A clever question finds answer

 

November 5, 2008

That exact day, Queen Elizabeth II visited the London School of Economics.

In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, she asked a question that cut through layers of expertise and authority:

-        - why did nobody see it coming?

It wasn’t just a question—it was a quiet indictment of an entire system of economists, regulators, and institutions that had collectively missed the warning signs.

The moment exposed an uncomfortable truth: that complexity, confidence, and consensus can sometimes blind even the most sophisticated minds.

Worst days would follow and that question would coming back to my mind, again, again and again..

--

During the summer of 2012, at the height of financial uncertainty, the Cyprus Ministry of Finance quietly reached out all parliamentary political parties for ideas—ideas that would confront what many already feared but few were prepared to articulate: the possible closure of Laiki Bank. It was a moment that demanded clarity, courage, and technical understanding. Yet, paradoxically, it was also a moment marked by hesitation and a lack of readiness.

Laiki was bleeding. At the time, there was a striking absence of individuals equipped to tackle such a complex and sensitive assignment. The scale of the problem—deeply rooted in systemic banking weaknesses and the broader European debt crisis—required not only technical expertise but also the ability to think beyond conventional solutions. Few possessed both. Fewer still were willing to engage with the political and economic consequences that such proposals would inevitably carry.

Once again, that huge “why” came to my mind..

--

That night, that discussion, that level of information was shocking.. That was the moment I became certain Emma Zeniou was stealing the students’ grants. It had been going on for years, quietly, almost invisibly, and yet no one ever spoke about it. The silence felt deliberate, as if everyone understood more than they were willing to admit. Whatever was happening clearly involved too many people to be a simple case of misconduct—it was structured, coordinated, both inside the University of Cyprus but also within the National Office. The patterns, the missing pieces, the way transactions seemed to circle back without raising alarms—it all pointed to something far bigger, involving also the European Commission. To me, it no longer looked like isolated theft, but a perfectly engineered money laundering mechanism, both in Cyprus and Brussels, hiding in plain sight.

That moment, instead of “why” I started wondering “who” implemented that scam?..

--

As the investigation went deeper, a series of striking red flags began to emerge. Key European directives appeared to have been deliberately kept out of sight, while lawyers insisted in formal statements that no such regulations existed (Case 1562/2014). At the very same time, however, those same lawyers were presenting internal emails that clearly referenced directive-based claims. The contradictions became even more troubling within the two courts themselves: one judge (Marika Kalligerou) was formally informed that no directives existed or applied, while another (Myria Loizou) received submissions explicitly citing those “not existing” directives. Both statements originated from the same law office (Argentoulla Ioannou)—and remarkably, from the same lawyer (Stavrina Karakatsiani)—raising serious concerns about consistency, transparency, and the integrity of the entire process.

At that moment, the only question was “ how many are involved? ”

--

The way the Cyprus Cooperative Bank was ultimately shut down raised serious concerns and, to many observers, appeared deeply unjust. Closing the Coop in that manner felt almost criminal, as the approach of separating and merging so-called “healthy” and “unhealthy” firms  lacked clear logic and transparency. Rather than providing clarity, the process created the impression that decisions were being made to protect certain interests rather than to ensure accountability. Whatever was truly happening behind the scenes, it seemed as though those involved were more focused on erasing the traces of their own actions and shielding responsibility, leaving little evidence behind and many unanswered questions for the public.

At that moment, I had no question, I was just seeing it happening, once again..

 

Nicos Rafidhias

Book title: All the DOTS you have connected..

 

Order your copy here

 

 

 

 

Trading Game - Part III (Last) - Why Gary Stevenson matters..

During the periods I was studying for my Bachelors' degree in Athens, it was extremely obvious that the monetary policy was wrong in too many ways. I attended the University of Athens for free, I got free books and the bus ticket was extremely cheap. I also couldn’t explain why this personal observation was not relevant to the average Greek student. That was part of their own normality.

As I was born and raised in Cyprus, I was familiar with a different world. We were closer to the English system, our companies were more interacting with England and our financial model looked more like England. That gave us some extra benefits, English style knowledge, more money-making opportunities. When I first visited London, back in 1995, the whole experience was like moving to a bigger capital of Cyprus. There was something extremely awkward. The prices were too cheap for me. That of course was part of a monetary miscalculation that was eventually explained during the bust of 2013/2013.

