Jacques Attali, French President Mitterand's most trusted advisor and president of the new European bank of Reconstruction and development, offers a provocative and all-too-convincing view of the future in an increasingly troubled world.
I read this book as soon as it came out and was very impressed, especially because his ideas of rich and poor "nomads" was born out in my own experience. As early as the late 70's I was meeting Koreans who had worked for engineering companies in Iraq, probably as low paid labour. One of their chaplains had come straight from expulsion by the Ayatollahs there to study in the post-graduate programme I was teaching. Then I noted the low paid horde that had been stranded in Kuweit after the Gulf War. All these were graphic examples of "poor" nomads. Since then the movement of poor or desperate peoples has become worse and is dramatised by the international "sex industry" revelations almost daily. The rich migrants are also increasingly visible, with or without the Concord Crash. Attali was right then with one of his major theses. Since he is a hardened practical economist, he is even more likely to be right in economic matters. The fact that his economic wisdom runs counter to prevailing "conventional wisdom" in economic matters may suggest that he may have a true prophetic nose and may be on a useful scent.I'm going to be glad to study this book carefully again, now ten years later.
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