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Why Inflation May Not Be Heading Back to 2% · Merryn Talks Money

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Speaker 1: John, Hello him, John, listen, I have a question for you.
0:04
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen a UFO hey Mason a UF
0:07
Speaker 1: four points when I was like twyolve in a scot camp.
0:09
Speaker 1: But it's quite possible of a drunk christ You Scott's
0:13
Speaker 1: Jesus right, Listen. UFO sightings in Scotland have gone up
0:18
Speaker 1: twenty percent from the last year. I haven't looked at
0:20
Speaker 1: the English sightings, but I'm sure they've done the same.
0:23
Speaker 1: And here's something else I bet you didn't know, despite
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Speaker 1: the fact that you were from Glasgow and you should
0:27
Speaker 1: note this stuff. There's a town in the Central Belt
0:29
Speaker 1: called bonnie Bridge, which is one of the most well
0:34
Speaker 1: known UFO sighting places on right, three hundred ver sightings
0:40
Speaker 1: the year so Texas, New Mexico bonnie Bridge. So why
0:44
Speaker 1: is bonny Blood the UFO central Absolutely no idea and
0:48
Speaker 1: then close to not caring. So you know that I'm
0:51
Speaker 1: just putting that out there is a little bit of
0:52
Speaker 1: trivia for anyone who wants something to talk about over
0:55
Speaker 1: dinner tonight. The key point is that, and you and
0:57
Speaker 1: I have discussed this before in sightings, UFO sightings go
1:02
Speaker 1: up everywhere when societies are tense, when people feel uncertain
1:07
Speaker 1: when there is change effort, when there is unrest. Right,
1:10
Speaker 1: So UFO sightings in the US went up massively just
1:13
Speaker 1: before Donald Trump was arreted. Hang on, donald Trump was elected.
1:19
Speaker 1: There was I don't know if you remember when we
1:21
Speaker 1: were both working at Dennis Publishing at the time and
1:23
Speaker 1: they owned a magazine called The Fourteen Times. Do you
1:27
Speaker 1: remember that their headline is Donald Trump an Alien? Yeah.
1:30
Speaker 1: I think they stall that headlines from National enquired art anyway.
1:33
Speaker 1: So there is this correlation, which I was telling an
1:36
Speaker 1: acquaintance at the Bank among Then the other day that
1:38
Speaker 1: they really should put in their models because it's kind
1:40
Speaker 1: of handy. There is a correlation. We won't go as
1:42
Speaker 1: far as causation between rising sightings of UFOs and political
1:48
Speaker 1: and economic change. I just wanted to let you know
1:50
Speaker 1: that and put it out there because obviously there's a
1:52
Speaker 1: lot of political and economic change going on at the
1:54
Speaker 1: moment where at there's a turning point that we've talked
1:57
Speaker 1: about before demographically firstically, monetary policy. Everything everything is at
2:01
Speaker 1: a at an inflation interest rate, everything's turning right. Actually,
2:06
Speaker 1: I suppose the other interpretation is that people will see
2:09
Speaker 1: uf always because whenever times are just stub that's partly
2:14
Speaker 1: because geopolitics is an upheaval and maybe governments around the
2:17
Speaker 1: world of like tests and new weapons like stealth bombers
2:20
Speaker 1: and things like that. How so you think that there's
2:23
Speaker 1: secret jets in the sky, you know. Welcome to John
2:26
Speaker 1: and Marrin's Conspiracy Theory podcast. Yeah, that would be very popular.
2:30
Speaker 1: I think we shouldn't not it would dismiss it. Like
2:33
Speaker 1: you know what, we get a lot more listeners than
2:35
Speaker 1: we do talking about inflation and interest rates. Listen, Timmy done.
2:38
Speaker 1: There is a lot of change. What's the thing that
2:40
Speaker 1: you've seen this week that to you represents that the
2:43
Speaker 1: biggest change, the biggest inflection Well much as I'd like
2:47
Speaker 1: to see the based inflection point is the drop in
2:49
Speaker 1: house places which are falling uponly for the first team
2:53
Speaker 1: since twenty twelve, I actually think they can A base
2:56
Speaker 1: thing that happened this week was the exit deal. I
3:01
Speaker 1: think we've been going on about Brexit for a long time,
3:03
Speaker 1: but I think that this could be a catalyst for
3:06
Speaker 1: long neglected UK equities to finally attract some of those
3:10
Speaker 1: flows that have been vanishing from them over the past
3:12
Speaker 1: seven years. I mean You can spend lots of time
3:15
Speaker 1: arguing about the economic impact of Brexit, but thing it's
3:18
Speaker 1: pretty clear that over the last seven years, global fund
3:21
Speaker 1: minders at least have taken it as an excuse to
3:23
Speaker 1: just put the UK in the two hard bin. And
3:26
Speaker 1: I think that that will be much more difficult now,
3:28
Speaker 1: particularly as you know, everyone's looking for new things to
3:31
Speaker 1: invest in and cheap assets to invest in. Now that
3:35
Speaker 1: the kind of fangs, aren't they only game in town? Excellent. Finally,
3:39
Speaker 1: and don't forget everybody that if you're investing in equities,
3:42
Speaker 1: the best hedge gainst inflation is your dividend income. And
3:45
Speaker 1: where do you get the best dividend income? The UK?
3:48
Speaker 1: Of course, yes, the UK? Right onwards. Thanks John. Welcome
3:59
Speaker 1: to Marando Money in the podcast in which people who
4:01
Speaker 1: know the markets explain the markets. I'm there in some
4:04
Speaker 1: stweb this week. Our guest is Dr Pipperman. Group's an author,
4:07
Speaker 1: an expert in geopolitics, and has served a special assistant
4:10
Speaker 1: of President George W. Bush as an advisor for reckono
4:13
Speaker 1: and policy on the National Economic Council. And she's a
4:16
Speaker 1: former member of the US President's Working Group on Financial Markets.
4:20
Speaker 1: And she knows something about UFOs. By the way, we
4:23
Speaker 1: begin our conversation discussing Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Pepper, thank
4:29
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us today. It's absolutely brilliant
4:32
Speaker 1: to have you on. Thank you. I'm glady to be here.
4:35
Speaker 1: We are talking around the first year anniversary of the
4:39
Speaker 1: Russian invasion of the Ukraine. Now, when that began, it
4:42
Speaker 1: looked like a little war, a localized war, local conflict.
4:46
Speaker 1: But a lot has changed in the last year, right,
4:49
Speaker 1: And I've been looking at some things that you've been
4:51
Speaker 1: saying and you've been writing, and what looked like a
4:54
Speaker 1: local conflicts is expanding globally. This is not a local
4:58
Speaker 1: conflict anymore, is it. No. And I wrote a piece
5:02
Speaker 1: in October twenty twenty one which was very boldly entitled
5:07
Speaker 1: world War three has already started, And that really sounded
5:11
Speaker 1: crazy at the time. But I think we're now seeing
5:15
Speaker 1: that this is not about one country, it's not about
5:19
Speaker 1: one location. It's a grand strategy, and it's pitting the West, NATO,
5:25
Speaker 1: the United States against an aligned Russia and China. And also,
5:30
Speaker 1: just to be clear, because the phrase world War three
5:33
Speaker 1: is so terrifying for people, this is a very different
5:37
Speaker 1: kind of war, and I don't think it is going
5:39
Speaker 1: to look like World War One or World War Two,
5:41
Speaker 1: where lots and lots of civilians were engaged in direct combat.
