It is an old economy that is dying, and it is the sound of the death throes and squalls of agony from that economy that is keeping the Harvard Business School Deans, Australian property spruikers, and European governments up at night.
I have written quite a lot on why high house prices are not good for innovation (thus growth, and thus economic wellbeing and equity).
Trade.
The economic problem is this: Trade makes people better off.
The social problem is: Monopoly capitalism and large ‘propped up’ institutions make no-one (collectively) better off. And this is what we have had.
Needed: 1 Middle Class
The Ford period of mass-production was based around the insight of creating larger wealthier consumer markets. By paying higher wages, people could afford the company’s products. i.e. cars.
Credit is a poor substitute for a middle-class. Consumer Credit or Mortgage Re-draws just kick the can down the road, and max-out the grand-kids credit card.
Which is fair enough. Perhaps we only get a ‘good decade’ (or less) every so often. The ‘good old times’ were never so ‘good’. (Except a few years here and there).
Answer.
So we must build an innovation economy, because the rules of the game are changing.
Just some thoughts…
Your Innovation Economy Today! Hobby to Killer Product
Now what are you going to build today?
How about you turn a hobby into a killer business… but remember, think about distribution first. How can you get your killer product to market?
Keep innovating,
Christopher Hire
Trust is the currency of wealth.
Stock markets this week or month could free fall. We really could be plunging into the Great Depression Mark II.
And, it is Europe’s collective of national leaders fault.
Here by regions are some history and, then signs of what may happen.
Australian Stock Market
I live in Australia.
For a long time I have held the view, and expressed the view that the true value of the Australia stock market is 4,500 points. I predicted the fall in October 2007, and shortly thereafter the bottom as 4,500.
3,700 to 3,800 was the range I gave as the ‘overshoot’ with true value of the index at 4,500.
I also have not changed this prediction over the last few years.
Right now, this prediction is stable. Unless Europe falls. And then we are in my view looking at 1,700 points. Or in an armageddon 100 points. Yes 100 points.
Normally this would be so unlikely as not to warrant discussion, but Europe is serious.
USA Stock Market
Although not published my analysis of the true value of the Dow Jones is 9,500 to 11,500. I still think this is the case.
It has been my view that both are likely to move sideways, and not up.
The Dow(n) Jones however would move up, if the USA was left to it’s nascent recovery I started seeing in October 2011 this year.
Here I see a rise. Unless Europe falls. Then black hole like 5,000 maybe down to 3,400 or so.
Armageddon — I don’t know. Perhaps not as low because South America is more significant, and so is Canada — so trade can continue. If I was selecting a range 500-700 points for 1 year.
Note that, once again, economic armageddon is not permanent. As recovery (assuming benign leadership) almost always recovers.
Assuming Europe doesn’t really mess up.
1930s USA stumbled, Europe kept it down
Europe has form here. It was the British currency decisions, and removal of gold backing in part that created the darkness of the Great Depression.
Arguably, the punitive nature of war debts in Germany (inflicted by France and Britain) — really plunged the continent into darkness.
And it was the massive debt of the foolish World War I that Europeans refused to pay (default on debt again) — that really worsened the crisis of the 1930s. It’s often forgotten that Germany, France and Britain did not pay their full war debts to the USA.
Without a European debt black-hole the free market system of the USA recovers. Quickly.
Asia
Is dependent on Europe then USA, Canada, Australia (and ultimately trade with each other). So take out the biggest slice (Europe) and the it’s like losing a third of your income before the flow-on effects. Europe is more than the E.U.
So, let’s say – blood bath on the Asian stock markets if European debt show rolls into the abyss.
Europe
Europe arguably caused the Great Depression with their own internal issues, and inability to resolve long-standing cultural rivalries.
It was the removal of the gold standard (or at least the way it was done) and those war debts — that largely caused the Depression to reoccur in the early 1930s.
Both were based on a nationalist not a ‘love thy neighbor’ sentiment. Both decisions were based on transferring the problem, and dealing with other countries in a win-lose mindset.
