I Want One!

Here is a cool new supersonic jet...




But this is probably all I can afford...



And this is all I probably need....





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From Polity to Comity

I do go on about Hong Kong, a place, as its citizens know, has plenty of problems.  But two things I experienced in Hong Hong were radicalizing, in the sense of requiring I went back to "roots" (the root of the word radical.)

The First was immediate:  back in in the 1970s getting off the train at Lo Wu and walking across the bridge to the People's train.  Night and day.  How could the people on the Hong Kong side be prosperous, peaceful (in spite of the occasional fist fight breaking out on the spot) and apparently just without any resources, and resource-rich China was poor, wracked by civil conflicts and apparently not too just.  It took me a short while to get from their communism to our (crony-capitalist) keynesianism and much longer through Chicago school monetarism, Laffer supply-side theory (under the tutelage of Wanniski) to German Historical school and finally Austrian School.  The Austrian school is the only scientific school, the other schools employing voodoo.

Now, have said that, I do believe as a science, economics is a branch of philosophy, in fact ethics and morality.  Indeed, that great cataloger of all modern economic systems, Adam Smith, was a professor of Moral Philosophy.  He meant his book on the topic to be in that field.

The Austrians, like all economists, claim economics is value-free, like mathematics.  If you make a minimum wage, the net effect is less employment (more machines).  Such axioms are facts, and value neutral.  They leave it to others to decide if that is moral or not.

I don't think you can have human action (praxeology) without a moral dimension.  And funny, all economists refer to an event called "moral hazard."  As when you have politicians vote on their own wages.

What I saw first was Austrian economics was already known among the Cantonese, although not as a formal system, just as a matter of common sense.  I'd already studied anarchy in my youth, and so I could see also anarchy in action in Hong Kong (immediate justice one aspect, recall those fist fights above?)  But also realms of influence, voluntary association, nongovernmental peace, prosperity and justice.  People call Hong Kong capitalist, ok, if so, Austrian, but it is capitalism taking credit for what good anarchy provides (could capitalism survive is it did not get away with arrogating the goods of anarchy unto itself?)

So that Hong Kong/China conundrum was immediate and took decades to resolve.  The other radicalizing event took time.

At first I was too young and dazzled by the city to see it, but Hong Kong has some racism just as virulent as anywhere on earth.  You won't see it as a casual visitor, and even as a regular visitor, it takes time to see.  And you have to be more of an explorer going places most people do not to experience it. And I will say, pro forma, the vast majority of people in Hong Kong are too cosmopolitan to be haters. But the fact is, over the decades, as I managed to work my way deeper into the fabric of the place, I could be at places where clearly I was hated for who I was, I'll say white (although I am Celt.)  Sometimes the hatred was lethal.

Now, all I am saying here, first, is Hong Kong people are no different than people anywhere else.  They have the same range of personalities and ideas, and as a guess, no more or less than anywhere else.  But here is the salient point: nobody has the traction to act on their bad sides to the detriment of others.  The system just does not provide the traction.

Coming out of High School in USA, an associate, to our astonishment, was becoming a police officer.  How come?  I cannot repeat what he said, but in essence to target people of African heritage.  We did not keep in close contact after that, and I can only hope he did not get his wish.  But incarceration records in USA would suggest he was not alone, and not without success.

Yes, Hong Kong has corruption, but to this particular point, Hong Kong is the only place on earth where there is an independent commission on corruption, that can prosecute wrongdoers, not under the executive.  That is only one such safeguard - citizens watchdogs watching the weak officialdom.  (We once had this in USA in the fact citizens brought prosecutions once upon a time)

So what is radicalizing is ideas can matter, in important ways.  Whereas we can fashion a polity, such as the framers tried with our constitution (did you know that was left with glaring problems to assure the convention would return to fix it later, and they did not, so the bill of rights were added late to help fix it.  It went too far even as an unfinished document.)  We have a polity in the USA, based on our constitution.

Hong Kong has so little official polity, the word for what Hong Kong has would be comity.  More relationships than law.

As I said in the opening Hong Kong is not perfect, and as such needs competition.  Competition would both preserve Hong Kong and help the USA, at least a part set aside for comity.

