An exceptionally funny ad campaign...
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Friday, May 4, 2012
If Tommy Chong Had a Son...
He'd look like this:
So the kid was getting high with some friends when the DEA (Feds?!?!) busted him and lost him in the Gulag. Once commenter suggests that locking up a suspect and forgetting about him sounds like something a stoner would do, so drug test the DEA agents.
It also sounds like the plot of a Cheech and Chong movie.
Meanwhile, back in China, USA involvement leads to another Chinese fellow left on his own...
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
So the kid was getting high with some friends when the DEA (Feds?!?!) busted him and lost him in the Gulag. Once commenter suggests that locking up a suspect and forgetting about him sounds like something a stoner would do, so drug test the DEA agents.
It also sounds like the plot of a Cheech and Chong movie.
Meanwhile, back in China, USA involvement leads to another Chinese fellow left on his own...
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
Sir Mix-a-Lot On Free Markets & IPR
The opening dialogue is hilarious, and then in rap Sir Mix-a-lot gives one artists view of addressing the problems.
The tale turns on thee verses...
I got a plan 'n' i'm about to use it
What's up with the bootleg music?
Mary pong is about to get jacked
She had a stack of big bootleg racks
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
The tale turns on thee verses...
I got a plan 'n' i'm about to use it
What's up with the bootleg music?
Mary pong is about to get jacked
She had a stack of big bootleg racks
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
Wealth And Trade
Last session in my seminar we examined cheap labor and found there is nothing to support that as a factor in international trade. The idea is unremarkable to people who are actually involved in international trade, but often a surprise to those outside the field. Welcome aboard!
There is another fundamental that must be understood, a fundamental which helps people analyze their experience as they proceed.
Everyone in this class desires, at least, to learn something about acquiring wealth through trade (even if one aspires to mere nonprofit status). What if the common idea of wealth is misguided? A proper understanding of wealth will help you order your priorities to gaining it.
As a preface, let me point out that the market is a subset of the economy. The market is limited to the distribution of goods and services. The economy is all transactions, the majority of which are non-market events. When a neighbor gives you a pie, it is a non-market event, but it is part of the economy. When a house is built and sold, it is a market event and an economic event. When a house burns down, it is a economic event, but not a market event. When volunteer firemen, which are the vast majority of firefighters in USA, put out a fire, it is non-market event, but it is an economic event.
Then such things as love, violence, charity and so much more are neither market nor economic events. A walk through the park, playing a song on a guitar, falling in love are neither market nor economic events. The markets are not the answer to everything, not everything is about economics.
Having said that, let’s look at how wealth is created, to see how we fit in.
The entrepreneur advances the market function of innovation in goods and services. Innovation is a process that results in the unique, rough, pricey and plodding. We saw this in the example of the first Apple computer products. A product is introduced, when it is only good enough to get enough orders to cover a supplier’s minimum production run. The next order constitutes a product iteration which includes improvements suggested by initial market reaction. Over and over, new versions keep coming out based on customer feedback. You keep making money since each order is profitable. This process continues, at least for several years, until the the item is so good and so widespread in its market acceptance that conservators "steal the idea," and apply their economies of scale to the innovation. The result is the product becomes commodified, and the conservators apply their economies of scale to the product and we get more, better, cheaper, faster versions of the innovative good or service. Ultimately, through the market and the concomitant division of labor, access to the the goods and services is made universal because the conservators “steal” the ideas of the innovators.
Of course, properly understood, the conservators steal nothing, because they redesign the idea at least one more time before they release their version, and they use their factories, distribution and finance to produce their version, and sell it to customers the innovator could never serve. So except out of some delusional conceit grounded in insupportable theory of “intellectual property rights” conservators steal nothing from innovators. And keep in mind the years the innovator was ever improving the item, the innovator was enjoying a nice profit on the sales thereof.
At the same time, the point in this process where the conservator is inclined to “steal the idea” the innovator has the opportunity to become a conservator himself. With such a history and such a proven item, the innovator may decide to offer an Initial Public Offering, the IPO, and change from innovator to conservator himself. Microsoft, Boeing, Apple were all at one point startups and innovators, and all at some point decided to offer the IPO, and become conservators. In any event to become a big business at some point the business must first start.
