“the economist”
26 posts under this tag.
The cover article of this week’s Economist brings the stem-cell cancer hypothesis to the mainstream. This is over 3 years after Eva Vertes talked about it at TED in one of my favorite video pieces ever. And is very, very exciting.
 ..just occasionally, a finding revolutionises the field and cracks open a whole range of diseases. The discovery in the 19th century that many illnesses are caused by bacteria was one such. The unravelling of Mendelian genetics was another. It now seems likely that medical science is on the brink of a finding of equal significance. The underlying biology of that scourge of modern humanity, cancer, looks as though it is about to yield its main secret. If it does, it is possible that the headline-writer’s cliché, “a cure for cancer”, will come true over the years, just as the antibiotics that followed from the discovery of bacteria swept away previously lethal infectious diseases.
The discovery—or, rather, the hypothesis that is now being tested—is that cancers grow from stem cells in the way that healthy organs do.
I love the anecdote because it makes the point so well and it rings so true. The statistic surpassed even my dire expectations. And yes, major labels should have acted years ago. May we learn something from their example.
IN 2006 EMI, the world’s fourth-biggest recorded-music company, invited some teenagers into its headquarters in London to talk to its top managers about their listening habits. At the end of the session the EMI bosses thanked them for their comments and told them to help themselves to a big pile of CDs sitting on a table. But none of the teens took any of the CDs, even though they were free. “That was the moment we realised the game was completely up,” says a person who was there.
In America, according to Nielsen SoundScan, the volume of physical albums sold dropped by 19% in 2007 from the year before—faster than anyone had expected.
Tim Renner, a former boss of Universal Music in Germany, says the majors should have acted years ago. “Then they had the money and could have built the competence by buying concert agencies and merchandise companies,” he says. Now it may be too late.
For those armchair observers of the breathtaking world of quants and structured finance, as myself, Technology Review’s current issue carries a wonderfully didactic and gripping introduction, The Blow-Up: (pesky but FREE registration required).
“How many think spreads will widen?” she asked.
The hands of about half the smartest people on Wall Street shot up.
“And how many think they’ll narrow?”
The other half—equally smart—raised their hands.
“Well,” she said. “That’s what makes a market.”
If they didn’t know, nobody could.
Focused only in securitization, When it goes wrong, from The Economist (YubNub’s “eco“), is also a good overview and glimpse:
..it is hard to overstate the effect that securitisation has had on financial markets. Until the early 1980s, finance hewed to an “originate and hold” model. Banks generally held loans on their balance sheets to maturity; some debts were sold on loan-by-loan, but this market was small and lumpy. This began to give way to an “originate and distribute” model after America’s government-sponsored mortgage giants issued the first bonds with payments tied to the cash flows from large pools of loans.
Wall Street built on this innovation, and securitisation took off soon after, then paused before exploding in the 1990s.. It was given a lift by America’s savings-and-loan crisis, which encouraged mortgage lenders to jettison their riskier loans, and by new technologies, such as credit-scoring, that facilitated loan-pooling. Around 56% of America’s outstanding residential mortgages were packaged in this way, including more than two-thirds of the subprime loans issued in 2006. Thanks largely to securitisation, global private-debt securities are now far bigger than stockmarkets.
Answers.com (YubNub’s “a“), btw, is invaluable in navigating jargony fields like finance.
The second course, “shrimp and tarragon macaroons”, sang out loud. Clumsy as it sounds, it was among the most beautiful, thoughtful, well-composed dishes I’ve ever had. Three little white puffs sat on a stark white plate; each puff consisted of two meringue-like halves held together with a smear of reduced and pureed tarragon. The puffs had an etheral texture—with a slight pressure from the tongue, they melted—and a haunting, intense shrimp flavor that the tarragon complemented perfectly. Imagine those Indonesian shrimp puffs made by a classically-trained pastry chef, and you’re halfway there.
Beautiful? Thoughtful? Well-composed? Ratatouille did much to made me remember how much I’ve always enjoyed food, but Kandinsky in the Kitchen, the abovequoted review of the New York restaurant WD-50 floored me. I had never read food described with such words before, nor had I seen dishes more beautiful than most paintings, nor had I been so enthralled with so original a combination of ingredients (how about a dish made of cured hamachi, lemon leather, cilantro sorbet and paprika ?).
Another great review of the restaurant by The Gourmet Pig, made me realize the restaurant is part of a much wider movement: molecular gastronomy, the application of science to culinary practice. Apparently they can now compress watermelon to give it the texture of raw tuna.
The pursuit of beauty and meaning will never end, will it?
If the war against terrorism is a war at all, it is like the cold war—one that will last for decades. Although a real threat exists, to let security trump liberty in every case would corrode the civilised world’s sense of what it is and wants to be..
Locking up suspected terrorists—and why not potential murderers, rapists and paedophiles, too?—before they commit crimes would probably make society safer. Dozens of plots may have been foiled and thousands of lives saved as a result of some of the unsavoury practices now being employed in the name of fighting terrorism. Dropping such practices in order to preserve freedom may cost many lives. So be it.
