Economist: Fujifilm vs. Kodak

Most recently, The Economist magazine had two articles in a row comparing Kodak's woes and Fujifilm's revitalization. They are very much worth of reading. In particular I like the following quotes from the articles, which I specially shared here with the Thinking Space readers.

"...most important, firms must resist looking for a magic wand when hard work in needed."

"It is easy to think that companies can compete by outsourcing production and focus on developing and marketing. But many innovations bubble up from the factory floor. ... Today, as debates rage in America over the degree to which returns on capital exceed those from actual business operations, and the relative merits of employment in manufacturing versus the services sector, the history of Kodak is more relevant than ever."

The links to the original articles:

1. The last Kodak moment?

2. How Fujifilm survived?

From Egypt to China

Recently a friend asked my opinion about the Egyptian revolution and how Chinese people may react to it. The topic is timely and illuminating and thus I would like to share my answer to the readers. The Egyptian revolution is remarkable to the contemporary history, but its impact to China and the Chinese people in the near future will be limited.

Egypt

The Egyptian revolution occurred with the background of the Web-2.0 booming and the economic recession. The booming of Web 2.0 has brought the world wealth accumulation. The economic recession did, however, exactly the opposite. This pair of contradiction composed a main melody in the past decade. The Egyptian revolution was an explosive release of the said contradiction in the Middle East.

Accompanied with the Web-2.0 booming it is the trend of globalization. The world becomes flatter than before. The economic recession, on the other hand, warns us a terrible side effect of the world being flattened. The dams and other traditional landscape obstacles that used to preventing the flood of the global economy river have gradually lost their functionality in this newly flattened world. Globalization is both of a primary contributor of the economic growth in the last decade and a primary cause of the economic recession at the end of the decade. As we all know, the flood in a plain usually lead to greater destruction than it is in a valley surrounded by mountains. Besides the other internal reasons, the said contradiction is the main external factor for the Egyptian revolution.

In this evolution, the Egyptians were not pursuing the idealistic freedom. They were (and are) looking for better life. The fallen of the Mubarak administration was not due to the lack of freedom in the nation. It was, however, due to that the lack-of-freedom model had become the inevitable obstacle for the economic growth of Egypt. As I always said, the Web evolution is not just about the Web, it is a social evolution in essence. The Egyptian revolution is a typical example of how the virtual world evolution has been extended to the real world.

China

If we apply the same scale to study China, immediately we can see the difference. The economic landscape of China has not been flattened omnidirectionally during the last decade as it was in some other nations such as Egypt. Although China is one of the primary beneficiaries of globalization, China has very carefully prevented itself from being flattened unconditionally. By contrast, China is one of the few nations that have intentionally constructed the new barriers to fight against the technological improvement. Many critics have criticized what China did. Especially from the ethical point of view, I also agree to the critics. But at the same time we must admit the fact. It is these efforts of being against the tide of globalization that survives China from the economic recession. Due to the same reason, the chance of China being significantly affected by the explosive Egyptian revolution is very low.

Another factor in the scheme is the people in China. Unlike the Egyptians, most of the Chinese in mainland China are atheists. It means that they significantly care more about the present life than the life in future, let it alone the life after death. Therefore, it is very unlikely, if ever possible, to appeal their attention by the pure moral value. On the other hand, in history Chinese are not this type of persons. Unlike people in many other nations, especially the western countries, Chinese revolutions have never occurred due to the spread of any other global-scale revolution. Even the communist revolution in China was not a continuation of the Russian revolution but more or less the continuation of the regular dynasty substitution in its own history. As a nation with super-long history and tremendous number of population, China is a place where it may only export but unlikely import revolutions.

The upcoming economic trend in China and United States

My comment on the translation: The prediction in this article is shocking. Or, to some readers, it is too dramatic to be real. Liu Junluo, however, has a long list of proved records of precisely predicting the upcoming critical economic events and their time both in China and in the global scale, which includes the most recent global economic crisis.

