Our IPA prof has written ELEVEN books!!! Oaow...

I thought I really liked the IPA class but I don't anymore. It is all very controversial with loads of opinions flying around but it does not really take the debate to any satisfying intellectual levels. It is a bit like politics for dummies. You are left with the impression that you have just condensed in 1.5 hours what the Economist offers in dozens of pages over many years. It is not even about scrapping the surface. It is about pointing down at the top of the iceberg from a helicopter hovering at 6,000 feet. A lot of the classes in an MBA programme only make you hungry for more but this class is particularly frustrating.

One must also be careful about models. You cannot bring down the Japanese economy to a decision from the Central Bank, nor explain the recent success of Nissan on a allies/opponents/fence sitter/adversary quadratic model. All these models help you get a hand on a complex situation and highlight pitfalls or give good hints about how you can approach a problem. None of them contain THE answer - that's because there isn't any. None of them go anywhere near reality. However, no one helps us put things into perspective and realize where the model ends and reality begins. We must maintain an intellectual discipline to do so. No matter what you are taught at school, the answer does not lie in textbooks. Look up and use common sense. Remember your classes but don't restrict yourself to it. Trade is great but opening barriers in poor countries, while maintaining high tariffs on your homegrown agriculture will make African countries starve to death. Access to masses of cheap labor will also lead to exploitation cases, and countries in desperate need of growth might just overlook environmental matters. So be careful when applying MBA-taught concepts. Be human. And humble.