5:46
Speaker 1: I think this is a technology war. This is an
5:50
Speaker 1: invisible war where the combatants fight each other in ways
5:56
Speaker 1: that are not visible to the public. I can elaborate
5:59
Speaker 1: on that, but bottom line is it's still not a
6:02
Speaker 1: great situation. But when I say world War three, I
6:05
Speaker 1: don't mean to imply that we're going to end up
6:07
Speaker 1: in that kind of conflagration. However, what we have now,
6:11
Speaker 1: in my opinion here on the anniversary of the day
6:14
Speaker 1: the tanks rolled into Ukraine, is well, there's a word
6:18
Speaker 1: that everybody needs to know. There's a word called irredentism,
6:22
Speaker 1: and irredentism is when a nation says, we have nationals
6:27
Speaker 1: abroad that need to be protected. And that was the
6:30
Speaker 1: irrationale behind Russia rolling into Ukraine, right The Russians in
6:36
Speaker 1: Ukraine were under siege and they needed protecting. They're now
6:40
Speaker 1: expanding that strategy to new places like Transnistria, which is
6:46
Speaker 1: on the border of Moldova and of Kasia, and places
6:51
Speaker 1: like basically places people haven't heard of, you know, Artsak
6:55
Speaker 1: is another one of them. Spulbard in Norway. I think
6:58
Speaker 1: it's going to be one of them. So it's the
7:00
Speaker 1: same strategy, just expanded to new locations. That's one element,
7:06
Speaker 1: and i'll just finish with the second. The second is
7:09
Speaker 1: the Russians have basically decided to do a reverse Star Wars.
7:14
Speaker 1: So I was an intern working for Ronald Reagan in
7:17
Speaker 1: the White House when they introduced the Star Wars strategy,
7:19
Speaker 1: which was laser based systems in space on satellites, so
7:26
Speaker 1: you could take out the other guy's intercontinental ballistic nuclear
7:30
Speaker 1: missile using this system. Basically it forced the Russians to
7:36
Speaker 1: spend a ton of money they didn't have trying to
7:39
Speaker 1: keep up with the technology. Well, they learned and today
7:42
Speaker 1: they're reversing. So they're saying we're going to drop out
7:45
Speaker 1: of the nuclear Mutual Weapons Inspections treaties. We're going to
7:50
Speaker 1: put nuclear weapons on our submarines and our ships, which
7:55
Speaker 1: Norwegian intelligence this week confirmed. And this will force you
8:01
Speaker 1: to spend a huge amount of money monitoring all the
8:05
Speaker 1: borders so that you can catch any potential inbound. So
8:09
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody wants to actually launch a nuclear weapon,
8:13
Speaker 1: and I want to be clear about that, I do
8:15
Speaker 1: think that raising this threat threshold is going to be
8:19
Speaker 1: enormously expensive for the West, and the real strategy is
8:23
Speaker 1: how to bankrupt the West. When you talk about an
8:25
Speaker 1: invisible war, is that part of what you mean a
8:30
Speaker 1: war basically an economic war, a cashual and let me
8:33
Speaker 1: make you spend a vast amount of money on things
8:35
Speaker 1: that will make it hard for you to manage economy
8:37
Speaker 1: outside that. Yeah, it's also a little bit more than that.
8:43
Speaker 1: It's about the return of spy games, of kind of
8:49
Speaker 1: Cold War style spies that are implanted in Western countries
8:54
Speaker 1: and organizations, and probably it's happening in reverse as well.
8:59
Speaker 1: So the spy game is back, and you can see
9:01
Speaker 1: that if you google for it, you'll see lots of
9:03
Speaker 1: arrests have been made and spies are being captured, and
9:07
Speaker 1: so that's an element. But it's also things like TikTok,
9:12
Speaker 1: which the US government is about to potentially ban as
9:17
Speaker 1: a basically military instrument. That it's something that's been used
9:22
Speaker 1: by China to weaponize public opinion. And so, for example,
9:28
Speaker 1: the Chinese balloons that we recently saw, on one level
9:31
Speaker 1: could be seen as a highly staged TikTok event that
9:35
Speaker 1: resulted in a reduction of confidence by the American public
9:39
Speaker 1: in their own government. That's a kind of invisible war, right,
9:43
Speaker 1: So there are many layers to it. And again I've
9:46
Speaker 1: written a piece called Invisible Wars on January tenth this
9:50
Speaker 1: year on my substock column. It goes into greater detail
9:53
Speaker 1: about this. But it's a useful concept right now, Okay,
9:58
Speaker 1: And can I just take you back, fum one other
10:00
Speaker 1: thing you said about the Russia wantingle saying that what
10:03
Speaker 1: they're trying to do is protects Russian citizens in other
10:06
Speaker 1: parts of the world, and you mentioned a part of
10:08
Speaker 1: Norway where there may be Russian citizens living. How on
10:10
Speaker 1: earth does that manifest itself? How does Russia do something
10:15
Speaker 1: to protect citizens living in a country such as Norway. Well, so,
10:21
Speaker 1: super intring. First, let's be clear about the geography. There's
10:24
Speaker 1: a place called spall Barge. It's an island in the
10:26
Speaker 1: Arctic Circle. It's extremely remote. I actually went up there
10:29
Speaker 1: this summer. And because of the messy end to World
10:34
Speaker 1: War two, Small Bard has a highly unusual situation that
10:38
Speaker 1: it is technically Norway, but many countries under the Small
10:43
Speaker 1: Bard Treaty have the right to be there. So for example,
10:48
Speaker 1: I think they're thirty two or thirty four countries that
10:51
Speaker 1: are signatories. So there's a large Russian population there. Now.
10:56
Speaker 1: Historically they had been involved in coal mining, but then
11:00
Speaker 1: the governor of spall Barge shut call mining down for
11:03
Speaker 1: climate change reasons, and suddenly the Russian nationals who mainly
11:08
Speaker 1: live in Barrensburg in Spalbard suddenly couldn't make an income.
11:12
Speaker 1: So then Russia had to subsidize them to stay. Now
11:18
Speaker 1: they've just said in the last week or so that
11:21
Speaker 1: they're basically giving away apartments in spal Bard to Russian nationals,
11:26
Speaker 1: so you can just basically have a free place to stay.
11:29
Speaker 1: Why because as long as there are Russian nationals physically
11:33
Speaker 1: present on Svalbard, that creates the reason why they might
11:38
Speaker 1: need to be protected. And what we've seen is a
11:41
Speaker 1: much more aggressive stance by Russia around spaal Bard. We've
11:46
Speaker 1: seen Russian submarine surfacing and when you go up there
11:50
Speaker 1: there are loads of native ships. Basically the whole place
11:53
Speaker 1: is not high alert. And remember, actually this is just
11:56
Speaker 1: a key point. Small Barge has the fastest Internet connection
12:01
Speaker 1: in the world. Why because virtually every high altitude satellite
12:07
Speaker 1: whether commercial or military, or the International Space Station connect
12:11
Speaker 1: to Earth at Spaullbark. Why do you know, I don't
12:14
Speaker 1: know exactly why. There must be technical reasons for this.
12:17
Speaker 1: I think it does have something to do with it's
12:19
Speaker 1: easier for calms to happen at the polls, and it's
12:22
Speaker 1: easier for the North pole than the South pole. But
12:24
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, that is the point of connection. And
12:27
Speaker 1: in fact, to my mind, this war that we're seeing
12:30
Speaker 1: in Ukraine didn't begin with the tanks rolling in to
12:34
Speaker 1: Ukraine a year ago. It began about eight weeks earlier
12:39
Speaker 1: when somebody cut that Internet cable, thus signaling we can
12:45
Speaker 1: shut down all your communications. And remember all these missiles
12:49
Speaker 1: need satellite guidance, so none of your systems will work
12:53
Speaker 1: if we cut your calms off. And since then we've
12:56
Speaker 1: had loads of Internet cutting exam apples. There again, no fingerprints,
13:02
Speaker 1: nobody knows who did it. This is part of this
13:05
Speaker 1: invisible war and that I was talking about. So small
13:08
Speaker 1: Bards suddenly is on the radar and Russia is trying
13:11
Speaker 1: to increase the number of Russians who are actually present
13:15
Speaker 1: there with free flats like probably get a lot of
13:18
Speaker 1: about British people to go there anything. He said, this
13:23
Speaker 1: is really interesting. So a lot of the Invisible War
13:25
Speaker 1: and a lot of what we're going to cool World
13:27
Speaker 1: War three, even though it's a very different kind of war.
