Emanuel Has Questions on Trade Shows

Emanuel checks in before attending a show....

Dear John,

I am planning to have a few products introduced into the market at the San Francisco International Gift Fair, in February 18 to 21.

***It is a fun creative show...***

Do you have your products displayed there? What other trade shows would you recommend besides this and the ones on urban-expo.com ?

***No, I am working on projects relating to free trade in education worldwide, but as to your other question, go to the shows the best reps attend... be repped at those shows, never have your own booth.***

How is the cohort you chose to help with developing products doing?

***they are on holiday hiatus... it is interesting to me, but I am working with social media and a game designer to work out a way to get people to keep going... we’ll see...***

I have a few other questions in regards to samples and independent sales representatives:

-What do you do when a portion of the territory of different sales representatives overlaps?

***He who writes the order gets the commission.***

 Also, can you choose to be represented by let's say 10 sales reps in the same state?

***Well, I cannot imagine any rep who would agree, and this would be confusing to the retailers...  ***

-Rather than ask retailers for who they think is the best independent sales representatives, isn't it better to go online and check the websites of the leaders in the gift industry, where they usually list their sales representatives? Same with retailers where they sell. They sometimes list these too.

*** I don’t think it is better to read websites since the “leaders” make the websites... much better to talk to actual buyers who they like best...***

-Do you think it would be a good idea for me to both have independent sales reps and also look for retailers myself?

***You won’t have time...  you start by looking for retailers yourself...  (to get idea feedback and references to reps) but ultimately all sales are by reps...)

-If you choose to sell online (I know you don't agree with this), do you have to share the profit with the sales rep from the state the purchase was made?

*** Sell to online stores, never sell through your own website.  Mustn’t compete with 96% of the market, for a mere 4%...  let the reps get you online stores, and then treat those online stores like any other customer.***

-Can you change your reps, or once you get big enough, can you have your own sales reps?

***Now, if you got big, why would you want to change reps? They helped you get big.  You change reps only if your customers tell you to do so.  Your own sales reps will never outperform independent sales reps.  I unerstand the impulse, you can keep more money without reps, but the fact is reps manage your idea flow and get you orders.  You make money developing product and coordinating many disparate entities...  writing orders yourself does not pay.***

-What do you do when the supplier has a minimum order of 1000 items, and you have 10 variations of that item, that are a bit different from each other? Would that meet the minimum order, or you need each variation to be in a quantity of 1000?

***I think you mean would the minimum be 10 x 100 = 1000 piece minimum, or 10 x 1000 = 10,000 minimum?  Ask...  I bet it is the former...***

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The Warfare/Welfare State

A British MP notes the 100th anniversary of the British social security system, noting...
On December 16 1911, the National Insurance Act received royal assent. It was the well-intentioned Act that destroyed the friendly societies and entrenched state welfare.
Well, yes, there were plenty of social welfare systems before the government got invlved, and prior to this, when government got involved, revolution followed.  The French Revolution came about in part because the French kings raided the tontines, the private old age pension plans that grew spontaneously among people.

He calls the act well-intentioned.  I think you have to look at the ideas of the people behind the movements to decide if they are well intentioned.  The acts may well suit those who intend the results, but the people behind the acts may have particularly odious ideas.

The obligations of the welfare state cannot be met, but they will pretend to do so until the no longer can.  then there will be a new crisis to manage.  What fun.

Greece, which may be the future of us all, is in dire economic straits.  Greece is the number two customer for German arms, everything from fighter jets to submarines.  And who is the number one customer for German arms?  Why, that other basket-case, Portugal!  No matter how bad the situation, pharmacies with no aspirin, they still buy their fighter jets!

If they ahve no money, how do they buy the jets.  Well, all that talk of bailouts for Greece?  USA taxpayer money will go to Greece so they can buy German jets.  That is how the world works.  You voted for it.

Greece has plenty to fear from Turkey, or not.  In any event, with all of its problems, it still loads on up military gear.  No doubt the people who spend the money get something in return, but that is just standard government.

The two parties in the USA agree on this system, and take turns at the wheel ruining the country.  Election fraud is rampant in USA, and violence only leads to worse conditions.  The solution is individuals seceding in place.  Don't use the state, don't need the state, look to alternatives, get self-employed, ride this out, pass on independence to your kids.

