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Why Economists Don’t Learn From Mistakes
The bursting of the housing bubble challenges established views of the world but this seems more like a recommendation to others, rather than a personal statement. The lesson most people claim to have...
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Is Caveat Emptor the Dominant Business Principle Of Our Time?
A great article from John Kay on what the $10 minibar beer has to do with the financial crisis. …have you struggled to understand your mobile phone bill? Bought a cartridge of ink that costs almost as...
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Capitalism need not be about greed and gambling
… Greed is a human motivation, but not a dominant one – and the institutions that most exemplified the philosophy of greed were those that imploded in 2007-08. The goods made by workers whose...
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We need a fox to see the snares and a lion to scare the wolves
John Kay with some insight: …When political leaders imagined they derived authority by divine right, they were tempted to believe that they had all the necessary talents – that they added the wisdom of...
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When Storytelling Leads To Unhappy Endings
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald John Kay, with an insightful...
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The Power of Checklists
John Kay reviews Atul Gawande’s wonderful book, The Checklist Manifesto, and in the process discovers the power of simple checklists. The construction of a checklist, however, is not as simple as it...
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“Much complexity has been deliberately created”
More on the theme of intentional complexity. Many of the products we buy today are, by their nature, complicated. If you want to buy a television or a car or a computer, you are faced with a...
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Only Fools Claim To Know The Future
John Kay argues that while only fools claim to know the future we can make good predictions in well-structured situations. Even in these situations, however, predictions are probabilistic at best....
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A story can be more useful than maths
John Kay writes: So while probabilistic thinking is indispensable when dealing with recurrent events or histories that repeat themselves, it often fails when we try to apply it to idiosyncratic events...
View ArticleJohn Kay Recommends 5 Books on Economics in the Real World
“Most people completing degrees in economics won’t have read these books, but they should,” says British economist John Kay in this fivebooks interview. 1. Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and...
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