The Macro Memo - Global Trends Briefing for Boards & Directors: Why is Europe's economy in the slow lane?

The global economic landscape appears to be going through a form of fragmentation. There are growing tensions between the US and China over “dumping” of industrial products; the German economy is in “troubled waters”; France has revised down its growth; and the UK has sunk into recession (though could emerge quickly). Yet the largest developing world economies continue to do grow at a clip. What’s driving the differential performance? And how should business respond?

These are among the big questions tackled in this month’s The Macro Memo podcast, as it considers an evolving economic environment.

The team—Mark Kennedy and George Lagarias of Mazars, and Gavin Hinks of Board Agenda—also consider the maturing, or more realistic, view of artificial intelligence and its prospects, and examine what European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen (pictured) could do to improve EU competitiveness.

Transcript

Welcome to Macro Memo, a board agenda podcast exploring the impact of macroeconomics and geopolitics on business with Mark Kennedy, George Legarias, and hosted by Gavin Hinks.

To access thousands of articles, guides, reports, and our upcoming events, sign up or log in at board agenda dot com. That's board agenda dot com.

This episode is brought to you by Mazars, the international audit tax and advisory firm helping businesses around the world operate and grow with confidence.

Hello, and welcome to this episode of the macro memo. My name is Gavin Hinks, editor of Board Agenda, your essential source of corporate governance news and insight, and this is our regular briefing on the macro trends affecting business and trade. We have a packed agenda to work through in this program with lots of big issues that could meddle with your modeling. We'll be looking at geoeconomic fragmentation and what it means for business.

We'll take a look at artificial intelligence once again, but this time because all the excitement seems to have died down. And lastly, we'll be discussing Ursula van der Leyen, the EU commission president, and why she's placed improved competitiveness at the heart of her pitch for a second term in office. But as always, first on our agenda is a hearty welcome to our resident macro maestros, Mark Kennedy, joining us from Dublin. Hello, Mark.

Hi, Gavin. Pleased to have you on board again. And George Legarius who comes down the line from Athens. Hello, George.

Hello, Gavin.

Now you're you're both travel widely. You've both been off, visiting different places. Mark, I hear you've been to Dakar, so give us a postcard from Dakar.

Yeah. I I had the pleasure of visiting our office in Dakar early in January. And we we have we've actually got quite a a big firm there, the Western African region, and Dakar is is one of the key hubs for the region even though it's one of the smaller countries. Senegal is one of the smaller countries. But I came away very impressed. So there was probably two takeaways. One was I I know since then they've had some political turbulence, but you have a very stable political country.

Very young population, and a real drive for education. Everybody you meet talking about how they're investing heavily in in educating the population, which is really fantastic to see. And I know coming from a country like Ireland where we've really revolutionized ourselves in the last fifty years by investing heavily in education, it's it is the way forward. So really impressive. And I summed up by one of our teams saying to me, you know, we've built, I think, twelve universities in fifteen years, which is phenomenal growth, you know, and and really bodes well for the future.

The other thing, it was really interesting to see how an open economy in that, part of the world can become a financial services hub really meaningfully. And in the in a broader sense, I learned a lot about how the African nations have been putting together a kind of continental wide view of tariffs and trades, which a lot of work to go, but it reminds me of the EU in the fifties and sixties and coming up to, you know, the the Treaty of Rome and so on, where you're building a platform which is gonna bring prosperity to the continent over time.

Oh, that's good news from Africa. I I I think there are pockets all over Africa of that kind of development, which it's got a lot of momentum and a lot of enthusiasm, locally. George, I believe you have a postcard from Brussels. For us.

I do. And my postcard actually links closely to Africa. So I did go to to Brussels.

And one thing I noticed is that the chocolate makers there are preparing for the so called chocolate apocalypse.

So the prices for chocolate have tripled in the past, in in the past few months. And that is because there is a huge supply problem. Most of the chocolate in the world is grown in Western Africa, Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana.

And for due to supply reasons and climate change, the crops have, have had issues.

So the price of chocolate has tripled internationally, and now it's beginning to hurt the different chocolate makers in in Brussels, and they're all complaining about it.

George, that is the worst news I've heard in a long time. I'm I'm literally fighting off a panic attack now.

But but let's move on from that dire news if if if that's okay. That's truly bad. Although it won't affect many, chocolate makers in the west who, in fact, use very little chocolate, but we won't say much of, about that at this point. Anyway, let's move on. Before we get to our main agenda, let's just, cover off with the how you're feeling about the future.

