Reports show the US economy shrank 0.5% in the 3rd quarter. This means if you were used to earning $10,000 / quarter now you would only have $9,950.
Why is this is a crisis?
It's because there is something fundamentally wrong with the type of fiat currency we use.
(see Bernard Lietaer's The Future of Money)
mercredi 26 novembre 2008
vendredi 21 novembre 2008
History Majors vs. MBAs
According to an article by Liar's Poker author Michael Lewis, it was Meredith Whitney who on October 31, 2007 recognized that "Citigroup had so mismanaged its affairs that it would need to slash its dividend or go bust." This insight "shaved $369 billion off the value of financial firms in the market."
Whitney is a history grad and this reminds us why we should hire more liberal arts grads and fewer engineers, accountants and MBAs.
People in professional disciplines are taught a small set of powerful analytical tools. They are exposed to many problems in their education, but only those problems that can attacked with those tools. As a result they end up with a very narrow world view and are easily fooled. Why is it that some economists think heroin addiction is a rational choice and trying to discourage it would make people worse off? (see the soon to be published Free Market Madness by Peter Ubel) It's because they've been so highly indoctrinated in a specific analytical method they've lost the ability to think.
Those educated in the humanities/liberal arts are taught to inquire deeply about the nature of very complex and ambiguous things. These are the people you need on your staff.
Now, I'm an MBA so I have seen the dark side (although I went to an MBA school where we learned more about telling jokes and putting hockey sticks across conveyor belts than about obscure financial theory). However, somewhere in my informal education I picked up a fair bit about the humanities as do many engineers, lawyers and perhaps even some accountants.
If you think the future will be uncertain, complex and ambiguous then you want to hire people who through their formal or informal education have been taught to understand such things.
Whitney is a history grad and this reminds us why we should hire more liberal arts grads and fewer engineers, accountants and MBAs.
People in professional disciplines are taught a small set of powerful analytical tools. They are exposed to many problems in their education, but only those problems that can attacked with those tools. As a result they end up with a very narrow world view and are easily fooled. Why is it that some economists think heroin addiction is a rational choice and trying to discourage it would make people worse off? (see the soon to be published Free Market Madness by Peter Ubel) It's because they've been so highly indoctrinated in a specific analytical method they've lost the ability to think.
Those educated in the humanities/liberal arts are taught to inquire deeply about the nature of very complex and ambiguous things. These are the people you need on your staff.
Now, I'm an MBA so I have seen the dark side (although I went to an MBA school where we learned more about telling jokes and putting hockey sticks across conveyor belts than about obscure financial theory). However, somewhere in my informal education I picked up a fair bit about the humanities as do many engineers, lawyers and perhaps even some accountants.
If you think the future will be uncertain, complex and ambiguous then you want to hire people who through their formal or informal education have been taught to understand such things.
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