Ged Carroll

Category: economics | 經濟學 | 경제학 | 経済

Economics or the dismal science was something I felt that I needed to include as it provides the context for business and consumption.

Prior to the 20th century, economics was the pursuit of gentleman scholars. The foundation of it is considered to be Adam Smith when he published is work An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Smith outlined one of the core tenets of classical economics: each individual is driven by self-interest and can exert only a negligible influence on prices. And it was the start of assumptions that economists model around that don’t mirror real life all the time.

What really is a rational decision maker? Do consumers always make rational decisions? Do they make decisions that maximise their economic benefit?

The problem is that they might do actions that are rational to them:

  • Reducing choice when they are overwhelmed
  • Looking for a little luxury to comfort them over time. Which was the sales of Cadbury chocolate and Revlon lipstick were known to rise in a recession
  • Luxury goods in general make little sense from a ration decision point of view until you realise the value of what they signal
  • Having a smartphone yet buying watches. Japanese consumers were known to still buy watches to show that they care about the time to employers when they could easily check their smartphone screen

All of which makes the subject area of high interest to me as a marketer. It also explains the amount of focus now being done by economists on the behavioural aspect of things.

  • Alibaba + more things

    Alibaba lost ambition

    Two interesting things have come out today on Alibaba: Alibaba moves closer to home with Hong Kong dual-primary listing | Financial Times – this is interesting because it implies that Alibaba either couldn’t remain in the US stock exchange with the new Chinese tiered data enterprise ruling: China plans three-tier data strategy to avoid US delistings | Financial Times or punishment of Jack Ma continues.

    jack ma

    Which means the only listings are likely to be old industry listings of state owned firms that foreign investors wouldn’t want to deal with anyway. The second one was: Alibaba scales back global expansion plan to rival Amazon | Financial Times – Alibaba.com’s US operation has failed to meet its initial targets, forcing the Chinese company to readjust its growth plans, according to three people familiar with the operations. The project has also been hit by dozens of staff departures from its New York office. The troubles at its US business-to-business arm come as Alibaba steps up its international push as its domestic operations continue to get hit by Beijing’s tech crackdown, slowing economy and rising competition. However, Alibaba.com has struggled to retain US sellers since its launch, in part down to the difficulty of competing with the prices of global merchants. “US manufacturers aren’t as competitive, the cost of everything is a lot higher including labour. The team do not have enough support internally, so they can’t get enough suppliers and sellers on board,” one current employee said – you could read this as the US is uncompetitive, or Alibaba only manages to sell on cost rather than value (quality, flexibility, after sales service don’t matter).

    Business

    Leicester garment factories still exploiting staff, study finds | Financial Times – not terribly surprising in Brexit Britain.

    Aviation sector will be disrupted for years, Qatar Airways boss says | Financial Times – “Covid has damaged the supply chain of the industry . . . I think that it will last for a couple of years — it is not going to go away tomorrow,” Akbar Al Baker told the Financial Times in an interview. Labour shortages in Europe, delays in aircraft deliveries from manufacturers and a lack of spare parts had all affected Qatar Airways, he added. – and this is without the problems that airports have faced in baggage handling etc. If aircraft deliveries were really an issue, why did Qatar pick a fight with Airbus?

    Economics

    Pakistan is in big trouble – by Noah Smith – Noahpinion – what happens when China stops writing cheques?

    Finance

    Henan protests highlight concerns over China’s rural banking sector | Financial Times – is this China’s equivalent of the 1990s Savings and Loans scandal that bedevilled the US?

