Tuesday, May 12, 2015

1% of 1% of 1%

English: Elon Musk at the panel Tribeca Talks:...
English: Elon Musk at the panel Tribeca Talks: Revenge of the Electric Car, for the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
There was that thing in Zuccoti Park. People rallied against the so-called 1%. That 1% supposedly has 40% of the wealth. Much of it is inherited.

And there is the Piketty book that drew a lot of attention. He says, if wealth will get an annual 10% return, but labor will see less than 3% annual growth, then the gap will never close, it will keep widening.

And then there is this: global companies are sitting on $7 trillion in cash. Just sitting. Not doing anything with it. This is not money on that 10% train. How about $18 trillion?

One, I think there is an economic case to be made that if the gulf between the top 1% and the bottom 10% is too wide, that society is not likely to be growing at its optimum. I am talking economic theory. As to how to go about remedying? That is a debate. I am for ordinary people owning equity stakes in many more companies, and not just post-IPO companies. Heck, I am not opposed to a slightly higher tax rate. And then there is choice, the Warren Buffett choice. He decided most of his wealth should not go to his children. It is bad for them. 90% of his wealth will not go to his children.

Two, a stagnant minimum wage is a bad policy choice. The minimum wage in America should be $10 right away, and in the big cities it should be $15. Urbanization is good for the environment. Go green.

Three, trillions sitting around is stupidity. $10 trillion will take care of a-l-l infrastructure needs across the Global South, and that investment will bring a guaranteed 10% annual return. Win-win. Heck, somebody put half a trillion in Elon Musk's internet access company.

But all that is wealth talk. I meant to talk entrepreneurship, especially high tech entrepreneurship. I once put out a blog post where I said, statistically speaking, being an entrepreneur is like being gay. It is about one out of 100. But then that is everyone. That is pizza store owners.

1% of that 1% might be in high tech. And 1% of that 1% of that 1% might be successful tech entrepreneurs. 1 out of 100 which is 1 out of 100 which is 1 out of 100. 1 out of 1,000,000. You are quite literally one in a million. In a country of 300 million, that would give us 300 such entrepreneurs. That is about right. Does this country have 300 self made billionaires? If not, there is something missing in the social/political/economic fabric. Maybe the 1% have too much wealth, maybe the minimum wage has been too stagnant for too long, maybe there are too many trillions just sitting around, having a negative gravity effect on overall growth and well being. Probably all of the above.

1% of 1% of 1%: self made billionaires are in august company.

Tuesday, May 05, 2015

Ecommerce In India

Experts see India’s e-commerce market at an inflection point. A recent Morgan Stanley report titled “The Next India” said Indian e-commerce would expand to $100 billion in revenue by 2020, from $2.9 billion in 2013, making it the world’s fastest-growing market...... Ant Financial, an Alibaba affiliate that invested $575 million in January for a 25 percent stake. .... Paytm has 20 million active wallet users (compared with 190 million for Ant Financial’s service Alipay, China’s largest) and aims to quintuple this by 2016. Some experts predict that mobile wallet users will overtake credit card users in India. ..... For investors in Indian e-commerce, China’s growth provides evidence that the scale is real and achievable ...... As in China, India’s smaller cities and towns lack retail infrastructure. In 5,000 cities and towns, tapping an app is the new equivalent of a visit to the mall, and it could unleash pent-up demand for the latest fashion or the newest device. ..... India resembles China of seven to 10 years ago in its broadband Internet growth, creation of digital-native marketplaces and rapid user adoption. Even ideas like online grocers, which have just started to gain a foothold in places like Silicon Valley could do well in India. ..... “So investors who won in China are playing in India. Those who missed in China, too, are playing in India. This is the land of opportunity”















The Next India
India’s new government has the strongest mandate in 30 years to deliver reforms ..... The government’s reform agenda must rein in corruption and streamline the regulatory and bureaucratic complexities of doing business so that foreign and domestic investors can feel more confident. If successful, growth in labor, capital and technology in tandem can power productivity and industrial output in ways that are simply not possible in Reform Club peers such as Japan, South Korea and China. For example, new capital can fund technologically advanced factories that can hire relatively inexpensive labor, assuring a market advantage in terms productivity, cost base and quality of product. ....... Over the next 10 years, India will contribute an additional 124 million people to the global labor pool, accounting for nearly 25% of the increase in the world’s working-age population. Economic growth that creates better-paying jobs can transform this youth demographic into a rising middle class, which will also be better educated, more aware of information technology and better able to take advantage of globalization trends.

