The already rich is getting richer. The gaps increase. The French economist Thomas Piketty achieved rock star status when he sat in the spring fortune discussion on the map with his book “capital of the 21st century”.
first Be aware of that you not only are citizens of your country, but also citizens of the world.
2. realize that your and your children’s living conditions much more will depend on the behavior of citizens of countries other than yours and your countrymen’s behavior.
third Take for you, but a global supranational political governing body that can manage global risks, the probability of mega-disasters incomparably greater.
fourth Require action of your elected politicians! Away with cones – you can not afford them!
“Do you have any good suggestions on how to do with the great fortunes of the world? “asks Mr Szombatfalvy when I after long persuasion hits him in his home for an exclusive interview.
I shake my head.
“But I have,” he says, smiling and sets in motion:
“Thomas Piketty solution is an almost confiscatory, progressive wealth tax on large fortunes. They are created mostly by talented people develop businesses that will be worth several billion. it benefits all of society and it would be unwise to slow down the process. “
” I think it’s much better to put the shock afterwards, but before the great wealth distributed among the heirs. But the money will not end up in the treasury without charitable foundations and the rich should themselves able to decide what purpose they are used to. “
I will not be surprised. For it is exactly what he did, Hungarian-born László Szombatfalvy.
“When I was four years ago suggested my wife that we would put the lion’s share of our fortune of ten million shares in Castellum in a foundation she did not want to be with. She thought it would be a waste of money in this context would not make any difference. “
But he had decided. They shared the wealth through a division of property within marriage – five million shares in Castellum today is worth more than half a billion crowns to his wife, and as much to him. The shares slussade he two rounds to his newly formed Foundation Global Challenges Foundation. His aim was to reduce the risks Foundation for the really big disasters that threaten humanity.
It is quite a long 87-year old man wearing white shirt and gray pants that receives me in the hall. A number of stuffed animals by size larger stands out in the otherwise traditional, classy Östermalm floor.
“They are easy to care for,” he says, laughing.
We sit down on the couch in the den around the time that leaders from 125 countries of the world begins to rub the sleep from your eyes morning in New York. The calendar is September 23, and they are invited by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon to Climate Summit. About an hour after the doors flung open and actor and climate ambassador Leonardo DiCaprio has opening talked hopes Ban Ki Moon on concrete actions by both politicians and the business community. László Szombatfalvy are more hesitant.
“I have no great hopes. At best, they agree that they need to cooperate and that it is important that we really do something. But I hope I’m wrong.”
In retrospect, it was established that UN chief achieved some success with some new promises. However, no binding.
“My eyesight is not explained by the inherent pessimism without the knowledge that it is a system error.”
He gets a little more comfortable the sofa and drinking a sip of water.
“Unfortunately, the international political system has not kept pace with developments. The new world society lacks political control. The politicians recognize, for example, now that the climate issue is important and that it involves huge risks, but they can not agree on the necessary measures. Even less about the ethical issues how costs should be distributed between countries nor our liability for our children, grandchildren and their future generations. Now it’s short-term national interests that control. “
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Do you think the UN is not working?
“The UN had a very important main objectives, namely to secure eternal peace after the atomic bomb. But the design was a compromise that makes it impossible for the UN to reach more of their goals. It was obvious from the outset. In 1958 came the most detailed proposal on how the UN should be reformed. Since then, several, even more dangerous, global threats identified that require global solutions and global political governance. “To find a working model of a global governing body, preferably through a reform of the UN, is one of the main tasks of the Global Challenge Foundation and László Szombatfalvys own heart issue.
“The foundation will accelerate the creation of a global legal system with incomparably better conditions for efficient, rational and fair dealing with the current and future global problems and risks,” says the foundation’s bylaws. It should be done in two ways. And by disseminating information about the current political system is not able to handle the largest global problems and what this means for risks to humanity. Partly by initiating and funding research on how an acceptable global governance model would look like.
He gets up, goes over to the bookshelf across the room and pick up a brick with the title “World Peace through World Team”, written by two American lawyers in the 1950s.
“This book contains a lot of good ideas on how the UN should be reformed even if it is over fifty years old.”
The book is a part of the identification of existing ideas about a new global legal order as the Global Challenge Foundation so far spent some time on. Now, the Foundation shall examine the points on which the existing ideas deficiencies and then try to find ways to correct the situation.
The journey towards a new functional global decision-making bodies, probably a UN redesigned from the ground up, has begun. But of course he does not count to be there when and if it is introduced.
“I know two things. One is that a global legal system become reality sooner or later, and that it does not happen in my lifetime.”
Mr Szombatfalvys experienced the Second World War, up close as a teenager. His memories of war atrocities made him always seen the need for a global bodies like the United Nations to keep the peace. He strongly dislike the arms race in the world and see a complete disarmament as the best way forward.
“The world’s total military expenditure is between 27 and 30 billion per day, and the trend has been upward. This of course is the world’s largest waste of human and material resources, especially given that virtually all states assert they want peace. By creating a global legal system with a central UN force that ensures all state security, we could save 20 billion per day. If we bring forward the introduction of the new system with just a single day, so we have got a decent return on a half billion. And we have not reckoned with the biggest gains, savings in human lives and suffering, “he says hopefully.
