Information Bulletin of the BRICS Trade Union Forum
Monitoring of the economic, social and labor situation in the BRICS countries
Monitoring of the economic, social and labor situation in the BRICS countries
Issue 42.2025
2025.10.13 — 2025.10.19
International relations
Foreign policy in the context of BRICS
RIAC at Observer Research Foundation Events in UAE (РСМД на мероприятиях Observer Research Foundation в ОАЭ) / Russia, October, 2025
Keywords: cooperation
2025-10-17
2025-10-17
Russia
Source: russiancouncil.ru
On October 13, 2025 Observer Research Foundation (ORF, India) held a series of events, dedicated to the new development agenda of the Global South in the United Arab Emirates.
The first half of the day included an international conference Rethinking Connectivity New Geographies, New Markets, New Infrastructure at the DP World, Dubai, providing for experts from more than 20 countries the floor to discuss opportunities and limitations for the infrastructural cooperation in the turbulent world. Special attention was paid to energy and digital connectivity, relevant for those states, who are ready to move beyond immediate transportation and logistics issues.
Julia Melnikova, Head of the Asia and Eurasia Program at the Russian International Affairs Council, spoke during the fourth session of the conference — Connectivity Reimagined: Facilitating Trans-Continental Trade and the Future of Logistics — on the current stage of development on the International North – South Transport Corridor as Russia’s flagship connectivity project. She highlighted that, given the difficulty to build global infrastructural chain amidst acute competition among key international players, it is still important to build regional connectivity clusters. This will attend to the immediate national interests of the stated involved as well as set the agenda for the post-conflict period of modernization. Valeriia Gorbacheva, Deputy Head of the BRICS Expert Council — Russia, and Igor Makarov, Head of the World Economy Department at the HSE University, represented Russia at the event as well.
In the evening Abu Dhabi hosted a panel discussion BRICS: Reshaping Global Perspectives in Turbulent Times, where representatives of BRICS member- and partner-states spoke about their national interests in the format as well as possible venues for further development of the grouping.
Participants came from various countries, such as Russia, China, India, South Africa, Brazil, Belarus, Singapore, Uganda, Egypt, Sri Lanka etc.
Source: russiancouncil.ru
On October 13, 2025 Observer Research Foundation (ORF, India) held a series of events, dedicated to the new development agenda of the Global South in the United Arab Emirates.
The first half of the day included an international conference Rethinking Connectivity New Geographies, New Markets, New Infrastructure at the DP World, Dubai, providing for experts from more than 20 countries the floor to discuss opportunities and limitations for the infrastructural cooperation in the turbulent world. Special attention was paid to energy and digital connectivity, relevant for those states, who are ready to move beyond immediate transportation and logistics issues.
Julia Melnikova, Head of the Asia and Eurasia Program at the Russian International Affairs Council, spoke during the fourth session of the conference — Connectivity Reimagined: Facilitating Trans-Continental Trade and the Future of Logistics — on the current stage of development on the International North – South Transport Corridor as Russia’s flagship connectivity project. She highlighted that, given the difficulty to build global infrastructural chain amidst acute competition among key international players, it is still important to build regional connectivity clusters. This will attend to the immediate national interests of the stated involved as well as set the agenda for the post-conflict period of modernization. Valeriia Gorbacheva, Deputy Head of the BRICS Expert Council — Russia, and Igor Makarov, Head of the World Economy Department at the HSE University, represented Russia at the event as well.
In the evening Abu Dhabi hosted a panel discussion BRICS: Reshaping Global Perspectives in Turbulent Times, where representatives of BRICS member- and partner-states spoke about their national interests in the format as well as possible venues for further development of the grouping.
Participants came from various countries, such as Russia, China, India, South Africa, Brazil, Belarus, Singapore, Uganda, Egypt, Sri Lanka etc.
Investment and Finance
Investment and finance in BRICS
Will Indonesia’s plan to join Brics bank lead to heavier debt burden? (Приведет ли план Индонезии по присоединению к банку БРИКС к увеличению долгового бремени?) / Hong Kong, October, 2025
Keywords: ndb, Indonesia, economic_challenges, expert_opinion
2025-10-15
2025-10-15
Hong Kong
Source: www.scmp.com
With Indonesia having to pay to join the New Development Bank, it should tap foreign investors for project financing instead, analysts say
Indonesia’s plan to join the Brics-led New Development Bank (NDB) and fulfil a payment requirement for membership has spurred a debate on whether the move is feasible given the country’s strained finances to fund President Prabowo Subianto’s priority projects.
Earlier this year, Prabowo announced that Indonesia was planning to join the NDB “to boost the national development transformation” after he met the bank’s chairwoman, Dilma Rousseff, in Jakarta.
“The Indonesian government has decided to join the New Development Bank and will comply with all procedures and requirements,” Prabowo said on March 25.
Indonesia officially joined Brics – a 10-member grouping of mostly emerging economies founded by Brazil, Russia, India and China – in January.
One of the requirements for joining NDB is to place an undisclosed sum of money to buy its shares, which can be paid in seven instalments.
Giving an update on the matter, Chief Economic Minister Airlangga Hartarto said last week that Indonesia had received approval to “pay the paid-in capital”. He did not reveal the sum, only saying “there are calculations”, according to a report by the Jakarta Globe news outlet.
In July, Airlangga said Prabowo wanted to promote “multilateralism in this multipolar global situation” by joining the bank. “Economic partnerships between developing countries are very important, and it is hoped that the benefits of the New Development Bank can be increased,” the minister added.
Through NDB, Prabowo aims to reduce the country’s reliance on international lenders, such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, whose decisions are dominated by Western countries, according to Indonesian officials.
Deputy Foreign Minister Arrmanatha Nasir told reporters in July that reforms within the IMF and the World Bank were “very slow”.
“So, NDB is an option for developing countries to address their development issues and finance their own development. This is the reform that Brics and developing countries want to push.”
Raising debt burden?
While NDB’s funding potential appears promising, economists warn Indonesia may struggle to cover the paid-in capital due to its strained budget.
“We have almost no fiscal capacity because joining the New Development Bank requires a significant amount of paid-in capital. Although it can be paid in instalments, we have other priorities,” Bhima Yudhistira, executive director at the Centre of Economic and Law Studies, told This Week in Asia. “Domestic problems require more urgent state budget injections than joining the NDB.”
Any NDB-funded projects undertaken by Indonesia would also “increase debt interest burden and debt due”, even though the bank’s interest rates were likely more competitive than those offered by other lenders, Bhima said.
Muhammad Rizal Taufikurahman, head of the centre of macroeconomic and finance at the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef), said Indonesia’s debt ratio was currently at nearly 40 per cent of gross domestic product, with repayment placing a huge burden on the state budget.
“We have the money but not much fiscal space, because there are various strategic mandatory programmes [from Prabowo],” said Muhammad, adding that the government should consider whether joining NDB would boost its long-term financial control or pose a burden.
According to Bhima, joining the NDB now is “an inappropriate option and does not suit Indonesia’s needs”.
“The government is better off asking for foreign direct investments from Brics members, such as China, rather than having new debt and having to pay the capital in large amounts to join the NDB,” he said.
Jakarta could also tap the Danantara sovereign wealth fund’s investment arm to support state projects, he added.
Bhima believed Indonesia’s NDB move was “a form of lobbying to get closer to China”.
“The implication is that China’s grip is getting tighter on various infrastructure projects in Indonesia, including in the mining of nickel and other critical minerals or the construction of the Giant Sea Wall project,” he said.
Risks and opportunities
NDB has an initial capital of US$100 billion, according to the bank’s profile on its website. It has so far approved US$39 billion in financing for 120 projects in its member countries, such as in clean energy, transport infrastructure, and water and sanitation.
Indef’s Muhammad said the bank offered “great funding potential” as its priority projects were “in line with Indonesia’s infrastructure needs”, such as in clean energy.
He warned, however, that the success of NDB-funded projects would depend on the bank’s governance, transparency and due diligence.
There is a need for planning and feasibility studies for projects to prevent a repeat of the high cost overrun incurred in the building of the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway and the use of the state budget to complete it, according to Muhammad.
“We often have large projects with significant funding, financed by debt, but they don’t run smoothly. So, if NDB projects aren’t prudent and don’t have due diligence, the potential for budget overruns is high,” he added.
Beyond financial considerations, the government should also weigh the geopolitical risks arising from NDB membership, Muhammad said.
“The NDB is not just a development bank; it is a political instrument of Brics. Indonesia follows a free and active foreign policy principle, so we must not get caught up in West-East bloc rivalries,” he said.
Source: www.scmp.com
With Indonesia having to pay to join the New Development Bank, it should tap foreign investors for project financing instead, analysts say
Indonesia’s plan to join the Brics-led New Development Bank (NDB) and fulfil a payment requirement for membership has spurred a debate on whether the move is feasible given the country’s strained finances to fund President Prabowo Subianto’s priority projects.
Earlier this year, Prabowo announced that Indonesia was planning to join the NDB “to boost the national development transformation” after he met the bank’s chairwoman, Dilma Rousseff, in Jakarta.
“The Indonesian government has decided to join the New Development Bank and will comply with all procedures and requirements,” Prabowo said on March 25.
Indonesia officially joined Brics – a 10-member grouping of mostly emerging economies founded by Brazil, Russia, India and China – in January.
One of the requirements for joining NDB is to place an undisclosed sum of money to buy its shares, which can be paid in seven instalments.
Giving an update on the matter, Chief Economic Minister Airlangga Hartarto said last week that Indonesia had received approval to “pay the paid-in capital”. He did not reveal the sum, only saying “there are calculations”, according to a report by the Jakarta Globe news outlet.
In July, Airlangga said Prabowo wanted to promote “multilateralism in this multipolar global situation” by joining the bank. “Economic partnerships between developing countries are very important, and it is hoped that the benefits of the New Development Bank can be increased,” the minister added.
Through NDB, Prabowo aims to reduce the country’s reliance on international lenders, such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, whose decisions are dominated by Western countries, according to Indonesian officials.
Deputy Foreign Minister Arrmanatha Nasir told reporters in July that reforms within the IMF and the World Bank were “very slow”.
“So, NDB is an option for developing countries to address their development issues and finance their own development. This is the reform that Brics and developing countries want to push.”
Raising debt burden?
While NDB’s funding potential appears promising, economists warn Indonesia may struggle to cover the paid-in capital due to its strained budget.
“We have almost no fiscal capacity because joining the New Development Bank requires a significant amount of paid-in capital. Although it can be paid in instalments, we have other priorities,” Bhima Yudhistira, executive director at the Centre of Economic and Law Studies, told This Week in Asia. “Domestic problems require more urgent state budget injections than joining the NDB.”