Monday, May 04, 2015

Food


















5/8/23 Update: Goshen (NY) puts Third World corruption to shame, thanks to greedy, corrupt, unethical lawyers like Andra Dumais. ..... I toppled a Third World dictator and German Radio called me Robin Hood On The Internet. I am not going to get intimidated by some small-town racist. Andrea Dumais is a small-town racist. ....... You are treating me worse than the people 2,000 years ago.

Friday, May 01, 2015

Musk Magic




I have never bought an Apple product in my lifetime. I do appreciate Steve Jobs' excellence. But he did not directly touch me. Elon Musk is a whole different story. I am looking at this guy's battery and I am thinking, this battery could do for energy for the dollar a day people what cellphones have done for communication. And lack of energy is easily the number one reason for poverty. The first computers also cost thousands of dollars. But now you can get a Chromebook (an idea Google stole from me -- I pitched to Google Ventures, bad idea) for 200 dollars. This battery needs to go down in price from 3500 dollars to 350 dollars. You can light up hospitals and schools across the world with this. Kudos Elon!

I actually was one of the first users of X.com --- but I did not hear about Elon Musk until at least 10 years later. Actually I heard of Peter Thiel before I heard of Musk. And I never connected with Thiel at any level.

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

European Angst On GAFA

English: Google Logo officially released on Ma...
English: Google Logo officially released on May 2010 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
GAFA is apparently what Europe calls Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple.

My first reaction (years ago) was Europeans are sore losers. Instead of innovating they are hammering. They are just jealous of Google.

Now I think differently. Instead of Silicon Valley sucking money in from all over the world like the British Empire stole gold from India, these Internet behemoths should pay taxes in each jurisdiction they generate revenues in.

There should be a global regime. So there is an upper limit. Maybe you should not have to pay more than 10% in sales taxes in total at all levels of government put together.

Google is cashing on the infrastructure built by these countries. And I don't mean just broadband. Google thrives on educated populations. And Google should give back as a matter of business decision.

Such negotiations have to be global. That might also push us towards a world government (which both Bill Gates and I think would be a good thing).

The simple formula is, every Internet company should track as to where a sale got generated, and they should pay sales taxes in those jurisdictions, up to a maximum 10%.

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Facebook's Hello Just Might Have Killed Brewster

I don't get the impression Facebook was even gunning for it, it was just trying to get a more meaningful presence on your phone, but Brewster now might be dead. (I gave it a try, multiple times, but it sent me one email too many.)

Hello is a great app. An app I have been needing but was not out there. Not only do people make less phone calls these days, but you also want to receive fewer phone calls. And so, for that small time quota you have for phone calls, it is amazingly offensive that that time might get taken by phone calls that are strictly in the unwelcome category. This app solves that huge problem. If Facebook does not know who you are, you are suspect. That is a fair assessment. Much of the world does not have ID, no Social Security number, no credit history, nothing. A Facebook ID is a good start.

Knowing who is calling you is much welcome information. You can run from Facebook, but you can not hide.

Hello is an awesome app. I read about it in the news and installed it not long after. Heck, that is how I signed up for LinkedIn. I read about it in the news. And then I did not use it much for almost a decade. But Hello I am using.


Sunday, April 19, 2015

Musk Wisdom




Elon Musk: Internet Satellites




This is what $100 billion of the 2009 stimulus should have gone to. It is still not too late. If the US government were to buy a 33% stake in Musk's Internet Satellite Network company to speed this work up, once we have gigabit internet for every man, woman and child, that would make room for major shavings in the US defense budget. Democracy would spread on its own. The ISIS would look like clowns, because they will get drowned in the hundreds of millions of Muslims sharing cat videos, so much good would happen. And that $100 billion would grow enough that the US government will be able to actually pay off some of its debt. Who says governments can not angel invest? Break the rules.