Fundamental Questions: ATCA 5000 Exclusive Event on 5th October

London, UK - 2nd October 2011, 17:20 GMT

Dear ATCA Open & Philanthropia Friends

[Please note that the views presented by individual contributors are not necessarily representative of the views of ATCA, which is neutral. ATCA conducts collective Socratic dialogue on global opportunities and threats.]

This is a short list of the fundamental questions submitted for Socratic dialogue at the ATCA 5000 live session “Global financial risk, safe havens and defensive strategies” to be held on 5th October:

Financial Tsunami: 2011?

1. How far away are we from a severe downturn in the global financial markets? What are the trend-lines and charts suggesting? How can austerity measures help countries to restore their finances if growth turns negative? Will this lead to protectionism? Will low probability high impact risks and black swans end up exacerbating the down turn? What can help to restore confidence?

2. Is the eurozone crisis soluble? Are we skating on thin ice with a rupture likely at any moment that drags the eurozone financial institutions and the world markets into a Creditanstalt (1931) or Lehman Brothers (2008) type abyss via cascading risks? Is there sufficient leadership to allow orderly sovereign defaults and/or exits to take place?

3. Are we witnessing the start of a severe commodities correction especially after the plunge in copper and the slowdown in China? What are the consequences for financial institutions issuing commodity derivatives and myriad counter-party risks? What happens to speculators, hedge funds, pension funds, banks and their customers, (re)insurance groups, sovereign wealth funds and commodity currencies as commodity prices drop significantly and sovereign defaults increase?

4. Which safe havens exist in the extremely volatile financial markets? Are gold, agricultural land and desirable properties in key cities "safe havens" or is "cash" preferable? Do gold and agricultural land remain immune to a severe commodity correction? Why? Which "cash" is king: US dollar, Japanese yen, Swiss franc, Norwegian krone, Swedish krona, UK sterling or emerging market currencies? If the game is over for some fiat currencies like the euro what about all the other paper assets like equities, corporate and government bonds, exchange traded funds (ETFs), listed derivatives and over the counter (OTC) derivatives? As the correlation across all asset classes is tending towards 1 across all geographies what does this suggest?

5. What are the fundamental similarities and differences between the 1930s and now? Will the next recession be like The Great Depression or better or worse? Where is the glimmer of hope and where are the opportunities given the increasing likelihood of a significant downturn?

Towards Sustainability

1. Are there technologies that exist today, or could exist, that can -- simultaneously -- solve some of our power, food and water challenges, address environmental degradation; and in the process enable a new phase of sustainable global growth; whilst in the roll out of those technologies allow new and substantial employment in every country? How long would a transition from an unsustainable global economy to a more sustainable one take?

[STOPS]

Before we proceed to publish the agenda for the ATCA 5000 event on 5th October, do you have any thoughts, observation and views that we ought to take into account?

We are celebrating ten successful years since the formation of ATCA 5000 in October 2001. The private event will be held on 5th October between 6:00pm and 8:00pm at an exclusive “members only” private club in Canary Wharf, London. We will most probably repeat the ATCA 5000 event at the same time on 12th October.

We are grateful to you for your response to the intelligence.unit@mi2g.com in regard to the personal invitation sent for 5th October or 12th October. Thank you.

[ENDS]

Expert Roundtables

Expert roundtables are the newly launched ATCA 24/7 Q&A private exclusive club service. They seek to become the killer application in strategic intelligence by delivering an unprecedented competitive advantage to our distinguished members. They can only be accessed online at https://www.yammer.com/atca

Q1: How to become a privileged member of ATCA 24/7 to participate in the expert roundtables?

A1: i. If you are a distinguished member of ATCA 5000, ATCA Open, The Philanthropia or HQR affiliated groups you may be allowed to become a privileged member of this new and exclusive private club.

ii. If you are pre-invited, visit the private intelligence network -- PIN -- by going to https://www.yammer.com/atca [Note: In https:// 's' is for security and encryption]

iii. If you don't have membership of the PIN yet, email the mi2g Intelligence Unit at intelligence.unit at mi2g dot com for an exclusive invitation.

Q2: How to participate in the expert roundtables and get domain-specific strategic intelligence questions answered?

A2: Access the ATCA 24/7 Private Intelligence Network -- PIN -- online and ask or answer a strategic intelligence question, no matter how complex. Receive expert answers within 24 hours or get pointers from:

i. ATCA 5000 experts who are online;
ii. ATCA Research and Analysis Wing; and
iii. mi2g Intelligence Unit.

Q3: Why is the ATCA 24/7 Q&A Exclusive Club special?

A3: ATCA 24/7 has now created an exclusive private intelligence watering hole and expert roundtable at the highest level where interesting and sophisticated questions are being asked from around the world, and intelligent answers are being provided, almost always by experts who have deep domain-specific knowledge. Come and check out the exclusive club, take it for a strategic test drive, which sign-of-intelligent life are you waiting for?

To learn more about "The Expert Roundtable: ATCA 24/7 Q&A Club" email: intelligence.unit at mi2g.com and if you are already a member visit https://www.yammer.com/atca

We welcome your thoughts, observations and views. To reflect further on this subject and others, please respond within Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn's ATCA Open and related discussion platform of HQR. Should you wish to connect directly with real time Twitter feeds, please click as appropriate:

. ATCA Open

. @G140

. mi2g Intelligence Unit

. Open HQR

. DK Matai

Best wishes