Global Risks Report: Rising inequality spooking the 0.0001 per cent at World Economic Forum by Toby Sanger 1-18-2012

[Shana Deane]

interesting, considering where it's coming from:

people out there taking notice that perhaps people might be getting just a "little bit restless". 

Reminds me of the stirrings in France right before the French Revolution and the aristocracy's disinterest. 

recalling:  the pics of Wall Street "ins" drinking champagne  while posing above a big banner that read "We're the 1%" as the Occupy movement was marching in the streets below.

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Rising inequality spooking the 0.0001 per cent at World Economic Forum 

<http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/progressive-economics-forum/2012/01/rising-inequality-spooking-00001-cent-world-econo?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rabble-news+%28rabble.ca+-+News+for+the+rest+of+us%29&utm_content=Google+International> 

Now the even the 0.0001 per cent are getting concerned. Experts polled for the Global Risks Report

 <http://www.weforum.org/issues/global-risks> for this month's meetings of the World Economic Forum in Davos -- one of the most elite gatherings of the powerful in the world -- selected severe income inequality as the most likely global risk to manifest in the next 10 years.

The report notes that "shrinking tax revenues have deteriorated the fiscal position of governments and reduced their ability to ease social hardship with welfare and counter-cyclical spending." It acknowledges that the "growing sense that wealth and power are becoming more entrenched in the hands of political and financial elites." It warns that a lack of social mobility and hope, especially for youth, could feed more social unrest as we've experienced from the U.S. to the Middle East. If not addressed, it could feed a vicious cycle and "potential slide into dystopia." 

(definition: dystopia: an imaginary place where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives;  anti-utopia )

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The Progressive Economics Forum aims to promote the development of a progressive economics community in Canada. The PEF brings together over 125 progressive economists, working in universities, the labour movement and activist research organizations. Visit the blog here: http://www.progressive-economics.ca/ 

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Accept the journey for which we have come. Why fight the very things for which we have come to learn?

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  rwann Michel-Kerjan - Global Risks 2012

  

http://www.weforum.org/issues/global-risks

Economic imbalances and social inequality risk reversing the gains of globalization, warns the World Economic Forum in its report Global Risks 2012. These are the findings of a survey of 469 experts and industry leaders, indicating a shift of concern from environmental risks to socioeconomic risks compared to a year ago. Respondents worry that further economic shocks and social upheaval could roll back the progress globalization has brought, and feel that the world’s institutions are ill-equipped to cope with today’s interconnected, rapidly evolving risks. 

The findings of the survey fed into an analysis of three major risk cases: Seeds of Dystopia; Unsafe Safeguards and the Dark Side of Connectivity. The report analyses the top 10 risks in five categories - economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal and technological - and also highlights "X Factor" risks, the wild card threats which warrant more research, including a volcanic winter, cyber neotribalism and epigenetics, the risk that the way we live could have harmful, inheritable effects on our genes. 

Key crisis management lessons from Japan’s earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters are highlighted in a special chapter.

We are living in a new world of risk. Globalization, shifting demographics, rapidly accelerating technological change, increased connectivity, economic uncertainty, a growing multiplicity of actors and shifting power structures combine to make operating in this world unprecedentedly complex and challenging for corporations, institutions and states alike.

Uniquely placed to catalyse a response to this new landscape, the World Economic Forum is launching a platform to better understand, prepare for and respond to complex, interdependent risk. Find out more about the Risk Response Network.

Global Risks Report 2012

Watch the press conference, recorded live from London

The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks 2011, Sixth Edition has identified economic disparity and global governance failures as central risks in the global risk landscape, exacerbating and driving a range of other risks.

The report identifies economic imbalances and unfunded liabilities as containing the seeds of potential future fiscal and financial crises and urges concerted coordinated action to manage them.