… the best and brightest. They are the greediest, they might have the potential of being the best and brightest - but they are greediest first and foremost.
What’s my point? When the forest fire is burning thru, you’ve got the wrong people manning the fire hoses.
Over the past month or so every morning, as I eat breakfast, I have watched the Dow Jones thrash out it’s dying hours for the day. Every night I have watched the bobble-heads prognosticate - announcing this plan and that. The problem just gets worse and worse and the impotence of the experts becomes more and more apparent. To me that signifies that we’re seeing something new with this current economic crisis, I think it’s a problem more complex than anything we’ve experienced to date - by many orders of magnitude. We have created a system so complex that we can no longer control it and turning off the switch is no longer an option.
The most interesting thing, for me, is what it tells us about our future. We’re going to see more of these Category 5 storms - we’re going to have to learn how to manage them. It’s crushingly apparent that the so called batch of “best and brightest” are not up to the job. This is not is not a free-market vs. government thing, it’s an “understanding complexity” thing.
Every six months or so I listen to this speech by Bruce Sterling… it keeps things in perspective. But one of his key arguments about the singularity as a non-event is that we haven’t seen existing networks (electricity and water) become self-aware. What we’re seeing now, though, is a hint of a system (human and technological) getting reaching a point where we can no longer dictate its behavior.
I found reference to this article in Tim O’Reilly’s tweets. I’m a fan of George Soros… he’s rather successful and wonderfully thoughtful. His thinking about markets and how they behave is always insightful. He stepped it up when commenting on the current situation (my emphasis):
We are currently experiencing the bursting of a credit bubble that has involved the entire financial system and, at the same time, a rise and eventual fall in the price of oil and other commodities that have had some of the characteristics of a bubble. I believe the two phenomena are connected in what I call a super-bubble that has evolved over the last quarter of a century. The fundamental trend in the super-bubble has been the ever-increasing use of leverage—borrowing money to finance consumption and investment—and the misconception about that trend was what I call market fundamentalism, the belief that markets assure the best allocation of resources.
WOW! Read it slowly - that’s George Soros implying that the market is not always the best mechanism for allocating resources.
This paper was released recently by the US National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine:
How did life evolve on Earth? The answer to this question can help us understand our past and prepare for our future. Although evolution provides credible and reliable answers, polls show that many people turn away from science, seeking other explanations with which they are more comfortable.
In the book Science, Evolution, and Creationism, a group of experts assembled by the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine explain the fundamental methods of science, document the overwhelming evidence in support of biological evolution, and evaluate the alternative perspectives offered by advocates of various kinds of creationism, including “intelligent design.” The book explores the many fascinating inquiries being pursued that put the science of evolution to work in preventing and treating human disease, developing new agricultural products, and fostering industrial innovations. The book also presents the scientific and legal reasons for not teaching creationist ideas in public school science classes.
Mindful of school board battles and recent court decisions, Science, Evolution, and Creationism shows that science and religion should be viewed as different ways of understanding the world rather than as frameworks that are in conflict with each other and that the evidence for evolution can be fully compatible with religious faith. For educators, students, teachers, community leaders, legislators, policy makers, and parents who seek to understand the basis of evolutionary science, this publication will be an essential resource.
Well another NZ manufacturing company has decided to chuck it in and open shop in China.
I am up to my ears in the area of manufacturing these days and I am a little shocked at the level of debate going on. Manufacturers are saying that if the corporate tax rate was dropped to between 20 and 25% then they would be ok and wouldn’t have to move. The sad news is that YES YOU WOULD!
The traditional manufacturing model is broken … there are now only very few areas where you can sustain-ably mash atoms on the edge of the world and move them 1000s of km to your market to sell them. Tax cuts aren’t going to help you. You’re competing on COST against companies that move their entire corporate structures to squeeze every last cent, rupee and yuan out of the process. They are going to kick the collective ass every single time - because while you were sleeping they changed the rules on you.
Should NZ close up the manufacturing shop? One of my advisors regularly says that the manufacturers should cut a deal with go-karters, ten-pin bowlers and anyone else who needs a large covered space ‘coz it’s game over. It’s going to be more profitable to rent out the space by the game. He’s right … the answer isn’t in big spaces here in NZ or, importantly, even in big spaces in China. The answer lies in changing the rules again. The pieces are there to be put together. If you permit me to be a little parochial we’ve just got to behave like Kiwis again. A good Rodquote is:
“This is a global opportunity that we can credibly take from New Zealand. We really do understand how small businesses work and the sort of issues our small businesses have are the same as the UK and Australia.”
The same logic applies when it comes to atoms. NZ has always been on the edge of the world and that experience is something that can’t be replicated and is rich loam in which to grow new ideas. We have always known the constraint of moving stuff around the world. It’s time our manufacturers stopped asking for tax breaks and started working out how to own a manufacturing game they can win.
