Where the math is defensible.
Long-form research on live enterprise decisions. Publication is selective. Every number traces to a named source. No takes without evidence.
Mexico in 2026: Nearshoring, the USMCA Review, and the Tariff Shock Absorber
Eighteen months into the Sheinbaum administration, nearshoring has stopped being a press-release category and has become a contested allocation problem. Plan Mexico, the July 2026 USMCA review, and a Trump tariff regime that flicks on and off have compressed the planning horizon for OEMs, contract manufacturers, and the peso curve into rolling six-week windows.
Claudia Sheinbaum was inaugurated on October 1, 2024, and unveiled Plan Mexico in January 2025 as an industrial policy framework anchored on a Fideicomiso for nearshoring incentives, regional content thresholds, and a sharper screen on Chinese investment. Foreign direct investment closed 2024 at 36.87 billion dollars per Secretaria de Eco...
Slovakia Under Fico: Russia Tilt, Budget Squeeze, and the Auto Pivot
Robert Fico's fourth premiership has pulled Slovakia toward Budapest on Russia and Ukraine, while a 5.4 percent of GDP deficit forces the deepest consolidation in a decade. The 2026 question is whether the Smer-Hlas-SNS coalition can absorb fiscal tightening, EU funds risk under judicial reform disputes, and a Chinese EV import surge into the world's most auto-dependent economy without breaking the coalition or the investment-grade rating.
Robert Fico returned to power on October 25, 2023, his fourth term as prime minister, in a Smer-SD coalition with Hlas-SD and the Slovak National Party. Within sixteen months the government has delivered a sharp pivot in foreign posture, an attempted overhaul of the criminal code and the Special Prosecutor's Office, a survival from a near...
The American Car Squeeze: Affordability, Delinquency, and the Auto Credit Cycle
New vehicle average transaction prices held near 48,000 dollars through 2024 and 2025, the Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index settled around 205 after retracing from its 280 peak, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York logged the highest auto loan transition into serious delinquency since the 2010 vintage. Section 232 tariffs on Mexican and Canadian autos and a 20 percent jump in auto insurance CPI compounded the affordability problem. The credit cycle now hinges on subprime ABS performance, repossession economics, and the policy response to a household stretched on the second-largest line item after housing.
American household balance sheets now carry 1.66 trillion dollars of auto loan debt, the second-largest non-housing consumer credit line on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit. Cox Automotive reported a new vehicle average transaction price of 48,397 dollars in December 2024, roughly 12 perce...