Stunning 24 Seconds

Watch this video, you'll be stunned, then rewatch to see the reporters face.

You can have your "Seals," it is workaday Americans here who keep our country safe.

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Kickstarter.com

A listmember sent me a link to a website, kickstarter.com that I think is vastly superior to quirky.com.  In fact, this is an amazing site which looks like something I would design if I had thought of it.


In essence, you post a notice of a project you wish to accomplish, and people pledge to fund it.  For their pledge, they get some reward, like a hot air balloon ride, or a copy of a song if the project is to produce a song.


The pledge idea is really nothing new, there are plenty of examples in history, such as in old times when someone wanted a book published, he would pre-sell copies to enough people to warrant the printer making a run.


The site states explicitly it cannot be used for start-up funds, but it can be used for a project like developing a board game.  Although mostly creative projects like film and music, there are games, products and other hardgoods.  

Some groups are sponsoring topics, like this for agriculture.

Quirky.com charges a $10 idea submission fee, and selects which to promote.  It appears to then pay out  10% off the top of any selling item to the "inventor."  All fair enough, even generous for what is in essence payment for concept work.  I disagree with quirky's product positioning at mass market and dislike they do the sourcing, when I think this is your job, and critical to starting a business.  But just as Print On Demand killed the abusive vanity press business, maybe quirky will kill the abusive "inventor submission" business.  Overall Quirky is a good thing for a certain range of entrepreneurs.

Neither Quirky nor Kickstarter give a hoot about intellectual property rights, which is only reasonable.  In essence everything you do with these groups is open-source.  This is good. But then, who has studied with me cares abut IPR, right?   We all know IPR is pointless, and worse, counterproductive. 


I like kickstarter better since it is far more flexible, non-discriminatory, requires no upfront fee and leaves the marketing and monetization aspect where it belongs, with you.  It appears their system gets about 10% off the top (all in) if your funding is a go, which is very reasonable.


Another subtle difference: both sites generate lots of attention for your project.  It seems to me with Quirky the attention goes to Quirky, with Kickstarter it goes to you.


Milestone 3 is enough orders to cover the suppliers minimum production run in a workable amount of time, profitably. Kickstarter very well may prove to serve as a controlled pretest of your project before you go off into Plan A.  Learn and test a lot of theses with a project on Kickstarter, then proceed into the real market on a even more solid basis.


I will think this over to test an idea and then report on progress.  If anyone else does too, please share your results.

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Another Reason Why We Get Customers First

Regardless of whether we proceed along plan A or B, in both instances we get customers first, for yet another reason, one I probably do not emphasize enough.  Keep in mind in both instances we are pursuing specialty store customers.

Premises:

1. Since, in the eyes of the best supplier in the world, the supplier we wish to work with, we are unknown, and have no track record and reputation, these very suppliers need some sort of indication we are not just flakes wasting their time.

2. Our customers expect us to be working with the best supplier in the world.

In plan A, we need customers' feedback to assist us in developing what we propose to sell.  As we gain this feedback, and get names and dates and suggestions, we eventually share this with the best supplier, which addresses premise one.  The only way the best supplier will get interested in working with you is if you propose to sell to USA customers a product they do not already make.  If you propose to sell to customers they already ultimately serve, that is fine with them, as long as it is not something they already make.  In fact, it is not uncommon that your product comes from the same factory your competitors use, going to the same retailers your competitors serve.  Shoes, chocolate and computers are just three examples where this is common.

In plan B, which is generally an "off the shelf" item, the best source in the world does not want to bother supplying someone who proposes to sell to customers they already reach.  If you propose only to lower the price to get customers, this strategy will fail, from the point of view of the best supplier, so your participation only means disruption of an otherwise orderly market.  Your lower price may very well make it difficult for the supplier to maintain his price to his regular customers.  If your customer is someone they do not reach, you have a chance, but you will ultimately need to redesign since you will be quickly outflanked on price for any off-the-shelf item you may vend. Small business ultimately thrives on design.

Who your customers are is a main factor in whether a supplier will work with you.  By getting this information first, and sharing it early, will either advance or stall your project.

If it stalls the project, then your tactic will be to redesign your product.

And to reiterate another point, it does not take much to be "new" enough to warrant assistance from the best supplier in the world.  Progress is a matter of small innovations.  In school we study Edison and Carnegie and Ford and expect that to be the path to success, without realizing the countless successes that are out there that no one has ever heard of, and the countless opportunities that are skipped over by people searching for the "next big thing."

