COVID-19 and The Great Reset

[Lauren Johnson]

I am posting a series of articles on what has been called the Fourth Industrial Revolution, The Great Reset, Techno Fascism, and Neo Feudalism.  I will leave this space open to summarize important points.  Several articles were written pre-COVID, but it seems that the disease will be the catalyst begin the so-called great reset.

[Lauren Johnson]

FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: MISSION CREEP TOWARD A NEW WORLD ORDER (PART ONE)
by Stephen Guiness 

The concept of a New World Order is often parodied in the media as a clandestine assembly of elites all gathered around a table and plotting how to subjugate the world’s population through the implementation of a ‘One World Government‘. It is a parody that seeks to delegitimise the theory that world events are contrived as part of a globalist goal to fully centralise economic and political power at the expense of national sovereignty and individual liberty.

Whilst the mainstream portrayal of a New World Order is devised out of juvenility, the term itself is widespread within political spheres and global institutions, and cannot simply be marginalised as a baseless conspiracy.

To illustrate, in 1991 (post Cold War), former U.S. President George H. W. Bush (once a member of the Trilateral Commission) announced that the world now had an ‘opportunity to forge, for ourselves and for future generations, a New World Order.’

A world where the rule of law, not the law of the jungle, governs the conduct of nations. When we are successful – and we will be – we have a real chance at this New World Order. An order in which a credible United Nations can use its peace keeping role to fulfil the promise and vision of the UN’s founders.

Bill Clinton (former Trilateralist) came out in concurrence with Bush many years later:

After 1989 President Bush said – and it’s a phrase I often use myself – that we needed a New World Order. And instead it looks like we got a lot of disorder.

Former UK Prime Ministers Tony Blair has cited the phrase on numerous occasions when discussing the ‘transatlantic partnership‘ developed in the wake of World War Two.

Out of it came a new Europe. A New World Order. A new consensus as to how life should and could be lived.

Blair’s successor as Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has also spoken directly on the subject. Below is an extract from a speech Brown gave at the Confederation of British Industry in 2007 – a year before Lehman Brothers’ collapsed triggering the ‘Great Financial Crisis‘:

Two hundred years ago a famous British Foreign Secretary said that the new world had been called into existence to redress the balance of the old. In 1990 another old world ended, dominated by the Cold War, and people thought then of a New World Order. What they actually meant then was a new political order. And what was not foreseen then but is obvious now is the sheer scale and speed and scope of globalisation.

A new world is emerging. It is a New World Order with significantly different and radically new challenges for the future.

In the same speech, Brown commented on the ‘world order that globalisation brings‘. When you weigh this up against what the political leaders of today are saying – namely that the ‘rules based global order‘ is now under threat from a rise in nationalism and protectionism – it becomes evident that what Brown was conveying is how globalisation itself equates to the ‘rules based global order.’

One of the leading pillars of this global order rests upon free trade between nations, something which is now being challenged by the Trump administration and brought under increasing focus with the ongoing Brexit negotiations.

Whilst these and other geopolitical fall-outs influence how people interpret events, it was prior to the supposed challenge to the ‘rules based global order‘ witnessed in 2016 that the groundwork for a 21st century variant of a ‘New World Order‘ was laid.

In December 2015, Foreign Affairs magazine (published by the Council on Foreign Relations) ran an article written by the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, titled, ‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution: What it means, how to respond‘.

According to the WEF’s website, the forum was established in 1971 and ‘engages the foremost political, business and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.’

Schwab’s outline on the fundamentals of a so called Fourth Industrial Revolution can be summarised as follows:

The revolution will be all encompassing, and involve all stakeholders of the global polity (stakeholders being the public and private sectors, academia and civil society).

The first revolution, which began in the 1700s, used water and steam power to mechanise production. The second, between the 1800s and the First World War, progressed to electric power to create the mass production of goods. The third used electronics and information technology to begin the process of automating production.

The fourth revolution seeks to build on the third, and is dubbed as a ‘digital revolution‘. Schwab describes this as a ‘fusion of technologies‘ that embodies the physical, digital and biological spheres.

• Technological breakthroughs will include fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics, autonomous vehicles, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, energy storage and quantum computing.
  
• The technology behind the revolution is already emerging and growing in notoriety – for instance, with driverless cars and the use of drones.
  
• The world can expect the revolution to be a symbiosis between micro-organisms, the human body, the products people consume and the buildings we inhabit.
  
• In short, human beings will not just be mere users of this technology. Instead, they will converge with both the digital and biological worlds to become part of it.
  

As Schwab indicates, the revolution will mean ‘disrupting‘ virtually all industries in every nation on the planet, and see the systems of production, management and governance transformed.

