Years of Poems and Spirits

I first heard of Porter when I read Huntington’s Culture Matters.

In the strategy class, we are assigned to his reading. The one I just read, “What Is Strategy?” is a great essay. Basically, Porter made the argument that Strategy is:
1. Being different;
2. Making trade-offs;
3. Building fit activities (to reinforce competitive edge/unique values);

It is hard to find fault with this kind of logic of course. My prof. said there are two things missing in Porter’s framework: the 5 force is a snapshot analysis that devoid of market trend or demand shifts (e.g. being totally exogenous).

What I see the biggest weakness in his theory is the lack of consideration of risks. His analysis only makes sense, his definition of strategy being true, if there is no significant risks involved in any of the three objectives.

However, in real life, this is far from the truth. Only startup companies can afford to take chances. Large companies, with a few exceptions, have to consider the risk involved.

Another thing he is missing in his work is a constrain line that is tangent to the position frontier. The constrain line is a combination of limitation of resources, aversion to risks (due to capital structure for example) and other organizational factors–which maps roughly to the “activity system” of his.

Then again, Porter has an IQ of 180… we are definitely on different intelligence frontiers.

Before talking to Joel:
1. The Huntington model:
Mobilization, participation and institution.
Political culture: the way to participate in polity, to associate with others in polity and the basis to institutionalize polity.
Application:
a. Political culture: culture of participation at the highest polity level (e.g. national, EU)
b. Civic culture: participation culture in civil society.
c. Culture: not clear in this model.
Why civic culture matters:
a. The template of political participation
b. Civic culture could be different from political one: e.g. Indonesia multi-sourced law system, Saudi Arabia today, etc.

2. The anthrop model:
Culture includes: collection of symbols (including words) and their interpretations.
Political culture: symbols used for political affairs and their interpretations. The implementation of such interpretations is the basis of political institution.
Application:
a. The power of interpretation: its disciplinary effect in politics. Its close association with institutions and power.
b. Weak state and strong society: why state is conceptually within society: the source of meaning comes from society. Politics may impose new symbols and implant its interpretation. To take root, however, such symbols and interpretations have to be assimilated by the society.

WSJ had this article: Cheap Money Doesn’t Explain Market Puzzles (c).

Very interesting view point:
“Liquidity is an ex-post justification for why markets are going up,” Mr. Edwards says. “There’s lots of liquidity around — well, there always is until there isn’t, and then it just disappears.”

Boy, what an insight.

If this guy is on to something, monetary policy is more of a signaling tool than a direct instrument. It may sound a little far fetched but I think there is some truth to it.

First of all, does inflation still mean the same today as 30 years ago? Secondly, is CPI a good indicator of market price level? More specifically, is CPI a good indicator of price level as a result of money supply? Third, my hypothesis is that inflation is the result of a large gap between level of consumption and productivity. In other words, inflation happens if productivity cannot sustain a certain level of consumption–etiher because of overconsumption or a sudden decline of productivity.

An example would be the oil price spike during the 1970s. Oil’s high consumption level was supported by its low price. However, the disruption of supply caused a sharp drop of productivity (because of the spike of capital cost). It is as if a worker used to use a bucket of oil to produce a good now he has to use a bucket of gold to produce the same thing.

Therefore, inflation is not (always) the result of excess liquidity. If this is true, then monetary policy may not work as planned during inflation. Only when consumption level and productivity reconverge (e.g. new technology suddenly increases productivity or consumption is sufficiently depressed, or both) would inflation go away.