Welcome to this press conference announcing the 45th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. In a moment I'll be introducing some of my colleagues. My name is Adrian Monk. I'm the head of public engagement here at the forum. But before I do that I want to hand over to our founder and executive chairman Professor Klaus Schwab to introduce the overriding theme and expectations of this critical 2015 annual meeting. Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Adrian you just used the right word critical year. 2015 in my opinion is a year where we are at the crossroads with two possible directions. A world of disintegration, of hate, of fundamentalism and on the other hand a world of solidarity, of cooperation and we have seen both of those worlds last week in Paris. The first world was represented through the Terrorist Act. The second world was represented by the demonstration of solidarity last Sunday. I feel there will be a number of events this year which we really will determine in which direction we are going. So it's a year of destiny for humankind. Of course this will be reflected in the program of our annual meeting in Davos. And I just would like to say some words why this meeting is different from other conferences. It's a true multi-stakeholder meeting bringing together the key stakeholders of human society which means the business community in a very representative way, a majority of the large global corporations but also of the smaller ones will be represented in Davos. We will hear more about it. The second stakeholder of course governments and international organizations. The third stakeholder, civil society, very strongly represented. Then we have to add the best expertise, science, academia and finally very important in Davos is the young generation. We want to remain young, we want to remain forward looking and that's the reason why we always invite a strong contingent of young global leaders and of global shapers. You know the global shapers is a group of the World Economic Forum, the community of leaders from all walks of life between 20 and 30 years old. And I mention it particularly because yesterday we had a small celebration to celebrate the 400th HAP of our global shapers. So we are represented now in 400 different cities around the world. So World Economic Forum's annual meeting is also different because it's interdisciplinary. When you look across the lake you see the WTO, the World HO and so on all doing very useful work but all being departmentalized. We know that the global issues are interrelated. That's the reason when you look through the list of participants you will see that practically every major government is represented by a multiple of ministers integrating the different facets which we have, there's a different issues which have to be looked upon in a holistic way. The annual meeting is also different because it is forward looking. Usually you have today conferences to manage crisis. We of course we will look at the crisis areas in the world but we would like to look also at the future. The world has changed substantially. We are in a post-past crisis world. That's the reason why we have chosen for, as a theme for the annual meeting 2015, the new global context. Now people ask me how do you define the new global context? There are many elements. I just want to mention three. We are definitely living now in a multipolar world and this of course has an impact on many facets of our global governance system. Second, in my opinion, we are living at the beginning of a new technological revolution. Just think of the future of the internet. The impact of the internet revolution is only partially felt today. We will have the revolution of robotics and so on and I could go on. And all this will change our social life, our economic conditions. The third element of the new context which I would like to mention is of course the question, what's next in our economic development? You have seen the World Bank predicted for next year, which should have been a year of accelerated growth, a global growth rate of only 3%. Now if you take the 3% and you compare it with the 5% which we had pre-crisis, it looks a difference of 2% but accumulated. It has enormous consequences because with 3% you double global GDP only every 24 years. With 5% you double global GDP every 14 years. So the consequences for social inclusion, for job creation are enormous. So what do I expect personally from the annual meeting? First, I expect that we understand the new context. We understand that we are living in a new world and we look for solutions in the framework of this new context. Second, I expect that with the presence of practically all areas, all conflict areas in the world, we can make a contribution to confidence building efforts, possibly even to reconciliation efforts. Third, what I expect in Davos is that we make progress with the 10 big challenges, global challenges, and you will hear more about it. We are presently engaged in and those 10 challenges all require a strong cooperation between the public and the private sector. Now you may ask us how does the forum differ from again the international organizations? I just can say we are serving the international community because for many facets of the program, for many of our initiatives, we have a cooperation with one or more of the international organizations here. The World Economic Forum has become an international institution for public-private cooperation. What we want to show in Davos is that we can go into the direction of collaboration and not into the direction of disintegration. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Now I'm going to introduce some of my colleagues here to talk about some of the themes that Professor Schwab mentioned. We're hearing from Rick Sammons, who heads our Centre for the Global Agenda on the theme of the meeting and the work the forum is doing on some of the key global challenges that Professor Schwab outlined. From Emma Loads, from our program development team, on the program innovations and some of the key personalities. From Helena Laurent, who heads business engagement here at the forum on the business participation and some of the big companies who will be present in Davos. From Philip Rusler, who heads the Centre for Regional Strategies on some of the political leaders from countries around the world. And finally from Saadia Zahidi, who heads our gender parity and human capital work. Saadia will be talking to us about the representation of civil society. But first I'm going to turn to Rick Sammons and ask Rick to outline for us some of the global challenges that relate to this theme of the annual meeting 2015, the new global context. Thank you, Adrian, and good morning everybody. Thank you for coming here to Koloni. As Professor Schwab has mentioned, we are an international institution for public-private cooperation and we over the years have been thinking ever more systematically about how an informal platform like ours that is cross-disciplinary, that involves different ministry portfolios as well as different stakeholders, public, private, academic, and the like, where does the work of the world use some concentrated additional public-private or multi-stakeholder cooperation that would make a difference? So this year's annual meeting, while framing the overall theme as the new context, the world is changing in many dimensions, we particularly within that overall theme have been identifying specific areas where we not only want to provide an interesting conversation and to enlighten and refresh people about the extent of change, we specifically want to create an environment in which these leaders come together and provide some added momentum to progress on those issues by particularly working on the public-private interface of them. Now, we've identified 10 which we think deserve our institutional emphasis because there is a very important added need for public-private cooperation. I'm not going to go through all 10 of them, but I'll highlight a few for you today. First, perhaps that I would highlight is an area where the forum has not previously had a strong program, at least in respect of public governance and cooperation, and that is the future of the Internet. In Davos next week, we will be launching a new institutional effort to make our cross-disciplinary multi-stakeholder platform available to advance progress and particularly to build trust on some of the very difficult and challenging aspects of Internet governance. As you will know from having observed events over the last year or two, there is a growing fear that the Internet, which is now a globally interoperable system that helps to enable human potential and facilitate commerce and investment, may balkanize, may fragment, and that's because of some declining trust about privacy considerations, security and surveillance, and the like. While there has been for years a very rigorous effort to build the technical governance of the Internet and there are specialized institutions that do that, now that the Internet has moved into being a major engine of commerce and investment and education and social and cultural exchange, these are raising policy issues, social policy issues, political, economic issues. While all countries have an interest in maintaining an integrated global system to maintain the scale of the Internet, at the same time countries have different preferences with respect to social policy and social issues, cultural matters, economic regulation, and the like. The challenge that the world is facing is how does one maintain trust in maintaining that global interoperability while still allowing the space for countries to be able to manifest their own policy preferences in this area. This cannot be done just with ICT or information and communications technology ministers or just by IT companies. This now affects many different industries as well as many different areas of policy and the forum as an informal cross-disciplinary platform thinks that we can make a potential contribution to the international community for specific projects as well as dialogues to strengthen confidence and trust in this area. So you will see in the program a range of sessions on cyber security and risk, on the Internet of Things, on various types of economic regulation in this domain. A second area that is an example of how we are seeking to use the institution to further international progress on challenges that require a public private dimension is in the domain of climate change. Over the last several years, we have been working closely with the United Nations, with key governments that have a stake in the outcome of this issue, to encourage some specific economic and technological cooperation on matters that would make a difference for emissions and that would build confidence in a policy environment that will scale the transformation in industrial and energy activity that's necessary to help the world lower its trajectory of emissions. This year will be no different. Next year in Paris at the end of the year, there will be another attempt at developing an international consensus on a forward framework