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Head spinning global events
Where do I begin? There seems to be too much going on right now, amid falling markets, but these are some of the things that have been intriguing/horrifying me this week. The UK currency collapse The new UK administration led by 40-something Liz Truss had a frustrating 10 days to wait to get going during the period of mourning for the late Queen Elizabeth II. Once the Queen was buried the new government could make their big policy announcements, with flagship tax cuts at their center. Everyone was cautiously optimistic. On Friday the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, briefed Parliament on an eye-poppingly extensive list of personal and corporate tax cuts and the prospect of the UK government borrowing as much as £165billion over the next year (forecasts vary) to support them. He also admitted that - contrary to modern expectations - he had not has his homework checked by the UK’s internal audit function the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). The combined effect of throwing everything including “the kitchen sink” (as the British would say) at policies to drive growth and failing to have the math checked by the grownups at the OBR spooked international markets and caused the Great British Pound to collapse against the US Dollar: that after a long downward slide of the value of GBP all year. Aiming for growth is great as is cutting tax for working people and companies hard-pressed by 10%+ inflation, but by trying to be too radical too quickly Liz and Kwasi look like they may have overcooked it. The FX market certainly thinks so: as I write GBP is at 1.0651, and earlier hit 1.03 its lowest level against the USD ever (i.e. since GBP decimalised back in 1971). Usually only Emerging Markets currencies collapse this far and fast. Italy’s New Right Wing It now appears inevitable that a right wing coalition led by Georgia Meloni, the ironically female leader of the Brothers of Italy party will form the next government, following a general election at the weekend. Meloni and her party are accused by opponents of being neo-fascists, and are certainly likely to be more euro-skeptic and anti-immigration than the center-left government led former European Central Bank chief, Mario Draghi, which collapsed in the summer. The other irony is that Meloni’s main coalition partner, the re-branded League party (formerly the Northern League, which until recently did what it says on the tin and advocated autonomy for Northern Italy), led by Matteo Salvini, is more radical than Meloni and the Brothers: the third of the coalition triumvirate is none other than octogenarian Silvio Berlusconi and his Forza Italia party (yes, he of the orange spray-tan and notorious “bunga bunga” parties). Berlusconi - despite his advancing years - remains as controversial as ever: last week he told journalists that Russian President Vladimir Putin had been “pushed” by the Russian people in to invading Ukraine to install “a government of decent people”. Expect the new Italian administration to be another dissenting voice around the EU table, along with Hungary and increasingly Poland: the new Italian government will be less openly hostile to Russia, against further EU integration, anti-immigration and more fiscally loose; as I write the Italian 10yr bond yield is 4.7%, the highest in a decade, while the German 10yr - the Eurozone’s benchmark - is at just over 2%. That is a big credit spread for countries issuing debt in the same domestic currency. Russia Mobilizes, and Threatens Such is the attrition of the conflict in Ukraine, that Russia has found it necessary to mobilize - or conscript - former soldiers or those with relevant skills to back-fill its lost manpower. Western media reports that the mobilization has caused something of an exodus of people fearful of being called up. President Putin said that additional forces were needed to fight the “collective West”, which given the rhetoric of the G7 and equipment and training support of the US and UK in particular, one could have some sympathy with. This does indeed appear to be a conflict by proxy. In a thinly veiled threat to use nuclear weapons the President added that Russia retains “various means of destruction”, which are “more modern” than those of NATO, and that all necessary measures would be taken to defend Russia. Shortly after this speech the self-declared and Russian-backed People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk said they would hold new referendums as to whether they become part of Russia. The result of these hastily arranged votes - however achieved - does not seem in doubt. It also means that any continued attempts by the Ukrainian military to retake land in those regions can be treated as an attack on Russia itself by Moscow. The G7 branded the referendums as sham and the US said that “catastrophic consequences for Russia” would ensue, if it resorts to nuclear weapons. This represents a serious escalation; ultimately caused by Ukraine’s recent success on the battlefield. Iran and the Morality Police Iranian state media reports that at least 41 people have been killed in a series of protests and demonstrations over 10 successive nights in nearly all corners of the country. Although the demonstrations have evolved to be against the hard-line Islamic regime in general, the original protests were triggered by the death in custody of a young woman arrested by the Morality Police for