It was after three years of law school, as the communist regime in Hungary got caught up with him. The university’s board hung it suddenly one day informed that no student could graduate without having passed a test in marxismleninism.
Some twenty books could be read.
“Then I turned on my heel and walked away.”
Instead, he made his hobby into his profession. Two years later he was a professional magician. It gave him food on the table and a much calmer life in politics shade than the levels for many of his academic peers.
But then came the Hungarian Revolution, a failed popular uprising against the ruling communist government and the Soviet Union’s influence. In 1956, about 8,000 Hungarians fled to Sweden. László Szombatfalvy each of them.
“I was 29 years old and felt dumb. I could not even English. In my hand I had a small booklet with six hundred words translated from Hungarian into Swedish.”
After three years of diverse work and one year on Påhlmans Institute of Commerce, he got a job at Swedish Shell’s finance department. He read Hermods business administration course in the evenings and became interested in equity investments. The risk analysis became a natural part of his investment strategy.
“As a teenager I counted on probabilities at different card games to come up with the perfect game strategy. In my equity investments was to compare the probabilities of different outcomes. One of my basic principles were never put anything in the game that I could not afford to lose – or put another way not to confuse the unlikely with the impossible. “
His model achieved success. Great success. He went on to become one of the world’s most successful stock investor with a 30 percent return per year for 46 years. In 1987, he had earned enough and sold out its entire portfolio except the then-current Handelsbanken index shares. When they were redeemed in 1999, he chose to invest their capital in real estate stocks with low risk that only required a minimum of effort on his part.
What made you suddenly become aware of other major threat to humanity, greater than the threat of war?
“It did not happen suddenly. I read the newspapers. And when I read about the threat of climate change and other environmental pollution for the tenth time, I thought that here I’ll find out more about eventually When I stopped taking it I’m doing. “
In the 1990s, he started to read up and think deeper in the two subjects that interested him and who also was interwoven with each other; morality and the threats to humanity.
At the beginning of the new century began László Szombatfalvy write. In 2010 he made his debut as author of “our greatest challenges” and the following year came a book about moral decisions “sense and sensibility” out.
Foundation Global Challenges Foundation, he wants to get politicians and the public to realize that the current management of global risks is an irresponsible gambling with billions of people, or even the whole future of humanity at stake.
He is hoping for a reaction. Faster than his own.
“We need to spread the knowledge of how to assess the risks. So far, both the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC media focused only on the most likely options.
But the probability is only one, 6 percent for disaster scenario with 6 degree rise in temperature is due to the rather optimistic assumption that the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stabilize at the current level of 450 ppm shows you do not. Think about where 63 ski lift crashing, how many would like to go ski lift then? But the whole future of humanity, it we can just ignore, “he says and screws to upset the couch.
But do not scare the worst scenarios only people away?
“There is a faction that believes that you should not scare people when they become paralyzed. I do not believe it. If there is a serious threat to one’s children and grandchildren then want you know it and do everything possible to prevent it. “
The idea is not to László Szombatfalvy, Margot Wallström, Johan Rock Power or any of the other of the foundation council to give out on the streets and demonstrate. With information, opinion articles, risk reports and risk indicators presented last fall when some of the world’s leading risk experts gathered in Stockholm to discuss how the IPCC’s new data should be interpreted and translated into concrete actions, the Global Challenges Foundation influence.
The opinion polls Foundation conducted this year in nine countries speak for themselves. They show a public that understands both the climate threat seriously and wants to see stronger political efforts to come to grips with the problems.
But when the same questions were asked last summer to all Swedish politicians on the ballots for the parliamentary elections wanted more than 81 percent did not even answer the question of how major climate risks we can accept without taking effective countermeasures.
“It confirmed our suspicions that a large majority of the politicians can not or will consider in risk terms.”
What do you hope to accomplish with the visibility risks ? Show that the improbable is it impossible?
“We want the most, both among the public as among the politicians, should understand that it is unreasonable to accept one or tvåprocentiga probabilities when the whole future of humanity is at stake. Some politicians are certainly save to visualize the risks to which they will be required to act. We want the public to give politicians find courage to dare to make uncomfortable decisions. “
Large demonstrations, especially in Manhattan, where over 300,000 people gathered two days before the Climate Summit in the largest climate demonstration ever, shows like the foundation’s polls on a public that is tired of the sluggish political left wheel.
“I would urge VA’s readers to go into globalchallenges.org, and register as an ambassador for the Global Challenge Foundation. We would like to reach decision makers who want to influence in the right direction.”
The next opportunity to influence both politicians and the business community will be at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2015.
It hopes Global Challenges Foundation get the attention of their risk yearbook with the twelve main global risks, not least by the director Johan Rock’s participation at the conference.
There is a risk that the board loses an important member now Margot Wallström has become Sweden’s Foreign Minister. How long she will be remains to be seen, but through her, Global Challenges ideas continue to reach right into the heart of both Swedish and international politics.
And it increases the likelihood that László Szombatfalvy – just like when he was a celebrated star investors – will get a good return on their assets.
Full list: Sweden’s 147 billionaires
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