Saturday, February 1, 2014

Hine Cognac

Hine Cognac makes a typical error in website development.  Although they responsibly ask you nationality (for language delivery) and your age (since they are selling a restricted product) their website opens with a HiDef video, which will not play and then crashes browsers.

The video was saying "make is small and make it perfect" which is competing on design.  And Hine Antique Cognac is a favorite of mine, but the point is lost in "production values."

Established companies with money to burn on advertising will hire web developers who do too much so they can charge too much.

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Friday, January 31, 2014

California Drought

Here is a group of scientists (no "global warming" nonsense) talking about the weather... since they are not wasting time talking nonsense, they can get to interesting matters...  see those spooky unnatural squiggly lines of clouds off the Pacific Northwest?  Ship stack exhaust picking up vapor while sailing from Asia to Oakland...

But the main topic, as you see, is California is not getting rain, lowest year on record.  Read the comments section.



And here you can track ships sailing worldwide in real time and find out all there is to know...  drill down to specific ships...

And for another satellite visual, the country in the North has had single payer health care for some 70 years, and the country in the South has had it since 1989...  it is a visual of what the future for USA will look like with single payer health care. The example of the North is what you get with single payer health care over time.



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See The Problem Here?

Billionaire NFL owners, whose activities are tax exempt ( the third party) oblige taxpayers (fifth party) to pay wealthy "law enforcement" functionaries (fourth party) to interrupt sales of junk between 2nd and 1st party traders (actual buyers and sellers.)

Ahead of the Super Bowl, federal officials announced a crackdown on counterfeit National Football League merchandise, revealing the seizure of more than $21.6 million in fake NFL merchandise, Thursday.
In an initiative called “Operation Team Player,” the feds targeted international shipments of counterfeit merchandise from abroad as it came into the United States, as well as warehouses, stores, online vendors, and street vendors selling counterfeit goods and tickets nationwide. The operation began in June.

Although this effort is astronomically expensive, there is zero impact from "knock-offs" on the economy, because none of the people buying knock-off products would have ever paid for "official" NFL products.  This is business billionaires simply cannot be bothered with, but the rest of us nonetheless must foot the bill for fun-time busy work and pension-gaming by "law-enforcement."

If tax-exempt billionaires care about this, why don't they pay for it?

This is why the USA is fast becoming a third world country.

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Thursday, January 30, 2014

Deflation is Harmless

In fact it is beneficial. No deflation, no economic recovery,
Those who think deflation is harmless should listen to the Bank of Japan's Haruhiko Kuroda, who has lived through 15 years of falling prices. Corporate profits dried up. Investment in technology atrophied. Innovation fizzled out. "It created a very negative mindset in Japan," he said.
Evans-Pritchard is leaving out one salient fact:  Japan spent money on bridges to no-where in a Keynesian sailor's shore leave.  If they had spent some of that beefing up Fukushima (or decommissioning it) it might have been well spent.

Corporate profits dried up because money was spent on bridges to no where instead of R&D and innovation.  Japan needs deflation and a free market.  It has neither yet.

When a cup of coffee in Shibuya is 50 cents we'll be on our way to recovery.  We can hope.

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Private Libraries

Once upon a time before capitalism distorted the USA market and fed vast riches into single hands, communities of all sorts opened private libraries.  Some of these still exist, although Carnegie wiped many out with his "free" public libraries.

Now comes a verdict on librarian as a job:
Now, the local library is online, shoes and shirts are no longer required and we can use our "outdoor voice" indoors if we are so inspired. Will the decibel diva's future 
I don't think so.  The only change is "librarian is no longer a minimum wage job, it can be a quarter million a year gig."

The business records and financial statements of that library are public record, so librarians ought to think about opening private libraries again.  Back to the future.

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A New Anarchist is Born

The story is all too common...

Seeing the article prompted local regulators to swoop in and shut her down. The Madison County Health Department told her she could no longer make or sell cupcakes because she lacks a permit. That runs afoul of the Madison County food ordinance and Illinois' food-santitation code. Oh, and her kitchen itself wasn't licensed either.
Now, how do the people who enforce pointless rules and destroy entrepreneurship expect when they retire to be financed on their 40-year-paid vacation when there is not enough business to support their unfunded pension liabilities.  The future holds condign punishment.

