008 - Heads Talk - The Analysis - Christos Cabolis's Analysis on Episode 288 - Marcel Lukas

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Heads Talk - The Analysis - 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞

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The Analysis is part of Heads Talk®: Nexus Rerum: Boardrooms & Statecraft. Here we extend the conversation beyond the principal exchange.

1 or 2 consequential questions from the main episode are placed before a second distinguished voice. An individual deeply embedded in the worlds of business, policy, or geopolitics. Their role is not merely to respond, but to interrogate: to examine the framing of the question, challenge its assumptions, and surface the deeper strategic and intellectual currents that may otherwise remain unspoken.

This is expert analysis, a companion discussion that offers a more deliberate and expansive reflection, where ideas are tested, perspectives are sharpened, and the dialogue evolves beyond its original bounds.

What you will hear is a continuation, not a repetition. A considered counterpoint. A deeper reading of the question at hand, a nuance.

We hope you find The Analysis  both illuminating and indispensable as part of the broader Heads Talk experience.

In this episode, we feature Dr Christos Cabolis's analysis of Episode 288 with Marcel Lukas Episode Title: 🇬🇧The New Power Equation: Who Thinks, Who Learns, Who Leads🇩🇪

• Question 2: Are modern universities still producing independent thinkers, or are they increasingly producing participants for existing economic systems?
• Question 4: Education Race: Will the countries that attract and retain the world’s top students and researchers ultimately hold more economic and technological power than those that simply produce large numbers of graduates?

Christos Cabolis' previous Heads Talk episodes: 016 & 187 

ABOUT THE HOST

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

I mean, Switzerland is a financial center. When I worked for the Swiss Banks Association, I was always saying, oh, the Switzerland Swiss financial center. But the level of financial education, financial literacy in Switzerland is actually not that high. And it should be.

SPEAKER_02 0:24

I'm now keen to know what would have been your answer, because you said no. I'm thinking, what a interesting.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

What? What? It's impossible the way you know me. No, I got it wrong. I had the impression that you thought that, you know, just having some AI agent will replace everything else, you know. Um Data is definitely power today and is more important than capital because capital is available. Just look at the Swiss pension system. There's one trillion, one trillion francs in this Swiss pension system alone that needs to be invested.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

Jakob does this for a living. He is um a sort of political advisor. I'm promo I'm promoting you, Jacob, because you're not even doing it yourself. So I'm gonna I'm gonna Jacob is so Swiss, honestly.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Joel Blake, I've been on both sides, you know. I've been, you know, a friend of mine said, yeah, you've seen both. You've been lobbied when you worked for the government.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

And you then you were a lobbyist for the Swiss Packs Association defending their interests, and now you were advising yourself. So you seem inside out.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

Do that. This is Head's talk, The Analysis. Things are shaped as much by questions as by answers. We introduce the analysis, a considered intervention within each episode. Here we take a single consequential question and submit it to a second independent mind, a practitioner, a strategist, a thinker of standing. Not merely to answer, but to examine, to unpack its premises, expose its tensions, and extend its meaning beyond the immediate exchange. It is, in essence, a dialogue beneath the dialogue where ideas are not only expressed but tested. This is where perspective sharpens judgment and where insight begins to compound. Welcome to the analysis. Now, this is um a conversation with Joel Blake to be released very soon. Joel is a fascinating guest. Joel Blake OBE. He is he's a grassroot guy. He sort of built himself up working in the spaces now we'll classify him as an sort of an insider in sort of a in the in the financial space. But what was in what's interesting about this individual, he's very much connected to the outside world of that. So he called, I think he calls himself the rebel in the suit, where he he worked inside, he knows the language of the inside, he knows how to do deals and business on the inside, but he's come from the outside, and therefore he knows how they are perceived. Jakob, um you've heard um a couple of the questions that were supposed to go. Um we're gonna talk about that. And the first question is should financial literacy be treated more like a national infrastructural issue rather than an educational add-on? And that is back to financial literacy. And that is it shouldn't be something that, oh yes, we must do this for our kids, oh yes, we must do this for ourselves. Rather, it's a bit like learning math, learning uh you know, English or learning German or learning French, that kind of thing. It's part and part of the the veins of education. What are your thoughts on this?

