The Cost of Fragmentation: What We Lose When Multilateralism Gives Way to Multipolarity
Multipolarity concerns the distribution of power among states; multilateralism concerns the institutional mechanisms through which states coordinate. A world can therefore be multipolar and still be strongly multilateral. The danger is not multipolarity itself. The danger is allowing political multipolarity to become institutional fragmentation.
The US Stablecoin Pipeline: Funding the Core, Supplying the Periphery
The significance of the GENIUS Act therefore extends well beyond cryptocurrency regulation. It creates the legal foundation for a new international payment architecture in which Treasury-backed digital dollars circulate globally through smartphones and over blockchains rather than correspondent banks. This architecture has the potential to reduce one of the most persistent constraints on development. That is the limited access to reliable dollar liquidity.
Seven Phases of Global US Dollar Transformation: Past and Future
The history of the US Dollar is not a story of static dominance, but of ruthless technological adaptation. The US successfully maintained its hegemony of liquidity by shifting the substrate of its currency from Gold to Information and to Code (Stablecoins/AI).
Zeihan’s Global Prognostics and Sustainable Development, Part I
This post looks at Zeihan’s hypotheses and their implications for sustainable development, roughly defined by the United Nations Brundtland Commission as meeting the needs of the present, without compromising future generations. While one might say that all countries in the world are undergoing a transition to sustainable development, countries have different circumstances and develop development and economic policies and solutions differently.
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About Me
Professor (full) at State University of New York (SUNY) Korea since 2016. Research Professor for Stony Brook University. Moved to Austin, Texas in August 2012 to join the Digital Media Management program at St. Edwards University. Spent the previous decade on the faculty at New York University teaching and researching information systems, digital economics, and global political economy
You can reach me at:
anthony.pennings@gmail.com
apennings70@gmail.com
anthony.pennings@sunykorea.ac.kr
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