Ronald Williams, CEO of Aetna USA and co-chair of Davos 2010 in Switzerland.
THE PLANET''S POWER BROKERS jet to Davos this week for the World Economic Forum's yearly soiree in the snow. Time to redo, reset, rebuild, realign, reimagine, reinvent. While they're pondering policy and thinking deep thoughts, I hope they pray for the commoners around the globe. Because life still will be cheap in Haiti, long after the Davos Men fly home.
PUNDITS PREDICT THAT the global money meltdown last year could lead to new collaboration among countries -- or to even more bitter cross-border clashing. As author and business consultant Don Tapscott (Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything) puts it, the world is broken and in desperate need of fixing. To no one's surprise except us, the U.S.A. also keeps losing economic stature in the eyes of the world, as the WEF's "Global Competitiveness Report 2009-2010" has found. (See video clips below.)
IS THERE ANY doubt why the free business world has lost faith in us, with Wall Street making out like software smugglers in the jungle? Third World counterfeiters with layers of hidden books, or no books at all, have nothing over our derivatives salesmen. In a brutal, dog-eat-dog world (Malthus, anyone?), the keys to regaining that trust in America will be global regulations, global enforcement, and global financial transparency. Billions of dollars in aid and economic development mean little without rule of law.
THE WEF WILL cover events starting today with an array of social media tools (bloggers, Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace, YouTube), and it will micro-blog in Chinese at Sina.com. Reuters also will live-blog the economic talkfest ("Davos 2010: Live Coverage"), while YouTube invites readers and news junkies to pose questions and ideas to world leaders.
- Al Jazeera.net's The Europe Blog, "Happy Birthday Davos" by Stephen Cole.
- BBC News, "A Bumpy 2010 Davos Awaits World Leaders" by Tim Weber.
- CCTV.com, "2010 Davos Annual Meeting to Open" by Zhang Ning.
- Deutsche Welle, "Postcard from Europe: Dithering at Davos?" by Imogen Foulkes.
- Don Tapscott in BusinessWeek, "Davos 2010: The World is Broken."
- Forbes.com, "The Ten Richest Men at Davos" by Paul Maidment.
- GreenBiz.com, "Can the Social Network of Davos Deliver?" by Aron Cramer of BSR.
- HuffingtonPost.com, "Redesigning the World with Girls in Mind" by Maria Eitel.
- SkyNews.com.au, "Global Bankers Meet at Davos Forum." "Global Bankers Meet at Davos Forum."
Global Competitiveness Report 2009-2010 - Jennifer Blanke (in English).
Global Competitiveness Report 2009-2010 - Irene Mia (in Spanish)
Global Competitiveness Report 2009-2010 - Thierry Geiger (in French)
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