Re: [spiers] Gold Hits $570
Yup, there were a few who got rich panning for gold during the rush.
However, more got rich selling supplies to gold miners.
Nice emails, keep 'em coming.
Linda
spiersegroups
Folks,
As I mention in class, often small biz int'l traders get rich not so much from
the biz,
but from the investments they make. Where do they get the money to invest?
From
the biz. Where do they get the ideas in what to invest? From peers in the biz.
Being
in business is the key.
In the 60's, everyone at the trade shows said "buy the warehouse you are
renting..."
and by the 80's and 90's these small biz traders were rich. In the 70's it was
"buy
houses and rent them out..." and by the 90's these small biz people were rich.
In the
80's it was "buy biotechs and intel and microsoft..." and buy the 90's and now
these
people were rich. Again... it was profits from the biz that gave them the money
to
invest, and it was peers in the biz that pointed out the opportunities.
The biz they do because they love it. Indeed, I know a cook who spent 6 months
a
year slinging hash in Dutch Harbor and buying houses with his paycheck in
Seattle
each year. By 2003 he had 20 houses averaging $750,000 a piece. Yes, the cook
is
worth $15 million. He loved cooking and he got rich.
When gold was about $260 in 2001 people in biz began saying that was a place to
invest. I suspect that prudent investors who put 10% of their savings in gold
will find
it becomes 90% of their asset value in the next decade.
Funny thing is, this is always seen as some sort of unexpected retirement fund
for
these people, and not central to their identity. It is not why they got into
the biz.
At any rate, the key is to get the biz going.
John
Compete on Design!
www.johnspiers.com
Saturday, February 4, 2006
Gold Hits $570
Friday, February 3, 2006
Laser Cutters
Re: [spiers] laser cutters
On Fri, 3 Feb 2006 09:34:15 -0800, Jesse Milden
> Does any one on the list have a contact for a good/inexpensive laser
> cutter?
***Does price matter? If new, and upscale (even if industrial) then you merely
need to know if
you cusomters willl buy enough to cover supplioers minimum. Cost to you is
irrelevent if it
works.***
I would prefer one in the US,
***www.thomasregister.com***
but over seas would be helpful
> as well.
***Best to do the NTDB research and track down the best in the
world...www.johnspiers.com/
NTDB.html***
>
> I've done some prototyping using laser cutting and I'm looking to
> start production once I can find the right supplier.
>
***You have orders in hand from customers?***
John
>
>
>
> Compete on Design!
>
> www.johnspiers.com
Laser Cutters
Does any one on the list have a contact for a good/inexpensive laser
cutter? I would prefer one in the US, but over seas would be helpful
as well.
I've done some prototyping using laser cutting and I'm looking to
start production once I can find the right supplier.
Thank you
Jesse Milden
New Import Service Idea - Chemical
Folks,
Products are solutions to problems, and this is true of services too. Do a
little research into
drug development in USA, and one quickly becomes fearful. Here is an essay
laying out some
of the problem, philosophically.
http://tinyurl.com/dvjvd
Well, the real solution comes from people like us. In the measure medicine
development,
especially the developmental trials, are fraudulent then in that measure a
service that is
offered, from overseas, that provides hard valid and reliable science on
efficacy, would be
successful.
Just as Switzerland is trusted for wristwatches, there is no reason that in time
any place,
perhaps Vietnam, it does not matter, could be the "go to place" for ethical,
valid reliable
human trials.
I Know SFSU has a certificate program in human drug trials management, and that
is probably
all you need, since, as we always do, we just bring the experts together and
charge a large
fee for the small service we provide. Like lawyers.
John
Thursday, February 2, 2006
Cheap Crab
Re: [spiers] Cheap Crab
Naturement... which will cause the price of crab to rise to the point that US
crabbers will
simply sail out to meet Russians ships laden with Baltic crab and make their
"limit" and a
$100,000 in 8 hours and the poor fisheries enforcers won't be able to tell the
difference... but
then they will have a new problem to regulate. The fun never ends!
John
On Thu, 2 Feb 2006 10:57:59 -0800 (PST), "John C. Kalitka"
wrote :
> Until, perhaps, an antidumping duty investigation is initiated.
