Beyond Budgeting Quotes

The often-used phrase “pay attention” is apt: you dispose of a limited budget of attention that you can allocate to activities, and if you try to you try to go beyond your budget, you will fail.

A false alarm is sounded that government budget deficits will increase consumer prices — with no discussion of how private-sector credit deflates economies. The problem is that credit is debt — and paying debt service to bankers and bondholders (and various grades of loan sharks) leaves less income available to spend on goods and services. So debt deflation is today’s major problem, not inflation.

you dispose of a limited budget of attention that you can allocate to activities, and if you try to go beyond your budget, you will fail.

For most businesses, the best predictor of next year’s budget is still this year’s budget, plus or minus a few percent, of course.

[A TV commercial] crossed my desk in 1986. It came with a press release boasting about an enormous production budget employed in service of what it termed a communications “breakthrough”. The secret of this particular breakthrough was the science of semiotics — i.e., conveying meaning via powerful symbols imbued with significance far beyond their literal interpretation. It’s the sort of thing that Jean Baudrillard and Noam Chomsky write about. Umberto Eco. Dudes like that. Dudes who have no responsibility for marketshare. Whoa,” I said to myself as I eagerly tore the videocassette out of its jacket. “This is gonna suck.

In all, 62 percent of the budget cuts would come from low-income programs. Yet at the same time, the Republican budget would provide a substantial tax cut to the rich—who are already taking home an almost unprecedented share of the nation’s total income.

When foreign military spending [bombing Korea and Vietnam] forced the U.S. balance of payments into deficit and drove the United States off gold in 1971, central banks were left without the traditional asset used to settle payments imbalances. The alternative by default was to invest their subsequent payments inflows in U.S. Treasury bonds, as if these still were “as good as gold.” Central banks have been holding some $4 trillion of these bonds in their international reserves for the past few years — and these loans have financed most of the U.S. Government’s domestic budget deficits for over three decades. Given the fact that about half of U.S. Government discretionary spending is for military operations — including more than 750 foreign military bases and increasingly expensive operations in the oil-producing and transporting countries — the international financial system is organized in a way that finances the Pentagon, along with U.S. buyouts of foreign assets expected to yield much more than the Treasury bonds that foreign central banks hold.

The often-used phrase “pay attention” is apt: you dispose of a limited budget of attention that you can allocate to activities, and if you try to go beyond your budget, you will fail. It is the mark of effortful activities that they interfere with each other, which is why it is difficult or impossible to conduct several at once. You could not compute the product of 17 × 24 while making a left turn into dense traffic, and you certainly should not try. You can do several things at once, but only if they are easy and undemanding.

December 25, 4:30 p.m. Dear America, It’s been seven hours since you left. Twice now I’ve started to go to your room to ask how you liked your presents and then remembered you weren’t here. I’ve gotten so used to you, it’s strange that you aren’t around, drifting down the halls. I’ve nearly called a few times, but I don’t want to seem possessive. I don’t want you to feel like I’m a cage to you. I remember how you said the palace was just that the first night you came here. I think, over time, you’ve felt freer, and I’d hate to ruin that freedom, I’m going to have to distract myself until you come back. I decided to sit and write to you, hoping maybe it would feel like I was talking to you. It sort of does, I can imagine you sitting here, smiling at my idea, maybe shaking your head at me as if to say I’m being silly. You do that sometimes, did you know? I like that expression on you. You’re the only person who wears it in a way that doesn’t come across like you think I’m completely hopeless. You smile at my idiosyncrasies, accept that they exist, and continue to be my friend. And, in seven short hours, I’ve started to miss that. I’ve wonder what you’ve done in that time. I’m betting by now you’ve flown across the country, made it to your home, and are safe. I hope you are safe. I can’t imagine what a comfort you must be to your family right now. The lovely daughter has finally returned! I keep trying to picture you home. I remember you telling me it was small, that you had a tree house, and that your garage was where you father and sister did all their work. Beyond that I’ve had to resort to my imagination. I imagine you curled up in a hug with you sister or kicking around a ball with your little brother. I remember that, you know? That you said he liked to play ball. I tried to imagine walking into your house with you. I would have liked that, to see you where you grew up. I would love to see you brother run around or be embraced by your mother. I think it would be comforting to sense the presence of people near you, floorboards creaking and doors shutting. I would have liked to sit in one part of the house and still probably be able to smell the kitchen. I’ve always imagined that real homes are full of the aromas of whatever’s being cooked. I wouldn’t do a scrap of work. Nothing having to do with armies or budgets or negotiations. I’d sit with you, maybe try to work on my photography while you played the piano. We’d be Fives together, like you said. I could join your family for dinner, talking over one another in a collection of conversations instead of whispering and waiting our turns. And maybe I’d sleep in a spare bed or on the couch. I’d sleep on the floor beside you if you’d let me. I think about that sometimes. Falling asleep next to you, I mean, like we did in the safe room. It was nice to hear your breaths as they came and went, something quiet and close keeping me from feeling so alone. This letter has gotten foolish, and I think you know how I detest looking like a fool. But still I do. For you. Maxon

