I just listened in on a two-hour webinar produced by a well-known economic research firm (I won't say who, as it would be rude to step ahead of them; they'll undoubtedly put out their own press release, etc. in a day or two) on the topic of global geopolitical risks in the next year or so. The research people have their own ideas, of course -- including some generated by some sort of AI modeling program, whose results seemed rather implausible, or at least outdated -- but the more interesting revelation was the viewpoint of the audience, through a poll at the end of the presentation.
The online audience was, as far as I know, completely Asian, or located in the Asia-Pacific region (may have been a few from Australia), and the top three perceived global risks, i.e., the things considered most likely to cause headaches for this part of the world were:
1. The potential for an intensification and/or spread of the Mideast conflict -- this will cause significant disruptions in trade, with the undesirable impact on commodity and goods prices that implies; I think another consideration for at least some countries is that many countries in this part of the world export labor to the Middle East, so there are hundreds of thousands of citizens from this region who are now in literal harm's way there, or soon will be.
2. The impact of the US presidential election outcome -- Let's call this what it is, grave concern about what might happen if Dollar Store Caligula actually wins the election. A Harris win is generally presumed to indicate the status quo will continue. That might not be great for every country, but it's a damned sight better than the alternative, which in every respect horrifies people in this region. There are exceptions; the Convicted Felon has his fans in this part of the world. But they are not the people doing actual jobs and making the wheels of society turn, so it's safe to dismiss them as the weirdos that they are.
3. Climate change -- Or more to the point, the destructive consequences of it; these are never far from being current events in some countries, especially the Philippines, and of course we're all getting the same reminders of nature's fury from the appalling calamity in the southeastern US in the past two weeks.
From my point of view, I would choose the same three, but in a different order. The outcome of the US election is the biggest risk the world faces, and every other risk, the two other most-cited ones and others, will be significantly affected for the worst if Cheeto Mussolini wins.
Second, climate change; if what happened in Western North Carolina and East Tennessee happens here in the Philippines, for example, it would be an unprecedented economic and maybe political disaster. We are used to natural disasters, but that is beyond what this country can withstand and respond to without coming close to collapse.
Finally, although the Mideast conflict has an indirect effect -- even considering the migrant workers -- I do not think it is a serious issue on a global scale, even if it expands into an all-out war between Iran and Israel, which seems probable. It could spiral out of control, but that part of the world has been scrapping with itself for 5,000 years, so the rest of the world tends to take conflict as a given.
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