Monthly Archives: September 2013

A Great Handicap of Economies Run by Political Authorities

"Little is ever taught about great entrepreneurs who started with next to nothing and ended up creating great things. More than money it takes alertness and drive to carry out the vision that one is alert to, how often do students learn this in school? Teachers from the college level on down are generally the least alert people on the planet, they have no understanding of the subject. Most teachers started their careers after a life of formal education and nothing else. For them life is about scored tests, quizzes and exams, with the answers all known in advance. Real life is the opposite. It is about opportunities that are sometimes only seen by one individual." Continue reading →

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Nasty Gal: From eBay To Multimillion-Dollar Company In Seven Years

"I'm a capitalist, I'm a CEO, I run a big business, I'm an employer,' says Sophia Amoruso, the 29-year-old head of Nasty Gal, the online fashion retail empire that she transformed from an eBay vintage store into a $240 million company in just seven years. 'But it's all secondary to the way it happened, because I could be anything.' What Amoruso has created is a sizeable niche business in the high-margin fast-fashion space. Her company sells edgy, retro-inspired looks at reasonable prices—$50 tops, $70 dresses—and some actual vintage items to a rabidly loyal customer base of young women, frothed up by almost constant social media interaction." Continue reading →

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Elon Musk’s New Hologram Project Invites ‘Iron Man’ Comparisons

"In the 'Iron Man' trilogy, billionaire inventor Tony Stark uses a gesture-controlled hologram to draft new designs of the titular armor, sending virtual parts flying around his lab with the flick of a wrist. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk—who is often compared to Stark by the tech press—is apparently creating the real-life equivalent of that fictional hologram system. 'We figured out how to design rocket parts just w hand movements through the air (seriously),' he Tweeted August 23. 'Now need a high frame rate holograph generator.' In a follow-up Tweet, he added: 'Will post video next week of designing a rocket part with hand gestures & then immediately printing it in titanium.'" Continue reading →

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How Millennials will shape the future of work

"92 percent of Millennials believe that business should be measured by more than just profit and should focus on a societal purpose. Millennials want the flexibility to work from home and make their own hours. A Cisco study shows that 70 percent of students believe it is unnecessary to be in an office regularly. Millennials will make working from home or from shared office spaces the norm — goodbye cubicles! The New York Times reports that the average amount of office space per employees in the U.S. has already dropped from 400 square feet to 250 and in the future will be reduced to 150. The idea that we’ll be walking into a major office building will face away." Continue reading →

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The Goodfellas of Wall Street

"If you think of the economy as this vast thing where success or failure is a matter of serving customers well, then you are deceiving yourself. (I’ve written about this before, about how America’s largest companies are basically products of state privilege.) This perspective is good too because the reality of the thing shatters many illusions. Think Obamacare is a socialist redistribution scheme? Take another look. What it really amounts to is the largest corporate giveaway and pork-filled legislation in the history of the country." Continue reading →

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Note to Fed: Giving the Banks Free Money Won’t Make Us Hire More Workers

"As anyone in the actual position of hiring more staff knows, it is not a lack of cheap credit that makes adding workers unattractive, it is the lack of opportunities to increase profit margins by adding more workers. If the economic boom of the mid-1980s proves anything, it is that the cost of credit can be very high but that in itself does not restrain real growth. What restrains growth is not interest rates, it is opportunities to profitably expand operations. What the Fed cannot dare admit is that in a crony-capitalist, globalized, State/cartel-dominated economy, there are few profitable opportunities, regardless of the cost of credit." Continue reading →

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Turning New York City into Detroit?

"Some large cities in California already have declared bankruptcy, for instance, and you can find the same pattern of overcompensated bureaucrats and escaping taxpayers. And the same thing may happen to New York City if the next Mayor is successful in pushing for more class-warfare tax policy. But there’s a big problem with de Blasio’s plan. Rich people are not fatted calves meekly awaiting slaughter. Gelinas warns that the city would have less money if just 20 percent of rich people escaped. She doesn’t think that will happen, but she does explain that rich people can stay but take some simple steps to reduce their taxable income." Continue reading →

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IMF Bureaucrats With Tax-Free Salaries Propose $1.40/Gallon Gas Tax Hike

"For the United States, the IMF estimated that would require a $1.40 levy per gallon of gas and other fees totaling more than $1,400 per person each year — around $500 billion in total. Wow, that’s more than $5,500 for a family of four. Remember that these bureaucrats get extremely generous tax-free salaries, yet they apparently don’t see any hypocrisy in recommending huge tax increases for the peasantry. P.S. You’ll be happy to know that the IMF study deliberately 'did not look at government support for the alternative energy industry.' So Obama’s corrupt 'green energy' programs got a free pass. Gee, how convenient." Continue reading →

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Why a single mom is better off with a $29,000 job than a $69,000 job

"Let’s take the example of a single mom with two kids, 1 and 4. She has a $29,000 a year job, putting the kids in daycare during the day while she works. As the above chart – via Gary Alexander, Pennsylvania’s secretary of Public Welfare — shows, the single mom is better off earning gross income of $29,000 with $57,327 in net income and benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with net income & benefits of $57,045. It would sure be tempting for that mom to keep the status quo rather than take the new job, even though the new position might lead to further career advancement and a higher standard of living." Continue reading →

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Bill Bonner: Empire of Debt

"Everywhere you look the scene is the same. The insiders are taking more and more wealth from the outsiders. Everyone wants to be an insider. And in a democracy especially, over time, more and more people find ways to game the system and join the insiders. Finally, everyone seems to have an angle. And soon civilization is on the road to decline and ruin. This happens when there are more parasites than producers… and more voters with their hands in the cookie jar than there are people making cookies!" Continue reading →

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