not wearing her hijab correctly. These violent events represent a significant enough challenge to the conservative Islamic government for the president, Ebrahim Raisi to say on Saturday that his government would crack down on the ongoing protests as a priority. Iran’s Islamic Republic is defended by a number of institutions created after the revolution that overthrew the last Shah in 1979, including the Moral Security Police and its “guidance patrols”, which are there to protect Islamic morals from inappropriate social behavior or clothing: the US Treasury added that agency and some of their leadership to the US sanctions list at the end of last week, more for symbolic reasons than anything else. It seems Iran is struggling with how to prevent people using social media to share ideas and arrange demonstrations; theocracies are designed with information control in mind. Let’s see how long that or the demonstrations last. And finally - economic bright spots In a world of inflation and recession fears, it is nice to see some positive analysis: first my colleague Rahul Shah at Tellimer Insights points to the companies with positive real yields even as interest rates rise ; good news/bad news though, as most are related to the extraction and carbon fuel industries: just shows - regrettably - what we in human society all rely on when times get tough; energy and raw materials. Second is the analysis of Ruchir Sharma in the FT - Ruchir is Chair of Rockefeller International, and is an analyst by background (with all due respect to our journalistic friends and colleagues) - and gives the examples of seven countries that are bucking the inflation and recession trend : Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Greece, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Japan. Some surprises in there! Look after yourselves. Yours Duncan Please share the Perspective Pool with your friends!
Duncan Wales
Sep 27, 2022 · 7 min read
Seismic September
HM The Queen takes her Last Salute It is with genuine sadness that I write following the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. The Queen was our “Boss” when I served in the British military: we felt that however short-term, populist or embarrassing our politicians were, The Queen was the person to whom we (and they) actually owed our allegiance, and her values and obligation to the people were our values and obligations, transcending politics. The British constitution is ancient, and has been radically altered and amended over the centuries: usually as a result of civil wars, religious conflict, secession crises, demographic changes and shifting economic realities. Having survived all that the Crown remains the source of all political power in the United Kingdom; the Prime Minister is prime minister to to the monarch, the government is the government to them, our currency bears their likeness, our armed forces swear an oath to the Crown not to politicians. The monarch represents the Crown, and the Crown represents the people: unlike so many politicians, the Crown represents all the people - whatever their beliefs, whatever their political affiliations, whatever their triumphs or mistakes, whatever their physical or psychological condition and whatever their age. Even prisoners detained “at Her (His) Majesty’s pleasure” remain citizens for whom the Crown still has regard and for whom there is always a non-judgmental opportunity for redemption. What we are currently witnessing amidst the pomp and ceremony of the funeral arrangements of the late Queen and the acclamation of the new King is a transition of political power: orderly, deliberate and with formality derived from the requirements of long experience. The Crown represents values bigger than ourselves: including integrity, selflessness, and willingness to help and defend others at one’s own risk. Her Majesty The Queen was particularly focused on and adept at living to those principles. These are old fashioned ideas, but they become very real in a crisis; the Queen saw the enormous pressure the Second World War put on her father, King George VI, and her mother Elizabeth the Queen Consort, and the stoicism and selflessness they had to display when the UK faced an existential threat. If you are skeptical of suffering for others and higher ideals just ask the combat forces of Ukraine, or examine the elevated public perceptions of President Zelensky (in January his government could only muster a 23% approval rating). As I have written before, crisis is the forge of institutions . Ukraine Counterattacks With a high degree of confidence I can say that the troops at the sharp end would tell you what they are fighting for is ideals and people other than themselves. Fortified with this morale Ukrainian forces achieved a significant break-through against Russian forces in north eastern Ukraine earlier this week. The town of Izyum, south east of Ukraine’s second largest city Kharkiv, has been retaken by the Ukrainians: this is significant for two reasons (i) Izyum is a key location on the Russian axis of attack in the northern Donbas region and (ii) it seems to have been taken without much of a fight, surprising both the Ukrainians and the Russians with the swiftness the Ukrainians’ success. Certainly this reverse will be bad for Russian morale, as well as its strategic position: Russia will soon have to decide if “victory” can be declared with the annexation of most of the Donbas, or whether - less plausibly - it has the ability to take all of