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%.