for climate change. The French government has invited the World Economic Forum to work with it and to help build an outcome, a harvest of significant public private collective action initiatives in various areas of the economy that could make a difference to the world's progress on the issue. The third challenge that I would highlight is on infrastructure and development finance. The world has a very large appetite for mobilizing much more private investment for various economic development purposes, notably including infrastructure investment, which has a strong contribution to growth on the one hand and to living standards improvement because infrastructure investment is very employment intensive. The challenge has been that much of the private investment community has been reluctant to engage particularly in developing countries but even in developed countries in this domain because of the risk profile of many of these investments, the regulatory environment in particular, but other factors as well. And so we will have an infrastructure investor summit in Davos this year bringing together different parts of the investment value chain, different types of investors in the private sector with some of the public finance institutions like development banks, like the World Bank and others, to try to find solutions to create blended investment opportunities whereby the taxpayer does not have to finance dollar for dollar or Swiss franc for Swiss franc each investment but rather that public finance element can be targeted to change the risk profile for the investment such that most of the investment would be covered by private investors themselves. That is a good outcome potentially for the world, a much more efficient use of the capital for development purposes, for creating jobs and improving living standards than what has traditionally been the approach to development finance. So I cite just these three examples of areas in which we will be in Davos this year looking at the meeting not just as a meeting but as a point in an ongoing process where we try to facilitate much deeper, much more practical and concrete public private outcomes that contribute to the public good. Thank you, Adrian. Thanks, Emma. Your team has been taking this theme and turning it into some 250 plus sessions. Can you tell us a little bit more about that process and also about some of the highlights from that program? Absolutely. Thank you, Adrian. So how do we go about designing the annual meeting program? This is really a year round iterative process and we basically are collecting input constantly from our various networks like the Global Agenda Councils and our communities. And we are constantly connecting these ideas across disciplines and across different sectors to eventually sort of really curate what we feel is a series of questions that are absolutely relevant and critical for the agenda but also inject inspiration into the conversations as well. And this has led to over 280 sessions as part of the official program this year and really the majority of our participants are actively engaged in roles in the program. Over 100 of these sessions, you'll be able to watch live online and join the conversation via social media as well. So this is how we really go about designing the program. We can't do this alone. I think we've already mentioned that we engage a number of experts in that process. And actually I'm excited that we've got 13 Nobel Laureates from the worlds of science and economics joining us this year. We also engage various artists and cultural leaders as well. And in fact, we'll be kicking off our annual meeting 2015 this year with our 21st annual Crystal Awards, which really honors artists for their commitment to improving the state of the world. And just to name who the honorees are this year, we have Shigeru Ban, who's a Japanese architect for his architecture for the dispossessed. We're also honoring tenor Andrea Bocelli for his work with the disabled and excluded. And also Angelique Kijo, who's a singer-songwriter for her work supporting girls' education in Africa. So this sort of gives you a flavor of who's coming, but it's not just about putting the right issues with the right people together. It's also absolutely critical for us to ensure that we create the right environment to really help stimulate the kind of open dialogue and debate and really facilitate interaction and exchange as well. And this is where I think this year in particular, we've introduced a number of exciting new session formats and series to support this. And I'd like to just highlight a couple of these. Our Ideas Lab series. This is where we've worked with 12 leading universities and research institutes around the world to help bring really the latest developments and research that's going on in the labs into the conversations in Davos. For example, we're going to be looking at the future of robotics and what that means with Carnegie Mellon University. We're also looking at some of the latest developments in synthetic biology and how that's impacting not just business but society at large with the European Research Council. And another example is actually looking at the convergence of our physical and virtual worlds with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Another example is we've actually worked closely with a number of brain science experts on our human brain series, where we're going to be really looking at deconstructing some of the knowledge around neuroscience, mental illness, behavior. But it's not just about engaging experts. We've also made a really conscious effort. And I think it was mentioned already to really bring the next generation into the conversations too. And this is where our shaping Davos series this year is an innovation to the program, where we've worked in collaboration with our global shapers community around the world, who are young leaders under the age of 30 doing incredible work in their local communities. And this shaping Davos series is where we're going to be connecting live to 40 cities worldwide, from Gaza to Colombo to look at what are some of the local solutions going on? And how are they helping to tackle global challenges? In addition to this, we'll feature again our open forum where we will continue to invite the public to join a number of debates on current issues, everything from exploring the the role of religion and its connection to conflict. We're looking at how to close the employment gap. We're looking also at the future of democracies, just to name but a few. And then the last highlight I'd like to just mention is actually an initiative that we've launched this year called the Davos Challenge Walk for Education. And this is an initiative to help shorten the travel time for children in rural areas of many parts of the world to help them get to school. So for every six kilometers at Davos participant walks, UBS in collaboration with the World Bicycle Relief will be donating a specially designed bicycle to a school child in rural South Africa. So these are just a few of the highlights I'd like to share with you and also who we're looking forward to coming and how we design the program. Emma, thank you very much. We'll turn to Helena LeRan from Business Engagement to tell us about some of the business participation in Davos this year and also about some of the initiatives that'll take place with that business community. Thank you, Adrian. Thank you, everybody. Welcome to Colony. It's wonderful to have you with us at the start of a very busy week. We have more than 1500 business participants who will be joining us next week. And there is exceptional interest. We have participants joining us from all around the world. In fact, we are seeing that a third are from North America, a third from Europe, and a third from the rest of the world. In particular, the Mint, what's known as the Mint, that's Malaysia, Indonesia, Nigeria, Turkey, there's additional interest there, Japan, and not only from a regional perspective do we have diversity, also from a sectoral perspective. 25 sectors from agriculture to telecommunications. And within that, perhaps sectors that are really part of the changes in our lives right now. The global technology leaders, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Alibaba, Facebook, but also the technology pioneers in areas like Airbnb in the sharing economy, Bluebird Bio and Gene Therapy, Rethink Robotics, the creators of Baxter, of course, and then many others, renewable energies, cyber security, and all the way to home care for the elderly, for example. So really representing the issues that we are experiencing. Now, as you know, business participants come to Davos to meet with leaders from government, from NGOs, from civil society, from academia. They're there to share perspectives. They're there to work together to share solutions on the global challenges. And I'd like to share just three of those with you, because we're quite excited about the progress. The first is on agriculture. As I'm sure you know, by 2050, the world's population of nine billion will need 60% more food than we consume today. How do we meet that demand sustainably? In that realm, we have seen this year 2014, we've seen agriculture ministers in Southeast Asia ask the forum to provide a platform for them to form partnerships. This initiative is called Grow Asia. It's generated four country-led partnerships in Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar, and the Philippines. It's focused on finding partnerships that really drive and support small holder farmers and environmental sustainability. It will follow the model that we've seen in Grow Africa. That's work that we've done over a number of years, which has by now generated pledges of 10 billion in investment in 10 countries involving 160 companies, 350 organizations overall, and is within the context of our work on new vision for agriculture. In Davos, you'll see conversations answering that question about food security and agriculture that is cross-continent. Second on infrastructure, I think my colleague Rick shared that beautifully to give the context. Perhaps just to add to that, we're looking forward to that mix of participants at the Infrastructure Summit, which will also draw on work that's been done in Africa to support the program for infrastructure development in Africa. 