Should banks be more worried about World War III or Cold War II?
By John Heltman
Below is a lightly edited transcript of the podcast: JOHN HELTMAN: I’m doing a podcast about Russia and Ukraine. And I know that you have feelings about Russia and Ukraine, right?… KAREN PETROU: I think there’s no, no question in my mind that global finance is fragmented …HELTMAN: That’s Karen Petrou, managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics. PETROU: … along with global trade, and the increasingly tenuous institutions, like the World Trade Organization, are they relatively toothless, but hopeful institutions like the Financial Stability Board, these are going to be crumpling back into blocs — spelled B-L-O-C. With, as you pointed out, back to what I remember until the late 90s, you know, the US and its allies, Russia and its allies, and the non-aligned nations, China, India and some pretty significant emerging markets, playing everybody off to the greatest extent they could. These these systems depend on a completely … a friction free cross border financial system, which we don’t have.