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blue bits. red rocks.
Saturday 4 December 2010

There is a way to form a open source venture that anyone can join, that polices itself, that funds itself, etc. and rewards it participants fairly. Further, as we move down the learning curve on how to do this, these ventures will likely easily outcompete all traditionally organized firms in many areas. Global Guerrillas

Sunday 27 June 2010

According to the urbanist Jane Jacobs, the engine of a city’s wealth in a bootstrap called import replacement. Essentially, a city become economically vibrant by finding ways to domestically produce the things it imports. Within a global environment where physical distance is becoming increasingly expensive (fuel and overhead) and virtual distance is increasing free (bandwidth and scale factor), the imports that are most vital to replace through local production will increasingly be food, energy, and manufactured products. The most valuable exports will increasingly become virtual. The best way to start this wealth engine, in a place like Detroit, is to foster the development of moderately urban, economically vibrant, resilient communities — that produce most of the food, energy, and products that they consume — in the blighted area that surrounds the shrinking urban core. Instead of producing wealth at the core, produce in the near periphery (at the RC level) and by default, turn the city core into the place for services that require a large population base to support (from entertainment to medicine). Global Guerrillas

Monday 10 May 2010

On any given day, nearly 70% of all trades on the major stock exchanges are done by the bots (see below for more on what a bot is) owned by the high frequency traders at the top investment banks and boutique trading firms. An interesting side effect of all these bots, is that their activity serves as a form of critical shadow liquidity for the stock market. Global Guerrillas

Sunday 21 February 2010

Will we see more of this violence? Most assuredly. Further, as this economic failure matures, damaging ever greater numbers of people, we may see less violence against people and more economic violence (disruption) in an attempt to extract from society as great a cost as they possibly can. A couple of hundred people, using the super-empowerment afforded by network disruption, could easily cause countless billions in economic damage. A thousand people? Terrorism from abroad isn’t an existential threat to the US. Domestic terrorism, as a result of systemic failure, can be in a super-empowered age. Global Guerrillas

Wednesday 8 July 2009

The great part about being a Chinese dictatorship in a world with one rule set (Adam Smith’s), is that your paramilitary forces can slaughter 140 protestors without even a whimper from the global community. Western elites just don’t care because business with China is more important than human rights and the fact that China reacts like a spoiled child when chastised (which makes it not worth the hassle). Global Guerrillas

Monday 13 April 2009

If the company that owned the rescued ship wasn’t a US defense contractor, its kidnapping insurance company (likely Lloyds) and its designated crisis representatives (likely Control Risks Group) would have negotiated to pay the pirate’s fee to get the hostage back — as are thousands of kidnappings from Mexico to Colombia to Nigeria to the Gulf of Aden are settled every year. Somali pirates have made tens of millions this way already. Further, in many parts of the world, kidnappers are almost never caught/killed (< 5% in Mexico and the same is likely true for Somalia). So, given this backdrop, the Navy’s rescue effort was just a sideshow and the industry that made it possible will continue to grow rapidly. Global Guerrillas

Wednesday 5 September 2007

If you think the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will end with this US presidency, think again. These wars will likely outlast the next several Presidents. The old Vietnam era formulas don’t apply anymore. The reason is that the moral weaknesses that have traditionally limited the state’s ability to fight long guerrilla wars have dissipated, and modern states may now have the ability and the desire to wage this type of war indefinitely. Global Guerrillas

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