13:30
Speaker 1: It happens in places that most of us have no
13:32
Speaker 1: connection with, never heard of, and consider would previously have
13:36
Speaker 1: considered to be completely irrelevant, far distant Norwegian islands, etc. Completely.
13:42
Speaker 1: I call them sort of magical kingdoms that sound like
13:45
Speaker 1: they belong in a Hairy Potter novel, like Abkhazia and
13:49
Speaker 1: South Ossetia. And they do, they do. Yeah. And if
13:52
Speaker 1: you notice this week the Russians have been doing military
13:56
Speaker 1: exercises off South Africa where they're working with Swotini, and
14:02
Speaker 1: you know, again, for a lot of people they are like, wait,
14:04
Speaker 1: where's a Swartini? What is that? So yeah, these magical named,
14:09
Speaker 1: magically named kingdoms, as it were, are right at the
14:13
Speaker 1: heart of modern geopolitics. Okay, everyone's going to need to
14:17
Speaker 1: get an Atlas out. I have on the wall of
14:20
Speaker 1: our sitting room a giant world map so I can
14:23
Speaker 1: try and keep some sense of geography. And as soon
14:26
Speaker 1: as we finished talking, Peper, I'm going to go down
14:28
Speaker 1: and look on it. See if I can find some
14:29
Speaker 1: of these places and get a sense this is super interesting.
14:32
Speaker 1: But listen, Okay, So here we are a different kind
14:35
Speaker 1: of war, lots of strange stuff going on, but it
14:39
Speaker 1: doesn't turn, you think, into either a nuclear wall, please God,
14:43
Speaker 1: let hand what happen, or into a massive ground wall.
14:47
Speaker 1: So given that, what effects does it have on the
14:50
Speaker 1: thing that we're actually supposed to talk about it in
14:51
Speaker 1: this podcast on the global economy? For example? What a
14:55
Speaker 1: fact does that have on the way the global economy
15:00
Speaker 1: developed from here? On globalization, on energy, on this kind
15:03
Speaker 1: of thing. Okay, So one layer of this very complicated
15:07
Speaker 1: onion is what Russia did was to demonstrate that anything
15:14
Speaker 1: can be weaponized, and so Ukraine is not just a
15:17
Speaker 1: war on the ground. It was about weaponizing food prices
15:20
Speaker 1: and energy prices and creating inflation at a time where
15:25
Speaker 1: the West was very vulnerable to that. Now, what's been
15:28
Speaker 1: the response. Initially, everybody's heating bills obviously went up, and
15:32
Speaker 1: that's been a big social issue, no question about it.
15:35
Speaker 1: But also there's been this incredible entrepreneurial innovation response. So
15:42
Speaker 1: suddenly Norway has replaced Russia as the main supplier of
15:47
Speaker 1: oil and gas to Western Europe. Morocco has replaced Belarus
15:52
Speaker 1: as the main supplier of fertilizers and potash component parts
15:57
Speaker 1: for agriculture, and so it just goes to show you
16:00
Speaker 1: how resilient and robust the world economy is and how
16:03
Speaker 1: quickly it adapts. Similarly, this return of conflict, it happened
16:09
Speaker 1: to coincide with COVID as well, has caused a lot
16:13
Speaker 1: of people to say, my goodness, the world is a
16:16
Speaker 1: complicated place, and I don't know if I can trust
16:18
Speaker 1: my government or my company to look after me in
16:22
Speaker 1: the future. I'm going to start my own thing. And
16:24
Speaker 1: we see this wave of entrepreneurial response, and I think
16:29
Speaker 1: we're going to see a lot of those companies are
16:32
Speaker 1: going to do well. They're going to create value. People
16:36
Speaker 1: are learning how to work independently from institutions. So while
16:40
Speaker 1: there are bad things happening, there are also really good
16:43
Speaker 1: response functions as well. Now, in terms of the big picture,
16:47
Speaker 1: the markets have been expecting that eventually we'll get a resolution. Here,
16:52
Speaker 1: what I'm arguing is this may take longer, and this
16:56
Speaker 1: may be a more expensive process than you thought to finish.
17:00
Speaker 1: What China is doing is very clever. So the minute Russia.
17:05
Speaker 1: Putin said nuclear was a real possibility of threat. Within
17:10
Speaker 1: an hour, the Chinese came out and said truce, one
17:14
Speaker 1: word truce. Then they said constructive negotiations to China doesn't
17:18
Speaker 1: want to go to a nuclear confrontation, and neither does
17:21
Speaker 1: the US. But by threatening that, and by having Russia
17:27
Speaker 1: and China much more aligned than we've ever seen before,
17:31
Speaker 1: it pushes US and NATO to come to some kind
17:35
Speaker 1: of agreement over Ukraine's So right now we're in a
17:39
Speaker 1: moment where the question really is is the West going
17:42
Speaker 1: to put pressure on Ukraine to cut a deal or
17:47
Speaker 1: are we really going to fight to the bitter end?
17:49
Speaker 1: And I think that the appetite in the West to
17:53
Speaker 1: fight to the bitter end, especially if the Russians are
17:56
Speaker 1: now going to up this anti by taking the Ukraine's
17:59
Speaker 1: strategy to many other locations. Basically, it's creating an environment
18:05
Speaker 1: where eventually we're everybody has to cut an unpalatable deal.
18:09
Speaker 1: Russia won't get it what it wants, Ukraine won't get
18:12
Speaker 1: it once, the West won't get what it wants. But
18:15
Speaker 1: we may be able to bring it to an end.
18:17
Speaker 1: And I'll just say one tiny last thing, otto bone
18:20
Speaker 1: Bismarck put this so well, and nobody knows much about
18:24
Speaker 1: diplomacy today as he did during his era when he
18:28
Speaker 1: ran the ground strategy of all Western Europe, and he said,
18:31
Speaker 1: diplomacy is the art of building ladders for others to
18:35
Speaker 1: climb down. And right now we do not have anybody
18:39
Speaker 1: building any ladders for people to climb down. And even
18:42
Speaker 1: though it's an awful thing to have to do, I
18:45
Speaker 1: think in the end we're going to have to end
18:47
Speaker 1: up in that place. It's interesting because the rhetoric q
18:49
Speaker 1: hit coming out of the West suggested even if there
18:52
Speaker 1: was an absolutely perfect ladder made of gems, no one
18:55
Speaker 1: would climb down it. Yeah. Yeah, And I visit the
18:58
Speaker 1: Conservative Party shind ignite where Hunac spoke, and you know,
19:04
Speaker 1: the line from the West we will fight to the
19:06
Speaker 1: end is getting harder, stronger. Well, given everything that's happened,
19:11
Speaker 1: one of the things that we've been talking about a
19:13
Speaker 1: lot over the years, and I think you and I've
19:14
Speaker 1: talked about before, is the reversal of the great globalization
19:17
Speaker 1: of the last couple of decades and the effect that
19:20
Speaker 1: that will have on individual economies and on inflation. Now,
19:25
Speaker 1: do you still think that globalization will continue to all
19:29
Speaker 1: to go backwards. I know you're terribly optimistic in lots
19:31
Speaker 1: of areas. So where do you see that going? The
19:34
Speaker 1: rebuilding of supply chain, resilience, etcetera. Which has given us
19:37
Speaker 1: bouts of inflation over the last couple of years, how
19:40
Speaker 1: do you see that playing out over the next couple Totally?
19:43
Speaker 1: So I had to make up a new word for you.
19:46
Speaker 1: Always make up new words. Words are great, you know,
19:49
Speaker 1: by the way, listeners who aren't used to hearing Pipper speak,
19:52
Speaker 1: It was Pipper, I believe, who invented the word shrink flation. Right, Well,
19:57
Speaker 1: the words of yours. Well, here's the thing. Actually, it
20:00
Speaker 1: turns out so I did. I came up this word sreinflation,
20:03
Speaker 1: and I remember talking to your conference about it at
20:07
Speaker 1: the time. You know, this was back in twenty sixteen
20:09
Speaker 1: or earlier, because there wasn't a word to describe this
20:14
Speaker 1: thing about your candy bars at the shop keep getting
20:17
Speaker 1: smaller but you're paying the same price, and it's an
20:20
Speaker 1: early indicator than inflation is building and it's going to come.