It is this disruption that we will be focusing on, first through the communications of the WEF before expanding out to central bank officials and media coverage.

The technological innovation behind a Fourth Industrial Revolution will, according to Schwab, ‘lead to a supply-side miracle, with long-term gains in efficiency and productivity.’ Global supply chains (trade) would in theory become more effective, with the cost of doing business receding.

The professed destination point for this revolution, however, comes at a price – the displacement of workers by automation. Schwab speaks of how the future jobs market will become ‘increasingly segregated into “low-skill/low-pay” and “high-skill/high-pay” segments, which in turn will lead to an increase in social tensions.’

It is not only jobs that will be heavily impacted. Human identity, privacy, notions of ownership, consumption patterns, time devoted to work and leisure, how we develop as individuals and how we meet people and nurture relationships – all of this will change.

Schwab warns of two potential outcomes of the revolution. It could either ‘lift humanity into a new collective and moral consciousness based on a shared sense of destiny‘, or, ‘have the potential to “robotize” humanity and thus to deprive us of our heart and soul.’

Interconnected with people is the upheaval that will be caused to both business and the system of government.

Businesses will have no alternative but to adapt if they are to survive. The ‘emergence of global platforms means talent, culture and organisational forms will have to be rethought.’ Companies will therefore be forced to ‘reexamine the way they do business.’

Governments too must transform. Whilst they may acquire new technological powers to ‘increase their control over populations’ (in the shape of surveillance systems and digital infrastructure control), they will also have to keep up with the pace of technological change.

Schwab laments how ‘today’s decision-makers are too often trapped in traditional, linear thinking, or too absorbed by the multiple crises demanding their attention, to think strategically about the forces of disruption and innovation shaping our future.’

Ultimately, the ability of government and public authorities to adapt will determine if they are to survive.

Schwab is not the only WEF affiliate to comment on the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde (who along with Bank of England governor Mark Carney is on the board of trustees at the World Economic Forum), penned an article in May 2018 that was published in a joint collaboration between both organisations.

Lagarde’s piece – ‘Here are 4 building blocks for the new era of trade which will benefit everyone‘ – spoke of how the global trading environment is changing in conjunction with the rise of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Lagarde’s position is that the revolution will bring with it new challenges, ‘putting further pressure on those workers who are less well-equipped to compete.’ She proposes that policy makers increase investment in re-training workers and also in ‘social safety nets‘ (by social safety nets, one assumes she is eluding to the future prospect of a Universal Basic Income scheme).

The nub of Lagarde’s argument is how the future of trade will require more cooperation on an international level.

Over the past 70 years, countries have worked together to create a multilateral trade system that has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, while boosting incomes and living standards in all countries.

But this system needs improvement as it adapts to the new era of trade.

Because of this, Lagarde contests that now is the time for trade reforms to be implemented, ‘in a multilateral setting where rules are respected and where countries work in partnership.’ Out of these reforms will come ‘more prosperous and more peaceful communities across the world.’

The World Economic Forum published a separate article in August 2018 by Peter Engelke, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council (an institution that contains several current members of the Trilateral Commission).

In ‘Three ways the Fourth Industrial Revolution is shaping geopolitics‘, Engelke argues that innovative systems create productivity, which serves to enhance technology and in the long run benefit society. As stressed by Klaus Schwab, though, ‘disruption‘ is an unavoidable consequence of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Engelke asks whether nations in their current form are ‘sufficiently well prepared‘ for what is to come. He concludes that they are not, meaning ‘we can expect more upheavals in the future.’

Engelke makes the point that as industries are disrupted by the onset of new technology, ‘entire categories of work‘ could be made obsolete. His remedy? ‘States will need to adapt their educational, workforce and social welfare systems‘. But the technology emerging out of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is, according to Engelke, arriving ‘well ahead of the rules and standards needed to govern them.‘

In other words, global governance will be necessary to cope with the ferocity of change.

To demonstrate the true scale of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the World Economic Forum released a map detailing all of the major constructs throughout the world that will be affected. The key tenets to the revolution include disruption to jobs and skills, business disruption, innovation and productivity, agile governance, security and conflict, and the fusion of technologies.

Connecting through these tenets are a raft of concerns, some of which are blockchain, global governance, future of enterprise, workforce and employment, future of government, future of production, sustainable development, and public finance and social protection systems.

[Lauren Johnson]

(Part Two, 9/18/2018)


In part one of this series we looked at what is dubbed the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution‘ through the eyes of the World Economic Forum and the International Monetary Fund. To broaden our understanding of what the revolution means from a globalist perspective, let’s now turn our attention to the Bank of England and governor Mark Carney.

