Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Business Categories used in NewsZoom's news directory--what is an 'industry' ?

By the standards we tried to establish earlier, which of the following are best understood as "industries" and which best understood as "sectors"? NewsZoom > newsdirectory > industry:

» Accounting News

» Agriculture News

» Airline Industry News

» Automotive Industry News

» Chemicals Industry News

» Clothing Industry News

» Construction News

» Consumer Durables News

» Consumer Electronics News

» Aerospace and Defense Industry News

» Drinks and Beverages Industry News

» Engineering News

» Food Industry News

» Gaming News

» Healthcare Management News

» Insurance Industry News

» Logistics News

» Mortgage Industry News

» Plastics Industry News

» Real Estate News

» Sports Business News

» Textiles News

» Tobacco Industry News

» Transportation Industry News

» Travel Industry News

Saturday, April 28, 2007

At the conjuncture of the financial-services sector and cash-starved IT entrepreneurs are ...VCs

Businesses starting up or anxious to enter new fields in the internet-technics sector mite want to meet h+ ranking representatives of these companies from a certain niche of the financial-services sector. This "niche" is an industry, a number of whose corporations appear on the following list of participants in a recent event:
▪ 3i
▪ Arch Venture Partners
▪ Atlas Accelerator
▪ Bank of America
▪ Clearstone Venture Partners
▪ Divergent Ventures
▪ El Dorado Ventures
▪ First Round Capital
▪ Foundation Capital
▪ Frazier Technology Ventures
▪ Granite Global Ventures
▪ Hummer Winblad Venture Partners
▪ Lehman Brothers Venture Partners
▪ OVP Venture Partners
▪ Paladin Partners
▪ Partech International
▪ Polaris Venture Partners
▪ SeaPoint Ventures
▪ Sierra Ventures
▪ Sunriver Ventures
▪ Voyager Capital
▪ Vulcan
That's what we're told by Read-Write Web email newsletter in "Amazon, VCs woo Seattle-area Developers" (Apr27,2k7).

While here I am most interested in showing simply the nexus of two industrial sectors (financial-services and internet-technics) of a given national economy (in this case, USA) and a regional economy (in this case, Silicon Valley / Seattle), where cross-fertiilization takes place between the two, and where the specialized companies of the one are looking for mates in the second with whom to place the funds of the first's investors; I am also interested in simply displaying a population for the first industry's specialist companies. These are direct competitors with one another, and thus are members together of a specialist subsector of a sector of an economy (both national and in this assemblage, regional too). The sector, as mentioned, is financial-services; the subsector is venture-capital services which is made up of Venture Capital companies, hence VCs); and a selection of the population of the first sector/subsector (which has been assembled in one region of the other sector, IT) is displayed above.

Now, the specifics of the event are not without interest, but R/WW's discussion centers around one of the hosts, Amazon (principally still defined by its originating role in the online [IT] subsector of the retail-sales sector), and and around Amazon's own possible future venture-capital role.
If you're already familiar with the Amazon Web Services pitch, there wasn't much new in the presentation. However, a question and answer session led by Andy Jassy, Senior VP of AWS, to clarify that Amazon is in fact building a distinct line of operation with its own investments and not using idle capacity [that otherwise would] sit... around until the next Christmas season, was interesting. True, they have not yet opened up Elastic Cloud Computing, but the servers currently running EC2 are dedicated for that purpose.

Some Take-aways

One participant wondered why Amazon hasn't started its own venture capital arm to make strategic investments in their AWS platform. Then we looked around the room and noticed all the engaged VC representatives and came to the conclusion [that Amazon] didn't need to [launch an arm of its own in the VC subsector of the financial-services sector].

The question of 'What happens if [some] Big Company moves in on this space?' is becoming more common, and the big company on everyone's mind in this part of the world (Seattle) is Microsoft. To this, the only thing the AWS folks could do was smile and claim first mover advantages. However Matt McIlwain of Madrona Venture Group mentioned that he had just returned from a Silicon Valley forum where people thought Microsoft simply can't ignore what's happening here much longer. I did hear a rumor that the first Microsoft data center has come online in the last month, and one can only speculate about Google and Akamai, so stay tuned...
I would only add a remark to link explicityly "we looked around the room and noticed all the engaged VC representatives" with mention of the larger companies Microsoft, Google, and Akamai: these latter are the competitors of one another and of the entire list of VCs taken as an ensemble. Surely, some parties to that VC list are thinking we've go to merge/acquire so as to be better able to both feed cash from investors to Amazon, for instance, and to compete with Microsoft, Google and Akamai. The nature of the market at the nexus of these two sectors is such that the little guys must form a conglomerate to add a fourth competitor to the top tier of three. I would suspect that Madrona VC realizes this, and realizes that Amazon would be the perfect mate for a new VC conglomerate capable of such competition with Microsoft, Google, and Akamai.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Retail sector: top 10 globally

