The financial world is experiencing increasing financial volatility with far more frequent financial booms and busts.  Dr Peter Jonson is a former Chief Economist at the Reserve Bank of Australia and a lifelong economic thinker and writer.

In Great Crises of Capitalism, Peter summarises four hundred years of capitalist progress, including the costly setbacks from major wars and repeated episodes of financial instability. Such episodes are occurring with greater frequency, and this presents great dangers and also great opportunities for governments, for professional investors and managers of people’s individual or family financial nest eggs.

The concluding chapters include messages for governments, central banks and individual or family investors. Booms are not all bad, as big and often exciting projects are undertaken when people’s confidence is high, while most of the crooks and incompetents get found out in the busts.  Peter Jonson says it would be futile, as well as counterproductive, to strangle the golden goose that is capitalism by more and more constricting regulations.  Sensible policies can however be devised to reduce the damaging froth and bubble. Beyond that point,  companies and individuals, even governments, need robust strategies to benefit from the booms, avoid the worst of the busts and then go shopping for bargains.

The final chapter discusses future crises of capitalism. Peter Jonson believes that the biggest threat to capitalism is instability caused by policy swings: expansion/recovery/asset inflation/goods inflation/policy-tightens/economy-falls back, etc. Such outcomes would destabilise the beliefs of the econocrats in major countries, as well as their political masters, making policies even worse, and greatly damage economic performance.  But we also need policies to counter geopolitical risks, epidemics and shortage of clean water and other resources as the global population approaches 9 billion people.

You can buy the book here

I was a young teenager when Formula 1 great Ayrton Senna was killed at the age of 34, ironically for me the same age as I am in the year the movie on his life and death is released.

I grew up in a Formula 1 loving family, in fact some relatives worked for the Williams Formula 1 team (although not at the time Senna was killed whilst driving a Williams). I was not, however, a Senna fan.

His win at all costs mentality, to me at the time, pushed things too far. I far more preferred the “gentlemanly approach” of drivers such as Alain Prost.

What I perceived as arrogance then, I view as true passion now.

Watching his crash live hit me in an unexpected way. I was an emotional wreck which is perhaps totally expected when loss occurs to someone close, it is understandable to someone you like, but to feel such anguish for someone I didn’t even know I appreciated at the time, was very confusing.

As I grew older, and particularly having raced in karts in my early 20′s, it became increasingly apparent to me just how much I respected the red-blooded passion with which Ayrton Senna drove. His talent was immense and without doubt, a race with him driving was rarely boring.

I’ll watch the new movie, “Senna” with older eyes but still with a lump in my throat. The guy was a true racer.

In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced him to do an interview. 38 years later, Levitan, director Josh Raskin and illustrator James Braithwaite have collaborated to create an animated short film using the original interview recording as the soundtrack.

A spellbinding vessel for Lennon’s boundless wit and timeless message, I Met the Walrus was nominated for the 2008 Academy Award for Animated Short.

I came across this video on YouTube, a clip taken from on board a Southwest Airlines flight in the US.

It’s a clever and amusing twist on the humdrum “Welcome Aboard” speeches we’re all familiar with on airlines.

Being the soft, romantic at heart, I found this clip on You Tube with wedding vows being waffled quite humorous.