Happily almost all business remains small. The owner gets to some point, say $5 million in annual sales, with $500,000 net, after supporting himself through the business, and decides he has it just right. At that point to maintain that level of business, he is obliged, as we see from history, to dump about 20% of his line each year and introduce 20% new. This keeps the business steady. Which 20% to dump is indicated by which items are being “stolen” by the conservators. Those are the items to let go. What new items to develop is indicated by customer feedback.
We saw the market, when relatively free, lowers the price of computing and widen the access to the point where today people have more power in an iPad than was available to NASA to put a man on the moon. Nasa spent billions on such computer power, you get it for $500. If we had as free a market in medicine, then the cancer cure would be at $87.50, over the counter.
By “free market” we do not mean capitalism or its rival communism, but markets free of force and fraud, statutory vs common law regulation, and subsidies, which both -isms accept as necessary.
Think of deregulation of phones in 1980 and the internet thereafter. No one anticipated the world wide web, but it could not have happened without telephone deregulation. (As a side note, this, Carter’s wholesale dismantling of the CIA plus deregulation of air travel, beer and trucking led to the economic boom that occurred under Ronald Reagan. Change takes time, and Carter’s brilliant work took effect during the terms of Ronald Reagan.) Cell phones, introduced about 1980, were terribly expensive, huge, with poor service and design, and hard to come by. Today most cell phones, even an Apple iPhone, are free if you sign up for telephone service.
Affordable access to a wide variety of goods and services is the definition of wealth. A free market creates an ever expanding menu of more specific goods and services, at every lower prices. The people are served with ever more selection at ever lower price.
This is the original sense of "wealth," ie, weal, commonweal, commonwealth, before the bad guys hijacked the term. Wealth is not how much gold you have stacked up, wealth is access to goods and services. Progress is when prices fall, to the point where everyone has access to the good or service, like the cell phone and service plan that goes with it.
Wealth is an every widening selection of goods and services and an individual’s access to the same. King Henry the VIII was one of the richest people on planet earth in 1540 when he had a beautiful home, great personal security, meals ready at a snap of the finger, chamber music with each meal, wore silks from China, could travel anywhere he wanted, outstanding carriages, excellent medical care (not that it did him any good), had a fabulous education and could start his own religion if he wanted. Today even the poorest American citizen has all that and far more. Did the US citizen get fabulously rich, or did the price of all those benefits fall to where virtually everyone has access to them?
That is the function of the free market in the classic sense, not what politicians call the free market. When politicians say “free market” they mean help their friends, and hurt their enemies. The use subsidies, regulations and taxes to pick winners and losers. In any case, the consumer loses, no matter which gang wins. Poverty is the result of failed government policies, not the free market. It is not possible to get government policies right since they necessarily pick winners and losers. Someone’s ox gets gored. The market is the only means for getting selection and distribution right, and get the price down to where it is affordable.
Wealth is the result of freedom to act and contract, in which one can pursue solutions to problems and share them with others. This sharing is in response to the needs of others. Merchants are in essence at the service of others, in the strictest sense.
Each enterprise is unique to the entrepreneur and the situation in which he finds himself. He may open merely yet another coffee shop, but his kind of coffee and what baked goods he offers will meet the needs of his customer base, making his shop unique. He may have come to love coffee cut with chicory and its health benefits, and found that sweetening such coffee with molasses and calling it Cafe Creole satisfies the aspirations of a Francophone section of his customer base.
This is not a world in which we "live simply, in order that others may simply live" but a world in which we live fully, because everyone is free to contribute.
Wealth is not how much money one has, but what goods and services one can access with the money one earns. A free market allows the range of goods and services multiply indefinitely since markets are constantly being divided up by entrepreneurs introducing new and better goods and services.
The ability to create and satisfy customers earns one just compensation for his efforts, and he that refuses to work will find it difficult to earn. But as we see in better ordered economies such as Hong Kong, anyone can earn and the range of goods and services make life comfortable for all who participate.
But we may be inspired to do something more than a coffee shop. As we get closer to what we truly love, we may find something larger to work on. Let’s experience free thinking in a couple of examples.
Radio waves occur naturally, and so when you are between stations or out of range you get static, natural radio waves. Marconi and others discovered sound could be recorded, transmitted and sent to receivers (radios). That is an invention.
