![]() ![]() iPhone Samsung Galaxy Smartphone, cell phone, gadget, electronics, mobile Phone png 500x710px 171.41KB.That one is for the true Barbie aficionados. And for those who want to complete this analogy by doing the splits, make sure you train first. Embrace your inner Weird Barbie or find one to help you. Challenging rules and assumptions, and listening to your intuition on a day-to-day basis are skills that Weird Barbie specialises in. This goes both ways and should also be applied when financial instruments are massively oversold or out of favour. How many times has the market upgraded and bought a stock or theme at the top of the cycle only to see it crash? ![]() Or, where consensus says this is a ‘no brainer’ or a good idea – to then consider what is the other alternative or downside to the argument. A more likely scenario would be a spread of 2% to 5% allowing for better planning and the overlaying interest rate implications. Weird Barbie would say, and I would agree with her, this is too specific and does not reflect potential shocks. An example would be where the Bank of England forecasts inflation at 2%. This is also known as contrarian or differentiated thinking and can be applied to all parts of the investment process. The individual investor also needs access to, or the ability to call on their own Weird Barbie, to test and challenge the status quo, and traditional thinking, including the opinion of some of our most revered institutions. Swimming against the tide is not easy and that is why in the majority of cases, it is more common to have consensus supporters than not. No one likes a Weird Barbie who showboats for the sake of showboating. Going forward, the MPC and similar organisations should have a mix of Economists as well as Weird Barbies who should rejoice in their ability to think differently because it generates new thinking. This is one of the reasons I would like a full review of our Monetary Policy and the performance of the Governor and the MPC to be carried out by ‘generalists’ as well as Economists. Weird Barbie adds those important ingredients of individuality and inquisitory nature, which for many classically educated Economists is uncomfortable, lowbrow, and viewed as fringe. Moreover, the transitory argument should be challenged, and a different approach should be adopted. To question these assumptions includes calling out the huge liquidity in the system, the increase in savings and the impact of initiatives like helicopter financing. The view on transitory inflation is a classic example – the collective Central Banks filled to the brim with invincible Economists, many of whom are all trained in the same institutions, in the same money theory and who, in the majority, believed that inflation would return quickly to 2% because that is what happens and that is what the model says. It has been a disappointing period for many of these institutions with key logic based on super cheap money in the form of quantitative easing (QE) and rock bottom interest rates and the resulting asset bubbles and inflation driving the existing countermeasures. It is not just the Bank of England it is many of the world’s Central Banks and other institutions who suffer from this. That is why I want institutions like the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee to have their own Weird Barbies so that we can break the cycle of groupthink. She is not weird, in the playground and raw sense of the word, she just thinks differently, and we need characters like this. She is the challenger, unbound by convention – where the child can express their individuality, or even frustration with the norm and seek an alternative viewpoint. She is the opposite of the pristine Ken and Barbie – the individualists. For those who don’t know who Weird Barbie is, she is the Barbie whose hair is cut short and often has a felt-tip pen drawn on her face. She reflects an antidote to groupthink, lethargy, and the popular dumbing down at the institutional and individual levels. Inspiration comes in strange places and as I sat watching Barbie, the charismatic Weird Barbie struck a chord with me. In this guest post, Charles White Thomson, CEO at Saxo UK, explains how he wants institutions like the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee to have their own Weird Barbies so that we can break the cycle of groupthink. ![]()
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