20:23
Speaker 1: But then it got into the Merriam Webster Dictionary this year,
20:27
Speaker 1: which was amazing. It's amazing However, now it turns out
20:31
Speaker 1: there are some other people who were also using it,
20:34
Speaker 1: but I didn't know it at the time, so I
20:35
Speaker 1: think it's an open question who really invented it, But
20:38
Speaker 1: a bunch of us kind of spotted that there was
20:40
Speaker 1: a need for a new word. So today my new
20:42
Speaker 1: word is globalization, and what that means is globalization and
20:48
Speaker 1: localization coming together. And I think that is where we
20:52
Speaker 1: are with globalization. So the old definition of globalization was
20:56
Speaker 1: really that all the jobs would go to China. Right
21:00
Speaker 1: we just said, Okay, we're going to outsource all manufacturing
21:03
Speaker 1: of hardware to China and software will be done in
21:06
Speaker 1: the West, and that was the definition of globalization. Well,
21:10
Speaker 1: today we have a situation where we are relocalizing supply chains.
21:17
Speaker 1: We are manufacturing everywhere in the world now, and because
21:21
Speaker 1: China isn't competitive anymore through inflation, through their slowdown, the
21:28
Speaker 1: destroyed belief that they're going to get rich before they
21:31
Speaker 1: get old, they don't believe this anymore, so they're not
21:35
Speaker 1: working in the same way they were. All that taken
21:37
Speaker 1: together means that we have a relocalization of production everywhere,
21:44
Speaker 1: and I think fundamentally we're going to end up with
21:47
Speaker 1: more competition, more market entrance, a greater distribution of jobs
21:54
Speaker 1: around the world instead of just everything going only to China.
21:57
Speaker 1: And so glocalization is a more advanced, more comprehensive version
22:03
Speaker 1: of globalization than what we used to have. It's a
22:07
Speaker 1: better version, actually, even though it's been a hard process
22:10
Speaker 1: to get here. Now, the problem for China and the
22:13
Speaker 1: problem for the world is that if they're not competitive anymore,
22:18
Speaker 1: we can't just say to a billion people, oh well,
22:21
Speaker 1: too bad for you, right, we have to find a
22:25
Speaker 1: way to reintegrate those billion workers into the world economy
22:29
Speaker 1: in some way or another. And that is our sort
22:33
Speaker 1: of task of our generation now. And I would add
22:36
Speaker 1: that we have to do it with Russia too. You know,
22:39
Speaker 1: it's not that every Russian citizen supports what President Putin
22:44
Speaker 1: is doing. And you can't just cancel economies, right, You
22:48
Speaker 1: can't just say, oh, well, everyone in Russia has to
22:50
Speaker 1: suffer forever because they once had a bad leader. I mean, heck,
22:53
Speaker 1: I'd hate to be held accountable for any of our
22:56
Speaker 1: recent US presidents, right as an American citizen. So one day,
23:01
Speaker 1: when something changes and we get a deal, we're all
23:05
Speaker 1: going to have to figure out how to reverse on
23:07
Speaker 1: a dime and reintegrate all those brilliant Russians who had
23:12
Speaker 1: nothing to do with all this back into the world economy.
23:15
Speaker 1: And unpalatable as all that sounds right now, I think
23:18
Speaker 1: it's essential because if we don't reintegrate the Chinese and
23:22
Speaker 1: the Russians, we will end up in this fight again. Okay,
23:27
Speaker 1: but how do you reintegrate those tens of millions of
23:31
Speaker 1: Chinese workers who may now be slightly priced out with
23:33
Speaker 1: the global market when it comes to making localst goods.
23:36
Speaker 1: How does that turn around? Well? And it's further complicated
23:40
Speaker 1: because President she has introduced the Great Digital Wall as
23:46
Speaker 1: they're calling it, which is he cut off access to
23:49
Speaker 1: the global Internet. So if you're in China, you cannot
23:51
Speaker 1: connect to the top four or five thousand websites. And
23:56
Speaker 1: how are you going to innovate if you don't know
23:58
Speaker 1: where the cutting edge of innovation is? And so I'm
24:02
Speaker 1: very concerned that the leadership in China are making it
24:05
Speaker 1: impossible for the average person to figure out a better
24:09
Speaker 1: way forwards. Right in the West, we can do it
24:11
Speaker 1: because we have personal freedoms which we often take for granted.
24:15
Speaker 1: But you know, you can just upsticks as many people have,
24:18
Speaker 1: right the great quitting that we all talk about, and
24:21
Speaker 1: they say, I'm just going to start my own thing.
24:23
Speaker 1: I'll be a digital nomad, I'll go create online, I'll
24:26
Speaker 1: we don't even think about how wonderful it is to
24:29
Speaker 1: have that freedom. And in China you don't have that freedom.
24:33
Speaker 1: Not only can they not connect to the internet, but
24:35
Speaker 1: they have the social credit system now where you get
24:38
Speaker 1: scored on all your behaviors, and so if you express
24:43
Speaker 1: opinions that are contrary to the government, you try to
24:46
Speaker 1: go buy a train ticket, but your card won't work,
24:49
Speaker 1: so they start locking you into digital prisons, physical spaces
24:53
Speaker 1: that you can't burst out of, and thought processes that
24:57
Speaker 1: you can't burst out of. None of this is conducive
25:00
Speaker 1: to productivity. So I think within China there's been a
25:04
Speaker 1: big argument and g has been under pressure from the
25:07
Speaker 1: party as the party begins to realize that China's future
25:12
Speaker 1: is being impeded by this strategy. Yeah, do we need
25:17
Speaker 1: to worry about about social credit systems coming to the UK.
25:21
Speaker 1: There's lots of conversation around digital ID cards and the
25:24
Speaker 1: type of information that can and can't be held on
25:28
Speaker 1: those cards, etc. And it is making the kind of
25:31
Speaker 1: people who worry about the sort of thing. And I
25:33
Speaker 1: have a tendency to worry about the sort of thing myself. Say,
25:36
Speaker 1: you know, we look at China and we're horrified by
25:39
Speaker 1: the digital control systems there that this could be coming
25:42
Speaker 1: to the West. I think it has come to the West.
25:45
Speaker 1: We've done it with private companies, right, we do with
25:48
Speaker 1: Amazon and Google and every company that you interact with.
25:54
Speaker 1: And for me, the issue is people always say, well,
25:57
Speaker 1: I have nothing to hide, and then I ask, Okay,
26:00
Speaker 1: when's the last time you ordered ice cream on Uber
26:03
Speaker 1: eats at midnight? And they're like, yeah, I do that. Okay,
26:07
Speaker 1: Like okay, so you think you have nothing to hide.
26:10
Speaker 1: But the thing is the correlations that the algorithms generate
26:16
Speaker 1: will tend to say that someone who eats ice cream
26:20
Speaker 1: at Bennet is maybe of a little bit emotionally unstable,
26:24
Speaker 1: and then that shows up as someone does a digital
26:27
Speaker 1: search on you, and when you're applying for a job
26:30
Speaker 1: and they see that red flag and now you didn't
26:34
Speaker 1: get the job because you've ordered Uber eats, right, And
26:37
Speaker 1: do you think, oh, but it's all anonymized. Yeah, it's
26:39
Speaker 1: not so anonymized. Anymore. I mean, it's pretty easy to
26:42
Speaker 1: reverse engineer things. So I think you know, for all
26:47
Speaker 1: our GDPR, the reality is that you have a digital footprint,
26:51
Speaker 1: and is it knows more about your digital twin knows
26:56
Speaker 1: more about you than you know about yourself. And the
26:59
Speaker 1: footprint that you are leaving with every single thing you
27:02
Speaker 1: do is visible. It's just not visible to you. So
27:06
Speaker 1: I'm very concerned about this intensification of the digitization, which
27:11
Speaker 1: by the way, is coming in the form of new currency,
27:14
Speaker 1: which is to the core of your podcast, right. This
27:18
Speaker 1: is an entirely new form of money that's coming, which
27:21
Speaker 1: we call CBDC Central Bank Digital Currency. What that will
27:25
Speaker 1: permit is the integration of all of your data, everything
27:29
Speaker 1: on your phone, everything on your computer, everything that has
27:34
Speaker 1: to do with your spending, and that comprehensive picture, in
27:37
Speaker 1: my view, can be used against you. And you should
27:42
Speaker 1: have some kind of a bill of human rights to
27:46
Speaker 1: either be able to ask to see I think you
27:48
Speaker 1: should be able to go to every company, like you
27:50
Speaker 1: should be able to go to marks and sparks and
27:51
Speaker 1: say tell me what I look like to you, and
27:54
Speaker 1: then it's like a credit right. You should be able
27:56
Speaker 1: to look at your credit record and say what's going on,
27:59
Speaker 1: and you find doubt there's something that you didn't know,
28:02
Speaker 1: so you change your behavior to lift your credit score.
