Saturday, April 20, 2013

A Regrettable Aspect to Boston

Especially regrettable is the fact that a Chinese national, a young woman who came to the USA to study at Boston U, was one of those killed by the bombs at the Boston marathon.  This means 33% of those died where Chinese students studying in USA.  A Chinese student, especially a young woman, represents exponentially the hopes and dreams of her community.  It is very bad that she died in what is a USA domestic political dispute.

Lu Lingzi - 23
Another friend, also a Chinese student at a US university, was also injured critically.  

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3 Million Muslims in USA - Fast and Furious

Do you recall in the Atlanta Georgia Olympic Games how a back pack bomb went off and the FBI had the wrong guy for three solid months?  The media convicted him.  Years later they pinned it on a mountain man.

After the Madrid bombing the FBI knowingly lied about the fingerprint match of a Oregon lawyer whose wife was Moslem.

Since 9-11 there have been dozens of FBI-initiated entrapments of young and witless Moslems into "terror plots."  They tend to fall apart on trial.

Law enforcement is known to run fast and furious operations, in which they allow criminals to complete crimes.  In fast and furious,  US Law Enforcement died from guns gone wild.

The Boston marathon was crowded with bomb-sniffing dogs and special security.  How come they did not intercept the suspects?

In the aftermath, the shutting down of the city and 24/7 constant media attention, the media showed precisely how to create a pressure-cooker bomb.    I recall after a criminal derailed a train in the mid-80s Newsweek gave detailed instruction on how it was done.  How many copycat nuts will we get now?

There is no way of knowing what the facts are in the present case, and with the way our criminal justice system works, we'll never know.  But it sure seems like this is another unlikely pair of odd-boys who were led into entrapment, or a fast and furious style training exercise gone wrong.

With or without this event, with some 3 million Muslims in USA, it is real strange that almost none have engaged in terrorism since 9-11, and the ones that may have plotted are rather dubious suspects.  If anything, Muslims seem to be a rather sedate group in USA.  Work and raise a family types.

We need not only a renaissance in education and medicine and banking in USA, we need a renaissance in law enforcement.   Of just the few crimes mentioned in this post so far committed by law enforcement, not a single one has resulted in jail time, let alone dismissal of culprits.

If these lads are the culprits, and given the snooping recourses law enforcement had, why am I searched and observed at airports but these guys are not stopped in advance?  How do I get searched and these guys escaped detection?

Simple, all of the snooping is not about detection it is about dossier, so if the regime desires to destroy you at any time, it has enough to do so.  All of us would die from embarrassment if all our secrets were revealed.  And as the federal prosecutor wrote,  we all commit three felonies a day.



I heard a talk radio guy saying if these guys did not like America, why did they not just leave?  "No one is forced to stay in USA, anyone can leave...  we have no Berlin Wall in USA."

I exited East Berlin one September day in 1975.  I tried to go out Check Point Charlie but I was redirected back to Friedrichestrasse where I had entered.  As a US citizen I had to get past the communist East German guards.  So I was there.  I know.  And I can tell you it is far more difficult as an American to get out of the USA today than it was as an American to get out of communist East Germany in 1975.  No one can dispute me, because I was there.  I did it.  And I had far less trouble back then than I do today.  In fact, it is harder to get back INTO United States today than out of East Berlin then.

When the Berlin Wall first went up, things were not so bad in East Germany.  As the years progressed it got worse.  So it is in USA.  We need a renaissance.

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Friday, April 19, 2013

Hong Kong Talent

Here is an interesting video on a new business a USA getting kickstarted by development in Hong Kong:

What the video does not say:

http://www.hktdc.com/info/webcast/v/en/en/1X04BQCI/Shining-Example-of-US-Hong-Kong-Commerce.htm?popup=Y

1. Cheap management,  The Hong Kong entrepreneurs are organizing workers and engineering can and will work for less than their USA counterparts.

2.  Hong Kong has low wages and high wages, it has all wages.  There is a minimum wage, but that is window dressing.  People work for what they want.  A thriving economy is neither high nor low wage, it si all wages.

3.  With 7 million people stacked straight up Hong Kong is remarkably clean and efficient.  Free markets are cleaner markets.

4. Like once in USA, the news in HK is always business, not the state.  In USA, the news is the state, not business.

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Thursday, April 18, 2013

New Product Development

People try to do too much to start a business. You can start with anything, what you've got and where you are.

Now here is a neat idea with a problem.  But let me preface by saying this is not for you if you are not passionate abut cooking.  if you are, then good.

But had you not waited, and already started, then this is the kind of thing you come across and say, "wow, I can work on that!"

