Energy Independence

The Western World is, rightly, worried about it dependence on others for energy - often others in seemingly unstable states. Thus, they are concentrating on energy independence.

Unfortunately this often just means finding new sources of fossil fuels or new ways of extracting more fuel from established sources. The moves towards alternative forms of energy have been sidelined - these moves take too long to reach acceptable levels of energy production.

We know, from the banking crisis, that short-term thinking is counter-productive in the longer-term. Now, we seem as though we will repeat the error in the field of energy.

Sometimes I worry about our leaders!

Collapse of the world

Take a look at the Youtube video of 'Collapse of the world' (just search for it). It explains the recent world financial collapse.

Its funny and scary in equal measure. How did we let it happen?

Will we do so again?

The New Capitalism

On the LinkedIn group "Productivity Futures" (join us and join in!), we have been having an interesting discussion about the state of 'capitalism' and the changes needed to reflect the disquiet (and even disgust) that some feel about the way it dragged us into the recent recession.

If things are to change, who is to make them?

Capitalism works because it is (largely) outside of 'politics'. That is its strength and its weakness.

Do you think politicians are capable of addressing our concerns - and acting to make the changes necessary? Or do we have to accept that the current imperfect, flaky version of capitalism is the least of the evils we might face.

Counter-intuitive

Lloyd's Bank in the UK recently banned all business travel on the 3rd week in any month.

Strange! Unworkable! It will just move travel to other weeks. These were the comments from the commentators.

However, early results suggest it is working. ... and in fact travel in the other weeks of the month is also down.

It might be too early to analyse this ... even to claim success (we need to see results over a longer timescale) but it does show that sometimes 'off the wall' ideas (thinking outside the box) have consequences that are difficult to predict.

And it also suggests that sometimes doing anything is better than doing nothing.