Announcing the U.K. Government budget on Wednesday, Chancellor George Osborne disappointed those who wanted to see a big change in the Bank of England's mandate. The pound strengthened a bit as a result. But I don't think those who are waiting to see the pound weaken, like me, will be disappointed for long.

The Treasury sets the goals for the Bank of England every year in a "remit letter" that it releases in March as part of the budget. The central bank's mandate has been to keep inflation at 2 percent "at all times." There had been a lot of talk before the budget about possible radical changes to this mandate, such as changing the period from "at all times" to "over the medium term" or "over the long term;" raising the inflation target or changing it to a band; or perhaps changing what measure of inflation they target.

(Read More: Osborne Paves Way to Retool Bank of England)

A recent panel at Retail Week's annual conference tackled the topic, "The Kate Effect," and that got me thinking about which retailers will be riding Kate's baby's coattails?

Since the Royal Wedding, every retail brand has been praying for Kate Middleton to grace the streets of London with an outfit, a pair of shoes or even just a fly-by visit.

And no wonder, just look at the brand Reiss. It was a dream came true when Kate hit the White House wearing one of its nude Shola bandage dresses in May 2011. She rivaled First Lady Michelle Obama's fashion credentials, and the outing made Reiss a known brand outside of the U.K. The brand is now carried at Bloomingdale's.

Other past Kate favorites include Zara, Whistles & LK Bennett (also now in Bloomingdale's.) And who could forget the engagement dress from Issa?

The baby is not even here yet and some retailers are already lucking out.

The battle among hedge fund giants and a Securities Exchange Commission's investigation of Herbalife have captured media attention.

Blogs debate the company, its products, multilevel marketing, pyramid schemes, and the motivations of financiers. However, the question bigger than Herbalife and shorted stock is: Why, after 65 years, have the same nagging legal issues dogged this industry?

Since 1948 multilevel marketing companies have faced questions of product efficacy and distributors have battled firms over non-compete agreements. However, the most feared legal problem is a federal pyramid scheme charge that, if successful, can mean the end of the company.

Where a Ponzi scheme grows as people voluntary invest to pursue high returns, a pyramid scheme grows by compensating recruits for recruiting others. Sophisticated pyramid schemes use upfront fees and/or the purchase of over-priced products and services to compensate participants. (Read More: 'Big Opportunity' for Herbalife: Hain Celestial CEO)

Company sales come primarily from purchases of high-priced products by distributors—always including a large batch of new recruits, the vast majority of whom will quickly become inactive.

Revenue does not come primarily from retail sales or from a stable distributor base. Instead, an ever-churning base of participants means compensation comes primarily from recruitment, coupled with distributor purchases required to qualify for recruitment rewards.

Roman Catholic Cardinals met in secret to choose a new Pope to lead more than 1.2 billion followers. White smoke billowed from the Vatican chimney at 7:07 pm. Pope Francis was introduced to the world about 90 minutes later and offered prayers for all the people of the world. The entire election process lasted less than 48 hours. This is an amazingly efficient process.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress debates Paul Ryan's budget proposal. (Feel free to groan at will. But don't groan for long.) Bullish investors are brazenly driving share prices higher.

According to Crain's Chicago Business, my beleaguered home state of Illinois is about to re-enter the venture capital game.Not only has Illinois failed in epic proportions to manage its own financial house — with the worst credit rating in the nation and a nation's worst $96 billion unfunded pension liability — it has failed at its venture capital endeavors previously.

The proposed new Illinois Finance Authority venture fund would come less than 12 months after the failure of a recent Illinois Finance Authority venture fund, which took over a $2 million loss when it closed. In the real world, no venture capitalist would be able to raise a new fund with that track record.

I'm not here to talk about Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer's decision to discontinue telecommuting at the company. I'm here to talk about the reaction to it.

As someone who raised two children as a single parent while working, I can relate to the many women who rely on working from home to manage a family and a career and I can understand how this controversial decision creates adverse opinions on the efficiency and fairness of telecommuting.

(Read More: Marissa Mayer Is Right: Working From Home Kills Innovation)

As someone who has a leadership position in the male-dominated auto industry and who has also had to make tough decisions for her company, I cannot understand how the debate has shifted to the questioning of Ms. Mayer's leadership, strategy, and ability to turn around a fledgling company that has seen two former leaders before her fail. I cannot understand how this has encouraged some to call her the "Stalin of Silicon Valley."

It can happen. It has happened. By disregarding the daily details of leadership, CEOs lose sight of the mission and face the unthinkable—termination. Somehow along the way, the executive's leadership ability slips into a black hole seemingly to have never existed, and in some cases it didn't.

Now-former Groupon CEO Andrew Mason is a prime example of someone who failed to recognize the intricacies of the position and ultimately failed to execute the job effectively. Far too often, C-levels lose sight of the task and get too comfortable, completely disregarding the possibility of getting the boot.

(Read More: Jack Welch: 'I'd Give Einhorn the Back of My Hand')

In the last three weeks, I've met with three potential new clients who had one very striking thing in common. They each had over $1,000,000 — individually representing a third to half of their entire net worth — in cash! They each have maintained some equity exposure in their portfolios, but the "shock and awe" of losses sustained in 2008 still looms large in their psyche.

So, was it just a coincidence that three people sitting on a pile of cash, each a different age and professional background, would be seeking out new professional advice at roughly the same time? Or, is their situation typical of investors regardless of age, background or size of portfolio?

(Read More: You Haven't Missed the Stock Rally: Goldman's Cohen)

Peak Oil is the concept that new discoveries of commercially exploitable oil resources do not keep pace with growing demand.

By extrapolating the data, you can estimate when we will run out of it for all practical purposes.

There are a lot of disagreements about whether we have reached Peak Oil or when the downhill slope will hit a point that brings a significant percentage of our vehicles to a grinding halt, but the concept has made scientists and policy makers ask the question - what other critical resources may be peaking?

(Read More: What We Need Is Climate Change: Op-Ed )

The sequester may be affecting some of the United States' defense budget, but not the part of that is the U.S. Army's Product Improvement Program, which is set to upgrade the Army's old issue M4 rifles to newer M4A1 models.

According to Military.com, after a dramatic bidding and re-bidding process, the M4A1 contract, with an estimated value of approximately $77 million, is going not to incumbent manufacturer Colt Defense nor Remington Arms (owned by Freedom Group), but to a foreign company, FN Herstal. The initial part of the contract award — around $9.3 million worth — was posted at the government's Federal Business Opportunities site earlier this month.

While FN Herstal has its manufacturing plant in South Carolina, the company itself is a subsidiary of the Herstal Group, which, according to its website, "… has been 100 percent owned by the Walloon Region of Belgium," or in other words, the government of Belgium. So, while net-net, manufacturing jobs are preserved in the U.S., the profits go to a foreign entity, which could also engender a loss of sales, administrative and other jobs in the U.S.

(Read More:Here's Why Layoffs From Sequester Will Be Costly)