Student Loan Burden Gets Bigger

The banks that get bailed out no matter what are getting a raise!  They can now charge more on student loans!  Yay!

While the new quarter has started with a bang for the capital markets and those 1% who actually benefit from one after another record high courtesy of the Fed’s “fairy dust“, July 1 is an important date for another group of Americans: students. However, instead of more wealth, America’s aspiring intelligentsia has something far less pleasant to look forward to, namely more debt, because today is when higher interest rates for education loans kick in. Starting July 1 all new loans for the 2013/2014 student year will increase from 3.86% to 4.66%, a 20% increase.

The heart of our economic problems is the acceptance of usury, AKA interest.

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Foster Farms Recall - Get Big or Get Out

https://www.the-qrcode-generator.com/

Have you noticed how food poisoning announcements so often come from huge companies, but it is small companies the FDA runs out of business?

The U.S. Department of Food and Agriculture said it has found evidence directly linking Foster Farms boneless-skinless chicken breast to a case of Salmonella Heidelberg, an antibiotic-resistant strain of the disease that has sickened more than 500 people in the past 16 months and led to pressure from food safety advocates for federal action against the company.

There is no U.S. Depart of Food and Agriculture.  There is a USDA and an FDA.  Where do they get these reporters?  It might help to have someone on the beat who knows something about the topic.  Antibiotic resistant strains...  they so load these animals up Mother Nature is fighting back . We are in an absolutely crazy regime in which we subsidize out own famine.  All of these huge food conglomerates have massive subsidies, and put out harmful food.  And 500 people get sick.

The USDA said its investigators first learned of the salmonella case on June 23, and the recall was issued as soon as the direct link was confirmed. The location of the case and identity of the person were not released.

Foster Farms says the products have "use or freeze by" dates from March 21 to March 29 and have been distributed to California, Hawaii, Washington, Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Utah, Oregon and Alaska.

500 people get sick "Use by" dates are off into the future, so they have known about this for a while.  With 500 sick, it is just a matter of time before someone dies.  How much of this chicken is left out there?  Well, probably near none,  No chicken, no refund.  All those people who ate the chicken either had a sound immune system of a good cook.  This is why without inspections the rest of the world does fine.  Cook the food properly, you'll be fine.  And if you cook properly, why do we need inspectors?

The federal Centers for Disease Control says 574 people from 27 states and Puerto Rico have been sickened since the outbreak began in 2013, leading to increasing pressure from food safety advocates for a recall or even an outright shutdown of Foster Farms facilities.

500 people get sick.  Good to see the Feds are right on it.  We could replace all inspectors with QR codes in which the producers collect and distribute feedback on process lots of food.  The three people at the party who ate the chicken get sick, we report it.within a day or two of hitting the shelves, a valid and reliable sample of feedback says we have a problem, and retailers get a report, and they pull it, and contact their "club member" cardholders to return the chicken.  This could all be in private hands with competing services.

Bill Marler, a Seattle attorney who specializes in class-action food-safety lawsuits, commended both Foster Farms and the USDA for "doing the right thing for food safety."

We could also get rid of the attorneys, who prey on people's misfortune.

The company was linked to previous salmonella illnesses in 2004 and in 2012.

500 people get sick.  Of course they are, and all those other meg-processors.  In the USA the agricultural policy is get big or get out. It is a famine-inevitable policy.

Recalls of poultry contaminated with salmonella are tricky because the law allows raw chicken to have a certain amount of salmonella — a rule that consumer advocates have long lobbied to change. Because salmonella is so prevalent in poultry and is killed if consumers cook it properly, the government has not declared it to be an "adulterant," or illegal, in meat, as is E. coli.

500 people get sick.  Bon appetit on all those beasties the USDA and FDA allow...  we now have iPhone apps that tell you of meat has gone bad, plus we could have the double check of the QR codes reports.  Why do we need an FDA and USDA or either?

In a letter from USDA to Foster Farms last October, the department said inspectors had documented "fecal material on carcasses" along with "poor sanitary dressing practices, insanitary food contact surfaces, insanitary nonfood contact surfaces and direct product contamination."

