#consumer goods and services industry

[mrudula01]

Vanilla Market 2022-2028: Contending Applications

Consumer Goods and Service

22, November 2022

“When the product is right, you don’t have to be a great marketer.” This thought by Lido Iacocca, an American automotive executive, has proven true for various products, even the product in focus today – vanilla. With world exports of vanilla exceeding around $903 million in 2021, it has emerged as a popular spice with diversified applications across industries, including F&B and pharmaceuticals. Estimates indicate Madagascar is the largest vanilla exporter, at 68% in 2021, followed by France, Germany, Indonesia, and Canada. Given the trend, the global vanilla market is expected to flourish at a CAGR of 4.85% during the forecast period 2022-2028.

Numerous players have heavily invested in R&D activities to improve vanilla’s production yield. In the same effort, governments worldwide are making robust efforts to improve quality and production volumes and stabilize vanillin costs, bridging the gap between demand and supply.

Vanilla Market by Application | Overview

Food & beverage is a major category in the application segment, with ice cream and chocolate gaining the highest share. With consumers seeking non-GMO and no artificial flavor products, companies like Nestlé, General Mills, and Hershey’s are including natural flavoring, elevating vanilla demand. For instance, Nestlé is reformulating products and sourcing natural ingredients to eradicate artificial additives. Besides, food companies are collaborating with natural vanilla manufacturers like Solvay that develop Rhovanil natural vanillin by fermenting ferulic acid. Such steps boost the studied market.

The pharmaceutical category’s growth is mainly propelled by the growing use of vanilla as a medicinal flavoring agent to eliminate odor and foul taste. Also, the ingredient has gained momentum as a vital intermediate in therapeutic drugs for cancers, fever, and tooth decay. Vanilla widens its prospects as an effective component in treating respiratory tract infections and others. For instance, Tanobio provides vanillin to develop drugs for high blood pressure, Parkinson’s disease, etc. In this regard, vanilla powder has emerged as a majorly used form in the pharmaceutical sector. This has led companies like Aurochemicals to obtain a 99% purity rating in its vanillin, surpassing food and pharmaceutical grades.

The personal care industry is anticipated to observe the fastest consumption growth, given the surge in vanilla extract inclusion in cosmetics. Cosmetic manufacturers are widely infusing vanilla extract in soaps, body lotions, and makeup due to its antimicrobial and anti-aging properties. Additionally, due to its distinct aroma, vanilla has gained prominence in fragrance oils, mists, perfumes, deodorants, candles, etc. These benefits led IFF to acquire Fragrance Resources to contend in the fragrance category. And thus, the personal care sector’s expansion may create lucrative opportunities for vanilla manufacturers globally.

Organic Food Trend: A Dynamic Opportunity?

In the age of growing health consciousness, the demand for natural flavors is mostly driven by growing consumer accord to perceive healthy foods derived from organic sources. The growing negative light on artificial ingredients due to health conditions and harm to the environment further contributes to the trend. Also, changing consumer behavior trends and market dynamics for flavorings have compelled companies like ITC, Kellogg’s, Campbell, and Kraft to limit artificial additives inclusion. This represents a promising future for organic flavors in the coming future. Given this trend, retail giants like Walmart are focused on promoting natural additives like vanilla pods by 2025, which may open new avenues for the vanilla market.

FAQs:

Q1) What factors drive the vanilla market?

The growing use of vanilla in end-user industries and organic food demand drive the vanilla market globally.

Q2) Which industries use vanilla during production?

End-user industries such as food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, and personal care widely use vanilla during production.

[novadreii]

i just now realized why umbrella academy s4 feels so much worse than its previous seasons. it's trying to be the boys. it's going for shock value which, if you've seen the boys, is not really that shocking. and it's juxtaposing that with a cringefuckfest of an attempt at humor to try and make it a Dark Comedy. but all we have is a show that is trying to be both scandalous and funny at the same time, while failing at both. the writing and acting is so fucking bad! is everyone ok? there are 2 actors i like on this show (those of viktor and five) and even they are kind of lackluster this season? i will have to hatewatch this whole season.

nothing can be the boys a second time. there's better tv out there but the boys really did a good job nailing down dark comedy. in so many ways. it's a hard thing to do and umbrella academy thought it would try to capitalize on the trend without actually studying what makes dark comedy so good. it just feels like a m*rvel movie but with more gore and killing. boo.

[reportwire]

Tesla, Apple, Ciena, and More Stock Market Movers

This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com. https://www.barrons.com/articles/stock-market-movers-6acba64b Updated March 6, 2023 5:37 am ET / Original March 6, 2023 5:07 am ET Order Reprints Print Article Stock futures traded mostly flat Monday as Wall…

[tritonmarketresearch]

The Global Sanitary Ware Market to Develop with a CAGR of 4.01% by 2028

Triton Market Research presents the Global Sanitary Ware Market report segmented by Application (Residential, Commercial), Sales Channels (Retail Distribution, Wholesale Distribution), Type (Toilets, Wash Basins, Urinals, Cisterns, Other Types), Material (Ceramic, Pressed Metal, Acrylic Plastic & Perspex, Other Materials), and Geography (Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America, North America, Middle East and Africa). It further discusses the Market Summary, Industry Outlook, Impact of COVID-19, Key Insights, Porter’s Five Forces Analysis, Market Attractiveness Index, Vendor Scorecard, Key Market Strategies, Drivers, Challenges, Opportunities, Company Profiles, Research Methodology & Scope, Global Market Size, Forecasts & Analysis (2022-2028).  

Triton’s report puts forth that the global sanitary ware market is likely to expand with a CAGR of 4.01% in terms of revenue during the evaluated period 2022-2028. Whereas, in terms of volume, the market is likely to develop with a CAGR of 3.57% over the same period. a

Request Free Sample Report:

https://www.tritonmarketresearch.com/reports/sanitary-ware-market#request-free-sample

 With the growth in population and increased immigration, the demand for housing and commercial infrastructure has risen significantly. This is expected to drive the construction industry. Sanitary ware is largely used in construction activities. Therefore, the increase in infrastructure projects is expected to aid the growth of the sanitary ware market.

