There is one final choice: to say that Jefferson was great until 1809, but then he went goofy. That theory, however, would be very difficult to support. The older Jefferson became, the better he became.There is another view, and that was Jefferson was good except for the eight years he was president. It is not possible to take all that power and be good. But we knew that.
Just last week President Barack Obama signed an executive order accelerating the process of getting government approval to export U.S.-made cargo. The goal is to create a new International Trade Data System eliminating some of the paperwork required in sending cargo abroad. In theory, such a system could speed the shipment of products overseas, cutting approval wait times to transport goods to minutes from days.And this...
Small companies comprise the majority of U.S. exporters. Businesses with fewer than 500 employees accounted for 294,589 of 301,238 U.S. exporters in 2012, or about 97%, according to preliminary data released by the U.S. Census Bureau in December. Just over half were small manufacturers and wholesalers, and together they generated $460 billion in foreign trade, a $10 billion increase from the previous year, or about 34% of total U.S. exports, according to the data.Yes, just so.
The computers would also be constantly analyzing operations data to improve efficiency and save money, he said. Cameras and sensors can already detect obstacles in the water better than the human eye.Now, it only takes a crew of about 12 people to man 3000 TEU ship 24/7/365, so we are not talking about a lot of job loss, and these ships will still need to be "conducted" worldwide. We would have is remote pilots manning ships carrying cargo. As the article notes, piracy would rather disappear, since there would be no one to point a gun at, so security on ships would be unnecessary too.
Diocletian had the option of either inflating – minting increasingly worthless denarii, or to deflate – in the form of cutting government expenditures. He chose to inflate. He also chose to fix the prices of goods and services and suspend the freedom of the people to decide what the currency was actually worth.Nixon did this in August of 1971, it did not work. It has gotten worse. Starting a business is escaping the chaos into anarchy.
“Patent trolls are companies that purchase patents and intimidate thousands of individuals and small businesses with the threat of a lawsuit,” said Sen. Jackie Winters, R-Salem, who sponsored the bill, which was introduced this session. “The aim is to extort cash from companies or individuals in order to make the threat of litigation go away.”The solution is not to ban patent trolls, the solution is to get rid of the patent regime! Patent trolls are freedoms friend... they abuse the system, and in so doing expand disapproval thereof. Leave patent trolls alone.
For example, Winters said, “A patent troll (recently) sent letters to construction businesses across Oregon demanding a $150 licensing fee for the normal process of using fans to reduce moisture at a construction site.”Are you kidding? I know plenty of people in construction. If any one had received such a letter, they would reply, "Sure, come on by for your check, Tuesday morning, we'll be pouring cement. Bring your lawyer."
The Bermuda Triangle of Economics is still in place: Slow growth, high unemployment and high stock market valuations kept in place by a policy where the 20% of the economy which is the listed companies and banks gets 95% of all credit and access to subsidies while the 80%, which creates 100% of all jobs, the SME’s [Small and Medium Enterprises] get less than 5% of credit and less than 1% of the political capital.Let's break this down -
Michael Pietsch, the chief executive of Hachette Book Group, said that while some have prospered, there has been “a cataclysmic loss in the number of independent bookstores” over the last two to three decades. “The stores that have weathered the significant downturn have had very good years recently,” Mr. Pietsch said. “But there are many stores that have not had that success.”Publishers went after the "blockbuster" books. The printed massive amounts of each to stack in all stores and then take back what did not sell. Fully 50% of the bestseller books are returned to be shredded. Yes, that million copy best seller is ultimate only a half million copies, and actual printed copies come back to be shredded by recyclers. Why would anyone lament the end of this terrible system?
And though many communities remain loyal to their shops, and the American Booksellers Association says its membership has recently grown, the online discounters have wreaked havoc on the independent bookseller’s business model.If your model is the execrable 50% return model. The destruction of the old model is not over. Some publishers (like me) have no return policies. Right now it kills any sales. Eventually those businesses that depend on the "no-effort" model of bookselling will die out due to competition from Amazon. Amazon has well and truly killed off Crown, B&N and Borders, and hooray for that. Good riddance! I am happy to see the small independents who are organized around the "we can always send it back" die out. More business for real book lovers.
