We're not living in a world where the one billion people inhabiting the 'developed world' control 80% of the world's wealth. We're living in a world in which 65% of the world's wealth is held by the 'developing world' (mostly in the BRIC countries).
This the underpinning global economic reality of where we are. The never-ending 'Euro crisis' blog and 'Japan crisis' articles that appears on this website on a daily basis is a consequence of this profound global shift in wealth and power... More info here...
What has helped mask these extraordinary transformations are cheap energy, cheap debt, and cheap imported goods. However, right now, all the chickens are coming home to roost - the west (and particularly Japan) does not have sustainable access to cheap debt and cheap energy to fuel consumption and our mobile lifestyles.
We're still in the mindset that 'we' control 80% of the world's wealth. The reality is much of our supposed wealth is entirely abstract - living in the imagination of bankers and the financial industry. Whilst much of the real economy (primary resources; secondary manufactured goods, and; increasingly the service industry) is to be found more so in the BRIC countries.
We seem unable to face up to the reality - socially, economically, or politically - and educationally, we do not want to learn from the BRIC countries. In sum total: The world has got a lot more diffuse, and multi-facetated, with its power, wealth and social relations increasingly spread. But most people would prefer to accept the social and political attitude and agenda of a dinosaur imperialist like Farage, rather than a modern internationalist voice from the BRIC countries.
In essence, every city is becoming more like Janeiro or Johannesburg and every country more like Brazil or South Africa. This is the effect of globalisation - it's unsteadying the safe and cosy world of white Europeans and Americans - who can no longer rely on cheap energy, cheap oil, cheap debt, and cheap imports.
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BERLIN—The European Central Bank's bond-buying program, widely credited with restoring calm to euro-zone bond markets since last year, will come under scrutiny from Germany's constitutional court this week as judges consider claims the ECB is overstepping its mandate.
The hearing at the Karlsruhe-based court on Tuesday and Wednesday will be a showdown between the ECB and its German critics, including the Bundesbank, Germany's influential central bank. Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann and the ECB's German executive-board member Jörg Asmussen are expected to testify on opposite sides of the argument.
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