Thanks for reading on this Saturday morning.We’re going to talk about the Roman army, and then we’re going to talk about modern corporate governance. The relationship should become clear in a few paragraphs.***When facing arrows or other projectiles in battle, Roman legions would adopt the testudo formation.Plutarch, the Greek historian/writer/philosopher describes the formation: “Then the shield-bearers wheeled…
Read MoreFrom the desk of Chuck Fuller: This morning, TRC Nexus shares with you an Op-Ed from NC Innovation Board Chair Kelly King – explaining NCInnovation’s economic potential for North Carolina. NCInnovation represents the largest economic development initiative in state history, enabling transformative impacts across rural and urban North Carolina. This morning’s read is worth your…
Read MoreThanks for joining us this morning. Last month, Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin BE-4 rocket engine exploded 10 seconds after launch. One might recall a headline-grabbing explosion of an Elon Musk SpaceX rocket in April and conclude the billionaires are going tit-for-tat in their competition for commercial space dominance. That might sound reasonable except for this fact: Musk’s reusable…
Read MoreThanks for joining us this Saturday. We hope you enjoyed some down time during what’s usually a slow holiday week. Last September, we wrote about North Carolina’s reliance on a single natural gas pipeline for its entire supply – a circumstance that’s rather unique, especially for a state of our size. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline would have remedied our…
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From the desk of Chuck Fuller In three days, the United States of America will celebrate her 247th year of existence. Compared to the dynastic empires of old, we’re still in our youth. The Ottoman Empire, for example, persisted under a sultanate for 642 years (1280-1922). Rome traces the origins of its 1,000-year history to 509…
Read MoreHappy Saturday morning. With two named storms already targeting the western Atlantic, this is an opportune time to look at the state of disaster recovery policy. In short, it’s a disaster in and of itself. Yes, the Hurricane Matthew and Hurricane Florence recovery effort led by Gov. Roy Cooper is especially slow. But under the current system, no recovery…
Read MoreHappy Saturday, and thank you for joining us. Every summer, economic development watchers await the crown jewel of state business rankings: CNBC’s Top States for Business. The media outlet scores all 50 states on 88 metrics broken into 10 categories. The value of a favorable ranking is potentially worth tens of millions of dollars to…
Read MoreHappy Saturday. Thank you for tuning in. We’re nearly six months into the new term of North Carolina’s Supreme Court. Democracy hasn’t devolved into fascism as the doomsdayers warned. But the high court has sent down impactful decisions on hot political cases. Proponents argue the court rectified egregious misapplications of the law handed down in the waning days…
Read MoreHello this Saturday morning. Thank you for joining us. A year ago in a piece titled The Purpose of Business, we asked, “To what end do companies exist – to earn profits or to use their power to mold society?” Stakeholder capitalism had arguably reached a crescendo, just two years after industry titans in 2020 formalized…
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