Crisis? What Crisis?

After the first SABF lunch, it was time to listen to Juan Carlos de Pablo, who is Director at Contexto. He was interviewed by Enrique Diaz Leimbacher, Associate Professor at ITBA. The interview was developed in very dynamic way by both the interviewee and the interviewer.

The first issue discussed was what is happening in the Argentinian economy. Juan Carlos de Pablo commented that, in order to understand Argentinian crisis, you must talk about the objective problems and those created by a government that nobody believes in. He also added that when policies are temporary, the effect obtained is not the desired one.

Besides, de Pablo explained that economists tend to talk about countries that they cannot even place in a map. Decision-makers are the ones we must pay attention to. “The European leaders act as if there was no crisis.”

Regarding globalisation, he stated that “Globalisation does not hit countries, it hits people in countries”. Globalisation provides net benefits, but that does not mean that everybody will be better off. He says the world is guided by Schumpeter’s principle of creation and destruction.

Then, he talked about his experience as consultant. De Pablo thinks that the work of the consultant consists in a macro aspect. The future is uncertain and decisions should be made. Most of the times you can´t wait until the storm stops. The uncertainty is always double: error type 1 and error type 2.

As a consultant, should we tell the client what he needs to know? No! We should tell him the truth. We should do it as Dr. House does: forcing our patient (or client) to give us the necessary information to find the right diagnosis.

Finally, Juan Carlos de Pablo offered some time for participants to make questions.

Enrique Diaz Leimbacher asked him what he would do if he was an economic minister?. De Pablo answered: “I would do the same that this album cover does” and he pointed out to the cover of Supertramp’s album that named this activity: “Crisis? What crisis?”

He added that we don’t know how to manage the things happening now. Maybe we are in a transition, we must understand that growth is slow as history show. Robert Solow says that the world’s GDP did not make a exponential jump when a great part of the population started using computers. You are not minister without a context, you are a minister within a government.

We thank Juan Carlos de Pablo and Enrique Diaz Leimbacher for sharing their experiences and opinions with the 100 students participating at South American Business Forum 2012.