Nathan's Notes

A bit of verite, Nathan is willing to share his notes on his product development study, which I've edited some...

Maple Sap Drink (maple water)For the maple sap drink I got a "it's a good idea, we want it, doesn't currently exist that we know of in the way we want it, we would carry it, and we're trying to buy some now" from the buyer at ...  health food stores ... and co-ops (Central Co-op) have.Central co-op in ... said "we'd love to carry it but it doesn't exists outside of maybe the NE".
There are some companies selling maple water. One possible reason retails aren't stocking is that these companies are
less than one year old or located in Canada. They have limited but increasing distribution.
...(start a year ago, upstate NYC, very limited availability but increasing)
... Maple Sweet Water (Canada)
... Maple Water (available in NYC but increasing availability, started company a few months ago)
... (Canada)
There's not an HTS/Schedule B for maple water sap but I have included export/import data for maple syrup. I think it might trend well with maple sap drink consumption (e.g., Japan buys a lot of maple syrup, maybe a good market for maple sap?). My link is public below. Please feel free to share link and everything else here.

Birch Sap Drink (birch juice, birch water)Good news it's available on amazon. I just had to change search term from "birch sap" to "birch juice"
http://www.amazon.com/Sealand-Birk-B-O-330ml-Elderflower/dp/B00CE0H7G4/ref=aag_m_pw_dp?ie=UTF8&m=AVNIZZ1FCA0EUwhich is created by a Danish company
http://sealandbirk.com/where-to-buy.aspx
http://www.amazon.com/Vavel-Natural-Birch-Juice/dp/B00DQ7DM8Q/ref=sr_1_5?s=grocery&ie=UTF8&qid=1398392689&sr=1-5
Stores aren't really aware of it from what I've seen. I didn't find a US company making this but found many in Scandinavia and Northeastern Europe. Apparently the Soviet Union had industrial scale birch sap collection until the Chernobyl accident. You can find it in some Russian enclaves like Brighton Beach in NYC.
Birch sap drink could be a good import opportunity or something to produce here eventually. Export is not really an option at the moment since it's not really produced here.
Birch SyrupFor the birch syrup, from a buyer a...in Cambridge, MA I got "it's an interesting idea, not sure if it exists, and we'd probably carry it or try it" and from Central Coop (phone call) they told me "I know it exists somewhere, we'd love to see it on our shelves, but our distributor probably just does not carry it and I actually can't find it on the internet" (not a buyer but a long time employee familiar with buying).
Only <5 3="" alaska="" america.="" and="" annually="" are="" at="" be="" birch.="" birch="" br="" can="" canada="" comes="" end="" equipment="" estimating="" expensive="" for="" gallon="" gallons="" in="" is="" main="" maple="" means="" million="" more="" north="" of="" outside="" per="" produced="" producers="" repurposed="" season="" secondary="" so="" syrup="" the="" then="" this="" to="" trade="" year="">[sources on price and production]
http://nsrcforest.org/sites/default/files/uploads/vandenBerg11full.pdfhttp://www.ccenny.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Birch-Syrup-Production.pdf
Birch syrup has application beyond a pancake syrup and is used in cooking
http://www.larbore.com/en/recettes.html
Since production and trade volume for birch syrup is so low, the USITC doesn't give much meaningful data for export or import.
Customs gives an HTS 1702.40.4000 for birch syrup. It is grouped with all glucose syrups (not good for our data since
this is too broad).
http://rulings.cbp.gov/index.asp?ru=n012059&qu=birch+syrup&vw=detail
The HTS data for imports is not even close on price, with values like $1/kilo. Probably does not include a lot of birch
syrup which is at least 5X the price of maple syrup.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtwqgtrI-JvBdEExdElRQ212OUpFMmVvTEM4RW8zOUE#gid=0