As I argued in 2007, this makes no money for no one. The British, of course, never learn this lesson and persevere in a zero-sum mentality. Other Europeans are hardly much better (although arguably some European responses are protective.)
Europe what I said
So in our Innovation Cities Analysis Report, I have maintained a prediction from 2009-2011 that Europe will continue to function. It will resolve the debt crisis. Europe (and the E.U.) will do the right thing.
Fire-walling the debt, defacto de-valuation, debt haircuts, banking bailouts, and other measures should work. I remained optimistic, based on believing that the common market/EEC, E.U., Euro and to some extent Lisbon, had rendered Europe as ‘pan-European’.
Either view will win — the pan-European view, or the nasty nationalistic view.
But as it seems now, this positive view may simply not work. Mainly because the Europeans won’t (once again) let it work.
European History
And as usual, the realpolitik and elitism of Europe that led to Versailles, and before that the Napoleonic Wars rears its head again.
Commerce is based on trust. And it seems once again nobody in Europe trusts each other, and each country is still too busy trying to give their rival economic powers the short end of the stick.
Did Europe learn nothing from World War I and World War II? These were economic wars, as much as political wars.
Surely leaders learnt that scorched earth and bloody mindedness does not work. It did not work in war, and it won’t work in economics either.
It seems the British, French and Germans are too busy thinking of each other’s relative position. Although, as in the 1930s, Britain’s strategy will not work — nobody can compromise to find one that will (instead of whingeing)
Austerity is a failure
Austerity has never worked. And will never work. You cannot (as corporate failures attest) cut your way out of crisis.
But because the creaking machines of state lack the intelligence, foresight and dare I say it — common sense – to really look at the problem honestly, this European buck-passing continues.
I just cannot understand why they let the same old usual suspects (who lack courage) make the same old narrow decisions.
Maybe someone will step-up, and champion the cause of a positive vision, and positive solution to the European debt crisis. But it looks doubtful anyone will have the numbers. Is it time to merge or separate European nations to stop the ridiculous voting record?
Democracy a casualty
And, as if history was forgotten, democracy is suspended and ‘technocrat’ centralists placed in charge. It seems we trust the crowd, as long as they vote for whom ‘we the elite like’.
FD Roosevelt and the Socialist experiment did not fix the USA, nor did the other ‘European’ experiments.
The longer this volatility continues the worse it gets.
And still everyone kowtows to an economic elite, emperors with no clothes. Surely it is time to look to innovation.
Europe can recover (still)
For what it’s worth, Europe can recover, with a similar dose of medicine to the USA, and a co-operative approach amongst neighbours. However, it seems resentment and bitterness, and nationalist lack of trust may win.
And it is trust which is the currency of wealth.
So Europe, don’t (again in my view) plunge us into a mess.
The probability on the first band falls, is shifting to 50%/50% in my view (from 60-70%), and the trend is down.
Europe use your much vaunted intelligence to get us out of one. Because, all you get is a decade until the next crisis. So why waste a decade or two?
Europe. Go to church (or mosque, or temple). Love thy neighbor!
I’ll say it again.
Trust is the currency of wealth.
Europe it’s history calling: Are you listening?
Keep (or start) innovating,
Christopher Hire
Christopher Hire is Executive Director of 2thinknow, innovation agency, and publisher of the Innovation Cities Index and Innovation Cities Analysis Report. He predicted the first GFC, dot-com bubble, and owns no shares right now (except through superannuation – which next week he may convert to cash).
It seems rather old-fashioned to see airline travel as luxurious. Perhaps in the 1950s or 1960s, it was.
Airlines perform a much more important role in innovation.
Airline problems are now a every-man problem, and a business problem. Airlines have become like buses in the sky, and the availability of air travel is an operating assumption of business and families.