28:05
Speaker 1: I think we're going to need this, and I think
28:07
Speaker 1: it's a reasonable ask, but oh boy, the big data
28:11
Speaker 1: gathering firms and government are probably going to fight this
28:15
Speaker 1: to the bitter end. So I think, you know, it
28:17
Speaker 1: brings the many efficiencies that are very useful, lots of transparency.
28:22
Speaker 1: I wish government would apply it to its own balance
28:25
Speaker 1: sheet and we'd have a better sense of, you know,
28:27
Speaker 1: how public spending is working, which I kind of doubt
28:30
Speaker 1: will happen. Well, old tyranny starts with convenience, doesn't it.
28:34
Speaker 1: I love that line. Who say, is that yours? I
28:38
Speaker 1: think it might be someone else, But that's a serious Okay,
28:42
Speaker 1: I'm putting that up on the nets. That's a great line.
28:48
Speaker 1: Starts with convenience. Yes, you know. I mean, I think
28:51
Speaker 1: lots of our listeners do worry about CBDCs because we've
28:54
Speaker 1: talked a lot over the last few years about how
28:57
Speaker 1: a digital currency, a bank sponsor digital currency is effectively
29:00
Speaker 1: the loss of the loss of the last vestiges your privacy,
29:03
Speaker 1: and also, of course it could conceivably come with negative
29:07
Speaker 1: interest rates applied to your cash, and could come with
29:10
Speaker 1: spending constraints in various areas. You know, a government could
29:13
Speaker 1: decide that actually, you know, what were the tomatoes shortage?
29:16
Speaker 1: No one's allowed by tomatoes or cucumbers, and that can
29:19
Speaker 1: go through a digital currency in ways that we would
29:22
Speaker 1: all find it extremely uncomfortable. So that's something that I
29:25
Speaker 1: think our listeners are very interested in, and thank you
29:27
Speaker 1: for scaring them more. Sorry, but you know, it's like
29:31
Speaker 1: I'm just the messenger here. Here we have the Prime
29:34
Speaker 1: Minister of Britain saying he wants Britain to be the
29:37
Speaker 1: center for digital asset clearing. Now, on the one hand,
29:41
Speaker 1: jacks are going to be some big benefits to the
29:44
Speaker 1: country if it can become the center of digital asset clearing.
29:47
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, it does mean that this
29:50
Speaker 1: brickcoin concept is going to get rolled out, and now
29:54
Speaker 1: is the time for the public to express their concerns
29:59
Speaker 1: and desire instead of being ignorant or staying silent. So
30:04
Speaker 1: that's why I'm raising the flag and waving it around
30:07
Speaker 1: on this. We can make this work. We just have
30:10
Speaker 1: to participate and not allow it to be a purely
30:13
Speaker 1: technocratic rollout. And let me ask you then, now, which
30:16
Speaker 1: has you on digital currency? So let me ask you
30:18
Speaker 1: about where you see inflation going from here. I know
30:20
Speaker 1: you've got a good record of inflation has previously discussed,
30:23
Speaker 1: but you know where the world is not dividing into
30:25
Speaker 1: two camps, people who say, once inflation has gone beyond excent,
30:28
Speaker 1: it's really really hard to get it down, and so
30:31
Speaker 1: we're going to hover around sixty seven something for quite
30:35
Speaker 1: a long time. And the other camp who was saying, well,
30:37
Speaker 1: actually we're going straight to deflation. Where where do you stand? Yeah,
30:41
Speaker 1: so I have not felt that we're going into hyper inflation.
30:48
Speaker 1: Let's just start at that end of the spectrum. I
30:51
Speaker 1: do think this is tricky because all the textbooks don't
30:55
Speaker 1: apply to what we're in right now. It's a supply
30:59
Speaker 1: side and demand side problem. Usually what you do, and
31:03
Speaker 1: all the textbooks say if you raise interest rates then
31:05
Speaker 1: inflation will come down. But right now, we don't have
31:09
Speaker 1: enough companies making things, whether it's tomatoes growing things, or
31:15
Speaker 1: whether it's computer chips, or you can put pretty much
31:19
Speaker 1: anything in that line, you know, So how are you
31:24
Speaker 1: going to get more companies to make more stuff? You
31:27
Speaker 1: need to supply capital, so raising interest rates is not
31:31
Speaker 1: helping to increase the supply. So you know, this idea
31:37
Speaker 1: that the two are correlated is just not really working anymore.
31:40
Speaker 1: And second, this is another reason why CBDCs are probably coming,
31:44
Speaker 1: because governments see that with digital currency you can double
31:49
Speaker 1: or have the money supply in a single keystroke. So
31:52
Speaker 1: then not only that, but you can direct it. So
31:56
Speaker 1: with traditional monetary policy, you announce you know, you're giving
32:00
Speaker 1: away free money and your lowing interest rates, and basically
32:02
Speaker 1: all the cash goes to the banks, and then the
32:04
Speaker 1: banks allocate that capital out, which they typically don't really
32:08
Speaker 1: actually do very well. Under CBDC, they can say, oh,
32:12
Speaker 1: you're building a new nuclear fusion plant and we want that,
32:16
Speaker 1: so we're going to allocate capital to you. Oh but
32:21
Speaker 1: you are building something we think there's already too much
32:25
Speaker 1: of it, so we're not going to allocate capital to you.
32:28
Speaker 1: And the danger is that government starts to get into
32:30
Speaker 1: the business of allocating capital to winners and losers, which
32:34
Speaker 1: they are historically just terrible at, and it would be
32:37
Speaker 1: a defiance of the whole system of capitalism, which should
32:41
Speaker 1: allow capital to flow where investors see opportunities, not where
32:47
Speaker 1: government designates there's a socially engineered outcome they want. You know.
32:51
Speaker 1: The other thing is, yes, supply chains are relocalizing, which
32:56
Speaker 1: means supply is more readily available locally. Great, but it
33:03
Speaker 1: means you have to change your habits. So, for example,
33:06
Speaker 1: the business of buying raspberries in January, it's not so
33:11
Speaker 1: easy in an inflation world. But if people stop buying
33:15
Speaker 1: raspberries in January and they change their habits, then the
33:20
Speaker 1: inflation isn't so bad, right, because the demand for that
33:24
Speaker 1: expensive thing is declining. So I think people are changing
33:28
Speaker 1: their habits, their consumption habits, in quite a remarkable way.
