That Trust and Confidence Thing (Again, and Again)

Below is an extract from a NYT Opinion Page by Thomas Friedman.  I am increasingly interested in the status and nature of life in China.  As more insight is gained, it is obvious that there are certain challenges and limitations, not unexpected with over a billion people and a central planned leadership exercising capitalistic dreams - including double digit growth rates.  Yes we can ~ we can have our cake and eat it too.

My point in posting the text below is that it reflects a pattern of thought that I have had since the financial crisis gained momentum through 2008 ~ most recently in November 2011 with the Corzine - MF Global fiasco.  Trust and confidence.  Integrity in our actions ~ and trust in those acting upon us.  We place trust and confidence in so many different ways, every day of every year.  I'm not saying that I agree with the Opinion Page because I do not have sufficient knowledge.  But I do know that I want a society that has inherent trust.

"When there is trust in society, sustainable innovation happens because people feel safe and enabled to take risks and make the long-term commitments needed to innovate. When there is trust, people are willing to share their ideas and collaborate on each other’s inventions without fear of having their creations stolen. The biggest thing preventing modern China from becoming an innovation society, which is imperative if it hopes to keep raising incomes, is that it remains a very low-trust society."

READ FULL NYT POST HERE 

And from my post from May 8, 2010 (HERE)

"But in it's simplest sense, the market is an expression of human behaviour. It is a reflection of confidence and trust. There is much that we can do in this world to improve trust and confidence, but thinking that we will EVER control the global (trading) population's behaviour is highly optimistic, Any one individual's behaviour is their own. They make decisions and they take actions. And should do so with full responsibility and accountability. Regulations is certainly important. But more than anything else (to me), this crisis has exposed the serious depth of deterioration in the human spirit. I agree that there is lots of work to be done to close loopholes as our financial system grows up and matures. But there is the equally important and complex work that needs to be done on rebuilding the human spirit and rediscovering the true meaning of life on earth."