Economics – Page 223 – artdiamondblog.com

“Axel Springer Has Dared to Compete with Itself”

The European newspaper publisher Axel Springer, discussed in the story quoted below, appears to be following the advice of Christensen and Raynor in their book The Innovator’s Solution. In that book, they suggest that incumbent firms need to be willing to set up units that compete with their older business models, if they hope to survive the introduction of disruptive innovations.

(p. B4) PARIS — As the death toll in the American newspaper industry mounted this month, the German publisher Axel Springer, which owns Bild, the biggest newspaper in Europe, reported the highest profit in its 62-year history.
. . .
Axel Springer generates 14 percent of its revenue online, more than most American newspapers, even though the markets in which it operates — primarily Germany and Eastern Europe — are less digitally developed than the United States.
One reason, Mr. Döpfner said, is that Axel Springer has dared to compete with itself. Instead of trying to protect existing publications, it acquired or created new ones, some of which distribute the same content to different audiences.
At one newsroom in Berlin, for example, journalists produce content for six publications: the national newspaper Die Welt, its Sunday edition and a tabloid version aimed at younger readers; a local paper called Berliner Morgenpost, and two Web sites.

For the full story, see:
ERIC PFANNER. “European Newspapers Find Creative Ways to Thrive in the Internet Age.” The New York Times (Mon., March 29, 2009): B4.
(Note: ellipsis added.)

The Christensen and Raynor book mentioned above, is:
Christensen, Clayton M., and Michael E. Raynor. The Innovator’s Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2003.

Let Venture Capitalists Invest Their Own Money in Entrepreneurs

(p. A17) Venture-capital funds deal solely with privately purchased equity securities in start-up companies, which are not traded in public markets. They have as their limited partners only people who meet the S.E.C.’s definition of a “qualified client” (meaning they possess a substantial amount of money to invest). These investors, who typically allocate a small percentage of their portfolios to venture capital, are familiar with risk, but it is long-term risk, stretching out 7 to 10 years. They put their faith not in publicly traded securities but in entrepreneurs, emerging technologies and new markets.

Because their business is contained within the ecosystem of limited partners, venture-capital funds and the companies in which they invest absorb all the risk: there can be no domino effect in the world financial system.
. . .
It would be a shame to impose any new limits now, when venture capital is the asset class that can best help build and nurture the companies that bring about growth and job creation. The figures are compelling. In 2008, venture-backed companies that went public in previous years accounted for 12.1 million jobs and $2.9 trillion in revenues for the United States Treasury.
The names of companies financed by venture capital are legendary: Cisco, Google, Facebook, Apple, Federal Express, Staples, Yahoo, Amazon, Genentech and on and on. The privately purchased equity securities that helped start these companies supported new technological and scientific ideas, all of which led to new jobs.

For the full commentary, see:
ALAN PATRICOF and ERIC DINALLO. “Stopping Start-Ups.” The New York Times (Mon., August 31, 2009): A17.
(Note: ellipsis added.)

Government Regulations Stifle Creative Venture Capital

(p. A9) This is a good time to recall that the venture-capital industry was born as a reaction to New Deal regulations that stifled capital and prolonged the Depression. The country’s first venture-capital firm (other than family-run funds) was American Research and Development, planned in the 1930s and launched after World War II in Boston.

Its leader was longtime Harvard Business School professor Georges Doriot, who is the subject of a fascinating recent biography, “Creative Capital,” by Spencer Ante. Mr. Ante, a BusinessWeek editor, tells me that as he researched the topic “one of the most surprising things I learned was how concerned financiers and industrialists had become about the riskless economy in direct response to the New Deal. Even in the 1930s, people understood that small business was the lifeblood of the economy.”
American Research and Development backed early-stage companies deemed too risky by banks and investment trusts at the time. The firm was an early investor in Digital Equipment Corp., the Boston-area company that revolutionized computing.
Despite financial success, the history of the firm is a reminder that our regulatory system, by its nature focused on avoiding risk, has a hard time dealing with investment firms whose mission is to take risks. Doriot was a well-known name in commerce and academia from the 1940s through the 1970s. He was the first French graduate of Harvard Business School, a founder of the INSEAD business school and a leading adviser to the U.S. military.
But even as a pillar of Boston’s commercial and academic worlds, Doriot had many run-ins with federal regulators. Over the years, regulators dictated compensation for the American Research and Development staff, tried to force disclosure of the performance of its early-stage companies, and second-guessed how it tracked the valuations of its investments.
The Securities and Exchange Commission hounded the company so often that Doriot once wrote a three-page memo saying, “ARD has more knowledge of what is right and wrong than the average person at the SEC.” He was prudent enough not to send it. He did mail another memo to the SEC enforcement office in Boston, in 1965: “I rather resent, after 20 years of experience, to have two men come here, spend two days, and tell us that we do not know what we are doing.”
. . .
No venture capital firm has asked to be bailed out, and none are too big to fail. As hard as it is for regulators to understand, the nature of venture capital is such that it should not even aspire to be a low-risk enterprise

For the full commentary, see:

L. GORDON CROVITZ. “No Such Thing as Riskless Venture Capital; New regulations could retard the innovation our economy needs.” The Wall Street Journal (Weds., AUGUST 9, 2009): A19.
(Note: ellipsis added.)