The deep ethical crisis I’ve been immersed for some weeks now started when I realized that, ultimately, ethics is not a necessity, it’s a stand. You can’t judge without PREjudices. You are never guaranteed to be on the absolute right path, there is no such abstract thing. Your prejudices—your self—determine a range of trajectories, a train of self. And that’s that.
Our values are in practice a deeply enmeshed, deeply correlated network with no one most important end. Every value has its price, is outweighed eventually by some combination of other values. Far from urging us into hasty, thoughtless expediency, this should sober us: we concede when we have more to lose if we not—are we giving our values away at a discount?
That question is what the quote above is about. Liberty is both what civilization is and wants to be, for some of us. Terrorism has recently highlighted for us how dear its cost can be. It is not our nature to bear burdens and so we shall never stop looking for ways around them. But if it comes down to it, we wil bear freedom’s burden.
For my writer friends. From Intelligent Life’s article on On The Road’s anniversary, Fifty years of solitude.
This is why the book has always left a bad taste in my mouth: its most passionate defenders treat it as a sacred text, and seem to think that feeling—depth of feeling, loudness of feeling, existence of feeling—somehow justifies a piece of writing or an opinion, as though art were all about self-expression rather than artifice.
For marketing-minded friends.
Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to produce an ordered list of all the reasons you can think for Starbucks’s use of cash cards. (They’ve just been introduced in Mexico, though they’ve been around in the US for some 6 or so years). Something like:
One-line items are enough, we’re aiming for breadth. Keep it simple.
Remember, this is about why Stbx does this, not why customers buy the cards (which is another mystery onto itself).
Submissions will be accepted until Sunday midnight, September 23th and should be sent to ely.parra@gmail.com. I, elzr.com, shall decide the winner based on the following criteria:
40% for originality and number of reasons
40% for how convincing the reasons are (this, sadly, ain’t no humor contest)
20% for the ordering (from most to least important)
Submissions are accepted in English, Spanish, or French. English is of course preferred but the choice of language will have no bearing on the judgement.
The winner will be announced at elzr.com/posts/Marketing-Challenge on Monday, September 24th. All lists shall be published in said post. The prize will be 25 dollars in Starbucks card credit.
You’re encouraged to resend this challenge to anyone who might have interesting thoughts on the subject. Anyone may participate. (Though Stbx card credit will probably not be very valuable for those living in countries where the local Starbucks don’t accept it yet, not to mention countries without Stbx.)
It may prove a fun marketing challenge. Happy listing!
Resolution:
Julio Sangabriel
# For creating Customer Databases for CRM efforts.
# Offers a gigantic opportunity for Conjoint Advertising
# It makes easier for Customer tracking.
# Psicologicaly customer believe it to be easier to buy if they have a shop card… (which is no ttrue… you can still buy In SB the same easy way) and thus they buy in SB.
# It gives one or more channels for contacting directly the customers.
# It Will become customizable (people will start making them as they see fit)
# It Gives the people a sense of belonging and exclusivity.
# It Makes people believe to be VIP for having a club card from the most expensive coffee in the world.
# Creates Fashion.
# World Control… haha
Adolfo Rodriguez Navarro
# Crear lealtad- le permiten al consumidor sentirse mas involucrado con la compañia y de paso aseguran que el dinero que tiene planeado gastar en cafe solo lo use en ella.
# Abrirse a nuevos mercados- Al ser usada como gift card, la gente que la recibe que antes no consumia el producto se ve alentada a hacerlo, asi que los que la regalan terminan funcionando como agentes de starbucks.
# Financiamiento a traves del consumidor – Para que pedir creditos si tus clientes te pagan por servicios no demandados a un pequeño costo para ti?
# Dinero gratis- tarjetas que se pierden, personas que dejan de usarla, gift cards que nunca son usadas, al final ellos se quedan con el dinero sin dar nada a cambio.
So the winner is… Julio Sangabriel! I particularly enjoyed his #1, #2, #3, #5, #6 (it becomes an always-with-you embodiment of the brand). I must confess that the reason I started this challenge was because upon reading this Economist article on algorithms
, I had the epiphany that Julio’s #3, customer tracking, was Stbx’s true reason. It was not an opinion of anyone with whom I bounced the idea (nor did they thought it remotely important once I told them about it) so I can attest to it’s originality. Adolfo’s, I particularly enjoyed #2 and #3—I had thought myself of something like his #4, that is, credit lost-and-found money, thinking of it as finance money is an intriguing possibility.
I rather like this challenge-making thing, it’s like outsourcing thinking! Besides, it’s just nice to give things away.
Thanks a lot to those who participated and the many more who told me they thought this an interesting challenge (I was frankly afraid people would thought it stupid).
‘Till the next challenge! %(p)(But if you come up with more reasons—it is so much easier once you have somewhere to start—, then by all means add them in the comments.)%
Fascinating Economist article on the music industry’s new developments. Very reminiscent of Dyson’s thoughts on intellectual property:
“[...it] is dead; long live intellectual process. Long live service; long live performance.”
and anime’s general stance towards piracy:
“If it succeeds, milk it; if not, try something different. And if the fans are into file sharing (which they are), keep the lawyers leashed and find a way to make piracy work for you.”
