Japanese Hand Knotted Carpets

North China puts out the best handknotted carpet value in the world.  Thick, plush, excellently hand made, beautiful design, and still priced to compete with USA machine made.  Japan makes these too...

Since 1935, this carpet mill has manufactured and supplied premium quality carpets (in addition to their notable clients mentioned above), to government offices, public facilities, major corporations, hotels, restaurants and places of worship in Japan and around the world. While the client list grows impressive the further you go down, the company has stayed true to its roots, still producing out of its original location in the small town of Yamanobe, Yamagata Prefecture, in the Northeastern region of Japan.

That the designs look Chinese is not surprising since the story relates how the Japanese company was informed by Chinese artisans.

That handmade carpets are still being made in Japan is no surprise, small business pursuing specialty work can not only survive through economic downturns, note how this one started in the depression.  Falling prices makes new business even more likely.

I've traded in Chinese carpets, so I know a thing or two.  From the pictures of the article, I can see the Japanese are doing a few more steps, although I am not sure what they are doing.  It's on my list of places to visit.

And the finished product does not look superior to the Chinese carpets.  None the less their client list is impressive.

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Jimmy Carter & Truth Commissions

Occasionally there are federal judges who have not had their secrets compromised, or perhaps have not engaged in blackmailable activity, and therefore rule legally:

U.S. District Court Judge Katherine Forrest ruled 1021’s language unconstitutional and had issued a permanent injunction on its implementation in September 2012.

But never mind, soon enough compliant judges are just above...  we are now experiencing chaos, the hobbesian all against all.  Midlevel rogues are running amock.  There is no adult supervision, because the adults have been compromised.  Any safety we are experiencing can only be attributed to our natural inclination to order out of chaos, anarchy.

Congress is supposed to have oversight responsibility of our government, but midlevel rogues (colonel is mid-level) simply ignore congress or lie.

“Col. Bristol was not invited by Congress to testify before he retired,” said Air Force Maj. Robert Firman, a spokesman with the Office of the Secretary of Defense. “The DoD has cooperated fully with Congress and the Accountability Review Board since the beginning of this investigation, and we will continue to do so.”

That isn’t the case, however. While Bristol is preparing for retirement, he is on active duty through the end of July, said Maj. Shawn Haney, a Marine spokeswoman, on Wednesday. He will be placed on the inactive list on Aug. 1, she said. That contradicts statements that Pentagon officials have issued to both Congress and the media.

Lying, a cowards way out, is the default by serving military officers (the others have resigned or have been prosecuted.)  And why not, in a standing military, all officers are politicians.  Petreaus has admitted to criminal acts, and he goes free.  Who has been punished for lying?  Only Snowden, for telling the truth. The only way out for the rest of us now is the truth commissions.

A good man to lead truth commissions would be Jimmy Carter, my favorite president, since his deregulation efforts led to the economic revival for which Reagan took credit.  Here is Jimmy Carter's CIA director:

In the documentary Secrets of the CIA Turner commented on the MK ULTRA project, saying, "it came to my attention early in my tenure as director, and I felt it was a warning sign that if you're not alert, things can go wrong in this organization."

And later...

In November 2005, after Vice President Dick Cheney had lobbied against a provision to a defence Bill that Republican Senator John McCain had passed in the senate banning "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" of all U.S. detainees, Turner was quoted as saying "I am embarrassed that the USA has a vice president for torture. I think it is just reprehensible. He [Dick Cheney] advocates torture, what else is it? I just don't understand how a man in that position can take such a stance."

Jimmy Carter today says what I have been saying, and that is the USA has no functioning democracy.  Jimmy Carter has it right, and clearly can collect the extremely few still honorable people around him.  That is why he is so hated.

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Get Big or Get Out - Winery Division

As you know I am all pro-small biz and dislike the advantages given big biz... That Sec Ag Earl Butz repeated the policy of the USGovt that the Agricultural policy of the USA is get big or get out.  Here is a particularly raw example, wine division...

Preface, "duty drawback' is nothing new but it always has meant exporting what was once imported (if it is not consumed, then no duty necessary)  apparently big wine got a special deal...  Spend about 30 minutes studying this and you'll learn a lot.  As usual, a problem and an opportunity.

