Why we must pay attention to paying attention – now. Western “fossil-fuel hypocrisy” and the risk of a green finance bubble. What future for Armenia? Ask her President. What are the implications of money flows feeling so fake? How learning to listen can yield rich rewards.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
ARTICLE OF THE WEEK
Johann Hari, Your attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen
(The Guardian, 2 January 2022)
We’ve posted many such articles that affirm what lies at the heart of our raison d’être and underpins the succinctness of the Monthly Barometer: social media and many other facets of modern life are destroying our ability to concentrate. Our capacity to pay attention is under attack and breaking, but while we still can, we need to reclaim our minds. In this extract from Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention (published yesterday), Hari argues that we are living in a serious attention crisis – one with huge and widespread implications for how we live (free access – reads in around 10 min).
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Arvind Subramanian, Is Climate Finance the Next Bubble?
(Project Syndicate, 4 January 2022)
Green investment is an absolute necessity, and it will be a story of growth (the only possible story of growth in fact), but the path to get to green may be bumpy. In this article, the economist sees mounting evidence that green lending is displaying all the pathologies associated with financial manias. In his opinion, the conventional wisdom is wrong to assume that the next financial crash will come from the collapse of the cryptocurrency bubble – he argues that climate finance poses a more serious risk. Much of his argument is centered on what he calls the “rich countries’ fossil-fuel hypocrisy” (metered paywall – reads in 6-7 min).
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Kapil Komireddi, Can Armen Sarkissian save Armenia?
(Spectator World, 3 January 2022)
As many of our readers know, Armen Sarkissian (once described by Zbigniew Brzezinski as the “Vaclav Havel of the Caucasus”) is a great friend of the Monthly Barometer. This article does a splendid job at placing Armenia on the geopolitical map (a country that competing empires reduced to a “theatre of perpetual war” for a millennium (in Gibbon’s unforgettable phrase) and at outlining Armen’s vision for his country (to turn Armenia into the Israel of the Caucasus). Hopefully, this article will compel you to join us in Armenia for the fourth edition of the Armenian Summit of Minds in September (metered paywall, reads in about 10 min).
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Emily Stewart, Money has never felt more fake
(VOX, 31 December 2021)
In our world of extreme (and excessive) financialization, it’s not always easy to understand the notion of value and to figure out why ‘assets’ like NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are having such a moment. Value feels disconnected from reality and “money feels a little strange at the moment” not only for NFTs, but also for crypto, GameStop, AMC and other meme stocks. When ordinary investors start piling into stocks, crypto and other digital assets not necessarily because they believe in the underlying value of the product they’re buying but just because it seems like the thing to do, what does it mean and what’s going on? (metered paywall, reads in 6-7 min).
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Robin Abrahams and Boris Groysberg, How to become a better listener
(Harvard Business Review, 21 December 2021)
Listening (rather than hearing) is a vital skill, yet it is undertaught. This article offers nine tips to help decision-makers and leaders to become more active listeners. Pay attention to the breakdown of the subskills involved in listening and how you can improve in them – you’ll be richly rewarded (metered paywall – reads in 5-6 min).
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