We are starting to see some of the same weak signals of change and leading indicators (as we did in 2000 and 2001) pointing to a new recession in North America...these include the collapse of the US housing market bubble, weak auto sector results, a growing Canada/US and Canada /global trade imbalance, continued job cuts in manufacturting sector and many others. However, a more dire warning comes from Dr David Marin, who recently spoke at the Arlington institute, a USA-based think tank. We've heard this warning many times before from numerous futurists and financial infrastructure critics but Dr Martin backs up his warning with some sound facts and system dynamics.
Dr. David Martin is the founding CEO of M·CAM Inc. an international leader in intellectual property-based financial risk management.
The title of his talk was Asymmetric Collateral Damage ; Basel II, the Mortgage House of Cards, and the Coming Economic Crisis
You can download the audio, broken into 4 parts or the very long transcript here
It's a fairy long winded speech, but the jist of it is summarized by Nova Spivak in his blog here
"Dr. Martin describes why he predicts a very likely total collapse of the US Banking system in 2008. Even more surprising is that he explains how the only hope for bailing out the US economy at that time may in fact be Muslim financial institutions -- the financial entities of the Muslim world -- because they are the most cash rich entities on the planet, and unlike our banks they are not exposed to intangible asset risks."
Spivak goes on to say:
"In other words, as Dr. Martin explains, if for no other reason than this, we should think twice before bombing Iran and the rest of the Middle East back to the Stone Age -- they may in fact be our economy's only hope and we may soon be in dire need of their help. This is a radical hypothesis, but based on very realistic data and in particular, new laws (Basel II ) that are going into effect in the global banking world in January, 2008."
Do you agree /disagree with Martin's hypothesis ? If this Wild card turns out to be true, what preventive contingent action should individuals and companies be taking now and what scenario planning should you be thinking about now ? Let's get the debate going.
Contact me if your company wants to take preventive actions and conduct some scenario planning around this issue.
N.B we are starting a monthly series of online webinars in October 2006 and this will be one of the first wildcard topics that we will cover.
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Expert, Consultant and Keynote Speaker on Emerging Smart Technologies, Innovation, Strategic Foresight,, Business Development, Lateral Creative Thinking and author of an upcoming book on the Smart Economy "
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