This book is on a par with me writing a projected future for the UK armed forces from the perspective of Leicester City Football Club.

I am sure that Kenichi Ohmae knows more about economics than I ever will. His assumption that the world totally revolves around the desire for profit is, however, naïve. Of course, it is easy to laugh at a theory which time has downed, but this book shows no understanding of human nature. It is frightening that, at the time, this was taken as a serious view as to where the world was going.

Fortunately, the idea of an ever improving GDP is rapidly becoming an outdated concept. I have personally heard people who dare not come out publicly, admit that this is a preposterous idea: what can you name which grows for eternity - even the universe, under the Big Bang Theory, is going to go into reverse (hopefully at some far, far off date!).

This book was written at the time when computers, and particularly that new fangled World Wide Web, was going to save the planet. National governments were unnecessary, the fall of the Soviet Union meant no more wars (!), and computer power could balance the risks in any transaction. Financial heaven had arrived: we could all make our own decisions as to how we became millionaires and buy more and more rubbish.

Oh dear, another questionable Utopia bites the dust. ( )