The sanctions craze and our dangerously unstable systems

“In the case of Putin we are in this very dangerous place. We have reacted so aggressively and moved so far, so fast that he is personally humiliated under anything other than absolute victory in Ukraine. That makes it impossible for him to back down. It’s a very dangerous negotiating position to have put yourself into.”In the latest New Money Review podcast, Mike Green, chief strategist at Simplify Asset Management, discusses geopolitics, game theory, market structure and risk.Green believes our policymakers have created dangerously unstable financial, political and social systems by preventing diversity—whether that’s opinions on coronavirus, the Ukraine war or the way equity markets are structured.“No-one wins in these unstable systems,” Green says in the podcast. “Human society depends on relative stability to flourish but we’re creating conditions of extraordinary instability. And those marginally past the point of subsistence are the most likely to be damaged.”Green is a former hedge fund manager, having worked for Peter Thiel’s family office and in a start-up seeded by Soros Fund Management.His work on the changing structure of equity markets has been presented to the Federal Reserve, the BIS, the IMF and numerous other industry groups and associations.Listen to the podcast, ‘the future of money in 30 minutes’, to hear Green discuss:How the rise of index investing has changed marketsThe risks of momentum-driven tradingCoyotes and rabbits—how we’ve destroyed market heterogeneityGrowing absolute scarcity in the world’s raw materialsCold War revisited—the new global competition for client statesThe rise of China—are we at the end of the dollar regime?Are any asset markets cheap?The sanctions craze and the lost art of diplomacyWhy cornering Putin is dangerousWhy the marketing of cryptocurrencies has been criminalWhy decentralised finance is promising but needs proper governance