Uncategorized Archives

Tackling Inflation

June 16, 2022 by Bay Jordan

It appears to be a “perfect storm.” Post pandemic conditions, and the war in Ukraine, have conspired to create a global economic climate where the prices of all the essentials of life are increasing dramatically. Energy, food, fuel costs are all increasing at unprecedented rates, creating a “cost of living crisis” for all but the highest earners and the wealthy. This is likely to persist. Thus, for many, life is increasingly becoming a question of what to do in order to survive. One of four key principles I cite in “Searching for Better” Book Two, is that, “Government is accountable for ensuring that the interdependence of life is recognised, established and maintained for the well-being of all citizens.” This makes government accountable for the well-being of all its citizens. So, it naturally follows that government bears some responsibility for reducing inflation. This seems reasonable. Since the early Twentieth Century, government has absorbed greater powers and, as a result, people increasingly demand more from it. This includes expecting it to play a role in reducing inflation, notwithstanding that much of this capability – in the form of monetary policy – has been delegated to the Bank of England. Yet, here in …

The Ride to Nowhere

November 25, 2019 by Bay Jordan

As the UK approaches the forthcoming election, the political scene is as dank, dark and dismal as the weather. There isn’t even the light or warmth of a single new idea or even the prospect of innovation down the road. And all this at a time when politicians concede that “politics is broken.” Politicians acknowledge that they have lost the trust of people, but persist in chicanery, deceit and peddling downright lies. Every politician who talks about why they went into politics says it is because they want to contribute and help make a better society. Yet they seem to lack any sort of moral compass and be incapable of ever answering a question, let alone telling the truth. Depressing doesn’t even begin to touch on the feelings the situation invokes: we are diving beyond despair. As we revert to a classic ideological clash between socialist and capitalist ideologies, I question whether I am the only one who can see the pendulum we are on. Margaret Thatcher swept the Conservatives into power on the back of the discontent caused by poor social management and a struggling economy offering abysmal service and handicapped by one strike after another. The restoration of …

What if we are at the end of a societal life-cycle?

February 5, 2018 by Bay Jordan

Could it be that we are at the end of a societal life-cycle?.Have you ever thought about that possibility? I was stunned recently while reading William Bridges’ 1991 book, “Managing Transitions: Making The Most of Change.” What caught my attention was his statement, “The idea that organizations and societies have life-cycles has been around a long time.” Of course I have been long aware of the concept of the product life-cycle but the idea of an organizational life-cycle was something I had seldom consciously thought about. And I had certainly NEVER thought about a society having a life-cycle! The idea stopped me in my tracks. Could this perhaps explain much of the political turmoil in the world today? That is a question that certainly warrants consideration. Building on Shakespeare’s “Seven ages of man” idea, Bridges argue that organizations also go through what he depicts as “The seven stages of organizational life.” He identifies these stages as: Dreaming the dream (i.e. Identifying a better way) Launching the venture (i.e. Finding others who share that vision) Getting organized Making it (i.e. Turning the vision into reality) Becoming an institution (i.e. Becoming fixated on status – and hence the status quo) Closing in …

Tax Reform: More Urgent Than You Think!

October 16, 2014 by Bay Jordan

Tax reform is more urgent than you think. The implications of “The Disappearing PLC” an article in the October 2014 issue of Management Today make this clear. To say it is food for thought is to significantly understate the case. The article highlights the fact that, since 1997, the Wall Street high, public listings have declined 50% in the USA and UK, 23% in Europe, and 5% in Asia. It goes on to say “Few observers doubt that something fundamental is afoot – and it’s structural rather than cyclical. In other words it is not a blip.” It explains this is driven by two converging forces. The first is economic. Here the article states, “The publicly quoted company essentially looks like a creature of the 20th century. Modern business is cash generative far earlier and much less capital intensive then even half a century ago. The need to mobilise outside sources of capital is so much less.” The second is managerial or ideological. The article cites concern about “public companies fading innovation mojo” and quotes Professor Clayton Christenson “who has the unofficial title of the world’s most influential management guru” as fretting that “companies anaemic appetite for investor capital is …

A Fractured Society: Pointer to a New Dark Age?

