Category Archives: Business

UPDATE III: Planet Facebook Owns It (The Little Guy/Gal Needs Social Media)

Business, Democracy, Economy, Free Markets, Human Accomplishment, Internet, Labor, Pop-Culture, Psychology & Pop-Psychology, Technology

“Planet Facebook Owns It” is the title of my new column, now on WND. Here’s an excerpt:

“The more you hear from your average, financial-markets hater—the more you wish you could transport each one back to a mud hut in a far-away land, where women wear grass skirts, and carry their groceries on their heads, and where no man dares to or is capable of dreaming-up businesses like Costco, Overstock.com, or Facebook.

Planet Facebook, in particular, is a global, social, political, and potential economic revolution. Had the idea for this social-networking site not come into being, we’d be the poorer for it.

Facebook users love it and cannot imagine life without. Yes, they complain endlessly—but largely because they can. Unlike government (and CNN’s Anderson Cooper), you can keep private enterprise honest. Business aims to please its constituents, the consumers. Complaints encourage compliance.

Facebook went public. In the process of going public, some people got rich, or richer; others didn’t.

INDIVIDUALS VS. CORPORATIONS: To the media, these are two antagonistic and atomistic solitudes, never the twain shall meet. This ‘angels versus demons’ caricature is lapped up by the masses, even though most of them own shares in major American companies, through their pension funds.

Most Americans benefit from and are heavily vested in corporate America.

True to this cartoon, the Little Guy is depicted as good; Big Players as bad. Invariably, those who can’t get rich off an initial public offering (IPO) are labeled sympathetically as ‘small investors,’ or ‘retail investors.’ Those who land in the lap of luxury for the umpteenth time, because of their capacity to invest vast sums, are dubbed derisively ‘big investors,’ ‘Wall Street.’

SIMPLIFIED: People with oodles of money make a killing. People without much money would kill to be in their shoes.

U2’s Bono exemplifies the first type. Bono might be a chap who fronts a three-chord band of unimpressive droners, but he knows a good business deal when he sees one. In 2009, the singer invested $90 million in Facebook stock.

Cui bono, you ask. And the answer as to who benefits from Bono’s industry is this: The singer has pledged the $1.5 billion he reaped from his Facebook investment to charities in Africa.

Business, in contrast to Barack Obama, is a positive-sum game. …”

Read the complete column, “Planet Facebook Owns It,” now on WND.

If you’d like to feature this column (WND’s longest-standing, exclusive libertarian column) in or on your publication (paper or pixels), contact ilana@ilanamercer.com.

Support this writer’s work by clicking to “Recommend,” “Tweet” and “Share” “Return To Reason” on WND, and the “Paleolibertarian Column” on RT.

UPDATE I: Myron, “that FACEBOOK is overpriced” doesn’t contradict what I wrote, to the effect that “… prices are supposed to fluctuate continuously, as market forces bring supply and demand into balance.” Does it?

UPDATE II: To “Old Man”: I don’t hang out on Facebook, much less on twitter. Rather, I use social media quite efficiently to promote my work, only. I’ve gotten good at this efficiency. I waste no time at all, engaging in little extraneous discussion. In fact, when that “Hi, baby” chat window pops up at me (you can no longer disable the thing with ease), I “Unfriend” the creep right away.
For the little gal with no promotional assistance, Facebook is business. If you look at my pages, you’ll see that all my blogs propagate to Facebook and twitter (now, there’s a useless forum) mostly automatically through special applications interfaces. (Of course, these often malfunction, but not nearly as badly and as routinely as the government does.)
My book I advertised on Facebook, managing to reach 3 million pages, if I recall. That was a bit of creative work.
How cool is that? Very cool when you have no other promo support. As hard as it is to fathom, I’ve worked uphill to get my book out on Amazon, the Only Bookshop That Matters. As I noted in the “MAÑANA” blog post, “the softcover of The Cannibal is coming ‘Mañana,’ Pacific Time.” (The hardcover is available, for now.)
Although the soft-spined (but never spineless) Cannibal has been collated (in-house by myself and my husband) and features bonus material, its Publisher disavows Amazon, and is in no rush to supply the Only Store Worth Supplying with Cannibal softcover copies. (“After almost a decade in the Pacific Northwest region, I can safely say that, with a few treasured exceptions, people outside the Microsoft workforce (who, with Boeing, is the main employer here) have a hard time acting professionally and honorably.”)

