“Dream Team” in Hamburg
12th June 2009 - Rickmers’ 175th anniversary
From left to right: Bertram Rickmers; Nassim Taleb; Nouriel Roubini; Martin Wolf; Niall Ferguson; Kishore Mahbubani; Erck Rickmers
Economic historian and author Niall Ferguson, economist Nouriel Roubini, author of The Black Swan, Nicholas Nassim Taleb, former UN ambassador Kishore Mahbubani and Financial Times journalist Martin Wolf attended a symposium arranged by Oxford Analytica on behalf of German shipping group Rickmers. Moderator Martin Wolf referred to the panellists as his “dream team”.
The symposium, entitled The Global Crisis and Roads to Recovery, was arranged in celebration of Rickmers’ 175th anniversary. Oxford Analytica advised on the symposium theme, the provision of speakers, and provided the symposium briefing book consisting of five thought pieces on the symposium topic.
The event brought together five of the world’s top economists and thinkers to debate the current global crisis and the outlook for the future. The presentations were wide-ranging and hard-hitting, offering a stark view of the current situation from the standpoint of both economic theory and historical experience. Much of the debate drew on the recent high profile discussions – involving a number of the panellists – in the financial media and other international forums, on the underlying causes of the crisis and the fiscal and monetary policy responses to it.
The discussion covered issues including:
- the potential for a perfect storm of high oil prices and high interest rates in the near future;
- the “coming” EU financial crisis;
- the benefits and disadvantages of countercyclical fiscal spending;
- the relationship between the financial world and the natural world; and
- the outlook for Asian economies in relation to their counterparts in the West.
On every level the debate offered insight into how the current crisis has progressed and what we can expect in the short and longer term. Whilst the tone was for Europe and the West was far from optimistic, the outlook for Asia was one of positive excitement about a new era to come.
There was unanimous agreement, that in light of the difficulties ahead, the symposium was a step in the right direction.
