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Who is Scott Bessent? Meet Trump's New US Treasury Secretary​

Today’s guest is the new US Treasury Secretary, serving under Donald Trump. The role gives him immense responsibility for managing US obligations and finances, including circa. $7 trillion of annual US federal spending, the $35+ trillion fiscal debt pile and continued inflationary pressures on both US businesses and consumers (so, no pressure!).

Prior to this, Scott was a globally respected and market-moving hedge fund investor. He was key player on the George Soros's team, who in 1992 helped the Quantum Fund make $1bn, shorting sterling ahead of the UK’s withdrawal from the ERM.

Then, as Soros’s CIO, he was also dubbed ‘The Man Who Broke the Bank of Japan’ by the Wall Street Journal, making approximately $3.5bn on the Abenomics trade from 2012-2015!

Scott is widely acknowledged to be one of the world’s most highly respected macro hedge fund managers, and is the Founder of Key Square Capital Management. He has also taught financial history at Yale and is a prominent philanthropist.

In this episode, Scott explains the key ingredients in being a macro manager. He charts his journey, working with legendary investors such as Stan Druckenmiller and George Soros.

He opines on a range of key investment themes, including his thoughts on de-dollarisation, debt, commodities, the Ukraine rebuild, and AI. He also shares his analysis of the fast-evolving markets in both China and Japan.

Scott goes on to discuss risk, when and how he sizes positions, signposts that influence conviction, and dealing with information overload. A tour de force!

Interview originally recorded in September 2023.

TOPICS:
00:00 - Intro
00:59 - Scott's Background
04:22 - Early Career
06:46 - Intro to Global Macro
08:28 - The Creation of Key Square Capital Management
10:24 - Navigating Information Overload
11:25 - Micro & Macro Knowledge
13:42 - The Sequencing of Macro Events
15:44 - De-Dollarisation & Economic Disruption
20:36 - Analysing the Japanese Economy
32:46 - Chinese Economy
37:18 - Macro Investment & Geopolitical Risk
39:09 - Thoughts on Ukraine / Russia Future
42:24 - Potential Impact of AI on Productivity and Regulation
47:10 - The Global Shift from Capital to Labour
51:20 - Closing Questions
58:45 - Outro

 


The New Yorker—and what he said about Trump and his team speaks volumes.On Trump: “My feeling is that Trump doesn’t really know how to stop the war, even if he might think he knows how.”On JD Vance: “He is too radical” and “I don’t take Vance’s words seriously.”Zelensky also claimed that Vance lacked an understanding of history and suggested that because “the Jewish people are a strong power base in the United States,” they should educate him.Not exactly the words of a man with any sense of gratitude for the hundreds of billions gifted to his war effort—nor the political instincts of someone wise enough to understand that he might soon have to deal with the very people he was ridiculing.Even so, Zelensky got another chance. He sat down with JD Vance in Munich last week. If anything had changed, it wasn’t him. No humility, no recalibration—just more of the same.Zelensky, drunk on Western money and power, had grown accustomed to getting everything he wanted from Biden, no matter how ungrateful he was. That entitlement finally caught up with him.
 
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