Events
Financial Crisis 101 - a smart diagram that explains (mostly) it all
Friday 21 November 2008
The link below will take you to a great little diagram that explains the unfolding of the Financial Crisis as most people know of it. As Marcus Barber explains, it doesn't delve too deep into the structural design of the financial system, or start at the 'true beginning' of the problem and it does explain in a very easy to follow way, how certain events occurred and what the results of those events were.
Put together by 'Wallstats.com' a blogger who has posted the map onto the Mint.Com blogosphere, this diagram is recommended to anyone who wants to get a handle on how certain signals of the emerging future are ignored by people who were supposed to be on watch, how vested interests make public statements aimed at achieving their own ends rather than those that might benefit the whole system, and how economic systems are not 'systems' that run by themselves - they are structures that human being create to deliver certain outcomes.
From a strategic futures perspective, this diagram highlights the way in which we behave inside the financial system. There's more to be learned and more issues to be considered in the biger scheme of the model and one thing is clear 'top down' levers like interest rates, and 'trickle down' theories of economic development are mythologies about the ways in which human being operate in response to the way the financial system works. The diagram tracks events as they unfold and delightfully, uses quotes from so called experts as the mess began, to show just how ignorant we can be when we don't pay attention to what is emerging and when we don't question the assumptions we are making
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Events
Friday 16 July 2010
A series of recent activities has me writing on the idea of 'future strategy' and how different organisations are approaching their future development. What is interesting is the strong sense that preparing for your potential future requires multiple paths forward, not a single 'home run'. To that end I've recently considered sporting bodies and local community driven programs which has triggered these 'thought bubbles'
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Monday 5 July 2010
Stephen Downes is one the handful of bloggers I follow consistently. I do so because Downes (unlike many others unfortunately) like to write about his thinking AS WELL AS promoting the thinking of others, whether or not he agrees with them. In that way you get a solid collection of alternative views within his field of endeavour (learning & teaching et al). The link below will take you to a presentation by David Harvey that walks you through an interesting interpretation of the Capitalist model and where we are at in the world affairs. Whether or not you agree with the content, it is highly recommended
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Monday 28 June 2010
Coming off what has been undoubtedly my busiest period (3 months) in the past decade, I'm in the throws of catching up on some light reading. I usually have at least two books on the go and my preference is for the books to be about diverse topics because it allows the mind to seek out random connections. I once 'solved' the nuclear fusion problem whilst reading books by Umberto Eco and John D Barrow. A physicist friend of mine suggested my idea was radical and yet theoretically possible. But I digress. Right now I have a wide combination - 'From Poverty to Peace' by Duncan Green looks at ways in which we can empower people to help themselves more effectively, whilst looking at the myriad of mistakes so commonly made in the area of 'aid'. 'New knowledge in Human Values' is an older book edited by Ambraham Maslow with a wide contribution of thoughts from the likes of Pitirim Sorokin, Dorothy Lee and Paul Tillich (among others) and is a walk through some of the thinking about Human Values emerging in the late 1950's. The chapters are appropriately dense undertakings and I'm finding it hard to stick with, especially as I'm more inclined to lean towards the model of Clare W Graves and his Value Systems Thoery; 'Coercion as Cure' by Thomas Szasz is a ripper of a book thus far, though I'm only a few chapters in, I can tell the quality of a book by how much 'tagging' I do within a text
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