33:32
Speaker 1: COVID is probably most responsible for that. People have really
33:36
Speaker 1: shifted and started to think about what's really important to
33:39
Speaker 1: be And do I really need to spend money on
33:42
Speaker 1: raspberries in January? Do I really need to be on
33:48
Speaker 1: a career path of a particular kind? Like the question
33:51
Speaker 1: of what do I really need? Has changed? Yeah? I agree,
33:55
Speaker 1: I agree, and to be you know, behavior changes can
33:58
Speaker 1: obviously change the path of inflation. And so it sounds
34:00
Speaker 1: to me like that like you are a four to
34:04
Speaker 1: five percenter. Yeah, I would say that's a good description
34:09
Speaker 1: of me. I mean, I anticipated we were going to
34:11
Speaker 1: go to double digit, which again at the time, people
34:13
Speaker 1: are like, that is insane. We will never in the
34:15
Speaker 1: West go to double digit inflation. I'm like, well, will
34:18
Speaker 1: watch it. Watch it. So we have jumped up, right,
34:22
Speaker 1: so we could be more like a five to ten
34:24
Speaker 1: five to ten percent. I think we may face that
34:27
Speaker 1: for a while. And that's still pretty shocking for pretty
34:30
Speaker 1: shocking for populations that he used to inflation knocking around
34:34
Speaker 1: one two three percent. It's still it's a shocking business.
34:36
Speaker 1: And it makes you wonder something I talk about with
34:38
Speaker 1: several guests. Will the central bank shift their inflation targets?
34:42
Speaker 1: You know, will they shift the target to meet the
34:44
Speaker 1: radi of inflation rather than hoping that the raatei of
34:46
Speaker 1: inflation will come down to meet the target, the target,
34:48
Speaker 1: of course, being almost entirely random, no one can remember.
34:51
Speaker 1: I often ask people, you know, do you know where
34:53
Speaker 1: the chief scent came from? And of course most people
34:55
Speaker 1: haven't got the faintest idea it always picked out of
34:57
Speaker 1: thin air. It was what we've actually found, and I've found,
35:00
Speaker 1: and I've mentioned this on the podcast before, we actually
35:03
Speaker 1: found in an all magazine called Status, which is not
35:05
Speaker 1: a fund In an issue of that from the early sixties,
35:09
Speaker 1: we found a report on the paper that an academic
35:13
Speaker 1: had written where he made the suggestion that possibly, conceivably
35:18
Speaker 1: two percent inflation was roughly the right amount to encourage
35:22
Speaker 1: growth in a developed economy New Zealand. New Zealand academic.
35:26
Speaker 1: I know, I've talked to central bankers about this and
35:29
Speaker 1: they're likely it's just totally random. We picked it out
35:32
Speaker 1: at an air The real issue is what is the
35:35
Speaker 1: pain tolerance of the public. And then the really big issue,
35:39
Speaker 1: and this is the critical issue, is how are we
35:44
Speaker 1: going to fund the future? That's the real basic question.
35:51
Speaker 1: And because there's so much debt, inflation is a way
35:55
Speaker 1: of getting rid of debt. So if you say two
35:58
Speaker 1: percent inflation is okay, where you're really saying is we
36:01
Speaker 1: erode the debt burden by that much and that shouldn't
36:05
Speaker 1: be so much pain for the general public. But when
36:08
Speaker 1: you get up into these higher numbers, it's just more pain.
36:11
Speaker 1: So you get more political volatility, which we're seeing right.
36:16
Speaker 1: We're definitely seeing more political volatility. And this is a
36:20
Speaker 1: question of like what's the pain tolerance over the coming
36:24
Speaker 1: years for what's required to fix all this, Just to
36:27
Speaker 1: be clear. In the end, look, we've had much worse
36:30
Speaker 1: inflation than ten percent. People will figure it out, they
36:33
Speaker 1: will adjust, there will be solutions. So it's not that
36:37
Speaker 1: it's impossible. Right when I was a kid, we got
36:40
Speaker 1: to what was it, twenty one percent inflation and everybody's
36:44
Speaker 1: still here, right, they survived, So we'll figure it out.
36:48
Speaker 1: It's just uncomfortable. We'll figure it out. Yeah, And you know,
36:53
Speaker 1: with a bit of like that level of inflation, will
36:55
Speaker 1: if maybe we say four five percent for a decade,
36:58
Speaker 1: and we'll find that our level of government debt have
37:01
Speaker 1: gone down very significantly relative to GDP, and that will
37:03
Speaker 1: not be a bad thing. Might be uncomfortable on the way,
37:07
Speaker 1: but it's a good result. It's a good result that
37:09
Speaker 1: let's pepper, I have to ask you because here we are.
37:11
Speaker 1: We've talked a lot about the global environment, the geo
37:14
Speaker 1: political environment, the global economy, inflation, etc. But what on
37:18
Speaker 1: earth does an investor do in an environment like this?
37:21
Speaker 1: So you know, here we are, as ordinary retail investor,
37:24
Speaker 1: sitting here with our ices and our auto enrollment pensions
37:26
Speaker 1: going Oh god, one day I want to retire what
37:29
Speaker 1: do we do? Why would you put money? Now? Well,
37:33
Speaker 1: so let's start with the word retire, which I think
37:39
Speaker 1: is to retire one day. I hear you, well, but
37:44
Speaker 1: what's the definition of retire in the modern era. It's
37:47
Speaker 1: not this old nineteen fifties sixties idea that you stop
37:51
Speaker 1: and then you spend the rest of your life playing golf.
37:54
Speaker 1: I don't think that really works anymore. The fastest growing
37:58
Speaker 1: component of the labor market now in the US and
38:01
Speaker 1: in the UK are the over fifty fives. Now why
38:04
Speaker 1: is that? Because frankly, they realize they're going to live
38:07
Speaker 1: till they're a hundred and they don't want to be bored. Now,
38:10
Speaker 1: are they going back to a full time job. No,
38:12
Speaker 1: but they are going back to a portfolio. So they'll
38:15
Speaker 1: be like working with a friend on an entrepreneurial project,
38:18
Speaker 1: and they'll do some consulting for their old boss and there,
38:21
Speaker 1: you know, they create a portfolio of different income streams.
38:25
Speaker 1: And it also gives them something that's productive to do.
38:29
Speaker 1: And I do think human beings are healthier and happier
38:32
Speaker 1: when they have identity, that they have meaningful work. And
38:37
Speaker 1: so I think that's happening and I can't say that's
38:41
Speaker 1: a bad thing. That also brings all that knowledge and
38:44
Speaker 1: wisdom back into the economy. I always thought it was
38:46
Speaker 1: crazy that we fire people automatically at sixty. I'm like, wait,
38:50
Speaker 1: there aren't those people maybe the most valuable people to
38:53
Speaker 1: have around. Yeah, now I'm tirely agree. Okay, So let
38:56
Speaker 1: me redefine retirement for you. Let me redefine retire as
39:00
Speaker 1: being the ability to choose when, how and where you work,
39:04
Speaker 1: be the ability to afford to do that. So that's
39:07
Speaker 1: what we want. I think when we hit maybe fifty
39:10
Speaker 1: five pushing sixty, what we want is to be able
39:12
Speaker 1: to fully afford to say, do you know what, there's
39:15
Speaker 1: just one afternoon on that for me, and I'm going
39:17
Speaker 1: to play golf for two days and then may be
39:19
Speaker 1: able to another half day consulting for so and stiff.
39:21
Speaker 1: So it's still even with the new definition of retirement
39:26
Speaker 1: or growing old, etc. It's still nonetheless a financial equation agreed,
39:31
Speaker 1: and the choice options are fewer in the current environment,
39:36
Speaker 1: which is why people feel like I wanted to retire,
39:40
Speaker 1: but I'm not able to yet. So that's one piece
39:42
Speaker 1: of this second piece of it is, you know, look
39:45
Speaker 1: as interest rates go up. There are lots of very
39:49
Speaker 1: conservative things that are paying better. You know, bonds look good,
39:53
Speaker 1: and that is what everybody was complaining about a decade ago. Right,
39:58
Speaker 1: So now you can make money being in bonds, government bonds,
40:03
Speaker 1: you know, corporate bonds. And also because of all this
40:08
Speaker 1: innovation and technology and people forget that, you know, the
40:13
Speaker 1: phone in your pocket literally has more computational power than
40:16
Speaker 1: we needed to send a human to the moon. Right,
40:19
Speaker 1: people are able to create income streams using their phone
40:24
Speaker 1: in ways that were unimaginable twenty years ago, and they
40:28
Speaker 1: are so that means there are lots of new startups.
