The Fall of The Uber Menschen

Unless you've been living under a rock these last few years, you know that Uber is angling to Go Public and make a handful of folks really rich. At least, on paper. This missive has been germinating for some time, and began to gel a few days ago when I read that An Analyst finally said that the emperor has no clothes:

"The problem that Uber or any other incumbent faces is that the barriers to entry are very small," said Bob Hancké, an associate professor of political economy at the London School of Economics.

Finally, a quant with an ounce of sense.

It's clear that Uber, et al, represent a case of tech overwhelming good sense. There really is no intrinsic benefit to innterTube taxi service. Really. It should not surprise that the whole idea loses money. Taxi service is a local enterprise, everywhere.

And, of course, one must ask how Uber, et al, propose to make money? Well, let's go back to (at least) David Ricardo, who proposed a labor theory of value. LTV is most often conflated with Marx, but it wasn't his idea, and he didn't base his writings on it. There is an ultimate LTV, which does a thought experiment: how is physical capital created? The answer, of course, is that the process starts with some raw material, extracted by labor, which act is the value add. Each subsequent step is exactly the same: value add comes only from labor. Not a widely held idea, naturally.

But, in practical terms, how does Uber actually make money? If it ever does. Consider the cost structure of a generic business. All but labor, sans unions, are costs which are not easy unilateral by the business. Materials are gotten by contract. Land is gotten by contract. And so on. In other words, the only flexible cost is labor. So, of necessity, that's where the profit is: pay less than the value add.

In the case of Uber, there's also the gambit of escaping externality-enforcing regulation. You know, like the local taxi commission, which exists for reasons, if only to avoid clogging streets with empty taxis. Now, some may consider those reasons onerous, but on the other hand, it is never optimal to allow capitalists to impose externalities. Just ask the folks living in the vicinity of factory pig farms Down South.

So, also not too surprising is today's news that the Uber menschen have lowered the IPO share price. I bet they do again, and may be yet again. It's a nonsense business.

The only dumber 'service' of this transportation type is Turo. For all the same reasons.

The Easy 80 Percent

I think it was Dr. McElhone who introduced me to the old saw (didn't know it was old, at the time), "Don't think you're really good just because you've mastered the Easy 80 Percent!". Truer words were never spoken.

Today brings yet another example. Pharma had been dining out on filet and caviar for decades with the Easy 80%. Now, the impossible 20% is all that's left. They, we now know, are frauds. They don't work miracles. They don't conjure all these compounds out of their own pockets. They depend on the Damn Gummint for the smarts.

Another spectacular failure!

In the 802-patient study, about 9.3 percent of patients treated with an 18 mg dose of selonsertib, and 12.1 percent of patients treated with a lower dose of the drug achieved an improvement of fibrosis by at least one stage, the company said.

However, 13.2 percent of patients treated with a placebo showed an improvement in fibrosis.

When your drug gets hosed by placebo...!!!

WWJD

So, it's Easter. Sri Lanka has killed a bunch of Christians. Pence, at least, is trying to make hay of it. The Manchurian President has said that our country will never be socialist.

What would Jesus do? About capitalism vs. socialism, that is. To start to answer the question, we need to decide what those two mean. Capitalism is generally agreed on: private ownership of the means of production.

Socialism, not so much. The Manchurian President and his cabal use the word as synonymous with Communism. Note the capital; old time Russia and such. Which wasn't the spot on the planet that Marx had in mind with "Das Capital", by the way.

Here are a few ways to define.
- yes, the same as communism (small c) with The State owning all means of production
- The State owns some means of production, those associated with generally agreed to be social goods
- The State owns some means of production, those associated with universally agreed to be social goods
- The State owns no means of production, but enforces laws regarding production/distribution of some social goods
- The State owns no means of production, but enforces laws to pay for externalities generated by production
- The State owns some infrastructure that is generally/universally agreed to be common
- The State provides some degree of protection from economic catastrophes experienced by citizens

If you have not one of those, you have early 19th century USofA; a time and place of widespread poverty, morbidity, and mortality. And not much else for the 99%. Darwin, whom the bible thumpers despise, in full flower. And, as Boeing is proving by the bucket load these days, just because you're a capitalist doesn't necessarily mean you're the Smartest Guy in The Room. Unless your definition of Smart is 'Fuck the Public'.

