Doomsday Dollars: Scaramucci & Roubini Decode Fiat’s Fragile Future

Anthony Scaramucci 0:38
Joining us today on speak up with Anthony Scaramucci, is Professor Nouriel Roubini. He is a renowned economist from NYU, he’s now a professor emeritus. I hate saying that Nouriel, because it implies you’re old. And you and I know how very young you actually are. He sped on the time when I

Nouriel Roubini 0:59
had a gray hair

Anthony Scaramucci 1:00
gray. Well, that’s you’re doing better than me with the gray hair category. But I could always introduce you to my colorist, but But you you’ve been on the time 100 list, you write for the Financial Times, Forbes, your winner of the coin desk, top mind awards, you served in the White House at Treasury Department, your most recent book, which I’d like to talk a little bit about, which is an awesome book called mega threats. You also wrote a book about the economic crisis in 2008, which I greatly enjoyed. You’ve been called Dr. Doom in the past, because you correctly assessed the global financial crisis and in 2008. But aside from all those things, you just said, a really amazing friend, I brought you won because you possess shaman like powers when it comes to predicting markets. And I want you to do some of that for us today. So tell us what you see happening in the world. Give us a sense for where you think the economy is right now. And some of the things you’re worried about at some of the drop the mystic about?

Nouriel Roubini 2:08
Yes, always a good pleasure to be with you. You’re also a great friend, and I have great respect for all the great things you’ve done, and your success. When we talk about the global economy and the various regions, I think that we have to separate the short run the cyclical candle cycle, from the medium to long term trends. In the short term, of course, the debate is soft landing, softish, landing, hard landing or landing, what’s going to happen to inflation to growth to central banks and the stock market. And you have to differentiate between US, Europe, Japan, China, and emerging markets. Over the medium long term, we have to think about what are going to be on the positive side impacts of technologies in the future, starting with AI on the positive, and on the negative on what in my most recent book I called mega threats. There are some trends that are more medium long term, they’re going to lead to lower growth and higher inflation. So let me focus for now, on the short term, I would say there are four scenarios that people have been discussing. One was the one of the soft landing where US and other major advanced economies reached back inflation of 2%. Not this year, but say by the end of next year, without having any recession. That will be the Goldilocks immaculate disinflation scenario. Second one will be one of a soft dish or bumpy landing, where you do achieve that goal. But with a narrow, short and narrow recession, short and shallow, say two quarters of negative economic growth may not make a big difference between the two with us in two aspects. If you have a bumpy landing, the stock market will have a correction for a while. And secondly, that’s going to affect the political outcome. And we have a big election coming this year. And whether Biden or Trump is going to win assuming that these are the two candidates likely is going to depend on how well or how poorly the economy’s gonna be doing. So those are the two main scenarios that are another one have a real hard landing recession and financial crisis, that when there was a spike in oil, energy and commodity prices, after the Russia vision Ukraine look possible. And when there was the problem last spring with the US banks and then some European also looked like a risk. As of now, that risk of a real hard landing is out of the picture. There is another scenario especially for the US northern Landy where in spite of the Fed hiking rates, the economy could still grow, about potential inflation with that not all as fast as the Fed wants. And in that scenario, interest rates will not be cut at all this year. and that will be a negative for the stock market. Now, I’d say hard landing and no landing probably not very likely. Therefore, we are left with a soft landing and a bumpy landing. For the US, the surprising thing for