Principles of Dealing With The Changing World Order, Part II

[Music] R an absolute pleasure to have you here with us today um it's indeed an honor and I can speak on behalf of myself and everyone here to hear from one of the gurus in the financial Market thank you very much um carrying from your opening address uh where you spoke about the tectonic shifts that we going through in the global economy today and building on your amazing book that everyone here at hash today wanted your views on how do you see this Global landscap Evol and what are the principles that you see governing it oh thank you again it's such a pleasure and honor to be here I've been coming to robu Dhabi for I think it's 34 years and it's just amazing to be here and the relationships are so wonderful uh to answer your question I'm a global macro investor and one of the things I learned in my something like 50 years of doing this is that sometimes things surprised me because they never happened in my lifetime but they happened many times in history and there were three things in particular that came along starting about four or five years ago particularly that never happened in my lifetime but happened many times before and they drew my attention to do this research over the last five 00 years and they were the amount of debt and money creation that existed yeah the second was the amount of internal conflict uh wealth and values gaps that produced populism of both extremes and you know almost a civil war kind of environment particularly in the United States but other countries too the third of course is the great international power conflict in other words the changing World Order when one great power challenges another great power and then fourth from studying history I saw that even bigger influence was Acts of nature droughts floods and pandemics killed more people than Wars toppled more governments and and orders and of course that's a big influence and then number five was technology man learns and invents new technology and so in seeing these over a period of time I realized that they're not individually important they affect each other so for example our economic debt situation affects our political situation which affects our geopolitical situation you think of the cost of climate we talk about climate estimated cost for the world is between five and 10 trillion dollars a year in a world GDP that's 100 trillion and uh and of course technology wow so where am my opinion are going to be going through almost a time work that I think the next five to 10 years is going to be radically different as we approach these things together so almost everything important Falls on into one of those categories and then thinking about how they relate to each other one can create a somewhat Vivid picture of the trends that are emerging that's that's fascinating fascinating views indeed um as you're aware R this second edition of abudhabi Finance week is built on the theme investing in a transition era in many ways inspired by your book um given all the investors and the cxos we have in the room today um I'm sure me and all of them are very keen to understand um how do you thrive in this environment and if I can put the spotlight especially on this region how do you thrive in this region given the environment we in first of all we we we we don't know what the future holds although we do know that there are problems we know for example there's a certain amount of indebtedness and it's being added to fast and that there's not enough money in the world really for all of the particular expenses and so on the these are so we know that we are in a turbulent world when we go back and study history we know that sometimes there can even be Wars what you know though is the basics matter and those are a few first the best places like the best financially individuals the best countries are those that earn earn more than they spend and have more assets than liabilities in other words do they have a good income statement and a good balance sheet as an accountant I understand that yeah financially are they strong are they places in which human capital and people working together work well together to create a civil environment in which there's creativity and productivity happening when you look around the world these are very different differentiating characteristics and number three are you in the middle of what could be a great geopolitical conflict the wars between those types of countries if you pick places that are free or Rich lower the lower risks in that regard I think that's important distinguishing characteristic history has shown that when there are great conflicts um those that do better even in Wars it's not the countries that win the war that does the best and the countries that lose what lose almost everything history is shown it is those that are not in the war the neutral countries that can prosper so all through history no matter what these particular places these opportunity places are important I think um Abu Dhabi is one of those Renaissance states that is uh in um in between the great conflicts and has to manage those things but it's a place that it's attracting talent and it's creating that vitality and it's a very civil place and a financially stable place where there's that great human capital as well as Financial Capital right now again um that's very insightful indeed um I can we can of that's a good segue to the last question that I in fact had for you so last but certainly not least uh you know you are no stranger to ababi as you yourself said know you've been here over the last 30 years and you've seen the the evolving and transition of abudhabi in so many ways um given what's happening in the in the world today how do you see abudhabi both shape and evolve in this radically changing World Order and any advice would be most welcome well I you know I think as I say I think the basics matter I think you know all parents who have children want education want equal opportuni want those ba Basics and so as I said before I think that this is um and it it's a place and also a more exciting region yeah as we're dealing with the other countries some of the other countries in the region that energy that's taking place so um I think it's a place that I wish more people who were outside the world got to know it as intimately as I've gotten to know it and I think I think that one has to pay attention to that and there's there's an expression Chinese expression is a smart rabbit has three holes you know so I think exposure to Abu Dhabi and uh and I'm not just saying this I'm beyond any of the um creating endorsements for the sake of endorsements or whatever I have experienced this and so I believe in these qualities and um I think that Abu Dhabi and the region I'm I'm very excited about the region there's an entrepreneurship that's happening venture capital and Entrepreneurship that did never existed in the way that it's happening now is very much developing so I'm excited to invest in the region I expect others when they get exposure to it will also enjoy it and uh and profit from it that's wonderful r alio that is incredible you know thank you for being Abu dhabi's partner through all these years and thank you for your valuable time today thank you very much thank you for your [Applause] partnership