I wish all my readers a happy 2023, full of good health, happiness and success!
Author: Grumpy Old Man
Blowing the whistle on whistle blowing?
Wouldn’t it be great to receive a $114 million payout? One lucky chap in the US actually in October 2021 was awarded exactly this amount by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and another agency for blowing the whistle on some shady business business practices by his financial markets employer. As a matter of fact, […]
How not to manage staff – Lessons from Elon Musk
Elon Musk has told Twitter staff that they must commit to working “long hours at high intensity” or else leave the company, according to reports. And that is after Mr. Musk already sacked half of Twitter’s employees – only to hire some of them a couple of days later after finding out that some of […]
More retail woes
During 2020 I had written several blogs on the sorry state of the British high street. The main problem then was the lockdowns, but inflation was low, people got paid, be that their salary and wages or under the government’s furlough scheme. Fast forward two years and the situation is very different: inflation in the […]
Crypto Winter
Not that long ago, crypto currencies were all the rage: Fortunes were made on even the most obscure of tokens and trading volumes went through the roof, with investors from the most seasoned to the rookies jumping on the bandwagon. How things have changed in recent months! Just look at Bitcoin, the crypto currency which […]
COP27 – A bit like Groundhog Day
Do you remember the movie Groundhog Day released in 1993, where a weatherman is sent to cover a story about a weather forecasting “rat” (as he calls it) and finds himself in a time loop until he gets it right? Somehow the annual COP-shindigs remind me of exactly this situation: At each conference lots of […]
The 10’000 Steps A Day Myth
I am not exactly a fitness afficionado, but this summer I decided that I really needed to shed some weight. My exercise routine basically consists of going for walks and, weather permitting, walking from home to the office and back (approximately 30 minutes and 3 kilometers each way). And, as it happens, I also have […]
Banana Republic
Anyone observing from the outside the British isles what is currently happening in British politics must be appalled! After Boris Johnson resigned in shame in July, Liz Truss, his successor as Prime Minister, nominated by the members of the Conservative party, lasted a mere 44 days in her job before being forced to resign over […]
Going to the dogs
The United Kingdom is definitely going to the dogs (and I obviously don’t mean the races). The Pound Sterling is literally collapsing against all major and even not so major currencies, while the prices of most goods and services in line with interest rates are in a steep ascent. Interest rates are now forecast to […]
The ultimate business trip
Since the start of the pandemic more than 2 years ago, business travel and corporate gatherings have become the exception rather than the rule. And at the same time many employees may also have started to feeling disenfranchised working from their kitchen table or spare bedroom at home. So some firms have come to the […]
The grumpy older man 