What Trump has announced - that he is going to not obey rules by which we govern our relations with other countries. He's going to reject the treaties that we have had in the past. He is going to go from what is called a multilateral system, where we all work together, to trying to deal country by country and basically throw out what has been achieved over a 60-year period.

The analysis in the era of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher was that government was interfering with the efficiency of the economy through protectionism, government subsidies, and government ownership. Once the government "got out of the way," private markets would allocate resources efficiently and generate robust growth. Development would simply come.

One has to always ask the question: Where can one be most effective in helping shape policies? It is always difficult when you're inside because you're very constrained.

Anybody who has watched government from the inside recognizes that governments need institutions, need ways to respond to crises.

Nationalization of private debts undermines prudential lender behavior and is a government intervention in the market.

Capital market liberalization includes freeing up deposit and lending rates, opening up the market to foreign banks, and removing restrictions on capital account transactions and bank lending. The focus is on deregulation, not on finding the right regulatory structure.

I'm writing from New Zealand - a country that decided from the beginning that the War was wrong, and chose not to participate in Iraq War.