Mohamed A. El-Erian, Chief Economic Adviser at Allianz, the corporate parent of PIMCO where he served as CEO and co-Chief Investment Officer, was Chairman of US President Barack Obama’s Global Development Council. He is President of Queens’ College, University of Cambridge, senior adviser at Gramercy, and Part-time Practice Professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He previously served as CEO of the Harvard Management Company and Deputy Director at the International Monetary Fund. He was named one of Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers four years running. He is the author, most recently, of The Only Game in Town: Central Banks, Instability, and Avoiding the Next Collapse.
NEWPORT BEACH – The sense of uncertainty prevailing in the West is palpable, and rightly so. People are worried about their futures, with a record number now fearing that their children may end up worse off than them. Unfortunately, things will become even more unsettling in the months ahead.
The United States is having difficulties returning its economy to the path of high growth and vigorous job creation. Thousands of people have taken to the streets of US cities, and thousands of others in Europe, to demand a fairer system. In the eurozone, financial crises have forced out two governments, replacing elected representative with appointed technocrats charged with restoring order. Concern about the institutional integrity of the eurozone – key to the architecture of modern Europe – continues to mount.
This uncertainty extends beyond countries and regions. Those looking around the next corner also worry about the stability of an international economic order in which the difficulties faced by the system’s Western core are gradually eroding global public goods.
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