The health department said it was only following the law, which applies to everyone, from big bakeries to sweet, detertmined young women who might have their dreams crushed from time to time.

Well of course the law applies to all.  It was written that way, so that only huge business could effectively comply, and small and start-up cannot.  Take a wild guess why Illinois is the worse off state as far as unfunded pensions and fiscal irresponsibility.

So this girl now understands, and begins to see the superiority of anarchy, instead of the chaos of states.

When the federal policy is "get big or get out" the states follow the policy since there are bounties of sorts paid when states follow suit.

I wonder at it...  do these enforcers not see the internal contradiction in "just following orders?"

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Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Help Haiti Now!

Folks,

You've recovered your finances from the holidays and now you can kick in something to a very good cause ...  planting coffee trees where they need to be, Haiti.  This is a charitable donation, but the result is food produced and work provided to a people who could certainly use a one-off helping hand.

Anything donated is assured to go to the planting of the coffee trees, I personally know the person behind this effort, and so this is my rare pitch for help.  Go now, and kick in anything you can.  It all helps, even if it plants only one tree.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/911-haiti-coffee-trees

20140117085123-grenn_lajan


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Food Quality Compliance and Resources

USA quality recommends our food and beverage worldwide. With the MOQ FOB we leave compliance issues on the buyer and require the buyer prepays.  In this way we can afford to allow our product be tested worldwide, in search of markets.  If and when a product finds a market, your customer overseas may ask for some of those USA quality control efforts applied, and of course at their expense.  In any event, I met a rep from a firm that offers quite a few resources, many no charge for use, and instead of me summarizing, I will let her do it:


As I mentioned at the show, BCI manages the International Food Additive Database (www.FoodAdditiveDatabase.com) and the USDA-EPA MRL Database (www.MRLDatabase.com).  The Food Additive Database, built in partnership with the USDA and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), is a daily-updated international resource of food additive use regulations, which currently includes 60 countries.  The MRL Database, also updated daily, includes all US pesticide maximum residue levels (MRLs) and corresponding foreign MRLs across 90 countries.

To follow up with our conversation on various export resources available for small businesses, I wanted to provide you with an overview of some of BCI’s regulatory services.   These tools can provide food manufacturers and exporters with the necessary information to ensure that products comply with food additive and MRL regulations worldwide.

·         BCI News Service
This free weekly email digest includes regulatory policy updates from around the globe that affect both food additives and MRLs.  You can read the latest updates at http://www.bryantchristie.com/blog/food (Food Additive News) and http://www.bryantchristie.com/blog/chemical (MRL News)  Those interested in regulatory issues may sign up to receive a digest that goes out every Monday morning and includes updates from both news feeds.

·         Trade and Regulatory Databases
BCI’s online Trade and Regulatory Databases provide information specific to clients’ products and markets of interest on a range of topics including: food standards, tariffs, quotas, documentation requirements, product labeling, and packaging requirements.
To view a publicly accessible example, please see the National Confectioners Association’s (NCA) International Trade Statistic and Regulation Database: http://www.candyusa.com/InternationalBusiness/TradeRegulations.cfm

·         BCI Monitor
BCI’s customized weekly newsletter provides a summary of recent and relevant policy and regulatory developments, designed to help industry leaders stay abreast of international issues affecting their products.  Delivered via email, each edition covers a tailored selection of topics such as food additive regulations, labeling laws, tariffs and quotas, and updates on relevant trade negotiations around the world.
A sample Monitor for the food processing industry is attached to this email.

·         Regulatory Research
BCI’s team of regulatory and policy analysts are available to conduct independent research studies tailored to the needs of individual clients.  Frequently-researched topics include market feasibility, competitive analysis, tariff and non-tariff barriers, consumer preferences, and distribution.

·         Customized Databases
In addition to the publicly available International Food Additive Database and USDA-EPA MRL Database, BCI offers customized databases and data feeds.  These products are tailored in terms of content, function, and format to meet client specifications.