the US has been how resilient the economy has been, and how resilient even the stock market has been, in spite of now, the Fed saying that rates are not going to be cut anytime soon. You remember a few months ago, the markets were saying the Fed could cut up 262 basis points. This year, the Fed was telling us no, there’ll be only three rate cuts. And then the results about the economy, strong growth, latest results about inflation, f dash the market expectations about rate cuts. Right now, rate cuts for this year, are being priced around maybe 80 basis points for the year. This is not very different from what the Fed is telling us and the market were expecting the Fed cutting rates in March. But instead now the market expectation have aligned with something that the Fed is signaling that they are not going to see cuts until June at the earliest. Now the interesting thing about it is that you would have expected me believe that there is expectation that the Fed will not cut as much and not too soon would hurt the stock market. Even if of course, a soft landing is good overall for the market. And so we are for the US for now, in a baseline of a soft landing. What has happened is that in spite of rate cuts being postponed to further out and less than what market wanted, the market has actually rallied further significantly, because of course of the of what has happened to the Magnificent Seven. If you exclude those seven stocks from the s&p 500 the rest of the market is done fine. But of course not as good as they magnificant seven. So what is been driving essentially the market higher, in spite of rate cuts being a later and smaller as being the outperformance of these of these tech stocks because of all the reasons we know about. So that’s where the US in Europe and the eurozone and the United Kingdom, economic growth for the last few quarters has been between epsilon positive and epsilon negative. It is effectively okay the bumpy landing is not a severe recession like the one that would have occurred after the shock to energy prices because there has been resilience and the Europeans are found ways of finding reasonably cheap energy from other parts of the world when the energy supply from Russia was cut off. The bad news was the economy is weak. The good news that compared to a severe recession with that occurred otherwise, you know, the economic growth in the Eurozone is flat. But unemployment rates so far is still low. And Job creation has been good. Of course, the Euro has underperformed relative to the dollar. and European stocks have been underperforming relative to American stocks because of the tech stuff. And most likely, at this point, given the weakness of Europe, the ECB is going to start cutting rates sooner and slightly more than the Fed this year. And that shows up in their current weakness of the euro. But we are essentially in a bumpy landing but not not really a severe contraction. Finally, China, China is more of a structural slowdown, potential growth in China is the best for the rest of this decade. 3% might be lower, for reasons I could discuss this is not cyclical is structural, because demographic because of state capital is because of a lack of social welfare there because of the policies bashing the the private sector by shooting pm and so on and so on. But that means that China’s not going to be a main engine of global growth. If anything, that count is going to be well on the outperforming China for the rest of the decade is going to be India, where potential growth is closer to 7% potentially higher if they do more reform. So for the last 30 years, China has been the rabbit and in India was lagging behind the air, those roles have been reversed. But of course, the baseline for which India is starting is much smaller. And therefore the impact of stronger economic growth by India on the global economies is not as significant as the slowdown of China. So so we’re in a soft landing for the for the US were in the bumpy landing for Europe and UK. We are in a bumpy landing from China. and the rest of the emerging markets depend some of them a better fundamentals are doing while some of them are actually very fragile. And they’ll have severe debt and financial crisis. But none of the major ones will have a severe financial crisis.