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Oh, I think it should be. I I actually I was uh uh when I hear heard that question, I didn't fully understand what you meant with that. You say part of infrastructure, part of uh basic education. My my answer is definitely yes. Definitely yes. And even here, I mean Switzerland is a financial center. When I worked for the Swiss Bankers Association, I was always saying, Oh, the Switzerland Swiss uh financial center. But uh the level of financial education, financial literacy in Switzerland is actually not that high. Uh and it should be if if you put it that way, financial education should be part of the infrastructure. It should be part of your basic, uh basic knowledge. And I'm again talking about concepts, you know, how to treat risk, diversification, how to understand how reality works, you know, risk and return um diversification, then how you uh should find out what kind of risks you are able and willing to take. These things should be uh taught very early. You know, you have I met one uh actually really actually brilliant uh associate, uh lawyer, ready uh to pass her uh pass her attorney attorney degree, and um we had this discussion about investment, and he said, Oh, the stock market is far too risky for me. I'm I'm not going to go in that. And I said, Well, you're not even 30. I mean, you're gonna lose money for sure. And that she didn't know those concepts, you know. If you just keep invest and wait for a long time, there's actually she was so young. If you invest for three years, it's almost it's almost impossible to lose money if you diversify well. And and you don't need a lot of mono uh knowledge for that. You can just be eggs in one bullskit, isn't it? Exactly. Yeah, and um so I think that should be part of basic education because we are taking decisions about our wealth, uh, about saving and investment every day, every day. If you want to have a nice, a nice vacation, uh I don't know, you want to do a tour around the world.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

Literally your life.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

Yes, and that is very basic. And it's it's also I also think it's uh humans should be should be people should be empowered to decide to make informed good decisions to be able to be get in their lives what they want. I think it's a basic, it's almost like a basic right. I think it's fundamental.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

And that's why I think uh but we see it, we understand it, and anybody with a couple of brain cells knows that should be the case. So my question to you, yeah, it might be slightly conspiratorial, yeah, but why but why why are we only talking about this not so much now, but why why is this still a conversation? Why isn't it part and parcel of the whole shebang of education? Why is it what we got people like you know, Louise Joel pushing for this? And we have also got other um candidates. Um there's quite a few people I know in Switzerland that's doing this. Why is this a conversation piece that people keep talking about that we must do this? It should be it, it shouldn't even be talked about, it should just be there. It's a bit like learning your language in school, it's learning mathematics in school, learning the history in school. Why isn't it there?

SPEAKER_00 7:32

That's a good question. You think I think part of the the reason is that uh education is a bit of a battleground too, you know, of so many things.

SPEAKER_02 7:42

Uh you mean a political battleground?

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Very different ideas. Uh, what should be in education, you know. Um what did I say?

SPEAKER_02 7:49

Sorry, sorry, when you said a battleground, do you mean a political battleground?

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Yeah, it's a political battleground.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

Okay, carry on.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

I think um towards the left of the political spectrum, people don't have a lot of uh confidence in the markets. So the reaction is not to people, uh not to teach people how markets really work because they don't think they really work that way. But there are some concepts that you I think I I feel fairly confident that uh that they they hold, and it's not a it's not it's it's not a matter of attitude and and political uh conviction. Some some things really hold. So and then they put other things into it. Uh for them, other things are important, for example, uh environmental concerns, social concerns, all these things are important, and you've got a competition of important things. But I think financial literacy is for me very important because you are taking so many decisions, you know, uh having a family, the education of your kids, buying or renting an apartment or a house, all these things, everyone does it. And why don't we learn that? We learn basic things that are very important, and I think everyone agrees, you know, uh, on that, that learning to read and write and basic math, uh, that uh increases your ability to do that.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

Yeah, but so why isn't financial in your life? Why isn't financial literacy part of mathematics? In school, we weren't taught that in my day. We weren't taught that we were taught Pythagoras' theorems, calculus, and all this sort of stuff. Yes, we weren't taught we weren't taught financial literacy, we weren't taught what it means about sorting at a pension at a certain age, we weren't talking about mortgages and mortgage rates, we weren't talking about what sort of mortgages you should take out, endowment, this not all that. We weren't taught any of that. These are things you found out at the old age, even then, you still don't know about it.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

We weren't even taught how to pay a bill.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

Exactly. Budget, all these things.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

