• Home
  • About
    • About Competitive Futures
    • About Eric Garland
    • News
  • Case studies
    • Competitive strategy
    • Economic development
    • Opportunity assessment
  • Services
    • Research
      • Technology foresight
      • Future customer profiles
      • Competitor positioning
      • Investment due diligence
    • Training
      • Future Intelligence course
      • Real Forecasting
  • Media
    • Best practice reports
    • Books by Eric Garland
    • Articles by Eric Garland
    • Podcast episodes
    • STEEP Reports
    • Presentations
  • Blog
  • Contact

Posts Tagged ‘Economics’

Brazil: A bright future overcomes inflation fears

Wednesday, 16 June 2010 14:56 Written by Dan Vecchi 0 Comments

Welcome to my first of many dispatches as director of economic risk analysis at Competitive Futures, Inc. I look forward to sharing with you some the insights we provide clients on current economic trends from around the world. Jumping right in: Is Brazil’s economy too hot?

These days, the orthodox view is that economic growth is GOOD, inflation is BAD. Most countries around the world have too little of the former and risk far too much from the latter, mostly from profligate spending and “quantitative easing.” Which is why it’s easy to see Brazil as a bright spot in the global economy. Brazil’s GDP growth is at a scorching 9%- which would normally be so hot as to cause worry of inflation. But wait – Brazil’s inflation won’t cause the same problems that the world will see in all the other countries at risk of inflation due to monster deficits. The land of futbol, caipirinhas and Copacabana is more dynamic and innovative than ever before, and will overcome inflation through investment.

Inflation in hot economies is often caused by a lack of sufficient infrastructure to meet growing demand. In Brazil, this won’t be a problem going forward, to listen to the country’s forward-looking economic policy makers. The country’s economic future appears to be poised to grow past any inflation concerns. The consumer market has grown exponentially for the past 15 years; massive investment opportunities such as the 2014 World Cup across Brazil and the 2016 Rio Olympics will see inflows from across the globe; and mass infrastructure projects in energy, transportation, and extraction (Franco fields and Tupí finds) are increasing. In a world where North America and Europe look backward to find their Golden Age, Brazil is looking at the next decades.

Imagine businesses looking for growing seeing Sao Paolo as a better bet for stability than the ailing eurozone or deficit prone North America. Brazil won’t be “one of the BRIC countries” it might be “where we have our headquarters.”

“This isn’t about growth, it’s about fragility”

Friday, 11 June 2010 11:24 Written by Eric Garland 0 Comments

We couldn’t love  Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s work any more here at CompFutures. His book The Black Swan has become an instant classic for its application of scenario planning to financial markets, showing us that humility and constant skepticism are our constant allies when thinking about future. His work shows us that past performance is not necessarily future reality, and that we probably aren’t as smart as we think we are when making predictions about an ultra-complex, superconnected world.

Plus, he called the financial crisis well before 2008. It’s a small group of contrarians who got that one right. (Ahem.)

For a while, Taleb was in a self-imposed media blackout, terribly weary of having expressed the same ideas time and time again about how “eternal growth” isn’t the only scenario nations and companies should expect. Black swans, he contended in endless interviews, were still on the horizon, circling with plans to challenge the orthodoxies of Keynesianism, Hayekian free markets, or any other old fashioned 20th century notions.

With the new round of economic stimulus, bailouts, and other such faith-based superstitious economic rituals, Taleb is back on the scene to discuss why, contra Krugman, debt-based stimulus packages are making us less safe, giving us growth wrapped in a dangerous package of fragility.

A wonderful, weary, frank interview.


Fraying at the edges – Los Angeles out of cash

Tuesday, 06 April 2010 08:36 Written by Eric Garland 0 Comments

One of the great economic tensions right now in the Great Transition is between national organizations and smaller bureaucracies at the edge. For example: the economy melts down from an incredibly predictable housing bubble crash after a decade of equity destruction and flat GDP growth. Banks should fall, currencies should be scrambled. At the last minute, national governments step in, flood new printed money into the market, force stronger megabanks to buy weaker ones and – WHEW – everything can go back to normal.

The problem is, not everybody is a national government or a megabank with cellphone access to the Secretary of the Treasury. That’s when we see the smaller organizations at the edge begin to suffer the long term effects of this Transition.

We’ve spoken quite a bit about states, provinces, and smaller countries. Now, cities, municipal corporations, are on the chopping block. Harrisburg, capitol of Pennsylvania, is considering Chapter 9 bankruptcy as it considers its inability to meet the debt payments on critical infrastructure investments.

Today, it seems that a little backwoods village out west called Los Angeles is out of cash, may miss payments to vendors, and is in bad need of emergency financing.

Nation-states have rights that smaller units do not. Nations – provinces – cities – neighborhoods – individuals. If systems don’t work from the individuals on up, we predict an increase in bureaucratic peccadillos that nobody can solve through talent and hard work alone.

Spanish intelligence services: financial crisis is a conspiracy

Monday, 15 February 2010 15:22 Written by Eric Garland 0 Comments

Usually, it’s the job of tin-pot dictators like Chavez and Ahmedinejad to trot out their intelligence services and declare that the world is out to get them.

But when the Spanish intelligence service says the country is under attack from speculators in a clear conspiracy, it’s a sign of something deeply interesting. First, it’s a telltale sign that people high in the Spanish government are concerned that greater instability is on the way from the sovereign debt crisis, and they are attempting to control the narrative.

For those of us practicing future intelligence, this is a call for us to examine the broader political trends at play. Most views of the future take the Euroland to be a stable economic entity for all scenarios. Generally, a meltdown of the single currency and a brushfire war between Belgium and Portugal are considered far out.  At the very least, most people consider the continued operation of the EU to be a given – after all, it has resulted in one of the most successful, peaceful, prosperous times in the history of the continent, especially after the tumult of the early 20th century.

Still, it may be that the success of Euroland has required all countries to play a part for which they are ill-suited. Spain still has 20% unemployment. Greece’s debt is out of control. In the days before the single currency, each country would have been free to fail, unsupported by the largesse of France and Germany. Today, they have been supported through their use of a stable, global reserve currency. Like so much, this may be borrowed equity, and borrowed time.

Imagine a future for your business, and indeed your nation, in a world where Europe re-fragments. It may be less far-out than previously thought.

China’s debt risk management isn’t much better

Saturday, 06 February 2010 11:18 Written by Eric Garland 1 Comment

It looks like the United States and England aren’t the only countries facing billions in bad loans.

When you read “trillions of renminbi of defaulting loans already in China that no one is doing anything about,” you perk up about the coming crises in sovereign debt and realize it is truly global, with global repercussions.

Sign up for the free Competitive Futures Trend Report for more analysis on this topic.

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

About the blog

This is the official trend blog of Competitive Futures, a management consultancy that provides trend research and analysis for business and government around the world. Here, we update you on interesting trends we see as part of our work for our clients.


For managing partner Eric Garland's new author and speaker blog, please consult and bookmark http://www.ericgarland.co

Get trend updates sent to your mailbox

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Sign up for the CompFutures Trend Report

Trends we’re tracking

Tags

agriculture analysis bailout bailouts banking banks business development business models California China competitive intelligence debt disruption Economic Development Economics economy education Energy Entrepreneurialism Facebook finance financial crisis forecasting forecasts foresight future Futurism Greece healthcare intelligence leadership Media mergers mindsets music oil petroleum psychology publishing Retail scenarios social media social networks strategy urbanization
Podcast powered by podPress v8.8.10.12