Polity allows people to get traction over others, and abuse them "under color of the law."  It is not just African-Americans who experience this, but now we all do with the TSA, FDA, FBI, NSA ad nauseum.  (OK ok, I didn't care when it targeted only African-Americans, and only now am I bitchin', but better late than never.)

I reflect: most of what I have tried to advance in life has not worked out.  I expect that is true for most people.  Live and learn.  I know where things have not panned out for me, it was me.  No one can get in my way, or frustrate or stop me, in USA.  Now, imagine being of African-American heritage in USA, where it is no secret there are plenty of people who will stop you, frustrate your hopes and dreams, if for no other reason than your ancestry.  of course it happens, but her eis the problem: how does one tell when the idea or effort was one of those non-starters, or a failure due to cruel racism?

See that was something radicalizing in Hong Kong.    I met people who hated me for being me in Hong Kong, but they had no power to act on it.  I did not waste my time or theirs by trying to associate in any way.  Fair enough.  A comity allows that.

A polity forces people to work together and pretend they are being fair to each other.  In a polity, you just never know.

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I Don't Get It, Big Dan.

When the stated goal is elimination, the means eliminate, and the results are elimination, at what point do you begin to take them seriously?  Sometimes I think an audience can be a little slow on the uptake, like George Clooney in this clip.

In 1972 Secretary of Ag Earl Butz said the agricultural policy of the USA is "get big or get out."  Now, of course that means "we help big biz."  No surprise there. But it also means we plan to get rid of small.  I can catalog 100 ways small has been harmed in the last 40 years, and the results are there are far fewer small food businesses than there were.  That is changing, but what the USDA gives the FDA takes away.  

I am looking at Government programs to promote small business agricultural exports. A common term for small business is SME, or small and medium enterprises.   SMEs are told to start they must have:  an international marketing plan with defined goals and strategies, production capacity that can be committed to the export market, financial resources to actively support the marketing of your products in the targeted overseas markets, management committed to developing export markets and willing and able to dedicate staff, time and resources to the process, to meet foreign import regulations and cultural preferences, adequate knowledge in shipping its product overseas, such as identifying and selecting international freight forwarders and freight costing, adequate knowledge of export payment mechanisms, such as developing and negotiating letters of credit...!

The SME answer to all of these questions is “no.”  Why would an SME bother to export when by definition an SME has not penetrated the entire USA market?  If exporting takes all that, plus the risk and extra work, why bother?  The deck is stacked against the SME, if one is to credit that list.

This week an associate was told by an expert he must have his label translated into French for the Canadian market.  Odd that, since he has already been selling into Canada with no such requirement on the part of his Canadian customer. The product can forego the label for a 6 month period to test the market and then go to full bilingual packaging.   Why pay to translate labels before a market is proven with actual sales?  And enough sales to warrant the cost to the Canadians to re-label. You've got a whole six months to try it out.

The key is comparison, if an export sale is any less profitable or any more trouble than a domestic sale, then forget about exporting.  Simple enough.  But it is very possible to structure the export offer so it is just as easy and just as profitable (MOQ FOB).

There is another intangible conflict: many people who actually create food products to sell in USA have a flexibility and creativity that is inimicable to the requirements participation requires for the program. They built market in the USA without all that above, why would they need all that to export?  

The MOQ FOB tactic common in small business international trade for some reason is unknown to these providers.  I am doing my part trying to share it, but I wonder at the reticence.  I know of the tactic from experience, and both USCensus and the National Science Foundation have arrived at the same conclusion from their research.  It is no secret.

Happily I can provide a corrective via schools where I teach, in person and online.  And the big advantage is I am the only game in town.  But it goes on...  I was helping a contractor on the East Coast develop a database of people involved in Import/Export of a certain area, so they could promote int'l trade to these people.  I pointed out that people in the field obviously need no help, and there are plenty of people not in the field who could use some help.  He agreed, but no, the contract was for what it was.  Well, now that I know there is no one to help people who should be in business in that area, I can pitch my online courses to school in that area.  I'll be the only game in town, again.

