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Yearly Archives: 2015

Winds of Change Blow Both Ways

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The election in the UK produced a surprising result – one not even remotely called by all the polls taken right up to polling day, 7 May. How could they miss it? It’s always possible that the polls were simply wrong, but it’s more likely that something changed deep in the guts of the electorate as they went in to vote. Is Britain really that conservative? No, people probably don’t like PM Cameron any more now than they did before. Can we learn something from this?

Perhaps we can. But we might be able to learn more from the provincial election in Alberta that produced a surprising win for the very left-wing New Democratic Party (NDP) in a conservative stronghold. This huge shift came on like an Alberta Clipper off the North Pole, but it was caught by pollsters just before the election. And both of these recent election may apply because, as we noted before, the developed world is suffering from the same chill everywhere – buffeted by change, voters are demanding stability and strong new leadership.

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Online Ad Bust

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“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, the trouble is I don’t know which half.”
– John Wanamaker, Philadelphia retail giant, circa 1893

During the internet boom that defined the previous bull market, before 2000, one thing was clear. Advertising as we knew it was dead. Any maven or guru of the ‘net pointed to the ability to target audiences with pinpoint precision and collect real-time data on how effective the spending was. It was a feature that broadcast, direct mail, and print media would never be able to achieve.

Fifteen years on, we can see just how this has worked out. The short answer is that advertising is just as wasteful and untargeted as ever, even online. Worse, advertisers have not substantially moved away from broadcast ads, with teevee still the largest category of spending.

Is internet advertising a flop, or was the hype just ahead of the promise?

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Rue, Brittania

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The election is coming up, and boy is it getting crazy. Not the US election – there’s still a year and a half of nonsense to endure before that. I’m talking about the UK House of Commons election on 7 May. It will certainly test the limits of their parliamentary system, probably moving it into a more funkadelic system in the process.

I had to, I love that joke. Somebody’s gotta bring da funk.

The problem is the UK is more divided along fundamental lines than it has been in a very long time. Given the large number of parties that are likely to achieve seats (12) the election will almost certainly solve nothing, only marking the start of tortured negotiations that will last for three weeks. They’d like to have a government by the annual Queen’s Speech on 27 May, so there is a deadline, but it will be hard to meet.

It’s worth watching in the US if for no other reason than the turmoil they are experiencing is similar to ours, expressed very differently in a different system.

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Sitting on Cash

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If you’re like most people living paycheck to paycheck, you have a simple problem at the end of the month – not enough cash. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about here – it’s a common problem that is faced by a large number of families as the economic recovery struggles on.

But if you’re an S&P 500 company, you may have a different problem – too much cash. Not precisely too much cash on hand, that is, since that’s never a problem. You may have something like cash sitting around somewhere in the world that you have trouble bringing home to make use of the way you want to.

Therein lies the problem with this economy – not that there isn’t enough to go around, but that it isn’t going around.

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A Worker’s Paradise?

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A reflection for May Day, the International Worker’s Day.

Imagine for a moment that you live in the most fair and equitable economy you can dream up.  There are some very specific things that most people in the developed world, especially Americans, would think would be a part of this.

There would be upward mobility, where family circumstances do not determine the kids’ future.  People could find their own way according to their own talents and choices as to what makes a good life.  Money would rarely limit dreams, as a free-flowing capital market would provide funding for good ideas at reasonable rates.  Most would own their own homes and have control over their own destiny.  Workers would own the company they work for, banking their retirement at a reasonable age on the place that they helped build.  Basics like food and access to health care would not be expensive.

Such a place is the embodiment of pieces of both the Democratic and Republican parties in odd turns.  This place of the imagination has also been  pretty close to the perfect state envisioned by Karl Marx, although it may be descending into an oligarchy (which I prefer to call “gangster state”).

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