From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Manchester and Sheffield had to apply to Transport for London for money to allocate to their bus routes. This is so comically bizarre that if you put it in a novel it would seem too silly. But that's how it is.
Comedy chips at people in power, particularly those who use tyrannical power. It strips their fake respect, and destroys the fake fear they create; and these are people who rely on being respected, and being feared.
Monetary support for development in itself will not accelerate growth in the real economy to artificial or unsustainable levels. It is how the finance is used – or misused.
We are facing the mother of all debt crises. When you look at the data on private and public debt, the debt to GDP ratio was near 200% of global GDP in 1999, today it's more like 350% and rising. In advanced economies, it's over 420% and in China, 330% and rising.
The cost of inaction far exceeds the cost of action. Every day we delay comprehensive HIV programs, we're not just counting dollars - we're counting lives.
The future is baked into the population of today, and that makes it very convenient for looking at the next couple of decades as our future soldiers are today in nursery school, and our future retirees are entering college.
Dubai offers a lot. We're currently at the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). There's a separate jurisdictional regime in this area meaning that companies are treated under English common-law principles. It's a very safe environment for transactions to occur, and this gives us a big advantage of areas which simply do not have that framework.
What on earth they [referring to government] will do next…
The modifications are not expected to lead to tighter financial conditions for households and businesses and do not signal any change in the outlook for the economy or for monetary policy.
most of the half-trillion dollars received by Africa since the 1960s has funded military coups and civil wars, not economic development. Between 1982 and 1985, Zimbabwe spent $1.3 out of $1.5 billion of foreign assistance on arms and ammunition.
Distrust in government is very dangerous – what follows is the ability for authoritarian and totalitarian forms of government to take control, and that doesn't do anybody, any good.
The countries where people are happiest are ones which are much more domestically oriented and not seeking world-power.