And I wanna just reflect back on a previous program.

As predicted, none of the central banks, the EU, US, or the UK have moved to lower interest rates despite inflation, the the inflation picture looking a lot healthier. So are you feeling bullish or bearish about, that development? Mark, can I come to you first?

So, I think I'm I'm kind of having been very bullish in January and optimistic. I still have vestiges of optimism. I do think as we look ahead in terms of the the economic landscape globally, we're in for a tougher year.

And I think you see signs, and we'll probably come to that later in this podcast.

On the UK, I'm still, say, pretty bullish. I know that there's a lot of talk about recession, but it it feels like a technical recession.

I'm not sure it's going to last very long, and I think I I prefer to stay on the upside. So overall, still in bullish territory, Gavin.

A little bit of optimism there then, George. How about you?

I think I share Mark's sentiment. Look, the American economy, is roaring on all possible four cylinders. It is slowing down. It will slow down further in q one.

But when all is said and done, it's doing very well. Why? Because it borrowed heavily to avert the recession. A recession is a choice most of the times.

You can avert it by simply, borrowing and hoping for, hoping for an upturn and then be able to pay your debts.

Now, because the global economy is fragmented, what happens in the US doesn't necessarily translate into what happens to to everyone else. So, yes, the UK is officially in recession. However, the latest consumption numbers were very good. And I really, this there's no reason, you know, employment is strong. There's no reason to fundamental reason. It doesn't feel like, this recession is going to be anything more than a technical recession.

In fact, if I may be so bold, I would not be too surprised if those figures are revised up and and we avoid the the recession altogether.

Signs of hope there then. Well, that's good news. Okay. Well, look. You mentioned fragmentation there, George, so that takes us very nicely into our first big agenda item, the one that we've called, geoeconomic fragmentation.

Let me set a scene. We've got growing tension between China and the US over the possibility of dumping industrial goods. According to the German Ministry of Finance, their economy is in troubled waters. That's a direct quote.

They're expecting just zero point two percent growth this year. France has revised down its growth this year to a single percentage point. And yet, the IMF says China will remain the largest driver of global growth. Potentially, they they clocked five point two percent last year, and India is expecting to clock growth of seven point three percent this year.

So we really do have a frank vented economic picture. So I I wonder then, George, what's going on? Can we pick any themes out of all this economic news around the world?

Well, the the first thing we should definitely pick up on is the AI theme.

Okay? Because that's what's been driving markets.

Markets are are up now solely on the US, which is up solely on NVIDIA.

Okay.

And there is a very good fundamental reason for this. There is a global war for chips, both geopolitical nature because the US and China are competing, for more processing power, which is becoming more, you know, more of a commodity than gold than than, oil.

But also, there is a lot of demand for processing power.

So if I'm developing an AI application, I cannot do it in house. I just don't have the processing power to do that. So I go to the servers by Amazon or by NVIDIA, and I buy their processing power. Okay. For Amazon, now that's twenty percent of the business, fifteen to twenty percent by the way.

So that is why you see those companies, soaring in the stock market. It's it's solely demand and supply. And, we're talking about the emergence of a very big disruptor. I'm actually more positive about AI than I was in the sense that the feeling that I get that there are all sorts of small companies now developing the next big thing based on AI.

This is good.

This is good. We will see the next Google coming out of this.

Mark, coming to you. What does business do with this fragmented, economic picture?

Because I imagine the temptation will be to ignore it, but it it it must be of use in some way as well.

Yeah. I I guess look. I mean, being in business is the art of managing your environment in many ways. I did I did as an aside before I get into that, I did laugh a little bit at, at George's reduction of the entire world to the NVIDIA share price.

We have to remember that business is not markets. The mark the market is a semi efficient way of funding businesses. Out in the real world where people are actually working and being employed and stuff, there's lots happening. And I think the, I think, you know, the if I'm if I'm sitting in any business today, yeah, any international business, say, in a purely domestic setting, it may be slightly different.

But any anything that's buying or selling on on the international markets, you've got to stand back and see two things are happening. First of all, this is, you know, much heralded the year of politics. We have more elections, I think, this year than any anytime in recent history, certainly.

On top of an already quite tense geopolitical situation for a reason we know and we've talked about, what that means is that that kind of geopolitical fragmentation is going to skew the business view, I think, for the remaining of twenty twenty four, and you're gonna be reading every time you pick up a paper about some sort of issue there.