Ukraine. Unfortunately, self-deceit seems to be a feature of the Russian military, and yesterday Kremlin spokesman Dimitry Peskov said that Russia’s “special military operation” would continue “until all the goals that were originally set are achieved”. We will see. Sweden shifts to the Right Sweden’s coalition government, led by the Social Democrat Megdalena Anderssen, applied to join NATO in May - alongside Finland - and at the time of writing appears to have lost the general election to the right wing Sweden Democrats, led by Jimmie Akesson. The demographics of Sweden make it one of the most diverse countries in Europe, a significant number of the 30% or so diverse “non-white” ethnicities that make up the population result from immigration in the last 15 years; notably from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Somalia. This rapid shift in population seems to have placed strains on politics and social perceptions with a surprising number of young people - 22% of 18 to 21 year-olds - supporting a political party that seeks to curb immigration and has its origins in the national front. 21 Years since the 9/11 attacks In some ways the terrible events of 9 September 2001 seem very recent, so vivid are the memories. That day is etched in the minds of many, including mine: it led to wars of revenge in Afghanistan and then Iraq, and changed my life and that of many. I cannot believe it was 21 years ago; it seems both recent and distant. New Offices Finally, and a more optimistic note, the Tellimer team in London moved our HQ to new offices near Liverpool Street this week. Much fancier than our previous very “start-up” digs! Yours Duncan
Duncan Wales
Sep 13, 2022 · 5 min read
August Things of Interest
What Mattered this Week Over the summer I and the team at Tellimer have been busy: we launched Scriber , the creator stack for financial writers - that I am using to write this - and are just about to launch Parsel Enterprise , which very accurately extracts and digitizes data from pdfs (I have been using it to manage invoices, but it is really designed to digitize whole industrial processes; it is the equivalent of me using a Lamborghini to pick up some milk). Anyway, it means I have not written my usual geopolitics or business essay, but have collected some thoughts on significant events of the last fortnight. Please let me know if you like this format; I may well use it from time to time; duncan@scriber.to . The Fed in a (Jackson) Hole I can’t help recalling the repeated claims of Fed Chair Powell and his predecessor, Janet Yellen, that inflation was “transitory” following the Covid-19 lockdowns and would soon abate as the US and global economy recovered. They may claim they didn’t know Russia would invade Ukraine (the CIA really should have told them - they most likely did in fact), but the get together of global central banks at the weekend has once again spooked markets as the Fed now admits that inflation is the main enemy and anything must be done to defeat it. It seems that Powell will raise rates until the US - and therefore global - economy is on the ragged edge of a full blown recession, mortgages are defaulted and unemployment goes up. Not happy metrics to hope for. The Death of Gorbachev Mikhail Gorbachev, former General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party has died aged 91 . Those of us who lived through any of the Cold War era will remember the transformative impact of the last Soviet leader: before his premiership the USSR was a feared dark power, full armed with nuclear weapons that could destroy the World, lurking the other side of the Iron Curtain and engaged in dangerous espionage and war via proxies. By the end of his time the Soviet Union and its communist experiment was ended, the Cold War was over and such was the sense of the significance that American thinker Francis Fukuyama predicted that liberal, enlightened capitalism was now accepted as the only really fair way to run society - what he described as the “end of history”. We all felt that Armageddon had been averted. Although much of what Gorbachev achieved has now been undone by the chaos of the USSR’s collapse in the 1990’s and the actions of President Putin, he still ranks as a great man to me, and I would guess many of my generation. Pakistan Floods Pakistan once again suffers from huge and destructive flooding . Many will remember the terrible floods and landslides of 2011, following a record breaking heatwave in Central Asia, Russia and Ukraine in 2010, that led to riots and the Arab Spring . It has happened again, with melting snow and monsoon-like rain. Unfortunately Pakistan’s government seems as unprepared as it was last time, despite making more progress in its rehabilitation with the IMF . Combined with droughts in Europe and China, this is a hellish vision of the future of global warming. Un-Finnish Business Sanna Marin, the youthful modernising Prime Minister of Finland has been in hot water for parting with celebrity friends . It would be easy to dismiss a young woman letting her hair down with friends as understandable decompression from a stressful job, but there are a couple of genuine political issues for PM Marin to worry about: (i) The Finns remain socially conservative; Marin wasn’t with a group of old mates, she was with celebs and posing an dancing for the camera: the Finns like a drinker but don’t appreciate a show off, and (ii) Finland has a 1,340 km land border with Russia; earlier in the year Marin made the