Category Archives: Business

An Alternative to the 5% Billionaire Tax in California

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The proposal might be on the ballot in the state elections of November 2026; a one-time 5% tax on the wealth of billionaires, including any illiquid wealth.

Illiquid is the bug-bear. It isn’t necessarily easy to cash out on such things. I would argue that they can easily get a cash loan, but I appreciate that this factor makes the tax a harder sell.

Instead, I propose something far more pre-emptive and socialist. Give 5% of your unrealised wealth to the state. The state becomes a passive investor in the business that made the billionaire rich.

To lessen the potential shock of that, when giving great wealth to someone, it should include 5% that is held in escrow, for the state to take, if and when the person meets the wealth threshold (which might of course vary in the future). But also, the rich person and take it out of escrow at any time, but they must acknowledge that the state can potentially take it from them one day.

Trump is already being very socialist and taking a share of some major companies. We just need to make sure that having such a stake doesn’t lead to governmental nepotism.

Slob Maids

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Having a maid or housekeeper is quite common these days, for wealthier people. I once had cleaners, the pair of them spent two hours every Thursday basically cleaning surfaces and vacuuming. It wasn’t really necessary but my wife was a clean-freak and we could afford it.

I am currently your typical bachelor slob. I vacuum maybe twice a year, sheets get changed monthly, the bath and sink have never been scrubbed. That is because those tasks are not important to me.

What is important is dishes and washing clothes. They have to be done, and I tend to put them off as long as possible. With a dishwasher in the mix, this pretty much comes down to some quite simple tasks

  • Put clothes in washing machine
  • Put clothes in dryer
  • Clean the kitchen surfaces
  • Scrub a few pots

In an apartment complex with many slobs, that work can be done very efficiently. Set clothes to wash, spray surfaces, soak pots. Return a few hours later, finish the kitchen, put clothes in the dryer.

The slob can take the clothes out of the dryer. Therefore the work might take as little as half an hour total. Pay them $50. They can do 10 apartments in a day.

Universal ID QR Code Phone Numbers

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It is a mouthful, for sure.

I have noticed a trend in Australia. First we had loyalty cards, then we had loyalty apps, and now people just tell the sales clerk their phone number. It saves keep things and remembering things. I expect this to be happening everywhere soon.

However, it is inefficient and tedious. We can make this happen faster. People wear a badge with a QR code on it, containing your phone number. It could be on an actual badge, or on the back of your phone (physically). To indicate to the checkout chick that you want them to know it (because it identifies you for their loyalty scheme), you simply hold it up or point to it – and they scan it.

Another trend is being emailed receipts and warranties instead of paper ones. That can automated in the same movement. If you want a paper receipt, you ask. Otherwise it is emailed.

Before long emails will have some kind of code in the subject line identifying them as a receipt or warranty, from any of your loyalty apps, and will be stored somewhere convenient and backed up elsewhere.

Luxury Tax on Travel

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Australia has a luxury car tax. Once a car (not a truck or commercial vehicle) costs over $80K (or $90K if they are fuel efficient), then a 33% tax applies. So you can’t really buy a car for $100K or $110K, there is a big gap.

People still buy those cars.

It should be consider for more items, in countries around the world. Luxury, by definition, in an unnecessary splurge. It is hard to argue that those people are being treated unfairly, as they already pay way more for the product that its functional value. They are paying for exclusivity.

So:

  • handbags
  • clothing + shoes
  • furniture
  • art
  • whisky + wine
  • and travel!

We have many cities now trying to reduce the number of tourists that are visiting. Tax can help that easily. We leave alone public transport and regular hotels. We tax 1st class, business class, tours costing more than $x per night, and expensive hotels. At the least, the rich keep spending and the state or local government gets income. Or better still, we get fewer travellers and a saner and greener world.

Too Big To Fail – A Rule of Thirds

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A recent tech outage – Crowdstrike bringing down Windows systems – showed us yet again how fragile we are with important infrastructure. Because of just-in-time processes and finely optimised systems, some failure that is truly tragic will only be noticed afterwards. To mitigate this, and improve redundancy greatly, and save society from monopolies and provide jobs and lessen inequality… we only need one rule.

In nominated critical industries (there will be many), no business and no system can have more than one-third market share.

An easy example is computer operating systems. They need to make sure they never have more than 33% share in any industry, for example airline booking systems. Neither can computer manufacturers, RAM makers, microchip makers, hard drive makers. At least 3 software companies must make the booking systems, and they cannot share code.

Bananas are mostly Cavendish in Australia – that needs to change.

Achieving this rule is actually very easy. Dominant players charge more, degrade quality or remove features until they lose appeal enough for some other to have inroads.

The problem we have today is industries are like a game of chicken, and the less resilient you are, the more potential upsides and downsides. It is risk for profits, and sometimes a race to the bottom. Recently some emerging car companies failed because interest rates went up. They were too finely leveraged.

There are industries controlled by a few (meat-packers in the US, supermarkets in Australia) which only has one advantage – market efficiency to enrich their owners. Every else about their duopolies (or whatever three players is called) is a negative to the rest of society.

With the rise of the machines/AI, we will need more jobs, and some inefficiencies will be good for us.

