The Importance of Perspective
In the modern world, there is a massive amount of information. Too much of this information is of general interest, though usually of not much utility.
Getting information that has utility is not easy. It becomes more difficult when a specific perspective if called for.
Perespective is important, as will become clear from the following notes.
The Corporate Profit Perspective
Maybe it is corporate profit that is the most important single metric in the modern world. It is certainly a popular metric, even if it is not a truly important metric.
Of course, an investor in the company is interested in the profit performance of the company, but the importance of this metric for the public at large is rather modest.
There are, of course, important things that may be learned from an understanding of the profit performance of a company. I like to contrast the profit performance of a heavy engineering comapany I worked for early in my career with the modern high tech companies operating in the global digital economy. The heavy engineering company had a tiny margin compared to the margins that have now become the norm in the modern digital economy.
I don't get the impression that the general public understands fully the implication of the very high margins that successful companies operating in the digital economy are able to earn.
The mandate given to the Federal Reserve Bank by Congress to limit inflation to 2% and to have full employment strikes me as being inappropriate for companies involved with digital technology. Inflation is measured in large part by product prices. In the case of digital products, the marginal cost of products is near zero, and any price however large or small is profitable. In convential businesses making tangible products marginal costs do not decline very much with volume. Clarity about cost push inflation and demand pull inflation becomes important, but is rarely mentioned in these times. There was cost push inflation in the 1970s, and inflation could not be controlled. Today there is cost push inflation for many of the basics needed by most ordinary people, but offset in the inflation average by a total lack of cost push in the field of digital product. Not measured is the level of austerity being forced on ordinary working people because of weak wage growth over decades and the associated deprivation, hunger, poor health, etc.
The People Perspective ... as Consumer
As a consumer, a person is wanting a high quality product or service at a low price
The People Perspective ... as Employee
As an employee, a persom wants a high wage and good benefits.
The People Perspective ... as Employer
As an employer, the company is looking to pay low wages to the employees while getting high productivity from the employees.
This has been possible in places like the United States over the past 40 years by outsourcing production to low wage, low regulation locations.
This is not just outsourcing to China, but to other countries where wage costs are even lower than China and regulations even less onerous.
The Environmental Perspective
The Country (Macro-Economic) Perspective
The Financial Perspective
The Big Business Perspective
The Small Business Perspective
The Place Perspective
The Political Perspective
The Process Perspective
The Product Perspective
The Society Perspective
Metrics must Address the Matter of Perspective
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