Anthony Scaramucci 10:15
But it’s an amazing summary I want to I’m talking to you from beautiful Abu Dhabi. So behind me, is the Arabian or the Persian Gulf, whatever you like to call, depending on where you live, call it something different. You’re getting the six 7% growth here, as well. And I guess what I’m wondering, is about the West, and the sustainability of economic opportunity and growth in the West relative to other parts of the world, like some of the parts that you’ve mentioned, India, so, so are we up against it in the West, because we just have too much deficit spending? Are we up against it demographically? Or is there an opportunity in the West perhaps that I’m not exactly seeing relative to places like the one I’m talking to you from Norio?

Nouriel Roubini 11:10
Yes, you’re right. You know, the Gulf is doing well, because there are lots of natural resources. And in places like Abu Dhabi and Dubai, they’ve actually invested it intelligently diversify growth. In other sectors, Saudi Arabia is trying to do the same thing. All of them have a vision 2030 Or so I plan to move away gradually from natural resources and fossil fuels will use that oil wild for investment in other things, to different degree of success. But positive. You know, most emerging markets are fragile, but none of them is going to have a severe financial crash about the West, I would say there are two forces, one is more positive. And the other one is more negative. I recently wrote, actually an op ed, that was titled, artificially intelligence versus human stupidity. Because I said, we are in some sense in the best of all worlds, because AI and a number of other technologies of the future are going to imply stronger potential growth, stronger productivity, growth, and greater human wants are living longer and healthier. And that’s going to be actually those innovation are going to start mostly in the West, especially the US, and only in part in emerging markets, say China. So are we are in this best of all worlds, because technology, like in the past, can increase human welfare, per capita income, economic activity. But we’re also in the worst of all worlds, because of what they call human stupidity. But these bad policies, and that bad policies are the type of mega threats that I’ve discussed in my recent book. There are geopolitical rivalries that we can discuss that may slow down economic growth and fragment the world. There is, of course, climate change, that can be eventually damaging of economic growth, and raise cost of production. Unfortunately, COVID-19 is not going to be the last pandemics, there is ageing of population on one side, and migration massively from potentially from south to north and poor, the rich, in part because of climate refugees, in part because economic and social and political collapse in some fragile states, we have this backlash against liberal democracy and democratic capitalism because of rising income and wealth inequality. And that leads to populism of either extreme right, in many parts of the world or extreme left, like we’ve seen recently, in Latin America. And we have another range of economic, monetary and financial risks the risk of higher inflation and lower growth stagflation, the risk of D globalization, de risking the coupling fragmentation, of having balkanized global supply chains, as we emphasize economic security over economic efficiency, and that protection is going to be negative for economic growth, and it’s going to cause high inflation. So, there are on one side, like stationary forces, that are these magnets right they imply lower growth, higher cost of production, call it stagflation. And then other forces technology that imply lower sorry, higher economic growth and lower inflation but a good disinflation, a good deflation. Inflation is coming not from lack of demand, but rather by increased supply of goods and services. I would say over the short term the next 10 years, I worried that these mega threats are going to be more important, but in the end faced these threats and resolve them, probably 10 years from now, the impact of technological innovation is going to imply another productivity revolution. So there is hope, in spite of demographics, politics, geopolitics, environment, health, you name it, that this may be a better world and actually technology is used intelligently because technology can be used for damaging purposes could help us to resolve some of these megatrends?

Anthony Scaramucci 15:29
Ya know, it’s interesting, because we, we set up a whole slew of worries. And then the good news is the forces of technology, improve the society, right, you and I grew up with peak oil theory. And then he thought we were going to run out of oil, but then look at all the great tech that led to fracking and all the innovation in terms of exploration. I want to switch to something that we both know a lot about, and I think we differ on and this is something that was one of the reasons why I love talking to you because I think we are at intellectual. simpatico often, but sometimes we’re at intellectual odds with each other. We very famously debated each other on crypto at the FBI conference here in the Gulf in Riyadh a few few years back. What are what are your thoughts now? On Bitcoin cryptocurrencies? Do you see wider adoption? Do you think that this is as Jamie Dimon believes it is a pet rock or a Ponzi scheme? And then tell us a little bit about the blockchain initiative that you have going in your business? Yeah,