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Protect Your Children From Gardasil

Conservative Republican signs a law requiring preteens be "vaccinated" with Gardasil.  Merck Company lobbied heavily for this, to make it state law that a drug never tested on kids is forced on kids.

The article makes this quote:

Most insurance companies now cover the vaccine, which has been shown to have no serious side effects.


Since big Drug and big govt own big media, such untrue statements can be made without fear of contradiction.  Even when a lead researcher is appalled by the plans to give it to kids, you have to dig deep to discover this, as from wikipedia.

Dr. Diane Harper, one of the lead researchers for Gardasil, has called for more complete warnings for parents and questions its risk-versus-benefit profile because it is not yet known how long the vaccine will be effective once administered.^[57] The August 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association had an article reiterating the safety of Gardasil^[42] and another questioning the way it was presented to doctors and parents.

The new vaccine against 4 types of human papillomavirus (HPV), Gardasil, like other immunizations appears to be a cost-effective intervention with the potential to enhance both adolescent health and the quality of their adult lives. However, the messages and the methods by which the vaccine was marketed present important challenges to physician practice and medical professionalism. By making the vaccine's target disease cervical cancer, the sexual transmission of HPV was minimized, the threat of cervical cancer to adolescents was maximized, and the subpopulations most at risk practically ignored. The vaccine manufacturer also provided educational grants to professional medical associations (PMAs) concerned with adolescent and women's health and oncology. The funding encouraged many PMAs to create educational programs and product-specific speakers' bureaus to promote vaccine use. However, much of the material did not address the full complexity of the issues surrounding the vaccine and did not provide balanced recommendations on risks and benefits. As important and appropriate as it is for PMAs to advocate for vaccination as a public good, their recommendations must be consistent with appropriate and cost-effective use.^[58]

In an address at the 4th International Public Conference on Vaccination sponsored by the anti-vaccination group the National Vaccine Information Center in October 2009, Dr. Diane Harper stated that in countries where Pap smear screening is common, it will take vaccination of a large proportion of women in order to further reduce cervical cancer rates. She also stated that no efficacy trials for children under 15 have been performed.^[57][59]

Nature.com covered it in a reasonable way.


Here again, with girls these ages in these times, I followed this drug and had it pushed on me and my kids by doctors who do not care any more.  Happily I am friends with enough older doctors who know this stuff and warn me off.  They also read the science that almost nobody else will read.  Here is an MD against this stuff, with links to plenty of others.

Merck has a terrible track record for drugs, but excellent for escaping responsibility.  More and more people are becoming leery of big med, so in Washington State a new law requires that you prove you talked over your objection with a doctor before you object to required vaccinations.  In this way the state will have a list of doctors who teach patients the truth, so the state can destroy them.  Sound harsh?  You have no idea who you are up against.  The people who run the states have an economic problem: failed government policies.  They believe freedom is the cause of their failure (they are right), so they need more control.


Conscientious Objectors can opt out (the wealthy, the educated) and countless girls will be poisoned on their way to school.  Like hormone replacement therapy, 35 years from now there will be plenty or heartache and tears over what parents did to their kids, and the problem of no grandkids, in states that practice euthanasia, like Washington State.

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Light Opportunity

So it seems the incandescent bulb is being legislated away, in favor of an astonishingly dangerous mercury-fill fluorescent light.  Patents assured that the light bulb stayed a static item from its time of invention... Since you had to pay Edison for any version you made, there was no point in tweaking and ever improving on the idea.  Not for innovators, not for Edison.  So having ruined progress in lighting, the govt steps in and makes things worse.

Now people are hoarding incandescent lights, with good reason.  But be careful.  If and  when incandescent lights are banned, there will be no new production.  No market to speak of.  Just dangerous, awful fluorescent bulbs.  Into this void may come a new invention, that leapfrogs incandescent, and is even better.  Let's hope so, fluorescent light bulbs are that bad.

Wikipedia

Govt rules say an auto manufacturer may not sell his goods from a factory, they must be sold through a dealer.  This has retarded any new auto making company from forming, since a dealer network is an expensive proposition.  Plus the big three pooled their patents so most auto parts are royalty free to to the big three, but onerous to any new start-up.  All govt rules inhibiting progress.

