The size of the U.S. economy doubles every 40 years. This growth is significant because the U.S.  economy will have to produce the jobs necessary to support the employment needs of a growing population and workforce. The U.S. and European economies are strained by the added exigencies of refugees and migrants. There is a clear difference in the legal definition and status of these two categories of humanity. There is a concomitant moral responsibility which Europe and the U.S. face in this regard.

 

Technological progress has accelerated both productivity and opportunity in employment. Productivity resulting from technological development has accelerated the unemployment of workers and the wealth of the few. It has not yet accelerated the employment and creation of opportunity and wealth for the many because technological progress has not been globally deployed and the concomitant wealth has not been globally distributed as a result. The financial system has been the instrument of this deprivation. Ignorance, the lack of imagination, selfishness, greed and the idolatry of wealth have been the instruments of this deprivation. They have bottlenecked the financial logistics of wealth creation.

 

The Internet, the Internet of Things, renewable energy and energy efficiency supported by global communications, provide the opportunity for the creation of millions of jobs globally, for the creation of global wealth. The financial capacity for providing this opportunity has been fastidiously, selectively and greedily preserved for the few within national confines rather than made available to the many, globally.

Inequality, the deprivation of wealth to others, market turbulence are symptoms of this misallocation of financial resources. 

 

The global economy is currently undergoing a period of great turbulence. This turbulence is accelerated by the general loss of faith in the ability of our politicians and central bankers to provide the transformative change, to use the tools needed to create economic and job growth. This is not a virtual or theoretical concept. It is all too real. People either have opportunities and jobs or they don't. They are either able to live in peace or they are threatened with death, violence or physical abuse. The latter become refugees and as such are afforded the legal status that imposes on society both the legal and moral obligation to care for these, the least of our brethren, the "teeming refuse of that distant shore." Refugees and migrants are now the teeming refuse of our present shores.

 

I have spent my long career in international business and in the finance of international trade. I therefore am very aware of the fact that the U.S., Europe and the world have not begun to take full advantage of the huge opportunities that global trade imparts. The evidence of this is now rippling through markets in Shanghai, London and Wall Street.

 

There is no concerted effort at a solution to this problem of misallocation of opportunity for a simple reason. Capital has not been directed at the entrepreneur who has the capacity and cultural ties to engage in global trade. As I have advocated, WMEs are required to effect this change; Weapons of Mass Education. 

 

China has been singularly responsible for lifting millions out of poverty. China has done this by exporting massively, by urbanizing and creating employment massively. China alone has been responsible for meeting the UN Development Goals. Now the growth of the Chinese economy is slowing. China coughs and the world catches...pneumonia.The estimates for the measure of growth in the U.S. economy have just declined as well; from 2.8 to 2.3%. This was recently revised up to 3.7%. Turbulence! Volatility! Uncertainty! All the things that markers hate.

At a time when trust and faith in government, politicians, central bankers, leadership is at an all time low, how are we to transform our economies and restore trust and confidence? This question affects every economy. The solution is to educate and to allocate capital to the entrepreneur everywhere so as to benefit all through global trade.