Here is the rule

http://www.ttb.gov/itd/wine_producer_taxpaid.shtml

Here is the effect

http://aic.ucdavis.edu/publications/Drawback831.pdf

Proposed change 2006

https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2009/10/15/E9-24789/drawback-of-internal-revenue-excise-tax

No change 2010

http://www.observertoday.com/page/content.detail/id/535736.html

These rules are either a tax on small wineries or a subsidy on big wineries.  The UCDavis studies say that small wineries cannot take advantage, but that is not necessarily true.  Truly they do not have the economies of scale, and are unlikely to be importing and exporting (a prerequisite to make the deal work) but doing both is possible, even advisable if a small winery wants to export.  (I've blogged here before on the 3M strategy of export dev.)

In the last 40 years, being in business has always meant endless unfair rules and regs.  Being in business, in part, is living with this third world mind set among those in government in USA.  That will not change, for if it is not this problem, they'll come up with another. But when in history were not the powers that be a plague on peace and prosperity?

The most revolutionary act a person can perform is to start a business.  Self-employment is an existential threat to those who populate the government in support of the powers that be.  It is nonviolent, it directly helps people and it is the only thing the bad guys actually fear.

Forget about going into academia, ministry, medicine, labor law or any other field.  If you really want to help others and make the world a better place, start a business.

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China and Real Estate Law

Seems like ex-pats in Shanghai are boisterous on top of not obeying zoning rules.  This is an excellent test case for Shanghai and property rights:

Miller said the bars will simply go out of business if they are forced to close at 10 pm: "It's when the expats are just getting warmed up."
Blaise understands that the buildings are old and the residents can easily hear the noise: "If I put myself in their position, I wouldn't like this place."
In a bid to mollify one resident, Blaise bought the man's room on the floor above his bar. He now uses the room as an office and the resident has moved to an apartment in a street 200 meters distant.
Chi said the bar owners considered buying the second- and third-floor rooms, but the plan fell through because the residents demanded unrealistic prices.
In June, the average price of a newly built residence in Shanghai was more than 28,400 yuan per square meter, according to the China Index Academy. Meanwhile, pre-owned apartments cost nearly 27,000 yuan per sq m, according to Soufun, an Internet real estate platform.
"My room is 15 square meters. If they paid me 10,000 yuan per square meter, how could I buy another apartment?" asked Liu.

So the tension is laid out, in a classic form.  In common law, the rights of the first one in place are superior to the second.  Before the bars the street was quiet, so the renters above have a reasonable expectation that will continue.  State intervention only exacerbated the situation, but brining in zoning rules, "you can be noisy until 10 pm."

The practical problem with rules in China is the Communist Party is woefully undermanned when it comes to the total life control assumed in such rules.  In USA the cops can shut down a bar at 10pm, but unlikely to happen in China.  But that is not the problem, the problem was the curfew to begin with.

After one bar opened, many more did too.  Obviously, this is a money maker.  The bar owners, with unhappy residents above, are not offering enough for the people to move.  The unknown is how much are the bars making?

With private property and a free market, those buildings would belong to someone, who would be obliged to meet contractual obligations.  The owner would get sued for renting a bar out below an apartment, or come up with some accommodation between the bar owner and the renter.

Like Hong Kong, there is no private ownership of land in China, so we are talking about the ownership of the buildings or use of land.  China is struggling to get real property law right, and Hong Kong has a fascinating blend of socialism and common law in effect.

Back to the bars...  clearly the rooms above the bars are worth more now that the bars are there.  The bars attract high paying customers.  Facilitate the renters in the auctioning off of their leases to the highest bidders.  Then it will be the bartenders vs. the entire market instead of the bartenders vs the suffering renter.  The renters would clean up on such a sale.

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Hazel Nut Trade

Following cotton yesterday, trade in hazelnuts, of filberts, is another example of "everything happens.."  Here is an article regarding a plant blight, but it summarizes the crop, largely grown in Oregon.

Oregon produces 99 percent of U.S. hazelnuts, roughly 37,000 tons a year, and a $40 million annual harvest was slipping away.
Sixty percent of the crop is exported, and China is gobbling about 85 percent of the shipments. 

So the math tells me about half the crop goes to China.

About half the hazelnuts consumed in the U.S. are grown in Turkey, he said. "We could double our production just to replace imports," he said. 

So we export about sixty percent of the crop, and what we consume domestically is matched by imports from Turkey.  Ummm...  How come we don't just consume our own, why all of the trading?  That would take some research, but most likely reason is not all filberts are equal, and then another reason would be tax avoidance and capital flight.  Hard to say without being in the business.

Major nut buyers are "scrounging around the world" to find new supplies, "Another sign that there's not enough hazelnuts," Mehlenbacher said. The Willamette Valley has the ideal climate for hazelnuts -- not too hot, not too cold. 

