Many of us are familiar with Jean Valjean, the protagonist from Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables, made more famous in the 80s thanks to the musical of the same name. In the story, Monsieur Valjean is sent to a prison…
Oswald Grübel’s moment of wrongness
I just had the pleasure of watching author Kathryn Schulz’s TED video about being wrong. As I watched I couldn’t help thinking about Oswald Grübel’s “moment of wrongness”: when he learned about UBS’s $2 billion trading loss. Last November Grübel went…
They will always find a way to screw you
I worked about six shifts at a Burger King in a shopping mall when I was in my teens. I quit because I didn’t care much for wearing the brown pants and hairnet. On my final night, the closing shift,…
CEO Oswald Gruebel reacts to UBS fraud [humour]
Here is a reenactment of how UBS CEO Oswald Gruebel reacted when he learned about the $2 billion fraud. (That is Colin Firth portraying Gruebel on the left.) http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DxJvGE7Vvd4M
Risk management is neither the cause nor the solution to UBS’s problems
A headline today on CBC.ca reads “UBS case latest failure of risk management”. I think I will spend the rest of the day being offended by the CBC. (All will be forgiven if Amanda Lang appears on the National tonight.)…
Risk managers are like janitors
This is a bit of a re-post but it seems appropriate following a comment I received earlier where the reader asks: “How can you convince a small business owner to invest resources into something that they cannot see a value…