    Hong Kong

    HSBC’s past may not help its future | Financial Times – There is no place in the new Hong Kong for a pre-eminent bank which is not institutionally subject to the Chinese government. As China turns inwards, it makes sense for the ruling party to want its own financiers in command of a smaller standalone lender that will be well-capitalised, regionally-focused and prepared to serve national objectives, not global shareholders. The installation of a Communist party committee at HSBC’s Chinese investment banking subsidiary, reported by the FT, is a prelude of what is to come: a slow, patient strategy of small steps designed to make inevitable a break-up already determined on high in Beijing. That is why Ping An has fired the first shot in the final battle over the colonial legacy of Hong Kong — a place China has always called “a problem left over from history”. – the smart play would be to cut the PRC and Hong Kong business off from the rest of the network. While China is the growth engine, it relies on the rest of the network for this profitable wealth management business. Secondly, what will happen with Standard Chartered?

    Ideas

    Reviving Progress in the UK – there is an issue with the capital injection required by the plans outlined. Would anyone trust the UK government that they would be able to execute in a competent manner on the ideas? I think that the UK is suffering from a crisis of competence as much as anything else.

    Japan

    Majority of younger Japanese people in survey respect less than 30 percent of their old coworkers | SoraNews24 – crumbling social contract of salary men and the iron rice bowl

    Legal

    Sextortion: a Costly Hell for Celebs, CEOs, Sports Stars

    Luxury

    Cultural appropriation vs appreciation: Can luxury brands in China tell the difference? | Campaign Asia – a mix of things going on here. Poor executions of ‘Chinese-ness’ by western brands historically (I’m looking at you Burberry) and nationalism which has made consumers much more confident and intolerant – rather than cultural appropriation a la ‘African American hair’ style concerns.

    Marketing

    Best of the Week: Sorrell is a unicorn no longer; and Facebook pulled the rug on news again – good analysis of why S4 puzzled some of us industry veterans who had worked at Sorrell-era WPP of miserly pay rises, terrible IT equipment due to penny pinching and constantly lengthening periods between pay reviews

    Media

    Associated Press Aims to Drop the Term “Assault Rifle” from StylebookThe Firearm Blog – really interesting change towards more neutral language while the progressive media obsesses about the new SIG-Sauer MCX Spear which is similar in terms of lethal effect to the longer range rifles field during the first part of the cold war. These cold war era designs have been modernised and are available to gun owners across most of the US. The MCX Spear relies on a newer, harder to get ammunition. This ammunition is also harder to fill at home than existing formats like the earlier NATO 5.56mm and 7.62mmm rounds. Older weapons like the Heckler & Koch G3 are a bit heavier but offer a similar performance, yet you wouldn’t get this information from the progressive media. Regardless of your opinion on gun control, the facts matter.

    “I HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE” | Campaign Monitor – Ad Contrarian on privacy and ad platforms

    Retailing

    Maybe We Don’t Need Groceries in 15 Minutes After All – The New York Times

    Shein shed $30b in value since April, private bids show – not that surprising given how disposable has declined

    Security

    CNN Exclusive: FBI investigation determined Chinese-made Huawei equipment could disrupt US nuclear arsenal communications – CNNPolitics

    Software

    Revealed: Documents Show How Roblox Planned to Bend to Chinese Censorship

    Taiwan

    Taiwan’s ‘time machine’ house recreates, preserves memories of Hong Kong — Radio Free Asia – this is a really interesting project by Hong Kong expats, for Hong Kong expats based in Taiwan. The idea of collective memory and nostalgia also came through this piece here: Mementos of a vanished Hong Kong pile up at vintage second-hand store amid emigration wave – Hong Kong Free Press HKFP 

    Technology

    Beijing detains high-flying Tsinghua semiconductor boss, report says | Financial Times – Zhao Weiguo, the former head of an expansive Chinese conglomerate with state backing and deep investments in the global technology sector, has been placed under investigation by officials in Beijing, according to local media. The 54-year-old, who led cash-strapped chipmaking giant Tsinghua Unigroup for a decade, has been out of contact after being taken from his home by authorities in mid-July, reported Caixin, a Chinese business publication.