However, the prices of basic raw materials required to manufacture ceramic tiles are constantly fluctuating. This acts as a major challenge for the manufacturers, as it ultimately increases the production cost and reduces their profit margin. Therefore, the volatile prices of raw materials largely restrain the market growth.

The market in the Asia-Pacific is expected to evolve at the fastest rate over the estimated period. China is presently the largest market in the region, accounting for the highest revenue share. Housing authorities in the country have launched a number of measures to begin the construction of low-cost housing units. They are heavily investing in these projects to consolidate the construction industry. This will fuel the demand for sanitary ware as well, ultimately boosting the market growth in the region.

The major companies profiled in this market comprise Toto Ltd, Cera Sanitaryware Limited, Roca Sanitario SA, Duravit AG, Grohe AG, Laufen Bathrooms AG, Rak Ceramics, Masco Corporation, Duratex, HSIL Limited, Lixil Group Corporation, Ideal Standard International, Villeroy & Boch AG, Jaquar Group, Elkay Manufacturing Company, Geberit AG, Corona, Fortune Brands Home & Security Inc, Lecico Egypt, and Kohler Co.    

The high cost of manufacturing sanitary ware products and the need to comply with environmental standards are major barriers for new players that want to enter the market. This is why only a few players dominate the global market, which makes it reasonably fragmented and intense. The bigger players are increasing their market share via mergers, acquisitions, and new product development, which intensifies the rivalry. For instance, UAE-based ceramic ware manufacturer, RAK Ceramics, established its new showroom in the United Kingdom in 2019 to expand its global footprint.

 Contact Us:

sales@tritonmarketresearch.com

Phone: +44 7441 911839

[blockchainnftgaming]

This chart shows how companies have become quieter in cryptocurrencies

This year, not only cryptocurrency prices are falling. Companies that were once eager to publicize their participation in digital assets have also become more relaxed about these efforts. In the first two months of the fourth quarter, there were 146 corporate teleconferences mentioning cryptocurrency and other related terms – this is somewhat more than 141 such transcripts in the first two months…

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Surveillance pricing

THIS WEEKEND (June 7–9), I'm in AMHERST, NEW YORK to keynote the 25th Annual Media Ecology Association Convention and accept the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity.

Correction, 7 June 2024: The initial version of this article erroneously described Jeffrey Roper as the founder of ATPCO. He benefited from ATPCO, but did not co-found it. The initial version of this article called ATPCO "an illegal airline price-fixing service"; while ATPCO provides information that the airlines use to set prices, it does not set prices itself, and while the DOJ investigated the company, they did not pursue a judgment declaring the service to be illegal. I regret the error.

Noted anti-capitalist agitator Adam Smith had it right: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."

Despite being a raving commie loon, Smith's observation was so undeniably true that regulators, policymakers, and economists couldn't help but acknowledge that it was true. The trustbusting era was defined by this idea: if we let the number of companies in a sector get too small, or if we let one or a few companies get too big, they'll eventually start to rig prices.

What's more, once an industry contracts corporate gigantism, it will become too big to jail, able to outspend and overpower the regulators charged with reining in its cheating. Anyone who believes Smith's self-evident maxim had to accept its conclusion: that companies had to be kept smaller than the state that regulated them. This wasn't about "punishing bigness" – it was the necessary precondition for a functioning market economy.

We kept companies small for the same reason that we limited the height of skyscrapers: not because we opposed height, or failed to appreciate the value of a really good penthouse view – rather, to keep the building from falling over and wrecking all the adjacent buildings and the lives of the people inside them.

Starting in the neoliberal era – Carter, then Reagan – we changed our tune. We liked big business. A business that got big was doing something right. It was perverse to shut down our best companies. Instead, we'd simply ban big companies from rigging prices. This was called the "consumer welfare" theory of antitrust. It was a total failure.

40 years later, nearly every industry is dominated by a handful of companies, and these companies price-gouge us with abandon. Worse, they use their gigantic ripoff winnings to fill war-chests that fund the corruption of democracy, capturing regulators so that they can rip us off even more, while ignoring labor, privacy and environmental law and ducking taxes.

It turns out that keeping gigantic, opaque, complex corporations honest is really hard. They have so many ways to shuffle money around that it's nearly impossible to figure out what they're doing. Digitalization makes things a million times worse, because computers allow businesses to alter their processes so they operate differently for every customer, and even for every interaction.

This is Dieselgate times a billion: VW rigged its cars to detect when they were undergoing emissions testing and switch to a less polluting, more compliant mode. But when they were on the open road, they spewed lethal quantities of toxic gas, killing people by the thousands. Computers don't make corporate leaders more evil, but they let evil corporate leaders execute far more complex and nefarious plans. Digitalization is a corporate moral hazard, making it just too easy and tempting to rig the game.

That's why Toyota, the largest car-maker in the world, just did Dieselgate again, more than a decade later. Digitalization is a temptation no giant company can resist:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1wwj1p2wdyo

For forty years, pro-monopoly cheerleaders insisted that we could allow companies to grow to unimaginable scale and still prevent cheating. They passed rules banning companies from explicitly forming agreements to rig prices. About ten seconds later, new middlemen popped up offering "information brokerages" that helped companies rig prices without talking to one another.

Take Agri Stats: the country's hyperconcentrated meatpacking industry pays Agri Stats to "consult on prices." They provide Agri Stats with a list of their prices, and then Agri Stats suggests changes based on its analysis. What does that analysis consist of? Comparing the company's prices to its competitors, who are also Agri Stats customers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/04/dont-let-your-meat-loaf/#meaty-beaty-big-and-bouncy

In other words, Agri Stats finds the highest price for each product in the sector, then "advises" all the companies with lower prices to raise their prices to the "competitive" level, creating a one-way ratchet that sends the price of food higher and higher.

