The Rise of the State: Profitable Investing and Geopolitics in the 21st Century

1. Tectonic Shifts

Governments have always interfered in the investment process. Our contention is that the state’s role in finance and the economy will only increase in scope and scale in the decade ahead, for two reasons.

Developed-world economies are in a precarious condition in the aftermath of the great economic collapse of 2008–09. This instability and the extreme measures required to counteract it have exacerbated stresses long-term commitments to citizens have placed on government balance sheets. A paradigm of entitlement has gripped these societies and will prove a difficult burden to shed. At the same time, rising powers feature governments that have traditionally been much more involved in financial and economic matters—practitioners ...