40:33
Speaker 1: And I mentioned the wave of startups. If you google that,
40:36
Speaker 1: you'll see Bloomberg did a piece a little while ago
40:38
Speaker 1: about this incredible wave of startups that's occurring now. Startups
40:45
Speaker 1: are fascinating to me because our biggest pools of savings
40:50
Speaker 1: are pension funds. Basically can't invest in them because number one,
40:54
Speaker 1: they're too small, so they can't absorb very much capital,
40:57
Speaker 1: and number two, they're very risky, and that number three
41:01
Speaker 1: they don't really move the performance dial for big institutional
41:06
Speaker 1: investors and for little investors they're just too crazy risky.
41:10
Speaker 1: But It's so strange because this is the part of
41:14
Speaker 1: the economy that generates most of the net new jobs
41:17
Speaker 1: is firms that employ less than fifty people, and it
41:20
Speaker 1: definitely is the source of most of the new innovation.
41:23
Speaker 1: Like this week, I was talking at Rolls Royce and
41:27
Speaker 1: they have to figure out how to interface with little
41:29
Speaker 1: startups because they're the ones with the coolest new technology.
41:32
Speaker 1: It's not coming out of the big majors anymore. So
41:36
Speaker 1: we need to find a way for the people in
41:40
Speaker 1: your audience to be able to engage with earlier stage
41:45
Speaker 1: startups than we have been able to. I also think
41:49
Speaker 1: there's a ninety four percent failure rate of startups in
41:53
Speaker 1: the United Kingdom, which is considered one of the best
41:57
Speaker 1: performing startup markets in the world right at a ninety
42:02
Speaker 1: four percent failure rate, So we should ask question why
42:04
Speaker 1: are they all failing? And often it has to do
42:07
Speaker 1: with things that are so easily fixed. It's because they
42:09
Speaker 1: have a brilliant idea, but it's never occurred to them
42:11
Speaker 1: how do you actually run a business? So they don't
42:14
Speaker 1: know how to set up a data room for the investors,
42:18
Speaker 1: or they don't understand what kind of legal framework they're
42:22
Speaker 1: going to need to create the business. These are things
42:25
Speaker 1: that are fixable. We could lift the success rate of startups.
42:30
Speaker 1: And I would say that everyone in your audience has
42:33
Speaker 1: an interest in be able to engage and invest in
42:39
Speaker 1: that space and getting a higher success rate. But you
42:42
Speaker 1: have to be able to accept that. You know, like
42:44
Speaker 1: private equity firms, they go, We're going to invest in
42:47
Speaker 1: twenty things and seventeen are going to fail, and three
42:52
Speaker 1: of them are really going to pay well, they're going
42:55
Speaker 1: to one. One'll ago. Yeah, it sounds like John and
42:58
Speaker 1: I need to write more about VCTs and IT equity.
43:00
Speaker 1: John has been writing a bit about private equity recently.
43:03
Speaker 1: He's interested there. I'm always mildly suspicious of the structure
43:06
Speaker 1: of the private equity sector, but you know, we'll write
43:09
Speaker 1: more on that. Let me ask you one last thing,
43:12
Speaker 1: which I'm fred asking everybody because I'm fascinated in it.
43:15
Speaker 1: In the answers, you hold any cryptocurrencies? Would you be
43:18
Speaker 1: a buyer of cryptocurrencies, in particular of bitcoin? So I don't,
43:25
Speaker 1: but I'm very active in following this new technology and
43:31
Speaker 1: I I've not been a big bitcoiner. Oh gosh, now
43:37
Speaker 1: I'm going to get hit on Twitter. N't time for
43:39
Speaker 1: saying yep, you are. But I have been very big
43:43
Speaker 1: on crypto. I have said, this is a fundamentally new technology.
43:50
Speaker 1: It's about decentralizing the world of finance, and it's a
43:56
Speaker 1: democratization of finance. That's very important. But that doesn't mean
44:02
Speaker 1: that every single business model that is within crypto is good.
44:06
Speaker 1: So the shakeout that we've seen in crypto, you know,
44:09
Speaker 1: the whole sam Bangmin freed disaster, people went, that's it
44:14
Speaker 1: crypto's debt, and I'm like, no, no, yeah, that was me,
44:17
Speaker 1: that was me crypt That would definitely me Crypto's dead. Okay,
44:21
Speaker 1: But I think this is like when the dot com
44:24
Speaker 1: bubble burst and everybody was like, that's the end of
44:28
Speaker 1: the Internet. Were done, and actually it was the beginning.
44:32
Speaker 1: And the reason is you had the shakeout of all
44:35
Speaker 1: the really bad business models around the Internet that didn't
44:38
Speaker 1: make any sense, and the ones that survived, which weren't many,
44:42
Speaker 1: were good business models. And so I'm watching the crypto
44:46
Speaker 1: space for these better business models that will now begin
44:50
Speaker 1: to exist. And again, as government goes to CBDC, they're
44:54
Speaker 1: gonna say, I think they're gonna say crypto is fine,
44:58
Speaker 1: you can have crypto if one, which has not been
45:00
Speaker 1: their position to date. But I think they're going to
45:02
Speaker 1: say it's okay, but they're two provisors. Number One, it
45:06
Speaker 1: can't be held anonymously, and number two, you have to
45:10
Speaker 1: declare it. Now the bitcoin crowd is going to say it,
45:12
Speaker 1: but the whole point of being a bitcoin is to
45:14
Speaker 1: be anonymous and not have to declare my money to
45:16
Speaker 1: the government. I'm like, well, good luck with that, because
45:19
Speaker 1: the state is the state. So you know, you can't
45:22
Speaker 1: run and hide this. You're going to have to pay
45:24
Speaker 1: your taxes and be part of the system, or you
45:27
Speaker 1: can try to find some islands somewhere, but you know,
45:30
Speaker 1: good luck with that. So and the Sam Bankman Freed
45:34
Speaker 1: case is going to demonstrate this that And I actually
45:38
Speaker 1: will go further and say, I think the US government
45:40
Speaker 1: or maybe the British government are going to end up
45:42
Speaker 1: being the biggest holders of bitcoin and crypto assets through confiscation. Yeah,
45:50
Speaker 1: because as you confiscate all these assets, then you're gonna
45:54
Speaker 1: if you're a treasury and you're at the Justice Department
45:57
Speaker 1: and FBI, you're like, hey, I just confiscated four billion
46:01
Speaker 1: dollars worth of crypto, which was the first big enforcement
46:06
Speaker 1: case that they did. That's how much they got. Now
46:08
Speaker 1: are they going to say that's worthless. No, they would
46:12
Speaker 1: much rather say no, this has real value and it's
46:14
Speaker 1: ours now and we could spend it. I mean, that's
46:16
Speaker 1: more than the annual budget of you know, most government agencies.
46:20
Speaker 1: So I do think we're going to see crypto that
46:25
Speaker 1: is compliant. Now, that's the whole bunch of people are
46:28
Speaker 1: going to say, well, that defeats the whole point of crypto,
46:31
Speaker 1: and I say, well, I don't think so. I think
46:33
Speaker 1: that we'll see a place for this democratizing of finance,
46:40
Speaker 1: this this dividing up of the capital flows that crypto permits.
46:47
Speaker 1: It's just just going to be compliant with the new
46:49
Speaker 1: CPDC arrangements. Okay, yeah, you're definitely getting k back. I
46:56
Speaker 1: can fail it coming. Yeah, but we should end that
47:00
Speaker 1: they are taking up enough of your time. But that
47:02
Speaker 1: I would tell you what we didn't do. We didn't
47:03
Speaker 1: talk about space. We're gonna have to we have to
47:06
Speaker 1: talk about by the way that all right, okay, we
47:08
Speaker 1: have to do that. We have to do that, especially
47:10
Speaker 1: here in Britain, because I think the British public are
47:12
Speaker 1: totally not getting the Britain space sector is going to
47:16
Speaker 1: be massive. I would say it's going to be on
47:19
Speaker 1: a par with the city It's this is going to
47:21
Speaker 1: generate cash gloves for this country that are extraordinary. And
47:25
Speaker 1: people are like, well, why, first of all, why are
47:26
Speaker 1: we even going into space? We've got all these problems
47:28
Speaker 1: here on Earth. And the real answer is because you
47:30
Speaker 1: can solve virtually every earthbound problem with a space based solution,
47:35
Speaker 1: including unlimited energy unlimited US no no, no, stop, SUPs up.
