News from Economics

What do Economists do? Robert Lind enlightens Presdales’ Economists

On Thursday 23rd of January, the Years 12 and 13 Economics classes, along with Sixth Form students from a number of local schools, went to Chauncey School. The event was put on by ‘Speakers For Schools’, Founded in 2011 by ITV’s Political Editor, Robert Peston, whose aim is to end educational inequality by giving all young people access to the same prestigious networks available to the top fee-paying schools in the UK. Through talks from today’s influential figures, they are helping level the playing field for young people of all backgrounds.

We listened to the economist Robert Lind (pictured above) who offered us an excellent narrative of his decorated career in business and industry. Lind currently works for the Capital Group, an investment group which manages approximately a fund of $1.87 trillion of working peoples’ investments in the USA. It is one of the biggest of such firms in the US and the world. He talked to us about his career and his involvement in a number of the most significant economic events in recent history. These detailed accounts were fascinating, ranging from his time at the Treasury during Black Wednesday and the events which followed the UK’s withdrawal from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992 to being on the trading floor at RBS when they ran out of money as they heard of the collapse of Lehmann Brothers Bank at the height of the 2008 Financial Crisis. He gave us a valuable insight into these events as well as his own take on the government policies which may have contributed towards, but also helped to rectify, the shock to the UK and world economy. As well as this, we learnt of his time at Anglo-American mining and the after-effects of the slowdown of the Chinese economy in 2016. The talk was particularly engaging due to the fact that we were able to get an insider account of the details of the Banking Crisis which features on our A Level course, as well as the opportunity to hear his brilliant anecdotes, all of which improved our awareness of everything from fiscal policy, the financial sector and the role of the economist in the UK in 2020.

Adam Vithaldas (Year 13)