- This topic has 47 replies, 12 voices, and was last updated 20 years, 9 months ago by
.
- Posts
Hi Kotki
1000 people <br>1000 items of resource (can be anything you like)
500 of those people use a good business model, good management and good marketing.
250 of those end up with a stock of three items each.
This leaves 250 items to be shared between the other 750 people.
Simple maths mate.
I don’t understand what you’re talking about.
Where are the customers in the model?
Are there 1000 businesses in your example?
What do you mean by "a stock of 3 items each"?
What’s the break even point for these businesses?
Is this an example where there have been a lot of businesses joining an already saturated market?
If so, is this "a good business model"?
I’ll give you a real world example.
Round the corner from where I live, there are 4 women’s hairdressers in a 5 minute walk.
Assuming they are all turning enough of a profit to make it worthwhile to stay in business, what would happen if a 5th opened up?
If the existing 4 are offering a good quality service at a value price, they should retain practically all their existing clients and the new business probably won’t last long.
It would go out of business because the business model which said that there was either
(1) a gap in the market
or
(2) the market was being poorly served
was wrong.<br> <br>If the new business thrives, it’ll be either because there was a shortage of hairdressers or because one or more of the existing businesses is offering poor value, quality or service.
ie it has
(1) bad management
and/or
(2) a bad business model
With maybe some bad marketing thrown in.
Steve
Hi steve
1000 is a nice round number.
The 1000 people to start with is the worlds entire population. We will say that all the businesses are sole traders and the workers, along with the consumers, also make up this 1000.
The 1000 items of resources is everything in the world.
I thought this was a pretty clear concept.
A betting exchange with 1000 users would be similar to a world with 1000 people. In a betting exchance, it is impossible for all (or most users in fact) to make a profit.
In wheeling and dealing, it is an inevitability that there will be losers and that happens in real life.
I have three younger brothers and because of their respective abilities and motivations, one of them is going to be more successful that the other two. I will always view my three brothers as equals but that isn’t the view society takes when it comes to judging their merits or distributing the wealth.
Proctor and Gamble and Nestle own the world.<br>It is pointless trying to boycott their goods because in the end you will fail, and thus will look a hyppocrit.<br>You may not think that you are buying their product, but you will be. They own too many smaller companies to mention, so although your sentiments are good, it is a pointless task.
And life is too short.
Kotki
Now I understand your thinking.
You believe that business is like 2 peole betting against each other ie, it’s a zero sum game.
It isn’t.
It’s about bringing increased value to a customer.
The exchanges, for example, made it possible for 2 people to make a bet with each other. This cut out the bookies and meant punters could bet more cheaply (by paying less in deducions).
Email gave people the opportunity to communicate with people all around the world for little or no cost. That’s cheaper and faster than a letter and cheaper than a phone call.
Cars, planes, automatic washing machines, telephones, microwaves, 1 hour photo developers, PC … the list is endless …. these are all products and services which do things cheaper, faster, better or more conveniently than what went before.
Each of those innovations made the world a richer place.
Even physical resources can be made to go further.
When, in the early 70s, the Club of Rome predicted that oil would run out by 1990, they failed to understand this.
Thanks to catalytic converters, cars now use petrol more efficiently.
Better exploration techniques have found oil supplies that weren’t found by old methods.
Better extraction techniques enabled us to get at oil that was either impossible to extract or was too expensive to drill for.
So, I suggest that the underlying idea behind your example is flawed.
Steve
Hi Aston
Every time I part with money, I make sure to read the label just to see that there is no relation of the product to a big nasty. If there is only Coke or Pepsi, I look for tap water that sort of thing.
Boycotting products probably won’t work in my lifetime because of the apathy and acceptance displayed by the best part of the western worlds population. Nonetheless, it feels a bit better knowing that whilst we have all collectively sent the world to hell in a hand basket, I had very little to do with it.
Hi steve
Maggie sold us the same tripe when privatising – well everything. It was merely an exercise in cutting public spending.
Cuba is a country without competitive markets and the level of education means that technological, scientific and medical progress is still as effective in a competitive environment.
We shouldn’t be exploring for fossil fuels because they take thousands of years to develop and can only be used once. Sustainable and renewable energy sources should be the absolute priority
To everybody that boycotts even the one product because of ethics then you get a big imaginary slap on the back from me.
Maggie sold us the same tripe
Here we go.
We’re onto the straw man arguments.
You’re trying to somehow link Thatcher to my comments…. without even taking the trouble to try to cherry pick some quote by her.
I’ve given you a list of products that have enriched the world.
Name one which hasn’t provided us with a cheaper, better, faster or more convenient way of filling our needs, wants, dreams or desires.
I believe I’ve shown that business isn’t a zero sum game.
You mention that in Cuba "technological, scientific and medical progress is still as effective in a competitive environment.".
Want to name one innovation in any one of those 3 fields that has come out of Cuba in the last 10 years?
We shouldn’t be exploring for fossil fuels because they take thousands of years to develop and can only be used once. Sustainable and renewable energy sources should be the absolute priority
If we hadn’t explored for oil and developed more efficient ways of using it, we wouldn’t have any oil left.
