From the week 3 and week 4 lectures, I generate some points that I think it’s important and have to be understood.
1. Always step back, see the whole picture!
2. Put the debt crisis in a relevant context.
3. Monetary foundation
4. It’s all about duality!
5. Dimensions of truth
First, "Always step back, see the whole picture!" As Paul has mentioned thousand times, we have to always step back and see the whole picture. This is really important for global business people. We can't research and analyze the problem form a narrow point of view. This narrow referred to two kinds. One is only thinking from one angle, and other ways did not take into account. Another one is the problem has been limited which means it hasn’t been contacted with associated factors. This will result a fail. For example, we have quiz every week for MBA 500. The first quiz I got 80%, and then the second one I got 64%. The third one was even lower. What happened? Okay, I admit that I misunderstood some questions and was thinking too much, but I know there are some other reasons beyond that. I didn’t step back and see the whole picture- what is this chapter really talking about? I didn’t recognize the connections between each idea. They must be interconnected; otherwise they would not in one chapter. Next time, when I study a new chapter, I will draw a mind map as I’m reading. From the whole picture, I believe I can understand more!
Secondly, "Put the debt crisis in a relevant context." When we saw the World Debt Clock, we have different feelings. For Canadian students, they might think what happened to Canada? Why the debt is so high? For students from China, we may be proud of our country. The color is green, yeah! And we lend money to America. How good we are. We are growing so fast! But when we step back, see the whole picture, it is not the truth. Although Canada has so much debt, it also has so much resource, such as, the nature resource, good medical system, good running government, human resource, high happiness index, ect. When we look at China, it is definitely growing very fast and the biggest creditor in the world. What is the problem? We are using too much natural resources and some resources have been wasted. Also, for the upper and middle class, the happiness index is pretty good. But for the lower class, the majority class of China, the happiness index is very low! People from village and rural area want to have a better life, so they went to cities. What is waiting for them? It’s not money, but hopelessness. The 17 suisides were not caused from one reason. It is caused form hunderds of interconnected problems which reflect the whole society.