A letter? See how small foodmakers get treated.  Get big or get out!

There is the grower, processor, retailers... every one each separately insured, there is the customer and cook...  all watching out.  Malefactors are shunned in the real world.    We need inspectors too?  When we know, from above, they do not prevent harm?  And if you run the numbers, you know they cannot prevent harm.  We'd have to have every tens of millions of inspectors to match the expectation of inspection most Americans have.  What we believe we get cannot be done.  Still want more safety?  Then get what will work...

We would like to introduce you Peres – the first electronic nose in the world that helps you to determine quality of meat, poultry and fish. Peres helps to determine are these products are sound and suitable to use - this reduces the risk of food poisoning.It’s a device that helps everyone who cares about nutrition of themselves and their loved ones to quickly evaluate what they are going to eat themselves or offer their family or quests.

We'll see more of these, and they will get very good indeed.  Time to start discussing eliminating the FDA and USDA.  We had neither for the first 150 years of this country, and people were not dropping dead like flies.

Yet, with get big or get out, even the "good beef" producers are obliged to use "USDA & FDA approved" slaughterhouses that somehow escape inspectors notice.  You'll note that government run new-services say nothing about how all this came to pass.  People who did business with the defunct slaughter house say rumor has it there was "love gone wrong in the abattoir."  And the purchase by a new owner and odd event.

We need a new policy: be small and get left alone.  We can then start to recover food safety in USA, which has been compromised by "get big or get out" and "the regulated always capture the regulators" at the big business level.

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USA Happy Birthday!

The U S A was once a beacon of hope to the world.  We had Supreme Court justices who reasoned thus:

The real object of the First Amendment was, not to countenance, much less to advance Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment, which should give to an hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government. It thus cut off the means of religious persecution, (the vice and pest of former ages,) and of the subversion of the rights of conscience in matters of religion, which had been trampled upon almost from the days of the Apostles to the present age.

Moslems!  Replace Christian with Moslem and there is a solution to your infighting!

The militia is the natural defence [sic] of a free country against sudden foreign invasions domestic insurrections and domestic usurpations of power by rulers It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace both from the enormous expenses with which they are attended and the facile means which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers to subvert the government or trample upon the rights of the people The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers and will generally even if these are successful the first instance enable the people to resist and triumph over them And yet though this truth would seem so clear and the importance of a well regulated would seem so undeniable it cannot be disguised that among the American people there is a growing to any system of militia discipline and a disposition from a sense of its burthens [sic] to be rid of all regulations How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization it is difficult to see There is certainly no small danger that indifference may lead to disgust and disgust to contempt and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our national bill of rights.^[21]

The second Amendment was to assure Americans stayed armed, armed against invaders, the police and the military.  It was fear that Americans might disarm that the second amendment making sure Americans were armed and trained to use them (militia) that we have this amendment.  through World War Two soldiers were allowed to bring enemy weapons home (smaller arms) and through WWI soldiers were offered the gun they used.  An armed populace was assumed.

When I first went to China in 1977, after 25 years of USA being "running dog imperialists" we were recast as the one country that re-invested war booty back into China.  While the Europeans took indemnities and mulcts back to Europe, the USA used the money to build universities and hospitals in China.  We were thought of as good guys in a bad situation.

Guns! Religion! USA! USA! USA!

We had it worked out for a while.

Hong Kong started at the same time with the same ideas.  It worked out better for them, probably for being smaller.  Time for USA to rediscover states rights?

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A Hong Kong Winery?

Interesting history of an idea in action...

Far from the rolling hills of Napa Valley, Ms. Tusar makes her wine on the third floor of a warehouse building in Ap Lei Chau, an industrial district on Hong Kong’s southern side. Ms. Tusar buys flash-frozen grapes from the world’s most fertile regions — Australia, France and America’s West Coast — and turns them into oak-aged wine off the urban streets of this densely populated city. Marketing her wine as Hong Kong’s first-ever vintage is a competitive advantage over imports, she said, because the wine “hasn’t had the heartbreak of being bounced all over the globe.”

