The end of the world. That is, the end of the world we’ve known since WWII
Summary: A status report about the end of the post-WWII world. The great recession has accellerated the process, revealing its weaknesses and showing the people of the rapidly growing emerging nations that they have outgrown it.
The US is almost its lone defender, a futile effort wasting time and resources that could be spent adjusting to the new world being born.
The post-WWII era slowly winds down, slowly but noisily.
It consists so far of two sets of interrelated dynamics.
First, a reversion to the mean of history: the center of economic power returns to the East, ending a few hundred year long aberration.
The economic and political regimes of the developed nations (US, Japan, Europe) are failing under pressure of aging demographics and their accumulated public policy errors.
Growth in the Emerging Nations (EM’s) is accelerating as they adopt modern social and technological patterns.
Second, the foundations of the post-WWII’s geopolitical and financial regimes are washing away:
western leadership, with the US and Russia as hegemonic powers,
US dollar as the reserve currency,
free trade, and (since 1970) free capital flows between nations.
How long will the transition take?