I do think though it has a longer term trend here. I think there has been I don't I'm not a person who says globalization is done. I mean, if you want to to kind of really get your view on that, read your history and you'll see we had globalization in a quite significant form in the seventeen hundreds. So I don't think we're done with it. I think we're changing our format and we're changing the landscape a little bit and companies have to react to that.

I think the second thing that that you you have to recognize is that even in stressed analytical times and, you know, you could debate whether we're very stressed at the moment or heading that direction. In this those kind of stressed words, you always have trade. And that's why, you know, not quite a hundred years ago, seventy five years ago and so on, you know, you you had an immediate post the first world war, you had an immediate reaction which was economic in its view post the Second World War, the same, you know, in Bretton Woods and all of those building blocks that we put in place. So

trade continues whatever happens and I think businesses will realize that. I think what what business leaders are probably thinking about now is number one, have we got the skill sets to really thrive in this environment? And I think some skills that, we have left behind because we had such a benign environment for a long time in terms of analysis of of that situation, understanding of saying sanctions regimes, understanding of barriers to trade, which are increasingly put in place, is something that companies have been weaker on and are beginning to strengthen up. And I think that's a trend that will continue.

I think the the second thing is that in terms of investment strategy, political risk is back on the table and has been on the table and is becoming more of a factor. So I don't think firms will stop investing. I think what they'll start to do is be much more nuanced to other pricing in that risk and and having strategies which re recognize that. And I think the third thing that is definitely there at the moment, and it's a function not just of geopolitics, but of the, I suppose, the market developments in the last number of years.

Companies are companies have recognized long ago that, the interest rate interest rate environment that we lived in was impossible to continue. And you've seen some companies build up balance sheets in war she war chest. As a consequence, I think in this environment, profit and cash is king will will be the the line coming from most CFOs. And I think what you can see is a relatively conservative balance sheet management policy going forward. And that enables companies then to make good choices and continue to grow and develop in the right way. So I think that'll be the business reaction in most strong businesses.

George, just coming to you, Martin mentioned globalization.

Martin Wolf was right in the in in the Feet recently and made some really interesting observations that we seem to have gone through hyper globalization until the financial crisis. Then we entered a period of what some economists call slowbalization.

So the big question is what follows that slowbalization now? What what is the mega trend we can expect?

Well, that's that's why I'm harking back to the previous scene.

You're right. We do have globalization and we have world leaders essentially trying to create modes between their economy and other economies because they want to reduce risk and increase manageability and all that.

But the more I hear everything, the more I realize that the world was united, globalized because of the marvel of the Internet.

We stopped commuting. We started communicating. We shrunk distances to to to nil, and that was globalization.

As much as it was the consequences of the end of the, you know, cold war and the and the marvel of modern supply chains, ultimately, globalization was something driven by the Internet.

And that is why I think the new marvel, which might be the marvel of AI, could append plans for this geoeconomic fragmentation because there are lots of leaders who would prefer to have more control over their country and the information and and what have you.

And I think that more AI, could reshape global business in a way that this globalization deglobalization could even be reversed.

Mark, a big reversal on the horizon.

Yeah. I I I see where George is coming from. And and I agree to one extent that all international trade is really a game about taking down barriers, and the Internet took down very significant barriers, as did political movements and economic agreements and so on. And while I think there's a lot of doom saying around, I'd be with George and I think we I I don't I'm not sure that I'm on the same timeline as you, George. I don't think the a the AI revolution is going to create a sudden reversal. But I think it's one of a number of factors that will see globalization continue and and maybe maybe reverse over time. I wouldn't be on the I wouldn't see it as a drastic change, but I think it's there with potential.

We we're gonna come to AI as our second agenda item. But before we do that, Mark, just let me take you back to the point you made about businesses in the current political environment having to make nuanced investment decisions. What what what are the what is the nuance we're talking about there? What what what do those decisions look like?

Let let's start with, you know, a a stable business that, you know, because you businesses get a many phases and developments and so on, but something that that's established and international. I think some of the key topics that they'll be thinking about is shortening supply chains or or giving redundancy in supply chains by which I mean the ability to fall back on on alternate routes.

I think businesses in the UK in particular, and there was a pretty shocking stat in terms of the additional costs they've borne in the last number of years was published in some of the press during the week.

We'll be looking very much at how do you reduce the drag factors and how do you reduce the costs associated with international trade.