So right now demand is strong.  Well, the markets will sort that out.  The story has another interesting aspect, it touches on two instances where young people escaped the farm only to come back and take a management position.  Kids want int'l travel and an iPhone as part of their job.  Well, small farming today requires both.

I did some nosing around on hazelnuts, and found this.

Americans eat an average of 8 ounces of hazelnuts each year (ERS 2010). In comparison, the Swiss consume more than 4.4 pounds per person and Germans consume more than 2 pounds.

Can you say Nutella?  If USA doubled it's per capita consumption, then we'd still be less than 1/4 of what those hearty Swiss eat.  And why not eat them, look what is in one of the little beasts.  Try getting that in a multi-vit.

So next I hit customs rulings, for news.  Which leads to the name of a small business int'l trader, which no one has ever heard of.

What is the difference between these people with in a thriving small business and you?  They started.  Get going!

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Business Cards and Start Up

Henry Ford said there is no market for a new product.  I say it in other words, without a customer you have no product.  

But but but “I have this cool thing from overseas...”  “I have the great idea...”

Without customers, you have nothing.  You create customers as you create the product or service.  You keep testing each iteration with potential customers. The relative distances between your idea and first sample is about 100 miles.  That distance is filled with research.   The distance between first sample and start up (orders) is about 50 feet.  Eeryone wants to cut out those 100 miles.  It cannot be done.  To skip that is just to waste your suppliers and your customers time with product not ready.

You need no business card, nor licenses, or office or anything else to develop an idea.  Nor to do the 100 miles of research.  Nor to get a first sample.  Nor to travel the 50 feet to start-up.  Not even to import and ship to customers.  No, you need that stuff when people are paying you for your product.  Until then, you have nothing.  Nothing to put on a business card, nothing to license.  Focus only on what matters.

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Seattle Export As a Small Business Seminar

Would you like to learn to export food & beverages as a small business? Or any small business export?  Monday, July 22, 6-9pm, at Seattle Central Community College I will be presenting a live in-person cutting edge strategy for small food and beverage producers to export around the world.  Agricultural exports are the one booming area of USA trade. As overseas markets emerge, newfound disposal income is spent on better food, and more of it.  USA food products have strong positive attraction in these emerging markets. By selling into new markets, your small company may expand production profitably.

Forget what you think your know about exporting.  You will learn something new. The goal is to make an export sale as profitable and as easy as a domestic sale. The tactic is to present a buyer with what he needs to make a decision, but limit the contract choices to those standard practices where you take no risks and provide no extra services.

Forget what you think you know about marketing.  This is selling from the buyers point of view.  It is s systematic business development. You will learn to get in front of the decision maker and either get the order or the objection to be overcome.  This seminar has been presented in several states to very high ratings.

Although this seminar is for people already in business, this seminar will provide a strategy for acting as an export agent for USA food products.

If you are in the Seattle area Monday, July 22, 6-9pm, sign up to join this seminar.    If you cannot make it, let me know by email at john@johnspiers.com, I may have an alternative way for you to take the course, from anywhere in the world.

In any event, the course provides hands-on steps to be taken, with activity follow-up with the instructor, me.  Sign up now.

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China Cotton Trade

Cotton has always been such a problematic crop for USA.  China has a curious policy towards cotton.

In 2001, US exports to China amounted to 63,000 tons of cotton at a value of $56 million. Total cotton consumption in China for 2013 is expected to be 7.7 million tons.
"Data on US exports to China in just over a 10-year period of time [reveal] how significant of an impact China has had in terms of consuming US grown cotton," Jackson said.
Over the past decade, China has encouraged cotton growers to readjust their product mix; introduced, developed and commercialized more high-quality, productive and marketable varieties of cotton from abroad; and popularized advanced cotton planting techniques, according to a presentation by Hua Liu, general counsel for the China National Cotton Reserves Corporation (CNCRC).
In March 2011, the Chinese government enacted the Policy on Provisional Purchase and Storage of Cotton, which Liu said has helped stave off fluctuations in cotton output and effectively regulated a stable cotton-cultivation area of about 11.5 million to 13.2 million acres.

Why not grow more themselves?  Why should they?  If USA wants to subsidize cotton and deplete their fields to benefit China with cheap cotton, then take advantage.  Grow some, but import plenty more.  The more you import, the farther ahead you get.

Exactly the right policy.

