Ethical Markets Media TV Series
Ethical Markets 6: Beyond Economics
In distribution with Films Media Group beginning Winter 2015/2016, www.films.com
Individual episodes available at www.EthicalMarkets.tv.
SERIES SYNOPSIS:
These TV shows scan major aspects of rapidly accelerating change in today’s Interconnected Global Economy. The shows examine how this is driving restructuring of agriculture, media, investing, technologies and education as computers take over many sectors, displacing humans, even in professions including medicine, law and high-speed global finance, leading to new volatility worldwide.
SHOWS
Investing in Desert Greening – In this program, Hazel Henderson discusses with Dennis Bushnell, chief scientist, NASA Langley, and Carl Hodges, president, Seawater Foundation, all the opportunities to shift agriculture to desert regions and grow salt-loving plants, 10,000 varieties, with seawater and free daily photons from our Sun. This halophyte agriculture could provide most of the food, fiber and biofuels for our growing human population on earth.
Making Ethical Investing the New Norm – In this program, Hazel Henderson hosts two pioneer asset managers: Mariana Bozesan, founder and general manager of AQAL Capital GmbH, Munich, Germany, and Garvin Jabusch, cofounder and chief investment officer of Green Alpha ® Advisors. They discuss how until recently “ethical”, “responsible”, “green” investing has been a niche asset class in most progressive portfolios. Henderson explores with these experts the potential, as accounting markets catch up, for a new normal, with this kind of ethical investing growing to become 100% of portfolios in the future.
Rating the Ratings Agencies – In this program, Hazel Henderson discusses with Claudine Schneider, Congresswoman, US House of Representatives (R-RI), 1980-1990, and Lawrence Bloom, FRICS, Co-Founder & Chairman, B.e Energy, the need to rate rating agencies. Much criticism has focused on the role these major ratings agencies such as Standards & Poors and Moody’s played in certifying toxic mortgage-backed securities as “triple A”, which contributed to the 2008 meltdown on Wall Street. Conflicts of interest are explored in how these raters still are rating securities while being paid by the issuing financial firms, rather than the prospective investors, and reforms still needed.
Reforming Capital Markets and Corporate Governance – In this program, Hazel Henderson discusses with Linda Crompton, MA, MBA, pioneering Canadian bank president and mutual fund innovator, what reforms still are needed in capital markets. They review the challenges and progress over the past decades as ethical, green investing began to go mainstream which now in the USA alone comprises $6.57 trillion or 18% of total investments. Future expansion is expected as accounting reforms expose real risks such as water shortages and climate change excluded in traditional financial models.
How Adam Smith and Charles Darwin Got Hijacked – In this program, Hazel Henderson discusses with Kim Ann Curtin, author of Transforming Wall Street and CEO, The Wall Street Coach, how the two greatest icons of Western thought, Adam Smith and Charles Darwin, became distorted. Their ground-breaking research was misused by elites in 18th century Britain and later by global economics and finance. Few have read Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) which explores human behavior in families and communities as empathetic, caring and cooperative, similar to Charles Darwin’s view that humanity’s success is based on cooperation. Why did economists, financiers and elites prefer Smith’s later Wealth of Nations (1776) which described human behavior with strangers? Why did The Economist mischaracterize Darwin’s theory of natural selection with their own theory of “survival of the fittest”?
Transforming Wall Street – In this program, Hazel Henderson discusses with Kim Ann Curtin, author of Transforming Wall Street, CEO, The Wall Street Coach, her new book. Curtin interviews 50 well-known players on their moral challenges in business and finance and what values guide their behavior, asking if they read Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). Most had not, and these revealing interviews with leaders raise many key issues and how further reforms can bring more ethical practices to business and finance.
The Future of Education – In this program, Hazel Henderson discusses with Dr. William Abare, President, Flagler College, how education is changing. They explore the growing challenges to education: costs rising faster than inflation; students bearing $1.2 trillion in loans while facing disruptive technological changes and job markets shifting globally. Traditional colleges are challenged by massive open online courses (MOOCs) such as Khan Academy, backed by Bill Gates, and other start-ups now funded by Silicon Valley capitalists, with millions of students learning free online. How can the benefits of campus-based education be extended to include more student and help counter growing inequality?
The Future of Business Education – In this program, Hazel Henderson explores innovative courses with Dr. Allison Roberts, Chair of the Business Administration Department, Flagler College. They critique the values underlying much traditional business education which still teach with obsolete textbooks and assumptions that self-interest competition is “human nature”. Old courses still assume the impacts of business activities harming others and their environmental costs can be “externalized” from company balance sheets. Dr. Roberts, whose doctorate is in health and labor economics, has designed a more scientific curriculum, taking account of social and technological changes that have changed the global economy. Dr. Roberts teaches broader analyses and strategies for business success and new scorecards so that her students can prosper in the 21st century while contributing to more sustainable societies.
