Saturday, August 9, 2014

Forbes Sells Out To Hong Kong

In the August 18 issue of Forbes, Steve announces he has sold a majority interest in the Publisher boutique to a Hong Kong outfit called Integrated Whale Media.

I looked and looked for the word billions on the cover, but the topic is millenails, so the word was trillions.  The issue is devoted to young people and managing the gains from usury.  Apparently no sense of irony.  The magazine devoted to getting rich has to sell out to usurers, becuase of usury.

He highlights the great growth in the magazine subscriptions.  I am a subscriber, because it cost me something like $5 for a year.    That will end.  so will my subscription.

Aside for "yay, usury" in this issue, buried in the back, page 108, is a gem.  Grace Choi has introduced Mink, a 3D printer that produces customized make-up at home.

Skin care is one of the most complex medicines, but make-up is not medicine.  The day when your doctor can create a medicine for you, and you just print it out, are here, for those who want it.  But we have to get rid of the FDA and all of the other gatekeepers.

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.


Our Ebola Patent

We USA citizens are the proud owners of an Ebola patent.  Do you suppose there is any connection between the ebola crisis and you and I owning a patent on the Ebola virus?

Robert Wenzel connects the dots.  (Do you suppose the "crazy nurse" mentioned in the article is actually the only sane person?)

In the USA, when the Center For Disease Control (and its predecessor) gets caught running cruel, harmful and criminal human trails, no one goes to jail.  Perhaps it is because these programs target people of African ancestry.

Because we have no means of throwing bad actors out of office, nor are there any sanctions for criminal acts among politicians and government workers, people feel free to "do it again."  This time we can just do it in Africa.

OK, no need to send people to prison, for crimes against humanity, but at least have truth commissions as to what really goes on, so when we are chanting U S A  U S A  U S A we all know we mean "Ebola Patent"...

On the one hand we have no limits on any wild idea because we can always lend credit at usury...  but the problem is we have no idea when our creditors say "enough" and our walls come tumbling down.

When God destroyed the earth by a flood, His specified reason was the widespread violence on earth.  Read it yourself...  http://biblehub.com/genesis/6-13.htm  (And to make it even more fun,  humans were all vegetarians up to that point, like Hitler.)

When we in the USA answer for our work around the world, and do take a look...  Central America, Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, various African countries, Afghanistan, and so on, we'll be able to show our Ebola patent as an example of our good work.

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.


Wine Fraud and Billionaires

Meanwhile, as the USA taxpayers pursue "weaponizing ebola" and ignoring human trials crimes in mad scientist experiments, some guy scamming "wine connoisseurs" gets ten years.
US District Judge Richard M. Berman said: "The public at large needs to know our food and drinks are safe and not some potentially unsafe homemade witch's brew.
"This was a very serious economic fraud, a manipulation of US and international markets."
Was the judge sleeping through the trial?  The trial was about fraud, not unsafe wine.  And further, by what stretch of the imagination could a court and a sentence in any way advance food security?

We once had a principle called caveat emptor.  If the idiot Koch is paying millions for a bottle of Two Buck Chuck, then the scammer deserves his millions.  What is it to you or me?  Why do we have to pay for a long trial and a long incarceration because Koch is a pretentious ass?  If he wants to prosecute someone, do it himself (in fact, for about the first 100 years of USA, if you wanted a prosecution, in fact you had to do it yourself.)

Wasn't the perp doing society a favor by wealth redistribution, taking fracking millions from Koch and blowing it on important things, like fast cars, girls looking for fun and well, good wine?  I hope this guy is on Obama's pardon list.

We have such better no-cost systems than the ones we pay for...

O well, who cares?   All law enforcement in USA is theatre anyway.  It's all run amok, so let's just play make believe.

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.


Friday, August 8, 2014

Effects of Russian ban on USA Agriculture

The USA destabilizes the Ukraine and a democratically elected government is overthrown by neo-nazis in the pay of USA.  The Crimea votes for independence and affiliates with the Russians, although the Russians offer them on "autonomy."  So the USA leads sanctions on Russia.  Talk about non-sequitor.

