Nikola Tosic blog

the reports made for to the rich could be the most objective or most ridiculous ones.

on reddit i found this citigroup 2005 report made for their richest clients.

here are some gems:

– the usa, uk, and canada are the plutonomies – economies powered by the wealthy. (italy is also added to this list, but as a non anglo-saxon plutonomy.)

– in a plutonomy there is no such animal as “the us consumer” or “the uk consumer”, or indeed the “russian consumer”. there are rich consumers, few in number, but disproportionate in the gigantic slice of income and consumption they take. there are the rest, the “non-rich”, the multitudinous many, but only accounting for surprisingly small bites of the national pie.

– outsourcing, offshoring or insourcing of cheap labor is done to undercut current labor costs.

– …the invisible hand stops working. Perhaps one reason that societies allow plutonomy, is because enough of the electorate believe they have a chance of becoming a plutoparticipant. why kill it off, if you can join it? in a sense this is the embodiment of the “american dream”.

hope you like it.

star wars mania accelerated in 2015 with force awakens getting closer.

here is a list of shopping outcome:

– numerous lego star wars sets, including quite elaborate ewok village;

– our kids, especially djordje who was 4, got star wars clothing and toys mostly from disney official stores;

– playstation 4 and star wars battlefront for me;

– disney infinity 3 with clone wars and rebels figures;

– trip to disneyland paris with a lot of attention to star wars shop;

– cinema tickets in december as we saw the force awakens few times.

in retrospective star wars related purchases are one of the bigger expenses for us as a family in 2015.

disney also got some of our cash for marvel and other properties.

we also had xbox one lego star wars game before and we watched most of clone wars and rebels.

brands which got most of our purchases, besides disney, are lego and sony.

star wars is visually present in our lives maybe 10 – 20 mins per day.

most of us think of star wars maybe few times every day.

i mostly think of sith and jedi in terms of good vs evil.

kids are interested in it because irena and i care about it so they try to join in.

they are not fully into it.

minions definitely win over star wars when it comes to ages 5 and 10.

i think our family makes bob iger happy.

1) i have a choice to do what i want.

2) i choose to make specific things which i believe are good.

3) i choose to work with partners, staff, clients, who i like to work with.

resulting from this, on 1 jan 2016 i have started a new project:

BEMapps.com

i am sure that how we explain this project in next weeks or months will change,

but the essence is that we are automating branding and brand strategy.

it is a software tool for marketers, managers, and owners.

my motivation is:

– for most of my life i have been investigating the idea of a brand.

– i love making software that creates a change.

– i love working for other businesses.

our team is smaller.

over past 6 years i tried bigger teams, and now i am happy we start with only four as core team:

design, technology, sales.

i am very excited about this step.

being 37 was very good for me:

– irena and my son marko was born healthy and cute.

– our kids sofija and djordje did not suffer any major damage or crisis.

– most of the family is operating healthy and ok.

– business was good, best year so far thanks to all the partners.

– my poetry book was published, edited by rafael.

– i organized meet in a nice restaurant in nyc, with rafael.

– irena and i started mountain biking together.

– my weight is under control and i started training for 3,000 m run.

– lots of travel.

next year following things away me:

– need to make sure all the kids and family survive.

– new startup from 1 jan 2016. business software and services, which is very exciting.

– we need to find a new place to live in belgrade, so we will try to be creative.

– more fun stuff.

i love products.

when i buy them i get happy and feel better.

some of them even do something – like toilet paper and food.

but i really do not get much excited about them.

the new stuff that excites me is when global society eradicates a bias.

i mean, there is really nothing more important than getting rid of a bias.

the reason one i would not want to live 20, 50, 100, or 1,000 years ago is how everything was dominated by biases.

in simpler terms, the further we go back in history, the more crazy global society is.

and today maybe it is only 95% crazy and 5% rational.

so when i think about travel to mars, new computers and cars, ai, and such stuff, i think it is ok, but we are not really moving forward.

if united nations, or any other organization which takes responsibility to make a global society better, would make a list of all biases and get rid of them, one by one in next few thousand years, i think we would be going in a good direction.

we would be getting better, as a society of humans.

the products, and such stuff, are a distraction, nice one, but a distraction.

to start, read a list of biases and progress the society by getting rid of your own biases.

see list here.