When we at Agencia comma stopped to think about how we could provide a dashboard for our social media followers interested in geopolitical, economic, financial and business transformations in a global order in a state of flux such as the current one, we knew that our contribution had to be La Vuelta al Mundo (Around the World). This post, almost nine months after its inception, aims to delve into the maelstrom of competitive trends that has engendered the historic paradigm shift of our time: a race to apply the productivity factors linked to technology that will grant the winning country or geographical area the sceptre of global hegemony in the 21st century.
This is not a logbook of stock market investments. For that, there are increasingly well-paid financial advisors. Nor is it a market oracle, God save Warren Buffett! La Vuelta al Mundo merely aims to provide a snapshot of the diplomatic, economic, commercial, stock market and, of course, geostrategic issues that dominate the global scene. At a crucial moment, when the multilateral order that has governed us since the end of the Cold War—the era carved out by the hammer blows between the US and the former USSR, which created a fragile but resistant armour that balanced the telluric forces of a planet under nuclear threat and the clash between two economic concepts: the free market and state interventionism—is under threat.
Many unknowns have accumulated in the complex equation that should lead to a harmonious world, with open trade relations and free capital flows. Most of these questions arose in the first quarter of this millennium, just after the end of a period of tense calm, with arms reduction, nuclear non-proliferation treaties and a boom in investment and trade globalisation that many analysts called The Great Geostrategic Siesta. This term was coined from an ingenious numerical game: from 9/11 (1989), the date on which the Berlin Wall and the bloc of planned economies fell, and 11/0 (2001), when the Twin Towers in New York collapsed, elevating the fight against international terrorism to the top of geopolitical agendas around the world.
The only combined foreign attack on American soil came close to bringing about the Clash of Civilisations predicted by Samuel P. Huntington, a political scientist and professor of political science at Eaton College with a British passport, who saw a confrontation between Western Catholics and Eastern Muslims as inevitable. Similarly, during those years, Francis Fukuyama’s theory in his famous essay The End of History and the Last Man, that liberal democracy would proclaim victory over authoritarian regimes at the end of the Cold War, had moments when it seemed that the battle between the heavyweights of world ideology was going to tip in favour of Washington’s allies.
Pulse to the markets in a world in turmoil
Twenty-five years into the 21st century and three major crises later—the dot-com crash of 2000, the credit crunch of 2008 and the Great Pandemic of 2020—and no shortage of industrial restructuring and productive dynamics put in place to mitigate collateral damage and usher in more sustained and prosperous economic cycles, geostrategic swords remain raised. Now the standoff is between the US and China, with Russia waiting in the wings as a leading nuclear power, and a cohort of emerging markets gaining international muscle. At almost the same pace, other key players of the past, such as the European partners in the EU, Japan and the United Kingdom, have lost their influence abroad.
This geopolitical framework has not prevented old conflicts, such as that in the Middle East, from continuing to be a particularly volatile hornet’s nest, or others from emerging, such as the war in Ukraine on the very borders of the EU. Nor has it prevented investors in the stock market from being carried away by impulses more or less surrounded by realpolitik. Gone is the New Economy that, at the beginning of the century, incorporated technologies into the production patterns of companies and countries. It was the era of the Internet, and the private tech sector was emerging without rules or internal structures capable of assimilating such a huge commitment to the future. All this created a stormy climate from a credit perspective. Personal loans (mortgages) and corporate guarantees led to (…) the nationalisation by the US Treasury of one of its flagship investment banks, Lehman Brothers, and the suspension of the Moscow Stock Exchange in the face of the free fall of its securities!!!
On 15 September 2008, the world seemed to be turned upside down. The country that championed the free market, which Fukuyama had elevated to the pinnacle of capitalism, was intervening in its banking system, while the nation that had pioneered economic planning – Russia, heir to the Soviet model – was defending its stock market tooth and nail.
This geostrategic game is what Around the world seeks to explain in each weekly meeting with its followers. To explain these seismic aftershocks on a planet in constant flux, with trends and phenomena that are more or less paranormal. To try to propose a regular game for those interested in following the trail of geopolitical, economic, investment and business shifts that are shaping a new system of international relations that will surely replace a process of globalisation that has driven the flow of goods, services and capital with virtually no borders.
A geostrategic race for global hegemony
This is a crucial moment in history. Trump 2.0 aims to bury multilateralism, undermine and even fragment globalisation, promoting, if necessary, the creation of two trading blocs, two spheres of power dominated by the US and China that will reconfigure value and supply chains, economic and trade diplomacy, and private business. All this is taking place amid a geostrategic race for global hegemony unparalleled since the Second World War. Beijing is challenging the supremacy of the dollar and its technological leadership, with AI as proof of origin of this innovative El Dorado.
For all these reasons, at Agencia comma we believe that Around the world, its review of Risk, which each week proposes a move that may differ substantially from that of the previous seven days, can serve as a road map in this famous game of geostrategy for taking investment positions in the global casino in which we live. Although this road map would also fulfil its purpose if it served, at least, to shape ideas and modulate consciences at a time when an ever-dangerous economic and ideological nationalism has emerged which, contrary to the collective subconscious that has prevailed in this first quarter of a century, leaves little trace of the triumph of liberal democracy that has ruled in the so-called Western bloc.
The return to protectionism, to the customs duties re-established in the interwar period almost a century ago, with the revival of reciprocal tariffs and a series of export bans and controls between the two superpowers of the moment, calls for a periodic review of events and rigorous analysis. This is especially true if, in the meantime, we have witnessed a stock market boom that has weathered geopolitical conflicts, with rampant global economic anaemia and corporate uncertainties about business AI projects and the dawn of an era of oil overproduction, but with emerging electricity demand to supply massive data centre facilities, the engine room of the intelligent algorithm that awaits us.
These are turbulent times. In the markets, where volatility has taken hold; in geopolitics, with intense tensions and rivalries; and in the economy, where business cycles have become endless, with no glimpse of their hidden dangers. In the case of high-income countries, excessive and risky indebtedness and runaway fiscal deficits.
Rocky roads towards technological leadership
But these are also complex times. Environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) criteria have transformed their acronyms. Now, the talk is of Energy, Security and Geopolitics, company boards are beginning to demand directors and executives with experience in these areas, and doubts have been raised as to whether the two acronyms can coexist peacefully. Energy neutrality and climate change are facing rocky roads. And values are adapting to multiple transitions: logistical, commercial and, above all, competitive. Without a precise compass, but with high doses of active resilience. Similarly, AI leaves unresolved dilemmas. Will nuclear energy return to solve the energy demand deficits of its data centres? Will its assets enjoy an eternal era of splendour? Will its robotic algorithms replace more or less skilled workers?
In all these areas, Around the world will seek to find analyses and points of view that clarify this combination of factors that will determine whether the future of humanity is written in terms of progress or destruction. Each week, it will report on geopolitical, economic and investment perspectives. Of course, it will keep an eye on the European roadmap, which must emerge from its ostracism if it wants to compete on equal terms with the US and China on a planet that is spinning too fast. That’s the thing about translational motion.
