What does it mean when we read or hear that a firm is financially fit, growing, or flush with earnings? The terms on the surface look simple enough.

Take a look at the following link to an article in the November 2, 2009 Business Week.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_44/b4153000349169.htm

Goodwill, accounts payable and accounts receivable are terms of art. A stroke on a keyboard can change the public image of a firm’s performance and prospects.

Just one more good source to encourage skepticism and alertness to ambiguity.

Robert Burton, On Being Certain. This book tries to make us more aware of how the mind works. It affected me greatly because once one applies his mantra “But is what is suggested consistent with how the mind tends to work?” to policy proposals, one quickly realizes that much intellectual work suffers from a failure to realize the power of the limbic structures. Far more frequently than we wish it to be true, the emotions wear the pants in our decisions.

Burton is never deterministic and leaves plenty of room for CT to manage the brain better.

This book lays out just how enormous the need for CT is.