Post: #1

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/c...power-east

Book review:Three Billion New Capitalists: The Great Shift of Wealth and Power to the East

Reviewed by G. John Ikenberry


In this stark portrait of a coming economic crisis, the veteran trade analyst Prestowitz writes that the postwar era of U.S.-led globalization is giving way to a global economic restructuring headed by China and India. He is alarmed, because those nations are not simply integrating into the Western world economy; they are shaking its already "battered and strained" foundation, playing by different rules and growing quickly. Prestowitz is all the more worried because the United States is not prepared for this momentous shift. One failing is the mismanagement of the U.S. economy, manifest in low household savings, high budget shortfalls, and unsustainable trade deficits and foreign borrowing. But the deeper problem for Prestowitz is that the United States has no national strategy to protect its industry, skilled workers, and technological leadership. Echoing his earlier work, he argues that the United States' laissez-faire economic ideology and confidence in its technological and productive supremacy have prevented Washington from grasping the coming crisis and from developing a programmatic national response. Unfortunately, Prestowitz's actual policy recommendations are a bit skimpy -- as is his exploration of the global implications of the shift in wealth and power to the East.

Post: #2

Indeed - wealth is shifting back to India and China. These countries are thousands of years old and for a long period in history were the dominant financial and world cultures. With the birth of the US, only a few hundred years old, free market and ownership of real estate was introduced. There was abundant opportunities as a whole nation was being built. This caused a massive shift of wealth from the east to the west. However within only 300 - 400 years or so, the minority wealthy got extremely wealthy. At this point the extreme wealth was not enough and the minority wealthy introduced Globalization in hopes to get even more rich which has so far been working. However, Globalization is returning back the wealth to the east. America is destined to become a third world country. America's wealthy elite are to blame. In the end the short sightedness of the minority wealthy elite is also going to take away most of their wealth.