Martin Wolf

Adam Smith, there's a great deal of ruin in a country, which was, if I remember correctly, actually said in response to somebody saying that the loss of the American colonies was a tragedy, a catastrophe for this country.

And I think that's the context.

I believe that's the context in which he said there's a great deal of ruin in a country.

So there's a great deal of ruin in the world economy.

I have a favorite...

statistic which I use in many of my presentations because it surprised me so much when I looked at it.

So since 1950, the data from Angus Madison must be right, there have only been two years in which the world economy shrank.

Two.

And they're both perfectly obvious.

One was 2009.

And even then, it shrank barely.

It was close to zero because China was still growing.

Lots of countries were still growing.

And the other was the pandemic, 2020.

Otherwise, the world economy grows, and nearly always between 2% and 4%.

It's changed over time.

Why?

Well, because everybody matters is in a growth mode.

I could go through what's driving it.

I looked at this actually after the pandemic.