Excel Versus Experience
Why decision-making by spreadsheet is not a smart & stable genius way to go
With the covid stimulus packages behind us and the economies of most OECD countries creaking under a dangerous mix of high interest rates and huge debts, we can’t be surprised by the fact a significant number of large corporations are finding their plans and reality are diverging. Plans based on ever-increasing consumption coupled to a continuation of historically low interest rates are running into the proverbial wall as the opposite conditions are increasingly coming to bear. As executives and Wall Street coke-snorters alike tend to focus on the Right Now and have no meaningful incentives for longer-term thinking, we also can’t be surprised by the fact corporations are reacting to their unwanted circumstances by doing what they so often have done in the past: panicking and acting in haste.
Executives of large corporations have enormous responsibilities. They have to find ways to justify their huge bonuses even when corporate results suggest they should be defenestrated. Executives have to do whatever they can to boost the share price because their stock options aren’t worth much if the share price is below a critical threshold. And they have to ensure that all the perks they enjoy (use of the corporate jet fleet, a Personal Assistant who basically…
