Friedman and Florida

I was on vacation a couple of weeks ago and had a chance to
read Richard Florida’s new book, The Flight of the Creative Class. I
consider it a kind of companion piece to Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat
(now a #1 best-seller) because Florida is talking, as is Friedman, about the role that well-educated
knowledge and idea producing people play in the US economy.

Friedman and Florida agree in some ways and differ in
others. Both see the category of people who earn their living by working with
information, ideas, data, design, invention and relationships and the
entrepreneurs and managers who mobilize them as the core of wealth generation
in any economy. Florida extends this catgegory a bit further than Friedman by
including artists, musicians, hair designers and similar creative typess. The message
of both authors is: 1) the people who
work with creative ideas and innovation are absolutely critical to the well
being of the US economy, and 2) we’re not doing a good job acquiring or
developing these people compared to some other parts of the world.

READ MORE

Non-government Organizations Win Greater Trust than Media and Big Business

Pressure groups and charities have overtaken goverments, media and big business to become the worlds most trusted institutions, according to an international poll to be presented this week to the World Economic Forum.

An annual survey of attitudes suggests public trust has been eroded by scandals such as corporate malfeasance and discredited journalism.  The survey found that non-government organisations now score the highest for trustworthiness in the US and Europe.

Faith in the internet as a source of trustworthy information has risen sharply, at the expense of more traditional media tainted by scandal.

This poll was carried out among 1,500 university graduates aged between 35 and 65 with household incomes of more than $75,000.

Well, that is welcome news.

Stock Market Scam

Using technology to manipulate the value of stocks may be easier than apparent.  ABC World News had a report that companies were placing errant phone messages designed at duping investors into thinking that they are receiving a hot insider stock tip designed for someone else ears.  The hope is the unsuspecting investor will act on the tip anyways, artificially inflating the value of the stock.

Douglas Rushkoff outlines an on line chatroom scenario that is similar in his book Exit Strategy.  What if investors were using inter net chat rooms to inflate or devalue stocks by convincing investors to buy or sell at their will?  More at Community Mobilization.

Agree to disagree

Gosh, the other night I heard some business executives’ organization predicting that in 2005 there would be more jobs, lower oil prices, and business growth. Contrast that with this article I just stumbled across reporting that a well-placed financial analyst is forecasting a high probability of "economic Armageddon." Hmm, maybe he’s trying to create conditions to sell a book on "How to Prosper in the Coming Crash."