If the world as a whole becomes more short-termist then 'too long, don't read' becomes a mantra

Occasionally the financial world throws up headlines that just don’t make sense. I mean they don’t make sense to the likes of us. 

“Government to Appeal Being Offered €13 Billion” is one but smarter people in better suits know the story so .. em I suppose I’ll just leave it to them. Another one is “Banks to bring in negative interest rates”. Negative interest rates. COULDJAMAGINE? It’s like being up a tree and being hit with an apple that fell up from the ground. This kind of stuff doesn’t do much for my short-termist tendencies. If up is down and down is up, what’s the point in planning anything?

Sometimes in this column, in order to cover up for deficiencies in other areas, I like drop a bit of science in — The Stanford Marshmallow test to be precise. In a scientific experiment, to test delayed gratification, a group of children were presented with a marshmallow. They were told that if they managed to resist the temptation to eat it, they would get another marshmallow in a few minute’s time.