More and more sectors have an Agri Stats, and digitalization has made this price-gouging system faster, more efficient, and accessible to sectors with less concentration. Landlords, for example, have tapped into Realpage, a "data broker" that the same thing to your rent that Agri Stats does to meat prices. Realpage requires the landlords who sign up for its service to accept its "recommendations" on minimum rents, ensuring that prices only go up:

https://popular.info/p/feds-raid-corporate-landlord-escalating

Writing for The American Prospect, Luke Goldstein lays out the many ways in which these digital intermediaries have supercharged the business of price-rigging:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-05-three-algorithms-in-a-room/

Goldstein identifies a kind of patient zero for this ripoff epidemic: Jeffrey Roper, a former Alaska Air exec who benefited from a service that helps airlines set prices. ATPCO was investigated by the DOJ in the 1990s, but the enforcers lost their nerve and settled with the company, which agreed to apply some ornamental fig-leafs to its collusion-machine. Even those cosmetic changes were seemingly a bridge too far Roper, who left the US.

But he came back to serve as Realpage's "principal scientist" – the architect of a nationwide scheme to make rental housing vastly more expensive. For Roper, the barrier to low rents was empathy: landlords felt stirrings of shame when they made shelter unaffordable to working people. Roper called these people "idiots" who sentimentality "costs the whole system."

Sticking a rent-gouging computer between landlords and the people whose lives they ruin is a classic "accountability sink," as described in Dan Davies' new book "The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions – and How The World Lost its Mind":

https://profilebooks.com/work/the-unaccountability-machine/

It's a form of "empiricism washing": if computers are working in the abstract realm of pure numbers, they're just moving the objective facts of the quantitative realm into the squishy, imperfect qualitative world. Davies' interview on Trashfuture is excellent:

https://trashfuturepodcast.podbean.com/e/fire-sale-at-the-accountability-store-feat-dan-davies/

To rig prices, an industry has to solve three problems: the problem of coming to an agreement to fix prices (economists call this "the collective action problem"); the problem of coming up with a price; and the problem of actually changing prices from moment to moment. This is the ripoff triangle, and like a triangle, it has many stable configurations.

The more concentrated an industry is, the easier it is to decide to rig prices. But if the industry has the benefit of digitalization, it can swap the flexibility and speed of computers for the low collective action costs from concentration. For example, grocers that switch to e-ink shelf tags can make instantaneous price-changes, meaning that every price change is less consequential – if sales fall off after a price-hike, the company can lower them again at the press of a button. That means they can collude less explicitly but still raise prices:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/26/glitchbread/#electronic-shelf-tags

My name for this digital flexibility is "twiddling." Businesses with digital back-ends can alter their "business logic" from second to second, and present different prices, payouts, rankings and other key parts of the deal to every supplier or customer they interact with:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

Not only does twiddling make it easier to rip off suppliers, workers and customers, it also makes these crimes harder to detect. Twiddling made Dieselgate possible, and it also underpinned "Greyball," Uber's secret strategy of refusing to send cars to pick up transportation regulators who would then be able to see firsthand how many laws the company was violating:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/technology/uber-greyball-program-evade-authorities.html

Twiddling is so easy that it has brought price-fixing to smaller companies and less concentrated sectors, though the biggest companies still commit crimes on a scale that put these bit-players to shame. In The Prospect, David Dayen investigates the "personalized pricing" ripoff that has turned every transaction into a potential crime-scene:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-04-one-person-one-price/

"Personalized pricing" is the idea that everything you buy should be priced based on analysis of commercial surveillance data that predicts the maximum amount you are willing to pay.

Proponents of this idea – like Harvard's Pricing Lab with its "Billion Prices Project" – insist that this isn't a way to rip you off. Instead, it lets companies lower prices for people who have less ability to pay:

https://thebillionpricesproject.com/

This kind of weaponized credulity is totally on-brand for the pro-monopoly revolution. It's the same wishful thinking that led regulators to encourage monopolies while insisting that it would be possible to prevent "bad" monopolies from raising prices. And, as with monopolies, "personalized pricing" leads to an overall increase in prices. In econspeak, it is a "transfer of wealth from consumer to the seller."

"Personalized pricing" is one of those cuddly euphemisms that should make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. A more apt name for this practice is surveillance pricing, because the "personalization" depends on the vast underground empire of nonconsensual data-harvesting, a gnarly hairball of ad-tech companies, data-brokers, and digital devices with built-in surveillance, from smart speakers to cars:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/12/market-failure/#car-wars

Much of this surveillance would be impractical, because no one wants their car, printer, speaker, watch, phone, or insulin-pump to spy on them. The flexibility of digital computers means that users always have the technical ability to change how these gadgets work, so they no longer spy on their users. But an explosion of IP law has made this kind of modification illegal:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

This is why apps are ground zero for surveillance pricing. The web is an open platform, and web-browsers are legal to modify. The majority of web users have installed ad-blockers that interfere with the surveillance that makes surveillance pricing possible:

https://doc.searls.com/2023/11/11/how-is-the-worlds-biggest-boycott-doing/

But apps are a closed platform, and reverse-engineering and modifying an app is a literal felony – several felonies, in fact. An app is just a web-page skinned with enough IP to make it a felony to modify it to protect your consumer, privacy or labor rights:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/07/treacherous-computing/#rewilding-the-internet

(Google is leading a charge to turn the web into the kind of enshittifier's paradise that apps represent, blocking the use of privacy plugins and proposing changes to browser architecture that would allow them to felonize modifying a browser without permission:)

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/02/self-incrimination/#wei-bai-bai

Apps are a twiddler's playground. Not only can they "customize" every interaction you have with them, but they can block you (or researchers seeking to help you) from recording and analyzing the app's activities. Worse: digital transactions are intimate, contained to the palm of your hand. The grocer whose e-ink shelf-tags flicker and reprice their offerings every few seconds can be collectively observed by people who are in the same place and can start a conversation about, say, whether to come back that night a throw a brick through the store's window to express their displeasure. A digital transaction is a lonely thing, atomized and intrinsically shielded from a public response.