June 2, 2014 by Bay Jordan

“Rich double their wealth in five years.” That was the front page headline in a recent Sunday Times. Now I don’t know about you, but for me that is ominous, because living standards for the rest of us are falling.

A BBC report claims that, according to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, a mid-range UK household’s income had declined by 6% in this time. So here you have clear evidence that the rich are getting richer while the rest of us are getting poorer. And, while the report suggests that this decline “was felt equally across high and low income groups,” (one has to question the dividing line between rich and high income) it adds that, over time, the affects will be felt more by the lower income groups.

Political self-serving is leadership treason!

January 15, 2014 by Bay Jordan

The ceaseless cycle of Christmas carols has been put away for another year, only to be replaced by another seasonal cycle with no joy, little originality and only the veneer of goodwill. If the miserable weather and post-holiday blues are not enough, the newspaper headlines will certainly drown you in the dismals!

After a blissful two weeks of virtually news-free isolation, the first headline to greet me on the doorstep on return from holiday was this from The Sunday Times; “PM in new year cash giveaway: Election pledge to raise pensions until 2020: Hints at income tax cuts for all to come.” This was followed by broadcast news that shrieked the next day’s headlines; “George Osborne targets £25 billion more in spending cuts.” It appears that the 2015 election campaign is now underway! Talk about conflicting messages! If you want evidence that politicians are more concerned with re-election than anything else, you don’t have to look any further.

Standards are Slipping and People Have Got Used to It!

November 15, 2013 by Bay Jordan

Standards are slipping and we are blindly letting it happen. People have got used to it. And if we don’t act to change things, they will continue to fall until our whole way of life is destroyed and becomes impossible to retrieve.

At the start of their book, ‘That Used to be Us’ Thomas L Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum give a very telling comparison of the current difference between the China and the US. They cite the example of the massive, beautiful 230,000 square meter (2.5 million square feet) Tianjin Meijiang Convention and Exhibition Centre taking only 8 months to build, and compare that with the fact it took 6 months to repair the escalators at Bethesda station on the Washington Metrorail – 2 separate escalators of 21 steps each.

If that stark comparison is not damning enough the authors complain that:-

A spokesperson for the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority said that “the repairs were scheduled to take about six months and are on schedule. Mechanics need (my emphasis) 10-12 weeks to fix each escalator.”
One of the explanations given for this time was that it included “modernisation” because “the escalators were old and had not been kept in a good state of good repair.”
The most disturbing aspect was a commuter comment in a newspaper report that “my impression, standing on line there, is people have sort of gotten used to it.”

More than 2 trillion reasons why democracy isn’t working!

November 1, 2013 by Bay Jordan

€2.1 trillion! That is the estimated amount of tax revenues lost to the shadow economy in Europe this year, according to a recent report in European CEO Magazine. [1] And that is just in Europe: imagine what the global figure must be! What more do you need to know to recognise that our tax systems and the way we are governed need a serious overhaul?

The “shadow economy” is, by definition, a tacit admission of the extent to which people will go to avoid paying taxes. And when it reaches such massive proportions it becomes blatantly obvious that there is something fundamentally wrong with our tax systems and clear evidence that something needs to be done about it. Particularly at a time of economic turmoil when national debts threaten the stability of the whole global economy.

And if that isn’t enough to frighten you and convince you of the need for action, factor in the “legitimate” tax avoidance that is so endemic in the world today. This, with its consequences is what I am depicting in “The Democracy Delusion.” The shadow economy is to some extent the inevitable consequence of ordinary people reacting to what they consider to unreasonable taxes and tax rates. Yet, it no more than a reflection of what is occurring legitimately in the real economy and all this is combining to put our tax systems under enormous strain.

Pin It on Pinterest