Pine, Walnut, Hickory SyrupsEven smaller volume than birch syrups. Mostly regional sales with a handful of
producers. Will have same HTS/Schedule B data as birch syrup (basically nothing helpful)
and I found no entries in http://rulings.cbp.gov/
http://www.ediblewilds.us/#!product/prd1/309575421/100%2525-natural-pine-syruphttp://www.ccenny.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Walnut-Syrup-Production.pdf
Question....
Trees happily soak up nuke material and store it in their fibre... great solution as long as you don't burn the wood for 300 million years..."traceability" may be key...

very true. Soviet Union had serious industrial scale production of birch sap (apparently only country) until the Chernobyl accident
http://russiapedia.rt.com/of-russian-origin/beryozovy-sok-birch-juice/
Perhaps US or Canada is better than Eastern Europe in terms of traceability. 

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Ethanol Scam

Of course mandated programs are open to scams -

Ethanol is losing political steam on the left and right, but the fuel retains a powerful patron in the Environmental Protection Agency. On Wednesday the EPA retroactively reduced the 2013 gasoline-blending mandate for cellulosic ethanol to 810,185 gallons from six million. If that sounds like a big cut, 810,185 gallons is precisely every last drop the industry managed to produce. The 2014 mandate is nonetheless pegged at a preposterous 17 million gallons.

 Every gallon of ethanol is assigned a 38-digit "renewable identification number," or RIN, which oil refiners, blenders and importers can buy or trade to comply with the quotas. Because the EPA registers RIN generators but conducts no due diligence about their legitimacy, crooks have discovered that they can sell fake RINs that are unconnected to an underlying batch of ethanol.

What do you expect when the executive regulators are of this caliber -

Beale, 65, admitted in September that he had skipped out on work for years by telling a series of supervisors, including top officials in EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, that he was doing top-secret work for the CIA. He was paid for a total of 2 ½ years of work he did not perform since early 2000 and received about $500,000 in bonuses he did not deserve, according to his plea agreement.

At sentencing he told the court it was the fault of lax management, so the court threw the book at him.  Book him, Danno.  32 months.  Not years, 32 months.  Which is less time in jail than he spent playing hooky.

We need a free market in insurance (as once conceived, not as now regulated) to protect the environment.

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Start-Up World Trade Research

My classes are unique inasmuch as I require participants to create market analysis that no one else on earth has, and the proceed with the micro-economic data, not macro-economic data.  Here Nathan sends in his research with a particular question -

My link is public below. Please feel free to share link and everything else here. 

HTS/Schedule B (1702.20.4090/1702.20.0000)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtwqgtrI-JvBdEExdElRQ212OUpFMmVvTEM4RW8zOUE#gid=2

Although Maple drink and birch drinks made from sap have been around for thousands of years, it is something of a lost art, but being rediscovered.   Now the problem is there is nothing in the HTS on maple drinks or birch drinks, but plenty of data on maple syrup. So with no micro-economic data, one is limited to research-by-inference, that is countries that are top consumers of maple syrup would welcome maple drinks.

Another approach would be to track the countries that are top consumers of specialty drinks, and then again by inference, pick targets.  Vector the trends of both analyses, and see what country seems a most likely target market.

This research is critical in the first step of the sales process, the approach, in which a buyer is thinking as you are introducing yourself "Who says?  So what?"  "How will me listening for the next 20 seconds make me more money than listening to anyone else?"  Knowing this, your "who says" is the collective actions of all buyers and sellers in the field of this product, as extracted from the records of those transactions.  The "so what" is the dollar amounts by volume to countries at what price and what trends, and more, as you can see from Nathan's analysis.  With this data Nathan will show how his target will make money now jumping in, or at least test.

In ten years birch sap health drinks will have its own HTS, but for now, one has to vector in and use that in the approach.  You cannot buy this information anywhere, you create this yourself, and then you are not the best, you are the only one.

And by the way, Nathan has the right attitude here, nothing to keep secret.  He has offered to share more, but I'll hold off for now...

