Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.--
George Santayana At the HNI Shareholders meeting, President and
CEO, Stan Askren, made a point to tell shareholders that the
past does not predict the future. There are always unforeseen
events that are random or exogenous that lie outside the realm
of normal that alter the future. For example, who could foresee
the credit crisis and the mortgage mess. What’s wrong with
looking at history and making an inference about the future?
Bestselling author, Nicholas Taleb, points out that history
suffers from a problem of induction that he calls the Black
Swan. When one moves from specific examples to general
conclusions, there’s always a problem that a random event can
alter the expected outcome. Looking at history provides comfort
because it rules out randomness. It’s like a brain suave for
those who are afraid of risk. In fact, economists say that one
should not let sunk costs determine future decisions. What
happened in the past should be irrelevant to