Hello everyone and welcome to At Barrens. I'm Andy Surwer. And welcome to our guest, Neil Ferguson,

historian, author, and sometimes prognosticator. Fair enough? Yeah, it's fair enough, Andy,

guilty. Good to see you. So why don't we just jump right in, Neil, and I'd like to ask you

what you think the greatest risks are to Western society right now,

and how have those risks changed over the past year or so?

Great question.

I think there is the risk of complacency about the economy.

I don't believe in the soft landing story because I think we've seen a tremendous hike in

real interest rates, and that is going to have its consequences.

I would say the probability of a recession next year is much higher than market consensus.

So there's that.

Secondly, I think there's a major political risk coming, and that is the US election.

That risk is, I think, still being underestimated by people who haven't fully digested,

that the Democrats are fielding a very elderly candidate with a weak running mate against Donald Trump,

a candidate who, in many another country

would not be able to run for election given his conduct on January the 6th of 2021.

So this is an amazing potential constitutional crisis given all the indictments that Trump currently faces.

Third, risk, I think there are major social problems in the United States that are kind of

out of sight, out of mind, but whether it's the mental health epidemic or the opioid

epidemic, the United States has a whole range of very profound social problems that I worry

about a good deal.

And then finally, let me give you the geopolitical problem.

...