The original title of the article was "2012年——2013年中国恶性通货膨胀" (2012-2013, hyperinflation in China). I revise the title to be "the upcoming economic trend in China and United States" by believing it revealing the theme better. The original article in Chinese is here. I also added a few translator's comment and external links (there were no external links in the original article) so that the content may become easier to be understood. Moreover, here are more articles of Liu Junluo translated by Thinking Space.

Thanks for Google translate that saves me a lot of time in translating.

(1)

There is a story. In a deluxe casino many people win money; and the next time they win again. After a while, spontaneously these people reach a consensus: aha -- now it is our time! The "fool" casino owner continues his business and loses money. More and more people thus run for the casino seeking their "brilliant future". When time goes on, they start to bet all they have on the table. Enough. This is an old fashion, and the ending is well-known. The inevitable destiny is waiting for the gamblers.

In 1992, the U.S. President Mr. Clinton promoted the liberal market economy in order to integrate the world with the economic globalization. On January 1, 1995, a total of 74 countries that include all the developed countries in the world and dozens of the developing countries such as Brazil, South Korea, Bangladesh, Kenya, etc. officially became the founding members of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Several years later, in 2001 another U.S. President Mr. Bush Jr. launched the largest tax cut and increased government expenditure operations in the nation's history, which resulted in a rapid expansion of the huge U.S. trade deficit. The huge U.S. trade deficit, on the other hand, became a strong impetus that pushed the progress of economic globalization.

Based on its great amount low-cost labor force, cheap land cost, and the intentionally underestimated environmental cost, China seized a great percentage of the expanded U.S. trade deficit. In 2003, China took 25% of the U.S. apparel market share, while Mexico, the nation right adjacent to the United States, occupied only 10%. By 2005, the Chinese share was increased to 63% of the U.S. apparel market, while the Mexican share was dropped to about 2%.

In the beginning of the World Trade Organization, the former U.S. President Bill Clinton strongly advocated a win-win philosophy -- the tide of globalization is inevitable; global investment, global market, and the technology distribution in the global scale will benefit the whole world eventually. [Translation comment: Though the statement well sounds,] the problem is, however, that it is the Americans who paid the price for globalization where the price is by carrying the huge trade deficit and current account deficits. In order to continuously hold the nations all over the world participate in this American-led economic globalization movement, in 2009 finally U.S. had a record of huge debts in history. In this way, we are now back to the beginning of this article. A "fool" deluxe casino owner [Translation comment: i.e., the United States of America] loses a lot of money to maintain his business, and every one of his customers seems ready to take advantage over this "fool" casino owner until somebody's bankruptcy. [Translation comment: Who is the "somebody" by your opinion?]

In 2009, China had become the nation with the highest debt in the world measured by the combination of the government debt plus the household indebtedness. The ending of the story thus seems become common sense again.

(2)

Many of the current mainstream economists in China are the followers to the "American-led globalization". Moreover, they are the traffickers of the "trash thinking" in Chinese society. Smugly they advocate the U.S. doctrine of free market and currencies in China. If, however, one should ask them about the future based on their doctrine, such as the US dollar in the coming year or the house price in China in the next two years, usually their reply would not directly address the right answer.

It is indeed not very much horrible for a society controlled by the "trash thinking" traffickers. [Translation comment: In fact, we have learned many similar situations in history, especially in Chinese history.] The real thing that scares us is what these traffickers do is in a plan designed by the Wall-Street "Darwinians". Because of these traffickers' "tireless contribution", the US-made "garbage thoughts" have been implanted successfully into the mind of a vast number of Chinese middle class and the class of migrant workers. Seriously these normal Chinese people start to believe that United States is going to be fallen due to its huge debt. [Translation comment: And thus now it is our turn, our time! Take a look at the story in the beginning again.] But is it true?

