The  WB expects the global economy to contract for the first time since WWII in 2009 and world trade is to decline to the lowest level in 80 years.

A trade dispute  has just exploded between Washington and Beijing following the imposition of tariffs on Chinese tires imported into the US.

China’s internet community has gone viral on the topic. And many in the West are thinking. “Isn’t this type of reaction a bit out of date? Given China’s economic power, if they want to sell tires in another country, they can just go ahead and buy a tire manufacturer there. The West has enough broke businesses.”

With the G20 summit opening tomorrow in Pittsburgh, people are wondering what kind of world the aftermath of the financial crisis is likely to produce in the years to come.

The tendency, as we have seen, is to go tribal.

Forbes  is heralding the end of Thomas Friedman’s  ”Flat World” and the beginning of a new “era of decreasing trade”.

I can’t help sensing a strong feeling of hysteria around the whole thing.

Yes, the world is changing. May be much faster than Friedman or anybody else had predicted. But the answer is not to find refuge in protectionism.

Times call for much more creative solutions. Let’s see what comes out of  tomorrow and Friday.

I braved the anti-G20 demonstrations and ventured into the City of London yesterday to attend the installation of my friend Gina, who was admitted into my livery.

While I walked around the Bank of England and past the smashed RBS windows, I began thinking that the world is changing. It was an unseasonably chilly morning. The streets were empty, apart from a few nervous policemen. One of them redirected me and Gina away from an area that had been cordoned off.

“How funny,” Gina remarked. “A Chinese policeman”. An omen for the new era that is about to begin…??? I believe so.

Gina was installed at a beautiful ceremony at Carpenters’ Hall. During the lunch that followed we discussed the future of marketing and communications with a fellow Marketor.

We all agreed that our professions are finally leaving the flaky section. It will be difficult in the future to continue to talk about us as maters of spin.

Social media and the internet are doing the trick. Any piece of information we produce today is viewed by thousands of different audiences simultaneously. We can only win if we are authentic

Another reason why our professions are moving up the food chain is the level of sophistication of today’s publics. The financial crisis has taught people the importance of asking questions and looking behind the scenes.

In the months to come, corporations and public institutions will need communicators more than ever before to rebuild public trust.

The message is simple.

So why are so many employers still not getting it?

The national government of New Zealand has just announced a plan to reduce its public relations staff.

Would somebody please spell it out for them…

Photo: thanks to cpcml.ca

I know it is fashionable to hate banks.

I believe it was always fashionable to hate banks, even well before the subprime circus.

The reason being that banks are notoriously bad at bonding with the public.

In the post-Madoff era, you would think that they would go out of their way to shed off the stiff language of the past and try something new.

This is why watching Standard Chartered’s video “Building a Sustainable Business” made my heart sink.

Actually, my heart went out to the communicator who had to put the video together. Convincing senior management of the need to switch communications style can feel like a Sisyphean task in a financial institution. Believe me, I have been there.

It is time to go beyond worn-out lines like “reshaping the banking industry” and making “a contribution to broader challenges”.

People are too wary of banks these days. This kind of language does very little to comfort them.

So what is the answer?

Listening to the public.

In her latest book “Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth”, Margaret Atwood writes about the collapse of a narrative according to which people for many years understood their lives. People’s trust in a society that encouraged them to incur debt has been destroyed.

How do you recover from that? The wounds are too deep. Banks will have to heal them first before thinking of rebuilding trust.

Which language does the world’s most popular leader speak?

I believe it is the language of emotions that has helped president Lula of Brazil to attain a rating of 80% - the highest on the planet.

I watched him yesterday being interviewed by Fareed Zakaria on CNN’s GPS.

When he talks about his background, he does it in such a way that you are instantly transported to the humble hut that used to get flooded. When he remembers being unemployed for 1 ½ year, you can almost touch the despair and see the kitchen table with no food on it, covered only by an old, worn-out oil-cloth.

While until recently his style would have been relegated without much further thought to the Latin-charm section, communicators in the global North now need to pay attention.

Blogging and citizen journalism are changing the way people relate to messages and information. Emotions are the new entry point. Only if you are able to connect to people’s deepest passions and hopes, will you be able to capture their attention and make them stick to your post long enough for them to digest it and decide to come back to your site in the future.

When asked by Zakaria about his recent meeting with president Obama, Lula answered simply by saying that “he prays for Obama more than he prays for himself”.

What a powerful way to sum up a situation that can no longer be described with words. Too many words have already been spent in an attempt to make sense of the current crisis … What people want to hear is something closer to their heart, something that can give them comfort.

Lula believes that the world is changing. Emerging markets like Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa are gaining influence in world politics. He is calling for international institutions to open up to their participation, starting with the UN Security Council.

Here is another reason why the global North should listen.

I just finished listening to President Obama’s magnificent inauguration speech.

And yes… I did cry when he came to the part about being the son of a man who might not have been served in a restaurant 60 years ago.

I thought of the books by Maya Angelou I read.

I thought of all the people who were ever at the receiving end of a racist remark. Being from Southern Europe, I have had my fair share over the years …of course, nothing to compare to what Dr Angelou described… but you can kind of relate to the pain and anger.

I loved the part of Obama’s speech about the world growing smaller and humanity revealing itself (communicators are experiencing this every day through the interactive web).

And I was really relieved by his message of inclusiveness to the Muslim world.

I will remember the prayer spoken at the end of the ceremony. A prayer for “the community of all nations, not just our nation”.

America is becoming again the place I used to love.

I have always had a strong suspicion.

The internet is connecting us human beings much faster than we have been able to fully comprehend. This is what NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman and Dov Seidman discuss in this interview.

I had a concrete demonstration of this during my visit to Russia last week. The BRIC countries are reaching out and talking to each other. The result is fascinating.

The global financial crisis has added unsettling speed to this process.

We are at the beginning of a new era.

Remember Nick Leeson?

I worked as a financial journalist in the 1990s and used to hang out with a lot of bond traders.

It was the middle of the winter of 1995 and one of them had invited me to a “Nick Leeson party” to celebrate the fall of Barings Bank.

It was the kind of party I would have no chance of surviving today (not even by spending the following week in the hamam…).

I don’t remember what exactly we were celebrating.

Was it Schadenfreude?

Was it the fact that, having spent so much time interviewing the mighty and powerful in the “ivory towers” of different banks, I had discovered just how vulnerable (and may be irresponsible…) they were?

For my friends, used to take orders from the “towers”, it was the exhilarating feeling that it had been one of them to bring down the house and that the “towers” were no more.

I lost contact with my party-prone friend who, his trading days behind him, went on to become a board member of one of Eastern Europe’s leading banks (I won’t name names and no,…. he did not manage to bring down the bank).

But I wonder what he must be thinking right now.

After 158 years of history, Lehman Brothers is no more.

The financial sector is a cosy place. I spent years in it. Everybody speaks the same language and you get that warm and fuzzy feeling that comes from being part of a cast.

The danger is that you start sharing the same mythology and end up believing in things that don’t exist.

This week’s meltdown is not the first one we have been through.

But somehow I’ve got a feeling that my old friend in Prague won’t be celebrating.

Photo: thanks to yaliban.com

My readers know how much I love New Orleans.

It is such a magical place.

I was watching with horror and anger the reports on CNN about the aftermath of Katrina and the fears around Hurricane Gustav.

My friend Charles Pizzo sent me this video about the Katrina Myth. It is worth watching until the end (check out the part about London’s flood barriers…).

Charles lost his home and material possessions during Katrina.