Saturday, May 30, 2009

Trade In Architecture

Debbi,

While in Hong Kong I was watching a show were a London real estate agent was saying the 2 bedroom, 2 bath apartment or condo was a hot seller... problem is there are extremely few of those.. why they are popular is 2 people with incomes can stand to lIve together if each has his own bath...

The politicians have decided to steal their way of of this problem, which means taxes at 90% or more... we've seen this before in the 50's and 60s, at which point people moved from being employees to self employment. There was some very cool architecture out of it (mid century small business offices) as self-employed people put their income into business amenities rather than leave profits for the government to take to use for war and welfare and other criminal acts.

It may be small work to start, but you might pitch a service in which you convert single bath apartments and condos into double bath units... and then also remodel the offices of small businesses, wherein people will be spending 8-16 hours a day, so they want them nice... during the boom they tore down all the building appropriate for small businesses and built things that are not appropriate (offices on top of a warehouse for a family run business.). You can see a few of these buildings, someone run down, along rainier avenue. Start with small remodels and work up into full construction projects as the economy settles down into the full depression.

John


Friday, May 29, 2009

Creative Destruction

Chris-Craft was a dying boatbuilder when a fellow recruited a few of their top craftsmen to start a company called Grand-Craft. The made 18 boats in 2007, and turned a profit, like every year. They are a small business. If the Big Three automakers fail, we will have countless new automobile companies. Since we are paying to bail out companies that will fail anyway, at least the IP of the automakers should be open-sourced to make theis new industry thrive better faster.


Retail Superstars

There is a book entitled as RETAIL SUPERSTARS reviewed by the Wall Street Journal 5/23/09 page W9, the article for which carries the title how to succeed in business yet stay small. The article complains the author has no numbers to judge the success by, but does not with delight the range of examples, all of which are retail.

What the War Street Journal misses is it is possible to be successful and small, especially if you judge success by the lifestyle of the principals. In each case, the WSJ fails to notice, the owner is having a wonderful life. (Outstanding customer restrooms is a common theme...)

I was discussing with a retailer the concept of having one sample of an expensive item in the shop, from which a bespoke version might be ordered online. Neat idea, I thought. To which she objected:

"I buy things for the store..."

It is one of those comments that knocks me for a loop. It demonstrates why division of labor is so important. I truly do not understand the first thing about retail (and happily I am not in retail.) Retailers buy products for the store. The store is what they do. It is the retailers lifestyle. The products in the store make up the experience. the comment occurred maybe four yeas ago, it is still ringing in my ears.


A Good Summary - Export Controls

The gummint has put out a nice summary of export control cases that should give anyone contemplating exports an overview of enforcement. Check it out.


Thursday, May 28, 2009

The Way Out Is Savings

I have an author quoting Thomas Jefferson writing that the way to destroy the Shawnee was to trap them in debt. I won’t cite that until I get the original source, but if so, it must be the earliest example in USA of what is a common trap, and that is slavery through indebtedness, something employed from student loans in USA to hydroelectric projects in Peru.

In a recent class an exchange caused me on this as another facet of the problem as why people do not start businesses. The exchange went something like this...

Since in exporting from USA the buyer overseas arranges financing, should and importer switch to exporting if they run into financial troubles? My reply was if anyone runs into financial troubles it is because they a re not serving their customers. The solution is to listen to customers, not switch tacks...

A nice thing about teaching in IRC is the disjointed sequence from the time delays offer serendipitous juxtapositions. (Yes! Finally used it in a sentence!) As I was explaining the solution as customers, the other asked if banks are the best resources for cash.

I was challenged, “At some point you have to come up with 5, 10 or 20K to get the deal done.... f you don't have the money, presumably you must borrow.... Or walk away and never get started in your new business...”

There it is... probably the one core erroneous idea that keeps people away from starting their own business. “if I cannot get financing, I am sunk.”

So I come back.... $5000 at $10 an hour at McDonald's working for about 3 months... can you do it? Well, or learn to save, which is how you get rich anyway...

People spend all they get as an employee, so they are forever trapped as employees. Probably the first step in your way out of the trap and into self-employment is to save money to start your business. This is a critical lesson.

