Kodak keeps Apple and others from innovation using something called "intellectual property rights" And taking it to the int'l trade courts. Let's see... Apple thriving, Kodak dying. I wonder how come?
Friday, February 19, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
ImportGenius Update
When searching the internet to answer Eric’s question below, I came across Importgenius.com again, and they have been busy coming up with new offerings. I’ll reiterate what I said before, and then critique, from the small biz point of view, their new offerings.
My critique is two part: one is the useful information they offer is otherwise available for free while importgenius.com charges a pretty penny; their offerings seem to be geared toward big business.
Having said that they have some intro videos up on their site, previewing their paid offerings... I’ll critique each.
Use Customs Records to Find Suppliers for Any Product
Video one: This we already know how to do on our own at no cost. No need or pay big bucks for that.
Track Your Competitors' Imports Using U.S. Customs Data
Video two: No need to track our competitors at all, since we are customer focussed, not competitor focussed. Our customers will tell us all we need to know about our competitors. We initially need to know all of our competitors for the reason I lay out in my reply to Eric below. But once known, any salient info will come form our customers. We know how to get this information at no cost.
View a Dazzling Visual Map of Any Company's Trade Connections
Video three: yes, a dazzling map, but not much point beyond that. Our suppliers will be eager to share the same info anyway, so why buy it from importgenius.com? As you look at the video, do note a point I have long made, and that is we all go to the same sources. It is a dazzling graphic of a controversial point I have long made.
Also, any company that does not care to end up in such representations as importgenius.com offers, can and will hide themselves from this exposure. I think in time more will elect to hide themselves, making this particular avenue of investigation less valuable. This offering seems to have a built in self-destruct mechanism if it becomes popular.
Also, it is only ocean freight, leaving out airfreight, which may be more valuable info in some instances. Airfreight data is not available to the public as ocean freight data is.
Identify High-Value Sales Prospects with Import Genius
Video four: At the small business level, competing on design and not price, the proper way to identify high-value sales prospects is to go straight to those entities you’d expect to buy from you, and test your hypothesis and either gain orders or feedback on redesign. Buying a list that contains names you already know and you still have to visit seems like a waste to me.
As I look at all of the needs of the trader in import and export, I cannot see any services not yet available. Importgenius.com does not seem to be targeting small business anyway, but I do get people asking me about them. They are very well funded, but to what purpose?
Also, all of this can be done for export as well, as I do in my courses, so I wonder why they do not offer the export side as well.
Eric Wants The Directory of US Importers
Eric wants a copy of the Directory of US Importers for research. It is about $800 for the paper copy and $775 for the CD version. Funny that, but the CD version is easier to use, of course. University libraries usually carry it, along with all sorts of other goodies. Titles cannot be copyrighted so there many publications out there claiming to be THE directory of US Importers, but here is the real McCoy.
You can also search Amazon.com for used editions for sale. Libraries subscribe to the directory and everytime a new on comes out, libraries load up their old version on amazon.com for sale used. The prices range from $30 for a 2000 edition to $250 for a 2008 edition. Keep in mind the names are not going to change much from year to year, so I imagine the 2000 edition is some 80% the same as the 2010 edition, good enough for your research.
The point of this directory is to research what your competitors are trading in so you are sure NOT to do the same thing, and to find out the standards in the industry for quality and service, so you can be sure to adopt those as exactly yours.
An ancillary use of the directory is to find out the customsbroker your competitor uses so you may use the same one, given that broker's expertise in your particular commodity, as I outline in my text.
Literally, Free Market Opera
Utterly charming opera breaks out in a busy Spanish market. Watch through to the end... Most opera companies are state-supported, but money is running out since the state is an unviable program. Creative people get creative when they need to.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Don't Listen, Watch
George Soros says gold is the ultimate bubble, but he is buying gold. It is usualy for those tied in with the powers that be to say one thing and do another. In the Great Depression there was a fellow like Warren Buffett named Bernard Baruch, who talked up stocks while shorting them himself. Every era has them. Reliable information is available, such as from Mish Shedlock. If you care about biz and the economy, you should read Mish every day.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
2009 US Int'l Trade
AS bad as the economy is, for international trade, for 2009 we are back to 2005 numbers, according to US Census int'l trade figures, just out. Big deal. Was life so bad in 2005? The real drop has not happened yet, and the way to endure it is be self-employed.
Check out the int'l trade in services as well.
Unfunded Pension Liability
AS early as 2002 on the listserv associated with this site, I talked about the dangers of unfunded pension liability. Sure everyone knows social security is pointless, but I was referring to private insurance, where the big bucks are, where the lifestyle, hopes and dreams are stored. Although a good part of these pensions are from "public service" like california teachers funds, they are not govt programs. People look at their private pensions and think, retirerment, travel, grandkids, all is good.