(And our newly installed "government" has fallen apart.)

Now Russia is obliged to respond, and is doing so in ways easily predictable, as this article shows and my earlier posts predicted.

What is the effect of the ban?    Well, USA's #7 export to Russia in dollar value, meat, was already dropping precipitously.  Check this out...

http://dataweb.usitc.gov/scripts/cy_m3_run.asp?Fl=x&Phase=HTS4&cc=4621&cn=Russia&HTS2=02&HTS2desc=MEAT+AND+EDIBLE+MEAT+OFFAL
Click to make larger...  meat prices are inflating in USA (inflation is always a monetary event) and more supply may help keep prices down in USA (a supply and demand event.)  USA may have already been pricing ourselves out of the Russian market.

Although meat is the 7th largest import from USA into Russia, hard to say what USA meat means to the Russian economy, except to say the Russians in the above article named dollar amounts of what they plan to buy from Chile, etc... and figure Russia has at least $323 million more to spread around the rest of the world.

How is Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Romney/Obamacare and the borders working out for USA?  The stock market keeps going up, so nothing else matters?

The USA was never designed to be a military adventure state.  Time to eliminate a standing military and return welfare to the preacher man.

As an aside, Dmitry Medvedev has said
The Russian PM has also warned against possible attempts to use the situation to drive up prices.
"I would like to warn that attempts to gain from price speculation in this situation will be roughly stopped," Medvedev said.
Dimotchka!  Please....  you have a country closer to a free market than USA.  Gougers create price signals that allow for the best distribution of scarce goods, and signals calling for where production needs to be initiated.  Gouged prices do not last long, but the people who create production to meet demand signalled by the gouged prices do.  Price gouging is critical to your success of creating domestic production.

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.


Thursday, August 7, 2014

Export Finance Seminar Seattle - No Cost, Free Lunch

The Hong Kong Trade Development Council puts on a nice lunch, gratis, and explicates a nuance in export finance.  If youa re in the Seattle area, join... but sign up deadline is Aug 8.


Teresa Hung
Business Development Officer
Hong Kong Trade Development Council
350 S. Figueroa St., #139
Los Angeles, CA 90071
Direct: (213) 223-1638
Office: (213) 622-3194
Fax: (213) 613-1490






Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.


Exporting Food Start-up

Just one week left to sign up for the all-day UC Berkeley food export start-up seminar.  If you want to walk away with the tools, tactics and attitude it takes to save time and money getting customers, then this seminar is for you.  It carries Berkeley credit, so tell your employer to foot the class fee and travel costs.

Sign up here...  http://extension.berkeley.edu/search/publicCourseSearchDetails.do?method=load&courseId=3381416

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.


USA Corruption - Escape to Anarchy

Gallup has interesting poll results.

79% of USA citizens believe the federal government is generally corrupt.

Then there is this:
 Fewer Americans are satisfied with the freedom to choose what they do with their lives compared with seven years ago -- dropping 12 percentage points from 91% in 2006 to 79% in 2013. In that same period, the percentage of Americans dissatisfied with the freedom to choose what they do with their lives more than doubled, from 9% to 21%.
Well what does that mean?  Does it mean the are unhappy with less choice or happy with less choice? I've read it several times and I come up confused.  I hope the underlying questions are better than the summary for clarity.

Either way, keep in mind the analysis framework I have been pushing...  the ability to lend limitless credit at usury is the heart of the malinvestment and misallocation that erupts as a USA crisis.  Border problems, Iraq and Afghanistan, unemployment, food costs, energy costs, medicine crisis and on and on.

What we see as corruption is simply "no rational limits, no known limits."  We will find those limits soon enough, good and hard.


Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.


Logistics - Working with Freight Forwarders

A fellow from last session is fixing some errors on his MOQ FOB, and he made some tactical errors vis a vis his freight forwarder we are sorting out...  pay careful attention to what I say about freight forwarders, their help is critical, but be zen like, use as little as possible...  think through and minimize...


