Vertical Integration

🐬What Is Vertical Integration?
🐾Vertical integration is a strategy whereby a company owns or controls its suppliers, distributors, or retail locations to control its value or supply chain. Vertical integration benefits companies by allowing them to control the process, reduce costs, and improve efficiencies. However, vertical integration has its disadvantages, including the significant amounts of capital investment required.

🐾Netflix is a prime example of vertical integration whereby the company started as a DVD rental company supplying film and TV content. The company's executive management realized they could generate more revenue by shifting to original content creation. Today, Netflix uses its distribution model to promote their original content alongside films from major studios.

🐬Understanding Vertical Integration
🐾Vertical integration occurs when a company assumes control over several of the production steps involved in the creation of its product or service in a particular market. Typically, a company's supply chain or sales process begins with the purchase of raw materials from a supplier and ends with selling the final product to the customer. Companies can integrate by purchasing their suppliers to reduce the costs of manufacturing. Companies can also invest in the retail or sales end of the process by opening physical locations as well as service centers for the after-sales process. Controlling the distribution process is another common vertical integration strategy, meaning companies control the warehousing and delivery of their products.

🐬Types of Vertical Integration
🐾Two of the most common methods of vertical integration include backward and forward integration.
🐝Backward Integration & Forward Integration
Backward integration is when a company expands backward on the production path into manufacturing, meaning a retailer buys the manufacturer of their product. An example of backward integration might be Amazon.com (AMZN), which expanded from an online retailer that sold books to becoming a book publisher. Amazon also owns warehouses and parts of its distribution channel.
Forward integration is a strategy that companies use to expand by purchasing and controlling the direct distribution or supply of a company’s products. A clothing manufacturer that opens its own retail locations to sell its product is an example of forward integration. Forward integration helps companies cut out the middleman by removing distributors that would typically be paid to sell a company’s products reducing their overall profitability.

🐬Advantages：
- Decrease transportation costs and reduce delivery turnaround times.
- Reducing supply disruptions from suppliers that might fall into financial hardship.
- Increase competitiveness by getting products to consumers directly and quickly.
- Lower costs through economies of scale, which is lowering the per-unit cost by buying large quantities of raw materials or streamlining the manufacturing process.
- Improve sales and profitability by creating and selling its own brand.

🐬Disadvantages:
- Companies might get too big and mismanage the overall process.
- Outsourcing to suppliers and vendors might be more efficient if their expertise is superior.
- Costs of vertical integration such as purchasing a supplier can be quite significant.
- Increased amounts of debt if borrowing is needed for capital expenditures.

Diffusion of Innovation in Marketing

🌴First, what is Diffusion of Innovation?

🌼Have you ever seen an ice cube melt in hot water? You most likely would have noticed that it initially melts at a relatively slow pace. Its cold water slowly diffuses out into the cup of hot water. However, with time, the ice cube melts faster and faster and all of its cold water diffuses out into the cup.

🌼This is kind of like diffusion of innovation. Diffusion of innovation refers to the spread of products, services, ideas, and practices in a relatively slow initial manner before the innovation starts to spread quickly into the rest of the population.

🌴Examples of Diffusion of Innovation

🌼Remember when Bitcoin was worth next to nothing? You probably do not because you likely paid attention to its relatively mass adoption when its price hit $20,000 per coin before crashing. This is normal. Very few people risk their time and money trying an untested product, service, idea, or practice.

🌼The same thing tends to happen with almost every product you can think of, from the first automobiles to the first computers and cell phones. Either the cost or the risk involved proves too much.

🌼As such, many products and practices are adopted in a bell-curve manner. At first adoption is slow, as innovators and early adopters are the only ones risking it. Then the early majority and later majority make up the bulk of the adoption at a later time before the laggards come in. A good example of this is the Beanie Babies craze in the 1990s.

🌼Other products, however, are adopted in a cumulative manner. That is to say, a saturation point is reached on an S-shaped curve where there is little room for further adoption into a market. A really great example of this is refrigerators. Over time, it has come to pass that most households have one and there's isn't much room to force people to buy multiple refrigerators either.

