{"text":[[{"start":6.55,"text":"The writer is an FT contributing editor, a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of a forthcoming book on globalisation"}],[{"start":15.399999999999999,"text":"One of the extraordinary aspects of SpaceX’s IPO has been the scramble to buy shares outside of America. In Australia, brokers’ call centres opened emergency hours. Over 100,000 people in stagnant Britain applied for an alternative journey on Elon Musk’s financial rocket. There was an investor stampede in Japan. In South Korea unmet demand has become a national scandal. Chinese buyers were barred by US authorities but still found back channels. Even as the Gulf states worry about waning US defence guarantees, their sovereign funds placed multibillion-dollar orders. "}],[{"start":52,"text":"The frenzy reflects Musk-mania and a bigger trend. Foreigners’ holdings of US shares have hit $22tn, over triple the level in 2015. In many places, the best way of creating wealth has been owning a stake in US capitalism. Gatecrashing America’s party has been staggeringly lucrative. But it means the world is now far more exposed to a market crash there. And, in some countries, it raises uncomfortable questions about why, even as they seek more autonomy from an unreliable America, much risk-taking is outsourced to it."}],[{"start":87.1,"text":"SpaceX is not flying alone. Alphabet announced a record $85bn equity raising on June 3. Anthropic, Meta and OpenAI could be next, pushing the proceeds for US public equity raising above $600bn this year. The AI boom is central to this, but America’s attractions run deep. It has the best pool of entrepreneurs and US businesses account for just over half of the world’s value creation, or profits in excess of the cost of capital."}],[{"start":118.25,"text":"America also has what Scott Bessent, its Treasury secretary, called this week, the world’s “deepest, most dynamic markets”. Since 2009, its banks, asset managers and traders have grown more dominant globally, and funnel savings into its markets. Citadel Securities, which executes a third of share trading in the US market, says activity is “astronomical”. Larry Fink, the boss of BlackRock, the largest asset manager, had called US capital markets a “juggernaut”."}],[{"start":149.75,"text":"The world’s financial relationship with the US has been transformed. Its status as the ultimate safe haven has decayed. As US debts have swollen, the special premium Treasury bonds command relative to other ultra-safe assets has shrunk. China and Europe are building payment networks to bypass the dollar. Instead, America is the venue for taking risks. The world, excluding the US and China, has 38 per cent of its public equity portfolio in US shares, up from 25 per cent a decade ago. Of global risk-taking equity raised this year, via stock markets or venture capital, perhaps 65 per cent will be in the US."}],[{"start":189.4,"text":"For non-Americans the first response should be gratitude: their profits from US shares since 2015 have been a staggering $13tn. Yet the bonanza comes with two concerns. First, if there is a US stock market slump, the rest of the world’s losses would be bigger than in the past. A market rout as bad as 2008 would trigger a hit equivalent to 10 per cent of non-US GDP. While investors expect ups and downs, these are huge sums and, combined with the diminished role of Treasury bonds, portend a new kind of crash. "}],[{"start":222.5,"text":"The second worry is deeper. In the original logic of globalisation, location barely mattered. A neutral financial system allocated money to the best firms. Their products were sold to the world. If you could own Google shares and use Google Search, it made little difference where you lived or where the company was based. Now, this neutrality has weakened. Not all American products are equally available to all countries. Some US allies fear relying on SpaceX’s satellites for defence. On June 12 the US blocked Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5 AI models from being used by foreign nationals. "}],[{"start":259.5,"text":"The rational response for other countries is to expand or incubate local alternatives. On June 24 Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s prime minister, announced a $2.3tn national investment target for AI, semiconductors and more. Mark Carney, in Canada, aims to kick-start a $700bn surge in energy, defence and data. "}],[{"start":284.45,"text":"Left unspoken is how this will be financed by a global financial system led by US companies committed to American goals. The global asset management industry raises 55 per cent of its cash outside of the US but allocates 70 per cent of it there. Based on current trends Europeans could end up putting more fresh equity into American AI and satellite capabilities than European ones this year. "}],[{"start":309.65,"text":"One answer is to use US capital markets to finance risk-taking abroad. SK Hynix, South Korea’s memory-chip champion, has launched a $29bn equity raising in America, with the proceeds to be spent at home. "}],[{"start":323.09999999999997,"text":"The other is to change the pattern of the financial system and bend the arc of capital back home. Friedrich Merz, Germany’s chancellor (ex-BlackRock), has just backed a new national pension system. Carney (ex-Goldman Sachs) says Canada’s pension funds are a “strategic asset” in the new world order. Takaichi could push the $1.8tn government pension fund to invest less abroad. Done adroitly, it should mean the world’s dependence on American risk-taking falls. Done badly and it could yet turn the trade war into a financial one."}],[{"start":364.99999999999994,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1782541173_5931.mp3"}