Saturday, November 9, 2013

Good Fat

Here a ticked off Karen de Costner goes off on govt interference in food, in particular trans-fat.
So you can blame your “clogged” plumbing, and potentially, an entire generation of health carnage on the fact that the industrial food machine has built an almost insurmountable system of rent-seeking decrees based on politically-motivated junk science that has fully intended to do you harm. I do not subscribe to the the feel-good notion that these actions are the “tyranny of good intentions,” or that the fallout – such as entire generations of health disasters – is somehow an acceptable downside of otherwise useful political actions upstream. This is intentional strategy on the part of the political-industrial machine to string together a system of uninterrupted profitability undergirded by political favors performed by a plethora of crony-corporate megalomaniacs who apply political clout to gain advantage in the marketplace and build their revolving-door resume. The hacks at the top of the crony capitalism org chart transition between the government sector to the pharmaceutical-medical-industrial food sector in an entirely purposeful way.
I was lucky to have a doctor who was a scientist and never bought the false claims Big Ag had to offer.  And it is this kind of independence that leads to opportunity.

Seattle's favorite burger chain, Dick's, was obliged to stop using palm oil in 2008.  So no more GMO Soy/Palm mix for their fries.  "The biggest change since 1954 (when founded.)"

Wait, what?  GMOSoy/Palm mix did not exist in 1954.  What did they use then?  Well, lard or tallow.  Now the very idea makes people wince, which is a triumph of social conditioning since fries cook in beef fat are both tastier and better for you.

Some high end restaurants are doing it, and charging an arm and a leg.  People think they are splurging, or a taking a little walk on the wild side, when in fact they are well within the safety zone.

Obama/Romneycare was designed to fail, so we can get to single payer, which will be yet another disaster for people.  But there is a chance that it fails and we are left with a free market in medicine.  that would be more dynamic than a free market in food, but either one will do.

Deregulate something, and we recover economically.

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That's A Big'un


Friday, November 8, 2013

Selgin V Corrigan

Within the Austrian School of Economics are divergent points regarding theory.  It can be a good place to develop an understanding of modern economic practice.  Here are two sides of a debate regarding something called "free banking", a theoretical corrective to the problems we have today.  Selgin v Corrigan.

There is one point that keeps these discussions unclear.  And that one point is the definition of money.  Money is that medium of exchange and store of value.  (Usually gold or silver or both.)  Now that "store of value" sends some purists through the roof, but it just recognizes the medium of exchange usually proceeds from a well known commodity, and "store of value" does not assume "steady value."

Yet, in fact, when some 50 years ago you could buy a gallon of gas for 2 silver dimes, today we no longer have silver dimes (money), but if you were to sell two silver dimes to a gold dealer today, you'd get enough to buy a gallon of gas.  So as a store of value, it actually works pretty well, but it is not guaranteed to be steady.

They keep calling warehouse receipts and bills of exchange and fiat currency money.  Thus the discussions get foggy.

One other problem, is historical changes.  They get into an example of a miller taking an IOU from a baker who in turn sells the IOU to a banker.  Well, the baker issued the IOU to the miller.  The contract is between the baker and the miller.  Until about 150 years ago, the miller could not sell the IOU to the banker without the baker's approval.  The baker never agreed to do business with the banker and had a very good reason to not to do so, since banks make money on fees, and experience a moral hazard of for temporary want of cash flow a baker may find his entire operations forfeit to a banker.

The moral hazard is a bank that lends 90 on paper with a face value of 100 invites its contributors, such as millers, to submit paper with a face value of 100 for the 90 the bank is lending, when in fact the paper is worth ten.  We are working our way out of that precise problem, and we now on top of everything else must pay Chase's $13 billion fine for this practice.  (They won't.)

Before modern banking, the miller extending credit on flour to a baker was interest-free.  The banks were not necessary.  When the State began to permit, then enforce, usury, all business was under threat of the bankers.  We see its apotheosis today.

Selgin may too be Austrian, but he is arguing for a fix which allows for the system to limp forward.  I say I am "informed" by the Austrian school, because it is relentlessly good theory.  I dissent in the measure it allows usury, so I can never be a true Austrian.

