Events
The Bubble to end all Bubbles?
Tuesday 2 June 2009
Hands up if you remember the dot com bubble? Or how about the Y2K bubble? Housing bubble? 'Bubbles' as they apply to all things economic are little more than an oversupply of positive confidence in a particular area of economic concern. In fact 'Bubbles' are caused by the SAME things as 'Recessions' just at opposite ends of the spectrum. Where booms and bubbles need an oversupply of (positive) confidence, Recessions (and depressions) also rely on an oversupply of (negative) confidence. And right now we could well be on the verge of the greatest 'bubble' we've manufactured:
The spending that occured for the Y2K bug and dot coms pales into insignificance compared to the spending being rolled out by Governments around the world in their attempts to counter the so called Global Financial Crisis. In fact, as 'bubbles' go, this one is monstrous and dwarfs anything we've seen. So a futurist question - what happens when this bubble goes 'pop'?
What is likely to happen will by and large depend on where abouts the money was spent. Countries (and companies for that matter) that fritter away their cash on short term projects will face disaster, because once this bubble pops, there just won't be any money left to bail anyone out. But countries (and companies) that spend on three core areas will be much better placed - infrastructure projects that reduce blockages in their supply chains; training to upskill potential employees for the NEXT level of skilled jobs; support projects that cushion the negative impacts on families and local communities as a result of employment and income challenges.
So far it appears the Government focus in Australia will be on infrastructure and on skills training. But what I'm not seeing is the spending on the support programs that will be needed to carry large portions of society through the gap between working and unemployment periods. I'm not seeing the increase in funding for Homeless people, often displaced due to an unexpected loss of income; support for families struggling to feed their children or themselves; families unable to pay car registration and insurances that compound employment challenges.
For companies, the same thing applies. What development projects can you work on that will remove or reduce blockages in your supply chains? Are you going to offload quality workers even though you KNOW that companies that did so in the last recession took far longer and were far less able to return to profitability when the upswing kicked in? Or will you be smart enough to work on inhouse training and Government funded training projects to keep them in touch and involved? What 'people and family' activities are you working towards to help local communities of which your staff and their families belong?
Because if you think that right now is the best time to 'invest' your money on a new luxury car because they are 'cheap' then you've probably got your focus on the wrong 'bubble'. When the Government funding runs out, you'd want to be ready to pick up where the Government leaves off - playing catch-up with staff, skills and infrastructure will be too difficult to do.
Be wise and be precise
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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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