Feedback from a recent seminar:

Instructor is passionate about the subject he is teaching and encourages an interactive session. Great knowledge transfer.
Kerri Evans

I guess the difference is I actually trade for a living.  There are plenty of people who know what I know, it is just that I like lecturing in my spare time rather than following football or golfing or whatever.  To each his own.  But I'll keep teaching until the 30 years of positive feedback gets overwhelmed with "he feel asleep in the middle of the lecture!"  Not yet.  Soon maybe, but not yet.

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Los Angeles All Day Start-up Import Export Seminar

if you need an all-day boot camp to jump start your business start up, come join me Saturday, March 15, from 9am to 5pm at Orange Coast College.

Importing as a Small Business

    

Class Description Learn how you can become an importer now in a one-day seminar highly rated for the instructor's experience, pace, candor and humor. You will be guided through licensing, selecting products, finding suppliers; working with governments, bankers, brokers, carriers; financing, costing and pricing, and gaining orders for your products. This knowledge becomes the basis for an export business as well.  After the seminar,  help via email with instructor and past students is included.  Class ID: 16510 Saturday, 9:00 am - 5:00 pm; 1 session starting March 15, 2014, ending March 15, 2014 Tuition: $95.00 Instructor: Spiers Registration Closes On: March 16, 2014 12:00 AM

Enroll now to assure you have a place...

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Payoneer

If anyone has any experience using payoneer.com in world trade at the small business level, I'd be delighted to here about it...

Comes one report:

You are renting Bank of America's services through Payoneer. " Payoneer gets a mega Bank Account with a partner US bank under which sub accounts are created for each Payoneer customer in order to provide them with unique account numbers they can use to get payments. Payments can be sent to the sub account, using the account number that was previously provided, then Payoneer transfers the money they receive to the personal Payoneer Debit Card of the customer that received the payment in order for him to be able to spend it!"

Let's hear more...

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All You Need is Credit

We have always had usury with us, more or less.  Our rules reveal our weaknesses, and every major religion condemns usury harshly because we are so prone to it.

Today what we call "interest" is usury, but by etymological tricks there is enough fog to give it a pass, in spite of its condemnation still being on the books, so to speak.

The rule is simple enough: make no gain on any loan.   All loans, the loan itself, are charitable events.  Even as charity, they are to be repaid.    If they are not repaid, then the idea is the best thing to do is let your charity run deeper, and forgive the loan.

If it is your desire to make money with your money, then the proper means is to invest in a business, at risk with everyone else.  And in fact today, far more money is tied up in equities as investments than loans.  So skin-in-the-game investments is no controversy, but condemning making money on loans sure is.

 The scholastics were given to philosophizing, and a theoretical problem of taking a loss while doing charity was addressed.  Theoretically.  Say someone needs $10,000 today to keep the wolf away from the door, today, Friday.  You were going to sell a flock of sheep on contract for $12,000 on Monday.  The best price you can get today for the same sheep is $10,000.  So to sell today, you'd in effect lose $2000 doing your charity of a loan.  As part of the deal, is is legit to ask to be repaid $12,000 on the $10,000, since you in effect lost $2000 being charitable?  The answer was yes, theoretically, and in the Latin discussions of this theoretical problem, the loss was called interesse. The theory began to address all sorts of scenarios such as "what if I was supposed to pay a bill and the repayment was late, and I suffered some loss?"  The word interesse covered this loss too.  By sheer multiplication of theoretical scenarios of possibilities where a loss can be experienced, covered by interesse, the idea of interesse as a loss to be covered as legitimate spread about the West.

So, when doubtful scenarios in which people made money on money, illicit gain, the propounders called it interesse as well.  And where the word once meant loss on a loan, it now means gain on a loan.

As states began to take temporal power from churches, states began to accept the idea of making money on money, so usury spread.  States also got involved in banking, starting with the Bank of England 300 years ago, and over time learned to lend money at interest, lend money at fractional reserve, lend fiat currency at fractional reserve, which has no rational limit.

To be able to create so much credit makes it cheap and plentiful, so customers need be found to sop it up.  The idea of "risk" in business was introduced, to help foster demand.  Whereas before entrepreneurs would never take a risk, today all schools, media, law assumes that is the essence of entrepreneurialism  (except for Peter Drucker, whom I follow: entrepreneurs do not take risks.)