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USA Always Pays the Most

An important reality you need to know if you will trade internationally is USA always pays more for what we buy.  There are various reasons for this, sometimes due to priority, sometimes due to fraud, and sometimes due to quality.

I once mentioned to an international oil consultant this fact, noting that say if oil is $100 a barrel, that is the price USA pays, and no one else.  Everyone else is a discount off that price.  He doubted it.  In time he came to learn it is in fact the case.  I presented the same fact to a group of devotees of Austrian Economics, and they said it simply cannot be true, because that is not how world trade works.  But it does.

I've also noted in this blog how USA is spending money "defending" oil supplies (why not just buy it?) and an US Admiral notes how our policy is to pay to defend oil for which we pay more.  He finds it wacky!

The admiral would not take this where I would, and that is to withdraw our forces worldwide and let China become the worlds' cop, while we just buy what we want.

We have all the oil we need in USA, but public policy is to lock that USA oil down so we can get busy worldwide with overseas wars, laundering money through international trade, population control through wars, and the grand progressive project.  Presently we export our Alaskan oil to Asia and import Middle East oil to meet our needs.  We need to change this, and not just hopey changey.

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Dining Tip In Berlin

Employee canteens are common for businesses and government offices in Berlin, as in many cities, but something unique about Berlin is such business cafeterias welcome outsiders and tourists.  The meals are cheap and good, with maybe a small premium to be paid by non-employees.  Here one blogger dined at an embassy canteen.  Here is a run down on several such cafeterias, and although the reviews are in German, you can figure out what he is saying:

Alles richtig- die Kantine ist wirklich ein einzigartiger Geheimtipp mit einer tollen Atmosphäre und guter Hausmannskost zu einem absolut fairen Preis.

Check out more here...

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End Pollution Now!

As we pretend we have a problem called global warming, or cooling, or whatever, we ignore the real problem of pollution, and its massive detriment to our environment.  There are many pollutants, nasty ones, that nobody checks for, for the simple reason it would be gainst public policy to do so.  So no one will.

Here in 2009, writes an MIT scientist:

Estrogens take a variety of forms, the most potent of which are “free” estrogens—so called because they freely pass into cells and bind with estrogen receptors, initiating a cascade of biological responses. One particularly potent synthetic free estrogen, 17α-ethynylestradiol, has been widely used in birth control pills since the 1960s. Hans Inhoffen and his colleagues at Schering A.G. in Berlin first synthesized 17α-ethynylestradiol in 1938 by adding two extra carbon atoms to a standard form of estrogen. This slight difference in chemical structure makes 17α-ethynylestradiol more potent than natural estrogens, and more likely to persist in the environment.

OK, so he is looking for the harm done by teaspoons of this stuff put in the ocean by the city of Boston everyday.  Now think about something.  This is coming into the ocean when women on the pill take a whiz in Boston.  Swimming pool water is rarely if ever drained, it is recycled and cleaned.  What happens when hundreds of women each week, on the pill, take a whiz when swimming in a pool. (It happens!)  No one knows, because no one tests.  No one tests because there is no requirement to do so.  There is no requirements to do so because population control is public policy.  Mustn't terrify people of a common pollutant.

Refrigeration systems have some very nasty by products.  Government regulations require that these by-products be captured and controlled.  The industry has done so.  Good for government.  But at the same time, since it is merely politics, the government does not require very many much nastier things collected, even though we know that it is possible to do so.  How come we do not?

The regulators are always captured by the regulated.  Sure, some things of minor importance are regulated to keep things neat, but major things go untouched.  Take for instance auto pollution.  the car is an invention.  The invention can be improved to collect all of its exhaust.  The regulatd will not allow the regulators to require this.

Now, before, when property rights were respected, peple could and would sue someone who befouled their property with exhaust pollution.  If propoerty rights were respected, then the courts would side with the injured party, and the invention of the automobile would have included exhaust collection early on.  The courts began favoring big business in the late 19th century, so property rights and a clean environment went out the window.  Or pollution came in.

With property rights, polluters would have to bribe every single home owner to pollute.  It would never happen.