Aside for the simple fact you will never get a bank loan to start anyway, for the next era, 25 years or so, if you have any savings it will be stolen through inflation. if you have assets like a home, it will be taxed. The best idea now is to save enough money to get started, and then invest the proceeds back into your business, which is your lifestyle, thus minimizing the taxes, but at the same time making the world a better place.

The way out is savings... I think that is an important lesson... a loan, borrowing or debt is the way to slavery.


Connie Checks In On Minimums

Hello John:
I wanted to let you know that most suppliers are lowering their minimums
in order to get new businesses.

It happen to me, I have told them (supplier) 2K or 2.5K units was to high for us and they are
coming back to me willing to cut their minimums by 50% to 60%. some say due to the current
economic stress.

Is this happening to other new importers like me? is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Thank you John

Connie Ozdil

Connie,

It is indeed happening all over, due to excess capacity. It is a very good thing for we who are starting up, and we who are redesigning products to serve people in this bust economy. With smaller minimums we can reduce risks and generally self-finance, and in this way you keep the 8% you'd be giving the banks. This is very good news for ll of us...

John


We Are Loved!

I read in the 28 May 09 Wall Street Journal a full page B7 ad, or Valentine really, to small businesses. The ad says, among other things, “America’s Economic meltdown has driven a wedge between big and small business.” The ad promotes a 3 day Vegas confab in which big business is to learn how to reach small businesses, which everyone agrees will be the engine the leads us out of the economic downturn.

The Warrillow web site lays it out:

The SMB market opportunity:

* Roughly 27 million firms in the U.S.
* Growing — while the enterprise segment is shrinking
* Loyal to its vendors
* Allows for healthier profit margins, given a lack of buying power when compared to enterprise customers

The SMB market challenge:

* Diverse market, making it hard to find and reach
homogeneous segments
* Cost per account acquired needs to be low to make
economic sense
* High service expectations on vendors
* Large and difficult to cover without partners
and alliances

As to the conference, the web site explains:

“As small business owners weathered the economic downturn, they developed a deep distrust for large enterprise companies and are increasingly shunning national providers in favor of local businesses they trust. In small business circles, national banks are being overlooked in favor of local banks, and big company advertising is being ignored in favor of the advice of local brokers and dealers. “

I am guessing “enterprise” is the term used to define big business.

The list of attendees and sponsors is impressive. It would be easier to list who is not there than who is. Since I am scheduled to teach at UNLV on Small Business International Trade that week I was doubly interested.

Day One is devoted to big business telling big business how to sell to small business.

Day two is devoted to big business telling big business how to sell to small business. Well, OK, that is what is advertised.

Day three is devoted to... big businesses telling big businesses how to sell to small businesses. Wait a minute. Aren’t they missing something?

Now on day two, the do have a session that reads:

“What Are They Thinking?

As small business owners weathered the economic downturn, they developed a deep distrust for large enterprise companies and increasingly favored the local businesses they trusted. Our first session will get down to the business of answering why small business owners really connect to local suppliers and initiatives. We’ll delve into three main areas with the goal of better understanding how enterprise companies can succeed at making the small business connection:

* Understanding the value of a person-to-person experience for small business entrepreneurs
* Exploring urgency as a factor in buying local
* Learning how economic uncertainty is driving small businesses home”

but it does not say who is explaining what we are thinking. I suspect it is probably some summary of studies, an no doubt good information, as far as it goes.

And on day two there is an hour and half devoted to:

“This is your chance to get inside the heads of real, live small business owners during our small business panel sessions. The panels will be divided into two groups.

Panel One: Includes owners of small businesses less than three years old, and the discussion will focus on what “local” means in the 21st century.
Panel Two: Features established small business owners (in business for more than three years), and will focus on gaining insight into how to reach a more traditional target. “

Now admittedly this conference is directed at big business, so we in small business have no reason to attend. This is not for us. But is “buying local” the issue to examine? And here again there is no notice of who the small business people are that make the presentation.

See the problems here? The emphasis is how to reach us, with zero consideration for what we would buy. This conference will lead to more satellite TV salesmen calling me, and me wasting more time ignoring more ads and hanging up on more telemarketers. there is nothing in this confab that will lead to big biz offering what I would buy. Give me a cell phone, computer or email that works! Give me SEO that works! Heck sake yes I buy local, because I can talk to someone if the product is no good. The entire confab is based on a false premise that the economic downturn has driven a wedge between us. Again, the damage was done in the boom, not the bust. The bust is just where it is decided who will pay for the damage done during the boom, and big business and government have agreed it will be small and medium sized businesses that will pay... thanks a lot, fellas!

