Just say no!

I really don't want to start with a negative message — so please see my suggestion as something positive. The suggestion is: don’t be a believer!

I’m not talking here about religion or spiritual matters. I’m talking about the sellers of snake oil in the areas of business and politics.

These are the people who tell you — usually to sell their latest book or to further their careers — that “everything has changed”, “that there has been a paradigm shift”, or some such nonsense.

Of course things change all the time, but usually not in the dramatic way that the charlatans suggest. Here are just a few of the absurd claims that have been made in recent years:

a) History has come to an end. What a complete load of rubbish that idea of Francis Fukuyama’s was!

b) Profit doesn’t matter; all that matters is turnover. This was the mantra of the dot-com bubble at the turn of the last century — before the crash, you understand. A similar dot-com mantra has been at work again recently .

c) The business cycle has been abolished. In other words, the economy can be managed by governments — such as Gordon Brown's — to run smoothly without periods of boom and recession. No comment.

d) The internet means the end of print products. Go and look at the newsagents at any railway station, as I did in Düsseldorf, Munich and Stuttgart last week. The quantity — and quality — of the print products on sale is astounding, including this successful magazine .

I could list many more examples, but I don’t want to waste your time.

So, here’s my advice. The next time someone says, “things are completely different now”, why not give them this answer: “Yes, you’re right. Here’s what’s completely different: I don’t believe people like you any more.”