>
> jck
> Arlington, VA
New Product Idea - Chemical
If your thing is chemicals, and interesting article appeared in the LA Times
yesterday.
http://tinyurl.com/b2pzf
I was tipped of years ago by an MD that the reason they don't find more of the
chemicals in
the Pill in our water supply is they never look for it, which is a sub-theme in
EPA and other
studies. As the article says, a stream is free running, so there are trace
amounts at any given
time, as the articles says, "just drops in an olympic size pool". On the other
hand, an
olympic size pool may have massive concentrations since they RARELY, IF EVER,
drain pools
and the filters don't take out permanent synthetic chemicals like those used in
the pill, etc.
These chemicals are peed into the pool by swimmers on the Pill. Gross, if not
dangerous.
With the lead poisoning scare in the 80's a $10 lead test kit showed up on the
market... if this
becomes a scare, perhaps we'll see a similar product to text for estrogens, etc
in pools.
(And don't you love the quote from the water quality officials that they "worry
that the public's
perception of the water supply will be tainted." Never mind whether the water
is tainted...we
just can't have anyone doubt us. Yikes!
Also, some 7000 government scientists have said "enough" and are petitioning the
govt to
eliminate flouridation in water. Apparently causes cancer, just like some
scientists said 35
years ago. Kinda like the Hormone Replacement Therapy problem. Sigh. Whole
lotta new
products to develop.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/foodsafety/flouride090105.cfm
John
looking for a partner/mentor
Re: [spiers] looking for a partner/mentor
On Mon, 6 Feb 2006 11:39:50 -0800 (PST), M A Granich
:
My thought is they get bombarded by
> similar requests. Maybe I'm too new or small to deal
> with. The way things are booming in some of these
> countries, I wonder if I'm competing with others for a
> slice of factory capacity. I wonder if the factory
> owner is picking and choosing the most profitable
> ideas.
Absolutely, part of the reason getting the product right is the hardest part of
the biz, and why
naming names of retailers, sharing what market intelligence you are gathering,
etc, as I
stress, is critical to get to work with the best... it's being done everyday...
but it takes
passion for your items...
John
Cheap Crab
Re: [spiers] Cheap Crab
Until, perhaps, an antidumping duty investigation is initiated.
jck
Arlington, VA
spiersegroups
Folks,
I was talkng to a banker who finances fisherman, and he was relating a story
clients
were telling him... apparently someone moved some dungeness crab over to the
Baltic Sea and turned them loose... and those seas have proven to be some kind
of
disneyland for crab, the happiest place on earth, with crab thriving.
It will be interesting to watch the NTDB and see if crab imports rise and what
happens
to prices. I can get live dungeness crab regularly at $3.50 per pound, usually
less, (at
Lam's Seafood for you seattleites) and my sense is the prices are dropping.
This is
good for biz, which is good for consumers.
John
Compete on Design!
www.johnspiers.com
Gold Hits $570
Folks,
As I mention in class, often small biz int'l traders get rich not so much from
the biz,
but from the investments they make. Where do they get the money to invest?
From
the biz. Where do they get the ideas in what to invest? From peers in the biz.
Being
in business is the key.
In the 60's, everyone at the trade shows said "buy the warehouse you are
renting..."
and by the 80's and 90's these small biz traders were rich. In the 70's it was
"buy
houses and rent them out..." and by the 90's these small biz people were rich.
In the
80's it was "buy biotechs and intel and microsoft..." and buy the 90's and now
these
people were rich. Again... it was profits from the biz that gave them the money
to
invest, and it was peers in the biz that pointed out the opportunities.
The biz they do because they love it. Indeed, I know a cook who spent 6 months
a
year slinging hash in Dutch Harbor and buying houses with his paycheck in
Seattle
each year. By 2003 he had 20 houses averaging $750,000 a piece. Yes, the cook
is
worth $15 million. He loved cooking and he got rich.
When gold was about $260 in 2001 people in biz began saying that was a place to
invest. I suspect that prudent investors who put 10% of their savings in gold
will find
it becomes 90% of their asset value in the next decade.
Funny thing is, this is always seen as some sort of unexpected retirement fund
for
these people, and not central to their identity. It is not why they got into
the biz.
