News & Analysis
Down With the West, Long Live the BRICs ...
Britain must abandon its "obsession" with the eurozone crisis to look to the true deciders of its future, said Jim O'Neill, the economist who defined the "BRIC" economies, as he voiced doubts over official UK growth figures. − UK Telegraph
Dominant Social Theme: The BRICs are just great.
Free-Market Analysis: Jim O'Neill, the Goldman Sachs creator of the term "BRICs," wants to convince us that the BRICs are not only magnificent engines of growth and prosperity but also the future of finance and investment.
To this end, he attended the Telegraph's Festival of Business and spoke to reporters there. Telegraph journo Emma Rowley posted an article (excerpted above) on his views.
O'Neill wants to remind us that the future belongs to Brazil, China, Russia and India. These are the world's new and stronger powers. Here's more from the article:
The UK's economic potential depends far more on how businesses ride the growth coming from China and the rest of the world's newer economic powers, argued Mr O'Neill, chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
"People should not be as obsessed about this [eurozone] issue as they seem to be in this country – and certainly our political leaders should not be blaming all of our problems on them [the euro members]," he told The Telegraph's Festival of Business.
"It's not really 'what about the [US] fiscal cliff', or whether Greece will survive in the eurozone or not. It's what is going on in China, Brazil, Russia, India, and some of these other nations that are becoming so important to us as well."
Last year China's growing economy created the equivalent of a new Greece every three months, he said. Together the BRICs – Brazil, Russia India and China – created the equivalent of a new Italy, the world's eighth biggest economy, in just 12 months.
"This is the big opportunity for Britain's post crisis future in terms of raising our exports to these nations," Mr O'Neill argued. He pointed to Germany, which he said now exports more to BRIC countries than it does to France, insulating it from the effects of the eurozone crisis in other euro countries. In the next 18 months, it is "quite possible" that Germany will export more to China than it will to any other country in the world.
All this is persuasive, of course, and yet there are other arguments to be made. In fact, one could argue this perspective is a kind of dominant social theme. It is the elites, in our view, that wish to impress upon people that the BRICs are the world's future financial powerhouses.
Are they part of a larger globalist exercise? Perhaps the idea is to reduce the prosperity of Europe and the US, while raising up parts of the rest of the world. It is not feasible to create world government when only certain regions are prosperous. There must be balance, apparently.
What's odd about this analysis initially is that all four of these countries have a history of Western interference and control. India was virtually run by the British. China was drugged on British-supplied opium. According to G. Edward Griffin, big Wall Street traders came down on the side of Red Russia and funded the Revolution via Red Cross channels. Brazil, of course, has existed within the ambit and influence of the USA.
So to maintain that somehow the BRICs have broken out and are doing magnificently well on their own is at least an exaggeration. The very economic system that O'Neill lauds is a Western one. All four countries have provided their economies with a central bank sugar rush. This is exactly the same kind of "economic development" that has taken place in the US and Europe. And it must surely end the same way, with a terrible bust and some sort of rolling economic ruin.
O'Neill wants us to believe that the inevitable tide of history has lifted up the BRICs and carried them to the fore. But it seems more to us like determined manipulation.
We figure this is more economic history of the directed kind. Is it so difficult for a handful of elites who apparently control central banking around the world to create an upswell in one region and a downswell in another?
Our children will doubtless be taught that as the West declined, the developing world rose up and became prosperous. But it doesn't make any sense that exactly the same economic formulas are being used around the world.
O'Neill is purveying a promotional meme, in our view. Of course, it is a useful one for certain individuals and groups. And such a promotion properly analyzed and acted on can even be used as an investment opportunity.
One can take positions in the BRICs, confident that the power elite intends to raise them up. On the other hand, one can remain hesitant based on the idea that the Internet Reformation is going to interfere with these plans and that the 21st century will not prove so easily controlled as the 20th.
Conclusion: No matter your view, we distrust O'Neill's narrative. The idea that the BRICs are surging to the fore is a bit too pat for our tastes. There's more going on than that which meets the eye. As there usually is ...
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Posted by Don from the Republic of Lakotah on 10/19/12 02:15 PM
"America and Europe are over ten times the size of the Chinese economy. It's hard for the Chinese economy to destabilize the world." - Jim Rogers Click to view link
Surely it's every bit as hard for the Chinese economy to stabilize the world?
An entrepreneur named John Walker terminated his relationship with Goldman-Sachs on 2011-03-18 due to their difficultly in fulfilling Walker's request to invest in short term Swiss bonds.
Goldman-Sachs insisted that Walker invest in stock such as Facebook. Walker recorded his exit interview for posterity. Goldman Sachs Meets a Muppet Click to view link
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Posted by michaelser on 10/19/12 03:32 PM
Yes, Great Britain must look at its future beyond EU.
EU is/was plagued with all kind of crises since its beginnings.
New, poorly qualified 'leaders' have views of a centralized political and economic entity, which will govern and legislate from Brussels and/or Strasbourg in the name of Germany and France.
