LinkedIn Roundup: Economic History and Dumb Cliches

One interesting little article from LinkedIn today: The Atlantic's Economic History of the Last 2000 Years in One Little Graph. It doesn't say anything terribly new or surprising if you know your history, but it vividly illustrates the sudden changes in how wealth *works*, driving home that the economics of the past 200 years are qualitatively different from all of human history before them. It's worth also reading Part II, which goes into a little more depth about the shift that occurred when "productivity" suddenly began to diverge from culture to culture.

And on the lighter but more horrible side, there is Forbes' list of 89 Business Cliches That Will Get Any MBA Promoted to Middle Management and Make Them Totally Useless. This is exactly what it sounds like: a fine collection of cliches, and what they tend to mean when pointy-haired managers spout them. (The frightening part is that I have actually used most of them at one time or another, although I try to at least *mean* something when I do so.)