Please don’t hesitate to let me know of any questions or comments you may have on our databases, news feeds, or any other BCI service.  More information on BCI can be found at www.BryantChristie.com


Enjoy!

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Finding Freight Forwarders for Food and Beverage Products

The USDA has a handy website directory and database...

http://apps.ams.usda.gov/FreightForwarders/

Well done and thorough....

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Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Austrian Economics

The New York Times has offered a content-free article on Rand Paul and his association with the Von Mises Institute, the libertarian think tank in Alabama.  I mention here and there that my economic thinking is "informed by" the Von Mises school of Austrian economics.  The school of Austrian economics is not only the most systemized of any economic school of thought, it also best explains economics.  Economics was boring until I begin reading Austrian economics.

Now having said that, Austrian school is also the liveliest, with great controversies within the bounds of  the school of thought.  It also has the most live wires working in economics, and the Times article cites one:
Walter Block, an economics professor at Loyola University in New Orleans who described slavery as “not so bad,” is also highly critical of the Civil Rights Act. “Woolworth’s had lunchroom counters, and no blacks were allowed,” he said in a telephone interview. “Did they have a right to do that? Yes, they did. No one is compelled to associate with people against their will.”
I enjoy listening to Walter Block, he has personally helped me out tremendously on ideas and projects (a little of his help goes a long way) and ("but?") he can be a bit of a controversialist.  Above he is making the point that free association is a better polity than enforced association.  To my mind he misses the more important point that the "No negroes allowed at the counter" were Jm Crow laws, not Woolworth house rules.  That is to say, the no negroes, segregation were laws put on the books by legislators, not the desire of Woolworth.

Further, it was when business was asked to join the equal rights movement that the laws were changed, and not until.

Woolworth wanted negro business, but Woolworth was forbidden to seek it, let alone accommodate it. The "negroes" enemy was the state, not Woolworth.  As long as Dr. King et al were appealing to the state, whether courts or legislators, they got no where.  When they appealed to business, they got progress.  Read Dr. Abernathy on all of this.



The Civil Rights Act simply created a new set of interferences which are now showing up in the form of bakeries being sued for not baking "gay wedding" cakes.  I regularly turn down business I do not want.  My reason are my own, and to force me to something I don't want is unjust.  It was unjust to force Woolworth to not serve "negroes."  It was unnecessary to force them to serve "negroes."  Those businesses, who refused service to anyone after being freed from Jim Crow laws would suffer to the extent their refusal offended the community.  Progressives over-rate the amount of racism outside of state sponsorship, so they assume the South would be a "negro-free" zone absent the civil rights act.  They simply do not understand the South.  Racism is leveraged by state power, and is negligible without state power.  The Tuskegee experiments, segregation, lynchings, etc, were all state sponsored.

And everyone celebrating the prosecution and demise of one baker's refusal to make a gay wedding cake, fails to note that the same state power can one day swing back the other way and make "gay" a capital offense.

My own disagreement with the Austrian school, also called "anarcho-capitalism" is that it allows for the charging of interest, and would tolerate enforcement of contracts to that end.  There they lose me.   But otherwise, they are the team to beat when arguing economics.

But here is Dr. Block on free market pollution protection:
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Export Quality

Harris Tweed is a fine fabric from Scotland, and doing very well in China.

Estimates from HM Revenue & Customs indicate that exports of textiles from Scotland to China are about to hit a record high, after sales in the first nine months in 2013 reached nearly £9.7m – outstripping the total for the previous year. Scotland sells more than two and a half times more textiles to China than it did a decade ago.

I had a suit made of a tweed, but the Scottish stuff is so hard to get I went to the more reliable Scabal out of Belgium.  My Hong Kong tailor took my measurements and Scabal did the first cut and Fedexed the fabric to Hong Kong for fitting and construction.  Whatever works.

Someday I'll catch a production run and have Scottish fabric sent to Hong Kong for a suit.

But more to the point on what China buys:

“It’s about provenance, British [identity] and quality,” said Brian Wilson, chairman of Harris Tweed Hebrides, and a business ambassador for the UK government. “If you can tick these three boxes in China then you’ve got a good chance.”

