End Of The Road: Political-Economic Catastrophe from Fiat, Debt, Inflation Targeting, and Inequality

Louis Holder

Louis Holder , Jan 7, 2024 - Business & Economics - 190 pages

This book is about the mismanagement of Western economies in pursuit of political power, which resulting devastation will have to be borne by future generations. The book establishes that postponement is no longer doable and lays out the hard choices ahead causing much misery and agony.

Although not fully recognized because of masking by asset bubbles, which are spun/sold as investor confidence in the economy, the reaction to the phenomenon of lost hope in the future has already started. By chasing economic growth and political power, developed countries worldwide have destroyed their economies. Recovery would bring many hardships and pain to their populations. Americans, primarily white and middle-aged, are dying in record numbers from what Drs. Case & Deaton describes as "Deaths of Despair." Their government's reaction is to turn to protectionism. In the USA, this has taken the form of strengthening the Buy America Act of 1933, applying trade tariffs, and increasing subsidies to companies building facilities in the Country. These are all superficial fixes and will do nothing to correct the problem.

Market-driven solutions have given way to protectionist ones as policymakers continue to kick problems down the road for others to deal with. All issues the developed countries face, whether they are excessive and unsustainable debt, over-priced labor from targeting inflation, and mal-distribution of income and wealth distorting the resultant demand/savings relationships, have their roots in fiat currencies. So much public debt has been accumulated that it cannot and will not be repaid.

The genesis of the problem was in 1971 when President Nixon abolished the gold standard established at Bretton Woods in 1944. Currencies were then given value by government decree and no longer had intrinsic value. This allowed for large budget deficits, unsustainable public debt, and the money "printing-press operation." The public debt of the USA has already exceeded $32 trillion, an astronomical number. It allowed countries to incorporate inflation in their economic planning, thus raising their costs of living. It also allowed for increases in the money supply with the consequence of widening income and wealth inequality. Corrective action would involve backing currencies with the Country's assets, eliminating/reducing debt unless for investment, prohibiting the targeting/planning of inflation, and establishing a relationship between the highest and lowest paid in an economy. The book proposes novel approaches to these issues, including income support for those impacted by these corrective measures, for developed countries have arrived at the end of the road.

About the author

The Author, Louis Holder, worked entirely in the private sector. After completing his tertiary education with concentration in Economics, he was employed by a large New York Electric & Gas Utility attaining the position of Manager of Rates. This position would necessarily focus on microeconomics and during his employ there, he introduced a novel pricing concept at the time, Real Time Pricing. Real Time Pricing is the pricing of large industrial loads, which energy consumption could affect the integrity of the system, and which often did at peak periods having been given incorrect price signals from their dated development. Pricing based on real time and consisting of costs computed the day before, are more accurate of the cost consequences of these large users and therefore would induce a more appropriate demand response.

 

Thereafter, Mr. Holder provided financial consulting services to a large industrial company and chaired manufacturing, renewable energy, and broadband companies. He considers his philosophy for managing economies to be guided by a neo-progressive free-marketeering approach characterized by low regulatory interventions for purposes of safety, preventions of rent-seeking and corporate concentrations. To the extent that some may be disadvantaged or favored by free markets, he advocates providing basic income support to the former and heavy taxing of the surpluses of the latter.

 

Although this is his first venture at writing a Book, Mr. Holder writes regularly on various topics for periodicals.

Bibliographic information

• Title: End Of The Road: Political-Economic Catastrophe from Fiat, Debt, Inflation Targeting, and Inequality
• Author: Louis Holder
• Publisher: Louis Holder , 2024
• ISBN: 9798989211227
• Length: 190 pages
• Subjects: Business & Economics / Development / Economic Development; Business & Economics / Economics / Macroeconomics