The best business people I know are always ahead of the financial data they possess; that is, the shrewdest people running businesses have an inherent understanding that good management decisions are based on what is going to happen rather than on what has happened. I have worked with hundreds of people who run businesses and the approach often makes no sense to the rest of us. Yet, there is clearly some reasoning that they use to gather information and break down complex decisions. This is an alien approach to those of us working with financial data because our job is to report on results.

There are many reasons that clients live in the future. Sometimes, this is how they are constructed as people Also, the best business decisions are based upon a careful review of future conditions, not on past conditions. Yet, business people need to understand the past in order to be able to make their futures happen. You cannot run a business without piecing together results and gaining insight from them.

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There is probably something in humans and in every generation that makes us think that the problems we face are uniquely difficult.  Much has been written about the economy and, if you accept certain assumptions from what you read, you might think that we are in the midst of a global depression.  Yet, it is important to put the current economy in perspective.  We might even try reviewing and analyzing some objective data.

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