Begin forwarded message:

From: John Spiers
Date: August 6, 2014 6:02:23 AM PDT
To: J
Subject: Re: Freight Forwarder Help

Hey J,

In my lesson on freight forwarders I stress that they are not inclined to help small exporters because usually they are a lot of work and usually no pay-off.  This is one reason of many why I stress the MOQ FOB as a tactic, "one size fits all."

She says directly there is no "one size fits all."

But there is...  and you only get ONE chance to create it.  You do not get two chances to create the MOQ FOB with a freight forwarder.

Now when you freight forwarder says:
From Winnipeg to China, for instance, cargo will come to Vancouver or Montreal whereas if the freight is going to Europe, Montreal or Halifax are more likely.
This is quite true.  For Canada, Vancouver, Montreal and Halifax are the big export ports.  So during your research, say your #1 target country was Malaysia, then you would make it FOB Vancouver.  If your target market was Bulgaria, the Halifax or Montreal.  I believe you said USA was, so them Montreal.

Your goal is all "in-country" costs known and listed up to the point from which any buyer in the world can take it from there, eg, FOB Vancouver.

Now, hear yourself:
I told her to give me estimates for Winnipeg to Montreal and Winnipeg to Vancouver to cover most of the possibilities. In the MOQ FOB Offer, I plan only to show Winnipeg to Montreal because it is the closest port.
Why are you having her do work when you will not use the fruit of her efforts? If you are not going to use Winnipeg to Vancouver then don't ask for it.  It will not do to say "I may need it" because you may also need Winnipeg to halifax and endless other combinations.  Any time spent on creating things you cannot use immediately is wasted time.   I am not picking on you, I am just showing why Freight Forwarders lose interest fast because what they offer is "free" and so people want huge helpings of "free."  

So you get only Winnipeg to Montreal, and show that.  IF it should come to pass in a year a Romanian buyer wants FOB halifax you can go back to the freight forwarder and say "Kazar of Romania is inquiring about an FOB halifax quote."  this new request is based on a solid customer inquiry, not wild "maybe this, maybe that..."

Now, you can go back to your FF and explain your "customers are in USA and you want to make it as easy as possible, so you want the FOB Montreal quote", and if she provides, then good.  You  might ask if you can link from the quote page to her email so if an american buyer wants your FF to "handle the shipment" the buyer can easily contact the FF.

Here is what is tedious for the freight forwarder:  their field is far more complicated than people imagine, and anyone who has academic information about the field, what they learned in school, has no idea about the fact the landscape changes constantly during the hours of any given day, so any thought as to how things should be done is almost always wrong.  There is nothing like selling a perishable space and time moving from place to place, faster than the market can make a price.  There is nothing like it.  And unless you do it for a living, you cannot know what it is like. Long fruitless, frustrating discussions occur.

So, when you first visit a freight forwarder, you show your research and say "I will be offering this HTS at this weight and dimension at this price, etc, from this port."  Please give me a quote.  DONE!  The FF sees you have a purpose and that your requirement is specific and limited.

So in this instance, where it seems we've crossed the "too much work" line with Cole, you can ask for that one clean Winnipeg to Montreal quote, and if your FF will not help, then find another FF, maybe one in Montreal... and start over.

Does this make sense?

John

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.


Sales Process

Part of a transcript from last night's class...


