Count Binface & The Rise of Economic Statecraft - the Hormuz toll booth, Korea's chip casino, and a Fed reinvented

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The US bombs dozens of sites inside Iran while insisting the ceasefire talks are still on. A South Korean chipmaker posts a 19‑fold jump in profit, and the market loses $100bn in a day. Kevin Warsh hands the future of the Federal Reserve to a venture capitalist and two retired retail executives. And then, perhaps the sanest event of the week is a man in a dustbin costume standing for Parliament in Clacton. In this week's In the Company of Mavericks, I pull together my daily HyperNormal Reports into a single story: the death of rules‑based, stateless globalisation and its replacement by hard‑edged economic statecraft, nations wielding energy, technology, capital and currency for power and resilience rather than efficiency. A wrap of the world that knows the old system is broken but can't bring itself to say so.

In this episode:

• The Strait of Hormuz and the new geopolitics of oil — the IRGC "toll booth," Kharg Island, re‑sanctioned Iranian crude, and Brent's anxious round trip
• Korea's casino and the memory‑chip supercycle — Samsung's 19x profit crash, SK Hynix's blockbuster IPO, and the $2trn‑to‑$20trn memory trade
• What AI is really doing to work and wages — the Jevons Paradox, the "Age of Average," China's 320m gig workers and a modern Engels' Pause
• Kevin Warsh's reinvention of the Fed — five task forces, dot‑plot demolition, and the Greenspan lesson on holding the line
• Japan and China's balance‑sheet strain — surging JGB yields, GPIF "phoning home," and China's two‑speed inflation/deflation economy
• The private‑equity parking lot — 13,500 trapped portfolio companies and easyJet pointing to the London exits

This podcast explores stocks, markets, and capital, examines the role of gold in finance, unpacks tax policy and economics, discusses pathways to financial freedom and retirement, explains how interest rates affect investing, features insights from financial advisers, analyzes inflation, recession, and market volatility, covers the actions of central banks, evaluates different assets, addresses inheritance planning, reviews portfolio construction with bonds and an isa, assesses long-term returns and allocation strategies, explores macro trends, and helps listeners understand risk and pensions.