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Get Your International Business Started Now - Seminar

Distinguish yourself by taking the all-day live intensive seminar at UCBerkeley extension in San Francisco.
This is the seminar to put in the "educational benefit request" at work and fly into San Francisco for an all-day start-up boot camp.  You fly in Sunday which shows the boss how sincere you are about bringing new market penetration tactics into the business. The one day course earns UCBerkeley CEUs,  and you get a certificate with a UCBerkeley Logo.  Put that cert on your wall at work. Of course it is open to everyone, and I stick around after class to answer questions.  Further, once you've been "indoctrinated" by the course, follow up emails are welcome.

Date/Time:	Mon 8:30AM - 5:00PM 12 May 2014
Building:	UC Berkeley Extension Downtown Center
Room:	Classroom 817
Location:	San Francisco

As an alternative, the course fee is tax deductible since it advances you self-employment efforts.  Either way, this course is very hands on.  People who complete the one-day course have access to me as they proceed.  Sign up now, space is limited.



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Competing on Design, Exporting Meat

Last night a student asked an excellent question about Plan A versus Plan B in exporting.  How come in importing it is best to design our own product, Plan A, whereas in exporting we are selling an "off the shelf" item, Plan B.  This takes a bit of unpacking.

First, for my part, I assure everyone I know nothing about foreign markets. One of the big dissuaders to exporting is the powers-that-be insist to export you must be expert in a foreign market.  That is unlikely to happen in a lifetime, and unnecessary anyway. At the small business level we sell to an importer in a foreign port who is expert in the foreign market.  They worry about the foreign market.

One such expert joined in a three way conversation with me regarding Pyrex glassware and the India market.  One fellow said "I have been given $250,000 to start a housewares business and I want to import Pyrex glassware."  I went on about competing on design, Plan A, when the third fellow agreed with his countryman and explained: "In India people who have never had a Pyrex measuring cup before want the real thing with their new wealth.  Maybe in 50 years they will want designer hot liquid measuring cups, but for now they want the tried and famous."

Another instance where I learn yet again I know nothing about foreign markets. I don't argue with people who know their markets better than me, and especially since one had his phd in marketing.    I work with people who do know, that is necessary and sufficient to build a business.  Importers overseas know their markets.

Now the question in class was further complicated because we have one proposing to be an agent asking, instead of a principal.  A principal has already created new product and is selling it in USA, and to offer it to an overseas buyer, quite often, like in the case of India about, "sold in USA" recommends itself to so many new emerging countries, 2nd and 3rd world countries.

Further, first world countries that DO want new tend to be less dynamic as to opportunity, more settled in trade patterns.  Of course these generalizations may not apply to any given circumstance.

So let me give a concrete example from the class yesterday.  April 5 I mailed a letter to a Hong Kong buyer of bone-in beef cuts assisting a particular butcher looking to export.  April 22 the buyer emailed back affirmation, in short, of wanting to discuss possibilities.

Now this butcher is doing interesting things (redesigning) beef in ways of not corn finishing but dry aging to achieve tenderness.  This process concentrates flavor.  So we have a person designing beef, but it doesn't stop there.

The buyer indicated particular cuts for his market.  Well, there are plenty of ways to cut up steer, so this is more design.  An agent/exporter will be in between the rancher/slaughterhouse and the Hong Kong buyer.  Necessarily the agent will be involved in this process of "redesigning" the product, so it is in effect Plan A business building.

So in exporting, after you decide your field, inevitably businesses, even as agents, find themselves "redesigning" even beef, for the local markets.

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Mad Cow, Beef, Small Business

Above is a beef export example with a back story.

The policy of the USA Federal Government is stated as "Get Big or Get Out." This does not mean merely our policy is "big government and big business" but "big government, big business, get rid of small business."

Not only is that the stated goal, specific tactics run throughout our economy and rules and regulations to effect this policy.  One example is beef exports.

There is a wee problem of mad cow disease.  I've blogged on how it is illegal to test all of your beef for mad cow disease a while back...  it seems Japan stopped buying beef when we refused to assure safety.  An enterprising small cattle rancher proposed to the Japanese that he would test all of his beef, and the Japanese agreed to buy.  So big business stepped in:

Larger meatpackers opposed such testing. Their argument: If Creekstone Farms were to begin advertising that its cows have all been tested, other companies fear that they too would have to conduct the expensive tests.