Pursuant to our immediately preceding blog-entry, we shift to another sector of the global economic order via a note in Christian Science Monitor's daily email newsletter (Apr25,2k7; no link):
Retail wonders of the world: Surely you've shopped a few Ever stood in line at a major retailer and contemplated all the sales in even one business day? If so, consider this: Receipts at the world's 250 largest chain stores were $5.7 million a minute, or - if you prefer - $95,000 per second, during the latest period for which data are available. That's what global accounting giant Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, in conjunction with STORES magazine, found in compiling a list of megaretailers. The biggest of the big, based on revenue, was Wal-Mart Stores of Bentonville, Ark., which has about 6,400 outlets worldwide and reported more than $300 billion in sales revenues for the fiscal year ending Jan. 31, 2006. The world's largest retailers with the home country of each:

1.) Wal-Mart Stores ..... US - I've never been in one - E
2.) Carrefour SA .................... France
3.) Home Depot .... US - great store; one near my home Canada
4.) Metro AG ......................... Germany
5.) Tesco PLC ........................ Britain
6.) Kroger Co. ....................... US - Never
7.) Target Corp. .................... US - Never
8.) Costco Wholesale Corp. ........ US - Never
9.) Sears Holdings Corp. .. US - Customer both US and Canada
10.)Lidl&Schwarz Stiftung&Co .. Germany
There's a discernible pattern here, of course whereby a corporation whose governing offices are embedded in the national economy of one country by various means are sucessfully operative also in many other countries (where presumably those operations are also subject to that/those other/s/'s laws).

The subsidiary companies operative in other countries do not necessarily obey all the laws to which the mother company is held in the home country. This creates many problems, and provokes not only protests but also a juridical gap. There is no effective global law by which all mite be held accountable equally in a systematic economic way.

Update (Apr29,2k7): Noticing that all the top-ten listed are not online retailers, and using the common distinction between "brick-box retailers" and "online retailers" to establish two different subsectors of retailers, let's add an eleventh company not anywhere near the top-ten of the overall retail-sales sector. Our candidate is Amazon.com which is indeed very active internationally from its US hub with subsidiary companies in many other national economies, and plays a significant role in its sector as part of the global economic order. This insertion also allow us to anticipate and prepare for material in our next blog-entry:

11.) Amazon.com .... US - I'm a customer

Now, let's return to our original text for this blog-entry:

[For convenience, let's shift from the term "mother company" to "holding company" by which only Sears on our list designates itself.]

There is no effective systemic global economic law for the global economic order. Rather, binational and multinational treaties provide frameworks for out-of-country powers of the holding companies often subject only at home to the home country's laws, in many cases. Contracts are entered-into between companies in different countries, but it is often difficult for outsiders to those companies themselves, including the outsider-bureaucracies and law-enforcement agencies of the states involved, to determine where actually policy-making authority and agreements are actually concluded, from company to company, at the holding company level or the subsidary company level.

In passing, I note that Roman Catholic subsidiarity theory seems to offer no particular guidance or rationale for relations within companies operating under various guises on various levels of the global economic order. It remains to be seen whether Dooyeweerdian legal theory can offer uniquely any further lite on these problems around its contrasting theory (actually, priciple) of sphere specificity (sphere universality, sphere sovereignty).

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Business categories a la Times [London, UK]

Following up on our previous blog-entry to establish as part of the pragmatics associated with our economics theorizing for USE (Utilize Synergic Enterprises--a game we are inventing as we go), we put forward a working set of bizcats regarding "sectors" (in various contexts we discovered expressions "economic sectors," "industrial sectors," and "business sectors" can all mean what we want simply to call "sectors"). In our usage/s, sectors are sectors of an economy (whether it's the global economic order or a specific national or regional economy); an economy is usually composed of sectors (in a hypothetical pure-monocultural economy there would be only one sector--let's say coffee cultivation, harvesting, and export).

Now, for symmetry's sake, we hypthesize that all sectors are composed of industries (so, strictly speaking, in our framework here there are no "industrial sectors," rather only sectors, subsectors perhaps, both in turn being composed of specific industries). Thus, in my extreme hypothetical of a pure mono(agri)culture, we could entertain an economy with only one sector where three industries derive from

1.) coffee growing (let's say, this subsector or particular industry is composed of 3,000 small-grower family-farms with hired hands,

2.) coffee-harvesting (let's say there are 20 companies that contract to harvest or that rent machinery for mechanized harvesting for some of the growers); and

3.) coffee-exporting (let's say, there are 4 companies that send trucks to the growers' farms with which they have contracts to load the sacked coffee beans, transport the product to the port city where only the same companies' ships harbour, load the unprocessed beans onto the coffee-export ships). And away they sail, let's say, to Bordeaux, France.

