Source: The Economist:
AS THE movers and shakers head to the Swiss mountain resort of Davos this week for the annual World Economic Forum, their credentials as global leaders look anything but resilient. Their official theme will be “resilient dynamism”, whatever that means, but what they ought to be talking about is the low level of trust the public has in their ability to do anything useful. The annual “Trust Barometer” survey published by Edelman, a public-relations firm, reports widespread scepticism about the ethics practised by political and business leaders. The lowest scores were when those surveyed were asked if they trust leaders to “tell the truth, regardless of how complex or unpopular it is”: only 18% trusted business leaders, whilst government leaders scored a yet more miserable 13%.
This lack of trust seems strikingly personal. As Edelman points out, trust in business and government leaders is far lower than trust in the respective institutions of business and government. Globally there is a gap of 32 percentage points between trust in business and trust in business leaders to tell the truth (35% in America and China), and a 28 percentage-point gap between trust in government and trust in its leaders to tell the truth (47% in China, 35% in India).
Categories: Economy, Europe, Switzerland