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Henry Ford Made Billions Fighting Patents

There was a point in the development of the automobile industry that looked like the computer industry circa 1982:  hundreds of small companies competing to be number one.  For the auto industry, that year was 1903.  Enter the wicked patent attorney:

The lawsuit began in October 1903, when George B. Shelden and his licensee, the Electric Vehicle Co. filed suit against the Ford Motor Co. for infringement of Selden's patent, and it wasn't finally decided until Jan. 9, 1911. It has been estimated that costs of the battle passed the $1-million mark.

(prox $24 million today).  A patent attorney gamed the system to create an income stream for himself and "investors."  The asset was the patent.  (Sound familiar?) In essence, while having nothing to do with automobiles or the industry, the patent holders were able to abuse the system to lay a private tax on the automobile industry while obliging taxpayers to fork over the money to enforce the monopoly that made their private tax possible.  Bear in mind the Constitutional basis for the patent is (read what an afterthought this clause was)

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

So as you can read, the point is progress (for everyone), specifically limited to what will promote that, no where mentioning untold wealth by private taxation.  Now of the hundreds of companies making cars in 1903, one said "no."

When Ford Motor Co. was sued for infringement on Oct. 22, 1903, it was a small struggling company. Its first sale had been made on July 15, when the company bank balance was down to $223.00. The syndicate, of course, represented a multi-million-dollar combine. Ford retained Ralzemond A. Parker, an eminent Detroit patent attorney, to defend the company. Like Ford, Parker was convinced the patent was unenforceable and should, and could, be defeated.

The fight went on for eight years.  On one hand were "investors" who desired to game the system with a private tax enforced by public moneys vs an inventor and marketer who truly and naturally wanted to promote the progress of science and useful arts.

For the next 8 years, the country was treated to the spectacle of an intense trade war between Ford Motor Co. And the Selden interests. The Selden group harassed unlicensed automobile makers and their customers with suits and threats of suits.

Note what was happening, Ford was distinguishing his company from the others.  He probably had no idea this was a good idea when he started, especially when he had to future on the line to fight the wicked patent attorneys and "investors."

Ford advertised that he would indemnify his customers against suite by the Selden syndicate and later posted the entire assets of the company as a bond. The advertising war was carried on almost daily in the newspapers throughout the entire country.

Recall when the music industry in the '90s was suing twelve year old girls?  All this is nothing new (although it was new then.)  Ford was up against people who had money pouring in.

But, Ford soon stood alone, however, as other auto dealers yielded to the Selden demands. On Nov. 22, 1910, attorneys for the litigants began presenting their arguments to a three-judge appeals court. The hearings were brief and covered much of the same territory covered in the lower court. On Jan. 9, 1911, Judge Walter C. Noyes reversed the lower court. Ford had won!

You need passion (to suffer) to start a business, and it is the joy of overcoming the problems that allows the little guy to beat the big guy.  Seldon and his thuggish clique just wanted money money money.  Ford wanted to provide a value in the marketplace.

So the whole industry was funding the effort by Seldon to destroy Ford, and when Ford won, the whole industry was freed from the private tax backed by government violence.

It has been estimated that royalties paid before the patent was held invalid amounted to about $5,800,000.00.

No wonder Ford became bitter in his later years, being a free man among welfare queens.

The whole industry was freed from the necessity to pay royalties on automobiles, and a serious threat to its development was removed. 

The irony is, today Ford is part of a patent poll that makes it almost impossible to start up a car company in USA.  When taxpayer recently bailed out Ford and the others, those patents should have been open sourced.  We missed an opportunity.

Of this amount, Selden is believed to have received only about $200,000.00. Even so, it was a bountiful harvest for the holder of a patent finally adjudged worthless.

Yes, and where occasionally courts would follow the law, we see so little of that now.  While we are assured patents are to  "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."  in fact we see time and again, they are nothing but a hindrance to the same.



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No Market For New Products

Don inquires:

 In the initial stages of beginning the business will it be require of me to make many trips to and from the U.S. to meet with potential clients or can this be done   initially via Skype, phone calls and email? I am asking because I want to know if I will have to increase my initial budget expenses.

Don:

 To answer your question at the heart of it, no it will not take money to start.  It'll take customers to start, and customers don't take money, they give it.   So we focus on that.

Henry Ford said there is no market for new products.  The implication is you need to develop the market for the products, as you develop the products.  And this takes mostly talking and listening.

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Apple Outsources Design

Apple competes on design.  Design is so important, it is not something you do yourself, you hire professionals to do so.

