From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
It's only the latest iteration of post-1980s capitalism which has disconnected us so much from the common good, our collective interest in care and compassion. Before that, capitalism wasn't really like that – and if you think about the style of capitalism we observe in continental Europe and Asia – there's been a much higher emphasis on community.
The market definitely recognised and endorsed the need for a new benchmark. WTI was certainly disconnected from the pricing and economic activity of the rest of the world. Further to this, Brent is great for the North Sea and European trade flows, but it does not impact or reflect the actual activity in the far east.
He developed national income measures which were then taken-up by the UN and governments as the accepted measure of economic performance. The standardisation of this measure by the UK was ultimately what engendered it's adoption as the criteria of economic success.
A lot of negatives have already happened in Greece, and now there is an opportunity. Most Greek assets have been going down in price at some time, and if you happen to hold the right assets? You'll make a killing!
Investors who previously thought that sovereigns were a quasi-risk-free asset have been challenged in that respect. Domestic local-currency sovereign debt is certainly not risk-free. It very much depends on the willingness and ability of the sovereign to pay-back its debt!
What happened was that people saw their place going down while London was booming. It's not countrywide; it's not that everyone in the country is poorer. London's doing fine. So people ask: why are they not doing fine when London's doing fine? They start to blame each other.
Why would anybody at all invest in an economy where the three leaders said the country was bankrupt?! That's what's killed off confidence and investment in the economy.
a country that stops its citizens having access to Facebook, say, or Google or Skype, faces real disadvantages – from inward investment to domestic discontent…
Here I am the fool looking to fail frequently. I want to either hit a homerun or walk or even strike out. This means I fail far more often than I succeed. But the important point is that what I lose when I fail is trivial, epsilon compared to what I make when I succeed.
I made the analogy of earthquake faults- when they get aligned, they either all move, or they don't move- we also have this diversity of micro fault-lines that fail, and I think that's a huge problem.
Most risk managers on Wall St, and practically all staff members in institutions like the Fed, IMF and elsewhere do not understand the statistical properties of risk. I think the notion that the time-series of market moves in large complex markets is not a normal distribution has largely sunk-in.
We have to leave behind the myth that our economies are actually fit for the present that we understand, and the vision of the future we want to create. We need to redesign economics for our times.