51 mega infrastructure projects. An example of that is the Central Corridor, which goes from Tanzania to the DRC. It's about an 18 billion multimodal project. Examples from that of cross-border project management. How do you make that work effectively can be brought into that infrastructure summit. Finally, on anti- corruption and transparency. It's a hugely corrosive force. If we're talking about public trust, it's one of the key things that undermines public trust. The World Bank estimates that about a trillion is the cost of bribery alone is one trillion US dollars. This time last year, in this very press conference, we announced the launch of the partnering against corruption vanguard. A group of companies that commit to not just saying that we will combat corruption, but that they will drive it out of the system, that it is intolerable. This year, the B20, that's the group of companies, the official group of companies that provide input to the G20, have taken their recommendations and asked the Pachi vanguard to take those on and asked the forum to provide a platform ongoing so that those recommendations live and can be put into action. In Davos, we will have those CEOs talking about the new CEO imperative to drive corruption out of the system. We are very excited about the participation. We're very excited about the business involvement in the global challenges that we've talked about. Thank you for your attention. Thank you, Elena. That theme of the new global context inevitably has a big geopolitical and political element. Philip, can you talk us through the political engagement in this year's annual meeting? Thank you again, ladies and gentlemen. A warm welcome from my side as well. The World Economic Forum is the foremost institution for public private cooperation and for sure we have a strong participation by the business leaders but we have as well a very strong and exciting participation by the public sector. We have more than 300 public figures, in particular around 50 heads of state and heads of government from all over the world and what is much more interesting rather than the record number we achieved this year is the broad variety of different portfolios. I mentioned this because that means that we can indeed create in all the different sectors, in all the different challenges, a real multi-stakeholder community and multi-stakeholder community means for us private sector as well as a public sector but private and public is not only public figure and business because private sector means business as well as civil society and public sector means politicians, public figures as well as international institutions and organizations and we have around 50 heads of these kind of institutions starting with WTO, WHO, until ICRC, ILO and so on. That shows that we can indeed create these kind of multi-stakeholder community and your context from a geopolitical point of view is indeed a real global challenge because in the Cold War era everybody has known to whom he belongs. Then we have the lifting of the iron curtain and then we all expect a beautiful time of peace and understanding. What we now see is a time of uncertainty maybe the question is there any leadership and a lot of crisis zones around the global and we try to deal with all the different challenges we try to contribute with for example three initiatives I would like to highlight for example the Geneva-Ukraine initiative. We bring people together which means business leader as well as politicians in regard of the Geneva-Ukraine initiative and to deal with the crisis. We have the breaking the impasse. We bring together Palestinian Israel business leader to contribute to the crisis as well. We always cover without any question the South China Sea we have for example Chinese Japan breakfast so we can be there we can contribute with our multi-stakeholder community and you for us is the geopolitical approach. We have two very important sessions on Saturday I will highlight it's the future of military given the total new kind of conflict as well as the future of intelligence services and all these initiatives and sessions have one thing in common they indeed again a multi-stakeholder gathering because to deal with all these geopolitical or geoeconomic sessions you need trust and the best way to create trust is to bring people together in these kind of multi-stakeholder community so we are very excited very proud that we have again a record number of public figures public officers and that we can contribute to all the issues given due to the new context. Philip thank you very much. I'm going to turn finally to my colleague Saadi Zahidi who leads our work in gender parity in human capital just to bring us up to date on civil society engagement in Davos this year and also some of the initiatives the forums engage within in her particular areas of interest. Thank you Philip you mentioned the multi-stakeholder nature of the forum as one of the core founding principles of our institution and one of those stakeholders is of course civil society. This year we'll have almost a hundred and fifty leaders from civil society joining us at Davos part of those are NGOs some of the big global household names that you're all familiar with Oxfam Amnesty International some of the other major organizations that I think we're all familiar with and that have played a key role in taking forward the work on human rights on education on environment on other sectors but we also have with us this year a number of the new players within the NGO and civil society world so that includes organizations like Avaz, organizations like change.org, organizations like Purpose that are using technology in a wholly different way to mobilize society in particular young people. A second community within the civil society groups is the faith leaders. I think we all know that part of the answer to extremism part of how we're going to be able to deal with it is to mobilize and engage faith leaders who have a new narrative about their their religions and about their faiths and are willing to engage with each other. So we'll be having all of the major faiths in the world represented at Davos. And finally a third aspect of the civil society communities is labor unions so we'll have a number of the global umbrella bodies but we'll also have some of the sectoral bodies so the building and woodworkers union the transport workers union and some others that will be present with us in Davos. As the world has brings in more women into leadership in positions in government and business civil society and other constituencies we of course reflect that too and we're pleased that this year the participation of women has been going up but at the same time I think we all know that there is a major gap around the world not just in terms of leadership but really at the core of our societies and of our economies. So that's the approach that we are taking at the forum treating this as a long-term global challenge that requires ongoing year-round work that we're dedicated to. We're doing that in several ways one is benchmarking gender gaps around the world so assessing how countries are performing making it very clear who's moving ahead who is not. This past year we launched our ninth global gender gap report and this particular year will be our tenth one so we have almost a decade worth of information on how progress is happening and why it's happening what are the policies that are making the changes. Another way we're looking at this issue is of course trying to mobilise stakeholders in certain countries running the right kind of experiments to try to see if we can help close those economic gender gaps. We're doing that in Mexico, Turkey, Japan and Korea and two years into these three-year task forces most of the countries have made progress. Prime Minister Abe of Japan has made this one of his goals for 2020 to try to get 30 percent women into leadership positions and in the other countries as well there has been progress. A third aspect of the work on gender is of course what is happening within different industry sectors. So how are employers reacting to this momentum for gender parity? In some industries there are a lot of women in the high-skilled incoming talent in other in other industries not so much. So we'll be launching this year at Davos our industry gender gap project which is going to try to get very specific about what to do about the challenges that are being faced by different industries as they seek to integrate female talent. And then finally moving on to employment more broadly since the last time we spoke to you that initiative has really grown and is trying to address various aspects of the employment skills and human capital challenge. On the one hand there is massive unemployment particularly affecting youth. Almost a quarter of the world's youth are neither in education nor in any form of employment. And on the other hand we're also seeing from business leaders a major scarcity of the talent that they need. So how do these two things come together? And we also know that these patterns are going to be exacerbated as technology disrupts labor markets. On the one hand it will create a lot more opportunity for new kinds of jobs and on the other hand it is going to disrupt some of the more traditional jobs and occupations that have existed. So our project is going to try to one benchmark human capital around the world. So how are countries investing in and deploying their human capital. Second try to understand what the future of jobs will look like. So how can we get specific about what the future of jobs might look like for 10 different industry sectors and 20 different economies. That's going to be a public good project that we're also launching at Davos this year and will hopefully hopefully provide the kind of public information that allows everybody to take better decisions. And then a third aspect is to try to understand what can actually be done in the short term. What are the measures we can take today without waiting for some of those disruptions to happen. We're launching again at Davos this year and publicly a few weeks later a report on disrupting unemployment. So business led solutions for trying to either close skills gaps, foster entrepreneurship or connect talent to markets better. And then finally there's a practical application of this work which is through our regional skills initiatives in the MENA region, in the Africa region and in India. Sorry, thanks very much. Thanks to all the colleagues here. One thing the forum isn't short of is experts. And so lucky enough for our question answer session to be joined by some of them in the front row. I would say that if you want to follow the annual meeting and you can't join us directly in Davos you'll be able to see over a hundred sessions broadcast online, live. You'll be able to follow us in Arabic, in Spanish, as well as in English through platforms like WeChat, through Facebook, through Twitter and a variety of different mechanisms. So you'll be able to keep up to date with all of the different issues and sessions that have been identified here this morning. If I can just ask for those in the room to show a hand if you have a question to tell us where you're from and we'll start with the gentleman just over there. We're going to get microphones to you so you'll have a chance to... I heard Tom Miles from Reuters. I was really hoping to put a question to Professor Schwab but he seems to have done a runner. So is he available to take a question? Professor Schwab is actually, oddly enough, in the run-up to this meeting rather busy. So he's moved on to another engagement but I have here plenty of colleagues who can answer in detail any question you have Tom. I really think he should be here to take questions. I think my colleagues from the media would agree with me that he's the figurehead of this. He's the guy we're going to quote, apologies, but we'd really like to hear from him the answers to our question. The