 The zippers has not changed much since its invention, because it too is patented.  Instead of dozens of kinds of zippers, for example zippers where the teeth stretch too, we have essentially one kind with 80% of the sales with one company.  The only other fastener innovation in the last 100 years was a giant leap away: Velcro.

In a free market there would be many innovations in zippers, some good, some bad...  there would be specialty for a small market, and then whatever became universally good would become a commodity item and the price would fall to practically nothing as big biz worked economies of scale magic on the item.  Division of labor, full employment, wide options, low prices.

Free the markets, country'll grow.

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Exploited Labor

After an all-day seminar at a college, I came across a high quality poster decrying exploited labor, and in particular accusing the Gap of nefarious activities. The poster featured a victim, one Chie (Carmencita) Abad.  Something just wasn’t right. She did not look abused.  The poster had such high production values, and she was dressed in, well, Gap-hip clothes!

GlobalExchange.org

I googled her and discovered she is a Filipina garment worker who spent 5 years in the Marianas (US Territory) working in a sweatshop.  She became a labor agitator (a very good thing in my book) and the managers did not renew her yearly contract to work in retaliation.

Wait.  If the conditions are bad, how is non-renewing a work-contract a bad thing?

Well, the work conditions are bad.  Often people work 14 hour days.  Oh....  Wait!  When I was young, I often volunteered to work 14 hour days (we called them double shifts) in a hospital kitchen, hot dangerous work, in at 5am, out at 8pm, because one could rack up the hours and pay that way. And I did this at 15 years old, by lying about my age to get the job.  I loved it.  I begged to cover for people who wanted the day off.  I loved three day weekends, when people wanted to go camping or something, and I could line up 3 double shifts in a row, and rack up overtime on top of that.  Bingo! Dude, your getting a stereo!

But that is exploitation of children.  Well, the sick got eager, attentive energetic kitchen help, I  stayed off the streets, and very much enjoyed the esprit de corp of restaurant work.  I was of the age of reason, let me decide. Stevie Wonder was 12 when he was banging out the hits.  Should we have been denied the good of his work because of his age?  Should he be forbidden to earn because of his age?  He gets an exception because people make millions of him.   Any other 12 year old gets locked up in school.  And drugged.

These people leave the Philippines to work for a year, and want to make as much money as possible, to take back home and use it to start up something good.  Crab fisherman do it.  Roughnecks do it.  As a kid I did it.  The question is not whether people work 14 hour days, the question is whether they have a choice.

Ms. Chie is not complaining about 14 hour days, she complains they did not renew her contract, so she could work 14 hour days!  She lost her choice to work.

Now choice is not enough.  A choice between prostitution and starvation is no choice, although many people make it.  It is not right to take advantage of people who have no choice.

A choice has to be within a system where there is no force or fraud.  We will never see such a system this side of the parousia, so it is a matter of relative degree.  Hong Kong and Switzerland, plenty of freedom.  USA, not so much. 

In USA, licensure and regulation, on the pretext of quality control, limit access to work.  Haircutting, taxi medallions, even rent control limit our opportunities for choice. So we have problems here, too.  We do have many contrived jobs, that add costs, like govt building inspectors.  Insurance companies are necessary and sufficient for building safety, yet we tolerate an entire expensive layer of pointless activity in our construction industry.

Some people defend low wages with various arguments, that I do not accept.

A. To say that the little money goes further for them than for us may be true, but the workers have to be free to contract, not coerced at any wage level. To say the workers are relatively well off compared to others does not cut it, it doesn’t matter if you are coerced in any way.

B. To say they are lucky to have the work, well that is not right.

1. If work is bad, they are objectively not lucky

2. If they have no alternative, they are not lucky, they are stuck.

C. $1 to them buys more than $1 buys in USA. So what?  If our economy is so distorted as to make things too expensive for foreigners, it does not follow that this is good for foreigners.  Again, are they free to choose, or at least to what degree?

D. If I don't do it someone else will... in high school that attitude gets you married to the wrong person.  So it is in international trade.

Places like Vietnam, and the Philippines, opportunities abound. A poor person in Vietnam exploits an opportunity presented.  Pou Chen Corporation, agent to the shoemakers, opens an office to make Nikes in Vietnam (I saw their offices when I was there).  Countless people present themselves to labor making Nikes.  Every single person in line has the same idea: if I can just get hired, then I can leverage my way to better and better.

