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"The Great Reset" - The World Economic Forum

Orphia Nay

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Orphia Nay
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About "The Great Reset", first discussed at Davos World Economic Conference in June 2020:

""The Great Reset” is a commitment to jointly and urgently build the foundations of our economic and social system for a more fair, sustainable and resilient future.

"It requires a new social contract centred on human dignity, social justice and where societal progress does not fall behind economic development."


https://www.weforum.org/great-reset

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danpontefract/2020/06/13/this-moment-calls-for-the-great-reset/


On the theme, “A New Deal for Business” at The World Economic Forum’s latest Great Reset virtual meeting:

https://europeansting.com/2020/08/2...ng-a-trade-off-between-resilience-and-growth/

"“The problem of skilling is going to be crucial. Right now, its the low-skilled that are being more affected and may lose their links with the market more permanently. That is going to be a very serious result.”
—Angel Gurría, Secretary-General, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

"We need to be relentless about this idea…These are the stakeholder capitalism metrics at the end of the day and they define what success should be and they define progress on the SDGs [UN Sustainable Development Goals] and there isn’t a better time to do it.”— Brian T. Moynihan, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Bank of America

“Increasingly, the virus has called on business to come with heart, not just [for] the returns.”— Li Xin, Managing Director, Caixin Global at Caixin Media

“It is possible for us to achieve resilience, growth and advance the green economy.”—Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Senior Minister in the Singaporean Prime Minister’s Office

“We saw immediate action from companies. That’s a stakeholder mentality – you don’t just focus on the bottom line.”—Stacey Cunningham, President and Chief Executive Officer at New York Stock Exchange."



Is this the way forward economically?

Do the World Economic Forum know this will work / is working?

What problems or solutions do you think this has?

I'm interested in it because it might show us how the corporate and business world ties in with the longterm, on- track Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations to save the world from climate change.
 
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Orphia Nay said:
""The Great Reset” is a commitment to jointly and urgently build the foundations of our economic and social system for a more fair, sustainable and resilient future.

"It requires a new social contract centred on human dignity, social justice and where societal progress does not fall behind economic development."
Click to expand...
That statement looks like it was created with a Buzz Word Generator.
 
We've heard enlightened statements from such organizations for decades, with little to show for it. As wonderful for science and the planet as Bezos' contribution is, it does nothing to solve any real issues regarding the economy.

Real change requires equity in the form of the law applying to all in equal measure, including tax law. We do not need to soak the rich, a measure that is as short-sighted as would be leaving the poor to rot in the streets. Actual, meaningful measures that would allow for good governance, proper financial cycling of monies (flows that sustain aggregate demand), and healthy public spending and investments, might consist of just the following:

  • Closure of all tax havens and exclusion from the banking system (SWIFT, etc) of all non-compliant territories. That would make some $50 Trillion in offshore funds available to taxation by national governments (and examination by the FBI and Treasury, etc, as much of it is from drug, human, and animal trafficking).
  • Complete end to the practice of shell corporations.
  • All assets, financial or physical, not tied to identifiable individual taxpayers (or shareholders) should be subject to 100% confiscation.
  • Tax brackets should be designed on the basis of multiples of the minimum wage, topping out at, say, 10,000x the minimum. Tax rates within these brackets, now that offshore funds are back in circulation, should be kept reasonable and low, preferably with a top tax rate at the highest bracket of under 50%, or potentially much less, say 30%.
  • All income that exceeds the agreed maximum multiple of the minimum wage, greater than 10,000x, should be taxed at 90%.
  • All income is earned income; i.e., same tax rates for any kind of earnings, bar rare exceptions. (Warren Buffet would be taxed at a higher rate than his secretary, as he has often advocated.)
  • As a result, those countries that can should adopt the Basic Guaranteed Income, doing away with unemployment insurance, retirement, and everything in between. Paid as do the Germans, by taking in salary transfers and then netting them out in payment by deducting taxes while adding any funds needed to top the earnings up to the Basic Minimum.
  • Prohibition of zero hour jobs and fake outsourcing that makes employees "independent contractors", such as for parcel or food delivery services, etc.
End result sought: All pay a fair share, no one is soaking anyone, and the most wealthy are asked to focus on the fact that when aggregate demand remains healthy, the tick rate of financial flows increases, meaning that net of tax, their earning go up, not down. When the wealthiest want even more, they can always raise the minimum wage, garnering 10,000x the added amount themselves.