question I'd like to put to him is, I mean he was talking about this as a year of destiny and the world is at this crossroads. But the big issues are issues about the underdog, like immigration, inequality, human rights which Bankimoon has said is fueling the terrorism problem. Is this really the right forum which is kind of famously closed and cozy for the rich and powerful? I know you've got some disruptors and some NGOs but I mean, is this really the place that those issues are going to be tackled? Well, let me just answer your first question and get one of my colleagues to come in on it. But I mean you're absolutely right that inequality is a key issue and as someone who's probably followed the forums work religiously in the previous years, you'll know that four years in a row is identified in our global risk report as one of the key issues and the forums played a really big part in helping to push that on to the global agenda. I think you're seeing with Winnie Binyama from Oxfam on the co-chairs how importantly we think that issue is. And I'm just going to turn to Rick to just come in on the inclusivity agenda that's going to be answering some of those questions. Sure. I mean, you say is it the right platform which, you know, has within it a premise that there is a right all inclusive platform for dealing with the range of poverty, exclusion, marginalization issues in the world. My response to you would be that these problems are so large that it's very clear even to those who've been working the longest in these issues from the public interest side or from the civil society that we need to mobilize resources from wherever we can find them. And so this platform does not presume to be the exclusive all encompassing answer to any particular solution. What it is, however, it's a platform where we try to encourage various parties who have expertise in resources that are relevant and can be brought to bear on major public challenges like the ones you've just highlighted to focus on them much more systematically. That's the general answer. The more specific one is that we will this year in response to request from Secretary General Ban Ki-moon be placing a special cross-cutting emphasis in the Davos program which will be reflected in over 40 different sessions on the post 2015 development agenda and the climate change agenda. So we'll have a range of different things. My colleagues have hit some aspects of this for agriculture, to corruption, to other aspects. So that's part one. Secondly, and here I do think we may be one of the most importantly appropriate platforms on the question of exclusion and inequality which you've emphasized. There, as you probably will know, there's been a rolling robust debate on this issue that has gathered force in the last couple of years. However, while everyone seems to agree that we need a more inclusive model of economic growth, there's been very little in the way of concrete policy guidance to emerge from that. The forum over the course of 30 years has developed a very particular world-class competence, and that is cross-country benchmarking and a dispassionate, rigorous dissection of how you can move economic policy in different dimensions to get toward better growth. What we have done, and we'll be releasing in the next several days, over the last year, given the emphasis on this in the meeting last year, an equality issue, we have put together a similarly rigorous dispassionate effort to dissect what are the different levers you can pull as a society and your economic policy to render your growth model much more socially inclusive. And it is the most wide spectrum, wide angle view of the different possibilities in this regard. We will issue that as a discussion paper as a way not only to acknowledge that it's a legitimate issue, but to move the debate into a much more concrete domain. So bottom line is I've just given you a couple of examples across different areas of development and inclusion. The forum is a relevant platform. It is a place that is attempting to compel the attention of leaders of various sectors of society to work much more rigorously on this. And indeed, in certain cases where we have a competence to provide some thought leadership in this domain as well. So I think, yes, it's an absolutely appropriate platform to engage these issues. Tom, I know you've got a second question. There's a couple of people I want to bring in as well. So can I just hear your second question? And we'll take in. It's just about people who are coming. I wonder if there's anybody from either the Syrian government or opposition movements that are coming in any exiled Russian dissidents such as Holikovsky or Kasparov. Sure, thanks. Gentleman at the back and somewhere in the middle. Thanks. Simeon Bennett from Bloomberg News. I agree with Tom's comment about Professor Schwab. I should just point out, Tom, that both Bloomberg and Reuters will be interviewing Klaus before the annual meeting. So you'll have plenty of opportunities to put questions to him then. But coming with your question. A question about security, just in the light of events in Paris last week. Obviously, we know that the forum has very tight security. Anyway, but are you taking any extra measures in light of what happened last week? We don't talk about security specifically. That's something we do in collaboration with the Swiss government who host us. If you've any specific questions on it, then my colleague Alois Fingi can answer them in more detail. But I would just say we typically would refer you to the Swiss government for their response. They've always provided extremely thorough and comprehensive security arrangements for the annual meeting, dealing with a range of crises over some 40 years. So we've always been very grateful for their support. And I think people see Davos as being somewhere that is well catered for in terms of security. Sure. Lady, yeah. Chinese journalist from Tsinghua have two questions for Mr. Summons. The first one, as you mentioned, the 10 global challenges. So could you explain, based on word standards, did you select the 10? And do you think the upcoming Davos meeting will found effective solutions to all of them? The second question is about the Chinese economy. Given the ongoing economic reforms taking place in China, what's your expectations for China's economy and its outlook? Thank you. OK. So, Tom, I'm going to direct you afterwards to Merrick Dusek on those specific questions about attendance. He heads up our Middle Eastern engagement. In terms of 10 global challenges, Rick, the process by which you evaluate those challenges and how you put together the forum's work in respect of all of them, just the probably the big picture. And maybe if I can turn to Philip afterwards just for a few words on Premier Li Keqiang's engagement and the prospects for the Chinese economy. So. Thank you very much for your question. We, as in everything we do here, it's a combination of demand by our constituents and members what they are interested in engaging in on the one hand. And on the other hand, where we as an international institution think there's a particular opportunity for contribution. And so we apply that those two filters to a range of questions that have come up over the years in our meetings. And for the time being, this is not a fixed permanent list, but for the foreseeable future, we thought that these are areas where in particular there's a need for an added component of public-private cooperation. We fully respect the role that the intergovernmental processes play. But we believe that in each one of these 10 areas, there is a piece of progress that hasn't yet been fully captured because we haven't organized ourselves properly across different disciplines and different stakeholders. So that's basically our thought process, if you will. Will we have solutions to all of them and Davos candidly not, of course? However, what I do want to emphasize is that, and I think this is significant when it goes to Professor Schwab's opening points, is that it's important not to view Davos as a one-off single event. Maybe 30 years ago, in the early years of the organization, it was widely perceived that way as the world's most important, and it still is the world's most important leader-level multi-stakeholder summit. But in fact, Davos, as you've heard from all of my colleagues, is part of an institution. That is to say, it's part of ongoing processes that try to build progress, that have milestones during the course of the year and indeed over a couple of years. So we're not looking ourselves to produce specific outcomes at the end of the meeting next week. That end the story. We're looking to produce solutions that we build on going forward. And I'm happy offline, bilaterally, to give you a little bit more concrete illustrations of what we do and do not expect to happen by the end of the week. On China, just lastly, it's really not our place, you know, it's the place of IMF and other institutions to render opinions about the future course of the Chinese economy. So I would prefer not to say anything institutionally, it's just not the role that we tend to play. We have both the Governor of People's Bank of China, I think, and Premier Li Keqiang in China. Can you just tell us a little bit about the Chinese engagement in Davos this year? Yes, so the annual meeting is a great opportunity to frame the entire discussion over the course of the next year or incoming year. So when the chairman mentioned the economic outlook and the reduced growth, we have to expect. And so that leads automatically to the question, what about the growth in China? So we are very happy that the Chinese Premier Li Keqiang will make the opening speech on Wednesday. And I'm sure he will talk about the economic development, the currency, but as well the entire development, even some addressing of our global challenges. Thank you. Lady there, and there's someone at the back and gentlemen in the middle. Let's try and take three if we can. Squeeze everyone in. Merci. En français, si c'est possible. Sinon, parce que mon anglais n'est pas très bon. Blécyque de l'Agence France-Presse. Je pose une question concernant les événements de Charlie Hebdo et la Manif. Dans quelle mesure ces événements ont-ils bouleversé l'agenda du Forum économique mondial? Monsieur Schwab en a légèrement parlé. Il a dit, bon, il y a quelque chose qui s'est passé. On est à la croisée des chemins. Mais concrètement, qu'est-ce qui a changé par rapport au programme initial? OK, question regarding Charlie Hebdo and the programme. Thank you, gentlemen. My name is Peter Kenyo from Independent Newspapers of South Africa. I see you, it relates to this last question actually. I see you've got an open forum section here on religion of pretext for conflict and you've got Archbishop Mahoba from South Africa and the Muslim academic. I'm just wondering if you have been leaving the role of religion in society as too peripheral if you consider that you've got hundreds of children massacred in Pakistan and we've seen Nigeria and now Charlie Hebdo. Is it going to remain a peripheral issue and how do you think you can engage more in