Don’t have many comments on this article, but figured it was interesting to read if you all want to.
I absolutely love this passage:
But the proposal - to cap the amount of mismatch between what any nation produces and invests and how much it consumes - is drawing fire as countries that run steady trade surpluses make it clear they want to hang onto their advantage.
Mussolini called it autarchia, Kim Il-Sung called it juche, we call it rationing and central planning.
And again.
This approach is a contrast with some of the hard-fought trade battles of the past, such as those between the United States and Japan in the 1980s, which led to specific limits on goods such as U.S. imports of Japanese automobiles. Rather, the U.S. proposal aims to set overall restrictions on global financial imbalances and leave it to each nation to figure out the best way to get there.
Have central planners ever questioned why people rushed out to buy Toyota Camry’s and Honda Accord’s? No because it was all about “unfair competition”.
Thankfully there was a voice of reason:
“Setting numerical targets would be unrealistic,” said Japanese Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda, according to Bloomberg News.
An educated way of telling “you must be out of your mind”.
Indeed.