BLT - Blis Technologies

[moka]

Time for one of my long posts? Tough, here it is anyway

All over the world now it is quite evident that there is a deep rift in society. Trump. Brexit. Putin's Russia. Right wing parties in Europe. Even India is caught up in it trying to abolish cash in the face of traditional Indian culture.

How to characterise this deep rift? Well, I think of it as a battle over post-modernism (used in the broader sense than merely describing an art movement). It is the culmination of the Enlightenment which began in the 1600s as the Dark Ages slowly receded into history and then the rise of the City State made possible the idea of improving the lot of mankind instead of just endlessly living a daily grind of violence, poverty and disease. The idea took root that we could make the world a better place and this became an increasing focus of humanity over the centuries that followed. It is a good plan and has gained near universal adoption around the world.

But along the way a certain dotted line was passed that not everyone has since agreed on. Somewhere we changed from merely making the world a better place to making the world a perfect place. I think it probably happened over the last 60 or 70 years, partly as a reaction to World War 2, and partly as an offshoot of the incredible prosperity made possible by the widespread use of oil. Alongside it grew the idea of individualism, a long way from Kennedy's "think not what society can do for you". Social welfare flourished, and quality control is all the rage, along with championing the rights of the minority, hi tech, smartphones etc.

It is epitomised in modern-day Europe with EU government, Eurovision and the illegality of hate speech. Disneyland was an earlier version that still holds sway in Los Angelos and New York.

But underlying that dream are some awkward facts. Beggars are common throughout the prosperous West now. People live under bridges and in cars, and statistics are being massaged to hide some truths that aren't popular in some quarters.

Some of you will be aware of a place called Shadowstats, where US government statistics are available as they would have been calculated years ago before the formulas were changed to give nicer answers. That site tells us that US unemployment is reported today at 4% but would once have been counted at a staggering 22% with the old formula. US Inflation is reported at 3% but would have been reported at 6.5% - obviously incomes are not going up at 6.5% pa but costs are.

Underlying all of this is the ever more visible question: is the world actually a better place? Those who do well under the current system have voted against Brexit, for Hilary Clinton, etc - for the status quo in other words, presumably because they think it is going pretty well. Those who are not the winners have voted for Brexit and for Trump. This is possible because the number of losers is now so high that they can win elections. A recent poll in the UK, for instance, shows that 40% would now vote for a right wing anti-immigrant party, which would have been unthinkable a few years ago. So far this force does not seem to have arrived in a NZ political party but I suspect it will.

Facebook prospers with the post-modernist model and the FAANGS are holding together the S&P 500. It DOES make money and it is an in demand model. On the other hand there is no denying that basics are in strong demand too. Supermarket in-store brands are flourishing, and the label brands are struggling to hold them off nowadays.

History appears to be at a balancing point and there is no knowing what the future will hold. Maybe both models will continue as viable, maybe one model will swamp the other. I think personally that Brexit models the situation very well. There is no telling which side will win in the short term, nor which side will represent the public mood in the end.

Loved the post simla and thanks for sharing on sharetrader. I love big picture stuff and it is very relevant to long term investing. Long term the sharemarket is very predictable if you can identify the patterns, big trends and structural changes. I have edited the post a bit to focus on what for me are the important points. I wasn’t aware of Shadowstats and often wonder how inflation can be so low in NZ when all the basics such as food, power, petrol, rent, rates keep rising.


Despite lots of googling I’m not sure what Postmodernism means eg “Facebook prospers with a postmodernist model.” But this definition sounds simple and understandable - Postmodern theory sees reality as what individuals or social groups make it to be. But here is the mind game – reality in this context is actually perception and not the truth i.e facts.


What you have stated is lots of facts, truth, reality – deep rifts, beggars are common, lots of losers and this statement. The idea took root that we could make the world a better place and this became an increasing focus of humanity over the centuries that followed.


But in this statement give your perception of why it’s not happening. Somewhere we changed from merely making the world a better place to making the world a perfect place. I think it probably happened over the last 60 or 70 years.


Your perception of “changing to making the world a perfect place” is not an idea I had ever considered before - it’s not my perception. For me “perfection” is black and white thinking, the old model and undermines the move towards equality by setting an impossible target, so it is an idea originating from those rich and powerful people who have a vested interest in maintaining an unequal world.


