So why don't we start with the main point? What is the basic thesis that you're arguing in this book regarding the Long Depression?

Okay, well, let's start with the basic ideas of Marxist economics, as opposed to what you generally get when you read in the newspapers and so on about what's going on in the economy.

I think there are two things that Marx offered to explain how... human society has developed particularly in what he called the capitalist mode of production.

And what is the capitalist mode of production? His fundamental point was, yes, we produce things because we need them and we have to use them as best we can, but most things We produce, we don't use ourselves.

We actually exchange them.

Whether in a company, we might produce a machine, but we don't use that machine at home.

What that, the company gets that machine, if it's made by you, and it sells it in the market, so there's an exchange taking place, it gets money for that, it pays you back.

Just talk about it from its beginning and just tell me what makes this different than something, if it does, than what existed in the past.

So Michael, if you don't mind for us to explain to the listeners, why should we care about bonds? Why should we care about the yen? And why is the bond market this linchpin that really kind of is an indicator of impending crisis?

Well, for your viewers, bonds are what institutions mainly, but individuals could buy.

They're a form of your lending money.

What you're doing is you're buying a bond from, it could be from a company or it could be from the US government, and they will issue this bond and say, if you buy this bond and hold it for 10 years, we'll pay you 5% every year in fixed rate of interest over that period of time.

So if you spend... $1,000 on a bond, and you've got a rate of interest that's fixed at, say, 4% or 5%, then you're going to get that percentage, which in this case will be around about $40 or $50 every year.

Not a large amount, but it's guaranteed to be given to you over that period while you hold that bond.

Problem is, if you're a bondholder, and most bondholders are the big financial institutions, the insurers, All the financial institutions, banks and so on, they hold these bonds, particularly government bonds.

So just in terms of how you're seeing the lay of the land, what are some possible scenarios that you could see playing out? And what will that mean for us in terms of how that comes down on the working class? And how can we start preparing? Yeah.

Oh,

yes.

I'm one of the best horses I've ever sat on.

You know, I mean, you know, I've you know, I've been blessed with some beautiful animals in my lifetime as a jockey.

I mean.

You know, you know, you look here in South Africa alone, you know, I had horses like Sledgehammer, Gatecrasher, Sentinel, Boltropic.

I mean, you know, really top horses, you know, and...

And it was a terrific finish as well.

Can you tell us where you've been building your strategy based on cognitive science, and how you turn neuroscience insights into actionable marketing decisions?

It's been an interesting journey to come to the place where, you know, cognitive science, both neuroscience and behavioral science, has had, I'd call it, a defining impact on how I look at, at marketing.

I would say that as marketers for decades, maybe generations, we have been studying, you know, how to drive behavior, how people make decisions.

But I think the last 20, 20 or 30 years of neuroscience research has given us kind of, I'd say, a sharper tool set to take what was previously things that were maybe based on experience and, and instinct in marketers, and turn them into kind of measurable mechanisms for driving behaviors and decisions for, you know, customers or intermediaries or other, other, other stakeholders.

And so what I've been on the journey towards is understanding how to make that an applied part of how our marketers do their work every single day.

There's been a lot of discussion, um, and probably a lot of application of very specific concepts in specific situations of behavioral science or, or neuroscience.

But, you know, the journey that I, that I've been on and, and taking my team on is one where it becomes almost a holistic operating system for the marketing organization.

Mm-hmm.

... how significant do you see this latest eruption of trade tensions between the US and China? Does this feel different?

Yeah.

No, uh, first of all, thank you for having me today.

Look, I think, uh, the world has got- gotten used to a lot of these tariff changes, although certainly this newest round is yet another bit of unpredictability.

I think, uh, companies have been now looking for different ways to manage their supply chains.

We have a survey that we did right after Liberation Day, which I think still holds true today.

We, uh, surveyed 5,000 clients, so big survey.

Are you seeing real gains? Are you actually deploying quantitative, uh, strategies from quantitative computing on your, uh, on your trading floors?

I'm just curious, given the fact that HSBC and Wellcome is such a central bank in both trade as well as in both China and in the West, how significant do you see this latest eruption of trade tensions between the U.S. and China? Does this feel different?

Yeah, first of all, thank you for having me today.

Look, I think the world has gotten used to a lot of these tariff changes, although certainly this newest round is yet another bit of unpredictability.

I think companies have been now looking for different ways to manage their supply chains.

We have a survey that we did right after Liberation Day, which I think still holds true today.

We surveyed 5,000 clients, so big survey.

And they all said, one, all of these tariffs are going to cause a lot of issues.

Are you seeing real gains? Are you actually deploying quantitative strategies from quantitative computing on your trading floors?