Back to the computer example – we can easily have Windows/Mac/Linux. Having multiple sources of microprocessors would be great! Instead of 90% coming from Taiwan. Having spaceships going to the space station using different computer systems will mean those astronauts have two ways to get home. When the airline booking systems go down, it only affects a third of airlines (per country). Or supermarket checkouts.

We could even perhaps extend it to money – as in state currencies cost enough of a premium that crypto alternatives become appealing.

5figz – Amazon Bestsellers Go Rogue

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Every merchant wants to go off on Amazon. But when they do, Amazon probably makes more profit from the success than they do.

I’m imagining a platform where you can buy the verified hits of Amazon – products that have sold 10K+

  • Amazon hits are rarely rip-offs, the review system (mostly) looks after that.
  • People trust a successful Amazon product
  • Amazon cannot stop you stating a fact about your success on their platform

While Amazon has put superhuman effort into getting products to people quicker, price tends to trump speed. So the 5figz fulfilment system doesn’t need absolute speed. However, the nature of the products – high-volume – lends itself to efficiency.

I figure that the game plan is to out-Amazon Amazon. Run at a loss with their most successful products, until the public learn that 5figz is where to get the best products without Amazon taking a crazy cut of proceeds.

And it scales scarily well. Start with the most expensive products with 10K sales. And as the business grows, fold in lower price items. Obviously selling 10K execycles is better all round than selling 10K hairbands.

Drone drug delivery

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Illicit drugs are physical and require delivery, so al sorts of means have been deployed over the years. Most recently tunnels, submarines and drones.

Getting 1kg across the border in a retail drone is quite easy, and presumably it is done a lot.

But what about the last mile? How long before the end user gets their delivery by drone? We all know that drugs are often sold by the ounce, and a drone that can carry an ounce might be too small to notice.

A network of such drones could network drug delivery across a city. The transfer of the payload is what is needed, automation, no humans.

And less likely to get caught by the feds, if you start each drone journey and end it at a random place.

Dear Everyone

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Advice app. Primarily romantic and social issues

Maximum 10 questions per day are sent out. Randomly chosen. Vetted by the developers..

Submitted question expires after 1 week if not chosen. Prompted to resubmit if still relevant. Max 1 question per month for anyone

Get points for giving advice. Points increase your chance of being chosen.

Questions have up to five answers, multiple can be selected

Questioner selects the advice they have taken.

Questioner is prompted to let the result be known, happy or otherwise. With commentary. Bonus points for those whose advice helped. Negative for bad advice that was taken.

Comments allowed but heavily vetted. Comments cost points.

The best questions/ results can appear on a chat video to promote the app.

Monetized later >>> One of the questions is a short 2 min survey. Many Points for answering.

Can a Business Be a Country?

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Tuvalu is shifting online, because their physical country is predicted to sink beneath the waves of climate change.

“…ensures that the government can continue to function, coordinate itself and the people, manage our resources, our tuna industry, and our domain name”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-04-27/tuvalus-plan-to-create-digital-twin-metaverse-climate-change/102223008

Because the income from tuna and the .tv domain name will continue, regardless, they need a way of giving some income to their citizens. In other words, without the land they become less of a country and more of a business.

Tuvalu will become a business, but retain many aspects of being a country, like having citizens.

So I am thinking that businesses can be set up to imitate a “country that becomes a business”.

That means that the business is owned by people, but every owner has an equal share.
That means being democratic.
That means ownership requires no effort or input from the owners.

So, how to decide ownership? It won’t be the workers who own it, any more than the tuna fishermen of Tuvalu own their country.

The Tuvalu people belong together by existing physically on the same islands. That is their commonality.

For a business, the closest to that is the fans and supporters of the business – their customers. Customers contribute to the well-being of a business, and they care about the success of the business. Customers can be big or small, but how much they spend doesn’t necessarily reflect how much they like it, so a one-vote-per-customer model sounds good, just like a country.

However, because it is so cheap and easy to become a citizen-customer of a retail brand, profits cannot be distributed equally amongst customers – otherwise people will just buy products to get the (ongoing) profits. It will only work for a non-profit, where being a citizen has non-monetary rewards and/or engagement.

The Return of Sponsorship

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Soap Operas were named after being sponsored by a soap company. One company instead of a variety of ads.

ChatGPT etc will spawn an answer service (as distinct from a search engine). It might only happen when we fully understand what it can give accurate answers to. Quite possibly it outputs answers and ideas to explore. The latter being a fancy way of saying it is not confident of being correct.

People will learn what an answer service is good for. It won’t be for finding a local plumber! Which means the types of ads we see in search engines won’t necessarily apply.

If you want a summary of the best features of an iPhone, then perhaps the ads we are used to seeing on Google can appear there. But I expect it would be more like this:

  • Sponsored ad at the top, from a sponsor – one advertiser who sponsors all queries of that type. For example, an electronics store could sponsor all tech queries.
  • Embedded affiliate links to products – possibly a link to something akin to Google Shopping
  • A list of suggested resources, commercial or otherwise, at the bottom
  • Below those resources, some contextual ads, like on Google Search. Yep, relegated to the bottom, but still existing because why not.

But the sponsorship will be new and lucrative. All requests for the system to conjure up imagined lyrics can be sponsored by Spotify. All generative images by Adobe. And so on.

It could become new/fresh/different enough to become a successful form of advertising. We might see the return of soaps sponsoring TV shows.