Dear ATCA Colleagues

[Please note that the views presented by individual contributors are not necessarily representative of the views of ATCA, which is neutral. ATCA conducts collective Socratic dialogue on global opportunities and threats.]

We are grateful to:

. John Elkington, Chief Entrepreneur, SustainAbility, based in London, UK, and returning from India, for "Mother Convulsion - India's Third Liberation;" and
. Stephen Lendman, based in Chicago, Illinois, USA, for "Slow Motion Train Wreck" via Ashok Khosla, Chairman, Development Alternatives, New Delhi, India.
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Dear DK and Colleagues

Re: Mother Convulsion - India's Third Liberation

On August 16, the day after India celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of its Independence, I found myself standing alongside Niraj Bajaj as we watched the figures on the electronic displays at the Mumbai-based National Stock Exchange go from bad to worse - and playfully calculate how much poorer he was as the head of one of India's largest business houses as the global market correction roared through. Later the same day, on the other side of town, he chaired a session hosted by the Indian Merchants' Chamber - of which he is President - at which I gave the keynote in support of the Chamber's centennial year theme of inclusive growth in the context of globalization. My simple message was not entirely comfortable: India faces a far bigger market convulsion before the country reaches its centenary.

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Best wishes

John Elkington

John Elkington has worked in the environmental and sustainable development fields since 1972. A co-founder and then Managing Director of Environmental Data Services (ENDS) in 1978, he also co-founded SustainAbility in 1987. He served as the organisation's Chairman from 1995 to 2005, and is now Chief Entrepreneur. He chairs the Export Credits Guarantee Department's Advisory Council and The Environment Foundation, and sits on advisory boards of organisations like the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes in Switzerland and Instituto Ethos in Brazil. In 2004, BusinessWeek described him as "a Dean of the Corporate Responsibility movement for Three Decades." John has authored or co-authored 16 books, including 1988's million-selling Green Consumer Guide and Cannibals with Forks: The Triple Bottom Line of 21st Century Business (1997), and has written or co-written some 40 published reports. One current project is a book on social entrepreneurs with Pamela Hartigan of The Schwab Foundation. He is also working closely with The Skoll Foundation on a new 3-year field-building programme in relation to social entrepreneurship.
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Dear DK and Colleagues

Re: Slow Motion Train Wreck

These days, financial/market punditry seems to follow two opposite lines of thinking. It ranges from the predominant view that world economies are growing and sound, problems in them minor and fixable, and current volatility (aka turmoil) is corrective, normal and a healthy reassessing and repricing of risk. Contrarians, on the other hand, believe the sky is falling. Most often, extreme views like these turn out wrong and are best avoided. Things are never that simple and hindsight usually proves only Cassandra was good at forecasting although calling market tops and bottoms wasn't her specialty.

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Many thanks

Stephen Lendman

Stephen Lendman, based in Chicago, Illinois, was born in 1934 in Boston, Massachusetts. He received a BA from Harvard University in 1956 and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1960 following two years of obligatory military service in the US Army. He spent the next 6 years as a marketing research analyst for several large US corporations before becoming part of a new family business in 1967, remaining there until retiring at the end of 1999. He has since devoted his time and efforts to the progressive causes and organizations he support, all involved in working for a more humane and just world for all people everywhere, but especially for the most needy, disadvantaged and oppressed. His efforts include writing on various global issues of most concern to him like war and peace; social, economic and political equity for all; and justice for all the oppressed peoples of the world like the long-suffering people of Haiti and the Palestinians.

[ENDS]