Joe Duck

Have Blog. Will Travel.

Capitalism, wealth disparity, and the end of Western Civilization as we know it … what would Adam Smith do?

Thanks to my good pal Keith (Check out his cool Travel blog about the Tuvaluan Island of Nanumea  ) I’m directed once again to the capitalist controversies.

www.ft.com

A letter to capitalists from Adam Smith

By David Rubenstein

To: Capitalists of the World

From: Adam Smith

What has become of my beloved capitalism? Countries teeter, protests rage, unemployed multiply, deficits abound the virtues of capitalism are questioned. Based on a few hundred years of observation, I have some fresh thoughts on how to sustain this system for a few hundred years more, or at least do better in 2012 than it did in 2011.  

….  CONTINUED at FT – free registration required.

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My (Joe’s) take on that article:

I like the first part – the setup – by far the most.

In my opinion Adam Smith would be fine with the ups and downs and wealth disparities as long as the poor keep getting richer – which is in simple terms what is happening now, esp. when one does not (absurdly) remove Chinese and Indians from the equation.

The disparity controversies  remind me of the OWS ranting against the big system, and I remain somewhat unmoved by that until I can find better data about money flows.  There may be some merit for the case that wealth is flowing “too disproportionately” to the wealthy, but we need a LOT more than simply observing disproportion, which is the cornerstone of smart markets.   Without it you tend to get a race to the bottom, where the lack of incentive  makes it hard to get folks to work “harder” than others.   Simplification?  Yes of course, but if we are ever going to improve the disparity issues we need the American left to recognize how brilliantly the American system has worked over a long history to *improve* things using the architecture of entrepreneurial incentive, combined with a very progressive federal and state taxation system where those with the most pick up most of the tab for those who don’t have as much.
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Obviously about 99 % of us would like to see the extra wealth flow to US more than the 1 percenters who are reaping more than what some would call a “fair share”, but …
Let’s try to figure this out by simplifying:  Let’s say if you have a single very clever woman who builds a company that eventually consists of 101 people, the founder (who took risk, mortgaged her  house in process, and developed a brilliant idea into a business) and 100 other folks who were hired after the company was a success, all 100 of now make a living wage of $50,000 per year plus benefits.   Let’s also reasonably assume that the founder remains clever, and her departure would hurt the company to the tune of many millions in profits.
Question:  What is a “fair amount” for the founder to make in this example?    0 because she loves her work and she has no boss ?   50,000 because everybody else makes that?   100% of the extra profit she account for?   Very few would argue for any of these.  Obviously she should make MORE than the others, and LESS than the total extra profit.
Really, the only smart issue on the big economics table is HOW MUCH MORE?
VERY IMPORTANTLY note this.   Assume she’s been making 50k, same as the wage of her workers.  Then, after a great year that she single handedly engineers that give the company an extra 5 million in profits – profit from accounts that are likely to continue into the future –  she raises her pay to 500k  (a 900% raise) and doubles all her worker’s pay to 100k (100% raise).    How do we interpret that action?
OWS is incensed – the new wealth was distributed VERY disproportionately.  She got 900% the raise she gave her workers.
I, on the other hand, think she’s great and would love to work for her.   That’s GREAT pay when you have so little risk, and she’s the architect of the innovations.    Both in fairness terms and in pragmatic terms I want her to get more.   I want SOME of that extra profit, after all, I’m part of the company, but the architects of the wealth creation “should” be disproportionately compensated.
There are exceptions to this simplification, such as CEOs that preside over lowered valuations yet make big money, but in simple terms this is pretty much how things work, and we change that at our enormous peril, because you can bet dollars to yuan that China will choose that model over the OWS more socialistically inspired model.
Key questions are this:  HOW do we optimally distribute and redistribute (tax)  ”new wealth”?   and “old wealth”, such as inheritance money?

January 30, 2012 Posted by | not yet categorized | 2 Comments

What’s Up Joe Duck?

It’s always annoying when folks say how busy they are when – almost always – - they are involved in many hours per day of unnecessary TV watching, Facebooking, gaming, making your own hair gel, hobbies, gardening, etc.   Nothing wrong with all those things but it’s not the same as “being busy” doing things you MUST do because of work and other “essential” committments.

That said, I think I’m into the “busy” realm now with more projects than I can possibly complete for some time.   It’s been a good motivator for me, but it’s a little intimidating too.

Here are some of them:

Retire USA Retirement Information.   This is a big project with four other partners where we’ll showcase retirement options in all 50 states.   States and cities are online and I’m building the connections to the 5000+ category records now.    We’ve had an Oregon retirement website for some time and a retirement blog for some time but will be revamping that soon to include more information from more writers and many experts in retirement.

US History, US History Blog, Online Highways Travel, Travel and History.  These are the sites managed mostly by my business partner but with some input by me, especially at our two travel blogs US History and Travel and History.    I LOVE travel blogging and wish I had even more time to travel and blog, but blogging is playing mostly a weak supporting role in my internet projects.   I still need to get my Vietnam trip of Feb 2011 integrated into Online Highways as well as create more opportunities for small businesses at the site.

House Remodel.   My son Ben and I bought a house for him to live in when he leaves home.  It was a good “REO” post foreclosure deal but it needs a huge amount of work to become a great place.    We’ll get some contractor help but do a lot of the work ourselves.  After a few days of pulling up flooring I’m sure glad they invented Ibuprofen.