With government regulation, a polluter need only bribe a half dozen congressmen.  Happens all the time.  The only way we will clean up the environment is to return to property rights.

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Adverse Possession Through Regulation

First year law school is almost always devoted to real estate law in general, with a particular emphasis on riparian law, since law evolved sorting out conflicts over land and in particular access to rivers.

One owns property that one (or a family) can manage oneself, real property being land and the waters adjacent.  This is all well settled by centuries of legal precedent, although there are some curious subtleties, such as on the east coast of USA inheritance of land tends to follow the anglo-saxon primogeniture patterns and the west coast tend to follow the Hispanic matrilineal traditions.  There are even rules as to how far across a river title extends (no not halfway, but along the line of the deepest part, so each side gets equal volume and aquaculture diversity.)

Property becomes yours if you buy it, or if it is unclaimed, it becomes yours when you mix your labor with raw material or real estate. Normally real estate is transferred by means of a purchase and sale agreement.  Sometimes not.

Now what if the family circumstances change, and the family no longer needs (or no longer can work due to members of the family moving on...) some particular parcel?  Naturally people do not want to give up what they once owned, even if they cannot use it, especially land.  So what can happen is one can take adverse possession of a parcel, and if the takers uses it for a set time, after that time the taker owns it.

From state to state there are some slight differences, but in essence the possession must be open (everyone can see it), actual (you use the land), exclusive (you are the only one using it), hostile (against the wishes of the owner) and continuous.  If you meet these criterion for say 10 years, the land is yours.

Well, why wouldn't someone evict you for trespass if the use was hostile.  People may not realize it is their land, they may like what you are doing and hope to benefit by it somehow, but do not want to give up the land, or they may just not want to argue.  In any event, adverse possession occurs and it is a peaceful way of neighbors ceding land to neighbors, a peaceful way of transferring property from nonproductive users to productive users.

I was listening to a government regulator the other day claim that something (I did not catch what, but the principle applies to everything) was so heavily regulated that the government had an interest in it that was tantamount to title.  The property was actually useless to the owner since the government called any and all meaningful shots regarding the land.

Well, this would apply to anything regulated, and in all things regulated there comes a time when that which you own yet is regulated becomes effectively owned by the government.  In essence, they accomplish the elements of adverse possession, that is open, actual, exclusive, hostile and continuous.  Whereas in real estate one must go ten years, the government owns it from day one.

This is just one more example of how things have changed, and contribute to an unsustainable polity.  When this system crashes, it will come down on us all.

The best defense is self-employment.

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Ron Paul Racist Newsletters

When people tell me about Ron Paul as racist, and his newsletters, I say "show me."  I was reading those newsletters 20 years ago, and ones written by the same crew, and I do not remember any racist newsletters.  But who knows, maybe I missed one.

And of course, Ron Paul did not write any newsletter, but of course if it went out over his name he is responsible for the content.  He did not write them because all politicians send out newsletters, as do dentists and real estate agents, and none of them write the newsletters.  There are companies that do that for a living. Ron Paul had some of the best such newsletter producers writing his.  I know, because it is no secret who wrote them, and I spent a week with them in Alabama about a decade ago.  They are huge talents behind the efforts.

Anti-Ron Paul people are trying to get Ron Paul to talk about them. The trick is to get Ron Paul to talk about the newsletters in order to get him to shut up about the bank bailout, the Fed, the wars, the civil rights violations, etc.  So when Ron Paul says he did not write them and he disavows them, he has said what is necessary and sufficient.  It is true that he did not write them, and since the content is irrelevent, he surely can disavow the content without any problem.

But if the content is not racist, why disavow it?  Because the trick is to get him off message by bogging him down in a debate if the content was racist or not.  It is a version of the question "do you still beat your wife?" He is too smart to fall into that trap.

As I said, I was reading the stuff written for him, and for others, written by the same crew, at the time.  I do not remember any racist stuff, but I do recall being in awe of their talent.

