Illinois Attorney General: S&P “knew they were rating junk, but saying it was high quality”

In a report on Tuesday’s PBS NewsHour, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan told Senior Correspondent Jeffrey Brown that the five billion dollar lawsuit brought against the Standard & Poor’s credit rating agency by the federal government, sixteen states and the District of Columbia won’t be tough to prove.

“I don’t think it’s tough to prove,” said Madigan. “There is an enormous amount of internal information that shows that they knew they weren’t being independent or objective. They knew they were rating junk, but saying it was high quality.”

Along with Madigan, Brown also interviewed S&P’s attorney, Floyd Abrams on Tuesday’s broadcast. Abrams called the idea that S&P committed fraud “fanciful” and added that

“the case will be one in which we will be able to show, I believe, in a very straightforward manner that, taken as a whole, what the company was doing was simply trying its best in trying times to make a good judgment about what was going to happen in the future, a hard judgment.”

Watch Justice Department: Standard & Poor's Defrauded Investors on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.
Illinois Attorney General: S&P “knew they were rating junk, but saying it was high quality”

Matthew May: The Laws Of Subtraction - Blog Business Success Radio

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Innovation catalyst, founder of EDIT Innovation, and author of the brilliant and transformational book The Laws of Subtraction: 6 Simple Rules for Winning in the Age of Excess Everything, Matthew E. May describes how in the current age of excess, the best approach is one where less is better. Matthew May provides offers an alternative approach to the ever increasing clutter and add-ons that are part of the conventional innovation process. In its place, Matt May recommends understanding when to remove the right things, and also when to make that timely reduction. Matt shares his six laws of subtraction that offer different ways of looking at problems, thinking creatively, and developing better innovations. Learn how to utilize these six laws to establish a clear competitive advantage over other businesses who continue to base their innovation process on conventional wisdom.

Matthew May is my internet radio show guest on Blog Business Success; hosted live on BlogTalkRadio.

The show airs live on Thursday, February 7, at 8:00 pm Eastern Time; 5:00 pm Pacific Time.

Innovation catalyst, founder of EDIT Innovation, and author of the brilliant and transformational book The Laws of Subtraction: 6 Simple Rules for Winning in the Age of Excess Everything, Matthew E. May describes how in the current age of excess, the best approach is one where less is better. You will learn:

* Why the addition of more and creating excess is the wrong innovation approach

* How to do better with less, and how better is unlimited

* How the six laws of subtraction will transform your innovation process

* How to put the six laws into action within your organization

Matthew E. May (photo left), founder of EDIT Innovation believes he has the best job in the world: part creativity coach, part innovation catalyst. Matt works with creative teams all over the world, helping them track down elegant solutions to complex problems. On matters of innovation and design strategy he is a close advisor to senior management of companies such as Toyota, ADP, Intuit, and Edmunds.com.

He is the author of four critically acclaimed, award-winning, and/or bestselling books on business innovation:
The Laws of Subtraction: 6 Simple Rules for Winning in the Age of Excess Everything (McGraw-Hill, ©2013). 800CEORead bestseller.

The Shibumi Strategy: A Powerful Way to Create Meaningful Change (Jossey-Bass, ©2011). Gold medal winner, Axiom Award for Best Business Fable.

In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing (Crown Business ©2009, 2010). Named to 2009 BusinessWeek Best Books in Design and Innovation list.

THE ELEGANT SOLUTION: Toyota's Formula for Mastering Innovation (Free Press, ©2007). Winner, Shingo Prize for Research.

Matt is a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review blogs, Fast Company Design, OPEN Forum Idea Hub, and University of Toronto's The Rotman Magazine. His articles have appeared in frog design's Design Mind, Thinkers50.com, MIT/Sloan Management Review, Strategy+Business, Quartz, and USAToday.

Matt's work has been featured or mentioned in The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fortune, USA Today, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Time, Forbes, INC magazine, Fast Company, Wharton Leadership Digest, CIO Insight, American Enterprise Institute, The Miami Herald, and The Los Angeles Times. He has appeared on numerous radio shows, television, and online shows, including MSNBC, NPR, and ESPN.

Matt received his training in design thinking from the Stanford d school, holds an MBA in Marketing and Organization Design from The Wharton School, as well as a BA in Social and Behavioral Sciences from Johns Hopkins University, but he considers winning the The New Yorker cartoon caption contest as one of his proudest and most creative achievements.

My book review of The Laws of Subtraction: 6 Simple Rules for Winning in the Age of Excess Everything by Matthew E. May.

