Comment Posted on Reuters 01/29/09

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2009/01/27/turning-the-tables-can-you-help-davos-leaders/

A response to the above article

 

“I believe deeply that business as usual cannot extricate the world from this mess.

Regardless of the specific problems that led us here, it is clear they are systemic issues. Logically, any truly effective fix must be systemic in nature.

Unfettered capital movement underpinned by Alan Greenspans ideal of “benevolent self-interest” has failed.

We the people, need from you the economic leaders, a willingness to re-invent the marketplace paradigm. Capitalism must grow and incorporate human limitations, as well as planetary limitations into its equations. Progressives have been saying for decades that GDP does not measure quality of life, & GDP can give false-positives when for instance the bottom 50% economic bracket has DECLINED in real wealth.

The GDP issue is merely the tip of the iceberg.

We need (new) effective metrics for understanding not just “wealth” but also “quality of life”.

We need a new class of non-derivative (gasp!) investments, serving a new class of socially-oriented sustainable business activity.

We need to avoid propping up an investment bank system that has failed us, but by the same token we must avoid attempting to force or overhaul existing companies & markets. (This encounters heavy beaurocratic inertia & is startlingly inefficient per-dollar-spent)

We must allow the existing markets to continue, (yes, to conduct their business-as-usual, however badly it is failing,) UN-INTERFERED!.

We must create new investment categories for businesses directly servicing existing household/national/inter-national issues. Accompanied by an alternate set of market regulations, tax-categories, & business definitions, this is the only option I see being responsive, adaptable, & lightning quick enough to re-invent the idea of global progress.

As the spirit of human ingenuity cannot fail us, we need to create a playing field where products, services, & investment models DIRECTLY serving human needs can prosper & proliferate.

I refer to the work of Nobel-prize winning Author/Economist Mohammed Yunnus. Micro-lending, & the non-derivative business model (called “Social Business” in his books) is not my idea, & it has shown extreme efficacy in the areas of poverty reduction, localized employment, more balanced wealth increases, & systemic adjustment to a more complex world than traditional micro/macro-economics allows for.

Group Danone became the first corporation, (in partner-ship with Yunnus’s Grameen institutions) to create a multi-national social business model, using efficient micro-factories to employ & serve local populations with their nutritive food product.

If we can harness the creativity of visionary business leaders, we can walk hand-in-hand out of this thicket, & into the new millenium. Economists simply must not stand in the way of people creating their own solutions for powering, feeding, clothing, & lifting up themselves & their communities.

So good sirs & madams, kindly pave the road, then stand out of our way.

_D.Morris”