The Sun King had dinner each night alone. He chose from forty dishes, served on gold and silver plate. It took a staggering 498 people to prepare each meal. He was rich because he consumed the work of other people, mainly in the form of their services. He was rich because other people did things for him. At that time, the average French family would have prepared and consumed its own meals as well as paid tax to support his servants in the palace. So it is not hard to conclude that Louis XIV was rich because others were poor. But what about today? Consider that you are an average person, say a woman of 35, living in, for the sake of argument, Paris and earning the median wage, with a working husband and two children. You are far from poor, but in relative terms, you are immeasurably poorer than Louis was. Where he was the richest of the rich in the world’s richest city, you have no servants, no palace, no carriage, no kingdom. As you toil home from work on the crowded Metro, stopping at the shop on the way to buy a ready meal for four, you might be thinking that Louis XIV’s dining arrangements were way beyond your reach. And yet consider this. The cornucopia that greets you as you enter the supermarket dwarfs anything that Louis XIV ever experienced (and it is probably less likely to contain salmonella). You can buy a fresh, frozen, tinned, smoked or pre-prepared meal made with beef, chicken, pork, lamb, fish, prawns, scallops, eggs, potatoes, beans, carrots, cabbage, aubergine, kumquats, celeriac, okra, seven kinds of lettuce, cooked in olive, walnut, sunflower or peanut oil and flavoured with cilantro, turmeric, basil or rosemary … You may have no chefs, but you can decide on a whim to choose between scores of nearby bistros, or Italian, Chinese, Japanese or Indian restaurants, in each of which a team of skilled chefs is waiting to serve your family at less than an hour’s notice. Think of this: never before this generation has the average person been able to afford to have somebody else prepare his meals. You employ no tailor, but you can browse the internet and instantly order from an almost infinite range of excellent, affordable clothes of cotton, silk, linen, wool and nylon made up for you in factories all over Asia. You have no carriage, but you can buy a ticket which will summon the services of a skilled pilot of a budget airline to fly you to one of hundreds of destinations that Louis never dreamed of seeing. You have no woodcutters to bring you logs for the fire, but the operators of gas rigs in Russia are clamouring to bring you clean central heating. You have no wick-trimming footman, but your light switch gives you the instant and brilliant produce of hardworking people at a grid of distant nuclear power stations. You have no runner to send messages, but even now a repairman is climbing a mobile-phone mast somewhere in the world to make sure it is working properly just in case you need to call that cell. You have no private apothecary, but your local pharmacy supplies you with the handiwork of many thousands of chemists, engineers and logistics experts. You have no government ministers, but diligent reporters are even now standing ready to tell you about a film star’s divorce if you will only switch to their channel or log on to their blogs. My point is that you have far, far more than 498 servants at your immediate beck and call. Of course, unlike the Sun King’s servants, these people work for many other people too, but from your perspective what is the difference? That is the magic that exchange and specialisation have wrought for the human species.

I had no idea, when I was first asked by my agents to audition for a film called Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, that it would be any different in terms of scale to the jobs I’d done previously. In my mind it was another Borrowers: a relatively high-budget film with lots of children and, if I played my cards right, a part for me. But if I didn’t get a part? That was okay too. It wasn’t the be-all and end-all. There was a good chance something else would come along.

We had a massive budget shortfall with a structural budget deficit and seemingly no way to close it; the city had been spending at levels way beyond its recurring revenue for years, and the nonrecurring revenue streams were drying up as we entered office, leaving us with no good options. The structural deficit was about $180 million on a roughly $600 million general fund—which meant that if we were to eliminate our debt, we would have to develop or attract new housing and businesses that could generate tax income, identify other sources of revenue, or cut our government by one-third.

Our Difficulty in Believing in Providence The first obstacle is that, as long as we have not experienced concretely the fidelity of Divine Providence to provide for our essential needs, we have difficulty believing in it and we abandon it. We have hard heads, the words of Jesus do not suffice for us, we want to see at least a little in order to believe! Well, we do not see it operating around us in a clear manner. How, then, are we to experience it? It is important to know one thing: We cannot experience this support from God unless we leave Him the necessary space in which He can express Himself. I would like to make a comparison. As long as a person who must jump with a parachute does not jump out into the void, he cannot feel that the cords of the parachute will support him, because the parachute has not yet had the chance to open. One must first jump and it is only later that one feels carried. And so it is in spiritual life: “God gives in the measure that we expect of Him,” says Saint John of the Cross. And Saint Francis de Sales says: “The measure of Divine Providence acting on us is the degree of confidence that we have in it.” This is where the problem lies. Many do not believe in Providence because they’ve never experienced it, but they’ve never experienced it because they’ve never jumped into the void and taken the leap of faith. They never give it the possibility to intervene. They calculate everything, anticipate everything, they seek to resolve everything by counting on themselves, instead of counting on God. The founders of religious orders proceed with the audacity of this spirit of faith. They buy houses without having a penny, they receive the poor although they have nothing with which to feed them. Then, God performs miracles for them. The checks arrive and the granaries are filled. But, too often, generations later, everything is planned, calculated. One doesn’t incur an expense without being sure in advance to have enough to cover it. How can Providence manifest itself? And the same is true in the spiritual life. If a priest drafts all his sermons and his talks, down to the least comma, in order to be sure that he does not find himself wanting before his audience, and never has the audacity to begin preaching with a prayer and confidence in God as his only preparation, how can he have this beautiful experience of the Holy Spirit, Who speaks through his mouth? Does the Gospel not say, …do not worry about how to speak or what you should say; for what you are to say will be given to you when the time comes; because it will not be you who will be speaking, but the Spirit of your Father will be speaking in you (Matthew 10:19)? Let us be very clear. Obviously we do not want to say that it is a bad thing to be able to anticipate things, to develop a budget or prepare one’s homilies. Our natural abilities are also instruments in the hands of Providence! But everything depends on the spirit in which we do things. We must clearly understand that there is an enormous difference in attitude of heart between one, who in fear of finding himself wanting because he does not believe in the intervention of God on behalf of those who lean on Him, programs everything in advance to the smallest detail and does not undertake anything except in the exact measure of its actual possibilities, and one who certainly undertakes legitimate things, but who abandons himself with confidence in God to provide all that is asked of him and who thus surpasses his own possibilities. And that which God demands of us always goes beyond our natural human possibilities!

