
The Other Strategic Reserve

The Urgent Buyer Era | The New Industrial Corporation
newindustrial.com
In a world of deep inequality and power imbalances, when we most need courage and leadership from politicians, we will get despotism and time-honoured self-interest. As institutions decay and tensions mount, violence and war break out. Many nuclear-missile-wielding states stand to suffer from food and water shortages – both of which provoke reactio
... See morePaul Behrens • The Best of Times, The Worst of Times: Futures from the Frontiers of Climate Science
The fate of Lovewell Pond might not interest the average person slapping down two bucks for a bottle of Poland Spring at a concession stand, but the issue of who controls water—Howard Dearborn’s ultimate struggle—may in the long run be even more important than how many barrels of oil are burned to quench the nation’s thirst. We can live without oil
... See moreElizabeth Royte • Bottlemania: Big Business, Local Springs, and the Battle over America's Drinking Water
What could change things? As other economies grow and become more open, they may be both willing and able to take on the role of a reserve currency. China obviously comes to mind here. Change could also come about if the world comes to have concerns over the health or management of the U.S. economy. The large and growing pool of U.S. debt, now abov
... See moreRichard Haass • The World
Say you are a pension fund that needs an 8% return to meet its liabilities without difficulty. And say that stocks have been inflated to the point that you can in all honesty expect only a 2% return over the long run from here given reasonable assumptions about valuation metrics returning to something sensible at some point. You might be tempted to
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