The most important one, and that I'd considered the sine qua non, is one which penalizes profit-making externalities. I've never been there, but factory hog farms are an excellent example of such bad behavior. And, you don't need a hurricane to experience externalities.

So, right-wing bible thumpers, tell me. What would Jesus do?

Treason

if this be treason, make the most of it.
-- Patrick Henry/1765

The Manchurian President certainly considers himself a revolutionary, but I doubt that Henry would approve of his version. The Manchurian President and his minions are making the most of the wishy-washy Mueller Report, and I saw a headline (haven't read up the story, yet) where Guiliani claims that consorting with Russians is just fine and dandy.

Well. Thanks to some reporting in the NYT, and elsewhere, we find that the vaunted private sector is pushing us into War. How can that be? Isn't the Congress the sole arbiter of War? May be not.

When the United States government assigned responsibility for NotPetya to Russia in 2018, insurers were provided with a justification for refusing to cover the damage. Just as they wouldn't be liable if a bomb blew up a corporate building during an armed conflict, they claim not to be responsible when a state-backed hack strikes a computer network.

If, as the insurance industry is claiming, the USofA government is asserting that cyberattacks by Russians (or others) are, in fact, acts of war, then isn't consorting with such enemies an act of Treason? Isn't, therefore, The Manchurian President and his minions, committing acts of Treason?

If Treason isn't an impeachable offense, then what is?

A Public Service Message

I saw a comment stream on a blog, which discussed beautiful words (the comments, not the blog's content). One suggestion was 'syphilis' being the most beautiful word in the English language.

Imagine my surprise to see this story in my newsfeed. Syphilis has returned to God's Country; Missouri specifically in the story. And, of course, the Bible Thumpers are in Da Nile over yet another scourge.

Compared with urban hubs, rural populations tend to have less access to public health resources, less experience with syphilis and less willingness to address it because of socially conservative views toward homosexuality and nonmarital sex.

And, not at all surprising,

In Missouri, restrictions on Planned Parenthood's Medicaid reimbursements that were passed last year in the legislature, and are again under debate, mean the nonprofit organization cannot be reimbursed for STD treatment for some patients.

Can't let PP mess with religious retribution.

Revenge of the Server - part the second

Yet another pundit voicing one of the themes of these endeavors:

"You could just have a dumb device with 5G connectivity," says David McQueen, research director at ABI Research. "All the heavy-lifting computational power is done elsewhere, and you're just basically walking around with a fairly cheap but connected product."

More "Revenge of the VT-220".

Ouch! That Smarts

There was a time, mostly post WWII into the 70s when the mantra was, "Let's work smarter, not harder!"

The term "work smarter ... not harder" originated in the 1930's. Allen F. Morgenstern, an industrial engineer, the creator of the work simplification program, coined the term. The program's intent was to increase the ability of people to produce more with less effort.

This was later picked up by the cartoon character Scrooge McDuck, created in 1947 by Carl Banks. Scrooge McDuck always told his three nephews, Hewey, Dewey, and Louis, "Work smarter than the smarties and tougher than the toughies."

Scrooge McDuck!! Who knew?

Now we get a proto-fascist declaring that the best way forward is to regress to the 19th century. Good for him.

It's also worth noting that W. Edwards Deming (a hero), post WWII, took this seriously. Here's one of his principles:

Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force.
Eliminate work standards (quotas) on the factory floor. Substitute with leadership.
Eliminate management by objective. Eliminate management by numbers and numerical goals. Instead substitute with leadership.

Does anyone seriously believe:
1 - that assembly workers have 'pride' of work such that they're driven to create more value by working 12 hours a day 6 days a week? Really?
2 - that 'creative' workers will innovate ever more vigorously if they're shackled to their seats at the table for that long? Really?

When would either have any time to spend their wages? Really? Didn't the middle class come into existence after the end of compulsory labor, and the protections of unions? And the 40 hour work week? No market, no profit. Yes, yes, that's what happened. OTOH, if you're a slave wages exporter, then you've no choice but to continue to grind labor. After all, physical capital has to be paid for (and the cost is the same for everybody). Materials have to be paid for (ditto). So where does the profit come from? Squeezing the worker. It's no coincidence that these wage slave producers exist in totalitarian states. It's also no coincidence that they all have to export to high wage states. To the extent that Red states co-opt Blue states (whether state or State), the market seen by wage slave producers contracts. It's in their best interest to protect their TAM. But, as we can see, they're just too stupid to figure it out.