{"id":22817,"date":"2008-02-11T09:35:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-11T09:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/blog\/?p=542"},"modified":"2008-02-11T09:35:00","modified_gmt":"2008-02-11T09:35:00","slug":"erase-una-vez-a-finales-del-siglo-xx","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/erase-una-vez-a-finales-del-siglo-xx\/","title":{"rendered":"Once upon a time... at the end of the 20th century."},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"\"<\/a>\u00abOnce upon a time\u2026 at the end of the 20th century, there was a world in which armed conflicts were largely not religiously motivated, and in which economic growth rates in most countries were more than acceptable. The booming economic sectors: property, business, the stock market\u2026 Of course, there was a Third World grappling with serious poverty and health issues, but the so-called First and even Second Worlds were enjoying a period of significant global prosperity. A spectacular future lay in store for some emerging nations, which were awakening to a global market economy that was set to revolutionise the lives of billions of people. Far behind them, almost forgotten, lay the energy crisis of the 1970s and the Iron Curtain with its Checkpoint Charlie<\/a> or the Cold War between blocs, with a finger constantly poised over the nuclear button. But even having left this turbulent past behind them, the inhabitants of that planet were worried and debated ways to find impossible solutions to what, from their perspective, seemed like major global problems.<\/p>\n

Curiously, the people of that time were unaware of just how exceptional the general standard of living in their world was during those years. They remained worried and complained about the possibility that the Mir space station might fall on their heads, reduced to scrap metal because of the Russian economic crisis; they were concerned about the slight slowdown in the global economy<\/a> compared with previous years.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Meanwhile, there was discussion as to whether taxation might be a more effective tool than monetary policy alone for controlling the foreseeable excesses in global consumer demand. The high volatility of financial flows from the richest countries to emerging economies was also a topic of discussion. If, moreover, these flows were driven by speculative currency trading, the volatility of the global economy could be multiplied. And that did not sit well with economic analysts at the time. Developing countries were urged to introduce measures to control the risks that voracious financial institutions were ignoring in exchange for the investment frenzy these flows generated. emerging markets<\/span>.<\/p>\n

No one ever thought that the danger might come from financial investment flows between first-world countries, let alone from the strongest currencies: US$, GBP and the Deutsche Mark.<\/p>\n

It was a world whose biggest problem was engaging in international debate about what the main issues facing the global economy were. A macroeconomic Tower of Babel sailing full steam ahead across the globe, semi-aware of its own sweet, old familiar chaos, yet oblivious to its course. What could possibly have been worse than the economic problems of that time?\u00bb<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00ab\u2026And the years went by \u2013 let\u2019s say a decade. The landscape of that world had changed completely. By comparison, the present was bleak. Islamic fundamentalism was sowing terror and war in many countries. The West (including Israel and the Vatican) was clumsily attempting to minimise its effects. In many cities, hundreds of thousands of cameras were installed to monitor the \"\"<\/a>potentially dangerous individuals from carrying out attacks against the public. Boarding any commercial aeroplane was also a common practice in that world Orwellian<\/span> from 1984.<\/a> Energy was in short supply for those on low incomes. High demand from emerging economies, which were beginning to make a mockery of the figures produced by the exclusive G8, combined with speculation and instability, had driven the price of a barrel of crude oil to record levels. Exchange rates were fluctuating at unprecedented levels and the currency \u00abshelter<\/span>\u00bbIt was a newly created currency called the \u20ac. The price of gold was breaking every record ever seen. The financial system was reeling as banks lost confidence in one another and interbank lending dried up, forcing central banks around the world to inject liquidity to prevent irreversible breakdowns in the financial machinery. Share prices of the world\u2019s largest financial institutions were plummeting, as were the prices of debt issued by both financial and non-financial companies. The property bubble that had existed in the developed world since the start of the new century, and the credit excesses of the past decade, had damaged the financial health of the global banking sector. Volatility and nervousness \u2013 not only on the stock markets, but in everything to do with money \u2013 were palpable.<\/p>\n

There was talk of a recession as people re-read (rather than recalled) the one endured 80 years ago. But it was difficult to extrapolate what had happened back then to a world that had been in constant flux for almost a century \u2013 the most turbulent period in history. Would the current situation cope better or worse with a recession like that one? Moreover, why was the predicted recession not even supposed to be anything like the one of 80 years ago?\u00bb<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A new world order (still in disarray) had been established, and the majority of the population were not even aware of the new situation. \u00bbHow could so much have changed in such a short space of time?\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

SHOW YOUR BOARDING PASS!\u2026 SHOW YOUR BOARDING PASS!\u2026<\/p>\n

My reading was abruptly interrupted. I thought that, given what happened to them in the following decade, the problems faced by that civilisation at the end of the 20th century were nothing but a load of rubbish (apologies to anyone who might take offence). Well, after this first chapter, I thought that perhaps this second-rate sci-fi novel I\u2019d bought for 9.99 $ at the airport duty-free kiosk might entertain me enough. I had to kill time whilst waiting at the gates of the boarding bridges in whichever terminal I was in over the next three days.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Back to reality: I now had to put the booklet away in my briefcase because I was approaching the security checkpoint. I looked over the heads of the crowd and took in the scene to which, surprisingly, we all seemed to have grown accustomed: several rows of barefoot people holding up their trousers, which had no belts. In silence. Resigned. Surrounded by barbed wire converted into modern stainless-steel barriers. Uniformed officers and dogs, both surly and trained, bellowing orders. Thorough searches. Confiscation of toiletries. X-rays. With all our belongings on a plastic tray that we would have to return and stack neatly after the security check, in the baggage reclaim area.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I don\u2019t know why images of Auschwitz or Birkenau<\/a> which we\u2019ve all seen at some point\u2026 I\u2019m letting my imagination run wild \u2013 perhaps I should stop reading cheap sci-fi pulp fiction and focus more on the real world. <\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00ab\u00c9rase una vez… a finales del s.XX, hab\u00eda un mundo en el que los conflictos armados mayoritariamente no ten\u00edan un origen religioso, en el que las tasas de crecimiento de la Econom\u00eda de gran parte de paises eran m\u00e1s que aceptables. Los sectores econ\u00f3micos pujantes: El inmobiliario, el corporativo, el burs\u00e1til… Por supuesto exist\u00eda un […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sin-categorizar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22817\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clusterfamilyoffice.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}