Now, those who engage in usury on steroids (lending fiat fractional-reserve currency at usury) can aggregate enough resources unto themselves to literally call the shots.  For example, look at a map of countries the UK has invaded since they formed the Bank of England:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/9653497/British-have-invaded-nine-out-of-ten-countries-so-look-out-Luxembourg.html

Some people call this success.  I suppose it depends on which side of the rifle you happen to be.  Of course, no one needs to be on any side of the rifle, it is also possible to trade freely and peacefully and justly without killing people in the process.

We can have golden eras and renaissances without usury being the heart of the economic system, or any part of it at all.  It does not make sense to outlaw usury, people like many vices, people will engage in it.  At best just recognize all loans are charity, and interest is un-enforceable, like gambling debts or contracts with children.  Usury would wither away without the violence of the state to enforce it.  And just how come do we, fifth parties, agree to pay taxes to fourth parties to maintain third parties to enforce by violence agreements between second and first parties (usurers and their victims)?  Let them pay for it themselves.

Usury is important to states.  The CIA is steeped in its promotion, and although Muhammad Yunus won a Nobel Peace Prize for discovering microfinance as a policy tool for Bengla Desh poor,  oddly, Pres Obama's mother was introducing it in Indonesia before or the same time as Yunus.  Well, Darwin and Wallace thought up evolution at the same time, and Newton and Leinniz invented calculus independently, so I suppose there could be two inventors of microfinance.  Who had nothing to do with the CIA.

I was at a meeting of an NGO looking to advance a Guatemalan (if I recall) project to help a village with whatever.  Two members of the village were present.  Have you applied to USAID?  "No thanks."  Fair enough.  "How about microfinance?"  Silence.  "It is a great system, you need it to help you."  Silencio.  "Well, if you are not willing to help yourselves..."

Came the reply from the "natives", "Microfinance is a trap."

Just so.  And people are figuring that out.  What people need is not microfinance, but freedom from state violence against their entrepreneurial efforts.  That is what is missing.

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USA Goes to Trade War With China For Germany

The China Daily reports:

"The US International Trade Commission has not realized that the two countries’ solar industries are tightly linked. US solar imports from China have created great commercial benefits and job opportunities for the US," said an official from the Bureau of Fair Trade for Imports and Exports at the Ministry of Commerce.

Just so, less expensive solar panels means more $50 an hour installation jobs in USA.  Far more money to be made installing solar panels than making solar panels.

The investigation is regarded as a further move in imposing restrictions on China’s exports of solar products into the US after the US Commerce Department imposed tariffs of 29.18 percent to 254.66 percent on Chinese solar panels in December 2012.

Why would we fine someone for giving us a good deal?

The US arm of German solar panel maker SolarWorld, based in Hillsboro, Oregon, filed a complaint with the US Commerce Department in December.

O dear, you mean a foreign company can open an office in USA, and then leverage USA imperialism to private foreign company ends?  Shouldn't we think this policy through?

It accused the Chinese mainland of flooding the US with cheap products because the country shifted production of certain solar panel parts to Taiwan to avoid various trade duties.

You mean like the USA did not do?  Should we have invested in Taiwan and not Solyndra, etc?

SolarWorld’s Chief Executive Officer Frank Asbeck wrote in a note at the beginning of the month: "China is improperly seizing control of an industry that the United States invented."

This, from German citizen running a German company with an office in USA?  Who got a presence in USA by buying a defunct Korematsu plant in Oregon? "We invented oil so what is our oil doing under Iraq"?  The Chinese invented gun powder and the wheel, so only the Chinese should be able to use it?

Addressed to President Barack Obama — who spoke about the US solar industry in this year’s State of the Union address — Asbeck said China driving down its prices has "hurt and bankrupted dozens of well-run US solar manufacturers and cost the jobs of thousands of US employees".

You mean the half-dozen well-run Solyndra's?  Ka-ching!  I didn't listen in to the state of the union address, but that was a laugh line by the President, right?

