Fruit and nut futures
HOW DO YOU foretell the future? Easy — you ask Sir Adrian 'The Code' Cadbury• His Committee on the Financial Aspects of Corporate Governance has put out what it calls helpful guidance for practical purpos- es. For a start: `Any consideration involving the foreseeable future involves making a judgment, at a particular point in time, about future events which are inherently uncertain. The following should be noted: in general terms, the degree of uncertainty increases significantly the further into the future the consideration is taken. The man- ner in which the uncertainty increases with time depends on the circumstances of each particular company.' Or, as A. E. Housman put it in his fragment of Greek tragedy:
To this conclusion I at last have come: Life is uncertain.
This truth I have written deep On my reflective midriff On tablets not of wax, Nor with a pen did I inscribe it there, For many reasons. Life, I say, is not A stranger to uncertainty.. .
Sir Adrian's committee makes the point at greater length. To Jonathan Davies, who passed its version on to me, goes this week's jumbo bar of fruit and nut.
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