Dear employer, if in mid-September, as Catalans, we described the Perplexed, in mid-October, as global citizens, we can describe megaperplexos. We defined, then the concept of confusion: confusion when full, can not leave any doubt, do not know what to decide which party to go, what to think so. Well now that but more.

With a vision of mathematics, we start down the slope of a sigmoid curve (one that has an S shape) without clear when we reach the point of ascent. This simile reminds me when Charles Handy - The empty raincoat: Making Sense of the Future, 1994 (The age of paradoja, apostrophe, 1996) - told us that there is life beyond the curve, that the secret of steady growth was starting a new curve before the first completion, and stated that the appropriate place to begin the era before reaching the summit, where time, energy and resources permit. However, it seems clear that if he did not, at that point, the messages are arriving all goes wonderfully, it would be folly to change when the current recipes work. He maintained that the real resolution to change only comes when we face the problems facing each other, as happens now. We should have been self-critical before - which is not well regarded - when we had not yet reached the top. Maybe we should be wrong, but we know where we were. In any case, the discipline recommended by the second curve in Handy requires no re-invent life itself, because that would mean perpetuating the same curve. The second curve must always be different, although that is built on the first and emerges from it. The paradox of success, namely, that what brought us to where we are not kept, is a difficult lesson to learn.

Also told us that when we are in decline, although only at the beginning, those who rule are discredited because they are considered guilty of having created this situation or, at least, not having avoid the known.

Dear colleague, recalled the teachings of an independent social philosophers of the twentieth century has given me a glimmer of hope: the 4 November elections are a new U.S. president. In Bush, the third president less valued ( 25% according to Gallup, October 3-5 ), only surpassed by Nixon (24% -1974) and Truman (22% -1952), will leave office in 2009. Seems difficult to do worse and so the novelty has generated the expectation of returning to trust. On 5 November the world will be different, or at least seem so, and if Obama wins than if McCain wins. Crystal ball? No desire to want to trace the curve and just be amazed.

Joseph Albet

Economic Focus, 11-10-2008