ETA: @$15 minimum wage, 40 hr/week and 52 weeks, the maximum earnings before confiscatory tax rates would be $312,000,000. I reckon that's damned fair (maybe the multiple should be an order of magnitude less, but given realities, you might get paid assassination attempts on government officials).
 
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Hlafordlaes said:
We've heard enlightened statements from such organizations for decades, with little to show for it. As wonderful for science and the planet as Bezos' contribution is, it does nothing to solve any real issues regarding the economy.

Real change requires equity in the form of the law applying to all in equal measure, including tax law. We do not need to soak the rich, a measure that is as short-sighted as would be leaving the poor to rot in the streets. Actual, meaningful measures that would allow for good governance, proper financial cycling of monies (flows that sustain aggregate demand), and healthy public spending and investments, might consist of just the following:

  • Closure of all tax havens and exclusion from the banking system (SWIFT, etc) of all non-compliant territories. That would make some $50 Trillion in offshore funds available to taxation by national governments (and examination by the FBI and Treasury, etc, as much of it is from drug, human, and animal trafficking).
  • Complete end to the practice of shell corporations.
  • All assets, financial or physical, not tied to identifiable individual taxpayers (or shareholders) should be subject to 100% confiscation.
  • Tax brackets should be designed on the basis of multiples of the minimum wage, topping out at, say, 10,000x the minimum. Tax rates within these brackets, now that offshore funds are back in circulation, should be kept reasonable and low, preferably with a top tax rate at the highest bracket of under 50%, or potentially much less, say 30%.
  • All income that exceeds the agreed maximum multiple of the minimum wage, greater than 10,000x, should be taxed at 90%.
  • All income is earned income; i.e., same tax rates for any kind of earnings, bar rare exceptions. (Warren Buffet would be taxed at a higher rate than his secretary, as he has often advocated.)
  • As a result, those countries that can should adopt the Basic Guaranteed Income, doing away with unemployment insurance, retirement, and everything in between. Paid as do the Germans, by taking in salary transfers and then netting them out in payment by deducting taxes while adding any funds needed to top the earnings up to the Basic Minimum.
  • Prohibition of zero hour jobs and fake outsourcing that makes employees "independent contractors", such as for parcel or food delivery services, etc.
End result sought: All pay a fair share, no one is soaking anyone, and the most wealthy are asked to focus on the fact that when aggregate demand remains healthy, the tick rate of financial flows increases, meaning that net of tax, their earning go up, not down. When the wealthiest want even more, they can always raise the minimum wage, garnering 10,000x the added amount themselves.

ETA: @$15 minimum wage, 40 hr/week and 52 weeks, the maximum earnings before confiscatory tax rates would be $312,000,000. I reckon that's damned fair (maybe the multiple should be an order of magnitude less, but given realities, you might get paid assassination attempts on government officials).
Click to expand...


This all makes sense, but what if the real problem isn't economic inequity, but rather, overpopulation and increasing scarcity of limited natural resources? The financial system's issues has the effect, ultimately, of limiting consumption. We'd like to amend it because many of us would prefer to consume more. But if consumption is itself the problem, that path doesn't go where we think it would.

Imagine a city that has a food shortage, but so many of its roads are closed for repairs that the resulting constant traffic jams are preventing most people from getting to the supermarkets. Everyone would complain about the traffic gridlock as the reason for their empty cupboards, while the limited flow of customers allowed the supermarkets to keep their shelves stocked. Fixing the traffic flow would just bring the underlying supply problem to the fore.

The very wealthy consume a great deal, but they don't consume anywhere near proportionally to their paper wealth. Redistribute their income to those in need, and it will be spent on consumption instead (that's what "in need" means).