The model of Athens was different. The people had lower wages and less money to spend, in comparison to a Cypriot. Everything was extremely cheap for myself, in Athens, based on my own salary. And because of that reason, the streets of Athens were full of Cypriot visitors, shopping cheaper than in Cyprus. Soon, many Cypriot companies went bust. There was an increased cost they couldn’t afford..

It took me a couple of years to do the math in detail. The Greek government was indirectly supporting the Greek citizen, for many years, in order to make life look affordable. This observation is identical with what the situation is in the UK. The governments make living affordable, through loans that the people will have to repay later.

Both Athens and London were also contributing to the European budget. That means that both countries sent money to Brussels, in order to support the EU mechanism. Salaries, projects, expenses. That is not necessarily bad, but in addition it’s not necessarily good.

If projects work, there is a benefit for the average citizen of the EU. If projects are implemented for laundering purposes, the bill will be revealed sooner or later.

By 2013 I was able to monitor and keep records on how the EU design was laundering funds for the oligarchs of the member countries. In the exact same pattern that the UK did during COVID. By 2015 it was too late for the people of Greece to prevent what was really happening.The country collapsed. Too identical to the existing trend in the UK.

By 2015 the situation was also really bad and extremely obvious for the UK residents.

People paid a bill that went to a black hole. This is an extremely simple explanation for the BREXIT results. Whoever paid and couldn’t afford to continue paying the on-going scheme, had to put an end to it because they couldn’t afford the continuous, increased bill.

The exact same situation was too obvious after I permanently moved to England. I was not able to clearly understand the “why”, but I could notice that there was an indirect support to the businesses that caused increased instability. Main key point, the extremely low taxation for those who controlled the profits in comparison to extremely high taxation for the lower incomes.

When the Conservatives lost their seats and the Labour Party won the majority in the parliament it was too obvious that the damage to the economy was irreversible. The past governments (Conservative/LibDem) lowered the taxation to the business world and at the same time provided financial support to the general public in need through increased loans that we will have to pay in the future.  This combination of low taxation for the profit making industries in addition to an indirect but continuous support to the problematic financial model and the direct benefit would explode at some future time. IT happens at this time, as the late Hyman Minsky perfectly explained decades earlier.

This explosion occurred during Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. That was the simple reason the Labour Party won that huge majority of seats. The problem was that the Starmer administration was not experienced enough or prepared enough to fix the long-term problems.

I have to be fair on that. My own studies and research allow me to understand and identify early enough. Too many of the politicians (applying to any country of course..) don’t really have any similar studies and experience to do the job. A perfect example is the United States. Trump keeps trying every possible methodology he thinks, in order to hide the increased instability. Yet, it still is not working..

Most of the current team administration and the previous of course (both in the UK, Cyprus and many other countries of course..) are there for the pay check and the benefits they forward to their own peers. They make it too obvious if we closely observe the OPEKEPE scandal in Greece.

So, just to reward Gary Stevenson, since my article started with Gary Stevenson in mind. He explains in amazing detail why the past administration failed and why the current administration still follows an expired methodology. Although Gary Stevenson is described as Leftish, I personally disagree. He is a good thinker that notices what goes wrong. I believe I do the exact same for my own clients..

I am not considering myself as a Leftish. I am not considering myself as a Rightish. I consider myself as a person that identifies early enough what the administration should do and I prepare myself and my clients for the bad scenarios, if and when they appear.

I was doing the exact same thing when I was working in Greece and also when I was working in Cyprus.

The forecasting is a service to prepare the mass of the population and the business world  for the periods the administration will fail to do the right things. 

This is the reason I decided to explain, on my own approach, why everybody should read “The Trading Game” and watch the “Gary’s economics” channel on YouTube.

Our job, as the normal people, the professionals, the business owners is to protect ourselves from the malfunctions of the administration. Every time they occur, every time they become too obvious.

Whoever wants to reach the extra mile on the topics, do please get in touch and message me for more details.

Nicos Rafidhias

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicos-rafidhias/

Trading Game , Part I : The times when memories bring also valuable facts from the past

I have to admit that I am a great fan of Gary Stevenson and his podcast series called “Gary’s Economics”. Gary Stevenson was a Citigroup trader. He was extremely successful, according to his own words. I am not able, of course, to verify whether he was a successful trader as it is not relevant to my own purposes or research. Stevenson speaks clearly for the “Whom you know” bubble. The people in the bubbles that control the game. This is my primary interest. The people that play the game, too many times without any valuable skills.