Any NDB-funded projects undertaken by Indonesia would also “increase debt interest burden and debt due”, even though the bank’s interest rates were likely more competitive than those offered by other lenders, Bhima said.
Muhammad Rizal Taufikurahman, head of the centre of macroeconomic and finance at the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (Indef), said Indonesia’s debt ratio was currently at nearly 40 per cent of gross domestic product, with repayment placing a huge burden on the state budget.
“We have the money but not much fiscal space, because there are various strategic mandatory programmes [from Prabowo],” said Muhammad, adding that the government should consider whether joining NDB would boost its long-term financial control or pose a burden.
According to Bhima, joining the NDB now is “an inappropriate option and does not suit Indonesia’s needs”.
“The government is better off asking for foreign direct investments from Brics members, such as China, rather than having new debt and having to pay the capital in large amounts to join the NDB,” he said.
Jakarta could also tap the Danantara sovereign wealth fund’s investment arm to support state projects, he added.
Bhima believed Indonesia’s NDB move was “a form of lobbying to get closer to China”.
“The implication is that China’s grip is getting tighter on various infrastructure projects in Indonesia, including in the mining of nickel and other critical minerals or the construction of the Giant Sea Wall project,” he said.
Risks and opportunities
NDB has an initial capital of US$100 billion, according to the bank’s profile on its website. It has so far approved US$39 billion in financing for 120 projects in its member countries, such as in clean energy, transport infrastructure, and water and sanitation.
Indef’s Muhammad said the bank offered “great funding potential” as its priority projects were “in line with Indonesia’s infrastructure needs”, such as in clean energy.
He warned, however, that the success of NDB-funded projects would depend on the bank’s governance, transparency and due diligence.
There is a need for planning and feasibility studies for projects to prevent a repeat of the high cost overrun incurred in the building of the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway and the use of the state budget to complete it, according to Muhammad.
“We often have large projects with significant funding, financed by debt, but they don’t run smoothly. So, if NDB projects aren’t prudent and don’t have due diligence, the potential for budget overruns is high,” he added.
Beyond financial considerations, the government should also weigh the geopolitical risks arising from NDB membership, Muhammad said.
“The NDB is not just a development bank; it is a political instrument of Brics. Indonesia follows a free and active foreign policy principle, so we must not get caught up in West-East bloc rivalries,” he said.
Trump tries to dismantle Brics again, opening another front with India (Трамп снова пытается развалить БРИКС, открывая новый фронт с Индией) / India, October, 2025
Keywords: economic_challenges, political_issues, trade_relations
2025-10-17
2025-10-17
India
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com
Donald Trump falsely claimed BRICS nations are withdrawing after he threatened tariffs on their exports if they challenged the US dollar. Despite Trump's assertions, BRICS has expanded to 20 members, with Saudi Arabia being the only country to demur. India is set to chair BRICS in 2026, prioritizing developing nations' concerns.
The TOI correspondent from Washington: US President Donald Trump took another wild swipe at the 20-nation Brics organisation, which India will chair in 2026, claiming “everyone is dropping out” of the formation after he warned that their exports to America would be tariffed if they challenged the US dollar’s status as a global reserve currency.The MAGA supremo returned to a familiar peeve at a bilateral meeting with Argentina leader Javier Milei on Tuesday, alleging that "Brics was an attack on the dollar," and he had told potential members that if they "want to play that game,” he would tariff their products coming to the US.
Putin Aide Counters Trump’s BRICS 'Breaking Apart' Claim; 'No One Is Dropping Out, We Are United'
“I told anybody who wants to be in Brics, that's fine, but we're going to put tariffs on your nation. Everybody dropped out. They're all dropping out of Brics," he claimed.No country has dropped out of Brics, which now has 20 countries – including 10 associate members – from the founding four (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) in 2009, with South Africa joining a year later. Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, and UAE joined as full members in 2024 and Indonesia in 2025, bringing the full members strength to 10.
After Brics introduced a new category called "Partner Countries" at its 2024 summit to integrate prospective members, 10 other countries have been officially designated as Brics Partner Countries as of January 1, 2025: Belarus; Bolivia; Cuba; Kazakhstan; Malaysia; Nigeria; Thailand; Uganda; Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
Saudi Arabia is the only country that has demurred so far. Invited to join effective January 1, 2024, it has not yet formally confirmed its full membership and is still reportedly considering the matter. Both Pakistan and Bangladesh have applied to be members and their applications are said to be under consideration with support from China and Russia, and reservations from India.Argentina, under the government of former President Alberto Fernández, formally submitted an application for Brics membership in 2022, but following his election in late 2023, the current President Javier Milei, a Trump pal and a self-declared self-declared anarcho-capitalist who favors closer ties and alignment with the United States, sent a letter to Brics leaders formally declined the invitation.Among other putdowns, Milei disdained dealing with “communist countries” such as China, and said Argentina was unwilling to be burdened by the political agendas of other member nations – although that has not prevented him from selling soybeans to China while begging the US for a bailout at the same time even as American farmers are sitting on their massive soy surplus.With his country on the brink of economic disaster, Mileu is in Washington this week to receive a $ 20 billion handout and pledge fealty to Trump, who has warned the lolly won’t be forthcoming if Argentinians don’t vote for his surrogate in the upcoming election.Trump’s effort to dismantle Brics puts New Delhi at odds with him on one more front, with India set to assume the Brics presidency on January 1, 2026.India’s agenda for the organisation during its presidency includes a “People-Centric and Humanity-First Approach,’ prioritizing the concerns and interests of developing nations front and center with issues such as global health and climate justice, terms that are anathema to MAGA’s America First outlook.
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com
Donald Trump falsely claimed BRICS nations are withdrawing after he threatened tariffs on their exports if they challenged the US dollar. Despite Trump's assertions, BRICS has expanded to 20 members, with Saudi Arabia being the only country to demur. India is set to chair BRICS in 2026, prioritizing developing nations' concerns.
The TOI correspondent from Washington: US President Donald Trump took another wild swipe at the 20-nation Brics organisation, which India will chair in 2026, claiming “everyone is dropping out” of the formation after he warned that their exports to America would be tariffed if they challenged the US dollar’s status as a global reserve currency.The MAGA supremo returned to a familiar peeve at a bilateral meeting with Argentina leader Javier Milei on Tuesday, alleging that "Brics was an attack on the dollar," and he had told potential members that if they "want to play that game,” he would tariff their products coming to the US.
Putin Aide Counters Trump’s BRICS 'Breaking Apart' Claim; 'No One Is Dropping Out, We Are United'
“I told anybody who wants to be in Brics, that's fine, but we're going to put tariffs on your nation. Everybody dropped out. They're all dropping out of Brics," he claimed.No country has dropped out of Brics, which now has 20 countries – including 10 associate members – from the founding four (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) in 2009, with South Africa joining a year later. Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, and UAE joined as full members in 2024 and Indonesia in 2025, bringing the full members strength to 10.
After Brics introduced a new category called "Partner Countries" at its 2024 summit to integrate prospective members, 10 other countries have been officially designated as Brics Partner Countries as of January 1, 2025: Belarus; Bolivia; Cuba; Kazakhstan; Malaysia; Nigeria; Thailand; Uganda; Uzbekistan and Vietnam.
Saudi Arabia is the only country that has demurred so far. Invited to join effective January 1, 2024, it has not yet formally confirmed its full membership and is still reportedly considering the matter. Both Pakistan and Bangladesh have applied to be members and their applications are said to be under consideration with support from China and Russia, and reservations from India.Argentina, under the government of former President Alberto Fernández, formally submitted an application for Brics membership in 2022, but following his election in late 2023, the current President Javier Milei, a Trump pal and a self-declared self-declared anarcho-capitalist who favors closer ties and alignment with the United States, sent a letter to Brics leaders formally declined the invitation.Among other putdowns, Milei disdained dealing with “communist countries” such as China, and said Argentina was unwilling to be burdened by the political agendas of other member nations – although that has not prevented him from selling soybeans to China while begging the US for a bailout at the same time even as American farmers are sitting on their massive soy surplus.With his country on the brink of economic disaster, Mileu is in Washington this week to receive a $ 20 billion handout and pledge fealty to Trump, who has warned the lolly won’t be forthcoming if Argentinians don’t vote for his surrogate in the upcoming election.Trump’s effort to dismantle Brics puts New Delhi at odds with him on one more front, with India set to assume the Brics presidency on January 1, 2026.India’s agenda for the organisation during its presidency includes a “People-Centric and Humanity-First Approach,’ prioritizing the concerns and interests of developing nations front and center with issues such as global health and climate justice, terms that are anathema to MAGA’s America First outlook.
A Dynamite Shift at the Nobel Prize in Economics (Динамитный сдвиг в Нобелевской премии по экономике) / Russia, October, 2025
Keywords:
2025-10-16
2025-10-16
Russia
Source: russiancouncil.ru
A Harmonious Convergence: How Nobel Innovation Meets Entrepreneurial Mysticism
From Expothon, we extend our warm congratulations to the 2025 Nobel Prize winners in economics: Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion, and Peter Howitt. They receive top marks for their insightful ideas. Mokyr's examination of history and culture for fostering innovation teams ranks first due to its timelessness and practicality. Aghion and Howitt's mathematical models on "creative destruction," which illustrate how outdated ideas make way for new ones, rank second as they provide clear guidance for policy-making. This approach is crucial in addressing the $313 trillion global debt crisis and countering the rise of populism over the past decade.
A Dynamite Shift from the Games of Theorems to Entrepreneurial Mysticism.
Possibly the bitter medicine to fix a $313 trillion world debt headache: Is it possible that the House of Alfred Nobel now finally sees the risks of allowing "economic intellectualism" to grow too big to fail? This kind of thinking often sticks to complex theories, charts, and math games, but maybe it's time to guide it toward "entrepreneurial mysticism." The only power instinctively gravitated to take lifelong risks to strive for unexplainable solutions for unimaginable problems with magical capabilities of transforming tiny, unknown enterprises into national and global giants, creating jobs, and changing the face of the nation.
Driven around the clock, this more hands-on, creative way of building economies fits our super-fast, AI-centric, never-sleeps, globally connected world. This shift could help 100 struggling free economies. Those under the spell of lingering economic intellectualism may now understand how freedom, culture, and the combination of job-seeker and job-creator mindsets can spark unlimited growth.
Expothon supports economic intellectualism, the Nobel Prizes in Economics, and hardcore economic development as long as it is active on the real tactical battlefield as economic growth warriors, in action, but not on some charts, as theoretical intellectuals without battle plans or regimented planning to march forward and outsmart the global age of competitiveness with deployment-ready mobilization to uplift the national economies. Anything less becomes a big danger sign. The four billion displaced, replaced, and misplaced workers, seeking survival and witnessing a visible decline in their nations, have united to create a crisis that leaves no room for Ivy League clubs.