Seven years ago musicians derived two-thirds of their income, via record labels, from pre-recorded music, with the other one-third coming from concert tours, merchandise and endorsements, according to the Music Managers Forum, a trade group in London. But today those proportions have been reversed—cutting the labels off from the industry’s biggest and fastest-growing sources of revenue. Concert-ticket sales in North America alone increased from $1.7 billion in 2000 to over $3.1 billion last year, according to Pollstar, a trade magazine.
Frustrated record companies have responded by trying to get their artists to spend more time promoting records and less time touring and endorsing products, says Jeanne Meyer of EMI, another big record label. “Sometimes you’ve got a tug of war going on,” she says. Yet the more labels spend on marketing pre-recorded music, the more they raise their artists’ profiles and boost their other, more lucrative, sources of income. Pre-recorded music, no longer the main cash cow, increasingly serves merely as a marketing tool for T-shirts and concert tickets. The best seats for The Police’s world tour this summer cost over $900; the group’s entire catalogue on CD costs less than $100.
The shift away from recorded music is due in part to the recognition that touring and merchandise are more lucrative. But it may also be a consequence of internet piracy, as free downloads give music fans more money to spend on other things. Jwana Godinho, the director of Música no Coração, a concert promoter in Lisbon, thinks many music lovers have a “mental budget” that they are prepared to spend on music, and have switched their spending from CDs to tickets and merchandise.
The logical conclusion is for artists to give away their music as a promotional tool. Some are doing just that. This week Prince announced that his new album, “Planet Earth”, will be given away in Britain for free with the Mail on Sunday, a national newspaper, on July 15th. (For years Prince has made far more money from live performances than from album sales; he was the industry’s top earner in 2004.) Outraged British music retailers were quick to condemn the idea. As far as the record industry is concerned, it is madness. But for the music industry, it could well be the shape of things to come.
I’ve always hated, with a passion, moral-indignation ads against piracy—not only because they’re manipulative but because they’re stupid. And the best defense for piracy may be how hard it is to make an argument against it that doesn’t stink of moral indignation—if maudlin pleas are the best you can do, you’re probably rotten. (On a related sidenote, I found it mighty interesting when The Economist circuitously referred to Kazaa as “a file-sharing program that was widely used to download music without paying for it”—as much as ads want to make us believe pirating is stealing, there are crucial differences, which is why such circumlocutions are essential.)
To solve intellectual property’s malaise I’ve long sought for grand economic solutions (new innovative schemes or perhaps even a new concept of property rights) rather than grand political ones (which are just, ugh, imposed moral rules). While there has been plenty of both, I’m starting to see these days that maybe the solution will be simply to move on. Piracy is just another (admittedly extreme) form of commodificationWP. You don’t fight commodification by outlawing it, you take the next thing that hasn’t been commodified yet, you offer value however you can, you move on.
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.
—Richard Feynman, Cargo Cult Science
Watched Al Gore’s An Inconvenient TruthWP a couple of days ago. Besides being astonished by the quality of the presentation that is the core of the documentary, he did manage to intrigue me, if not convince me, about global warming—I’m definitely reading Skeptical EnvironmentalistAM, E soon.
At any rate, what surprised me most was Gore’s evident hubris and mocking towards skeptics. I thought of a question for him then,
what reasons are there to disbelief your believes and your conclusions?
And it hit me that it was too good a question not to ask ourselves.
That’s the game I’m proposing today. It’s like when they asked you in high school to take the other side of a debate only this time it’s not about arguments, it’s about reasons—the difference here being that a reason is a fact you yourself are forced to accept while an argument is a verbal tool you use to to try to convince others. This is not about others, posing or fighting, this is about you and truth.
You know there have to be reasons for both sides, don’t you? Anything of more than trivial complexity is inherently ambiguous. If you can’t find them it’s probably because your knowledge of the subject is, well, trivial and superficial.
So take one of your most entrenched beliefs—say, in my case, that government is evil or that there is no god—and find a reason—a reason you can do nothing but accept—for disbelieving it. It is not about you abandoning that belief, it’s about letting doubt back inside your cramped head.
Personally, I’m losing so far. It’s incredibly easy to come up with plausible, convincing arguments that would be good weapons and yet you personally know are ultimately flawed and phony. But to come with true reasons—well, it’s much, much harder than I thought…
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..just occasionally, a finding revolutionises the field and cracks open a whole range of diseases. The discovery in the 19th century that many illnesses are caused by bacteria was one such. The unravelling of Mendelian genetics was another. It now seems likely that medical science is on the brink of a finding of equal significance. The underlying biology of that scourge of modern humanity, cancer, looks as though it is about to yield its main secret. If it does, it is possible that the headline-writer’s cliché, “a cure for cancer”, will come true over the years, just as the antibiotics that followed from the discovery of bacteria swept away previously lethal infectious diseases.
