PRESS RELEASE
Alibaba Founder Jack Ma: The U.S. Should Invest in Infrastructure—Not in Wall Street or Wars
Jan. 20, 2017 (EIRNS)—Chinese tycoon Jack Ma, who had met President-elect Donald Trump earlier in January, spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland yesterday, and had a few good remarks on the origin of the American economic decline.
"Over the past 30 years, the Americans had 13 wars spending $14.2 trillion," said Ma.
"What if they had spent part of that money on building up their infrastructure, helping white-collar and blue-collar workers? No matter how strategically good it is, you’re supposed to spend money on your own people....
"And the other money which I’m curious about is that when I was young, all I heard about America was Ford and Boeing and those big manufacturing companies. The last 10-20 years, all I heard about is Silicon Valley and Wall Street,"
he continued.
"And what happened? The year 2008: The financial crisis wiped out $19.2 trillion in the U.S.A. alone and destroyed 34 million jobs globally. So what if the money spent on Wall Street and the Middle East was spent on the Midwest of the United States, developing the industry there? That could change a lot."
Ma also said that globalization should be improved by making more room for small businesses, rather than the current system run by the World Trade Organization (WTO), which was developed to protect corporate interests.
"The WTO was great but it was mainly designed for developed countries and big companies. There’s no opportunity for small business. We want to build up an EWTP—an Electronic World Trade Platform—to support young people, small business.
"And the other thing is that the WTO is a very interesting organization. When you put 200 government officials in one room, ask them to agree on something—it’s impossible! I can never imagine that they agree on something together. Business should be designed by business people, so we believe the EWTP should have businessmen sitting down together, agree on something, negotiate on something, then get endorsement from the government."