Instruktor: OK rishi reminded me of another important point...
Instruktor: there is a well documented sales process...
Instruktor: Approach
Instruktor: Qualification
Instruktor: Agreement on need
Instruktor: Sell the Company
Instruktor: Fill the need
Instruktor: Closing
Instruktor: so the approach we have done by going to retailer as a customer and asking questions...
Instruktor: we qualified the buyer way back when by getting in front of the buyer as potential customer of the store
Instruktor: when they said "good idea does not exist" we got agreement on need...
Instruktor: so when you go back, with the sample...
Instruktor: and you have done the approach
Instruktor: done the qualification, done the agreement on need..
Instruktor: and they buyer decides he wants your idea,,,,,
Instruktor: after all of your work, expect the buyer then to ask why he sould buy it from you?
Instruktor: why not buy it from someone else?
Instruktor: buyers are often convinced by salespeople they need a product, and end up buying it somewhere else...
Instruktor: how come?
Instruktor: because the real selling is at the "sell the company" step...
Instruktor: this is when you sell yourslef as not only the best, but the only one...
Instruktor: and you win this by competing on design..
Instruktor: there is no other source...
Instruktor: right..
     Rishi: y
Instruktor: and that is why so often sales reps go into say a petco, even if they get in, even if tpetco decides to buy, like the idea...
Instruktor: petco buyers (and all other mass mdsers)  then have other suppliers make a bid
Instruktor: and there is always someone who will go lower on price...
Instruktor: always...
   bjsines: but poorer quality product?
     Rishi: I agree. I went through a similar experience recently.
 BHolzmann: they'll find your supplier anyhow ...!
Instruktor: bj... maybe, maybe take a loss on same quality to defend shelf space...
Instruktor: yes..
Instruktor: competing on price is just too tough..
Instruktor: better to make more money doing less work and be not only the best, but the only one..
Instruktor: and here is the huge criticism I get so often by people who move ahead...
Instruktor: They say "competing on design does not take much...  you should emphasize how little it takes to compete on design!"
Instruktor: I get that constantly...
Instruktor: Ugggh...
Instruktor: I put a whole section on the book on that...
Instruktor: "perturbability rate...."
Instruktor: I talk about it in the class..
 BHolzmann: ha!  people prefer to see others fall on the sidewalk then suceed ahead!  ha!
Instruktor: it is in the transcripts...
Instruktor: No, not that Bholz... I think it is they just expect it to take so much more..
Instruktor: it is the old thing
Instruktor: a little dab will do ya..
Instruktor: of easy does it
Instruktor: or whatever...
Instruktor: but it happens time and again..
Instruktor: people who get going say... it was so easy!
Instruktor: not sure how to otherwise convince people of that..
Instruktor: it 's like thjose zen flower arrangin classes..
Instruktor: the master just comes in, looks, and says, "remove two flowers..."
Instruktor: and then again
Instruktor: anf again...
Instruktor: and eventually it is perfect...
 BHolzmann: i'm laughing!
Instruktor: we all tend to way overdo what we need to do
Instruktor: lack of confidence or something..
Instruktor: or just experience...
Instruktor: Bholz, has had flower arranging classes?
 BHolzmann: indeed ... it can be very scary to loads of people - majority!
Instruktor: I've works with some great designers..
Instruktor: and they really do not do much...
Instruktor: I guess because they don't have to
Instruktor: what makes them great is they know what works or not...
Instruktor: and heck sake, that is how come we include designers in our costs...
Instruktor: they can make our complex ideas simple and saleable
Instruktor: and recall...
Instruktor: we only want enough design to get our first iteration enough orders from custoemr to cover suppliers minimimum...
Instruktor: here is a good example of that...
Instruktor: http://www.google.com/search?q=first+apple+computer&client=safari&rls=en&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=POLiU-6RMs_DiwLU1oCIBw&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1041&bih=578
   bjsines: then customers feedback will help improve initial design.
Instruktor: talk about only enough to cover a minimum order requirement....
Instruktor: exactly, bj..
Instruktor: which is how apple has moved to the top...




Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.


Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Steve Checks In From the Trenches

On Aug 5, 2014, at 8:14 AM, Steve wrote:

. However, as I look at the macro data provided through your system of HTS-10, I tried googling X pastry exports and pastry exports and really didn't find any info. Is there any other source to help the 'search and learn' process? 

***the search and learn is vis a vis buyers overseas...  you gather as much info as possible about the market to help focus on the market... and argue to the buyer why your product ought be tried.  You make your best effort to collect what IS out  there, then take your best shot with what you manage to collect...  AND...***

Basically, I would love to analyze this data in a more narrower fashion. Is there a way to do that so that, although my focus is presently X items, I may be redirected to a better selling pastry? 

