A Coptic Bishop is reporting he believes the terrorist attack on the Christian Church last Christmas may have been the work of Mubarak security forces to gain more power, more security. I've said a few times that we cannot know who is behind terrorist attacks, because too many people benefit, on both sides.
In the meantime, TSA is now gate-grouping children AFTER a bus ride. I am not making this up... Never mind it is pointless before a plane ride also, and unconstitutional, what is at play here is the tactic to get promoted in a police state: abuse your power as much as you can, and watch the higher ups smile on you.
I am no longer sure USA can remain free as a Christian country... we may need to convert to Islam if we truly desire freedom, like the people in Pan-Islamia.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
اعتناق الإسلام
Bank Fraud Settlement
In spite of the worldwide crisis going on, the banks still need the attention of the president. In order to "settle" their fraud, so we can all move on, Obama is pushing a plan to fine the banks 20 billion, as a sort of general settlement. Sounds like a good deal to me. Take a trillion in bail-outs after wrongdoing, and settle for 20 billion. So who gets the 20 billion? The banks. To pay down bad debts.
Meanwhile, back at the Revolution...
The entire Moslem world seems to be overthrowing their leaders... some worse than our Puppet Saddam Hussein. Does it not seem rather anachronistic that USA is expanding its Afghanistan operations when it is clear Moslems can, far better then westerners ever have, over throw tyranny? We admire and call for freedom in these countries, yet we will not allow Iraq and Afghanistan to be free to settle their own affairs. Here is in interesting video of our next president calling for the right to peaceful protest in the middle east.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Hillary 2012
With Rahm Emmanuel winning the Chicago mayor's race, Hillary will win the Presidency when she runs in 2012. Kennedy squeaked by Nixon in 1960, by having Papa Daley deliver the dead vote in Chicago.
Rahm Emmanuel was in the Clinton White House, he was the gatekeeper in Obama's, and all of the Obama failures can be laid to Emmanuel. Emmanuel now leads Obama's home base, and the ex-Mayor of Chicago, Daley fils, is now Obama's gate keeper. Obama is sunk, he was set up, and all of Bush's policies disasters will be blamed on him.
Store popcorn, this will be fun.
Wisconsin Vs Egypt
There is a difference between Egypt, where the taxpayers are protesting the people in government, and Wisconsin, where the people in government are protesting taxpayers.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
TechShop
Here is a version of free market voc-tech schooling... a cooperative effort... I have set up something along these lines myself, but with industrial sewing machines devoted to apparel construction and business start up... maybe these are the good old days...
Monday, February 21, 2011
Fellowes Is Locked Out of Chinese Joint Venture
Alibaba.com Fraud
Anthony gives us a heads-up on this article regarding alibaba.com fraud.
I was always skeptical of alibaba.com, since it short cut the critical search for the best supplier, allowing just anyone for a fee to make the grade. Since alibaba.com was just a online version of the pointless "trade leads" offered by govt agencies before the dot.com era, it made no sense that an online version would be any better. In fact, it is worse, as this article shows... search this blog for alibaba and you'll find dozens of warnings from me... there is no substitute for the basic, professional process of finding the best supplier, as I lay it out, as it was taught to me.
Protect Their Own
When faced with wrongdoing by their own, the state at most will slap on the wrist...
or worse, just let them walk.
The police officer faces no criminal action whatsoever. It is one reason people rise up... The prosecutor says police officers can do what this officer did. The Seattle Police say his actions were egregious, so it's not acceptable. Therefore, the police are not responsible, the prosecutor is not responsible... so it looks like a man is murdered and no one is responsible.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Uncle Sam makes companies happy, if you are huge. Here is the GSA price, what we taxpayers pay, when a bureaucrat buys something, and here is what you can pay on the open market. Do you suppose the thing is all that important to begin with?
I've said Microsoft success has been based on the growth or government, wherein the pointless tasks millions were hired to do in the last 30 years were performed on Microsoft software, explaining why Windows is so relentlessly a timewaster.
Now that govt spending is cutting back, and people actually have to perform, Apple is top.
Cisco has warned on earnings based on cutbacks in govt spending. Cisco networks all of those Windows systems, on behalf of vast featherbedded staffing, which perform no particular function except for online shopping and whatever viewing on which govt workers devote their days. Time for them to come out and play with the rest of us. A Quote from the article:
From a recent online class...
Prices Falling, Taxes Up
The wicked bankers are redesiging their websites, it seems to me, to make them more confusing with a view to causing people to miscalculate their positions, and thus overdraft or otherwise incur fees. Certainly the rates they offer on CDs are a ripoff, when little old ladies should be in TBills or some other higher paying asset... (although I would say gold.) The net is banking costs all the more, when in a free market, prices should naturally fall.
As prices fall, more money is freed up to invest in an ever wider means of production in the selection of goods and services, that is to say, division of labor, in which eventually perhaps it is not true everyone gets rich. But it is true in a free market, the price of a cure for cancer would be about $87.50. We have neither a cure nor a low price because medicine is regulated. We have more computing power on our laptops than NASA internally had when they sent a man to the moon, but that is because we have had a relative free market in communications and computerization.