And I think you'll have, in in as I said, I think the well prepared, I think, I have more sophisticated view on on funding coming in increasingly into into companies thinking. But again, I'm generalizing and I'm conscious. There's probably people sitting there listening going and what about this and what about that and you know there's a lot of things that make up a successful business and it depends on the sector and the context and so on and so forth. But in a way you could if you were trying to headline it, I think a return to some slightly more traditional values and management approaches is what I think we're seeing and we'll continue to see.

Well, lots to think about there. Let's move on to our second agenda item. We're calling this sanity in artificial intelligence. I think, when we spoke about this earlier, we'd all noted a certain calming in the discourse around artificial intelligence. The excitement seems to have gone out of us slightly.

George, everyone went mad over generative AI, but views are calming down, aren't they? The views do seem much more sane about where it's going.

Well, look, I'm not as excited as I was about ChargeGPT because ultimately, it's a pirate. It's a clever pirate, but it's a pirate.

And but I don't think ChargeGPT is the future of AI. And I honestly think Sam Altman asking for a seven trillion, that is right, trillion investment, I, circa seven percent of global GDP is ludicrous.

Having said that, there is, you know, much like, Apple or much like Google changed the world and they were doing it from a basement initially, There are companies now that are thinking how to harness the power of of this of advanced computing. Okay.

And keep in mind that we haven't even managed to, to produce the hardware, that's going to drive even better AI, which is quantum computing.

So the point I'm making is that somewhere in the basement now, the future is is being planned. Out of a thousand businesses, the one that's going to make a difference is being planned in in somebody's basement, somebody's garage.

And, the way I've seen things move with, you know, with the the communication with the communication, revolution in in in the two thousands, I think these things can move pretty fast.

And, you know, there is circa two hun sorry. Two point five, trillion in dry powder, I think, from, private equities. That is a lot of money, and that money can go fund some of those companies. And by the way, that that money is is usually turned into finding in into funding those companies. So the one thing I know is that we do not know where the AI revolution will take us, but it's going to take us somewhere. And I think what's tying down is too much speculation, and we're just taking a step back to see where this leads. But I don't think anyone is less excited about it.

Mark, George paints a picture of an unknown destination for AI, at the moment. That would tend to make it, premature for businesses to throw a lot of investment at AI solutions to transform their business models?

I'm not I'm not quite there. I could see why that might be suggested, but I think businesses have a choice to make. So the way I'm looking at it at the moment, I think a lot of the excitement last year was hype and hype of the new.

Very exciting possibilities. A lot of talk about the downsides of of AI. And I think companies were getting themselves through last year in a shape to begin to explore this properly, by which I mean putting in place policies and controls and so you can manage a new technology.

I think where the the direction is shifting now or has shifted for the the the ones who are moving very quickly is around maybe two or three topics. One is there's a recognition that you have and will have quite quickly in the market better versions of ChatGPT, whether it with one provider or another, which effectively will be a tool, which I think in time will become like Excel. And and that's not to denigrate it, that can be incredibly powerful. I mean, Excel was revolutionary, in its time and and, you know, used well was very, very positive in terms of efficiencies.

Half of the world is still run by Excel whether we like it or not.

It is. Yeah. But but I I'm I'm thinking back when I was a youngster and start noticing the first time I saw a spreadsheet and had to and and stopped adding up columns, which is what my first year, couple of years as a trainee I was doing, adding things up manually with a with a calculator or an adding machine. So so, you know, there was a change then.

And and I think we're looking at with things like Copilot and whatever. That that's that direction. The companies will invest in that. That's not cheap.

It's a novel technology.

Embedding it and using it well is going to cost money. So that investment will continue. I think what the the more fundamental and maybe linking to the excitement last year is the question of what are the use cases for more sophisticated LLMs, and how do you tune one to your own business needs. And that's where you'll achieve differentiation because the the kind of Excel analogy doesn't difference. You you everybody will be doing it. So I think a lot of companies are using twenty four to explore meaningfully, and I'm ignoring a lot of the hype in the market about we have a solution for this, we have a solution for that.

Basically they couldn't have yet, got you know, people are marketing on it but actually, the real quality outputs, I think, we'll see through twenty five and twenty six. And I think you will see some companies do pretty radical things in their industries.

George, twenty four is a year of exploration for AI. I assume that means companies are gonna have to address, connected issues like skill sets.

Yeah. Of course. And that is that is an issue. Right?

We're going to have to rethink management. We're going to have to rethink working. We're going to have to rethink a lot of things.

Same way as Microsoft Teams force us to to rethink, which is a very simple application, by the way, force us to rethink the nature of work because, you know, the pandemic is over, but hybrid working is still with us.