And we can't have safe beef assured, why that would cost too much (a full ten cents a pound!).  So not only is small business denied a chance to compete, we are all denied safe beef.  Corporate profits today!

The Bush administration says the low level of testing reflects the rareness of the disease. Mad cow disease has been linked to more than 150 human deaths worldwide, mostly in Britain. 

Aha!  Wait, I thought the low level of testing was enforced by law. Now they say "You can tell when a disease is rare, there is low level of testing."  Buyers want tests, rule is low testing, innovators are forbidden to test, rationale is the low level of testing proves safety.  Wow.

A federal judge ruled last year that Creekstone Farms must be allowed to conduct the test because the Agriculture Department could only regulate disease treatment. Because there is no cure for mad cow disease and the test is performed on dead animals, the test is not a treatment, the judge ruled.

Well, kiss your career goodbye, judge.  You don't know how the game is played.  (And wanting to test for a disease has to be taken to a federal court?!)  That reasonable decision was appealed.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned that ruling, saying diagnosis could be considered part of treatment. "And we owe USDA a considerable degree of deference in its interpretation of the term," Judge Karen L. Henderson wrote.

Now there is the right policy! I bet we "owe" the USDA, the handmaiden of Big Beef, "deference."  "Autopsy is treatment." Ka-ching! Otherwise, we would not have the regulators captured by the regulated, with Big Beef telling the USDA what the rules will be, and what is necessary to kill off small business in USA.   The USDA controls the testing kits (wait, what?) and fears testing will undermine their assertion their testing is sufficient.  Well, I've demonstrated elsewhere federal inspections cannot be effective, all food security gets down to the cook, but widespread testing would prove the USDA is not effective.  Cannot have that!  Cannot afford to have people doubt, that might lead to change!

In the meantime, innovations in meat-handling are making for new products, and transportation possibilities.  Market preferences are changing.  Also, in another "states-rights" issues, the Federal rules that wiped out the small independent slaughterhouses are killing off state industries and businesses, so there is some push back.  In Washington butchers have taken to creating mobile slaughter-houses that comply with all of the whimsical USDA rules and slaughter at the farm, saving small farmers who cannot afford to ship 4 sheep to California to be slaughtered.  In Nevada I shared resources with state people unhappy with the rules, and intrigued by the Washington small business work-around. Local slaughterhouses are slowly creeping back.

Hong Kong had forbidden untested USA beef, in particular bone-in cuts since mad cow is most likely present there.  That restriction has been lifted now that it is believed cows under 3 years have not had time to develop mad cow disease.  Hong Kong loves its cooking bone-in, so YOY 2013 saw a 750% increase in bone-in beef to Hong Kong from USA.

All that lost business for years because big business did not want its beef tested for mad cow, and the USDA makes sure what big beef wants, big beef gets.

Started in 1995 by a couple in Kansas looking to offer the world beautiful beef, what happened to Creekstone Farms, after taking on the USDA?

Creekstone Farms Premium Beef is owned by an affiliate of Sun Capital Partners, Inc.  Sun Capital Partners, Inc. is a leading private investment firm focused on leveraged buyouts, equity, debt, and other investments in market-leading companies that can benefit from its in-house operating professionals and experience.  For more information about Sun Capital, visit Sun Capital Partners or connect with Sun Capital Partners on Street Insiders.

Get big or Get out!

None of this is to scare you away from the work.  Life has always been thus, and the tedious work of going up against, or legally around, the rent-seekers and martinets, just comes with the territory, for our sins.  You just deal with it. but I'll say it again, the most revolutionary act a person can make is to start a business.

