In this episode, Ross and Treston unpack the rising concern over bias in large language models and its implications for business, politics, and information ecosystems. As AI systems become embedded in corporate workflows and decision-making, the hosts explore how cultural, political, and commercial bias seeps into data and rules, shaping what people see, believe, and decide.
They discuss AI as a new arena of soft power competition between China and the West, how LLMs can reflect partisan or ideological leanings, and the emerging phenomenon of “LLM SEO” — manipulating models to amplify certain narratives.

In this episode, we examine Debt Overhang & Crowding Out — the fourth of the Top 10 Geopolitical Risks for Business in 2026.

We explore how decades of ultra-low interest rates created a global dependence on cheap credit. As rates normalise, the political and corporate debt burdens accumulated during that era are constraining growth, investment, and strategic freedom.

Key Themes

• From cheap credit to structural pressure: The long shadow of post-COVID inflation and sustained high interest rates is reshaping both fiscal and corporate balance sheets.
• Sovereign debt and political risk: Rising debt-to-GDP ratios in the US, Europe, and Japan highlight the limits of fiscal space and the potential for governance paralysis.
• Corporate debt and stagnation: Over-leveraged firms face limited room to manoeuvre, leading to downsizing, delayed innovation, and suppressed hiring.
• AI, technology, and long-term profitability: We assess how debt levels could determine which tech firms survive the current wave of AI-driven investment.
• Global South vulnerability: Fragile tax bases and reliance on external creditors expose emerging economies to IMF conditionality, unrest, and political instability.
• Interconnected risk: High debt levels signal not just financial weakness but systemic governance strain — linking fiscal policy, national security, and business continuity.

Signals to Monitor

• Sharp tax increases or emergency budgets
• Rising bond yields and refinancing challenges
• Large-scale layoffs, asset sales, or corporate restructurings
• IMF programmes tied to subsidy cuts in developing economies

In this episode, we continue our series on the Top 10 Geopolitical Risks for Businesses in 2026, turning to Risk #3 — Industrial Policy and Geoeconomics. We examine how governments are abandoning decades of free-market orthodoxy in favour of state-led industrial strategies designed to protect national interests, secure supply chains, and reassert economic sovereignty.

The discussion explores:

• How industrial policy has re-emerged as the economic extension of great-power competition and techno-nationalism.
• The evolution from neoliberalism to interventionism, tracing roots from Alexander Hamilton to the CHIPS Act and beyond.
• How national security framing justifies tariffs, subsidies, and state involvement across sectors once considered purely commercial.
• The semiconductor industry as a case study—why it set the template for deeper state-corporate integration.
• The tension between what is good for a corporation and what is good for a country, illustrated through U.S.–China technology policy.
• Winners and losers: how energy, hydrocarbons, and certain emerging markets like Vietnam and Mexico could benefit, while agriculture and innovation face headwinds.
• Why protectionism may be more destabilising than industrial policy itself.
• The rise of a “Hamiltonian capitalism”—a new model where prosperity and security are increasingly fused.

Key Takeaway

The liberal economic order is giving way to a Hamiltonian era of strategic capitalism. For corporations, success will depend not just on market performance but on political alignment, negotiation, and an ability to operate within government-defined priorities.