“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing—after they’ve tried everything else.” It’s an over-used quote of Winston Churchill. But, boy, I hope it’s true. However, at this writing things are not looking good. It was paraphrased by former Treasury Secretary and chief White House economic advisor, Larry Summers in a Charlie Rose interview published in Bloomberg Businessweek on July 18. You can read that interview at:

Be true to what you believe. In my last post I commented on the troubles of News Corporation. It reminded me of a recent conversation about ethics that I had with a member of FINCAD’s board of directors, Steve Korn. It was about a mutual business acquaintance, the CEO of an international oil and gas company who we both have admired. His company was recently fined millions of dollars for

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.” This is something most of us have either said or thought at some point in our lives. It comes after we have recognized we have made a mistake. There are two kinds of “It seemed like a good idea at the time”. The first is an ‘honest mistake’. I made a decision. It was based on what I knew at the

I didn’t get the memo that said all the old rules about lending money had been suspended. Rules like: Don’t lend money to borrowers who can’t pay it back. Don’t lend more money to borrowers who can’t pay back the money they have already borrowed. What did I miss? At this writing it is becoming more apparent [like it wasn’t apparent before?] that Greece won’t be able to repay its

Ok, I’m Blogging. This decision wasn’t easy. Wikipedia says that, as of early this year, there were already 156 million blogs in the blogosphere. Does the world really need another? But my marketers have been asking me to “share my thoughts” and I’ve finally decided to give this a try – with some misgivings. However, given what is going on in the world of finance and economics right now, it