Tag: Strategy

When the future arrived in 2007, we learnt that others had febezzled from us on a massive scale. And that we had also febezzled from ourselves.

Diversification is a matter of judgment not statistics. A model will tell you only what you have already told the model and can never replace, though it can enhance, an understanding of market psychology and the factors that make for successful business.

John returns to his experience as a Halifax director to retrace the rocky road to last week's rescue takeover.

On the last of these comments on the UK fiscal framework John considers the impact and role of borrowing limits

If we are persistently irrational, perhaps the behaviour is not irrational.

A report to CE International plc (formerly the Church of England) on the management challenges it faces.

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of our successful escape from extinction by the Tunguska meteorite, John examines the economics of the end of the world.

The modern world of business and politics is plagued by spurious rationality and bogus quantification. The desire to do what is right is overtaken by the necessity to do what is easy to defend.

Although the progress of grief is predictable, it is also slow. Sell on denial, buy on depression, was my advice to investors last year and it looks still valid today.

Confidence in the models used for risk management in financial institutions is a casualty of the credit crunch. Only information from outside the model – what we call general knowledge and common sense – enable us to judge the validity of the model itself.