    Telecoms

    Eutelsat to bid for OneWeb – eeNews Europe and interesting direct state involvement in the combined business UK and France to get board seats in planned Eutelsat and OneWeb tie-up | Financial Times 

  • Lost luggage & more things

    Lost luggage

    Qantas chaos: outsourced baggage handler says one in 10 bags not making flights | Qantas | The Guardian – this lost luggage mess is emblematic of what is happening globally. Delta Airlines put on a dedicated flight to repatriate 1,000 pieces of lost luggage that had been left behind in in London Heathrow airport. Lost luggage and other overwhelmed ground services has seen both Heathrow and Schiphol airport in Amsterdam cut flight numbers. Lost luggage will tarnish airline reputations.

    Rimowa pilots case as carry on luggage

    A poor experience on lost luggage will give discount airlines an opening, given that they will be supporting fuel related price increases anyway. These lost luggage problems will also help rail companies. I could see Eurostar running some ‘lost luggage’ response ads as a way of putting pressure on British Airways

    China

    Chinese nationalists celebrate Shinzo Abe shooting online, as some argue feeling happy is the normal reaction | South China Morning Post – you also had restaurants and other businesses rolling out special offers including 8.8 RMB discounts to celebrate Shinzo Abe’s death. It was interesting that this outpouring wasn’t censored and the stores not visited indicating Chinese government support for this ‘Chinazi‘ hatred

    China hotpot chain Haidilao spins off overseas unit | Financial Times – basically a hedge against China’s ongoing anti-COVID measures

    Consumer behaviour

    We weren’t meant to see this many beautiful faces – The Face – beauty overstimulation effect of Instagram culture

    Chinese consumer boycotts of foreign companies, 2008–2021 – basically they’re primed to behave like assholes

    As Netflix pivots, American attitudes shift to owning digital assets, not just streaming them | TechCrunch 

    Economics

    China’s image loses its shine in Europe | Financial Times – In the UK, Germany and France, only 14 per cent, 33 per cent and 41 per cent of people questioned in 2006 had an unfavourable view of China. Now, they stand at 69 per cent, 74 per cent and 68 per cent respectively. – its human rights, then military power, then economics and finally Chinese political interference. Central and eastern European’s governments joined hands with Beijing in launching an initiative known as the 16+1 format. It was meant to herald a new dawn of mutually beneficial co-operation. China managed to alienate all with the exception of Hungary and Serbia. The Chinese ignored the region fears of Russia and strong attachment to the US as the ultimate guarantor of each country’s independence – likely because of China’s laser focus on the US as its enemy. Serbia makes sense, Russia backed them during the break-up of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia wasn’t ‘freed’ by the Soviet Union from Nazi occupation and Tito managed to maintain a distance from them. Hungary is the one that is more puzzling my perspective; the people were crushed in 1956 by Russian tanks when they tried to move away from communism

    The UK economy is stagnant — and the reasons run deep | Financial Times – the 15 years between 2004 and 2019 — pre-Covid and pre-Brexit — were the weakest for growth in gross domestic product per head since the years between 1919 and 1934. Low growth in GDP per head caused low growth in household real disposable incomes: those for non-pensioners rose by 12 per cent between 2004-05 and 2019-20. This can be compared to an average rise of 40 per cent every 15 years since 1961. Also significant have been changes in income distribution. Between 1980 and 1995, median non-pensioner household real disposable incomes rose by 37 per cent, but by 67 per cent for the top decile and only 3 per cent for the bottom one. Between 1992 and 2007, incomes rose by 41 per cent, 47 per cent and 37 per cent, respectively: growth then was both fast and widely shared, which was surely far better. But then, between 2004 and 2019, as median incomes rose by a mere 12 per cent, the top decile’s rose 11 per cent and the bottom’s 2 per cent: that was stagnation all round

    Trade War – by Dexter Roberts

    Finance

    Tymbals : What can Bitcoin teach us about marketing 

    Hong Kong

    ‘Hong Kong police’ threaten UK barristers of jailed tycoon Jimmy Lai | News | The Times – likely to be deniable middle men working on behalf of the government. You had similar middle men used to threaten, intimidate and assault the likes of journalists in the past. See also My testimony today about Hong Kong to the US Congressional-Executive Committee on China – the commentary of NSL related practices being used on non-NSL related charges is very interesting, showing a corrosion of the judiciary