Nouriel Roubini 16:38
you know, as you know, I’ve been skeptical, you know, of crypto, and we’re respectfully disagreed on it. I think that even those that believing crypto agree that certainly in advanced economies, but also most emerging markets, these another be real currencies, and sorry, calling them cryptocurrency is a misnomer. They’re not a unit of account, they’re not a scalable means that a payment, they’re not really a stable store of value. They’re not a single numeraire. So if you know anything about monetary theory, calling them you know, currencies, it means nowhere, and they’re not going to be widely used for means of payment, frankly, unless you had really high inflation, advanced colonists. And even some of the pessimists are like meeting inflation might go from two to five, but you need very high inflation for having a process of replacing fiat currencies with something else. Now some of them imply that there may be some store of value function for it. People say bitcoin is limited in supply. And that may lead to eventually at a price. That’s fine. I’m skeptical of that. But if it happens, so what you know, there are $100 trillion of, of assets, real financial, real estate, whatever in the world. Suppose one of them is that suppose that for some blockchain related technologies, people are gonna use Aetherium fine, but you know, there were 20,000 ICOs, about 80% of them were a scam to start with another 17% already gone to zero of the remaining 600, even the top 10 from their peak, fallen 2030 In some cases, 60 70%. So, you know, compared to the internet, but people said, this is going to be like the internet doesn’t look like the internet. And while I believe there’ll be a financial services revolution, because traditional legacy system, if the problems were not all, a much more of a believer that the revolution, financial services gonna come from FinTech that is not really based on blockchain is based on AI machine learning big data collected by sensors, Internet of Things, and using that five genes, and six G in the future is going to provide the means of payment, Credit Allocation, asset management, InsurTech, and you name it and so on. And there are 1000s our firms that are FinTech and not to do with Blockchain that provide, you know, financial services, we’ve revenue and we’ve profits. So I’m more believing that being disruptive in the long term. Now that blockchain technology itself may have actually some validity, there may be users, it might be useful, I don’t think it’s going to completely change the world. People believe that everything’s gonna be on the blockchain. And frankly, again, that’s not happening. And unlikely is gonna happen because they don’t project the first time user just might be actually useful. You know, I’ve been involved into an initiative that is based on essentially providing a token me zation of real and financial assets, my critique of most of crypto is that is backed by nothing. And it is backed by nothing. You cannot say what is fundamental value. But suppose that we worry as I do about the rise in inflation, and we find a set of assets that are protecting you against inflation. And the traditional defensive asset, as you know, was long term treasuries. But in a world of higher inflation, long term treasuries a defensive asset. When equities are poorly he’s got to do poorly, like he did when rates went higher, and two years ago, and bond prices fell 20% When the s&p fell only 15%. So you need an alternative to long term Treasury is a combination of gold, short term Treasury tips, and very types of sustainable real estate, take this bundle of assets, create an ETF, create an index, trade, whatever, and then tokenize it. So you have an asset that is backed by real and financial assets. It provides a much better returns than traditional fixed income is a hedge against inflation, debasement of fiat currencies against political and geopolitical risk. And again, against even environmental risk. God does well, in good times, and there’s convexity, when there are bad times, that thing that is tokenize as a value, you know, every day and every moment, because these are all liquid assets, is backed solely by that is not a stable coin, because its value fluctuates daily. But here’s what people like amsurg, another I’ve spoken about is a is a flat coin, something that actually provides you a return that is positive, aligned with inflation. So I believe that that’s something that actually is useful to have, and to tokenize stable coins out there. But if say stable coins are the killer app of crypto, what have you done? You complain about fiat currencies, and you have recreated Fiat, and stable coins of all the problems of Fiat? If there’ll be debasement of fiat currency, stable coins are not gonna do any better than Fiat. So I don’t think that Fiat is the way to go. I think that someday provides you a stable, backed by real and financial assets hedge against inflation is a useful asset to tokenize. That’s what we’re doing.

Anthony Scaramucci 22:28
Okay, well, this I love I love your strategy, which is why I wanted to bring it up, then you are using the blockchain technology as part of the strategy. And, and you know, it’s fluctuating. But it’s it’s a core group of great assets, that would would would hedge against inflation. And so before I turn it over to questions from our audience, I want to ask you about our $34 trillion of debt, and the growth of that debt. It looks like the ECB CBO is saying the Congressional Budget Office is saying, whether it’s a Democrat or Republican, the spending is not going to stop and it looks like the deficit will be roughly five and a half to 6% of the GDP for the next three to 10 years, if not longer. And is that sustainable Nouriel. And if it isn’t sustainable as an investor, what would Yeah, it’s

