Martin Wolf: “The evidence suggests that natural economic forces have largely been responsible for past changes in the pattern of world trade. Growing concern over the security of supply chains will no doubt add to these changes, though whether the result will be “reshoring” or “friendshoring” is doubtful. More likely is a complex pattern of diversification. Meanwhile, technology is opening up new areas of growth in services.”
NYTimes: “Need to find a restaurant or figure out how to do something? Young people are turning to TikTok to search for answers…TikTok’s rise as a discovery tool is part of a broader transformation in digital search. While Google remains the world’s dominant search engine, people are turning to Amazon to search for products, Instagram to stay updated on trends and Snapchat’s Snap Maps to find local businesses. As the digital world continues growing, the universe of ways to find information in it is expanding. Google has noticed TikTok edging into its domain.”
Vanita Kohli-Khandekar: “Of the Rs 30,300 crore that online advertising got in 2021, roughly half went to Google and a third to Meta (formerly Facebook). That leaves just about Rs 5,000 crore for dozens of newspapers, websites and TV channels that have invested several times that figure on bringing news online. In terms of audience size, mainstream news firms such as Times Internet, India Today, NDTV, Indian Express dominate the list of the top 20 online news sources in India. But when it comes to online revenues, most still struggle. The game then belongs to the brands that have the money to invest in artificial intelligence (AI) and the tech needed to get scale and, therefore, advertising. Journalism doesn’t seem to have much to do with it.”
Donald Boudreaux on Bastiat’s “What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen”: “People have short attention spans for matters beyond those that immediately affect them personally or over which they have no personal control. On matters of public policy, therefore, people are attentive enough to infer that a shopkeeper whose window is broken will likely replace it and that the merchant from whom the shopkeeper purchases the replacement window is made better off. But after reaching this inference, people get bored and ponder the matter no further. There is no clear explanation for why many people regularly and expertly use their reason to “see” and infer some economic consequences, but have great difficulty using these same powers of reason to “see” other consequences that are no less real or important than are the consequences that they do “see.” Whatever the correct explanation, pinning it down might provide a constructive clue to help those of us who use the economic way of thinking to better make the case against popular government interventions. The negative consequences today, as in Bastiat’s day, remain invisible to far too many people.”