So, for the next 7 days, go everywhere by foot or by bike.
That’s how your life would be if we followed your advice. <br> <br>Yes, we need to find alternative sources of energy, that’s obvious.
However, in the meantime we need to use what we’ve got.
Steve
Boycott The Body Shop, mainly due to it’s hypocritical view of the third world and the absolute tosh it regurgitates to the general public courtesy of Anita Roddick.
Martin
Quote: from Zoz on 6:30 pm on Feb. 20, 2005[br]Oh dear….Thank you Insomniac for resting my mind on that one, unfortunately the truth then struck me – the b*****d<br>s make Toffee Crisps which are even better, so I think I might go and have a cry now :(
Ian, your memories from Uni sound like a great lifestyle, unfortunately if I tried it I’d have to shoplift Sainsburys on the way home because the chances of me backing a winner these days are worse than slim. Shame….<br>
<br>If you can’t beat em join em Zoz, currently work for Coral’s, basically get paid for watching the racing which suits me down to the ground.
With regards to food – Dr. Oetker Mozarella pizzas are gorge and curently on two for £3 in Tesco, Tesco is where it’s at, kind of like a social club i see all me mates down there lol.
Martin
Thomas Jefferson knew the score, Kotkiject: ""The selfish spirit of commerce knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain."
Yet the psychopathic kleptocracy here and in the US are the first and foremost to wrap themselves in the flag.
I always had a yen to buy a Dell computer. No more. They were big Bush contributors. But the Yanks are still feisty about getting a half decent society, and organise such boycotts on the Internet.
If only the poorer, more naturally spiritual folk organised themselves as instinctively as the Tories and Blair’s lot, how different our wretched society would be. No Tory needs to be told to vote! Nor will they listen if you tell them, they’re all the same… even though they are now! Unless Kennedy gets a grip.
Hi steve
What can I say – though not my idea of fun, it has certainly been interesting spending the best part of our day bickering with eachother without giving anybody else the chance to speak.
My dreams and desires are those of finding true love and living in a hate free world. Not having a mobile phone with the internet and a ****<br>ing ringtone service.
By Maggie, I meant the Tories who pretty much dominated the years preceding and proceding my birth. The same tories who said privatisation (letting individuals take the blame for modern failings rather than the state itself) was a good thing.
Many of products you gave me would have been / were invented without the need of commercial gain. Most notably the car, the telephone and the plane. The automatic washing machine, the microwave and the one hour photo development (you can wait a week or so for a good picture can’t you?) are items which mankind would have survived quite happily without before knowledge of their existance. In my household, we are devoid of two of the above three and what we have still gets us by. (BTW, I want us to get rid of the washing machine but what are you going to do when they fed, clothed and housed you for your first 21 years?)
Business is still a zero sum game.
Would you like to name one useful innovation in any of those fields that has come out the Western world in the last 10 years?
In Britain, they educated too many admin officials and the excess were left to rot. In America, they educated too many lawyers and the excess were left to rot. In Cuba, they educated too many doctors so they were sent to other poor countries to do what they dreamed to do.
In Cuba – attention was paid to the AIDS chrisis which was ignored by the west simply because western governments refused to admit that there was a problem until it was too late. Between 1984 and 1994 177 cubans had died of AIDS compared to the 28,000 that died in New York alone which has a similar population size.
With regards to your justification of using unsustainable resources whilst we can, are you saying that you wouldn’t be willing to sacrifice a years worth of electricity for the sake of guaranteeing energy for your grand children and their grandchildren etc?
(Edited by Kotkijet at 11:46 pm on Feb. 21, 2005)
Here’s another informative site on the American travesty of an election, for you and your American friends, Grasshopper:
Steve & Kotki<br>I think you may both be wrong, because business is all about getting a cut. Everyone has to make money or get a good service or the whole thing starts to come apart. Many small businesses today cannot or will not compete with larger companies because the effort required to compete does not justify the reward for competing. Businesses that I’ve worked with have failed, by and large for the following reasons,
Lack of Planning<br>Under Funding<br>Under Handed Customers<br>Under Estimation of, day to day business costs and the cost of finance.<br>Lack of WILL on behalf of company directors to compete.<br>Business Taxes.
Over the past ten years more than 250,000,000,000 jobs have moved from the West to China. The Chinese workers see no benefit from this, so who does ??<br>
Hi dj
Perhaps you are right in that business offered a catalyst for improved services and good economic management. However, the want of profit tends to get in the way of morals for most companies that do very well for themselves.
Regarding your reasons of business failings, they have this lovely notion of franchising which combat the ‘unders’ you mentioned. A notion that’s always been very popular with McDonalds.
China will be bombed by America before it becomes the superpower it’s expected to be in 10 years time. s**t
. WW3 in my lifetime:( :( :( :( :( Oh well, we have to go someday and it’s good to know that we died for a good cause.Anyways, here is another company I added to my boycott list. Coors. I wouldn’t touch the stuff anyway but here are some of the drinks that could easily be touched.
