The E-Entrepreneur

Today, I had the fortunate opportunity to listen to former US President Bill Clinton speak at the Centre for the Performing Arts in Vancouver.  This was the first time I’ve seen him live or heard him give a talk.  He sounded much older than I had expected — deep voice with his reading glasses at the tip of his noise.  He is a great speaker: he transitions from topic to topic very smoothly, and he’s got quite the humour too.  He spoke for about 1.5 hours without visual aids or a written speech, and the time flew by and there wasn’t one moment where I felt bored.  I walked out of the talk feeling inspired and I would like share a few things he mentioned.

Clinton raised 3 global concerns:

1. How do we deal with all the instability in the world?

We saw huge volatility in the financial market during the economic crisis.  Hedge funds, toxic mortgage backed securities… you name them.  The resulting poor economy has lead to financial instability for many.    Many people are unemployed or are forced to take a job with less pay.  Not only has their income taken a hit, but their confidence as well. The economic downturn has definitely placed instability beyond the financial sense, and it has impacted psychologically too.  But all over the world, it’s not just financial instability that exists today, there is also instability from terrorism, nuclear activities and even life in general.  The world is changing fast, maybe too fast for some people.  People feel threatened and insecure.

2. How do we deal with the increasing inequality?

We’ve all heard the rich only get richer and the poor only get poorer.  Well how do the poor really feel?  They are working hard day in and day, hoping their children would be able to live a better life.  But  they are not, and the poor are falling behind no matter how hard they work.   As a result, they start to feel rebellious and they develop distrust in the society.  This is what is currently happening in some of the poorer countries in South America.  People are getting tired from the inequality and have elected anti-market leaders like Hugo Chavez, because it is their only hope that things could turn around that way.

3. How do we deal with climate change?

This last topic has already been beaten to death.  Clinton didn’t talk much about it and I’m not going to write about it.  Basically the outcome from Coppenhagen was disappointing — countries are reluctant to act because they are unsure if decreasing greenhouse gas emissions would slow down the economy.

Last remark and most important of all: Clinton believes Canada deserved the Olympic Gold Medal.