Big business can easily serve small business. I made a lot of money working with ancient huge Libbey Glass. Their business is simple, they know their costs, and can respond to a mutually beneficial proposal.

On the other hand I am a world class expert in international payments and happily Visa is leading the way in demolishing the letter of credit system in favor of credit cards in small business international trade. Visa is missing a couple of items that would benefit us, and I have over a thousand people on my listserv and I am required reading in over 25 colleges in USA and Canada. But in three years of trying, I have not been able to make contact with a human, let a lone a decision maker, at Visa. That is typical of the experience of small business.

I am sure Warrillow will be around a long time, but in the future I would recommend they focus on what small business would buy, and have actual small businesses present the information. Warrillow should have each attendee invite (and pay for) one small and medium sized business owner to attend and populate the confab. So say Fedex is attending (they are) Fedex picks one small and one medium sized business customer and pays for them to attend next year’s confab. In this way the 500 attendees would be surrounded by 1000 real target customers who would observe and feed back.

I’ve got a thousand names on this list that I would nomiate as attendees.


An Eagle Soars

Outside my office over the lake a young eagle about 300 feet up is inexpertly flapping its wings to get up 50 feet then soaring straight down 50 and shrieking incessantly. It just learned to fly and won't shut up about it.


Wednesday, May 27, 2009

The Gift of ADD/ADHD

Here is a snippet of an after-class discussion to day...

Jspiers: I havw the gift of ADD... but th wines are not my biz... I simply did a bit of research...
vicbig: by the way, I also have the gift (or calamity) of ADD, for me is a problem
Jspiers: whyis it a problem, vic?
vicbig: I want to know and do everything
Jspiers: and?
vicbig: and I have time management on organizing problems
Jspiers: who says so?
vicbig: I do
vicbig: I know
*** complexton has left channel #worldtrade
vicbig: I jump from one project, idea, etc to another
vicbig: and another and another
Jspiers: ADD is a management problem for others, not for those with the gift of ADD...
Jspiers: vic, that is our job...
Jspiers: it is why we were given ADD...
vicbig: well that's really a new and isnpiring focus
Jspiers: we also look at a problem from a thousand angles...
vicbig: inspiring
Jspiers: why cede any ground to teh myopics who get us into wars and screw up medicine and education?
vicbig: that's true
Jspiers: Why let them drug the kids who have the gift?
Jspiers: teachers want the kids drugged so they can have an easier job..
Jspiers: why drug all the kids, when we can just give teachers crack so they can keep up with those who are gifted with ADD?
vicbig: John, do you know any book or other source of information to help me to take advantage and control this gift?
vicbig: take advantage of it
Jspiers: why control it?
vicbig: I mean take it under my control
Jspiers: you do take advantage of it... but some tight asses dont want you too...
vicbig: and be benefitial, not obstuctive
Jspiers: red some books on fasting... when you fast you learn to look at food and say "hmm... good... but I will wait..."
Jspiers: when you can fast, you can control anything...
Jspiers: or ore to the point, direct yourself...
vicbig: it can belike the best horse that dan go wrong if you do not keep it to your good
Jspiers: more to the point, direct yourself...
Jspiers: and keep in mind it is not that we run all over the place that bothers the myopic, it is our energy...
Jspiers: that's what those lazy drug peddlers dislike about us...
vicbig: direct myself?
vicbig: that's the point
Jspiers: we add make the best equestirians...
Jspiers: sure, when you can say no to food you can say no to anything...
vicbig: ok I will buy a book
vicbig: on fasting
vicbig: Thank you for your time
vicbig: and your advise
Jspiers: my pleasure...
vicbig: It can worth the whole course to me
Jspiers: you do not have the problem, you have a gift...
Jspiers: the myopic have a problem..
Jspiers: drug the teachers, not the kids...
vicbig: Thank you, that is comforting
vicbig: really
vicbig: I have a new sight of this
sjamesusa: vic: you can do it!
vicbig: and I know I have the potential
Jspiers: indeed...
sjamesusa: just keep going forward with your biz and it will work out.
Jspiers: we all do..
vicbig: sorry for buthering you guys with this personal issue
sjamesusa: i've been through hundreds of iterations on my biz but i keep going forward.
sjamesusa: stay close to John's book.. ;-) and you 'll get the hang..
sjamesusa: and to john...
Jspiers: vic, I brought it up...
Jspiers: business is personal...
vicbig: bothering
vicbig: I meant
sjamesusa: biz is fastly becoming a lifestyle!
sjamesusa: my lifestyle.
Jspiers: indeed.. really no oher way to approach it...
vicbig: way to go
sjamesusa: all from the kitchen table!
vicbig: yeah!
vicbig: Ok, it's been a pleasure
sjamesusa: I gotta go now. see you all next week. I love talking about all this biz stuff! ;-)
Jspiers: ok.. see y'll next week...
vicbig: Bye
Log file closed at: 5/27/09 8:24:02 AM