A few months ago Carney delivered two keynote speeches which addressed specifically the revolution and the current trend of a rise in protectionism throughout Europe and in the United States.

The first of these speeches was on the 21st of June, 2018, at Mansion House in London. Titled, ‘New Economy, New Finance, New Bank‘, Carney outlined a brief history of globalisation over the past two hundred years. The first wave, which he credited as beginning in the 19th century, saw the development of banking and trade credit services, and with it a large expansion in global trade. In the 20th century came the second wave and the introduction of electronic trading, the creation of the Euro-Dollar market and the arrival of emerging markets around the world.

According to Carney, with the economy now ‘on the cusp‘ of a Fourth Industrial Revolution, the infrastructure underpinning the current financial system ‘must be overhauled‘ amidst a ‘rebalancing of the global order.’

• Profound Change New Finance -- New Finance Requires a New Bank
  

Under the heading, ‘New UK Economy‘, Carney mapped out what this means. The new finance and new economy will revolve around intangible capital, meaning a rise in the use of digital money over physical coins and banknotes.

• Intangible Capital Is More Important Than Tangible Capital.  Data is the New Oil.
  

One of the most significant aspect to this ‘new economy‘ is how the Bank of England are re-building the Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS). RTGS is a system that facilitates the transfer of funds from one bank to another and, in Carney’s own words, is the ‘backbone of every payment in the UK.’ New private payment systems will incorporate distributed ledger technology – the technology that is integrated within the blockchain system of cryptocurrencies.

The customer, not cash, will reign supreme.

• Such a system of ‘instantaneous electronic payments‘ means that checkout ‘can be eliminated‘.
  

The new RTGS will be able to ‘capture richer data on every payment made‘, with the BOE looking at using the corporate identifier ‘The Legal Entity Indentifier (LEI)’ in all UK payment systems. This would mean every transaction undertaken through these new systems could be traced directly back to its users. The LEI works to a global standard and would be a format that ‘defines international best practice‘. To deflect concerns of a breach of privacy, Carney used the excuses of combating terrorism financing and preventing money laundering to justify the inclusion of LEI.

The globalist push for an overhaul of the payments system, in which intangible capital becomes more important than tangible capital, is designed to restrict anonymity and lead to the gradual abolition of physical money. Cash payments are not traceable to the individual. For globalists to gain further control of the financial system, digital money must become the leading choice of payment.

The overriding theme in Carney’s Mansion House speech is one of change, in so far as ‘a new economy, a new world and new demographics demand a new financial system.’

• That’s why we are building the infrastructure so that UK households and businesses can transact anywhere, anytime with anyone whether around the corner or around the world.
  

• That means connections between small businesses in Scunthorpe and their clients in Shanghai and between households in Belfast and firms in Bangalore.
  

In return for participating in this new financial system, the individual will have no option but to relinquish their right to anonymity. Transactions will take place through this new system (‘Data is the new oil‘), and given that physical money is gradually being made obsolete, those unwilling to take part risk rendering themselves destitute. The eventuality of a cashless society is essential for the new system to function as globalists intend.

In conclusion, Carney explicitly stated that the Bank of England ‘now have a balance sheet fit for a new world order, with greater reliance on markets in a wider range of reserve currencies.’

Two weeks on from Mansion House, Carney attended the Northern Powerhouse Business Summit to deliver a speech called, ‘From Protectionism to Prosperity.’

Repeating how the global economy is on the cusp of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Carney also emphasised that this decade has seen the first fall in real incomes since the middle of the 19th century,’in the wake of a global financial crisis, and in the midst of a technological revolution that will change the very nature of work.’

Technological revolutions of the magnitude that Carney describes mean that ‘painful periods of adjustment‘ are unavoidable. Multiple jobs will be permanently lost because of automation and artificial intelligence.

It can take more than a generation for new skills to be acquired. And decades can pass before gains in productivity flow through to the wages of all workers.

According to Carney, the main lesson from the first three Industrial Revolutions is that in order to create opportunities for everyone, ‘fundamental changes‘ to labour markets, social welfare and the education system are a necessity.

Important to recognise here is that this speech was specifically focused on two areas – finance and trade – with both perceived by Carney as ‘critical to determining the extent to which the new technologies can bring opportunity for all.’

Here is a summary of the main points covered by Carney in relation to protectionism and monetary policy.

Protectionism

• The benefits of globalised trade have not been spread equally, resulting in citizens from advanced countries feeling left behind. From this protectionist sentiment has risen, prompting Carney to ask the question – ‘what could a period of de-globalisation mean for the economic outlook‘?
  
• Up until now, protectionism has been resisted by the G20 group of nations.
  

