Our Economic Future

Resilience is the economic goal of all. This neither implies growth nor contraction but rather security in economic decision making and choices. This security is not easy to achieve because most things in the world have an element of uncertainty. It is my contention that the key feature of resilience is transparency of risk.

Some things are pretty certain - we will all die, we just don't know when; the sun will rise and set at specific times, the weather in some parts of the world: Most things are very uncertain - the weather in some parts of the world, the performance of companies, the future life story of individuals. Some things seem certain but then change - the stability of banks, the norms of society.

Against this backdrop what we need are explicit descriptions of the scenarios under which decisions are made and the underlying assumptions. Most individuals and families do this almost automatically but organisations, companies and governments either by design, but more usually through lack of transparency, can fail miserably.