Author Archives: Futures Broker

VirtuCoin: Killer Non-Government Economic Combo

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You can take a bunch of trends and combine them into an alternate economy:

  • cryptocurrencies
  • equality
  • socialism
  • veganism
  • anti-war
  • corporate responsibility
  • corporate activism
  • libertarianism

In Essence:

  • Create a stablecoin (pegged to a currency or something else with a steady value).
  • Call it VirtuCoin, as in virtuous.
  • Create a payment processor (like PayPal).
  • Only allow it to be used by merchants that fit the criteria, such as not using slave labour. Or not evading taxes.

Many people want to consciously support good businesses, and not the “bad” ones. But it takes a lot of work, so much work it is more suited to an unemployed lefty vegan.

What if you used a currency that could only be used with good businesses, and only received from good businesses?

Then you create an alternate economy. Those who are excluded from it will be incentivised to improve their practises.

Investment funds exist that are like this, but they typically perform poorly, because they bad guys make more profits. By utilising spending power, change can occur.

The Trick: Start off with the least restrictions, but enough to exclude say 5-10% of major corporations. Then with time, tighten the screws.

End game examples:

Not valid for any merchant that sells Nestle products
Not valid for any merchant that sells cage eggs
Not valid with any fast food chains with restaurants in China
Not valid for electricity companies that have no renewable energy
Not valid for businesses in the USA that pay employees below $x per hour
Not valid for ISPs that lack net neutrailty

The Problems:

Very hard to please everyone
There will be a cost maintaining and monitoring business restrictions

Getting Started:

Prominent “good” businesses work together to create this, and they seed it by paying their staff a bonus with Virtucoin.
Those businesses must be undeniably good. Like Patagonia. They belong to various alliances – members of any of those could be a good starting point

Stability:

Tied to the US dollar on issue.
Ties to the US dollar on redemption.

Currencies go up and down, and major currencies go up and down quite slowly.

In the short term, your spending ability won’t vary too much from the initial value of the VirtuCoin.

In the long term, the value of the VirtuCoin can increase and decrease with equal probability (very few people can predict and profit from currency speculation).

Short term, spending the VirtuCoin is preferable.

Long term, if you don’t spend it, it might increase or decrease in value.

Bonus Feature:

For every 3 months your VirtuCoin is not spent, 1% of it is sent to the charity of your choice.

2/3 Not

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Restaurant idea. Guarantees that there will be:

  • Sweets and Desserts with less than 33% sugar
  • Main meals with less than 33% carbs

That’s it. Easy to understand and easier than most diets

Buy Samsung Shares

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samsung

Well, if only. You pretty much need to live in South Korea to buy them…

Google is being forced by the EU to decouple their core, profitable products, from Android. Which opens up opportunities for big players with big market share.

Samsung and the flavours.

Samsung sell so many phones that they can sell different versions of each model, a Google version and a Microsoft version.

One has Google’s email, calendar, search and so on built-in by default. The other has the Microsoft equivalent. No antitrust laws apply because the consumer is a given a choice at the very beginning. It could be argued that it is an antitrust duoply, but no other quality eco-systems exist for Samsung to offer.

Samsung can then seek kickbacks from Google or Microsoft to promote their services.

Or, Samsung could just end up with one Microsoft-dominated system. Microsoft will pay them generously to get the Bing search engine into mobile hands. They’ll get away with it for a few years, and then merely need to change it when EU regulators complain.

Ending Fast Fashion

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Single use plastic bags are now a thing of the past in many countries.

Next is plastic straws.

Fast fashion is incredibly wasteful, and unnecessary, and bad for the environment (landfills).

Clothing that is made to last could promote their point of difference by doing one simple thing – writing the year of manufacture visibly on the garment.

 

Delivered Meal Kits: Doomed to Fail

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meal_kit

Meal kit companies won’t last. Well, I guess one might, after buying out some others and offering a huge range. And maybe one more if it targets the wealthy. But the others won’t.

No first mover advantage. It is the opposite. With time many people will want to try something new, and will move to a new service offering a bargain first few weeks. Food is like fashion, it has frequent change, especially at the low end.

Delivery doesn’t suit everyone, especially those in apartments.

Not profitable. I guarantee that all the current services are breaking even or losing money. When they put up their prices, people will leave. And any economy of scale from getting more customers will be lost by delivering to them – as they have all started where delivery is the cheapest.

Fad. Just like diets, a lot of current customers are experimenting with a new of doing things, but will soon resort to their old ways.

Supermarkets. Even here in Australia, they have started stocking meal kits. No subscription required!

