Sample chapters available online...
Contact me:
ed+@
+edwardtrimnell.com
(remove the "+" signs)
E C O N O M I C S
w i t h E D W A R D T R I M N E L L
January 06, 2008
Signs of the times…
Several recent developments highlight the new international environment:
Investors are flocking to the yen and dumping dollars in order to avoid uncertainty. With all due respect to Japan, the world has truly changed when the yen is considered to be a safe bet against instability associated with the dollar. (Investors are worried, of course, about the struggling U.S. economy.)
Japanese automaker Toyota has announced that it sees Russia and China to be its two biggest growth markets in 2008. For those of you old enough to remember the Cold War, this is a headline that would have seemed impossible in 1988 (or even in 1998). (Toyota does not anticipate significant growth in U.S. vehicle sales in the upcoming year.)
The message here is that the U.S. can no longer take global economic supremacy for granted. (And we are not just competing with Western Europe and Japan anymore.) This new competitive environment will inevitably mean a reassessment of our:
Foreign aid, trade policy, and overseas military commitments
Educational system
Tax policies
All of this promises to make the upcoming 2008 election season even more interesting.