But with security probes, x-rays, long queues, lost baggage, re-routed planes and an unpleasant taxi journey airport — airline travel is anything but pleasant. (This poster above captures the lost glory of travel!) Partly this loss of glamour is due to the inevitable move from expensive elite experience to mass transit air-bus.
Now there is the Qantas lock-out. Whatever your views on who is to blame, from an innovation and development view it is troubling for Australia — or any other island nation. It’s also troubling for Qantas shareholders.
Why airlines and innovation?
Innovation is driven by exchange and connection.
In my Innovation Cities Index and City Benchmarking Data work for 2thinknow, I have worked with other analysts to examine the linkages.
Without giving away a professional detailed analysis, a general simple analysis would be as follows.
Primary airline with leading market share (Qantas) chooses not to participate in market. This has a limited direct economic impact. However, as Qantas is the default safe choice (monopoly), this creates tension and leads to reduction in pricing premium. This pushed Qantas air ticket prices down as demand falls at current price. This results in declining performance in Qantas.
There is a limited (approaching zero) probability of improved Qantas performance, as Qantas have significantly damaged the value of their brand to mid and upper-tier customers. If those customers have a choice (Emirates, Singapore, etc) they may choose that.
Most likely upshot is more Asian / Mid-East airlines enter, selling tickets at lower prices (if allowed by Australian government). There are a series of possible scenarios, including the growth of Virgin branded airlines. A possible BA/Qantas or U.S. airline / Qantas takeover may occur. Qantas may be broken up.
This has a variety of impacts on which cities Australian tourism should be targeting, and which operators will succeed (and which will fail), as likely there is a shift to different cities and differing economic connections (based on new airline hubs).
Simply put, this changes the winners and losers in tourism, and has impacts on business co-operation as well.
Innovation, Airlines and Island Nations.
The default airline into Australia also has various national roles. Australia is 23 hours from Europe, and 14+ hours from the USA.
It makes sense to ensure the primary national carrier of an island can (like British Airways for U.K.) deliver the services needed, and provide the capacity to move people and vital goods.
For an island, this exchange and movement matters. In a networked world, people and things still move. Mail may fall, but shipping of boxes and people increases. And tourism has a strange way of leading to business deals.
It is a pity to burn more advertising dollars on advertising without a national airline. In innovation terms, it’s all unfulfilled ideas and promise.
Nationalization of Qantas.
Now there have been some sneaky news stories op-ed pieces floated lately about nationalizing Qantas, and if we see any structural change in growth rates, then the economic basis of a full service airline becomes shaky.
And when the economics become shaky, nationalization sometimes occurs (see railways).
Airline innovation.
That is not to say that it is not possible to run Qantas the business at a profit. It is.
It’s just that without imagine and vision Qantas will be turned into a loss-making enterprise. And when we have loss making enterprises, markets cannot support them. So then you hear about nationalization.
In many cases there are people able to do something, it’s just that the system creates gridlock. Staff, Board Members, Managers, Unions, Politicians. All are responsible.
I believe that with innovation in services, seating, aircraft delivery, lounges — Qantas could revenue grow (not cost cut) the way to success. I believe there are some trends that allow Qantas to make a greater profit.
But it requires re-imagining airlines and the airline business.
Sovereign airlines.
It’s worth noting that most airlines have sovereign (national) ownership — so this means that there is an inbuilt pricing assumption that tourism benefits are part of the profit of an airline for the government. Private shareholders don’t see this investment return (so don’t care about tourism except in a warm and fuzzy way).
Bear in mind institutional investors (a majority) do not do warm and fuzzy. So sovereign airlines can lose money, because their shareholders (government) see returns from the tourism.
In some ways though, this is unimaginative (and anti-common sense). You must not turn a profit making enterprise into a less efficient hybrid political enterprise – if you have the choice. Which the leadership does.
However, they lack the ideas, and it seems unlikely that the old neolithic approaches will create better outcomes.
I still believe Qantas is a viable business — and doesn’t (yet) need nationalizing.
But will we get innovation? Not if this gridlock continues.
