– Louis-Vincent Gave
Published: 2013
An optimistic review of global economic concerns and factors of growth, presenting an ‘investment roadmap’ for the coming years. An intentionally optimistic review can be forgiven for missing more pessimistic possibilities, but recent history seems to confirm that wishful thinking is not the best predictor of future trends.
Probably the most glaring omission is ignoring human-induced climate change while celebrating the boom in US oil shale fracking.
Although it would have been difficult to predict the COVID-19 pandemic along with the criminally inadequate response of some governments, such as the US Trump administration, by historical standards this was a comparatively mild pandemic and the high likelihood of a more virulent one emerging at any time can not be ignored.
The author did not expect a revolt of the under-educated classes in the West, or the resulting rise in neo-fascist populists.
Failing to predict the rise of neo-fascism, the author missed the growing fragmentation in the US-dominated global order caused by increased nativism. This in turn is promoting the opportunistic rise of antagonistic regional powers in particular Turkey, Israel, Russia and China.
The author did not predict the breakdown of US-China relations, which is leading to military tensions along the ‘first island chain’ and in South China Sea, economic decoupling/derisking, as well as a Chinese drift toward nationalistic authoritarianism in the face of economic and military encirclement by the US.
He probably could not have predicted the Russian invasion of Ukraine in response to overt NATO encroachment, or the genocidal overreach of the Israeli settler-colonial project, both of which greatly accelerate the end of the neo-liberal world order, the role of the US Dollar as the global reserve currency, and the increasingly rapid decline of the US imperial system which no longer possesses the military might to guarantee free and open navigation though all the world’s oceans for every compliant state.
Mark Twain once said, “There’s nothing sadder than a young pessimist or and old optimist.” Despite the omissions, this books is a healthy antidote to the paralyzing wisdom of experience.
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