decision to end Finland’s post-War neutrality and join NATO, which is a big - and bold - call. Underneath Marin’s charm, good looks and fondness for a party, she is must be tough. Nigerian Japa Wave Nigeria is a huge and diverse country with a massive amount of potential and many very smart and well educated people within its near 200 million population. Somewhat worryingly for the government, significant numbers of the most ambitious, clever and young people are starting to leave Nigeria for opportunities in foreign countries, in what is being called the “Japa Wave” . Japa is Nigerian slag for “run away swiftly”, as the young escape nearly 20% inflation and more than 30% unemployment. Nigerians have always had a broad diaspora, and there have been migration waves before. The UK is still a favorite for education and Canada is growing as a destination for work. It might feel bad for many of us sitting in the G7 right now, but everyone else thinks we are in a stronger spot. The Conservative Party selects the next UK Prime Minister On the subject of Great Men, I had the privilege of meeting former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan (he subsequently became the Earl of Stockton), when I was a child: he was dining with my grandparents and I was allowed to stay up to meet him. Macmillan apologized for the weakness of his handshake when he was introduced and explained that it was because of being shot through the wrist while assaulting German trenches in the Great War. Looking at the choice the Conservative Party is making for its next leader - and therefore the UK’s next Prime Minister - between “unimaginative” Rishi Sunak and “unguided missile” Liz Truss (not my quotes - rather alarmingly descriptions from people who know them), I cannot help reflect that British politicians used to to be made of rather sterner stuff. Yours aye Duncan
Duncan Wales
Aug 31, 2022 · 6 min read
While Russia Fights, China Prepares for War
History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes In March 1936 the Germany’s Army reoccupied the Rhineland region of Western Germany. The Rhineland had been demilitarized under the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, to create a buffer region between Germany and France in the aftermath of the Great War of 1914-18. For Nazi Germany in March 1936 the “retaking” of the Rhineland was a hugely symbolic event, and its relative lack of reaction from other powers emboldened German Chancellor, Adolf Hitler who’s armies moved on to invade Czechoslovakia almost exactly three years later, setting the World ablaze in another global conflagration. However, as the Great War had illustrated, it takes more than one event, one leader or one country to create a World War; it tends to be a culmination of multiple factors that cause the worst outcomes. A year after German troops reoccupied the Rhineland, Japan mounted an invasion on a politically divided China. Japanese imperial troops mounted an attack on the fractured forces of the nationalist Kuomintang and the insurgent Communist Party, which (temporarily) allied to resist it, in a conflict against Japan that raged from 1937 to 1945. The temptation is to be mesmerized by Russia and its invasion of Ukraine - a country divided by an 8 year civil war and run by an (at the time) unpopular government - but it is also worth thinking further East, to other, apparently disconnected events, that make the global situation more uncertain than just the direct byproducts of the first “tank war” in Europe since 1945. Now it is Russia, rather than Germany taking on unfinished business on its Western flank in Europe, and it appears China, rather than Japan, is intent on dominating the East China sea. It has unhappy echoes of the late 1930’s. China and Taiwan - the Unfinished Civil War Taiwan (the Island of Formosa) had been under Chinese imperial control since the 17th Century. It was ceded by Imperial China to the Empire of Japan under the Treaty of Shimonoseki after the first Sino-Japanese War in 1895: a strategic byproduct of Japan’s invasion of the Korean peninsular. This added to the pressures on the imperial Qing Dynasty of China, which had in prior decades already suffered the humiliations of losing both Opium Wars (1839-42, and 1856-60) and control of Hong Kong (ceded by the Qing to the British in 1841). By the time the Qing administration had been further knocked by territorial losses to Imperial Russia in the Sino-Russian War of 1904-5, the light was fading on centuries of imperial rule. Despite belated attempts at reform the Qing Dynasty and the imperial throne itself was deposed by a revolution in 1911, resulting in the abdication of the last Emperor Puyi, and the creation of the Republic of China. It was this Republic of China that was riven by internal divisions when Japan attacked it in 1937. The mainstream Kuomintang (KMT) and revolutionary Chinese Communists (CCP) had been fighting each other since 1927 but allied - not always coherently - to resist the Japanese invasion. Global power politics played a hand, and the KMT was backed by the US and the CCP by the Soviet Union. The CCP tended to be more successful in their military operations than the KMT, and when the Japanese surrendered to the Western Allies in late 1945, the friction between the two groups reignited in violence. After several more years of conflict in which the KMT suffered a series of reverses the KMT and its leader Chiang Kai-shek escaped to Formosa in 1949, leaving mainland China to