Curt Doolittle

Theme: Productivity

  • What Is Capitalism?

    The suppression of predation and parasitism, the establishment of an allocation of property,  a means of resolving disputes, and the organization of production must be constructed.
    1. Totalitarian: It can be organized involuntarily: the elimination of private property, planning and slavery in many of its forms.
    2. Capitalist: It can be organized voluntarily by the use of private property, money, and prices.
    3. Mixed: It can be organized by a mix of private property, money, and prices, and the totalitarian construction of commons.  (Which is what we do today). 
    A market forms under any condition in which goods are constructed for the purpose of exchange.

    https://www.quora.com/What-is-capitalism

  • (James Santagata corrects me.) My argument was this: that consumers provide an e

    (James Santagata corrects me.)

    My argument was this: that consumers provide an exceptional means of low cost R&D because they make small investments at low transaction costs. However, the ‘big money’ outside of advertising (gambling) is still in the enterprise customer. That is because the switching costs for consumers is low, and the switching cost for the enterprise is high.

    It has taken a long time for hurricane caused by the justice department’s flapping of butterfly wings to dissipate, but it’s clear that it’s dissipating and that massive consolidation will be possible.

    Why? because owning customer relationships and the curatorial influence of brand has been suppressed for a decade. And I see a peak over there on the horizon.

    The accumulated value of prior generatoins anchored past customer-owners. That anchor has dissipated also.

    More later.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-05-08 09:12:00 UTC

  • and Entrepreneurs. Another Division of Cognitive Labor

    http://fee.org/freeman/detail/the-doomsayers-are-right/Doomsayers and Entrepreneurs. Another Division of Cognitive Labor.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-05-07 14:31:00 UTC

  • Levie (Box): The First $250m in ARR – YouTube

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=31m20s&v=pXL7dsfslwYAaron Levie (Box): The First $250m in ARR – YouTube

    Source date (UTC): 2015-05-04 12:09:00 UTC

  • and earnings

    http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2015/04/value-added-college-rankings.htmlMath and earnings.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-04-29 12:51:00 UTC

  • LOW BRITISH PRODUCTIVITY —“Low productivity is the number one problem Britain

    LOW BRITISH PRODUCTIVITY

    —“Low productivity is the number one problem Britain faces,” says Van Reenen. Even before the crisis, it lagged behind other rich countries. The latest data suggest UK output per hour worked is 30 per cent below US levels, and 17 per cent below the G7 average (at purchasing power parity).—

    John van Reenen, Professor at the London School of Economics

    Source date (UTC): 2015-04-21 23:28:00 UTC

  • THIEL GETS IT RIGHT “I would bet on globalization slowly being in abeyance,” tec

    THIEL GETS IT RIGHT

    “I would bet on globalization slowly being in abeyance,” tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel said in a video interview with George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen. “I think with the benefit of hindsight, we will realize that 2007 was not just the peak year of the finance boom, but also the peak year of globalization, like maybe 1913.”

    His reference to 1913 was surely meant to be — and should be — chilling. That was the last full year before the outbreak of World War I, a conflict in which about 16 million people died. In its wake, Communists took over Russia and Hitler took over Germany. The war made the world safe not for democracy, as Woodrow Wilson had hoped, but for totalitarianism.

    The globalization resulting largely from British policies — free trade, the gold standard — was not re-established after World War I. Instead, trade protectionism and unstable currencies led to the Great Depression.

    World trade fell about 90 percent between 1929-33, as shown in the famous spiral graph in MIT economist Charles P. Kindleberger’s classic The World in Depression 1929-1939. The result was not, as current critics of globalization might suggest, good for the workingman. It was economic disaster, political instability and World War II, in which about 60 million people died.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-04-21 22:08:00 UTC

  • WRITE FOR AVOCATION, NOT VOCATION —“The research, commissioned by The Authors’

    WRITE FOR AVOCATION, NOT VOCATION

    —“The research, commissioned by The Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society, found the top 5 per cent of writers earned close to half of all the income received by professional authors in 2013. The median income for professional writers is just £10,432, less than the minimum wage. Technical and academic writers are among the worst paid.”—

    Source date (UTC): 2015-04-21 17:12:00 UTC

  • THE SOCIAL CLASSES OF SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT COMPANIES – Scientific Software desig

    THE SOCIAL CLASSES OF SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT COMPANIES

    – Scientific Software design and development

    – Operating Systems Design and Development

    – Enterprise Software Product companies

    – Consumer Software Product companies

    – Business Software companies

    – Small Independent software companies

    – Internal Operational software

    – Consulting business operational software.

    – Internal IT staff.

    – Temporary (or long term) staffing.

    – Short term staffing.

    – Independent software consultants.

    – IT independent consultants.

    Varies a bit by company. But basically it’s driven by scarcity.

    (I need to write this list for economists, because it’s pretty funny.)

    Source date (UTC): 2015-04-16 10:07:00 UTC

  • WEALTH AND IQ We have lost three points due to immigration already. Two more poi

    http://www.unz.com/akarlin/national-wealth-and-iq/NATIONAL WEALTH AND IQ

    We have lost three points due to immigration already. Two more points and there is no way that our norms and institutions can compensate for it.

    Now, I usually put it this way: all verbal IQ over 106 provides the ability to express ideas and to repair machines. Below that people must learn by imitation. So the less of your population is below 106 (which is a sort of magic number) the better off you will be. The further below 106, the worse off that you would be.

    Northern Europeans were about on par with the Ashkenazim in 1850. We have lost our comparative advantage, and we are about to lose our relative advantage.

    Progressive idiocy aside: breeding matters. And good people don’t breed as much as not-so-good people.

    Source date (UTC): 2015-04-15 12:55:00 UTC