June 21, 2017

President Trump, remember Einstein’s “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it”

Sir, Martin Wolf, in these moments of so much radical uncertainty, recommends Donald Trump to follow one don’t-rock-the-boat strategy. “Janet Yellen, and the Fed’s inflation target, should both stay” June 19. I wish I could be such an optimist to believe that would do.

If I were Trump I would like the Fed to think about how it could help to create sustainable jobs, not some kicking-the-can-down-the-road financed jobs; and about what to do with the unemployed, if they fail to reach the previous goal.

The current risk adverse bank regulations risk banks building up too large exposures to what’s perceived as safe against too little capital; and hinders the efficient allocation of credit to the real economy. So that just must go… completely!

Why should not Janet Yellen be able to do this? Well as Einstein once said: “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it”


And the structural unemployment that threatens social cohesion must be forcefully attacked before social cohesion breaks down. After, it is quite too late, as we all can see has been happening in Venezuela.

What to do? A Universal Basic Income is one useful tool of many to handle that problem with; and the revenue neutral carbon tax, the carbon dividend, seems a good source to start feeding a UBI scheme that foremost must be financed with real money… that is of course unless you really want to go down the same road as Zimbabwe or Venezuela 

@PerKurowski