We could call this a single-sector coffee economy (monocultural) with three diverse industries within it--the coffee industry of small growers who are family-farmers (compare Herman Dooyeweerd, NCTT on the "family farm" as a hybrid of two different societal spheres ... the family and the farm as a business) some of whom employ hired hands seasonally, the second industry of mechanized coffee-harvesting companies, and the coffee industry specialized as trucking-shipping companies.

For any economy, judgment calls will have to be made to sort out what constitutes a sector, perhaps subsectors and/or industries, and finally companies. Of course the further complication arises often enuff, of multi-sectoral companies, multi-subsectoral companies, and multi-industry companies. The term "diversification" is often used to designate companies that exhibit these phenomena, these larger structural relationships to an economy from within it.

With all the foregoing discussion in mind, please now consider The Times's construction of a set of bizcats that, from my point of view here, wobbles between concepts of sector, subsector, and industry. How would you hierarchize an economics classifaction for each of the items below?

* Banking & Finance

* Construction & Property

* Consumer Goods

* Engineering

* Health

* Industrials

* Leisure

* Media

* Natural Resources

* Retailing

* Support Services

* Technology

* Telecoms

* Transport

* Utilities

Monday, April 23, 2007

A first try at understanding "sectors"--whether you call them 'economic,' 'industrial,' or 'business'

In this blog-entry I'm laying out some loose-ended notes toward building a sense of economic sectors, industrial sectors, or business sectors--whatever you may wish to call them, depending on the context in which your are making a single point--the sectoral point.

To initiate our thinking along this line, I'm going to select one possible way of designating a specific sector, as I build up my own personal email file with a myriad of newslinks that could possible constitute a category. The general file envelopes a set "Companies"--but I'm not seeking to constitute any sector by this designation. Rather, within the "Companies" file, I place all the emails that feature one specific company or another (usually). But between the specific companies files and the main collector file of the set, I've slowly generated a mid-level designation that could constitute a sector. Still, my designation is something of a grab bag the contents of which are analytically isolated from other grab bags.

"Financial and Accounting" sector

This mid-level designation for a sector, between top-level "Companies" and third-level for collector files for subsectors (occasionally) and then the bottom-level of specific companies. Within any subsector. Within the sector of "Financial and Accounting" companies. Within general file I maintain for "Companies."
You understand the filing and category-generating hierarchical system that is very much only a work in process. A file tree, you mite call it. Also, as to the method of creating the system and using it now for basic purposes trending/tending toward ontological categories ("ontocats"), still it is only part of a pragmatics toward understanding companies in an overall economics theory, taking into account how specific companies relate to a system of economic sectors (industrial sectors, business sectors).

Here's a list drawn up from what's actually lurking in my email files at present:

"Financial and Accounting" sector
Accounting - subsector
Banks - subsector
Private Equity - subsector
Stockbrokers - subsector

I don't pretend even to myself that the subsector list is complete, and I have the suspicion that a further subsector should be listed--namely, "Insurance - subsector." But I have been empirically confronted yet with emails specific to the Insurance industry's subsector (my guesstimate of its most responsible classification). In my pragmatics, I can decide the matter later one. Now let's drill down to a further level toward specificity regarding kinds of businesses according to there industrial subsectors and sectors, their economic sectors and subsectors according the focal activites at their center of each company.

"Financial and Accounting" sector

Accounting - subsector
Lehman
Merrill-Lynch

Banks - subsector
ICBC (China)
J.P. Morgan Chase (this company also has a "retail unit")
Royal Bank of Scotland
Santandar (Spain)
Fortis (Belgo-Dutch bank)

Private Equity - subsector
ABM Abro (Dutch, just merged with Barclays UK)
Blackstone UK
Kohlberg Kravits Roberts
New Century Financial

Stockbrokers - subsector
Goldmann Sachs

That's what I've got for this sector at present. There are several problems with it; the problem that most bothers me at present is my attempt to split into two cats the subsector of banks from that of I've labelled "private equity" companies--which are in good part specialist banks engaged in many large-scale activities that don't feature private banking of individuals (or at least only the "filty rich" whose accounts are enormous in dollars or other currency/ies compared to most middleclass to lowerclass bank acccount holders. Another feature of the commercial banks is that they are lenders to huge corporations, sometimes to governments and govt agencies working on large-scale projects. And the crowning feature that I'm trying to get a bead on, they are often what are called "holding companies."

Another problem is the separation I've made between "central banks" which often are not banks, but govt agencies that play a role in the control of the economy and the furtherance of govt policy (like Keynesian techniques) in regard to a national economy. Also, are specialized govt financial agencies such as the US's Securities Exchange Commision. And then there's the stockmarkets where the mentioned stockbrokerage firms are active. But, stockmarkets are themselves usually businesses that are owned, have a board of directors, and make a profit (or loss) annually.