That shielding is hugely important. The public hates surveillance pricing. Time and again, through all of American history, there have been massive and consequential revolts against the idea that every price should be different for every buyer. The Interstate Commerce Commission was founded after Grangers rose up against the rail companies' use of "personalized pricing" to gouge farmers.

Companies know this, which is why surveillance pricing happens in secret. Over and over, every day, you are being gouged through surveillance pricing. The sellers you interact with won't tell you about it, so to root out this practice, we have to look at the B2B sales-pitches from the companies that sell twiddling tools.

One of these companies is Plexure, partly owned by McDonald's, which provides the surveillance-pricing back-ends for McD's, Ikea, 7-Eleven, White Castle and others – basically, any time a company gives you a hard-sell to order via its apps rather than its storefronts or its website, you should assume you're getting twiddled, hard.

These companies use the enshittification playbook to trap you into using their apps. First, they offer discounts to customers who order through their apps – then, once the customers are fully committed to shopping via app, they introduce surveillance pricing and start to jack up the prices.

For example, Plexure boasts that it can predict what day a given customer is getting paid on and use that information to raise prices on all the goods the customer shops for on that day, on the assumption that you're willing to pay more when you've got a healthy bank balance.

The surveillance pricing industry represents another reason for everything you use to spy on you – any data your "smart" TV or Nest thermostat or Ring doorbell can steal from you can be readily monetized – just sell it to a surveillance pricing company, which will use it to figure out how to charge you more for everything you buy, from rent to Happy Meals.

But the vast market for surveillance data is also a potential weakness for the industry. Put frankly: the commercial surveillance industry has a lot of enemies. The only thing it has going for it is that so many of these enemies don't know that what's they're really upset about is surveillance.

Some people are upset because they think Facebook made Grampy into a Qanon. Others, because they think Insta gave their kid anorexia. Some think Tiktok is brainwashing millennials into quoting Osama bin Laden. Some are upset because the cops use Google location data to round up Black Lives Matter protesters, or Jan 6 insurrectionists. Some are angry about deepfake porn. Some are angry because Black people are targeted with ads for overpriced loans or colleges:

https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/04/meta_ad_algorithm_discrimination/

And some people are angry because surveillance feeds surveillance pricing. The thing is, whatever else all these people are angry about, they're all angry about surveillance. Are you angry that ad-tech is stealing a 51% share of news revenue? You're actually angry about surveillance. Are you angry that "AI" is being used to automatically reject resumes on racial, age or gender grounds? You're actually angry about surveillance.

There's a very useful analogy here to the history of the ecology movement. As James Boyle has long said, before the term "ecology" came along, there were people who cared about a lot of issues that seemed unconnected. You care about owls, I care about the ozone layer. What's the connection between charismatic nocturnal avians and the gaseous composition of the upper atmosphere? The term ecology took a thousand issues and welded them together into one movement.

That's what's on the horizon for privacy. The US hasn't had a new federal consumer privacy law since 1988, when Congress acted to ban video-store clerks from telling the newspapers what VHS cassettes you were renting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Privacy_Protection_Act

We are desperately overdue for a new consumer privacy law, but every time this comes up, the pro-surveillance coalition defeats the effort. but as people who care about conspiratorialism, kids' mental health, spying by foreign adversaries, phishing and fraud, and surveillance pricing all come together, they will be an unbeatable coalition:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/06/privacy-first/#but-not-just-privacy

Meanwhile, the US government is actually starting to take on these ripoff artists. The FTC is working to shut down data-brokers:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/16/the-second-best-time-is-now/#the-point-of-a-system-is-what-it-does

The FBI is raiding landlords to build a case against Frontpage and other rent price-fixers:

https://popular.info/p/feds-raid-corporate-landlord-escalating

Agri Stats is facing a DoJ lawsuit:

https://www.nationalhogfarmer.com/market-news/agri-stats-loses-motions-to-transfer-dismiss-in-doj-antitrust-case

Not every federal agency has gotten the message, though. Trump's Fed Chairman, Jerome Powell – whom Biden kept on the job – has been hiking interest rates in a bid to reduce our purchasing power by making millions of Americans poorer and/or unemployed. He's doing this to fight inflation, on the theory that inflation is being cause by us being too well-off, and therefore trying to buy more goods than are for sale.

But of course, interest rates are inflationary: when interest rates go up, it gets more expensive to pay your credit card bills, lease your car, and pay a mortgage. And where we see the price of goods shooting up, there's abundant evidence that this is the result of greedflation – companies jacking up their prices and blaming inflation. Interest rate hawks say that greedflation is impossible: if one company raises its prices, its competitors will swoop in and steal their customers with lower prices.

Maybe they would do that – if they didn't have a toolbox full of algorithmic twiddling options and a deep trove of surveillance data that let them all raise prices together:

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-06-05-time-for-fed-to-meet-ftc/

Someone needs to read some Adam Smith to Chairman Powell: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/05/your-price-named/#privacy-first-again

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[robertreich]

How Amazon Is Ripping You Off

Shopping on Amazon? Stop! Watch this first.

Amazon is the world’s biggest online retailer. This one single juggernaut of a company is responsible for nearly 40% of all online sales in America. In an FTC lawsuit, they’re accused of using their mammoth size, and consumers’ dependence on them, to artificially jack up prices as high as possible, while prohibiting sellers on Amazon from charging lower prices anywhere else.

They’re accused of using a secret algorithm, codenamed "Project Nessie," to charge customers an estimated extra $1 billion dollars,

If this isn’t an abuse of power that hurts consumers, what is? So much for all of those “prime” deals you thought you were getting.