***As you pitch what you do have, based on feedback you can adjust as real buyers begin to share what they really want (if anything more/different..)  In this way after the initial contact, your info from buyers is superior to research since you are discovering what buyers actually want.  The "new" could not have been known earlier because it is through a process of a hegelian dialectic that the new emerges.  Your hypothesis is based on your research, you put the best you have in front of the customers, their reaction is the anti-thesis to your thesis, and as you consider both sides, you from a syn-thesis.  Your synthesis becomes a new thesis, it is tested, and you then are in the ever-improving upward spiral toward ever more customer satisfaction...

Where is the best information on markets?  In your customers' minds, especially in regards to what is next.***

Or because of the 'passion element', I should stick with X because my passion will carry me through the process better and more effectively?

***Yes...  as a fundamental...***

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.


Russians Dumping Visa/Mastercard for Chinese UnionPay...

Kevin Checks in with how Russians are dealing with the sanctions...  and how the Russians have switched to the Chinese UnionPay...

UnionPay logo.svg

The Russians are working on their own system, and I wish they would hurry up, because their card has some very cool style...

Sample: Universal electronic card

Update:  I can read enough Russian to make out the words, Universalnaya Elektronaya Karta  and Rossia...  the logo in the upper left is U Ye Ka, or if sounded out in Russian.. "ooo yech..."  which is a common expression of disgust in English.  Something like the problem of Chevy Novas to Mexico ( no + Va = doesn't go)  or the Japanese sports drink Cal-pis.    Since the Russians haven't rolled it out, perhaps they could reduce the logo just to the Y (oo in Russian) and then the logo say "oooo" as in "ooo...  I'll buy that..."

See what happens when you match one year of college Russian with the gift of ADD/ADHD?

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.


Apple Logo Fun

Apple has a fun use of their logo…

http://www.apple.com/macbook-air/stickers/#video-stickers

Some crazy companies forbid this riffing on a logo.

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.


Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Food As A Weapon - Russian Turnabout

Shortly after explicating the USA agricultural policy of "Get Big or Get Out" (a fascist slogan if ever there was one) Sec Ag Earl Butz announced the USA policy included "food as a weapon."  Not just food as coercion, but food as a weapon.
 As Earl Butz told TIME: "Food is a weapon. It is now one of the principal tools in our negotiating kit."
Time magazine (November 11, 1974)
(I have tracked down the original on microfiche and he indeed is quoted thus.)
Food: Potent U.S. WeaponInterview with Earl L. Butz, Secretary of AgricultureU.S. News & World Report, February 19, 1976
Agripower, as defined by Mr. Butz, is the dependence of an increasing world population on an uninterrupted supply of U.S. food.
Now that has been our policy over the last forty years.  Take a look around the world.  How is that working out for us?  In both foreign policy and domestic policy?

As is well established, going off the "gold-standard lite" in 1971 allowed us the ability to create credit and lend it with virtually no rational limit.  Any and all ideas could be "funded" and generally they were.  There was no practical check on any idea.  So we are now drowning in wacky ideas that no one can pay for.

To sustain the game, we need to prove to creditors we can come up with the payments.  The Ukraine game is to seize that plum, what with its gas pipelines through and fecund fields of grain within, under USA hegemony.  We keep hearing disparaging talk of Russia having an "economy the size if Italy."  But we are way outclassed with relentless USA military defeats by farmers and a political structure that weeds out any reformers.  (It is ironic USA uses "food as a weapon" and then is defeated by farmers.)

All this cuts both ways.  Russia is now banning Polish imports of fruit, which is Poland's big market.
(Reuters) - Russia announced a ban on most fruit and vegetable imports from Poland on Wednesday and said it could extend it to the entire EU, a move Warsaw called Kremlin retaliation for new Western sanctions over Ukraine imposed on Russia a day earlier.
Now the funny part is this will open up Russia to the next best source, USA. It will be amusing if EU cooperation on USA sanctions ends their markets but opens for USA exporters.  Do we have anyone who thinks any policy through?  Well, no.  Because no matter the cost of a bad idea, with unlimited credit to lend, there are no consequences to bad ideas.  There are no price signals in USA, the problem that ended the Soviet Union.

