Know the difference between ordinary private sector citizens and corporate leaders engaged in crony statism.

Sir, Rana Foroohar writes about “a role for corporate leaders who think about more than share prices… Some are calling on the private sector to take up the mantle of US leadership.” “Business can fill the leadership vacuum” August 21.

Boy, the aspiring Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerbergs of this world just got to love her. But, as I see it, many corporate leaders do not really belong to the ordinary real private sector, they are too much often just representatives and members of the crony-statism sector… as in “I called up Mike Spence, [then governor] reminded him the we were the biggest tech employer…”

Look for instance at those big banks loving it when they can leverage their equity manifold lending to “the safe”, like sovereigns and the AAA rated, and express no concerns at all with the fact that this stops them from lending sufficiently to the SMEs and entrepreneurs.

Do I disagree with Marc Benioff, head of Salesforce, when he states: “CEOs have to be responsible for something more than their own profitability. You have to serve a broader group of stakeholders — from employees to the environment — and when politicians don’t get things right, corporate leaders have to act”? Absolutely not! They have all the right to do so… but, any strengthening of corporatism, should also come with the label: “Warning, allowing corporate leaders to speak out too much for the ordinary private citizen’s interests, might be very dangerous for the health of society.”

PS. As another example look at a Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein selling himself of as a responsible citizen, while at the same time he approves of financing dictators that odiously violate human rights. 

@PerKurowski

When in Rome, do not try to see every attraction but do not miss what has to be seen either

Sir Robert Zoellick making reference to a meeting among world leaders in Rome prescribes “A 10-point plan for the food crisis” May 30. That plan is somehow confusing in that it mixes immediately needed actions, the first three, that of fully funding the World Food Programme’s emergency needs; the support of vital safety nets and facilitating the access to seeds and fertilizers in poor countries, with other seven points, on some of which there is even an ongoing debate about whether they are right or wrong, like for instance whether to step up ethanol production from sugarcane, which consumes a disproportionate amount of water.

Since this food crisis relates more to economic growth and energy related than to unforeseen weather disasters, and there are many official watchdogs like the International Energy Agency, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, even the World Bank, supposed to keep their eyes open, my suggestion of an 11th point, I believe far more important those point 4-10 suggested by Zoellick, is to figure out why world has been so taken by surprise with this food crisis and what can be done to improve the foresight.

No use in crying wolf… there are better ways

Sir Martin Wolf searching to explain why the world seems not to be responding as it should to the growing threats of climate change, places the responsibility for it with the individuals saying “if they are to tolerate radical change in the energy use, people must first be frightened and then they must be offered a easy way out”, “Why the climate change wolf is so hard to kill off” December 5.

Although this basic premise sounds right, and should be right, unfortunately it is not right, and so if we sit for that fright and that easy way out to happen, we will all chop down our last tree, just the way we did on Easter Island.

I people knew it was very dangerous to smoke, I people was never offered an easy way out, it took two years of hell, but I people did it because the opportunity costs of not quitting, namely the nagging from wife and daughters, was just too big for any macho man to endure. In similar fashion many governments have managed to come up with ways of how to impose very high petrol taxes on their voters just because the incentives of fiscal earnings were very high.

And so, what is truly needed to get results on climate change is to align the incentives and empower the agents of change. For instance if you want to reduce the use of cars in the US, which is an environmental must, let local authorities auction off public transport monopolies and thereby enlist bus manufacturers and bus drivers in the army fighting climate change.

Wives and daughters (leaders of the world)… get us working on the climate change… you like heat even less than we do.