This week we had the privilege of hosting Viktor Shvets, Managing Director at Macquarie Securities and author of ‘The Great Rupture - Three Empires, Four Turning Points and the Future of Humanity - Do we need to be free?’. This deeply insightful conversation touched on topics that included:

• Is freedom truly a prerequisite for prosperity?
• Hong Kong’s transition from global hub to China-centric
• US and Chinese societies face similar challenges, but have a vastly different toolkit to tackle them
• China as the world’s locomotive for 18 of the last 20 centuries
• The extraordinary, and largely unknown, impact Genghis Khan and the Mongols had on civilization
• The interplay between institutions, culture and geography, and their combined role in the wealth of nations
• Roman institutions as the great inheritance bestowed upon the West
• Keynesian and Marxist canon – more similarities than many would believe
• The highly disruptive labor dislocations between the first and second Industrial Revolutions
• The likely disruption and dislocation over the next couple of decades
• How we got here – capital abundance, declining productivity and inequality
• Technology, financialization and the Fujiwara Effect – when hurricanes collide and compound
• Maslowian disappointment and the dwindling faith in institutions and the system
• Breaking the loop – finding the right set of carrots and sticks
• Building a bridge to the future
• Inflation volatility, continued secular deflation and a ripe moment for active management

Thank you for watching and listening. See you next week.

This is “ReSolve’s Riffs” – live on YouTube every Friday afternoon to debate the most relevant investment topics of the day, hosted by Adam Butler, Mike Philbrick and Rodrigo Gordillo of ReSolve Global* and Richard Laterman of ReSolve Asset Management.

*ReSolve Global refers to ReSolve Asset Management SEZC (Cayman) which is registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as a commodity trading advisor and commodity pool operator. This registration is administered through the National Futures Association (“NFA”). Further, ReSolve Global is a registered person with the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority.