Salient to Investors:

Fareed Zakaria said:

  • The theory that “we fight them there so we don’t have to fight them here” is still wrong and would commit the US to a fool’s errand for decades. Cherif Kouachi, one of the Paris terrorists, testified that it was American intervention in the Middle East that caused him to become a jihadi. Robert Pape and James Feldman found that the vast majority of the terrorists behind suicide bombings from 1980 to 2009 were acting in response to American intervention and involvement in the Middle East rather than out of a religious or ideological motivation – the two spectacular Western plots after 9/11, the Madrid and London bombings, were specifically inspired by the invasion of Iraq.
  • The chance of a global recession in 2015 is greater than people think.
  • US economic prospects look good – PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts over 3% growth in 2015, the fastest since 2005, led by continuing falls in unemployment.
  • India looks good thanks in part to reform minded Modi and a large population of consumers. PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts a growth rate in 2015 that could rival China.
  • Indonesia looks good and has a large population of consumers.
  • Europe will continue to lag without needed reforms.
  • Japan is still in a bind despite Abenomics.
  • The big oil producers, especially those with large populations like Venezuela, Iran, Nigeria and Russia, will be the big losers.
  • The big wild card is will the price of oil continue to stay low?
  • Twice as many Jews left France for Israel in 2014 than in 2013.

Andrew Bacevich said that before Syria, the US launched interventions in 13 countries in the Islamic world since 1980.

Leon Panetta at the Panetta Institute said:

  • We are entering a more threatening and more dangerous period in the war on terrorism.
  • Paris was a French intelligence failure because they had these individuals on watch lists.
  • Europe is less aggressiveness than the US at going after these individuals when they return.
  • The presidency is not just about policy and substance, but also about the optics of leadership.

Ruchir Sharma at Morgan Stanley said:

  • The world was perilously close to recession in 2014 – only 2.6% growth versus the recession benchmark of under 2% growth.
  • Global recessions happen regularly – in the early 80s, two in the 90s, in the early 2000s, and the one that began in 2007.
  • We are due a global recession. The catalyst could be China, which contributed 38% of global growth in 2014, versus 20% from the US, and 13% from the EU. In 1994, the proportions were 8%, 33% and 26% respectively.
  • Persistent low oil prices can signal weak demand and could be a leading indicator of the next global recession.

Doug Saunders at The Globe and Mail said:

  • Muslim minorities in European countries have grown during the last 20 years to between 1%-5%. In places like France for over 50 years, to almost 8% percent of the population.
  • Muslims could peak around 10% in a couple of countries in Europe within the next 20 or 30 years, so there is no chance of a Muslim population takeover.
  • Immigrants are extremely loyal to the countries they live in and their institutions, even Muslim populations that are not integrating well in terms of their beliefs.  The Pakistanis of northern England have done very poor economically yet are by some measures more loyal to Britain and its institutions, including the military, than the Anglican population of Britain. The percentage of Muslims who value their religion above their country is about the same as for Christians in those countries.
  • Muslim communities in Europe, despite being marginalized economically and educationally, tend to be among the most contented with their lives of any minority group, often more so than the general population.
  • No-go zones are a fiction. I have never seen a prayer mat in any of the hundreds of hotels in Europe that I have stayed at.

Malcolm Gladwell said the cause of the dramatic long time reduction in NYC crime is more complicated than simply an attention to visible signs of disorder: one very successful policy is based on police establishing real ties with their communities, to win the trust of families.

Bernard Harcourt  at Columbia Law School said the huge drop in NYC crime is due to reversion to the mean – what goes up a lot goes down a lot. San Diego had a very different policing approach yet exhibited similar drops in crime rates. Harcourt said Times Square has changed not because of broken windows policing, but because of real estate redevelopment that was planned in the 1970s.

Watch the video at http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/category/gps-episodes/ or read the full transcript

at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1501/18/fzgps.01.html

On January 18, 2015   /   China Economy, Europe Economy, Fareed Zacharia, France Economy, Global Economy, India Economy, Indonesia Economy, Iran Economy, Japan Economy, Nigeria Economy, Russia Economy, UK Economy, US Economy, Venezuela Economy