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Capitalism Works, If You Don't Mind Genocide

Ideas have consequences. Capitalism is an idea around which people will organize their laws and customs to the end of some benefit to themselves.  And if you can control who gets to make such decisions, it is easier to make life good for yourself.  We all love a system that works for us.  And, we surmise, anyone for whom it does not work, well, there must be something wrong with them.

But we need not believe everything we think.

Here is the strangest thing:  Indiegogo has a charity fundraising for freezing Lakota Indians.  Very good, they are close to their goal.  But how did it come to pass that a people living upon vast energy resources are cold this winter, perniciously?  (And I wonder, has anyone checked in with the Nakota and Dakota?)

Capitalism protects usury, which is the means necessary and sufficient to aggregate power in ever fewer hands, to the end that whole groups can be excluded, if they are too many to manage or too uninteresting to allow to continue, or simply in the way. In any event, when power is concentrated into too few hands to be able to know, let alone care, about freezing Indians, then the problem is manifest.

And it is not a problem of redistribution, since no group in USA has more bureaucracies attending to their every need, than the Indians.  Bureaucracy is just the means the capitalists insulate themselves from their victims.  Capitalists say "We have bureaucracies, and we are thriving.  You have bureaucracies and you are dying?  What is wrong with you?"  Well, the difference is capitalists own the bureaucracies.  Both bureaucracies do as they are told.

There are other systems, we even had better systems, but we adapted capitalism, the hamiltonian project, and we got off course.  (We talk Jeffersonian, legislate hamiltonian.) Our laws were corrupted as traced by the fine Marxist lawyer in his work Transformation of American Law.  Now, Marxism is just as bad as capitalism, but at least marxists get their facts straight (and this book is generally considered by all lawyers to be the go-to book on USA legal history.)



Capitalism is failing in the West, because it is intrinsically wrong.  Like a match that flares up before going out, it looks pretty good to those who are benefitting, but not so good to those freezing Sioux.  They were willing to negotiate and cooperate, but we did not have to.  Usury is at the heart of capitalism (capital aggregated, only possible through usury).

And then we hate those we harm.  That is a good summary of capitalism.  We hate those we harm.

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How China Fooled the World

The BBC is sounding the alarm on what was already known:  there will be a crash in the Chinese economy.  Of course!  All economies playing the keynesian game will crash, and it will be felt relative to the others.

The show is available here.

Quotes from the presenters via Mish:

I visited China at the time and witnessed mobs of poor migrant workers packing all their possessions, including infants, on their backs and heading back to their villages. It was alarming for the government, and threatened to smash the implicit contract between the ruling Communist Party and Chinese people - namely, that they give up their democratic rights in order to become richer.

Wait wait!  What you saw on one visit exposed the entirety of the Chinese economic situation?  hmmm... too much of a leap.  And you know the mind of the officials?  And that mind is concerned about a social contract involving democracy, and rights given up?  The Chinese peasant is jealous of his democratic rights?  All this sounds unlikely.

Yes, of course the Chinese economy is in a huge bubble, and don't they know it!  The took the other side of the USA bet and ended up with modern infrastructure, while USA is left with our pensions and wealth spread all over the ground in the middle east.  It is hardly a question of anyone fooling the other.  If anything, China outsmarted USA officials at their own game.

Yes, there is a huge bust coming.  But the question is who will have the manufacturing capacity and credit to rise like a phoenix?

Two men are hiking when they see a bear cub ahead, and hear a roar of a she-bear behind.  O dear.  They are between a she-bear and her cub.  One man drops down and pulls off his hiking boots and begins to put on his Nikes.

The other man stupidly explains,  "You cannot out run a she-bear...!"

To which the now-Nike shod man replied, "I need only outrun you."

USA has boots on the ground.  The Chinese are wearing Nikes.

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Property Rights

When you reflect upon property rights, do you locate them in natural law, common law or statutory law?

And then once you locate such rights in a legal theory, can you reconcile your view of property rights with that theory?

It is probably not possible.  If not, then they are to that degree whimsical, and if whimsical, not very important.

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Black Markets in Ireland

I am between a rock and a hard place...  I need freedom, but there are no English speaking places that extol freedom.  And I am 2nd-language proof....

