Bruce Nussbaum makes a great point on his blog about what is happening or not happening in the economic policy debate, as exemplified by the discussions in Davos:
A "transformational crisis" is the term used in the opening session of the World Economic Forum by founder Klaus Schwab to describe the state of the global economy today. Institutions are not working, unemployment is soaring and we have to first manage the crisis, then manage a new world post-crisis.
Well, if we are in a transformation crisis then we need to have people who know how to transform in power to do so. Transformers (innovators, designers, design thinkers) are not running big sessions, talking on-stage about major policy changes or debating top politicians about how best to create new institutions to deal with our new economic circumstances. Many transformers are here but they relegated to small, minor sessions or lunches that will have little impact.
Most of this year's World Economic Forum's big, public sessions at the Conference Center will have old faces, many belonging to people who got us into this mess in the first place. Do I really want to hear a banker tell me about the financial mess?
Other old faces will be politicians who will be offering up old solutions--more regulation, more government spending, more of the same of prescriptions. Unfortunately, politicians are the ones picking up the mess from the private sector folks who lost it and they are doing it with the tools they know.
As he points out, we are in danger of the same dynamic happening in Washington. With the critics pushing the stimulus package more and more into the traditional box and away from transformational, we may be losing a big opportunity.
However, the Administration is still a newborn - so we will see how things continue to play out.
No crisis ... just uncertainty … Change is here and we do not yet see it ... stimulus packages trying to revive the past will fail and destroy us along he way ... I suggest less stimulus and more thought on the nature of change before us ... please do not go down the road that we will all eat less and struggle ... not likely ... what are the new institutional arrangements that can emerge?
Hi Ken,
Yes we are in the middle of a transformational crisis companies are shutting down operations , unemployment is increasing at an alarming rate. As many say we may be losing a big opportunity with the stimulus package increasing. Lets hope and wait for the new administration.
Regards,
Michael Hayes
http://momentumstaffing.wordpress.com/
bee,
I agree that we need new institutional arrangements - and that we shouldn't use the stimulus to revive the failed economy of the past. But I do think that the package can be transformational as well (see some of my other postings).