One of the trains of thought for me, following the sub prime mortgage crisis is that of globalisation, and new ripple effects we can expect to appear from unlikely and unanticipated situations.  For example Northern Rock in the UK being put out of business, by high risk mortgage lending in the US.  We all knew about globalisation, and the framework of international finance, but I am sure no-one saw Northern Rock, or BNP coming.

Anyhow, that led me to different books and I came across this one today, which it turns out is written by a Canadian, and with contributions from an old banking colleague.

The Upside of Down – The Argument

Homer-Dixon contends that five “tectonic stresses” are accumulating deep underneath the surface of today’s global order:

• energy stress, especially from increasing scarcity of conventional oil;
• economic stress from greater global economic instability and widening income gaps between rich and poor;
• demographic stress from differentials in population growth rates between rich and poor societies and from expansion of megacities in poor societies;
• environmental stress from worsening damage to land, water forests, and fisheries; and,
• climate stress from changes in the composition of Earth’s atmosphere.

More on this later, particularly Chapter 8 on world economics, and the instability, and inefficiency of markets.  I expect the latter to have implications for social lending/ P2P lending.

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