BOOK REVIEW: Michael Lewis’s The Fifth Risk
Lessons to learn from Trump as president, natural disasters and other unthinkable scenarios
The longest US government shutdown yet — 35 days — was triggered by a 72-year-old man-child, prone to temper tantrums, in the White House. And, unrepentant, he’s threatened to do it again. Right now, Donald Trump’s presidency represents a ramped-up quotient of risk all over the world. Businesses are enmeshed in the trade wars he has instigated, entangled in the uncertainty of new geopolitical complications and exposed to unmitigated climate change which threatens agricultural inputs, and even water, within supply chains. Any perceived honeymoon — the short-lived mini-surge in US stock markets — is over, and companies must now compensate for the clear risks caused by an unprecedented, uninterested, and often openly hostile American presidency. Michael Lewis’s new book, The Fifth Risk (Penguin Random House), is an unusual, intriguing fusion: a withering indictment of the Trump administration, a summation — with case study examples — of the excellence of selected US government departme...
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