DEBATING THE FUTURE DIRECTION OF EFFICIENCY

Write a maximum of two pages of paper in APA Format. Pick one of these statements below, and write three, four, or five reasons arguing that the statement is accurate. (Or, write 3,4 or 5 reasons arguing that the statement is completely wrong.) As always, provide references (on a separate page). Please give me the sources, examples, and other references, and they are really valuable to me.

Statement #1: Joe Lonsdale is right, and Amazon should spin off AWS. (See Lonsdale’s WSJ editorial, which I uploaded with this requirement.) If you choose this option, presumably, you will look at financial statements and attempt some understanding of the underlying profitability of AWS, its position within the cloud computing oligopoly, and the underlying profitability of the rest of Amazon. I suggest that your thinking will be aided if you grab a piece of scrap paper and try to position each of Amazon’s various businesses within a BCG Matrix.

Statement #2: Because of declining birth rates and aging populations, the need for labor in Canada will be so acute by the year 2040 that poor, unskilled workers will be offered recruitment bonuses to enter the country. [Or, write the same argument using some other nation with wealth and an aging population. What about China? Not enough people? A new immigration policy allowing guest workers to come in for low-skill jobs? And stay? And bring their families?]

Statement #3: A global recession is coming, and one part of that recession will be a broad die-off of many existing companies in many industries. Another part of the recession will be an increase in tax and regulation as nations flounder around trying to meet debt and pension commitments that they cannot meet. The most vulnerable companies in that situation will not be the biggest companies (with influence over the political process), and not the small shops either (because the small shops will avoid tax and regulation by staying small). The “middle” companies are the ones that will die. [The statement above had several parts to it. If you choose to write in disagreement with this statement, then please make clear at which points you disagree.]

Statement #4: Cryptocurrency offers a new level of efficiency in trade, but as a disruptive innovation, it is doomed. Cryptocurrency will fail to stay independent of the oligopoly it could otherwise disrupt. The existing big currency organizations have the strength and the will to crush and control it. [In other words, the US Federal Reserve {USD), the ECB (EUR), the Bank of England (GBP), the Bank of Japan (JPY), and the PBOC (CNY) simply have too much to lose, and they do have the power. [If you write on this topic, you must understand the concept of “disrupting innovation,” as expressed via Clayton Christensen’s theory associated with his book Innovator’s Dilemma.] Please make it clear in your response that you understand the unbundling that makes cryptocurrency a threat to these organizations. If you choose to also talk about other uses of blockchain technology, then please keep that part of your discussion relevant to the main question I have asked here.