Modern Titanics (1)

Last weekend the world commemorated the centenary on the Titanic tragedy that still makes the headlines on how it was possible that a brand new luxury liner everyone considered unsinkable could go down in perfectly calm weather merely by hitting an iceberg.

The Titanic was a story of hubris, of over-confidence, of arrogance, of too big too fail!!  Have we heard that elsewhere?

The hubris:
Salvage boats with space for only one-third of the passengers.  Who needs salvage boats when on the Titanic?

The over-confidence:
Carry on full speed ahead to reach destination in record time and ignore iceberg warnings.

The arrogance:
Pretending that it was unsinkable.

Too big too fail:
Even as the Titanic was going down many passengers could not believe it and no undue panic occurred until reality could not be denied anymore.  The orchestra continued to play on the star lit decks till the very end.

The Titanic story is a microcosm of many similar stories currently going on around us like:

• Recent experience of financial crisis
• The Euro crisis
• The sustainability of our health services
• The rigidity of labour markets
• Global warming

All these are the result of hubris, over-confidence, arrogance and too big to fail attitude.   They are all Titanics in the making.  The icebergs are clearly visible, we are driving head on into them, but there are too many vested interests in the status quo to heed the warning and change course before it is too late.

This week I will elaborate on these new Titanic stories.  Stay in touch.