The US was forced to withdraw troops from Iraq after an extremely costly decade-long military occupation, leaving in place a regime more closely allied to Iran, the US’ regional adversary. The Iraq war depleted the economy, deprived American corporations of oil wealth, greatly enlarged Washington’s budget and trade deficits, and reduced the living standards of US citizens. The Afghanistan war had a similar outcome, with high external costs, military retreat, fragile clients, domestic disaffection, and no short or medium term transfers of wealth (imperial pillage) to the US Treasury or private corporations. The Libyan war led to the total destruction of a modern, oil-rich economy in North Africa, the total dissolution of state and civil society, and the emergence of armed tribal, fundamentalist militias opposed to US and EU client regimes in North and sub-Sahara Africa and beyond. Instead

Construction finally began that winter, and by early 1974 Syncrude’s Mildred Lake site bustled with 1,500 construction workers. But the deal remained tentative as cost estimates grew beyond the initial $1.5 billion to $2 billion or more and the federal government’s new budget arrived with punitive new taxes for oil and gas exports. Then, in the first week of December, one of the Syncrude partners, Atlantic Richfield, summarily quit the consortium, leaving a 30 percent hole in its financing. A mad scramble ensued in search of a solution. Phone calls pinged back and forth between government officials in Edmonton and Ottawa. Finally, on the morning of February 3, 1975, executives from the Syn-crude partner companies and cabinet ministers from the Alberta, Ontario and federal governments met without fanfare and outside the media’s brightest spotlights at an airport hotel in Winnipeg to negotiate a deal to save the project. Lougheed and Ontario premier Bill Davis both attended, along with their energy ministers. Federal mines minister Donald Macdonald represented Pierre Trudeau’s government, accompanied by Trudeau’s ambitious Treasury Board president, Jean Chrétien. Macdonald and Davis, both Upper Canadian patricians in the classic mould, were put off by Lougheed’s blunt style. By midday, the Albertans were convinced Macdonald would not be willing to compromise enough to reach a deal. Rumours in Lougheed’s camp after the fact had it that over lunch, Chrétien persuaded the mines minister to accept the offer on the table. Two days later, Chrétien rose in the House of Commons to announce that the federal government would be taking a 15 percent equity stake in the Syn-crude project, with Alberta owning 10 percent and Ontario the remaining 5 percent. In the coming years, it would be Lougheed, with his steadfast support and multimillion-dollar investments in SAGD, who would be seen as the Patch’s great public sector champion. But it was Chrétien, “the little guy from Shawinigan,” whose backroom deal-making skills had saved Syncrude

