Quotation

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The Demand for Policy Interventions

November 4, 2011 in Quotation, Regulation | No comments

“Authors of economics books, essays, articles, and political platforms demand interventionist measures before they are taken, but once they have been imposed no one likes them. Then everyone—usually even the authorities responsible for them—call them insufficient and unsatisfactory. Generally the demand then arises for the replacement of unsatisfactory interventions by other, more suitable measures. And once the new demands have been met, the same scenario begins all over again.”

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Do Capitalists or Communists Promote Aid to Africa?

August 19, 2011 in Economics - General, Quotation | No comments

“It is significant that none of the most passionate advocates of aid for Africa are African.  Aid can speed up development that people have already decided to carry out for themselves and have the capacity to do.  It is also essential for vaccination campaigns and for ARVs to combat HIV/AIDS.  Emergency aid is obviously vital to help the victims of war or natural disasters, but that is as true in Surrey as in Somalia.  Small amounts of aid can also work well in local contexts.   But aid from the outside cannot transform whole societies, whole countries.  That can only come about through producing things and trading them or doing something someone else wants to pay for.  Ironically, it is the capitalist West that still sees Africa as a continent that needs aid, while Communist and former Socialist governments like China and India see it as a business opportunity.”

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Quotation of the Day

July 2, 2011 in Miscellaneous | 1 comment

“Getting into a new field of physics is like reading a Russian novel. There are a lot of names to cope with, and at first you wonder who’s who.”

- Kenneth W. Ford, The Quantum World.

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On Corruption: Quotation of the Day

May 18, 2011 in Miscellaneous | No comments

“Outside my study window in London stood an old hawthorn tree enveloped in a massive growth of ivy.  Over the years the tree had become an ivy bush in the shape of a hawthorn tree and I saw it as an image of what corruptions does to a country.  Mobutu’s rule in Zaire seemed like the ivy squeezing the life out of every green shoot, sucking its wealth and energy, smothering any initiative.”

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Quotation of the Day

April 29, 2011 in Quotation | No comments

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”

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Quotation of the Day

April 22, 2011 in Miscellaneous | No comments

“And I tell you, if you have the desire for knowledge and the power to give it physical expression, go out and explore.  If you are a brave man you will do nothing: if you are fearful you may do much, for none but cowards have ned to prove their bravery. Some will tell you that you are mad and nearly all will say, ‘What is the use?’ For we are a nation of shopkeepers, and no shopkeeper will look at research which does not promise him a financial return within a year.  And so you will sledge nearly alone, but those with whom you sledge will not be shopkeepers: that is worth a good deal.  If you march your Winter Journeys you will have your reward, so long as all you want is a penguin’s egg.”

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How to be a good employee

February 18, 2011 in Miscellaneous | No comments

What type of workers does a boss really value? The answer will vary depending on the boss, industry and specific job each worker has.  Today we consider one unique group of workers: polar explorers.   These men generally value the following in their peers and subordinates:

‘After all is said and done,’ said Wilson one day after supper, the best sledger is the man who sees what has to be done and does it—and says nothing about it.’  Scott agreed.  And if you were ‘sledging with the Owner’ you had to keep your eyes wide open for the little things which cropped up, and do them quickly , and say nothing about them. There is nothing so irritating as the man who is always coming in and informing all and sundry that he has repaired his sledge, or build a wall, or filled the cooker, or mended his socks.

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Quotation of the Day: Defining Complexity

January 21, 2011 in Miscellaneous | No comments

“The complexity of a particular system is the degree of difficulty in predicting the properties of the system if the properties of the system’s parts are given.”

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Profitability and Corporation Size

December 19, 2010 in Miscellaneous | No comments

“As the number of employees grows, the amount of profit per employee shrinks…The graph reflects the bleak reality of corporate growth, in which efficiencies of scale are almost always outweighed by the burdens of bureaucracy.”

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Success Defined

December 1, 2010 in Miscellaneous | No comments

“It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You’re thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all.”

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