To wit:

Instructions:
  1. Cover the eggs with water and boil on low for about 12 minutes
  2. Cool the eggs by placing them in cold water with 1 teaspoon of baking soda and ice. The baking soda raises the pH level and reduces adherence. If you choose not to use baking soda, be sure to move the eggs into cold water with plenty of ice immediately after boiling
  3. Crack the top of the egg and remove a small piece
  4. Crack the bottom (wide end) of the egg and remove a small piece
  5. Hold the egg in your hand and blow vigorously into the narrow end of the egg, which will expel it out the wide end

Great idea.  But do you see the problem?  It is a great way to pass your cold around, or worse.  So a now kitchen gadget, which would answer the specialty store buyer's question #1 at every trade show, would be an "egg blower."  Instead of blowing with your mouth on one end of the egg, a rubber balloon that fits in your hand with a opening on one side (think of the rubber ball on the end of a turkey baster) to put on one side of the hard boiled egg would be an improvement on the idea.

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Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Hong Kong Saw 150,000 New Companies in 2012

The HKTDC.com reports quite a few companies were created in Hong Kong list year, many by people from around the world.

In a year of persistent uncertainty in many countries and regions, Hong Kong was busy helping new businesses get started. A record 150,165 new companies registered in the city in 2012, averaging more than 12,500 each month, according to official data from the Companies Registry.  

This is just businesses, not employees.  Whereas a certain percent would be just shell companies, there is no doubt Hong Kong has a robust new business sector, changes in offers to meet the needs of society, always fine tuning the offers to meet changing demands.

Also not counted in this are the companies that fold.  I've watched suppliers shut down as carefully and rationally as they were formed and grew.  There are no bailouts of assists for small business, which makes for far more sober small businesses.

USA is 50 times the size of Hong Kong.   So looking at that 12,500 per month new businesses tines 50, equals 625,000 businesses.  Granted, again, some are shells.  But those who are not represent on average more than one worker. So let's put the number at say 500,000 people employed by business start-up alone.  (And not counting people hired as employees at existing companies.)

And how is USA doing?


Nonfarm payroll employment edged up in March (+88,000), and the unemployment rate was
little changed at 7.6 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
Employment grew in professional and business services and in health care but declined
in retail trade.


Hong Kong buries USA in employment creation among start-ups alone.  Never mind new hires in existing businesses.

USA was once 13 colonies that were the same thing as Hong Kong founded under the same ideas at the same time.  Those colonies banded together as 13 systems in one country, and used a term called states rights. That changed to one huge imperial country.  Hong Kong today is in an association of "two systems, one country."

There are too many federal regs for USA to ever match Hong Kong in new job creation.  Ther eis push back with nullification movements, etc.    But when we can get states as autonomous from the feds as Hong Kong is from Beijing, we'll see concomitant wealth and prosperity.


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Tuesday, April 16, 2013

We Need Cascading Cross Defaults NOW!

The worldwide capitalist system is creaking and splitting and the minions are aflutter as the dragons on the commanding heights breathe fire and threaten death and destructions if they are not bailed out.  The technical term for the putative danger is cascading cross defaults.

The heart of the problem is usury, a term euphemized as "interest" that is at the heart of the damage being done.  The bad guys want to keep this going, and people of nominal good will want to believe the bad guys would do them no harm.  Western capitalism is dependent on Stockholm Syndrome citizens.

What would happen if we just defaulted on the debt?  Then those benefitting from the abuse would simply not be abusing anymore.  Here is an example from history.  After the Babylonion captivity, Artaxerxes gives Nehemiah leave to rebuild Jerusalem.  The surrounding peoples are not pleased with this, so the Jews are obliged to be half-armed and half-working.  Under these harsh circumstances, what is Nehemiah's greatest challenge?  Usury.  Nehemiah Chapter Five:


And note the sanction for those who do not go along:  Ostracization.  Necessary and sufficient.  You starve to death if you try to enforce you usurious (interest) contracts.  What will happen if we simply default on these abusive contracts?  Cascading cross defaults, with absolutely no harm done.  it sounds scary, but like most water rides in an amusement park, after the first time, you'll want to do it again.  Yippee!

Once people realize that usurious deals can be repudiated with no effect, it takes a long time for usury to re-emerge.  Even states outlawed it for a few thousand years after that.  But about 200 years ago it began to get legalized.  And the last 100 years were the bloodiest ever know to mankind.

To effect the benefit of cascading cross defaults, we do not have to make a law, we just ostracize anyone who insists on being paid.

Why have you never heard of this passage in the bible before?  Is it because the preacher man is bought and paid for, or at least taxed into oblivion if he touches a political topic?  It is because the faithful are syndrominally Stockholmish?  Who knows?  But there is a simple and easy solution at hand to our economic straits.  Cascading cross defaults.