In any event, there is a beauty contest among courtiers for who can hit the right combination to keep the regime going after the next crash.  The stakes are high, and someone will win.  But never the worker or the consumer.

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Thursday, November 7, 2013

MOQ FOB Comes To Canada!

I am the first to say nothing I teach is original to me.  I learned it from others.  It worked when I tried.  As a part time lecturer I come across the science that backs up what is works in the field.

(I may be original on my description of the symbiotic relationship between the small biz and big biz, innovator/conservator nexis and many subsequent observations, but I dare no claim it for no doubt immediately thereafter someone will find a book I checked out of a library that explained it first, that I had forgotten.)

Here is an article out of Canada, courtesy of Kevin, which, well... read on...
One B.C. entrepreneur who has established a foothold in the Indian retail market is Karnail Singh Sidhu, managing director of Kalala Organic Estate Winery in West Kelowna. A small shipment — 200 cases — of Kalala wine hit shelves in Bangalore this year and Sidhu said he and his partners have further plans to open a Canadian wine bar in the city.
What do you see?  It is exactly the MOQ FOB tactic.  I am pretty sure Mr. Singh has not ever heard of me or encountered what I teach, but there he is, employing the tactic.  Being both common sense and no secret, you'll see it pop up where people are successful.

The article describes tactic, but does not get to attitude.  That is harder to pass on, and I suspect that for those who naturally gravitate to the tactic, they already have the attitude.

So yes, MOQ FOB can be found anywhere, you may intuit it yourself or learn it elsewhere.  For my part it is fun to help others grow their biz, and I may contribute something unique by passing on the right attitude to match the tactic.

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USA Collectivization - Get Big or Get Out

Ten years after the 30 million deaths due to collectivization of agriculture in China, Nixon's Agriculture Secretary announced the USA policy was "get big or get out."  That is English for collectivization.

Agricultural cooperativization is the socialist course that makes everybody prosperous, 1956

Democracies are frustrating because they are not as fast as dictatorships in getting things done.  On the other hand, to take it easy is to ultimately get more done.  30 million deaths in a few years raises a stink.  If you can spread the deaths out over time, well, the policy can last longer.

Forty years into this process of get big or get out, Big Ag spent $20 million to narrowly defeat a vote on whether to label GMO foods in Washington State.  $500 of that $20 million was contributed within Washington State.  The rest from the outside.

There is no science yet to say GMO is deleterious to your health, but what science there is unsettling and much is suppressed, like the tobacco science way back when.  And if they have 20 million to defeat a little sunshine, what do they have to buy off a researcher?

If I was a researcher, I would go get solid science proving the deleterious effects of GMO, and then sell it to Monsanto.  I am sure it is happening right now.

Get big or get out is a clear slogan.  It does not say "we prefer big", but the imperative "you must get big" added that the small must get out.  This policy and banking practices has pretty much accomplished the goal of collectivization in USA.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/27/consumer-brands-owned-ten-companies-graphic_n_1458812.html
I am a life member of Puget Consumer Co-ops, a leftist grocer which for years has championed organic and healthy foods, with a strife-ridden membership whose number of opinions exceeds their numbers.  That is the way it should be.  For years they have supported company reps to sit on State and Fed organic boards only to find ultimate disillusion.

Now to get skunked in an election must smart.  And no doubt they will retreat to campaign finance reform in response.  But how about another response?  How about the term "organic" be set by PCC, not by the State.  How about accepting the making definitions is no business of the State?

No doubt a State is most concerned with something as basic as food supply.  But subsidies and regulations only make things worse.  Collectivization is always a disaster, whether fast as in a dictatorship or slow as in a democracy.

A good first step would be for an Ag Secretary to formally renounce the USA policy of "get big or get out" and then start to dismantle the system o subsidies and regulations that enforce the get big or get out policy.  And further, to unhinge the connection between banks and the policy.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2010/01/bank-merger-history

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Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Start Up Trading As An Export Agent

There is a legitimate business acting as an export agent for small and medium sized businesses, businesses in which the owners, having apprised themselves of the export opportunity, still for whatever reason, decline.  The export agent in this case acts as "just another domestic sale."  The export agent buys the goods (against overseas orders in hand) and then marks them up and resells them overseas.