I have also noticed a few third-party posts saying that his claims are not always accurate and that there is a different story in many of his own claims. This is not something I would be interested in investigating further, since it’s not part of my interests or capabilities. My own research involves Gary Stevenson as a book author. Gary Stevenson wrote a book called “The Trading Game”. I was amazed to notice too many little details that allowed me to understand the period that Lehman Brothers, Cyprus and Greece went bust. As a well prepared book, it allowed me to bring back memories related to the Lehman Brothers bust, the stock market industry, the Northern Rock boom and bust, the RBS boom and bust, what happened before and what followed that period.

What is the most interesting issue for my own research and book writing is that he mentions and also explains too many things that I started studying thirty years earlier ; wrong doing and money laundering implemented by the National Governments and their private sector peers and in addition the effects they cause to the increased financial instability of the public economics and the Ponzi financing patterns they create. Greece, Cyprus, Ireland, the UK, France or Germany, they all play the game badly. In the end, every time, the general population received the bill.

In addition to this information, there is great detail regarding the financial markets inside stories and the side effects they cause to the normal and basic economic operations. I was part of this “game” around fifteen years before Gary Stevenson. The story was then exactly the same. Some privileged people, as Gary Stevenson mentions, earned large amounts of money from extended speculation. As happened a few years later with the Greek economy. The Greek economy was “stable” for a decade but the real truth was that it was in a very bad situation for many decades. The Greek governments were borrowing massively. A very common practice of almost every government. The interest during the first period of the Euro was equal to Germany’s for some years but when things went really bad, it was way above the average and that activated and increased the financial instability, also known as Ponzi finance. We all remember what followed.

During the last act, the Greek government had to ask for a bailout from the TROIKA.

The TROIKA approach failed exactly like any IMF approach in the past.

You need extremely high skills to design and implement a viable restructuring model and according to my own research both TROIKA and IMF have no interest in that. Their goal, at that moment, was to save the exposure of France. A combination of failures including the trading giants and the public sector inner gang. The government of Greece played the game. Also badly.

The instability in Greece eventually caused a hidden instability for both Germany and France. Here is the main observation I was interested in. Under the normal and basic operations of any unit, meaning a house or a company, you need to have balanced economics and limited exposure. It is not possible to keep imbalances for long. Eventually, you will be out of the economic circle and the competition will buy your business or steal your market position.

This is why “The Trading Game” is an exciting reading. We can see when the traders take advantage, the time the circle of a company or a country is completed and how much hidden cost the ordinary people have to pay without even noticing it. Both directly and indirectly. Yesterday was Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain. Cyprus followed. Today we have reached the core of the problem, the UK, France and Germany. What happens at the moment and what I expect to follow will be explained in the following part where I will remember the days of the Yellow vests..

Nicos Rafidhias studied Political Science and European integration before and during the creation of the European Union and the Euro Zone. 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicos-rafidhias/

Personal page: www.nicosrafidhias.co.uk

Business page: www.officeofis.co.uk

This article is part of his recent book regarding the boom and bust of corporations and countries. 

 

END OF PART I

The times real experts are needed

 As the UK is now copying the pattern that both Greece and Cyprus followed between 2006 and 2015, the lesson is the exact same ; you never put amateurs to do the job of professionals.

After thirty years in business, I find that the most valuable modules I ever studied were the Financial Instability Hypothesis and the Minsky Moment.

Funny detail ; those modules were studied because of my personal curiosity and my personal business activities.

Although most Universities tend to offer the typical modules of Political Science, Political Economy, Marketing, Management and Human Resources, the people that do that extra mile always get knowledge that makes the difference.

Today's CITY AM (post shared earlier) admits that the industry of education brings a dangerous combination of problems to the most recent graduates ; debt and unemployment. The industry sells a generic service that stopped providing any benefit.

During my Bachelor's studies in Political Science (around 20 years earlier), I was lucky to have a lecture by the UK Ambassador in Athens, Greece. The Ambassador described the UK business system as extremely stable, in comparison to the Greek system. Long term job positions, building careers in comparison to the short term job model of Greece.

Although the Ambassador was right on his observation and analysis, at that timeframe, around ten years later I found out that the UK unfortunately copied the model of Greece ; short term job positions, freezing the salary of the low income population and covering the gap through the Universal Credit pot while multiplying the salary of the politicians and the public administration, paid by continuous loans.

This long-term policy, followed not only by Truss but by several previous administrations including Thatcher, caused the Minsky Moment during Liz Truss 45 days in power. Since then, Truss repeatedly stated that she did nothing wrong, despite Kwasi Kwarteng's repeated statements, admitting the mistakes they made.

