Category: change
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The Optimist Conspectus
I don't know whether it's because the sun has been shining lately or whether it's a reaction to the almost celebratory zeal with which certain sections of the news media seem to be covering the current economic malaise, but I'm feeling the need to remind myself that whilst things are bad, in amongst it all…
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Fish Story
"There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, how's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, 'What…
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Come On BBC
I'm sorry, but the decision by the BBC not to broadcast the appeal by the Disasters Emergency Committee to help relieve the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza is unbelievable. After an 18 month blockade and three weeks of heavy shelling, 1.1 million people are now dependent upon aid to survive, around 500,000 people are without…
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Swimming Naked
"As house prices fall, a huge amount of financial folly is being exposed. You only learn who has been swimming naked when the tide goes out – and what we are witnessing at some of our largest financial institutions is an ugly sight." Warren Buffett The scarcity that has characterised this financial meltdown, perhaps more…
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Sacrificing The Sacred Cows
Giles makes the point that in these tough times companies have two choices – to innovate their way out of recession, or to retrench their way through it. He's right of-course, and I know which way I'd rather go. It almost goes without saying that innovation can not only get you through a recession, it…
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Fooled by Perceptual Bias
Rather than read all the copious analysis pieces in the press about the financial crash, I've been reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Fooled by Randomness which, even though it was written well before the crash, contains some prescient perspectives. Taleb (himself a derivatives trader of some considerable experience) judges the world in a probabilistic way, believing…
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Vote Obama
"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." For all my American readers.