So, yes, Facebook can be valuable for the Little Guy/Gal, who has no other option but to work it .

Incidentally, employers can, through Facebook, find out something about the bums they are about to employ. For example, I had employed a social media person, initially. This being America, the paid personnel rarely responded to my inquiries. Busy was she? Not on your life. She was chatting frivolously on Facebook, in real time, as I tried to reach her via email. Since then, three more potential “workers” have conducted themselves similarly. (It’s America. We are, for the most, unmotivated by obligation, professionalism, contract, intellectual honestly, or proprietary; but by how things make us feel. Doing the right thing we frame as an act of heroism.)

UPDATE (May 26): Thanks for your support for this work, Nell. As I said, the writer in this instance has no influence. Readers will have to use their clout to get the softcover issue to the Amazon market, where most readers prefer to shop. Do contact the publisher.

UPDATED: The Law of Rule In The New South Africa

Business, Ethics, Etiquette, Ilana Mercer, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Race, South-Africa

Eugene Girin reviews “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America From Post-Apartheid South Africa” at VDARE.COM: “…what rule of law can exist in a country ruled by a party of racially-motivated terrorists whose unofficial anthem is the song ‘Kill the Boer’ and whose current president’s favorite song is ‘Give me my machine gun,” he asks.

MORE.

MAÑANA. I’d like to be able to offer you the softcover copy of The Cannibal. It has been collated and features bonus material. I know I’ve promised courtesy copies to Dr. Victor Niederhoffer and other deserving parties.

The new, softcover issue should be available sometime soon—although do take into account that the Pacific Northwest is not Manhattan. After almost a decade in this region, I can safely say that, with a few treasured exceptions, people outside the Microsoft workforce (who, with Boeing, is the main employer here) have a hard time acting professionally and honorably.

So, all I can say is that the softcover of The Cannibal is coming “Mañana,” Pacific Time.

Or, Inshallah, as we say in the Middle East.

Keep a look out; it’s worth it.

As my tiny, treasured parrot (T. Cup) used to say, “It’s coming.”

UPDATE: The review says the word “whites” a lot. The book doesn’t. As I mentioned in “National Review Eunuchs”:

I cop to Western man’s individualist disdain—could it be his weakness?—for race as an organizing principle. For me, the road to freedom lies in beating back the state, so that individuals may regain freedom of association, dominion over property, the absolute right of self-defense; the right to hire, fire, and, generally, associate at will.

The Cannibal jibes with that sentiment.

UPDATE: This evening, Peter Brimelow emailed to tell me that, following the review on VDARE.COM, The Cannibal shot up to “Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #15,531 in Books .” Just looked. Many thanks.

UPDATED: Plain IPO, Or A Planet Unto Itself?

Business, Capitalism, Democracy, Internet, Technology

I’ve been debating futilely with someone about the value of purchasing Facebook stock, pursuant to the IPO (Initial Public Offering).

In my opinion—and I am not a stockbroker or an expert; just a rational thinker who uses (as opposed to hangs-out on) Facebook—at $38 to $42 a share, Facebook stock is not that expensive.

You have to be bereft of an imagination, and/or someone who has never used Facebook to productive ends—not to realize that Facebook is no hot air, Dot.com financial balloon.

Facebook is a planet unto itself, a global, social and political tool; a revolution.

UPDATE: I would compare the invention of Facebook to the discovery of a planet. The products of many a dot.com come and go; Facebook is here to stay. I said that to my better half a short while after joining FB last year (2011). Bono might be “a chap who fronts a three-chord band of unimpressive droners,” but he knows a good business deal when he sees one.