Earlier this month, Apple hired Paul Deneve, the outgoing chief executive of fashion house Yves Saint Laurent, to work on undefined “special projects”, reporting to Mr Cook. His experience in fashion and luxury goods has been seen as potentially useful in a move into watches, as well as branding.
Apple’s iWatch recruitment drive has included seeking out acquisitions of early-stage start-ups working on connected devices. Making so-called “acqui-hires” such as this has become common practice in Silicon Valley, where engineering talent carries a high premium, even for top companies such as Apple.

The new crowdsourcing cites sure beat the old "notice on the engineering department bulletin board" back in the day.  Think 99designs.com vs.

ehow.com

Here again is the internet performing its only value:  lower the cost of communication and widening access to research.

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Bank Reserve Ratio

I was reading the inimitably calm Frank Shostak on USA bank supervision when I came across this.

On Tuesday July 2, US central bank policy makers voted in favour of the US version of the global bank rules known as the Basel 3 accord. The cornerstone of the new rules is a requirement that banks maintain high quality capital, such as stock or retained earnings, equal to 7% of their loans and assets.
The bigger banks may be required to hold more than 9%. The Fed was also drafting new rules to limit how much banks can borrow to fund their business known as the leverage ratio.

7%?  9% I thought it was 10%.  High quality capital?  Bank stock?  Retained earnings?

That 7% reserve requirement is no favor to small banks.  It just means in a downturn they are the first to go out of business, leaving the "too big to fail" sopping up these losers, and making it convenient for the few bigger banks to be bailed out.  And if the banks go bust, stock does too.  So bank stock is high quality capital?  And retained earnings is an accounting entry.    So essentially there is zero reserve banking in USA.

People always say busts "happened so fast!"  No, only the end is fast, like death.  We are way beyond fixing the dead economy, it is just a matter of when people realize.

The end of Hostess Twinkies seemed a surprise, except it took a long time.  First, the pensions need to be looted and the unions need to be busted.    These things take time.  Then the new, lower cost factory can make even more profits than before.

Hostess Brands acknowledged for the first time in a news report Monday that the company diverted workers' pension money for other company uses.

The bankrupt baker told The Wall Street Journal that money taken out of workers' paychecks, intended for their retirement funds, was used for company operations instead. Hostess, which was under different management at the time the diversions began in August 2011, said it does not know how much money it took.
.....
Hostess Brands, which filed for bankruptcy for a second time in January, started liquidating its operations in November after the bakers' union refused to take another pay cut and went on strike. The liquidation will leave about 18,000 workers without jobs.
In November, a judge approved Hostess' plan to pay $1.8 million in bonuses to 19 executives, according to CNBC. Rayburn declined to take a bonus but also avoided a company-wide pay cut that he imposed, Hostess told HuffPost.

Pension fund money is often company treasury capital so the company can spend it any way it wants, as long as it accounts for it.  But in bankruptcy... oooops... all gone! (Social Security is even worse, but that is something else.)

Now, you can say "this is wrong, we need stronger regulations!"  But the regulations in place were to cover the last set of abuses.  You cannot regulate fairness.  You can only foment good in freedom.

You all recall the Twinkie Riots.  No?  The Trucker riots of the 80s?  Longshoremen riots of the 90s?  The Pilot riots this of the 00s?  No.  Of course not.  They all experienced the same thing.  But since we have a "safety net" of freebies people do not object too much.  There will be no changes, except the major change coming after the system crashes.

Whatever business you have will go up in value tremendously as so much else unravels.

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China Trade and Urbanization

Any visitor to China over the last decade was astonished by the cranes in the city, presiding over construction over the vast and densely packed new cities.  Here are some numbers quantifying this phenomenon.

China is undergoing rapid urbanization, with its rate increasing from 17 percent 30 years ago to 45 percent at the end of year, Xu said. More than 600 million of China's 1.3 billion people already live in cities.
"This is an incredible speed and I am quite proud that we didn't see a huge increase of slums in the cities during the process," Xu said.

So urbanization follows growth.  A policy maker wants to makes things easier for this process to continue, and is rightfully proud China did not build slums in the process of urbanization.

But now comes another policy advisor, arguing that China should not only provide for urbanization, but cause it. China has had a painful recent history in sending people down to the country, on the pretext of economic and social benefit.  Here a latter day social engineer advocates

"It will have to be a strategic move, a long-range process Its overarching theme has to be 'building new cities' across China."
Without such a strategy, investments in public infrastructure are likely to cause confusion and even delay economic recovery, he said. Urban development is probably the only way to shift the economy's dependence from export to domestic consumption.
Wang said that if the government could help about 450 million rural residents settle in urban areas in the next decade, it would generate an investment of 225 trillion yuan.

