Mange fascinerede innblikk i amerikansk politikk, og ikke minst en insiders fremstilling av hva som blir sagt vs. hva som blir gjort, og (mangelen på) sammenheng mellom de to.
En mer utfyllende anmeldelse må vente til jeg er ferdig med boka, men kjernen i kap. 5, The Impossible Dream of Budget Balance, er så interessant at jeg ikke kan vente.
Galbraith mener at dollarens stilling som verdens reservevaluta gjør at USA må kjøre underskuddsbudsjetter! Han sier (s. 54f)
What few understood was that the budget deficit and the trade deficit were closely linked, and each was closely related to the evolving character of the global financial system. They were so closely related, in fact, that they usually amounted to two aspects of the same thing. And as the new global monetary system developed, the growing need for dollars -- for monetary reserves -- held outside the United States would come to guarantee that the United States would necessarily experience both trade and budget deficits almost all of the time. The deficits were not so much a symptom of a declining position as the tribute paid to the United States for its position atop the world financial order. The falling dollar in the 1970s stemmed from the threat to that position, following the Nixon shocks, the triumph of international monetarism, and the destruction of Bretton Woods.
Dessverre forklarer ikke Galbraith sammenhengen, annet enn å si (p. 58) at "the trade deficits had to be translated, as a matter of accounting, into federal budget deficits of a similar size".
Egentlig logisk når du tenker over det... og minner meg sterkt om
Moritz Schularick og Niall Fergusons idé om Chimerica (se f.eks. her eller
her).
Innlegg