In 2008 I wrote a pretty good argument for this blog. I give a bit of history, and then the salient point for us:
The solution is savings and industry, but there is a war on both by government here in USA. The war in the middle east is fake, a distraction. The real war is right here in USA, a struggle to restore commerce and industry here. Happily the vast majority of soldiers in the middle east are eager to come home, as are the middle easterners eager to see them leave. Of course this struggle here is necessarily a nonviolent struggle, a matter of speaking truth to power, a matter of just starting a business, in spite of the challenges you'll experience if an when you do.
In this time and place in history there is nothing more effective in establishing peace and prosperity than starting a business.Mish Shedlock is covering this well.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Why I Am A Free Market Anti-Capitalist
There must be 250 definitions of capitalism, each one allowing for the governmetn to step in and interfere with the markets. John Stoessel reports on one minor, but typical example of how business works in USA. (This appears to start as an ad, don't be fooled, it is content rich from the beginning.) And remember, while you are paying for windows no one would otherwise buy, the money for curing cancer, and the talent to discover it, is misallocated elsewhere by government interference.
And funny, one of the classics on econommics has to do with windows. Check it out here.
Wine Exports To China
On Feb 11, 2010, at 3:49 PM, PL wrote:
John Spiers,
I want to add to the student in class whom asked about exporting wine to China. I understand that there is a "Market for it" And i know you mentioned in the discussion or advised that they can be shipped through 'Expeditors -Freight forwarding company.
I know already a friend whom knows Chinese buyers whom "Want to ' Import and Buy USA wine and distribute to China. So, coud I say Ive already found Customers now, and its only now the issue to find the Wine that will be needed to make the order go through?
Just wondering what directionm you canm point me in on here?
Thank you
Patrick
Patrick,
The technical definition of a customer is someone "ready, willing and able to buy." The way you prove this, is bona fide orders in hand. So in your scenario above, you could NOT say you already have customers. I've attached a .pdf of wine exports to asia. It shows indeed wine sales to Hong Kong and China are growing rapidly. The main reason for this is Hong Kong eliminated the restrictions and duties placed on wine and spirits in 2007 and 2008, which would explain the increase in hong kong, but not explain the increase in China and Singapore. i have my suspicions why those places are growing, but let's stick with hong kong to understand some points. As you can see hong kong has enjoyed fifty, 400 and 650 percent increases over 2005 in the last few years. Study that spreadsheet and ask questions if you like, such a spreadsheet you'll work up in the next week for your product area.
Wine sales are growing rapidly for anyone who has been selling to China for the last 50-250 years. Sales are not growing rapidly for people who decided to get into the trade in the last few years. Look at the average price paid by Hong Kong importers for wine from usa. Try finding wine in USA you can sell for $3 a bottle and make a profit. Gallo can do it, and Gallo is a huge importer with sales offices in Hong Kong. And that average includes such USA wines as Far Niente, which sell for $50 a bottle. Yes, you can make money selling upscale wine in Hong Kong, but why woudl Far Niente work with you? Why would a Hong Kong importer buy Far Niente from you? If you can answer those questions, maybe you have a chance.
Take Hong Kong alone. Of the 7 million people in Hong Kong, there are 2000 people who drink good wine regularly, integrated into their life style. There are 20,000 who drink wine often. There are some 200,000 who have a glass of wine once a year, at a wedding reception or some event. No one else drinks the stuff. Traditionally what the chinese call wine, what Li Bo would write about, rice wine, is a cross between fermenting as in wine and distillation as in whiskey, what the japanese call sake. Rice wine is not grape wine.
Since you know someone who wants wine in China and "there is a market," you asked if this means you have customers, and I said no. What you describe are the conditions where very many people come to grief, and will trying to get into the wine business in Hong Kong and China. First rate USA wines are being sold out the back door of wineries for cheap get rid of oversupply. Off to china it goes, to start up businesses who do not know how to handle wine, where it is not transported correctly, so USA wines end up being ruined before they are served. Presently USA wines have a reputation for tasting bad. Wannabee wine trader will waste a lot of time and effort, if they are not actively ripped off.
The brits control the spirits trade worldwide, and they are not about to let anyone else in, if they can help it. They cannot help that the Chinese are making their own wines, working with Rothschilds and Jepsons and other first rate winemakers. China will have wines as good as anywhere else on earth in 15-20 years. They will not rely on the brits to distribute it.
