Simon Johnson
speaker
295 appearances
3 recordings
2 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 7 Jul
Simon Johnson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 3.
Appearances
This is very much part of the framework that we use in the Nobel Prize work.
And when they've got power, do they really want entrepreneurs to come in and challenge their businesses?
So, you know, the success of the US, I would say over 200 years, the positive parts has been, you know, we allow people to build businesses and then they get overturned.
So railway barons were the big players at the end of the 19th century.
I don't think being a railway baron now gets you a lot of clout in Washington, although Warren Buffett did make good money off trains.
So as long as you're innovating, as long as new technology is coming along, and as long as you're challenging the incumbents, I think you can have very positive effects on your own economy.
I would worry globally, Robert, about these US giants becoming so powerful and outrunning everyone except maybe the Chinese, that they may strip value and move good jobs and profits from lots of other countries.
Every other country potentially is in the line of fire here.
And I've been to a couple of recent discussions in the US with very well-informed, well-placed people recently who were talking about setting up a sovereign wealth fund in the US to share the profits.
But whose profits are they sharing and with whom?
Well, I mean, even the most expansive version of this is about sharing these profits with Americans, people living in America or resident or citizens or whatever.
But if these mega companies are able to strip and remove value from the rest of the world, you might actually get a nice pot of gold for Americans.
But what does that do to the world?
Yeah.
So I think you're right, Robert.
We've seen these issues before.
We've seen it in economic development.
Have we ever seen anything quite so powerful, quite so global and so adept at taking value from other places?
I don't think we have.
On the China front, of course, what's grabbed everyone's attention now is that they quietly built up a dominating position in the processing of critical minerals that you need to make silicon chips and everything else.
Showing 221–240 of 295 · page 12 of 15
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