The Productive Pessimist

  The Bank of England is expressing significant concerns about Britain's "ageing and ailing workforce", harmonising to the government's tune of how the long-term sick are responsible for the UK economic challenges, and how "necessary" raising the State pension age is. Those two songs have been a more or less constant refrain from various shades of UK governments since 1997 - almost 30years.  Pretty much my whole life, and the entirety of my life as someone old enough to vote. Of course, work is necessary.  Countries have essential core services which require vast workforces to provide and administrate. Governments should be generating national income by exporting from the manufacturing, STEM, creative, and knowledge economy sectors, all of which require their own skilled and specialist workforces, and the workforce of their respective administrative and marketing functions. Continuous income, to cover the unavoidable payment lags in exports, is necessary fo...

Lord Sugar has always presented himself as being of the 'fake it 'til you make it' school - a street-smart kid with more nouse than people twice his age, better at business than the people running companies he briefly worked for in his teenage years.    And appearances would say it paid off - he didn't have the exam results, the MBA, the network of friends and family to give him early opportunities, but, by every indicator, he's 'made it.'  It's understandable, therefore, that the Apprentice  candidates frustrate him so much - he faked it until he made it, they're much better off than he was, what's their problem? The problem is, you CAN'T 'fake it 'til you make it.'  It , whatever 'it' is - nouse, a boldness that borders on the offensively entitled, a daring that goes beyond normal risk tolerance, the kind of lateral thinking that sees an opportunity three years before its wave crashes in to shore, and thus has enough tim...