We'd like to think we're through the worst of the biggest crisis in 70 years. And yet derivatives, a chief culprit of the financial meltdown, continue to account for 10 times world GDP and counting. A major $8.5 billion takeover has analysts speculating about a new internet bubble. Some emerging economies are showing classic signs of overheating with property prices, consumer credit and bank profits hitting all time highs.
We could be forgiven for wondering if we have learned anything over the past few years. We would deserve less forgiveness if we were unwittingly preparing the ground for the next slump and no one sounded the alarm.
If international institutions do their job and fulfill their purpose, we stand a good chance of avoiding the mistakes of the past. The crisis has brought the roles of organizations like the OECD into sharp focus. Like never before, we are coordinating our efforts with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization and the International Labor Organization.
But much more needs to be done. The G20, governments, civil society actors and citizens around the world now have higher expectations of us. Since the OECD was founded 50 years ago, it has provided a unique forum where leaders and decision makers meet to discuss which policies work and which don't. We have had a solid track-record freeing people from economic and social wreckage, beginning with the Marshall Plan in the aftermath of WWII. Helping governments and countries understand the interdependence of their economies and societies paved the way for an era of cooperation.
In addressing the latest crisis we have delivered some concrete results: closing down tax havens worldwide so taxpayers and collectors are sure we're all making a contribution to clear up the mess. OECD standards to fight international bribery have global reach with Russia on the brink of becoming the 40th country to sign up to them. Bribery takes money out of people's hands, food out of people's mouths and undermines development. In an effort to bring renewed focus on the need for robust corporate governance we have fundamentally overhauled our international Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. We continue to push for the separation of risky business investments such as derivatives from high-street banking. And we are making real efforts to address the deficit in citizens' financial education and protection that the crisis so flagrantly revealed. We are leading G20 efforts to enforce proper consumer protection so that people are never placed in the position where they sign a mortgage document that they don't understand. In regions like the Middle East, we can bring our experience to bear to help rebuild societies and economies, as we have done throughout Western and Eastern Europe.
And we are pushing boundaries of knowledge and understanding by questioning conventional wisdom. After seven years working to better measure societal progress, the launch of Your Better Life Index is designed to respond to a pent-up demand from citizens the world over to move beyond GDP as the means of measuring well-being and gauging progress. By giving ordinary people the instrument to measure their well-being we are changing the face of public policy making, helping them help us deliver the best public policies to improve their lives.
The pre-crisis system let us down. We need to restore trust and make good on what people want most -- growth and jobs. The best way to do this is to start from the facts, the evidence, the numbers, to share best practices, to make an honest assessment of what works and what doesn't. And to develop standards that can ensure the global community can benefit from the accrued wisdom of experience. Good public policy is about good ideas. There is no political monopoly on them. They should be formulated not in competing corners of the policy landscape, but rather at the nexus of where economics, government, the private sector and everyday people meet.
We're clearly not out of the woods as far as the crisis is concerned. It is all too human to indulge in wishful thinking and end up back where we started with business as usual. But it would be a temptation we could never forgive ourselves for falling into.
Angel Gurria is Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.