Issue
An attack on the world economy
Issue of March 14, 2026
Headlines
Where there’s no will, there’s no way
Briefing · China is wrestling with a novel phenomenon: inherited wealth
“Will” as legal document, not determination. China’s new rich are dying without estate plans, and the heirs are stuck.
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Compo Nation
Britain · How Britain became a Compo Nation
Compensation nation compressed into a portmanteau that also sounds like “combination.” Triple play.
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Iranamok
United States · America’s blame-Israel lobby
Iran + amok. Two syllables doing a lot of work.
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Going /-shaped
Finance & Economics · Would America be in recession without the super-rich?
After dismissing every letter of the alphabet, the economy is shaped like a backslash. The typography is the joke.
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Taiwan’s bid to export drones free of Chinese parts is taking off
Asia · Taiwan’s bid to export drones free of Chinese parts is taking off
Drones take off. So does the industry. The headline is doing exactly one thing and doing it well.
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Adults are on board with life-size board games
Culture · Adults are on board with life-size board games
On board with board games. They’re standing on them, too.
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No sugarcoating it
Middle East & Africa · Kenya’s ailing sugar sector is a test case for reform
The idiom meets the commodity. Kenya’s sugar industry gets the unvarnished truth.
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Buried in the text
”administritis (a dire malady, endemic in government circles)”
Obituary · Nick White was a hero of mankind’s oldest war
A tropical-disease researcher’s coined diagnosis for bureaucracy. The parenthetical is delivered with clinical precision.
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“the right ‘amniotic fluid’”
Briefing · China is wrestling with a novel phenomenon: inherited wealth
A sardonic Chinese coinage for being born into money. Your career prospects depend on whose womb you floated in.
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“Mr Wooster slices hellhounds”
The Americas · At last, Haiti has some hope
The American chargé d’affaires is named Wooster — like Wodehouse’s amiable idiot, except this one dispatches gang members rather than dodging aunts.
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“the mercenary (Mr Altman), the missionary (Mr Amodei) and the messianic (Mr Musk)”
Business · Altman, Amodei and Musk fight dirty for the biggest prize in business
The classic VC “missionaries vs mercenaries” framework, plus a third M for Musk’s god complex.
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“actorpreneurship”
Culture · What nobody clutching their Oscar this weekend will tell you
Actor + entrepreneurship. The modern performer’s hustle gets its own portmanteau.
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