One would think Ireland, of all places, would love freedom.  But here is the problem with gaining independence with violence...  you simply replace one set of oppressors with another set.

Here is a newspaper article, with my commentary:

The black economy is posing a serious threat to jobs and businesses in Galway, as increasing numbers of people opt for ‘cheap’ products and services, the Chamber of Commerce has warned.

***Sigh...  voluntary exchange is called “black” as in negative, but in business “in the black” is positive...  Let’s agree the black market is a very good thing...***

And a conference on the black market held in the city yesterday heard legit businesses here are finding it “next to impossible” to compete with illegal operators.

***The point of legitimacy is to have other people provide protection for your operations.  How is it that people who DO NOT have other people provide for their protection thrive, and those who require protection do not?

Perhaps there is something fundamentlaly wrong with being “legit”.***

In the midst of a Revenue crackdown in the city on tax-dodging traders, tradespeople, retailers and landlords, the Chamber said that “there is always a loser somewhere”.

***Yes, all policies have winners and losers.  This is true whether the English are cracking down on Irish, or Irish are cracking down on Irish.***

Chief Executive Michael Coyle said there is a lot of anecdotal evidence on a local and national scale of black marketeers ‘cashing in’ on the economic downturn.

***People who can thrive in an economic downturn are to be crushed?  Is that not exactly backwards? Ireland had thrived vis a vis the rest of the EU due to lower taxes and regulations.  Why was that a good idea then, but not now? Why do governments extend tax-exempt and regulation-exempt status to big business to foster growth, but never small business.***

“In terms of black market activity, we hear about services such as painting and decorating, builders, electrical work and so on, moreso than a specific commodity, such as cigarettes, where phenomenal numbers are being seized at ports. The numbers there are truly mind-boggling.

***Apparently people are exercising preferences.  Freedom starves the rent-seekers.  But rent-seekers have violence. And the "black marketers" can thrive in spite of have "phenomenal numbers" of their goods seized.***

“There are huge risks associated with the black market, not least for the people using service. If somebody is up a ladder carrying out work on your house, and they’re not properly insured and have an accident, that will have serious implications for you.

***You mean homeowners insurance, which is cheaper than workers compensation?  Get the state out of social services, and watch the economy grow.***

“The job may be cheaper, but the risks are high, the quality of work may not be there, there’ll be no certification which will have an impact in terms of home insurance. The cheap job might be the dearest in the end.

*** Do they think no one makes these calculations when contracting?***

“Legitimate businesses employ people, apprentices and so on. If the job is being done ‘under the counter’, it’s not a level playing field, and jobs are at risk,” said Mr Coyle.

***Whose jobs?  Obviously employment in the black market is commensurate with the size of the black market. The employees of people who cannot operate in a free market are at risk?  Those employees need to seek out employers who can operate in a free market. How does running people gainfully employed out of work save jobs? ***

He said there are massive Revenue implications from the black market trade.

***Capital R revenue, as in rent-seeking sinecures.***

Meanwhile, a panel discussion on the black market held in Galway yesterday by accountancy firm Grant Thornton heard the black market in Ireland costs the economy €1.5 billion each year.

*** LOL, Grant Thornton gains rents by people forced to fill out desultory tax forms...  who else would term savings to an economy of 1.5 billion euros a “cost”?***

Brendan Foster of Grant Thornton said: “Illicit trade is costing the Exchequer hundreds of millions of euro at a time when every cent of tax revenue is vital to the recovery of the country.

***How does wasting money on rent-seekers recover an economy?***

“We work closely with local businesses in Galway, some of whom are finding it next to impossible to compete against fraudulent goods being sold by organised crime gangs in the Western region.   These illegal actions must be stamped out to avoid further business closures and job losses,” said Mr Foster.

*** Failure to register is a civil offense, and since economies require many people, from there we leap to “criminal gangs.”  O dear! And if freedom were to gain in Ireland, the Grant Thornton people might have to go find work. ***

Galway West Fine Gael TD Seán Kyne told the conference that a report is to be published on black market trading in the coming weeks.