    Hong Kong’s legacy — from Chris Patten’s Diaries to City on the Edge | Financial Times – Patten argues convincingly that for Britain or any other country to abandon liberal principles and yield to the Chinese Communist party’s demands at every opportunity brings neither political nor commercial benefits. The trade and investment statistics he cites from the final decades of British rule do indeed suggest there is little correlation between grovelling and real rewards for business & … “China’s decision [in 2020] to impose the national security law as a pre-emptive strike against a perceived revolutionary situation in Hong Kong amounts to the premature end of ‘One Country, Two Systems’ [the formula for autonomy] 27 years before the 2047 deadline,” Hung writes. “The cost of this move for China could be grave,” he concludes, at a time when the US is already seeking to curb Beijing’s technological and strategic ambitions and China still benefits from Hong Kong’s role as an internationally connected financial centre.

    Hong Kong IPOs: lithium giant’s disappointing listing spells trouble | Financial Times – if this isn’t a one-off then it asks big questions around Hong Kong’s ability to bring foreign capital into China. The lithium company is trading at a 60 precent discount to its price on the Shenzhen stock exchange

    Ideas

    Thinking About the Unthinkable in Ukraine | Foreign Affairs – with back-and-forth tactical nuclear shots is that Russia would be at an advantage because it possesses more tactical nuclear weapons than the United States does. That asymmetry would require U.S. policymakers to resort sooner to so-called strategic forces (intercontinental missiles or bombers) to keep the upper hand. That, in turn, would risk unleashing the all-out mutual destruction of the major powers’ homelands. Thus, both the tit-for-tat and the disproportionate retaliatory options pose dauntingly high risks. A less dangerous option would be to respond to a nuclear attack by launching an air campaign with conventional munitions alone against Russian military targets and mobilizing ground forces for potential deployment into the battle in Ukraine. This would be coupled with two strong public declarations. First, to dampen views of this low-level option as weak, NATO policymakers would emphasize that modern precision technology makes tactical nuclear weapons unnecessary for effectively striking targets that used to be considered vulnerable only to undiscriminating weapons of mass destruction. That would frame Russia’s resort to nuclear strikes as further evidence not only of its barbarism but of its military backwardness. Direct entry into the war at the conventional level would not neutralize panic in the West. But it would mean that Russia would be faced with the prospect of combat against a NATO that was substantially superior in nonnuclear forces, backed by a nuclear retaliatory capability, and less likely to remain restrained if Russia turned its nuclear strikes against U.S. rather than Ukrainian forces.

    Innovation

    €5.5m for 50 qubit photonic quantum computer – eeNews Europe

    Switzerland Moves Ahead With Underground Autonomous Cargo Delivery – IEEE Spectrum 

    IBM Announces Novel Advancement in 3D Wafer Stacking – ExtremeTech

    Japan

    Abe Shinzo: A retrospective – by Noah Smith – Noahpinion

    Marketing

    Ritson: ‘Most scary and remarkable bit of data I’ve ever seen’ – brands, marketers wasting 25% of budgets on loose and lazy briefs, remain delusional on how good they are | Mi3

    Media

    Leaked Videos Show Disney Is the Biggest Ad Tech Giant You’ve Never Heard Of – extremely off-brand usage of Disney characters by its advertising sales team

    Why more advertisers will see Amazon as a brand builder – The Media Leader 

    Why the Elizabeth line marks a new era for OOH design – The Media Leader – better integration into the built environment

    Hollywood won’t budge for Chinese censors anymore. Here’s what changed – CNN – talent in the Chinese industry had become stronger. Local stories told “in Mandarin and portrayed with Chinese sensibilities … naturally appeal to local audiences, particularly as you move from urban to rural markets,” he noted. “As Chinese producers venture further into the action and sci-fi genres in particular, where Hollywood dominated for many years, there will likely be increased competition from local fare.” – the pandering of Hollywood to the Chinese government has created a sector that will likely attempt to bury the US film industry

