Scott Miller

There will be no meeting on Monday, April 17. The library will be closed in observance of Patriot’s Day.

One of our participants has observed that senior management of a company is typically faced with dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of issues to consider and, potentially, address. Recognizing that they cannot all be solved in the short term (and, for some, ever), management must identify a much smaller number to try to resolve—by evaluating their likely impact on the organization as a whole, their degree of urgency, and the availability of strategies to address them.

We’re going to apply the same thought process to the issues facing the U.S. as a whole:

If you were “in charge,” what would the top five priorities be for the U.S. [government] to focus on?

Hopefully, participants will be armed with some thoughts as to why the issue should make the “short list,” and what their strategy (hopefully a realistic one) would be to address each issue they identify.

It’ll be interesting to see what we come up with “priority problems” and, even more so, what our strategies for solving (or addressing, or mitigating) them will be.

See you in ten (or so) days.

There have been several banks in the news over the last few weeks, starting with Silicon Valley Bank and followed by Signature Bank, Credit Suisse and, according to current market speculation, Deutsche Bank. And there has been plenty of news coverage of the ins and outs of each bank’s situation.

On Monday, we’ll consider:

• What happened to each of these banks (and maybe others, such as First Republic Bank)?
• How could it have been avoided?
• Who’s at fault (what combination of management, the boards, the regulators, the administration, customers)?
• How do we rate the response (to date) to these events?
• Should deposit insurance be enhanced to cover more than the $250,000 limit?
• And any other questions/observations the group would like to share.

Given the ample news coverage, I’m not going to post any particular links or resources. But feel free to post a comment with one (or more) if you wish.