David Murrin: Rasing The Alarm, Why The Western World Must Change Course or Face Decline

Tom Bodrovics welcoms back global forecaster and author David Murrin to discuss the significance of historical understanding for predicting complex geopolitical events and avoiding future conflicts. Murrin shares his belief in the repetition of historical patterns due to human unconsciousness, emphasizing the importance of studying history from multiple perspectives. He believes that the current geopolitical situation between the West and China/Russia could lead to World War Three, highlighting historical cycles as potential catalysts for conflict.

Murrin also shares his theory on five stages of empires, which he's applies to Britain, Germany, and America's power dynamics. He warns about the challenges facing China due to economic instability and military expansion, urging strategic thinking to counteract this challenge. Murrin discusses China's economic shift towards industry growth, and the potential implications of the U.S.'s rate-cutting cycle.

David emphasizes the importance of understanding war blindness, a dangerous tendency for denial and appeasement in Western society, and the potential consequences of inflation due to economic power shifts between democratic and autocratic systems. He encourages individual action and the embrace of lateral thinking as crucial steps for personal growth and societal progress. Murrin also discusses the potential for wars to promote accelerated societal evolution and encourages understanding historical cycles to prevent future conflicts.

Time Stamp References:
0:00 - Introduction
2:15 - Perspectives & Predictions
7:04 - Humanities Blind Alley
15:08 - History & Narrative Bias
18:32 - China & Economic Issues
28:29 - China's Strength?
30:40 - U.S. Monetary Policy
34:44 - China & Commodities
38:24 - War Monger?
42:44 - Stimulus & Recession?
46:00 - End of Globalization?
47:34 - Economic Warfare & China
50:55 - Warning & Avoidance
53:18 - Strategic Thrivers
59:24 - Wrap Up/Conclusion

Talking Points From This Episode
- David Murrin stresses historical patterns' repetition and their role in predicting geopolitical conflicts.
- He identifies five stages of empires and warns about China's economic instability and military expansion.
- Murrin advocates understanding war blindness, lateral thinking, and historical cycles to prevent future conflicts.

Guest Links
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GlobalForecastr
Website: https://www.davidmurrin.co.uk/
Lateral Vs Linear Thought: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_v5720RPmw&t=636s

David Murrin began his unique career in the oil exploration business amongst the jungles of Papua New Guinea and the southwestern Pacific islands. There, he engaged with the numerous tribes of the Sepik River, exploring the mineral composition of the region. Before the age of adventure tourism, this region was highly dangerous, very uncertain and local indigenous groups were often hostile and cannibalistic. David's work with the PNG tribespeople catalyzed his theories on collective human behavior.

In the early 1980s, David embarked on a new career, joining JP Morgan in London. Watching his colleges on the trading floors, he quickly identified modern society also behaved collectively. He was sent to New York on JPMs highly rated internal MBA equivalent finance program. Once back in London, he traded FX, bonds, equities, and commodities on JPMs first European Prop desk. In 1991, he founded and managed JPMs highly successful European Market Analysis Group, developing new behavioral investment techniques which were utilized to deploy and manage risk at the highest level of the bank.

In 1993, David founded his first hedge fund, Apollo Asset Management, and, in 1997, co-founded Emergent Asset Management as CIO. His primary role was overseeing trading across all fund products as well as being particularly active in the firm's private equity business. He co-founded Emvest, Emergents African land fund, in 2008 and acted as its Chairman until its sale from the group in 2011. In addition, through Emergents Advisory Business, David was responsible for the critical fund-raising for Heritage Oil, allowing it to expand significantly by investing in its Uganda exploration program. He took full control of Emergent in 2011, combining his management of the Geomacro fund with the role of Chief Executive Officer until 2014.

David has been described as a polymath and his career of more than three decades has been focusing on finding and understanding collective human behavioral patterns including deep-seated patterns in history and then using them to try and predict the future for geopolitics and markets in today's turbulent times. He has a remarkable track record.

Davids advisory and future trends speaking are based on his direct investment experience combined with a framework that can be used to explain and qualify decisions within an investment team, aid risk assessment and reduce biases in collective investment decisions.

In the desire to share his observations and predictive constructs, David has written four books.