Posted on 04/03/2012 4:09:04 PM PDT by Greysard
The Wolfson Economics Prize, which challenges the world’s brightest economists to prepare a contingency plan for a break-up of the Eurozone, today (3rd April, 2012) unveiled a shortlist of five finalists.
The shortlisted entries, though all very different from each other, provide valuable ideas about how best to manage a member state leaving the euro.
The judges have given the finalists the opportunity to address key questions about their entry. Finalists will be given until the 29th of May to develop and resubmit their entries. Everyone who has progressed to this stage will be guaranteed a £10,000 share of the prize. The winner(s) of the Wolfson Economics Prize will be announced on the 5th of July.
These are LARGE documents. I read only one, it's 156 pages long. However they are quite interesting. These documents lay bare the mechanisms by which a government can "reset" its economy by declaring that all its citizens have now nothing. For example:
More stringent capital controls could be imposed. Resident households and businesses might be forbidden from acquiring foreign assets, investing overseas or holding bank accounts outside their own country. Borrowing and lending abroad can be forbidden or limited. Residents might be required to exchange any foreign currency acquired through sales, gifts, subsidies and so on back into the domestic currency. Foreign businesses operating in the exiting country might be forbidden from repatriating profits. Fines could be imposed for violation of any of these rules.
This is what's being prepared for Greece and perhaps a few other of PIIGS countries. However if anything is to happen to the US dollar, the USA will see exactly the same scenario. I'd classify these documents as an early warning.
Wolfson gurus see euro break-up as dangerous but liberating
yitbos
Seems like a stupid competition because the solution is simple. Government lay off and make gold the currency and everything will be fine. In the meantime, do not bailout banks, but separate the depositors accounts from failing banks and tie them directly to the borrowers.
Such competitions do injustice to everyone because they elevate common sense economics to the level of something only the super-intelligent can understand. This plays right into the hands of liberals.
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