We are currently in an open economic war. The focus should be on mobilizing and uncovering the hidden talents of the national workforce through entrepreneurial understanding. Only at that point may we achieve some clarity, China included. Otherwise, the West risks remaining stuck in a cycle of debt-driven confusion and stagnation. No further evidence is needed to support this claim.
Thrown is the Gauntlet: With around 100 free economies in visible decline, the decorum of the prize winners in economics still prohibits questioning any of their misguided sleepwalking ideas. Here and now, with no time to waste, entrepreneurial mysticism, out of the sandboxes, riding on entrepreneurial mysticism, fully liberated as a trained tightrope walker, is throwing the Gauntlet with a bold punch on the eve of the coming global financial crisis, to alarm the emergency controls when billions of restless citizens are already marching towards political rotundas in search of forbidden answers.
A new world has already emerged, with front-runners of the Mind-First group replacing the physicality of work with automation. This shift will enable advancements based on a performance mentality. The policies placing mind-first have distinct competitive advantages, but only if the economic charting is wide-awake on this tactical battlefield.
Ring of Fire: Mindset Hypothesis Has Split the Atom on Economic Intellectualism:
The Mindsets Divide is the only differentiator between the two mindsets within the world of commerce. On one side, we have well-educated and career-minded job seekers eager to build enterprises. On the other hand, we have the mindsets of entrepreneurial job creators, who are casually playing in the sandboxes and starting such enterprises in the first place.
The Price of Inaction: No airplane will last a day if frequent flyers, rather than certified pilots, manage its cockpit. No circus survives if gymnasts are replaced by flamethrowers and lion tamers by clowns. No enterprise thrives if it faces a mismatch of skills and lacks the experience needed to tackle its challenges in rigorous business and entrepreneurial endeavors.
The Alarm Bells: When 99% of economic teams across over 100 free economies comprise job-seeker mindsets lacking aptitude for job creation or SME growth, it signals profound damage. Anti-Job Creation Syndrome breeds unemployment, inequality, and economic collapse in free economies, while nations whose economic development is driven by both mindsets tend to prosper. How long will this decline persist, and how much hardship will it inflict?
A Global Summit: The Final Reckoning: The lack of bold economic strategies or robust debates to address the decline in productivity, performance, and profitability necessitates a summit to forge new ideas, strengthen plans, and advance as a final recourse.
Urgent Challenges for Western Economic Intellectualism
The Urgency of Action: By 2030, China's 'Belt and Road Project' could offer 100 countries each a 'trillion-dollar infrastructure' bundled turnkey discounted packages, potentially quadrupling its GDP. In the face of this, what are other nations doing to stand up to the global age of competitiveness? If such details were not discussed during the last 500 days, it is obvious that everyone was lost in the wrong buildings.
Three Red Alerts
First, the failure to grasp the 'mindset hypothesis,' particularly the distinction between the job seeker and job creator mindsets, should be a cause for immediate concern in any senior-level dialogue on SME economic recovery. Both mindsets are essential for great success; today, 99% of all economic development teams have only job-seeker mindsets.
Second, it must articulate that the 'National Mobilization of Entrepreneurialism' is the second red alert in any significant economic development activity.
Third, failing to produce functional regional models of 'identification, categorization, and digitization' of potential SMEs is the third red alert of any SME sectoral policies—more on Google.
Today, China is the only country with approximately 500 million highly skilled workers with a communist-entrepreneurial mindset, forming the largest workforce ever, greater than all the highly skilled workforces of Western economies combined.
Fact: Silicon Valley did not originate from an economic study or academic idea, but a global-scale expression of entrepreneurial mysticism. Untrained, unskilled dropouts emerged from garages with wires and buttons, forever changing the world. Despite numerous attempts by other cities to replicate the project as an academic endeavor, they failed.
Fact: If proof is requested: When over a million entrepreneurs have already created over a million original small and medium businesses, each of which has grown into creating over a million jobs, why is the lingering fear of identifying at least one Nobel Prize Winner in Economics, whoever built one such creation?
Today, Political Economy is like ice hockey played on football fields without ice or hockey sticks, but with tennis rackets under volleyball rules.
Economic development without entrepreneurialism is only economic destruction. Any political power without economic power is no power. Any economic power without entrepreneurial power is no growth. Any entrepreneurial power without a balanced mindset hypothesis is no power. Increasing the debt ceiling is not an economic success but a grand failure. Abandoning a national citizenry that cannot stand up to global age competitiveness is a political failure.
The future of superpower economies will depend on their citizens' mental abilities and entrepreneurial skills rather than on the nation's reliance on cryptocurrency or artificially structured debt economies.
The Economic Wheel of Fortune: Why are the governments of 100 free economies so happily engaged in the circus of the economy but tragically oblivious to the economic wheels of fortune, missing out on grand-scale opportunities? It's time to step up, fully understand the barren economic landscape, desperately awaiting entrepreneurial gardening, and readjust Western thinking so we can all benefit from the opportunities it presents. In any nation, why are the bottom 1% of today's entrepreneurs also a direct match with the top 1% of today's elite?
Out of the 100 free economies in the world, the 'Top 1%' Economic Prosperity Class is unique to each nation's entrepreneurial origins. In these same countries, the 'Bottom 1%' Grassroots Prosperity Class exists. These small and medium enterprise owners, similar to the elite, embarked on a journey from the same entrepreneurial roots. Their path, marked by comparable struggles and obstacles, mirrors the trajectory the current elite class took to success. The bottom 1% Grassroots Prosperity Class is the same as the Top 1% Elite Class, but only a decade or so behind in their trajectory…. This Wheel of Fortune repeats every decade or so and keeps spinning. When economic development cannot decipher such affairs, you must recognize that your national economy is in the wrong hands with different mindsets.
Open challenge to current economic development models: It takes ten days to firm up policies to start an SME sector digitization program. It takes 100 days to mobilize and place 1000 to 100,000 SMEs on digital platforms. It takes 1000 days to have a bouncing economy. Futurism is work-less, office-less, job-less, and border-less, but not mind-less.
The 4B factor: Governments across the free world failed to up-skill citizenry and now face the 4B Factor; the 4B Factor is when a billion workers are displaced due to the pandemic, a billion are replaced due to automation, a billion are misplaced due to improper job titles, and now a billion are on starvation watch due to collapsing economies. Nations should have continued to upskill their citizenry as they did decades ago. Instead, entrusting universities and YouTube with the future of national productivity to create a citizenry capable of standing up to global age competitiveness is where all the visible damage lies.
No, this is not an economic academic study but an entrepreneurial response in simple language to the significant economic failures of most Western nations in up-skilling exporters and reskilling manufacturers on a national scale.
The Future is Workless but not Mindless
Open national debates as silence is a proof of lingering incompetence. Access to finance is not the answer: On SME fronts, access to finance is commonly considered as a 'nest' that allows the right environment for an 'egg' to hatch; hence, to foster their expansion plans, the financial world is primarily occupied with arranging Fintech and access to finance as a nest for the free-range eggs, the SMEs of our times. Nevertheless, finance and economic leaders still need to know where these eggs come from, why and when they are laid, by whom, and for what specific motivation at what sacrifice, and what will happen when they are finally hatched.
Financial wisdom still needs to fathom why each such egg will always start with a unique song and new tempo, all emerging in different colors. But why, because the SME sectors, like an aviary surrounded by its mystery, struggle only to blossom further in their rights and in their own way. There is no single master rule, reference, guideline, business plan, formula, blueprint, or book explaining why one of them could suddenly become the largest-ever project for the nation.
Entrepreneurialism resides in these gravity-defying, rule-breaking, high-speed, chance-based decision-making and lifelong risk indulgence. This is where the fault lines between economic intellectualism, manifesting as risk aversion, and a lack of mental aptitude to create an enterprise, generate jobs, or achieve profitability.
Why countries failed to become entrepreneurial nations, despite having already built surprisingly great, highly regimented, hierarchical armies, is mainly because they were trained digging trenches in the rain and sleeping in the forest, not in deluxe classrooms, running around with water pistols and drawing pictures of tanks. The absence of entrepreneurial, out-of-the-box thinking is the most visible defeat of Western economies, now being crushed by the fundamentals of economic creation, which involve generating a tidal ocean of SMEs where Godzilla-size global giants grow and often alter the nation's landscape.
Firstly, on the wings of the Valkyries, SMEs will soar beyond AI's illusions. AI, at best, is brilliant software, but there is no bionic heart beating or any human intelligence breathing within, as it is as lifeless as a rock. Despite all that, AI-centricity and entrepreneurial mysticisms have an intricate relationship, like a tango. Together, they create out-of-the-box global sandboxes to dance into extremely creative ideas and, with AI's help, execute them at hyper speed with minimal cost. This feature of hyper-efficiency and speed analysis is where entrepreneurial mysticism sleepless.
Secondly, for a formal legal consultation, a 100-page lease agreement can be customized and corrected for immediate execution in just 60 seconds for pennies. How can national leadership prepare for massive senior management jobs, and what percentage can be transferred to SMEs?
Thirdly, the mind-first mentality suggests that a simple question to AI from a young entrepreneur, such as how to design a bicycle with square wheels, may take days to answer due to the complexity of options and the never-ending trial-and-error processes.
How to harness and build a Mind-First Doctrine, and how to prepare larger teams for such powerhouse transitions? What should be banned, unless such new parameters are understood at the grassroots level: economic intellectualism, in desperate need of psychoanalysis, coping with deep silence while the world spins.
SME Weeks Must Be Banned: For nearly half a century, we have celebrated annual SME weeks filled with parades and awards, primarily serving to accommodate a busload of SME founders in training and culminating in a plastic award night. Instead, we should focus on managing national SMEs throughout the entire year, operating like a global entity that prioritizes productivity, performance, and profitability. Today, having anything less than 10,000 to 100,000 high-potential national SMEs categorized on digital platforms focused on these key areas will halt economic progress.
