From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
One thing that really helped us was NOT following the IMF prescription, and hence I think the fact that we insisted on having growth (alongside stability) was something that made for a big change in Brazil.
If you look at the balance sheets of Fortune 500 companies 50 years ago and today, 50 years ago, 80% of the value was physical stuff. Today, more than 85% of the value consists of intangibles. Companies must become so much more now that their value comes from their ability to inspire, drive and organise human beings.
Chinese global trade went down 20% and Chinese exports collapsed by 25%. This had an immediate effect whereby factories along the coast, in the last quarter of 2008 alone, fired between 20-30 million migrant workers.
The factory isn't something to hide away or outsource to the cheapest option. It's something to cherish, to be proud of. We can be trendy, we can be a brand, but it means nothing if the product that goes out the door isn't exceptional.
When a customer sees that a company from India is performing in the financial markets better than their local partner, their attention is caught. We leveraged the financial markets for building brand, for competing in the marketplace.
In the advanced countries, it is a very challenging time for people in the middle-income and middle-education range. They are being subjected to greater competition from labour saving technology.
Transport, natural disasters, the distribution of resources, globalisation – engineers and inventors have the traits and skillset to solve the problems the world faces today. And therefore have the potential to impact the world and economy. The economy can be boosted by exporting tangible technology that is in global demand. This is the hands of engineers.
The 'beneficiaries' of these loans are just like us- consumers who need to borrow money to create economic opportunity for themselves, their families and their children- they would not wish to be treated as a charity in this regard, and we owe them the dignity of therefore doing business with them in a professional manner.
In our part of the world, there will always be some kind of uncertainty. The market accepts and endorses that our physical oil is delivered outside The Strait of Hormuz, we're also not subject to any destination restrictions as Oman is not part of OPEC.
A lot of businesses these days are markets. Companies like Google make markets for advertisements, Amazon is a market in and of its own right. Uber, AirBnB and many more are becoming big businesses by creating markets.
You are all so smart… and this was so bad… how could your discipline have not seen it coming? Implicit in the Queen's question was the assertion that economists don't get out enough and talk to people in the wider economy.
Taken together, mass migration, mass starvation and mass extinctions are what we will see if we sleep walk into a future of unmitigated climate change. These stresses will ruin economies and drive competition over dwindling resources.