Do Not Start Up On the Internet

A decade ago people were convinced a website meant immediate and fantastic business success, with no work or effort.  they simply pointed to google and amazon, enough said.  never mind the hundreds of millions of failure sites, never mind one of those successes is intelligence service backed and the other is too.

So in my book I stress not to start an online business, but certainly sell TO online businesses.    I still say that.

Certainly use the internet for communication and information, but do not base your model on internet sales.  Listen to this entrepreneur say the same thing:




Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

Obeying the Evil Drug Companies

The progressives' favorite whipping boy is the evil big Pharma who they claim design drugs to kill customers for profit.  Aside from the internal contradiction of that position, there is a larger one. Progressives subject their whole heart and body and mind to the end of "government health care."  And then the government turns to evil big Pharma to actualize the progressive agenda.  And then, once inside the system, the progressives submit to evil big Pharma.

The horrors of vaccinations, hormone replacement therapy, the war on the reproductive organs (why the fixation on that?) and psychiatry are all well documented, yet the progressives submit to these horrors sheepishly, even when warned off by people who are past victims.

It is a curious phenomenon.

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

Baby Formula To China

Australia is a popular tourist destination for the Chinese, and many Chinese students study there.  With the baby formula problems in China, Chinese visitors buy up Australian baby formula to ship back to China.  Weirdly, the reporters find this a scam, but anyway...

Michael Clifton, Austrade Senior Trade Commissioner in Shanghai, said there was pressure on local milk and powder suppliers to produce enough to cater for both our domestic market and the 20 per cent of 18 million babies born in China each year who are fed infant formula.

He said Chinese authorities were often perplexed why there were not more Australian branded products available for a growing market.

Good question.  Why aren't people meeting the need for exported baby formula to China?  Why is demand a problem?  Why not supply a demand?  Why not raise prices to slow demand?  Why is it when China is involved, it is a problem?  But any other opportunity, business would be delighted?  I see butter from NZ and Aus all over China. How come butter is not a problem, but baby formula is?

While people are concerned about Chinese quality when buying Chinese goods, it is a very small probpem for us, but a huge problem for the Chinese.  Quality and branding are issues for business in China.  I've blogged on it here and here.  Since the problem is clear, and the Chinese Government is keen on addressing the problem, never has the opportunity to export to China been greater.  Chinese consumers are begging for Western products.

Now one mistake is to use the "trade lead" services of alibaba, etc.  Yes you can get plenty of "leads" but the problem is too many.  You'll waste amazing amounts of time sorting through people on the make instead of the buyers who are ready, willing and able.

As an aside, those Chinese companies who are ready, willing and able to buy need to start building a web presence that better that makes it easier for people ready willing and able to supply to connect, such as I suggest here.

But when selling to China, first you find the the best buyer, using the research means I lay out in my book, my classes and in this blog.  You proof them by requiring their business plan as to what they propose to do to build market in China for your products.  By then they will have made claims as to their bona fides.  You check out those bona fides.  If they do not play out, then move on.

But as to a specific strategy, the 3M model of importing first to build relationship with the Chinese is a slow but sure way to better results.  This method is one China has come to use to build markets as well. learn it and use it.

To my mind never has China held so much opportunity.

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

Starbucks, Taxes and Scruples.

A politician has accused a business of lacking moral scruples.  As a friend recommends, savor.

Foreign companies like Starbucks and Amazon which have avoided paying large corporation tax bills in Britain lack "moral scruples", David Cameron has said.

OK... first problem, a business cannot have moral scruples, only people can.  So, as is often the case, we have a problem of categories and definitions.  But let's proceed, the people at Starbucks legally pay all of their taxes.  Anything less in tax receipts than what a politician would like to have to spend is not the result of a lack of moral scruples.  It is that the politicians have not written enough rules to mulct more.  This they can do if they like, and they do.  For example, after pretending there was a danger over something termed the fiscal cliff, and pretending to play chicken over the reich paying more, the result is in USA those making $30,000 pay a greater per cent than those paying $500,000.

