American reports suggests that America's influence will wane. Asian leaders concur that Asia will rise to occupy a fair amount of vacated American influence. China and India are keenly watched as the next movers.

 

I am not as optimistic.

 

As an economics trained person, I see the world divided into 2 halves. The consumers and the producers. The fine division between both, is the value of currencies. Dollars and cents.

 

America, Western Europe are the main consumers. Their currencies are strong compared to Asian ones, who are suppliers. Arabs are also suppliers with a weaker currency.

 

The consumers will always dictate and influence world policies. They have the buying power. And they can afford to work less, produce less tangible goods and think of more value-add services to earn.

 

The suppliers will always be at the mercy of consumers. They produce most of the tangible items, compete amongst themselves to sell ever cheaper and produce as more efficiently to pander to the demands and new standards of the consumers.

 

Asians are not used to the idea of working less. In fact, working hard is a much touted virtue. Working smart, is very much unheard of. And with a larger population to take care of, a strong currency policy is hard to follow.  There are no empirical data and case studies for strong currency policies for countries managing populations of 1 billion.

 

Until Asia understand the fundamentals of a strong currency, and finds value in people, massively, Asia will stay as suppliers. Asia will compete with Asia to produce and sell their hard work to America and Europe.

 

Until Asia is able to deal with and implement strong currencies, Asia, will not rise.