    A new study points out the biggest threat to the potential of TikTok as it lacks massive earnings for creators compared to rivals / Digital Information World and Nearly Half of Gen Z Prefers TikTok and Instagram Over Google Search – according to Google’s internal studies, “something like almost 40% of young people when they’re looking for a place for lunch, they don’t go to Google Maps or Search, they go to TikTok or Instagram.” Google confirmed this statistic to Insider, saying, “we face robust competition from an array of sources, including general and specialized search engines, as well as dedicated apps.” Google highlighted changes it plans to make to its search engine to appeal to a younger audience, including the ability for a user to pan their camera over an area and “instantly glean insights about multiple objects in a wider scene.” Insider has previously reported about the threat TikTok poses to YouTube, which is also owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet. Insider Intelligence predicts TikTok’s advertising revenue will overtake YouTube by 2024. – which makes the TikTok shopping TV service shutdown a bit more puzzling

    Why the Overturning of Roe v. Wade Threatens the Adult Industry — Free Speech Coalition 

    Online

    Meta Is Launching Lawsuits Against Groups That Are Exposing User Data From Facebook and Instagram / Digital Information World 

    Indian farmers streamed fake pro cricket matches to Russian bettors for two weeks – The Verge 

    Security

    US and UK intelligence chiefs call for vigilance on China’s industrial spies | Financial Times – In a joint appearance in London, the chiefs of the US and British intelligence agencies called on companies to be much more vigilant about China. FBI director Christopher Wray said Beijing was using “elaborate shell games” to disguise its spying and was even taking advantage of Spacs, or special purpose acquisition vehicles. “The Chinese government poses an even more serious threat to western businesses than even many sophisticated businesspeople realise,” Wray told business leaders at an event with his MI5 counterpart, Ken McCallum. “I want to encourage you to take the long view as you gauge the threat.” In a reference to the Ministry of State Security and the People’s Liberation Army, Wray added: “When you deal with a Chinese company, know you’re also dealing with the Chinese government — that is the MSS and the PLA — too, almost like silent partners – that this is news to business leaders shows how naive they all are. Based on my experience I believe that the reality is that the business community is already state captured, culpable and willing to endanger their home countries for marginal short term gain. More here: Joint address by MI5 and FBI Heads | MI5 – The Security Service and NEW: Top UK and USA spy chiefs warning on CCP 

    TikTok’s data dilemma – by Casey Newton – Platformer – are we really surprised that TikTok is handing over data to the Chinese security services?

    How Conti ransomware group crippled Costa Rica — then fell apart | Financial Times 

    Taiwan

    China’s Sand Dredgers Run Gray Zone Warfare in Taiwan 

    Web of no web

    Consumer Spending In The Metaverse: Why Might People Spend More? – GWI 

  • Hong Kongers Book Fair + more things

    Hong Kongers Book Fair

    Hong Kongers Book Fair, an independently organised book fair set up by Hillway Culture was cancelled the day before its official launch. The landlords claimed that they had violated a sub letting clause in the contract, the reality has more to do with the current environment around publishing in Hong Kong.

    Hongkongers Book Fair 2022

    Hillway Culture who organised the Hong Kongers Book Fair are looking to keep local Hong Kong culture alive. And what were the books that would have made landlords and the government concern? The diaries of local political prisoners, locally drawn graphic novels, a phonebook of Ukraine and translations of Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm. You can support the book fair organisers and exhibitors through this online shop.

    I can recommend their ‘Hunted and Endangered’ Hongkongers Book Fair shopping bag and Hongkonger passport cover that misquoted A.A. Milne (its actually from Disney’s Pooh’s Grand Adventure The Search for Christopher Robin and was most likely written by children’s screen writer Carter Crocker).