The Sun King had dinner each night alone. He chose from forty dishes, served on gold and silver plate. It took a staggering 498 people to prepare each meal. He was rich because he consumed the work of other people, mainly in the form of their services. He was rich because other people did things for him. At that time, the average French family would have prepared and consumed its own meals as well as paid tax to support his servants in the palace. So it is not hard to conclude that Louis XIV was rich because others were poor. But what about today? Consider that you are an average person, say a woman of 35, living in, for the sake of argument, Paris and earning the median wage, with a working husband and two children. You are far from poor, but in relative terms, you are immeasurably poorer than Louis was. Where he was the richest of the rich in the world’s richest city, you have no servants, no palace, no carriage, no kingdom. As you toil home from work on the crowded Metro, stopping at the shop on the way to buy a ready meal for four, you might be thinking that Louis XIV’s dining arrangements were way beyond your reach. And yet consider this. The cornucopia that greets you as you enter the supermarket dwarfs anything that Louis XIV ever experienced (and it is probably less likely to contain salmonella). You can buy a fresh, frozen, tinned, smoked or pre-prepared meal made with beef, chicken, pork, lamb, fish, prawns, scallops, eggs, potatoes, beans, carrots, cabbage, aubergine, kumquats, celeriac, okra, seven kinds of lettuce, cooked in olive, walnut, sunflower or peanut oil and flavoured with cilantro, turmeric, basil or rosemary ... You may have no chefs, but you can decide on a whim to choose between scores of nearby bistros, or Italian, Chinese, Japanese or Indian restaurants, in each of which a team of skilled chefs is waiting to serve your family at less than an hour’s notice. Think of this: never before this generation has the average person been able to afford to have somebody else prepare his meals. You employ no tailor, but you can browse the internet and instantly order from an almost infinite range of excellent, affordable clothes of cotton, silk, linen, wool and nylon made up for you in factories all over Asia. You have no carriage, but you can buy a ticket which will summon the services of a skilled pilot of a budget airline to fly you to one of hundreds of destinations that Louis never dreamed of seeing. You have no woodcutters to bring you logs for the fire, but the operators of gas rigs in Russia are clamouring to bring you clean central heating. You have no wick-trimming footman, but your light switch gives you the instant and brilliant produce of hardworking people at a grid of distant nuclear power stations. You have no runner to send messages, but even now a repairman is climbing a mobile-phone mast somewhere in the world to make sure it is working properly just in case you need to call that cell. You have no private apothecary, but your local pharmacy supplies you with the handiwork of many thousands of chemists, engineers and logistics experts. You have no government ministers, but diligent reporters are even now standing ready to tell you about a film star’s divorce if you will only switch to their channel or log on to their blogs. My point is that you have far, far more than 498 servants at your immediate beck and call. Of course, unlike the Sun King’s servants, these people work for many other people too, but from your perspective what is the difference? That is the magic that exchange and specialisation have wrought for the human species.

back, change into something formal. I’m taking you out to the most famous restaurant in all of Paris,’ he said proudly. She giggled. Listening to him make every effort to be the romantic tickled her to bits. Though she was a seasoned and toughened law enforcement agent, she still wasn’t beyond feeling giddy when it came to Pope’s courting efforts. For their long overdue holiday, a honeymoon-before-the-wedding kind of thing, Pope splashed out. The sky was the limit. Five months ago, when he asked her where she wanted to go, she had said Paris. So, Paris it had to be. There were no ifs or buts. And they were going to do it in style. He booked them a room at the Banke Hôtel for the entire duration of their stay. Luckily, he got it at a special rate, otherwise a Federal employee like him wouldn’t have been able to stretch the budget that far. Housed in a former bank, the Baroque revival hotel had an ornate columned façade. The interior was grand in scale and lavishly decorated. The room didn’t disappoint. Charming period detailing had been retained; in their

the team structure works well for us because it is well-aligned with our culture, our technical architecture and platform, our product, and even our workspace.

Platinum Flooring Company’s certified and skilled installers are trained to install hardwood products for any give art form, which would not only make your new floor look great, but last long for years to come. The Platinum Flooring Company’s specialist would not only help you select the perfect laminate flooring for your home that would suit your home décor as well as budget, but would also install your new laminate flooring for a fast, worry-free installation experience. Platinum Flooring Company is a full service, Hayward based flooring and installation firm specializing in classic design with a global influence. Whether designing residential or commercial spaces, Platinum Flooring has built a reputation on achieving highly individual results for a discerning clientele across the state of California and Beyond. At Platinum Floor Company, we have a separate team of stair installers headed by a stair specialist, having intense knowledge of different wood species, latest technology tools and in-depth knowledge of angular complexities. “Wooden floor, especially hardwood is good as it can take a lot of abuse and has a greater life expectancy compared to laminate or engineered floors.”, says Alex Vongsouthi – Founder, Platinum Flooring Company. But there are several reasons which can make your wood floor crack or separate between boards, cup, crown, etc. some being high traffic on the floor, spillages, sunlight and high percentage of moisture content in the room. With this it can be difficult to know whether floors need to be replaced or can be fixed. Platinum Flooring is renowned for its high standards and uncompromising service quality, with the expertise of a high-end retailer in Hardwood, Engineered wood and Laminate flooring.

The racist ideology of the GOP is and always was historically "baked in." So for anyone to ask today "How is the GOP racist?" This is just someone being historically and somewhat "pathologically" ignorant. You don't even have to go back that far but the further you do the more violence and racism you see. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to see "Ronald Reagan conservatism" was always a lie to cover hate, racism, and greed in support of the rich with patriotism and budget hawking. This is why the GOP never wants to discuss its history beyond Reagin because its history beyond that gets more and more morally damaging the further back you go from there.

As Kennedy documents in detail, Fauci ensured that the federal agencies that were supposed to regulate industries were instead controlled by the industries they were supposed to regulate. Fauci’s regulatory empire was built on a huge taxpayer-supplied budget and piles of money from big pharma, and all the power that money gave him over hospitals, doctors, research institutes, universities, and even medical journals. Even more, Fauci’s power extends far beyond the US because the reach of American pharmaceutical interests stretches over the globe (especially when mixed with concerns about biological weapons, which brings in our defense and intelligence agencies).

You can see that I’ve heard all the excuses and complaints, but here’s the deal: budgeting is crucial to your success. Your income is your responsibility. If you get to retirement with a mountain of debt and nothing to live on, it’s no one else’s fault. But beyond the obvious financial benefits to taking control of your money, there are a ton of other reasons to pull out the budget forms every month.