I'd love to see an economic reset that would bring the world closer to a sustainable balance, but under any scheme that would achieve that, I would be taxed more, not less. Even though I live modestly (for an American) on a modest (for an American) income. Forget a top bracket of 10,000 or even 1,000 times the $15 minimum wage. How about at $10 above the minimum wage? Yeah, it would make it hard to afford the mortgage on that 2,000 square foot suburban house or the payments and gas for the $45,000 SUV, but that's where the predominant decreases in consumption to compensate for the greater consumption by those lifted out of abject poverty, would come from.
 
Hlafordlaes said:
. . .. Actual, meaningful measures that would allow for good governance, proper financial cycling of monies (flows that sustain aggregate demand), and healthy public spending and investments, might consist of just the following:

< remainder snippede for brevity >
Click to expand...
Some thoughtful suggestions there.

You don't seem to have addressed the giant casino that the world has become. The trade in financial derivatives swamps that of goods and services by a huge margin and that can't be healthy. Some form of currency controls are needed to contain this form of gambling.

You also don't seem to have addressed the issue of corporations that have grown so large that they are more powerful than many governments. A corporation that can have its administration in one country, employ labour in another, sell its product in a third country and pay taxes in a fourth is bad for everybody.

Tackling these issues is going to be a difficult ask.
 
It'll be interesting to see what happens with Janet Yellen being appointed by Biden to be the US Treasury Secretary. (Announced today.)

Yellen has said a US economic recovery will be weak and uneven unless Congress spends more to reduce unemployment and support small businesses. “While the pandemic is still seriously affecting the economy we need to continue extraordinary fiscal support but even beyond that I think it will be necessary,” she told Bloomberg last month.

“There is a huge amount of suffering out there. The economy needs the spending,” she said earlier in the year. Low inflation, she has said, has increased the need for, and lowered the risks of, expansionary fiscal and monetary policies.
Click to expand...

https://www.smh.com.au/business/ban...wall-st-with-yellen-pick-20201124-p56hev.html
-Sydney Morning Herald
 
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Myriad said:
This all makes sense, but what if the real problem isn't economic inequity, but rather, overpopulation and increasing scarcity of limited natural resources? The financial system's issues has the effect, ultimately, of limiting consumption. We'd like to amend it because many of us would prefer to consume more. But if consumption is itself the problem, that path doesn't go where we think it would.

Imagine a city that has a food shortage, but so many of its roads are closed for repairs that the resulting constant traffic jams are preventing most people from getting to the supermarkets. Everyone would complain about the traffic gridlock as the reason for their empty cupboards, while the limited flow of customers allowed the supermarkets to keep their shelves stocked. Fixing the traffic flow would just bring the underlying supply problem to the fore.

The very wealthy consume a great deal, but they don't consume anywhere near proportionally to their paper wealth. Redistribute their income to those in need, and it will be spent on consumption instead (that's what "in need" means).

I'd love to see an economic reset that would bring the world closer to a sustainable balance, but under any scheme that would achieve that, I would be taxed more, not less. Even though I live modestly (for an American) on a modest (for an American) income. Forget a top bracket of 10,000 or even 1,000 times the $15 minimum wage. How about at $10 above the minimum wage? Yeah, it would make it hard to afford the mortgage on that 2,000 square foot suburban house or the payments and gas for the $45,000 SUV, but that's where the predominant decreases in consumption to compensate for the greater consumption by those lifted out of abject poverty, would come from.
Click to expand...

I'll take this opportunity to yet again hail the World Economic Forum (I wish I was a member :D) and this time post their podcast series (plural).

World Vs Virus: the podcast that aims to make sense of the COVID-19 outbreak – its impact on people, society and the economy, focusing on ways we can get through this.

The Great Reset: looks at how we can rebuild a cleaner, fairer, smarter world after COVID-19.

Meet the Leader: fortnightly conversations with the world's top leaders, change-makers and experts on the projects that excite them and the habits they can’t work without.
Click to expand...

https://www.weforum.org/focus/podcasts
 
psionl0 said:
Some thoughtful suggestions there.

You don't seem to have addressed the giant casino that the world has become. The trade in financial derivatives swamps that of goods and services by a huge margin and that can't be healthy. Some form of currency controls are needed to contain this form of gambling.

You also don't seem to have addressed the issue of corporations that have grown so large that they are more powerful than many governments. A corporation that can have its administration in one country, employ labour in another, sell its product in a third country and pay taxes in a fourth is bad for everybody.