• The effects of protectionism challenging globalisation are three fold – reduced trade flows, disrupted supply chains and higher import costs. Carney warned that tariffs implemented by the Trump administration could see them rise to levels not seen in over fifty years.
  

• The initial impact of higher tariffs would be inflationary.
  

• Global and UK GDP would weaken if tariffs are widespread.
  

• Over the long term, ‘reduced productivity growth would be expected to compound output losses from a sustained trade war.’
  

• Historically there is a strong relationship between trade openness and productivity. A reduction in trade drags on productivity.
  

Monetary Policy

• In a general trade war, it is ‘unlikely that financial conditions would prove as robust as in previous years, or that monetary policy could be as supportive.’
  
• Trade uncertainty could ‘crystallise longstanding risks of a snap back in long term interest rates’ and see a ‘general tightening in global financial conditions.’
  

• The implications of protectionist measures will depend on the ‘balance of their effects on demand, supply, the exchange rate and import prices.’
  

• Carney asked if what we are witnessing on trade is a ‘temporary skirmish or the new normal.’ Implications will hinge on how quickly tariffs are passed through to prices, and whether they impact on productivity.
  

Despite the warnings of tighter monetary policy and a rise in prices, Carney affirmed that the Fourth Industrial Revolution provided ‘the opportunities to pursue new approaches to trade.’ Recall at this point how in part one of this series we learnt of IMF head Christine Lagarde’s perspective on a ‘new era of trade.’

For Carney, the opportunities forged by the revolution include scenarios where the future may ‘belong to small and medium sized firms, with platforms like Amazon giving direct stakes in local and global markets.’ Rather than small businesses gaining the ascendancy, this creates the impression that the future economic model envisioned by central banks will be channelled through major corporations and not independent enterprise.

As well as this, international service providers could gain entry into domestic markets. This would, in Carney’s view, improve customer choice, lower prices and result in a likely increase in productivity.

This does not change the fact, however, that severe disruption will be caused as the revolution is implemented. Large swathes of people (estimated to be in the hundreds of millions) ‘could be forced to change where and how they work.’ The potential disruption to growth could lead to ‘rising inequality‘. But the globalist standpoint is that the benefits will in the end out-way the drawbacks. The opportunities that Carney speaks of include changing the trading system to become ‘more inclusive by bringing freer trade to SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises) and to services, and for all businesses to be supported by a new finance which harnesses the promises of the 4th Industrial Revolution.’

With the Fourth Industrial Revolution being a global concept, it is quite probable that the direction of Mark Carney’s speeches was shaped by two significant events that came before Mansion House and the Northern Powerhouse Business Summit.

From May 31st to June 2nd, Carney was present at the G7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors’ Meeting in Charlevoix, Canada. Topics up for discussion were: Addressing Global Risks and Promoting a More Level International Playing Field, Adapting to Change in a Modern Economy (challenges associated with technological change), and Balancing the Risks and Potential Benefits of Crypto-Assets.

It was during this meeting where bankers raised concerns over how the implementation of trade tariffs would ‘undermine open trade and confidence in the global economy.’ Cooperation between nations was also seen to be at risk by ‘trade actions against other members.’

The second event – from the 7th to the 10th of June – saw Carney attend the latest Bilderberg meeting in Turin, Italy. The agenda included: Populism in Europe, The Inequality challenge, The future of work, Artificial intelligence and Free trade.

Whether Carney’s subsequent communications were influenced by these events or not, it is beyond doubt that a majority of the subjects raised in Charlevoix and Turin tie directly in with the Fourth Industrial Revolution narrative.

[Lauren Johnson]

How We Arrived at the Globalist Calls for a "Great Reset"

The unveiling on June 3rd by the World Economic Forum of ‘The Great Reset‘ agenda appears on the surface to be a newly devised concept created directly in response to Covid-19. As it turns out the first soundings of a ‘reset‘ were actually made as far back as 2014.

To appreciate the significance of the WEF’s intervention, it is important first to recognise the years leading up to 2020 and how they laid the foundations for where we are today.

2014
Each January the WEF host their annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. In 2014, Christine Lagarde, who was then the managing director of the IMF, called for a ‘reset‘ of monetary policy, the financial sector regulatory environment and structural reforms of global economies.

Lagarde was adamant that a reset was required ‘in the way in which the economy grows around the world‘.  Fleshing this out, Lagarde cited the dangers to financial stability due to ‘bubbles developing here and there‘, the over 200 million globally who were unemployed and economic growth being too slow.

Despite these concerns, Lagarde’s view was that fiscal consolidation within national economies was still necessary in order to control spending and ensure the post 2008 ‘recovery‘.