Project Nessie isn’t the only trick Amazon has been accused of using to exert its hulking dominance over the online retail industry — leading to higher prices for you.

Much of the FTC’s antitrust lawsuit centers around the treatment of independent merchants who sell items on Amazon’s online superstore — accounting for 60 percent of Amazon's sales.

Amazon allegedly uses strongarm tactics that force these sellers to keep their prices higher than they need to be. Like barring them from selling products for significantly less at other stores — or else risk being hidden in Amazon’s search results or having their sales stopped entirely.

And Amazon is accused of engaging in pay-to-play schemes and charging merchants excessive fees that end up costing you even more.

Independent sellers are effectively forced to pay Amazon to advertise their products prominently in search results. If they don’t fork over cash, then their products get buried underneath products of companies who do. This hurts sellers but also harms shoppers who have to parse through less relevant products that may be more expensive or lower quality.

And to be eligible for the coveted “Prime” badge on their items — which is considered crucial for competing on the platform — independent sellers are pushed into paying Amazon for additional services like warehousing and shipping, even if they could get those services cheaper elsewhere. If sellers forgo trying to qualify for Prime, their goods apparently become harder for customers to find.

When all of these extra fees are added up, Amazon takes around a 50 percent cut of each sale made by a third party. It’s projected that Amazon will earn around $125 billion from collecting fees in the U.S. in 2023, most of which get passed on to you.

By charging all of these extra fees and stifling independent companies from selling their products for less elsewhere, Amazon is using its dominance to essentially set prices for all consumers across the internet.

And when you combine Amazon’s control of ecommerce with all of the other industries it has entered by gobbling up companies — such as Whole Foods, One Medical, and MGM — you’re left with a behemoth that simply has too much power.

This is all part of a much larger problem of growing corporate dominance in America. In over 75% of U.S. industries, fewer companies now control more of their markets than they did twenty years ago.

The lack of competition and consumer choice has resulted in all of us paying more for goods because corporations like Amazon can raise their prices with impunity. By one estimate, corporate concentration has cost the typical American household $5,000 a year more than they would have spent if markets were truly competitive.

This power isn’t just being used to siphon more money from you. A giant corporation has the power to bust unions, keep workers’ wages low, and funnel money into our political system.

It’s a vicious cycle, making giant corporations more and more powerful.

But under the Biden administration, the government is making a strong effort to revive antitrust law and use its power to reign in big corporations that have grown too powerful.

We must stop the monopolization of America. This FTC lawsuit against Amazon is a great start.

[reasonsforhope]

"India’s announcement that it aims to reach net zero emissions by 2070 and to meet fifty percent of its electricity requirements from renewable energy sources by 2030 is a hugely significant moment for the global fight against climate change. India is pioneering a new model of economic development that could avoid the carbon-intensive approaches that many countries have pursued in the past – and provide a blueprint for other developing economies.

The scale of transformation in India is stunning. Its economic growth has been among the highest in the world over the past two decades, lifting of millions of people out of poverty. Every year, India adds a city the size of London to its urban population, involving vast construction of new buildings, factories and transportation networks. Coal and oil have so far served as bedrocks of India’s industrial growth and modernisation, giving a rising number of Indian people access to modern energy services. This includes adding new electricity connections for 50 million citizens each year over the past decade. 

The rapid growth in fossil energy consumption has also meant India’s annual CO2 emissions have risen to become the third highest in the world. However, India’s CO2 emissions per person put it near the bottom of the world’s emitters, and they are lower still if you consider historical emissions per person. The same is true of energy consumption: the average household in India consumes a tenth as much electricity as the average household in the United States.  

India’s sheer size and its huge scope for growth means that its energy demand is set to grow by more than that of any other country in the coming decades. In a pathway to net zero emissions by 2070, we estimate that most of the growth in energy demand this decade would already have to be met with low-carbon energy sources. It therefore makes sense that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced more ambitious targets for 2030, including installing 500 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity, reducing the emissions intensity of its economy by 45%, and reducing a billion tonnes of CO2. 

These targets are formidable, but the good news is that the clean energy transition in India is already well underway. It has overachieved its commitment made at COP 21- Paris Summit [a.k.a. 2015, at the same conference that produced the Paris Agreement] by already meeting 40% of its power capacity from non-fossil fuels- almost nine years ahead of its commitment, and the share of solar and wind in India’s energy mix have grown phenomenally. Owing to technological developments, steady policy support, and a vibrant private sector, solar power plants are cheaper to build than coal ones. Renewable electricity is growing at a faster rate in India than any other major economy, with new capacity additions on track to double by 2026...

Subsidies for petrol and diesel were removed in the early 2010s, and subsidies for electric vehicles were introduced in 2019. India’s robust energy efficiency programme has been successful in reducing energy use and emissions from buildings, transport and major industries. Government efforts to provide millions of households with fuel gas for cooking and heating are enabling a steady transition away from the use of traditional biomass such as burning wood. India is also laying the groundwork to scale up important emerging technologies such as hydrogen, battery storage, and low-carbon steel, cement and fertilisers..."

