Summary: Bad decisions often transform a crisis into a disaster. Sometimes bad decisions are unavoidable. Today we’ll look at two episodes of the past, mining them for useful lessons for us about leadership. Contents Introduction Learning from the Titanic Learning from the Great Depression Looking at responses to the 2008-2009 crash, and the crises that …
The Titanic’s lessons for us about the coming economic crisis Read More »
Summary: Suddenly everybody has got financial religion. End the deficits! Pay down the debt! Increase saving! What does this mean for our future? My guess: not much. Except to delay necessary action. This post has some exaggeration for emphasis. Bad news for the faithful: saving is not like chastity or fidelity. Every young girl can be chaste. …
Introduction: This is another in a series of dashed off speculative opinions. Normal procedure on the FM website for these topics would be 3 thousand word posts, supported by dozens of links. I dont’ have the time to finish them, and too many of these outlines have accumulated in my drafts file. Perhaps these will spark useful debate …
A lesson from the Weimar Republic about balancing the budget Read More »
Summary The US government has at most a few weeks to restart the nation’s financial machinery. The delay might result from the time required to assembly a sufficiently large policy package. Or the US government’s leaders may have become overwhelmed by the rapid evolution of events. If the latter (#3), a depression may result (not a Great …
Status report on the financial crisis: why has the treatment been so slow, so small? Read More »
Summary:  this series speculates about the consequences of a deep and long recession over the next few years. How might we react? How might this change America? This post examines our alternatives. The second post discusses possible changes in our financial system. The last chapter looks at the effect on Americans, and America. Our next President will face these challenges, so your vote in …
Consequences of a long, deep recession – part I Read More »