At present, the health expenditures per capita in U.S. is about 6700 US dollars. The annual U.S. medical care spending equals to 17% of U.S. GDP, which is much higher than the percentage GDP level in Germany, France, or Japan. Comparing to the people living in Germany, France, or Japan, the tax pressure on the American people is, however, about 30% ~ 50% less. Among all the developed countries, Americans have the least burden on individual tax while the nation provides the most expensive health care services. Why are Chinese people desperate in saving? 70% of the saved money is for the reason of the lack of health care protection. By contrast, the current U.S. health insurance system can be kept effective until at least 2030. Hence how can we be so stupid to believe that Americans do not save?

At present, the total U.S. pension assets is close to 17 trillion US dollars, which is greater than the present U.S. GDP (15 trillion). In its distribution, 60% ~ 65% are stocks, 25% are long-term bonds. Thus, the essence of the issue is whether United States can maintain its position on leading the technological innovation of the world.

In history and until now, United States is the heaven for technology innovators. These innovators occupies about 1% of the U.S. population. They, on the other hand, controls 65% ~ 75% of America's wealth. At present the innovative companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Wal-Mart maintain as much as 500 billion ~ 800 billion U.S. dollars in cash. Anytime they are ready to go for taking over the next-generation technology innovation.

At the same time, in the present China the majority of wealth is also controlled in the hand of few elites. These elites are, however, China's "gravediggers", or the realtors. [Translation comment: The realtors dig land, and more importantly, they are now sending China's future into grave.] In their hand they have multi-trillion RMB Yuan in cash. Their vision, however, only allows them being ready to buy bulks of land, bricks, and steel anytime. The distinction between "a society of technology innovation" and "a society of idiots" is the difference between survival and long-lasting and the destiny of Louis XVI.

(3)

In the future the world is becoming very very "beautiful". [Translation comment: In Chinese, "beautiful" and "United States of America" share a same Chinese character "美". Hence what the author really means is that the future of our world will become very very "American".]

Globalization has been the melody of our time and it is beyond the willingness of any single nation. In 1995, the total value of global mergers and acquisitions reached a record 356 billion U.S. dollars. Only after a decade, in 2005 such a total value reached more than 3 trillion U.S. dollars. The worldwide Great Depression in 2008 led to a sharp reduction in the total value of global mergers and acquisitions. At the same period the sovereign debt in the developed countries increased rapidly. Indeed, however, it is not something that we should worry too much. The level of sovereign debt in the developed countries at present just arrived at the debt level at 1950. Due to the great reduction of the global production capacity, global mergers and acquisitions is in a cycle of large-scale reduction as well. Between 2013 and 2015 the overall sovereign debt in the developed countries will reach its peak. After 2015 the overall sovereign debt in the developed countries will enter its cycle of large-scale reduction. After 2015, due to the reduction of the sovereign debt worldwide and the release of the suppression over the global mergers and acquisitions fund, there will be a worldwide synchronized economic rebound since the wave of globalization.

Certainly, the most unfortunate thing for United States at the time is that the large-scale retirement of baby boomers will have already begun nationwide. In 2015, 40% of the workers in the manufacturing sector such as in Boeing and Caterpillar will retire, 30% of the workers in the service sector such as in Microsoft, Google, and Wal-Mart will retire.

From 1870 to 1914 during the first wave of the economic globalization in which United States was the winner, there were 60 million people immigrated from Europe to United States. The number was accounted for 4.1% of the overall world population during the period. Right now United States has a total of 35 million immigrants, accounting for 12.6% of the U.S. population. But it only accounts for less than 0.6% of the world's total population. Hence what is the tactic question that the U.S. administration must think of now? The answer is clear---United States urgently needs a large force of high-tech talent from immigration. Since 1989 the collapse of the former Soviet Union provided United States a large number of high-quality and high-tech immigrants. Actually, one of Google's co-founders was from the former Soviet Union. [Translation comment: Which nation will be the next to provide U.S. such a source of immigrants?]