How Liz Truss caused a Minsky Moment ?

Liz Truss decided to give extra free money to peers from a country already facing collapse. All previous administrations provided free money to their peers ; Truss made that little extra effort.

Why did Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer continue the same pattern ?

Both Sunak and Starmer are part of a huge circle of politicians with extremely limited knowledge on how to run a country or a union. They never had any courses on the field because if they had they could notice and correct the red flags. The majority of the politicians I met, all gave promises to their supporters including free money and benefits, like Boris Johnson did with Michelle Mone.

The Financial Instability Hypothesis and the Minsky Moment explains the day that you give everything and you now operate on increased loans and multiplied interest rates.

This is a phase where real experts are needed.

The Cyprus bankruptcy - The "before" and the "after" (part III)

 

In a similar situation, the British government faced a shocking devaluation of the Sterling pound during Liz Truss' administration, losing markets’ trust. What was the difference in that incident? Due to the danger of the Sterling pound to be plunged for good and for the long term and of course due to the danger of losing their seats due to the election that looked inevitable, they forced Liz Truss to resign.

The period of Liz Truss' administration brought to my mind the administration of Demetris Christofias in Cyprus, ten years earlier. As I assume, Liz Truss never heard of Demetris Christofias or ever paid attention to what happened to Cyprus ten years earlier. She just planned to increase the debt level of the United Kingdom that unfortunately for her had already reached the Ponzi levels, where nobody is willing to lend more. Liz Truss, even today claims that there was nothing wrong with her governance. Although, whoever has experience of Ponzi financing can easily understand and connect the practices of Christofias administration with what happened ten years later in the UK.

Those two financial crises prove the fatal mistakes of each private or public administration. Every administration claims to hire or appoint the best. Although, each administration hires or appoints based on friendly relationships or political benefits, translated as votes.. As a result, the administration is full of incompetent members or fraudsters that sooner or later create chaos. Cyprus is a perfect example. We all know that people in the public administration are appointed in exchange of votes and they cover fraud practices like money-laundering and in recent years the sale of passports to international criminals.

Mafia-State is a whistleblower evidence of what was happening during Anastasiades' administration. Anastasiades was repeatedly linked with international fraudsters and money-laundering practices that shaken the European community. Even worse, the whole European community infrastructure is designed in a pattern that one century ago led to the collapse of the “Latin Monetary Union” that today nobody dares to mention.

One hundred years ago, the European people had another monetary union that because of fraud, corruption and incompetence had to be left to collapse in silence.

As history repeats first, first as tragedy and second as farce, Greece was expelled from LMU from 1908 to 1910 and they faced the same pattern a century later. This time Cyprus was added to the story. When you spend all your (national) money, someone will have to loan you some more, in order to keep the (monetary union) illusion alive. But, just because a loan is always a loan, you are first out of the Union unofficially, but you are out a few years later, officially..

End of part III

The Cyprus bankruptcy - The "Before" and the "after" (part II)

 

It was a sunny Saturday morning. I woke up and went on my weekly shopping route. Before that I went to withdraw some money from the ATM but my transaction was declined. It was really awkward, I knew that there were enough funds in my account, so I tried one more time. Transaction was again rejected. People in nearby ATMs faced a similar situation, as I could now observe. 

Suddenly my mobile phone rang. Sylvia Papamakariou, my Cyprus Green Party main liaison, informed me that Cyprus was bankrupt, banks were shut down and I had to go to our headquarters for a brainstorming meeting regarding the next day. It was the moment I could see in real time that “IT” happened once again, as Hyman Minsky wrote a few decades earlier. Unfortunately, in Cyprus nobody wanted to listen and nobody wanted to speak, even after it was too late.. That was the rule then, that is the rule now..

As the rest of the population were celebrating the Carnival period, mostly in Limassol, that first and then during the second weekend a team of experts were trying to develop scenarios of what to do, what to avoid and what to save. We then had no idea of the real corruption levels of Cyprus, we just assumed that something would and should change. Illusions as we realised later..

The corruption levels in Cyprus are huge and unfortunately almost everybody is involved. The huge benefits of the public sector and the politicians that form each administration were always coming from a financial alchemy. The savings of the Cyprus Social Security pot were immediately transferred to serve the Government expenses so every new expenditure and pay rise meant that there will not be any kind of safety pillow in case of any emergency. That means also that in case we needed to cover any kind of emergency like saving our Banks would be achieved only if our European partners were willing to lend us more money. And they had no reason for that since our Banking system ws another alchemy ; giving higher interest rates in order to attract more deposits and create new bonuses for the Bankers..