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London v Hong Kong Office Rents

Knight Frank is the real estate watcher who reports this week from both Hong Kong and London.  David Stockman reviews the London real estate scene, and how it is signaling market crash ahead:

Instead, he goes straight to an apparent anomaly: While property prices are soaring, rents are falling. During the past year, for example, property prices in Mayfair are up 5%, but rents are down 8%. Likewise, in the area north of Hyde Park, prices have risen 10%, while rents have fallen by 8%. Overall, rents peaked in 2011 in Prime Central London, and have been slowly falling ever since.

Stockman's post is particularly interesting as to the source of this great wealth, and that is over-assessed valuations of resources that cannot be sustained, or nominal wealth.  The title to London real estate is legal, but the valuation is whimsical.  In a false economy, even assets are falsely assessed.  when this comes down, people will have claims at $10 million, but only say $1 million in assets to support it.   $9 million in "value" wiped out.  Maybe $9 million in valuation, but not in value.

Mish looks at junk bond valuations historically....

In 2009, Time Warner decided to spin off AOL as its own company again, ending their ill-fated relationship. But, as The Times noted, “the merger between AOL and Time Warner will likely remain a prominent part of both companies’ legacies, rather than becoming a historical footnote. After all, more than $100 billion in shareholder value was wiped out.” 

No, not $100 billion in value, 100 billion in valuation...  yes, plenty o' pensions have yet to recover from that nominal loss, but the $100 billion put in was pretend assets pretended to be assigned to real people's pensions.  When you thought you were working for $50 an hour with $10 an hour tucked away for old age, your assets were being trifled with by people closely watched by the SEC.  Now they are gone.   What is coming next is the rest will go too.

But the Empire State Building valued at one billion and the Empire State Building valued at 100 million is still the Empire State Building.  The asset has not changed.  Overvalued, the Empire State Building owners have overvalued economic leverage over the rest of us.  Properly valued, the economic power is properly balanced.

Next let's compare observations on London with a consulting firm's review of Hong Kong:

With Central rentals running at US$234.30 per square foot per annum, it remains the only market, other than London’s West End, where occupancy costs exceed US$200 per square foot.

and then this:

“We also believe other sub-districts, like Quarry Bay, will have an increasingly influential role as a core location, particularly with the development plans Swire Properties has there,” he said. Other up-and-coming sub-districts include Admiralty and Sheung Wan, near Central, Wan Chai/Causeway Bay, Tsim Sha Tsui, and the Kwun Tong/Kowloon Bay area of Kowloon East.
While core Central rents “grab headlines” for their high prices, Mr Dickinson noted that “there are Grade-A offices available in every sub-district at prices that would be considered fantastic value for money anywhere in the world.”

Hong Kong is more free market, so everything happens at once.  The danger of the economic crack-up coming is the occupy people will want more positive laws (down with corporate personhood!) to fight the positive laws that got u in this mess to begin with.  How about deregulation?  All of this came about through regulation.  Yes, with no regulation some crazy stuff will go on, but it gets wiped out quick, since it is not government-protected activity.  And while crazy stuff is going on, same people can find right rents.

This is better.

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Defending Lew Rockwell

I had heard about the Mises University, a week long Austrian economics seminar, sometime in the early 1990s and is was not until I believe 2003 that I was able to attend down in Auburn, Alabama.  I highly recommend it to one and all, even though it is geared toward college students.  This ancient participant got in on a academic pass, since I do some teaching as an adjunct.  It was once of the most pleasant weeks of my life.

The stars are the participants, from all over the world, and the rather close proximity to professors who would be academic stars is the leviathan did not purposely prefer bad economics to good economics.  There Walter Block steered me toward the most excellent historian of USA law, Morton Horwitz.  And reading Horwitz is dawned on me, when you want to have your facts straight, read the Marxists.  (The policy prescription are wanting, but facts straight they have.)

Probably the most important bit I took away from all the talk of money and interest was how central usury is to capitalism, and over the years realized what has been taught for millennia, and that is interest (usury) is wrong because it does damage. And crony capitalism is tautological, all capitalism is crony capitalism.

I part ways with Austrians when it comes to acceptance of interest, but otherwise they have economics down cold.  All of the regime economists feign shock and surprise when the bubbles burst, caliming "no one saw this coming..."  Except for the five million or so people who understand Austrian economics.

