talal abu-ghazaleh is one of the brightest palestinians who have been living outside palestine and one of the best and brightest businessmen. talal was born in 1938 in jaffa. he graduated from the american university of beirut, and he was self dependent and self-made even before he graduated.
after graduation, he worked in an audit company and this was a turning point in his life. experience and ambition drove him to establish his own audit company in 1972. the second major turning point in his life – and this is what i can say for sure, which may not be mentioned in his biography – is that he rose to world fame from kuwait, which, after 46, where his roots and fame can still be seen since his accounting activity coincided with the flurry of the establishment of public shareholding companies, and the sale and purchase of nationalities, and many of us had businesses with his accounting office in the seventies.
with time and a lot of serious effort, he has become a well-known name in the world of auditing and accounting, and in other fields, including intellectual property, and thus accumulates wealth and best exploitation, and did not spare any efforts to help his compatriots and spend on various charity, feasibility and scientific researches.
all this made him worthy of respect and appreciation of several parties which awarded him many medals and offered him prestigious positions and good reputation. he has also made clear contributions to accounting sciences and founding institutes and universities, and was generous in the area of scholarships. all this is beautiful, until a year ago he touted the idea that the world in 2020 is heading for a big recession.
he issued dozens of statements and gave interviews predicting world economic crisis worse than the 2008 crisis, and that a huge contraction and high prices will follow the recession, and will double the global debt, and the crisis will continue for three or four years. he also predicted that the arab region will witness economic advancement in 2024 after the global crisis.
he predicted a third world war during or after the crisis and i do not know how there will be a renaissance in the arab countries if there is a third world war. he then ended his remarks with a message on aug 17, 2019 to the employees of his companies, reiterating the warnings of the inevitability of recession and the looming world war, and began with the following sentence: the united states announced on july 14, as i expected earlier, that its economy has entered a recession phase followed by recession in the european economy, as i expected and the recession will lead to a third world war.
then he mentioned a set of tips and guidelines on the need to increase productivity and austerity in expenses. i do not know why he demanded increased productivity, when war is on the doorstep, rather than demanding the construction of shelters and storage of medicines and food?
the serious issue in this frightening and utterly untrue speech comes from the personality such as talal abu-ghazaleh. neither this month nor before has america talked about recession and vice versa. nor have any of european economies declared recession. where did he get this irresponsible talk from?
i looked at some of talal’s interviews and found that he used the same method of zaghloul in miracle subjects, when he claimed that europe’s laboratories and universities proved his claims or statements, without giving the name of one institute, university or western scientist.
for sure, several financial institutions have warned of recession, but it has not happened yet. morgan stanley, one of the world’s largest financial institutions, has announced that the possibility of recession in the united states is only 20% in the next 12 months.
he also said that the most important pre-recession indicator is unemployment, which is not yet available. the national bureau of economic research (nber) defines recession as “a significant decline in economic activity that lasts for a few months and is usually visible in real gdp, real income, employment, and industrial production and wholesale and retail figures,” and this has not been noticed yet.
talal and others have the right to expect what they want, and their expectations may come true, but the claim is one thing, and expectation is another. what he mentioned has caused panic in the hearts of many who respect his views, which are far from truth.
i tried, for a week to contact talal through his office in kuwait, and through a relative, to inquire about the source of his information, but to no avail, and this article was to clarify the picture.
the kuwait alumni association (behind the society of engineers) holds its annual book exhibition from today until wednesday, from 6 to 9 pm, and i have a participation in it.