In January 2019 I posted an article that went into detail about the monetary policy aspect of the ‘reset‘ promoted by Lagarde (Monetary Policy ‘Reset’: From Rhetoric to Actuality). I raised how at the time of Lagarde’s intervention the Federal Reserve were tapering their asset purchasing scheme (quantitative easing), introduced in the aftermath of the collapse of Lehman Brothers that triggered the 2008 financial crisis.

Come the end of 2014, the Fed had called a halt entirely to QE. A year later in December 2015, they began to raise interest rates for the first time in over a decade and would later go on to introduce an asset reduction programme where the central bank began to roll off assets from its balance sheet.

For Lagarde, international cooperation would be essential for a reset to succeed. Without nations cooperating, it would likely be fraught with instability and market turbulence. In an interview with Bloomberg at the time of the WEF meeting, Lagarde stressed the importance of the ‘medium term‘ when it came to achieving the reset:

The short term collides with the medium term but the question is to bring the medium term into the personal, political and corporate equation. And that’s the job of the IMF.

2015
Looking back, 2015 was a highly significant year that saw global planners state quite openly their ambitions for a New World Order to be implemented over the next decade and a half.

First came the unveiling of the United Nation’s derived Agenda 2030 in September, and with it seventeen main objectives known as the Sustainable Development Goals. Agenda 2030 was adopted by the 193 members of the UN, with adoption coinciding with the 70th anniversary of the institution’s existence.

Chief amongst the seventeen goals were to end poverty by 2030 and for there to be zero hunger. Action on climate change was also needed, as was the creation of sustainable cities and communities and good health and wellbeing (which the UN directly associate with vaccinating families).

Agenda 2030 replaced the Millennium Development Goals, which were introduced in 2000 and encompassed a series of targets to be completed by 2015. According to the UN, ‘enormous progress‘ had been made ‘but more needs to be done‘.

To get a sense of what the UN means by ‘more‘, when the Sustainable Development Goals were signed off Claire Melamed, who in 2015 was Director of the global think tank Overseas Development Institute, told the BBC:

If they’re going to be met we’re going to have to see huge amounts of money. We’re going to have see governments behaving in a completely different way. We’re going to have to see companies totally changing their business practices. It can be done, but the real question is whether we want to do it enough.

Melamed is now the Chief Executive Officer of Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data. Amongst the organisation’s funding partner’s are the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is a prominent organisation in the drive for a vaccine to immunise people against Covid-19.

In December 2015, three months after the announcement of Agenda 2030, came the founding of the Paris Climate Agreement at the COP21 conference. The agreement ties directly into the United Nations and operates within the bounds of the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, and was the first ever universal and legally binding agreement adopted on the subject.

To achieve the goals of the agreement, one of which is limiting global warming to below two degrees, ‘appropriate financial flows, a new technology framework and an enhanced capacity building framework will be put in place, thus supporting action by developing countries and the most vulnerable countries, in line with their own national objectives.’

So far, 189 countries have ratified the agreement out of 197 that were present at the Paris conference. In October 2016, the required threshold was reached for the accord to enter into force.

2016
With Agenda 2030 and the Paris Climate Agreement now set in motion, the World Economic Forum (which fully endorses the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals) ran with the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) as the theme for it’s annual meeting. I wrote about this in 2018 (Fourth Industrial Revolution: Mission Creep towards a New World Order – Part One) and picked up on how the executive chairman of the WEF, Klaus Schwab, described the impact that the Fourth Industrial Revolution would have on the world.

First, it would be all encompassing and involve all stakeholders of the global polity, meaning full engagement with the public and private sectors, academia and civil society. Some aspects to the revolution include disruption to jobs and skills, business disruption, innovation and productivity, agile governance and security and conflict.

Second, connecting through these areas are a whole raft of concerns which comprise the rise of blockchain technology, global governance, the future of enterprise, workforce and employment, the future of government, the future of production, sustainable development and social protection systems.

The revolution is dubbed as a digital revolution, one where the ‘fusion of technologies‘ embodying the physical, digital and biological spheres come together. Artificial intelligence, robotics, nano and bio technology are all part of the vision for 4IR.

Schwab made it very plain that the world can expect the revolution to be a ‘symbiosis between micro-organisms, the human body, the products people consume and the buildings we inhabit.’  One consequence of this is that human beings will no longer just be users of technology, rather they will start to converge with both the digital and biological worlds to become part of it. A second consequence is that every industry on the planet will be subjected to a degree of ‘disruption‘ as the 4IR advances, resulting in the systems of production, management and governance being transformed.

