บท 264: Inaugural Economic Forum
Elizabeth walked back to her guest room in the lodge. Her husband now had a third child. Elizabeth wondered how Will would respond.
Would he accept her or reject Willow as his child? Elizabeth felt conflicted about either option.
There was a third option. He could always wait to see if Camille or Edward could use mana.
But, she stopped herself there. She could not allow herself to think that Willow, might unseat her children as Will's heir.
Now, she understood why her mother never let her father bring his other children into their home. Elizabeth swore to fall her mother's example, and never let that child in her home.
Elizabeth knew she couldn't keep this a secret. She knew she had to tell Will. Whatever may come, she has to let Will know.
***
Will, Samuel, and Micheal stood in the large conference room. In a couple of hours, the conference was scheduled to start.
Vincent and Gideon were standing off to the side. They knew this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Vincent knew, that if this went well, this could be his ticket back into noble society. And if this went poorly, his reputation would never recover.
While Will was surrounded by several invitees, Samuel stepped off to the side. A little birdie told him Elizabeth and Anne had a big confrontation, and Elizabeth had Anne imprisoned.
Samuel oversaw the security of the World Economic Forum. Yet, he enjoyed working with all the different guests' security. He knew Anne was coming and who she guarding.
Also having a 'noble killer' overseeing security provided a big incentive for good behavior.
Moreover, Samuel was only the first line of defense. Should a threat escalate, Will could easily handle it.
Two hours later, the conference room was filled with important men and women. Emperors, kings, dukes, guild masters, nobles, and rich commoners filled the conference room. Except for royalty, the two attendees shared a table.
Emperors and kings had a table to themselves.
The conference room had studio seating. Royals sat on the first stand, and commoners sat in the back row. In this world rank was everything.
Outside, uninvited people jockeyed to get. However, Vincent was not even allowed entry. Vincent and Gideon's job was to keep uninvited guests out of the conference for safety reasons.
Exactly at the 14th bell, Will told us and magically enhanced his voice.
"Greeting world leaders, today is the inaugural meeting of the World Economic Forum. I want to welcome you all today to Kukes. For the next five days, we'll engage in global issues.
The goal of this conference is not world peace, far from it. The goal of this forum is political and economic cooperation on global issues.
However, be for we get started, I would like to first introduce my king, and dear cousin, King Roland Godwin Fermion III," I Will finished with a round of applause.
King Roland gave a brief welcome and a short thank you to Will for putting this conference together. After another round of applause, King Roland returned to his seat.
"Thank you, King Roland. Before our reception or keep you from Kukes' wonderful recreation, please let me formally explain what and why we need a World Economic Forum," Will began his big introduction speech.
"The world around us is changing at unprecedented speed. At this tipping point, our traditional concepts of society, meaningful employment, and the nation-state are challenged, and many understandably feel insecure or even threatened.
A new model of responsive and responsible leadership is needed to allow us to address the challenges the world faces, from security to economic prosperity.
We need cooperative, action-oriented thinking and solidarity on both the national and global levels.
Since the end of the last Great Schism, there has been a surge in global economic development. But despite this, the world is living a tale of two realities.
On the one hand, we have rarely been as well off as we are today. We live in a time of relative peace and absolute wealth. Compared with previous generations, many of us live long and mostly healthy lives.
Our children are educated, often frequent academies, and connect us to the world.
Even a generation or two ago, our parents and grandparents could only dream of the lifestyle many of us have today and the luxuries that come with abundant energy, advances in technology, and global trade.
On the other hand, our world and societies have suffered catastrophic a plague, civil unrest, maddening hyperinflation, and dangerous unsustainability.
The 8-Day plague was just one event that demonstrated that we still live in dangerous times.
Some cities, towns, and villages were decimated and now remain uninhabited.
We need to come together and share better medical practices and care.
We need to come together and increase our global wealth.
To understand how we got here—and how we can get out of this situation—we must go back in time, we must go back to the Great Schism.
We must go back to the origins of our global economic system. We must play back the picture of post-war economic development and look at its milestones.
We must go back, so we can be prepared for the future.
After the Great Schism, the relief of the end of the war soon made way for the fear of another one.
At the time, the results were not clear to us or anyone else. This was a battle of ideologies, economic systems, and geographical power.
For decades, empires, kingdoms, principalities, dukedoms, and theocracies entrenched their positions and competed with each other for regional supremacy.
At the same time, feudalism won the ideological battle between feudalism and mercantilism.
With the benefit of hindsight, we know that the feudalism created, based on mercantilism and trade, were building blocks for an era of unparalleled shared economic prosperity.
Combined with the will of many people to rebuild, we laid the groundwork for decades of economic progress and economic dominance.
Today, many parts of the world, including the Kingdom of Fermion, have a baby boom.
Education and industrial activity expanded.
The royalty has committed themselves and their empires and kingdoms to reconstructing their economies and societies towards mercantilism.
Yet, mercantilism isn't enough. We need to move to capitalism.
Capitalism is the way to develop strong relations with allies aimed at sustained peace.
Given so much of your national focus on freeing the peasantry class, there was an unprecedented increase in societal cohesion.
These working citizens now line our pockets with their taxes. Many of your treasuries overflow with gold.
Looking at economic indicators in the largest economies of the world, it seemed as though everyone is winning.
Annual economic growth averaged up to 5, 6, and even 7 percent.
In some of your kingdoms, my kingdom included, economic growth doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled.
The booming economies make former peasants feel respected for their contribution as workers in developing economic wealth.
As a businessman, I believe every citizen is a shareholder in society and plays a role in creating and sustaining shared prosperity.
The best way to do so, I came to think, was for companies to adopt a stakeholder model, in which they served society in addition to their shareholders. I decided to turn that idea into action by organizing a management forum where business leaders, government representatives, and academics could meet.
I thought Kukes offered the best setting.
This ideal small picturesque mountain town, high up in the mountains, with its clean air, where attendees could exchange best practices and new ideas and inform each other of pressing global social, economic, and political issues.
That is why I organized this World Economic Forum.
Now I wish to lay out this forum's guiding principles:
1: We have no ideological or commercial interests. This does not mean that we are neutral – we are committed to improving the world in ways that are objective, measurable, and sustainable.
2: We bring attention to challenges that affect the future of global society. We believe that no issue is isolated – there are always affects and interdependencies, which we systematically and rigorously take into consideration.
3: We actively invite perspectives from all interested parties. We believe that the world's challenges can only be solved through engagement with all members of a global society.
4: We focus on the long term, not the emergencies of the day. Success is measured not only in terms of immediate results - we understand that real progress takes time and sustained commitment.
Finally, I believe that progress happens by bringing together people from all walks of life who have the drive and the influence to make positive changes in this world.
Again, I wish to thank everyone for attending this opening session.
Please follow my servants to the reception for cocktail hour. Dinner shall be served promptly at the 15th bell.
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MightyEagle
MightyEagle Sorry for the delay, I have terrible writer's block. I rushed this chapter out half done. So if there are grammatical errors or something is missing. Please let me know.
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