The key here is to work without any contracts, exclusives or other complications.  Any of that complicates the process exponentially and defeats the effort before it can quicken.  Find customers then worry, based on reality, what the contours of the relationships might be.

In the sales process, the first step is approach.  In your approach letter (yes, a piece of paper in the USMails) to the company you'd like to represent, your opening paragraph should use the word "you" within the first three words.

Say you have identified decision maker Jim Schmidt at a given company. Here is a draft letter:

***

Dear Mr. Scmidt,

"Would you like export sales as profitable and easy as a domestic sale?  There is a proven process for that, and I'd like to show you.  And what if export sales would grow your business faster than domestic expansion?  You can see for yourself, and compare.

I found your name while searching (name source) for a company whose (name items) are established enough to sell overseas.

As to your next market in usa, you may anonymously find out what McDonald's finds out after millions in research.  "What is the next best corner upon which to build a restaurant?"  There is a website being built which is fully functional if not pretty yet.  yournextmarket.com.  It will give you instantly what McDonald's once paid millions.  Simply put in the zip code of your best customer, and it will tell you the five zips in USA with those demographics. Market to those potential USA customers and see what you get.  At the same time, let me discover what markets there may be for your products overseas.  Let me be an independent export development department for you, with no exclusives, contracts or obligations.

For my part, I will search and learn, and can promise only world trade feedback.  For example, USA exports 1/2 of our hazelnut crop to China, and 1/2 the hazelnuts USA consumes comes from Turkey.  Curious, and useful for selling hazelnuts.  Let me do some testing of your product, and see what I find.

You name the support level and price.  You tell me you'll allow me 1,000 cases a month at whatever price, and that is what I will test. I only earn markup if I sell.  There is no risk for you.

If we find market overseas, then we can discuss, as we proceed, what the relationship might be.

Why will I work without a safety net?  For the same reason you did when you started: it is performance, not contract, that counts.   I'll get paid for the value I provide, not the contract I an lock down.

You may have some questions.  Feel free to contact me by email or phone.  I'd like to see people overseas benefiting from the use of your product.

Sincerely,

Your name

***

If no response, follow up with the trade data analysis on the product in 2 weeks...

and more as you go...

Your website and blogging should generate enough interesting things to keep bugging your target.  In time you may even find a better target.

All of this costs you nothing to get going.

Get going.

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Social Conditioning

You think and feel certain ways largely due to social conditioning.  The money and power to get you to think and feel certain ways is astonishing.  Check out this graphic on where you get your information.

People WANT to think like everyone else, therefore these consolidations are possible.  We all want others to fight our battles for us, so we are told constantly that we can have that.  It is not true.

The biggest battle in life is we against ourselves, and being self-employed does that.  It is a revolutionary act in which you shift in what you can do for yourself to what you can do for others.

That right there is the heart of all personal transformation.

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Tuesday, November 5, 2013

All Day Intensive Import Export San Francisco

I'll be teaching an all-day intensive seminar for UC Berkeley Monday, November 18 from 8:30 am to 5pm in San Francisco, CA.  If you are in the Bay Area this seminar offers boot-camp start-up experience and time to get specific questions answered.  If you are not in the Bay Area, this is the one for which you should fly in.  

You'll learn to identify markets and sources, and everything in between.  If you plan to start up a business, or need to expand your business internationally, this seminar is unique for its tactics and attitude.  It is highly rated for content, pace and humor by the participants.

Bring a laptop, we'll be taking actions in the classroom to advance your business (wifi provided.)   There is plenty of follow-up consultation with the instructor.

Register now to assure a place in the class.  This one actually has Berkeley credit associated with the course, .8 of a CEU, which means if you are pursuing a degree the seminar goes on your transcript, if you want that too, and your employer is likely to cover the cost in your company education benefit program.

Email me if you have any questions.

