BARVENNON.COM
3rd May 2005
AUSTRALIAN DIARY
-
REQUIEM CAPITALISM -
There
was a young lady from Riga,
who smiled as she rode on the Tiger
they returned from the ride,
with the lady inside,
and the smile on the face of the tiger.
The internet is the
marketplace. This has been forecast so often over the last half
decade that local retail identities have turned it into a
joke.
On 26th April the DRUDGEREPORT carried the banner: GOOGLE.COM
VALUED AT MORE THAN VIACOM, DISNEY, GM... which
might give an idea of who is benefiting from the advertising.
But didn't we see this before, when AOL bought TIME?
No. There are two big superstores ("Wal-Marts") in
Australia.
They are "Woolworths" and "Coles". These two
organizations, in their search for greater profits, expand
their product lines, stores and store brand products. Their
product lines now include liquor (50% of retail sales), vehicle
services, groceries, clothing,
electronics and probably a few others. They are foreshadowing a
movement into pharmaceuticals. They are moving into new premises
at an
accelerating rate. They have started canceling deals with minor
product line brand name suppliers
as they foreshadow their own "equal-quality-but-cheaper" store
brands. They are not, however, moving rapidly onto the
internet.
Coles & Woolworths should beware. Just as Wal-Mart has
outperformed the other
retailers of the USA, so will internet marketing outperform the
superstores. Then their last hope would be to become social
centers of
services. (which Wal-Mart is already becoming).
Entertainment copyright is a corpse. VOIP technology combined
with wireless will murder telecoms. CIM
will devastate engineering
corporations from General Motors to Toshiba. Top journalists will
become bloggers and the print & small screen will die. The only
enterprises that
I can envisage might survive are government granted monopolies on
services infrastructure. (transport, minerals, electromagnetic
spectrum. etc) and perhaps Microsoft and most certainly other new
concept industries not yet over the horizon.
For the last four years I have been predicting the death of
capitalism. The Drudgereport banner above is an omen of
that extinction. As events precipitate I anticipate that Google
and other internet domains will obtain a significant share of the
advertising revenue that Print, TV and radio currently monopolize.
This is the
Wal-Mart superstore story over again.
The result is that those who have capital will no longer find a safe
investment
target. The next few years will be a bloodbath as stock &
bond capital
is
destroyed. Real estate (via "land rent") will be the next
government
tax target as the big corporations fail, so that government revenues
from income &
corporation tax bases vanish. As land rent rises, so the value of
real estate (as measured by the UCV = Unimproved Capital Value) will
drop. The formation of superannuation (retirement funds)
investment corporations is accelerating this process. The value
of the investments of investment funds will steadily diminish.
The conclusion is, our western democracies do not at present have the
financial & social
infrastructure
constructs deal with the coming changes. If there is
no move to review that infrastructure, that bloodbath will be
hemoglobin, not just $bucks.
Inevitably, government provided services including education will move
to "community" or "user pay". Excess taxes will be returned to
the people as some form of social security payments.
Eventually public servants will largely disappear as governments
distribute
the "land rent" collected to the citizens of the nation.
-
REQUIEM JOH
BJELKE PETERSON -
Last week one of the greatest of Australians died.
Among politicians, the measure of greatness is the count and
vociferousness of enemies (detractors?). Presidents Reagan and
Kennedy were "case in point". Also deceased this fortnight,
Grassby, former Australian immigration minister who "took the law into
his own hands" on immigration, and Rene Rivkin, by his own hand,
winning the final argument by laying a guilt trip on us all.
EMAIL
ARCHIVES.