Follow-up of “The Fantods of Risk: Essays on Risk Management” Part 3

Two Quotes (Well, Ok Three)

by Rick Nason, PhD, CFA
Partner, RSD Solutions Inc.
www.RSDsolutions.com

In a previous blog I reviewed H. Felix Kloman’s book “Fantods of Risk:  Essays on Risk Management”, published by Seawrack Press, 2008.  The Amazon link is:
http://www.amazon.com/Fantods-Risk-H-Felix-Kloman/dp/1436302269/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1276378958&sr=8-1

As a follow-up to my review, I thought I would post a couple of thoughts that Kloman’s book produced in my own little brain.  I hope you find these blogs interesting so that you will be inspired to go get Kloman’s book.  The field of risk management needs more people to know about Felix Kloman, his writing and his books.

In this blog I want to focus on two different quotes of others that Kloman uses in his book.

“I’ve come to the conclusion that there is nothing good that doesn’t have bad consequences and nothing bad that doesn’t have good consequences.”
Pete Seeger
The second quote is:

“We cannot legislate for the unknown consequences of consequences of consequences.”
Isaiah Berlin

Now, the question to ask yourself is:  “when was the last time you read a book that quoted both Pete Seeger and Isaiah Berlin?”  That is what makes this collection of essays so interesting and useful for the risk manager.

For those in the risk community who think this is stretching it, Kloman also quotes the well known academic risk textbook writer Carol Alexander,

“Quantification will never be a substitute for good risk management”. 
Carol Alexander
There, hopefully that makes everybody happy.  (Probably not, but then again is the goal of risk management to make everybody happy all of the time?)