The politicians have ruined their economies, and now want more money to bail out their friends.

“That is that’s not right, and so we are looking at it. I’m chairing the G8 this year so I’m going to be getting the Americans and the French and the Germans and the Italians and the Japanese all to look at this together at how can we try and stop unfair tax farming practices?

Look at that list.  It is a list of the losers of the next war, if they agree.  Creativity and progress will move to where the taxes are lower and freedom is greater.  The dark clouds of socialism have blow off the Asian continent and are now over Western Europe and the United States, and the state buys another 200,000 war-prohibited rounds.  Russia and China will invite our best and brightest.  In the 1960s the term "brain drain" referring to talent escaping socialist Britain to the comparatively superior USA.  It will happen again.

It is all madness, but if you subscribe to the false dilemma presented in elections, then you are stuck.  Self-employment is the the best way to maintain a semblance of humanity.

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

Secession Odds

LewRockwell has an item on poll results on the topic of secession:

Secession is viewed positively/sympathetically by:
46% of Hispanics, 14 million, and 31% of whites, 49 million.
50% of conservatives... 19% of liberals
35% of women and only 29% of men.50% of 18-29 year olds.

We all love a system that works for us. For white male liberals, those who own the system, support is low.  For everyone else, support is higher.  For the young, who are bequeathed debt, war, racism, prison planet, bailouts, poverty and unemployment by the white liberals, they are as unhappy as conservatives.

Things just got worse for the young, when the politicians claim they "averted going over the cliff" but really started the renewed administration with massive new bailouts of failed USA banks, etc.

Secession would just bring on violence, methinks.  I like the one-country, two systems approach of Hong Kong and China.

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

Be This Guy

From Ricardo:

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

Cliff Madness

So we will have more murder for oil and no cutback in military spending... add on unemployment insurance, and taxes going up but not to pay down debt...  so for a tax increase we'll get no benefits, but far more harm.  The stock market up on the news the false economy, which is represents, will remain flooded.  Gold went up on the news since it reflects when bad things are anticipated.

I guess all we can say is we'll get a far worse result sooner than had we gone over the fiscal cliff.

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

Spain to Support Small & Medium Businesses With Loans

Except businesses don't need loans to survive, they need customers.  And wealth is not built on debt, it is built on savings.  Mish has a story on these loans.

This is the work of clueless politicians, trying something, anything.  It won't work.  At some point it all falls apart.  And then the poor politicians have no one to boss around.

Spain needs to eliminate much of its government so people can be free to produce.  Spaniards need to work in a productive way and not look to the state to solve problems, if that is the problem.  Never been to Spain myself, so I have no idea of the level of entrepreneurship or state-dependency.

Freedom is always the answer.  If people can handle it.

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

Chinese Leaders Ask for Wisdom

Eleven of the top twelve Chinese leaders are engineers, one is a lawyer.  Eleven of the top USA leaders are lawyers, and one is an engineer.  In USA we have a flaw in our political system, and that is allowing officers of the court to serve, in a conflict of interest, in the legislative and executive branch, or both.

The General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee has called for more political courage and wisdom to deepen the country's reform.

Wisdom for ruling a country too numerous to count?  Hmmm... where have we heard that before?

He renews the efforts:


Xi said that five principles should be adhered to based on more than 30 years of experience of the policy.
Firstly, opening up and reform must be implemented along the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Secondly, opening up and reform must be conducted with correct methods in line with China's national conditions and should be improved with further practice.
Thirdly, opening up and reform is like a systematic project which should be conducted in a coordinated way and needs supporting measures.
Fourthly, opening up and reform must be conducted based on a premise of stability, and finally, the policy should be conducted under the leadership of the CPC and respect grassroots innovation.


Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

Pray We Go Over The Fiscal Cliff!

Your taxes will go up, the military will be cut, milk prices may shoot up, and who knows what else will happen.  Yes, if you have depended on a false economy, and war-profiteering, then you may be temporarily inconvenienced by going over the fiscal cliff.