it? OK, and do we have one last question at the back? No? OK. So just to take both of those questions just beginning, just a reminder, I suppose, from Digi into forum history, actually participation by faithly, this has always been a strong part of the forum. In fact, if you go back to the 1970s, Don Camaro, the famous liberation theologist, came to Davos and played a very important part in reminding some of the people there present of the responsibilities they owed to the community he represented. So there's actually a very long tradition in Davos of acknowledgement of that through leaders like Archbishop Tutu and a whole variety of different faiths represented which Saadia can probably go into far more detail on. In terms of the events in Paris, we're very grateful for the presence in Davos of President Hollande and apart from the evident shock and of all terrorist attacks, I think the program of the forum is focused on the kind of long-term key challenges that we've been outlining here today. It's not a forum that responds to current events and to the everyday breaking news agenda. The underlying issues that we've referred to are all part of this tapestry of events that we've laid out this morning. I think, though, we can perhaps talk a little bit more about France's engagement in the meeting, perhaps Philip and also Saadia perhaps just to mention the role of faith in the annual meeting. So the headline New Context means also fight against violent extremism. So we will have on Friday, indeed, President Hollande, beginning in the plenary with a huge speech. Then we'll have the King of Jordan to have the same discussion issue. We also have then the Premier of Iraq and at the end of the day, we will have John Kerry. And so the entire Friday is related to the purpose fight against violent extremism. Thank you. Saadia, can you just say a few words about the engagement of religion, the role it plays in the kind of agenda in doubles? Sure. I mean, one aspect is, of course, that we are engaging a number of different faith leaders and, as I mentioned earlier, from all of the world's major faiths. A second aspect is, of course, the issue of faith itself and how that feeds into extremism. We're going to be having a number of public and private dialogues that are going to try to address this, both within the faith community itself as well as engaging others' stakeholders because I think for 80% of the world ascribes to one faith or the other, and so there are going to be other leaders present that because of their own faith conviction will also be joining those conversations. And then, of course, we'll be integrating faith leaders into the broader conversations around extremism, around employment, around education. Because, of course, while faith or the provision of faith may be one part of the answer to extremism, there's also the fact that there are large numbers of disenfranchised youth that are not in education, that are not in employment, and so we're also going to be touching upon those issues and engaging faith leaders within that. Thank you. We're running out of time. There will be time afterwards for some one-to-one follow-up on some of those issues. Can we just see if there's anyone with a question outstanding before we go into one-to-ones and draw things to a close? Thank you all very much indeed. We look forward to seeing you in Davos next week and thanks for joining us here this morning. Thank you.


Hello and let's talk about unemployment. Unemployment has been one of the big stories of the post-pandemic world and India has been one of the worst affected by the issue. India was already facing a massive unemployment crisis before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. With the lockdown, the crisis has become much worse. The unemployment rates surged to around 27% at the height of the pandemic-induced lockdown. Ever since the lockdown was relaxed, the situation has improved with many billions supposedly regaining employment. But it looks like the total numbers hide certain facts. What is the nature of this employment and how is it different from before? What implications does this have for the economy? We talk to journalist Anindya Chakravarti to find out. Anindya, thank you so much for joining us. So last week, we took a look at the idea that or the claim that there had been some kind of an economic recovery in July as opposed to, sorry, in June and what was happening in July after that. So this week, let's maybe take a deeper look at the employment scenario itself. Now, one of the key arguments that has been made is that the employment situation has improved. I mean, the lockdown was bad, everyone knows that, but now employment has picked up, more people have returned to their jobs. But the devil is really in the details. So has there actually been a substantial and meaningful rise in employment or is it just other factors covering it up? So Prashant, if you just look at the numbers, right? So in March before the lockdown, and I'm going to go by CMI's data because they do the weekly survey and then they collated every month and get a better picture. So let's just compare apples to apples. In March, there were about 39.6 crore people employed in India, which is 396 million people employed in India. And which itself is a bad number because it suggests that employment has actually been, has reduced over the years ever since CMI started collecting this data and not increased.  Since then, right after that in April because of the lockdown, it fell to 275 million. So from 396 straight, it fell to 275 million. 121 million job opportunities went, which includes people who are being paid as daily wages, salaried people, people with businesses, people who are so called self-employed. And we know what that self-employed essentially means, right? It's someone who's selling tea on the corner or making momos at home and bringing it and selling it in the evening. And that's basically what self-employment means along with certain itinerant services, carpenters, you know, painters, then plumbers, electricians, those kind of people immediately lost their job opportunity, their work. And most of these, most of these, out of these 121 million people, about 91 million, were daily wages and self-small traders and self-employed people. So small trades, self-employed and daily wages, self-employed means very people who live on subsistence almost. It's not as if someone has a big business, right? So 91 out of 121 was that. When it comes to agriculture, Prashant, there was no change. So 117 million people were employed in agriculture in March. That's the number employed in April. The number actually increased in May, then went up even further in June to 130 million people. And then in July, there's been a small drop to 126. So if you compare to March to July, then about 9 million additional people have got work in agriculture. And you know what agriculture is, right? It's ultimately a space for disguised unemployment. So if you look at the 2016 report collected, collated, based on NSSO data that it says that there are about 52 million people in India who are disguised unemployed. What does disguised unemployment mean? It means that essentially there are three people in a family who can work and they have a piece of land which actually just requires the labor of two people. The third person also goes and works there. Has no additional productivity, has no additional income for the family, but they think they're employed. So this is essentially what is called disguised unemployment. It's unemployment looks like there is work. And ultimately what happens is that this pushes people out of agriculture. They move and do some other work, at least to augment some amount of income. Now we know most of these disguised unemployed people are actually in agriculture. Yes, there are, as I said, that there would be someone maybe has opened a small stall somewhere and he could be out there working 12 hours a day instead of that. He takes a break of three, four hours and the wife comes and sits there for three, four hours. So actually it is still one person working, but it looks like the two people are employed. So that also happens. Of course, but most of it is in agriculture. So even in March, when there were 117 million people employed in agriculture, there would have been a significant amount of disguised unemployment there. So the fact that in the sowing season, and there has been a good monsoon sowing season, you will see normally see people move back, but that starts from March itself from harvesting and then sowing and then they come back much later.  Sometimes does happen because there's a little bit more need for employment at a micro family level. However, that number is not likely to be that 9 million. So I can say without any doubt that the reverse migration that we've seen, which the estimate suggests from 80 lakh to 1 crore or 9 to 10, 8 to 10 million people, large number of them have just gone back to their households with a small piece of land. And they're just going and working there, helping out. If the survey comes, they'll say that I am a farmer. But actually they are disguised unemployed. So the so-called rise in unemployment, which is taking place in agriculture, there's no doubt in my mind that at least half of that rise is not required. Some of it would be required because of sowing. So if there's been a rise of about 90 million jobs, you can take for guarantee that at least 40 to 50 million of them are not required. These are disguised unemployed people. Now let's take a look at what has happened to daily wages. As I told you, the daily wages who were I think approximately about 126 million people in March that dropped sharply, 91 million out of them lost their work. And now we see that a significant number of that have come back. So only 68 lakh or 6.8 million people are left in the daily wages and small trade category who do not have work. Does that mean that everyone has got back their work? Now the question is that if 8 to 10 million people per shant left our urban centers and went away, then one would assume that the shortfall in daily, the reduction in number of daily wages should be higher than that 7 odd million we're seeing. It should be higher, 6.8 million that we're seeing. But it isn't. Why? Because there's a story behind that. And that story is the most significant story in my mind other than the fact that a large number of daily wages have actually become disguised unemployed in agriculture. And that is the drop in salary jobs. And we know that salary jobs are the ones which are considered to be what people want because it's a secure job. Sometimes maybe at a cost of a slightly lower monthly income, but over a period of time, obviously a salaried person earns much more than a self employed person. This is data that we have government data which proves it. So the drop in salaried numbers is a huge issue here Prashant. So in this context, the government's understanding seems to have been that, you know, you let the cycle sort of continue, the jobs might, we haven't really seen a lot of focus on job creation even before the crisis. And especially after the crisis like we've