Around the 1900s a theory emerged that said there was such things as natural monopoly, for such things as roads, telephones and radio. Therefore, the state should step in and control these things. But they would say that, wouldn't they?
About 1980, the scales fell from the eyes, and we had the unimagined wonders of the internet when telephones were deregulated, just lightly. Imagine what we would get with full deregulation!
The internet is an example of unseen goods and services that emerge in freedom, and deregulation is a return to freedom.
As to radio, it is an invention. 100 years ago the invention was in a stone age form. The government locked down the invention. So entire swathes of band are allocated to one owner. This is madness.
Think of a sine wave of a radio frequency, with its up and down pattern. There is no reason why radio transmitters cannot be designed to separate out the wave upswing with the wave downswing for reception of signal, and then build the reception with that half of the wave. It would be a mere improvement on what we have now. It is in fact exactly how your computer works. An email is broken into many packets as it goes out, and on the other end a computer reassembles the parts into a coherent message.
Now, if you can wrap your brain around cutting a band wave in two, then you can see how where we allocate certain bandwidth to one radio station now, we can split it in two so we can serve two radio stations. Call it AM 1000 a and AM 1000 b. Same bandwidth, just double the capacity. Old radios might no longer work (or someone would come up with an adapter) but we have plenty of old computers that do not work either, because they cannot handle the internet, a new invention.
Once you understand we can cut bandwidth in two, then you see we can cut that in two also. So, one channel, two channels, four channels, eight channels, 16 channels, 32 channels... on to infinity, for that one dedicated channel of bandwidth. That is to say, radio is an infinite resource, limited only by mans desire to exploit. The price of something with infinite supply is very cheap.
“Health Insurance” is a hot political topic, for which there are plenty of ways to provide a solution. Never mind that health insurance is diet and exercise, and what we want is cures for a medical disaster, not insurance for health care. Insurance, in essence, is where a group gathers for mutual aid. So how about members agree to make a monthly insurance payment, in this case full medical care for a single at $135, two parent family at $320. The members submit any medical bills above the first $300 per year to the group headquarters. HQ verifies the bills, and then directs the members that month to mail their payment to the person in the group who has medical bills to cover. So if Joe Smith has $13,500 in medical bills this month, 100 members mail their payment to him, as an act of charity, and he pays his $13,500 in medical bill directly to the hospital or doctors or whoever. Anyone else who has bills gets covered as well. Each month they clear out all bills, one way or another. Wow.
Members pay $175 a year to join, and for that administrators check and verify the bills, and negotiated down bills for members (cash talks) and also maintains lists and a clearing house of doctors who esteem cash paying patients. This efficiency lowers the cost of health care. This isn’t fantasy, it has been in place for the last 15 years. It works, but few can imagine it, so it only has about 18,000 members.
Pollution: Cars are inventions. The invention could include a system to catch all emissions. When USA changed from common law to statutory law on pollution, then the manufacturers were given a pass, so now we have pollution where once none was permitted. Go back to the common law on pollution, redesign cars to package up exhaust for resale to industrial users, and end auto pollution.
In business, in a free market properly understood, your passion, your joy is mixed with customer feedback to ever refine the collection of goods and services available at ever falling prices. There is no better means for distributing society’s goods and services, not to mention there are no other means for initiating the improvement in the selection of goods and services needed by society at any given time.
This is entrepreneurship in a free market, properly defined and understood.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Retail Recovery
Retail is changing, and there will be a new landscape when it all shakes out. My guess is that there will be more and stronger Big Box stores, and more and stronger specialty stores. What will kill off the in between is the internet.
A big problem with specialty is driving people to your website, and the cost thereof. For some people they will get lucky get traffic drive too them, like these "shops"
http://www.target.com/c/The-Shops-at-Target/-/N-56f52
This seems to be a take off on Amazon/s MyHabit.
http://www.myhabit.com/ref=pe_218430_23805780_qd_de_logo_g
Both use the term "curator" which was a function of the independent sales rep.
Now if these are both just a sort of glorified groupon, then it will not work out. Either the retailer will go out of business by increases sales with tighter margins, or their customers will figure out they are unloading junk at fake high prices.
The fake high prices thing in regular retail is being killed off at JCPenney where an Apple Exec has taken over.
