Book Bits: 9 August 2025

● The Economic Consequences of Mr Trump: What the Trade War Means for the World
Philip Coggan
Q&A with author via MoneyWeek
Q: In your new book, The Economic Consequences of Mr Trump: What the Trade War Means for the World, you posit that president Donald Trump’s threats over tariffs are real, rather than a bluff, and represent a major threat to both the US and world economies.
A: Yes. Many investors seem to be assuming that Trump will ultimately back down from his threats of swingeing tariffs; markets have recovered from the collapse that took place in April when they were first announced. However, while there is still a chance that this could be correct, this attitude seems complacent.

● Robin Hood Math: Take Control of the Algorithms That Run Your Life
Noah Giansiracusa
Excerpt via Time
Ever wondered how social media platforms decide how to fill our feeds? They use algorithms, of course, but how do these algorithms work? A series of corporate leaks over the past few years provides a remarkable window in the hidden engines powering social media.
In January 2021, a few Facebook employees posted an article on the company’s engineering blog purporting to explain the news feed algorithm that determines which of the countless posts available each user will see and the order in which they will see them. The article includes a fancy-looking formula central to the algorithm, but the formula is nearly impossible to decipher since the authors didn’t bother to explain half the symbols in it.

● The Price of Money: A Guide to the Past, Present, and Future of the Natural Rate of Interest
Edited by Jamie Rush, et al.
Summary via publisher (Oxford U. Press)
An accessible guide to the natural rate of interest, why it is likely going up, and what that means for the future of the global economy and markets. Ask most people who sets interest rates, and they’ll say it’s the central bank. At a fundamental level, though, decisions by the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, and their peers around the world are constrained by the natural rate of interest. The natural rate – the interest rate that balances supply of saving and demand for investment, whilst keeping inflation low and employment high – has moved from academic obscurity to a central role in monetary policy, and the operation of the economy and financial markets.

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