From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
The ice is neither left nor right, it is neither Republican nor Democrat, it is simply melting. The consequences of the sea ice melting are enormous and will be felt everywhere from Texas to China.
Only a handful of diplomats and governments are prepared to put the global good before the national interest. Seldom is it the case for any diplomat that they put the global good high up on the agenda; in my career I've seen it very rarely. Only 30 of the 193 or so ambassadors at the UN in NY will be devoted to a multilateral context. Most are pursuing bilateral interests in a multilateral context.
Basel III effectively means putting thicker gloves on this boxer, without fixing the fundamental problem (they cannot cope with unexpected punches, from a highly developed adversary- the economy).
Nobody ever has control of all of the levers, and nobody ever has complete information. But also, there's always the day after. When dealing with really difficult issues it's very easy to get stuck in the moment and to lose sight of where we do want to be five or ten years from now.
Society at large only sporadically pays attention to the extraordinarily despair-producing conditions in which young black poor youth attempt to survive.
Politicians often forget that people are much more complex, and are a mix of many identities – and each of these identities can be of differing importance to the individual.
If Russia or China try to fly a plane into the United States, they'll be shut down by a USAF F35 that we spent a trillion-dollars developing. Meanwhile, if they try and fly an information plane into the United States they're met with Facebook and Google algorithms that run an auction to enable them to get the maximum audience, for the cheapest price. They're met with a white glove that takes them directly to their target.
The power is amazingly concentrated in Whitehall with very clever technocrats who go into it as their first job. Then they're assigned, aged 24 or 25, things like planning bus routes for Manchester. At the moment, the basic principle in the Treasury is that whatever you do, don't give money to local governments because they will squander it.
The policies they prescribe are a continuation or exaggeration of the previous policies that created the structural problems in the first place.
There has been a pathetic failure of governments to invest in educating people about the rights that they hold and enjoy; I suspect because if people knew their rights, they would claim them and put the governments of the world under pressure.
For every example I could give you of regulations causing problems, I could give you two of regulations creating opportunities. I think this notion that regulation is causing problems is a real red herring.
What I believe is the bigger benefit; is that it makes it much more difficult for governments to trick the domestic financial system to favour particular borrowers, to milk savers through variable interest rates and so forth.