Bloomberg (the Business) Conquers The World

I was struck on Saturday by the New York Times' long (nearly 3,000 word) article entitled "At Bloomberg, Modest Strategy to Rule the World".

Some choice excerpts:

...the data behemoth that Michael R. Bloomberg created and named after himself in...

The world lost a very great man this past Thursday. So great, in fact, that the only person I can compare him to is Einstein. And that's because this man - Russell L. Ackoff, Professor Emeritus of The Wharton School - transformed the world of problem solving just as...

"We are getting better and better at doing the wrong things. The more of this we do, the wronger we get. We must start doing the right things, even if we do them poorly at first."
- Peter F. Drucker, management guru

(Updated Oct 28th -...

How fitting that the scandalous relationship between Goldman Sachs and the Obama administration (thank you Glenn Greenwald) and Goldman Sachs' "no value added to the American people's way of life" methods of earning the bulk of its profits (thanks Dylan Ratigan) and a brilliant analysis of the overall...

David Sirota has written a great essay called "Who are "the deciders"?"

In it, he lays out both the basic Republican "Obama had better do what General McChrystal tells him to do" mantra and the basic How the Government Actually Works rules of the Constitution.

Personally, I side with...

Last night I attended the global premier of The Age of Stupid here in NYC. It was really exciting to be in a movie theater and see not just a film but a live, global premiere event complete with statements addressing the issue as well.

Congratulations to the filmmakers...

I'm feeling really strange tonight. I really need to get some sleep, because I'm attending a special health care reform meeting in the morning organized by the new Agenda Project.

But I can't shake the feeling that President Obama and the Democrats' commitment to health care reform may...

President Obama made two very important speeches last Wednesday.

Most people heard about his speech on health care reform to a joint session of Congress, and for good reason.

By talking not just about health care but about the heart and spirit of the late Senator Ted Kennedy...

To me, Walter Cronkite's life was this amazing rollercoaster ride, alternated between reporting on the most inspiring things humanity is capable of doing (such as landing on the Moon) to the most horrific (such as the assassination of President John F. Kennedy). The whole country may have lived through these...

President Obama will be giving a speech on health care reform on Wednesday. Here's why I hope he'll speak on transforming the culture of politics here in America instead.

The Obama administration was smart to avoid the mistake the Clinton administration made during its 1993 attempt at...

With the 2009 Davos conference ending without any grand "problem solved" announcements, I would like to offer my prescription for what the world's leaders should do in the future. But first a little relatively recent "Davos history" from the last traumatic shock to the global economic system: the 9/11...

The Economist has published an essay on the World Economic Forum in Davos entitled "Mountain Reboot", which says, in part...

It is generally agreed that the system needs rebooting. The Davos agenda, entitled "Shaping the Post-Crisis World", is laden with soul-searching discussions about the mess, from the brainstorming...

Some thoughts on New York City (my home town and where I live today), the collapse of our economic system, and leadership (where influence can be more important than domination/control)...

When New York City's political and civic leaders developed PlaNYC 2030, the world was a very different place. In...

We all learn from the nursery rhyme "Humpty "Dumpty" that "all the King's horse and all the King's men couldn't put Humpty together again."

I believe we are living through the Great Collapse. The collapse of free market capitalism. The collapse of the doctrine of warfare between nations as an...

Senator McCain likes to claim he will be a bipartisan leader. He likes to claim he will get things done once elected president, because he knows how to reach across party lines.

He may say this, but does Senator McCain "Walk the talk"? Does he really know how to...

Today's failure of the bailout legislation represents the failure of Congress and the Bush administration to ask a fundamental question: "Why do we have this crisis?"

They thought they had asked and answered that question, in identifying the fact that these mortgage-based investment instruments are crashing our economic system.

However,...

I just watched Tom Brokaw's interview with Bill Clinton on Meet The Press. Tom asked Bill if -- given how Bill refers to John McCain as a great man -- he would say the same thing about Barack Obama. I thought Bill Clinton's answer was very instructive... and very...

John McCain's temperament has been a side-bar issue for some time now, as people wonder if he would take us to war unnecessarily ("bomb bomb Iran"). Speaking of his own temperament, McCain claims he is they guy who works across party lines. He promises to end the gridlock...

"Economic Shock and Awe", as Arianna put it, indeed. In another parallel to the planning of the Iraq War, there is this curious answer given by Deputy White House Press Secretary Fratto at the end of The Bush administration's September 23rd Briefing that has me wondering just how...

Welcome to our brave new post-Capitalistic world.

Today our leaders in Washington announced (all the details to come later) that the Federal Government is going to rescue the financial system from total collapse.

You can read the story as reported by The New York Times here and, of course,...