What Peter Drucker Would Be Reading

Peter Drucker

Recent selections from around the web that, we think, would have caught Peter Drucker’s eye:

1.  Four Things Boston Teaches Us About Handling Terror:
One of the most important things we can do to prevent terrorism is make terrorism unsatisfying. That is to say: ensure that we bounce back fast rather than allow life to come to a halt. That is the case made by Stephen Flynn, founding co-director of the George J. Kostas Research Institute for Homeland Security and a professor of political science at Northeastern University. Flynn writes at CNN, “When elected officials rush to the microphones and engage in a bidding war over deploying draconian protective measures for addressing real and imagined vulnerabilities, they end up inadvertently providing the fuel for future attacks.”

2.   Reinhart and Rogoff Were Wrong Even Without the ‘Spreadsheet Error’: It was the spreadsheet error heard ’round the world. Economists Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart authored a study finding that when a country’s debt level rises above 90% it appears to slow economic growth markedly. Except they did the numbers wrong, and it turned out to be untrue. Writing in ForbesJohn Tamny says that the bigger problem with Reinhart and Rogoff’s suggestion was that it ignored that an economy is made up of individuals. Jeff Bezos or Larry Ellison will keep going to work, even if public debt is high. Tamny writes, “Ultimately it must be stressed that economies are people, and arbitrary debt figures don’t on their own impact the willingness of people to get up each day and act productively.”

3.  Underwater: The Netherlands Falls Prey to Economic Crisis: The Netherlands did so much right in economic policy, but it wasn’t enough to stave off a housing boom and crash. Spiegel Online reports that the country is now the most indebted in Europe, and its banks have €650 billion in mortgage loans on the books: “The Netherlands is still one of the most competitive countries in the European Union, but now that the real estate bubble has burst, it threatens to take down the entire economy with it.”

4.  Dx Comment of the Week: Last week, when we examined the growth of self-publishing and asked if it was a wise move for established authors, reader Greg Zerovnik wrote:

Seth Godin has done quite well for himself by self-publishing newer works. Musicians are turning music distribution on its head using self-publishing. Radiohead is a prime example.