It does not stop there. Outside of jobs, human identity, privacy, notions of ownership, consumption patterns, the time devoted to work and leisure, how we develop as individuals and how we meet people and nurture relationships will all have to change to accommodate 4IR. Since the onset of Covid-19, many of these things have already undergone significant ‘disruption‘

Soon after the 2016 WEF meeting, the world experienced substantial geopolitical ructions with the UK voting to leave the European Union and Donald Trump being elected as the United States’ 45th President.

2019
Three years after they signalled major technological, political and societal change was coming, the World Economic Forum were back with a new theme – ‘Globalization 4.0: Shaping a New Architecture in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution‘. It was a subject I covered in an article published around the time (Why Dismissing Globalist Warnings as ‘Project Fear’ May Prove a Mistake).

Executive chairman Klaus Schwab was at it again, reiterating that ‘our systems of health, transportation, communication, production, distribution, and energy – just to name a few – will be completely transformed.’ Included in the breadth of transformation would be blockchain and distributed ledger technology, two fundamental components in the drive towards a global digital currency network.

In talking about ‘Globalization 4.0‘, Schwab described the present day as an ‘era of widespread insecurity and frustration‘, and went on to blame this environment for a rise in populism.

What Schwab did not make direct mention of is how a resurgence of protectionist tendencies was assisting the WEF in being able to push the argument for 4IR. The greater the level of global disunity, the more opportunity that groups like the WEF have in being able to cultivate the concept of a New World Order and convince people of its necessity. Globalization 4.0 is a facet of 4IR, a vision that Schwab is unreservedly committed to:

Globalization 4.0 has only just begun, but we are already vastly underprepared for it. Clinging to an outdated mindset and tinkering with our existing processes and institutions will not do. Rather, we need to redesign them from the ground up, so that we can capitalize on the new opportunities that await us, while avoiding the kind of disruptions that we are witnessing today.

‘Ready or not‘, Schwab warned, ‘a new world is upon us‘.

Five months on from the WEF meeting, the Bank for International Settlements introduced a new concept called the ‘BIS Innovation Hub‘, also known as ‘Innovation BIS 2025‘. This is a topic I have also written about previously (Innovation BIS 2025: A Stepping Stone Towards an Economic ‘New World Order’).

The BIS described the Hub as a medium term strategy consisting of three main elements:

• Identify and develop in-depth insights into critical trends in technology affecting central banking
  
• Develop public goods in the technology space geared towards improving the functioning of the global financial system
  
• Serve as a focal point for a network of central bank experts on innovation
  

When launching the hub, BIS General Manager Agustin Carstens spoke of ‘reshaping the financial landscape‘ following ‘the scars left by the financial crisis‘. According to Carstens, now was the time to set about reforming the way that the central banking community operates.

When digging down into the BIS Innovation Hub, it becomes clear that at the core of the project is the creation of central bank digital currency (CBDC). In practice, this would mean the abolition of tangible assets such as banknotes and coins and see the creation of a new form of digital money issued by central banks.

Global payment systems are in the process of being reformed to accommodate the use of blockchain and distributed ledger technology, and central banks are now beginning to disseminate technological detail for how a CBDC could be issued.

As it stands, a volatile geopolitical climate, exacerbated by Covid-19 and the unproven fear that handling physical money could transmit the virus, is assisting the BIS in their ambitions for completely resetting how the general public will interact with central bank money over the coming years.

[Lauren Johnson]

[Lauren Johnson]

A Breakdown of the Great Reset by Steven Guiness

Last month I posted an article that looked at the World Economic Forum as the institution behind ‘[i]The Great Reset[/i]‘ agenda that was launched in June. One of the main themes of the article was the WEF’s ‘[i]Strategic Intelligence platform’, [/i]which the organisation describe as ‘[i][b]a dynamic system of contextual intelligence that enables users to trace relationships and interdependencies between issues, supporting more informed decision-making[/b][/i]‘.
As I made reference to, Strategic Intelligence is the mechanism which brings all the interests that the WEF focus on together. This includes specific countries and industries, as well as global issues like Covid-19 and the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
When you look into Strategic Intelligence, one aspect to it that quickly becomes apparent is how each global issue and industry intertwines with one another. For instance, Covid-19 is a strand of ‘[i]The Great Reset[/i]‘ and vice versa. What this does is create the impression that only a collectivised approach incorporating all ‘[i]stakeholders[/i]‘ has the capacity to deal with crises on a global scale. The WEF is built upon the belief that nations and corporations must be interdependent and seek to remedy the world’s problems through the medium of global institutions.
So it is little surprise then that the WEF have devised through their Strategic Intelligence platform ‘[i]The Great Reset[/i]‘. What this entails can be catagorised into two parts. First are the seven leading objectives for achieving the reset. In no particular order these are:

1. [b]Shaping the Economic Recovery[/b]
   
   
2. [b]Harnessing the Fourth Industrial Revolution[/b]
   
