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The economic environment is becoming less favorable for large Western companies
- stevetrewick 11y agoMisleading (and not original) title. The 'economic environment' has not changed, the prevailing economic environment is that if you're an incumbent, sooner or later someone fitter comes along and eats your lunch. Which is also pretty much the tl;dr of TFA.
- throwaway13337 11y agoFrom the perspective of large multinational companies, the environment has changed. Tech and emerging market companies create low margin competition that incumbents can't compete with. The rate at this happening is higher than ever before and has recently sort of exploded.
- stevetrewick 11y agoWhile I'll certainly agree that the rate is variable, the underlying mechanism seems fundamental to how trade/markets/capitalism function. Perhaps my definition of 'environment' is wonky.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- Animats 11y agoWhat's so striking is the high percentage of family-owned large companies in emerging economies. Arguably, this is also happening in the US, with two-tier stock schemes keeping founders in control. 80 people now own half the world's net worth. Here's the list.[1] The 20th century was the century of the big, publicly held corporation. The 21st century may be the century of the oligarch. This is new. Only four years ago, it was 388 people, not just 80. The top 10: 1 Bill Gates $76B USA Tech 2 Carlos Slim $72B Mexico Telecom 3 Amancio Ortega $64B Spain Retail 4 Warren Buffett $58B USA Finance 5 Larry Ellison $48B USA Tech 6 Charles Koch $40B USA Diversified 7 David Koch $40B USA Diversified 8 Sheldon Adelson $38B USA Entertainment 9 Christy Walton $37B USA Retail 10 Jim Walton $35B USA Retail In the 1960s, there was one billionaire in the world - John Paul Getty, of Getty Oil. We've come a long way. [1] http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/meet-the-80-people-who-are-as-rich-as-half-the-world/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/meet-the-80-people-who-ar...
- deciplex 11y agoOne nice thing about having such outsized concentration of wealth is that once the rest of us get totally fed up with this shit, it is much easier to confiscate.
- pliny 11y agoIs it? Since most of their money exists only on paper (they don't just have a bunch of gold in their basement), all you need to do is stop respecting the wealth (change the currency / nationalize the corporations that they own part of / default of the bonds they own), and that scales up for any number of oligarchs.
- RobertoG 11y agoYou don't need to nationalize anything(1). Property rights are important. We just have to realize that society is the issuer of currency and can just spend when necessary. One of the big debates of the 21th century should be the nature of fiat money. Money is now a social construct (2). Money is infrastructure and it's all that society need to advance common goals (3). (1) except maybe monopolistic public utilities (2)http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/03/what-is-modern-monetary-theory-or-mmt.html http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/03/what-is-modern-moneta...). (3)http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/01/bill-mitchell-demystifying-modern-monetary-theory.html http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/01/bill-mitchell-demysti...
- wpietri 11y agoFew think property rights aren't important. But it's a relatively small number of people who think they're more important than anything else. Property rights fundamentalists, like all fundamentalists, have the emotional benefit of experiencing low cognitive dissonance. But if inequality keeps increasing, they're going to be very surprised when they discover that when push comes to shove, most people value other things over property rights.
- laotzu 11y ago
- 1971genocide 11y ago>"Moreover, our analysis suggests that rising labor costs could reduce profits by a further $800 billion." Outrageous ! So you are saying we need to give the peasants MORE money ?? How am I supposed to live !