See that checklist?  Same with small business exports from any country, including USA.  Provenance is a fancy word for traceability, and eery country has its "best" items, and the best is always defined as the right quality.

Funny thing, even in my youth, anything top of the line was marked "export quality."

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Monday, January 27, 2014

Apple Foxconn to Manufacture in USA

In example 324,944,038, cheap labor has nothing to do with international trade.
(Reuters) - Taiwan's Foxconn Technology Group, the major supplier of Apple Inc's iPhone and iPad products, said it's considering expanding manufacturing to the United States in a move that could open up new prospects for business with Apple.
It will be a blend of tax relief and surplus USA management.  All policy makers know cutting taxes spurs business, but tax cuts are limited to big business since industrial policy in the USA is the fascist "get big or get out."

With collectivization comes the deflation in managers salaries.  As manager's incomes drop in USA, manufacturing will return.

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Deflation in Europe First

Mish Shedlock gets it exactly right that we need deflation for economic recovery, and then goes one better, noting the correct impact of credit vs money "creation."  He cites predictions (meant to be feared) that odds are Europe will see deflation before USA.

Correctly understanding deflation means Europe will recover before USA recovers.    If so, important news.  And an aspect Mish does not (nor would perceive) is the implication that Europe has less of a false economy than does the USA.

USA investments and notional values of the derivatives "supporting" the notional value of our wealth has people actually spending based on these suppositions.  Since the suppositions are false, the range of goods and services people buy contribute to a false economy.

For example, people who have a nominal stock portfolio of $5 million based on notional derivatives, own a condo in Hawaii with HOA fees of $500 a month and drive a Porsche making $500 a month payments and so on.  Such a person may be living nicely on say $8000 a month, $4000 fixed costs and $4000 discretionary spending.  When the bust finally comes, they will have no means to cover fixed costs and no skills that will earn them enough to cover those costs.  When that economic actor is no longer participating, the costs of a condo and HOA and porsche and so on will drop dramatically.

Such a person will wish they owned a hot dog cart, since at least they could rent a place as far away from the section 8 housing they are now obliged to dwell.  The EBT card will be accepted in ever fewer places as businesses who are actually providing goods and services in a true economy prefer to work with customers mike them.

We saw a micro-vision of this in 2008, but we accepted the can being kicked down the road and the next crack-up will be epic.  Skip that next trip to your condo in Hawaii, sell it, get a cart on a corner selling hot dogs.  Or something where you own the means of production right now.

The most revolutionary act is to start a business.


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Shifting from State to Customer Employment

On Jan 27, 2014, at 7:19 AM, riv  wrote:

In my opinion, the versatility and potential of this ... is too great to ignore that when applied to the increased public “green-health’ awareness and demand, I see an import/export opportunity here…

***  OPINION, good...  so this opinion must be formed as a hypothesis and tested.

Along with the rationale in demand, there is your feeling (I suspect)  that you have some esoteric info: demand info and applications info.

Again, you asked, so here goes:

Check the trends and control for hype, rarely if ever does hype affect at the transaction level.  For example, in spite of the hundreds of millions spent on "BUY USA" and relabelling in the 1980s and countless surveys proving the americans prefer USA made, it does not show up at the transaction level.    Same with recycled etc...  people vote with their pocketbook when they buy.

If you see money going into green, well, when a good part of that is Solyndra and Shell Oil claiming to be investing in green strip mining, well, ok...but not really... it's just pork labelled beef.

As to healthy, people have always wanted that.  Oleomargarine and no salt nor fat were sold as healthy for the 8 decades the food pyramid was king...  now that people have figured out they were scammed by big govt/big food, they still want healthy, but they are back to what was once good food.  

Aside from being skeptical of demand, the question is how will demand at the macroeconomic level translate into sales of your item necessarily at the microeconomic level?  You're entering a jungle hoping to land on a dime.  My point is, this needs to be turned around: how to get from being on the dime to wading into the jungle (because who knows what happens in biz after you get started.)

If there is implicit advantage assumed in esoteric knowledge, check that since the fact the info is researchable means it is in fact out there.   Your premise is betting that there are not enough people with knowledge and marketing and product development acumen to meet the needs if and when new avenues open up.

