G. Q. Syed is an alumnus of Wall Street and Yale University and has over ten years of Finance, Investment Banking, and Financial Engineering experience both in the U.S. and abroad. This is the first book of the writer.
G. Q. Syed is an alumnus of Wall Street and Yale University and has over ten years of Finance, Investment Banking, and Financial Engineering experience both in the U.S. and abroad. This is the first book of the writer.
The global economy is currently on a disastrous path of increasing un-sustainability.“New Capitalism – Capitalism Reengineered for sustainability, is a book that lays out a definite course of action to change that path, from increasing un-sustainability to increasing sustainability.
In the 21st century only sustainable economies will grow, un-sustainable economies won’t. The current global economic crisis is a crisis of sustainability. This book lays out a definite path to end this crisis.
Billions of people around the world are rapidly increasing their dependence on fossil fuel which is consequently becoming the lifeline of human existence. In a few decades there will be approximately 10 billion people on this planet and their lifeline of existence, fossil fuel, would be manifestly nearing depletion.
New technology, new discoveries, horizontal drilling and all other advancements don’t change the fact that there is a limited amount of fossil fuel, particularly oil, on the planet. Given that there is geometric growth in the number of billions of fossil fuel consumers, these new discoveries and technologies will only delay the end by a few decades. Catastrophe of unimaginable proportions is looming to happen in my lifetime.
Gradual transition away from fossil fuel should have been in progress by now. But the opposite is happening. President Obama who we thought was the best hope for sustainability – the Europeans even gave him a Nobel Prize – is proud to announce in the 2013 State of the Union address that we are producing more oil and more gas than ever before.
Sustainability is not being addressed, but is being sidelined by expediency and smaller issues, because it is widely mistaken for its symptom, climate change.
Climate change is a real threat to mankind but is not nearly as dangerous as the looming depletion of fossil fuel in a few decades. Some countries such as Russia and Canada even see an upside in global warming. Addressing sustainability through addressing climate change misses the real nature and the magnitude of the sustainability problem; it reduces a human existence problem into a human inconvenience problem.
Climate change is the byproduct of a bigger problem. The prospect of ten billion people on a resource depleted planet is a far bigger problem than the prospect of 1% of landmass going under water.
Using climate change as a proxy for sustainability has resulted in a fragmented approach to a problem that demands a comprehensive solution. Subsidies, carbon tax, and cap and trade are patchworks that only try to address current manifestations of the problem. They also miss the planetary dimension of the sustainability problem.
Cap and trade assumes a level of effectiveness in administrative and governing structures that does not exist in most of the world. A system to address a planetary problem cannot succeed if it can’t work equally well in almost all countries. Cap and trade has little chance of success at the global level.
Subsidies and carbon tax are again inadequate national solutions to a global problem. Additionally, they will always cost economic growth and prosperity therefore they have little chance of being taken seriously by most governments. Most countries will continue to blame other countries for not doing enough; India and China will remain a valid excuse for inaction.
National solutions will only work if they have a strong potential of becoming a global solution; they should only be building blocks for a comprehensive global solution.
Right solutions will emerge only if un-sustainability is seen as a planetary problem of excessive or un-sustainable resource consumption and climate change as its byproduct.
On the economic front we expect leadership from economists and on the sustainability front we expect leadership from sustainability experts. Both are failing us. The purpose of this book is to provide them the insights and the solutions necessary for leadership on economic recovery and on sustainability. If our leaders don’t develop a better understanding of the economic and sustainability problem, they will keep leading us to nowhere as they have for all of this century.
The academic system is not geared to produce solutions for this kind of problem because there has never been a sustainability problem of this significance. The lack of understanding of the problem is clear from the fact that after six years into this crisis almost all discussions among economists on this crisis are still about the right mix of austerity, Keynesianism and socialism. If either austerity or Keynesianism, or any mix thereof, were the solution we would know by now.
The only winner from these pointless arguments is socialism which is creeping back as a solution to the ongoing crisis. Socialism is not the solution but it certainly will look like one in a few years, if capitalism fails to adapt.
Former Vice President Al Gore, who seems to be leading the sustainability movement, is not fully cognizant of the underlying drivers of the problem. First he uses climate change as a proxy for sustainability, and second he thinks people need to be informed or made aware of the problem and the rest will follow. If awareness was the key the world, including the US, would not be going in the direction of increasing un-sustainability while becoming increasingly aware of the problem. Awareness is not making the difference that it is expected to because there is something deeper at work.