My book review of The Shibumi Strategy: A Powerful Way to Create Meaningful Change by Matthew E. May.

My book review of In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing by Matthew E. May.

Listen live on Thursday at 8:00 pm Eastern, 5:00 pm Pacific time.



If you miss this very informative show, it will be available for free download as a podcast for iPod, iTunes, and MP3 players; or play it right on your computer. To download this, or any other of my guest interviews, go to the Blog Business Success host page and click on Archived Segments. Once there, click on the podcast icon at the end of the episode description, to download the show free of charge for your listening enjoyment. You can also subscribe to the show feed.



To call in questions for my guest, the number is: (347) 996-5832

Let's talk with innovation catalyst, founder of EDIT Innovation, and author of the brilliant and transformational book The Laws of Subtraction: 6 Simple Rules for Winning in the Age of Excess Everything, Matthew E. May describes how in the current age of excess, the best approach is one where less is better. Matthew May provides offers an alternative approach to the ever increasing clutter and add-ons that are part of the conventional innovation process. In its place, Matt May recommends understanding when to remove the right things, and also when to make that timely reduction. Matt shares his six laws of subtraction that offer different ways of looking at problems, thinking creatively, and developing better innovations. Learn how to utilize these six laws to establish a clear competitive advantage over other businesses who continue to base their innovation process on conventional wisdom on Blog Business Success Radio.

The Laws of Subtraction by Matthew E. May - Book review

The Laws of Subtraction

6 Simple Rules for Winning in the Age of Excess Everything

By: Matthew E. May

Published: October 3, 2012
Format: Hardcover, 240 pages
ISBN-10: 0071795618
ISBN-13: 978-0071795616
Publisher: McGraw-Hill












"This is the art of subtraction: when you remove just he right thing in just the right way, something good usually happens", writes an innovation catalyst and the founder of EDIT Innovation, Matthew E. May, in his brilliant and transformational book The Laws of Subtraction: 6 Simple Rules for Winning in the Age of Excess Everything. The author describes how, in an age of excess and ever increasing complexity, the solution for cutting through the clutter is the counter-intuitive principle of subtraction.

Matthew May recognizes that the very idea of subtraction doesn't come naturally to people. The natural impulse for almost everyone is to add more and accumulate. The author offers the idea of subtraction as a form of thinking differently from the general population. Indeed, a person's brain, according to Matthew May, will undergo a complete rewiring as it incorporates and internalizes the principle of subtraction. Instead of the usual framing of the question as doing more with less, the author presents an alternative viewpoint of doing better with less. For Matthew May, doing better has no limitations.

Matthew E. May (photo left) understands that subtraction creates more engaging experience for both ourselves, and for others as well. The author emphasizes the value of the experience itself, as the process of creation taps into a person's emotions and becomes meaningful through participation in that inward journey. For the author, the experience transforms the individual through the act of discovering what is obvious for removal, and what is meaningful to add in its place.

The author distilled, from a wide range of disciplines, cultures, and thinkers, what he refers to as six laws of subtraction. Those six laws are as follows:

* What isn't there can often trump what is
* The simplest rules create the most effective experience
* Limiting information engages the imagination
* Creativity thrives under intelligent constraints
* Break is the important part of Breakthrough
* Doing something isn't always better than doing nothing.

For me, the power of the book is how Matthew E. May combines a compelling theoretical case for subtraction, with the practical skills and ideas for incorporating the principle into any innovation process. The six laws of subtraction form the focus of the book, offering insights into the principles of simplification. Matthew May demonstrates how to discover where minimizing excess is needed, and also how to determine the correct time to remove it.

Matthew May provides additional perspectives on subtraction as well, through the inclusion of guest contributions on each of the six laws. These additional viewpoints enhance and serve to further illustrate the empowerment and creative skills unleashed d by refocusing from constant addition and excess to removal and simplification. The author presents a strong case for improving the innovation process to increase overall competitiveness through the principle knowing what to remove and when to do it. This alternative approach, that replaces the emphasis on addition, with a process designed to remove the excess, presents a clear advantage to anyone who incorporates the six laws into their strategic an tactical planning.

I highly recommend the groundbreaking and thought process altering book The Laws of Subtraction: 6 Simple Rules for Winning in the Age of Excess Everything by Matthew E. May, to anyone seeking a fresh way of thinking and behaving that develops a unique organization and culture built around truly innovating in a different way. This book will change your ideas from those of the herd and their conventional wisdom, to one where the guiding principle becomes one of less is better.