If there are too few opportunities in a given country, then that is the problem for the people in that country, not for anyone outside of that country.  We may buy things from a given country, but as a matter of fact, the less freedom a country has, the less we buy, the less likely we will do business.  The more we buy, the more liberal it becomes.  We merchants are the only real nation builders working in history.  

We talk of failed states.  There are no failed economies, only failed state economic policies.  The worst economic systems are the most state controlled: Cuba and North Korea.  We trade with neither, by law, but getting rid of the laws would not change much.  If the people of those countries do not care for their system, they can make the changes.

Redistribution polices do more harm than good. We propose to redistribute wealth by taking a dollar from a millionaire and giving it to a poor person. Well, when a government is involved, they take a dollar, spend 92 cents on themselves, and the poor get about 8 cents, but I digress. When we take dollar from millionaire who has many extra dollars, that dollar is not very important to the millionaire. And the millionaire would just blow it on a cigar.  But that cigar was made by a poor person,  for whom that dollar was his first dollar, and is important to the poor person.  When you redistribute the wealth of the rich, you steal from the the poor person who made the cigar.  You give it to another poor person in USA (well, 8 cents of it.)

We try to do “foreign aid” to help the poor overseas.  The poor in USA are taxed for this money.  The money ends up in the hands of the rich overseas.  Wacky:  USA Aid takes money form the poor in the USA and gives it to the rich overseas.

Change will come from the very workers themselves. Agitation, nonviolent noncooperation...  protests... these are how USA labor advanced, and how anyone else can too.  The oppressors and exploiters care what others think.  But nonviolence is the key to progress.

We all face times when we choose to do do less then we are capable to get where we want.  We all give up money now on speculation of payoff later. Often we just call it "school."   Countless people put in unpaid work at dotcoms for experience or stock options later. People work at Mcdonalds to work their way up. The Nike worker does exactly what we do... looks at circumstances and makes a choice.  and is every bit as, no more or less, exploited as we are.  There is a way out, but it takes heroic effort, which can and does happen.  We can no more pity the Vietnamese worker than we can the Microsoft or Starbucks worker, or for that matter, the self-employed.

So Ms. Abad has chosen the heroic path of agitation.  Good for her!  So, how is the Poster Gal for worker exploitation (literally) faring these days?

Check her out...

She is a very popular speaker.  Her name brings up 232,000 results on google... at page 50  there is a reference to yet another speaking engagement, with about 10 entries a page, that’s over 500 right there!

Hmmm. I wonder what she gets for such a speech, maybe 30 minutes long.

*Honorarium: What amount are you able to provide in terms of honorarium? (Keep in mind that most of our speakers receive an honorarium of around $1000 while some need more and some need less, based on their own situation and where they are located. Almost all of the speakers will require an honorarium to cover their time.

What!?  $1000, for a half hour! I am in the wrong business!  OK, OK.. she probably pays her own way, but she also likely gets all sorts of other benefits too, non-monetary.

I am not complaining.  All I am doing is pointing out exactly how people work.  Oppress them, they figure a way around it.  It is only because Ms. Abad sought out the work as a seamstress that she got to the Marianas.  It is precisely because she agitated for better conditions that she got fired, and parlayed that into a lucrative career describing in no doubt colorful terms labor exploitation to an eager audience desperate to hear about wicked industrialists who make money selling clothes to the very people in her audience.

Atta girl!

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Jobs Down, Layoffs Coming, Stocks Jittery

Well, how does he know what the stock market thinks, since it represents tens of millions of people making  dozens of decisions a day?  Anyway, that he has no idea what is going on is predictable, since these people saw none of what happened the last few years.  But plenty of people did, and do, see what is going on.

Wall Street is having a hard time figuring out what to do now that the U.S. economy appears to be sputtering and yields are so low, Peter Yastrow, market strategist for Yastrow Origer, told CNBC.

His bottom line is do not bail out on stocks.  If I had any stocks left, I would take that advice and reverse it. Get out completely now.  Paychecks, property, pensions will be targets the next 30 years, as the government transfers your wealth to private bankers in order to save their system. There is nothing you can do about it, no where you can go.  Since we accepted election fraud, torture, illegal war, bailouts, domestic spying, suspension of habeas corpus, you also have to pay for it.  Literally.  Did you think the banks would pay for all that?  No way, they know all that is wrong, so they will not pay for it.