Nouriel Roubini 23:28
a very valid point. And on top of public debt in the US also, you have a large stocks of private debt, actually, some of private plus public debt today in the US is about 420% of GDP. It’s higher than it was during the Great Depression, and higher than it was at the end of World War Two. And today, we’re not in a Great Depression. And we are not at the end of a major global war, when in those cases, of course, that goes much higher. It’s huge. It’s eventually not sustainable. I think on that when people agree. And you’re right on the politics, when Democrats in power, they tend to spend more, but they’re not able to raise taxes to pay for it. When Republicans are in power, they love to cut taxes, they say they’re gonna cut spending, but they’re unable or unwilling and therefore, you’re you’re always deficits. Now, why has not yet become unsustainable, it’s not become unsustainable, because in an emerging market, when you have lack of fiscal discipline, there is market discipline, you punish by having your currency falling in value, your sovereign spreads going higher, and then you have to adjust. Same thing, even in advanced economies like Greece, Italy, even United Kingdom, where fiscal policy goes in the wrong direction. You are beaten up and you’re forced to change policy. The problem with us is that paradoxically, our benefit This exorbitant privilege of being the global reserve currency that is used the the dollar still, as a major global reserve currency, it’s a benefit, because on one side allows us to finance ourselves cheaper and longer, not only our fiscal deficit, but also our current account our trade and external deficits, we can finance them bigger and for longer and for cheaper. But the problem with it is that exactly because there is no market discipline for the US dollar, then the mark is gonna give us even more rope to hang ourselves. And eventually, when these things and will eventually become unsustainable, the crash is going to be even more severe. So we’re postponing the Doomsday, but eventually, that’s going to be occurring, what’s going to be trigger, we don’t know by could be that in the next decade, they trust funds of Social Security ran out of money, and then we have a crisis because we cannot pay the benefits with the current payroll taxes, that could be the trigger, or it could be like last year, people starting to worry about the deficit being sustainable, then you start to see some market discipline, when, for a short period of time 10 year treasury yields went towards 5%. And they could go even above, so you need something of a trigger. Now, in other countries, that borrow in a foreign currency, like emerging markets, or even a Eurozone country that cannot print money by themselves, because they ECB does it for them, then the only option, if your debt is unsustainable, is to default. You’ve seen it in emerging market, you’ve seen it. In the case of Greece, the advantage of us and other advanced economies of borrow in their own currency is you don’t have to formally default. If you have an increase in inflation, like it happened in the last couple of years, the real value of long duration fixed income goes lower, and therefore your debt to GDP ratio falls. So you can always use what’s called the inflation tax to get yourself out of your problem. And I think that’s more likely you’re not going to see because defaulting that’s why I’m actually pessimistic. And I believe that the average inflation rate is not going to be 2% is going to be more five plus in the US, because eventually, the stock of private in public that is going to imply we’re not able to cut spending, or raise revenues and taxes, then the only path of least resistance means to monetize it, and to have surprise, unexpected inflation wiping out that that it is still a tax by so the inflation tax and more sneaky tax, because it’s not even legislator, but yeah.

Anthony Scaramucci 27:49
It’s also Curt is creating a lot of political dissent in though too because people feel a lower standard of living in the middle class or lower middle class because their dollars being devalued as a monetized debt. And so in some ways, it is of a regressive tax. And so this, this is worrisome. And I think it’s gonna have a worse than expected impact on the political landscape. We’re gonna get more firebrand oriented politicians, and, you know, more nastiness as a result of this. But we’re gonna we’re gonna take some questions now, if you don’t mind. And the first one, I’m going to hand over these, this is more of a military question. It’s about the Thrift Savings Plans. What I’d be correct to believe that the G fund and the F Fund will be more inversely to each other. And the answer to that, Michael, and this is Luke, Air Force Base firefighter. The answer to that is correct. And so we like the G fund after our team examined that, more than the F Fund in a scenario like that. We do appreciate the question. Let’s take another question. This is a little bit more for you nor ETL. For years, the market has been affected by the tactic of indexing and a shift to growth as this decoupled the market from capital flow valuation structures to its own addictive racetrack. It’s interesting because we talked about the Magnificent Seven, the 493 Lag The Magnificent Seven, what do you say to David from New York Norio?

