The New Epoch, like the late Seventies to Late Eighties Paradigm Movement

I believe now that  we stand at a point which can be very much compared to that of the mid to late 70s.

A previous epoch has run its course. In the 70s, unions and governance became too strong and old capital became too lazy to modernise economies. More than just the seeds were there for the new Epoch: it was not like Thatcher and Reagan waived a wand: their economic policies were a result of the best  post-post war economists thinking up solutions in the 1970s which found voice in a former actor and a former house wife oddly enough.

As in the 70s when the unions became too powerful and hindered economic growth, and the rich too complacent and detached from managing production and value creation, we now have a stage where the bankers have become too powerful and there is still too much money locked up in property.

There has to be some tough, uncompromising decisions and one thing is certain: we do not need more anarchy! We do not need to liberalise a broken liberal banking system anymore. Like the Unions they have become arrogant and detached from the public and act in self interest. Like the unionised industries they can hold a gun to the head of government and demand money while insisting their way is essential and their members should be untouchable.

There are other areas of the markets which need to be liberalised before anyone injects more governless road maps to the banking sector; American and European agriculture for a start. Also the housing market and "real estate" : governments need to both free up ground for building but also coax the market into building affordable homes instead of the now obsolete yuppie rabbit cages which promised maximum ROI before for all concerned.

A top Norwegian economist shares some of these views, but goes further: he means like many market fundamentalists and Marxist-socialists, that the banks should have been allowed to fail. Yes it would have devastated value and savings and pensions, but it would reduce the sector to having investors who  are cautious of where they place their money, and conscious that money which is nearer value creation pays better than money which is based on a house-of-cards.

Which ever way it went, we would have seen socialism: bail outs for banks and key industries, taxation for the rich (investors in Cyprus the current flavour-of-month) some more poverty for a while and then a resurgence after fundamental value creation and human interaction gets money flowing out of pockets, personal equity and the safe havens where so much money is now lingering.

We have by in large conquered high , uncontrollable inflation! Just think, we may say in our lives now for the next 20 years, that market mechanisms and judicious governance will result in less than 5% inflation. After that there will be a huge energy crisis and possibly a "perfect storm" of an unpredictable fluctuating climate coupled to the oil and coal crisis. Governments need to act to day in fundamental R&D and legislation to enable this to be a transition in 20 years time, and not a market mechanism "correction" because the market by in large so short sighted that there will be catastrophe before it adjusts the world.

That is the key point; that governments have the role to plan and tackle longer term, spread cost issues: like roads, other infrastructure, education and basic R&D. To legislate for movements to more desirable market conditions. To also create those conditions were market supply can operate to solve future problems, the two biggest being climate change and the energy crisis with other resource crises plural being a natural fall out of poor planning and a market which cannot then respond to the conditions quickly enough.