Is it time for some new ideas?
So world leaders are confused and have no idea what to do about the current global economic crisis.
Business and government leaders at Davis mired in uncertainty on how to stem financial crisis (2-1-09)
DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) -- Mired in indecision and uncertainty, the world's foremost gathering of the best and brightest in government and business failed to come up with any new plan to stem, much less reverse, the global financial meltdown.
"Everybody's lost in Davos," said Kishore Mahbubani, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore.
"No one seems to have a clear understanding of how big this crisis is and what we need to do to get out of it." he told AP. "My own view is that you really need to do a fundamental reexamination of the whole global system to see what went wrong, and nobody here is yet ready to ask these kinds of fundamental questions in Davos."
Except, maybe this man:
Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and the father of microcredit, saw a silver lining in the financial crisis.
"It's not just disappointment and frustrations," he told AP. "This is the greatest moment we have because things need to be changed, it's as simple as that. We don't want to go back to the same normalcy that we're coming from. We will create a new normalcy which will stay and keep on moving and change the world."
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/090201/davos_forum.html
And from Yunas, a tiny dude in a tiny poor country, we get some potential answers:
Banks explain that poor people are not credit worthy. But the real question to ask is whether banks are people worthy. In the context of the total collapse of the financial system, this question becomes more relevant and urgent. We are still in the midst of the worst financial crisis of the century. In Grameen Bank there are no legal instruments between lender and borrower, no guarantees, no collateral. You can’t get riskier than that, and yet our money comes back while the prestigious banks all over the world are going down with all their intelligent paperwork, all their collateral, all the lawyers and legal systems to back up their lending. This contrast raises many questions in one’s mind.
Bailout cannot be relied on as solution to market problems. In the long-run, self-protection is possible only when market can ensure that it will not allow a crisis to develop in the first place.
I suggest a mechanism to buy all potential toxic assets on a daily basis through a business created by the participation of all businesses, which engage in highly speculative business and make high profits. I suggest that the market must be equipped with a strong mechanism to detect bubbles at the very initial stage and an instantaneous reaction device to shoot it down.
Everyday the market must hunt down the potential toxic assets and these must be bought off by a company created for this purposes. Capitalization of this company may be made from requiring companies to pay a percentage of gains made from highly speculative transactions at a progressive rate. Market must be developed as a self-correcting system. It cannot be left as a wild party of some money-hungry people, and organizations.
The theory of capitalism holds that the marketplace is only for those who are interested in making money, for the people who are interested in profit only. This interpretation of human being in the theory treats people as one-dimensional beings. But people are multi dimensional. While they have their selfish dimensions at the same time they also have their selfless dimensions. Capitalism, and the marketplace that has grown up around the theory, makes no room for the selfless dimensions of the people. If some of the self sacrificing drives and motivations that exist in people could be brought into the business world to make impact on the problems that face the world, there would be very few problems that we could not solve.
Present structure of the economic theory does not allow these dimensions of people to play out in the market place. I argue that given the opportunity, people will come into the market place to express their selfless urges by running special types of businesses, let us call them social businesses, to make a change in the world. In the absence of such opportunity in the market place people express their selflessness through charities. Charitable efforts have been with us always, and they are noble, and they are needed. But we have seen that business is able, to innovate, to expand, to reach more and more people through the power of the free market. Imagine what we could achieve if talented entrepreneurs and business executives around the world devoted themselves in ending, say, malnutrition, without any intention to making money for themselves or the investors.
Read more:
http://muhammadyunus.org/content/view/177/127/lang,en/
Business and government leaders at Davis mired in uncertainty on how to stem financial crisis (2-1-09)
DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) -- Mired in indecision and uncertainty, the world's foremost gathering of the best and brightest in government and business failed to come up with any new plan to stem, much less reverse, the global financial meltdown.
"Everybody's lost in Davos," said Kishore Mahbubani, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore.
"No one seems to have a clear understanding of how big this crisis is and what we need to do to get out of it." he told AP. "My own view is that you really need to do a fundamental reexamination of the whole global system to see what went wrong, and nobody here is yet ready to ask these kinds of fundamental questions in Davos."
Except, maybe this man:
Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and the father of microcredit, saw a silver lining in the financial crisis.
"It's not just disappointment and frustrations," he told AP. "This is the greatest moment we have because things need to be changed, it's as simple as that. We don't want to go back to the same normalcy that we're coming from. We will create a new normalcy which will stay and keep on moving and change the world."
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/090201/davos_forum.html
And from Yunas, a tiny dude in a tiny poor country, we get some potential answers:
Banks explain that poor people are not credit worthy. But the real question to ask is whether banks are people worthy. In the context of the total collapse of the financial system, this question becomes more relevant and urgent. We are still in the midst of the worst financial crisis of the century. In Grameen Bank there are no legal instruments between lender and borrower, no guarantees, no collateral. You can’t get riskier than that, and yet our money comes back while the prestigious banks all over the world are going down with all their intelligent paperwork, all their collateral, all the lawyers and legal systems to back up their lending. This contrast raises many questions in one’s mind.
Bailout cannot be relied on as solution to market problems. In the long-run, self-protection is possible only when market can ensure that it will not allow a crisis to develop in the first place.
I suggest a mechanism to buy all potential toxic assets on a daily basis through a business created by the participation of all businesses, which engage in highly speculative business and make high profits. I suggest that the market must be equipped with a strong mechanism to detect bubbles at the very initial stage and an instantaneous reaction device to shoot it down.
Everyday the market must hunt down the potential toxic assets and these must be bought off by a company created for this purposes. Capitalization of this company may be made from requiring companies to pay a percentage of gains made from highly speculative transactions at a progressive rate. Market must be developed as a self-correcting system. It cannot be left as a wild party of some money-hungry people, and organizations.
The theory of capitalism holds that the marketplace is only for those who are interested in making money, for the people who are interested in profit only. This interpretation of human being in the theory treats people as one-dimensional beings. But people are multi dimensional. While they have their selfish dimensions at the same time they also have their selfless dimensions. Capitalism, and the marketplace that has grown up around the theory, makes no room for the selfless dimensions of the people. If some of the self sacrificing drives and motivations that exist in people could be brought into the business world to make impact on the problems that face the world, there would be very few problems that we could not solve.
Present structure of the economic theory does not allow these dimensions of people to play out in the market place. I argue that given the opportunity, people will come into the market place to express their selfless urges by running special types of businesses, let us call them social businesses, to make a change in the world. In the absence of such opportunity in the market place people express their selflessness through charities. Charitable efforts have been with us always, and they are noble, and they are needed. But we have seen that business is able, to innovate, to expand, to reach more and more people through the power of the free market. Imagine what we could achieve if talented entrepreneurs and business executives around the world devoted themselves in ending, say, malnutrition, without any intention to making money for themselves or the investors.
Read more:
http://muhammadyunus.org/content/view/177/127/lang,en/