THIS WEEK’S TOPIC: Ten years on from the 2008 global economic crisis, what do you think is the biggest risk to the world economy today?
Nick Waters
CEO, Asia-Pacific
Dentsu Aegis Network
INEQUALITY and imbalances are the biggest threats to today’s economy.
The burden of recovery following the global financial crisis fell in Western countries disproportionately on those less well-off in the form of public service cuts rather than taxes on the wealthy, leading to populist politics and consequent trade confrontation.
Inequality has been increased by the widening digital divide as a small number of tech oligopolies use asymmetries of information to create further wealth for the few, but job insecurity and wage stagnation for the many.
Similarly, the flood of cheap money to stimulate the recovery has created distortions, imbalances and risks in the shadow banking system.
Danny Ong
Partner
Rajah & Tann Singapore LLP
I’M afraid that we may not have learned from past mistakes. What is notable in the last decade is that whilst bank credit boom has been arrested, that has been replaced by an unprecedented increase in cheap lending by private investors, spurred largely by loose…
