Well Brisvegas is in lock down and weve come to the end of a long two amazing days. I feel a bit - I dunno - hammered without the drinking!! Do you know what I mean? The line up of speakers was phenomenal and I know I am going to sound like a name dropper but check this out: Sandra Polaski - Deputy Director General ILO Angel Gurria - Secretary General OECD Winnie Byanyima - Executive Director Oxfam Mark Carney - Chair of the Financial Stability Board and Governor of the Bank of England Jim Yon Kim - President World Bank Christine Lagarde - Managing Director IMF Joe Hockey - Treasurer So what did I learn? Crikey - I learned a lot. Hard to know where to start. Probably best to start with the most important - inequality. It is a modern scourge the likes of which we havent seen since the dark ages. Byanyima reminded us that 85 people have the same wealth as half of humanity. Thats a busload of individuals. Thats bad. Gurria told us that inequality is the most important problem for the world, not only as a social and ethical problem but as a serious economic problem and one that drives political instability. Every country, every institution, everybody except the Australian Government wanted inequality to be top of the G20 agenda. Its sadly not ever mentioned. Pretty much everyone except the Australian Government agrees that the best way to fix inequality is to have inclusive growth that: Increases household incomes via a minimum wage to increase aggregate demand because poorer people spend all their money and rich people dont; improves social protection, like education, healthcare, maternity care, and unemployment and retirement benefits; ensures a progressive tax system where the poor and middle income earners are not carrying the tax revenue system and where rich people and corporations pay their share; and invests in long term nation building infrastructure. I learned that research by OECD shows increasing wages does not affect employment, but it does stimulate lagging economies. If big corporations paid tax in the countries where they made a profit struggling third world countries could get rid of their debt and start investing in their own people. I learned not including Climate Change is a huge embarrassment for Abbott - world leaders say so! And I learned, well had it confirmed, that Joe Hockey could not help having a go at the Australian unions even though I was prepared to be nice. He did after all come along to the L20 summit knowing he would not be the most popular speaker and that was appreciated. And whilst his speech said all the right things I couldnt help have a dig back when I stood up to officially thank him. Remembering that we are on the global stage, sometimes domestic politics bubble up. His government is doing nothing to advance the interests of working people, of womens participation, of improving social welfare, skills, education, and so forth - you know what I mean. It makes me cranky to hear him say he cares when clearly he doesnt. If you are keen to know what I said, Ill post my notes later. One more day for me here at the G20. I meet two fascinating leaders tomorrow, stay tuned.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 13:27:55 +0000
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