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NO Copyrights In Restaurant Recipes or Menus

So we get free trade in food...  twelve minutes and very fun...



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Monday, April 15, 2013

Question Regarding Ogilvy on Advertising

On Apr 13, 2013, at 8:34 PM, D C wrote:

Hi John,

On P.83 "...it's seldom possible for manufacturers to do this(pricing) in their advertisements, because they cannot dictate prices to retailers. This reduces the selling power of their ads. I don't think it matters with package goods, but it matters a lot with products which cost real money, like cars and refrigerators."

I'd like to know what you think about this...

Hey DC,

In about 2007 the USSupreme Court changed the rules, USManufacturers could again set prices at retail (this was outlawed in 1910 or so...) so Ogilvy was talking about something that has now changed...  

But regardless... ads make news.  If you are a conservator and compete on price, your news is lower price for the same thing, or more benefit for the same price.  So I agree, the price should be there for conservators in their ads.  Back in Ogilvy's day the conservator could offer ad allowance dollars and dictate some conditions in an ad, like mentioning price.

AS to innovators, the news in their ad is new benefit.  Their target audience is not shy about asking how much.  The inquire regarding more info about the benefit.  if they like the benefit, they then ask the price.  So for innovators that price is not so important, in fact I'd leave the price out of the ad.

What is the specific application you are thinking of?

***

For those of you listening in the book to which we refer is the classic and fundamental work of Ogilvy that should be in every library, more so today with the internet than even in the 1960s..




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The Gift of ADD/ADHD

When I was a child, my parents asked me what I wanted for Christmas.  I said a tea set.  They begged me to be like the other boys.  I told them I tried.  The other boys would say "Let's go play baseball!"  And I'd say "No, let's take clothes apart and see how they are made."  Then the other boys would beat me up.

I told my parents about a new disease they made.  They called it hyperkinesis.  (Later they called it ADD or ADHD or both.)  I heard they had drugs for it.  I asked if I could have the drugs.

My mom had a degree in sociology and said psychiatry was bogus and hyperkinesis was not a disease. I reminded her she wanted me to be like the other kids.  She said the other kids were not on drugs, so going on drugs would not make me like the other kids.

In high school when all the kids were on drugs they were then like me.  They would do stuff like take clothes apart to see how they were made.  In class.  The clothes they were wearing.  This was better.  I began to fit in.  Except it was illegal to take such drugs.  I finally got a job in a hospital kitchen, where ADD paid off big time.  I learned ADD was a gift.

Then Uncle Sam said I should register for the draft.  Go to Vietnam like the other boys.  At that point I didn't care about being like the other boys.  I had the gift of ADD/ADHD.  War was not for me.  I filled out a bunch of forms and the military said they did not want me.  1 O.  Women and children first.  I got a job in an import export company.  A small one, perfect for someone with ADD/ADHD.

If your kid is different, it's not a disease.  It's a gift.  If they offer you drugs, decline.  Suggest if they can't keep up with a kid with ADD, perhaps they should take drugs.  That actually works out well.

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Sunday, April 14, 2013

Contrarian Investing

Here are four recent news items:

1. Wells Fargo reports older people are borrowing from their 40lks to live.

2. Faber is getting ready to short the market.

3. Belkin sees a 40% drop in the market.

4. Poor people are being suckered into the market.

When those who are borrowing from their 401ks (no doubt hoping the economy recovers) cannot pay it back, it becomes a cash out. To cash out your 401K means you pay a 30% tax (at worst) plus a 10% penalty, so about 40% hit.  That may be coming anyway.

You can short the market and actually make money within your 401K, but if shorting will work, the SEC will outlaw it at the precise time you will make money.  I was there when they last did it.  And never mind what strategy you find, if it works it will be forbidden as it works.  The banks change the rules as the game progresses.

What did I do?  Cash out.  Take the hit. Invest everything is the means of production.  Then it will not matter what happens in Washington or Wall Street.  It is down to me and customers. As long as I listen to the customers, I'll be eating, and won't need loans or investments that may or may not work out.

Investment today means making money off of money, something forbidden by all religions.  What is recommended is investing in projects in which all partners share the risk and profits.  With banks involved you have risk where your partners have none.  You do not have the right (religiously speaking) to agree to asymmetrical risk in your investments.  You cannot agree to lose or not lose, when your partners (the big financial houses participating in the market) cannot lose.  It ain't kosher.

The only kosher investment is to put your money into the business where you directly share the win or loss with the person who is running it.  Or, open the business your self.

I am not financial advisor, but I know what I did.  I pulled my money out.

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Competing on Design - Music

Jimi Hendrix Early On, as an employee...



And then after moving up front, self employed...

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