Sujavna 2:4

It is 430pm in Mumbai on 22^nd January 2012

Does an ever-increasing absolute size of global trade and cross-border investment make economic sense when looked at from the prism of sustainable development? If every country were to start encouraging inward investments from overseas, what would happen to protection of national sovereign interests, as we know them?

These are some of the questions that I am having difficulties in answering as I am getting increasingly involved in global trade and cross-border investment.  My troubles stem from my orthodox understanding of (a) the second law of thermodynamics, which implies that you cannot have a free lunch when you need energy for growth, and (b) the basic premise of a capitalist society which dictate that capital (K) will need to be leveraged for best returns, and the best and most-durable of returns are usually found by using positions of influence that come with strategic power.

So how does one resolve such conundrums? What innovations can provide equitable options? Has the time come for the smartest and the wisest of our economists, businessmen and financiers to chart a new global economic system of trade and investment that will see the spawning of cross-border investments which will fast-track local production and local consumption activities, and that too on a very high-order of energy-efficiencies;  will reduce the demand for globally-outsourced production, large-scale shipping, transportation, warehousing; and yet avoid the pitfalls of very little local consumption or very large wastage due to limited shelf-lives or fashion-cycles!

Are such innovations possible? Or have we passed the tipping points in our universal surge for growth and development? I hope and pray that we are yet to see those innovations, which are already happening in the thought-laboratories of hundreds and thousands of the problem-solvers of the world.

Hope that you are having a wonderful weekend, and that my rants above will inspire you to join those hundreds and thousands of others who are striving to get our economic systems on the right steer. Wishing you a great week ahead.