   
3. [b]Strengthening Regional Development[/b]
   
   
4. [b]Revitalizing Global Cooperation[/b]
   
   
5. [b]Developing Sustainable Business Models[/b]
   
   
6. [b]Restoring the Health of the Environment[/b]
   
   
7. [b]Redesigning Social Contracts, Skills and Jobs[/b]
   

Next comes a mix of global issues and industries woven into ‘[i]The Great Reset[/i]‘ agenda. At last count there were over fifty areas that make up the reset. These include:

[b]Blockchain; [/b][b]Digital Identity; [/b][b]Internet Governance; [/b][b]Development Finance; [/b][b]Sustainable Development; [/b][b]Future of Health and Healthcare; [/b][b]Global Governance; [/b][b]Financial and Monetary Systems; [/b][b]Public Finance and Social Protection; [/b][b]Climate Change; [/b][b]Drones; [/b][b]5G; [/b][b]The Ocean; [/b][b]Banking and Capital Markets; [/b][b]Aviation, Travel and Tourism; [/b][b]International Trade and Investment; [/b][b]Covid-19; [/b][b]Biodiversity; [/b][b]Cities and Urbanization; [/b][b]Leadership in the 4IR; [/b][b]Geo-economics; [/b][b]Global Health; [/b][b]International Security; [/b][b]Geopolitics; [/b][b]Future of Food; [/b][b]Air Pollution; [/b][b]3D Printing; [/b][b]Batteries; [/b][b]Circular Economy; [/b][b]Future of Mobility; [/b][b]Human Rights; [/b][b]Gender Parity; [/b][b]Taxation; [/b][b]Future of Media, Entertainment and Culture; [/b][b]Digital Economy and New Value Creation; [/b][b]Fourth Industrial Revolution; [/b][b]Future of Economic Progress; [/b][b]Workforce and Employment; [/b][b]Agile Governance; [/b][b]Global Risks; [/b][b]Advanced Manufacturing and Production; [/b][b]Environment and Natural Resource Security; [/b][b]Plastics and the Environment; [/b][b]Corporate Governance; [/b][b]Forests; [/b][b]Justice and Law; [/b][b]Civic Participation; [/b][b]LGBTI Inclusion; [/b][b]Inclusive Design; [/b][b]Future of Computing; [/b][b]Artificial Intelligence and Robotics; [/b][b]Systemic Racism[/b]