*** When violence is employed to gain "freedom", the result is worse than before, for now it is Irishmen play at being English.***

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All Day San Francisco Area Start-up Seminar

This Saturday, 9-5pm, 22 February, there is an all day international trade start-up boot camp...

Importing as a Small Business

Class Description

Come learn the strategies those thriving in small business international trade use to grow and build their business. You will be guided through selecting products, finding customers, working with governments, licensing, bankers, brokers, carriers, financing, costing, pricing and gaining orders for your products, all from a practicing professional. Highly rated by students for content, pace and humor. Recommended text How Small Business Trades Worldwide by Instructor is available at on Amazon.com. 

Class ID: 2907

Saturday, 9:00 am - 5:00 pm; 1 session starting February 22, 2014, ending February 22, 2014

Course Fee: $89.00

Instructor: Spiers

Registration Closes On: February 23, 2014 12:00 AM

Sign up here now.... reserve a spot...

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Spying On Lawyers

Circa 1980 man newly married agent in Hong Kong and I were discussing where his kids would go to college and he said Beijing Da Xue.  I was astonished.  Not Harvard, Stanford, Oxford.  He just laughed.  "The world is changing."

I met with a mid-career professional in Hong Kong two or three years ago who was quite resentful his career had stalled.  You see 15 years earlier with his newly minted degrees from the USA he fast-tracked the career ladder due to his USA degrees.  The Bush administration criminality began to take its toll, and at first his USA medallions began to count for less and less, and now, were a liability.  Under Obama, who is Bush 4 and 5 or 5 and 6, depending on how many Bushes you count, things are dire indeed.

This should come as no surprise:

A top-secret document, obtained by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden, shows that an American law firm was monitored while representing a foreign government in trade disputes with the United States. The disclosure offers a rare glimpse of a specific instance in which Americans were ensnared by the eavesdroppers, and is of particular interest because lawyers in the United States with clients overseas have expressed growing concern that their confidential communications could be compromised by such surveillance.
The government of Indonesia had retained the law firm for help in trade talks, according to the February 2013 document. It reports that the N.S.A.’s Australian counterpart, the Australian Signals Directorate, notified the agency that it was conducting surveillance of the talks, including communications between Indonesian officials and the American law firm, and offered to share the information.

Obama has said we only spy when we think we need to.  Apparently we always need to, total information awareness and all that.

For the price of fun-time to-kill-the-boredom-listening-in on Indonesian plaintiffs, our spy network is costing we who actually produce something for a living incalculable harm.  We might look to the law to curb this criminality, but, it is lawyers who are bringing it down on us.

As Watergate hearing chairman Sam Ervin noted, that scandal was brought to us by the American Bar Association, wall to wall lawyers, and no doubt NSA is lousy with lawyers.  One small corrective would be to recognize what Immanuel Kant pointed out, and that is the USA system has a fatal flaw in allowing the conflict of interest of officers of the court (lawyers) to serve in the executive or legislative branch.  Was Kant every right!

But at that time the "intelligence agencies" did not have something on ever politician and judge in which to destroy any given career if any given official ever attempted to do his job.  election fraud assures that we experience less turnover in elections that the Soviet Union.  This is why Clapper and Petraeus and Keith Alexander can continue untouchably, lie with impunity, and suffer zero consequences.

Their partners in crime are the Iowa farmers, Wall Street Bankers, Big Biz and housewives who all want an unending stream of free $#!+, and they think nothing of burning the people who bet their lives on America.  Those people with their USA University medallions will speak hatred toward USA in order to advance their careers, if not to salvage their own careers.    Enjoy your free $#!+ while it lasts.

We need to grant clemency for Snowden, or better yet whatever form of jury nullification may be appropriate, because no one can call this fun time sniffing in law process "national security."

What goes around comes around, and it is coming around.  Truth commissions might lighten some of the blows coming.

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Free Cities Honduras

Here is a 6 minute summary of a couple of free cities efforts, which is good to hear.  Sadly the fellow is a capitalist, which means he esteems usury.  He did get his education the way the founding fathers did, which cost practically nothing today as well.

google will not allow me to embed fox stories, but here it is...

http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/3168252517001/how-one-principality-seceded-from-australia/?playlist_id=2891469744001#sp=show-clips


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Price Objections

At the specialty level, price is never a problem.  if you find price resistance the problem is design, not price.

