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Arnold is not talking about what happened back in those years. He has not only pulled out of Olivant but also left his advisory firm Cartesius and the board of the London Design Museum. What remains is a keen interest in the industry of banking and what may come as a consequence of the pandemic.

The banks have been heavily supported by governments in order to stabilize the economy and subsidize a great number of companies and people, he says. «It’s easy to keep everyone happy if you give away money, but this will stop now.» For most governments, debt to GDP and the effect of the pandemic on taxes will take center-stage in the next years.

Man-Made or Made by Mankind?

«This may present new challenges to banks,» he said. The pandemic alters lifestyles – and banking has always been very dependent on changes in their customers’ lifestyles. «From that point of view, the business model of banks will be even more challenged than today.»

How does the ongoing pandemic compare with the financial crisis of 2008?

«The pandemic may be made by mankind, while the financial crisis was clearly man-made,» he said. Since the 1980s there had been forced deregulation and laissez-faire in the financial industry. In the 1990s, derivatives became hot stuff. «Very soon, astrophysicists told us, bankers, what do to, and the huge OTC-market for these instruments was not monitored at all.»

Too Profitable for Wall Street

Attempts to regulate the market came to nothing because it was too profitable for Wall Street.

Arnold expects to see the turn of an era, sparked by the coronacrisis. «We will see a fundamental change in the organization of labor and production, deglobalization seems inevitable.» On the societal level, there will be very strong pushback from socialist politics for a more balanced economy and a focus on employment.

A World in the Japanese Mold

With the rampant growth of debt, the world will more and more become like Japan: With debt that far surpasses GDP (which in Japan is ok because it is held by the Japanese), a demographic that is aging rapidly, and wide use of new technologies like artificial intelligence and humanoid robots across society.

Will Arnold return to finance? It doesn’t look like it: «I don’t plan to get back. I was fortunate to be in the business in the 1980s, when the industry was really at the top of its game.»

He is working on a non-fiction book with a focus on economy and behaviors, not the financial industry. The book is not coming out this year or the next, at any rate.