the victorious CCP. The mainland became the Communist People’s Republic of China (PRC), and the nationalists remained the exiled government of the Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan. Nancy Pelosi Visits Despite the warm rhetoric of the US and others, the ROC is diplomatically recognized by only a handful of countries (14 to be exact, mainly in the Caribbean and Latin America, but also including the Embassy of the Holy See (Vatican); compared with the 172 foreign embassies hosted by the PRC). The USA continued to recognize the ROC in Taiwan until 1979 and then cut its formal recognition in favor of the PRC on the mainland, and now has no formal diplomatic relations with the ROC. The US may not have an embassy but it does have a significant presence in the form of the American Institute in Taiwan, a unique body mandated by the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979; a “strategic ambiguity” that is more complex and subtle than the foreign policy stance of the Pope, it would seem. However, Taiwan is the United States’ eighth-largest trading partner, a globally important manufacturer of microchips, and the United States is Taiwan’s second-largest trading partner (ironically after the PRC, which is the largest). With this background in mind, the visit of House of Representatives Speaker, Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan last week was strange for at least three reasons: The Speaker has therefore ignited more tension between the US and PRC - one must assume deliberately - but it is not clear for what strategic purpose. The PRC responded in predictable manner, by increasing the number of its military air sorties in to or near ROC airspace ; but it also engaged in a new escalation by commencing a series of live-fire exercises in the waters around Taiwan itself. The PRC Arms Itself The PRC exercises around Taiwan resulting from Speaker Pelosi’s visit differ in nature from the type of exercises that have gone before: The PRC increased its defense budget by 7.1% this year to Yuan 1,45 trillion ($230bn), despite its economy being under pressure from “zero covid” lockdowns, reduced domestic demand and some food inflation (2 - 6% depending on the food - still modest compared with the inflation seen in the G7 economies). This is still dwarfed by US defense spending of circa $700bn. However, in context, the Chinese defense budget has more than doubled in the last decade. The Creation of AUKUS and Japan Rearms In September 2021 the governments of the US, UK and Australia announced the creation of an “ enhanced trilateral security partnership called “AUKUS ” - Australia, the United Kingdom and United States ”, much to the chagrin of other countries with historic ties to the Indo-Pacific region, notably France. The military pact is more like a series of agreements starting with the US and UK helping develop nuclear powered submarine capability for Australia and extending to collaboration on a number of other security related capabilities, including cyber, AI, quantum computing (useful for a number of things) and “ additional undersea capabilities ” (which is likely to be a euphemism for undersea drones or UUV’s, Unmanned Underwater Vehicles). The late, great Shinzo Abe, who was so tragically assassinated on 8 July, had as Prime Minister of Japan urged rearmament as a priority, in a rejection of the constitutionally imposed pacifism since the Second World War. His quiet urging led to Japan converting helicopter carriers to fully fledged aircraft carriers, and in October 2021, two locally stationed US Marine Corps F-35B’s landed on the deck of JS Izumo, the first operational aircraft carrier Japan has had since the end of the Second World War. The US has its largest permanent overseas military presence in Japan; as it nearly invariably has been since 1945. More than 55,000 military personnel occupy around one hundred and twenty bases throughout Japan’s islands, including a large part of Okinawa. The US has another 26,000 troops stationed in South Korea. As I write the USS Ronald Reagan carrier strike group is bobbing about on the South China Sea: the USS Ronald Reagan is a Nimitz class nuclear powered super-carrier, accompanied by cruiser USS Antietam and destroyer USS Higgins and - one would have to assume - one or two nuclear powered submarines, lurking darkly beneath the surface, listening. Wake Up Call With war in Europe and military rearmament in East Asia, Western politicians - distracted by inflation and domestic issues - should have a more strategic eye on the risks of an increasingly confident PRC and an increasingly frustrated Russia. As slowness to build military capability and strong diplomatic relationships proved in the 1930’s, mistakes now will prove costly in years to come. Further Reading
Duncan Wales
Aug 16, 2022 · 9 min read
Investing is Suffering from Growing Information Asymmetry