If you think you have negotiated an exemption for yourself, if you think you are an exempt class, then you have not read enough history.  The only way to ride this out is to have something to trade, an ongoing business, something you love.  Something that gives you joy to work on.

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Jet Pack In Your Future

The Jet Pack flight height record of 150 feet has been broken in Australia by 4850 feet.  Talk about a big leap forward, pardon the pun.  They got a dummy to make the flight, but if there was ever a technology to introduce the other half of mag-lev, that is computerized flight path control, this would be the time for private industry to do it (and keep govt out of it.)  This thing has 10,000 problems, which means 10,000 opportunities for entrepreneurs.  I hope they open source the inventions on this.

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Anarchy vs. Minarchy

I attended a debate in Vancouver BC week ago last Saturday night in which Dr. Block argued for anarchy and Dr. Grubel argued for minarchy (a minimal amount of government: police and national defense.)  Dr. Grubel echoed Kirk on politics as the art of the possible, and deemed Dr. Block utopian, and Dr. Block argued integrity demanded Dr. Grubel profess anarchy.  

Of course they are both right, we are not going to get anarchy, so why not work on what we can get?  Dr. Grubel says his studies shows govt is optimal, and the economy is most beneficent, at 22% of the economy, this after a survey of the last 80 years.  (I'd like to see a bit longer test, the last 7000 years would be better.) But think about it: Dr. Grubel says we can have a better life if we cut government in about half.  Dr. Grubel not only teaches what is possible, he is in Canadian parliament pushing for it.  Admirable!  Dr. Block teaches anarchy, and is true to his beliefs.  Admirable!

I depart from Dr. Block where he allows for private provision of courts, I say our inalienable rights forbid us to turn our welfare over to anyone else.  My actions very well may get me shunned, that is people may universally decline to associate with me, which may lead to me starving to death in the wilderness.  This level of enforcement of norms is necessary and sufficient.  As a matter of free association, people may or decline to have truck with me, and that is my fate. But I cannot turn my fate over to anyone else to decide, nor can I allow anyone to arrogate this power unto themselves.  I can certainly go with an adversary to a third party and for help on sorting out a problem, but i cannot ethically be bound by any other decision.  If some sense gets talked into us, and we willingly agree, then good.  If not, I cannot agree beforehand to be bound by the decision.  (Now of course this is all theoretical, as a practical mater the state has guns and are delighted to use them, so I am not allowed to elect to be a martyr either.)

At this debate (argument, really) fear was expressed for the strong man villain, the Adolf Hitler, the Saddam Hussein.  Both would be no where without their governmental power.  Al Capone got his power by bribing government servants.  Bad guys need government to aggregate power.  No government, bad guys are mere nuisances, who may find it difficult to get a ham sandwich anywhere.  Earlier I defended free market violence, which is likely to be necessary and sufficient.  For those who theorize governments started as self-defense organizations, prove it.  The historical record shows otherwise. The most likely genesis of govt power is the story in 1 Samuel 8, I know it is only the bible, but it is superior evidence, written, than mere ideas.  

And power is the problem, isn't it?  When the TSA searches me at the airport, they do not have the right, but they have the power.  It is a process of aggregating power, sought and unsought in Eisenhower's immortal interjection, that governments monopolize, to our discredit. Any allowance of government begins the process of inevitable enslavement, like a new graduate, with student loans, in USA.

The more I resist government, the closer to death I'll get.  As a Christian I am not allowed to choose martyrdom, so I must back off, like in shipping, where the more maneuverable must yield to the less maneuverable.  Between me and the persons who take government jobs and execute the actions of government, I am more maneuverable. 

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Who To Honor?

I cannot join those who honor the military dead on memorial day, although we are all asked to do so, since I do not agree we should have been in any of the wars we had.  Our first, the revolutionary war, was a mistake.  The majority of Americans were against it, but it is the nature of democracies that it takes only a few people to get us into war.  Canada and Australia gained indepedence without war with Britain, and we could have as well.

India gained independence from britain without war, through nonviolent means.  This is better, although India went from British oppressors to Indian oppressors.  The Tea Party people should know everyone of their candidates that were elected have already sold them down the river, so that is nothing new.

The way I read just cause and just war theory, we had no wars that were just.