The QuickAid.com Airport Information Directory.  This  project started me off over ten years ago as an internet entrepreneur.   I bought the website and data from another company and revamped it to include advertising.  However after good initial success I fell victim to Google’s changing algorithms.   They seem to be liking QuickAid again so I’ll be posting to that blog more often and revamping some of the old content about airports all over the world.

AirportCityCodes.com  This is my Airport Codes database of Airports and world airport code and airline code information that also needs some attention.

Twitter.  @JoeDuck  I still love twitter but not quite sure how to use it to business advantage.  I’m setting up individual accounts for many of my websites, but it’s hard to keep engaged with them all.

…. to be continued …

 

January 20, 2012 Posted by | not yet categorized | Leave a Comment

CES 2012 Wednesday – Fox news reporting from CES

CES 2012 Wednesday – Fox news reporting from CES

Originally uploaded by JoeDuck

Here is FOX news reporting (I think live) from CES 2012 here in Las Vegas. As always the show is a sea of consumer technology and people. Some 125,000 (approximate) attendees, 6000 press and 2700 Vendors. This appears to be Microsoft’s last CES and there’s som buzz about the show facing challenges, but my guess is that CES will remains the key tech showcase for the world and that we’ll see Asian companies take up the slack for Microsoft and others who opt out of the show. The costs here for exhibitors can be staggering with the larger players like Samsung and Microsoft spending more on exhibits that the smaller companies here make in several years. Yet generally the small vendors tell me they are happy with the show – for many their big event of the year in terms of meeting buyers and showcasing their stuff.

January 11, 2012 Posted by | not yet categorized | Leave a Comment

Testing WordPress QuickPress Home page form

I’d hoped to use this “QuickPresss Home Page form”  for  my reporting from CES 2012 but just lost a nice detailed post.

Update – seems to be working OK now.  I’m wondering if maybe I lost connectivity here at the Rogue Valley Airport while writing the post leading to its untimely death?   In any case, I think I won’t be trusting it for long posts yet…

January 10, 2012 Posted by | not yet categorized | 4 Comments

QuickPress MAJOR fail!

I’m a big fan of WordPress but QuickPress just burned me after I penned a LONG CES 2012 Post that simply vanished after saying “you forgot to write something”. So, I tried it and I hate it so far … Use caution if you use the “QuickPress Home page form”

January 10, 2012 Posted by | not yet categorized | , | Leave a Comment

Merry Christmas to All

Wishing everybody a merry Christmas. May 2012 bring peace and prosperity to you and yours.

December 24, 2011 Posted by | not yet categorized | , , | 2 Comments

CES 2012 at Technology Report ?! OMG!

The rumors, of course, are true.   Starting immediately, over at Technology Report, I’m covering the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas with “pre show” coverage.  In January I’ll be there roaming the halls in real time looking for the next big thing in Consumer Technology.    One of the fun things about CES is that it’s something of an “industry insiders” show, so you have pretty good access to folks that might otherwise be hard to talk to.  This photo is from the 2009 conference where I had a chance to ask Ford’s CEO Alan Mulally if  Ford would be taking bailout money from the US Government.

Image

Photo Credit @JoeDuck Technology Report. Use with attribution OK.

Mulally told me he did not think so, and very much to Ford’s credit he has remained true to that comment.  In fact Ford recently pulled a commercial, some say in response to White House pressure, where they noted this as the commercial takes a big dig at the other places that did take bailout money.

In an industry with what generally seem like a lot of lackluster intellects, Mulally was a very impressive speaker during his keynote talk as well as an impressive  ”real time answers” guy in the give and take after the event (pictured here).   An aerospace engineer by training, Mulally is clearly a key factor in Ford’s apparently successful efforts to recover despite many global economic obstacles.  But Auto technology is not my specialty.  However in theory if not in practice I really *am* an expert at “social media” since I do have a …. wait for it….  Masters degree in the Social Sciences and about 20 years in various technology fields, mostly relating to using the internet to promote travel, tourism, and destination marketing.

But ome to think of it, NOTHING is really my speciality.   I’m a jack of some trades and master of none, except maybe table tennis, and then only for somebody of anglo saxon heritage. That said, most of what I’m hoping to report on at the show will be the latest and greatest computing devices and social media trends.    CES is not really focused on the content and programming portions of internet technologies, but there are always great examples of presentations and programming at the show.    In fact one of the most impressive tech things I’ve seen *anywhere* was at CES 2010 - Intel’s “Web Cube”, a superb blend of fast hardware and clever real time internet information flow where you could have the system go out and find people talking online about something and then pull those comments and information about them into the cube.   It was visually, conceptually, and informatively striking and I only hope they don’t just strand that technology in the exhibit.   Need to check as they may have this in use in other online places already.

December 10, 2011 Posted by | not yet categorized | , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

Specialists vs Generalists

In My Humble Opinion ….. it seems that many of the most fascinating people tend to be *specialists* in their fields – highly focused experts in academia, cooking or sport or film or whatever.  Yet it seems the most interesting life you can lead is that of a *generalist*, dipping more lightly into the many amazing things the world has to offer a curious person.

This creates something of a problem if you want to be … interesting.   You can beef up your expertise in a small number of things and enjoy the attention or praise for your virtuousity, but this means you’ll have less time to simply enjoy the simpler things in life and less time to explore the almost infinite number of things going on around you.

Solutions?

Save time by watching more  TV instead of experiencing real stuff !  ?   : )

Be an expert in a few things you love, but save the rest of your time for exploration?

Travel More!   I love this option!

December 3, 2011 Posted by | not yet categorized | , , , | 7 Comments

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