Last year, Mr. Patterson placed full-page ads in The New York Times Book Review and Publishers Weekly arguing that the federal government’s financial support of troubled industries like Wall Street and the automobile sector should extend to the bookstore business. Since that appears to be a pipe dream, Mr. Patterson decided to create his own bailout fund as part of his mission to promote literature, especially for children.Now, to Patterson's credit, when the government did not step in, he stepped in and put his money where is mouth is. Bravo!
He began his project last year by getting the word to store owners that he was willing to begin writing them checks, which will range from $2,000 to $15,000, according to a spokeswoman for Mr. Patterson.But wait...
The current health of independent bookstores is mixed. While some have benefited from the disappearance of the Borders chain in 2011 and a shrinking Barnes & Noble, the stores have been hit especially hard with consumers switching from paper copies to e-books.Two things, probably 10% of my net comes from ebooks sales, but I believe very few of the people buying the ebooks are reading the ebooks. In any event, in time the independent bookstores will come up with a open-source kindle that allows customers to buy any ebook with a cut going to their favorite bookshop. An affinity kindle.
"We know definitively that it isn't polio," Van Haren added, noting that all had been vaccinated against that disease.
Glaser wouldn't provide the number of illnesses. Van Haren said he was aware of around 20.
She urged doctors to report new cases of acute paralysis so that investigators can try to figure out a possible cause.
***If and when a critical mass of customers, defined as enough to warrant developing samples, have said your idea is good and does not otherwise exist.***I have knowledge of wellness products. Must these products be very unique? …and how do you determine uniqueness?
***OK, you hear your motivation..? "everyone needs this, I can make a killing..." that is what they teach in schools and does not work... in the real world what works is finding joy in working on a solution to a problem that causes you pain. If you do not have all parts, then it will not work... this is about lifestyle not about making money. The money will follow, but it is not important.***A friend of mine is a naturopath and has his own company with access to make a special branding for me. This product is for people with high cortisol which is literally everybody in the country due to stress. There are also products with digestive enzymes and probiotics.
***A knowledge thereof, or a suffering which is alleviated by the joy of working on the problem?***I also have knowledge with gluten-free and grain free types of products and would eventually like to develop grain free flours, if there seems to be a demand.My interest would be to export these types of products.
*** There it is again... he orientation to making money and not solving a problem... being in business is about being happy, not about making money, the joy in working on a solution to a problem that causes you (and others) to suffer. I know the bankers have had 100 years to tell people otherwise, and control school textbooks on business, but time to shift to what works...***Probably the first step is to look into these nutritional products and see what kind of demand there is which would likely be East Asia and ???
*** Our opinions never matter... only customer opinions matter...***I also have identified some vinegar blends that really are quite tasty and I think would have great appeal.
***Experience a problem that causes you to suffer for which working on the solution gives you joy.***Questions:What would be the next step?
***Never! Research of that kind tells you only what is happening now, new business needs new customers. You should talk to people who buy such items, and find out if what you have is new and needed.***I should see what kind of demand has been reported on these products?
***Only people who buy such things can answer that question.***Are nutrients, enzymes, targeted organ/problem nutritionals a desirable item to export?
***Not for you. If a country demands labelling requirements for its imports, too bad for the citizens of that country. It is no skin off your back that their importers have to add that cost onto imported products and jack up the price to their customers. Such requirements will be the customers problem, not yours.I would imagine country labeling/language would be an issue? Or is it an issue?
We are faced with two disagreeable implications. First, that the Deep State is so heavily entrenched, so well protected by surveillance, firepower, money and its ability to co-opt resistance that it is almost impervious to change. Second, that just as in so many previous empires, the Deep State is populated with those whose instinctive reaction to the failure of their policies is to double down on those very policies in the future. Iraq was a failure briefly camouflaged by the wholly propagandistic success of the so-called surge; this legerdemain allowed for the surge in Afghanistan, which equally came to naught. Undeterred by that failure, the functionaries of the Deep State plunged into Libya; the smoking rubble of the Benghazi consulate, rather than discouraging further misadventure, seemed merely to incite the itch to bomb Syria. Will the Deep State ride on the back of the American people from failure to failure until the country itself, despite its huge reserves of human and material capital, is slowly exhausted? The dusty road of empire is strewn with the bones of former great powers that exhausted themselves in like manner.
Read the whole essay here....