Look at microbreweries and iPhones.  Beer was a well known industry when my favorite president ever, Jimmy Carter, deregulated beer.  Lots of people jumped in, but by the time the trade stats revealed that specialty beer imports were growing,  those with skill and expertise and acumen already won the race.  iPhone could not be contemplated when Jimmy Carter deregulated telecommunications, and again, it was the Steve Jobs of the world who pulled that one off.

So here is my critique.  You do not have a product to sell today, so you are in no position to start up a business.  (this class is about starting up a business now.) Your rationale regarding demand and implied esoteric knowledge may be spot-on, but what does it have to do with you?  And in any event, the series of steps that must go right for you to get where somehow there will be a business is a task Herculean that Odysseus would decline.

The "aha" above relates to my prejudice that processes that succeed in government work are the antithesis of what works in entrepreneurship (the thesis, and there may very well be a synthesis between the two, but I have not seen it.) No doubt your goals working in the commerce department were met by following whatever process leads to that result, but it is antithetical to what works in small biz.   I am keen on this topic because no matter who wins the elections over the next decades, either party will cut back on government service and repudiate pensions.    The process is well underway, and to me this means a whole lot of productive contributors will be entering the market to the benefit of all.  I want to save them time and money getting to "thriving..."  the more people producing the better for all...

Sure, you could pick any known product as a biz now, but I suspect you intuit that all demand for that product is adequately met.  So what would be your competitive advantage?  Lower price?  You can test it, but that won't work.

I've wandered a bit because your circumstances are very interesting to me, inasmuch as I want to get the process right for people to shift from govt to private work.  You seem willing to attend to the challenge.

So back to the question...  if you could trade absolutely any good or service you wanted to, what would it be?    Still your original products?  Of all the things you can imagine and reflect on, that is the one?  Think on this more, and we open with this question Wednesday night...  I'll offer a paradigm shift...

John

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Sunday, January 26, 2014

Celebrate Store Closings!

Somehow the idea that store closings means the internet is benefitting is gaining ground, and that is too bad for people who form beliefs based on mere assertions, and not on hard facts.

My "secret" in teaching and writing on business is I refuse to proceed with hard facts, test them, and then take no risks.  It is no secret, sine anyone thriving does exactly that, the only difference is instead of watching football games I like to lecture.  There are countless people who can teach what I teach, know what i know, but they just aren't into teaching too.  Indeed, I learned it from non-teachers.

Never mind the internet, I said so in my book a decade ago, and it still is good advice.  Sure sell to ecommerce sites, but skip ecommerce yourself.  eCommerce is less than 8% of all retail sales, and is likely an unprofitable segment.  In any event, why go where only 8% of your customers reside?  Why no go where 92% of them are, and a profitable 92% at that?

Because people want to believe that there is a shortcut to making money.  And in so aspiring to money, the lose out on lifestyle.  Sigh.

To the article:

"Stores will disappear and survivors will shrink, as consumers turn to the Internet for their shopping, they explain."

Repeat after me:  If the internet was going to grow more than 8%, it would have done so by now.  It is not going to get larger than that.  That is why Amazon etc is cannibalizing other online ventures, and not trying to convert brick and mortar to online.

Four years ago I put up a video on the topic of store closings...  the lecture pointed out what people are talking about today, store closings.  In the video I make the point that the products on the shelves, four years ago where boom ethos products, and stores needed busted ethos products.

What I could not see four years ago is that the state would enforce a zombification of our economy, starving our elders so they Dick Cheney and how Wall Street crew could have more cool $#!* while promising free health care.  The game is Dick Cheney and his crew get their free $#!* now, and the free health care never shows up.

Now that the zombification of the economy game appears to be ending (watch the stock market bubble burst, when it bursts) there will be a flood of properties coming on the market, zero interest in the junk on the shelves of Macy's (I overheard someone say the Goodwill store present better than Macys now) and internet sales will drop as the customer base, for the internet gets laid off.

Organic (in the sense of integrated), local business will return, and the boom and zombie brick and mortar will die off, with a stake through its heart.

All of those sitting pretty with pensions, and 401Ks and other notional assets will find their lifestyles gone, and the businesses serving those notional wealth will doe out, allowing a true economy to replace this false one.