Tackling these issues is going to be a difficult ask.
Click to expand...

Certainly more can be said and done. I did, however, fully address your first complaint, as that situation is the direct result of both offshore havens and bad tax policy. Bottom line, I favor capitalism with a small 'c', its number one virtue being distributed, free decision-making inside a fair field of play, its number two virtue being prevention of economic and political power in the same hands (right: monarchy/oligarchy, left: communism), leading to inevitable totalitarian power (aka, ball crusher).

Capitalism with a capital 'C', however, in the form of mythical "free markets" and advocating sole exclusionary pursuit of shareholder value, sometimes even as a moral issue (:eek:), sucks. TL;DR: No reason in the world one cannot maximize value subject to reasonable constraints designed for the ongoing health of the system, forchrissakegoddamnit. This is the real world, not a Micro Econ 101 classroom on ideal, undifferentiated commodities. :sulk:

As for large monopolies, they should be busted or made public utilities. Today's environ has twists on that, adding:

  • As for global IT, it must have physical HQ and human representation in every single national tax district in which it operates, paying taxes by listing all revenues from that jurisdiction and offsetting them with prorated costs from a globally consolidated income statement. Pay, like anyone else; no freeloading.
  • With respect to online selling, same deal, except in this case, all national markets must have physical warehousing from which all goods are shipped, even if this can be streamlined by adding those per unit theoretical costs to items shipped directly to expedite shipping time. In short, either real operations or pro forma, but real infrastructure and real taxes.
  • Further, in this case, workers must be assigned, on a sales prorrated basis, to the job positions represented by unions or similar in the brick and mortar world, meaning that salaries in places like much of the EU are determined by industry sector labor agreements. You pack books? Minimum wage at least for a bookseller, and so on down the line.
 
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Myriad said:
This all makes sense, but what if the real problem isn't economic inequity, but rather, overpopulation and increasing scarcity of limited natural resources? The financial system's issues has the effect, ultimately, of limiting consumption. We'd like to amend it because many of us would prefer to consume more. But if consumption is itself the problem, that path doesn't go where we think it would....
Click to expand...

Excellent, excellent point. On that score, prior to recent retirement as a translator (actually fascinating as a late life pursuit, as I was specialized in technical stuff, from light rail systems to packaging and labeling tech), I had a nice little exposure to much that is being done across the board to work toward sustainability. The goal is to approach a circular economy as much as possible.

From my little window on it, this approach is extending across entire economies, from to the manner in which legal documents are stored and housed, to the design of trains, to printing inks that allow for better detection of plastics (black ink has been a real issue in trash sorting, key to separating recyclable from non- in plastics). What's the number one driving force for many? Marketing, consumer preference.** Which means: Quite simply, "drive a Volvo", buy things wrapped in cardboard/glass/aluminium, read labels and go for products making a real effort... If consumers push, business follows. If they don't push, trash everywhere, holy ****.

It's up to us.


**ETA: And regulation, bless the EU. Not being afraid of having rules, a regulated market economy "as God intended".
 
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Hlafordlaes said:
We've heard enlightened statements from such organizations for decades, with little to show for it. As wonderful for science and the planet as Bezos' contribution is, it does nothing to solve any real issues regarding the economy.

Real change requires equity in the form of the law applying to all in equal measure, including tax law. We do not need to soak the rich, a measure that is as short-sighted as would be leaving the poor to rot in the streets. Actual, meaningful measures that would allow for good governance, proper financial cycling of monies (flows that sustain aggregate demand), and healthy public spending and investments, might consist of just the following:

  • Closure of all tax havens and exclusion from the banking system (SWIFT, etc) of all non-compliant territories. That would make some $50 Trillion in offshore funds available to taxation by national governments (and examination by the FBI and Treasury, etc, as much of it is from drug, human, and animal trafficking).
  • Complete end to the practice of shell corporations.
  • All assets, financial or physical, not tied to identifiable individual taxpayers (or shareholders) should be subject to 100% confiscation.
  • Tax brackets should be designed on the basis of multiples of the minimum wage, topping out at, say, 10,000x the minimum. Tax rates within these brackets, now that offshore funds are back in circulation, should be kept reasonable and low, preferably with a top tax rate at the highest bracket of under 50%, or potentially much less, say 30%.
  • All income that exceeds the agreed maximum multiple of the minimum wage, greater than 10,000x, should be taxed at 90%.
  • All income is earned income; i.e., same tax rates for any kind of earnings, bar rare exceptions. (Warren Buffet would be taxed at a higher rate than his secretary, as he has often advocated.)
  • As a result, those countries that can should adopt the Basic Guaranteed Income, doing away with unemployment insurance, retirement, and everything in between. Paid as do the Germans, by taking in salary transfers and then netting them out in payment by deducting taxes while adding any funds needed to top the earnings up to the Basic Minimum.
  • Prohibition of zero hour jobs and fake outsourcing that makes employees "independent contractors", such as for parcel or food delivery services, etc.
End result sought: All pay a fair share, no one is soaking anyone, and the most wealthy are asked to focus on the fact that when aggregate demand remains healthy, the tick rate of financial flows increases, meaning that net of tax, their earning go up, not down. When the wealthiest want even more, they can always raise the minimum wage, garnering 10,000x the added amount themselves.

ETA: @$15 minimum wage, 40 hr/week and 52 weeks, the maximum earnings before confiscatory tax rates would be $312,000,000. I reckon that's damned fair (maybe the multiple should be an order of magnitude less, but given realities, you might get paid assassination attempts on government officials).
Click to expand...
Very interesting, I normally poo poo this type of stuff but I like it. If I may add: "No outrageous profits to be garnered during a national crisis". I invest my own 401K, I bought on the Dip in March, I have made more than my annual salary (low 6 figures) by close to 2x. This is not right as it does not reflect normal investing during a "normal" economy... I think it would be fairly easy to determine a normal economy versus one under stress.
 
No Other said:
Very interesting, I normally poo poo this type of stuff but I like it. If I may add: "No outrageous profits to be garnered during a national crisis". I invest my own 401K, I bought on the Dip in March, I have made more than my annual salary (low 6 figures) by close to 2x. This is not right as it does not reflect normal investing during a "normal" economy... I think it would be fairly easy to determine a normal economy versus one under stress.
Click to expand...
You might like to take a look at these folks on the Tax Justice Network. It's been a while since I've browsed the site, but iirc, one of the principals is a fellow with an extensive background in the international banking practices involved. As for the amount of money circling the planet in the form of offshore funds, one of their reports estimates "the value of assets held offshore lies in the range of $11 - $12 trillion. We consider this to be a conservative estimate."

I had a 2000s Ernst and Young document I seem to have misplaced that estimated the amount to be circa $45 trillion. I recall the main point being that when that much capital moves around, it creates one bubble after another (developing country financial asset meltdown in the 1990s, dot.com boom, real estate bubble, shaky derivative assets in 2008, and so on.) This is the basis for my claim above of $50 trillion, but actual figures are hard to come by.
 
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Hlafordlaes said:
You might like to take a look at these folks on the Tax Justice Network. It's been a while since I've browsed the site, but iirc, one of the principals is a fellow with an extensive background in the international banking practices involved. As for the amount of money circling the planet in the form of offshore funds, one of their reports estimates "the value of assets held offshore lies in the range of $11 - $12 trillion. We consider this to be a conservative estimate."

I had a 2000s Ernst and Young document I seem to have misplaced that estimated the amount to be circa $45 trillion. I recall the main point being that when that much capital moves around, it creates one bubble after another (developing country financial asset meltdown in the 1990s, dot.com boom, real estate bubble, shaky derivative assets in 2008, and so on.) This is the basis for my claim above of $50 trillion, but actual figures are hard to come by.
Click to expand...
Thx for the link... I do agree that this is very much like riding a wave.
 
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/12/ikea-burger-king-adidas-embrace-circular-economy/

IKEA have opened 2 second-hand furniture stores, and started a buyback scheme, pending some COVID-19 restrictions.

Adidas have created shoes you return at the "end" of their life and are completely recyclable. "The shoes you will never own."
(I've seen phone and headphone companies doing something similar.)

Burger King have started selling food in reusable containers.

Need to hurry this along!
 
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