Saturday, March 31, 2012

I Love Government

I really do.

I love to play chess, which is governed by rules thousands of years old.  About the only rule in debate is whether you can castle after being in check or not.  It is the rules that make it possible to play the game everywhere on earth, and the rules governing chess that make it fun.

I love to ski, and because of the rules governing skiing it is fun and enjoyable.

I love to visit aikido clubs and practice.  Because of the rules governing every dojo in the world, I can go any where in the world and practice and know how to behave and have a beneficial time.

I love having parties, and everyone knows how to behave because of the rules governing polite society.

Two of the most important sets of rules governing international trade are the law merchant and Uniform Commercial Practices, both promulgated by market players, not and state.

As for money, I like gold, because it has its own rules that can be relied upon.

There is plenty of government to which I consent.

I could go on, but have you noticed anything?  None of the rules that I submit to, which make my life enjoyable, are state rules.  I love government, it is just the state that is objectionable.  I wish to withdraw my consent to be governed by the state.  The state agrees on a case by case basis, such as I was exempt from Obamacare, from the military draft, and I pretty much have avoided paying into social security and federal taxes.  All legally, and one of the geniuses of the USA system is it allows for withdrawing consent, if nothing else to silence any dissent.

Where the state intervenes mightily, such as medicine, education and food, I follow none of their rules, because in time we find those rules pointless or worse.

I can find no state function either necessary or beneficial.  It can all be replaced by free market government, with such advantage I am sorry more people do not realize this.

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Let the Ex IM Bank Die

Listen to a beneficiary of the Ex Im Bank:

“There’s not a bank in the United States that’s going to loan money to that customer of mine in Argentina to buy my airplane,” said David Ickert, vice president of finance at Air Tractor, which makes crop-dusting and firefighting airplanes in Olney, Texas “There is not a free-market system that operates like that. It does not exist. We need the Ex-Im Bank, period.”


This is another example of the lesson that Republicans are incapable of doing business without subsidies.  And like most government programs, rip-offs are common and charged off to the taxpayers.  Here a scam artist got 5 months in jail and 5 months in home detention for a million dollar heist.  (Kinda worth it, eh?)

I understand that it is sad Republicans do not know how to do business.  But welfare is not the way for anyone.  And no one should claim to be enamored of the "free market" as they take taxpayers subsidies to make their businesses work.

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Liquid Tide as Money

Dr. Salerno has an essay over at Cobden outlining how governments are pursuing a war on currency.  He notes a new currency has emerged in the black market: liquid tide.  To which I added my comment....


"There is another rarely noticed attribute of money, whether gold or silver or any of the new ones like platinum.  Each is antibiotic.  Germs cannot survive contact with silver or gold or Rhodium.

On the silk road, at say Baghdad, the merchants might shift cargo from camel to cart but payment was shifted from hand to hand.  When money is antibiotic, this is not so risky.

One might also observe that the black plague followed the introduction of paper money, when people stopped using gold and silver in payment.  Coincidental?

Modern science has found many new metals.  Antibiotic ones end up sold as coins and bullion, like palladium.  If the newly discovered metal is not antibiotic, it does not become a coin.

And, not to put too fine a point on it, one of the features of liquid tide is...."


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Friday, March 30, 2012

All Hail Anticompetitive Price Fixing!

Expeditors International has been slapped with a 4 million Euro fine for alleged price fixing back in 2006 in the Hong Kong - Europe trade lanes.

Back in the day NVOCCs were expected to fix prices, at least in the USA, and to quickly report them to the FMC to avoid prosecution for doing so.  But with deregulation all that went away, and now there is supposed to be no price fixing.

Here again we have an example of governments charging 4th parties (we taxpayers) to solve a problem they as 3rd parties (regulators and law enforcement) perceive when observing first and second parties (buyers and sellers).  In this instance it is freight services that is being regulated.

The entire thing can be left up to the 1st and 2nd parties.  If we had a free market in freight, and big freight companies conspired to fix rates high, then that would be an opportunity for some enterprising people to charter excess shipping capacity and launch a start up at fair prices.

The reason this does not often happen in a free market is only because cartel members always cheat on the cartel.  OPEC is notorious for underreporting the oil it puts on the market.  Marc Rich became a billionaire arbitraging goofy oil extraction rules.

And back in the bad old days of government-approved price fixing in shipping, when it was legal to do so, the legally fixed-price cartels cheated on themselves. The creativity unleashed by the steamship lines in order to make side deals with each importer was amazing.  It would take me an hour to explain how shippers used an obscure rule to save we small businesses outbound domestic freight charges to subsidize the nominally high ocean freight.