Additionally, Mr. Gore’s and the sustainability camp’s insistence on subsidies, carbon tax and cap and trade as solutions shows not only their lack of understanding of the problem but also a lack of understanding of the solutions they propose.
Action towards sustainability does not need to wait for action on the part of worldwide masses to force economic sustainability on their governments and the world. There has never been any worldwide movement of the kind required by the sustainability problem and hoped for by the sustainability gurus. There is no institution to make that kind of movement possible; even if there was it would still fail if it tried to force governments to use subsidies, carbon tax, and other non solutions.
Sustainability will not be achieved by spreading “an inconvenient truth,” but by identifying the underlying cause of increasing un-sustainability and eliminating it.
The misconceptions of people leading the sustainability movement are basically a result of the fact that the roots of the problem are in a system that most people consider infallible: capitalism.
Our unsustainable choices are primarily driven by the economic system we live in. Un-sustainability of modern economies is a direct result of the incentives and hurdles embedded in the monetary institutions of capitalism; prime among them interest on money.
If a return can be earned by making risk free loans then every other investment activity has to earn more than interest. Risk free return on money is like a cost for all other investments i.e. “opportunity cost.” This hurdle of interest is the main reason for non development of sustainable industries and excessive development of resource exploiting industries. As long as we are driven by the hurdle-incentive structure of the interest based monetary system we will keep marching towards increasing un-sustainability till it is too late.
Un-sustainability is a tendency embedded in our economic system. Sustainability cannot be achieved by putting patchworks on a financial system that inherently promotes increasing exploitation of natural resources i.e. un-sustainability. Sustainability needs a comprehensive and systemic solution.
Sustainability has to be addressed at a fundamental economic level. Therefore some fundamental changes in the economic system are proposed in my book. One of the proposed changes is elimination of interest on money.
The proposed changes, or something on the same lines, are absolutely essential for making economies sustainable.
Achieving sustainability is not only essential for long term prospects of global peace and prosperity, but it is also essential for lasting recovery from the current economic crisis.
Action towards sustainability will be primarily driven by the sheer necessity of economic recovery. Subsidies, carbon tax and cap and trade do the opposite they cost economic growth.
Solutions that make economies increasingly sustainable and also enable them to fully recover from the current economic crisis have a chance to succeed.In the current economic environment, sustainability solutions have to increase economic growth as well. Solutions proposed in this book will.
I am compelled to write this book because the world is going in the wrong direction and its disastrous consequences are likely to be suffered within my lifetime. The world is going in the wrong direction because the system it uses is designed to go in the wrong direction. World leaders need to be better informed on the nature of this economic and sustainability crisis. I understand the problem and also have a definite solution; I am therefore compelled to share it.
If the un-sustainability of our economic way of life is not corrected soon, conflicts on planetary level will start taking shape. Wars of survival may erupt around the world. Given the destructive powers of weapons it may translate into human extinction.
This book can “save the world. (Sorry for the lack of humility)
This book presents a solution to a global economic problem which is getting worse by the year. This problem is particularly acute in developed countries because they are more un-sustainable than developing ones. As the economic crisis spreads and deepens New Capitalism will become increasingly relevant and the need for the proposed reform urgent.
This book will bring sustainability to the forefront of discussions about economies around the world. This book will start a new discussion on economic growth and prosperity, and its link with sustainability. This discussion will be new, productive, provocative, and very engaging. Sustainability will no longer be sidelined by expediency and smaller issues.
Sustainability should be the center of discussion in every aspect of modern life and society. Most citizens of developed countries with interest in business, politics, economics and current affairs would read this book.
It is a very timely book and will have a world wide audience.
The intended readers are the general public, journalists, economic experts, scholars, politicians and business professionals. Since this book presents an innovative solution to a crisis that affects everyone it should be mass marketed in the US and Europe.
Anybody who reads newspapers and magazines such as Time, Newsweek, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times will be able to read this book. This book presupposes only a basic understanding of terms such as fiat money, money supply, monetary and fiscal policy, inflation, and time value of money.
This book is well suited for college level education. It should be discussed in senior level courses in economics and finance. It should also be used in courses in environmental economics.
The world is waiting for this book in pain and suffering. This book should be published as soon as possible. The release of this book can be timed to coincide with a major incident or episode of financial crisis, which there will be many in the US and in Europe.
I have an MBA from Yale University.
I have more than fifteen years of U.S. and international experience in Finance, Investment Banking and Financial Engineering. Financial Engineering in the US and subsequently in the poorly structured non-interest based financial system used in the Middle East helped me understand and contrast the underlying incentive structures of both financial systems and their effects on the workings of the economy; insights that later helped me develop New Capitalism.
