ABSTRACT
Today’s world is embroiled in uncertainty at all levels-political, economic, social, and commercial. This is nothing new, although every generation seems to believe that they faced the worst. In the last hundred years, the world has seen much-world wars, nuclear bombs, airplanes, computers, and the Internet. Quantum theory was revealed, options theory was forged, planets were discovered outside the solar system, and the human genome was mapped. Bigger wars were followed by smaller but more potent ones, as some tried to spread philosophy and others, religion. Diseases spread across the globe by air, water, airplanes, and human contact but were conquered by chemicals and magic. Capital and labor clashed, some driven by profits and others by power, aided and abetted by philosophers of various persuasions. Countries were freed by war and peace, divided into many by walls and mountains, and then combined into one again. Democracy and religious extremism has spread hand in hand. Planned economies failed, while the foundations of the free market philosophy were also shaken. Companies grew to gigantic proportions, with revenues dwarfing the gross domestic product (GDP) of countries, and they spread across the globe, creating sprawling multinationals. They merged with others or acquired smaller rivals, creating even larger enterprises using size and revenue as the fundamental measure of success. Trade blocks and alliances formed, aided by geographical proximity of countries with different specializations, and then grew into unions of currencies and cultures. Bitter enemies became best friends and vice versa for oil and gold. Frozen alliances in a cold war broke into pieces while new ones were put together with no real objectives. Nobel laureates lamented about a warming globe fueled by dirty coal while dirtier energy policies went unchallenged.