Students from poor families who attended low-poverty schools significantly outperformed those who attended high-poverty schools with “state-of-the-art educational interventions.” Even when we expand the budgets of poor schools beyond those of rich ones, it does not make those schools anything close to equal.

If not for Glam’s failure, the BTS blog might have been backed by more resources. But a budget crisis was not the only reason BTS members made their own pre-debut promos.

I went into my bedroom and noticed for the first time how much my chenille bedspread resembled a medieval tapestry. Every shimmering thread stood out for singular contemplation. Yet, at the same time, I could admire the totality of the weave—while noting every gradation of hue and texture. In a matter of minutes, my aesthetic had accelerated light-years beyond even Mr. Rogavere’s. I sat on my bed and examined the hairs on my arm. They formed calligraphic patterns more exquisite than any Chinese brush painting. Aldous Huxley was right. Beyond the narrow doors of perception lies a realm of wide-screen, big-budget Technicolor spectacles. All that was lacking was Victor Mature in a toga lashed to a marble column.

have found three very simple ways to do this in my own startups: Recognize greatness. When people are recognized for their hard work, they feel truly cared for and seen. Learn who they are and who they want to become. Simply put, know something about your people beyond the skills and experience on their résumé. What are their hobbies and interests? What gets them excited? And, most importantly, what are they looking for? Where do they want to take their career, and how does the startup fit into that? Focus on their continuous development. When you know who people are and where they want to be, then you can look for ways to develop them in that direction. For example, let’s say that you hired a part-time bookkeeper, but you learn they really want to be a CFO one day. You can look for a project to delegate to them and say, “Would you be open to developing a budget for this?” In that way, you’re helping them gain the skills they’ll need as a CFO.

Suraj solar and allied industries, Wework galaxy, 43, Residency Road, Bangalore-560025. Mobile number : +91 808 850 7979 ### Embracing Solar Rooftop in Bangalore: A Sustainable Solution for Your Home Are you keen on reducing your monthly power bills while contributing to a cleaner and more sustainable environment? Investing in solar rooftops could be the answer you’ve been looking for, especially if you're living in Bangalore, a city blessed with abundant sunlight throughout the year. #### The Benefits of Solar Rooftops 1. **Cutting Down Electricity Bills**: One of the most immediate advantages of installing a solar rooftop system is the significant reduction in electricity bills. Solar panels harness sunlight and convert it into electricity for your home. By generating your own power, you can lower your dependence on grid electricity, which often comes with high charges, especially during peak hours. 2. **Environmental Impact**: Transitioning to solar energy is not just about personal savings. It’s a step toward a cleaner, greener environment. By choosing solar panels, you’re reducing your carbon footprint and contributing to the fight against climate change. Each kilowatt-hour of solar energy produced helps to eliminate emissions associated with traditional fossil fuel energy sources. 3. **Incentives and Subsidies**: The government of India and various state governments, including Karnataka, offer attractive incentives, rebates, and subsidies for solar panel installations. These financial benefits make the initial investment more manageable, allowing you to reap future savings sooner than later. 4. **Low Maintenance Costs**: Solar rooftops are designed to be durable and require minimal maintenance. Generally, a good quality solar panel can last 25 years or more, with little upkeep beyond occasional cleaning to remove dust and debris. This longevity ensures that the system remains efficient for years to come. 5. **Increase in Property Value**: Homes equipped with solar rooftop systems often experience an increase in property value. As more homebuyers become environmentally conscious, a solar installation can be a selling point, making your property more attractive in a competitive housing market. #### Sunease Solar: Your Partner in Going Solar Sunease Solar is paving the way for Solar Rooftop in Bangalore. Specializing in solar rooftop installations, Sunease Solar offers tailor-made solutions that cater specifically to your energy needs. With a team of experienced professionals, they guide you through every step— from assessing your energy requirements to designing a system that maximizes efficiency while fitting within your budget. #### How to Get Started The journey to going solar begins with a thorough assessment of your roof and energy consumption. Sunease Solar provides free consultations, allowing you to explore the viability of solar energy in your home. Once you decide to move forward, they will oversee the installation process from start to finish, ensuring that everything complies with local regulations. After the installation, Sunease Solar offers ongoing support, helping to monitor the system’s performance and addressing any concerns you may have. Their commitment to customer satisfaction and sustainable energy solutions makes them a leading choice for solar rooftops in Bangalore. #### Conclusion If you’re ready to reduce your monthly power bills and contribute to a sustainable future, consider investing in a solar rooftop system. With the right partner like Sunease Solar, making the switch to solar can be seamless and beneficial for both your wallet and the planet. It's time to harness the power of the sun and embrace a greener lifestyle—are you ready to take the plunge?

[A] ccounting results dominated most managers’ attention to the point where they no longer knew, or cared, about the production, technological, and marketing determinants of competitiveness.

Former Handelsbanken chief financial officer Lennart Francke has a great metaphor on Beyond Budgeting implementation choices: “Picture a busy London street. Could you imagine the U.K. changing from driving on the left to driving on the right by starting with buses one month, trucks the next, and finally the cars?