The people supposedly most qualified to write this kind of book are the least able to write it. Most books out of the hundreds written on this financial crisis by renowned economists either don’t propose a solution or if they do it is a mix of austerity, Keynesianism and socialism. If I had a PhD in economics that would probably make me more qualified to write this but less likely.
This is a book of big idea. There are basically no standard qualifications for creating new ideas.
I will try to get public speaking engagements to promote the book. I am a good speaker and have skills and abilities to make good presentations.
I have taught at Universities, I am sure that will help.
I have a Website dedicated to this book: www.newcapitalism.org. This website is not properly Meta-tagged yet so there is no traffic. I will use this site to market the idea.
I will hopefully find many other ways to promote the book once the publishing plan is known.
The most important thing is that I know my subject better than anybody else.
I have something very important to say. I have a solution that the world needs.
This book covers sociology, politics, economics and psychology. It basically explains the social and organizational trends in corporations over a span of recent time.
This again is a descriptive book.
Describes the economic crisis and the role of banks and borrowing. It predicts the kind of business and jobs that will flourish in future.
Kevin Doogan looks at contemporary social transformation through the lens of the labor market. Major themes of the book are globalization, technological change and the new economy, the pension and demographic time bombs, flexibility and traditional employment.
All of the books mentioned above are basically historical and scholarly books with no restructuring suggestions. They are just trying to interpret the changes that have already happened or are in the process of happening.
My book is the first book of its kind: A book on Reengineering of the economic system. This book proposes a method to bring about lasting global economic recovery.
The Natural Economic Order, by Silvio Gesell.
Progress and Poverty, by Henry George
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, by John Maynard Keynes
Das Kapital by Karl Marx
Silvio Gessel and Henry George were good thinkers and philosophers but were not good engineers. I think the designs of their systems were lacking.
I think the success of Keynes and Marx had something to do with the timeliness of their books. In my view Marx was wrong in designing a system that brought more politics and bureaucracy in the economy but he was timely, we all know the results. Keynes was right and timely.
Several short pieces written to introduce New Capitalism are attached to this proposal.
The website for the book is:www.newcapitalism.org. First seven chapters and chapter 20 of the book are on this website. All text on this website is written by the author.
GhulamQadirSyed
FormerWall Street executive with over ten years of U.S. and international experience in Finance, Investment Banking and Financial Engineering. Additional experience as an entrepreneur, e.g., built an internet-based social networking platform for those affiliated with 500 major global universities.
Have recently proposed a new form of Capitalism. In a soon-to-be-released book, titledNew Capitalism,I argue that this new system will make national economies more sustainable and place economic growth on a new trajectory that will last for generations.
Have taughtfinance and accounting at universities in the US and abroad.
Formed and established this Silicon Valley Company to provide Internet based Social Networking Platform for students and graduates of the top 500 universities.
Developed business initiatives for the firm in the following areas: Options and other derivatives, international equities, indexed products, foreign exchange, and asset backed securitization.
Structured and marketed a range of marketable financial products, including marketable securities backed by investment portfolios of Islamic Development Bank (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia).
Reported to Executive Vice President – Head of Fixed Income Capital Markets.
Originated most fixed income structured products of Oppenheimer.
Repackaged a pool of Venezuelan Par (Brady) Bonds into three tranches: an “AAA” rated Libor floater, a bond option, and a high yielding security.
Managed the rating process for structured transactions.
Sought and received approvals from regulatory agencies in the US and Europe.
Taught four classes composed mainly of seniors in Fall 2011. Courses taught: Financial Management, Financial Systems Analysis, and Bank Management.
Currently engaged in research developing a model of asset pricing based on semi-variance as the measure of financial risk.
Taught Finance and Accounting courses in MBA programs of the oldest business school outside North America.
Courses included: Managerial Accounting, Analysis of Financial Statements, Portfolio Management, Securities Analysis, Financial Engineering, Options Pricing and Strategies, Foreign Exchange transactions, Managerial Finance, and Fixed Income Securities.
My pre-graduation experience includes managing projects for The Lakson Group of Companies, one of the largest conglomerates in Pakistan. I prepared the feasibility reports and financial projections for their new business ventures including that for Century Paper and Board Mills which is one of their flagship companies now. I prepared financial projections for Lakson Tobacco’s acquisition of Premier Tobacco, the third largest tobacco company in Pakistan.
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