Fractured World

Posted on 24 January 2018 by Erik Hare | 2 Comments

How many articles will you read about the annual conference at Davos? How many will miss the point?

If you are a news junkie, the answer to the first question is “A lot.” The answer to the second question, sadly, is about the same. In a polarized world where everyone is more enthralled with their own opinion than any sense of objective truth most of what will be written on this conference will be colored.

And that’s a damned shame, because Davos has evolved into Ted-talk-o-rama. It’s really accessible and interesting – and worth reading up on whether you agree with the presenters or not.

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What Do You Expect?

Posted on 24 January 2014 by Erik Hare | 5 Comments

Another week, another crippling cold. It is January, after all, and numbing cold is only to be expected. But expectations are the key to surviving Winter, especially one as brutal as this one. As long as you expect it will be deadly cold, the few days spent actually above freezing turn into a blessing. And there is always the greatest expectation of all – that this can’t last forever and some day it will be Spring.

Expectations are also the key to understanding predictions and the sinking feeling of disappointment when they don’t come true. Barataria has come under some fire for insisting that predictions are the key to a worthy blog’s identity, so it’s only natural that we should deal with three stories of expectations gone horribly wrong in today’s news.

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Skiing the Tough Slopes

Posted on 28 January 2013 by Erik Hare | 15 Comments

What’s the state of the world’s economy and financial system? The annual gathering of the world’s leaders in the field at the World Economic Forum at the posh ski resort of Davos, Switzerland, painted a very nasty picture. The financial world is crumbling, unfair, and full of unacceptable risk.

One of the great questions through this stage of the depression is how alarmed the great thinkers are about the current situation. Make no mistake – this conference was sobering at best, terrifying at worst. It you’re looking for good news, take comfort in the fact that the world’s leaders have clearly sounded the alarm bells.

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