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How The Free Market Minimizes Profits

Ugggh!  In an article on prices, the story gets around to profits.
“Hopes that the fundamentals of a free market economy and market competition will settle cancer drug prices at lower levels have not been fulfilled,” the doctors said in the paper released yesterday.
Hopes cannot be fulfilled if the process is never even tried.  Prosperity has at the root of the term the Latin "spero," to hope.  In capitalism there is no hope for a free market.  With usury and patents, we can hardly call it a free market. If you want to see profits whittled down to practically nothing, then open medicine to the free market, for the first time.  If you want to see more better cheaper faster, deregulate medicine.

And this:
Why does Gleevec, a leukemia drug that costs $70,000 per year in the United States, cost just $2,500 in India?
Well, it does not cost that at all, only in USA companies can charge that because of patents.  The article at once cites the nonsense that a new drug costs a billion to develop, and then goes on to say the patent system spurs innovation, without any references to support that sheer nonsense.
Last month, Andrew Witty, the CEO of GlaxoSmithKline, called the often-cited $1 billion price tag for developing a new drug an "industry myth," based on unacceptably high research failure rates
No it is not.  A billion is allocated to a new drug to launder money away from taxes and to company perqs.

The Atlantic Magazine gets a lot of drug advertising, so it is bought and paid for when it comes to addressing problems.  Too bad.  If drug company profits were near zero, and drug companies did not have "walking around money" the Atlantic might have to hire talent to stay publishing.  Patents rot out out entire system.

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International Trade In Services - Fukushima Watch

Anthony checks in, with some edits -

I built a Geiger counter from a kit and attached it to my iPhone. It's reading 16 clicks per minute (close to a check source).  Japanese are all over the small scale pocket Geiger counters for smart phones. I've thought about importing them.

Also wanted to hook a Geiger counter up to a cheap disposable cell phone, place it on the coast, Ocean shores, or Port Angeles, have it phone home readings a couple of times per day. A remote monitoring station.

Plus buy fish locally and give it a read every so often.

Then post all readings on a website.   Monetize the site by selling other's geiger counters and my own.  We'll see.



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Is Anyone Paying Attention?

Look at this picture from Nov 3, 2013.

http://english.cri.cn/11354/2013/11/04/3481s796320.htm
This is the part of the 2016 China Track and Field Olympic team, athletes, coaches, etc.  Notice anything?  O well.  Let's just keep worrying about whether we can have free $#!+ like Romney/Obamacare and blame bank bailouts, election fraud, NSA snooping, the economy, unfunded pension liabilities and everything else on terrorists.

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Monday, November 4, 2013

Minimum vs. Robust and MOQ FOB

The essence of small business international trade is the exploitation of excess production capacity.  The key is tapping the management thereof, worldwide, to produce the item for which you have found customers most economically. You and the owner of those means of production agree on a minimum required to get started...  enough orders from customers to cover the supplier's minimum order requirement, in a workable amount of time, profitably.

The enemy of this process is perfection.  Look at the first Apple computer.

A Start
Not perfect, but a start. And each new production run, to this day, incorporates improvements based on the feedback from the market of the last production run.

With this in mind, you see it does not take much to get started, only enough orders from the market to cover the supplier's minimum in a workable amount of time, profitably.  If you try to design for more than that, you are likely to waste your time and resources.  If you design only for that, then you can finance this thing yourself.

Now as to MOQ FOB, which is a tactic for a viable company (post start-up) you are in a process of "search and learn" new markets.

Here you too offer a minimum, the smallest order you can rationally sell, as opposed to the largest order you can get.  The killer here is "samples" and especially "free samples."

If you offer samples for potential customers to try, you will certainly attract people who enjoy a free sample.  With free samples, you'll send out 100 before you get an order.  If you pay the fedex to the potential "customer" you'll send out 1000.  But you won't last that long, at say $75 a pop for fedex, 1000 free samples is $75,000 out of pocket.  People who give free samples quite before that.

So what is the tactic?  No free samples.  In fact, no samples, free or otherwise.  A real buyer is testing the product.  Don't listen to nonsense about "flavor profile" or quality review, your product has passed USA market-proofing.  You are selling a proven product into a foreign market.  The real buyers want a minimum order quantity to test on their real customers.  What some person inside the company has to say has no relation to what their customers might think or feel.

If you offer no free samples, will you lose orders?  Perhaps...  but with a no free samples/ no samples policy you position yourself to fail only if you quit...

