David Osman of IRF is joined by David Murrin, the Founder of Global Forecaster. ----more---- In this podcast they discuss David Murrin's ‘5 Stages of Empire’ model and the influence of longer run cyclical trends on geopolitical risks, political factors, the world economic outlook and the prospects for the global financial markets. David assesses the deep-seated problems in the USA and the damage that President Trump’s tariffs and other policies are doing to the country’s international reputation. He points out that this has major implications for the value of the US dollar and its role as the world’s reserve currency. David also explains the basis for his dramatic views about the dangers of Chinese expansionism in northeast Asia and the rising risks of a wider war in the Middle East, as well as the potential for an escalation of Russia’s hostile actions in Europe. David says this has put us on the cusp of World War 3, pitting the West against hostile actions by the “Axis of Autocracy”. Meanwhile, he points out that the unfolding of a commodity super cycle will have a profound impact on global inflation, bond markets and cryptocurrencies. David notes that this helps to explain the recent sharp increase in the price of gold into overbought territory. In these circumstances, David sees the prospects for world stock markets becoming increasingly problematic, particularly the outlook for the US stock market and its dominant AI investment theme. David Murrin has done more than most to link long-run historic trends and human behaviour to successful investment decisions. David is a polymath who is renowned for his development of a unique set of behavioural models whilst at JP Morgan, which have been used to predict financial markets in an effective and profitable way. These models provided the foundation for his multi-decade career in the hedge fund industry. Global Forecaster was established by David in 2019 to provide a unique, top-down, geopolitical overview and actionable real-time market analysis within a risk framework, and with a focus on profitable short-term trading opportunities, as well as longer-term asset allocation decisions in the global financial markets.