1. NY TIMES 3/31/13 David Stockman opinion : Beware the Stock ” bubble”. Decades of economic activism by Washington have left us exhausted and broke. Over the past 13 years the market has crashed twice: 2000 the dot com bust wiped out $5 Trillion from American Household and in 2007 $7Trillion was lost due to the Housing ” bubble”. Sooner or later, this latest Wall Street Bubble, inflated by a flood of phony money from the Fed, rather then real economic gains, will explode, too. We have choices.
2. Overheard at a recent TEDxNY Salon: A young auditor from France, is now working with Citibank to write The Regulation on the derivative portion of Dodd Frank. Is the Regulatory process residing with a business with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo? Will the Public’s interest be served with greater transparency, responsibility and accountability? Or will we have maintained our exposure to risk? We have a choice.
3. NY TIMES 3/31/13. Another opinion, America the innovative by Eamonn Fingleton, postulates that Democracy is no longer a precondition for progress. Money is. R&D spending in America has decreased by 10%. While major corporations are setting up R&D centers in China, presumably manufacturing will follow, remaining in China. Is this a choice we want?
On the upside, @ MIT Prof. Julie Shah and two graduate students are producing kinder, gentler Robots to work along side man. They are even training the humans and Robots to work together, the cross training achieved makes the ” team” perform better at manufacturing tasks. The choice is being made , it will happen.
4. LOL. Why innovators get better with age. Preoccupations by Tom Agan. There is a surprising downside to encouraging older workers to leave . Less gray hair sharply reduces an organizations innovation potential, which over the long term can greatly outweigh short term gains. Interesting, the studies are looking at the 55-65 yr olds since it can take 10 yrs min to bring ideas to fruition!