There is a commonly told story about exchange controls: they were a mid-century aberration, just a hangover from war and depression, and when the great liberalisation wave of the 1980s and 1990s happened they were swept away. Capital moves freely now, the story goes, except in a handful of holdouts too poor or too badly…
There is a lazy but persistent habit in most professional environments, regulatory ones included, it’s reasoning by comparison. A new proposal arrives on your desk, and the instinct is to ask what it resembles, as in: where have I seen this before? Following this approach is not problematic, it’s efficient. It’s efficient because to rebuild understanding…
I was born in East London, a small, scenic town found along the South African coast of the Eastern Cape. A beautiful, sometimes wild place. I grew up in the suburb of Berea, and not far from where I lived, there was a post office. As a youngster, I have very fond memories of taking…
It was Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway, the unrelenting American investor, philanthropist, and intellectual and investment partner of Warren Buffett who is well known for using mental models. Why are they important? He believed they were key to making better investment decisions. Charlie Munger “What you need is a latticework of mental models in your…
Vilfredo Pareto (1848–1923) was an Italian economist, sociologist, and philosopher. He is best known for developing the ‘Pareto Principle’. It is also called the ‘80/20 rule’. He observed that roughly 80% of effects come from 20% of causes. He for example found that at the time in Italy approximately 20% of the population owned 80%…
Getting along with people you don’t like at work can be challenging. Still, it is often necessary for maintaining a positive and productive work environment. People behave the way they do for two main reasons. They either don’t know any different or their behavior helps them avoid situations they don’t want to be in. The…