Why Capitalism is Failing

Capitalism is failing for exactly the same reason communism failed: in both systems they have no way of accounting for costs.


Control Vs. Available

I've said that in a free market there is no exceptional wealth since on the basis of a free market, that is natural law, you only own what you actually work in land, tools, savings, etc.

In natural law we have inalienable rights, that is to say we cannot give them up, nor can they be taken away. For example, not only it is wrong for someone to enslave another, it is wrong to offer to be enslaved, even for a good reason, like to avoid apparent starvation.

Exceptional wealth is formed as one aggregates control over things through others. As people agree to work for someone else, at once the employee agrees to take less for (false) security direct more to the employer. The more the employer can convince others to direct their creativity to the employer's benefit, the more the employer grows in wealth.

Now that wealth the employer gains is not all that great, it just seems so relatively speaking. the great loss to society is the opportunity cost, that is to say what is lost, when that employee fails to contribute to us what they would have contributed in a free market.

Another aspect is as this employer becomes more wealthy, he is able to persuade political masters to tax others to protect his wealth. For example, taxes are paid to protect the intellectual property rights of individuals. Massive infrastructure is maintained at taxpayers expense to protect the savings and investments of the exceptionally wealthy. In a free market, should someone gain a billion or two, the task of defending it would overwhelm the billionaire and it would dwindle in marginal investments or other natural dispersions.

Since the super-wealthy control so much, they can hop on a private jet and fly to an exotic location to have some medical condition addressed. We are impressed and envious. But many diseases go unaddressed.

In a free market, there are so many more cures for diseases, and they are cheap and plentiful, but they are not under anyone's control. Transportation is cheap and plentiful, so getting to some exotic location to take a cure is no big deal. Knowledge of where the cure is and its efficacy is alos cheap and plentiful. This of course would not only pertain to medicine, but every field of art and science.

IN a free market, the wealth is not concentrated in the hands of a few, as it is in capitalism and communism. In a free market there are for more and better goods and services, dispersed far wider and more easily available, at lower costs.

In a free market wealth is far more than in capitalism and ever expanding, and it is not in anyone's control, but it is available to all.


Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Too Complicated

On May 26, 2009, at 10:35 AM, K wrote:

John,

I have promised to send you some product, but my package is stuck in customs! So sorry.

*** No prob...***

Many people believe that interent sales is the way to go to generate income for reinvesting in the company.

***Many people believe torture is a god way to get information. They are wrong. I do not sell on the internet. I sell to Amazon.com. They are my customer. they sell on the internet.***

Since commercial space is low compared to four years ago, I am contemplating working with a company that will store my product and take my internet orders.

***Internet orders come from customers who cost far more to acquire than any other customers. So you strategy is to pay more for customers and risk not having any, or having the wrong product?***

I know that you would say "Never order product until I have orders in hand". The profit margin is better on interent sales and it can provide some income for reinvesting into the company.

***You are dreaming.***

It will also free up my time so that I do not have to run to the post office everyday.

***You are dreaming. What you save in runs to the post office will be taken up by working the internet. And you can have the post office take your shipments every day from you house, by setting up a mailing system you can get at office depot.******

Since I have a rep in the City, I would not order any product until I have orders from local retail places. I would probably double the order and ship to the warehouse to use the remaing product for internet sales. Any thougts about this strategy?