There is no way to predict how all of this will shake out. So you do what you always do. Test. Measure. Fine tune. Repeat. Learn. Act.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
A big problem with specialty is driving people to your website, and the cost thereof. For some people they will get lucky get traffic drive too them, like these "shops"
http://www.target.com/c/The-Shops-at-Target/-/N-56f52
This seems to be a take off on Amazon/s MyHabit.
http://www.myhabit.com/ref=pe_218430_23805780_qd_de_logo_g
Both use the term "curator" which was a function of the independent sales rep.
Now if these are both just a sort of glorified groupon, then it will not work out. Either the retailer will go out of business by increases sales with tighter margins, or their customers will figure out they are unloading junk at fake high prices.
The fake high prices thing in regular retail is being killed off at JCPenney where an Apple Exec has taken over.
There is no way to predict how all of this will shake out. So you do what you always do. Test. Measure. Fine tune. Repeat. Learn. Act.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
They Lend Credit If You Will Owe Money
Once you vote for state provision on anything, there is no logical barrier to state provision of everything. For the state to provide anything, there must be threat of force, since the state offers nothing in free exchange. By definition, state provision must be compulsory. Education is free. You must attend. We supply currency, use it and nothing else, or go to jail.
How it works is they lend you their credit and you agree you owe them money.
Since there is no logical boundary to state provision, there is none on state control of you. With no boundaries, the powers that be seize the commanding heights, and take it all. This is why you cannot have good things, like a cure for cancer, swift and uninhibited transportation, or just something nice. But you agreed to that when you agreed to state provision of anything, like the state to go out before you and fight your battles. So you could be free. (Note that word, "except.") Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
How it works is they lend you their credit and you agree you owe them money.
Since there is no logical boundary to state provision, there is none on state control of you. With no boundaries, the powers that be seize the commanding heights, and take it all. This is why you cannot have good things, like a cure for cancer, swift and uninhibited transportation, or just something nice. But you agreed to that when you agreed to state provision of anything, like the state to go out before you and fight your battles. So you could be free. (Note that word, "except.") Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
The FBI Nabs Anarchists, no... Politicians
One reason 911 happened is USA law enforcement is aggressively ignorant about the world around them. The FBI recruits the particularly obtuse, and so they are reduced to making up plots to warrant their existence. With utter lack of decency, the FBI in one case promoted blasphemy to pursue their evil ends. The core problem is the lack of common decency in the FBI.
Now comes the joint terrorism task force, breathless from breaking up a plot they no doubt fostered. First they identify their victims, who acted on a plan to blow up a Cleveland bridge, as "anarchists."
Had the FBI begun hiring only high school graduates? Do they not know that anarchists are devotees of "no king"? People who blow up bridges do not desire to live in peace and prosperity, they just want to take over the rotten system in place, they merely want to be in charge. Anarchists promote peace and prosperity, they are nonviolent.
We will learn in time that the FBI supplied some knuckleheads with the plot, and the pretend explosives, and then arrested the twerps. The FBI nabbed common criminals, the type of people who aspire to political power.
But the FBI is collection of apparatchiks whose job is to defame and and entrap people of limited imagination. There is a simple truth about "law enforcement." It is far easier to get a conviction on someone innocent, because you can control the evidence you manufacture, than it is to convict the guilty, over whom you have no control of the evidence. This explains why Martha Stewart went to prison and Bernie Madoff got a free pass. There is no reason to have any confidence in "law enforcement." But this makes for an opportunity.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
Update: less than 12 hours of stating the above.... yep!
Now comes the joint terrorism task force, breathless from breaking up a plot they no doubt fostered. First they identify their victims, who acted on a plan to blow up a Cleveland bridge, as "anarchists."
Had the FBI begun hiring only high school graduates? Do they not know that anarchists are devotees of "no king"? People who blow up bridges do not desire to live in peace and prosperity, they just want to take over the rotten system in place, they merely want to be in charge. Anarchists promote peace and prosperity, they are nonviolent.
We will learn in time that the FBI supplied some knuckleheads with the plot, and the pretend explosives, and then arrested the twerps. The FBI nabbed common criminals, the type of people who aspire to political power.
But the FBI is collection of apparatchiks whose job is to defame and and entrap people of limited imagination. There is a simple truth about "law enforcement." It is far easier to get a conviction on someone innocent, because you can control the evidence you manufacture, than it is to convict the guilty, over whom you have no control of the evidence. This explains why Martha Stewart went to prison and Bernie Madoff got a free pass. There is no reason to have any confidence in "law enforcement." But this makes for an opportunity.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
Update: less than 12 hours of stating the above.... yep!
