Yuval Harari’s brief history of humankind, weighing in at a meaty 400 pages, is enjoyable, provocative and very worrying. The wide-ranging, scholarly story is easy to read and sensible. I enjoyed the book from beginning to end, though I had to restrain myself from skipping to the last chapter: The End of Homo Sapiens. For …
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Category:3 The World of Money
Maybe system change will just be funny …
It sometimes difficult to be aware of what’s going on in the world because they’re not happy thoughts. This time last week I was hearing about the dark web and bad pharma from a friend, Howard. He runs a small cloud computing business with 30 million units invested in the technology and deals with a …
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Social, economic, intellectual capital and the memes of society: expectations determine wealth.
The emerging science of memes hold the key to modern business success. Be a part of a growing meme and you win. That is the aim of leading marketers. What is a meme? It is culture. How do you measure it? Using social, economic and intellectual measures against a backdrop of psychology. Getting data is …
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Global systems in transition – accountants seeing the light.
Dr Hazel Henderson has released a summary of her upcoming book Mapping the global transition to the solar age – From ‘economism’ to earth systems science. Drawing on over 40 years of data and experience, it offers a comprehensive summary of the issues faced by global systems and indicates ways forward. It is sponsored by …
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The price of oil is under pressure – high stocks and soft demand
The oil price has been a focus of attention for half a year or so since it dropped rapidly last year when Saudi Arabia stopped restricting supply. The immediate effect was to put pressure on marginal sources, like fracking, and to give consumers a break. This report by The Economist offers valuable insight, saying that …
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Deflation is everywhere. So what? It’s another crack in the wall.
Concerns about deflation are becoming widespread. Deflation is unwelcome because it makes loans more difficult to pay off and dampens economic vitality by encouraging hoarding of cash (some banks offer negative interest for deposits). There were concerns about the spectre of inflation back in 2008/9 but they were held at bay until the recent drop …
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The foxes have taken over the hen house!
Big business is secretly lobbying government to pass laws that give the rights to determine what we eat, irrespective of health or environment, as long as it makes money for them! Maybe that sounds too fantastic to be true, but it’s happening. Maybe you’re in big business and you think it can’t be that bad …
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Everyone leads in tomorrow’s world, because it’s natural.
Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences explains that in a flock of birds they take it in turns to lead, because being in the lead is energy depleting and can not last long (look at how every US President goes grey in the job), all birds in the flock learn to …
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1% own more than everyone else by next year: a decadent milestone in the implosion of civilisation.
Oxfam research shows that the share of the world’s wealth owned by the richest 1% increased from 44% in 2009 to 48% last year. Each adult on average has $2.7m. On current trends the wealthiest 1% will own more than 50% of the world’s wealth by 2016. Today the 80 richest people have the same …
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“The Facts” about sustainability, the environment and your future.
Below are the facts stated in the film Cowspiracy and their references. Which ever side you’re on it’s good to know them. For example, one takeaway from the ideas presented is that we can resolve environmental problems, reform economic systems and still keep our cars, if we change our diet. If you take that with …
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