By the time my draft number was coming up, I had already heard plenty on nonviolence and conscientious objectorship.  I was already aware of the pointlessness of violence, so it did not matter to me that MLKing declared the usa as the #1 source of violence in the world. True but irrelevent.  We can’t go to war even if we are the 321st  in unjust warmaking.

Extremely few people who are “veterans” ever see combat.  My father was on a destroyer from 39 to 45.  A destroyer’s job is to seek out, engage and destroy the enemy.  Real agressive work, with minimal equipment.  In the navy they call destroyers submarines with portholes, their design causes them to go through the huge waves, not over them.  My father served in the Aleutians, the only us territory invaded and taken by the Japanese, and in the Caribbean, when south atlantic waters were the scene of one of the bloodiest in naval warfare.

For all that his ship never fired a single weapon in combat, nor was ever fired on.

It is typical of cults for members to move from “willing to die” to “willing to kill” for the group.  I don’t believe anyone is really “willing to die” for America.  Look at how these soldiers are flak-jacketed and armed and backed up with snipers and artillery and air cover and nukes.  It seems to me they very much do not want to die.  I don’t blame them.  I would not die for my country.  Friends, maybe, but never willingly.  But soldiers sure look willing to kill.

There is a reason we send 19 year olds off to fight.  They have no idea what they are getting into, and there may be nothing quite as dangerous as an armed 19 year old American, to quote Michael Herr. There is a reason why we recycle troops back into battle. Combat makes people very dangerous, and better they get killed being recycled in after patching up than they recover and return to society.  And even people not in combat, some veterans find the reality just too much,  Suicide rates in the military are very high.  And they don’t count the suicides after service.

Please do not tell me our military keeps us free.  Our butcher, baker, candlestick maker, farmer and fisherman are who keep us free.  They are the ones that fight, if need be.  We do not need a standing army.  One reason USA went independent was the British maintained a standing army in the colonies.  When we went to war it was citizen-soldiers who defeated the world's sole superpower, the UK.  When USA invaded Vietnam, farmers got their guns and defeated the superpower USA.  Farmers are defeating USA in Afghanistan.  All of the European counties with standing armies were quickly rolled over by Hitler's invading armies.  No standing army = victory. Standing army means defeat. We need no standing military.

We were never meant to be an empire.  We need to honor entrepreneurs, not soldiers.

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Why Anarchy Pays More

Anarchy simply means no king.  In academia it means just that, but in general usage it means chaos and violence.  Anarchists know that order flows naturally out of chaos, but that is all academic.  What we all really want to know, is what is the best philosophy for turning a buck?  Well, that would be anarchy.

We have a violence grounded political system, gun barrel politics.  Our copyright laws are made up, and backed up by, ultimately, a gun barrel.  Author groups sue amazon and google for copyright violations.  Nutty.

As an anarchist, I do not believe in intellectual property rights. And since I do not, I make more money as an author than other authors off each book I sell.  Being an anarchist means you earn more money for the same work.

I just got a quote for printing my next book.  These will land at about $2.00, amazon sells for $16...  they take 55%, so $8.80 to them...  $7.20 gross to me, less $2.00 cost... is $5.20 gross profit.  Out of the $5.20 comes the expenses of running the business of selling the book. Self-employed,  it takes my time and creativity to sell the book.  It takes technology to do so, mine.  It takes travel and entertainment, etc.  Mine.  How much net profit is up to me. What the tax rate is, is up to the politicians.  Like Senator Reid said, taxes are voluntary.

People who rely on royalties may earn say 5%.  Say they get a check for $10,000 and the tax rate is 30%, so they net $7000.  

$10,000 is 5% of $200,000. So for an author to earn the $10,000 royalty, a publisher has to move 12,500 copies. For an author to earn the same $10,000 in the perish your publisher method, the author need only sell 1923 copies.

If I sold $200,000 worth of this book on Amazon.com, that would be 12,500 copies.  At $5.20 each gross, that would yield $65,000 for me.  I can spend that money on things I think need to be done.  Develop a business website in which you put the zip code of your best customers, and a program spits out other zip codes in USA with similar demographics, so you can keep finding where to prospect for your best customers.  I can develop white board technology for editing books that allows for 50 pages to be shown and edited at once.  I can spend a month in Hong Kong and London researching a book on free trade. All of this takes my time, creativity and the income from the sale of the books, but it is what I love to do.  It is all business related.  What is left over is taxed.