discussed before it's largely been in terms of handouts, which have provided some temporary relief, but nothing out of structural or sustainable basis. So in this, in this way, do you see any kind of say comeback happening where the economy over time manages to sort of without help from the government is not coming, manages to correct itself or is it likely to become a spiraling crisis? Absolutely not. There's no chance of that happening. And we know that well before COVID-19 took place came here. We know that how this government and basically the Modi government, it's in its two of us has completely failed when it comes to giving jobs. People say if there were no jobs, how come it won the election? Because yes, as I've argued many times that the poorest of the poor are better off. India's record with jobs has always been very poor Prashant. I mean, even if you look at the UPA period, the job growth rate was less than 1% per annum, even at its best period. It was 0.7%, which is much lower than the number of people being added in the job space. So if you look at it, as we know that there are about 100 odd crore people in India who are above the age of 15 years who can work and out of which only about 40 crore have worked. So the 60 crore people who can work don't have work. Maybe half of them don't want to work. Maybe they want to be students, but another 30 crore you can easily say are people who would have wanted work, but have given up simply because there is no work. So this has been a continuous process. We've seen actually the record of employment growth has been much better in the 80s. And this is RBI's data. This is the RBI data, not some arbitrary private data which is being used by maybe people who want to oppose liberalization. Now the point is the 80s, the record was much better since the 90s. The record has been poor for every government. The Modi government's record has been even worse. So the question now is, let me just quickly point again to the salary numbers. The interesting thing is that the drop in salary employees had, you know, there are only about 21%. So it's about, I think, 86 odd million people even in 2019-20 who out of the 400 odd million people who had work, had salary jobs, regular salary jobs. That dropped sharply. That went down to about 68.4 million in April when the lockdown took place. Then it went up, it went up to 72.2 million, but in July, between June and July, 5 million people have lost their jobs in that space. 5 million people have lost salary jobs. It's gone below the beginning of the lockdown. So you can say, yes, it'll take time to pick up again as the lockdown is slowly opening. But no, when the lockdown is slowly opened, more people who have lost salary jobs, which tells you that as businesses open, as they become more and more uncertain about the future, they're just cutting back on jobs. They're simply reducing the number of people they're hiring because that is very clear from the data that is coming out of CMI and the data analyzed by CMI, even sectoral data analyzed by CMI, where it shows that in textiles and most manufacturing salary jobs have gone down, the wage bill has gone down. It's only in finance and telecom, where the wage bill has gone up, banking, finance, because we know that stock markets have gone down. Banks are doing relatively better because of the kind of liquidity around, and telecom is obviously doing better because people are stuck in their home. Everywhere else, the wage bill has reduced, which means that people are being shunted out of their jobs or their pay is being cut. What does that mean? That essentially means that demand, overall demand, which you've seen has been constrained for the last 10 years at least in this country, or at least nine years, since the time when the UPA government, UPA2, decided to reduce its fiscal deficit and cut back on spending. Since then, we know that demand in the economy has been constrained, which has not been growing. It has shrunk in the last one odd year. It has shrunk dramatically, even for the buying classes, for the middle classes we call it. And if salary jobs go down, and if pay goes down in salaried space, then we can be absolutely certain that the demand is going to contract even further. And when that happens, what does that mean? That means that businesses, whether they're small, big, whatever, itinerant service providers, anything and everything, restaurants, travel, everything, that is going to be hit. The demand is going to be hit. The profit margins are going to be hit. The earnings are going to be hit. And when that happens, that includes media, of course. And when that happens, obviously they're going to cut even more jobs, reduce salaries even further. So this is a vicious cycle for which this government or neoliberal policies that this government has been consistently following has no answer. And this is a very strange thing because all neoliberal commentators claim that this is a socialist government. Why do they say it's a socialist government? Because it's a bit of a handout government. It does have a lot of these schemes that it pushes out. It is spending at the bottom most layer just to keep people above the subsistence level, to keep their nose above the water. That's all that this government does. So it's a combination of keeping the poor just above that level so that they can survive and neoliberal policies. And unfortunately, these are government rules, neoliberal policies are even more skewed towards monopoly capital towards big business than the UPA was or even Narsimha Rao's government was. So there is no way in which that this economy can come out of it and things will just come back to where they are. The only places where things will improve is banking and financial sector. And if that is a source of added income for some sections of the middle class, which retail investors who put in money in the markets, they get some returns, maybe they'll spend, but I doubt even they'll spend. They're likely to actually keep taking that money out and saving it for a rainy day. Because there is no way right now as a Keynesian economist used to say that people do not know what no current experience or past experience in times of crisis can tell you what is going to happen. So people don't have an idea about what is going to happen. They think things will come back to normal. But I think the experience that we see over the past few days has brought in so many months, has brought in so much uncertainty that things are only going to get worse. And that is why even corporate in the Kumaar-Mungal-Villai I read somewhere has said that we should be prepared for a contraction of the economy, not just this year but next year as well. Also any countries which have actually managed to sort of go in the opposite direction at least as far as employment is concerned, so many examples from around the world which have successfully kind of been able to address not only this crisis but over the past couple of years. So I would say that successfully employment-wise you know the US example has been pretty good for the last couple of years. But again this is data which has to be unpacked. For instance in the US the average I think pay, average pay per hour has gone up but the number of hours has reduced. The number of people who have to do more than two jobs or more than one job has actually gone up. So on paper the data seems to suggest that higher lower levels of unemployment in the US before COVID-19 and but unemployment is a story across the world that we're seeing everywhere including China which has huge amounts of unemployment and which does not come up in the data where you see. The US had tried to provide you know some kind of subsidy, employment subsidy, payroll subsidy which said that you can take this loan and you don't have to pay back this money if you use it for direct office expenses and to pay people. There's been large-scale fraud reported there and I think people have been borrowing and investing in the market and not really paying their people but some amount of that has sustained US economy but given that US is such a heavily services-driven economy that when the lockdown happened obviously we know what happened to US GDP has completely collapsed and unless there is sustained continuous support by the government the problem Prashant is that what does this support by the government actually mean? Support by the government is essentially to prop up private business that's what it is. So the support the government gives is to keep propping up the system which has collapsed which is not working at all and that is something that is not likely to change obviously because it's ruled by finance. Finance capital is not going to let states suddenly turn against them that is not going to happen. Thank you so much for talking to us. Thank you Prashant. That's all we have time for today we'll be back on Monday with more news from the country until then keep watching NewsClick


There are two methods generally used to do accounting. One is a cruel accounting and the other is the cash basis of accounting. Let's compare the two, starting with a cruel accounting. Transactions are recorded in the period in which they occur. We record revenue in the period in which it is earned, not just when cash is received. We record expense in the period in which it is incurred, not just when cash is paid. For the cash basis of accounting, revenues are recorded when cash is received, expenses are recorded when cash is paid. The result of this method is our financial statements are less accurate. Revenues and expenses reported in the month in which cash is received or paid might not provide investors and creditors with the best performance information about a company and likely lead to overstated or understated amounts on our balance sheet. Thus the cash basis of accounting is not gap approved and cannot be used for any company that is required to prepare financial statements in accordance to gap. Usually it is used by small businesses and hobbyists who don't know anything about accounting. After just one accounting course, college students would know enough not to operate a business using the cash basis of accounting. Let's look at an example.  You talk on the phone all during the month of July to close a sale that earns you $5,000. You get paid in August. You receive July's cell phone bill of $100 in August and you pay that bill in September. So let's look about how these would be recorded under a cruel accounting and the cash basis of accounting. Under a cruel accounting, both the revenue of $5,000 and the expense of $100 would be recorded in the month of July because the revenue was earned in July and the expense was incurred in July. Under the cash basis of accounting, revenues and expenses are all over the place. The revenue of $5,000 would be earned in August and the expense of $100 would be recorded in September. Basically, it would look like you did absolutely nothing during the month of July. Do you see the problem with the cash basis? Your investors and creditors would have less valuable information because it doesn't reflect what you actually did during the month of July.


