April 3, 2012
Hong Kong
Six centuries ago, when London and Paris were irrelevant, plague-infested backwaters, and New York City wasn’t even on the map, the greatest city in the world was Nanjing– the capital of the Great Ming.
At the time, Nanjing was not only the most populous city on the planet, it was also the pinnacle of civilization. Art, science, technology, and commerce flourished in the Ming Dynasty’s liberalized economy, which constituted a full 31% of global GDP at the time.
(By comparison, the US economy is roughly 25% of global GDP today…)
Taxes were low, the currency was strong, and overseas trade thrived. For a time, Nanjing truly was the center of the world.
Over the next several hundred years, the tide shifted. The Ming Dynasty fell, and power was transferred further west to the Ottoman Empire, and eventually to Europe which had finally emerged from the Dark Ages as the most advanced civilization on Earth.
Pointless crusades and inquisitions gave way to a surge in medical, technological, and scientific breakthroughs. By the late 17th century, western civilization had asserted its primacy in the global pecking order.
This phenomenon has lasted for several hundred years now… but as history has shown repeatedly, power centers frequently shift. The world is now witnessing yet another transition of power, this time from west to east, as the US-led western hierarchy suffocates within its own debt-laden Keynesian fiat bubble.
Most westerners refuse to believe it. They can’t envision an era in which the west doesn’t lead the world… in everything. And yet, that time is already upon us. Perhaps nowhere is this more pronounced than in finance:
1) Hong Kong, from whence I write this missive, has been home to the most public offerings in the world ever since overtaking New York in 2009. In 2010, more than $57 billion was raised in Hong Kong IPOs, roughly twice as much as New York.
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