My perception of why it is not happening is that in the last 60 or 70 years there has been a backlash against equal rights, civil rights, human rights, women’s rights, gay rights etc by those who benefit most from a hierarchical patriarchal society and want to maintain the status quo. They confuse to control – fake news, social engineering, propaganda and extending their influence into universities so we get meaningless garbage such as “Postmodernism is often associated with schools of thought such as deconstruction and post-structuralism.” What does that mean? It means whatever you want it to mean. Your reality is not my reality. So if you are poor and homeless and hungry well that’s only your perception, not a fact. Confused? Yes - good, you are never going to solve the problem if you aren’t sure what the problem is.

[simla]

Thanks for your comments, Moka. As one who has lived through those "sixty or seventy years" I can promise you that the trend to (intolerant) perfection is recent, the support of minority rights has only grown over that time, massively recently, and the backlash you mention is very new indeed, possibly starting following the 2007/8 crash which has left many people poorer and poorer while they watch minorities being offered increasing rights, but not them. People understood that you had to "rub against each other in peace" when I was young, but now people get told they aren't allowed to even say some stuff. Nobody had even heard of hate speech until very recently.

The Beatles hit was "Let It Be" remember. Whereas the Guardian newspaper now is a ceaseless string of articles on why this, that or the other thing is quite unacceptable. A complete reversal of attitude.

Yes, I totally agree with your definition of postmodernism: reality is what we make it. It doesn't actually bear thinking about, but it underlies so much of society these days anyway. The Facebook generation were appalled when Trump won because nobody had told them that that might happen. They lived in a different world than actual reality therefore.

[artemis]

...... you are never going to solve the problem if you aren’t sure what the problem is.

And that is the crux of the matter. Nobody in the NZ government, or anywhere much, is applying formal root cause analysis so the 'solutions' may be addressing the wrong problem. Expensively. RCA is hard, too hard, so let's spin problems so the solution fits the narrative. Done.

How are we the people supposed to see the facts in this context? In NZ we recently saw 'homeless' who turned out to be not homeless at all but street beggars spending takings on alcohol. And an official definition of homeless that turns out to be mainly shared households. (I mention those examples because I spent years at the sharp end of the social housing sector - some of the info is true, a lot of it is spin and politics and lies.)

[simla]

Well, drama over anyway. The only reason there was any drama was because the Board decided to oppose a popular candidate, and then the shareholders stirred themselves to vote him in anyway. One more person is appointed to a group of six. That's all that happened.

We will obviously never find out what happens behind closed doors. And I can't really see that we will even see if the company decides to change strategy in any way before the 2019 report in May 2019, a year away, if even then.

[Lorne Ranger]

Surely its blindingly obvious that the vast majority are far better off now than 70 years ago in terms of life expectancy and quality of that life. Modern support for minority rights is just society having the maturity and luxury to allow shared opportunity. Right wing ideologies prosper when people feel they have missed out or feel threatened, and recent trends in global migration fans both flames. Trump is a threat because he's so unpredictable so some countires will react to that and feel they need to brace. I dont think NZ is at much risk of this. Look at our most recent election result. There might be some jealously towards Asian immigrants and new citizens, it's churlish to suggest racism doesn't exist here because it obviously does, but the threat of it being organised and effective, rather than just personal and pervasive is pretty small, and tends to limit itself to people on talk back getting upset with the amount of te reo spoken on Radio NZ, or grumbling about house prices (until the proof showed otherwise). Just another way NZ leads the world in being good global citizens!

Still not sure what this has to do with shares exactly but oh well.

[simla]

Thank you all for putting up with my posts over the last month. I am very happy with the outcome and do feel that the company is strengthened because of it. Many hands make light work.

[winner69]

Market don’t like that Director appointment?

Down 14% since

[Apathy]

Thank you all for putting up with my posts over the last month. I am very happy with the outcome and do feel that the company is strengthened because of it. Many hands make light work.

You are totally misguided - the fact he was 'allowed' the opportunity to resign in the first instance has come back to bite the board - which of course will now be totally dysfunctional. Shareholders will get what they deserve - 9 years in charge with a history of fines, failures and missed targets is not the CV for a Director.

The company will continue to hold the record for longest unprofitable tenure on the NZX for the foreseeable future.

[Apathy]

Market don’t like that Director appointment?

Down 14% since

Market is spot on - the guys writing the cheques have been forced to accommodate a guy who ran it abysmally for almost a decade....

[winner69]

Market is spot on - the guys writing the cheques have been forced to accommodate a guy who ran it abysmally for almost a decade....

Up 20% today ...maybe Barry bought on market?