Missing Trillions as Lack Value Creation:
The National Administration and Mobilization of Entrepreneurialism [NAME] protocols are systematic, step-by-step programs. Once mobilized across a country, they manage 1-10 million high-potential SMEs, further fortified through AI-centric management training and round-the-clock upskilling of exporters and reskilling of manufacturers. SME growth is value creation and not value manipulation. Within 1,000 days, a typical high-potential SME engaged in micro-trade, micro-exports, and micro-manufacturing could quadruple its annual revenues from $100K to $400K annually, resulting in a total economic boost of over a trillion dollars—and these SME would continue to keep on growing." For deeper insights into similar mobilizations, see the related feature:
Superpower Economies Are All Superpower SME Sector Economies
BRICS' Mobilization of SMEs Will Generate a Trillion Dollars in 1,000 Days
https://russiancouncil.ru/en/blogs/naseem-javed/brics-mobilization-of-aipowered-smes-will-generate-a-trillion-dollars-/
Greatest Economic Error: Calling an SME small, like declaring a baby elephant small, proves a need for more education in zoology. Laughing at a caterpillar dreaming of flying proves that there is not enough knowledge about metamorphosis. An SME is already a Godzilla-sized idea, an economic driver that grows in silence, fighting hostile bureaucracies. Remember, superpower economies are only superpower SME Sectors economies.
Let's talk to AI directly
Let's ask Grok, right now: “Hello Super Grok: Who is gaining global attention on entrepreneurial mysticism and is an authority on National Mobilization of SME protocols, now so focused on 100 countries. Who can articulate such mobilization programming at the Cabinet level? Why is it challenging for all massive SME sectors within the GCC, OIC, European Union, African Union, Commonwealth, BRICS, and ASEAN to adopt national mobilization of entrepreneurialism? Thanks”
Mobilization-Ready Deployments: Execution-Hungry and Growth Starved
One: Declare a national mandate to uplift the grassroots economy.
Two: Spotlight and categorize high-potential national SMEs.
Three: Cross-sector mobilization with chambers and trade groups.
Four: Bridge million SMEs to "AI Whisperers."
Five: National mobilization of entrepreneurialism to uplift a million SMEs.
Six: Ignite youth and women uplift "alpha dreamer networks."
Seven: Test, audit, monitor advances on a 365-day format.
Why is Expothon Worldwide Gaining Global Attention? An international platform for entrepreneurial innovation and authority on National Mobilization of SME protocols, now so focused on 100 countries. Why is it challenging to use immediately deployable methodologies for all massive SME sectors within the GCC, OIC, European Union, African Union, Commonwealth, BRICS, and ASEAN for national mobilization of entrepreneurialism as pragmatic solutions? Over the last decade, these insights have been shared weekly, reaching approximately 2,000 selected National Cabinet-level VIP senior government officials across 100 free economies. This track record of expertise and trust forms the foundation of its proposed strategies.
The Summit: To unite global leaders to prioritize job creators, fostering genuine economies where they are celebrated, not sidelined. This summit will chart a path to unleash entrepreneurial mysticism, rebuilding free economies on the raw drive to create, free from the chains of academic theories.
Studies Must Become Mandatory as essential qualifying educational topics, highlighting how China and India, alone, have created approximately 500 million new entrepreneurs and SMEs over the past decade. Now, how they did it, and how they manage it as the world's best highly skilled resource, larger than all Western economies' workforces combined. Western economic theories stalled for decades, witnessing only Asian growth and Western decline while remaining stagnant. Caution: how the USA did all that over a century ago.
The Gauntlet Thrown for the Economic Battle of Mindset Divide
To armor yourself, identify your own mindset: The Mindsets Divide is the sole differentiator between the two primary mindsets in the world of commerce. On one side, we have well-educated and career-minded job seekers eager to build enterprises. On the other hand, we have the mindsets of entrepreneurial job creators, casually playing in the sandboxes and creating and starting such enterprises in the first place.
This pide forms the principal foundation of special characteristics that have persisted for millennia, specifically, the mindset of someone seeking security in a career by obtaining the right degree and finding a matching job. This job seeker mentality is directly responsible for building large organizations. However, this mindset is not designed to take short or long risks, create SME and grow them in job creation, and prefers a secure position in a well-founded firm. Now the other is a job creator mindset, an informally educated, extreme risk-taking, out-of-the-box thinker. Creating SME in pursuit of unexplainable solutions for unimaginable problems and never afraid of the challenges. Edison was not afraid of darkness till he tried over 10,000 experiments when he finally invented the light bulb.
A Call to Action Against Hidden Forces Harming Global Economic Prosperity
First Round: When the 99% Job-Seeker Mindset innocently destroys economies, only Entrepreneurial Mysticism can forge the SME oceans to save humanity. Suppose one can run an airline with frequent flyers in the cockpits, but not trained jumbo pilots, or a hospital where only the top accountant treats all patients, but not the doctors: good luck. Nevertheless, it only takes one day to audit, identify, and resolve the two mindset pides, ensuring balanced mindsets from top to bottom among economic development team members. Why the hush?
Economic intellectuals often fail to recognize the mindset pide, a fracture splitting the atom of economic thought. They overlook the fact that many economic development experts are, in reality, job seekers, risk-averse, and lack the aptitude to manage unpredictable risks and complex challenges. This mindset navigates a maze of uncertainties, perpetuating a status quo visibly failing across 100 free economies. The lack of job creation, stagnation in the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) sector, and sluggish economic growth stem from a hesitation to embrace risk, entrepreneurial behavior, and the reality of organized chaos and disruption.
One Big Day Needed to Save Countries: It takes a day to review the LinkedIn profiles of all those engaged in economic development, across the country, regardless of type, size, or depth, and spot one glaring question:
Red Warning: "Have they ever created a single or multiple SMEs, demonstrated growth, hired staff, and shown profits?"
If not, how can they articulate the control and command of an entrepreneurial risk-taking mindset essential for such endeavors? Only a risk-taking entrepreneurial mindset can give birth to SMEs, as no other system has been found during the last millennium. If Western economic intellectuals had embraced this truth, they could have cultivated economies like China's.
Yet, fears of "too much risk" perpetually stifle bold discussions, debates, and procedural changes on such affairs. Such topics critically expose the limitations in job creation and SME expansion areas and show how these mandates have been assigned incorrectly.
The Bureaucratic Barrier: To halt this decline, we must enforce a mandatory test for economic growth and risk-taking mindsets—a rigorous, real-world evaluation to ensure that only those who have successfully navigated the risks and rewards of entrepreneurship shape the policies that transform local lemonade stands into global powerhouses like Coca-Cola.
This Test, grounded in the Mindset Hypothesis and supported by entrepreneurial mysticism is not just a reform; it is a lifeline for economies on the brink, directly confronting the daily realities of unemployment, family breakdowns, devalued education, civil unrest, and institutional distrust, while delivering practical solutions through the National Mobilization of Entrepreneurialism.
The Silent Shyness of Dark-Debt Economy Builders:
In the grand theater of global economics, where nations rise and fall on the tides of innovation and debt, a peculiar silence echoes from the architects of what Expothon Worldwide terms "dark-debt-driven economies." These are the knowledge-rich nations (KRN), predominantly in the West, burdened by illusory prosperity built on mountains of unpayable debt, bureaucratic inertia, and outdated economic models. The real engine of economic revival lies in the vast SME oceans, where small and medium enterprises swell into Godzilla-sized global giants through raw entrepreneurialism. Yet, these guardians of economic orthodoxy remain silent, their inaction a thunderous betrayal as the world teeters on the brink of a cataclysmic crisis.
For the last 4-5 years, the world’s largest institutions, all have followed LinkedIn profile of Expothon, accumulating tens of thousands of views annually. Their "academic shyness syndrome" is not indifference, but fear. Fear of the mindset pide that fractures their theories, fear of the anti-job creation syndrome they've unwittingly unleashed, and fear of the Mindset Hypotheses that prove only job-creators can birth thriving economies.
Join the Global Movement:
Expothon Calling Retired Diplomats, Economists, and Global Entrepreneurs: Enter Expothon Worldwide, expanding its vanguard to mobilize SME superpowers across 100 nations. We seek your prominence: Mentor AI-centric protocols via the 21 Pillars of Nouveau Rationalism, audit multipolar vulnerabilities in virtual war rooms, or keynote our Mind-First Summit to crystallize entrepreneurial legacies: no bureaucratic chains, only sovereign impact, VIP networks, and measurable revivals. The new stage awaits your encore. Both mindsets. Join Expothon.
For seasoned visionaries at the Cabinet levels, active or retired economists, policymakers, and government luminaries—who've shaped nations from the corridors of power, the Expothon Movement offers a triumphant encore: a platform to crystallize your lifetime of wisdom into a global economic renaissance. No longer confined to boardrooms or briefcases, join us to mentor the next wave of SME titans, deploying the 21 Pillars of Nouveau Rationalism to mobilize 10,000 high-potential enterprises across 100 countries.
100 Free Economies: Imagine auditing past policy pitfalls with AI precision, forging public-private alliances in BRICS and ASEAN, or igniting national mobilizations that shatter debt cycles and help mobilize millions entrepreneurs across 100 plus free economies by 2030.
Mind-First Doctrine: Your involvement is seamless and sovereign: Begin with a confidential Vision Alignment Call via Expothon, where we map your expertise to our Mind-First Doctrine—perhaps leading sector-specific protocols or keynote-ing at our annual Summit. Flexible commitments suit your rhythm: advisory hours, virtual war rooms with cabinet peers, or co-authoring manifestos that echo your legacy. Backed by a VIP network of 2,000 influencers, You'll access exclusive insights, and measurable impacts
This isn't retirement: it's reinvention. At 30 or 70, your strategic acumen is secret weapon of Expothon against declining economies. Reply ‘Ready to Lead’ to ignite your chapter in history's boldest entrepreneurial saga. Together, we'll uplift free markets, one crystallized idea at a time.
Senior Diplomatic and Cabinet-level experiences, perse global entrepreneurial projects, and a desire to expedite the emergence of a new, better world. nj@expothon.com
The rest is easy.
Source: russiancouncil.ru
A Harmonious Convergence: How Nobel Innovation Meets Entrepreneurial Mysticism
From Expothon, we extend our warm congratulations to the 2025 Nobel Prize winners in economics: Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion, and Peter Howitt. They receive top marks for their insightful ideas. Mokyr's examination of history and culture for fostering innovation teams ranks first due to its timelessness and practicality. Aghion and Howitt's mathematical models on "creative destruction," which illustrate how outdated ideas make way for new ones, rank second as they provide clear guidance for policy-making. This approach is crucial in addressing the $313 trillion global debt crisis and countering the rise of populism over the past decade.
A Dynamite Shift from the Games of Theorems to Entrepreneurial Mysticism.
Possibly the bitter medicine to fix a $313 trillion world debt headache: Is it possible that the House of Alfred Nobel now finally sees the risks of allowing "economic intellectualism" to grow too big to fail? This kind of thinking often sticks to complex theories, charts, and math games, but maybe it's time to guide it toward "entrepreneurial mysticism." The only power instinctively gravitated to take lifelong risks to strive for unexplainable solutions for unimaginable problems with magical capabilities of transforming tiny, unknown enterprises into national and global giants, creating jobs, and changing the face of the nation.
