Don't expect this wealth to be transferred internally. It will be a transfer to somewhere else. Some signs of how wealth will be transferred externally:
I don't know how old you guys are. I'll be 51 next December. Based on what I have seen in the last 40 I don't expect the pattern of wealth transfer changing much. That because the people living in those next 50 years are not different than the ones that lived in the last 50, nor in the previous, i.e., first half of 20th Century.
The wealth will be transferred in the next 50 years, will be in the form of wealth spreading more evenly. My point is that globalization has allowed to the poor masses to have a say in put pressure on their rulers. Governing elites are hearing that.
Or why do you think China changed since 1978? It changed because the governing elite knew if left as it were China would have balkanized with a big mayhem. Those guys wouldn't be reading the Mao's Red Book and marching wearing the same outfit. No sir!
Now look what is happening in Bolivia. Look what happened in Venezuela. That started 10 years ago with the Chiapas Mexicans. And this will spread up faster from now on.
Look what happens outside the premises of every political jamboree put up by the IMF or the World Bank to see what I mean.
The lost decade, the debt crisis, was the last one. There won't be another like that. See how the Asian crisis was "solved" in about 3 and half years.
See how a default of mega proportions such as Argentina's, is absorbed by the market without missing a bit.
Ok, where I was? Oh, yes, wealth transfer. As those governing elites start feeling insecure they have to do something about it. See India without much fanfare getting in line to open up and trying to be part of the world economy.
Yes, you can tell, that those 'hot spots' Africa and Middle East will keep where they are for some time. But that will also change when they start seeing other making progress and their best people voting with their feet and immigrating. For those troubled places it will take a while more.
But for the major players, it is going to be a different story. They slowly metamorphose into something else.
As those countries get on board of the world economy, which was monopolized by about 50 years by a group of countries selected in Breton Woods, wealth starts to be spread more even. What we are witnessing, right now, is the push-pull effect. The ones holding the wealth don't let it go without a fight. The governing elites of those who don't hold wealth still try -in vain- to keep the status quo. Still rooted in a system that for all practical purposes has lost its meaning. As Brazil and Argentina are the best examples. But they will get there. Pressure is up and will keep up and up.
I tried hard to be civilized Jay, you've got to give me the credit for that "-) |
