Saturday, November 05, 2011

Global Economc Crisis 2007-15 - looking back from year 2100



When historians look back in 100 years time -- what will they make of the sub-prime crisis and all that followed? What links will they make between the rise of China as a mega-industrial nation, buying huge amounts of dollars, keeping their own currency low, and costs of borrowing low for developed nations. Of course we are talking about a wider issue than China, but China is a dominant force in this regard. The fact is that China's willingness to buy dollars and euros in the 2000s provided a very welcome boost for developed nations -- providing a lot of money at low interest rates. Both governments and individuals took advantage of this to spend on things they thought were important at the time -- running up huge debts, and driving these economies into a long boom, creating local jobs, improving infrastructure, health care and education. Video comment by conference keynote speaker Patrick Dixon