lbsnake7 · HackerTrans

il y a 2 ansdiscuss

Great documentary that Frontline made about something similar called Firestone and the Warlord. Firestone paid warlord Charles Taylor money to ‘protect’ their rubber plantations (essentially extortion), this money ended up providing him almost all of his funding during the Liberian civil war and made him a major player. He is now in prison for war crimes for what he did during this period.

lbsnake7

il y a 3 ansdiscuss

They did all those things unsustainably so they could gain market share and raise prices when people were locked in. Similar to Uber and AirBnB etc. All those things are good but not feasible and subsidized by the capital/venture markets. The game is market share and ecosystem lock-in both from suppliers and customers.

A truly competitive marketplace allows any supplier to easily match with any customer. Suppliers gain market share by being the ‘best’, not by being the only option.

lbsnake7

il y a 3 ansdiscuss

MLS has the same problem basketball leagues have overseas. The NBA is where the best players in the world play and I can watch it on TV, why would I watch a local sports league? There is some hometown pride from the diehards but casuals would watch the NBA. Similarly in soccer, I don’t think it is feasible to expect the MLS to break out of their niche. The casuals are watching the Premier League. We are now just watching the MLS figure out how big the niche can get.

lbsnake7

il y a 3 ansdiscuss

I’ve heard of this before. That there are geniuses tolling away in fields but because they don’t have the right resources, no one knows who they are. But Isaac Newton changed science without the Industrial Revolution. Without running water or cars or electricity or modern medicine. Cream rises to the top and natural geniuses like that would be very apparent very fast.

lbsnake7

il y a 3 ansdiscuss

The reason for the strong political influence of the military is two fold:

1. Political institutions in Pakistan are very weak and when things start to truly go bad, people look toward the military to bring law and order and not their elected leaders. This in turn gives the military a seat at the table to impact internal matters and foreign relations.

2. India - using India as a general boogeyman since independence has given the military brass a lot of money and power. They in turn use this to further their political ideology and when things start to go a way they don’t like they can start a coup. In turn the people generally go along with this as they think army control might be better than their leaders to solve their issues.

Like it was mentioned, Pakistan needs a few decades of peaceful democracy to get their shit together. Otherwise it will keep circling the drain of being a failed state.

lbsnake7

il y a 3 ansdiscuss

I have been reading about this topic recently and still don't really understand how 'new money' is being created. In a loan, the bank creates an IOU that didn't exist before and doesn't point to a stack of $$ on the shelf. But it does point to the bank, and the bank itself has tons of customer deposits. And if I take that IOU and give it to a car dealership who puts it in their bank, for the transfer my bank will take actual money from the general pool of customer deposits. AND I have to pay back the loan which goes into the general pool. So while specific money isn't earmarked, the IOU represents money that the bank has right?

I guess a way to ask the question would be: if i were to liquidate all assets of a bank and call in every loan, would that be >= all customer deposits?

lbsnake7

il y a 3 ansdiscuss

This is wrong. Tesla does have the advantage of being the more tech of all the car companies. They have the disadvantage of being bad at the car part. They spent massive amounts of time and energy being vertically integrated as much as possible. Historically car companies outsource everything in the car but their core differentiator (mostly engines). Tesla thought they could do everything themselves because it is cheaper but you are not going to make seats better than someone whose only job is to make seats. This is why they have all the quality problems.

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