“The recession has always been six months from now, so is it coming?” retorted Geoff Colvin at the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s June 26 Economic Forum. Colvin, the keynote speaker, delivered a talk on this and more for area business leaders.
The CBS Radio commentator primarily discussed challenges to business in the modern world including artificial intelligence, employment issues related to Covid and financial crises. Colvin is also a Fortune Magazine Senior Editor at Large. The co-chairs of the event, at The Pfister Hotel, were Linda Gorens-Levey, Greg Marcus and David Lubar, with corporate partnership program chair Dan Sinykin.
Colvin wondered aloud whether inflation was “under control.”
“Getting down from 4% to 2%, which is the Fed’s goal is not going to be easy,” Colvin said. “Getting down to 2% is going to take a lot more clamping down [on the economy].”
He discussed smart business practices during periods of high inflation.
“As soon as hearing about the possibility of the danger of inflation, [companies started] preemptively raising prices.”
Discussing jobs and the Federal Reserve’s need to help shift unemployment to decrease inflation, Colvin proposed that “advancing technology on the whole has created more jobs and better jobs, higher paying jobs” so with the rise of artificial intelligence he predicts this trend will continue.
Colvin ended on a positive note, emphasizing all the things humans can do that computers cannot and the ‘power of proximity’.
“When we are in person, face to face, the pupils of our eyes dilate and constrict in response to each other,” Colvin said. “It is amazing how much more productive, how much more engaged we are, how much more learning happens when we are in-person together.”
He indicated that through tumultuous times new leaders emerge, encouraging those in the audience to “seize” new opportunities from these difficult times.
In addition to the keynote, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson spoke about the economic state of the city, and a conversation took place between Colvin and Mike Gousha, the senior advisor in law and public policy at Marquette University, addressing issues such as the work-from-home trend and cryptocurrency.
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