I would not have found Austrian school economics if it had not been for the educational entrepreneur Rockwell.  He gets slammed for having alternative views.  The best thing about the Austrian school is you can always get a worthy opponent when arguing economics.

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A Just Federal Judge?

They must not have anything on him:

The BLM and Forest Service likewise pilfered cows belonging to rancher Wayne Hage, who like the Danns spent decades fighting the Feds in court. Last year, in what must be regarded as little short of an epoch-shattering miracle, a federal judge ruled that those agencies had conducted a criminal conspiracy against Hage and recommended that their administrators face criminal prosecution.

Pick your battles.  The Bundy Ranch confrontation was a guaranteed loser for the Bundys, a lost cause, forming up to be another Ruby Ridge or Waco winning moment for the Feds, when the documents got out Reid's kid was facilitating Bundy Land to be used for a Chinese solar panel project.  The legal fees along would be worth millions Reif, Jrs law firm.   Ka ching.  So the Fed hired guns skedaddled when the word got out.  (The big lesson from Waco was the Feds ran out of ammo.  So now you know why BLM, the Education Department, Health and Human Services now have billions of rounds stocked up.)

Not to be curbed, Reid has been calling Americans in a property dispute "terrorists."  We kill terrorists, so the Bundys' days are numbered.

The Chinese need not worry.  They'll get their solar farm.  Sen. Reid has unlimited armed Americans willing to kill Americans over a property dispute.

The funny thing is, in the most free market place on earth, Hong Kong, no one can own land.  It all works out, like it did for the Indians before the state stole their lands.

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Maslow's Heirarchy and Bank Credit

Maslow worked out a heirarchy of human needs represented as a pyramid in which the higher things are not attained until basic things are covered.  Basic things such as food, clothing, housing, medicine, education and tools.

I recall a time when, except for housing, people paid their own money for all of the above.

As to housing, people put at least 20% down, and borrowed from local banks that lent local money. People wanted annuities so they would deposit their savings for 30 years, and a bank would lend that to a mortgagee for 30 years, 6% loan would cover the 3% paid on the annuity.  It was immoral, but at least it was financially sound, like say, a brothel.

Today, banks can borrow credit for five years (or overnight) at nearly nothing interest and lend it out for 30 years at 5%.    Ka ching!  Not only is it immoral, it is financial suicide.

It was going off the semi/quasi gold standard in 1971 that allowed the change.  So now we have people racking up debt to pay for

food (credit cards)

clothing (macy's card)

housing (see above)

medicine (medical expenses now bankrupt people while that was rare before 1971)

education - not only are student loans a trap, not bankruptable, but if you are really smart and win a scholarship, you get nailed ...  scholarships are taxable...  when you win your goal of a $100,000 full ride scholarship, you will get a $30,000 tax bill, which cannot be bankrupted.  And the funny thing is, there is no money, just notes on a tally sheet of who owes whom for what, and who cannot escape an obligation.  The state will enforce the obligations to the uber-wealthy, while ignoring the promises to the poor.

In USA we are being attacked at the level of our most basic needs, which prevents us from moving up to higher needs.  The tool in this attack is lending cheap credit, which causes inflation and overpricing.

Rawls talked about the "original position" in which we wipe the slate clean and build a just, rational society.  It ain't gonna happen.

Gradualists tell us, adjust here, occupy there, protest this, and we can make progress.  It never has happened.  What does happen is progressive policies bring down the system and the slate is wiped clean in a crisis.

So it is imperative there are enough people who make it through the coming gotterdammerung to practice business in ways that are sustainable when we move out of the ashes.

That means you.

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What Germans Think of USA Aggression in Ukraine

Here is an article with a European view:

The German letter recalls that Putin has called for economic cooperation in a “Common European House” from Lisbon to Vladivostok, in which Ukraine could act as an “ideal bridge” for future cooperation between the European Union and a Eurasian Union.
“We are convinced that the purpose of the United States’ massive seizure of influence is to make this bridge function impossible.”