Now, a person earning royalties can also spend his $10,000 on whatever he wants as a business expense as well.  In both instances there is the subtle point that the money being spent is pretax.  (If you needed $65,000 to develop a new whiteboard, but if you had no business, and you were an employee, you would start with your own money, after tax dollars, so you'd have to earn say $100,000 at your job to net the $65,000 after taxes to finance your project.)

More: if I sold 12,500 in a year, I'd be buying at least at the 5000 copy level, so my landed drops to $1.00, and so my gross profit jumps from $5.20 to $6.20, from $65,000 to $77,500, that I must spend or have taxed, my choice.  Someone earning royalties still gets only $10,000.  (How do you think publishers afford those swank offices in New York?)

Why anyone would do all the work to create a book out and then leave all the profits to someone else, I do not know.  Authors mount lawsuits against Amazon.com and Google over copyright violations, when Amazon.com and Google.com can assist you in sextupling your income, or more, as a writer.  Authors desperately work to keep their incomes as low as possible, slavishly demanding that copyright laws be enforced.  Not only is there no basis for copyrights in theory or practice,  it is just plain nuts to write for royalties.

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But It Is Legal!

Here is a record of an auction some relatives of mine were involved in on December 24, 1857.  An ancestor of mine, a James Magee had died, and left property to 4 adult children, who in turned auctioned off the property, although one of the heirs, William Magee, bought at the auction (always the best way to establish a fair price) one of the slaves, John, for $630, and John Magee bought Fred for $720.

A direct ancestor, Benjamin Spiers paid $700 for Martha, and a stranger bought Selee for $410.  Like all appalling institutions, the paperwork is sickening.  There is the commission for the auctioneer, to whom is also is paid a fee for showing up (no guarantee there will be a buyer) and of course advertising, clerk and lawyer fees.  The tally is reckoned gross sales, less costs, and the net is divided by the four heirs.

Think for a moment of the slaves, being informed by the master: "I have good news and bad news. The good news is tomorrow is Christmas.  The bad news is we are auctioning you off today."

The Spiers and Magees intermarried several times, my grandmother, Mary Magee Spiers married my grandfather, Edward Howard Spiers (yes, her maiden name, ahem, was Spiers.)  These people were rich, paying top dollar for slaves. My father had an ex-slave as a servant when he was a child.

The Howard in Edward Howard Spiers, comes from Arundel, England, the Howards, Duke of Norfolk.  They all did very well when they were wicked, such as when a Howard supplied Henry VIII with his 5th wife, Catherine Howard. What recommended Catherine to Henry VIII was she was an innocent country girl, which was an outrageous lie her father, my ancestor, plied.  For some of the funniest Elizabethan language regarding Catherine's investigation before she was executed, see page 157, Henry VIII's Last Victim.  When the Howards were good, they did poorly.

My children are appalled by this slave auction bill of sale, that they could be descended from people who owned slaves.  O dear.  There is much I should not tell them, then.  But the lesson I offered was not what any ancestors did, but what might we do today that is perfectly common but is objectively evil and future generations will read about and be appalled?  Just because it is legal and there are lawyers and agents and so many other respectable people involved does not make it right.

These were all God-fearing people, like right-wing warmongering Christians today.  The Bible says a man's sins are visited on his house unto the 3rd and 4th generation.  As far as I can figure, Benjamin's fourth generation grandson (my grandfather) was wiped out in the '29 stock market crash.  There goes the family fortune!

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BIg Project/ Small Business

Watching the Connections series, I had forgotten the dutch "imperialism" was a business affair, where various small traders banded together to form the Dutch East India Company... huge project, no state involvement., although in time the Dutch govt did get involved... It is analogous to various small  businesses getting together and saying "let's cooperate on moon exploration" in 1955.  We do not need govts to handle large projects, a oft-cited raison d'etre for govts.

Another point is how trading with the far east led to massive knocking off of superior products with cheap imitations.  Except 200 years ago it was cheap Dutch, French and English knocking off superior Chinese workmanship and technology.  Famous examples of this of course are Holland ripping of Chinese blue ceramics, the french ripping-off Chinese lacquerware furniture...and making cheap jacquard silk to compete with hand embroiedery from China..... if it were not for western willingness to rip-off Chinese ideas, there would be much in the way of luxury goods we would not have.

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