Okay. Causing all sorts of ripples, especially in the commercial real estate market, by the way.

So I think that we have to address things from a skill set perspective. And, you you know, if I'm if I had a big company, I still would not know what what I would be looking for. Okay. That that is an issue. Am I looking for coders?

Will the world be run by coders? Am I looking for, should I add coding skills to to all of my staff? Is this how this is going to work?

Do I need managers to be more, you know, tech savvy, or the whole point of AI is for us to be less tech savvy.

That is the problem. Yes. You're right. We're going to have to align skill sets, but we still don't know to which to which towards which direction. You know, along with Excel, there was Lotus, I think. Right? Right, Mark?

Apple had Lotus, and I seem to remember a lot of companies had Lotus in back back in the early days. You know, now I I struggle to remember the name.

But I think you're talking about a a different thing there. I think the category like, I take your point that there's an a a level of exploration on skill sets, but I I think at a macro level, we already see what what matters, which is those roles which will generate or or require a lot of human nuance and skill set will become even more premium value, and that I think that's already a seen thing. What the what the computer can't discriminate, humans will discriminate. And so training our young people, and I mean, I have kids who are teenagers, you know, the kind of skills that I want to see them learn is around communication, negotiation, decision making, those kind of you know, maybe traditional skills in a way that will remain valuable.

Being able to distinguish what's real and what's not real is going to be very important. And put those in different businesses you they have different influences, put it that way. The lotus ones and yeah. Yeah. Filtered information. Exactly. The the other, the Lotus thing reminds me though, you know, that there is an assumption that all technology changes are bad.

And yes, maybe for Lotus, it wasn't the best story. But if you take that spreadsheet, SuperCalc was another one that knocked around and died an even earlier death. All of those were in a category. All of them together were people said, oh, it's going to wipe out the accountancy industry because who's gonna be doing all that toting and chip kicking a bash. I think within a decade, there was nearly ten times as many accountants. What it did was it unleashed the potential to do many more things, and I think that's what you'll see in a lot of industries as AI. As those use cases get sorted through, I think that's what we'll start to see.

Well, it's an interesting time for AI, but it does sound like we're, to to quote a film title, going back to the future in many ways, Mark, in terms of, how we the values and skill sets that we'll need to manage it.

Look, let's move on to our third item for this discussion. Ursula van der Leyen has said she will run for another term as the EU Commission president. At the heart of her pitch for that job is to improve EU competitiveness, which, raises some really interesting questions. George, what needs to be solved around EU competitiveness?

What's the problem she intends to address?

Well, the EU's problem is notoriously huge bureaucracy.

You see, Anglo Saxons sometimes don't get how the EU works, well, demonstrably so. The, the EU does not it works with specific laws, which are designed to tell you do this, exactly this, or do not do exactly that. It's not the principles based system, which is more say, you know, familiar to the UK.

And all the rules and regulations in the UK are more principle based, whereas in, in the EU, they're more outcome based.

And the problem is that's created a huge rule book and sometimes some of those rules don't don't make much sense.

If anything, the so called Brussels effect is that, EU has so many rules that it can afford to export them. It can provide frameworks for other, for other countries.

But you don't make money by exporting rules. You make money by being nimble. You make money by being on the forefront of technological exploration, not just rely on, the US and China to do your work for you.

So what needs to change is that we shouldn't just regulate AI, we should be at the forefront of discovery.

All of it is happening, away from the European Union.

Okay. Even the UK, has has a lot better, facilities at at research and development, than than the rest of the EU has.

The EU needs a a new growth model. We're not anymore about making German cars and French consuming expensive stuff. K. We need to grow beyond this. And I'm not sure what mister Lyons' vision is, but it should include a strict departure from the model we had up to now. I think the model for growth for Europe has been exhausted.

Ten years ago, the European economy was, about, ninety five percent of the US economy. Now it's sixty five percent.

So quite a gap to, fill there, Mark.

Van der Lijen can't just, tinker with thinning out the bureaucracy. She'll have to do something a bit more fundamental.

Yeah. I I I kind of agree with George in in a limited way. I'd I think your analysis is probably a little bit narrow. I think what what you're seeing is is two things.

One, it's a natural extension of what of the plan she put in place and drove when she was first elected, which was about the European Green Deal, which, you know, while there is pushback in certain places, it has advanced enormously the positioning of those sustainable injure in industries globally. And even in place like the states, I mean, we've moved a long way. I know there's a lot of people pushing back against it politically, but the the positioning is entirely different. And most investors get that now, you know, and there would be further evolution.