Driven around the clock, this more hands-on, creative way of building economies fits our super-fast, AI-centric, never-sleeps, globally connected world. This shift could help 100 struggling free economies. Those under the spell of lingering economic intellectualism may now understand how freedom, culture, and the combination of job-seeker and job-creator mindsets can spark unlimited growth.
Expothon supports economic intellectualism, the Nobel Prizes in Economics, and hardcore economic development as long as it is active on the real tactical battlefield as economic growth warriors, in action, but not on some charts, as theoretical intellectuals without battle plans or regimented planning to march forward and outsmart the global age of competitiveness with deployment-ready mobilization to uplift the national economies. Anything less becomes a big danger sign. The four billion displaced, replaced, and misplaced workers, seeking survival and witnessing a visible decline in their nations, have united to create a crisis that leaves no room for Ivy League clubs.
We are currently in an open economic war. The focus should be on mobilizing and uncovering the hidden talents of the national workforce through entrepreneurial understanding. Only at that point may we achieve some clarity, China included. Otherwise, the West risks remaining stuck in a cycle of debt-driven confusion and stagnation. No further evidence is needed to support this claim.
Thrown is the Gauntlet: With around 100 free economies in visible decline, the decorum of the prize winners in economics still prohibits questioning any of their misguided sleepwalking ideas. Here and now, with no time to waste, entrepreneurial mysticism, out of the sandboxes, riding on entrepreneurial mysticism, fully liberated as a trained tightrope walker, is throwing the Gauntlet with a bold punch on the eve of the coming global financial crisis, to alarm the emergency controls when billions of restless citizens are already marching towards political rotundas in search of forbidden answers.
A new world has already emerged, with front-runners of the Mind-First group replacing the physicality of work with automation. This shift will enable advancements based on a performance mentality. The policies placing mind-first have distinct competitive advantages, but only if the economic charting is wide-awake on this tactical battlefield.
Ring of Fire: Mindset Hypothesis Has Split the Atom on Economic Intellectualism:
The Mindsets Divide is the only differentiator between the two mindsets within the world of commerce. On one side, we have well-educated and career-minded job seekers eager to build enterprises. On the other hand, we have the mindsets of entrepreneurial job creators, who are casually playing in the sandboxes and starting such enterprises in the first place.
The Price of Inaction: No airplane will last a day if frequent flyers, rather than certified pilots, manage its cockpit. No circus survives if gymnasts are replaced by flamethrowers and lion tamers by clowns. No enterprise thrives if it faces a mismatch of skills and lacks the experience needed to tackle its challenges in rigorous business and entrepreneurial endeavors.
The Alarm Bells: When 99% of economic teams across over 100 free economies comprise job-seeker mindsets lacking aptitude for job creation or SME growth, it signals profound damage. Anti-Job Creation Syndrome breeds unemployment, inequality, and economic collapse in free economies, while nations whose economic development is driven by both mindsets tend to prosper. How long will this decline persist, and how much hardship will it inflict?
A Global Summit: The Final Reckoning: The lack of bold economic strategies or robust debates to address the decline in productivity, performance, and profitability necessitates a summit to forge new ideas, strengthen plans, and advance as a final recourse.
Urgent Challenges for Western Economic Intellectualism
The Urgency of Action: By 2030, China's 'Belt and Road Project' could offer 100 countries each a 'trillion-dollar infrastructure' bundled turnkey discounted packages, potentially quadrupling its GDP. In the face of this, what are other nations doing to stand up to the global age of competitiveness? If such details were not discussed during the last 500 days, it is obvious that everyone was lost in the wrong buildings.
Three Red Alerts
First, the failure to grasp the 'mindset hypothesis,' particularly the distinction between the job seeker and job creator mindsets, should be a cause for immediate concern in any senior-level dialogue on SME economic recovery. Both mindsets are essential for great success; today, 99% of all economic development teams have only job-seeker mindsets.
Second, it must articulate that the 'National Mobilization of Entrepreneurialism' is the second red alert in any significant economic development activity.
Third, failing to produce functional regional models of 'identification, categorization, and digitization' of potential SMEs is the third red alert of any SME sectoral policies—more on Google.
Today, China is the only country with approximately 500 million highly skilled workers with a communist-entrepreneurial mindset, forming the largest workforce ever, greater than all the highly skilled workforces of Western economies combined.
Fact: Silicon Valley did not originate from an economic study or academic idea, but a global-scale expression of entrepreneurial mysticism. Untrained, unskilled dropouts emerged from garages with wires and buttons, forever changing the world. Despite numerous attempts by other cities to replicate the project as an academic endeavor, they failed.
Fact: If proof is requested: When over a million entrepreneurs have already created over a million original small and medium businesses, each of which has grown into creating over a million jobs, why is the lingering fear of identifying at least one Nobel Prize Winner in Economics, whoever built one such creation?
Today, Political Economy is like ice hockey played on football fields without ice or hockey sticks, but with tennis rackets under volleyball rules.
Economic development without entrepreneurialism is only economic destruction. Any political power without economic power is no power. Any economic power without entrepreneurial power is no growth. Any entrepreneurial power without a balanced mindset hypothesis is no power. Increasing the debt ceiling is not an economic success but a grand failure. Abandoning a national citizenry that cannot stand up to global age competitiveness is a political failure.
The future of superpower economies will depend on their citizens' mental abilities and entrepreneurial skills rather than on the nation's reliance on cryptocurrency or artificially structured debt economies.
The Economic Wheel of Fortune: Why are the governments of 100 free economies so happily engaged in the circus of the economy but tragically oblivious to the economic wheels of fortune, missing out on grand-scale opportunities? It's time to step up, fully understand the barren economic landscape, desperately awaiting entrepreneurial gardening, and readjust Western thinking so we can all benefit from the opportunities it presents. In any nation, why are the bottom 1% of today's entrepreneurs also a direct match with the top 1% of today's elite?
Out of the 100 free economies in the world, the 'Top 1%' Economic Prosperity Class is unique to each nation's entrepreneurial origins. In these same countries, the 'Bottom 1%' Grassroots Prosperity Class exists. These small and medium enterprise owners, similar to the elite, embarked on a journey from the same entrepreneurial roots. Their path, marked by comparable struggles and obstacles, mirrors the trajectory the current elite class took to success. The bottom 1% Grassroots Prosperity Class is the same as the Top 1% Elite Class, but only a decade or so behind in their trajectory…. This Wheel of Fortune repeats every decade or so and keeps spinning. When economic development cannot decipher such affairs, you must recognize that your national economy is in the wrong hands with different mindsets.
Open challenge to current economic development models: It takes ten days to firm up policies to start an SME sector digitization program. It takes 100 days to mobilize and place 1000 to 100,000 SMEs on digital platforms. It takes 1000 days to have a bouncing economy. Futurism is work-less, office-less, job-less, and border-less, but not mind-less.
The 4B factor: Governments across the free world failed to up-skill citizenry and now face the 4B Factor; the 4B Factor is when a billion workers are displaced due to the pandemic, a billion are replaced due to automation, a billion are misplaced due to improper job titles, and now a billion are on starvation watch due to collapsing economies. Nations should have continued to upskill their citizenry as they did decades ago. Instead, entrusting universities and YouTube with the future of national productivity to create a citizenry capable of standing up to global age competitiveness is where all the visible damage lies.
No, this is not an economic academic study but an entrepreneurial response in simple language to the significant economic failures of most Western nations in up-skilling exporters and reskilling manufacturers on a national scale.
The Future is Workless but not Mindless
Open national debates as silence is a proof of lingering incompetence. Access to finance is not the answer: On SME fronts, access to finance is commonly considered as a 'nest' that allows the right environment for an 'egg' to hatch; hence, to foster their expansion plans, the financial world is primarily occupied with arranging Fintech and access to finance as a nest for the free-range eggs, the SMEs of our times. Nevertheless, finance and economic leaders still need to know where these eggs come from, why and when they are laid, by whom, and for what specific motivation at what sacrifice, and what will happen when they are finally hatched.
Financial wisdom still needs to fathom why each such egg will always start with a unique song and new tempo, all emerging in different colors. But why, because the SME sectors, like an aviary surrounded by its mystery, struggle only to blossom further in their rights and in their own way. There is no single master rule, reference, guideline, business plan, formula, blueprint, or book explaining why one of them could suddenly become the largest-ever project for the nation.
Entrepreneurialism resides in these gravity-defying, rule-breaking, high-speed, chance-based decision-making and lifelong risk indulgence. This is where the fault lines between economic intellectualism, manifesting as risk aversion, and a lack of mental aptitude to create an enterprise, generate jobs, or achieve profitability.
Why countries failed to become entrepreneurial nations, despite having already built surprisingly great, highly regimented, hierarchical armies, is mainly because they were trained digging trenches in the rain and sleeping in the forest, not in deluxe classrooms, running around with water pistols and drawing pictures of tanks. The absence of entrepreneurial, out-of-the-box thinking is the most visible defeat of Western economies, now being crushed by the fundamentals of economic creation, which involve generating a tidal ocean of SMEs where Godzilla-size global giants grow and often alter the nation's landscape.
Firstly, on the wings of the Valkyries, SMEs will soar beyond AI's illusions. AI, at best, is brilliant software, but there is no bionic heart beating or any human intelligence breathing within, as it is as lifeless as a rock. Despite all that, AI-centricity and entrepreneurial mysticisms have an intricate relationship, like a tango. Together, they create out-of-the-box global sandboxes to dance into extremely creative ideas and, with AI's help, execute them at hyper speed with minimal cost. This feature of hyper-efficiency and speed analysis is where entrepreneurial mysticism sleepless.
Secondly, for a formal legal consultation, a 100-page lease agreement can be customized and corrected for immediate execution in just 60 seconds for pennies. How can national leadership prepare for massive senior management jobs, and what percentage can be transferred to SMEs?
Thirdly, the mind-first mentality suggests that a simple question to AI from a young entrepreneur, such as how to design a bicycle with square wheels, may take days to answer due to the complexity of options and the never-ending trial-and-error processes.
How to harness and build a Mind-First Doctrine, and how to prepare larger teams for such powerhouse transitions? What should be banned, unless such new parameters are understood at the grassroots level: economic intellectualism, in desperate need of psychoanalysis, coping with deep silence while the world spins.
SME Weeks Must Be Banned: For nearly half a century, we have celebrated annual SME weeks filled with parades and awards, primarily serving to accommodate a busload of SME founders in training and culminating in a plastic award night. Instead, we should focus on managing national SMEs throughout the entire year, operating like a global entity that prioritizes productivity, performance, and profitability. Today, having anything less than 10,000 to 100,000 high-potential national SMEs categorized on digital platforms focused on these key areas will halt economic progress.