It is always a good idea when you spend more than you make to increase income and cut expenses.  A big expense is war, and you have been paying for it on a credit card.  At what point do you say, "Hmmm... maybe these wars are not a good idea"?  What would it be...?  Maybe...hmmm.. what if more soldiers committed suicide than died in battle.  Would that cause you to pause, reflect, think?  No!  How come?  Because you have not been paying for the wars!  Now that the cost will come out of your paycheck, you'll begin to think about what it costs your personally.  And for the first time in twelve years of pointless murder for oil, you'll say ...  "hmmm....  maybe we should not be there..."

Milk is cheap because you've been paying taxes to keep it so.  Now you will have to pay for it.  You m ight finally say...  "hmmm... what is in a carton of milk?  Hmmm...  organic raw milk is now cheaper than Darigold....  I wonder if real milk is good for you?"

Yes, for the first time in your life you'll actually start paying for some of the things you thought were cost-less, like murder for oil.  You may experience a little less money for dope and make-up, but it will have a profound effect on your psyche, and may actually cause you to consider  what is done in your name.

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

Will Taiwan Become China's New Japan

Strolling down the hallway of the Dong Fang Bingguan circa 1979 I noticed air conditioners in boxes, something with which the hotel heretofore had no experience.  The brand was Toshiba, no big deal.  But the boxes were marked "Made in Taiwan."  This was astonishing because we who traded with both the mainland and Taiwan had to carry two passports, one for each country, such was the rivalry between the two.  I showed the boxes to an astonished US official.

Taiwan has benefitted form China growth, but not commensurate with its natural affinity.  Japan has done very well by China, but now there is trouble in the waters.  As a Japanese province, Taiwan advanced ahead of China, and the more technocratic mainlanders took over in Taiwan in 1949.  As late as November of 2011, individuals from Beijing could not visit Taiwan alone.

Now relations are improving in between the two at a fast pace with travel and investments, to the point that advice from academics is offered:
"To encourage more investment from the Chinese mainland to Taiwan, a fairer mechanism, one without the numerous restrictions, must be established. However, that would require further negotiations between the economic authorities on both sides of the straits," said Dai Shugeng.

"Another important issue is that investment projects should be entirely predicated by market forces. The authorities should back off. Only when the authorities agree not to intervene will more areas be opened in the future," he said.

Now the very interesting point is Professor Dai is on faculty at the university on the Communist side of the straits.  With the one country two systems working out so well vis a vis Hong Kong, might China make it one country, three systems and tolerate another autonomous city state?  If so, Taiwan may become a economic giant in the world, with its underutilized management capacity making people rich on both sides of the straights, as Japan finds Chinese cooperation dwindle.

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

All Hail Kickstarter!

Anthony bird dogs a small scale steel furnace for artists and blade smiths.  The fellow needed $4000 to build his furnace, and he oversubscribed by 10%.  He'll need it, because since the USGovt policy is get big or get out, it is pretty clear any money made from kickstarter will be taxed as income, if there is anything left over after the securities lawyers finish your compliance paperwork.

Just search "kickstarter" on this blog to see my posts on those two topics.

I have no use for kickstarter myself, and this fellow could have raised $4000 without to much problem by working nights at Micky D's, but there are plenty of people who'd like to see this fellow get this done faster, and they are happy to help him out.  All hail Kickstarter for brokering that.

But the next time you meet a lawyer, know that they work for the government, and their job is to effect a crushing burden on the small, the creative, the competitive, and above all advance the State agenda.

Clearly the United States legal system is a net deficit, well, like out budget.  The courts are a creation of the legislature, and it may be time to reform the US legal system.  but that will neer happen as long as we allow the conflict of interest in which lawyers can serve in the legislature and the executive branch.

So, first step, make it a crime, punishable by twenty years in prison and a million dollar fine, for a lawyer to run for public office.

Then when we've seized the legislature back from the lawyers, we can reform our legal structure.

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.

Bookmark this post --- Email this post