End of Capitalism & Neo-Liberalism, Rise of a New Monetary System?

This is NOT a financial or strategic advice but a thought experiment derived from recent highlights and meta-trends

Imagine yourself as if you are the President of one of the most powerful countries in the world. What would you do if trillions of dollars were printed when you were in power and that the huge amount of money printed has caused inflation to climb up in a way unseen before?

If you were to lead such a significant world power you would definitely have many options to control the wild inflation beast. But, let`s over-complicate the situation for a moment to enrich this though experiment?

• What if all other developed countries of the world had printed money just like your government and that inflation is something they cannot prevent anymore?
• As if that was not enough, what if the supply chains were broken and both the food and critical material supplies for production were delayed, becoming more costly, and are available at higher risks unlike before?
• And, what if the stock markets in your country and in other major economies crashed, leaving no room for people to invest in anything with positive returns?
• And, what if your national debt has grown to 150% of your GDP, putting your future at risk?
• Besides, what if regional wars are endangering the welfare of the world and testing the values and monetary systems of the developed countries?
• Moreover, what if the time of fossil fuel-based economy is over and you are late to catch up with this mega trend and that the upcoming climate crisis in less than a decade has put immense pressure on your shoulders?
• Furthermore, what if your citizens are tired and exhausted after a long pandemic and are losing their hopes for the future since they do not know how to cope with inflation, increasing fuel prices and cost of living, growing food crisis, and the stock market crash that is eating away the hardly-earned personal savings of the citizens.
• Beyond all, you have to invest 4 to 5 times your GDP in the next decade to go green and reduce carbon emissions.
• Last but not least, your economy is in a recession like the economies of other developed countries, and companies started to terminate jobs.

The situation looks bad, right? Most people would not like to lead a country in such a tough situation.

Let`s take a look at what you cannot do as a President.

• You cannot order printing more money anymore because that will lead to more inflation.
• You cannot buy stocks from the market anymore because you do not have the money to do so as you did before right after the pandemic. Printing more money will boost inflation.
• You cannot provide universal income or continuous government support programs because of the reason stated right above this point.
• You cannot change the trade routes immediately from the supply bases with problems to healthier ones because each transition will require time to add the capacity, train the people, ready the tiered supply bases, launch the new production lines, and stabilize the new production bases. Also, the transition might end up in higher-than-before locations and that will increase costs and cause more inflation.
• You cannot leave your citizens without options to invest to prevent the erosion of their personal savings against inflation.
• You cannot let your local currency not be the global reserve money because that will introduce currency exchange risks for the first time ever in your country and any losses will increase your national debt and cause instability and unrest across the country.

I am sure a President and his staff will have many alternatives to the problems above but let`s take a moment to think about what you could do in such a tough situation.

• You would most likely choose managing inflation instead of recession because you can control inflation and reduce it later instead of letting recession deteriorate the minds and souls of your people. Even if inflation is bad, keeping it at higher-than-before-but-at-minimal levels and giving confidence to your businesses, business leaders, and people will keep the hopes high and the economy running as well as the innovation going on. A recession is worse than controlled inflation.
• You might reduce government spending and use these savings to support businesses, industries, and people in danger. You should do that without printing money.
• You might take the time to invest more in Industry 4.0 and let automation and digitalization help you reduce prices while reducing the supply chain lead times.
• You might transition critical manufacturing bases from high-risk and low-cost locations to low-risk and medium-cost locations and utilize Industry 4.0 to further reduce costs and delivery lead times.
• You might want to invest more in new technologies and fund angel investments to boost innovation and let new ideas reign in a new world.
• You might want to create new jobs by increasing government spending on country-wide infrastructure which will lead to growth in construction which is one of the top leading industries of an economy.
• You may want to invest more in artificial intelligence and robotics to eliminate non-value-adding jobs and transition them to bots and robots. But you need to bridge the gap by creating more jobs in other industries.
• There are other leading industries such as health & medicine, defense, dairy products, technology, and oil & gas which can help you create jobs and/or reduce the national debt. You would not want to sell more weapons for sure so this is not an option. You cannot endanger the health of people or trigger a pandemic as you see in the movies, so this is not an option. However, you might use the increasing fuel prices to reduce your deficit and national debt instead of printing more money. And, you can consolidate farming under a few corporations and reduce costs and optimize the use of restricted resources.
• If you are a top leading government, you might drive the international organizations to act together to alleviate the pains across the globe.
• You would also see a major risk on the global reserve money status of your local currency and might accelerate the efforts to launch blockchain-based crypto-currency of your currency and lead other nations to do the same and switch to a global single monetary system where your local currency stays as the most significant and powerful cryptocurrency.
• You might draw investments to other underdeveloped countries and help them grow their economy too while benefiting from lower prices. That will not only help manage the supply chain risks but will also bridge the gap between the poor and rich countries and will also reduce the negative impacts of poverty in these locations.
• You might accelerate the launch of a global internet available anywhere and to everyone on Earth to support the new digital world, the new global single currency system, and to extend education to others around the world. That would also help better control all legal and illegal traffic around the world.
• You might also accelerate the launch of 5G technology and beyond to support the needs of the new internet-based digital world.
• You might want to utilize corporations more and more to utilize their potential and impact. You might also consider taxing them at higher rates instead of printing more money — that will help with your national debt too.

I am not a President but just wanted to soundboard with you about what our leaders could and might do better. Some ideas above might also help you understand why some things are happening as they are in the world now while some others might create questions as to what else we might all do better as the citizens of the same world.

The only thing I know is that everything is about the people in the world. Everything we build is a vehicle for the happiness of humankind. Nothing else. Any deviations from this cause risks and threats to the fragile systems we build. We are not gods and must not behave so if we have big power.

That is, it is time for humankind to create a brand-new system that nourishes not only the rich ones and the power elites but everyone under the sun. We are to create a system that provides wealth, prosperity, health, happiness, equal opportunity, justice, good education, and hope for everyone in this world.

It is the time to transition from ME to WE because we are all interconnected. Remember the butterfly impact — we are not separate from each other. The pains of our neighbors close by or in a remote part of the world are our pains. It should be that way if we call ourselves a human. Being born in a human form does not justify being a human; we have to earn it by being good, righteous, nice, kind, fair, wise, empathetic, benevolent, compassionate, giving and serving.

You see what I am saying?

Unless we develop the key virtues instead of investing in material riches, we cannot have a better future for all.

Leading is to serve others to help create a better world. It is a privilege because you have the power to change the world and help others be their best. Therefore, the Presidents all around the world need to serve more than ever now to those who have elected them for a better world and more developed humankind.

With love,

Kenan

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