It was interesting to read of Prime Minister Putin’s aspiration of creating a Eurasian economic zone whilst I was drinking a cup of coffee yesterday[1]. Founder members of this new ‘Eurasian Union’ are Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, and membership could extend to include Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan too. So we have another EU entering its gestation [...]
Dr Ian Bremmer put forward an interesting model in February 16 issue of the Financial Times[1]. The model was the J-Curve and Dr Bremmer used it to illustrate current events in the Middle East. I show the J-Curve model below: You can see that running along the vertical axis we have stability. Along the horizontal [...]
PWC’s 14th global survey of CEOs – Growth Reimagined: Prospects in emerging markets drive CEO confidence[1] paints a welcome and optimistic view of the future path of globalization. Plus points in this report include: An increasing emphasis on the need to innovate (and not just innovation to get costs down) – innovation in markets and [...]
Download pdf version Quick Points: An overview in 120 seconds During the past three months two major studies, focusing upon the future of the global economy, have been released. Both show significant global growth and the emergence of a swathe of new economies. This information can be interpreted from two perspectives. The conventional perspective sees [...]
The Irish Crisis[1] is important, not merely in economic terms, but from the perspective of seeing how the future, post Great Recession world order, is evolving. I will argue here that ultimately the shape of a post-recession world will be shaped by those architects with the greatest political power and influence. The late Susan Strange[2] [...]
If your business plans hinge on the continued rolling forward of the globalization bandwagon then you had better draw up a contingency plan (regular readers of this blog will have already prepared such plans). The news[1] that the US Fed will engage in a second round of quantitative easing (“QE2″) could well take the wheels [...]
September was a bad press month for Ireland. The month started with Boone and Johnston[1] noting that each family in Ireland could end up being liable for Euro200,000 of public debt by 2015. Munchau[2] talked of the possibility of default and Carey and Ashton[3] provided us with a case study analysis of how the banking [...]
Those of you who are regular readers of my blog will be familiar with my view that the real impact of any recession is felt when the economists call the recession over. It’s only after a recession is technically closed that the real driving forces of change (I’m talking primarily political and socio-demographic drivers here) [...]
Arguably two books, published over the last twenty years, have made a profound impact on the way that business leaders see the future world. One is Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man[1] arguing that western-based liberal democracy will spread across the globe. The other is Friedman’s The World is Flat [2] making [...]
Get a group of people in a room and ask them what the drivers of change are – the forces that could reshape the world we live in. I would hazard a guess that the list of change drivers that we would generate would be headed up by: Climate change Energy supply Sustainability Technology, e.g. [...]
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