Keep innovating,
Christopher Hire
Christopher Hire is Executive Director of 2thinknow, innovation agency.
Are supermarkets efficient markets ? Or are they crowding out innovation?
All the evidence I have seen is that large monopolies prevent the development of new innovative small and mid-size companies. My thesis is broader however. That certain monopolies in consumer exposed sectors can actually block the development of new products and services, reduce opportunities and slow job creation in the economy.
My experience of the supermarket.
When I was a kid, in NSW partly, but also Melbourne and Tasmania I remember fondly our second supermarket.
The first was Woolworths. Although a noble attempt, this was an early 80s supermarket, and never quite delivered on the multitude of goods, glistening on the shelves. We then had a Franklins (discount groceries) which was good for cheap stuff, not so good for quality.
Finally we got our second. A large Coles supermarket (which a decade or so later, expanded). In many ways, this reduced our cost of living, as bonuses, freebies (steak knives and Bohemia Crystal), stock choice and variety made the Coles supermarket super fun, and super value.
Coles forced our green grocers to change. Our local grocers like to put their thumb on the scales. The main local butcher sold a mish-mash of meats, some aged (but not in a good way). So Coles seemed clean and safe, and to a kid — magical (and fun).
But now supermarkets have changed.
Once their purchasing power made them the cheapest.
Now it seems supply costs make them the most expensive.
Where once you went their for range, now it’s dominated by questions such as ‘what happened to XYZ product?’
Where once they were mid-size floor-plans, now supermarkets are huge floor plans.
Supermarkets are also empty more than I recall.
Let’s flesh out the last observation. The number of people per square metre in the local supermarket is lower than the number of people per square metre in the local market, one wonders whether free market theory works at all in this case.
Does the supermarket ‘compete’? As the duopoly now creep from 40% towards 50% of recorded Australian retail transactions, isn’t it time to ask is there a benefit here? Where?
One of the reasons for Victoria’s dominant retail sector is that small retail businesses continually introduce new suppliers to the market. Retail small markets represent the best way to do this — as argued by the market holders themselves in this the Age article.
Monopolistic bureaucracies on the other hand like to deal with bureaucracies. They can slash supplier margin, and make all products more the same (for economies of scale).
From an economic view we may have a collusive monoposony of sorts (in this case, 2 buyers that indirectly set prices for sellers).
In Australia, the government appointed ‘watchdog’ the ACCC have attacked the opposition to the duopoly (IGA-Metcash), but have done nothing against the duopoly.
This is an economic problem, and explains why the retail sector is less dynamic in areas where giant shopping malls or only market stalls dominate.
Reduced transactions.
My own experience of supermarkets is I regularly walk out without buying the products I want. Mainly this is because they replace more and more with pre-packaged fattening pseudo foods. Ice cream without much cream or milk. Meat pies with little meat. Lower price milk of inferior quality.
Value is an issue. Bread that costs 200% more than a baker, and verges on inedible. Expensive vegetables regularly 100-300% more than market prices.
So if the supermarket wanted more of my dollar, it loses around 40-90% every week to the markets, IGA or Aldi.
But it seems the supermarket does not want that money? It would rather decide which products I can or cannot buy, rather than providing it’s presumed mission of being a ‘one stop shop’.
This is flawed analysis by supermarkets. Because the supermarket is not serving customers, and is leaving transactions (and thus GDP) behind.
It is also not rewarding suppliers that develop innovative products. The monopsony only rewards cost reduction of supply, and only temporarily (all suppliers forced to reduce costs). This is a Walmart model.
Are supermarkets creating GDP?
It does seem that the duopoly strategy is more about maintaining a monopoly by occupying real estate, than actually competing in the free market sense on products. And as this is the main motivation, the supermarkets are not maximising sales or national GDP contribution (except by raising prices of targeted goods, but this significantly reduces demand).
It seems that current supermarket strategy also destroys shareholder value mid-term, and customer value right now.
There is a profit and social food opportunity here. Rarely those are aligned.
