From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Sovereign debt is reasonably unique in that there are no underlying assets one can claim unlike corporate bonds.
One of the things which is a really distinguishing factor about our markets in contrast to the OTC derivative market is that we're completely open, competitive and transparent with a very high degree of participation, a very high turnover, and a high degree of pre and post trade price transparency. That refers back to that old phrase of 'liquidity begets liquidity'.
What we have seen here is a pseudo-nuclear war. An unwind of misused financial instruments created a huge economic shock- which will fundamentally change the next quarter century of our economic story.
We have a much more connected marketplace. We have had, what I reckon to be an extremely overvalued stock market since 2000. When you have that situation, you are prone to very sudden negative revaluations.
We have enough water on this planet for everyone's needs, but not for everyone's greed. The crisis is fundamentally about distribution, access, and governance - not absolute scarcity.
You don't have to choose a business that's going to drown you, be a treadmill, or suck you underneath. You can start slow, make a bit of money and then double down. You don't have to risk it all at the beginning.
Crypto-currency is a means by which people can exchange property in a secure way without the use of a central institution like a bank or the Federal Reserve.
In humanity's relentless drive for convenience and economic growth we have developed a dangerous level of dependency on networked systems in a very short space of time: in less than two decades, huge parts of the so-called 'critical national infrastructure' in most countries have come under the control of ever more complex computer systems.
Look at it this way, there's practically no friction to sign-up to DoorDash as a dasher. If you have a car or bike, you can start dashing in hours, and earning money. You can use it to complement other work that you have and fill the gaps so to speak. So many people are doing this now, across so many businesses, that we have to codify it properly into law.
What we commonly refer to as business ethics bears little resemblance to ethics in its conventional sense. Instead, it functions more as a defensive strategy designed to shield corporate value from the scrutiny of regulations and public perception.
It is impossible to have the World Bank type of policy that is saying one policy fits all – educate your population, adopt better institutions, adopt family planning, and this will be the rescue. On the contrary, resources are limited, and we need to target the elements that are creating hurdles in the development of each country.
However, the landscape is shifting with the advent of digital transactions. The digitisation of money movement, transitioning from cash to digital, allows for traceability. This traceability generates data, which can be analysed to inform decisions.