Charlie Rose Program for February

¶ … Charlie Rose program for February 25, 2013, which was available online. The subject was feminism, and the movement that occurred through the 1960s to the present day that changed the way that American society views women, and the resistance that there was to that change. The subject was a documentary that PBS is airing, and Rose spoke with Gloria Steinem and Amy Richards.

The story was generally viewed to be a global story that affects everyone on the planet, because of the restructuring of society that occurs. There snippets from females in business, which of course is one of the big issues in feminism, but I don't think that was the major thing to understand about global enterprise, that you can have female executives. I suspect that would be a rather shallow interpretation.

The feminist movement is something that has still not entirely taken root in all of American society, but around the world it has not taken root at all in some places. There are a lot of social issues that creates, but more importantly for global enterprise it also creates opportunities. When societies restructure the way that they think and work, especially when this restructuring has a profound impact on 50% of those societies, this has significant impacts on global enterprise, in terms of the opportunities in creates and the market changes that occur. Moreover, the empowerment of women, especially in the non-Western world, is something that probably will be a broad trend in the 21st century, and something that should be taken into account by companies engaged internationally.

I also watched BBC World News for a while. The broadcast talked a lot about the Italian election, which ended in something of a deadlock. Voters in Italy could not decide between their political options, and that includes the path that the EU has put the country on with respect to austerity. There was a fair bit of discussion on the show about how this was going to affect the economy, especially in Europe, where Italy is the third-largest economy in the Eurozone. The elections are another chapter in the ongoing Eurozone saga that began back with the recession in 2008.

The program, to my eyes, made it a little easier to understand the election results. For those of us not familiar with Italian politics, this is necessary because there are elements of the story that do relate to anybody involved in global enterprise. Italy is a major market, but more importantly when events there affect the Eurozone or EU economics, that becomes even more important. This election was particularly relevant because it focuses on the idea of austerity as a pathway to economic success. No sane person would believe that austerity works -- or at least not one who took Econ 101 -- but Europe has been going at this idea for a long while. Enough Italians figured out that the whole thing is absurd, and basically voted to end it. This of course is creating some intrigue for the markets, but for businesses in general there is a broader theme and that is the democratic rejection -- at least in part -- of clown college economics. The British commentators had an interesting take on the issue, since their country has been suffering economic degradation following these same policies, but their politicians remain steadfastly committed to it.