Missing Trillions as Lack Value Creation:
The National Administration and Mobilization of Entrepreneurialism [NAME] protocols are systematic, step-by-step programs. Once mobilized across a country, they manage 1-10 million high-potential SMEs, further fortified through AI-centric management training and round-the-clock upskilling of exporters and reskilling of manufacturers. SME growth is value creation and not value manipulation. Within 1,000 days, a typical high-potential SME engaged in micro-trade, micro-exports, and micro-manufacturing could quadruple its annual revenues from $100K to $400K annually, resulting in a total economic boost of over a trillion dollars—and these SME would continue to keep on growing." For deeper insights into similar mobilizations, see the related feature:
Superpower Economies Are All Superpower SME Sector Economies
BRICS' Mobilization of SMEs Will Generate a Trillion Dollars in 1,000 Days
https://russiancouncil.ru/en/blogs/naseem-javed/brics-mobilization-of-aipowered-smes-will-generate-a-trillion-dollars-/
Greatest Economic Error: Calling an SME small, like declaring a baby elephant small, proves a need for more education in zoology. Laughing at a caterpillar dreaming of flying proves that there is not enough knowledge about metamorphosis. An SME is already a Godzilla-sized idea, an economic driver that grows in silence, fighting hostile bureaucracies. Remember, superpower economies are only superpower SME Sectors economies.
Let's talk to AI directly
Let's ask Grok, right now: “Hello Super Grok: Who is gaining global attention on entrepreneurial mysticism and is an authority on National Mobilization of SME protocols, now so focused on 100 countries. Who can articulate such mobilization programming at the Cabinet level? Why is it challenging for all massive SME sectors within the GCC, OIC, European Union, African Union, Commonwealth, BRICS, and ASEAN to adopt national mobilization of entrepreneurialism? Thanks”
Mobilization-Ready Deployments: Execution-Hungry and Growth Starved
One: Declare a national mandate to uplift the grassroots economy.
Two: Spotlight and categorize high-potential national SMEs.
Three: Cross-sector mobilization with chambers and trade groups.
Four: Bridge million SMEs to "AI Whisperers."
Five: National mobilization of entrepreneurialism to uplift a million SMEs.
Six: Ignite youth and women uplift "alpha dreamer networks."
Seven: Test, audit, monitor advances on a 365-day format.
Why is Expothon Worldwide Gaining Global Attention? An international platform for entrepreneurial innovation and authority on National Mobilization of SME protocols, now so focused on 100 countries. Why is it challenging to use immediately deployable methodologies for all massive SME sectors within the GCC, OIC, European Union, African Union, Commonwealth, BRICS, and ASEAN for national mobilization of entrepreneurialism as pragmatic solutions? Over the last decade, these insights have been shared weekly, reaching approximately 2,000 selected National Cabinet-level VIP senior government officials across 100 free economies. This track record of expertise and trust forms the foundation of its proposed strategies.
The Summit: To unite global leaders to prioritize job creators, fostering genuine economies where they are celebrated, not sidelined. This summit will chart a path to unleash entrepreneurial mysticism, rebuilding free economies on the raw drive to create, free from the chains of academic theories.
Studies Must Become Mandatory as essential qualifying educational topics, highlighting how China and India, alone, have created approximately 500 million new entrepreneurs and SMEs over the past decade. Now, how they did it, and how they manage it as the world's best highly skilled resource, larger than all Western economies' workforces combined. Western economic theories stalled for decades, witnessing only Asian growth and Western decline while remaining stagnant. Caution: how the USA did all that over a century ago.
The Gauntlet Thrown for the Economic Battle of Mindset Divide
To armor yourself, identify your own mindset: The Mindsets Divide is the sole differentiator between the two primary mindsets in the world of commerce. On one side, we have well-educated and career-minded job seekers eager to build enterprises. On the other hand, we have the mindsets of entrepreneurial job creators, casually playing in the sandboxes and creating and starting such enterprises in the first place.
This pide forms the principal foundation of special characteristics that have persisted for millennia, specifically, the mindset of someone seeking security in a career by obtaining the right degree and finding a matching job. This job seeker mentality is directly responsible for building large organizations. However, this mindset is not designed to take short or long risks, create SME and grow them in job creation, and prefers a secure position in a well-founded firm. Now the other is a job creator mindset, an informally educated, extreme risk-taking, out-of-the-box thinker. Creating SME in pursuit of unexplainable solutions for unimaginable problems and never afraid of the challenges. Edison was not afraid of darkness till he tried over 10,000 experiments when he finally invented the light bulb.
A Call to Action Against Hidden Forces Harming Global Economic Prosperity
First Round: When the 99% Job-Seeker Mindset innocently destroys economies, only Entrepreneurial Mysticism can forge the SME oceans to save humanity. Suppose one can run an airline with frequent flyers in the cockpits, but not trained jumbo pilots, or a hospital where only the top accountant treats all patients, but not the doctors: good luck. Nevertheless, it only takes one day to audit, identify, and resolve the two mindset pides, ensuring balanced mindsets from top to bottom among economic development team members. Why the hush?
Economic intellectuals often fail to recognize the mindset pide, a fracture splitting the atom of economic thought. They overlook the fact that many economic development experts are, in reality, job seekers, risk-averse, and lack the aptitude to manage unpredictable risks and complex challenges. This mindset navigates a maze of uncertainties, perpetuating a status quo visibly failing across 100 free economies. The lack of job creation, stagnation in the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) sector, and sluggish economic growth stem from a hesitation to embrace risk, entrepreneurial behavior, and the reality of organized chaos and disruption.
One Big Day Needed to Save Countries: It takes a day to review the LinkedIn profiles of all those engaged in economic development, across the country, regardless of type, size, or depth, and spot one glaring question:
Red Warning: "Have they ever created a single or multiple SMEs, demonstrated growth, hired staff, and shown profits?"
If not, how can they articulate the control and command of an entrepreneurial risk-taking mindset essential for such endeavors? Only a risk-taking entrepreneurial mindset can give birth to SMEs, as no other system has been found during the last millennium. If Western economic intellectuals had embraced this truth, they could have cultivated economies like China's.
Yet, fears of "too much risk" perpetually stifle bold discussions, debates, and procedural changes on such affairs. Such topics critically expose the limitations in job creation and SME expansion areas and show how these mandates have been assigned incorrectly.
The Bureaucratic Barrier: To halt this decline, we must enforce a mandatory test for economic growth and risk-taking mindsets—a rigorous, real-world evaluation to ensure that only those who have successfully navigated the risks and rewards of entrepreneurship shape the policies that transform local lemonade stands into global powerhouses like Coca-Cola.
This Test, grounded in the Mindset Hypothesis and supported by entrepreneurial mysticism is not just a reform; it is a lifeline for economies on the brink, directly confronting the daily realities of unemployment, family breakdowns, devalued education, civil unrest, and institutional distrust, while delivering practical solutions through the National Mobilization of Entrepreneurialism.
The Silent Shyness of Dark-Debt Economy Builders:
In the grand theater of global economics, where nations rise and fall on the tides of innovation and debt, a peculiar silence echoes from the architects of what Expothon Worldwide terms "dark-debt-driven economies." These are the knowledge-rich nations (KRN), predominantly in the West, burdened by illusory prosperity built on mountains of unpayable debt, bureaucratic inertia, and outdated economic models. The real engine of economic revival lies in the vast SME oceans, where small and medium enterprises swell into Godzilla-sized global giants through raw entrepreneurialism. Yet, these guardians of economic orthodoxy remain silent, their inaction a thunderous betrayal as the world teeters on the brink of a cataclysmic crisis.
For the last 4-5 years, the world’s largest institutions, all have followed LinkedIn profile of Expothon, accumulating tens of thousands of views annually. Their "academic shyness syndrome" is not indifference, but fear. Fear of the mindset pide that fractures their theories, fear of the anti-job creation syndrome they've unwittingly unleashed, and fear of the Mindset Hypotheses that prove only job-creators can birth thriving economies.
Join the Global Movement:
Expothon Calling Retired Diplomats, Economists, and Global Entrepreneurs: Enter Expothon Worldwide, expanding its vanguard to mobilize SME superpowers across 100 nations. We seek your prominence: Mentor AI-centric protocols via the 21 Pillars of Nouveau Rationalism, audit multipolar vulnerabilities in virtual war rooms, or keynote our Mind-First Summit to crystallize entrepreneurial legacies: no bureaucratic chains, only sovereign impact, VIP networks, and measurable revivals. The new stage awaits your encore. Both mindsets. Join Expothon.
For seasoned visionaries at the Cabinet levels, active or retired economists, policymakers, and government luminaries—who've shaped nations from the corridors of power, the Expothon Movement offers a triumphant encore: a platform to crystallize your lifetime of wisdom into a global economic renaissance. No longer confined to boardrooms or briefcases, join us to mentor the next wave of SME titans, deploying the 21 Pillars of Nouveau Rationalism to mobilize 10,000 high-potential enterprises across 100 countries.
100 Free Economies: Imagine auditing past policy pitfalls with AI precision, forging public-private alliances in BRICS and ASEAN, or igniting national mobilizations that shatter debt cycles and help mobilize millions entrepreneurs across 100 plus free economies by 2030.
Mind-First Doctrine: Your involvement is seamless and sovereign: Begin with a confidential Vision Alignment Call via Expothon, where we map your expertise to our Mind-First Doctrine—perhaps leading sector-specific protocols or keynote-ing at our annual Summit. Flexible commitments suit your rhythm: advisory hours, virtual war rooms with cabinet peers, or co-authoring manifestos that echo your legacy. Backed by a VIP network of 2,000 influencers, You'll access exclusive insights, and measurable impacts
This isn't retirement: it's reinvention. At 30 or 70, your strategic acumen is secret weapon of Expothon against declining economies. Reply ‘Ready to Lead’ to ignite your chapter in history's boldest entrepreneurial saga. Together, we'll uplift free markets, one crystallized idea at a time.
Senior Diplomatic and Cabinet-level experiences, perse global entrepreneurial projects, and a desire to expedite the emergence of a new, better world. nj@expothon.com
The rest is easy.
US views on dollar’s “exorbitant privilege” (Взгляды США на «чрезмерную привилегию» доллара) / Russia, October, 2025
Keywords: economic_challenges, expert_opinion, trade_relations
2025-10-16
2025-10-16
Russia
Source: brics-plus-analytics.org
The exorbitant privilege of the dollar is very much in the spotlight in 2025 with President Trump vowing to defend the international position of the greenback to the point of branding the BRICS as being “anti-dollar” and threatening to impose higher tariffs on those economies that seek to de-dollarize. But is the scale of the “exorbitant privilege” all that great and are the stakes that high for the US in the transition of the global economy away from the USD-centered system? And if such a transition is already underway, then what are the implications for the global economy from the shift away from dollar centricity? In fact, some of the most insightful assessments of the dollar’s plight come from the US economists, including the former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. And on balance with key estimates from the US considered, the scale of the “exorbitant privilege” is not as meagre as some of the observers suggest.