It is possible to be centralized and decentralized at the same time: centralized on common processes and support operations, and decentralized on business decisions.

Its be come apparent that crises such as climate change are beyond our ability to effectively confront and address. Our political cycles are just too crude to allow us to think past the next election or budget. So maybe AI is the Hail Mary we've been looking for. Ours is a turning point, not a dead end. Not yet anyway

Another reason why we cannot combine targets and forecasts is because a good target needs to have an element of stretch and ambition. When setting targets, we cannot just sit in a dark room, or look back to last year and add on a few percentages. We need to look out the window to the world outside, to customers, shareholders, communities, and all the other external stakeholders, with expectations about our performance and behavior. While the window is open, it might be wise also to take a look at the competition and how fast it is running. When we close the window and reflect on what we have seen, it is not unlikely that what we have observed has an effect on our ambition level. Setting ambitious targets is less a decision we take and more a consequence of what is happening around us, whether we like what we see or not. At the same time, we need those good and reliable forecasts. We must understand where we are heading, how big the gaps are against our ambitions and targets, and where we need to focus our attention and energy to catch up. Forcing a target and a forecast into one number in one process is almost guaranteed to result in either a bad target or a bad forecast. Or very often both, since we negotiate and compromise and end up with a number somewhere in between.

Establishment of a quarterly rolling planning regime, wherein management both sets out its revenue and expenditure requirements for the next 18 months and seeks approval for expenditure planned for the next 3 months, is a key requirement for beyond budgeting management. Each quarter, before approving these estimates, management sees the bigger picture six quarters out. While firming up the short-term numbers for the next three months, all subsequent forecasts also update the annual forecast. Budget holders are encouraged to spend half the time on getting the details of the next three months right, as these will become targets, on agreement, and the rest of the time on the next five quarters. Each quarter

beating the competition or one’s peers is a far more powerful weapon than financial incentives. Why do people need cash incentives to fulfill their work obligations to colleagues and customers? It is recognition of effort that is important. Managers will only strive to achieve ambitious goals if they know that their ‘best efforts’ will be recognized and not punished if they fail to get all the way.

Fostering relationships across the organization is seen as the important element in creating coordinated actions. A strong commitment to a common set of values provides the framework for this process. Everyone thinks about the customer. Product

group executives still have an important role to play in the development of strategy. For example, they set values, boundaries, direction, and guidelines for strategy development and decision making, and then challenge the plans and ambitions of business unit managers. This process is done in broad strokes, and quickly. There are few detailed submissions and presentations. The only exception is if new capital expenditures or other major resource requirements are needed to support strategic options.

Making a fixed promise that is subject to high levels of uncertainty and then requiring people to meet that promise at all costs is like putting the performance cart before the horse. The result is likely to be the distortion of profitability over time and, in exceptional circumstances, outright fraud.

Extending the Bush tax cuts will add $1.2 trillion to the nation’s budget deficit in just two years.

The two major political parties in Australia are engaged in a furious debate about the federal budget. Neither of them finds it convenient to point out the obvious. This is that to resolve the fiscal deficit and to support spending at roughly the same share of GDP it has been for the last forty years, Australians will certainly pay more tax.

Today, however, it has become harder and harder for governments to think big. Increasingly, their role has been limited to simply facilitating the private sector and, perhaps, nudging it in the right direction. When governments step beyond that role, they immediately get accused of crowding out private investment and ineptly trying to pick winners. The notion of the state as a mere facilitator, administrator, and regulator started gaining wide currency in the 1970s, but it has taken on newfound popularity in the wake of the global financial crisis. Across the globe, policymakers have targeted public debt (never mind that it was private debt that led to the meltdown), arguing that cutting government spending will spur private investment. As a result, the very state agencies that have been responsible for the technological revolutions of the past have seen their budgets shrink.

Cuomo decided to stick to his abortion guns and let the whole bill go down in flames. Tellingly, his decision occurred in the same legislative session in which he pushed a budget that cut funding for a successful program supporting low-income and teenage mothers.9 Cuomo let everyone know that his true loyalty was to abortion rights and not women’s equality. Many

The British tended to base their refusal to intervene in famines with adequate governmental measures on a combination of three sets of considerations: free trade principles (do not interfere with market forces), Malthusian doctrine (growth in population beyond the ability of the land to sustain it would inevitably lead to deaths, thereby restoring the ‘correct’ level of population) and financial prudence (don’t spend money we haven’t budgeted for).

because Ethereum is supported by GPUs and not ASICs, the machines can more easily be constructed piecemeal by a hobbyist on a budget.

Under Narendra Modi, the rich have become richer, and inequalities have increased. A 2018 Oxfam report revealed that 10 percent of the richest Indians garnered 77.4 percent of the nation’s wealth (against 73 percent the year before)119 and that 58 percent of it was in the hands of India’s “1 percent” (while the world average is 50 percent). The earnings made by this handful of people in 2017 were equal to India’s budget for that year. Also in 2017, the fortune of India’s 100 richest tycoons leaped by 26 percent. The richest of them all, Mukesh Ambani, increased his wealth by 67 percent, according to Forbes India120—a publication, moreover, that belongs to this billionaire. Ambani’s fortune again rose by 24 percent in 2018.121 Going slightly beyond the 100 richest, the IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List identified the 953 richest Indian families and gave figures showing that their fortune represented more than 26 percent of the country’s GDP122—which meant that if a tax rate of 4 percent was applied to the nation’s 953 richest families, it would give the government the equivalent of 1 percent of India’s GDP.123 According to Crédit Suisse, the number of dollar millionaires in India jumped from 34,000 in 2000 to 759,000 in 2019,124 which means that the country has one of “the world’s fastest-growing population of millionaires.”125 The average wealth level of these millionaires increased by 74 percent over this period.

