Business & Economics Archives - The Handbuilt City

Business & Economics Consumer Products

AliExpress: The New Amazon? Or, Close, But No Cigar?

April 7, 2021April 7, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments ali, ali cloud, alibaba, alibaba vs. aliexpress, aliexpress, amazon, amazon distribution center, backmarket, cainiao, capitalism, china, consumer culture, consumerism, coupang, distribution, ecommerce, eRetail, free market, late capitalism, logistics, mass consumption, PRC, products, retailers, supply chain, TPP, trade, trade relations, trans-pacific partnership, US China relations, us china trade war, US-China trade, value density, value density by volume, value density by weight, value density per volume, warehouse, world trade organization, WTO

An exhaustive review of AliExpress, the Chinese Amazon and the “foreign office” of global giant AliBaba.

Business & Economics

Losing Your Shirt: Amazon’s Anticompetitive Edge in Pricing

March 29, 2021March 28, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments amazon brand, amazon prices, amazon pricing, Amazon Web Services, anticompetitive, antitrust, apparel, AWS, best buy, break up big tech, breaking up big tech, buttoned down, competitive pricing, consumer behavior, consumer economics, consumerism, cost leadership, dress shirts, elizabeth warren fan club, goodthreads, jeff bezos, jeff bezos skull keg party, loss leader, monopoly, pima cotton, prices of amazon products, pricing, pricing theory, sartorial finesse, shirts, supima

Amazon is playing a strange game involving pricing of some of its products, selling them at a hefty loss. It’s not really clear why.

Sustainability Manufacturing

Port Angeles CRTC: Giving New Flight to Aircraft Scrap

March 29, 2021March 29, 2021 Vishva Nalamalapu 0 Comments advanced manufacturing and composite technology, aerospace, aircraft manufacturing, aircraft recycling, boeing, boeing 777, boeing 787, building materials, carbon dioxide, clad, cladding, CLT, composites, composites recycling technology center, CRTC, CRTC port angeles, energy efficiency, energy-efficient, green building, green building materials, manufacturing, nicole wright, olympic mountains, olympic peninsula, peninsula college, pennies for quarters, pickleball, pickleball paddle, port angeles washington, recycled building materials, recycling, repurposing, sequim, sustainable building, sustainable construction, tiny home, tiny house, veterans housing, vishva nalamalapu, washington state, waste

In Port Angeles, Washington, Vishva Nalamalapu hangs out at the Composite Recycling Technology Center, or CRTC, with Michigan transplant Nicole Wright, to learn about all of the cool stuff they are manufacturing from aerospace industry scrap.

Business & Economics Transit infrastructure Infrastructure

Black Ocean Strategy? Private Firms Are Looking To Cut Themselves A Slice Of The Infrastructure Pie.

March 25, 2021March 25, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments ann arbor, anthony townsend, austerity, autonomous cars, BRT, CASE, cavnue, chicago parking meter deal, chicago parking meters, daley the lesser, diane cross, EVs, fast bus, finance 101, ford mustang mach-e, free market, google, highways, hudson yards, infrastructure, Infrastructure Partners, invisible hand, jeff cranson, LRT, mach-e, mark de la vergne, mdot, michael heller, morgan stanley infrastructure partners, MSIP, mustang mach-e, PAV, privatization, privatization of transportation infrastructure, privatized, richard j. daley, richard m. daley, roadways, Sidewalk, sidewalk labs, SMART, smart city, smart roadways, subways, transportation infrastructure

Wall Street and Silicon Valley are looking for access to infrastructure as they seek out new markets and sources of reliable revenue streams and growth potential. It’s good work … if you can get it.

Energy Efficiency Poverty Energy Utilities

Debt or Asset? How Utility Shutoffs Are About To Be A Big Problem.