Caffreys<br>Carling<br>Grolsch<br>Reef<br>Worthingtons
The Coors group are an American company and a boycott American goods stance is for the individual.
Nonetheless, with this particular company, by supping their hooch you are funding a Coors family with a somewhat ignoble history in race relations. Back in the 1920s Adolph Coors Sr.’s family friend and lawyer owned Castle Rock, the monumental red-rock knob that overlooked the Coors Brewery property. The rock was lent to the KKK for cross burnings that could be seen from all over Denver.
In 1964 during the Civil Rights Act debate, William Coors pressed for the failure of the bill. He called upon his entire workforce to contact their Senators to oppose the bill, lying and telling them that sixty white employees would lose their jobs to black people if the bill passed.
In 1984, William Coors told a group of Black and Mexican American businessmen that if they thought it was "unfair" that their "ancestors were dragged here in chains against their will…I would urge those of you who feel that way to go back to where your ancestors came from, and you will find out that probably the greatest favor that anybody ever did you was to drag your ancestors over here in chains, and I mean it."
The Coors family also in the past, contributed to funding for the CIA sponsored Contras in Nicaragua during the 1980s while it has also supported organisations opposed to democratisation in South Africa prior to the collapse of Apartheid.
In December 2001, Joseph Coors gave Ward Connerly $100,000 for his so-called "Racial Privacy Act" (Prop 54), the California ballot initiative that aims to make it illegal for any state institution to collect racial or ethnic data, making it impossible to expose patterns of discrimination.
On December the 27th 2001, Coors purchased Carling for £1.2 Billion and I’m sure that if the boards at the two racially sensitive Glaswegian clubs knew of Coors unsavoury exploits, they wouldn’t have accepted their sponsorship. Surely not.
GH .. I stand corrected, it’s only 250 million jobs .. !!
The problem is Kotfki, is that they’re all the same. You boycott one thing in favour of another only find out later on that they are owned by the company you are trying to boycott.
It’s the same a competitive tendering for US defense contracts. All of the companies on the list are owned by the same people. I think they call it the Halliburton Agenda.
Kotkijet…Just a thought re. boycotting things American; do you boycott all things Microsoft?
Kotkijet…Just a thought re. boycotting things American; do you boycott all things Microsoft?
And even if you have OS/2 rather than windows, that’s American, too.
Kotki/Dave Jay I’m busy this afternoon and will reply to both of you later today.
Nice to see more of the usual faces getting involved inthis discussion.
Steve
Kotki
"By Maggie, blah blah blah The same tories who said privatisation (letting individuals take the blame for modern failings rather than the state itself) was a good thing. "
Privitisation was, by and large, a good thing.
It’s been my experience that government runs business (like most things) very poorly. The post office is a perfect example.
The phone company and the utility companies were a disgrace. Wasteful, arrogant and inefficient.
Competition has improved them (though Scottish Power have still got a long way to go).
"Many of products you gave me would have been / were invented without the need of commercial gain."
The initial idea may have come that way, but they were developed from ideas to something that was commonly available because there was a buck in it.
Innovations have almost always been introduced by  either the military or business.
"(BTW, I want us to get rid of the washing machine but what are you going to do when they fed, clothed and housed you for your first 21 years?)"<br> <br>Why don’t you just volunteer to handwash everyone’s clothes?
Automatic washing machines free up time for other things. That’s something very valuable to most poeple.
So, it adds value.
"Business is still a zero sum game."
You keep saying that without ever backing it up.
"Would you like to name one useful innovation in any of those fields that has come out the Western world in the last 10 years?"
I’ll pick one from my own town: cloning.
Forget all the Frankenstein superstition, it’ll take medicine to the next level and improve the lives of millions.
"In Britain, they educated too many admin officials and the excess were left to rot. In America, they educated too many lawyers and the excess were left to rot. "
Who are "they"?
If people decided to study law when a bit of foresight would have shown them that there were going to be too many lawyers, the risks were obvious and the choice was theirs.
I’m unaware of law havig ever been a compulsory degree subject in America.
"In Cuba, they educated too many doctors so they were sent to other poor countries to do what they dreamed to do."
Poor planning, then.
"In Cuba – attention was paid to the AIDS chrisis which was ignored by the west simply because western governments refused to admit that there was a problem until it was too late. Between 1984 and 1994 177 cubans had died of AIDS compared to the 28,000 that died in New York alone which has a similar population size."
This is too much of a side issue because I don’t believe the commonly accepted beliefs about AIDS.
If you want to know more, go back 3 months in the archives and you’ll find a thread I started.
"With regards to your justification of using unsustainable resources whilst we can, are you saying that you wouldn’t be willing to sacrifice a years worth of electricity for the sake of guaranteeing energy for your grand children and their grandchildren etc?"
Absolutely. Because, in doing so, I’d be buying into a false choice.
Steve
(Edited by stevedvg at 6:08 pm on Feb. 22, 2005)
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.