CHAPTER 12
Global Projections EXPERIENCE
IS THE COMB THAT NATURE GIVES US WHEN
WE ARE BALD.
— BELGIAN
PROVERB
It is very dangerous to project the future of anything so given to unscheduled changes as the world economy. It was only less than a decade ago that respected economists and politicians from a wide spectrum of nations were predicting (or bemoaning) the rise of the “Pacific Century.” This epoch was to be presumably dominated by an Asia modeled on Japan. China was supposed to overtake the United States early in the 21st century while India and Europe would cling to the periphery. Russia would shed its brutal communist past to become a technological growth market. South American and African nations would develop a mysterious “third way” of blending socialist ideals with capitalist realities to thumb their noses at (and perhaps outshine) former colonial masters. Reality has been far different. The United States, having nimbly changed its methods, still dominates the world economy while Japan struggles to maintain itself in Asia and the EU threatens to overwhelm the yen and the dollar as “the” reserve currency. China, the land of the dubious statistic, has finally come to grips with its duplicitous banking system. (China demanded to be admitted to the WTO as a “developing nation” even while crowing about its “Number 2” slot in global GDP levels— PPP, of course.). Southeast Asia is stable but still recovering from the economic slump at the end of the last century. Meanwhile, India has taken advantage of its educated English-speaking population to create a multi-billion dollar software industry well in advance of its Chinese neighbor (and rival). Russia has regained its economic footing although it is totally dependent on the volatility of the oil markets. South America is resilient with Brazil leading the way, while a few holdouts like Venezuela talk socialism while scooping up oil profits. Africa is still stuck on the first rung as bloody wars or political infighting continue to block progress.
Two Sides, One Outcome The optimism (or pessimism, depending on your viewpoint) of the mainstream predictions for the 21st century has been shattered by the reality of the outcomes. That said, it should also be noted that many of these outcomes were predicted by a minority of economists who had taken what were considered very contrarian views on world affairs. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, anyone who did not predict the demise of the West and the rise of Asia and the Third World was dismissed as either racist, unobservant, uneducated, or all three. The contrarians were, of course, none of these. They had merely looked at the same statistics and trends as everyone else but had done so without the burden of a political agenda or an emotional wish list. In retrospect, the results of all of the economic
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