Yeah, how to balance a budget. Actually, my yeah, my mother was uh stickler in that. She was uh she thought that was very important, and and she taught us we had our allowances, and uh that was quite generous, but everything needed to be covered, so and we got our allowance uh not even weekly, monthly. Yeah, so if we weren't wise with the money, well you have to. And I thought that was a good education because you learn that um actually at some point in time, sometimes I uh had uh very small meals at the end of the month because I wasn't very diligent.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

But that was a good lesson. But but but it's that spelt figure that you possess now, so you should be happy with that, surely. Yes, no, but I think yeah, some uh when we talk about it's not so much boomers, it's more like the the forgotten generation. Some of the there were some individuals that were just so brilliant in managing and can and handling money. My dad my dad is very, very good at that, and still is today, uh, incredibly good at that. And somehow um I wish some of that would rub off onto me. I I I'm you know, I'm sort of okay, but not in the way I wish I I was like my my my my parents. They were very, very good and very savvy in how they manage and dealt with the money.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Yes, absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

So, but you see, I think education is a bit of a battleground. Um, but I do think that we need to, and and you know, even in the Swiss uh system, they they have those so-called competencies. I think there are more than 20 that you need to um concentrate on as a teacher. And I thought already that concentrate more on the relevant things, try try to find out what is really relevant for you to live a full life, and uh we need some of that. And I think financial literacy would come out as one of the abilities that are uh uh necessary and important.

SPEAKER_02 11:46

I think good, good, good, good. I think so. I think so. Right, let's move on to this. Is still with Joe Play, Cobe. Um this was question three of his episode. Uh it's about financial data. And um he started and he's built um GFA exchange, and I think he mentioned in the episode he's he said that we're considered like the Bloomberg of uh lower to mid um market um uh credit market um organizations that way. I think they do a lot of sort of uh analysis work and but they they don't deal in stocks and exchange, they're sort of with more sort of financial performance data, and and that's why I I raised that question to him and uh go over there to to listen to his answer and I'll give you a I'll share a link to that. But I want Jacob to uh dissect the question and uh give his uh his take on the whole thing. The question is Is financial data becoming the real source of power in modern markets even more than capital itself? And you know um Jakob has spent perhaps you need to reiterate that message that you spent time in the IMF, the Swiss National Bank. You are um savvy with asset management, investment banking, that sort of stuff. So you you kind of know you you're you're comfortable in this space. And I also wonder if the data is power, uh, who currently owns and controls it? Jakob, over to you.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Uh data is definitely power today, and it is more important than capital because capital is available. Just look at the Swiss pension system. There's one trillion, one trillion francs in this Swiss pension system alone that needs to be invested. Uh so the capital is there. But the knowledge uh where to invest and how to invest, that that the financial data to understand uh how you should invest, that is power. Now how is it distributed? I think some of it is pretty broadly distributed. We have uh stock exchanges where we can uh where there's Bloomberg, in addition to Blake, of course, uh to him, um Joel Blake. There's stock methods, there's you can you you can observe all those prices of commodities, of shares, of treasury bonds, uh of all kinds of nations. So that kind of information is evenly distributed and can be can be processed by many, and it is processed by many. And it's that the result of that that it's very hard to make a return by trying to beat the markets in those markets where the information is readily available. That that's obviously because there is a lot of competition. Everyone's trying to find out, you know, if everyone does that, uh the return to investing into different stocks uh goes down. But where, and I think I if I understood correctly, I looked uh Joel up, um, where he's active is actually in an area where information is sparse, you know, the the the medium enterprise that could have huge.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Really niche, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 15:03

Yeah, niche. But but that's very, very valuable, and I think that's why, and I hope he also makes a lot of money uh with that, because that is much, much, much, uh, much more difficult uh to assess if you lend money to a medium enterprise or if you buy an equity of that mini uh enterprise, and it's not on a stock exchange, you cannot um observe it over a long time. That kind of knowledge is extremely valuable. And there's also some work, and I don't know exactly what he does, but there's also some work that you can do. You can, if you've got enough data about medium enterprises and how they behave, how their um credit history behaves and their uh returns and so on behave, and how the volatility of their assets, if you get to that information, that is that is a huge power. And it's also a service uh because it's for them it's also more difficult to get um financing because the information about them is not readily readily available. So who owns the who owns this information? Some of it is is um public uh and some of it is very private. And today you I think you can also find a lot out of uh data that is just around there, that is shared in social media, and there we know who owns the the data there, you know, the Googles and the Amazons and so forth, they own the data. Yeah, that's not very evilly uh distributed.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