If you meet trash talk about your price, ask the buyer at what price he would buy, if you could get him that price?  (You have zero intention of cutting price, but observe...)

The buyer quotes a price.

You repeat that price, and get the buyer to confirm he would buy at that price.

If so, the next step is to have the buyer confirm how he would make the payment.  It should be specific:   "I'll give you a credit card now..."  "I'll pay cash now..."

If he quotes a payment method you do not care for, tell him.  What is happening is you are walking the putative buyer into a purchase, by eliminating all objections except price.  If you do not get an acceptable answer to all of your conditions, then blow the buyer off.

For example, should he say, "If you can get me that price, I'll talk to my manager..." stop wasting your time, you are not talking to a buyer.

If you are still talking to a buyer, ask when, when would he buy... and so on.

If you get acceptable answers on all points, then all is left is price.    Then you come back to price.  Psychologically, now, the only issue was price, which was bogus to begin with...

You go in for the sale:

1. He has no idea what the price should be until he tests the product.

2. If he does not test it, he will be late to the game, since so many others are finding it profitable at that price, and you will not cut price since you are selling all you can make at the quoted price.

Ultimately buyers want what will sell, and all buyers worth their salt will squeeze.

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Harry Reid Says Taxes are Voluntary

And are for, in effect, chumps:


Left and right wingers go crazy, because they want free $#!+ (at other's expense) and make  a religion of paying taxes so they can have more free $#!+.

Look at minute 2:05 minutes, Reid is clear we have rules with which you may comply and owe no taxes, so paying is voluntary.  He makes clear employees get nailed, but Reid is getting spoken over so you have to listen closely to hear what he is saying.

We are told when Jesus said -

Matthew 22 KJV
21 Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.

Left and right wingers agree this means you should pay taxes.

John 8 KJV
He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

OK, then does this mean stone the woman?

Yes, I work (or my CPA does, who can understand the code?) my self-employment to take all tax breaks, but I do pay taxes, and eschew cheating.  I don't think people who cheat on their taxes can complain about taxes.  If you cheat on the taxes, then they are not a problem, are they?

I pay taxes.  I object.  Like that.

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Processing Food on Indian Reservations

My most prolific correspondent, Anonymous, has left a comment:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "What If we Abolished Land Ownership?": 

Wyoming officials take EPA to court after ruling gives land to tribes. 

"Food processing facilities could be able to operate without regulation." 

Hmmm, ... no FDA? They might be on to something here. Maybe someone could start a Hong Kong-type free trade zone in the U.S.?

Now this is where my interest in the Indian Reservations come in.  The Casinos on reservation are not inspected by country health inspectors.  What?! No inspections?  How come people are not dropping dead left and right?  Well, patrons dropping dead from bad food is not good for business.  So the Indians make sure their food is wholesome.

I've been googling Indian reservation casino food poisoning over the years and have never found a documented case.  (Some blog posts complaining of getting sick in very recent year, and Hindu Indian restaurant reports, but not reservation casinos.  Probability suggests it will happen, the question then is to compare incidence in "inspected" vs "non-inspected" establishments.

I've been afraid to ever mention this, and I've warned it is a bad idea, given that there would be tremendous official pressure to change that.  And given events such as the poisoning of 2 grapes in 1989 causing 400 million in damage went uninvestigated by the FDA, plus the Indians are marked for extermination anyway, it would be nothing some more crimes to be perpetrated against the Indians.  No other official crimes against them are prosecuted, why would these?

But the reservations would be ideal "accidental" entities to base the kind of comity within the USA that could compete with Hong Kong.  Once such reservation happens to own land at a major port.

Food processing on reservations?  USA quality without the taxes and costs of rent-seeking inspection (that don't happen anyway)?  I think this is a great idea, producing for export on a reservation and shipped in-bond to a Indian controlled port for export, where no one is allowed to own land.  Maybe finally the USA could find away to integrate themselves into the Indian economy.

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