Hang on, as others have pointed out, cities follow growth, growth does not follow cities. And what kind of economy manifest growth?  Is the city the highest good?  It might generate an investment of 225 trillion yuan, but at what cost?

Freedom got what good the Chinese have gotten the last 30 years.  To switch back to forced emigration, in any direction, will hardly makes things better.  It's one thing to notice a trend and support it, it is another thing to think the State can start something good and make it go the way it wants.

There is an interesting tension in China.  The Party has the power to make change, and it is laudably focussing on corruption.  Admirable!  There are many who want to use the power to force changes which the exercise thereof is likely to lead to more corruption.  It is probably enough to wipe out corruption and leave the people alone to continue their good work.

The USA could use a better balance of small vs large farms.  Here again, it would be enough to stamp out corruption in USA.  And let natural balances set.

One of the most revolutionary acts today would be to start a business or farm.

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Business Start Up Worldwide Changing Trends

Barclay's report:

So is America losing its entrepreneurial mojo? There is some evidence that entrepreneurial activity is flagging. The latest data from the Kauffman Foundation found that there were 514,000 new business owners a month in 2012, down from 543,000 in 2011. The 2012 numbers marked the lowest in five years.

Rothschild said the time to invest is when the blood is flowing in the streets.  Contrarians will tell you the time to move is when others are not.  This negative indicators is positive towards actually starting.

In the U.S., only 21 percent of millionaires cited business sale or profit as their source of wealth. A much larger percentage cited saved earnings or personal investments as their sources of wealth. 

Now this shows what people who WOULD be starting businesses are now doing.  They are working the false economy to build up personal wealth.  The years spent doing this are two-fold tragic:

1. All that "wealth" will be stolen one way or another.  Easy come easy go.

2. The time spent making fake wealth is time not spent learning how to make real wealth.

If this was a financial weather maps, it shows global cooling for USA and Europe.  Asia and South American do not have the imperialism of the USA/Euro axis, so they have to make money the old fashioned way.  The map does not quite illustrate where freedom is strongest - Pacific Rim: East Asia and South America.

I am convinced that BigBiz/BigGovt is dreadfully antipathetic to entrepreneurs.  many other have said it, but it is relentless.  This article comparing entrepreneurs, for no particular reasons, ends with:

"Entrepreneurs need to embrace volatility and recognize that fortunes can be lost as quickly as they were made," the report said.

How does that relate to anything in the article, or anything in reality.  Entrepreneurs never take risks (maybe because Barclay's is a bank and banks invented the idea to scam entrepreneurs.)  I can see people with present high net worth reading that and thinking "I'll stay with my investments in Barclay's, where the are safe."  Given the tottering economic structure we have such people will most likely end their years eating Alpo and tearing out pages from back issues of Architectural Digest to make toilet paper.  Time to start a business.  Diversify.  Take 10% of those savings.  Does not matter how much that is, it is enough.  And start up your business.

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Talking People Off the IPR cliff

Whenever one argues for something good in the face of a great evil, there is the tedious task of dealing with the obtuse.  I say I am for free markets, which means I am necessarily against "intellectual property rights" (IPR) or properly termed copyrights, trade marks and patents.

The obtuse live in a world of false dilemma: no IPR, no possible chance of getting paid for your work.  IPR or nothing.  (In fact, in most instances the reality is IPR AND nothing.)

I am all for people making as much money as possible off their ideas.  I am very much against people leveraging the violence of the state to earn money.  As one with a copyright on a book that has sold for ten years, I know how to make the most money off my work, and that is to work it myself.  The best way to make the most money off your ideas is to work the ideas yourself.

Another common challenge is "but your book is copyrighted."  Correct.  If not, Amazon, etc will not buy it from me.  If not, I cannot give me book away free on Google, which is the #1 drive for sales at Amazon.com.  The copyright does me no good as far as sales, and I actively make the copyright pointless so I may enjoy the best results.

But once the red herring word "property" is inserted into a discussion of copyrights, patents, etc, people go delusional thinking "my property/maximum benefit to me/ anyone else is stealing" (see Patry) and what follows is a downward spiral contrary to free markets.

I am not against people making money on their work, I am against people using the violence of the state  to deny others the ability to make money doing their work.

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