So, in a simplified analysis, if Cyprus were still having the national currency of the Cyprus pounds and each Cyprus pound was equal to 1 euro, that weekend we could agree to devalue our pound so possibly 1 euro could buy 10 Cyprus pounds or even 50. In such a period that the national economics are just reckless, the evaluation of the national currency is defined by the markets. Luckily, Cyprus was already in the Eurozone. That meant that our government was able to steal as much as they wanted, since the people would pay the debt in a future period. 

That’s a flaw of monetary unions that lead to their collapse sooner or later. Just to make it more relevant to the recent period, both Turkey and Argentina, two countries that have their own currency, observe the continuous devaluation of their national currency against others.

End of part II

The Cyprus bankruptcy - The "Before" and the "after" [part 1]

 

The most common question I am repeatedly being asked, since I moved my base to England is :

“Why does a Cypriot decide to leave Cyprus for England? “

We all agree that Cyprus is an amazing place for vacations. Good weather, amazing food, quality amenities.. But how about living permanently and working there? Is it as good as England? For sure, it's not.. Let's see why..

Cyprus gained a very bad reputation during the recent years. What all investigations show is that Cyprus is linked to illegal activities like money-laundering and supporting financial crime..

I have no reason to disagree with those publications, at all. On the contrary, I was observing the pattern, at least fifteen years earlier. I started investigations, I verified what was happening and, even worse, I verified that what was happening couldn't change because of the corruption inside the core of the governance.

Let's observe a few details. Cyprus got bankrupt during 2013. The public treasury was empty, the two core banks collapsed and the third, most healthy financial institution went bust a few years later. Would we agree that it doesn’t sound like normal practice for anyone, anywhere? 

Let's get a little bit more specific. The public service was paid by funds transferred from the social security pot. The social security pot was permanently empty so there was no safety pillow for last resort purposes. Public sector was paid by Ponzi financing practices.

Same period , both Bank of Cyprus and Laiki Bank heavily invested in Greece, the rest of the Balkan peninsula, Ukraine and Russia. All those investments collapsed so both institutions needed recapitalisation. That was part of another Ponzi financing practice but unfortunately nobody dares to talk about Ponzi financing practices in Cyprus..

Since the problems were well known at least one year earlier, we were asked to make scenarios for the next day. Who were “we” ? During that period I was a member of the Cyprus Green Party, acting as Commissioner for Finance, what in the UK is called shadow minister. The exact same time I was studying my Master’s degree so I had access to all similar cases, worldwide. I personally developed a scenario where both banks were split to smaller pieces and sold to healthy institutions, more or less what the UK did during 2008 when they faced a similar situation.

I was amazed by the fact that nobody paid attention to my proposal so I developed my personal scenario for the next day ; a bank account with emergency funds that could be used in order to move to the UK when nothing could be saved..

End of part I

The rules of instability periods..

It’s this period of the economic circle, once again so one more American bank went bust !

Fragility of the financial system is increasing all over the world, even in the United States.

And as experts predict, the party has just started.. We saw it previously, we see it at the moment, we will see it again, again and again. 

The pattern is the same and the mistakes also..

We currently have the United Kingdom in a situation between stagnation and flirting recession.

Inflation is still high and interest rates are getting higher and higher..

Leadership and management prove completely incompetent to fix anything,

like the previous circle turnpoints. 

Management in an important number of companies varies between below average and inexperienced, pushing the companies straight to the bottom..

This month, Cyprus celebrated 19 years since joining the European Union.

For me, personally it is a reminder of periods that a dream becomes a nightmare.

The European Union project , soon after, proved to be a huge failure.

Cyprus, Portugal, Italy,  Ireland, Greece and Spain flirted and danced with bankruptcy..

Citizens of Cyprus and Greece lost access to their deposits, seeing banks closed for weeks..

The most recent, political incident, the evacuation flights from Sudan showed the chaos of the so-called Union for one more time..

The time the European Union was designed I was studying for my Bachelor, with classes related to European integration, the stability and instability of the project..

The flaws of the system were part of my assignments and based on my experience even predictable.

Nobody paid attention to those assumptions, during that period.

Not even my professor believed that those assumptions would become reality soon.

A lesson I got years earlier, from the period I was analysing the Stock Markets is that whatever you see may not be accurate, whatever you analyse could change in a second, whatever you start investigating may show more than expected.

That period taught me that companies under strong leadership and management last longer than those with weak leadership and management, but all of them are fragile in some period of time.

