Short Termism

The good folks at the Work Research Foundation invited me to attend a lecture last night, and since I never say no to a freebie I went.

The speaker was Jonathan Wellum, CEO of AIC Ltd. and the topic was "Short termism" and the market.

To be honest I expected it would be a dry boring lecture about hedge funds or something.

But it was actually a fascinating talk about the challenges we face in the years ahead from high oil prices to an aging population to misallocation of scare resources.

Wellum's main point was that an inordinate amount of the world's wealth is being concentrated in the hands of people -- Hugo Chavez, the Chinese, Oil emirates -- who are squandering capital it took centuries to accumulate.

He also says that we here in the West are forgetting that to create wealth we need to respect the right to private property, reduce the size of government and save more money.

Finally -- and this point really hit home to me -- he says the Western world needs leaders who instead of "pandering" stick to their principles.

Amen to that.