economics -

The Thing Capitalism Gets Wrong (KEW Episode 143)

By kpluseiswise | September 21, 2023December 20, 2023 by kpluseiswise

Lately, I’ve been wondering about capitalism and competition. As I have mentioned in other episodes (links below), competition only occurs when resources are limited. Also, capitalism requires competition to protect consumers from monopolies. While I argue in older episodes that this protective feature often doesn’t work, the fact remains that capitalism requires competition. That competition is a requirement of capitalism is critical BECAUSE competition only occurs when resources are limited. When there are plenty of resources, there…

Uncategorized

Growing Smaller is a Worthy Goal Part 2

By kpluseiswise | July 20, 2023July 17, 2023 by kpluseiswise

Here is Part 1 of this two-part series. In it, I focus mostly on the Growth part of the equation In Part 2, I want to focus on the Smaller portion. As I said, I used to be an entrepreneur. In my small town, I struggled to generate enough traffic to amount to any significant income. Believing I couldn’t manipulate revenue, I instead focused very carefully on the expense side of the balance sheet. Later I…

Uncategorized

Growing Smaller is a Worthy Goal

By kpluseiswise | July 6, 2023July 4, 2023 by kpluseiswise

I used to own a brewery. In our rural location and with our small customer pool, we struggled to be profitable. My partners and I disagreed about how to best approach profitability. One had an MBA and swore by the neo-capitalist, Econ 101 approach to maximizing revenues. Following this popular approach, we were unable to generate returns on the money we threw at advertising, marketing, and solicitation. Though I was the introverted partner, I eventually mustered…

Uncategorized

Are all Leaders Narcissists? (KEW Episode 124)

By kpluseiswise | May 11, 2023May 10, 2023 by kpluseiswise

The words ‘leader’ and ‘narcissist’ bug me. I think these two words are overused. I also don’t think we really know what they mean anymore. Maybe we never did. Maybe the words have been usurped by the very people defined by them. Let’s start with leadership. What is this, exactly? If you look on LinkedIn (which I did, then I quit) you will see ‘leadership’ as being a top-tier achievement. The word is thrown around…

Uncategorized

FLASHBACK! KEW Episode 39: The Growth Fallacy

By kpluseiswise | June 21, 2021 by kpluseiswise

“I meant no harm I most truly did not, but I had to grow bigger so bigger I got. I biggered my factory, I biggered my roads, I biggered the wagons, I biggered the loads, of the Thneeds I shipped out I was shipping them forth from the South, to the East, to the West. To the North, I went right on biggering selling more thneeds. And I biggered my money which everyone needs.” ― Dr Seuss,…

Uncategorized

KEW Episode 39: The Growth Fallacy

By kpluseiswise | January 22, 2021September 20, 2023 by kpluseiswise

With respect to economics, people often say that you have to grow to stay in business. I heard this a lot when I tried to run my business at a static level of production (i.e., no growth). I found that we actually HAD MORE MONEY left over when we controlled expenses and held production at the level of demand. I discovered that we spent so much money on growth that we were more profitable when…

Uncategorized

FLASHBACK! to KEW Episode 6: Competition

By kpluseiswise | October 19, 2020 by kpluseiswise

Often I think competition brings out the worst in people. In ecology, natural selection can be thought of as a solution to competition and the problems it creates. In fact, competition is the mechanism that, when avoided, leads to speciation and biodiversity. In sports and economics competition is often viewed as fun or even critical. Here I argue that competition is important, but can be taken too far; to the point where it can negatively…

Uncategorized

KEW Episode 6: Competition

By kpluseiswise | May 29, 2020June 13, 2023 by kpluseiswise

I’m not a big fan of competition. I’m talking specifically about two types of competition we hear about often The first type of competition is within the construct of capitalism. People are constantly referring to how competition ‘regulates markets’ and ‘prevents monopolies’. I guess in this economic sense competition is SUPPOSED to do these things. In theory? From where I sit the market looks more like it is dominated by one or two giant companies…