Macroeconomics assignment

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Microeconomics
Lester Thurow in the National Press Club Luncheon of his book The Future of Capitalism outlines the common narrative of corporate downsizing that the modern economic world faces. He equally gives a synopsis of how the world found itself in this situation in the workforce of today while discussing the core of the underlying problem; he also presents some specific adjustments that if implemented by economic policy makers would help the world recover from this situation. The thrust of his argument was on punctuated equilibrium. According to Thurow, this punctuated equilibrium period which he argues is a period that the world has entered is one that is dictated by rapid environmental changes, extinction of dominant species as well as the natural selection of those that are the most equipped to handle the nature of the new environment.
Thurow contends that by virtue of the fact that these changes are as rapid as they come, then that means that there will be many opportunities which would come with either massive successes or massive failures. In trying to compare these economic changes, Thurow conveniently uses the analogy of the shifting of the tectonic plates where he presents three predictions based on these changes. To begin with is that these changes are inevitable, and secondly, that the paths cannot be altered, and thirdly, is the fact that the unavoidable collision of these plates will obviously be dramatic. Thurow succeeds in giving the five fundamental tectonic plates call them economic forces that drive the economic future. The first one is the end of communism. Democracy took root after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Due to this extinction of communism capitalist economies like the U.S have been deprived of a focal point. The second one is the shift from natural resource base to manmade power industries. Wages of today`s industries unlike in the past will be based on skills as opposed to location. The third force is on the demographics. In the first and second world there is stability on the population growth, however in the third world countries there is an explosion in population growth. This inevitably is causing many low-skilled people to immigrate to the developed countries. He argues that we will be the first generation that will be dominated by the elderly come 2025. This has an economic implication considering that this is a group whose contribution to the economy is rather inconsequential.
The fourth force is global economy. Communication and transport has enabled the world to become a global economy. Today you can produce anything, anywhere and sell it everywhere. There are no rules and controls governing the global economy. Regional trading blocks have not helped this global economy because they operate by restricting countries that are not in the region thus constipating this global economy. The third plate is the fact that today, there is no dominant polit...