The EU member states would become a large market for the German goods and a perpetual source to fill Brussels's coffers and sustain a parasitic political and financial class poised to exploit 500 millions of people in Europe and beyond.
The politicians of Brussels do not see an Europe of equal members collaborating economically amongst themselves and doing business with countries outside of community, but a politically and economically dominated state members subdued to economic interests of Germany.
Current EU incarnation and its directions will become a German fourth Reich as the Nazis envisioned.
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Posted by laceja on 10/19/12 04:35 PM
The subliminal message is that socialism is much better for us. Just another way to brainwash folks into heading farther down the collectivist path.
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Posted by DarbyJie on 10/19/12 07:07 PM
@ Don from the Republic of Lakotah
"An entrepreneur named John Walker terminated his relationship with Goldman-Sachs on 2011-03-18 due to their difficultly in fulfilling Walker's request to invest in short term Swiss bonds.
Goldman-Sachs insisted that Walker invest in stock such as Facebook. Walker recorded his exit interview for posterity. Goldman Sachs Meets a Muppet Click to view link"
Thank you for sharing this fascinating glimpse of financial dealings with certain Goldman-Sachs creatures -- John Walker reminded me of a Gary Cooper or Clint Eastwood, easily one-step-ahead of the bad guys and altogether enjoyable in his utter,suave NON-Muppetry. :)
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Posted by taxesbyanyothername on 10/20/12 07:28 AM
A socialist orgy with a big river jungle, a dying petro-cleptocracy, a mish-mash with 850 languages, and a pretend-capitalist-hold-on-with-everything-you've-got-comuno-ecodisaster-party. Ya, the BRICs 're flyin' high. I'm sure Tata will overtake Toyota any minute now.
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Posted by Bischoff on 10/20/12 04:19 PM
"One can take positions in the BRICs, confident that the power elite intends to raise them up. On the other hand, one can remain hesitant based on the idea that the Internet Reformation is going to interfere with these plans and that the 21st century will not prove so easily controlled as the 20th."
BISCHOFF: Who is the power elite... ??? It's those people who control the lives of the rest of us. How do they do it... ??? The people lusting power, be they the representatives of the feudal "Upper Class" elite, or be they the communist "Protectors of the Lower Class", are putting themselves in charge of making the rules for the rest of us. They tell us where to live, and where to labor. They do this by using a compliant media, and a captured education establishment to propagandize us. We are told that their economic plan is scientifically correct, and that it is good for us.
They devise a medium of exchange in the form of "irredeemable" central bank currency with which they steal the value created by our work. They use the tax laws to plunder wealth not yet jeopardized by currency manipulation. All the while, they control access to the location an entrepreneur requires for production and commerce.
This type of economic thinking, evolving after the demise of Rome flourished as Feudalism on the European Continent. It was exported to England by the William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.
The Anglo-Saxon type of economic thinking, which prevailed in England before the Norman conquest, emphazised collecting the part of wealth due to advantages provided by nature to pay for the cost of government and defense. This type of Anglo-Saxon economic thinking, encouraged by the ideas of the Lutheran Reformation, was transferred to the North American colonies with the early settlers.
The U.S. Constitution, written in 1787, is a governing document based on Anglo-Saxon economic thinking. In its provisions, which emphazise private property and the unfettered enjoyment of the fruits of one's labor, it is unique in all the world.
Nevertheless, the feudal type of thinking invaded the North American Continent with the people who formed the Southern colonies. Since then, it has been a battle for dominance between the Anglo-Saxon philosophy and the Norman philosophy in North America. The Norman thinking has won out over the last 100 years.
Communist economic thinking differs little from feudal economic thinking when it comes to exercising power over the laboring class. The difference is only found in the type of people who exercise the power. The "Upper Class" elite being relatively sophisticated in propagandizing and manipulating the rest of us, while the communists are known for threats of violence and a crude form of securing their power.
In either case, the "Upper Class" elite and the "Communists" have more in common with each other, than either one has in common with the rest of us.
Therein lies the explanation for what is considered a "conspiracy" to control the world.
To the extent that the internet makes clear the common interest the "power elites" have vis-a-vis the rest of us, the more the internet will undermine the power either of the "elites" hold over us.
BRIC... ..BRAZIL, run by a power elite based on feudal thinking, pure and simple. RUSSIA run by an oligarchy of the old communist apparatchiks plundering the countries natural resources. INDIA, run by a "Raja" elite embued with British feudal ideas who keep control over economic thinking by manipulating religious practices. CHINA, run by an octogeneric communist elite which has taken a lessons from the Keynesian/Friedmanite "demand and supply" economic scheme and which practices out and out mercantalism.
Those are the types of countries and economic blocks which will charge ahead of Anglo-Saxon type of economic thinking promoted by the U.S. Constitution... ???
All the American people have to do is repeal the 16th and 17th Amendments, and the U.S. economy will be back in line with Anglo-Saxon economics which will leave the BRICs and the rest of the world in the dust when it comes to "free market" economics. The BRIC countries searching ahead of the U.S. under these circumstances... ??? Mr. O'Neill, please give me a break.