Researching Investments used to be a pro sport I have written before about how the world of investment related information has changed: https://the-perspective-pool.scriber.to/article/the-reason-we-built-scriber . Since the advent of the smart-phone in particular - the iPhone hit the market in 2007 - access to information, investing and other services has been transformed. The news at the moment all seems pretty grim, but in 2009, when I started thinking about what would ultimately become Scriber, the world was different: The world of financial research and data was a specialist sport played only by people who worked in financial services and was entirely invisible to everyone else: it was not (and still is not) possible to find the research that investment professionals use on the web. Professional and specialist research resides on closed platforms, designed - and priced - for professional, institutional users, such as Bloomberg, Refinitiv and S&P Global. There was literally a closed loop of information within the financial world: only professionals produced it and only professionals consumed it; in those days it made sense to play the entire investment game behind closed doors - it was complex, expensive, expert stuff - who else would possibly need access to it? Power to (all) the People The transformation in the demographics of investing has been rapid and dramatic. Armed with smartphone distribution, disruptive technology has put the ability to trade shares, futures, options, FX, and crypto in to the hands of at least 300 million people who have a trading account. That is before you include all the people who care about how the financial world works because they have a self-invested pension, a 401k, a mortgage, run their own business, or take a pro-active interest in their and/or their dependents’ financial position. Trading in some investments genuinely has been democratized. However, access to the information people need to make trading decisions has not. Professionals and the new class of semi-professional investor use very different tools for accessing insights: the professionals use Bloomberg, Refinitiv, FactSet, CapitalQ and other systems to access professional insights. Everyone else relies on Google and social media. But - ironically - now so do professionals: Twitter is a venue for serious thinkers and a vehicle to build an investment or business track-record in public. And even the Discord - a social platform designed for gamers - hosts a thriving community of investors and commentators. And as we at Tellimer know from our institutional clients, professionals turn to Google to find difficult to find information and expertise. While investing remained a rarefied and exclusive activity, finance professionals used to enjoy a huge information advantage over everyone else. However, the era of access to investing has created a new information asymmetry - perhaps counter-intuitively - that creates a problem for professionals as well as the new classes of semi-professional and democratized investors. Because there is a hard, opaque barrier between the professional networks - which are very good at what they do but were designed and built for the old world and have proportionality less access to unique information than they did - and the growing pool of expertise in the wider economic environment, both are separated from each other, to everyone’s detriment. Information is still too hard to find. More To Invest In - Less Research A feature of the rise in technology is that it has grown along side - and arguably actually created - new asset classes and themes for investment: not just DeFi, but all the complex dimensions of ESG, alternative energies, food production, cleaner extraction industries, alternative energies, evidence based ethical investing and procurement, e-commerce, food delivery apps, online shopping, super-apps, electric vehicles and also the economic rise of large developing economies such as China, India, Brazil and many others. There is much more to understand than ever before, and less and less coverage of it all from the traditional world of finance. It should be possible for a single person or small team, with big firm experience or equivalent quality to reach anyone who is searching for guidance on how to think about their personal - or professional - investments/economy/business. Much as everyone who needs it should have access to sophisticated thinking on financial and economic matters, but the traditional community of finance also needs new and different sources of expert information as well. Traditional Finance meets the Creator Economy The creator economy - in which individuals rather than platforms have control of their editorial agenda - now permeates a number of industries: journalism (think Substack or Medium) e-commerce (think Shopify), music (think TikToc), TV (think YouTube) and fashion (think Instagram): “influencers” have not brought an end to the platform model - the FT, WSJ, HBO and even Netflix still exist - but have added to and changed the landscape forever. The opportunity exists to give the increasingly savvy population at large as well as the frustrated professional audience access to the right expertise. The new democratized creator model will not replace the old, but rather interact with it in a controlled way: users of professional systems will still use those systems, but need more access to more and different information. Individuals will value high quality access in accessible forms. The new wave of tech will transform access to financial, economic and business expertise: the creator economy will provide selected permeability to the hard structural barriers that currently separate expertise and demand. It will; The free-for-all romance of a Web3 world in which everyone owns part of the internet may not quite come to pass, but it is entirely realistic to think of a world in which more professionals and experts have the ability to monetize their expertise without the need to be employed by a huge company. That still sounds like freedom to me. Further Reading:
Duncan Wales
Aug 9, 2022 · 6 min read