***The rep should be getting you sales to internet retailers. You should not be a internet retailer.***

I am also working with a company in Canada who wants to repackage the product and sell in bulk to that country. We are working at getting quotes for shipping a container to Canada. This may prove to be a good contact and also provide some more immediate income. (Still lots of work to do like transalting packages into French Canadian). I have noticed that it is a lot more work to contact people and tell them I have a great product than to have people contact me and say "I want to sell your product". I suppose both is necessary.

***Why would a Canadian company work through a usa importer to buy Chinese product for Canadian market? The structure makes no sense. Usually this is a set up to rip off a neophyte importer. I would put the Canadians in touch with the
Chinese and demand a finders fee of the Chinese of say 1%. And then forget about it.***


Toasters

Gerald Celente is on Fox saying by 2012 USA will be embroiled in tax riots unless we do something. I have no doubt there will be riots over taxes, but as I have said, the problem is not the taxes.

Now do not get me wrong, we ought not be taxed at all, because government ought not exist. There is no function government performs that cannot be better performed by a free market. But having said that, people want their governments (1 Samuel 8) and they get them, good and hard.

So given that, we will get taxed. But the riots will be the result of shortages brought on by the misallocations from the malinvestments of the bailouts. The republicans will blame taxes.

Celente argues the only way out is a discovery on the order of fire or the wheel to revolutionize and grow our way out. I think he overstates the issue. We do not need anything so radical, we need only be slightly ahead of everyone else to be ahead of everyone else.

Now please understand I will recommend accomplishments way under our human capacity, but that is what we have been trained to perform. So here goes, two ways out:

1. Deregulate one of the three (need only one to do the trick) big fields in lockdown:

A. Education

B. Medicine

C. Insurance.

If any one of these three was deregulated, the ensuing revolution would liberate USA enough to overwhelm all competitors. We would still be no where near where we could be, but it would save us.

2. There are people who right now have ideas for better toasters in USA. If they try to make toasters in USA, the run into the economic results of USA economic policy, which militates against the small and reward the large. The Federal Reserve System, for reasons explained better by others, causes USA industry to invest overseas rather than USA. Importing, as I am well aware, is a hurdle relatively few people want to jump. So much does not get introduced, in spite of the fact that little USA imports could not be made here in USA.

But there is more. For good measure, while government has rewarded big through Fed policy, government at the same time has loaded up business with rules and regulations that make it impossible to comply and thus unprofitable to engage in business. The EPA lists "sand" as a hazardous material. That affects only one swath of small business, but EPA regulations run to tens of thousands of pages of such rules and regs.

But you argue, the EPA protects us from big bad business. Well, that is not true. The rule of law protects us, if we adhere to it. USA is now in a state of lawlessness at many levels, something people are going to figure out in time, and take to the streets, as Celente is predicting.

The people who were ruining the environment were breaking the law when they were doing it. As Hillary Clinton said, "Never waste a good crisis." The result was tens of thousands of pages of regulations, which crushed small business competition, and the polluters now pollute in Mexico.

The other problem is to hire an employee in the USA is to take the government on board your business as a hostile partner. Fascism has been welcomed at the big biz level with the banks, newspapers, automakers, insurance companies and so on. The rules written to "protect" their employees at the same time kill small businesses.

The way out is a lot easier. The problem is not taxes, we can work around that problem. What we cannot work around is the burden of nonsense regulations on small business.

Of these two solution, either one will work. There would be political realignment as USA realigned. Political realignment may lead to a change of players at the top levels.

For the people at the top levels, it is safer to rule in ruins than risk a change of regime. War is the solution for them, because the bombs dropped will wipe out the excess capacity that is ruining balance sheets, and so disorient the survivors they will feel lucky they have anything. And then from the ruins, after the war, many people around the world will come up with an idea for a great new toaster. The country that respected the rule of law during the war will do so after the war. The person in that country, along with all of the other people with other ideas, will find it agreeable to build a business. That is the way it has always been.


Monday, May 25, 2009

Memorial Day

I visited my mother for Memorial Day and her memories of WWII are sharp. "Best time of my life..." she always says. And why not? Everything was organized, everyone had a purpose. Entertainment was scheduled. All are welcome. Everyone in a uniform. And we were generally in the lead.

My father was in the navy eight years, being held in after four years because of Pearl Harbor. He was on destroyers in Alaska where the Japanese had invaded and in the Caribbean where the Germans U boats were attacking shipping. Destroyers are supposed to protect valuable shipping, engage and destroy ships. In the entire four years none of the ships he served on ever was obliged to open fire in a fight. Like most people in uniform, he never saw battle.

