banking services chronicle pdf
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services chronicle pdf We construct
maps of the world around us using cognitive models organizational principles
and narratives that we acquire in the process of socialization. These are
augmented by an incessant bombardment of conceptual ideational and ideological
frameworks emanating from the media from peers and role models from authority
figures and from the state. We take our universe for granted an immutable and
inevitable entity. It is anything but. Only change and transformation are
guaranteed constants - the rest of it is an elaborate and anxiety-reducing
illusion. Consider these self-evident truths and certainties 1. After centuries
of warfare Europe is finally pacified. War in the foreseeable future is not in
store. The European Union heralds not only economic prosperity but also
long-term peaceful coexistence. Yet Europe faces a serious identity crisis. Is
it Christian in essence or can it also encompass the likes of an
increasingly-Muslim Turkey? Is it a geographical (continental) entity or a
cultural one? Is enlargement a time bomb incorporating as it does tens of
millions of new denizens thoroughly demoralized impoverished and criminalized by
decades of Soviet repression? How likely are these tensions to lead not only to
the disintegration of the EU but to a new war between lets say Russia and
Germany or Italy and Austria or Britain and France? Ridiculous? Revisit your
history books. 2. The United States is the only superpower and a budding
Empire. In 50 years time it may be challenged by China and India but until then
it stands invincible. Its economic growth prospects are awesome. Yet the USA
faces enormous social torsion brought about by the polarization of its politics
and by considerable social and economic tensions and imbalances. The
deterioration in its global image and its growing isolation contribute to a
growing paranoia and jingoism. While each of these dimensions is nothing new the
combination is reminiscent of the 1840s-1850s just prior to the Civil War. Is
the United States headed for limb-tearing inner conflict and disintegration? 3.
The Internet hitherto a semi-anarchic free-for-all is likely to go through the
same cycle experienced by other networked media such as the radio and the
telegraph. In other words it will end up being both heavily regulated and owned
by commercial interests. Throwbacks to its early philosophy of communal
cross-pollination and exuberant exchange of ideas digital goods information and
opinion will dwindle and vanish. The Internet as a horizontal network where all
nodes are equipotent will be replaced by a vertical hierarchical largely corporate structure with
heavy government intrusion and oversight. 4. The period between 1789 (the
French Revolution) and 1989 (the demise of Communism) is likely to be
remembered as a liberal and atheistic intermezzo separating two vast eons of
religiosity and conservatism. God is now being rediscovered in every corner of the
Earth and with it intolerance prejudice superstition as well as strong
sentiments against science and the values of the Enlightenment. We are on the
threshold of the New Dark Ages. 5. The quasi-religious cult-like fad of
Environmentalism is going to be thoroughly debunked. 6. Our view of Western
liberal democracy as a panacea applicable to all at all times and in all places
will undergo a revision in light of accumulated historical evidence. Democracy
seems to function well in conditions of economic and social stability and
growth. When things go awry however democratic processes give rise to Hitlers
and Milosevices (both elected with overwhelming majorities multiple times). The
gradual disillusionment with parties and politicians will lead to the re-emergence
of collectivist centralized and authoritarian polities on the one hand and to
the rise of anarchist and multifocal governance models on the other hand. 7.
The ingenious principle of limited liability and the legal entity known as the
corporation have been with us for more than three centuries and served
magnificently in facilitating the optimal allocation of capital and the
diversification of risk. Yet the emergence of sharp conflicts of interest
between a class of professional managers and the diffuse ownership represented
by (mainly public) shareholders - known as the agent-principal problem - spell
the end of both and the dawn of a new era. 8. As our understanding of the brain
and our knowledge of genetics deepen the idea of mental illness is going to be
discarded as so much superstition and myth. It is going to replaced with
medical models of brain dysfunctions and maladaptive gene expressions. Abnormal
psychology is going to be thoroughly medicalized and reduced to underlying
brain structures biochemical processes and reactions bodily mechanisms and
faulty genes. 9. As offices and homes merge mobility increases wireless access
to data is made available anywhere and everywhere computing becomes ubiquitous
the distinction between work and leisure will vanish. 10. Our privacy is
threatened by a host of intrusive Big Brother technologies coupled with a
growing paranoia and siege mentality in an increasingly hostile world populated
by hackers criminals terrorists and plain whackos. Some countries - such as
China - are trying to suppress political dissent by disruptively prying into
their citizens lives. We have already incrementally surrendered large swathes
of our hitherto private domain in exchange for fleeting illusory and usually
untenable personal safety. As we try to reclaim this lost territory we are
likely to give rise to privacy industries computer anonymizers safe (anonymous)
browsers face transplants electronic shields firewalls
how-to-vanish-and-start-a-new-life-elsewhere consultants and so on. 11. As the
population ages in the developed countries of the West crime is on the decline
there. But as if to maintain the homeostasis of evil it is on the rise in poor
and developing countries. A few decades from now violent and physical property
crimes will so be rare in the West as to become newsworthy and so common in the
rest of the world as to go unnoticed. 12. In historical terms our megalopolises
and conurbations are novelties. But their monstrous size makes them dependent
on two flows (1) of goods and surplus labor from the world outside (2) of
services and waste products to their environment. There is a critical mass
beyond which this bilateral exchange is unsustainable. Modern cities are
therefore likely to fragment into urban islands gated communities slums strips
technology parks and valleys belts and so on. The various parts will maintain a
tenuous relationship but will gradually grow apart. This will be the dominant
strand in a wider trend the atomization of society the disintegration of social
cells from the nuclear family to the extended human habitat the metropolis.
People will grow apart have fewer intimate friends and relationships and will
interact mostly in cyberspace or by virtual means both wired and wireless. 13.
The commodity of the future is not raw or even processed information. The
commodity of the future is guided and structured access to information
repositories and databases. Search engines like Google and Yahoo already
represent enormous economic value because they serve as the gateway to the
Internet and gradually to the Deep Web. They not only list information sources
but make implicit decisions for us regarding their relative merits and guide us
inexorably to selections driven by impersonal value-laden judgmental
algorithms. Search engines are one example of active semi-intelligent
information gateways. 14. Inflation and the business cycle seem to have been
conquered for good. In reality though we are faced with the distinct
possibility of a global depression coupled with soaring inflation (known
together as stagflation). This is owing to enormous and unsustainable
imbalances in global savings debt and capital and asset markets. Still
economists are bound to change their traditional view of inflation. Japans
experience in 1990-2006 taught us that better moderate inflation than
deflation. banking
services chronicle pdf
banking services chronicle pdf