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Economic Science & Your Money
The pretense of economists is the field is one of science, in which there is no right or wrong, any more than there is right or wrong in physics. If you increase the money supply, you spur demand, that is simple economics. If you let go of a pencil, it drops. That is simple physics.
If you try to argue that raising an interest rate on a currency used in an integrated worldwide economy has far wider effect than a dropped pencil, which is a local matter, they will argue it is merely a matter of scale, not kind. And with computers, we can reckon at scales unimaginable heretofore.
The fellow who is credited with the founding of modern economics is Adam Smith. You have not read Adam Smith, because no one reads these founding people, like Darwin and Marx. They are generally unreadable. If you were to read Adam Smith, you would learn that he was a moral philosopher, and his great work, shortened in title to the Wealth of Nations, was really a sort of encyclopedia (a common thing to produce in those days) of all economic ideas. In it you'll find capitalism, free markets, communism, mercantilism, feudalism, if only in contrast to his obvious editorial bias (if not by the terms we use today). Karl Marx found communism in it. Each reader finds his favorite system outlined.
But what to make of a "science" in which few people agree on definitions? Within economics, there are many definitions, some actually opposite, of profit, money, corporation, the firm, labor, capital, interest and so on.
Where would physics be if physicists did not agree on the definition of thrust, lift and BTUs? They may have different theories of how flight occurs, but they agree on terminology. Not so in the "science" of economics.
Yesterday USA's top politician and its top economist had an economic discussion in which they operated in different universes, based on definitions, in which they talked past each other and the moderator kept saying in the background "I don't understand..."
Note on the subject of the discussion, Krugman states, and I quote him:
"We live in an economy where money is not just green pieces of paper with faces of dead presidents on them. Money is the result of a financial system that includes a variety of assets. We are not even quite sure where the line between money and non-money is... it's kind of a continuum."
Now you are saying, "Wait... what?! 'Non-money?' How come I've never heard of non-money? What the hell is that?"
It's a dirty little secret. The Greek debt is in non-money, but the Greeks are obliged to pay it in money. Bankers and governments oblige taxpayers, ad infinitum (ad nauseum) with bonds for stadiums and wars (Seattle is getting a 3rd and 4th major league stadium, plus a multi-billion-plus 2 lane tunnel constructed under mud flats to replace an eight lane highway. San Francisco simply eliminated the rickety Bay Freeway after the Loma Linda quake damage, with no discernable economic loss.)
Here is how it works: Seattle voters hated the idea and did not want such a tunnel. A lawyer ran for mayor, staking his liberal credentials and lawyerly integrity on "no tunnel." He won. All interested parties now know the game: As the mayor says no, economic matters are arranged so the mayor and his are now and will ever be well compensated if the tunnel gets a go-ahead. Seattle, drowning in debt and with bondholders on the hook for now FOUR new major league stadiums, is capable of having only so much more debt mulcted from the productive segment of the citizenry.
Although the mayor is "against" the tunnel he negotiates an obligation on the rest of the state taxpayers that any overruns will be at the rest of the states expense. Now, the tunnel can command debt well beyond what mere Seattle can pay. With all of this in place, a by-election brings in enough votes to "pass the tunnel" and the mayor "grows in his job" and now supports the tunnel project, based on a by-election in which a tiny minority outvoted a tinier minority. Ka-ching! Seattle still hates the idea, but too bad.
This is played out as President Obama (in his role as willing-puppet) cuts off energy resources in USA, and directs funding to the whimsical and ludicrous "renewable" sources, and funds Brazilian oil exploration, assuring when he is out of office he has access to riches beyond his wildest dreams. They are greying his hair now, as they did Bill Clinton, so he can assume the role of sage elder statesman.
If my reading is cynical, why does it happen this way in every city, at every level, every time?
All of those bond obligations are non-money. They must be paid off in money. When USA builds dams in Peru, they are credited as a debt to USA in non-money, for which Peruvians must pay off in money. Whereas the cohort of elite Peruvians who went to Harvard execute the deals, it is the common Peruvian who must pay it off. It is not possible to pay it off, ever. With so much wealth mulcted out from Peru to USA, Peru can never find the means locally to support local investment.