At any rate, the key is to get the biz going.
John
Cheap Crab
Folks,
I was talkng to a banker who finances fisherman, and he was relating a story
clients
were telling him... apparently someone moved some dungeness crab over to the
Baltic Sea and turned them loose... and those seas have proven to be some kind
of
disneyland for crab, the happiest place on earth, with crab thriving.
It will be interesting to watch the NTDB and see if crab imports rise and what
happens
to prices. I can get live dungeness crab regularly at $3.50 per pound, usually
less, (at
Lam's Seafood for you seattleites) and my sense is the prices are dropping.
This is
good for biz, which is good for consumers.
John
Wednesday, February 1, 2006
US economy article
Hi all,
Just adding something to the economy article pot. This is an email I
received from a member of another email list.
I love everyone's comments and thoughts on the articles discussed here
in our group. People have such interesting POVs. Anyway, enjoy...
"An interesting article that explains in great details how the mortgage
market works and where our money comes from.
http://www.kitco.com/ind/Baker/jan312006.html
What we saw in the past few years is that our Fed chairman has been
losing his grip on our economy because there is a growing money market
that is not under his control. And what is even more interesting is
that the recent series of rate hikes in the past 1.5 year (and 2 more
expected in the coming months) is amazingly reminiscent of what
happened during the period before the stock market crash in 2000. Is
our Fed expecting another financial crisis and is trying to build up
room in the rates so that it can inject liquidity into our economy by
rate cuts when it happens?"
Monday, January 30, 2006
U S A is #1
Folks,
Ethanol is a "biofuel," the bright idea being we can grow fuel and burn it in
our cars. Ethanol is
essentially using corn mash to make white light'ning...
Here is an article that supports an argument I make, that is USA exports
generally hurt the USA
economy.
http://tinyurl.com/ccqre
In this article, USA is expanding ethanol production, which benefits big biz
(although the article is
about little biz getting in on it).
Problem A: It takes more energy to create ethanol than the energy we get from
the process, a
ratio of about 1.29. Therefore it must be subsidized. Of course, due to huge
subsidies, there is
massive counterattacks to the studies that make this inefficiency claim. (CBO
says it costs
taxpayers $30 to yield Archer Daniels Midland $1 in profit on ethanol). OK, so
you don't accept
the anti-ethanol argument...then
Problem B: there is a 50 cent a gallon tax on ethanol imports from Brazil. The
Brazilians can
produce ethanol cheaper cuz the biomatter grows easier in Brazil ... think
jungle... (and the
Brazilians use sugar cane instead of corn... you see what corn does to a kid,
and what sugar does
to a kid... which do you want in your car?)
So even if the subsidized scientists are right in arguing ethanol from corn is
good, why not buy it
cheap from Brazil? But also, if corn-to-ethanol is efficient, then why is it
subsidized? Why make it
a law forcing people to use it if it is a good idea?
Anyway, follow the money... since foreignors spot us being silly economically,
they buy up ethanol
from us, which causes the price of corn to go up, and price of ethanol too. And
more land is put
to agriculture of this sort, depleting that resource.
USA exports are growing, but largely in areas where the item is subsidized.
Thus, we are heading
where China was, and India was, and Russia is... that is exporting commodities
which transfer
money to the few and breaks the many.
The article ends with a bizarre claim, that in the competition with Big Ag,
small farmers have
always done well! In 1972 Nixon's Ag Sec Earl Butz announced to USA farmers,
"get big or get
out." It is gov't policy to wreck the family farm, and it has worked out quite
well. Small farmers
survive selling what big biz does not sell, not by competing against big
subsidized biz.
We've seen the end-game many times... small farmers are offered an opportunity
to get into a big
biz in competition with the big boys, and earn some real money... the farmers
take the bait, invest
heavily, ethanol prices drop, the small guys get busted, the big guys take their
farms and buy their
ethanol plants at 10 cents on the dollar.
And Willie Nelson gives a benefit concert.
Solution: End the subsidies (and cut taxes concomitantly), end the laws
requiring ethanol use,
drop the taxes on Brazilian ethanol. Then see what happens. There would be
enough money to
get mag-lev transport going.
