From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
People are now talking of a new 'Cold War' with China. This is a very misleading use of history. If you look at the relationship between China and the US today, there is half a trillion dollars of trade, and some 350,000 Chinese students and 3 million Chinese tourists are in the US. It's more complex than the type of relationship we had during the Cold War.
India's 'un-bankable' millions are not only better re-payers than their 'banked' counterparts in the west, but their demand for credit is outstripping supply by a great degree.
Historically, Africa has been viewed by many countries as a 'burden,' whereas the BRIC's see it as an enormous opportunity. To put this in context, Europe has twice as much trade with Africa as does even China, so Europe must wake up to the fact that Africa is an important and relevant opportunity, not a burden.
Cyber-threat is the single most serious threat faced by the markets. The United States is very good at cyber warfare and counter warfare, but so are others. This is what we call 'asymmetric' warfare where adversaries have been able to level the playing field.
We have to get out of this 'tax to spend' mentality and think about using resources to create investment funds that support local businesses, while also expecting to get something back as those businesses appreciate. Those are very different mentalities.
The overlap of these two is incredibly fertile territory and this is exactly where businesses in the U.S. and UK see each other – places where they both need to do business and want to do business.
People are now talking of a new 'Cold War' with China. This is a very misleading use of history. If you look at the relationship between China and the US today, there is half a trillion dollars of trade, and some 350,000 Chinese students and 3 million Chinese tourists are in the US. It's more complex than the Cold War.
We don't accept basis risk we don't accept counterparty risk- we don't want any fuzziness around what our payout is going to be conditional on the realising of this systematic left tail 'black swan' event.
You are all so smart… and this was so bad… how could your discipline have not seen it coming? Implicit in the Queen's question was the assertion that economists don't get out enough and talk to people in the wider economy.
The issue you're worried about, the one you're likely spending most of your time discussing, isn't the only problem in the world. We tend to lose sight of this because we often perceive our immediate tasks as the most crucial. Given the multitude of issues we need to address, the goal shouldn't be to resolve a single problem in an exhaustive and expensive way. Instead, we should aim to find an effective, low-cost strategy that addresses most of the problem, ensuring we preserve resources for other tasks.
Investors are always looking for something different, where they can get Alpha… where they can get diversification… where they can get non-correlation. It's not necessarily linked to them being 'US Assets' but more that they are unique assets regardless of domicile and they have not previously had access to them.
It's really complicated to work-out how much of our wealth came from empire, it's like trying to take the egg out of a baked cake. It's better to look at individual wealth and businesses.