I don't know what to do. The numbers are wrong. The air was warm, sticky, stale. Eleanor licked her lips. They were dry. The numbers are wrong. Marion Wheeler, chief of the Foundation's Antimetic Division at Site-41, was nodding very slowly, staring. It wasn't a look of concern. Not pity either. The wheels in Eleanor's head were clogged, and she couldn't parse Wheeler's expression. Not that it would have helped much had her brain been firing on all four cylinders. Wheeler was particularly disciplined, stoic, and focused constantly. It was kind of unnerving. Eleanor let out a breath. Why did it feel like it was being held in for such a long time? Her lungs burned. She could feel sweat dripping down her face.  The numbers are wrong. The numbers are wrong. The radio was on. It sounded vaguely like Luz yourself was playing beneath what seemed to be mostly static. Outside, a car horn beeped somewhere. The numbers are wrong. Wheeler finally spoke. I understand the transition is difficult, but we both know it makes a lot of sense to have you here. The numbers are wrong. Wheeler's focus seemed to snap into place, and she felt herself relaxing. I keep having these episodes. She looked down at her lap, trying to avoid the indecipherable gaze of the chief. Things slowed down. I feel cold. I feel hot. I realize hours have passed or basically no time at all.  The numbers are wrong. Wheeler nodded, taking out a small notebook and scribbling something in it. Her experience in this department is a little unusual, Ms. Jacob. But it's why you're here. We expect it to have unexpected side effects. You're in unexplored territory. At least, as far as we know, Wheeler ventured a tiny, rye smile. And not just because you're the first agent I know of who transferred in from a county. Eleanor couldn't help but smile. So these feelings I've been having, are they related to that medication, the nestics? That depends. Let's see, you've been here six weeks.  Are you enjoying your job? Actually, yeah, I am. I love handling financial records. I love financial databases. She gives the chief a knowing look. See, unlike people, numbers don't lie. Wheeler nodded, noting something else in her notebook. Well, the good news is that the episodes of dissociation are normal when you're first adapting to class W nestics. The feelings don't really go away, but you do get used to them as you realize their symptoms of experiencing things you literally haven't before. A wave of relief spread over Eleanor, and she instantly felt lighter about the whole matter. It was just as most anti-medic things tend to be all in her head. However, any trace of Wheeler's smile is gone. The numbers are wrong. The wave turned to ice instantly. The young accountant stiffened. The numbers are wrong. During your orientation, it was explained that you would be required to carry a pen and notebook on you at all times. Have you? Eleanor nodded. The numbers are wrong. What was the purpose of that notebook? The numbers are wrong. So that if I believe I've been exposed to an anti-medic agent, I can quickly copy down my thoughts and observations before suffering information loss or corruption. Wheeler nodded, jotting something into her own notebook. Ms. Jacob, this is important. When is the last time you saw that notebook? Have you put anything in it yet? Eleanor sugar head. I don't think so. I think it's back at mind. If that's the case, Wheeler said, making another small note in her own book, your experiences with missing and disassociated episodes might not be as simple as adjusting to nestics. Her movements were very deliberate now, as she set her pen down, not removing her gaze from the young agent across the desk. I feel I shouldn't inform you that during the conversation we have been having, you have stopped mid-sentence to write something in your notebook several times. I have a feeling you might have not realized it. Eleanor chuckled in half disbelief. How? My notebook's back at my... She stopped. It was in her hand. She opened her mouth wordlessly and closed it again. The numbers are wrong. Wheeler rose from her chair. Her face turned and composed. Eleanor, listen to me. I need you to set the notebook down and slowly open it. But don't look at it until you've cleared it safe, okay? Oh. Okay. Eleanor was trembling as she set the book down. Her mind was racing. Chief, I'm sorry, I... The numbers are wrong. No need to be sorry was Wheeler's response. The fact that you're writing in the notebook means you have strong instincts. You're doing just fine. She inhaled deeply through her nose. Go. Eleanor pulled the cover open and looked up at the ceiling. She stared, transfixed on the plaster for what seemed like an eternity, but might have only been seconds. She could hear Wheeler scribbling. Okay. Wheeler said gently, try and look now. Slowly, so slowly, she pulled her gaze from the ceiling to look down at the notebook that up until now she had thought was empty. But it was not. Every page was covered. Eleanor's own handwriting was staring back, pristine and perfectionist and immediately recognizable.  The numbers are wrong. Do you know what it means? Wheeler asked, her voice just above a whisper. Eleanor shook her head, then turned the pages again and again, the same phrase over and over. Wheeler put her own notebook away and gestured to the door. Then let's go find out. Eleanor drummed her fingers absently on the table. It was nice to be back at her own desk again, but now with Wheeler there to oversee, it felt incredibly uncomfortable. Okay, Wheeler said, sitting down on the other side of Eleanor's desk, let's do some baseline questions, right? What's your name? Eleanor Jones. The numbers are wrong. What's your position, personnel class and clearance at the foundation? Specialist and team of X division, personnel class C, security clearance two, with elevated clearance for financial documents related to, she stopped. The notebook was opened again and the pen was in her hand. The numbers are wrong. Wheeler was smiling. You caught yourself that time. Now focus, there's something there. What were you about to say? Eleanor shakily put the cap back on her pen.  I have elevated clearance for documents, financial documents related to department expenditures and the cap was off. Eleanor put it back on. The numbers are wrong. That's it, Wheeler said encouragingly. Find what's triggering it. Department expenditures and what? The cap was off. Eleanor put it back on. The numbers are wrong. Department expenditures and what Eleanor? The cap was off. Eleanor put it back on. Department expenditures and the cap was off. The cap was off. Off. The numbers are wrong. Wheeler was leaning forward, resting her hands on the desk. Breathe. Focus. And the cap was off. Eleanor's fingers trembled and then she hurled the pen across the room. Pay roll. The numbers are wrong. There was a stillness to the room as the plastic utensil clattered to the ground. Eleanor was breathing hard. Her heart was pounding. Okay, Wheeler said, nodding. Tell me. Somehow Eleanor had caught hold of the metaphorical thing clawing in the back of her mind, desperately trying again to escape behind the curtain. She had a hold of it now. Why couldn't she stop shaking? She asked for me to transfer to this department to see if there were any attempts by Foundation employees, departments, or potential insurgents to mismanage funds and cover their tracks with anti-memes. Her breathing was getting faster. The foundation allots a certain amount of money for payroll based on the salary of Foundation agents. So, for your instructions, I have been auditing individual department budgets. But there's something here and the numbers, something that makes my eyes just pass over it. Where? Where? She tried to formulate the idea in her head now. The information trying to crawl away inside her mind was now being molded like putty in the accountant's frontal lobe. You've almost got it, Wheeler said, reaching over to take Eleanor's hand. Eleanor paid her no mind, not to be rude, but the runaway idea was still trying to make it escape. She had secured her hold on it now though. She melded it, needed it between a perception and a process and an ingrained mathematical mind. And then, like the bursting of a dam, the idea gave way. She straightened up. Departments are paying on average 70% less for salaries than they should be. On Eleanor's left, a stack of 11x17 spreadsheets leered up at her. Why hadn't she noticed them before?  