Dr. John Psarouthakis, Executive Editor of www.BusinessThinker.com, Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, publisher of www.GavdosPress.com. Founder and former CEO, Industries, Inc., a Fortune 500 industrial corporation

The linkages listed in this segment and following segments on this topic to be posted in separate categories are based on my experience as senior executive as well as an entrepreneur on managing growth businesses. Because statistical techniques test for probabilities but not certainties, the wordings are stated in terms of likelihoods. Discussions of these linkages are to be presented in future articles. Other executives and entrepreneurs could come to different conclusions compared to those listed in the segments posted. Therefore, those that read my views should take them as the experience of one person and use their judgment as to whether these linkages are to be taken as stated in their case.

Linkage 7-1: The more adequate the information that a CEO obtains from inside the firm, the more adequately authority is distributed, and the more effectively roles are assigned, then the more profitable the firm is likely to be.

Linkage 7-2: The more widely information is shared among employees, and the more effectively roles are assigned, the more rapid sales growth is likely to be.

Linkage 7-3: The more adequate is the information obtained by the CEO inside the firm and the more effectively roles are assigned, then the more effective direction-setting strategy is likely to be.

Linkage 7-4: The more widely information is shared inside the firm, the more able the firm is likely to be to obtain needed outside information, recruits, suppliers, subcontractors and capital and the more effective the CEO’s recruitment strategy is likely to be.

Linkage 7-5: The more adequate is the information obtained by the CEO and the more effectively roles are assigned, the more effective the management recruitment strategy and the more adequate outside information are likely to be.

Mr. George Friedman is Founder and Chairman, Stratfor, a private intelligence company located in Austin, TX.

This article is published here in by permission of Stratfor.

The global financial crisis of 2008 has slowly yielded to a global unemployment crisis. This unemployment crisis will, fairly quickly, give way to a political crisis. The crisis involves all three of the major pillars of the global system — Europe, China and the United States. The level of intensity differs, the political response differs and the relationship to the financial crisis differs. But there is a common element, which is that unemployment is increasingly replacing finance as the central problem of the financial system.

Europe is the focal point of this crisis. Last week Italy held elections, and the party that won the most votes — with about a quarter of the total — was a brand-new group called the Five Star Movement that is led by a professional comedian. Two things are of interest about this movement. First, one of its central pillars is the call for defaulting on a part of Italy’s debt as the lesser of evils. The second is that Italy, with 11.2 percent unemployment, is far from the worst case of unemployment in the European Union. Nevertheless, Italy is breeding radical parties deeply opposed to the austerity policies currently in place.

The core debate in Europe has been how to solve the sovereign debt crisis and the resulting threat to Europe’s banks. The issue was who would bear the burden of stabilizing the system. The argument that won the day, particularly among Europe’s elites, was that what Europe needed was austerity, that government spending had to be dramatically restrained so that sovereign debt — however restructured it might be — would not default.

Dr. V.E.”Bill” Haloulakos is an AIAA National Distinguished Lecturer and a contributor to The Business Thinker

• Education has become a big business in the United States
• The proliferation of the number of departments and major fields of study in both public and private universities is staggering
• The number of students at undergraduate and graduate levels is phenomenal
• The amount of money expended is almost beyond measure
• Yet, many businesses in the US need to hire special help from abroad under the umbrella of the H-1B Visa programs
• This implies that the education business establishment may not be satisfactorily fulfilling the needs of the Business World
• The proliferation of for-profit universities and the expansion of special extension courses in many of the large universities strengthen the above conclusion
• Political correctness has significantly altered the environment whereby open discussion and debate on key issues appears sharply limited or restricted in our schools and universities
• It was this “new political correctness” environment that caused the President of Harvard University to resign for merely raising the question as to why there is an under representation of women in the fields of science and mathematics and whether they could do something to remedy the situation
• The deleterious effects of this political correctness is perhaps best illustrated by an article, exposed by Diane Ravitch, in the Wall Street Journal, June 20 2005, titled “ETHNOMATHEMATICS”

EARLY HISTORY

Education has been around for the entire history of mankind. It has been something that is always sought in order to elevate and improve a person’s or an entire family’s life. This was by way of acquiring knowledge that enabled one to do things and perform tasks that had market value and as the world of business entered human life the value of education increased substantially. Business required record keeping of the transactions between the trading individuals and groups. In fact it has been suggested that it was this business record keeping that developed the need for written languages.

Dr. Dani Rodrik is the Rafiq Hariri Professor of International Political Economy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He has published widely in the areas of international economics, economic development, and political economy.

There was a time when we economists steered clear of politics. We viewed our job as describing how market economies work, when they fail, and how well-designed policies can enhance efficiency. We analyzed trade-offs between competing objectives (say, equity versus efficiency), and prescribed policies to meet desired economic outcomes, including redistribution. It was up to politicians to take our advice (or not), and to bureaucrats to implement it

Then some of us became more ambitious. Frustrated by the reality that much of our advice went unheeded (so many free-market solutions still waiting to be taken up!), we turned our analytical toolkit on the behavior of politicians and bureaucrats themselves. ………………………………….

……………………………Politicians became income-maximizing suppliers of policy favors; citizens became rent-seeking lobbies and special interests; and political systems became marketplaces in which votes and political influence are traded for economic benefits.

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