Government Protects Us from Unlicensed Eight Year Old Lemonade Entrepreneur

Daniela Earnest at her lemonade stand (left) and in court (right). Source of photo: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GGAmzDRA_BY/SnvDbYoMpzI/AAAAAAAAHEg/W1BI2XK8DH4/s400/daniela%2Bearnest.jpg

(p. 5A) THE FRESNO BEE

TULARE, Calif. — Eight-year- old Daniela Earnest made lemonade out of lemons in more ways than one last week.

Hoping to raise money for a family trip to Disneyland, the Tulare girl opened a lemonade stand Monday. But she didn’t have a business license, so the city shut it down that day.
. . .

Tulare officials said they could not recall ever shutting down a lemonade stand before, though such action is not uncommon. Authorities across the nation have done it.
. . .
Daniela found the situation “pretty weird” but said it hadn’t soured her on reopening the lemonade stand.

For the full story, see:
The Fresno Bee. “City puts squeeze on pint-size purveyor of lemonade.” Omaha World-Herald (Sun., Aug. 9, 2009): 5A.
(Note: ellipses added.)

“Churchillian Steadfastness” Versus “Sullen Paralysis and Futile Efforts”

(p. A15) . . . beyond amelioration and providing the judicial (or in the case of the FDIC, quasi-judicial) procedures for reorganization, there is little more that the government can do to accelerate the unwinding and renewal necessary to put the economy back on an even keel.

The process involves a sequence of negotiations and experiments that cannot be truncated by throwing in more resources. As Frederick Brooks wrote in his celebrated book on software development, “The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering”: “When a task cannot be partitioned because of sequential constraints, the application of more effort has no effect on the schedule. The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned.” “Brooks’s Law” suggests that increasing the size of software teams may delay development.
The wide variety of problems and circumstances in an economic downturn precludes the effective use of a single solution. And the federal government doesn’t have the capacity to determine adjustments on a case-by-case basis. The late Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek taught that the “man on the spot” with the appropriate local knowledge was much more capable of making good investment decisions than a central planner.
. . .
Suppose that, when the financial crisis broke two years ago, our leaders had shown a Churchillian steadfastness and allowed the normal realignment to play out under a predictable judicial and regulatory regime. The prices of stocks, bank debt and houses would still have crumbled and unemployment risen. Although recovery wouldn’t have been immediate, we’d at least have progress, instead of a sullen paralysis and futile efforts to turn the clock back.
More loans would have been renegotiated and foreclosed properties auctioned off. The FDIC would already be engaged in finding a good home for the loans and deposits of a megabank or two. That agency, now operating with about one-third the staff it had in the 1980s, could also have used some of the bailout money that helped pay for bonuses at AIG and its counterparties to recruit, train and retain more employees.
Best of all, more entrepreneurs and innovators, who capitalize on the opportunities to be found in the midst of turmoil, could have been building the foundations of a prosperous future.

For the full commentary, see:
Amar Bhidé. “You Can’t Rush a Recovery; While small business struggles, Goldman Sachs was protected from its AIG mistakes.” The Wall Street Journal (Thurs., APRIL 9, 2009): A15.
(Note: ellipsis added.)

Empathetic Judges Are Unjust to Bastiat’s “Unseen”

(p. A15) . . . , a compassionate judge would tend to base his or her decisions on sympathy for the unfortunate; an empathetic judge on how the people directly affected by the decision would think and feel. What could be wrong with that?

Frederic Bastiat answered that question in his famous 1850 essay, “What is Seen and What is Not Seen.” There the economist and member of the French parliament pointed out that law “produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects emerge only subsequently; they are not seen; we are fortunate if we foresee them.” Bastiat further noted that “[t]here is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: The bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.”
This observation is just as true for judges as it is for economists. As important as compassion and empathy are, one can have these feelings only for people that exist and that one knows about — that is, for those who are “seen.”
One can have compassion for workers who lose their jobs when a plant closes. They can be seen. One cannot have compassion for unknown persons in other industries who do not receive job offers when a compassionate government subsidizes an unprofitable plant. The potential employees not hired are unseen.