But it's not that people are having pay cuts, but it's something else. They... She tried to find the words. It's that they... There is something wrong with the people. With the names. They're... They're not names, they're... Wheeler was now looking over her shoulder at the spreadsheets. Oh my god. It's mipsum. Eleanor shrugged. I... I don't understand. The chief ran a finger over the text in one of the rows on the sheet. It's a cognitive defense mechanism that makes you not realize data is missing. In graphic design, placeholder text is called lipsum. When it's anti-mimetic, we call it mipsum. Mimetic placeholder text. Glyphs that are so much like real text that your whole perception just passes over it. Except she added, with an approving side glance, yours didn't. She flipped through a few pages. Wow. Over half the names. Maybe three out of four. What department is this? This one's waste disposal. Let's see. I also have... She pulled out several more stacks of 11x17. Fire services, ops A, ops B, and oh, the text on the next one read, anti-mimetics division. Wheeler took it and began flipping through it. I don't understand. Anti-mimetics has a staff of 8,000 people. Two thirds of them can't just be. She stopped. Her face going blank is a gaze rested on an opposite wall. Eleanor waited and then gently tapped her. Wheeler looked mildly startled. She dropped the spreadsheet on the floor and dashed to the office door. Just outside, department staffers were hard at work in offices and cubicles. Shuffling papers, transcribing notes, rewriting lost communications fully 10th or 20th time. Eleanor was at her side. What is it? Look, Wheeler said. Eleanor looked around. I don't... I don't see what you're... Count, Wheeler said. Her voice barely a breath. Count the number of people you can see from this doorway.  Uh, 22. The numbers are wrong. Wheeler shook her head. Again. Count again. She did. 22. Again. Focus. Count in your head. Eleanor gritted her teeth. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. No. Not eight. Just seven. Only seven people were actually in the room. She sucked in a breath. Oh my God. Wheeler was glowering. Eleanor could almost see the wheels spinning behind her glasses and it was a moment before the chief returned to reality. Okay. I think I know our next step. Wheeler felt suddenly ready for anything. Okay. Who are we going to talk to? No one. Wheeler gestured for the accountant to follow. I think we already did. The computer screen was facing the other direction but whatever was on it cast Wheeler into sharp relief. She looked somehow older now. Tired. Stretched to her limits. My God. Wheeler said. Leading back to the monitor. Box F. Box F. Went to a cabinet and removed a small green box about the size of a coffee mug.  All right, Eleanor. The information you're about to receive is highly confidential and may distress you. But if it's any consolation, the access logs in here lead me to believe that you and I have discussed this before. Eleanor nodded and said nothing. This, Wheeler said, turning her computer monitor, is SCP-2000. It's all right. Apparently you already have clearance to read this file. I wonder how that happened. Eleanor took the mouse and started to scroll through its contents section by section. Her face went from curiosity to horror and back again in the short span of a few minutes. When she'd reached the bottom of the page, she had become pale in the fading afternoon light. Sinking back in her chair, the young agent sat quietly for a long time, simply contemplating what she had just read. Wheeler rose and walked to the break room to make two cups of tea, one of which was placed in front of a colleague who had still not moved. Eleanor's eyes went suddenly wide and she grabbed the mouse and scrolled up. Wait. To fulfill its primary mission, SCP-2000 includes 500,000 bright Zarsian hominid replicators, ZZHR. At peak capacity, SCP-2000 is capable of producing 100,000 viable non-anomalous humans per day with a warmup period of 5 days. She pointed at the screen and looked over at Wheeler without saying a word. Wheeler nodded, taking a sip of her tea. Eleanor scrolled back down to the bottom of the description. It is estimated that the world population, many fractioned curability, agricultural production and culture can be reset to 2,000 CE levels 25 to 50 years after the procedure is implemented. Eleanor pointed again, still unable to make any words. She grabbed for a pen and notebook. The chief stopped her. No, I understand. It doesn't add up. The population of the world in 2000 was 6.2 billion people. And 100,000 people a day for even 50 years, accounting for birth rates and death rates, you come up short, far too short. She took another sip of tea, about 2 in 3 short, a population loss of about 70%. Eleanor had not yet found her voice, but she tried. Where are they? She whispered. Wheeler tapped a phrase on the screen with the back of her pen. The BZHR also has the ability to implant memories by administration of Class G hallucinogenics and developmental hypnotherapy. Class G hallucinogenics. I'm familiar with these, she explained. They're not in your standard amnestics and anestics guide. This isn't just a memory eraser. It's a memory replacer. It's made of anomalous material that makes it as permanent as possible. The memories bind to your brain and don't let go. She let out a hiss between her teeth. They should have told me about this. So what does that mean? Eleanor whispered. She was trembling again. The chief didn't meet Eleanor's gaze. It means that the last time the Lazarus protocol was used, they only made 2 billion people out of 6. Everyone else is just implanted in our conscious. She took in a deep breath. On the streets. In restaurants. On the train. In your office. 2 out of 3 just aren't real. They're in our heads to make a planet feel a little less empty. But why? Wheeler had no answer. A long silence descended between them. And in there. She gestured to the green queue labeled box F. Already suspecting the answer. Wheeler removed the lid. Inside were 2 medical inhalers. Each with a bright green label. One red, Wheeler M. And the other, Jones E. Class G, Wheeler mumbled.  Drugs strong enough to overpower nestics. Drugs strong enough to override a living being pronently. Well, not pronently. Wheeler remind herself. Eleanor had beaten it. Eleanor and the numbers. Eleanor picked the one with her own name. I've done this before, haven't I? Wheeler pulled the other one from the box. I think we both have. The accountant paused again. And I have to. The chief met Eleanor's gaze. It was an expression of regret. Hopelessness. And a profound sense of duty. Broiled together with a suppressed instinct. That innate fear of not knowing. I won't make you, Wheeler said. And there was a depth of calm to her voice. I can't stop someone higher than me from giving it to you later against your will. Maybe that's what happened last time. No way to know. But she finally broke her gaze, looking out of the office window at the setting sun and the massive stone monument in the forest behind site 41. I also wouldn't judge you for choosing to live a different, less unsettling truth. Eleanor rattled the inhaler. It's not a truth. Numbers don't lie. The tea had gone cold by the time they had both made the decision. In the file, to learn more about the SCP Foundation, subscribe to SCP Orientation today and turn the notification bell on so you don't miss any of our videos.


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