-via IEA (International Energy Agency), January 10, 2022

Note: And since that's a little old, here's an update to show that progress is still going strong:

-via Economic Times: EnergyWorld, March 10, 2023

[probablyasocialecologist]

“People need to understand that ‘growth’ is not the same as social progress.” Hickel is one of the leading lights in a growing post-growth or degrowth movement. Its proponents argue that economic success cannot be measured through the crude metric of gross domestic product (GDP) and that there needs to be a managed reduction in growth in carbon-intensive countries and industries. “Growth simply means an increase in aggregate production, as measured in market prices,” says Hickel. “So, according to GDP growth, producing £1m worth of teargas is considered exactly the same as producing £1m worth of affordable housing or healthcare.” Hickel says that what matters in terms of social progress is not aggregate production but the production of specific goods and services that are necessary for improving people’s lives and achieving ecological goals – and a reduction in overall growth in high-emitting sectors and countries. “Every time a politician says they want more economic growth, we need to ask: growth of what and for whose benefit?” Opponents of the post-growth movement counter that a shrinking economy would be socially destructive, leading to a rise in unemployment, a reduction in tax revenue and therefore less money available for public services. This, they argue, would lead to increasing levels of hardship and destitution, which is already hitting marginalised communities the hardest. However, economists in the post-growth movement say a planned and purposeful reorganisation of the economy would benefit the vast majority of people. According to their vision, this could entail an organised downsizing in production of things such as mansions, SUVs, industrially produced beef, cruise ships, fast fashion and weapons – all of which are profitable to capital but ecologically destructive. At the same time, there should be a massive increase in investment in what would benefit people the most, from healthcare, public transport and renewable energy to affordable housing, nutritious food and regenerative agriculture, which offer less profit but are also less ecologically destructive. Hickel says: “In high-income countries like the UK, we have absolutely massive aggregate output. But this output is mostly organised around what is profitable to capital – and beneficial to elite consumers – rather than what is necessary for the wellbeing of everyday citizens. So despite high production we still have widespread deprivation … More than 4 million children live in poverty, and you can see the misery on our streets when you walk around. It’s madness.”

27 August 2024

[reddest-flower]

Cuba broke through its colonial domination into freedom. From the mountains of the Sierra Maestra and from the cities came the torrential power of the people against the US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista. ‘The revolution is made in the midst of danger’, said Fidel Castro as he led his band of peasant-soldiers from the hills into the cities. They had triumphed against remarkable odds. Quickly, the revolutionaries passed a series of decrees – just as the Soviets had – to draw the key classes to their side. To draw in the urban Cubans, the revolutionaries cut rents by half – sending a strong signal to the bourgeoisie that they had a different class outlook. Then, the revolutionaries took on the United States, whose government held a monopoly over services to the island. Telephone and electrical companies – all American – were told to reduce their rates immediately. Then, on May 17, 1959, the Cuban government passed its agrarian reform – the keystone of the revolutionary process. Land holdings would be restricted so that no large landowners could dominate the landscape and so that the US sugar industry could not strangle the hopes of the island. The most radical part of the reform was not the land ceiling itself, but the logic that agrarian reform would transform the stagnation of the Cuban economy and its dependence upon the United States. The law clearly stated that, from a socialist standpoint,

«The agrarian reform has two principal objectives: (a) to facilitate the planting or the extension of new crops with the view of furnishing raw materials to industry, satisfying the food requirements of the nation, increasing the export of agricultural products and, reciprocally, the import of foreign products which are essential to use; (b) to develop the interior market (family, domestic) by raising the purchasing power of the rural population. In other words, increase the national demand in order to develop the industries atrophied by an overly restrained consumption, or in order to create those which, for lack of customers, were never able to get started among us.»

The revolutionaries wanted to diversify their sugarcane island, produce food security for their people, remove people from desperation, increase the ability of people to consume a range of goods and engineer a people-centred rather than an export-centred economy. Long before Castro announced his commitment to communism, the regime had already developed a carefully thought out socialist platform.

The United States of America, having overthrown the radical nationalist government in Guatemala in 1954, was eager to repeat the task in Cuba in 1959. An embargo came swiftly, as did every form of humiliation possible against the Cuban people. The Cuban economy was structured around dependency to Washington, with the sugar bought by the US firms and with the island turned into a playground for American tourists. Now, the US decided to squeeze this little island, only ninety miles from the US shoreline. Gunboats were readied, a failed invasion tried in April 1961 at the Bay of Pigs. Cuba was vulnerable but also protected by the deep roots of its revolution. But would this protection be sufficient? Could Cuba, alone, be able to survive the onslaught from the United States?

On February 5, 1960, a leader in the USSR and an Old Bolshevik – Anastas Mikoyan – came to Havana to join Fidel Castro at the opening of a Soviet scientific, cultural and technical exhibition. A week later, Mikoyan and Castro signed an agreement for the USSR to buy Cuban sugar at the world market price (in dollars) and provide credits for the Cubans to buy Russian goods. The USSR would subsequently buy almost all the Cuban sugar harvest, even as the Russian consumer market could very well have been supplied by beet sugar from within the USSR. Prices fluctuated, but, on balance, the Cubans were able to find a regular buyer to take over from the United States. The Russians also provided over a $100 million in credits toward the construction of Cuba’s chemical industry as well as trained Cuban technical and scientific workers in the USSR. Diversification of Cuba’s economy remained on the cards, although it became clear that it would not be an easy task. In August 1963, Castro announced that diversification, as well as industrialization, would be postponed. Cuba needed to concentrate on its sugarcane harvest to earn the means to survive the embargo.

On February 24, 1965, Che Guevara addressed the Second Economic Seminar of Afro-Asian Solidarity in Algiers, Algeria. He had come to talk about the economic problems for a revolution in a post-colonial country. Overthrowing the former colonizer was not enough, Che said, since ‘a real break’ is needed from imperialism for the new state to actually flourish and not remain in dependency. How could the post-colonial state survive a hostile economic climate? Who would buy its goods – mainly primary, unprocessed goods – at a fair price, and who would lend it capital at fair terms to develop? Capitalist banks and countries would not provide the post-colonial state, particularly a socialist state, with the means to break out of the trap of underdevelopment. Banks would lend money to a post-colonial state at rates higher than it would lend to a colonial power. Expensive money would only put the post-colonial state into further difficulty, as it would find it hard to service its debt and see its debt multiply out of hand. To prevent this situation, Che argued, the ‘socialist countries must help pay for the development of countries now starting out on the road to liberation’. Trade between socialist countries must not take place based on the law of value of capitalism, but through the creation of fraternal prices. ‘The real task’, Che said, ‘consists of setting prices that will permit development. A great shift in ideas will be involved in changing the order of international relations. Foreign trade should not determine policy, but should, on the contrary, be subordinated to a fraternal policy toward the peoples.’