Nouriel Roubini 29:26
I think there is a validity to the argument that since a lot of the investing has become passive investing following indices, as opposed to active investment that requires to do some valuation analysis. It’s possible that at least over the short run, even poor performing company may be actually lifted or not fallen as much because of their part of passive and passive in the company. So people say in order to have Proper both market discipline and proper valuation, you need to have active investors that are stock pickers rather than being passive investing. So I think that that’s true. But of course over time, where there is a significant gap between those valuation driven just by passive investing and the underlying fundamental the market practice itself. So I think in the short term might be true but don’t in the passive investing implies that valuation can be totally decoupled by from that from the fundamentals over the medium long term. All right,

Anthony Scaramucci 30:38
let’s take another question. Worried about the decline of the Dow okay, this is apropos to what I was talking about this is Thomas from Florida $34 trillion $34 trillion of debt, researching Bitcoin, thinking about putting some of his money there. Okay, so I’m appropriate corner. Nouriel is against Bitcoin? What would you say to Thomas?

Nouriel Roubini 31:05
I would say that, if you’re asking yourself, at least in the last few years, whether Bitcoin as being a hedge against the invasion, I’m not sure that that’s the right edge, because in the two years when inflation was rising sharply, Bitcoin actually was doing poorly, it went from a peak of 69 to 15. To now that inflation is falling, Bitcoin is going higher. So Bitcoin to me looks like not an uncorrelated asset, to say equities, but it’s actually even more correlated than, than equities to the economic cycle. You know, when I go much higher, Bitcoin that tends to do even better, especially in times where the Fed is either cutting rates or expect to cut rates, while in times where the market is going down. Either because there is risk of, or there’s a risk of a recession, or the Fed is tightening rates, the stock market falls, but Bitcoin falls even more so. So it’s more volatile than the market is not yet to be proven. That is a hedge against inflation. It may be some broader diversification asset. I don’t fully understand it. But if you’re really worried about the basement of fiat currencies and inflation, as I said, a basket that includes short term Treasury tapes, gold, maybe some other precious metals, maybe even food and some of the transition, decarbonisation metals, the green metals, and maybe types of real estate that may be a basket that provides your greater hedge against inflation than Bitcoin itself.

Anthony Scaramucci 33:02
Okay, okay. Well, listen to take this the shell is about our guests. And our finance is so I’m gonna let you have the last word and that Nouriel, although I tried not to let you have that last word, and Saudi Arabia a few years back, let’s go to our next question. I

Nouriel Roubini 33:17
know your views on Bitcoin and I respect that you’re very smart. And Bitcoin right now is closer to 60. Again, so you know, I mean, denies that.

Anthony Scaramucci 33:27
But to your point, sir, it is about all asset and so I tell people, if they’re using it very, very small allocations to Bitcoin until it until it matures and becomes more adaptive. Let’s go to the next question. Okay, is someone learning about crypto, where does one invest at first? If one has a 50,000, or more traditional investing, so I’ll take this it’s a I would just go into i that it’s dollar sign idebit, which is the Blackrock Bitcoin trust, but I you know, this is just generic financial advice, not specific marry from Illinois. And so I would just caution people, as I always do very slight allocations to this sort of stuff. Let’s go to the next question. Your opinion about cryptocurrency? How much influence do you believe Rick’s will have over the next five years? So you’ve already shared your opinion on cryptocurrency, but tell us about the BRIC nations and their currency situation. So relative to the US, and whether or not they’ll be more involved with crypto like the country of El Salvador.