So, many revisions are possible in regard to this initial example. More to come.

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Dhowing industriously thru the Dow Industrial Average for industrial-sector shares marketed on the Stock Market (NYSE)

Dow at record close and up for third strait week, nears 13,000 (Apr20,2k7).
-----------
Dow at record on Asian rebound, earnings by Nick Godt (Apr20,2k7)
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stocks rallied Friday, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average to another record high and the market on track for strong weekly gains, following a rebound rally in Asian markets overnight and better-than-expected earnings from the likes of Caterpillar Inc. and Google Inc. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU :
Dow Jones Industrial Average) Last: 12,961.98+153.35+1.20% > 4:30pm 04/20/2007.

$INDU12,961.98, +153.35, +1.2% ) rallied 155 points to 12,964, a new record close, at the unofficial 4 p.m. close. For the week, the Dow surged 2.8%, marking its third straight week of gains. Caterpillar (CAT :

CAT71.82, +3.20, +4.7% ) surged 4.7% after its earnings topped expectations and the heavy-equipment maker raised its guidance. The S&P 500 index ($SPX :
S&P 500 Index

$SPX1,484.35, +13.62, +0.9% ) rose 13 points to 1,484, and advanced 2.2% on the week. The Nasdaq Composite (COMP :
Nasdaq Composite Index

COMP2,526.39, +21.04, +0.8% ) gained 21 points to 2,526 on Friday, and rose 1.4% on the week.

Google (GOOG :
google inc cl a
News , chart , profile , more
Last: 482.48+10.83+2.30%
4:00pm 04/20/2007

GOOG482.48, +10.83, +2.3% ) helped power the tech sector Friday, gaining 2.3% after its earnings powered past expectations. End of Story


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Dow Industrials surge by triple digits to top 12,900 for first time (Apr20,2k7)
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Dow industrials close with gain of less than 5 points but notch record h+ (Apr19,2k7).
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Dow industrials rise 29 points to all time h+ (Apr18,2k7).
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Dow hits all-time intra-day h+ of 12,798 (Apr18,2k7).
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Dow closes over 100 points h+er, above level seen before Feb. 27 plunge (Apr16,2k7).
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Dow industrials rise for 8th strait session (Apr10,2k7).
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Dow industrials close at h+est levels in 5 weeks, index up for strait days (Apr3,2k7).
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Dow industrials post first quarterly loss since Q2 2005 (Mar30,2k7).
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Dow industrials advance in all 5 sessions to gain 3,1% on week (Mar23,2k7).
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Up as much as 191 points on Fed news, Dow industrials move into black for 2007 (Mar21,2k7)
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Dow industrials erase 135-point intraday decline, close with 57-point gain (Mar14,2k7).
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Dow industrials fall more than 80 points, index below 12,000 for first time in four months (Mar13,2k7).
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Dow industrials fall more than 240 points; Dow, Nasdaq, S&P each lose 2% (Mar13,2k7).
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Dow industrials drop 200 points (Mar13,2k7).
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Dow ends day with 155-point gain, the biggest since July 2006 (Mar6,2k7).
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Dow industrials fall 4.3% in worst weekly decline in 4 years (Mar2,2k7).
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Dow industrials drop more than 100 points (Mar2,2k7).
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Dow industrials close 0.3 lower, recovering from early sell-off (Mar1,2k7).
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Dow industrials fall 200 points early Thursday, with all 40 components in red (Mar1,2k7).
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Stock indexes trim losses, after manufacturing gauge shows expansion (Mar1,2k7).
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Dow industrials up as much as 137 points as rebound adds momentum (Feb28,2k7).
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Dow industrials up 0.6% as US stock indexes seek to bounce back from sell-off (Feb28,2k7).
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Dow industrials plunge by 475 points (Feb27,2k7).
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Dow industrial average drops by 200 points to 12,432 points (Feb27.2k7).
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Thursday, April 12, 2007

Business Ideologies--Libertarianism as an ideology of "Radicals for Capitalism"

On Volokh Conspiracy, contributor David Bernstein briefly reviews, with several live-links, a new book.

Radicals for Capitalism:

I'm very much looking forward to reading Brian Doherty's book, Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern Libertarian Movement. The New York Sun reviews it here, and the New York Post, here. The Sun review is by Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic, one of of my favorite magazines. I didn't know Shermer was a libertarian, though I knew he was a former Objectivist.

I've known Brian since we attended an IHS seminar together in 1988. What, no comp review copy, Brian? Glenn Reynolds got one! Trivia note: Also attending that seminar was future Weekend Today Show anchor and Katie Couric sub Jodi Applegate, whom all the guys developed a crush on.

UPDATE: And the second most famous person attending that seminar was future Federal Election Commission Chairman Brad Smith.