But those achievements pale next to the audacity of trying to send humans to Mars, which remains far beyond the present-day capability of NASA or any other space agency around the world. Even with an annual budget approaching $25 billion a year, and some of the smartest scientists and engineers anywhere, the space agency that landed humans on the Moon remains several giant leaps away from sending a few astronauts to Mars.

Amazon’s Leadership Principles6 Customer Obsession. Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers. Ownership. Leaders are owners. They think long term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own team. They never say, “that’s not my job.” Invent and Simplify. Leaders expect and require innovation and invention from their teams and always find ways to simplify. They are externally aware, look for new ideas from everywhere, and are not limited by “not invented here.” As we do new things, we accept that we may be misunderstood for long periods of time. Are Right, A Lot. Leaders are right a lot. They have strong judgment and good instincts. They seek diverse perspectives and work to disconfirm their beliefs. Learn and Be Curious. Leaders are never done learning and always seek to improve themselves. They are curious about new possibilities and act to explore them. Hire and Develop the Best. Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and promotion. They recognize exceptional talent, and willingly move them throughout the organization. Leaders develop leaders and take seriously their role in coaching others. We work on behalf of our people to invent mechanisms for development like Career Choice. Insist on the Highest Standards. Leaders have relentlessly high standards—many people may think these standards are unreasonably high. Leaders are continually raising the bar and drive their teams to deliver high-quality products, services, and processes. Leaders ensure that defects do not get sent down the line and that problems are fixed so they stay fixed. Think Big. Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leaders create and communicate a bold direction that inspires results. They think differently and look around corners for ways to serve customers. Bias for Action. Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk-taking. Frugality. Accomplish more with less. Constraints breed resourcefulness, self-sufficiency, and invention. There are no extra points for growing headcount, budget size, or fixed expense. Earn Trust. Leaders listen attentively, speak candidly, and treat others respectfully. They are vocally self-critical, even when doing so is awkward or embarrassing. Leaders do not believe their or their team’s body odor smells of perfume. They benchmark themselves and their teams against the best.

We live in a world where cures are not what Big Pharma is putting their research dollars into, nor are budgets allocated to “un patent-able” molecules like melatonin. What they prefer is a long-term dosing schedule that keeps the dollars rolling in, stock price up, and the shareholders happy. If you’re looking for a miraculous compound that can heal, cure, and prevent disease, you found it with melatonin.

They are loud and boisterous, skylarking in the way that so many men in their twenties do – only just making the train, with the plumped-up platform guard blowing his whistle in furious disapproval. After messing about with the automatic door – open, shut, open, shut – which they inevitably find hilarious beyond the facts, they settle into the seats nearest the luggage racks. But then, apparently spotting the two girls from Cornwall, they glance knowingly at each other and head further down the carriage to the seats directly behind them. I smile to myself. See, I’m no killjoy. I was young once. I watch the girls go all quiet and shy, one widening her eyes at her friend – and yes, one of the men is especially striking, like a model or a member of a boy band. And it all reminds me of that very particular feeling in your tummy. You know. So I am not at all surprised or in the least bit disapproving when the men stand up and the good-looking one then leans over the top of the dividing seats, wondering if he might fetch the girls something from the buffet, ‘. . . seeing as I’m going?’ Next there are name swaps and quite a bit of giggling, and the dance begins. Two coffees and four lagers later, the young men have joined the girls – all seated near enough for me to follow the full conversation. I know, I know. I really shouldn’t be listening, but we’ve been over this. I’m bored, remember. They’re loud. So then. The girls repeat what I have already gleaned from their earlier gossiping. This trip to London is their first solo visit to the capital – a gift from their parents to celebrate the end of GCSEs. They are booked into a budget hotel, have tickets for Les Misérables and have never been this excited. ‘You kidding me? You really never been to London on your own before?’ Karl, the boy-band lookalike, is amazed. ‘Can be a tricky place, you know, girls. London. You need to watch yourselves. Taxi not tube when you get out of the theatre. You hear me?’ I am liking Karl now. He is recommending shops and market stalls – also a club where he says they will be safe if they fancy some decent music and dancing after the show. He is writing down the name on a piece of paper for them. Knows the bouncer. ‘Mention my name, OK?’ And then Anna, the taller of the two friends from Cornwall, is wondering about the black bags and I am secretly delighted that she has asked, for I am curious also, smiling in anticipation of the teasing. Boys. So disorganised. What are you like, eh?

The tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003—and extended for two years in 2010—in 2011 saved the richest 1.4 million taxpayers (the top 1 percent) more money than the rest of America’s 140,890,000 taxpayers received in total income. Leading to… The fifth dot: Government budgets are squeezed.

