“All Progress Comes From Deviating From The Norm” Featuring Dr. Pippa Malmgren, Economist and Author

Today we were delighted to host Dr. Pippa Malmgren. Pippa is an experienced economist, author, and speaker, served as an advisor to President George W. Bush, and has advised the British Cabinet and the Cabinets of several Asian nations on economic policy. She has held several significant positions throughout her career including Senior Advisor to Monaco Foundry and Avonhurst, Board Member at Premios Verdes, former Managing Director at Bankers Trust, and the author of several award-winning books. She is a founder and co-founder of tech ventures spanning robotics, cleantech, space, and more. We were thrilled to get Pippa’s perspective on current global economic trends and geopolitical events.

Our discussion explored a range of topics starting with Pippa’s experience in the White House during 9/11 and her team’s challenging task of re-creating a market for US Treasuries and re-opening the NYSE. Pippa shares her outlook on today’s stress-filled geopolitical environment, the unique and often misunderstood relationship between the US and China, and why Pippa thinks the world is at a peak in geopolitical tension (and trending down from here). We discuss the potential for war between China and Taiwan, what surprises might happen there, geopolitics in Latin America including Chinese and Russian influence in the area, and the possibilities for the often-dismissed potential of space-based solar power. We then explore leadership and leaders around the world, Pippa’s latest book “The Infinite Leader,” autocracy vs. democracy, Europe’s seat at the table geopolitically, AI’s potential and the importance of the human element and creativity, and more. We ended with Pippa’s thoughts on the current culture at universities and her advice to all of us to shift from a “scarcity mindset” to the “possibility of abundance.” We look forward to continuing to follow Pippa’s work on SubStack (linked here) and can’t thank her enough for sharing her geopolitical wisdom, for stimulating our thinking, and for encouraging all of us to think outside our own boxes.

Mike Bradley kicked us off by highlighting this week's FOMC meeting, noting that consensus was placing near zero odds for a rate hike at this meeting but roughly 50% odds of a rate hike at the next FOMC meeting. From a commodities standpoint, he highlighted that Brent and WTI prices surpassed $95/bbl. and $$92/bbl. respectively. He also noted that there was an interesting back and forth last week between the IEA (Financial Times Op-Ed from Fatih Birol linked here) and OPEC (statement linked here) regarding peak oil demand prior to 2030. He ended by highlighting that energy equities have lagged the surge in crude oil price, mostly because equity investors need to see how crude oil price trades when Saudi begins pushing crude barrels back into the market before there can be energy equity multiple expansion. Jeff Tillery shared a few observations of the public energy markets over the past 8-9 months, noting an overall trend towards normalcy in the energy sector.

We greatly enjoyed the conversation with Pippa and hope you find it as interesting as we did. Thanks to you all!