May 16 Blog

[mitch gold]

As I prepared myself for today's blog by going for a Fishing day with
some friends of my friend Jim. (James Ashbell Rogers - Nationally
Published Architect from Phoenix, Arizona) One of the fellows was
diagnosed recently with terminal cancer and "the boys" were getting
together for a "tribute" to the life and friendship of Louis - whom I
had just met. I was invited to go for the trip. John (Electrical
Contractor from Phoenix area), Mark (from Michigan, now Phoenix),
brother Bob (from Rochester NY, Luis, Jim and I went for a beautiful
Puerto Penasco day on the fishing vessel called Pancho Villa - with
Captain Christopher, and Juan who looked after us. We had thought
that Ray would be coming with us. But Captain Ray had other things to
do. It was a beautiful day catching a glimpse of a whale and sea
lion, and a number of dolphins as we returned to port. The catch of
the day was cut up, sauteed, and fried right on board and while we did
not catch a lot of fish - we had enough for a beautiful dinner. The
margaritas were pretty good too. Captain and crew certainly made sure
we were looked after. So we all enjoyed a beautiful sunset and off
for another day.

Today - CNN - Fared Zakaria brought an interesting group of people
together today. I listened as closely as I could to see if there was
something I might learn from their knowledge and wisdom.
The selection of these four people is curious at best.
Lawrence Summers - former President of Harvard University and current
Economic Advisor to Barack Obama.
Christine Lagarde - French Minister of Finance - politically
developing Islamic finance model
Dominique Strauss -Kauhn - World Bank President (currently vying to be
the next President of France) and more concerned about his
professional positioning than actually using the World Bank to
accomplish anything of significant value.
Tharman Shanmugaratnam - Finance Minister of Singapore - graduate of
the Harvard Public Administration - a well spoken political shill

Of course I have a slight bias against Lawrence Summers - only
because of his connection to Harvard and even more so as he is White
House Advisor to the President. And upon closer analysis certainly he
must have ingrained in him the Milton Friedman Economic thinking model
- as most if not all Harvardites are. Many may not be concerned with
this aspect of American economic thinking - but I think it is about
time Harvard trained economists go back to school and learn why
Standards like the ISO 26000 need to be used in Corporate Accounting
and guidance pricniples. Of course we need to move beyond Triple
Bottom Line Accounting - These participants do not even acknowledge
the existence of Triple bottom line accounting in their perspective of
the future . It is our opinion that we need to move beyond Triple
Bottom Line thinking. And I think in this regard Christine Largarde
may be the only person at the table that might support that
perspective.

Of course I would love any to prove this observation wrong and to
cite some particular Policy statements in that regard.

Also at the discussion table was Tharman Shanmugaratnam from
Singapore. I wondered why he was there at all - but his degree in
Public Administration from Harvard quickly dispelled my curiosity as
to why a finance minister from a country with a GDP that is 49th in
the world and a population of under 5 million people was chosen to
share his knowledge and wisdom on CNN. Why might it be relevant is
open to conjecture. But for certain he looks better than I do if I
were to be asked. And my political baggage is non-existent coming
from Canada and never having held a political office.

To understand why I have my opinions you may care to look at the
recent IMF Governance conference and the follow up to the Copenhagen
Conference where both the World Bank and the IMF shirked their
responsibility in taking an active roles in the Funding proposition of
the Accords. . And Dominique Straus Kahn - while his position at the
World Bank seems to give him the credibility to be interviewed - I
find the IMF and the World Bank as much of the problem of the day as
any that we might point the finger at for NOT even discussing the ISO
26000 Standard and its implications at regular fora dealing with
"regulation" when they clearly speak the words that they are for a
new regulatory climate - using the term " a must". They would rather
continue to argue what it might be rather than to look at what the ISO
is and how the ISO where the UNGC have managed to arrive at after
four years of challenging work.

It is true that Christine Lagarde the French Finance Minister is the
only one whom we might be in common mind with at the table as she
calls for "standards to be applied" and to keep them simple. Upon
closer examination she expresses her bias as an intention to make
Paris an important center of Islamic finance a notion that was not
discussed on the program - nor its meaning in terms of an
understanding of the distinction between Muslim Financial models and
"other" capitalistic models. Most certainly Islamic finance needs to
be addressed more clearly in the ISO 26000 Standards - a distinction
and discussion I have been attempting to integrate into the
application of the ISO 26000 Standard (unsuccessfully) . SO it is
important that her perspective be understood.

During the CNN program GPS today one of the above participants
represented that Canada would not support a Global Tax. Such a
statement is not true as Canada has passed a motion to support the
Tobin Tax stating in law: "That, in the opinion of the House, the
government should enact a tax on financial transactions in concert
with the international community." This is Canadian Law and as soon
as the International Community accepts this - perhaps someone might
see the application of the UTU (or alternative) as a support tool for
instant implementation.

I find it curious that no one at the table uses the term Tobin Tax
on this program all the while introducing more confusing notions of
tax as the Fat Tax or a notion of Global Tax.

It is also curious that none seem to be aware that Global Guidance
standards have been argued for over 4 years and the final iteration
will be published this October. Mr. Dominique. Strauss Kahn has no
excuse for not being aware unless of course he did not read the IMF
Governance Report fully where we were able to have two references made
to the ISO 26000 Standard. Of course others may say it is not
published yet - so why all the fuss?

Those that are reading this might find some of the references
confusing. They ought not to. But we will endeavour to answer any
questions as to the integrity that we are operating with in concert
with the application of the ISO 26000 Standard, the UTU (or
alternative) and the developing of support mechanisms through the
United Nations Systems based upon the MOU between the ISO organization
and the United Nations Global Compact.

As I read my own blog I think it is clear that it ought to be re
written by someone involved in communications. My style sucks.! any
takers?