Long Term Reforms or Investments

Resuming my train of thoughts, let me pick up the following three ideas which I listed previously:

2) Investment capital needs to flow to the poor.
3) Transportation infrastructure needs to connect the poor.
4) An international commitment from the richer countries to distribute part of its wealth to the poor countries on a sustained manner.

I will limit my thoughts to new ideas and focus more on the assistance for poor countries, rather than the poor within a given country. There are existing mechanisms which have certain effect already, whether they are based on free market principles, or based on existing charitable incentives. In order to make a substantial reversal on the trend towards increasing wealth disparity, we need new mechanisms.

On the flow of additional investment capital to the poor countries, free market principles automatically discriminate against countries with little natural resources to exploit, and low education levels. So, for those countries which are lacking natural resources or education, what can we do to help them?

One way is to set up a peer to peer capital investment mechanism. Each person who is willing to participate will set up an automatic electronic payment commitment to distribute his/her "investment" into a global pool. Each person or enterprise in a poor country can register with this global pool to automatically receive "investment" into a trust account, from which it can draw money to finance its business plan. The pre-requisite is to post a business plan with the global pool for approval in a peer review process. The NGO which shall operate this global pool will use the peer reviews to give a rating to each business plan, together with a rating for each country as to its degree of poverty, lack of natural resources, and education level. These rankings will be used to distribute the collected global pool of "investment" to the applicants in the poor countries. Variations of this distribution process can be considered, e.g., to actually match investors with the applicants, so that they become holders of shares in the applicant companies. This would empower a personal relationship between investors and entrepreneurs and would in fact enable a network of supporters for the entrepreneurs.

Transportation infrastructure requires large investment, so for poor countries, financial such infrastructures themselves is impossible at the beginning of their economic development. International investment or loans are necessary. A really "crazy" idea is to have a global agreement to allow the developed countries to print new money in proportion to the size of their economies so as to raise the necessary amount of new investment capital to put into the poor countries. This method is akin to diluting the wealth of the developed countries so as to transfer part of their diluted wealth to the poor countries, as investment. The money is not wasted because the developed countries get some of it back as contracts to build the transportation infrastructures.

In fact, carrying this idea of financing to the general case, this dilution of wealth by the developed countries could be a new international commitment by the richer countries to transfer every year a portion of their wealth to the poorer countries in a sustained manner. An equitable formula can be agreed by all the developed countries, based on their GDP, for example, and the recipient countries would be allocated payments based on their level of poverty, lack of natural resources and education level.

No new taxes need to be raised in the richer countries. Money is not coming out of anyone's pockets. Any subsequent devaluation of a rich country's currency will likely be minimum, as every rich country's currency is proportionally affected. The free market will take care of balancing them to account for other differences in the rich countries.

Perhaps this idea is not so crazy after all?

Making Decisions Much Much Faster Than Ten Years Ago?

Revisiting my piece on

What Has Happened to this World in Barely Eight Years?

I will pick up my "spontaneous" second point.

2) Making Decisions Much Much Faster Than Ten Years Ago

To address this problem, an introvert would ponder how one can slow down that decision making process, avoid making rash and reactive responses, and then make a decision that is consistent with one's value system, 

An entrepreneur would think about how to develop a method and a money-making service to enable consumers to immediately make a decision which would maximize the revenue of merchants most ready to turn that decision into a sales. This practice is already pervasive in the Internet world with Ads which are generated based on algorithms of "Recommenders." 

Is there anything dangerous in using such recommendations of options? Probably not, because the final decision to pick one of the recommendations is till in the control of the consumer. However, the next stage of Recommenders may advance to making a decision for you, based on knowledge about your decision criteria and your value system. Is that dangerous? Maybe not, when it comes to consumer transactions, because you can still refuse to accept the "decision". But, is there a slippery slope trend to then directly connect your payment for that recommended decision and a guarantee that you can cancel without penalty, within a certain grace period? Another way to exploit human forgetfulness and laziness?

Back to the original topic about global wealth disparity, what kind of decisions involve individuals either as one person or as a member of different groups, e.g., city, state, country, or the world. Are decisions being made or not even presented for making? Are we making such decisions, if any, more hastily than ten years ago?

I would say yes to all these questions. However, the decisions are not of the type that directly impact global wealth disparity. The typical decisions we make everyday are in response to stimulations such as news, and observation of certain behavior in our encounters. We have a choice of reacting positively or negatively to these stimulations. Quick responses tend to be based on our immediate likes or dislikes. More tolerant responses usually require us to be in a mood of empathy. The more frequently we react the same way to similar stimulations, the more we become "conditioned" into reacting that way. Over time, our value system becomes modified, even without our knowing.