(4)

There is a question: why in 2009 were there so many people crazily buying houses in China? To answer it, there is a theory called the "Butterfly Effect". In the Atlantic area a butterfly named "Lehman" flapped its wings. In consequence far far away in China the house price was risen 50%.

Now even the normal ones like us know that it required U.S. government about 20 billion U.S. dollars if it wanted to save "Lehman" the butterfly at the meantime. The amount equaled to less than 4% of the U.S. financial rescue fund. Why did the U.S. government not save the company?

Told by Lenin: to ruin a nation, one must first destroy its currency.

My dear friends, in 2009 the total debt accumulated by the Chinese central government + the Chinese local governments + the Chinese banks + all the Chinese residents was more than 20 trillion RMB Yuan. At present the size of Chinese economy is 1/3 of the size of U.S. economy. But China's M2 supply is 20% more than America's M2 supply. Let's think of an analogy. If a German sold an egg by obtaining U.S dollar in 1918, in 1923 the German could buy 30 million German eggs using that money in U.S. dollar.

In Qatar, during the hot season one can often see U.S. soldiers driving a jeep bolting on streets. Today, the U.S. Central Command's forward headquarters is in this small country of the Middle East. Qatar, therefore, dismissed its own national army, and being relax beneath U.S. protection.

Bahrain is where the headquarter of the U.S. Fifth Fleet resides. The oil production in the three key allies of U.S. in the Middle East--Saudi Arabia, Qatar,and Bahrain--accounts for nearly 70% of OPEC's total annual production.

The annual economic growth rate of Saudi Arabia is 1.9%, while its birth rate is 3.3%. The Saudi Arabia economy is in a long-term stagnation. Its annual per capita income is decreased from 18 thousand U.S. dollars in the mid-90s to today's less than 7000 U.S. dollars. 90% of Saudi Arabia's revenue comes from oil. To deal with the pressure of the fast-growing population and to overcome the heavy dependence on the oil industry, Saudi Arabia has begun a large-scale industrial upgrading plan. In 2013 the Middle East petrochemical products will be 18 to 20 million tons. The production cost of the petrochemical products in the Middle East is 30% ~ 40% less than the production cost of the petrochemical products in China. This is the flapping wings of another butterfly in 2013.

And now for China there is another butterfly named "Greece", and another butterfly named "Toyota", and another butterfly named "Google", and another butterfly named "iron ore", and another butterfly named "water resource", and another ... So many "butterflies" are ready to flap wings.

In this year, China is going to experience the collapse of its real estate market. From 2012 to 2013 it will be the collapse of the RMB exchange rate followed by a hyperinflation.

In the end of this year, my most conservative estimate of the U.S. dollar index will be 85. How do I know it? United States is a nation chasing financial profit.

The exchange rate of U.S. dollar is a combat legion of United States. Nowadays only "the stupid" would think of wining battles through hackers and bombers. The new form of battlefields is a consequence of globalization.

In 1997 the ASEAN economy collapsed. In particular, Indonesian rupiah dived from 2,500 yuan to 20 thousand Yuan. The economists in Indonesia and all over the world concluded afterward that the problem of Indonesia was its society-wise corruption. When China's time comes, the mainstream Chinese economists will talk about the same thing in China as well.

By then, CIA will help raise few "Chen Shui-bian" in mainland. And this is called the art of Sun Tzu---win battles with no need of fighting by soldiers. A large number of science and technology elites in China will be forced to immigrate to United States when China loses this battle without soldier fighting.

By then, it will be wise if those corrupted Chinese government officials realize that they must not try to immigrate to United States. It is because by then Americans will learn the same way from Qin Shi Huang to deal with these people. In history, Qin Shi Huang beheaded the last prime minister of Qi, who accepted tremendous amount of bribery from Qin before the ending of the war between the two nations, to comfort the people of Qi. United States will do the same to comfort the Chinese people. In three years some of these Chinese realtors will be in the same destiny of Louis XVI.

