Alan Weiss’s Monday Morning Memo® – 2/15/16

There is evidence that the European Community has not yet reached its productivity levels of 2008. It is still struggling from the Recession, and now faces a new bank crisis. China, Brazil, India—the “emerging economies”—are staggered with debt and infrastructure problems. Japan is once more in signficant danger of experiencing a “lost decade” of economic downturn. Yet in the US and many parts of the world, however imperfectly, there has been recovery from the Recession.

While some events were difficult to predict or even imagine, such as the vast disclocation of refugees moving into Europe from the Middle East or the steep plunge in oil prices, others were not. Japan and Western Europe have increasingly elderly populations, not being replaced by fertility rates, with fewer younger people in the work force able to support a growing cohort of older people retired from it. The lack of a strong central bank in Europe has caused weak policy implementation. And decisions to enfore austerity have curtailed growth sharply. Like an ostinato, we’re subject to repeated claims of “best thinking,” but as in Porgy and Bess, “it ain’t necessarily so.”

A great many of the problems we face are the result of policy decisions poorly made. Governments, academics, think tanks—none has a monopoly on inelligent choices if the decision process is marred by fractionalism, bias, poor anticipation, or just lack of courage. We become immersed in content but pay insufficient attention to process. Are we making sound decisions based on empirical evidence and considering both benefit and risk?

That’s not a bad question to ask as the US election draws nigh.

There is nothing so far removed from us to be beyond our reach, or so hidden that we cannot discover it.

— René Descartes

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