    If ever there’s a tomorrow

    when we’re not together,

    there’s something

    you must remember.

    You’re braver than you believe,

    stronger than you seem,

    and smarter than you think.

    But the most important thing is

    even if we’re apart,

    I’ll always be with you.

    While the literary detection might be wrong the sentiment nails the terrible present facing the Hong Kong people.

    What Putin’s Russia does with artillery, Xi’s China does with a cowed judiciary, triads, law enforcement and toadying transnational business elites.

    Mid Night Racing Club

    Before Fast & The Furious Tokyo Drift raised the international profile of Japanese illegal racing there was Mid Night. This video tells the story of the Porsche 911 Turbo that was at the centre of the club. What I also found interesting was the emphasis on big American muscle cars at the top of the scene rather than say Japanese tuned Mazda RX7s, Nissan Fairlady Zs, Italian sports cars or the big engined German saloon cars like the Mercedes-Benz 300 SEL 6.3 and the Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9. Given how on it the Japanese police usually still are on enforcement I was surprised this could go on, let alone have the impact that it had.

    The end of the salary man

    The Asia Society and Adecco try to put lipstick on the pig of how middle class ‘iron rice bowl’ jobs are disappearing even amongst the most successful corporate organisations in Japan, Korea and Singapore. This is the end of a social contract between society, exploitive corporations and governments who collaborated in creating directed economies. This has been tearing away at the fabric of society, a large number of middle aged men are now homeless. They spent their best years not present in their marriages and when made redundant were kicked out of their homes on to the streets.

    Helihome

    In the family farm house were my Mum grew up there hung a jigsaw picture that was of a painting of the post-war American Antarctic Expedition. It captured my imagination with its Trucker Sno Cat vehicles, pallets being moved off bright orange freighters onto sled and a bright orange Sikorsky helicopter.

    I spent a good deal of my early childhood looking at that picture. So if you had asked 6-year old me to come up with my dream camper van, I would have likely come up with something like the Helihome. The Helihome was designed in the early 1970s by a Florida aviation company using ex-Vietnam war surplus US marine helicopters.

    Orlando Helicopter Airways my 6-year old self salutes you.

    BMW 7-series production footage

    I love manufacturing footage. This b-roll of the BMW 7-series production line is particularly interesting. I thought back to the old Japanese animated cartoons of the automated processes that put a mecha into action as the pilot was put into the head. The degree of automation in this line looks like the science fiction of a few decades ago. Which makes me wonder, how has automation been so advanced in some ways and so basic in others. Why are smartphones still reliant on an army of women to hand assemble the devices? Why is UK industry like food services still so reliant on agency workers earning minimum hourly wages?

  • Delivery services

    Why talk about delivery services? On the days that I go into office I am reminded of the late 1990s and 2000 with online services marketing, in particular delivery services. The Super Bowl advertising had a plethora of online businesses, Coinbase’s QRcode ad will likely be the Pets.com sock puppet of 2022. (The reason why online businesses are on TV is that it represents the lowest cost per reach for effective brand awareness of any medium, including digital channels).

    https://youtu.be/0XXPKvbNr8o

    Growth hacking

    We also saw a resurgence in growth hacking, trying to get consumers to go from ‘I’ve never heard of you’ to app download as fast as possible. Which usually means thrusting a leaflet with a QRcode into my hand as I leave the tube station on my way home most week day evenings. A lot of these apps are delivery services.