So, the most valuable lesson of that period was that I learnt to make assumptions for the worst and be prepared for “IT”.

That applies to business and politics equally.

For those who heard of Hyman Minsky, “IT” happens..

During 2008 “IT” was related to the Minsky Moment.

The time that the flaws are exposed on the highest levels.

Both organisations (strong managed and weak managed)  face financial challenges and struggle to survive.

In addition both categories (strong managed and weak managed) are vulnerable due to political factors.

Based on my experience more that 50% of the companies I was related to, in the last thirty years, have gone bust not because of their management but because of politics.

If we examine the latest Greek drama, it wasn’t normal or expected for all those companies of the latest gilded period ( that all went bust ) to collapse due to internal factors of incompetence.

All those companies collapsed due to high debt and that high debt was connected with 

wrong political decisions affecting wages, social contributions and international competitiveness. 

If we look at Cyprus, the design was more or less the same like Greece but political fraud and casino economics were multiplied.

There was a huge party by the politicians increasing taxes and loans for their own benefit and looting the social security fund, in order to keep their wages and secret bonuses.

Similar models are followed by the United Kingdom and France and so many other countries. Based on what it’s published, British politicians benefit from their position and connections and that reflects to lower performance of the NHS and the quality of life for the less lucky. People and organisations pay the real cost by direct or indirect devaluations so recently French people realised that they have to work more years, in order to cover the gap that was exposed. 

Also valuable to note that in the long term Greece was not able to compete with Turkey, a country with similar resources and production but with continuous devaluation of their currency.

In the long term, Cyprus was not able to become too expensive because they would lose the British tourists that moved to the occupied Northern part or Turkey.

In the long term Greece should be tuned with Turkey and Egypt in order to look attractive instead of trying to be tuned with France or Scandinavia.

In the long term Cyprus should be aligned with the United Kingdom in order to seem attractive to British visitors.

First Republic bank was the latest financial player that faced devalued assets and had to close.

For me, the story is repeated from the period of Barings. Later, the story involved Laiki, Bank of Cyprus and the Co-Op bank.

Laiki and Bank of Cyprus, fifteen years ago, invested heavily in the Balkans, Ukraine and Russia.

For the periods they faced losses they needed fresh capital.

In the end of the period, both old and new  investors kept away so there was no white knight available.

The outcome was existing investors losing their investment, the closure of Laiki and a series of repeated recapitalization for Bank of Cyprus.

The Co-op banking system collapsed a few years later due to political games, fraud and incompetence.

That was the most healthy arm of the Cyprus financial system so the total collapse of the so-called Cyprus miracle was inevitable.

That was the arm that could allow the rest of the system to become healthy again!

During the same period of time I was investigating a money-laundering case, involving the University of Cyprus.

After two courts and relevant paperwork that were released, it was clearly shown that it was an inside job. Recently missing funds had to be announced. Ten years later!

Inevitably, Brexit followed. People wanted to take back control.

They already suspected or knew of similar cases all over Europe and they had to put an end to the joke.

They actually said that they preferred to see their taxes going for better causes than money-laundering.

And suddenly here comes downshifting to complete the movie!

People stopped being attracted to fake careers and immoral activities.

Imagine yourself, in a top corporate position covering bullying and sexual harassment.

Yourself, in a middle level position, having expectations that will not be achieved by working with below average colleagues.

Yourself, in an entry level position, knowing that if you continue in that organisation will sooner or later lose a few fingers or your hand because of the low levels of health and safety.

Active and professional recruiters are still wondering though, why new hires fail in two years time..

If we take these valuable  lessons we can eliminate the upcoming repetition..

BUT.. Are we willing to do that?

Definitely not. Human nature is not changing so easily.

In the best outcome, leadership could inspire but in order to do that you need to have genuine leadership.

Management could train, guide and allow excellence, but in order to do that you need to have already experienced managers with high standards set.

Strategy could put milestones for problem solving, but in order to do that you need people that understand strategy, monitoring and evaluation in depth..

Unfortunately, after three decades in the business environment, in several countries and positions, the most valuable lesson I got is that people tend to ignore and avoid crucial actions because it’s more convenient.

Inexperience is more and more widespread and sooner or later we will face another perfect storm. And for as long as we ignore and avoid doing our real job, we make the exact same mistakes.

Based on an assignment where I got a huge “F” , during my MBA studies,  in the end we will all do the right thing.

BUT..Based on history, it will happen after we follow every other direction. Never forget that !