Live from Davos: The World Economic Forum

Nestled in the snow-capped Alps of eastern Switzerland, Davos is home to one of the most high-powered events of the year: The World Economic Forum. Attendees are the world's most influential business and political leaders. French President, Nicolas Sarkozy (pictured at right), opened the meeting with a call for international banking regulation.

The feel here is exclusive, yet the Forum's aim is rather inclusive. That is, how to solve the most pressing concerns of our time, chief among them, health and education challenges facing the world's most needy. Also on the agenda: the direction of the global economy, climate change, and international security & coexistence.

We will be covering the Forum through its close on Sunday, Jan 31. And, as is now typical, we will finalize our coverage with a post mortem analysis.

You can also follow real-time action on Twitter, either by using the #WEF hashtag or following the Forum tweeter @Davos.

Additionally, we recommend checking out:
- Live streaming video of the World Economic Forum
- YouTube's World Economic Forum channel
- Wall Street Journal's World Economic Forum coverage hub

What Prevents Prevention?

In our last entry, we protagonized the power of prevention, not just in healthcare, but also in strengthening national security. In this one, we identify three reasons why preventionist policies typically fail to gain enough traction to take hold (and ultimately work).

1. It’s invisible. Support is difficult to develop for something that is invisible. Prevention, by definition, addresses a problem that, whether yet developed or not, we certainly cannot see (and one we’ll never see if prevention is effective). Look no further than the climate change debate in America to quickly grasp this concept. We can’t see or hear or feel climate change in any real, personal way, so we debate its very existence, instead of ways to prevent it. Heck, look no further than your own reaction to the following preventionist statement: In 2011, we will need to invest just as much into Indonesia than into Iraq. If that sounds outlandish to you, then you’re part of what prevention is up against.

2. It’s inefficient. Because prevention is invisible, we have to focus everywhere all the time to prevent disaster from striking. For the body, we must focus on all of its parts (i.e., the organs and bones and muscles and other internal tissues), not just the pain points. For national security, we must focus on all the regions of the globe, not just the Middle East. Focusing everywhere, all the time, is simply inefficient. Our resources are better directed towards something “real,” particularly in a world of competing and consequential priorities. At least that’s what is required to get people to agree to spend time and money on it.

3. It’s incomplete. For such inefficiency, prevention is still not a panacea. It will likely always remain just a piece of the solution, not the whole. The capacity for, and willingness to use, force will remain an effective deterrent. It must underwrite any effective prevention campaign. In healthcare, prevention can’t exclusively eradicate cancer once somebody has it. In national security, prevention can’t exclusively fight extremism once it’s developed. In both cases, we have to bring in the heavy artillery to help combat the problem. It’s easy to just believe “this is the way it is” and use that belief as reason not to pursue prevention more holistically than we already do.

Now What
How do we overcome the barriers to effective preventionism? Is it as simple as persuading a critical mass of people to agree to the merits of it? And if so, then how do we do it?

We’d like to hear from you. Do you agree with the notion of prevention as effective policy? If not, why not? If so, why isn’t there more of it? And what can we do to see more of it in official policy? Comment below or email us at thepoppedkernel@gmail.com.

World Economic Forum: High Profile Thought

The World Economic Forum is the world's premier gathering of the most influential movers and shakers in business, politics, and international affairs. Each year, the likes of Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Bono, Queen Rania of Jordan, Vladimir Putin, and several other high-caliber personalities descend upon Davos, Switzerland to grace the Forum's stage. The event is exclusive (attendees must be invited) and committed to discussion of and reflection on pressing global issues.

We recently watched Bill Clinton at the 2006 World Economic Forum (You can too, here). Clinton spoke for 50+ minutes, in Q & A format, with the Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, Professor Klaus Schwab (in the front row sat Senator John McCain, actor Michael Douglas, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and technology pioneer Bill Gates).

These five quotes caught our attention.

1. “If you['ve] got enough self confidence in who you are and what you believe in, you ought not to be scared to talk to anybody.”

This is helpful advice to anyone looking to succeed: Be confident and connect with people; good things will likely follow. The context of Clinton's words takes it even further... that connection with others, open dialogue is the way out of conflict. He was referring specifically to US-Iran relations when he said this. But it's just as applicable to us, as individuals, in our daily lives whether with our boss at work or partner at home. Human connection, through open dialogue, is the closest thing we have to a panacea for conflict.

2. “Insurance losses from natural disasters in the last decade are three times [larger than in] any previous decade, in common constant dollars, which is another argument for the reality of climate change.”

Climate change is bad for business. Some may say this is nothing new. And perhaps it's not. But it's just as true now as it was in 2006. And perhaps, the more we can present the climate change challenge in stark and real terms such as business loss, the sooner we reach the tipping point for lasting change.

3. “Not every failure is a defeat.”

Time and time again, the successful people we talk to and hear from frame failure positively. Bill Clinton is no exception. At the World Economic Forum, he cited his efforts to reform healthcare not as failure, but as necessary trail-blazing for the next attempt at fundamental reform to be successful. Pat Lencioni talked about failure as a necessary course-adjuster and character-builder, that thing which guided him to his rightful path. The examples go on.

4. “America always does the right thing - after exhausting all other alternatives.”

Citing the humorous Winston Churchill, Clinton propagated the view that America is a source of good in the world, even if we don't get it right the first time, all the time. Hearing this in the wake of Iraq and amidst the current reality of Afghanistan makes Churchill's words particularly resonant.

5. "There is nothing so difficult in all of human affairs than to change the established order of things."