Instead of fining Expeditors 4 million euros, the europeans ought to save themselves hundreds of millions by eliminating the regulators and let we business people fend for ourselves.

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Thursday, March 29, 2012

The Fed Punts

Bernanke is perplexed as to how come the unemployment rate is 57% higher than normal, sin spite of the trillions forked over in bailaouts and subsidies.  In any event, if things do not get better, he has a buck to pass:

If structural factors are the predominant explanation for the increase in long-term unemployment, it will become even more important to take the steps needed to ensure that workers are able to obtain the skills needed to meet the demands of our rapidly changing economy.


You mean retrain java-coders to become roofers, and roofers to become java-coders?  How about get rid of both unemployment checks and minimum wage laws, and watch the market clear of unemployment as people reorganize into productive pursuits?



Intended Fakes

There is a street in Hong Kong, near the Jade market, where there are several businesses who make the fake goods to be burned at funerals as gifts to the dearly departed, things they might like to have in the afterlife.  You know, a nice car, cool clothes, a rolex, and beautiful home, a yacht.  Chinese communities worldwide engage in this practice.
Atlantic Wire
Now, being a practical people, the Chinese are not about to torch a real BMW.  And it is the thought that counts, so the Chinese have a whole industry that makes up things to burn at funeral.  The have all of the durability of a paper kite.  Indeed, the materials are the same as those paper kites we used to buy as kids.

Now, if you are going to gift the dead, and it will be burned anyway, why not make it a BMW, a nice Louis Vuitton bag, and a mansion?

So there is a store in New York city serving the Chinese community with such fake items to be bought and burned.  Problem was, he was selling a fake paper handbag with a logo that looked like Louis Vuitton.  The owner of one such store was arrested for selling these fake fakes.

Never mind how goofy the police can be, just think of how much we taxpayers have to pay to support the foolish pretenses of the Louis Vuitton company.  Why do we have to pay for enforce some weird legal fiction that involved Louis Vuitton and some Chinese merchant?  Why can't Louis Vuitton pay for it themselves?
Burning Down The House - Atlantic Wire

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Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Dumping and

In these two news articles, the first we find the Canadians are concerned about Chinese dumping bicycles in their market.  If the Chinese are selling bicycles for less than they cost to make, Canadians should have the Chinese make Canadian designs and benefit the Canadian consumers as long as it lasts.

But what about the Canadian workers who make the bicycles?  With the extra profits, send the workers on sabbatical to enter or observe races, or go back to school, or otherwise repurpose while the boon from China continues.

The WTO tells us small businesses suffer most from exchange rate fluctuations.  That is exactly wrong.  Small Businesses, properly run, have no problem whatsoever. Here again, the WTO hasn't the slightest idea of what is involved in international trade.

Intelligence agencies are too obtuse to understand what is going on with copper, and other strategic metals.  Ostensibly, Chinese policy is to fund world trade in basic metals, etc, so Chinese specualtors would borrow overseas trade money, use it to import copper, stack it in Free Trade Zones in China, then use it as collateral to borrow money to finance real estate deals.  That is what everyone sees and agrees is happening.

Lemme see:  China has vast reserves of strategic metals.  China has entire cities built and waiting to be occupied if other cities get hit by nukes.  While welfare queen business types and NGO wastrels share their goofy analysis with intelligence agencies, no one can see the very obvious:  The Chinese are ready to win any war that might erupt.

This is another reason if we get the war with China we are provoking, we will also lose.  How about we quit the empire making?


Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Eliminate the Ex Im Bank

It looks like congress might actually do something good: get rid of a government program.  The Ex Im Bank is a government program to have taxpayers back deals that otherwise would not go through.  If they would otherwise not go through, then taxpayers should not back them.  If the backing is otherwise not needed, then the taxpayers should not be involved.

The article claims the program costs nothing and makes money.  What a desperate claim to make.

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Excitement Vs Passion

Passion comes from the Greek word (and then to Latin) "to suffer."  When there is a problem you experience to the degree that you suffer, then you are experiencing a passion.  We all suffer in some way every day: bad traffic, long lines, obtuse newscasters.  We have no business, no call, to address any of this suffering or any suffering unless we find joy in alleviating the problem.  If we find joy in the work of alleviating that problem, then our passion, our suffering, has meaning has a point. We have what the religious people term a "calling."

When we commonly say "passion" in relation to self-employment, as far as I know no one beaks it down as I have above, but in any case, people normally mean "excitement."

