That you cannot predict the future is not a proper rebuff to someone who tells you to get off the tracks because a train is coming.
Greek is suffering an economic crisis. Italy is looking to cut spending. There seems to be an epidemic of austere proportions.
Germany is suggesting that private sector investors bear some of the burden of their speculation. The scolds are everywhere but we don’t see much in standard practices when it comes to analysis. We have experts galore, but few agree.
In the US, rising energy costs are seen as a problem that can be solved by summer. Only a few months ago, the doomsayers were predicting $5 a gallon gas by summer. Gas prices are declining. For now.
China is feeling the impact of growth. The Arab spring is turning into a very hot summer.
All agree that there are difficulties. All agree that the problems may be around for a while. Some have solutions. None seem viable, practicable, or sustainable and most of what we read and hear is descriptive not prescriptive.
Hence:
The world can no longer afford to play a zero sum game. For a while, this was the joint policy of US – Soviet relations. (First strike capability, SALT treaties, détente.) NATO, as evidenced by the Libyan Operation, seems more like a Maginot Line.
Therefore, a global initiative is mandatory. It is compulsory.
It is intuitively obvious to the casual observer that an energy crisis is coming. Increased competition for oil is what is causing prices to go up at the pump. Not our failure to drive hybrids or use mercury vapor bulbs rather than incandescent bulbs.
Nuclear power can no longer be seen as a plan for the future. Not unless you are planning for a disasters. Such plans are intended to prevent disasters, not cause them. You can have, tsunamis at the coast, floods along the rivers, fires in the forests, and if all else fails—earthquakes.
On my blog, I wrote Memo to Big Oil. I also wrote; Nuclear Energy has lost its lustre but not its glow. These are admonitions and cautionary tales. Read them. Heed them. The latter is a definite scolding of the US failure to embrace and pursue solar power over the past 50 years, and a seeming refusal to embrace and pursue it over the next 50 years.
At http://slideshare.net/slimfairview I posted two PowerPoint Presentations. Global Management: A shift in the paradigm of corporate America and The Future of the G 20 in Good Times and Bad.
Each is a moderately concise vision of a.) How companies around the world can do a better job of going global and b.) A scenario for global disaster and the means to prevent it. Take the time to review each.
On my blog, http://slimviews.blogspot.com I have posted numerous monographs explaining the fallacies and failures of Western Diplomacy in the Middle East. No sooner than I make a case, my point becomes evident by way of the unfolding events.
The EuroCrats are quibbling while the Greek debt crisis grows larger. There seems to be no strategic planning—or non-strategic planning for that matter. It would almost seem that Economic Development is something for discussion among the volunteers at a small town Chamber of Commerce Economic Development Committee.
The 21st Century seems to be carrying forward the lust for symbolic gestures over substantive gains that hearken not to the last decade but to previous centuries.
Corporate business leaders have given precedence to the process after coming up with a plan. The one thing they’ve forgotten is The Project. That too has been covered in my writing.
If we are serious about the future—serious about having a future—we should get started rather quickly.
Sincerest regards,
Slim
Copyright © 2011 Slim Fairview
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