After a hard winter, some reasons to be cheerful:
1. BRIC forex reserves just passed the $3.36 trillion mark and growth in the semi-periphery is turning up, faster than anyone expected. For thirty years, the world-economy flew on two jet engines -- the US and the EU. Now the world economy has a third jet engine, which potentially outclasses the thrust of both previous engines combined.
2. Unemployment peaked in November, the recovery is real, which means we're going to see feisty progressive politics kicking in across the US and EU. (The catastrophists are wrong: austerity doesn't make people rebel, aspirations do.) It's high time to junk our military-industrial complex, soak the rich, and spend on the rest of us.
3. The videogame culture -- a.k.a. the mediatic expression of the multipolar world -- is kicking into high gear. God of War 3, Yakuza 3, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Alan Wake and Resistance 3 are all on the way, and that's the tip of the iceberg.
4. While the existing developmental states continue to rapidly evolve (Asiazilla is boosting consumption, Bolivarzilla is spearheading Latin America's integration and Bearzilla is powering up the nanotech gloves), it looks like another wave of developmental states is nearing take-off. The leading candidates: Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia and Indonesia. Angola and Nigeria may also join the list, if they can channel their energy-rents into sovereign wealth funds and internal industrialization.
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