Excitement comes from the Latin to "call out" and we use it today in the sense of being stirred to action. Excitement is in relation to something outside of us as well, but it relates internally at a superficial level.  We may see someone else's success, and say "I want that success."  We may see a resource and say "I want to stand on top of that."  We may see people clamoring for some product and say "I want them to come clamor to me."  We may visit poor villagers and say "I want to be admired here and there."  (Yes, that is harsh, but not as harsh as to be a villager who 1,000 times makes a sample and finds no USA market,  or worse, desire to have Coca Cola and an iPhone and be told "We want to preserve your culture.")

Passion always relates to a problem that you experience and work to solve, a problem that undoubtedly effects others as well.  And in the process of shopping your idea, you get feedback, before you make your item.  With passion you experience pain and joy in ever improving solutions for problems other people experience.

If you were raised in the West, your desire for excitement was fostered and engagement of passion was beaten out of you.  Hence, porn and video games, fast food and soulless dwellings, infantilized dress, single payer health care.  Ick.

Now here is what is happening if you experience "excitement" instead of "passion."  You simply will not have what it takes to do what is necessary to do your best work.  Excitement gets crushed by failure and criticism, the parade stops when the rain starts.

Catch yourself when you say "Why don't they just...."  It is the genesis...

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Monday, March 26, 2012

OEM


HP Laserjet and Apple Laserwriters both were made by Canon with the same engine and mechanicals parts.  The outside was different.

Lincoln LS 3.9L V8, Ford Thunderbird 3.9L V8, and the the XJ8. are all the same car, with interchangeable parts, the difference being simply what you see.

The Bang & Olufsen 42 inch Plasma screen TV is made the same one Panasonic makes and sells for itself.

It is called OEM (original equipment manufacturer), and it a very common practice.  Why invest to build a factory when you can just lay your design over what already works?

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Smoked Whitefish and State Provision

A fellow walks into a butcher and orders a pound of smoked whitefish. The butcher says “sure thing” and begins to open a can of Alpo dog food. The customer wonders why.  The butcher slaps the Alpo on paper, wraps it up and says “one pound of smoked whitefish, $5000 please.”

The customer is perplexed.  That’s Alpo, not smoked whitefish.  And $5000?  Doesn’t smoked whitefish go for about $10 a pound, maximum?  Where to start with an objection?

“Um..., that is Alpo. not smoked whitefish...” says the customer.

“Are you telling me my business?” replies the butcher.  I’ve been at this for 30 years, and I have all of the certifications to achieve master status.  If I say it is smoked whitefish, it is smoked whitefish...”

Not wanting to get into an argument the customer switches tack: “But $5000, isn’t that a bit much? 

“It’s for the children, “ says the butcher, “you get what you pay for, and for the children you want the best.  And do you know what it takes in terms of regulators, inspectors and testing to assure the quality and purity of the smoked whitefish?”

The customer says "But it's not smo---" and is cut off by the angry glare of the butcher.

"OK" says the customer, "you'll agree that this "smoked whitefish" right here was never inspected, right?"

"Well, of course" says the butcher,  "the regulators cannot check everything, and if there was a problem in this case, it would just mean we need more inspectors and regulations."

This is in essence the scenario played out whenever the state provides some good or service.  Whether medicine, education, roads, defense, housing, criminal justice, it is always a version of this story.

And with the state, the story gets even stranger, unrecognizable in the real world.  For example in the story above, the customer may say, “No thank you, I’ve changed my mind.”

Under state provision, the butcher would say “Too late, you have already been taxed for the ‘smoked whitefish’ (Alpo), so you have to take this.”

And the customer may reply “Forget it, I’ll make my own...”

And the butcher will say, “Either way, you’ll still pay for this, plus you’ll pay for what you make yourself.”

And if enough people start making their own smoked whitefish, the state makes it illegal.

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Sunday, March 25, 2012

Working Anarchy

Within Hong Kong, before the Communist take-over, was a place called Kowloon Walled City. It had been a Qing garrison, exempt from the colonial status given to the British.  Legally it passed to The Republic of China (Taiwan) after the communist takeover, but as a practical matter, it became a no man's land, a sort of sanctuary city for the Triads (Chinese mafia).

Here is a documentary on it, and as you watch it, keep in mind living there is entirely voluntary. You have to ask how come people stay?

Toutube does not serve the foour parts in sequence, so you have to cut and paste the title Kowloon Walled City documentary (Part 1/4) + english subtitles
and change the number 1 to 2 and 3 and 4 to see all 4 parts.

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Importing Japanese Fishing Vessels

I believe the salvage rules are the first person on this vessel owns it.  The 210 ft fishing ship is abandoned on the high seas, so it is  home-steadable.  But it does look like a fixer upper, and expect the Canadian Coast Guard to demand immediate repairs of any owner.
Transport Canada Photo


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