Captain America: He’s not a man, he’s a team

One of the things I found quite entertaining about Captain America’s character in his signature movie is that he’s not just a man, he’s a team. Early on, Steve Rogers aka “Captain America” selects a team of multi-talented soldiers to join him in his heroic efforts against the Nazi threat. In particular, he chooses polyglot soldiers from every allied nation… a great example of the value of diversity in work teams.

You Will Not Make Money in China, Part 2

Because even if you try to do the right thing and deal with the government’s taxes, tariffs and fees, they will still bankrupt you with corruption.

Protection? That’s one way of putting it.

Frederic Bastiat liked to use simple examples to show how protectionism impoverishes many people to enrich a few, such as the story of Stulta and Puera.

The ever-vigilant Scott Lincicome reminds us that the damaging effects of protectionism are not limited to instructional allegories. Protectionism hurts real people, and destroys real jobs, and the chicken littles who continue to use the falling sky as an excuse are simply ignoring the facts.

Government “protectionism” is about effective as mafia “protection”.  The surest way to maximum economic gain for all — to “raise all ships” –  is to allow free people to trade freely, without a government finger on the scale of every transaction.

On the economics of automation

This blog post discusses the importance of automation in programming, but makes some pretty deep statements about economics in general.

The whole point of automation is not to take away jobs, or solely to optimize at a new capital-to-labor ratio on the isocost curve. The point of automation is to make everyone’s lives better. A washing machine is not merely a machine that washes clothes. It’s a machine that gives you time with your child, or makes it possible to study for a new academic degree, or allows you to take a vacation every year. Every moment saved by machines is a moment spent doing something more desirable.

That’s why I’ve never understood the repeated lamentation that all the good manufacturing jobs are drying up. Good manufacturing jobs? If the job can be replaced by a machine, it’s not a good job, almost by definition, because that’s time you can use to do something more fulfilling.  And if you don’t have the motivation to do something more engaging than work at a machine in an assembly plant, then you better find it. Human advancement isn’t going to lag behind just for you.

If you haven’t seen it…

Go, go right now and watch Keynes vs. Hayek Round 2, the followup to the amazing Keynes vs. Hayek video.

Making fun of bad business graphics

I’m just gonna leave this here:

China: the black hole for foreign business

Although China has proven to be a sometimes worthwhile partner for manufacturing, they are so obsessed with protecting domestic business that any company wishing to make money there better watch its back. And its wallet.

From Slashdot, we have this article on the tactics the Chinese government used to import, then copy, the high-speed rail technology of companies like Siemens. They are utterly unashamed; the mission from day one was to steal foreign designs and produce them domestically, then begin to compete with foreign companies.

And a pretty smart guy who analyzes Chinese economic data thinks that their internal markets are about to collapse.

The short version: If you try and sell in China, they’ll steal your designs, and then won’t buy anything

 

The Austerity Signal

Ford Motor Co is showing record profits after refusing government bail-out money.  This highlights the importance of signaling; GM and Chrysler customers got the signal that “we’d better take the money, since we’re not sure what our future holds, who knows if we’ll be here tomorrow?”

But Ford’s decision to refuse the bailout money and aggressively re-trench sent the message, “we’re serious about improving our business and our products to win back your confidence”.

Ford won this game.

Ducati CEO On Motorcycle Business Downturn

Fantastic article in the LA Times by the former CEO of Ducati North America, describing the death spiral of the US powersports industry. Short version: Harley Davidson’s baby boomer demographic is aging out of the market, and the sportbike business is so critically dependent on consumer credit that they couldn’t finance bikes once the credit business collapsed.

Food vs. Education

A commenter on another blog came up with this note in response to questions about broadening competition in education.

If the government had been producing food for the last 150 years, it would be argued by almost everyone that the market could not provide food. The poor wouldn’t be able to buy any food (because the price of private alternatives then available would be so high); the profit motive would tend to corrupt food production, and on and on. Where would people even be able to buy food if the government was no longer running silos? No one would be able to produce, it would be argued, the one variety of bread, the one available meat, and the 3 fruits.