The Population Irony In 2013 I published my first book about the global pension crisis. Pensions involve demographics and the demographics of China at the time were screaming that the thirty plus year old one-child policy of China was becoming an economic and pension issue for China. The fundamental issue is that economic growth cannot be had without population growth. It is an economic credo that is hard to avoid. And China had implemented what…
The Hot Seat Today I am sitting in the breakfast room wearing a blue suit and tie, like I did for the better part of forty-five years during my working life on Wall Street. As much as I am unused to strapping on my business armor at this point in life, I ws never that bothered by dressing the part during my working life. I had gone to four years of prep school during my…
The Hot Seat Today I am sitting in the breakfast room wearing a blue suit and tie, like I did for the better part of forty-five years during my working life on Wall Street. As much as I am unused to strapping on my business armor at this point in life, I ws never that bothered by dressing the part during my working life. I had gone to four years of prep school during my…
The Structure of Retirement Every stage of life has some degree of structure for most of us. Some of us prefer as little structure as possible and some of us need more structure to keep us on track. We are not only all different, but we are different differently at different times of our lives. I find that a certain amount of structure to my life and even to my day is preferable to fully…
In the Dead of the Night There are many things you can call 4am. If you are staying up late to party or for one reason or another, it is the wee hours of the night. When you wake up in the middle of the night as I often seem to do these days, it is right on the cusp at this time of year of being early enough to go back to sleep but…
Duck, Duck, Goose It’s not completely random, but working with different lawyers on expert witness cases can be pretty hit or miss. As a hired gun, I am not in charge of anything in these cases expect the specific opinion that I am asked to render to support my team in the case. Like any lawyer considering accepting a case, I am asked to accept a case based on a minimal amount of research and…
Black Friday I am not sure where Black Friday gets its name since the adjective “black” usually denotes a calamity of some sort. What I do know is that the commercial world wants us to start our Christmas shopping as early as possible. We in America have tacitly agreed to allow Christmas shopping to begin no earlier than Thanksgiving. That logically makes the Friday after Thanksgiving a big retailer day. The retail trade, both brick…
Corruption There are certain themes that dredge up lots of memories and sentiments. The sad state of affairs in life in general is that the word corruption is one such theme. Corruption is most often used to describe fraudulent or dishonest conduct and is most often associated with that act being undertaken by someone in a powerful or otherwise trusted position. I have always considered myself a trusting person. I like to think that I…
The Failure of Power I had a real epiphany this morning and this story is the output from that. I awoke at 6am after a decent night’s sleep and as I went into our shared closet I flipped on the light as I always do, only to find that all but one of the track lights failed and did not go on. I did the usual of flicking the switch back and forth (as though…
Uber Chapter Two Tonight in my ethics course I happen to be doing the session I call “Truth & Lies” and it is meant to focus on issues like whether “Fake It Till You Make It” is ever an acceptable strategy in business. We use the Theranos case study with Elizabeth Holmes and Sunny Balwani as the poster children of the issue. It’s an interesting case for many reasons, not the least of which is…