全球经济大事记10年回顾

...from 2000 is an extraordinary decade for a number of reasons. One has been really the global expansion of cash. You might not think of it. But actually just looking at the bottom line, it's been the most lucrative decade in human history. If you just are staffs of the IMF, if you look at the fixed income securities, at the beginning of the decade, globally it was 36 trillion. Now, even despite all the crises that we've seen, it stands at just over 80 trillion dollars.

The growth of the global economy is obviously contributing to that. The emergence of countries like China. Before we go onto that, what is the most significant event? You’d have to say the financial crisis.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. As a story, obviously, it's been the biggest story of the past decade. It's been the biggest downturn in 80 years. It's been really incredible to watch the speed and the alacrity of events unfolding and the ramifications.

The interconnection as well. I mean this was truly a global event.

Absolutely. And you still think that, you know, that cascade down with Dubai more recently.

We need to talk about China too, obviously. I mean China, through all of this almost, China is there.

If the decade ended 16 months ago, I think the biggest story of the decade is China. And it may be remembered as the biggest story of the decade, okay. It's hard to remember that they just joined, China just joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. And now it is the third largest economy, and its influence has been catapulted by the financial crisis.

And it actually was literally the engine room of the global economy for ten years. (It was, it was.) It created the conditions in some ways that led to...

It fed the appetite for eh, say mortgage-backed securities and the purchase of those. I mean a lot of those were purchased by China. So yes, I mean, it definitely, I think it, I personally think China is the biggest story of the decade.

And I guess it's fair to say still too early to say what the ramifications of the financial crisis are going to be. But if you look for the next ten years, do you think we'll have this break-neck speed of growth, the technology revolution will continue, or do you think things will actually, you know, calm down?

The truth is anything will be a guess right now. But one of the important things to remember is what one CEO mentioned at a conference we recently took part in that the 21st century, the starting point of the 21st century was not January 1st, 2000, it was September 15th, 2008, when Lehman Brothers went down. That set in motion a lot of factors that certainly will continue play out through the next decade. What those will be is anyone's guess.

Glossary:

set/put sth in motion: to start a process or series of events that will continue for some time

play out: if an event or situation is played out or plays itself out, it happens