Final-Fan said:
SamuelRSmith said:
Now that I've told you what WON'T be happening, now for some of my predictions of what will happen:
- The current financial crisis will ultimately result in the return to hard money, (that is, currency backed by some form of hard value store - like the gold standard of old), first, however, we will have long periods of austerity and inflation (for the most part of this decade). What these hard currencies will ultimately result in, is a reduction in Government spending (harder to finance deficits with Government money), and ultimately, the end in socialism. I believe the 21st century will see the reversal of the greatest mistake of the 20th.
- Between 2015 and 2025, I believe that China's economy will collapse, possibly seeing greater recessions than what the USA saw in 2008/2009. This is due to an unhealthy mix of grossly-exaggerated property prices, and rampant inflation. During this period, I imagine that there will be a great shift in power within China, and whilst it may not emerge a fully-fledged democracy... many of the other political issues in China will be resolved. With a few blips here and there, China will continue to grow to become the largest economy in the world, albeit at a much slower rate (but, ultimately, healthier) than what it's currently doing.
- Technological breakthroughs akimba. During this century (2030/2040+) space travel will finally become a fairly "normal" thing, ultimately leading to a seemingly infinite supply of just about all resources. The result will be plummeting costs everywhere. Energy, food, healthcare costs will be a mere fraction of what they are today. As a result, global poverty levels will probably drop to less than 5% of the population by the time the century's out. |
And then the world economy implodes due to the explosion in the resource(s) the hard money is based on, causing massive devaluation?
Whatever mistakes 20th century socialism has made were due to overreactions to the mistakes of 19th century capitalism. The solution isn't to revert. Hopefully they'll think of something better, with smaller overreactions.
(Besides, i don't know how you can call socialism the biggest mistake of the 20th century when communism is staring you in the face.)
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No, the value of money increases. If you have a currency backed onto a commodity, and the commidity suddenly increases, if you maintain a tight monetary supply, then the value of money skyrockets, and you'll be able to buy a hell of a lot with a single dollar.
No, socialism can be attributed to new technologies making central planning more feasible, and not enough controls over the expansion of Government. Unions emerged after 19th century capitalism... and I believe that private sector unions are a perfectly valid function of a democratic/capitalist society (public sector unions, not so much...), and are pretty much essential for workers rights. The end of socialism doesn't spell the end of private sector unions, which doesn't mean a reversion to the 19th century capitalism that we had, before.
And I meant, biggest mistake of the West/still going on, today. The only true communist nation left, in the world, is North Korea.
