Quote from: flix on October 15, 2015, 01:07:16 PM

OK, let me give it a shot....

1. Banks go the way of Newspapers.
They won't disappear, but they change focus to value-added services like lending, intermediation and lose their current massive scale. Many disappear or break up, the most flexible go online for everything and start going after clients in a global way. In 2025 surviving banks are more like those newspapers that have survived the blogging revolution: different business model, focus on quality and brand-recognition and permanently aware that there are a million alternatives out there ready to eat their lunch if they don't treat clients well.

2. Central banks go the way of the Postal Service.
They will still exist, still think that they matter and still perform some functions... but their influence will be hugely reduced. They will be almost universally ignored... just the same way as central bank presidents in dollarised Latin American countries just focus on supervision and fraud prevention and have little to say on monetary policy. In 2025 they will still be able to move interest rates and do QE... but the ease of capital flight to quality and yield will mean that they cannot use these tools as freely as they do now for fear of seeing an immediate reaction in the FX/Crypto markets which negates their intended effects.

3.Taxes will trend to fee-for-services and real estate.
As capital becomes more mobile and it becomes ever easier to escape tax-heavy jurisdictions, governments will tend to tax more heavily assets that cannot be moved (real estate) and also services that they provide (toll-road model). Tax competition will increase... countries and cities will try to become attractive for investors and residents through lower taxes and more choice. The world will look a bit more like Swizerland where taxes are mostly collected and spent at the Canton (regional) level.

4. Africa will become much richer.
As millions of people can suddenly interact directly and get paid by employers in the developed world or receive remittances from their families at zero cost and without their local governments easily confiscating them. Anyone with technical and language skills in Africa who can get online will suddenly be able to compete with US and European workers for jobs and wages. In 2025 people living in extreme poverty will be less than 5% of the world population.

5. More Peace.
The increased difficulty in collecting taxes or printing money for unpopular causes like war will mean that wars last less and are more limited in the harm that they do. We will see tax revolts as a form of anti-war protest, with millions of people refusing to pay VAT or income tax until the government listens to their cries for peace, and unable to do anything to persecute such a large passive, peaceful resistance movement.

6. Technological Renaissance.
As capital accumulation in the technology sector grows and is less stifled by taxes, regulations and monopolies... investment in R&D grows and the rate of technological advance increases. Technological and economic growth see exponential rates last seen in the Industrial Revolution or the Renaissance.

flix, excellent thinking. I'd love to get your further thoughts about how the power-hungry politicians and regulators will find new ways to maintain their control. I think you are onto something with the physical asset taxation, but I think there will be new options around transaction taxation that might be imposed on the bitcoin network. Your thoughts?