The future – small stores, conveniently located, that sell meal kits and gourmet frozen meals. Yes, 7/11 etc could stock them, or they could be standalone specialist stores. People will pay a premium to not be in a subscription. Not being subscription means  not knowing how many of each to stock. So you stock less so that by a certain time you have run out, and some customers don’t get to buy. This works if the food is desirable enough. And anything that hasn’t sold by 8pm is half price.

Tree Money

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Money-trees

Plantation trees are are a very solid, long-term investment (looks like a 7% return, long-term). I can’t think of any investment that takes so long to mature, yet has a quite steady value.

This could make it a good fit for crypto-currency.

If each “tree dollar” was actually a part-ownership of a tree farm, and that investment might take 15 years or more before it has an income, then that encourages long-term stability.

When the original trees start to produce an income – decades later – “tree dollars” can be redeemed for hard currency. The most desperate people will bid lower. This will be a balancing act to keep the currency stable – value of wood v desperation to redeem.

Those who aren’t in a rush to redeem will see their tree dollars reinvested in more trees.

If plantations were all around the world, risk would be mitigated. If trees with differing maturity rates were invested in, that would increase liquidity.

I think this is the only crypto-currency that is pretty much guaranteed to naturally grow with time.

*thanks to my Dad, who when I was a teen, said tree plantations were the best investment.

 

Trash Money

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Cans1

In South Australia, you can hand in used bottles and get back the 10c deposit paid at purchase time.

What if that 10c was in the form of a crypto-currency?

What if little kids could use the very same crypto-currency? Or homeless people?

What if kids and homeless people got to crowd-source the name?

I predict an unpredictable economic system not witnessed before.

  1. Bottles and cans have a Q-Code on the label.
  2. When bottles are redeemed, the code is scanned. Every bottle has a unique ID, so redemption rates and per-product data can be known
  3. At redemption, a smart device with NFC (or card) receives the credits

Not redeemable for cash!

This is the key. It only has value to those that earn it – their specific needs.

It could work in conjunction with a non-profit that sells affordable/subsidised healthy snacks and drinks. Exactly what kids and homeless folk need. Maybe anyone who has ever earned $10 worth of credit gets access to an elite community centre, with WiFi and showers and newspapers and comics and pay TV.

It would also help provide a form of currency for those with little of no actual cash. It can be traded for goods/favours between users. But nobody else would want it, as it has no value to those who are not poor. So theft or skullduggery is a not a risk.

Possible redemption:

  • Charity stores / op shops
  • Libraries / community centres
  • Bike share
  • Swimming pools
  • Attending sporting events
  • Cinemas
  • Off-peak public transport
  • Entry to Shows (as in the Royal Melbourne Show)

Places to be where you can feel that you have earned the right to be there.

And if you were wondering if there are enough cans/bottles laying around to support this… I suspect that local residents will make connections with people in need and give them their cans/bottles in exchange for them being taken away. Just like the scouts used to do when I was young.

People with more credits than they can use, can gift them to others.

Ultimately it means the young and marginalised get access to food, clothing and society.

Baja California Entrepreneur Economic Zone

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Baja California is close to California, and easily defined geographically. It is popular with Americans.

Concept: attract internet companies to bring their money to Mexico.

  • no business or personal income tax for qualifying businesses
  • special temporary resident visas
  • minimum staff numbers and revenue requirements
  • 2% of corporate revenue and 15% of personal income must be invested in new Mexican businesses, with exclusions like real estate
  • Outside of the top 20 employees, 50% of salaries in value must be paid to Mexican citizens

Long-term goal, like one or two generations away, USA/Canada/Mexico will be like the EU. Better for everyone.

Memo Alert

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Many companies, recently Google and Facebook, have been embarassed by internal memos that were leaked to the public.

I propose a memo system where staff members receiving a bulk memo can click on a button to say “I think this memo could damage our company if it got out”.

It is anonymous. If enough people vote against the memo, the authors or their superiors could look into it.

 

Uber Semi-scheduled

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uber-logo-decal-sticker-uber-logo-500x500

This is my typical Uber use – I’m planning on being at X for a few hours (bar, pool hall, friend’s place) and then catch an Uber around X time to the next place.

Because I am going from one social situation to another, I don’t want to book a ride for a certain time. But I am fairly sure of the journey and a time window. It would be helpful to Uber if they knew what my loose plans were.

I could be rewarded for letting Uber know my loose plans in advance, if I tend to actually do as I plan.

And Uber can know when 30 people are all expecting to catch Uber when their work party finishes, or whatever. They can have some cars in the area, and maybe rides that take them near there can be cheaper…