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Supreme Court Union Busting

The powers that be are not going to let USA die quickly due to its policies.  One faction that can be crushed to benefit the economy is public employee unions.  The Wisconsin union-busting was just a mere trimming at the side, the California decision on union seniority on the schools is another, the Supreme Court banning taking money from non-state employee caregivers for union coffers is another mere nibble.  State schools where I have been an independent contractor for 20 years now want me as an employee, so they can mulct my income for their unfunded pension liabilities.

Some people are screaming bloody murder, and others are insisting it is a tiny thing, each change.  Both are right.  The dismantling of the Government Union cartel is underway, and the inevitable is clear.  One way of another those pensions are null and void.  Scream bloody murder, but it will do no good.  What was given slowly over time will be removed slowly over time.  To whom do those who are losing turn for appeal?  Supreme Court said their piece, the republicans won't help...  so vote democrat. Just as democrat Roosevelt turned on his Wall Street backers, and republican Nixon opened relations with communist China, it will be a democratic regime that performs the coup de grace on government unions.  Hillary 2016!

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White House Maker Fair & Indiegogo

If indiegogo keeps this up, it will be Indiegone gone.

Co-branding with the White House means submitting to the "get big or get out" regime that is the foundation of all federal policies.

The "prizes" on offer are all risible, and anyone serious about start-up should focus on start-up and skip the circus entertainment.

What we need is less diversion, bread and circuses, and more customer contact.  Less management of free association, and more freedom to contract.

While these people party on in Rome, Wall Street if inflating it's own bubble with stock buybacks.  But isn't stock buyback proof a company is doing well?  No.  It is proof top management has lost confidence and is looting the corporation before the crash.

Here is a stock buyback poster child.  Look at your household budget right now.  Look at 2 years on unemployment insurance, and no possibility of finding another job.  And then household budget on welfare.

Better to start a business, and be in control, than on welfare.

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Colloquy With India

On Jun 24, 2014, at 9:45 PM, R J wrote:

Hey R J,

Interesting report....

I teach import export, but from a USA perspective and caution I never assume I know anything about foreign markets.  As an importer, I let the foreigner worry about the problems in his country, and I buy FOB.  As an exporter, I let the foreigner worry about rules and regs etc in his country and I sell FOB.  With this in mind, some ideas...

Unfortunately, unlike the US, our retail market is not too organized, sales reps for home and gifts aren't present, too many mom and pops, not too many chain stores and they buy only on consignment which means you ship it to them and they will pay you if it sells, because retailers don't take any risks!

Retailers in USA take no risks either.  The buyers are scientists, not artists.  They hypothesize, test, recalibrate, hypothesize, test and so on until they know the market for a product .  The pro buyers manage risk initially by purchasing very small amounts, to start, and test test test......  in the USA the B2B laws say merchandise moves only one way, it cannot be shipped back.. (although consignment is legal, it is usually only used for second hand goods...)  It seems to me where you say "too many" I see "much opportunity." What if those folks could be shown practices that made business more rational, profitable, and easier?  I am thinking the USA system, but... as I said, I know nothing of India.***

China isn't cheap, not anymore at least! People here don't necessarily think so, and hence ironically I am editing a YouTube video for our customers today, where I talk about how China is fairly expensive and I also chatted with a few factories/suppliers at trade shows. So that's another thing we do that our competition doesn't do - interesting content and engagement.

Yes, people are usually quite wrong as to everything relating to China.  Too bad, because if premises are wrong, conclusions are likely wrong. Have you read Ogilvy on advertising:  Make News, Enhance the image, grow the business.  Seems you are heading that way....

E-commerce has taken off in a big way, and although we sell online too, we are looking to leverage these big ecommerce guys to sell our products.  Amazon has just entered India and we have already got our stuff on their site, and are starting off with Amazon FBA as well. Next stop, Amazon FBA a in the US, and UK!