At last, allow me ask all of you a question of common sense: if today we Chinese might invent Japan 2.5 trillion U.S. dollars so that the Japanese society becomes few "fool" realtors take advantage of the majority of the Japanese middle class and lower class society, would you support this plan? [Translation comment: To understand the last question, please take into account that a large number of mainland Chinese do not like Japan. Moreover, the "fool" means that some people are willingly blinded because of money. Not really they are less intelligent in thinking.]

Liu Junluo

March 24, 2010

President Obama's Vision

In China, Liu Junluo (Chinese: 刘军洛) is well known on his extraordinary analysis on the global and Chinese economics. Several months ago, I posted his prediction on who the winner of the financial crisis would be. With time, more and more likely his prediction is indeed sound, again!

Recently, Junluo had another insightful posts titled President Obama's Vision and Mr. Bernanke's Regional War. The thought in the post is very sharp and farsighted. I cannot help myself from sharing the mind to the Thinking Space readers. However, I only translated the first part of his post. The full article in Chinese can be found here.

---

President Obama's Vision

The Bogeyman of thinking is to tell that the earth is round when everybody else says it is flat. This is called vision.

If Mr. Obama had agreed to spend 200 billion U.S. dollars on saving the largest U.S. automobile manufacturer, the world might not have thought that the U.S. industry was decaying indefinitely. In fact, the 200 billion U.S. dollars is totally incomparable to the speed of money-burning in Iraq and Afghanistan. The problem is, however, why Mr. Obama chose to let the whole world think that the American industry is dying.

In October 1999, the entire human population global wide exceeded six billion. By 2020 the number will exceed 8 billion. 8 billion, however, is about the maximum number of people our Earth may safely sustain.

In two years, i.e. 2011, in United States the baby boom generation will start to retire. In the next 20 years, this 78 million American baby boomers will retire completely. They are the world's richest generation ever and they are the generation the most willing to spend. What will the world be when all of them are retired?

By 2030 the proportion of the aging population in United States and Germany will rise rapidly to around 26%. In Japan it will reach more than 30%. What will these senior people demand after the retirement? Medical care, nursing, recreation, pets, religion, and blue sky! At the meantime, they will consume less on many of the industrial products including particularly such as automobile, and they will save more money in bank.

Now in United States a senior over 65 is supported by 3.9 members in the young labor force. By 2030 the ratio will become 2.4:1. The same average ratio in all of the world's developed countries at the time will be 2.5:1. In the next five years, the tax burden of the ordinary labor force in all of the developed countries will substantially increase. If the total demand within the emerging countries especially such as China and India could not substantially increase, (i.e., the average wage of their main labor force is not increased substantially), in the next five years, by 2010 at least 50% of the automotive business and the iron and steel manufacturers will be eradicated by the sharp fall of the global demand in general.

Therefore, Mr. Obama chooses to force the largest U.S. automobile manufacturer to enter the age of small batch production. At the same time, the saved labor force will be redistributed to produce America the bluest sky, the clearest water, the best health care system, and the most superior legal system in the world. Since 2010, in every developed country all over the world a greater and greater force of the rich and retried people are looking for the best living environment, the best medical care services, and the best legal protection for their retirement life. This is a trend irresistible.

Now China has exclaimed to invest 900 billion U.S. dollars in the auto industry, boating industry, iron and steel industry, and cement manufacturing industry during the first half of 2009. Moreover, there are ongoing government projects in such as the road, bridge, and railway construction in no less than one trillion U.S. dollars. In southern China, a bridge-construction project leader excitedly announced to the people around that the 10-billion U.S. dollar new bridge will be completed in 2015, and it will shorten the time of cargo transportation in the region from the current 4 hours to about 40 minutes. The same excitement was also among the people surrounding him.

In 2015 the tax burden of the ordinary workforce in all the developed countries will be increased, which inevitably will lead to the substantially reduced rate of consumption among this workforce.