Something like 18 people support one person fighting. And those in actual combat, if wounded, are patched up and sent back in to fight, if possible. Funny thing about those who actually fought... the generally are not so gung ho.

After visiting my mother I went to Home Depot to buy a utility sink, and the store offered a 10% discount to veterans. I asked the Somali clerk if that included conscientious objectors. She said yes, if I had government ID. Sigh, I stopped carrying my draft card long ago.

The TV is full of war movies today. I rented Hearts and Minds, a documentary circa 1974. I highly recommend it. In one shot Daniel Ellsberg points out Truman, Eisenhauer, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon all lied about US involvement in the Vietnam war. Ellsberg thought it a tribute to the American people that all those five presidents, well across the political spectrum, all though they had to lie to the American people, assuming if the American people knew the facts we would not tolerate it. But then he observed, it is sad how easy it is to lie to the American people.

In Seattle the police released a video of a fellow being pushed by a police officer and them sustaining an injury that has put the lad in a coma, possibly terminal. When the video finally came out it is pretty clear the lad had ceased running when he received a horrendous shove from an officer, precipitating the fall and injury. The police say the lad was falsely identified as a troublemaker, and they say in defense "we do not know why he ran." Perhaps he ran because he was falsely accused. Who knows? The question the film begs is why did the officer give the lad such a shove? Why are we getting so violent?

A year ago I was a delegate to the Washington State Republican Convention. I had gone on a business trip and when i came back, my wife had volunteered me to be a precinct delegate, then I won a district caucus, and elected to go on the the state convention. Of course I was as Ron Paul delegate. Growing up in an Irish Catholic neighborhood, I already knew politics were corrupt, but my wife wanted to learn all about it, so I was her stalking horse.

The one thing that struck me was the conclusion that the political parties are the fountain head of the violence in America. It was clear in the process, if the Ron Paul people pressed their legitimate claims in the process, they would ultimately be dealt with violently. As it stood, they need only to be lied to, cheated, hoodwinked, etc. In fact, I was pretty sure there were plenty of agente provocateurs in our midst wishing to precipitate violence, with a view to discrediting Ron Paul movement. I think the general feeling among the Ron Paul people was, "ML King showed us there are good reasons to go to jail... but reforming the Republican party is not one of them..." Indeed, since then the Ron Paul people have formed in essence a third party.

A leader of that local movement asked a group of us to meet to discuss pushing forward. I invited them to meet at my house, and I met some new people, seeking leadership in this new movement. I declined to go forward with them, and wished them well. privately these new people are no different than anyone else seeking political office, and will no doubt in time be like the rest.

Ultimately it is the politicians who are responsible for the wars and the police officers who push non-threatening people down. The political parties claim a monopoly on public affairs and set the tone. After that, it is a matter of gamesmanship for anyone getting a govt paycheck, military and police included, to be pleasing to the political masters.

Politicians represent their parties and the government, but they are not America. America is the Mississippi River, the Tetons, and locally Hood
Canal, Recreational Equipment, Puget Consumer Co-op, Bastyr College, Grand Central bakery and all the people around all of that and so on. If al of that disappeared, America would be gone. If the politicians disappeared, all that would be there. It's clear we do not need them.

But people want them. Americans want to believe, we are for good things and against bad things, generally. We don't now an alternative. We've forgotten alternatives, or they have been so mischaracterized as to be feared. Once insurance companies managed risk. The less loss, the more money they made, which would bring in competitors who kept premiums low. We were learning there was little we needed govt to handle. So the govt got involved, and made insurance companies an offer they could not refuse: switch the model from managing risk to managing actuarial tables. That is, instead of improving safety and limiting loss, just figure present failure rates and take in four and pay out one. Taxpayers would pay the govt for health and safety, and then again if they wanted better than the govt offered (like schools.) Now we have AIG and other insurance companies being bailed out, and health and safety deteriorating.

Changes are coming, and it would be good if people knew their alternatives.


Sunday, May 24, 2009

Anthony Wants Espresso

And now he can have it everywhere... again I am pleased with the comments sections... this is a quick way to get feedback on your ideas..

One note: the article says the prototype "cost" $20,000... well no, that is what they spent. There is often a difference between what something costs and what one spends to get it.