As a side note, in the science of economics, there is a strange term, "moral hazard." Not inconceivable in a field laid out by a moral philosopher, but a strange term for a field purporting to be science.
Therefore, the problem in the "science" of economics of no set definitions, and its attending confusion, is not an accident. It is a fundamental requirement. Hey, who cares if the city runs up debt in terms of non-money? Well, you will when you get less and less for more and more of your labor. When those non-money pensions are paid out in less and less money because the value is diverted to bond holders.
USA perfected this practice overseas and brought it home. What goes around comes around.
Iceland has said no to paying out money against non-money debts. Iceland is recovering slowly but vigorously. Greece is working on a way to pay off non-money debts with Greek workers money. Greece is up in flames. Iceland is showing the non-violent and proper response to the game.
The game is the concentration of power in the hands of a few who may oblige the many with non-money debts that must be paid in money. The cover is economics as science. But where science is ordered to knowledge and understanding, economics is an exercise in confusing people.
To understand it, you must understand the definition of money. And non-money. I suspect less than 1% of the 99% can define money properly. Krugman can, which is why he can draw the distinction he does. Ron Paul can too. But they have a radically different view of the role of the state. If the 99% understood the terms properly, we'd say no.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
If you try to argue that raising an interest rate on a currency used in an integrated worldwide economy has far wider effect than a dropped pencil, which is a local matter, they will argue it is merely a matter of scale, not kind. And with computers, we can reckon at scales unimaginable heretofore.
The fellow who is credited with the founding of modern economics is Adam Smith. You have not read Adam Smith, because no one reads these founding people, like Darwin and Marx. They are generally unreadable. If you were to read Adam Smith, you would learn that he was a moral philosopher, and his great work, shortened in title to the Wealth of Nations, was really a sort of encyclopedia (a common thing to produce in those days) of all economic ideas. In it you'll find capitalism, free markets, communism, mercantilism, feudalism, if only in contrast to his obvious editorial bias (if not by the terms we use today). Karl Marx found communism in it. Each reader finds his favorite system outlined.
But what to make of a "science" in which few people agree on definitions? Within economics, there are many definitions, some actually opposite, of profit, money, corporation, the firm, labor, capital, interest and so on.
Where would physics be if physicists did not agree on the definition of thrust, lift and BTUs? They may have different theories of how flight occurs, but they agree on terminology. Not so in the "science" of economics.
Yesterday USA's top politician and its top economist had an economic discussion in which they operated in different universes, based on definitions, in which they talked past each other and the moderator kept saying in the background "I don't understand..."
Note on the subject of the discussion, Krugman states, and I quote him:
"We live in an economy where money is not just green pieces of paper with faces of dead presidents on them. Money is the result of a financial system that includes a variety of assets. We are not even quite sure where the line between money and non-money is... it's kind of a continuum."
Now you are saying, "Wait... what?! 'Non-money?' How come I've never heard of non-money? What the hell is that?"
It's a dirty little secret. The Greek debt is in non-money, but the Greeks are obliged to pay it in money. Bankers and governments oblige taxpayers, ad infinitum (ad nauseum) with bonds for stadiums and wars (Seattle is getting a 3rd and 4th major league stadium, plus a multi-billion-plus 2 lane tunnel constructed under mud flats to replace an eight lane highway. San Francisco simply eliminated the rickety Bay Freeway after the Loma Linda quake damage, with no discernable economic loss.)
Here is how it works: Seattle voters hated the idea and did not want such a tunnel. A lawyer ran for mayor, staking his liberal credentials and lawyerly integrity on "no tunnel." He won. All interested parties now know the game: As the mayor says no, economic matters are arranged so the mayor and his are now and will ever be well compensated if the tunnel gets a go-ahead. Seattle, drowning in debt and with bondholders on the hook for now FOUR new major league stadiums, is capable of having only so much more debt mulcted from the productive segment of the citizenry.
Although the mayor is "against" the tunnel he negotiates an obligation on the rest of the state taxpayers that any overruns will be at the rest of the states expense. Now, the tunnel can command debt well beyond what mere Seattle can pay. With all of this in place, a by-election brings in enough votes to "pass the tunnel" and the mayor "grows in his job" and now supports the tunnel project, based on a by-election in which a tiny minority outvoted a tinier minority. Ka-ching! Seattle still hates the idea, but too bad.