Trade creating innovation.
Luckily for me, there is a local market or an Aldi nearby.
But in most Australian cities except Melbourne, Hobart and Adelaide, there are no markets.
And where there are no markets, there is little retail innovation.
Keep innovating,
Christopher Hire
Christopher Hire is the Executive Director of innovation agency, 2thinknow.
UPDATE: Following publication of this analysis, on 29 August 2011 Heinz indirectly confirmed the problems outlined within at a US analyst briefing. Heinz pointedly attacked the supermarket industry for creating a inhospitable environment for suppliers, due in part to white label products impacting available consumer choices.
Read here: http://www.theage.com.au/business/heinz-blasts-supermarket-power-20110829-1jie4.html
When markets fail they fail they can fail in ways not conceived by many. As in this example, from today’s The Age:
In a documentary soon to be released, Real Estate 4 Ransom, the group (Earthsharing) says that 4.95 per cent of the city’s potential housing stock is unoccupied, double the rental vacancy rate of 2.4 per cent published last week by the Real Estate Institute of Victoria.
…Earthsharing used water-meter data … Dwellings using less than 50 litres a day for six consecutive months were deemed vacant. … The group’s Speculative Vacancy Report says that in Docklands, almost a quarter of residential properties there, 23.32 per cent, are vacant. The official vacancy rate for Docklands is 3.62 per cent.
The meaning is that owners of property are not accepting the markets choice to lower prices. Many would expect property owners to accept lower rents.
Why prices don’t fall.
Supply is being withheld to prop-up rental demand across a portfolio (s) of properties for many owners. This is collusion. (something actually predicted by Adam Smith, and why we need laws to prevent collusion in markets).
Victoria is a casebook example of artificially high property prices caused by collusion.
My own enquiries along these lines for city benchmarking data, indicate that the entire metrics of property in Victoria are broken (they do not accurately report prices).
So there is not accurate information in the price.This is hype data.
This hype data happened previously in some sections of the USA, Ireland and other property markets that have experienced crashes. As I tweeted recently, and in the past, Victoria needs independent property metrics: https://twitter.com/#!/christopherhire.
Why does this matter?
High property prices reduce most types of innovation. They do this because innovation and new business is not supported, as money flows into speculative renovation. If this was constructing long-term buildings and infrastructure, then that is more productive. Business-owners use buildings and infrastructure. Citizens need homes.
The broader value-destroying issue of high property prices is this — investment in valuable Human Infrastructure is not there in Australia.
Australia needs to invest for future.
Whilst Asia is buying fast rail, Dubai is building new islands, Australia is installing new sinks, sparkling baths and great benches with waterproof cushions. Not all property is good property in building stock terms.
In the quest for an innovation economy, in Australia, there is under-investment in much useful Human Infrastructure (2thinknow termed this for soft and hard infrastructure).
This lack of Human Infrastructure is magnifying a Dutch Disease (i.e. short: high resource prices crowding out industries).
Be that Public or Private investment, for Australia more infrastructure and useful allocation of monies is needed.
Keep innovating,
Christopher Hire
Christopher Hire is Executive Director of 2thinknow. He oversees 2thinknow’s programs, and provides professional advice as part of his work.
Innovation Books for Ideas.
Often I am asked where I get my innovative ideas from?
The answer is many places. Conversations, partly. Blogs, sometimes. Quality journalism, often. Journals and papers, as well.
But more often than not it’s still reading a good (paperback) book.
With that in mind, for 2thinknow, with interns I recently worked on updating our Innovation Reading List. This is a bookstore you can browse for innovation books.
Some of my favourite innovation books are inside — the innovation books reading list. As well, we have included some friends and colleagues popular titles on innovation, and some obscure classics — or related texts. A few surprises await!
It’s a balanced reading list between what is valuable, and what is popular.
Buying Innovation Books.
If you order the books online we get a few shekels, but I’d encourage you to select your favorites and support your local bookstore.
