What is the 80/20 Rule and could it actually make 80% of your work disappear? If you’ve studied business or economics, you’re well familiar with the power of the Pareto Principle. The Man Behind The Concept Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto was born in Italy in 1848. He would go on to become an important philosopher and economist. Legend has it that one day he noticed that 20% of the pea plants in his garden generated 80% of the healthy pea pods. This observation caused him to think about uneven distribution. He thought about wealth and discovered that 80% of the … Continue reading →

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Welcome back to our series on the libraries of great men. The eminent men of history were often voracious readers and their own philosophy represents a distillation of all the great works they fed into their minds. This series seeks to trace the stream of their thinking back to the source. For, as David Leach, a now retired business executive put it: “Don’t follow your mentors; follow your mentors’ mentors.” Ernest Hemingway is well known as one of the best and most virile writers of his era, and perhaps of all time. He wrote 10 novels, 9 non-fiction works, and … Continue reading →

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SINGAPORE ― Legendary investor Jim Rogers called for South Korea to put a greater focus on taking measures to help North Korea open and reform its economy rather than holding war games every year. Rogers said that unification will become a breakthrough for Korea to overcome various economic challenges. “All you have to do is to take down the demilitarized zone. Stop spending money on defense. You had those war games every year for 50 years,” said Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings, in an exclusive interview with The Korea Times in his residence in Singapore. He said Seoul needs to … Continue reading →

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Asking wealthy elites to provide opinions about central banking generally results in reticence on their part. After all, many billionaires became rich or stay rich only because the global economy has been “financialized” — which is to say the particular assets they hold (generally controlling equity stakes in companies) have artificially high values because of monetary policy. Many of the super rich understand, at least on some level, that the wealth they’ve accumulated seems uneasily out of proportion to the value they’ve created simply by selling high and buying low in the casino. Even elites who made their money the old … Continue reading →

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The hero of the latest Coen Brothers film, Hail, Caesar! is a cinephile’s joke. Named Eddie Mannix (and played by Josh Brolin), he runs a Hollywood studio that looks much like MGM did in the Forties. He’s a decent, dependable guy – when not smoothing over scandals among the stars, he’s at home for a meal with his sweet-natured wife. Although many of Hail, Caesar!’s more unlikely set-ups are based on fact – foul-mouthed swimming stars, actors adopting their own illegitimate children and studio staff taking the rap for celebrity murders – this fictional Eddie Mannix is more or less … Continue reading →

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A discovery of giant underwater craters at the bottom of Barents Sea could offer a viable explanation for the disappearance of ships in the Bermuda Triangle. Scientists have found craters up to half a mile wide and 150ft deep, believed to have been caused by build-ups of methane off the coast of natural gas-rich Norway. The methane would have leaked from deposits of natural gas further below the surface and created cavities which finally bursts, scientists say. ‘Multiple giant craters exist on the sea floor in an area in the west-central Barents Sea … and are probably a cause of … Continue reading →

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Shortly after my arrival for a short visit to New York City, I had the happy idea of going to the criminal courts on Centre Street. They are the Metropolitan Opera of the criminal-justice system, and as an occasional expert witness in British courts, I wanted to see how these things were done in America. Quite by chance, I arrived at a dramatic moment in a dramatic trial of a dramatic crime. A man called Elliot Morales, charged with murder in the second degree, who was representing himself, was about to make his final address to the jury. Even the … Continue reading →

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Typos can be embarrassing. They can also be costly. And not just for those individuals whose jobs depend on knowing the difference between “it’s” and “its” or where a comma is most appropriate. In 2013, bauble-loving Texans got the deal of a lifetime when a misprint in a Macy’s mailer advertised a $1500 necklace for just $47. (It should have read $497.) It didn’t take long for the entire inventory to be zapped, at a loss of $450 a pop to the retail giant. (Not to mention plenty of faces as red as the star in the company’s logo.) Google, on … Continue reading →

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Pi has been known for almost 4000 years—but even if we calculated the number of seconds in those 4000 years and calculated pi to that number of places, we would still only be approximating its actual value. Here’s a brief history of finding pi: The ancient Babylonians calculated the area of a circle by taking 3 times the square of its radius, which gave a value of pi = 3. One Babylonian tablet (ca. 1900–1680 BC) indicates a value of 3.125 for pi, which is a closer approximation. The Rhind Papyrus (ca.1650 BC) gives us insight into the mathematics of … Continue reading →

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Although I fully share the jubilation of others that Donald Trump may be taking a wrecking ball to the GOP establishment, I don’t hold the view that Trump’s candidacy will reduce neoconservative power. Matthew Richer, Justin Raimondo and other writers whose columns I usually welcome all believe that Trump’s rise as a Republican presidential candidate may help bring down his bogus conservative enemies. The more Trump’s popular support soars, the more the neocons have supposedly turned themselves into paper tigers. The establishment Republicans whom they “advise” have not marginalized Trump; nor have the neocons and their clients been able to … Continue reading →

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The Republican establishment is frantic over Trump. Trump has called the political establishment’s bluff. He has made an end run around their vetting process. This is a replay of Goldwater’s nomination in 1964. The Republican establishment took a dive in that election. It threw the election to Johnson. Now a major neoconservative theorist is recommending the same strategy. Robert Kagan is a Republican, a former adviser to Hillary Clinton, a “nonpartisan” Brookings Institution staff member, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of Yale’s secret society, Skull & Bones. He is probably the #1 neoconservative theorist … Continue reading →

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You can give it this much. The Thursday night GOP debate was civil, and probably the last one, too. Rubio is done, Kasich is on vapors and Senator Ted will never stop the Trump Express. In short, The Donald didn’t blow it, and therefore he is the presumptive GOP nominee. And probably the 45th President of the United States. For better or worse. Here follows an essay on the worse, as amplified in the Miami debate. What the latter showed is that the remaining GOP candidates represent the worst of both worlds and that The Donald was mainly right in the thick of it——echoing much of the same beltway … Continue reading →

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