When I tracked down one putatuve example of a Ron Paul racist newsletter (rather hard to find people actually quoting anything) I found something I vaguely recall.  Jesse Jackson famously said he was fearful of groups of black youths in the inner city. When he saw them he crossed the street, something to that effect. All writers play off current events, and one newsletter picked up on this Jesse Jackson headline to make the point that minimum wage laws hurt inner city youth who thus unemployed get into mischief, so get rid of minimum wage laws.  Racism is a nasty charge, and since a newsletter mentioned black youths, and employment, there are plenty of people who will claim it is racist.  Ron Paul is not going to get trapped in that game.

Back to the writers. As I mentioned they are splendid talents, and I do recall occasionally cringing at things they would write, in this instance for someone else, not Ron Paul.    In it a reference was made to Dr. ML King and how he was backed by New York homosexual Jewish Communists.  Now, this is a simple fact, well known at the time and now, but it is the kind of thing that is red meat to rabid racists.

Dr Abernathy explains that after 7 or 8 years of getting no traction on the civil rights movement, a black New York homosexual associate of Dr. King had shared this concern with Jewish New York homosexual communists, Trotskyites to be precise, who said, "traction?' no problem, we can get you traction.  The skill set for getting traction for the movement was within the group of New York homosexual Jewish communists, who were ready willing and bale to assist Dr. King.

The government had plenty of spies in Dr. King's org, so they quickly found out, and just imagine, circa 1962, when FBI agents learned that Jewish New York homosexual communists (it does not get any better than that) were assisting Dr. King.  Now, as to the message, or the means, it matters little who is getting it out.  Jewish New York homosexual communists had nothing to do with the content, just the methods.

So reference to this in an article was irrelevant (and again, this was not written in relation to Ron Paul) but extremely effective in getting attention in the audience they were addressing.  And that is the game, get their attention, get their money, and advance your own cause.

But is it not awful to take money from sick minds?  Who better to relieve of their disposable income.  Shouldn't he give the money back?  Give money back to racists?  Why would anyone give money back to racists?  And one cannot be sure that the racists did not reform when presented with a better way, a way out of the false dilemma of black vs white politics.

But why write such alarming things at all?  It is a time honored rhetorical device.  Say something the audience already knows and believes.  And when they are nodding their head in agreement, introduce some good and true.  The audience is still nodding.  St. Paul starts out saying "wives obey your husbands..." and then nails the husbands with "love your wives..."

It is pretty clear there was election fraud in Iowa.  I watched it four years ago in the Washington State caucauses.  The powers that be have no intention of letting Ron Paul get any traction.  Maybe Ron Paul ought to bring in some New York Communist Jewish Homosexuals to run his campaign.  Then we might see a President Ron Paul.

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Factoring and islamic Finance

I'll be taking a seminar on Islamic finance, and I'll have a question regarding factoring.  Factoring is buying receivable from vendors. it is fairly common in the furniture and garment industries, where retailers may take 90 days or more to pay the supplier (you!).  So the suppliers, who may be owed $100,000, may sell those receivables to a factor for say $94,000, thus the factor earns maybe $6,000 for waiting a few months for $94,000.

Sometimes the factor requires the factor must pre-approve the customers, but in any event a deal is struck.

So if it is forbidden to take usury (money on money) is factoring the same thing but in reverse?

In Islamic finance anyone lending money is expected to share the risk, even if it is decided at what rate in advance (say 20% of the profits.)  Under no circumstances may one agree to pay or receive a guaranteed rate of "interest."  One earns this percentage for providing money that allows the deal to happen.

In factoring the money is provided after the profits are realized, not before as in finance.  So in factoring, there is really not much risk.  And in factoring, the vendor is not paying money on money, since there is no loan.

In Islamic finance money is for buying things and then selling and making a profit.  A factor buys commercial paper for money, ($94k in the case above) and then sells it for more money ($100K in the case above).

So it seems to me, in Islamic finance, factoring would be legitimate.  I'll find out if it is halal.

Who cares?  With the West in economic decline, and only Islam maintaining the prohibition on usury, it is interesting to see how far we could go if we eliminated usury as a feature of our society (voluntarily of course.)  Could we have all of the goods and services we have now and more?  With out the force and fraud of modern usury, with its fractional reserve leverage element?

Update:  I sure would like to hear from an Islamic scholar as to whether factoring is acceptable.  

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