Or to save some shekels yourself — buy online, second hand books and save pre-loved books from the scrap-heap.
If you like you could take the innovation books reading list to your library — and support your local great lending libraries by borrowing a few of these books.
For those who want to advance the eBook — perhaps purchase the Kindle or other eBook edition, where available.
There’s even a few free classic books — such as some Schumpeter or Smith’s the Wealth of Nations, which are in the public domain for the google-ready.
But if you have a decent income, support the (living) authors of newer texts by purchasing. Royalties are not what they used to be!
Read an Innovation Book!
So you have no excuse not to read an innovation book — tomorrow or this week.
Here’s the innovation books reading list again.
P.S. if you’d like to see a favourite book added, or have feedback, tweet me @christopherhire or @2thinknow
The big IPO investment news in the innovation economy this week was LinkedIn and its valuation.
Here’s the story in Fast Company and also in Washington Post, Forbes blogs, with interesting take in The Australian and Technorati about LinkedIn.
Fast company set our some P/E maths:
At the $45 per share opening price, LinkedIn stock traded at 46 times its projected 2011 earnings. Anything above 25 and a company is expected to have unusually high growth projections. Either that, or they’re in bubble territory.
The positives on LinkedIn can be seen in the following paragraph from FC:
LinkedIn’s entire business model rests on amassing as many users as possible–particularly top-shelf professionals–and getting them to invest the time in keeping their profiles up-to-date. That’s because LinkedIn makes its nut from selling services to recruiters and advertisers who want to reach the company’s white collar members.
The Australian creates the negative case (many Australians do on U.S. stocks), in short — cheap money, high tide stocks:
The Fed’s super-easy policy, including the about-to-conclude purchase of $US600 billion ($562m) of Treasury securities, was designed in part to perk up riskier investments, such as stocks, with the view to create beneficial effects in the real US economy.
The final price at $104 seems high, after a launch at $45.
I’m not sure about LinkedIn price, but for 2thinknow I can see the investment in the innovation economy — especially exciting SMEs and start-ups — as good news in net trend terms.
It may not be the end of the world today (!) but nascent trends are now starting.
Network Goods & Geo-think
Actually, from my view, LinkedIn is a ‘network good’. I don’t have a view on the stockmarket price itself, but would observe LinkedIn is a key piece of identity architecture on the internet, that can be leveraged. And the internet can be leveraged to change the value of geography.
The virtual landscape will reshape the value of the real landscape, in a networked economy.
Innovation Economy tool.
So, there’s a lot of life in LinkedIn yet, irrespective of the stock price. Which puts me in the positive believer camp, as there are many new innovative applications for LinkedIn that have not yet been implemented. Those new applications broaden the value of innovation…
Whilst LinkedIn has been around since 2003, the innovation economy is new and in play.
Keep innovating,
Christopher Hire
Les villes les plus innovantes du monde (@christopherhire interviewé par @innovinthecity)
For French speakers and Francophiles, here’s a recent French language interview I did with with Elsa Sidawy regarding Innovation Cities™ published in Paris.
Chaque année l’agence australienne 2thinknow qui dédie ses activités à l’innovation urbaine, dévoile un classement des villes les plus innovantes du monde, résultat d’un travail de fourmi et d’analyse de plus de 162 indicateurs d…
The site is sponsored by the Mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë and the Ile de Paris — for driving innovation in Paris.
About Paris, France & innovation
Paris was ranked #2 globally by @2thinknow in the Innovation Cities™ Index out of 289 cities in 2010. This shows the breadth of differing approaches to business, government and the state that can generate innovation — provided that they are aligned culturally with their citizens actual economic and social behaviour.
This follows some of the Boston Globe, NY Times Freaknomics, Reuters, Fox and other non-English language articles (Athens, Lyon, Vienna, Milan, Torino) on my analyst work on innovation networks, policies and cities — which has humbled me with all the attention. There is a broad-based interest in innovation, out there, it seems.
Keep innovating,
Christopher Hire
@christopherhire
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