As mentioned, all these subjects intermix throughout Strategic Intelligence. The distinction comes in the fact that the World Economic Forum have identified ‘[i]The Great Reset[/i]‘ as the one issue that can bind all these other areas of concern together to try and bring about an economic and societal ‘[i]new world order[/i]‘. So much so that when announcing the initiative in June, the WEF confirmed that the reset will be the theme of its annual Davos meeting in Switzerland come January 2021. In previous years the WEF have only published details of an upcoming theme a few weeks before the meeting takes place. This time, however, they have given over six months notice, which suggests the level of significance that the WEF have placed on ‘[i]The Great Reset[/i]‘.
Having ascertained the seven main objectives and the plethora of industries and issues tied to them, let’s now get a sense of the motivations behind the reset from those who are calling for it.
The Founder and Executive Chairman of the institution, Klaus Schwab, and the IMF Managing Director, Kristalina Georgieva, are two of the most prominent voices.
Beginning with Schwab, in articles posted on the WEF website ([i]Now is the time for a ‘great reset’[/i] and [i]COVID-19’s legacy: This is how to get the Great Reset right[/i]) and during several interviews that can be found on the WEF’s Youtube channel, Schwab summarises why he considers an economic, societal, geopolitical, environmental and technological reset to be essential.
From Schwab’s perspective, there are numerous reasons why a Great Reset should be pursued, but Covid-19 is the most urgent of them all. Not only has the virus demonstrated that existing systems are no longer fit for purpose, it has also ‘[b][i]accelerated our transition into the age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution[/i][/b]‘. For those unfamiliar with the Fourth Industrial Revolution, this was a concept that the World Economic Forum led with for their 2016 Davos meeting. Back in 2018 I published a brief overview of 4IR which can be found here.
With systems not suited to the 21st century, Schwab spoke of the urgency to ‘[i][b]restore a functioning system of smart global cooperation structured to address the challenges of the next 50 years[/b][/i].’ To achieve this, all stakeholders of global society will have to be integrated into a ‘[i][b]community of common interest, purpose and action[/b][/i]‘. No one, it seems, is permitted to be left behind. We go as one, as a collective, whether an individual likes it or not. Every country will need to take part. Every industry must be transformed. This, according to Schwab, will signify a Great Reset of capitalism and a new era of prosperity.
But what if all stakeholders don’t band together behind the initiative? In Schwab’s view, to be dis-united ‘[i][b]will lead to more polarisation, nationalism, racism, increased social unrest and conflicts[/b][/i]‘. In short, a greater level of chaos and degradation of systems, leaving the world more fragile and less sustainable.
Schwab has insisted that to avoid this scenario, minor changes will not suffice. Instead, ‘[i][b]entirely new foundations for our economic and social systems[/b][/i]‘ must be built. Covid-19, therefore, is an ‘[i][b]historical moment to shape the system for a post Corona era[/b][/i].’ It is an opportunity that Schwab says must not be missed.
Schwab went further a few weeks after the Great Reset was launched. As many are aware, using crisis as an opportunity to bring about major economic and societal change is a notorious strategy of global planners. And every so often some of those planners suggest as much.  According to Schwab, ‘[i][b]acute crises favour introspection and foster the potential for transformation[/b][/i]‘. The Prince of Wales, who fully endorses the Great Reset, said something similar in that ‘[i][b]unprecedented shockwaves of crisis may make people more receptive to bigger visions of change[/b][/i]‘.
This begs the question – does the same level of potential for change exist without the onset of crises? To a small extent, perhaps, but more likely is that until a population is faced with a threat or danger that they believe risks being detrimental to them personally, the motivation to act and call for reform is not as urgent. Minds need to be concentrated on the seeming disaster at hand before sufficient support can be gained for the policies that global planners seek.
And if minds can be concentrated, then as Schwab points out, ‘[i][b]a new world could emerge, the contours of which it is incumbent on us to re-imagine and to re-draw[/b][/i]‘.
Many of the policies that global figureheads desire are within the purview of the the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which Schwab and his ilk have been promoting as essential since the back end of 2015. Now a global crisis of sufficient magnitude has presented an opening to further the goals of the global elite. Did this happen by coincidence or by design? Truthfully, no one can say for sure. Whilst the World Economic Forum were part of a pandemic simulation exercise a few months before the world entered into a live pandemic, this is not incontrovertible evidence of what some are now referring to as a ‘[i]plandemic[/i]‘.
When the Great Reset agenda was unveiled, one of the other leading proponents was IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva. She declared it of ‘[i][b]paramount importance[/b][/i]‘ that a future return to economic growth must encompass a ‘[i][b]greener, smarter and fairer world[/b][/i]‘. There is no need to wait, said Georgieva. The world must act now.
One of the most important takeaways from Georgieva’s intervention was her admission that ‘[i][b]the digital economy is the big winner of this crisis[/b][/i]‘. We have seen this already through the exponential growth in central banks discussing the issuance of their own digital currencies and using Covid-19 as a reason to reinforce calls for a new global economic ‘[i][b]architecture[/b][/i]‘.
In a speech to Italy’s National Consultation in June ([i]Italy, Europe and the Global Recovery in 2021[/i]), Georgieva said that Covid-19 ‘[i][b]may have accelerated the digital transformation by two or three years[/b][/i]‘. The unproven fear of cash being a transmitter of the virus, along with people relying on contactless payments and online transactions, have no doubt contributed to her outlook.
Georgieva’s focus is on ‘[i][b]the economy of tomorrow[/b][/i]‘, which is reason enough for her that the ‘[i][b]economy of yesterday[/b][/i]‘ should be consigned to history. Entirely new foundations are required, not a rework of the failed systems of old. If it sounds like Georgieva and Schwab are reading from the same script, I would suggest that they are.
Georgieva believes that 2021 is a make or break year for the Great Reset. Either the world chooses more cooperation or more fragmentation.  According to her, ‘[i][b]this is the moment to decide that history will look back on this as the Great Reset, not the Great Reversal[/b][/i]‘.
As you might have guessed, ‘[i][b]the most important anchor of recovery[/b][/i]‘ is for a Covid-19 vaccination, which Georgieva hopes will be available at scale by 2021. The implication is that without a vaccine the world will be unable to return to any sense of normality, particularly in terms of open interaction with your fellow man. Only with a vaccine and supplementary treatments can there be a ‘[i][b]fully fledged recovery[/b][/i]‘.
To support the drive for a Great Reset, in July Klaus Schwab co-wrote a book with Thierry Malleret (who founded the Global Risk Network at the World Economic Forum) called ‘[i]Covid-19: The Great Reset[/i]‘. In a follow up article I will be looking at some aspects to the book, and also will make an argument for why the idea of a ‘[i]Great Reversal[/i]‘ might not be as detrimental to global planners as the likes of Kristalina Georgieva make out.

Source: https://stevenguinness2.wordpress.com/20...eat-reset/