Renowned economist (the prophet with not much honour in his homeland) Joseph Stiglitz wrote another enlightening article in Vanity Fair: "Wall Street's Toxic Message". If there is one economist we would all be wise to listen to and who is neither influenced by Wall Street or Washington, it is Stiglitz, a man of unusual modesty and intelligence (I personally met and interviewed him when he was in Kuala Lumpur in 2000 before he won the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 2001).
His last paragraph contains key words that hints at more than what he did not elaborate:
"The American economy will eventually recover, and so, too, up to a point, will our standing abroad. America was for a long time the most admired country in the world, and we are STILL THE RICHEST. Like it or not, our actions are subject to minute examination. Our successes are emulated. But our failures are looked upon with scorn. Which brings me back to Francis Fukuyama. He was wrong to think that the forces of LIBERAL DEMOCRACY and the market economy would inevitably triumph, and that there could be no turning back. But he was not wrong to believe that democracy and market forces are essential to a just and prosperous world. The economic crisis, created largely by AMERICA'S BEHAVIOUR, has done more damage to these fundamental values than any TOTALITARIAN REGIME ever could have. Perhaps it is true that THE WORLD is heading toward THE END OF HISTORY, but it is now sailing against the wind, on a course we set ourselves."
Stiglitz hit 6 key words in the above paragraph (my comments in blue):
1. Still the richest (thanks to loads of debt).
2. America's behaviour (a blind electorate satiated with steroids induced asset inflation and money illusion + a government that is more of a wolf helping the Wall Street fellow wolves to the chickens).
3. A liberal democracy that has become a two-headed party oligopoly.
4. Any totalitarian regime (has one already entered the White House by stealth?)
5. The world (which world? The politician's world, the media's world or the real world?)
6. The end of history (Quite rightly, we are at the end of a long and dramatic history which is the culmination of our mistakes and the false delusion that we can solve the problems of under-regulated capitalism with socialist fascism i.e. state and privates assets merged under one authority.)
Ironically, the most economically "successful" posterboy for the world today is also one of the most totalitarian states in the world (perhaps fourth ranking after North Korea, Burma and Iran).
What Professor Stiglitz forgot to say or implied by not saying is that world politicians today (from the developing and developed countries) are quite likely to take that emerging country's model as a blue print for development.
We are now in an end game when the leading players, frustrated by the severity of the global financial crisis and by the lack of viable long-term economic solutions, decide to change the rules and declare themselves winners.
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