March 24, 2021March 24, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments ACA subsidies, accounts receivable, chevy aveo, debt, double-entry bookkeeping, dr. tony reames, DTE Energy, energy poverty, harvard business school, investor-owned utilities, investor-owned utility, LIHEAP, mercedes g-wagon, michigan public service commission, MPSC, public service commission, public utilities, regulated corporations, regulated entities, Tony Reames, utilities, utility shutoffs, willy wonka, willy wonka rant

Springtime and mounting debt related to COVID19 means utility shutoffs are coming. At least probably. Here are some ideas for how we can fix our broken systems for utility billing– and how we subsidize utilities through programs like LIHEAP without actually moving the needle on energy poverty.

Business & Economics Culture & Language Environment

100 Corporations Produce 71% of Carbon Emissions. But Who Buys Their Products?

March 9, 2021March 9, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments air quality, air quality index, ambassador bridge, aqi, car inspections, car ownership, carbon, carbon footprint, cars, climate change, conservation, consumption, energy waste reduction, exxonmobil, garbage, incinerator, mobility justice, mobility poverty, MPSC, municipal solid waste, pollution, recycling, recycling bin, refuse, Regulation, resources, saudi aramco, single-stream recycling, solid waste, transportation justice, transportation poverty, trash, vehicles, waste

LIVING IN SOUTHWEST DETROIT, A STONE’S THROW FROM THE AMBASSADOR BRIDGE, I AM ACCUSTOMED to having to wipe off the

Business & Economics

Trying To Bump Up Those Margins? Have You Considered… Stealing?

March 4, 2021March 4, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments amazon, amazon prime, AMZN, billionaires, copyright infringement, customer reviews, customer service, ecommerce, everyday sling, jeff bezos, litigation, millionaihs and billionaihs, peak design, peak design everyday sling, reviews, shopping, stealing, theft

Amazon has a long and sordid history of stealing the designs of companies that sell on its platform– and making their products themselves, to be sold at a lower price. One company decided to troll them in response.

Business & Economics Mobility Tech

Mispricing the Chevrolet Bolt, And Other Strange Corporate Decisions

March 2, 2021March 2, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments asymmetrical information, batteries, battery technology, Big Two-and-a-Half, Bolt EUV, chevrolet bolt, chevrolet EUV, chevrolet volt, chevy bolt, chevy volt, economics, electric car, Electric cars, electric vehicles, EUV, EV charging infrastructure, F-150, F-150 Super Duty, F-150 Super Duty State of Mind, Ford, general motors, GM bolt, GM volt, LG chem, lithium-ion battery, market failure, market information, pareto optimality, talk to the invisible hand, who killed the electric car

The Chevrolet Bolt originally sold poorly. It’s now selling well, but at an average of a 30% discount off its full MSRP. Maybe that suggests it wasn’t priced right to begin with.

Business & Economics Public transit Transit infrastructure Government

Cato Needs To Re-Toole Their Bad Takes On Infrastructure

February 17, 2021February 17, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments alstom, amtrak, amtrak capex, Amtrak NEC, bad ideas, batman, batman meme, capital expenditures, cato institute, farebox recovery ratio, federal spending, freight, FRR, government bad, government spending, gridlock, high-speed rail, inflation, intermodal, intermodal transit, libertarian, libertarianism, manufacturing, milkshakes, moore's law, multimodal, northeast corridor, northeast corridor tunnel, public transit, randal o'toole, randall o'toole, real clear policy, small government, train, trains, transit

The Cato Institute’s Randal O’Toole has a really terrible take on transportation investment that grossly misrepresents how money and economic efficiency work.

Business & Economics Book Reviews

Book Review – Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley, by Emily Chang

February 13, 2021February 13, 2021 Nat M. Zorach 0 Comments apple, big tech, bloomberg, bloomberg technology, breaking up the boys' club of silicon valley, brotopia, california, childcare, dot-com, dot-com bubble, drugs, emily chang, emily chang bloomberg, employer-provided childcare, fairchild semiconductor, google, heteropatriarchy, intel, misogyny, monogamy, patriarchy, robert noyce, rock and roll, sex, sexism, silicon valley, trilogy, Uber

A few weeks ago, I finished Emily Chang’s Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley, which came out

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