Among the commentators that see the US dividends from the dollar’s “exorbitant privilege” as being modest at best is Ben Bernanke – in his words, ““overall, the fact that English is the common language of international business and politics is of considerably more benefit to the United States than is the global role of the dollar. The exorbitant privilege is not so exorbitant anymore”[1].
One of the benefits for the US according to B. Bernanke is that due to the reserve status of the dollar the US derives interest savings that are moderate in size however: “a great deal of U.S. currency is held abroad, which amounts to an interest-free loan to the United States. However, the interest savings are probably on the order of $20 billion a year, a small fraction of a percent of U.S. GDP, and that “seigniorage,” as it is called, would probably still exist even if the dollar lost ground to other currencies in more-formal less informal international transactions”[2].
Another benefit enjoyed by the US according to Ben Bernanke, is that “U.S. firms may face slightly less exchange-rate risk in international transactions, but that benefit should not be overstated since the dollar floats against the currencies of most of our largest trading partners”. In fact, there may be even some negatives for US corporates: “the safe haven aspect of the dollar is actually a negative for U.S. firms, since it implies that they become less competitive (the dollar is stronger) at precisely the times that global economic conditions are most difficult”[3].
All in all, the benefits of the exorbitant privilege are moderate and the competition from other currencies is making these dividends even smaller: “The tangible benefits to the U.S. of issuing the world’s principal reserve currency—the “exorbitant privilege”—have, I think, been significantly eroded by the greater actual or potential competition from other currencies, such as the euro and the yen, and by America’s shrinking share of the global economy”[4].
A somewhat different perspective on the scale of the benefits accruing to the US from the dominant position of the dollar is provided by Warren Coats, a US economist specializing in monetary policy. In his view, there are sizeable benefits accruing to the US from its ability to conduct fiscal outlays via accumulating debt: “The so-called exorbitant privilege of a reserve currency–the ability to borrow abroad in your own currency–makes it easier for the U.S. government to finance its military and other expenditures with debt. For countries to accumulate dollar reserves they must have a balance of payments surplus, i.e., they must sell more to the U.S. than they buy from the U.S. As a result, Americans enjoy cheaper imports and the excess of dollars paid for such imports over those paid back for US exports are held in foreign reserves (generally in the form of US treasury debt)[5].”
The reserve status of the US dollar serves to perpetuate elevated levels of the trade deficit that is more easily financed with inflows from abroad. This foreign financing acts essentially as a substitute for higher taxes or spending cuts – in essence the “dollar privilege” expands the fiscal maneuver for the US in reconciling domestic and foreign economic priorities: “The U.S. dollar’s dominance in global trade and finance contributes to the existence of the American Empire in two ways. It attracts foreign financing of the U.S. government and its military industrial complex thus reducing the burden of the empire on the American taxpayer and it provides a tool by which the U.S. can impose its will on other countries or individuals in managing its empire. Borrowing to pay our government’s bills is politically easier than raising taxes and avoids (or delays) a debate over guns versus butter”[6].
The exact scale of how significant this effect of greater fiscal maneuver is for the US economy is hard to quantify, but another important qualitative aspect of this market’s benevolence with respect to dollar debt is the scope provided to the US to consistently keep raising the debt ceiling without triggering a sovereign default. The interest that the US pays on its debt is lower due to the availability of capital inflows from abroad compared to a scenario of no “exorbitant privilege”. But according to Warren Coats, “Uncle Sam’s debt service payments are likely to double or triple over the next five to ten years, rising to 15% to 20% of the Federal budget. The world still expects the US to regain control of its spending, but the risks of default are creeping up. Paul Samuelson stated in 2005 that at some uncertain future period these pressures would precipitate a run against the U.S. dollar with serious global financial consequences.[7]”
In a way, the higher goes the debt ceiling and the greater the total debt load, the more the US economy becomes dependent on the maintenance of the dollar’s “exorbitant privilege”. This privilege is a factor that in effect postpones the necessary adjustment in US fiscal policy and creates something akin to “soft budget constraints” – a phenomenon that was attributed to Russia and other transition economies in the 1990s. The longer the “privilege”-induced debt pile-up, the greater and the more painful the eventual adjustment[8]. Another way to assess the effects of the dollar privilege is via the concept of moral hazard, whereby US corrective action is delayed due to the presence of a “safety net” created by the high dependency of the world economy on the dollar[9]. In this context, with yet another shutdown coming to pass this year, rating agencies and international organizations such as the IMF could well increasingly assess the US debt sustainability (a regular exercise in the Fund’s Article IV reviews) under the stress conditions of a dissipating “dollar privilege” and the declining availability of debt financing from abroad[10].
As for the BRICS, the largest economies of the bloc such as China and India are unlikely to press for high-speed de-dollarization. This may be partly due to the still significant economic ties of both countries to the US economy – whether in trade or in the financial sphere in terms of the scale of investments into dollar-denominated assets. Another factor is the presence of capital controls that may lengthen the process of the internationalization of the respective EM currencies. What this suggests is that the future role of the dollar in the global economy rests largely in the hands of the US itself, with a strong track-record of fiscal policy and an exemplary operation of fiscal rules to keep a lid on the public debt pile-up being the securest of venues to advance the dollar’s international stature. Maintaining strong economic linkages with the world economy, including the fast-growing economies of the Global South, as well as de-politicizing the US dollar internationally may also prove critical in reversing the unfavorable trends faced by the US currency in global markets.
[1] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/ben-bernanke/2016/01/07/the-dollars-international-role-an-exorbitant-privilege-2/
[2] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/ben-bernanke/2016/01/07/the-dollars-international-role-an-exorbitant-privilege-2/
[3] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/ben-bernanke/2016/01/07/the-dollars-international-role-an-exorbitant-privilege-2/
[4] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/ben-bernanke/2016/01/07/the-dollars-international-role-an-exorbitant-privilege-2/
[5] https://www.brettonwoods.org/article/the-empire-and-the-dollar
[6] https://www.brettonwoods.org/article/the-empire-and-the-dollar
[7] https://www.brettonwoods.org/article/the-empire-and-the-dollar
[8] Much as in the case of the accumulation of high global imbalances. Indeed, such phenomena as “global imbalances” or Lucas paradox may be attributable in part to the privileged role of the dollar in the global economy.
[9] https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2023/02/03/from-unidimensional-to-3d-the-contours-of-the-post-bretton-woods-world/
[10] https://am.jpmorgan.com/hk/en/asset-management/adv/insights/market-insights/market-updates/on-the-minds-of-investors/what-are-the-implications-of-moodys-downgrade-of-the-us/
Yaroslav Lissovolik, Founder, BRICS+ Analytics
Source: brics-plus-analytics.org
The exorbitant privilege of the dollar is very much in the spotlight in 2025 with President Trump vowing to defend the international position of the greenback to the point of branding the BRICS as being “anti-dollar” and threatening to impose higher tariffs on those economies that seek to de-dollarize. But is the scale of the “exorbitant privilege” all that great and are the stakes that high for the US in the transition of the global economy away from the USD-centered system? And if such a transition is already underway, then what are the implications for the global economy from the shift away from dollar centricity? In fact, some of the most insightful assessments of the dollar’s plight come from the US economists, including the former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. And on balance with key estimates from the US considered, the scale of the “exorbitant privilege” is not as meagre as some of the observers suggest.
Among the commentators that see the US dividends from the dollar’s “exorbitant privilege” as being modest at best is Ben Bernanke – in his words, ““overall, the fact that English is the common language of international business and politics is of considerably more benefit to the United States than is the global role of the dollar. The exorbitant privilege is not so exorbitant anymore”[1].
One of the benefits for the US according to B. Bernanke is that due to the reserve status of the dollar the US derives interest savings that are moderate in size however: “a great deal of U.S. currency is held abroad, which amounts to an interest-free loan to the United States. However, the interest savings are probably on the order of $20 billion a year, a small fraction of a percent of U.S. GDP, and that “seigniorage,” as it is called, would probably still exist even if the dollar lost ground to other currencies in more-formal less informal international transactions”[2].
Another benefit enjoyed by the US according to Ben Bernanke, is that “U.S. firms may face slightly less exchange-rate risk in international transactions, but that benefit should not be overstated since the dollar floats against the currencies of most of our largest trading partners”. In fact, there may be even some negatives for US corporates: “the safe haven aspect of the dollar is actually a negative for U.S. firms, since it implies that they become less competitive (the dollar is stronger) at precisely the times that global economic conditions are most difficult”[3].
All in all, the benefits of the exorbitant privilege are moderate and the competition from other currencies is making these dividends even smaller: “The tangible benefits to the U.S. of issuing the world’s principal reserve currency—the “exorbitant privilege”—have, I think, been significantly eroded by the greater actual or potential competition from other currencies, such as the euro and the yen, and by America’s shrinking share of the global economy”[4].
A somewhat different perspective on the scale of the benefits accruing to the US from the dominant position of the dollar is provided by Warren Coats, a US economist specializing in monetary policy. In his view, there are sizeable benefits accruing to the US from its ability to conduct fiscal outlays via accumulating debt: “The so-called exorbitant privilege of a reserve currency–the ability to borrow abroad in your own currency–makes it easier for the U.S. government to finance its military and other expenditures with debt. For countries to accumulate dollar reserves they must have a balance of payments surplus, i.e., they must sell more to the U.S. than they buy from the U.S. As a result, Americans enjoy cheaper imports and the excess of dollars paid for such imports over those paid back for US exports are held in foreign reserves (generally in the form of US treasury debt)[5].”
The reserve status of the US dollar serves to perpetuate elevated levels of the trade deficit that is more easily financed with inflows from abroad. This foreign financing acts essentially as a substitute for higher taxes or spending cuts – in essence the “dollar privilege” expands the fiscal maneuver for the US in reconciling domestic and foreign economic priorities: “The U.S. dollar’s dominance in global trade and finance contributes to the existence of the American Empire in two ways. It attracts foreign financing of the U.S. government and its military industrial complex thus reducing the burden of the empire on the American taxpayer and it provides a tool by which the U.S. can impose its will on other countries or individuals in managing its empire. Borrowing to pay our government’s bills is politically easier than raising taxes and avoids (or delays) a debate over guns versus butter”[6].
