Tag: Value

The right general principle is that brand names and trade marks should be protected, not where there is a producer interest in doing so, but where there is a consumer detriment from failing to do so.

If the measure of skill is how often good performance repeats itself, poker is a more skilful activity than investment management.

In all areas of human endeavour, there are hard data and soft data. The happiness of a society or the progress of a civilisation, are multi-dimensional: components are determined by subjective consensus, not objective measurement.

In financial markets, the more complex the instrument, and the more uncertain the outlook, the greater the likely range of views of common value. More often, trading puts assets in the hands of those who think the assets are more valuable than they really are.

Competitive advantage is bound up with a company’s history and needs to be matched to market opportunity. When it is lost or the market evolves, the consequences are generally fatal.

Technology, globalisation and competition drive prices down. The status of positional goods, the rising cost of domestically produced labour-intensive services and the absence of vigorous competition push prices and inequality up.

Here is the information you need to clear a room this Christmas: economic rent arises from differentiation and migrates to wherever in the value chain scarcity is found. Or you could always drink a glass of champagne instead.

Failed business people who blame the banks rather than themselves identify themselves as people whose future ventures should not be supported.

If pension funds could buy electricity bonds based on the future stream of electricity generation at fixed prices, then in thirty years elderly Europeans would not have to worry about lighting their homes and watching television.

Trust was a real competitive advantage for mutual businesses. But the difficulty of meeting the conflicting expectations of different users and the slow adaptation to the requirements of changing technology explains why mutuality ceased to be a viable basis for stock exchanges.
However, if mutuality is not the answer to customers’ requirements for providers they can trust, the industry badly needs to find other answers.