Nouriel Roubini 34:39
You know, there was a lot of hype about a decade ago about the breaks combination of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. There may be other country added now to the brakes, they can talk about brake plus. On the economic side, actually, things have been disappointing people We’ll say they’re gonna grow so much faster than advanced economies that they’re gonna, unquote, become a much larger share of global GDP. But think of this country, China has gone from a growth rate of 10, to five, to now potential of three lashauwn growth, even before the war was at best, potentially one and a half percent, now probably is barely above zero, because of the consequence of a growth, potential growth as opposed to what’s happening this year. Brazil has always been the country of the future. People say they have all the resources, all the potential investment, but then average growth for the last decade has been between two or 3%. It doesn’t seem like it’s breaking out on that one. South Africa, same problem. There is a middle amount of political instability. It has not or resources, but there’s lots of bottlenecks of infrastructure starting with electric grid, barely growing 2% per year. And the only really success story has been in the US our growth has gone from five to seven, but their share of global GDP of India, it’s it’s very small. Now. So probably, and by the way, this country are very different economically, some producer of services, some commodities, some manufacturing, some democracy, some autocracies, some export oriented, some not export oriented, some close to us, and some of them being rival of us. So there’s not going to be common economic policy by the three. It’s a very non homogeneous group and China, India Strategic rival within this group, I don’t think that these countries are going to massively adopt crypto in China is forbidden, even if there were ways to have access to it. India has been also skeptical, and has really developed I have instigated FinTech solutions, where they, their payment system actually used by over a billion Indians and allows you to do payment very, very cheaply, and very, very efficiently. They, the amount of adoption of Krypton, the other bricks has been really modest. And all of these breaks, by the way, for relatively low inflation, they’re actually quite successful in keeping inflation low. And crypto usually probably is a defensive asset, when you have really runaway inflation, you know, not 5%, not 10. But you go to 3050 100. You know, like in places like Turkey, like in some Latin American countries, and so on, and so on. So I would say among the BRICS, I don’t see any of them being a high inflation cancer anytime soon, while some of the weaker and less credible emerging markets, maybe, but even the country where people say they have adopted crypto, yeah, they have adopted it as legal tender as Salvador. But if you look at the adoption of crypto for actual means of payment and transaction is really tiny. So yes, never creaked on top of their own currency. But it’s not as if crypto is a significant means of payment is not at all. And that in the country, the actual is made crypto legal tender. So if you are a store and somebody wants to pay you in crypto, you cannot say no. That option is really minimal. Alright, so

Anthony Scaramucci 38:25
so so Nouriel, I always love talking to you because you have such a balanced view of everything. I’m going to finish this up with my last question, if you don’t mind. What are you working on now? Two best selling books. You’ve got this great new product? Do we have another book coming? Are we going to see a book from you before the World Cup comes to New York? Well,

Nouriel Roubini 38:49
I usually write one book every decade was crisis economics around 2010. Now, mega threats, because if you want to say something big and important, I think that you have to wait you cannot do it every year and solid. So you know, I follow the economy, I follow the market. I would say that, you know, megathread books, there was only one chapter about a utopian future. So there was a happy ending. But it was only seven pages. In a world during which everything could go wrong. I now recognize that technology can change the world for the better. But it’s not just about the I think there are about 12 or 14 industries of the future. And some of them are AI related. Some of them may not be like you know, the big revolution, say in energy is not going to be renewable. Because it’s too slow. It might be fusion. If fusion does occur, we resolve climate change because we’ll have unlimited amount of zero emissions energy at cheap prices is a new technology that is not yet there. But 10 years from now might be really the the killer revolution that saves us As from climate change, so the lots of other things happening that are positive, the carrot about technology is you can use it in a good way, or in a bad way. And the risk of AI are one with information, this information, deep fake electrolyte manipulation, and I worry, we’re gonna see some of that already this year, too, there is a risk of permanent Technological Unemployment, Tory, there’s a risk of increase in income and wealth inequality rather than reduction. And for this reason, that actually, it makes even our own species over time, sometimes obsolete, and also the risk that AI is going to be used to build bigger weapons and bigger wars. So we have to control the the users to make it successful. So I’m trying to think, deeper on these issues. That’s why I wrote this piece on artificial intelligence versus human stupidity. And I think it’s gonna be a tension between technology and mega threats. This is gonna be the one that you have to think about deeper to see what is going to happen to the world. I don’t have yet a book, but that’s a big issue that I’m thinking about for the next few years.

Anthony Scaramucci 41:17
Okay, well, I I really appreciate you coming on. And these are phenomenal thoughts for our viewers and listeners. And, guys, please go well, beyond.com backslash speak up. If you have questions, comments. We’re obviously always looking to improve the show. Our next guest is going to be the legendary damn bore Ed from Pantera, who obviously has one of the larger crypto hedge funds we’ll be discussing a crypto but also the macro situation, which I think is super important leading into the 2024 election. We appreciate you joining us here on SpeakUp. Professor Nouriel Roubini Thank you, and I’m looking forward to see you live at some point no doubt it’s been too warm.