Nicholas Taleb’s book “The Black Swan” was on the NY Times bestseller list for unexpected (ha!) 36 weeks. The book deals with the hubris of predictions: we expect all swans to be white and are shocked when a black swan swims by. The Black swans are high impact, highly improbable crises. “Consider a turkey that... Continue Reading →

This is from a talk I gave at the PhillipKPA National Apprenticeships Forum in Sydney this week. It draws heavily on the materials I’ve been sharing through these emails. Slides are attached. Sorry it’s a bit long, but it’s worth it for the chart at the end. Thank you for having me here today. I’ve... Continue Reading →

In the 12 months to August, the economy created 305 thousand net new jobs. Half of these jobs were created in the four months from May. Through the year employment growth is currently sitting at 3.1 per cent. This is the fastest employment in almost a decade. We’re living in a mini jobs boom. ·       ... Continue Reading →

After marvelling at the rate of technological progress, Keynes predicts — in a gorgeous piece of 1930s economic prophesising — that mankind will have solved its economic problem and the new challenge will be to figure out what to do with all our spare time. We will be: “…afflicted with a new disease of which... Continue Reading →

Figures came out of the UK last month that placed their unemployment rate at 4.3 per, the lowest it’s been in 42 years(!). The UK’s unemployment rate has falling steadily since 2011, when it peaked at 8.4 per cent. More than 2.5 million jobs have been created in that time — around a third of... Continue Reading →

“I was on an airplane and there was high-speed Internet on the airplane. That’s the newest thing I know that exists. And I’m sitting on the plane and they go, open up your laptop, you can go on the Internet. And it’s fast, and I’m watching YouTube clips. It’s amaz—I’m on an airplane! And then... Continue Reading →

Australia’s near 26 years of continuous economic growth is something to be proud of. Our growth run has been helped along by microeconomic reforms in the 1990s, the rise of China, a once in the lifetime commodity price boom and one of the fastest population growth rates in the developed world. And in addition to... Continue Reading →

“You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.” (Solow, 1987) Computing capacity in United States increased a hundred fold between 1970 and 1980. Firms invested heavily into IT kit at record levels, and in 1982 Time Magazine named the computer the Person of the Year. Yet, despite this, productivity growth slumped... Continue Reading →

One in seven businesses won’t last the year. A further 25 per cent won’t last four. Only a quarter saw an increase in their profits and new analysis is showing that firms are 10 times more likely to shrink then grow. What separates the successful from the unsuccessful? How do we know which firms will... Continue Reading →

Across the economy firms are using digital technologies to varying degrees. At one end of the spectrum we see firms using websites of varying qualities, and maybe sending out the occasional tweet. At the other, we see firms that have installed digital sensors up and down the supply chain, are collecting data on millions of... Continue Reading →