From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Telecommunications has not only connected India, but it has also given India global recognition and a new respect for Indian talent. It has created our own multinationals, and created a huge amount of foreign exchange reserves.
Poverty is a result of history first of all. Mankind was always 'poor' according to our development standards. Growth has been very high in the last two centuries, but only in the west for a while, and now
If you look historically at the historical contours of wealth- it's primarily created through private ownership. That's always been the case- and I believe it always be.
To make those markets work well, they have to make the market thick, they have to attract enough participants to get good transaction levels. They have to deal with the problem of congestion that can be symptomatic of thick markets. You have to also make the market safe enough for people to transact 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.
While it may seem an altogether preposterous notion that people should have to pay for air, a very basic component of life- one must read this hypothetical tale in context of the fact that over 1.7billion people cannot afford food (also a very basic component of life)- and a similar amount have little access to clean drinking water (another very basic component of life).
There is nothing, however, in standard theories of money that requires transactions to be anonymous from tax- or law-enforcement authorities. And yet there is a significant body of evidence that a large percentage of currency in most countries, generally well over 50%, is used precisely to hide transactions.
I have not been an urban investor in re-gentrification, which tries to change the character of a community and, candidly, is very speculative. Instead I look at revitalisation, which constitutes investing in existing densely populated and ethnically diverse communities and delivering the goods and services that are sought after but not provided.
What if we move to a world where, because robots are so cheap... cheap labour doesn't really matter anymore? What will be China's main comparative advantage after that?
I think transparency in this sense is a red-herring. A multi-strategy hedge fund could give an investor or the SEC it's daily trade blotter and accomplish 'transparency,' and the recipient would have no idea what to make of the trades.
You can't force people to change- you have to find their passion and implement based on that. The economist, Dambisa Moyo, showed that even though $2.5trillion has been invested in aid, Africa is now net-poorer than 50 years ago.
The USD is the world's most liquid currency, used as the tool of choice for global finance. It is for that reason that we, as observers, must pay great attention to policy changes such as this.