This page shows visualisations of known reserves of oil, gas, and coal. http://visualization.geblogs.com/visualization/gas/ Click “In Comparison”. Drag the pointers and you will see that although the initial estimates look good, with only minimal annual growth of say 3-4%/year (compared with China’s economic growth of around 10%) we only have a generation of all three fuels …
Author archives: Permabusiness
Drivers of change
Chris Luebkeman, Director of Global Innovation and Foresight at Arup, talks about some of the key drivers of change in our world: Key drivers of change that he mentions, to varying levels of detail, include: Congestion Genetic screening Sea level rise Affluence Ageing populations Single person households Connectivity Clickizens Trans-generational exchange Authenticity Accountability for externalities …
Greece’s oligarchs prepare to make a pretty penny
This article in the FT describes how Mr Papandreou has been trying to crack down on Greece’s tax evaders, and how he revealed a fuel smuggling operation that is costing his country €3bn a year. Meanwhile the country’s oligarchs are: denigrating him in the media outlets that they own exporting cash (for example into the …
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Daily snapshot
A eurozone recession “looks almost inevitable before the end of the year, even if the debt crisis does not intensify further”. A Treasury select committee is calling for a “radical overhaul” of the accountability and governance of the Bank of England, through the establishment of a supervisory board that would reduce the power of the governor …
Strange times
Republicans (and two Democrats) in the US Senate last week managed to block a $60bn bill to renew some of the country’s fading infrastructure (including roads, dams, bridges, energy and water systems). The reason? Funding was to have come from an additional 0.7 per cent tax on earnings over $1m.
Money isn’t everything
Any company that understands how to motivate its people better has competitive advantage. This video of a talk at the RSA explains how money is a poor motivator for anytying but the most mundane, mechanical tasks. For ‘knowledge worker’ tasks what matters are autonomy, mastery, and a sense of contribution, a sense of purpose.
Daily snapshot
Trends in today’s news. Financial Reform: A group of Singaporean investors have won the right to sue Morgan Stanley in the USA, claiming they were sold investment products that were designed to fail. Morgan Stanley had asked for the case to be dismissed. The investors claim that the instrument they were sold was “specifically designed …
Regeneration of capitalism is a work in progress
Nicholas Gilani, co-head of the Investment Banking Group at the National Bank of Abu has a letter in today’s FT. He writes, “Sir, …I would like to say that the protesters in New York, Chicago, London and other places should not be criticised for incoherence in voicing their grievances about capitalism.
Snapshot of today
The US Federal Reserve has cut its growth forecast for 2012 from 3.5% to 2.7%, and is still predicting low inflation, but has not reduced interest rates. People who bet that market volatility would reduce after the eurozone agreement have been caught out by Greece’s announcement of a referendum. Now that the referendum has been …
Even FTSE considers tougher rules
It is a measure of the volatility of the current financial situation that not only the regulators but also a private company like the FTSE (a joint venture between the Financial Times and the London Stock Exchange) is considering beefing up its rules. This follows alarm at the increasing number of overseas companies seeking listings on …