From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
In all the politics that's going on… everyone says that small business are the driver for growth. The truth is, it's not just small businesses… it's NEW businesses. They are the ones that consume the largest number of jobs in an economy and lead to economic growth.
We measure these flows entirely based on data filed by governments at the World Bank and the IMF. We apply two very established economic models. One is the World Bank's residual method, and the other is the IMF Direction of Trade statistical approach. These models have been used by economists for decades but we were the first group to apply these models to all developing countries.
This is a race to the future, a future powered by renewable energy sources and underpinned by efficient energy use. The winning nations, corporation and citizens will reap enormous benefits in terms of jobs, sustainable economic development, energy security and vastly improved local environments.
This single revenue source, within less than ten years of its existence, has empowered women to such an extent. This clearly shows the significant influence and impact it has had on these women's lives, on female representation, and on the power that money wields.
More than just being a luxury item, they are pieces that represent milestone moments- that's why they're important. People also reflect on whether diamonds are a hard asset class. They are the hardest of all assets, being the hardest asset known to man!
The biggest opportunities relates to the branded companies who are excellent at exploring opportunities in the BRIC and N-11 world, especially those with a consumer brand that is difficult to replicate and compete with, for example German cars, Louis Vuitton.
If Greece gets serious about privatisation, reducing the state sector and collecting existing taxes... if these things are done, whilst also reducing democracy? Then I believe Greece will emerge as a very significant success story. It could get the primary deficit eliminated in two years- creating a surplus.
The miracle of capitalism is that if you have a central government trying to solve something, it will come up with one averagely optimal solution for everybody. And capitalism will come up with 10 different solutions to the same problem.
There are two key features of blockchain that make it, potentially, a very useful technology from an economic perspective. First, the data about transactions are posted on many public sites thus giving these data an immutability that makes disputes easy to avoid. Second, although the data are in some sense public, they can be encrypted so that a particular party learns only those aspects that she needs to know.
The most common misunderstanding is that the Arctic is just a frozen wilderness with a lot of ice and glaciers and a few polar bears roaming. On the contrary the Arctic is a very diverse part of our planet with multiple resources and economic opportunities, the home for over four million people of different nationalities and diverse ethnic origin.
We can see, therefore, that sovereign debt has a systemically important role in the stability of the global economy, the economies of individual states and even the very peace of a country. To be able to then treat this as a market instrument- while appropriate at a time when capital flows were gentile and considered- is clearly not when we can write $2 trillion or more from an entire economy in a matter of seconds.
If you're not careful, possessions can end up owning you. Eventually, the car became part of my identity; it represented who I was, which isn't healthy. I want everyone to become wealthy and experience this firsthand because once they do, they'll realize material possessions aren't fulfilling.