47:39
Speaker 1: How can we get unlimited energy from space? This is
47:42
Speaker 1: about the Sun and mirrors. It is it is yeah,
47:45
Speaker 1: and Arabus has now done the test and shown it works.
47:49
Speaker 1: By the way, we already knew it worked because militaries
47:51
Speaker 1: knew it worked. All you're doing is put a mirror
47:54
Speaker 1: on a satellite, you beamed the Sun's raised Earth in
47:57
Speaker 1: the form of mainly radio waves, and suddenly you can
48:00
Speaker 1: have cheap unlimited energy anywhere, anytime. And notice that the
48:04
Speaker 1: Saudis have just invested with the British to build this
48:09
Speaker 1: capacity in the North Sea. So you know this is
48:13
Speaker 1: not like sci fi. This is totally coming and I
48:17
Speaker 1: have friends who are building the prototypes for these things.
48:20
Speaker 1: This will be in two and a half three years,
48:21
Speaker 1: we're gonna see this live. And okay, now that start
48:25
Speaker 1: worrying about the energy crisis. I do start worrying about
48:28
Speaker 1: the energy crisis completely. Honestly, it's gonna be we wake
48:31
Speaker 1: up one morning where to go, Holy moly. And here's
48:33
Speaker 1: the big problem. What the heck is that going to
48:35
Speaker 1: mean for oil and gas companies? I think their sure
48:39
Speaker 1: price is going to get hit hard by this reality
48:42
Speaker 1: that's coming. So there's a whole bunch more to say.
48:45
Speaker 1: But Britain is at the forefront of this, and the
48:48
Speaker 1: US wants them to be in that position. So it's
48:53
Speaker 1: scenario that I would be investing in. I would be
48:56
Speaker 1: watching carefully and understanding the implications for other industries, including
49:02
Speaker 1: by the way, I know this sounds so science fiction,
49:04
Speaker 1: but mining of asteroids and suddenly you don't need to
49:09
Speaker 1: rip up Earth anymore, and mining companies on Earth they're
49:12
Speaker 1: going to find they're confronting really high grades silicon, really
49:17
Speaker 1: high grade cobald, really high grade gold that you are
49:23
Speaker 1: getting from an entirely new location and it doesn't create
49:26
Speaker 1: environmental problems. And so there's a whole bunch of stuff
49:30
Speaker 1: going on in the space space that's worthy of attention,
49:32
Speaker 1: So I write about that too on my subset column.
49:35
Speaker 1: I have a couple of columns called the space space. Okay, okay,
49:39
Speaker 1: one last question. Then I'm gonna ask you to give
49:41
Speaker 1: us the address of that subsex so can go sign up.
49:43
Speaker 1: But why why the UK? Why? I mean you keep
49:46
Speaker 1: saying this is a wonderful of chinkief. The UK well
49:48
Speaker 1: right at the full front of this, But why why
49:50
Speaker 1: are we at the full front of it? I mean,
49:51
Speaker 1: I'm thrilled, but why ls I think it's partly because
49:55
Speaker 1: the United States wants Britain as their closest defense ally
50:01
Speaker 1: to be deeply engaged in this. It's partly because I
50:06
Speaker 1: think it's the imperial empire path. So the British have
50:11
Speaker 1: a sense of the world and possibility. And one of
50:14
Speaker 1: the things the earliest stage of the space space is communications,
50:20
Speaker 1: and so the British are very involved in satellite networks
50:24
Speaker 1: for Internet connectivity. For example, British are very strong on
50:30
Speaker 1: the international Internet cabling process around the world, submarines, etc.
50:35
Speaker 1: All that is connected to this building out of Internet
50:39
Speaker 1: access via space. Right like today, only three percent of
50:42
Speaker 1: most Internet connections happen via starlink in space in the future.
50:47
Speaker 1: I think that's going to go to like ninety percent rights.
50:50
Speaker 1: And so because the British have this global view and
50:54
Speaker 1: this history of working with different parts of the world,
50:57
Speaker 1: they are actually very involved in the communication sector and
51:01
Speaker 1: therefore involved in that space. And let's face it, British
51:04
Speaker 1: are very strong on things like mining globally, so the
51:10
Speaker 1: clever miners are going, hey, we have a whole new
51:12
Speaker 1: domain to work in. So I think we're gonna send
51:17
Speaker 1: the launch that we recently saw in You and I
51:19
Speaker 1: talked about all the new launch locations here in the UK,
51:22
Speaker 1: the one in um Cornwall and the one you've been
51:26
Speaker 1: to up and I think, yeah, yeah, you said, there's
51:30
Speaker 1: not much there. It's not very exciting that will be,
51:33
Speaker 1: but there will be. That's right. Well, right now everybody's
51:36
Speaker 1: focused on launch. I think launch is almost over, Like
51:40
Speaker 1: we already know we can launch. The issue is what
51:43
Speaker 1: you're going to do in space, and I think the
51:45
Speaker 1: build in space is coming. And again Britain's very good
51:50
Speaker 1: at robotics, remote control, automation, right, I've you know, been
51:57
Speaker 1: involved in manufacturing drones here in the Okay. I know
52:00
Speaker 1: the British can be very competitive in this space. So,
52:05
Speaker 1: by the way, just to finish, I'll just say this,
52:07
Speaker 1: when you think about the space space, I think they're
52:10
Speaker 1: gonna be a ton of jobs created by this. But
52:12
Speaker 1: then you won't need to go into space. I think
52:15
Speaker 1: we're going to find there a whole bunch of people
52:17
Speaker 1: that are sitting here on the ground here in Britain
52:19
Speaker 1: working every day managing assets that are in space. That's
52:24
Speaker 1: the future that I see. Well, there we go, everybody,
52:27
Speaker 1: not just global Britain, but into galect. It's seriously interplanetary
52:31
Speaker 1: and I'm not too writing. Give us your substack address.
52:35
Speaker 1: I'm gonna fail. Everybody wanting to read more about this. Yeah,
52:39
Speaker 1: doctor Pepa dot substag dot com and it's listed as
52:43
Speaker 1: doctor Peppa's pen on podcast. But I haven't launched the
52:45
Speaker 1: podcast yet, but I will be. You better get home.
52:47
Speaker 1: I know it's going to be brilliant. Pippa, thank you
52:51
Speaker 1: so much for joining us today. Absolutely fantastic. We're so grateful,
52:54
Speaker 1: so great to be on with you. Thank you, Thank
53:00
Speaker 1: you for listening to this week's Marion Talks Money. We
53:02
Speaker 1: will be back next week. In the meantime, if you
53:05
Speaker 1: like our show, and I can't think that you wouldn't rate, review,
53:08
Speaker 1: and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast. This episode
53:12
Speaker 1: was hosted by me Bear in Sunset Web. It was
53:14
Speaker 1: produced by Samasadi, additional editing by Blake Maple's special thanks
53:18
Speaker 1: of course to Pipmalgram and to John Steppok and his
53:21
Speaker 1: many UFO sightings, and of course our weekly reminder to
53:25
Speaker 1: sign up to John's daily newsletter Money Distilled. Link is
53:28
Speaker 1: in the show notes. You will not regret signing up right.
53:31
Speaker 1: One more special announcement, I will be doing a live
53:34
Speaker 1: taping of this podcast at the Bloomberg invest event on
53:37
Speaker 1: the twenty second of March. It's called Strategies for Wealth Creation.
53:41
Speaker 1: If you're in London you can join in person. Everyone
53:43
Speaker 1: else join online. The link is in the show notes,
53:46
Speaker 1: so do please register. We would love to see you
53:49
Speaker 1: there