He has been called Sean Connery reinvented as a historian. Niall Ferguson, visiting SA from Palo Alto, California, has made television programmes that often featured exotic locations, and his now muted Scottish accent is a reminder of the original James Bond. Yet at the Discovery Leadership Conference in Johannesburg this week, he was described as the financial nerd’s nerd. He did write a famous book on the history of money — one geeky episode in a career that has otherwise not been dominated by spreadsheets. But as a political and financial historian, he is well placed to help us make sense of the direction in which the world is moving for both politics and the markets. The question uppermost for readers of this column has to be, "Will President Trump be good for my wealth?" Ferguson swam against the tide of his academic colleagues at Harvard and Stanford by suggesting that Donald Trump should not be underestimated, although he is not a paid-up Trumpista by any means. As a historia...
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