China, in 1960, offered Cuba credit of $60 million without interest and without a timeline for repayment. This was an enviable loan. But the scale was much smaller than the Soviet assistance. By 1964, the USSR had provided Cuba with economic assistance valued at over $600 million, while the Eastern European countries offered several hundred million more in aid and assistance. The USSR had also trained over 3,000 Cubans in agronomy and agricultural mechanization as well as 900 Cubans as engineers and technicians. Che recognized the value of the Soviet ‘fraternal policy’ both in terms of the training and in the prices offered. ‘Clearly, we could not ask the Socialist world to buy this quantity of sugar at this price based on economic motives’, he had said in 1961, ‘because really there is no reason in world commerce for this purchase and it was simply a political gesture’.

Red Star Over the Third World, Vijay Prashad, 2019

[mrudula01]

Beauty and Personal Care Market: Global Trends & Strategic Outlook

Consumer Goods and Service

30, September 2022

The desire to look attractive & youthful and enhance one’s physical appearance has elevated the use of beauty and personal care products worldwide. This is further supported by various social, cultural, and economic changes across geographies.

Based on our study, the global beauty and personal care market , which was valued at $508.83 billion in 2021, is expected to generate $701.11 billion by 2028 and is likely to advance with a CAGR of 3.20% during the forecast period, 2022 to 2028.

A number of factors, including rapid urbanization, greater awareness, and increased disposable incomes, are attributable to this growth. Besides, the evolving beauty standards and shifting trends also play an integral role in shaping the market’s outlook.

What’s Trending in this Billion-Dollar Market?

Widening Product Range for Personalized Solutions

Beauty and personal care is not restricted only to skin care, but also extends to hair care, oral care, fragrances, and other categories. Among all, sun care is anticipated to exhibit the fastest growth at a 3.55% CAGR in the type segment.

Further, fragrances are no longer perceived as a luxury, and are witnessing increased demand. With strong performance in this category, Natura & Co continues to remain the market leader in Brazil.

Also, the development of hybrid products that reduce time & effort and cater to multiple needs is steering innovation in the hair care category. For instance, the Keratin Perfect 3-in-1 Multi-Action Hair Beauty Balm by Keratin Complex works as a cream, serum, and oil together.

Rising Influence of Domestic Trends

The Korean wave has swept the global market, with a fresh take on beauty and personal care. Sheet face masks are a popular offering of K-beauty. Globalization and renewed interest in travel & culture have helped drive such influential trends.

Consequently, unique skincare trends from other countries, such as J-beauty (Japan), C-beauty (China), and A-beauty (Australia), have also captured consumers’ attention in recent years. The popularity of these domestic markets has positioned the Asia-Pacific beauty and personal care market on a growth trajectory, which is evident from its largest revenue share of $197.50 billion in 2021.

The Clean Beauty Revolution

The rising focus on health and inclination towards natural ingredients & formulations are driving the demand for natural and clean beauty. With the growing popularity of veganism in the United Kingdom, the demand for plant-based and cruelty-free beauty products has also grown.

Thus, a significant number of product developments are evolving around these trends. In line with this trend, Henkel reformulated its Schauma hair care products to make them suitable for vegans, in February 2019.

Further, complying with the overall push towards sustainability and green practices, some companies have already replaced petroleum-based plastics with corn-derived polylactic acid (PLA) for packaging their products.

The E-Commerce Boom has taken the Market by Storm

The E-commerce Sales Channel is expected to witness the fastest growth at a 4.48% CAGR in the forecast period. It has become a crucial part of the cosmetics and personal care space with increased penetration of the internet and technology among various age groups across numerous countries.

Ease of delivery, wider range of options, and competitive pricing are some reasons that have made online shopping an attractive alternative. In March 2021, L’Oréal announced investment in US-based social selling platform Replika Software Inc, as part of its acceleration strategy in e-commerce.

Strategic Outlook for a Bright Future:

Given the competitive environment in this space, innovation remains a key strategy for companies to differentiate themselves from industry rivals. Limited edition launches, mini variants, and niche targeting would help manufacturers increase market penetration.

There is growing demand for Halal cosmetics and other products, especially from the Muslim population. Besides, several men are increasingly opting for products targeted specifically at their needs. Various companies, especially in the anti-aging market, are already tending to these growing and potentially vast consumer bases, and aspiring players can take note.

Leveraging the reach of social media celebrities in influencing consumers’ purchasing decisions is another dependable strategy for brands. Also, technological integration will additionally boost prospects. In June 2021, Estée Lauder launched a number of new AR and AI-equipped features on its official website and app, to offer its customers a ‘try-before-you-buy’ virtual makeup experience.

Despite COVID-19, the studied market showed resilience, given the immense and continued demand. And embracing inclusivity and riding the digital wave will help the beauty and personal care market scale new heights.

FAQs:

Q 1) Which are the main segments covered in the beauty and personal care market?

The main market segments include Type and Sales Channel.

Q 2) Which region is expected to grow the fastest in the global beauty and personal care market?

The Middle East and Africa is expected to witness the fastest growth rate at a CAGR of 3.52% during the forecast period.

[txttletale]

"we should boycott the use of this capital good, seeing as how it's being monopolized."

"but if it were socialist we wouldn't have to boycott it. it's not inherently evil."

