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Deirdre Mooney's avatar

Never doubt that you’re being listened to!!

I liked your joint take on the German fiscal expansion & the possibility of the other countries being envious!!

Saudi Arabia and 🇺🇸.... and OPEC’s weird policies - interesting

China are going to beat 🇺🇸 in Wind industry

And of course Ireland will lag well behind😢

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Sean's avatar

Just to add, you’re entirely right to say the risks that cause the economy trouble are the risks we don’t see coming. In the past I’ve worked pulling together an incredible volume of different risk assessment exercises for insurance companies, including plans for what to do if certain risks materialise so that management and regulators are not trying to think on their feet, like they had to when they issued the bank guarantee. It’s the Donald Rumsfeld unknown unknowns that cause the issues. And the reason why many of those risks remain unknown unknowns can be an element of groupthink. Once you pull together these risk assessments for the first time the first thing you do is get the big consultancies involved, who then engage with a benchmarking exercise to see if you’re over or under doing it. So some bright spark conjured up a scenario that could impact (like the LDI issues in the pension industry), senior management probably don’t get it because they have swapped their technical skills for softer skills a long time ago, and when they benchmark with the help of consultants they decide to not include any further consideration of that risk. At least if they’re ever challenged on why they missed that risk, they can say sure the rest of the market missed it too.

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