End Of The Road

Market-driven solutions have given way to protectionist ones as policy makers of the political class continue to kick problems down the road for others to deal with. Their interests have always been to protect their and cohorts' self-interests. They have accumulated so much public debt that it cannot and will not be repaid, definition of bankruptcy. Creditors will have to take a write-down worse than those holding Argentina's debt after restructuring from its default in 2001. All problems faced by the developed countries, whether they are excessive and unsustainable debt, over-priced labor from planned inflationary forces, and a mal-distribution of income and wealth distorting the resultant demand/savings relationships, have their roots in fiat currencies.But because our policymakers are not focused on root causes, and tend to address symptoms, they are supporting negative real and even negative nominal interest rates as a solution, implying there is no utility to the postponement of consumption. An excellent example of these policymakers treating symptoms instead of root causes is their solution to climate change. They approach the problem from the control of greenhouse gases, a consequence of burning too much carbon and consuming too many animals. But it has never occurred to them that the problem is that the planet is overpopulated, having more than doubled in the last 50 years.Climate change is the Malthusian solution to over-population where droughts, famine, floods, wildfires, storms, pandemics, etc., are intended to accomplish what Man refuses to do - put limits on population growth. One can reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in direct proportion to the reduction of population.
This Book identifies the real causes of the problems developed countries, and by association, the entire world, are facing. These are not solved by blaming the vulnerable, such as migrants, by adopting anti-market solutions whereby companies receive subsidies to remain and/or expand instead of quietly going out of business or not existing altogether, by increasing minimum wages when they will invariably lead to changes in technology (ratio of labor to capital) and quicken the pace of labor obsolescence, and by violating Ricardo's concept of Comparative Advantage through the taxation of imports. As policymakers are on the wrong track, aided by their advisory economists, who seem to subscribe to the "conventional dictum" of those they follow, are not positioned to offer sound guidance, this Book tries to fill that gap.
"End Of The Road" identifies fiat currency as the root cause of the deficiencies in the economies of developed countries. Besides, financial transactions are slow and costly and must be addressed. The solution offered is the replacement of cash by Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) which is already under study in China, Sweden, and even the USA. But the novel proposal put forward is the establishment of a universal currency issued by a World Central Bank (WCB), which would hold the reserves of all countries' central banks. Those reserves are asset-based, and are recomputed and adjusted periodically by the WCB to reflect changing value.
The Book also offers recommendations for the judicious use of debt, the high cost-of-living conditions and subsequently noncompetitive labor costs from inflation targeting, the reduction to inequalities which evidence shows would have a positive impact on growth in the economy, and the elimination of monetary manipulations by Central Banks, referred to as quantitative easing and tightening, which causes asset bubbles due to the Cantillon Effect.
The Book, therefore, throws the spotlight on a most important Political Economy problem facing the globe, and provides solutions.