Unbanked But Not Unwise
PsyFi Search Monday 10 April 2017 Unbanked But Not Unwise Tribal Finance Lisa Servon has written a clever, accessible and pin-point clear piece of ethnographic research. It looks at how an underserved and underappreciated tribe, without access to regular financial services, has developed ways and means of coping in their absence. It’s also a damning […]
Is Your CEO A Psychopath?
PsyFi Search Thursday 10 May 2012 Is Your CEO A Psychopath? “She was interviewing a psychopath. She showed him a picture of a frightened face and asked him to identify the emotions. He said he didn’t know what the emotion was but it was the face people pulled just before he killed them.” (The Psychopath […]
Ideology, Paving the Road to Financial Ruin
PsyFi Search Wednesday 23 November 2011 Ideology, Paving the Road to Financial Ruin “A fool and his money are soon elected” – Will Rogers An Emergent Crisis In Ending the Divine Right of Bankers we looked at the way in which democratic governments have become subject to the whims of markets: and how markets may […]
Game On: Basel III
PsyFi Search Saturday 2 October 2010 Game On: Basel III Bonfire of the PrinciplesThe next set of banking regulations, aka Basel III, has arrived, albeit it’ll be implemented one micro-step at a time. It has, of course, been accompanied by horse-trading of the kind that can only be done behind closed doors by an unelected […]
Financial Lessons in Mass Deception
PsyFi Search Wednesday 17 February 2010 Financial Lessons in Mass Deception Deceit, IncorporatedOne of the things you may have noticed as we’ve parlayed our way around the world of finance is how much of what goes on seems to be hidden beneath the surface. It’s almost as though most of the people involved were out […]
Moral Corporations: An Oxymoron?
PsyFi Search Thursday 3 September 2009 Moral Corporations: An Oxymoron? Ethical ManagementIn the wake of the fin de siècle scandals involving Enron and Worldcom came a new focus on business ethics. Most MBA courses these days routinely run courses where bored wannabe rich, thrusting junior executives are preached to about how money is not the […]
Gaming the System
PsyFi Search Sunday 24 May 2009 Gaming the System Bankers and PoliticiansUsing the rules of any system for personal gain is, in the parlance, “Gaming the System”. We’ve seen a lot of this recently. Not only have a variety of financial executives and employees absconded with bonuses for profits that turned out to be illusory […]