Korn Ferry: Modernizing the Military: Britain's Bold Gamble

When Sarah Brown graduated this year, she surprised her friends by enlisting in the British Army. Her father had done the same two decades earlier. Yet the force she joins looks nothing like his: smaller, leaner, but wired with technology that was the stuff of science fiction in his day. “It doesn’t feel like the Army he knew,” she says. “It feels like the future.”

For many decades, Britain was NATO’s heavyweight spender, pumping more than 4% of GDP into defense every year. But after 1991 the money slowed, and with it the size of the armed forces. Today troop numbers are at historic lows. Now, the government says the pendulum must swing back — modernization and deterrence are the watchwords. “Given the threats, we can’t afford to be unprepared,” says Edward Dinsmore, Korn Ferry’s senior client partner for organizational strategy. “This is about rebuilding readiness.”

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France: Blackberries ripe; Macron's government overripe. @REALConstable, Occitanie @BATCHELORSHOW

By SIMON CONSTABLE

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Ambadeargentina, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

UK: MANSION TAX @REAL CONSTABLE @BATCHELORSHOW

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

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English: NPS staff, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

FRANCE: HEAT WAVE LIFTS @REALCONSTABLE @BATCHELORSHOW

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

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H. de Sarrepont, Hennebert Eugène (1826-1896)., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

WSJ: FINANCIAL FLASHBACK Decimal Stock Pricing

A look back at Wall Street Journal headlines from this month in history

• 25 YEARS AGO: Decimal Stock Pricing

A quarter-century ago, in August 2000, the New York Stock Exchange and the old American Stock Exchange began shifting their pricing systems to “decimals” from fractions. At the time, it was a big deal, promising benefits by lowering costs and other innovations.

“It was a watershed moment for U.S. equity markets,” says Daryl Jones, director of research at investment analysis company Hedgeye.

Shortly before the switch, The Wall Street Journal started converting its stock listings to decimal form—starting with its Nasdaq list. (It would take several months until Nasdaq itself went decimal for trading, and the NYSE and Amex fully converted for all stocks.)

The longstanding method of U.S. stock pricing—tracing to the 17th century, in fact—used fractions such as 1/8 of 1/16. For instance, a stock priced at $10 1/16 could move up to $10 1/8. But starting in August 2000, stocks began to be priced in increments of 1 cent, which could allow a price of $10.01 or $10.02, etc. READ more here.

 

Briefings Magazine: ‘We need massive amounts of electricity.’ Nuclear Power’s Sudden Comeback

By SIMON CONSTABLE

More than three-quarters of a century ago, nuclear-powered electricity was born in Chicago. A team of scientists led by Enrico Fermi created the first sustained nuclear reaction. It lit up four light bulbs, a relatively small amount of energy, but it led the way for much more. Indeed, the heyday of building atomic power plants had begun. In 1951, Russia started building a grid-connected reactor, the only one that year. And by 1979, the peak year, 234 plants were under construction globally.

But heydays don’t last forever. While nuclear energy was presented as cheap and clean, its reputation quickly got soiled after some epic disasters. The first, in 1957, was in northwest England at Sellafield nuclear reactor. In 1979, there was a partial nuclear meltdown at US-based Three Mile Island. In 1986, the Chernobyl, Ukraine, plant exploded, immediately killing 31 people. In 2011, a tsunami disabled the cooling system of a nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan. “Everyone thought nuclear power was safe, then something happened and got everybody concerned,” says Rob Thummel, senior portfolio manager at Tortoise Capital. “That’s kept nuclear on the sidelines; people wanted to shut it down.”

So what is happening now? Read more here.