Something has been bothering me lately. I’ve been wondering about the pros and cons of the commodities bust (good for developed markets, bad for emerging markets) and how smooth it has so far been. I mean, really, in the grand scheme it’s hardly hit the global cycle much at all, largely through slowing any move up in developed market interests via falling inflation.
But with oil now joining the slide, we are moving into very big money moves, and drawing in one of the largest global recyclers of currency, the petro-dollar, and it’s interesting to think through whether an advancing commodities rout could actually trigger something more nasty.
Thankfully for us, someone else did that four years ago. Some of you will remember this from Oliver Wyman in early 2011: “The Financial Crisis of 2015: An Avoidable History. At the time it birthed a piece from Bloomberg describing the author as “the lonliest man in Davos“.