    Here’s a list of the on-demand delivery services that have been promoted to me so far:

    • Getir – I had a leaflet from Getir one time at the the tube station. It’s purple and yellow brand colours caught my attention because it immediately reminded me of vintage Yahoo! I threw the leaflet in the recycling and paid no more attention until ‘Taxi-gate‘. The company alleged that their agency partner didn’t buy enough taxi advertising for their brand and instead bought advertising for other delivery services. I didn’t realise until I started researching this post that Getir was founded in 2015 by a team in Turkey.
    • Uber Eats – Uber Eats had already established itself as a restaurant delivery service to rival Deliveroo and Just Eats. It has also pivoted into grocery deliveries over the past couple of years in my neighbourhood. I would get emails and mailouts from my credit card company with a discount code for use the first time I grocery shopped on Uber Eats.
    • Deliveroo – Like Uber Eats Deliveroo had already established itself as a restaurant delivery service and expanded into grocery delivery services as well. I had them actively promoted to me via email, as I had used Deliveroo in the past
    • Ocado – This spring Ocado started promoting Ocado Zoom to me promising deliveries of a limited amount of products within two hours of order
    • Gorillas – Gorillas is a Getir analogue that was founded in Germany and launched in 2020. I got a number of leaflets from them, they were the most frequent leaflet that I received on my way out of the tube station. The logo was distinctive, but that’s all I could remember about it.

    Kozmo.com

    Kozmo.com could be considered to be the American dot com ancestor of online delivery services. Kozmo.com was the brainchild of two investment bankers in the US. It was launched in 1998 serving areas of New York. In July 2000, at the height of its business, the company operated in selected areas of Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., San Diego and Los Angeles. It was popular with young professionals and college students, in the areas that it served. But despite the delivery service’s careful choice of markets served, it didn’t survive the dot.com bust going under in April 2001. While the business had filed for an IPO, it never actually went public.

    Economic circumstances

    The UK is likely to be heading into a recession that will be harder and longer than our near peers. There is an inflation and commodity pricing storm that has caused a cost of living crisis currently dominating the political agenda and rising interest rates.

    We know from businesses like Uber and Kozmo.com that delivery services are a low margin business at the best of times. We could be staring into another online business bust. This time it will be driven by a wider economic crisis rather than the precipitating incident, but the effect will be the same. Retail investors including pension fund savers will suffer.

    It feels that we forget history and are doomed to repeat it. Yes smartphones made ordering more convenient than dial-up, but it still didn’t change the essential business model for these delivery services. These businesses relied on cheap money to burn through in the hope of eventually getting profitable. In this respect it reminds me of the dot.com startups that I used to meet at the start of my agency life who talked about not worrying too much about profitability, but about trying to move at ‘internet speed‘. We’ve already seen this kind of thinking at WeWork and other Softbank businesses.

    History is destiny; if we fail to learn the appropriate lessons from it.

  • Asian archive footage + more stuff

    Asian archive footage

    I have noticed a lot of b-roll from Japan on YouTube. This seems to have expanded to a wider category of Asian archive footage.

    Here’s some footage of the 1970s and 1980s in Japan. This is interesting because it doesn’t seem to be broadcast quality footage and at least some of it was shot by an amateur cameraman.

    My latest Asian archive footage discovery was footage from Taiwan. Taiwan was a wider economic powerhouse before the opening up of China. This footage was shot during the 1980s and 1990s. The first thing that struck me the influence on Taiwanese modern culture of Japan (like baseball). But the traditional Chinese culture is still better preserved than anywhere on the mainland and probably even more so than Hong Kong and Singapore.

    Russian economics

    Perun was a gaming channel that pivoted into making thoughtful analysis videos on different aspects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This video covers the economic impact. TL;DR – war creates a huge amount of economic value destruction. It is well worth a watch as Perun does some great analysis.

    Shortcut to scratching

    I wish I had this video 30 years ago. DJ Shortcut of The Invisibl Skratch Piklz and World Famous Beat Junkies breaks down scratching techniques.

    Chinese invasion of Taiwan

    Chris Cappy provides an interesting perspective on the PLA and a likely Taiwan invasion. But that doesn’t mean that they couldn’t do a blockade or Pearl Harbour style strikes to isolate Taiwan. Secondly, like Saddam Hussein before them the non-military Chinese leadership may not fully realise their own limitations. China has been known to throw its military into conflicts that they weren’t ready for, or capable of. The example that immediately comes to mind is the shambolic border conflict with Vietnam.