This is played out as President Obama (in his role as willing-puppet) cuts off energy resources in USA, and directs funding to the whimsical and ludicrous "renewable" sources, and funds Brazilian oil exploration, assuring when he is out of office he has access to riches beyond his wildest dreams. They are greying his hair now, as they did Bill Clinton, so he can assume the role of sage elder statesman.
If my reading is cynical, why does it happen this way in every city, at every level, every time?
All of those bond obligations are non-money. They must be paid off in money. When USA builds dams in Peru, they are credited as a debt to USA in non-money, for which Peruvians must pay off in money. Whereas the cohort of elite Peruvians who went to Harvard execute the deals, it is the common Peruvian who must pay it off. It is not possible to pay it off, ever. With so much wealth mulcted out from Peru to USA, Peru can never find the means locally to support local investment.
As a side note, in the science of economics, there is a strange term, "moral hazard." Not inconceivable in a field laid out by a moral philosopher, but a strange term for a field purporting to be science.
Therefore, the problem in the "science" of economics of no set definitions, and its attending confusion, is not an accident. It is a fundamental requirement. Hey, who cares if the city runs up debt in terms of non-money? Well, you will when you get less and less for more and more of your labor. When those non-money pensions are paid out in less and less money because the value is diverted to bond holders.
USA perfected this practice overseas and brought it home. What goes around comes around.
Iceland has said no to paying out money against non-money debts. Iceland is recovering slowly but vigorously. Greece is working on a way to pay off non-money debts with Greek workers money. Greece is up in flames. Iceland is showing the non-violent and proper response to the game.
The game is the concentration of power in the hands of a few who may oblige the many with non-money debts that must be paid in money. The cover is economics as science. But where science is ordered to knowledge and understanding, economics is an exercise in confusing people.
To understand it, you must understand the definition of money. And non-money. I suspect less than 1% of the 99% can define money properly. Krugman can, which is why he can draw the distinction he does. Ron Paul can too. But they have a radically different view of the role of the state. If the 99% understood the terms properly, we'd say no.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
Sounding Professional to Buyers
On Apr 30, 2012, at 5:00 PM, JC wrote:
Hi John,I am talking with a very reputable company from San Francisco and I'm wondering if I'm on the right track and how I should go about responding to her as I want to sound very professional. Thanks for your time.Regards,
Recall how we start from a problem we experience? It is likely to be a problem everyone else experiences too. It is likely to be marginal problem. So there is no question of being "professional" it is a question of solving a problem.
What precisely is the problem you are solving? At what point do you suffer, and what is the solution? This is the content of the conversation.
You want to build enough of this feedback to carry you through the future steps... enough buyers encourage you to push for the best source, who in turn find your initial market interest worthy of samples, which you in turn leverage into enough orders to cover a minimum production run. There are hundred in between steps too, with everyone on the way deciding whether or not to work with you based on that very feedback you are picking up now.
No one cares about your business plan, your market research, passion, your finance, your product... the only thing that matters is what do the customers say?
So the conversations need only devolve around that.... problems, solutions. If you are not talking about that, then the conversation is over. Time to go on to the next store.
John
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Monday, April 30, 2012
China & USA Competition Summary
Ron Unz hits one out of the ballpark. He is wrong on one note, that is the population issue, but otherwise a comprehensive explanation of what is going on.
The total outstanding amount of non-dischargeable student-loan debt has crossed the trillion-dollar mark, now surpassing the combined total of credit-card and auto-loan debt—and with a quarter of all student-loan payers now delinquent, there are worrisome indicators that much of it will remain a permanent burden, reducing many millions to long-term debt peonage. A huge swath of America’s younger generation seems completely impoverished, and likely to remain so.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
The total outstanding amount of non-dischargeable student-loan debt has crossed the trillion-dollar mark, now surpassing the combined total of credit-card and auto-loan debt—and with a quarter of all student-loan payers now delinquent, there are worrisome indicators that much of it will remain a permanent burden, reducing many millions to long-term debt peonage. A huge swath of America’s younger generation seems completely impoverished, and likely to remain so.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
Financial Panic, Retirement, and Retiring Nuke Plants
Mish has an excellent essay on people planning now to work beyond their life expectancy, and the calls for the government to take over their pensions and savings to protect it from market vagaries. And how it relates to Nuclear Power Plants retiring.
