Dead Ideas

Matt Miller's book, The Tyranny of Dead Ideas, is a great book in framing my thinking about the world. His thesis, framed in both politics and economics, are "dead ideas" hold us hostage. His dead ideas are: our kids will earn ore than we do; free trade is "good" no matter who gets hurt; your company should take care of you; taxes hurt the economy and they're always too high; schools are a local matter and money follows merit. (Miller, pp 8-9) I'll leave it others to debate these dead ideas but think of dead ideas from our nation's past - an economy based upon slavery is moral and that a great democracy can exclude women as voters.

When reading I like to identify what appear to be dead ideas. In the September 13 Bloomberg Businessweek, Out of Work, Not out of Oomph, author Diane Brady questions the long held belief that the impact of long term unemployment may be overstated. The premise is that depression and physical ailments impacts mortality. This research dates back to the 70s and 80s. Brady also questions whether skills erode so quickly. Maybe in some narrow technical fields but with access to blogs, social networks, perhaps not so much. My belief is that social media and the ability to virtually network counter this dead idea. When not engaged in project work in my business, I'm active in professional associations and continuing to develop skills while participating in discussions and other online activities like the eLearning Guild's Online Forums. For me, it's important to maintain skill, engagement with my profession and network. With social media, the cost barriers are very low.

So in learning, are learning styles a dead idea?

Unemployment greater security threat than terrorism?

A NPR story caught my ear this morning According to National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair's report,

The global economic downturn could easily change the world. Previously stable countries could become unstable. The geopolitical lineup could shift sharply, some countries becoming more powerful while others get weaker. Allies could turn into adversaries.

With tens of millions unemployed, mitigation of this risk or even intervention would certainly require approaches that counter a free market/free trade philosophy; e.g., perhaps "socialistic" and trade protectionism approaches. Policy makers must broaden their thinking outside of narrow frameworks. This will be an interesting debate for interesting times.

This is a bad sign

Layoff Tracker This blog dates back to October 2008 with 345 entries for 2008 and 188 to date. From the Evil HR Lady blog.

Risk Management?

Interesting story in the NYT Sunday 4 JAN 2009 by Joe Nocera titled Risk Mismangement that looks at the quantification of risk within an investment.

We really want to believe what the numbers tell us based upon what we want to believe; e.g, housing prices always increase.

More on Greed and finance

See the NYT Op Ed long piece "The End of the Financial World as We Know It" with more disturbing observations from Michael Lewis and David Einhorn. I read it as self interest over responsibility. Will we ever trust again?

So it was greed

I've been struggling to understand the economic challenges that have impacted us all. Spirited conversations (really arguments) were the result looking for the root cause. My belief it was greed. Greed in building these complicated and, for the most part, unregulated instruments.

From David Brook's Op Ed in yesterday's NYT on the Sidney Awards, read Michael Lewis' piece “The End”.