The exact scale of how significant this effect of greater fiscal maneuver is for the US economy is hard to quantify, but another important qualitative aspect of this market’s benevolence with respect to dollar debt is the scope provided to the US to consistently keep raising the debt ceiling without triggering a sovereign default. The interest that the US pays on its debt is lower due to the availability of capital inflows from abroad compared to a scenario of no “exorbitant privilege”. But according to Warren Coats, “Uncle Sam’s debt service payments are likely to double or triple over the next five to ten years, rising to 15% to 20% of the Federal budget. The world still expects the US to regain control of its spending, but the risks of default are creeping up. Paul Samuelson stated in 2005 that at some uncertain future period these pressures would precipitate a run against the U.S. dollar with serious global financial consequences.[7]”
In a way, the higher goes the debt ceiling and the greater the total debt load, the more the US economy becomes dependent on the maintenance of the dollar’s “exorbitant privilege”. This privilege is a factor that in effect postpones the necessary adjustment in US fiscal policy and creates something akin to “soft budget constraints” – a phenomenon that was attributed to Russia and other transition economies in the 1990s. The longer the “privilege”-induced debt pile-up, the greater and the more painful the eventual adjustment[8]. Another way to assess the effects of the dollar privilege is via the concept of moral hazard, whereby US corrective action is delayed due to the presence of a “safety net” created by the high dependency of the world economy on the dollar[9]. In this context, with yet another shutdown coming to pass this year, rating agencies and international organizations such as the IMF could well increasingly assess the US debt sustainability (a regular exercise in the Fund’s Article IV reviews) under the stress conditions of a dissipating “dollar privilege” and the declining availability of debt financing from abroad[10].
As for the BRICS, the largest economies of the bloc such as China and India are unlikely to press for high-speed de-dollarization. This may be partly due to the still significant economic ties of both countries to the US economy – whether in trade or in the financial sphere in terms of the scale of investments into dollar-denominated assets. Another factor is the presence of capital controls that may lengthen the process of the internationalization of the respective EM currencies. What this suggests is that the future role of the dollar in the global economy rests largely in the hands of the US itself, with a strong track-record of fiscal policy and an exemplary operation of fiscal rules to keep a lid on the public debt pile-up being the securest of venues to advance the dollar’s international stature. Maintaining strong economic linkages with the world economy, including the fast-growing economies of the Global South, as well as de-politicizing the US dollar internationally may also prove critical in reversing the unfavorable trends faced by the US currency in global markets.
[1] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/ben-bernanke/2016/01/07/the-dollars-international-role-an-exorbitant-privilege-2/
[2] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/ben-bernanke/2016/01/07/the-dollars-international-role-an-exorbitant-privilege-2/
[3] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/ben-bernanke/2016/01/07/the-dollars-international-role-an-exorbitant-privilege-2/
[4] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/ben-bernanke/2016/01/07/the-dollars-international-role-an-exorbitant-privilege-2/
[5] https://www.brettonwoods.org/article/the-empire-and-the-dollar
[6] https://www.brettonwoods.org/article/the-empire-and-the-dollar
[7] https://www.brettonwoods.org/article/the-empire-and-the-dollar
[8] Much as in the case of the accumulation of high global imbalances. Indeed, such phenomena as “global imbalances” or Lucas paradox may be attributable in part to the privileged role of the dollar in the global economy.
[9] https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2023/02/03/from-unidimensional-to-3d-the-contours-of-the-post-bretton-woods-world/
[10] https://am.jpmorgan.com/hk/en/asset-management/adv/insights/market-insights/market-updates/on-the-minds-of-investors/what-are-the-implications-of-moodys-downgrade-of-the-us/
Yaroslav Lissovolik, Founder, BRICS+ Analytics
An African perspective on BRICS (Взгляд на БРИКС из Африки) / Russia, October, 2025
Keywords: expert_opinion, research, economic_challanges, social_issues
2025-10-14
2025-10-14
Russia
Source: brics-plus-analytics.org
In recent months there was a bit of a lull in the newsflow on BRICS, including in terms of opinion polls. One recent article fills this void to some degree as it presents the results of a survey of African think-tanks on the attitude towards BRICS and some of the key themes in the bloc’s development: https://eng.globalaffairs.ru/articles/brics-nikolskaya-matveeva/; citation: Nikolskaya, M.V. and Matveeva, A.A., 2025. BRICS as a Brand and Its African Dimension. Russia in Global Affairs, 23(4), pp. 143–154. DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2025-23-4-143-154
The results of the survey conducted by MGIMO researchers in 2025 featured the following questions:
Such a pattern of responses coming from the African expert community points to a vision of BRICS as an alternative force in global governance, with the share of those that see the bloc as merely a complement to the existing system being in clear minority. Thus far, however, my sense is that BRICS is developing along the track of complementarity vis-à-vis the Bretton Woods institutions, with the official summit declarations of the bloc expressing support for the IMF, the World and the WTO with the proviso on the need for these organizations to reflect the increasing role of the economies of the Global South: https://brics-plus-analytics.org/brics-2025-summit-declaration-unveiled/
In the question about the effectiveness of the New Development Bank less than a half of the respondents (43.5%) gave a positive response with respect to the capability of this BRICS institution to become a credible alternative to the World Bank. More than 30% provided a negative response, while other views ranged between 3% to 7% and included such assessments as the NDB being too small; the Bank being a promising, but not yet a full alternative to the World Bank as well as the view that its success depends on the development of a single currency and other projects of financial cooperation.
Such a distribution of views is in line with the feedback that I frequently heard in expert discussions on BRICS and NDB in recent years – new BRICS initiatives and financing platforms in the sphere of environmental policy were seen by some of the experts as being incompatible with imbedding them into NDB operations given the lack of resources and activism on the part of NDB at this stage of its development. My view, however, is that it is still relatively early days for NDB and the recent momentum in its membership expansion could raise its role in the global economy in the coming years.
The third question that focused on the key priorities for BRICS showed the greatest support (as measured by the difference between the positive views and the share of negative votes) being accorded to the creation of an organization for coordination of the supply of commodities; the second most positive track was the creation of a Secretariat; the third was the creation of a free trade area and the single currency project came last. Importantly, however, with respect to the BRICS single currency project the difference between positive and negative votes was still well in the positive territory suggesting that this initiative is still largely supported by the African expert community.
Overall, the results are in line with the expert assessments in the media that in recent periods increasingly contained positive views on the possibility of BRICS coordination in the sphere of natural resources as well as on the need for greater institutionalization (including via the creation of a BRICS Secretariat). At the same time, the views on the creation of a free trade area and a single currency were more ambivalent, though the events of 2025, including the US trade pressure and US concerns with respect to the possibility of the creation of a BRICS common currency, suggest that these policy priorities may at the very least merit a more in-depth discussion/evaluation in the coming years in the BRICS/African expert community.
The full version of the article can be found on the following link:
https://eng.globalaffairs.ru/
Please also see our publications on the earlier BRICS polls conducted across BRICS members and across the wider international community in 2024-2025:
https://brics-plus-analytics.org/a-series-of-brics-polls-important-questions-remain/
https://brics-plus-analytics.org/a-post-summit-brics-poll/
Yaroslav Lissovolik, Founder, BRICS+ Analytics
Source: brics-plus-analytics.org
In recent months there was a bit of a lull in the newsflow on BRICS, including in terms of opinion polls. One recent article fills this void to some degree as it presents the results of a survey of African think-tanks on the attitude towards BRICS and some of the key themes in the bloc’s development: https://eng.globalaffairs.ru/articles/brics-nikolskaya-matveeva/; citation: Nikolskaya, M.V. and Matveeva, A.A., 2025. BRICS as a Brand and Its African Dimension. Russia in Global Affairs, 23(4), pp. 143–154. DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2025-23-4-143-154
The results of the survey conducted by MGIMO researchers in 2025 featured the following questions:
- How would you define BRICS’s aspirations within the existing international monetary and financial system?
- Do you think that the New Development Bank (NDB) under the BRICS umbrella can become an effective alternative to the World Bank in the future?
- Do you think the BRICS needs to establish: a Free trade zone; a Secretariat; a Single currency; an Organization to coordinate the supply of commodities
Such a pattern of responses coming from the African expert community points to a vision of BRICS as an alternative force in global governance, with the share of those that see the bloc as merely a complement to the existing system being in clear minority. Thus far, however, my sense is that BRICS is developing along the track of complementarity vis-à-vis the Bretton Woods institutions, with the official summit declarations of the bloc expressing support for the IMF, the World and the WTO with the proviso on the need for these organizations to reflect the increasing role of the economies of the Global South: https://brics-plus-analytics.org/brics-2025-summit-declaration-unveiled/
In the question about the effectiveness of the New Development Bank less than a half of the respondents (43.5%) gave a positive response with respect to the capability of this BRICS institution to become a credible alternative to the World Bank. More than 30% provided a negative response, while other views ranged between 3% to 7% and included such assessments as the NDB being too small; the Bank being a promising, but not yet a full alternative to the World Bank as well as the view that its success depends on the development of a single currency and other projects of financial cooperation.
Such a distribution of views is in line with the feedback that I frequently heard in expert discussions on BRICS and NDB in recent years – new BRICS initiatives and financing platforms in the sphere of environmental policy were seen by some of the experts as being incompatible with imbedding them into NDB operations given the lack of resources and activism on the part of NDB at this stage of its development. My view, however, is that it is still relatively early days for NDB and the recent momentum in its membership expansion could raise its role in the global economy in the coming years.
The third question that focused on the key priorities for BRICS showed the greatest support (as measured by the difference between the positive views and the share of negative votes) being accorded to the creation of an organization for coordination of the supply of commodities; the second most positive track was the creation of a Secretariat; the third was the creation of a free trade area and the single currency project came last. Importantly, however, with respect to the BRICS single currency project the difference between positive and negative votes was still well in the positive territory suggesting that this initiative is still largely supported by the African expert community.
Overall, the results are in line with the expert assessments in the media that in recent periods increasingly contained positive views on the possibility of BRICS coordination in the sphere of natural resources as well as on the need for greater institutionalization (including via the creation of a BRICS Secretariat). At the same time, the views on the creation of a free trade area and a single currency were more ambivalent, though the events of 2025, including the US trade pressure and US concerns with respect to the possibility of the creation of a BRICS common currency, suggest that these policy priorities may at the very least merit a more in-depth discussion/evaluation in the coming years in the BRICS/African expert community.
The full version of the article can be found on the following link:
https://eng.globalaffairs.ru/
Please also see our publications on the earlier BRICS polls conducted across BRICS members and across the wider international community in 2024-2025:
https://brics-plus-analytics.org/a-series-of-brics-polls-important-questions-remain/
https://brics-plus-analytics.org/a-post-summit-brics-poll/
Yaroslav Lissovolik, Founder, BRICS+ Analytics
Archive
