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Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Jean Pisani-Ferry — The Global Economy’s Three Games

Three major players – the United States, China, and a loose coalition formed by the other members of the G7 – are shaping the future of the international economic and geopolitical order. And they are all engaged in three contests simultaneously, without knowing which one is the most important.
This is about international relations, geopolitics and geo-strategy, and these fields are generally analyzed in terms of game theory.

The only one that can know which game the US is currently playing is Donald Trump and he is not saying. My money is on the third scenario, and I suspect that China and Russia see it that way, too.

Project Syndicate
The Global Economy’s Three Games
Jean Pisani-Ferry | Professor at the Hertie School of Governance (Berlin) and Sciences Po (Paris), the Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa chair at the European University Institute and senior fellow at Bruegel, a Brussels-based think tank

6 comments:

  1. While China should never admit weakness in battle, they clearly know they have a problem with the rest of the world. The discipline/contain china narrative is the official propaganda position of China and fills the papers daily. The narrative above was quickly removed from public view which is telling.

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  2. Beyond the need to finance needed imports, a country's exports are a net real cost to the country as a whole.

    Then why do we have trade wars?

    The answer is that far too many people require jobs in order to have an adequate income and imports are a threat to domestic jobs.

    Then why is it that far too many people require jobs in order to have an adequate income?

    Why is that, JG proponents? And what do you propose to do about it?

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  3. I always find your point of view interesting, Andrew. Michael Rowbotham writes in his book, The Grip of Death, how money is deliberately made scarce because most of it is borrowed from banks and needs to be paid back and this makes a shortage. He says that 30% is the money supply should come from he government and this would change society for the better.

    Rowbotham says that the hourly week could be reduced and people could take months, or even years, off of work to do things like redecorate the house, go to university, start up a new business, etc, without losing their home or their family losing too much money. It sounds terrific!

    We work too hard, and many that do work too hard get resentful and turn to the right when other people are not able to work as hard. This leads to chronic stress on both sides: The underclass and those that can't find decent jobs get stressed, and those in work with good jobs get stressed by their workload and fear what will happen to them if they lose their jobs.

    But what's really interesting is how Rowbitham talks about capitalist competition (he's not a socialist, he says) where he says we are all competing for scarce money racketeering up the competition to very unpleasant levels causing misery and stress. One in ten Americans are now on antidepressant drugs.

    He then says that because money is scarce, companies try to break into foreign markets abroad to get revenue, and as free trade needs to b fair, foreign companies need to break into our markets if they are losing revenue at home because our companies are selling there.

    So, we end up with ships taking German, or Italian, made fridges to the UK, with the UK exporting fridges to Europe, with companies all competing for revenue. So, our oceans are polluting the planet with ships carrying about identical cargo about passing each other. The Germans can buy British made fridges and the British can buy German made fridges. German fridges are very nice, like Bosch ones, but it's such a complete waste of resources.

    Is this anything along the lines that you are saying, Andrew?

    Check out the book, the Grip of Death. It's what inspired Positive Money.

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  4. “He says that 30% of the money supply “

    Kaivey, You never disappoint with your Monetarist inclusions....

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  5. "Then why is it that far too many people require jobs in order to have an adequate income?"

    Yo, They dont want a hand out ... many people prefer work to a handout... some people prefer a handout...

    There is a scripture: "to the worker, the wage is not considered a gratuity but a debt..."

    The people who work like to think they have a big accounts receivable ...

    plus we need people to obtain the necessary skills (btw which are not found in the Arts...) in real terms and do the real work or we all starve... so we should make sure those non-art people have what they need...

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  6. It was just off the top of my head, I can't remember the exact figure. The figure was calculated by Henry George who started the Social Credit movement in the 1930's.

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