Worldwide Financial Planning

This week Donald Trump’s belligerent attitude towards Greenland rattled equity and bond markets and sent the dollar lower before his U-turn on
using military force saw markets reverse course.

For 38 years, I’ve advised people to fill the holes in their leaky buckets instead of rushing around trying to keep filling the bucket full of water, the metaphor being money and banks.

Trump’s short-term agenda raises clear risks for the US. Recent Chinese trade data show the potential for unintended long term consequences. China’s trade surplus widened in 2025 not despite US trade restrictions, but because of them, as it sought alternative markets.

Why do most resolutions fail? Well, the goals themselves aren’t bad - “save more,” “clear debt,” “stick to a budget.” But they’re too vague. Cold. Disconnected from the human behind them and rejected by the subconscious as a non-instruction. It’s like deciding to run a marathon without knowing why you want to run it. You’ll feel that at mile three both physically and psychologically.

The pledge to take control of Venezuela’s oil industry and the seizure of a handful oil tankers may cause a headache for countries trying to get round sanctions, but they barely influenced global oil prices. Venezuela holds vast oil reserves, but its annual output is modest (around 1% of global production) and boosting capacity would require substantial time and investment. The only sign of movement in defensive assets was in the rising price of gold.

“HOW many hours of your life will this cost you"? That’s a better way of looking at the price of a purchase – those irreplaceable hours of your life spent earning that money. Once you begin to see money as time, everything changes.