Unforeseen NOT "unforeseeable": the financial crisis WAS entirely preventable
Thursday, 5 January, 2012 2 Comments
Financial meltdown CANNOT be passed-off as anything resembling a “Black Swan” event. I have no doubt that it wasn’t a case of not seeing or not looking but WAS a case of , deliberately, treating uncertainty as risk and the impact upon the probability distribution: they gambled WE LOST!
Apparently Greed, Fear and Ego are powerful motivators!
The prevailing, morally (if not financially) bankrupt, culture within our Political, Financial & Corporate institutions, uses its established media to perpetuate the myth that they can be trusted!
Their manipulation and lies (to maintain the façade of integrity) are so embedded in systems, processes and culture that they cannot afford the transparency required to (re)build trust.
Not only do they fail to act in the best interests of anyone other than themselves and their co-conspirators (whose complicity is an “insurance” against failure, meaningful censure or prosecution) but they continue to pursue strategies, that have seen the inter-connectedness of a truly global economy, transform a network of resilient systems into the conduit for systemic risk.
Abandonment of Governance and a lethal combination of mismanagement – micro managing macro issues and vice versa – misappropriation and unpunished misdemeanour’s have created a self-serving, self-similar, system that cannot adapt to survive but can no longer sustain the complexity it has created:
- without “creative destruction” collapse is the only means by which a fragile system can achieve “simplicity” (shed excess complexity) for innovation and growth in a post-critical landscape.
These institutions are not, as they would have you believe, “victims” of events outwith their control – we can all be victims of unforeseeable natural disasters – they chose this path and have chosen to continue on it.
Their activities generate risks, which, when unrecognised or unmanaged, are communicated as uncertainty to connected systems and networks in both man-made and natural environments…
I’m sure readers will be familiar with the expression “what goes around comes around”!? It is a matter of scientific fact.
Remember THAT the next time you are asked to swallow the next big, fat, financial lie.
The big boys gamble with our lives and our livelihoods [9], because they make a killing by taking huge risks and cutting costs. And when things inevitably go South, they aren’t held responsible (other than a slap on the wrist), and may even be bailed out by the government…
via The Big Picture » The Financial Crisis Was Entirely Foreseeable » Print.
About David G Wilson
Hi David
Thanks for the mention — there was no contact info, so I am tagging you this way
1. Can you tell me where those graphics are from? I’d love to use them
2. Great quote — “Complexity is often a natural outgrowth of success….”
Douglas Adams (Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) was not the creator of Dilbert; that was Scott Adams
Cheers
Barry
You are most welcome Barry! I loved your original piece, it beautifully summarises some of the most glaring “oversights”…if that isn’t too mild a term!?
I wish I could tell you where the first graphic came from. The last is all my own work and I did tweak the “nested panarchy” graphic which I a reckon is down to Buzz Holling.
Another great quote from Scott Adams(http://wp.me/p16h8c-z):
“Complexity is often a natural outgrowth of success. Man-made complexity is simply a combination of things that we figured out how to do right, one layered on top of the other, until failure is achieved”
Keep up the good work!!!
David