Our election-fraud result leaders are out of control.

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Specialization - Division of Labor

Color film is an invention, designed for a market.  When they designed the film, they set the chemicals for dead center of the market, a girl of medium whitish color.  This left out people any darker (or lighter for that matter, except Johnny Winter has a better chance of a good picture than Yaphet Kotto).

I guess when sickle cell anemia is ignored getting film right is not a high priority.  But in a free market, all of these things that capitalism makes "orphan" would be addressed, through the normal free market functions.  Here is a problem widely known:

The Guardian notes that filmmaker Jean Luc Godard was quite vocal, famously refusing to use Kodak film stock in 1977 while on assignment in Mozambique because the product was “racist.” 

The stuff is not designed to capture African skin. Which leads a storyteller/photographer to passion, or suffering:

I only wonder if unbiased technologies were available to us then, could they have enabled an alternative story? If images produced by Western culture represented a wider variety of black and brown identities, images in stock agencies that showed black women in professional settings, or just carefree girls, jumping rope, swimming, camping, with all shades of light highlighting how light changes on our skin, that together we’d reach some accord, some comfortable vernacular about the diversity of beauty and humanness. I wonder if the technologies available to us in those days would have taught me early how to love the richness of my brown skin. 

Joy, in solving the problem. Now as the article points out, Kodak is happy to up their game so chocolates and furniture will show up, but not people.

I began shooting color film again in 2000. The Fuji film I use now still struggles with a bias toward lightness in its color standard. But it does seem to be more forgiving to darker skin. More satisfying are my experiments with cross-processing slide film. It’s a process where you develop e6 film, which gives you a positive image, then mix with c41 to get a negative image. Double processing the film stock skews colors, and leaves me with a more vivid range to play and document the world.

So at no real financial cost, just breaking the rules on film processing, she is creating a work around with much improvement.  From here I would advise Syreeta McFadden to share with Fuji what she has done, and then ask them under what conditions they would develop film stock to her specifications?  Fuji has billions in R&D equipment, and massive excess production capacity.  Working with Syreeta would make news, enhance the image and grow the business.  And everyone is looking to Africa as a market, even the USArmy now has an Africa Command, in order to command Africa.  Fuji may very well work with her.  She might call the film stock F-41 after the immigration status "Brother or sister of US Citizen" given the 2nd class status of people of African ancestry in USA, or better yet "Jambo stock" after the friendly African greeting.

In a free market, such film would already exist, because the pie keeps growing and although people are no different, the ability to oppress others is limited for lack of exceptional wealth which gives exceptional power over others.

Wealth is not how money people have how much money, but hoe many people can afford what array of goods and services with their own money.

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Got Gold?

As I've been saying, means of production beat passive investments, especially heading inot the crack-up that will happen later this year.  One lesson we'll relearn is what is money:

In the rest of the world and particularly Asia, people do not think like we do. As far as they're concerned, gold is the only long term asset worth holding. It is the family pension fund. I like quoting the typical situation in India. I first went to India in 1965 and the price of gold at that stage in rupees was around about 170 rupees an ounce. Today it's about 100,000 rupees an ounce. And when you think that the young man getting married at that time -- he'll be a grandfather now -- he would have got a dowry from his wife's family which would have been in gold. His presents would have been gold. Every time they had children there would have been gold. Every time there's a festival there would be gold. Gold is the family pension fund. What other investment has gone from 170 rupees to 100,000 rupees over that period of time? Absolutely nothing! There isn't even an alternative like sensible equities or anything like that for them to play. Gold is the only way they can escape the devaluation of the rupee. And so no wonder it's so popular. That's the story all over Asia, by the way.

If I wanted savings, I'd keep it in gold.  But in hard times, your gold will just be taken away.  Whereas no one wants to take away your pizza oven, since it is no good to them without you.  And they will trade something (a silver coin?) for a pizza.

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Happy Easter

Turn everything off and spend the day with your family.

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