original link: https://hbr.org/2014/11/board-members-should-be-psychologically-profiled-before-being-hired

This post from Michael Schrage from the Harvard Business Review brings up an interesting point: if employers are making more and more of their potential employees take some form of psychometric testing in order to help predict future performance, shouldn’t shareholders hold directors and board members to the same standard?

While I find psychometric testing to be intrusive, if employees are going to be tested in order to give their bosses a small sample of what their personality is like, I believe that it is only fair that board members should be held to the same standard. Which begs the question, what tests should be used? The options go on and on, from standard IQ to Myers-Briggs and so on. However, an interesting test that isn’t currently used by most corporations to assess any of their members is called the Hare Checklist. What does it test for? Psychopathy.

In his book “The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry”, author Jon Ronson comes across the fascinating (and somewhat frightening) conclusion that 4% of CEOs are psychopaths, as opposed to 1% of the general population. The main characteristic of psychopathy is lack of empathy, which could potentially be viewed as a favourable trait for CEOs that need to make tough business decisions that can negatively affect other peoples’ lives. However, does this mean that psychopathy should be encouraged in top executives? I believe that the obvious answer is no. Disregarding the fact that there are known correlations between psychopathy and violence, working for a psychopath, who has little to no empathy for others, would create an incredibly hostile work environment and could lead to problems with employee retention and productivity, not to mention possible lawsuits due to workplace abuse. Additionally, due to the anti-social and narcissistic characteristics of psychopaths, they are more likely to be concerned about personal success than that of a collective, be it their co-workers or the company as a whole.

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link to original post : https://blogs.ubc.ca/katieapplebaum/2014/11/06/show-me-the-money/

As a music lover (and severe music pirate) myself, I was instantly drawn to this blog post as soon as I could gleam that it focused on the decline of record sales in the past few years. However, I had barely finished the first paragraph when I realized that I fundamentally disagree with Katie’s opinion that declining record sales are driven by a lack of effort on part of the musicians.

On my laptop alone, I have over 15,000 songs. To put into context how much money that would imply I spent on music over my lifetime had I purchased all this music legally, I will use the standard iTunes price for one song ($0.99) multiplied by my total library (15,297 songs), because really, who buys CDs anymore. This formula tells me that the iTunes dollar value of my music library is $15,144.03. How much money have I actually spent on music in my life? I’m sure there are a few Backstreet Boys CDs in my room at home gathering dust that were purchased using real money, but the truth is, my entire music library that I own today was amassed for free (technically illegally, but free nonetheless). And this has absolutely nothing to do with the value I place on today’s music vs. the music of old.

In her post, Katie uses examples of The Beatles/Nirvana/Madonna as artists “powerful enough to unite billions of people (and) cause societal trends”, and contrasts these groups with those of today who she does not see as capable or talented enough to evoke the same emotion from their audience. Besides the fact that this is a purely subjective argument (no offence Katie! I really did enjoy reading your post), I can use a personal example to display how I see things differently.

I am an enormous Nirvana fan. I completely agree with all of the things Katie wrote about Nirvana; I believe they changed music forever. In my room back in Toronto, hanging from my wall is a copy of the a Nevermind vinyl signed by Kurt Cobain himself, which certainly cost a lot more than the band’s music catalogue (which I conveniently got for free with the click of a button). Did I pay a cent for their music? No. Does that mean that I do not value the art this band produced? Certainly not. Had I been born 10 years earlier and had the luxury of listening to the band while they were still together, before Napster or downloadable music was even conceived, I would have gone to my local HMV and bought every Nirvana recording I could find. Given the ease of access nowadays to free music online, that is now an unnecessary expenditure, but this doesn’t make me any less of a fan. Similarly, I downloaded all of Kanye West’s music for free, but spent the majority of my summer job salary to see him in concert last year. Do I value the art that he produces? You be the judge. The music industry has changed for good, but that has no bearing on the quality of music being produced. Please excuse the verbosity, this is just a topic that I feel strongly about.

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Link to original post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/lawsonp/2014/11/09/norways-solution/

Lawson’s post focuses on Canada’s lack of significant carbon taxation in spite of the fact that the Alberta oil sands contribute significantly to North American oil production and therefore, carbon emissions. Well Canada is certainly not on the right track in terms of hitting emissions targets for sustainable development, exemplified by Stephen Harper’s opposition to the Kyoto Accord. However, it is also important to consider that the Canadian oil industry contributes to a large part of the country’s GDP, as well as the potential harms of implementing a significant carbon tax. One major problem is that carbon taxation doesn’t just hurt the big polluters, such as the oil industry and large, high emission corporations: it hurts everyday Canadians as well. Carbon taxation is effectively an increase in cost of production for mass-polluting firms, and any significant tax would cause the operating costs of many of these firms, which employ millions of Canadians, to skyrocket. What is one of the most common methods of reducing cost? Laying off labourers. It is of necessity to note that while Norway and Canada, the two countries compared in Lawson’s post, are similar in that they are both major oil producers and different in that Norway imposes high carbon taxation and Canada does not, that Norway has an unemployment rate less than half of that of Canada’s, and that is including the fact that Norway has already implemented significant carbon taxation while Canada has not. Regardless of all the good that reinvesting carbon taxes can do in terms of social services, improving education, etc, it is important to consider the cons as well, and increased unemployment is definitely one worth noting.

” If the United Nations was fully funded why would we need the Arc or social enterprise”?

A common topic in conversation as well as among scholars is the supposed ineffectiveness of the UN, particularly with regard to their inability to properly address systematic issues plaguing certain regions of the world: one must look no further than the lacklustre response to the recent ebola outbreak in West Africa to see why. It is true that some of these problems could be resolved with better funding, but given the all encompassing nature of the UN with regard to global issues, “full funding” is pragmatically impossible, and certain areas in need for intervention are bound to be overlooked. This is where social entrepreneurship comes in. Social enterprises such as the Grameen Bank, which provides microcredit loans to the poorest of the poor based on trust, and without the usurious interest rates that their borrowers would face from loan sharks, rely on the brilliant ideas of their founders to create meaningful change in the world, and do so independently without any bias/funding constraints that might arise from the UN, a politically charged organization. Moving forward, cooperation between the UN and social enterprises will be the key to making our world an ideal place to live for all.