. . . Humanity’s accumulated savings per capita are at the highest level in history. However, our investment levels (especially in the things humanity needs, such as green energy) are particularly low. In the United States, massive sums are accumulating in the accounts of companies and people with no use for them, while those without prospects or good jobs are immersed in mountains of debt. In China, savings approaching half of all income sit side by side with the largest credit bubble imaginable. Europe is even worse: There are countries with gigantic trade surpluses but nowhere to invest them domestically (Germany and the Netherlands), countries with deficits and no capacity to invest in badly needed labour and capital (Italy, Spain, Greece) and a euro zone unable to mediate between the two types of countries because it lacks the federal-like institutions that could do this.
. . . our problems are global. Like climate change, they demand local action but also a level of international co-operation not seen since Bretton Woods. Neither North America nor Europe nor China can solve them in isolation or even via trade deals. Nothing short of a new Bretton Woods system can deal with tax injustice, the dearth of good jobs, wage stagnation, public and personal debt, low investment in things we desperately need, too much spending on things that are bad for us, increasing depravity in a world awash with cash, robots that are marginalizing an increasing section of our work forces, prohibitively expensive education that the many need to compete with the robots, etc. National solutions, to be implemented under the deception of «getting our country back» and behind strengthened border fences, are bound to yield further discontent, as they enable our oligarchs-without-borders to strike trade agreements that condemn the many to a race to the bottom while securing their loot in offshore havens.
Yanis Varoufakis, “Globalization is stuck in a trap. What will it be when it breaks free?”, in theglobeandmail.com ; Toronto : The Globe and Mail, january 12th 2018 (excerpt La Litera información)