Do you have any particular preference as to how it all ends? Meteor shower? Serial nuke failures? Unbeatable virus? Having nuclear power plants operate beyond their lifespan because one does not have the money to properly shut them down is rather dire. But who cares, the bigger the disaster, the more it is "the government's problem." Hey, Obama (or was it Bush?) gave BP the oil drilling licenses!
The Europeans are starting to panic because no one is borrowing money. And this might hurt business, or so the argument goes. Nonsense. People are not borrowing money and so they are learning to live without usury.
Although the press is highlighting a suicide in Greece purported to be related to austerity measures, most Greeks are figuring it out. Who needs the state? There is where the panic is, as people realize they do not need the state. It is similar to 911, when USA saw all of the money we put into defense does us no good. Panic set in, and our political masters are still in a dither, expanding TSA and wasting obscene amounts on hacked, unworkable weapons systems.
The panic has arrived, and it is in the hearts and minds of those who want to lord over others.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
Do you have any particular preference as to how it all ends? Meteor shower? Serial nuke failures? Unbeatable virus? Having nuclear power plants operate beyond their lifespan because one does not have the money to properly shut them down is rather dire. But who cares, the bigger the disaster, the more it is "the government's problem." Hey, Obama (or was it Bush?) gave BP the oil drilling licenses!
The Europeans are starting to panic because no one is borrowing money. And this might hurt business, or so the argument goes. Nonsense. People are not borrowing money and so they are learning to live without usury.
Although the press is highlighting a suicide in Greece purported to be related to austerity measures, most Greeks are figuring it out. Who needs the state? There is where the panic is, as people realize they do not need the state. It is similar to 911, when USA saw all of the money we put into defense does us no good. Panic set in, and our political masters are still in a dither, expanding TSA and wasting obscene amounts on hacked, unworkable weapons systems.
The panic has arrived, and it is in the hearts and minds of those who want to lord over others.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
ImportGenius and Business Opportunity
Hey Amy,
Good to hear from you. Answers below...
On Apr 22, 2012, at 8:17 PM, Amy wrote:
Hi John,
Hope you are well!
I stumbled on this website, Import Genius: http://www.importgenius.com/ and would love to hear your thoughts on this.
***I reviewed it a while back,
http://hbhblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/alwin-asks-about-trade-data.html
http://hbhblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/importgenius-update.html
but I will add some comments now...***
Two questions though:
1.Will this cut down time on searching for reputable suppliers if you can see where importers are importing from?
***No because ImportGenius source data is limited to people who are self-reporting, and importgenius gleans their info off of Bills of Lading. Too many good suppliers cannot be gleaned off of Bills of Lading. There is a better way to find the best source. I am happy to send a .pdf to anyone who wants the info on the process of how to do it.***
2. And is there a government website where information about bill of ladings are made open and available?
***As I understand it, the Journal of Commerce merely files a freedom of information act request with USCustoms for the info. Now, above I mention the Journal of Commerce, which has elected, in the last two years, to stop publishing the directory of US Importers and Directory of US Exporters. Too bad.
They say it has been replaced by PIERS, but after an exchange of 16 emails over 3 weeks, I never could get anything satisfactory from PIERS in spite of the fact that I was given rather open access to it. Too bad. I am not complaining, they were terribly generous and helpful, especially the person at the end of the line. I am just not one of their customers.
You can get the info the way they get it.
What this means is since Journal of Commerce has quit the field, there is a hole for someone to compile a quick and dirty list of importers and exporters in USA by HTS number. The report would be simple: HTS number, importer or exporter, dollar and then link or address. From there you could get all you need.
Again, the key is not to know what anyone else is importing, or who is supplying competitors, or who is buying from competitors, which is totally useless information to anyone who desires to start a business, but simply to
1. Make sure you are not selling anything anyone else is already selling.
2. Make sure your terms and condtions of sale are exactly the sme as everyone else in your industry. That is it. There is nothing else you could possibly want or use from a competitor if you seriously want to thrive in business.
There is no reason that you, in your country, could not run the whole thing for the benefit of USA small businesses, and simply use the traffic to your site as a platform for ad revenue. Customs brokers alone would probably make the site worthwhile.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
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