[nothing happens]

capital is not a good, it is a social relation to the means of production.

capital cannot be boycotted, only consumer goods can.

boycotts (against consumer goods) are executed in an organized, targeted fashion with specific goals. otherwise it's not a boycott, it's just a consumer choice.

needless to say there exists no organized boycott campaign on AI art. even if it did, it would not be very useful because AI companies make money by licensing their API to other companies and end users are not a primary source of direct revenue for them.

there exists no monopoly on art or AI art -- not only can you use many different image generation services but you can download stable diffusion right now and make your own. you can also still Draw. there exists no monopoly here on anything

where there has been (effective, organized action) against the use of AI technology to immiserate workers (not the technology itself, only specific applications by employers) in the form of industrial action (e.g. the AI elements of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strike demands, which were to be clear not the primary causes of those strikes) it has, shockingly, worked, and far more than "nothing" has happened, & it was good and awesome and should happen more

i'm not telling anyone not to take effective industrial action to secure labour protections from new technologies obvsies.

ceterum censeo IP law esse delendam

[reportwire]

Silicon Valley Confronts the End of Growth. It’s a New Era for Tech Stocks.

Silicon Valley could use a reboot. The biggest players aren’t growing, and more than a few are seeing sharp revenue declines. Regulators seem opposed to every proposed merger, while legislators push for new rules to crack down on the internet giants. The Justice Department just can’t stop filing antitrust suits against Google. The initial public offering market is closed. Venture-capital…

[tritonmarketresearch]

Probiotics Market: Innovation Trends & Competitive Analysis

With the rising incidence of digestive health issues and weight management problems, a number of healthcare professionals are recommending probiotics to patients. They contain live strains of microorganisms and confer health benefits when administered to a host in adequate quantity. Yogurt, sauerkraut, kombucha, and kefir, as well as company-manufactured capsules, chewing gums, bottled drinks, etc., are common foods containing these microbiota.

Probiotics are also largely recommended to treat women’s urogenital health issues. Besides, they have demonstrated to benefit those affected by chronic illnesses like high serum cholesterol, allergies, and even cancer, and are thus witnessing increased demand. Triton Market Research evaluates the global probiotics market to develop with a CAGR of 9.09% over the forecast period, 2022-2028.

An Insight into Top-performing Market Segments

Bacteria to show the fastest growth in the Strain segment with a 9.18% CAGR

Compared to yeast strains, bacteria strains are easier to modify genetically in order to obtain the required functionality, and therefore, witness increased demand. In 2020, China approved three new strains, Bifidobacterium infantis R0033, Bifidobacterium bifidum R0071, and Lactobacillus helveticus R0052, by Lallemand Health Solutions for use in infant foods.

Veterinary Feed to show the fastest growth in the End-use segment with a 10.96% CAGR

With the growing meat consumption worldwide, probiotics are increasingly being administered to chicken, swine, aquaculture, etc., in the form of animal feed to enhance their health and ensure food safety. In November 2020, Germany-based Evonik’s Animal Nutrition business vertical launched Ecobiol® Fizz, a probiotic tablet for chickens.

Market Players Amp their Game with Growth Strategies

Acquisitions emerge as a Leading Strategy

The studied market is rife with opportunities as consumer demand across the world has heightened substantially. Several companies are thus acquiring other players as part of their strategic expansion plans to consolidate their product portfolios. For instance, in July 2021, Ireland-based Kerry Group completed the acquisition of Spain-based Biosearch Life to expand its product portfolio with Hereditum® probiotic strains. Further, in August 2021, Denmark-based Novozymes acquired United States-based Microbiome Labs, which boasts of a vast portfolio of probiotic solutions.

Novel Approach for Product Delivery

When consumed directly, probiotics are prone to losing their efficacy in the stomach environment before reaching the digestive tract. As a result, manufacturers have innovated techniques like microencapsulation, which entails encasing probiotic cells inside an optimal protective material to preserve their viability during gastrointestinal transit. In January 2020, Biotech Consortium India Limited announced its plans to commercialize this encapsulation technique to increase products’ shelf life.

Growing use of Online Channels

Consumers largely gravitated toward online sales channels as an effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. Numerous manufacturers thus turned to e-commerce platforms like Walmart, Amazon, LuckyVitamin, Shopee, Nutrabay, and others, to reach their target consumer base. In fact, Jarrow Formulas Inc, which offers probiotic nutritional supplements, only operates as an online distribution mode and has no physical stores. Discounts, special offers, and the convenience of home delivery are some factors expected to drive the growth of this segment.

Notable Trend – Development of Innovative Product Formulations

Companies are playing the field by combining robust innovation with top-notch manufacturing and formulation capabilities. Probiotic foods, beverages, and dietary supplements are now available in the form of ice creams, candies, lozenges, chocolates, milk substitutes, drops, powders, sachets, specialized baby formulas, and other novel formats.

A recent notable development has been the formulation of products using FastMelt technology. Probi Fast Melt probiotic stick is one such product, which can be ingested without water, by dissolving in saliva. The rise in cutting-edge formulations is thus steering the market towards growth.

Widening Applications – Key for Future Growth

With the growing popularity of probiotics, the beauty industry has not been far behind in leveraging the benefits of these healthy microorganisms. Consequently, an arsenal of cosmetic & skincare products – from cleansers and moisturizers to masks and serums – packed with freeze-dried friendly bacteria, are widely available in the market. These products help strengthen the skin’s barrier, soothe inflammation, and even diminish acne.

Further, psychobiotics, a type of probiotics specifically formulated to boost people’s mental health, are also witnessing demand. These substances stimulate the production of neurotransmitters, anti-inflammatory cytokines, short-chain fatty acids, and enteroendocrine hormones. They are used in a range of applications, from stress reduction and mood enhancement to anxiety relief and neurodevelopment. The far-ranging applications paint a positive picture for the future of the probiotics market.

[blockchainnftgaming]

Crypto investor losses turn into IRS gains - here's how they do it

Crypto investor losses turn into IRS gains – here’s how they do it

The Internal Revenue Service has been paying close attention to crypto investors in recent years, and as this happens, more investors are turning to the tax code’s rules on investment losses. That’s according to a study published this week that sheds light on the link between IRS enforcement and “tax loss collection.” The latter is a tax planning strategy that many crypto investors will need to…