Or, we'll do what they are doing in Venezuela.  The question is not whether Romney or Obama or Hillary is another Maduro of Venezuela,  They are in fact one and the same.  The question is if the American people are the same as the Venezuelan people.  Are we exceptional?  So far, we are not.



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Venezuela Tackles Economic Problems

Sigh...  I guess there just cannot be a revolutionary event in which the result is peace, prosperity and justice.  A revolutionary event is necessarily a policy shift from one group benefitting to another group benefitting.  So it goes from bad to worse.  It is bad in Venezuela, so the plan is to make it worse:

Fair Prices Act, an instrument with which the Government intends Nicolas Maduro control prices and eliminate shortages, entered into force with measures that include a ban on higher profit margins of 30% and penalties of up to 10 years imprisonment for hoarders.Maduro passed the law last November by an enabling law, then using for the first time a mechanism by which it may legislate without parliamentary scrutiny, but was yet to be ratified by the Supreme Court to acquire organic character, which occurred yesterday , said the ruling itself.The law, published in Official Gazette, states that the profit margin will be established annually "addressing scientific criteria" by the National Superintendency for the Protection of Socio-Economic Rights (SUNDDE).

Mish noted this in his column first.  My points are, first what is profit margin, net or gross?  And the cost of "watching" will be astronomical.  And when do people hoard?  When supply is cut.

Now, no doubt there will be talk of economic sabotage against the Venezuelan economy by the USA, and no doubt that is going on, although nothing compared to what damage these policies inflict.  In any case such sabotage can be easily beat.  Open free markets.  (Cuba could have done this 50 years ago too.)

Let goods flow in an out.  Respect property rights (the main thing) especially adverse possession.  Eliminate only the laws that advantage the rich, never punish the rich.  Cut back government to a human scale size, and then emphasize enforcement is against government not citizens.

Never will happen, except accidently, as in Hong Kong, Vatican, Switzerland, Andorra, San Miguel, Iceland, etc.

If you want hoarding to stop, open the ports.  If you want profits minimized, allow free trade.

In USA we are no better than Venezuela, since we are doing the exact same thing with 17% of our economy and Romney/Obamacare.  With Venezuela, we can see our way ahead.

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Traceability Trumps Regulation

Today when we have a health scare or quality issue, it is always a big firm like like a while back with ten million pound recall of Farm Rich and Market Day frozen chicken quesadillas, etc.  (Farm Rich.  Market Day. Frozen. Don’t you love branding?)    It is hard to figure out what is making people who eat such food sick when people who eat such food eat so many other suspect foods.  Widely distributed foods means that it takes time for the responsible parties to link someone sick in Columbus from eating Market Day e Coli Rich foods with someone in Chicago eating Market Day e Coli Rich foods. 

And yet, the FDA which NEVER catches these in advance, spends its time on small producers, making pre-emptive strikes on small farmers whose cheese never made anyone sick.  Nonetheless, mainstream media goes even farther than the FDA in spreading false reports on small farms (read the comments.)  If two people got sick over a small chesemakers product, the narrow distribution and uniqueness of the product would jump out at investigators.  Small farm products are so much easier to trace.  And easier to destroy, which makes for feathers in the caps of regulators who are bought by the huge companies among the regulated who can afford to pay.

Traceability trumps trademark, but it also trumps regulation.  With the consumers immediately able to feedback first to the business in question and then to together fans of a given producer, we simple no longer need an FDA.  The future is here.  Let's cut the budget back by the FDA expenditure, and release those people into this brave new economy, and see how they like it.


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A Live Lecture on Anarchy

I am offering a series of discussions on anarchy in daily life, this session the topic is "Anarchy is Necessarily Nonviolent." We'll trace the history of kingdoms and corporate government, and their inherent violence, and the non-aggression principal inherent in anarchy. Special attention will be given to nonviolence in a violent world, is self-defense violence, and the role of the invincibly ignorant in keeping us all safe. And then we'll move to discussion.

Mon, February 3, 7pm – 9pm

Black Coffee Co-op
501 E. Pine St. Seattle, WA 98122


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