From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Over half the sub-Saharan African population is under 18 years old, versus Latin America, where over half the population is under 25 years old and Asia, where it is under 35 years old. These EM populations are young, expansive and dynamic.
The rights of children are not yet acknowledged as the key driver for human progress and development and hence they are not getting priority in economic, social or political discourse.
If you look at the notional value of trading on our exchanges in any given year, they range from $600-700 trillion to a quadrillion (1000 trillion) dollars in total value. People can use these markets very effectively, not just for bona-fide risk hedging and transfer and risk management but also for asset allocation, portfolio management and trading strategies as well.
We're talking about massive amounts of money that have been shifted from poorer countries to richer ones. Almost all of this constitutes a permanent outward transfer. In our estimate, only about 10-20% of global illicit money ever finds its way back into the country of origin.
Paying a negative interest rate on currency, or on electronic reserves at the central bank, may seem barbaric to some... But it is arguably no more barbaric than inflation, which similarly reduces the real purchasing power of currency.
The notion of 'alternative' as an asset class sits badly with me because for me, saying hedge-funds – as an example – are an asset class is akin to comparing mutual-funds to being an asset class. The sheer diversity within these groups makes it difficult to define them as a class in their own right, given the complete lack of commonalities across the board.
Materials move much more easily than knowledge. But when people mistakenly believe that the material is the binding constraint, they tend to come up with these bone-headed development strategies. Silicon Valley didn't specialize in silicon transistors because there was a lot of sand nearby.
When the main participants in an economy (the general population not the investment banks) are struggling to survive- no amount of economic stimulus applied at arms-length from those participants- will inject growth.
Well, do you remember those Venn Diagrams from school? Those overlapping circles to represent what two things do and don't have in common? 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.
Until now, we had an insolvency problem – but we didn't have a liquidity problem that could trigger that insolvency because interest rates were so low. Now they're rising, and the mother of all debt crises is going to occur.
Taxes are the price of civilisation.
Consider for instance that the bulk of the world's foreign exchange reserves – trillions of dollars – are held by developing economies, and that the US runs a current account and budget deficit of astronomical proportions.