For global progress ... what is really important?

Dear Colleagues

How important are monetary and fiscal policies? How important are Governments and the Central Banks? How important are Capital Markets and the Banking Sector?

I spend a certain amount of time listening to Bloomberg radio, and you would think that these things are really important ... but I would argue that in reality they are not really very important at all.

What is important is the underlying capacity of society to be productive and to be surplus producing. This is a function of what scientists and engineers are able to do to make activity efficient ... to get more output for less input.

It is also a function of people making the investment to deploy high production processes. This is where banking and the capital markets come in ... they are able to facilitate investment. This is where policy can help ... but only modestly. The real driver is entrepreneurial technical innovation way more than it is purely political or financial!

As the system of True Value Metrics is articulated it becomes increasingly clear that sustainable progress is going to be achieved when billions of people are making decisions that move their communities forward with more and more surplus production ... a win-win model. This is a contrast to the zero sum system that has prevailed in the "rich" economies where wealth accumulation has been too much at the expense of some sector of society ... either locally or in the global economy.

Win-win is a better way forward ... but it will only work when the metrics are showing both the money profit dimension and the value dimension

Peter Burgess