now apply the 20% worst-case cut to both. The person who waited until age 67 might see their benefit reduced from $2,000 to $1,600. The early claimer collects around $1,260.”

Orman said there are two exceptions to claiming Social Security early: health issues and the inability to work or draw from retirement savings.

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And the “strongest move,” according to Orman, is waiting until age 70 to claim Social Security benefits.

“If you are married, please have the higher earner wait as long as possible — ideally until 70. The surviving spouse receives the larger of the two benefits. Making that number as large as possible is one of the most important financial gifts you can leave your partner,” Orman said.

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