John
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Listmember China Observations
China was so cool!!! I shot over 1300 pictures which I still need to
load
to my PC. All the old historical sites were great! I had a cold the
whole
trip but didn't let that stop me from doing the Great Wall, The
Forbidden
City, Tien An Men Square, The Tera Cota Soldiers, and all the other
great
things to see. On our long 1 & 2 hour bus rides we also got to see a
lot
of the poor & rural areas as well. They say that if you want to know
what
China was like 500 years ago go to Beijing, if you want to know what
China
was like 2000 years ago go to Xian, if you want to know about China
today
and the future go to Shanghai, we did it all! Lots more to tell you
about!
Shanghai is great, very modern, very cosmopolitan, absolutely no signs
of
anything resembling Communism there or anywhere else. The people are
very
happy about their country, it's capitalism, working hard, and they are
very
polite and humble compared to most Americans. Observing their level of
service and their work ethic I kept thinking of that old rental car
slogan
"We try harder". All major U.S., European, Russian, and Asian companies
are invested everywhere in China! We just scratched the surface of
Shanghai in the time we had and are planning a future trip to spend a
week
there and maybe Hong Kong too.
I bought $1.100.00 worth of art, silk products, jewelry, statues, and
Jade
at 60 - 80 % off our U.S. prices - I think my family and friends will be
very happy with the gifts I have for them!
Lots of lies of omission from the American politicians and media! The
Chinese people love Americans, our culture, and our products, however
they
do not like our government or George Bush.
They have no problem with our form of government at all, they just don't
like our "politicians" trying to tell them how to run their country. We
told them not to feel bad - that a lot of Americans don't like what our
politicians are doing either! The bottom line (under the current communist
government) is that they are not allowed to publicly criticize their
government's policies but in almost all other ways they now have the
freedom to live their lives the way we do.
I understood this issue more clearly when our tour guides talked about
their long history of how they were once seven feudal tribes that were
eventually united under a single Emperor system. Over time the Emperors
became weak and outside influences such as English, French, Portuguese,
Americans, Japanese, and others came in forcefully through means such as
the Opium Wars and World War II to control or influence China and it's
policies. After World War II and the "Cultural Revolution-Communism" (for
better or worse) all outside influences were flushed out of the country and
it finally belonged to just the Chinese people.
After Mao died and Nixon's visit (something conservatives were totally
against, - which turned out to be one of Nixon's greatest achievements) the
door opened. The next guy in charge (Peng) determined that the old ways of
doing things were out of date and needed a lot of updates. As our guide
described it: "if a cat is black or white on the outside, it does not
matter as long as it can catch a mouse". The Chinese are working to be a
full blown capitalist system but without making the many mistakes that
Russia did by moving too quickly. All of this, especially the outside
influences issue is why their people and their Communist-Capitalist
government are very sensitive to the way U.S. politicians try to dictate
how they should do things internally! They do not ever want to have
Imperial interests trying to come in and dictate policy again with regard
to their acknowledged internal problems.
Our politicians are obsessed over the Taiwan issue yet Taiwanese are some
of the biggest investors in China, and more doors are opening between these
two governments and economies. We heard a lot about this over there but
somehow our politicians and media don't talk about it. They are also
developing some social-to-work programs for their peasant class and poor
farmers to subsidize their growth.and improvement (another issue that our
politicians are obsessed with) They make note that the U.S. has fallen
very short in successfully dealing with our own peasant class ie: Indians,
Appalachians, Blacks, and Hispanic poor. (and the programs we do have are
being drastically cut) So the Chinese don't have much patience for this
"do as we say not as we do mentality" and our efforts to once again be an
outside influence.
An interesting side note, we had 40 people an our tour, 2/3rds were women.
Of the men we had 3 very conservative gents on tour who repeatedly made two
remarks, "I never expected to see this, I am surprised" and "I never would
have thought this is what has been going on here". You will be amazed when
you see my pictures - China is much further along than we are hearing in
our country. Our politicians and press may feel that it will be too big
shock to Americans to see how much the middle and upper class Chinese are
gaining on us! My Chinese associates in the RO confirm this too, saying
that communism is just a word in China now - and the same is said by the
Vietnamese here as about Vietnam. It was all a huge wake up call for those
of us on the trip!