🌴The Spread of Innovation

As introduction's definition implied, the speed at which innovation diffuses is not always the same. There are numerous factors that influence the spread of innovation. These factors include:

Movie Abominable

POSITIVE ELEMENTS：

⛄ Jin, a social media-focused friend, join Yi, and his basketball-loving little cousin, Peng, and the young Yeti’s three teenagers set out to do the right thing. They name him Everest — after the mountain, they have to find a way to reach somehow— and do all they can to rescue the animal. Along the way, Yi discovers that the route they follow across China is almost precisely the direction that her father wanted to take. And the journey helps Yi not only communicate with her father’s memory but also find a sense of peace by sharing with her peers, her pain, and loss. In the final analysis, the movie implicitly emphasizes the importance of friends and family in finding a way through profound personal loss and grief. We see Yi’s mother and grandmother Nai Nai, reaching out to Yi repeatedly and trying to express their love to the wounded and isolated teenager. And they both rejoice after her adventure when Yi returns home with open arms. After experiencing beautiful and magical things, one primarily selfish character experiences a softening of the heart.

SPIRITUAL CONTENT:

⛄ It turns out that the Yeti, Everest, possesses magical abilities that are mystically connected to nature’s links. He can do incredible acts of what we might call natural magic by humming low bass notes such as growing giant blueberries. And transforming a field of flowers into an ocean-like rolling wave. At one point, too, that magical ability is given to Yi. The girl was lying to her mother early on, claiming she had sold the violin of her uncle.

⛄ Nevertheless, we note that the instrument is hidden away, and Yi reserves to play it as an almost religious kind of communion between her deceased father and herself. Later, with his own magical Yeti hair, that violin is accidentally broken and mended by Everest. Yi then plays the violin on a giant Buddha statue on the mountainside, which her father always wanted to see. Thanks to strings made of Yeti fur, the beautiful music and the resulting mysteriously sprouting flowers symbolically reflect Yi’s suffering, sorrow, and spiritual healing in away. Yi plays the violin a few more times in moments of great need and risk for its strong magical abilities. Jin is primarily fascinated with technology, his smartphone, and social media, and he rejects the idea of any mystical or religious aspects in the universe at first.

⛄ Thus, his perspective changes when he experiences some inexplicable mystical things. “It’s been a lie for my whole life,” he moans in wonder. A snapshot of Yi, her mom, and Nai Nai visiting the giant Buddha statue at a later date are shown during the credits of the film. That being said, the film never explores aspects of Buddhist religion beyond focusing on that beautiful image. Peng looks up at the sky and says he’s been told the stars are the ancestors who died. Yi later looks up to see a twinkling star, maybe a nod to her dad watching her from above. Peng even wishes for a dandelion.

The Invention of Typewriter-History

⛱✎✐The typewriter is, without doubt, one of human history’s most important inventions. It was first developed as a way of documenting essential documents without a printing press in 1714–but for another century and a half, the first commercial machines would not arrive!

✎✐Throughout the 20th century, with the traditional QWERTY keyboard now a staple, companies such as IBM set the stage for the new word-processing system with mechanical and electrical devices. We would fashion the original manual and allow written data to be quickly registered, corrected, and reproduced.

✎✐In 1714, Henry Mill invented the first “reading machine.” It was called a ‘Transcription Letters Machine,’ but not much is known about the theory of Mill, as there is no documentation of it as a working machine. The purpose, however, was “to impress or transcribe letters one after another individually or slowly, so tidy and precise as not to be differentiated from print, very useful in treaties and public records.”

✎✐In 1830, American William Burt designed the first typographer–the typewriter’s ancestor. The then-President Andrew Jackson personally signed his patent. Burt was a government surveyor who built the machine to help accelerate his work. He used the computer to type letters, but his need for speed was not met, as the typographer used a dial to pick letters rather than keys.

