This post may now be read in the context of the story of Sir James Crosby, the former Deputy Chairman of the FSA, who resigned yesterday. I would define a stupid person as someone who disregards potential risks :
Speaking today of the current banking crisis, Lord Adair Turner of the UK Financial Services Authority referred on BBC Radio 4 to : "An intellectual failure to understand that we were building a system which had huge systemic failures..."
Might I suggest that he and other business and political "generals" reflect on this apocryphal story from World War 1.
The German army was apparently becoming short of officer recruits. Meeting to to discuss this problem, one general described 4 categories of potential recruits as follows :
- Intelligent and energetic
- Intelligent and lazy
- Stupid and lazy
- Stupid and energetic
He added that the first 2 categories had been exhausted, and category 3 was also depleted. Nevertheless, his advice was still that, on no account, should the army recruit officers from category 4. What happened next I do not know.
However, herein, I warrant, lies something of the answer to the cause of much of our present day economic woes. I strongly suspect that I am not alone in encountering a fair proportion of "stupid and energetic" people in positions of authority.
No comments:
Post a Comment