It is possible to start up a wine business trading with China that could be very good. Of course, you would have to have a passion for wine, or forget about it. The very best strategy for exporting wine to China would be to import Chinese wines to USA. If you had a way to test Chinese wines, that is a customer base of USA wine buyers, then you could provide the Chinese USA feedback on Chinese wines. These chinese winemakers would of course have distribution within China. What they can sell within, even a little USA wine on the side for China, would be very good business for a USA wine exporter.
At the same time, you could enter USA wines in the Hong Kong wine competition. If a USA wine were to wine a gold medal at that competition, then it could write its own ticket. Of many entries in 2009, only one USA wine won a gold medal.
It all starts with passion, and then providing a value no one else will or can provide, and then experiencing joy working on solving the problem. Selling wine to China can be a very good business, but it has to be "you."
Click for larger image...
John
Outlawing Slavery
I heard a law professor remark in passing that the 13th amendment to the US Constitution outlawed slavery. Nonsense, of course. Anyone who takes an oath to protect, defend and uphold the US Constitution supports slavery. Read the entire 13th Amendment for yourself, and decide if I am right:
AMENDMENT XIII
Passed by Congress January 31, 1865. Ratified December 6, 1865.
Section 1.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Now, the word "except" is no error, the plain english meaning today is the same as 1865, and that is, slavery is allowed, as long as it is state-run, that is state-owned slaves. Now today people will say, "O that is just to stop people from calling a jail term 'slavery...'" That is anachronistic, in 1865 everyone knew exactly what slavery was, so they knew what they were doing passing this law. The law was intended to permit slavery, if it was not private ownership. The civil war did not end slavery, it made it constitutional.
So if it was constitutional, why didn't slave states convict people, make them state slaves, and continue slavery? Well, the states did. And governors and other privileged people got fantastically wealthy working state-owned slaves, in the South. From the Turpentine swamps of Florida to the Parchman Farm, a little known part of US history is slavery was alive and well after the civil war in the South.
I descend from a family of slave-owners myself, and my father had an ex-slave for a servant as a child. When I take Rev. Ralph Abernathy's witness of slavery, along with stories from my family, I understand that slavery is undeniably evil, and I ponder what horrors I accept today senselessly as my ancestors once accepted in their time. But private slavery, by all accounts was a economic system, with checks and balances, if only grounded in raw economics. Slaves cost about $700 when that was a lot of money. People were generally careful with their slaves, if for no reason other than to avoid financial loss.
Rutgers History Professor David M. Oshinsky, details this time and place you never heard of, even though it lasted into the 1970's (along with the Tuskegee experiments In Alabama, where the forerunner of the Center for Disease Control let blacks go untreated for syphilis to see what would happen. They learned that blacks suffered just like whites if untreated.)
His book focusses on the Parchman Farm in Mississippi, where we see that again we cannot have government involved in anything. When slavery is legal as punishment, after due process, the results is "worse than slavery," the title of Oshinsky's book, and a quote from ex-slaves who got caught up in the Parchman Farm system. The simple fact is when the government runs slavery, you can work slaves to death, because they cost you nothing. There are always more people for the state to go out, charge, try, convict, and bring into the death camps.
The complexities of this system, and the human reactions to it all are the most fascinating aspects of the story. I put Oshinsky up there with Jonathan Spence and Simon Schama as a first rate historian (if not as prolific).
Global Warming Hoax Unravelling
One reason the state does not llike free markets is the players tend to unmask statist hoaxes like the dot-com bubble and global warming nonsense. Now the news is reporting what very many people knew already, global warming, or "climate change" fearmongering was junk science. I love the explanation of one world renown "scientist," - "I lost my homework." If one was ever interested in facts or science, it was available elsewhere than the main stream media.
Now if someone would just debunk the global war on terror. Not likely, because now it is all the powers that be have to work with. In time they will come up with other silly fears for us to organize our lives around. And we will, because enough people love to live in oppression, and the powers that be know this. They would live in freedom if there were enough people who loved freedom to get freedom to work. That is where self-employment comes in, and why self-employment is a critical fundamental to freedom.
Self-employment also means an act of division of labor on your part. If you are self-employed, you are in some way ever more diversifying the available goods and services, and the savings by the improvements and efficiencies your efforts arbitrage make you specifically, and society in general, more wealthy.
Wealth is only in the form of savings (debt is a way for people with money to make more money, but it costs the entrepreneur heavily, and possibly too much since it concetrates wealth in few hands.) Build your business on savings, not debt. There... another absolutely crazy idea, when we all "know" that you start a business with debt. And we know we have to worry about global warming. and we know they hate us for our freedom.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Labor Shortages In China
What happens when labor shortages occur? Wages go up. For the last decade I've been hearing about labor shortages in China (of course, cheap labor is not a factor in int'l trade). South China Morning Post has an article on the topic.
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