In 2015 a large percentage of the baby boomers in United States have already retired at home; and they will reduce the rate of consumption.

In 2015 the labor cost in India and Vietnam will be more competitive than in China.

In 2020 the most popular job in the world will be pension agents, who restlessly run among the richest generation of the retired people and sell them where the bluest sky is, where the cleanest environment is, where the clearest water is, where the best medical services are, and where the most superior legal protection is.

If an elder couple generates in average five million U.S. dollars in consumption after the retirement, and in the next two decades the United States attracts three million couples global wide to consume its best environment, best medical care, and best legal systems, it is a 15 trillion U.S. dollars business!

In 2010, the poor sells automobile; the rich sells medical care and law protection; and the wealthy sells clean air and water.

Mr. Obama is among the few first ones who know how to act properly when our earth is OLD, and when the 78 million U.S. baby boomers are also OLD.

In summary, the greatness of mind is that the monopoly of wealth stands opposite to the mass thinking.

From UGC to UGA, and the limitation of Web 2.0

Yesterday, at ThinkerNet I posted "User Generated Content (UGC), Revisited", which led to interesting and constructive discussion. More or less, all of the discussion pointed to a broader issue implicitly mentioned by the original post, i.e., the limitation of Web 2.0.

To really understand it, however, we may need to review a few of the basics of economy. How is capital generated? When we say that our hard work produces capital, what does it mean? Is capital freely convertible to certain amount of labor and vice versa, or there is something more in the formula?

Capital generation demands labor. No new capital could be generated without labor. But labor only is not sufficient to produce capital. For example, throwing bottles to strangers is a labor, but hardly can it produce capital. To make the labor result be capital, the labor work must produce things that are exchangeable. The internal value of a product is measured by the amount of labor to produce the product; its true commercial value (i.e. the product as a piece of capital or asset) is, however, eventually determined by the degree of exchangeability of the product in the market. The commercial value of a nonexchangeable product is close to zero no matter how much the internal value of the product is.

By this mean, we have capital flow. Things that cannot exchange cannot flow; things that are hard to exchange are hard to flow; and so on. Exchange causes capital flow, and capital flow generates the wealth in our society. When a type of economy can consistently produce wealth to the society, it is a sustainable business model; otherwise it is not.

The essential UGC-based Web 2.0 business model is not sustainable because it does not produce enough exchangeable product. This is the limitation of Web 2.0.

In the post, I revisited a few fundamentals of UGC. From the study, I found that UGC primarily produces attention. Nevertheless does attention contain value, it is not a highly exchangeable product. The connection/attention generated by Web 2.0 help capital exchange rather than itself being capital. Therefore, the businesses built upon this model can hardly walk in a long journey into the future. We need to invent new models to build the real user-generated asset (UGA), or probably we may call it the exchangeable mind asset. By doing so, we will enter a new age of the Web---Web 3.0.

There is one more argument that is interesting. People used to say that nobody would like to pay to read a blog or a message. This is true. But there is actually one more sentence which should follow the previous one. That nobody is willing to pay is because Web 2.0 itself has not really produced anything that is worth of being purchased! Again, it tells the main limitation of Web 2.0.

There are many things we are willing to buy using money. For example, gold, a TV set, or even a pencil. Why do you want to buy them? They have internal value, AND they have exchangeable value, which makes them be asset more or less. Web 2.0, on the other hand, is poor on converting human's knowledge to be exchangeable capital/asset, despite it does help exchange capital in the other forms. This distinction tells the strength as well as the weakness of Web 2.0.

Anyway, from UGC to UGA is not trivial. It demands a great deal of ability of innovation to accomplish the request. But, at least, now we know where we should approach, don't we?

Renewed logos after crisis

This is from an email. Quote: "We know how we entered into the crisis, but we don’t how, when, or how we will be getting out of it. Considering that issue, we decided to our little bit to help cheer everyone up by redoing the logos of some renowned companies ... after the crisis." Have fun!