For the full commentary, see:
JOHN HASNAS. “The ‘Unseen’ Deserve Empathy, Too.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., MAY 29, 2009): A15.
(Note: ellipsis added.)

BB&T Founder John Allison Speaks for Rand’s Free Market Philosophy

“John A. Allison IV, chairman of the banking company BB&T, is a devoted follower of Ayn Rand’s antigovernment views.” Source of photo and caption: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. 1) OVER much of the last four decades, John A. Allison IV built BB&T from a local bank in North Carolina into a regional powerhouse that has weathered the economic crisis far better than many of its troubled rivals — largely by avoiding financial gimmickry.

And in his spare time, Mr. Allison travels the country making speeches about his bank’s distinctive philosophy.
Speaking at a recent convention in Boston to a group of like-minded business people and students, Mr. Allison tells a story: A boy is playing in a sandbox, only to have his truck taken by another child. A fight ensues, and the boy’s mother tells him to stop being selfish and to share.
“You learned in that sandbox at some really deep level that it’s bad to be selfish,” says Mr. Allison, adding that the mother has taught a horrible lesson. “To say man is bad because he is selfish is to say it’s bad because he’s alive.”
If Mr. Allison’s speech sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because it’s based on the philosophy of Ayn Rand, who celebrated the virtues of reason, self-interest and laissez-faire capitalism while maintaining that altruism is a destructive force. In Ms. Rand’s world, nothing is more heroic — and sexy — than a hard-working businessman free to pursue his wealth. And nothing is worse than a pesky bureaucrat trying to restrict business and redistribute wealth.
Or, as Mr. Allison explained, “put balls and chains on good people, and bad things happen.”
Ms. Rand, who died in 1982, has all sorts of admirers on Wall Street, in corporate boardrooms and in the entertainment industry, including the hedge fund manager Clifford Asness, the former baseball great Cal Ripken Jr. and the Whole Foods chief executive, John Mackey.
But Mr. Allison, who remains BB&T’s chairman after retiring as chief executive in December, has emerged as perhaps the most vocal proponent of Ms. Rand’s ideas and of the dangers of government meddling in the markets. For a dedicated Randian like him, the government’s headlong rush to try to rescue and fix the economy is a horrifying re-(p. 6)alization of his worst fears.

For the full story, see:

ANDREW MARTIN. “Give Him Liberty, but Not a Bailout.” The New York Times, SundayBusiness Section (Sun., August 2, 2009): 1 & 6.
(Note: the online title is the slightly different: “Give BB&T Liberty, but Not a Bailout.”)

Andy Grove’s Case Against the Car Bailout

(p. A13) Imagine if in the middle of the computer transformation the Reagan administration worried about the upheaval and tried to rescue this vital industry by making huge investments in leading mainframe companies. The purpose of such investments would have been to protect the viability of these companies. The effect, however, would have been to put the brakes on transformation and all but ensure that the U.S. would lose its leadership role.

The government’s investment in General Motors might be directly helpful if the auto industry only had the recession to contend with. But that is not the case. The industry faces the confluence of a world-wide recession, rising fuel prices, environmental demands, globalization of manufacturing, and, most importantly, technological change involving the very nature of the automobile.

For the full commentary, see:
ANDREW S. GROVE. “What Detroit Can Learn From Silicon Valley; Vertically integrated production is a thing of the past. Will the auto industry’s new overseers catch on?” Wall Street Journal (Mon., JULY 13, 2009): A13.

“How Do We Get on the Special Interests, Special Treatment Bandwagon?”

Uncreative destruction. “Jose Luis Garcia pours sodium silicate into a junkyard car engine to render it inoperable at a lot in Sun Valley, Calif., on Tuesday. The process destroys the car’s engine in a matter of minutes.” Source of photo and part of caption: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. A4) WASHINGTON — Who doesn’t like the government’s “cash for clunkers” program? Your mechanic, for one.

Owners of automotive repair shops say the program to help invigorate sales of new cars is succeeding at their expense.
Bill Wiygul, whose family owns four repair shops in Virginia, said he has already had five or six customers decide against repairs. A man who sits on the board of Mr. Wiygul’s bank traded in his car rather than repair it. “He’d been a customer at our Reston store since it opened,” Mr. Wiygul said.
The clunkers program, formally known as the Car Allowance Rebate System, offers subsidies of as much as $4,500 to consumers who trade in older vehicles and buy new, more fuel-efficient models. The program was initially given $1 billion. That money was spent in one week.
The Senate reached a deal to extend the clunkers program Wednesday night, agreeing to vote on a measure Thursday that would add $2 billion to the program, the Associated Press reported.
The House approve a $2 billion extension last week.
For Mr. Wiygul and other mechanics, until now the recession has brought them more customers as people fixed cars rather than go into debt for new ones. He has hired five people and is expanding one of the shops.
Auto dealers who offer the rebates on new cars in exchange for clunkers must agree to “kill” the old models by disabling the engines and shipping the dead vehicle to a junkyard.
The loss of such potential work — as many as 250,000 vehicles will be destroyed in the program’s first round — prompted Mr. Wiygul to question the federal program’s focus on dealers and big business at the expense of the little guy.
“How do we get on the special interests, special treatment bandwagon? How much is it going to cost me and to whom shall I send the check?” he said. “Who picks the winners in this game ’cause obviously the game is fixed.”

