I suspect none of us knows everything, and perhaps the more confidence one has about knowing how this all works (Peter Zeihan comes to mind), the more likely they are to be wrong. Its complicated, but we keep learning.
There is a story about how it all works, but on many fronts this story is coming undone.
I am particularily interested in banking. The story about banking is that there is only one way to do it, and an independent central bank is the right way.
Banking is indeed a superpower, one hidden in many of history's economic miracles, but the world over it has become corrupted, and maybe it has had a corrupted strain in it for 500 years or more. I was recommended this documentary, and there were a few surprised in it for me that helped connect a few dots in my head.
Give it a watch if you have the time or the interest:
Some points that are still floating around in my head.
Japan had a 'different model' coming out of World War 2, and it seemed to work very well. It focused on productive credit allocation NOT interest rates.
Bank of Japan created an inflated a giant bubble in preparation to crash the economy in order to change its model.
After the bubble burst, Bank of Japan then kept the economy from recovering for many years while the political changes were made, like dismantling of the Ministry of Finance.
The IMF used a very similar process in the Asian crisis in the 90's to collapse asian economies then open them up to foreign investment. The IMF deals for Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea required that distressed assets be sold off to ONLY foreign buyers.
The European Central bank has been able to do this to its member states as well.
This can make you think, 'banks are bad', but a more nuanced view show that there is not only one model of banking, and the evidence is very clear - there are good banks and bad banks, judged as Christ said 'by their fruit'.
When investment is made strategically to productive projects, banking is a blessing. Whatever these ever more independent central banks are doing....is something else.
Its something like, cycles of controlled destruction designed to increase the control by a few over everything.
And with deference to my last post, if you substitute morality for 'rules', when you are a good little doobie and go along with it all, even assuming rules to put on yourself - you are supporting this system.
Why pretend that a pdf is some scarce resource like a barrel of oil? Why acknowledge US regulation over the digital cryptocurrency realm? Why pay heed to bumbling technocratic hegemony at all?
Let's keep building new models, and expand the pie for everyone.