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McKinsey on Currency
“There is a huge research agenda for universities and think tanks,” says Garten. “A world in which the dollar has lost a good deal of its strength will have profound impact on geopolitics, the global economy, and global trade and finance. It will mark the end of the American Empire and usher in something as yet undefined. Little thinking has been done on what all this will mean, and how it is best handled. It’s time that changed.” We couldn’t agree more.
Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren
Thus, he was not only a towering figure in 20th Century economic thought, but also able to sufficiently distance himself from his own policies to foresee a world and economy wholly different from his own: “I see us free, therefore, to return to some of the most sure and certain principles of religion and traditional virture-that avarice is a vice, that the exaction of usury is a misdemeanour, and the love of money is detestable, that those walk most truly in the paths of virtue and sane wisdom who take least thought for the morrow. We shall once more value ends above means and prefer the good to the useful. We shall honour those who can teach us how to pluck the hour and the day virtuously as well, the delightful people who are capable of taking direct enjoyment in things, the lilies of the field who toil not, neither do they spin.” Robert Skidelsky offers a timely reflection on Keynes’ vision. It’s well worth a read.
What is Monetary Relativism?“We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.” — Pope Benedict XVI “[Relativism] claimed that all truth is culturally situated (except its own truth, which is for all cultures); it claimed there are no transcendental truths (except its own pronouncements, which transcend specific contexts); it claimed that all hierarchies or value rankings are oppressive and marginalizing (except its own value ranking, which is superior to the alternatives); it claimed that there are no universal truths (except its own pluralism, which is universally true for all peoples).” — Ken Wilber, A Theory of Everything “In economic terms, relativism is clearly an absurd position, for the monetary tools and systems that we choose have profound consequences on social order and dynamics. A relativistic position that suggests barter is equally as ‘good’, ‘true’ or ‘worthwhile’ to use as, say, an international currency such as the Bancor put forth by John Maynard Keynes is utter madness when one takes into account the context of global complexities, capital flows and the instantaneity of transactions on which the international system now depends.” — Jordan MacLeod, New Currency *** In New Currency I briefly touched on the prevalence of philosophical and moral relativism in academia and Western culture. These positions hold that there are no absolutes in the universe, only relative claims. As Wilber points out, the problem with such ideas is that they themselves are absolute claims dismissing the possibility of absolute claims. Thus, they run into the fatal error of performative contradictions. These unreasonable positions can only be understood as intellectualized protest against the status quo. When one cannot transcend or resolve the current problems related to globalization, it is apparently in the interest of many academics and activists to attack the systems that are “causing” these problems, as if that will solve anything. Relativism can therefore be understood to have an inherently nihilistic nature that presents itself as a serious roadblock to further economic and social evolution. It simply cannot discern between the shadows of current systems and cultures and their essence and totality. The enormous and indispensable contributions of, say, capitalism are thereby tossed out with its increasingly apparent shortcomings. The baby is thrown out with the bath water. Read more »
Welcome
This is a place where we will try to make sense of all of this. Naturally, we will be exploring the economy through the lens of New Currency. If you haven’t read the book and intend to follow this blog, I’d highly recommend that you do so. We’ll be applying innovative economic tools to our current financial and global problems, and as I argue in the book, these tools sometimes can only be properly understood by taking a leap into a new economic paradigm or mindset. This blog is an attempt to make this thinking even more solid, but the book remains an essential foundation. Please email or post your questions and comments as they come up. I’ll do my best to weave answers into posts.
Beyond Bailouts
Beyond Bailouts: How a Circulation Charge Can Help Save and Transform Global Finance By Jordan Bruce MacLeod An Earth Shaking Wake-up Call The global financial crisis has created tremendous uncertainty about the future prospects of human society. Very few people saw it coming and even fewer, if any, can say with much degree of certainty what will happen next. National governments are currently injecting trillions of dollars into their financial systems and the broader economy simply to cushion the fall of equity prices, home values and employment rates. Several countries have already sought emergency support from the IMF and World Bank and several more may require extensive assistance down the road. Yet these international institutions were neither designed nor equipped to deal with crises of this magnitude. Adding to our woes are the persistence of monumental global challenges such as terrorism, environmental degradation and climate change, which all must be confronted head on in the very near future. Given their worsening trajectory, one may now look back and realize that these problems were never going to be resolved from within the parameters of a financial system so conducive to myopic decision-making and growth for growth’s sake. Considering the awesome complexity of global challenges and the urgency with which scientists proclaim that humanity must change course immediately, then perhaps we will come to view this financial crisis as an Earth-shaking wake-up call and timely opportunity to align global systems and institutions with global challenges and complexities for the first time. Read more » Tags: Circulation Charge, Global Currency, Kosmos Journal
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January 2, 2010 4:08 pm | 
Yesterday, McKinsey & Co published several excellent articles on currency on their 
When John Maynard Keynes wrote his essay 
Much has happened since publishing New Currency earlier this year. It’s been an uneven and tenuous financial recovery to say the least. Stock markets have rebounded to surprising heights, unemployment in the US has surged past 10% and there is a resurgence of talk about the dangers of a double dip recession. Perhaps, the most encouraging aspect of the crisis is the growing interest and awareness on Main Street about the future of our national economies and (un)sustainability of our current trajectories. Great concern has emerged over the future of the dollar, the increasing debt burden we’re leaving future generations, and questions about what to do with ever-increasing government spending.