So I'm not saying it's a done thing. But the natural next thing is if you're if you're building a a position for Europe where that's, that energy policy basically is our foundation stone, the next thing you've gotta do is start saying, well, how are we gonna drive economic well-being? And that's, I think, what she's doing here. That's what I think that's what the focus is.

I think the other thing that's perhaps going on is that that the commission and and Ursula van der Leyen are thinking about competitive advantage. It's not just about bureaucracy.

And the big we're we're living in a multipolar world and we will remain living in a multipolar world, I think, for quite a while. The US has its sources of competitive advantage. China and Asia have their sources, and I'm not twinning them on to say, you know, but they're you know, you take them separately, China and the rest of Asia have positions.

And Europe is perhaps revisiting again after making a big bet on the green deal, its competitive advantage. And I think, again, how do you make fundamentally European businesses more saleable in the market, more profitable? I think that's what she's going to work on. There is one last aspect which I maybe put in as a code. I think there's also a security element to this, and that's security in different ways, whether it's cybersecurity, energy security, and so on. But also I think you'll see quite possibly a fairly significant change in the European stance on defense, over the next four years as part of that. Economic strength win wins those kind of conflicts ultimately.

George, tell us a bit more about this competitive advantage. Where where can the EU find it?

It's very difficult to say. Look. The EU has highly skilled workers.

It has, there are areas in Europe where labor is cheap.

It has a lot of productive capabilities and a lot of, you know, economic zones where, that that production can take place, in in a very efficient way.

But the question in my mind is not whether it can compete by improving efficiencies, but whether it can compete by being at the forefront of discovery, being at the forefront of innovation. This is where the game is played, and Europe is third.

Being third is not actually that bad. It leaves you room to improve.

It's third in one arena, which is technology.

Yes. It it it is third in in in technology, but, also in other things lately as as, for example, in in cars, okay, which again have to, you know, it's it's closely linked to the technology, issue. Look. I'm saying that I think that competitiveness will not come from efficiencies.

Yes. Maybe some things will improve if if the European Union is more complete, the, monetary union that is. But, ultimately, I think that its top scientists need to stay in in Europe for that, marked improvement in competitiveness.

Look. There are two ways to compete, generally speaking. Either demographically, you know, so you lower your costs or you improve your productivity. That happens mainly through technology.

Technology is the big issue then?

Yes. Productivity. The best way to improve productivity is usually via technology.

And I think in the longer term energy, which I think is part of the so I think we're not in the position today. We don't know what is going to be put forward, and I think we're hammering around various possibilities here.

The the direction we understand.

It'll be interesting to see how it plays. It's as I said earlier, politics is going to be a big influencer this year, and we we may be surprised as what we see.

Well, either way, if Ursula van der Leyen van der Leyen, is back as president, she'll have a big job of work to do on many fronts, security, and economics, and as George points out, innovation as well because everybody loves innovation. Look, we've come to the end of our agenda.

Guys, I just wanna cast forward if we may. George, if I can come to you just to take a look forward in the diary first, you you wanna mention central banks, don't you? Yes.

Central banks have been sort of cryptic about their their decisions on interest rates going forward. I think that will change in the next month or so. I think we're going to become a lot more open as inflation moves down, and finally give us a hint as to when the first rate cuts are coming. I would expect those hints to to come long no later than late March.

Well, that will certainly have everyone gripped. Mark, you want to tell us something about, something going on in Northern Ireland?

Well, kind of. And and, I just wanted to recognize something, and and a date caught my eye which prompted it. It's actually fifty years next month at the end of March since the end of the Sunningdale arrangement which was a a previous power sharing arrangement which didn't work out so well. A low point in in relationships, I think, in the north and in Anglo Irish relationships.

It was really nice to see the, the assembly reforming that we have a functioning government in the north.

I think, it bodes very well for the next few years, both and for the Republic of Ireland and and the UK as well. There seems to be a real motivation to work well, and we know economically it's a zone that can be very influential. So I just wanted to, you know, wish that experiment well. I did it's more than an experiment. Wish that developed. Well.

Yes. I I think we all have our fingers crossed that, that works out there in Northern Ireland. Mark Kennedy, George Lagarias, thank you once again for a compelling deep dive into the macroeconomic landscape.

And, thanks very much for joining us, the viewers out there who tuned in to listen. Thank you, and goodbye.

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