For the full commentary, see:
GARY FIELDS. “Clunkers Plan Deflates Mechanics.” The Wall Street Journal (Thurs., AUGUST 6, 2009): A4.

Huge Increase in Money Supply Increases Odds of Inflation

Source of graph: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. A15) . . . , starting in early September 2008, the Bernanke Fed did an abrupt about-face and radically increased the monetary base — which is comprised of currency in circulation, member bank reserves held at the Fed, and vault cash — by a little less than $1 trillion. The Fed controls the monetary base 100% and does so by purchasing and selling assets in the open market. By such a radical move, the Fed signaled a 180-degree shift in its focus from an anti-inflation position to an anti-deflation position.

The percentage increase in the monetary base is the largest increase in the past 50 years by a factor of 10 (see chart nearby). It is so far outside the realm of our prior experiential base that historical comparisons are rendered difficult if not meaningless. The currency-in-circulation component of the monetary base — which prior to the expansion had comprised 95% of the monetary base — has risen by a little less than 10%, while bank reserves have increased almost 20-fold. Now the currency-in-circulation component of the monetary base is a smidgen less than 50% of the monetary base. Yikes!
. . .

With an increased trust in the overall banking system, the panic demand for money has begun to and should continue to recede. The dramatic drop in output and employment in the U.S. economy will also reduce the demand for money. Reduced demand for money combined with rapid growth in money is a surefire recipe for inflation and higher interest rates. The higher interest rates themselves will also further reduce the demand for money, thereby exacerbating inflationary pressures. It’s a catch-22.
It’s difficult to estimate the magnitude of the inflationary and interest-rate consequences of the Fed’s actions because, frankly, we haven’t ever seen anything like this in the U.S. To date what’s happened is potentially far more inflationary than were the monetary policies of the 1970s, when the prime interest rate peaked at 21.5% and inflation peaked in the low double digits. Gold prices went from $35 per ounce to $850 per ounce, and the dollar collapsed on the foreign exchanges. It wasn’t a pretty picture.

For the full commentary, see:
ARTHUR B. LAFFER. “Get Ready for Inflation and Higher Interest Rates; The unprecedented expansion of the money supply could make the ’70s look benign.” The Wall Street Journal (Weds., June 10, 2009): A15.
(Note: ellipses added.)

Wealth Consists Mainly in Ideas

(p. 67) Through all the centuries of man, there has recurred this same morbid misunderstanding of the nature of wealth and the wealth of nations. Always wealth is seen as something solid and calculable: to be seized and held, clutched and hoarded, measured and inventoried, amassed and monopolized. In the age of imperialism, it was imagined to consist in land and the armies that could acquire it; in the mercantilist era, it was recognized as bullion, gained through a favorable balance of trade; in every period, men have fawned over gems and glitter; in the modern age, fossil fuels and strategic minerals have seemed to be the open sesame, but seekers of wealth still fumble for gold and baubles, and real estate as well.

All bespeak the materialistic fallacy, a fixation of leftists, but a shibboleth also for much of the intelligentsia of capitalism: the idea that wealth is material and collectible, finite and definable, subject to measurement and inventory, to entropy and exhaustion. The way to get rich is to find some precious substance and (p. 68) hold It. Its price will inevitably rise in time as its quantity declines with use. This is the fantasy through which Pierre Trudeau was bankrupting Canada in the early 1980s and the Arab leaders were impoverishing the world and destroying their own future.
Wealth consists not chiefly in things but in thought: in the ideas and applications that confer value to what seems useless to the uninformed. The Arab leaders should learn that they can best enhance the value of oil–and the wealth of oil-producing nations–by lowering its price and enlarging its uses. This is the central rule of riches, understood by every major titan of wealth, from John D. Rockefeller and Henry Ford to the entrepreneurs of modern computers and the industrialists of contemporary Japan. Each gained his fortune not by increasing the price of his product but by drastically dropping it, bringing it within the reach of the creative uses and ideas of millions, and thus vastly enlarging its total value and market.

Source:
Gilder, George. Recapturing the Spirit of Enterprise: Updated for the 1990s. updated ed. New York: ICS Press, 1992.