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The BlackRock letter suggests that the current economic system, which has come to prioritize corporate gains and private growth above all, sees trouble ahead and is looking for ways to save itself. That animating worry is visible in the titles of sessions on the Davos schedule (Day 1 panels: “How Is Rentier Capitalism Aggravating Inequality?” and “Why Is Our World Fractured?”). And the same realization has threaded the pronouncements of the other industry and political leaders in attendance.
Clearly, all the fretting is justified. Stock markets may be at record highs, but the good times can’t last forever — especially if their benefits accrue only to a select, highly visible few. The pitch of worry increases whenever a reminder arises. Nearly every time a report about the advance of income inequality comes out — the most recent, from Oxfam last week, stated that 82 percent of all wealth created in 2017 went to the global top 1 percent — one can almost feel collars being nervously pulled in office towers around the world.
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Christine Emba, WashPost, January 26. The "BlackRock" letter, linked to in the piece, refers to an annual letter sent by Larry Fink, CEO of the $6 trillion asset management firm BlackRock, to top business leaders.
From earlier in Emba's piece:
Noting the low wage growth, dimming retirement prospects and other financial pressures that squeeze too many across the globe, he said, “I believe that these trends are a major source of the anxiety and polarization that we see across the world today.”
What should be done about this? Fink made some recommendations: “Society is demanding that companies, both public and private, serve a social purpose. To prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society.”
See also for context the chart in Jared Bernstein's (formerly an economic advisor to Biden) WashPo January 29 piece, "The economic boom is all well and good. But spreading its benefits to everyone will take serious work": https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/01/29/the-eco... (showing hourly compensation, including benefits as well as wages, to have risen 91.3% as productivity was rising 96.7%, from 1948-1973; from 1973-2016, productivity rose 73.7% and hourly compensation went up 12.3%).