Another odd thing...  ecommerce has pretty much flatlined in USA... it is still under 7% of all usa retail, meaning 93% of sales are at brick and mortar.  If it could grow more, it would have by now.  Amazon is not making money selling things, it makes its money on info and services (like FBA.)  Amazoon FBA is the most expensive option, you can get as good at a lower price in USA.... we can talk about that when you are ready to conquer this market.

Attached are a few pictures to see the kind of premiums we are looking to sell. However these would fall under the 'cool stuff you see overseas' category. I reckon there is a wider market for this in the states than in India. We tend to be savers here, I hope I am wrong on this!

Materialist vs consumerist.  Emerging markets it seems to me, consist of materialists who wish to make purchases for goods that will last.    Advance markets, like USA, people want goods that flash and discard, consumerism.  Now, no country is 100% either way, and neither rich nor poor is 100% either way...  

Specialty traders, such as me, sell to the materialists who want the best value (rarely is that the cheapest) because quality is usually the best bet.

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China Trade Data

The HKTDC offers links to China world trade data by HTS (AKA HS) codes.  It is a bit of a challenge getting used to their format, and some items are inscrutable, but it is a useful overviews.

http://china-trade-research.hktdc.com/business-news/article/Fast-Facts/China-Customs-Statistics/ff/en/1/1X000000/1X09N9NM.htm

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Chinese Poison Pet Treats

The problem with science is if you make a claim, it has to be reliable, so other scientists can check it.  If you have no science, best to say you are "still investigating."

Lu said that pet treats coming to the US from China have been produced in strict accordance with US standards. He also said that the US authorities have so far not been able to provide a concrete reason for the illnesses.
As of May 1, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had received close to 5,000 complaints of pet illnesses and more than 1,000 reports of canine deaths following the consumption of Chinese-made jerky treats, according to FDA data. Complaints about the China-made pet treats have been continually filed by consumers with the FDA since 2007.
Jennifer Dooren, an FDA press, wrote in an emailed statement to China Daily on Monday that the FDA "continues to investigate" issues relating to jerky treats for pets. But "it remains unclear which specific ingredients or finished products, if any, may be responsible for causing illnesses in pets".

So China may be putting out a fine product with merely a bad rap.  The big giveaway here is if both Petco and Petsmart sold the product like crazy, why only 5000 sick or dead dogs?  If the things were poison, the number would be closer to a million.  The likelihood is there is no problem.

And it is very likely some upscale brand is made in the same factories and including the same ingredients, plus, with no problem reports.  Correlation is not causation.  Such imbalances make for small business opportunities.  China has massive production capacity and just lost its customers.

Lu said that pet treats coming to the US from China have been produced in strict accordance with US standards. He also said that the US authorities have so far not been able to provide a concrete reason for the illnesses.

Exactly.  The reason Apple produces in China is because their management can produce to exacting specifications.  As opposed to USA management (see Government Motors. GM.)

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UC Berkeley One Day Export Food Seminar

If you need a one-day intensive exporting food start-up seminar, Friday, August 15 is your opportunity.  UCBerkeley extension has the eight hour seminar, with CEU credit, live with me taking you through the four steps I cover in the online course.  With the live in-person seminar, you are right there with me going through the steps of doing original research of the market to target where you will get prices and trends that no one else in the industry has; you will create a price offer that is an acid test to a buyer; you will begin to approach buyers directly with the compelling offer, and then how and when to work trade shows to build your business.

If you have attended any "export development" seminars, forget everything you "know" about exporting.  What they said was incomplete or wrong, or both.  That is why my seminars are doing well and industry associations have hired me to come in and correct the lessons.

Register early, because I provide pretreatment work by email to the registrants so that in the class itself, working with the free wifi provided by Berkeley, we get busy selling that day.  Obviously, to do so takes a few steps before class.  If you have no product or do not make anything yourself, part of the pretreatment is to decide what you will represent as an export agent.

This is ideal if you plan to work for yourself.  If you are an employee of a company and want a new approach to developing markets, this course is for you.