Here is Geo Bush on oil prices:
I once made the mistake of suggesting to Bush that he use the phrase cheap energy to describe the aims of his energy policy. He gave me a sharp, squinting look. Cheap energy, he answered, was how we got into this mess. Every year from the early 1970s until the mid-1990s, American cars burned less and less oil per mile traveled. Then in about 1995 that progress stopped. Why? He answered his own question: Because of the gas-guzzling SUV. And what had made the SUV craze possible? This time I answered, “Um, cheap energy?” He nodded at me. Dismissed.David Frum, The Right Man
Govts intervene to keep prices high or higher. The set policies to pick winners and losers. The entire point of the FED is to maintain a bit of inflation, which through the magic of compounding, becomes a huge tax, a boil the frog slowly tactic.
When the gold-based advocates say our currency has lost 95% of its value, that is not very compelling, because no one sees what we have lost. We only see what we have... innoculations, iPods, exotic travel, sushi. Life could not possibly get better, wethinks. But yes it could have, if that loss of buying power was not experienced. What we lost we do not see, as Bastiat noted 250 years ago... and it is not until you experience some kafkaesque malady that you experience the lack of the good of what could have been. Cancer cures, $87.50.
Phone prices have fallen through competition, but a neat trick is to load up taxes as prices fall. When I was a kid, phones were cheap, but long distance was expensive and only for death notices. Today, we spend far more of our household budget on phones. We get far more, but a big chunk of that costs is simply tax, normally running about 25%. Taxes on phones were temporary, to pay for the Vietnam war. That war ended 35 years ago. The taxes are still there. (Many of us simply deducted the tax, refused to pay it, with no deleterious effect in phone service, nor did the warmongering democrats send in the IRS agents.)
I went over my minutes with AT&T last month, and racked up a couple of hundred at .45 each... obviously I need to jack up my free minutes rate. I called and requested they back date my plan so I avoid the undesired .45 charges last month. They agreed. Prices are falling.
I don't have to make as much when prices are falling. Here is my bill for a car at SFO. Note the price the car company is charging is less than $12 a day. Then look at the taxes.
| (2) Time & Distance ($11.74/Day) | $23.48 |
| Inclusive Rate Items | |
| Guaranteed Base Rate | Included |
| Unlimited Miles | Included |
| For information on coverage products, ex:Collision Damage Waiver(CDW) click here | |
| Subtotal | $23.48 |
| Concession Recovery Fee 11.11 % | $2.66 |
| Tourism Fee 3.5 % | $0.82 |
| Airport Access Fee 20.00/rental | $20.00 |
| Vlf Recovery .22/day | $0.44 |
| Sales Tax (9.250%) | $2.42 |
| Subtotal | $26.34 |
| Estimated charges are confirmed based on the information you have provided; only taxes, fees, and surcharges are subject to change. | $49.82 | |
As you see the taxes are more than the rate. But the taxes, you say, pay for the airport. Well, they made too much airport at SFO, and charged to much to enlarge it. If airports were private it would not cost so much to do so much. Chicago is very bad in this regard, and their population is back at 1920 census.
You can tell when the govt is distorting any given market. Prices are rising, and the money going to bigger govt and the winners the govt has chosen, and taken away from the losers necssary wheneveer govt sets a policy. In a free market, prices fall. For us to get out of this economic problem, prices must fall in all categories, some more than others.
The cost of govt must fall, which means the number of people working in govt must be reduced. We need them to join the private economy. But wait you say, who will do their job. Govt work is a response to politics, not customers. Therefore we have no idea if a job in govt would exist in the market. Surely there would be police in a free market. Surely, but its costs and duties wold be based on markets, not politics. Surely there would be roads, and only govt can provide those... well, no, govt neither build nor pay for roads. Private companies build them and taxpayers pay for them. There are more private roads than govt roads in USA in mileage. Private companies would in fact do better for less money: better design, better materials, better routes, lower cost.
Let alone services govt has zero need to provide, such as cheese inspection, or securities inspection. The market is already optimal in these regards.
On Feb 20, 2011, at 5:03 PM, D wrote:
Hi John,
I own a service company designing printed documents, and I recently had a customer ask me for a discount. Initially, I priced the project at about $X, and I'm thinking of giving them a 5%. This is my first big project.
***As an aside, what kind of catalogs do you design, I am interested.***
Would you advise to ever give discounts? Maybe 1%, 5%, 10%, or 20%?
***Discounts are a function of savings you experience on a deal. Are you experiencing a discount that you can pass on, if not, then no discount. the price is the price.***
What if your customers provide you with a lot of work, consistently, or you've been working with them for a long time?
***Does this give you savings... advertisers say 1 ad, $1000 each, 6 ads $800 each, and so on, for exactly that reason. Your second catalog is easier, so you can charge less for the 2nd... make them pay full for the first, but move the discount onto the 2nd, 3rd, etc...
First catalog $X.... next catalog $X- 20%.. etc... discount built in but not up front...***
Also, what if your competitors give discounts? Shouldn't you follow this industry standard?
***What is the rationale for the discount... how come they can give one, on what basis... better to have a set price, and give each customer something no other customer gets... “O, your catalog needs an rfid chip... I’ll do this for you no extra charge (or whatever...)... Compete on design, not price.***
You know, even after a few years of being exposed to the idea of competing on design rather than price, it still seems a bit foreign, especially when you see everywhere you go, "25% off" or "50% off".
***Of course, most biz compete on price.., they offer big discounts because they can, based on economies of scale, or they are going out of business...***
Are there a lot of companies that compete on design? (Even Nordstrom has clearance sales and price reductions.)
***I clear out excess too, but I do not compete on price... anytime you see an ad in which the price is not mentioned (or highlighted, otherwise buried) then that business competes on design.***
John