A more likely scenario is as apples in Russia grow more expensive for the Poland ban, Russian entrepreneurs will find it economical to produce Russian apples and end the need for Polish apples.   Who knows, but Polish apples are about to get a lot cheaper elsewhere in the EU.

At the same time, China is stepping up its "investigations" of foreign companies.  After Microsoft was raided in several cities at once, so was Mercedes Benz and others.
The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China's top planner, is investigating the industry amid domestic media complaints that foreign carmakers, using a dominant market position, are overcharging Chinese customers on products and spare parts.
We are not allowed to know history in USA, and Marxists tend to get their facts straight.  The big 20th Century USA historical event was the civil rights movement.  We are told change was from legislative action, that is government can do good.  Fact is, the Jim Crow laws were laws, government action.  And as Rev. Dr. Ralph Abernathy points out in his book "That Walls Came Tumblng Down" the USA apartheid changed when the movement appealed to business which welcomed the new customers previously forbidden by law.  (Abernathy and his book disappeared rather quickly after being accurate.)

China and Russia know exactly what they are doing.  By speaking directly to business people, Russia banning imports to match sanctions, and the Chinese calling in people making money in their country, one at a time, the powers that be will find their business base rather unexcited about economic sanctions, and who knows, "food as a weapon."  Arrogance: not bothering to ask questions.  We are outclassed, and haven't the slightest idea of consequences.

Get some real USA history, read Abernathy -



And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: An Autobiography

Update:  Ooops.. ban of USA products too... Chile wins.  

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.


Monday, August 4, 2014

Do one deal, then all others by analogy

One reason I like teaching is a reason every teacher gives, you learn so much more so much faster.  Very often it is the students doing the teaching with their contributions, and then it is Hegelian dialectic: thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

Riffing on starting small and lean and search and learn in food exports, I found myself saying of the cuff (online) "you form the moq fob, you become not expert in international trade, but export in the trade of your product internationally.  Once you get your first MOQ FOB export sale, all other sales in the future are by analogy.  The process is the same in every instance, so what small permutations are easy to handle."

Just so.  So much work, so few hands.  I understand, you have to step out of the fear zone of "health care" and "overhead costs."  But keep in mind,  people who have neither are proceeding and building businesses.

If the market tanks, and you lose 40% of your retirement, might you have wished you withdrew 10% and paid the taxes and penalties tosstart a biz?

Upper left of this page has links to courses on int'l trade biz start -up.

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.


Sunday, August 3, 2014

Food Renaissance Now - Your Participation

You can become part of the food renaissance right now, and begin your own escape to good food and self-actualization.  It takes a small step, a few minutes of your time, and an act of commitment that says "I am changing things myself."  It's simple enough, kick in a crowdfunded loan to a rancher.  And I have visited this ranch, you want to be a part of it!

What goes around comes around. To help someone else will give you some "buy-in" to help yourself.  You'll change in your thinking knowing you are a part of something good.

A farmer wants a loan, but does not want the traditional big bank loans with their woeful consequences.   I am so keen on this effort because it is a critical component in regrowing a just economy.

So what you do is just log on and make a "loan" of as little as $5! or $50 or $100 or finish this up and be a hero by loaning $3335.00.  The goal is $10k and they have over $6500 pledged now. You get paid back in monthly installments over 36 months.  (And Paypal seems to be their payment processor, but Paypal is optional in the process, if that matters to you.)

More than the money in and out, you are reminded monthly of the contribution you are making, and knowing that a farm is safely borrowing.  And you will learn about this wholesome, fair, beneficial community financing method because you have hands-experience.  It continues to grow.  Help make it bigger and be there when you could use financing.

I am studying usury and economic justice and so on as I have been blogging.  There is a working alternative that is actually active worldwide.  Participate now, even if you have to switch a small amount from one budget item to this.  Then you will have something new in your mix upon which to reflect.  They only have 12 days left in the campaign. You see good food and can say "I am a part of that." Make a Kiva loan now.

Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.