Future of Trade

Hi all,

SPO just published an article (see link below) about possible discontinuities (and implications for Singapore) under the auspices of Ethos Perspectives. 

There’s stuff ranging from a shift away from US-China driven growth, a new international financial architecture, the rise of state capitalism as the new dominant economic paradigm and the move from US unilateralism to global multilateralism. 

Comments, however brutal, so long as they are honest, are most welcomed.

EP Article_Final_v2

There’s this interesting article referenced from http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/06/goldman-sachs-engineering-every-major.html, which pinned all the major market bubbles and busts to a major two-named investment bank, Goldman Sachs. It may somewhat exaggerate the role of Goldman Sachs, but it highlights the ways by which large financial institutions, or big entities for the matter, can manoeuvre itself to exploit/plunder by creating opportunities to do so or by taking advantage of current circumstances.

Now, the question is whether there really are some unnoticed, unknown and hidden manipulations of the economy that are taking place right now or will/can take place in the future, that will affect not just trade but also anything else that links to the economy… (essentially everything, I mean).

Just a quick thought since I have no “uncomfortable” articles to share yet..

In our first meeting, we explored the possibility of global trade falling off the cliff. We talked about how a protectionist world could become reality. We stretched our imagination by wondering what happens if Singapore’s total trade volume falls by two-thirds as a result of this protectionist world.

But that was assuming that the decision to stop/lower trade was forced upon us.

What if (and this is a big IF) it is Singapore who chooses to stop trading? What if, for some out-of-the-box circumstances, it is better (for economic/security/social considerations) for Singapore to stop trading?

I came to this thought after pondering about terrorism and its associated risks on global trade. When 9/11 happened, airports were closed – temporarily. Could something big happen, so much so that trading nodes have to be closed on a longer-than-temporary, or -horror- permanent basis?

Beyond terrorism, there are also other non-trade-related threats that could completely disrupt trade. Perhaps widespread smuggling of radioactive materials? How about the restriction on movement of people (considered as a form of trade in services) across borders because of life-threatening viruses?

I’m sure there are many other scenarios that we can think of. I just wanted to introduce a new angle for us to think about, since we are more conditioned to think that we are at the mercy of external forces. And it is not completely unimaginable for Singapore to take a tough stance when the health and security of our people are threatened – we are taking one of the toughest measures among all countries in the current H1N1 episode.

So the big question is: What does it mean to Singapore if we are forced not to trade? How will a Singapore like that look like?

“We might be able to stimulate our way back to stability, but we can only invent our way back to prosperity. We need everyone at every level to get smarter.”

“Sometimes, I worry, though, that what oil money is to Russia, our ability to print money is to America. Look at the billions we just printed to bail out two dinosaurs: General Motors and Chrysler.”

Tom Friedman’s op-ed in the NYTimes. Innovation clusters are hard to shift, but so far no one has been able to replicate the Si Valley code despite East Asian governments pouring lots of money into infra. What is trade like in a world of L-shape growth for SGP?

Hi everyone, it was nice meeting up today and let’s just kickstart it with posting and sharing articles, videos etc related to future of trade. I love Zhi Jia saying “It must make us uncomfortable!” and that’s the spirit of enquiry that’s very beneficial in pushing the boundaries beyond the known unknowns to the unknown unknowns for this topic. Gambatte!

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