Clinton used Machiavelli's words to call out reality in blunt terms. What interested us even more than Machiavelli's quote was Clinton's follow up as to why changing the status quo is so difficult: "... because the people who will lose are certain of their loss and those who will benefit are uncertain of their gain." Certainty. We know that financial markets place tremendous value in it. But so too do political ones.

In Conclusion

Clinton closed with a recommendation to read Max Weber's 1918 essay entitled Politics as a Vocation. In it we'd find Weber extolling the virtues of pragmatism over ideals, compromise over convictions. Perhaps, it simply reflects Bill Clinton's Machiavellian approach to politics. Perhaps, it reflects reality. Perhaps, it's both.

One thing we know for sure is that there's no higher profile a place to hash it all out than at the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

Bill Clinton and the World

Bill Clinton gave us a treat at this year's World Business Forum: his framework of the world.

Unlike other speakers at this year’s Forum, Clinton did not use a teleprompter or projected slides. And his paper notes? Apparently just for show – he rarely looked at them. This was the stuff of Bill Clinton legend – speaking off-the-cuff about complex issues in understandable terms. Unfortunately, Clinton fell short of legend this time inside Radio City Music Hall in New York; he meandered and had difficulty staying on point. But his content – why we should care about AIDS in Africa, bombings in the Middle East, and climate change – was no less compelling.

Clinton’s worldview starts with the premise of globalization – although he prefers to use the word “interdependence.” While Clinton rejects the idea that interdependence leads to peace and security outright (See The Complete Idiot's Guide to World War I), he believes it’s possible, if we address three persistent global challenges: inequality, instability, and unsustainability.

Challenge #1: Inequality. “The world is too unequal.” One billion people live on less than $1/day; Half the world population lives on less than $2/day. While people in the developed world live a long time, a quarter of the world still dies from either AIDS, malaria, or bad water (80% of them are children aged five or younger). If global warming proceeds at its current rate, water will become even more scarce, and the developing worlds’ problems aggravated.

“We can be made more secure by eliminating inequality,” Clinton said, citing “10-20 countries in eastern and southern Africa… many of them Muslim… who love the US.” This, at a time when the US has lost significant credibility elsewhere in the world. In these countries, many of which Clinton has visited, nobody has been thinking about Al Qaeda. Why? Because “we have cared whether their kids live or die.”

The lesson is simple and powerful. Focus on the basics and see positive results. In this case, the more we care, the more secure we are.

Challenge #2: Instability. “The world is too unstable.” What seems real one day is gone the next – money, health, security.

In cases, small and large, that span the globe, wealth has diminished like at no other time and to such a degree, since the Great Depression. A local police station in England had to fold because their pension investments in Iceland vanished in the country’s bankruptcy. China, in a short period of time, went from having plenty of cash ($2 trillion in reserves) to not enough (post-crisis they “had nobody to sell to”).

In a more interdependent world, a virus in one part of the world can cause more than just isolated deaths, but also widespread panic and disruption. Swine flu has wreaked havoc in both real and perceived terms. It’s closed down school districts in the US, halted the tourism industry in Mexico, and taken the lives of many. The world is, for lack of a better term, freaking out about it. And with every new report of another well-known person contracting it (e.g., President of Costa Rica and Colombia, Tony Blair’s wife, Harry Smith of the CBS Early Show, Landon Donovan of the US National soccer team), the threat feels more real and the worry continues to worsen.

Terrorist organizations remain a major destabilizing force internationally. Post-9/11, they have managed to hit Madrid, London, Bali, and Bombay, not to mention the countless spots in the war-torn regions of the Middle East and Central Asia. At the same time, as counterintuitive as it seems, “we’re more secure because everyone’s working together.” Without collaboration in the intelligence and law-enforcement communities – that is, positive interdependence – several calamities might have occurred: Al-Qaeda in the Balkans, the millennium attack out of LAX, hi-jacked plane(s) from Indonesia to the US, Holland and Lincoln tunnel bombs in New York.

Across the various sources of global instability, the way to address it is the same. The more vigilant and cooperative we are, the more secure we become.

Challenge #3: Unsustainability. “The world is too unsustainable” because of climate change. 95% of “serious scientists” believe that if we don’t cut CO2 or methane, then temperatures will increase, oceans will rise, and 100 million people in coastal regions will become climate change refugees by 2050, having been forced to uproot by Mother Nature and settle elsewhere. In Australia, Conservatives and Liberals are debating, not about whether the problem is real, but rather how to best solve it… everyone agrees it’s a problem.

Clinton also focused on sustainability in the US. He painted a rather dire portrait of where the country is headed if income continues to decline, college costs continue to outpace income growth, and healthcare continues to cost more while covering less (and also outpacing income growth). He cited the need for a new source of jobs every eight years to remain competitive. Solving climate change, Clinton believes, is the way to do that (e.g., “green” jobs and projects). He’s not shy about the size and difficulty of the task at hand, saying that if done right, it “would be the greatest thing since we mobilized for WWII.”

In the challenge of unsustainability lies a significant opportunity for positive change. The country or company or individual willing to invest in it, could save the world’s future, if not own it.

The world in which we now live is vastly different than the one in which Clinton took office. Then, in 1992, there were only 50 websites worldwide. Today, more than 50 new websites were created during Clinton’s speech at the Forum alone. Our world is much more connected. What we do affects others more so now than ever before. The more we understand that, the more willing and able we are to address the challenges of global interdependence… and experience the peace and security associated with it.