Reforming Business Education for Sustainable Economies – In this program, Hazel Henderson discusses with Linda Crompton, MA, MBA, pioneering Canadian bank president and mutual fund innovator, how business courses need to catch up with changes in today’s finance and business. They review the urgent need to reform curricula at business schools in North America and Europe. Many still are teaching from obsolete textbooks with faulty assumptions that still permit companies, financiers and governments to “externalize” the social and environmental impacts from their balance sheets and pass on the costs to taxpayers, citizens and the environment.
Asia’s Challenges to Western Economies – In this program, Hazel Henderson and Asian Markets Sustainability Analyst Matthew McGarvey, both China experts, review the new challenges China poses to Western economies as well as from other emerging economies in Asia. Western economists misunderstand the restructuring in China from exports toward domestic goals and shifting from polluting coal to wind, solar and the “circular economy” and their “Green GDP.” The new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIG) led by China has attracted members like Britain and other European countries, as well as the IMF. Yet, the US Congress refused to join and is now out in the cold. The rush to new mega-trade deals in Asia and the need for new rules and metrics are explored.
Transitioning Economies Towards New Values – In this program, Hazel Henderson and Asian Markets Sustainability Analyst Matthew McGarvey, who has lived in China, Vietnam and regularly visits Asia, discuss trends toward new values beyond Western GDP-measured economic growth. Asian economics’ models tend toward the Chinese view that “markets are good servants but bad masters.” Government rule-setting and oversight are favored and often authoritarian. Matt McGarvey recounts his personal journey from growing up in America’s heartland to learning Chinese and working in Beijing, and his experiences in Vietnam and other Asian countries.
Artificial Intelligence: What Happens As Machines Take Over? – In this program, Hazel Henderson and NASA Chief Scientist Dennis Bushnell discuss the new alarms raised by Bill Gates, Google’s Eric Schmidt, Space-Ex and Tesla’s founder Elon Musk and physicist Stephen Hawking that intelligent machines like IBM’s Watson may soon outsmart humans. These computer pioneers believe this could pose existential danger to human civilization – because they may not share human values and may cause us great harm. Bushnell cites all the areas where computers are already smarter and more efficient than humans: in law, medicine, accounting and will be needed in NASA’s space program. Henderson worries about the societal impacts as ever more sectors of modern economies are digitized, now displacing white collar jobs beyond earlier manufacturing automation since the 1960s. While futurists envisioned “leisure societies,” shorter work weeks, guaranteed basic incomes and flowering of culture, art and human potentials – what we got was unemployment, stagnant wages and longer work hours.
Robots Taking Over: What Will Humans Do? – In this program, Hazel Henderson and NASA Chief Scientist Dennis Bushnell explore the advance of automation as ever more sectors of industrial societies are digitized: from manufacturing to retailing, accounting, healthcare, education, legal services and even finance. Driverless vehicles will end jobs in trucking, taxis, which offer millions of entry-level opportunities. Fly-by-wire airplanes have caused the deskilling of pilots, some of whom have been confused when computerized navigation systems have failed – causing crashes. Can computerized systems be programmed with human values: empathy, compassion and ethics? Can a driverless car pass an ethical test of judgment: swerving to avoid hitting a group of people at the expense of colliding with a single person? Bushnell points out how much more efficient computers are at many tasks than humans. Henderson looks at the macro-effects: how can economies maintain aggregate demand to buy all the new productivity’s goods and services? How can people obtain purchasing power if not from jobs? They discuss alternatives emerging: worker-owned companies, cooperative enterprises and guaranteed basic incomes now enacted in Brazil, Mexico and proposed in Switzerland, Europe and the USA.
Privacy in the New Media Age: Part I – In this program, Hazel Henderson explores with law professor Jon L. Mills, former speaker in Florida’s House of Representatives, his current book, Privacy in the New Media Age. The Internet, social media, blogs, “citizen-journalists” and global news distribution pose thorny issues in all countries. While the USA favors free speech over individual rights to privacy, European countries are protecting people’s “right to be left alone” and the deletion of old records of individual behavior which may jeopardize their future employment. While Facebook and Twitter facilitated the grassroots protests and rebellions of the “Arab Spring,” these social media also helped police to track down the dissidents and their prosecution. Prof. Mills points out that technological innovations always outrun the pace of law and public responses. Different rules apply in many countries and global agreements may take decades.
Privacy in the New Media Age Versus the First Amendment: Part II – In this program, Hazel Henderson continues discussing with Professor Jon L. Mills his current book, Privacy in the New Media Age. The conversation focuses on the USA and how the Constitution favors free speech and press in the First Amendment over individual rights to privacy. Mills cites many examples of how individuals are harmed in today’s social media, by false statements by bloggers, ubiquitous cameras in public places, tracking individuals’ movements via their cellphones and GPS. They explore data-collecting by government and by corporations selling users’ personal data to advertisers, as well as snooping by drones. Again, these new technologies and media have outrun the law and public awareness and in some cases even dubious rulings by the Supreme Court.