Ahmed Traina

The main difference between Elon Musk and Scam Altman: Elon Musk actually changes the world for the better and saves lives: Tesla accelerates clean energy and has saved thousands of lives on the roads. SpaceX is making humanity multi-planetary. Starlink connects and saves millions in wars and disasters. Neuralink gives hope to the paralyzed. He pays a very heavy personal price for it — endless attacks, lawsuits, media smears, and a broken personal life. Scam Altman? He mostly just takes. His technology (ChatGPT) still struggles to genuinely help people with real problems — hallucinations, lies, and fabrications instead of real answers. He turned OpenAI from “for the benefit of humanity” into a profit machine. And the suspicious death of whistleblower researcher Suchir Balaji, who was highly critical of OpenAI, still raises serious unanswered questions. One builds the future and saves lives. The other takes the money and plays games.

Congratulations Kennedy Scholar and former Chair of the Trust, Lord Peter Hennessy (Harvard 1971) on his appointment to the Order of the Garter by King Charles III.

Napoleon understood something modern politicians pretend to ignore: wars cost money, and central banks exist to finance them without the messy business of asking taxpayers directly. The Banque de France, established in 1800, gave Bonaparte exactly what he needed: a printing press disguised as monetary policy. Within four years, Napoleon granted the bank exclusive note-issuing privileges for Paris, and by 1848, it monopolized currency creation across France. The pattern never changes: create a central bank, grant it money creation powers, then fund endless military adventures while citizens watch their purchasing power evaporate. Bonaparte's wars consumed roughly 2.5 billion francs between 1803-1815. Direct taxation would have sparked revolution (again). So the Banque de France simply created money, bought government bonds, and voilà—invisible taxation through inflation. French citizens paid for Austerlitz, Jena, and Waterloo through debased currency, not knowing they funded each cannonball and cavalry charge through their shrinking wages and savings. The genius of central banking lies in this deception. You can't see inflation the way you see income taxes. When bread costs more, people blame bakers, not bankers. When wages stagnate, they blame employers, not money printers. Napoleon's wars would have ended quickly if he had to knock on doors asking French families to fund another campaign against Austria. Every central bank since has followed Napoleon's playbook. The Federal Reserve financing Wilson's war, Nixon's Vietnam spending spree, Bush's Iraq adventure. The technology changes, but the scam remains identical: steal purchasing power gradually, fund government expansion continuously, and convince the public that monetary policy serves their interests rather than the state's appetite for power.