⛱✎✐Many other attempts followed from other inventors, but not until 1874 would arrive the first commercial typewriter. Christopher Latham Sholes and Carlos Glidden were developed by Remington to produce their ‘Type-Writer.’ Sholes also invented the QWERTY keyboard we use today; it appeared on his computer, which was written in capital letters.

The Trade WAR with China

¥ The trade war between China and the United States is an ongoing economical dispute between China and the United States, the two largest national economies in the world. President Donald Trump started setting tariffs and other trade barriers on China. In 2018 to pressure China to reform what the U.S. considers to be “unfair trade practices,” including increasing trade deficits, intellectual property theft, and the forced transfer of American technology to China.

¥ Since the 1980s, Trump has promoted tariffs to reduce the U.S. trade deficit and encourage domestic manufacturing. Saying it is trading partners are “ripping off” the country; imposing tariffs has become a central feature of his presidential campaign. While some economists and politicians agree that the persistent trade deficit in the United States is problematic, and other economists argue that it is not an issue. There are a few support tariffs as a solution, citing historical evidence that increasing tariff disputes lead to no winners.

$ The trade war in the U.S. has brought struggles for farmers and producers as well as higher prices for consumers. It has also caused economic damage in other countries, although some countries have benefited from filling the gaps from increased manufacturing. It has also contributed to uncertainty in the stock market. Many countries’ governments have taken steps to address some of the damage, including China and the United States. The trade criticized internationally; corporations and farm associations were also critical in the U.S., although most farmers continued to support Trump. The response mixed among U.S. politicians.

$ The trade war has caused a significant deterioration in relations between China and the United States as the countries have traded tit-for-tat tariffs for more than a year. Trump promises more to come, with no resolution in sight.

What Is The Supreme Court?

☃There are many public courtrooms. “The Court of the People.” The court of Judge Judy. Even in “A Few Good Men,” the military trial. But what about the Supreme Court? How exactly are these judges doing, and what are they doing?

☃Whether you remember going back to high school civics, there are three divisions in the U.S. government. The law-making division is writing the rules. The division of the executive enforces the law. Furthermore, the division of the judiciary interprets the laws to determine whether they are legal.

☃Just as there are cities, counties, and states, local, state, and regional courts included in the judicial branch. The Supreme Court is the judicial branch's highest court, making it the country's most important court.

☂Lower courts often disagree on how to decide a case. A court in one region may claim a law is constitutional, but a court in another region will feel that the same law should be limited or overturned. The Supreme Court carries out the rulings and has the final say on the legal existence of the laws.

☂The Supreme Court has nine judges appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, called Justices. The rulers serve life. If five judges, a majority, decide on an outcome, a decision occurs.

☂Since the Supreme Court receives over 10,000 applications per year to review cases decided by lower courts, they can choose only the most critical cases to hear. Every term will appeal to the Supreme Court for about 80 cases, and each term will conclude in early summer. The most contentious and widely publicized cases were usually reserve for the last time.

Facebook Faces Fresh Antitrust Investigation

🀙Facebook is being investigated in the United States to determine if it has “stifled competition and put users at risk.”

🀚New York State Attorney General Letitia James announced the new action on behalf of a coalition of multi-state representatives.

🀛Ms. James said: “Even the world’s largest social media platform should respect the law and users.”

🀜Facebook said that when it came to be using online services, people had “multiple choices.”

🀝“We understand that people can easily leave our platform if we stop innovating, which underlines the competition we face. Not just in the United States, but around the globe,” said Will Castleberry, Facebook’s vice president of state and local policy.

🀞The probe involves state officials from Arizona, Georgia, Texas, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, and Tennessee, as well as the Columbia district.

🀟Ms. James said: “We will use every investigation resource at our disposal to evaluate whether the activities of Facebook. Facebook may have jeopardized consumer data, decreased consumer choice value, or increased advertisement cost.”

🀠Twitter is already facing a special U.S. Federal Trade Commission antitrust probe.