The class is on a Friday, so make your boss pay for the seminar and travel, the CEUs make the class qualify for "company tuition benefits" programs.  Turn it into a weekend in San Francisco! If not, take the day off from work and do some real work.  Since we do the seminar on a Friday, you can contact businesses if necessary for information you might need to proceed.

And there is continuous after-seminar access to me by email.

The course is only $295, including materials so I recommend you enroll now to avoid getting wait-listed.  Let me know if you have any questions.



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Wars and the FED

David Stockman has a brief history of the FED that is well worth a read..

Having learned during the war that it could arbitrarily peg the price of money, the Fed next discovered it could manage the growth of bank reserves and thereby the expansion of credit and the activity rate of the wider macro-economy. This was accomplished through the conduct of “open market operations” under its new authority to buy and sell government bonds and bills—something which sounds innocuous by today’s lights but was actually the fatal inflection point. It transferred the process of credit creation from the free market to an agency of the state.

Get informed...


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China Bans Microsoft Office

After USA taxpayers have spent billions to fight "piracy" to protect Bill Gates' profits in China, China has banned the use of the software by government.  Largely due to the intelligence gathering built into such software, China was encouraged to develop home grown office suites for software.

Beijing has sped up its pace of ousting made-in-US IT products from key industries and organizations since the US government in May accused five Chinese military officials of cyberespionage.
China denied the charges and in the following days announced a ban on Windows 8 in government procurement.

Imagine that!  China spies!  Snowden just revealed what was already know, the NSA spies on everyone on earth.  And the reasoning is...

“It’s not impossible to imagine a humanitarian crisis in a country that’s friendly to the United States, where the military might be expected on a moment’s notice to go in and evacuate all Americans,” said a former senior defense official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. “If that certification did not list the country,” the NSA could not gather intelligence under the law, the former official said.

If it is friendly to us, how come the military must invade?  Is that just how we respond to all events?  Invade?  Anyway, at 9-11 attack, it took the state department something like eight days to account for all of their employees around the world.  AFS Student exchange, with a similar amount of people involved, had ever single student around the world accounted for within 24 hours.  Private is safer.

In the book I am reading Tombstone, Bulgarian businessmen receiving pork shipments from China had first hand evidence of the starvation going on in China.  Business people always know what it going on while information in government is always politicized.  If you want good intel, only business can provide it.

Those who make money of the spying love it and the give their best arguments.  if there is any worthwhile intelligence to be had, it can only be found by business.  Get rid of our "intel agencies." We'll do so much better, so much more peaceful and prosperous.

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Robot Valets

Mish covered this but I have a different take...

Travelers at Duesseldorf airport in Germany can soon leave the job to a robot valet.
An airport spokesman says the robot, nicknamed Ray, starts work Tuesday and can be booked using a smartphone app.
Thomas Koetter says all travelers need to do is leave their car in a designated area and confirm it's empty and ready to go.

Eventually, we'll go to mag lev for personal transport and you'll get out of your carpod at your destination, and the computers will move your car to a parking slot... so machines like this are transitory, like a 8 Track Tape Deck.

http://www.usnews.com/news/offbeat/articles/2014/06/23/robot-valet-to-park-cars-at-german-airport

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Scamming Amish

A frugal lifestyle will make you rich, and Amish ha ve millions.  They were pretty immune from being scammed, until they began to accept interest (usury).  They lost tens of millions...

Moffitt explained that this new RV park would attract retirees and snowbirds. It would have a community center, shuffleboard courts, and a Cracker Barrel-style restaurant. Small dwellings—casitas—could be built on trailer slabs for owners to use or rent. According to people who visited Moffitt’s trailer, he cited an appraisal claiming that the completed park would be worth $26 million and said it could eventually double in value. He also offered a monthly rate of return of around 9 percent. The project—known variously as the Southern Motor Coach Resort, the Southern Villas Motorcoach, and the Southern Hometown Village project—was quickly dubbed by the Amish, “the Florida Thing.”

Interesting article.

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