Could this be a manifesto

"Nothing ain't worth nothing." Times are tough if I can find both truth and solace in a country song.

Our problem is, we have all accepted that nothing was worth something in the last few years. We can hardly be faulted for doing so, our neighbours, friends, elders and betters have accepted it and proclaimed it too. Pity it was a falsehood. The fact is that worth, value, resides in things. Tangible things that we can use or experience. Value does not lie in guessing what a tangible thing might be worth some day or in trading such guesses. But that's what we have built our great market-driven industries on since about 1970 - guesses of value.

The structure is crumbling - and taking with it the stored up hopes and work of billions of people. Not millions, billions. Now that's an idea worth a manifesto!

Hector Ruiz of AMD believes that coming out of this recession there will be a flight to value in the semiconductor business. I hope and I believe that he is under-estimating what is happening. It is not a flight but a homecoming and it is happening in all businesses and in the way we choose to live.

In this blog I will try to present some ideas, mostly half-formed ideas, about how we can use this recession to make life much better. Crazy ideas as far as many people are concerned, I am sure. I don't really care though - because I think I might be on to something.

The first crazy idea then : many of the concepts that business has foisted on us are about as real as phlogiston, the lumeniferous aether, the tooth fairy or the jaberwock. Or manifest destiny for that matter.

Dr. J


the song? "Me & Bobby McGee" - written by Kris Kristofferson