In this way you can go the distance, your only inquiries will be real business.  If you are an owner of the means of production, you can continue domestically while allowing solid export biz to develop.  If you are acting only as an agent, you can serve coffee while you start, or otherwise keep your day job until your efforts discover real markets.

Time is on your side... creating something new is about a necessary and sufficient minimum order.  For both a start-up and expansion through MOQ FOB.

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The Co Op and the Apprenticeship

Like communism, capitalism has failed, and for many it is just a ride until the end, with perhaps a view as to when to jump off.  All hopes are for as peaceful a disintegration as we had in the Soviet Union.

But such a resignation would be to miss a tremendous opportunity, and that is to begin a business that is formed with the aftermath of capitalism in mind.

What do we see that "works," in the sense that it will not die even if capitalism does die?    Those businesses that seem to thrive all depend on some sort of redistribution to thrive, with the target of redistribution being ever more oppressed.

Look at what is gone, the targets of the redistributionists: small businesses, family businesses.  Look what is thriving: WalMart and fancy restaurants.  WalMart is the obvious beneficiary of redistribution, but fancy restaurants?  You bet, the government worker and big business expense account, and those executives in industry and government whose paycheck goes to buy a lifestyle presented at such restaurants.

If an when capitalism falls, what will work?  Small manufacturers, small businesses, free of the Einsatzgruppen that has fanned out to destroy initiative and freedom.  Object to the reference of Einsatzgruppen?  Tell that to the American Indian and those of some African heritage.  The "white" man is only now objecting because of the massive snooping, forced compliance with "health care", unconstitutional search and seizure, and arbitrary violence has come to his part of town.  When that is lifted, so small business will revive, and all the good that comes from that.

Now the corporation is a capitalist construct, a means to keep the profits and pass the loss onto the taxpayers.  In a weird sense of fairness, you too can have a corporation.  So in post-capitalism, no corporations.  No rule against them, just no rule for them.  So then what?

The co-op.  No ownership, except in the collective. Now this is nothing new. In Seattle alone there are dozens of venerable institutions that work on this model.  There are whole apartment buildings, there are parks, there is Group Health for medicine, PCC for food, and REI for recreational gear.  Lemme see...  food, housing, recreation, parks, what else?  Education?  We could do better, and I'll pitch Seattle Teachers' College as a model.    Clothes, well, in Seattle there are those whose fashion sense is Full Rainier.  And if you have twenty dollars in your pocket, you can always go pop some tags.  Mass transportation?  Kids are working that out with their smart phones.  What else?  Ooo!  A coffee shop.

Who knows, as Bastiat said, it's the unseen that matters, as we saw after telephones were deregulated by Carter in 1980.

So in forming a company, find your passion (what makes you suffer) and what gives you joy in solving the problem, then work as a sole proprietor until you grow to where you need help.  At that time form a co-op.  As you contract with people to help out, make it clear that they are there as apprentices, with a view that within a year or two they will leave to start their own companies, division of labor, making the entire community more wealthy by more options and prices always falling so more people can afford more options with their own money (the true definition of wealth).

And lock into your head, a co-op's customers are the owners. Got that?  Talk about the customer being first, etc.  Co-ops get that pitch-perfect.

Right now a co-op is very hard, not too hard, but very hard, and in capitalism people who want to work are owned (in the street sense) by the State.  So yes, it is hard, but as I have said before, there is no more revolutionary act one can perform than start a business.

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Sunday, November 3, 2013

When Entertaining, Delight not Impress

I read a an article by a hostess who made a distinction between delighting and impressing guests.  Impressing guests costs too much and can easily backfire.  But delighting guests rarely goes wrong.

Baked Alaska is impressive, but Dixie Cups get squeals of delight.

Here is a delightful design in the froth of a latte.

http://coffeeinfo.wordpress.com/a-guide-to-latte-art-free-pour/
A nice touch.

From Taiwan comes a coffee shop that figured out how to reproduce photos on the froth.  When  you order they take your pix and reproduce you on the froth.  Impressive.

