Stephen King’s excellent book Losing Control: The Emerging Threats to Western Prosperity has been mentioned before in this blog. His key insight was that economics is about the allocation of scarce resources and that, as power shifts to the developing world
ageing western populations will be forced to sell assets — increasingly to new owners in the emerging nations — and, in the process, will lose control of the “commanding heights” of the global economy. Our children will have to compete with graduates from the emerging world for the best jobs. They will also have to pay the taxes to repay the huge debts of the current generation. Lower U.S. growth will shrink military muscle, reducing the global reach of the world’s most powerful military machine. Governments will have to think far more seriously about income and wealth redistribution. Otherwise, they will find that popular support for globalisation begins to wane.
— Buttonwood’s Notebook: “Checking the King”