Take for example, we watch news of terrorist attacks, and the people who are identified as the attackers are shown as dark-skinned and Muslims. Over time, our brain connects terrorists with dark skin and Muslims. News of illegal immigrants are shown with people of a certain race or nationalities. Repeated exposure to such images affect our brain's connection among these characteristics. Certain unacceptable behaviors of certain types of tourists, if one is daily exposed to it, not just in news, but in person, will create a connection in our brain between that class of tourists with bad behavior. If we are not careful, generalization into a whole country or a race could take place in our brains.

Prejudices are on the rise. I think this phenomenon is happening broadly around the world. It has to do with our increased exposure to news, images, and sound-bites that are divisive and unpleasant. 

Let's ponder on this some more before we consider how to counteract this problem.

 

Knowledge Needs to Flow to the Poor

This morning, I watched a video of the commencement speech at Harvard by a student from China.

Chinese Student Commencement Speech

Coincidence or synchronicity, the main point of that speech was along the same line as the first idea I listed in my last Blog --

Global Wealth Disparity Came from Concentration of Power

1) Knowledge needs to flow to the poor (long term by education/learning; short term by Internet)

This is heartening to me because the speaker is of the next generation and in particular, he is from China and educated in the US. His main point, as my take from his speech, is that everyone of us should do something to help spread scientific knowledge to the poor people in the underdeveloped countries, so as to help them.

As a motivational speech, he did a good job. He pinpointed the need for us to look inside ourselves. Again, it is good to see that it is also my first point in the post on

What Has Happened to this World in Barely Eight Years?

1) The problem is inside each one of us.

Both are good ideas, of course. But, they are already practiced. Motivating more people to make use of existing channels of education at best will increase the speed of education equalization slightly. To be more effective, we need greater motivation and more effective and new channels or infrastructures to increase the flow of knowledge to the poor, globally.

How do we generate stronger motivation?

A crazy idea is to scientifically influence our temperament towards philanthropy. Is that possible? Probably yes, when science reaches a level of advancement and humanity can agree on a safe and acceptable way to use that technology. But we need to solve the problem now.

A mundane way is to provide greater incentives for people to benefit themselves when they engage in philanthropy. I had dreamed in the past to award people financially and reputation-wise by tracking their philanthropic actions. With the Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data being on us already, making such tracking of people (if voluntary) can be done. Credit score is already a widely applied measure. Location information on individuals is already widely accepted when fear of privacy is overcome by the benefits of convenience. I imagine that Big Brother is imminently on us and we may voluntarily accept more and more of it. Therefore, an international and NGO-controlled monitoring of our philanthropic activities may be a way for people to intensify their motivation to do good to others, Money reward as well as reputation could make a difference in people's motivation.

What new channels or infrastructures to increase the flow of knowledge?

Ideas that are already being used, which came to my mind, include the websites which provide free online Internet learning, from universities and volunteers. What is missing in the poor countries is the communication infrastructure for the poor people to connect to the Internet. Efforts by Facebook and Google to deploy free Internet communication to remote countries are highly laudable! The world needs more of these large enterprises to do similar things and to donate low-cost smartphones and laptops, etc. to the poor people. If free wifi can be made available to these countries, it will save them a lot of capital to build up data communication infrastructures for fixed line phones, cellular phones, cable TV, or DSL and leapfrog into wireless communication. That will really speed up their economic development and reduce their capital requirements.

Global Wealth Disparity Came from Concentration of Power

Global wealth disparity worsened after the financial crisis of 2008-2009. "Too big to fail" was the reason for governments to bail out and not punish enough the big money businesses. Political leaders in the developed countries, even with the best intention of helping the poor and the middle classes of their countries, have to work with the rich and powerful to grow their economies and let the existing social policies to trickle down the benefits to the poor. Not much success within the rich countries. With rapidly developing countries like China and India, the rapidly rising water does lift all boats, including the poor. However, the rich get even more. But at least, many people are being lifted out of poverty.

To narrow the global wealth disparity, there is no question that the most effective measure would be to lift the poor in the poor countries out of poverty, in a sustained way. This is seldom seen or heard in the popular topics or discussions in the richer countries. The "Occupy" movements five years ago which protested against wealth disparity have fizzled out. What happened?

Have we become more insensitive to the needs of the poor? Out of sight, out of mind? Or are we distracted by the noises of dissension, separation, zero-sum (If you win, then I lose), you and we are different, to succeed one must be selfish, etc.?

Yes, these are all causes, but I think a fundamental cause is the increasing concentration of power among the top 1%. Most of these people firmly believe in their value system. There are exceptions, of course, as many of these people are philanthropists, in their second personality, However, their primary personality is still driven to succeed in their businesses.

Along with the concentration of power with the top 1%, they also have mastery over new and developing technologies, and new ways of building more business.They have completely asymmetrical power compared to ordinary people and the poor, to increase their wealth at exponential growth. This concentration of power will drive the wealth gap even bigger.