Taiwan coffee shop prints lovers' photos on latte froth

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Fully Funding Basic Research

Basic Research is the term that refers to that game-changing work traditionally performed 2/3rds by private industry and 1/3rd government funded. Think transistors, internet and the atom bomb.

Here is a government entity with a good summary of the current state of affairs, and calling for "Serious National Attention."  As I began to read the article I immediately thought, "well, industry has taken its R&D overseas."  And indeed, the article says,
Extending beyond U.S. borders, dramatic changes have occurred that have led to a new global economy operating in ways not envisioned even several decades ago. As with our own Nation, innovation and its hand maiden, R&D, is driving the global economy, and we are seeing more nations recognize this by creating their own version of U.S. research institutions and infrastructure. U.S. businesses are taking advantage of the global markets and resources, and are increasing their support for research and R&D infrastructure outside the U.S. At the same time, industry support for its own U.S. basic research has been fairly stagnant in this century,[5] and its support to academic basic research in the U.S. has remained at most flat, and declined in share of support for academic R&D to a level not seen in more than 2 decades.[6]
I have a solution.  Eliminate all government funding of research, and also eliminate the patent regime.  If we got rid of those twin pillars of state oppression, we'd work our way out of our economic problems spectacularly.

Not only is funding flat in USA, so are the markets (I mean buying and selling goods and services, not Wall Street.)  Markets overseas are growing. Countries are liberalizing.  Workers overseas do not have the pernicious sense of entitlement that urges them to collect government dole and shoot up gun free zones instead of working.  And of course the Government does its part by otherwise making job creation and innovation punishable.

Why would people invest in USA when you can make more money faster overseas?

Now, what are the big successes in government-funded R&D?  Well, the biggest might be the genome sequencing of the human DNA.  Except private companies did it cheaper faster.  Nonetheless in the capitalist spoils system, private companies have patent on your DNA.  Now researchers need permission of private companies to cure cancer.
This revolution in DNA sequencing led to an explosive rate of discovery and cures for many genetic illnesses6, but there was a fly in the ointment. Thousands of flies actually; manifested in the name of gene patents that would ultimately prevent competitive sequencing of breast cancer patients27-9.
Chevy Volt is an example.  It is a care that costs some $25,000, in an accident the "first responders" must consult a special handbook on how to proceed, to avoid being electrocuted to death (imagine being trapped in a burning care and seeing firemen reading a manual.)  And you pay $25,000, but if you divide the R&D costs by the units sold, we are all paying $250,000 for that car.  Then there is big pharma and big drug, who keep the profits from taxpayer funded research, as a practical matter.    Sure, the money to create the Volt was "free" to GM, but it is turning out to be a mistake to have taken it.

With industry finding overseas R&D is more productive, and Government R&D being a sort of Trojan Horse, there is the problem.  You can talk all you want about it, or you can solve it, by ending it.

Then what?  Well, look here.  There is more data to sift than there is funding, or could be, to do so.  What to do?  Open source basic research.  http://www.andromedaproject.org/#!/about  Check around the site.  There are actually making progress on basic research.

Transportation issues?  Some kids are solving it.  One could go all day long at this, and ultimately, there is nothing in the way of research that cannot be replaced by open-sourced private efforts.

And not to put too fine a point on it, the big defense of government-sponsored research comes from big defense.  They all like to see war, and even a world war, because, boy, those were the days.

I have no doubt we would in fact lead the world in every area, if we were free in every area.  One big reason we are not free is our standing military.

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90 Days Worth of Tests?

To be science, a test must be valid and reliable.

Validity gets to, in essence, "test what you are testing."  Reliability is when the test done by others gets the same results.  Science is quite actually hard to achieve, so in USA we have dumbed it down so everyone who plays gets a trophy.  This from China:
Researchers at China’s Agricultural University have concluded that testing on transgenic rice has so far brought no abnormalities. The results came after 90 days’ of tests to see if the genetically modified food had any health affects.
Well, hang on.  If you are testing for abnormalities, 90 days is not likely to cut it.  Therefore, this was not a test for abnormalities, so it is not valid.

Now, it is likely others who repeat these tests would get the same results, so it would be reliable, but not valid.

China has many USA trained scientists.  I hope those scientists did not study at Monsanto financed schools.

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