Yeah, yeah. And you know, if we look at Joel's answer to this, he talked about he says yes, financial data is the real source of power, and and he actually in terms of capital, he says it drives the capital allocation decisions. It should. Of course, and that is the most important thing. So he was very adamant about that.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

And if he yeah, and that's that's true value added because if it drives your decision, your your decision how to allocate your capital, how to invest where, it should be driven by your understanding uh of re-return risk return profiles of that. And that sounds much easier than it actually is. If you look at uh a medium enterprise, uh you're gonna look at their business, uh business plans and so forth, and you have to have some understanding how you benchmark that. So that is true. That that is true power, also because the really the the real money really lies there. Uh the other you can investing into publicly available markets, you could do that passively because it's very hard to uh I would argue, uh it's very hard to to beat the markets.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

Oh, really, really appreciate your your your feedback on this. Um Jacob, really insightful. And um once again, thank you for this. And we will convene again at some point shortly soon. And I'm sure listeners, please do feedback because um Jakob and I would love to hear what he would say, your thoughts on what we've talked about, what do you want us to include, how you want us to steer the conversation. We're happy to take on board any comments, any thoughts, um, any conclusions. Get in touch with me directly, or in touch with Jacob. I will give you his contact details because Jacob does this for a living. He is um a sort of a political advisor. I'm promoting I'm promoting you, Jacob, because you're not even doing it yourself. So I'm gonna I'm gonna Jacob is so Swiss, honestly. Um Jacob, I'm gonna give you the floor for a few seconds. Come on, promote what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

Okay, I help, I help uh I do advocacy and strategy advisory. So I help uh entrepreneurs, uh, companies, but also uh also uh foundations uh and associations to get uh their voice heard in the political arena. I also help them to do their risk assessment. Nowadays it's very important to do political risk, and and I'm uh doing that as well more and more. And I recommend that for every board and every responsible person who is has a business, especially if it's international and you export and or you have a supply line from outside the country, you need to be more specific and more organized about uh assessing your risk.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

Have you noticed how the the lines I'm sure they they crossed in previous times, but even more so now, the lines between policy, geopolitics, business and portraits are so blurred, they they they are merging and creating almost a new colour, so to speak. Have you noticed how even now it's really hard to do one without the other?

SPEAKER_00 19:47

Yeah, absolutely. It has always been a bit like that. You know, I've been lobbying is a dirty word, but but it means it means participating in the political process, regulating your industry, for example, because you know most about your industry. So when I help people uh uh to get their voices heard in that.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Um that today is even more important because so many things are going on. Uh political risk now with the tariff wars going on. That used to be the thing of the past. Now we need to get uh used to that.

SPEAKER_02 20:21

Yeah, you know, political leaders uh they needed to be in the past, but even more so now, in order to be a not just a viable, a credible political leader, you need to be business savvy, you need to be boardroom savvy, you need to be industry savvy depending on what you're you're managing and looking after. And likewise, with industry leaders, you need to have diplomacy, you need to be politically savvy, you especially if you're sort of an international organization. All these sort of things. Yes, they were there before, but somehow in today's world, right now, it's like you need that more than some of the other what we would probably call soft skills in your space that was required probably I'd say probably even ten years ago, or even sooner than that. It's just changing so fast that you you almost can't decipher between the two. It's like you are you're part and parcel of it's it's like um a glove. Two hands fit with a glove.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

Absolutely. And it's for me, it's like uh with uh Joe Blake I've been on both sides, you know. I've been you know a friend of mine said, Yeah, you've seen both. You've been lobbied when you work for the government. Yes, and you then you were a lobbyist for the Swiss Parks Association defending their interests, and now you're advising yourself. So you see inside out.

SPEAKER_02 21:43

Essentially, you don't see it, you understand it. And you know the language you need to use when you're dealing with whomever you're dealing with.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Yeah, and I know the problems they have, you know, the authority officials. When they need to devise some new regulation and they have no clue, you can ask people.