A question I have to myself is this. Can any international institution or international agreement bring about a narrowing of the wealth gap in a sustainable way, within the current economic and political world order? Or is a complete collapse of the current world order necessary in order to have a rebirth of a new world with reasonable global wealth distribution?

Before I become entirely pessimistic, I would try to envision a sustainable international agreement which can reverse the wealth gap without a complete collapse first.

1) Knowledge needs to flow to the poor (long term by education/learning; short term by Internet)

2) Investment capital needs to flow to the poor.

3) Transportation infrastructure needs to connect the poor.

4) An international commitment from the richer countries to distribute part of its wealth to the poor countries on a sustained manner.

Need to think more ..... for sure!

What Has Happened to this World in Barely Eight Years?

When I started using this Blog, it was 2005. The last time when I wrote with serious thoughts was in 2008 and 2009. Now, in 2016, eight years later, I am asking myself "What Has Happened to this World?"

Idealism in the form of kindness, generosity, tolerance, celebrating diversity and striving for greater common good seems to have vanished. In their places, we are bombarded every day by news and sentiments which provoke enmity, selfishness, intolerance, suppressing diversity and demanding the best for self, nation, religion, and race. Where are the voices of unity in diversity?

Ironically, the European Union, whose motto is Unity In Diversity, is facing BREXIT and internal strives on the continent.

Perhaps it is time to examine what went wrong and how to fix it, before the world descends into chaos.

Finding faults with political leaders is not productive, because they always have their reasons for their decisions. "It is always someone else's fault which causes my counter measure."

In asking myself what went wrong, my thoughts led me to two things, spontaneously:

1) The problem is inside each one of us.

2) The problem is that information technologies compel us into making decisions much much faster than we had to ten years ago.

As a firm believer of free wills, I would maintain that most people, when given sufficient time and a conducive environment to be calm, will make a choice based on their value system, formed and modified through their life-long experiences. A personal value system provides stability and rationality in the behavior of a person. When agitated and pressed for time to react, a person may more likely respond with choices that are prone to be by reflex, by habit, according to conventional wisdom, prompted by peer pressure, or dictated by fear or other emotions, etc. When feeling threatened, a person could also resort to instincts of self protection and would regard whoever poses the threat to be an enemy. These animal instincts are in all of us and may get loosened when we lose control of our free wills.

The frequency and intensity of information hitting us in the face has become astronomical. It can only be limited if we make a conscious and difficult effort to not fall prey to the temptation of constantly staying in touch, through the smart phones and computers. In comparing our daily lives today with ten years ago, the biggest difference is the ubiquitous reliance on the smart phones for almost all forms of communication. Fixed line phones, faxes, television with antenna and cable subscriptions have disappeared or practically so. Even computers are now being used much less frequently. Instead of getting news from delayed coverage from "trusted" news channels, established media or newscasters, we get instant coverage, instant comments and instant responses from practically the whole world, including personal blogs and twitters, etc.

With the sources of information gone up exponentially, news are being quoted and republished before proper checking. Quick responses from people more often become the results of reflex, habit, emotion, etc., as I pointed out, instead of the consequences of carefully weighed and considered comments consistent with that person's value system. Accusations and counter-accusations become more frequent and they are magnified by news channels picking them up and magnifying them by rebroadcasts.

Not all people fall into that mode of receiving and sending information, without careful consideration, of course. At least, none of us automatically would agree that we are one of them. But perhaps, we have become more like that ourselves, due to the new environment of modern information technology, without our fully realizing it. In other words, we ourselves are part of the world's problem.

Even now, typing this blog is slower than ten years ago. Why? It is because I have become so used to just writing short quips in Chat Apps or text messages, postings or comments in Facebook, etc. My grammar and my English writing have definitely deteriorated.

When will we realize that mankind has not risen to the challenge of truly "mastering" our technologies? Have we become slaves of our own inventions?

Food for thought?

Into Retirement

Having taken a whole year of retirement, filled with travel, the thought occurs to me recently to resume my blogging. Easing into it, perhaps what I can do first is to post a presentation I made late last year in Hong Kong, at the inauguration of the Hong Kong BEE.

(First written on 5/6/2012.)

The link below is not working anymore.
I will try to update it with an excerpted presentation.

UCGEC Green Building/Eco-City Seminar 7/21/2009 Palo Alto, CA

This seminar will lay out the key issues in sustainable design for buildings and cities from the perspectives of policy, standards, investments and project management. Future seminars will dig deeper into each of these and will explore profitable ways to partner with local ecosystems.
For detailed information about the seminar and seminar registration, please go to

http://ucgef.org/en/activities/seminar/greenbuilding1

July 21 (Tuesday), 6:00PM – 9:00PM
Conference Room Terrace 2D
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
950 Page Mill Road
Palo Alto, CA