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Long-form research on live enterprise decisions. Publication is selective. Every number traces to a named source. No takes without evidence.

Filtering: Tag: policy Clear

Electoral and political intelligence 2026-04-26 11 min read 12 sources

The 401 Vote Mandate: Translating the 2024 European Parliament into the 2026 Policy Cycle

The June 2024 European elections returned a Parliament that is more right-leaning than any since 1979, yet the centre held. The structural question is whether Ursula von der Leyen's 401 vote majority can finance the Draghi prescription before the median floor vote drifts further toward Patriots for Europe and the European Conservatives and Reformists.

The June 6 to 9, 2024 European Parliament election returned 720 members across 27 member states. The European People's Party expanded to 188 seats, the Socialists and Democrats held 136, Renew Europe contracted sharply to 77, the Greens fell to 53, the European Conservatives and Reformists rose to 78, and the new Patriots for Europe forma...

Energy transition 2026-04-26 11 min read 12 sources

Sustainable Aviation Fuel in 2026: A Mandate Wall Without a Molecule Cushion

ReFuelEU is live, the UK SAF mandate ratchets, and ICAO CORSIA Phase II turns mandatory in 2027. Global SAF supply remains roughly 0.3 percent of jet fuel demand, and HEFA feedstock is already binding.

Aviation entered 2026 facing the first compliance year of EU ReFuelEU obligations, a 2 percent SAF blend floor at all EU airports, and a parallel UK mandate climbing toward 10 percent by 2030. ICAO CORSIA Phase II becomes mandatory in January 2027 for all member states whose carriers fly international routes. Global SAF production is on t...

AI and compute economics 2026-04-26 13 minute read 12 sources

Trump's AI Action Plan: Compute Sovereignty, Export Control Reset, and the Frontier Regulatory Vacuum

Executive Order 14179, the rescinded AI Diffusion Framework, the Stargate USD 500B compute commitment, and a renamed AI Safety Institute together redraw US AI governance around speed, capital, and selective export pressure rather than precaution.

On January 23, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14179, Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence, rescinding Biden's EO 14110 and ordering an AI Action Plan within 180 days. By July 2025 the plan launched with a 60 day Request for Information that drew submissions from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta,...

Health economics 2026-04-26 10 minute read 19 sources

US Student Loans After the Pause: SAVE Unwound, Project 2025 Reforms, and the 2026 Repayment Reset

Federal student loans returned to billing in October 2023 after a 3.5 year COVID pause. The 12 month on ramp shielded credit reports through September 2024. Then SAVE was enjoined, then struck down. By Q1 2025, 12.6 percent of borrowers in repayment were 90 plus days delinquent, the worst delinquency print in the history of the New York Fed Household Debt and Credit Report. The 2026 reset is not a return to 2019. It is a rewrite.

The federal student loan portfolio sits at roughly 1.65 trillion dollars across about 43 million borrowers as of Q4 2024, per Federal Student Aid Data Center quarterly reports. Payments resumed in October 2023 after a pause that ran from March 2020 through September 2023, and the Biden Department of Education layered a 12 month on ramp th...