UPDATE VI: Eunuchs at NRO Sack John Derbyshire (Cognitive Consonance)

Business, Canada, Free Speech, Intellectualism, Neoconservatism, Political Correctness, Race, Racism, Reason

Writes Facebook friend Aditya Vivek Barot:

Ms Mercer:

Mr. John Derbyshire, the man whose blurb appears on your book, has been unceremoniously sacked by the eunuchs at NRO.

What an apt appellation for that castrate, Rich Lowry.

Adds Peter Brimelow of VDARE.COM:

“[T]o appease a Left-wing lynch mob, John Derbyshire has just been fired from the new, Politically Correct National Review—despite (or perhaps because of) his unmatched brilliance there, to say nothing of his cancer and his years of loyal service.”

National Review has been PC—and worse, boring—for as long as I can remember.

John, who, as Aditya mentioned, had endorsed my book without flinching, was fired by the intellectual pygmies of NRO, for a tract titled “The Talk: Nonblack Version,“ published at Taki’s Magazine.


UPDATE I: NRO did at least employ John for a long time. They have never considered my work and have never replied to submissions.

UPDATE II: When you read Amy Davidson’s inane histrionic piffle, published in an elite magazine, you realize that ousting John for his views is more about enforcing mediocrity than enforcing conformity.

Americans cannot abide enormous talent, unless it is in a mindless or uncontroversial field such as sport or hard science. You have to be mediocre in writing and thinking and echo one of two party lines. I lived in Canada (I’m a Canadian) where my stuff appeared in the national press, no less. That could never happen in the US.

UPDATE III: Richard Spencer: “… it’s hard to mistake the trajectory of official ‘Conservatism’ as anything other than a gradual degeneration and dumbing-down. NR has gone from James Burnham and Russell Kirk to Kathryn Jean Lopez and various man-children spouting human-rights doctrines. … the mainstream Right [is] much stupider…more defined by the Goldbergs, Ponnurus, Lowrys, and Lopezes of the world…and more obviously a racket and dead-end. …”

UPDATE IV (April 10): In reply to the Facebook thread. Aditya, AMM, and others: To me, the Derb issue is never about whether you agree or disagree with his article, as Richard Spencer does (on FB, I quoted a slice of Spencer’s piece with which I agree). This perennial Soviet-style purging is never about “agreement,” to me. I do not know why people think that if you want to see a lot of well-written, wickedly witty, controversial writing in print (pixels or paper), as I do—you necessarily endorse all of it.

NONSENSE.

During the Iraq war, when the likes of Paul Craig Roberts, myself and other non-Beltway libertarians and paleos were writing up a storm against Bush’s barbarity–and being ousted and banished for it—Roberts noted that readers wanted to see a mirror of their opinions in his writing. This is so true. Readers judge me not in terms of style, thinking; quality of writing, a challenge to consensus, etc., but in accordance with how much I reflect their opinions; do they agree with me.

Cognitive consonance is what writing in the Age of the idiot is all about.

The narrowing of the American mind is not the fault of corporations; its The People’s fault, for heaven’s sake. Corporations would not survive if they ceased to cater to The People, who are tyrants in their own right. This leftist argument misconstrues the direction of the dumbing of America.

I am on record as saying that I am not comfortable with the racialist right’s tack. (To quote: “I think I reflect Western man’s disdain for race as an organizing principle, and for broad generalizations. Good luck with organizing modern westerners around race. I prefer to beat back the state so that individuals regain freedom of association, dominion over property, the absolute right of self-defense; the right to hire, fire, and, generally, associate at will. That’s the route to freedom.”)

But I simply love—and think it is necessary to a free society—to see all well-expressed, eloquent opinion and argument in print, at the pleasure of that print’s owners.

Of course, self-interest plays a role in wanting to see Derb and his work prevail. Derb is one of many canaries in this minefield of our own making.

UPDATE V: Maureen O’Connor of Gawker.com has actually done the job of a journalist in interviewing Derb. I hope he gets a book deal or makes a ton of money out of this shameful episode in the annals of NR.

UPDATE VI: “The first pessimists were the Old Testament prophets.” I love the Prophets, Jeremiah being my favorite. John Derbyshire on The B.S. of A. with Brian Sack (Full)