The Laundry may have a bureaucracy surfeit and a craze for ISO-9000 certification, but GCHQ is even worse, with some bizarre spatchcock version of BS5720 quality assurance applied to all their procedures in an attempt to ensure that the Home Office minister can account for all available paper clips in near real-time if challenged in the House by Her Majesty’s loyal opposition. On the other hand, they’ve got a bigger budget than us and all they have to worry about is having to read other people’s email, instead of having their souls sucked out by tentacular horrors from beyond the universe. “Oh, and you really ought to wear a tie when you’re representing us in public,” Phil says apologetically at the end of his spiel. “And get a haircut,” Jane adds with a smile. Bastards. The

30. The first Google server casing was built from LEGO bricks. Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the masterminds behind the largest IT project in the world started out with little beyond a pile of budget PC components assembled – or, better to say, scrapped – together. In 1996, they had to assemble multiple components, such as ten hard disks, into working clusters, the expenses for such machinery left them without funds to buy a decent computer casing. Thus, they built the casing from LEGO building blocks. Two years later, it was superseded by a large production server rack. Then, two years after that, their computing power counted around 5,000 (yes, five thousand) computers, and today the number is estimated to between 1,5 and 2 million. Talk about investment and growth!

Charlotte exhaled—and wished that she had Bernadine’s distaste for cake. Not always, of course, but for brief and intense spells that made it easier to give up extra servings in times of impending Maximum Tolerable Chins. Charlotte preferred to indulge herself perennially. Alas, her love of cake and other sweet confections sometimes conflicted with her vanity: at around 1.5 chins the shape of her face changed. But Maximum Tolerable Chins wasn’t merely a matter of features; it was also the point at which her garments became restricting. And beyond that, uncomfortably tight. She had a great many uses for her money and didn’t have room in her budget for outgrowing her entire wardrobe.

Were there land-hogs trying to corral grazing empires in PoweII’s time, and not above barefaced trespass on the public domain? They are still there, only now they are trying to bite out of national parks and national forests chunks of grazing land, oil land, timberland, that they covet. The conservation forces swamped such a foray in 1947;15 they will have others to fight, and they may never be able to restore the full effectiveness of the Grazing Service which Senator McCarran — a Senator Stewart come again, and from the same state — all but ruined by the profoundly Stewart-ian tactics of investigating and then cutting the budget.16

Hatred of the Jew was sometimes almost beside the point. Modern anti-Semitism really went far beyond feelings, had become a source of energy, tremendous dark energy that could be tapped in to like an electric main for specific purposes, a way to a political career, a factor in parliamentary bargaining over budgets, taxes, armaments, any issue at all, a weapon for prevailing over a business rival in a deal.

We might not have marketing budgets, or a massive fan base . . . [but] we can build books for sharing. We can sample at scale. We can give readers a stake in distribution. We can open up exchange between artist and fan, beyond the sales transaction. And we can do this in a way that drives creative profitability. —MATT MASON, CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER, BITTORRENT

BABY FASHION TRENDS 2021 AND BEYOND Fashion for babies is fun - dressing up the babies in the tiniest adorable attires. Relished with excitement, all mommies want to keep their little ones on top of the fashion trends. Even before they're born, their wardrobe is well stocked, with piles of new onesies, dungarees, dresses for little girls, and a range of shorts for boys. Well, before you know, these adorable munchkins grow up within a blink of an eye, as you're stunned how quickly they grew out of their wardrobe. Whether you're soon to become a new mommy or already have your little one playing around, you've come to the right place to find all sorts of options to endearingly dress up the tiny souls. With the fascinating boom in baby apparel in the last few decades, new and adorable trends are revealed each year. Passionate as ever, you would want to try out the styles on your baby. Though your little one might not know what they're wearing, but just a few years - actually months – later, the way you dress them will reflect in the fashion sense and personality they develop! While you would want the trendiest closet for your newborn and toddlers, keep in mind that children feel the most comfortable when their clothes do not pose an obstacle in their flexibility and freedom. Dressed up in stylish yet practical clothes would give your little one freedom of self-expression as they indulge in their innocence. Therefore, when dressing up your kids, keeping a tonal mixture of style and comfort is vital. At Motheringo, we understand your mommy concerns to buy chic yet affordable clothing for your little ones. Stocked with a range of collections offering greater value of money, our clothes are aligned with your budget while ensuring we provide premium quality outfits made with the finest fabrics for your young fashionista.

When I choose organic and “beyond organic foods,” I honestly feel as though it is an act of charity. Each time you spend money, you're casting a vote (loud and clear) for the type of world you want to live in, as the old saying goes. That's something I honestly take to heart and bring with me every time I go to the grocery store, or better yet the farmer's market or independent health food store.

Finance people should remember Albert Einstein’s wise words: “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.

It used to be if you cracked up a plane, you got the boot no matter what, but that was before cutbacks in the defense budget had made fully trained fighter pilots not so easily discarded. “They’re never going to let me get beyond it. If I had known four years ago what I know now, I would have resigned my commission and gone from there.” A