As a sideline I began teaching small business international trade in 1984, after a decade of working for others in the field. My goal was actually to write a book, for two reasons; 1. To get down the essence of the work, 2. To make a record of what was important as we moved into (as anyone could see) big changes in the world.
Thirty years later, principles haven't changed, but we are now an impoverished nation, and no more aware of it than the Soviet Union was in 1989. The biggest challenge for the USA, as it has been for the Russians, is too few know how to run a real business. Anyone can get get loans and pretend to be in business for years if need be (serial "entrepreneurs") and our biggest companies have all been on life support for 40 years. There has been no apprenticeship program that led to new masters in each field. We've lost three generations of entrepreneurs to F I R E.
Let me define terms again, first, there is mal-credit and bene-credit. I recall bene-credit, when the vast majority of commerce worked neither on money nor credit-at-interest (usury) but at on credit at no interest. Sure there has always been loan-sharking, but what was new starting in the mid-seventies was the fraud of lending credit with no assets backing the loan. Loan sharks actually lent something and took a risk of loss. But not banks, starting in the very early 1970s.
With no rational limit to what might be financed, astonishing misallocation and malinvestment followed. Anything goes! There has been no rational limit to what we can finance, so instead of alabaster cities we got wars, more wars, poverty, crumbling infrastructure, sports stadiums for billionaires, privatized profits and socialized losses.
What astonishes me is how all commentators look to interest rates as the nexus of the problem. They agree the problem is to the degree the interest rate distorts the economy, we have problems. They only argument is what is the correct interest rate, and in this case each specially pleads that someone else's ox be gored, not their own.
So there is near 100% agreement the problem is interest rates, but the sturm-und-drang is over the right rate and how to achieve it. What do we know?
1. For most of history, most commerce has been on asset-backed, interest-free credit as the basis for an economy. Money (properly defined) is for special deals in which relational obligations are extinguished. There is simply no need for and interest-based loan in commerce. All needs can be met by other means.
2. In this forty-five year experiment in asset-less credit lending, at interest, we have seen interest rates go from a few percent to 21% and now down to zero (and even negative, effectively.) That range pretty much gives every interest advocate an empirical basis to stake a claim on the benefits of charging interest. Care to point out when, since 1970, the economy has been fruitful, prosperous, just, (name your standard)? Show us your ox.
3. You might argue, well, at the current zero (effective) interest rate, is not the usury-free argument destroyed by the present dreadful economy? Not at all, for the overwhelming factor is that presently the zero interest is with asset-free backing. Even if you are not charging interest on cars, you've misallocated resources to make cars the "buyers" will not pay for, and you've "educated" students with content they will not use and student loans they will not repay. Java coders re-educated to be roofers, roofers re-educated to be java-coders.
4. And finally we know the solution to the problem, de-legitimize (not criminalize) the charging of interest on loans. If and when no judge will enforce the interest portion of a contract (like no judge will enforce a gambling debt) then the practice will dwindle and drift away, losing the force needed to maintain the fraud of any loan at interest at any amount for any duration.
There is no rational limit to how far this might go, the bankers simply keep probing further and deeper, without a clue, but always with a jet ready to flee to a paradise prepared elsewhere. There is no rational limit to how far this can go, so when it comes crashing down, it will also be for some irrational reason.
(And as an aside, when I say "bankers" I don't mean Jews, I am not persuaded by the delusional argument "it's the Jews." It's us, the Rockefellers, Morgans, Mellons and their protestant work ethic devotees. It's no coincidence that before this experiment in massive fraud the Chairmen of the Fed Reserve were WASPs, and starting in 1970 (that year again!) the Fed Chairmen have been Jews. If you are going to risk your country's economic health for personal gain, make sure you have some Jews out front to take the blame. It always works. Jimmy Carter, my favorite president, appointed a goy in '79, in an attempt to get us back on track. The guy lasted a couple of months.)
Stockman is doing a good job collecting and distributing commentary... Buchanan on the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld criminal wars, how mal-credit made China a commodity giant, and now it has a giant usury problem. Global Stock markets have lost ten trillion in the last three months. Lost? No, the valuations are just be adjusted and saps paying into pension plans are being gored. One specific loser is a Chinese billionaire who made a bid to create a second Panama canal. Oooops, he is down 90% on his tally, for no billionaire actually has any money, they have nominal tallies of what they have accumulated. No one objected when they were told in 1998 their $200,000 house was worth $300,000 as interest rates (there it goes again, the heart of all of these problems, usury, charging money on loans) dropped from 9% to 6%. But now that interest rates are near zero, and the house is nominally worth a million, and the household income has not gone up, but taxes are still a flat .006 on a million instead of $200k, and the debt on the house cannot be paid... oh ouch, once a millionaire and house rich, now a slave tied to a bank loan.
What is the policy answer? More funny money, until it breaks. if and when, watch out below!
A big unseen monster is global dollar fund shortage. Well, yes and no. Yes, it is a symptom of a terrible disintegration, but a disintegration of the false economy. It has nothing to do with money, everything to do with currency as tallies and nominal valuations. If you see syphilis dying out, you can relax. Watching these problems, I am relaxing. It's an economy dying, their economy, not mine.
Chinese containerized freight is down 30%... bad for the big boys. Good for me and my customers, my economy. In their economy it is all lay-offs and cooking books.
USA Ag exports collapsing, which is disastrous for the big boys, like Monsanto whose unnatural practices are catching up with them, stock down 25% this year. At the same time, the food in my economy is enjoying growing exports.
None of this is secret, but what else can people do? They just await the news, or play on facebook, a drug designed expressly for this time and place.
There is a solution, it is well known, but there is a problem with that. A great idea can be had, but does anyone know how to market a product and develop a business?
Well, not enough people, and certainly no one learns "how to" in school.
They all learned false economy methods in which results do not count.
Let me give you one tiny insight that astonishes any student I teach under 40 years old (for they know no better.) I deliver noncredit courses through colleges on small business international around the USA and Canada both online and in person. The schools have learned online marketing is delusional. To get enrollments, they must still mail out a catalog of course offerings, that is the offerings printed on paper and sent through the USMails. Cost of acquisition of enrollments is about $7 each. With online marketing, cost of acquisition is about $90 each. (Divide the money spent by enrollments gained, learn the cost of acquisition by method.) Since most course fees are less than $90, schools avoid online marketing. This is the problem for all online marketing, whatever the product, the cost of customer acquisition is more than the cost of what you are selling. Yet, try to hire a marketer who is not trained to drain your company of all profitability, sooner or later. (In 22 years of asking, I ask again, someone prove me wrong with evidence of online marketing working.)
On the other hand like paper catalogs of course mailed to homes, there are still principles and practices that actually work, although as perplexing as a slide rule to an engineer who is used to the TI-90.
But access to that cutting edge info is fast becoming lost. How come? Usury again, charging anything on any loan at any amount for any length of time. Student loans, crossing a trillion and a half, have nearly killed the market for continuing ed. Burdened with useless information (as Drucker said, you can tell when info is obsolute, universities make it core curriculum) and crushing loan debt, people who would have gladly taken an improving noncredit course are wondering where the next meal is coming from.
This will come back to haunt university administrators, for it is well-established that continuing education is a prime recruiter for credit programs (degrees).
I've had two seminars cancelled for low enrollments, a first in 30 years of lecturing. The time not lecturing will be spent on considering this development. Often when I see something unexpected of perplexing in business, I look to the music industry as a model. The seminars sell the books? How about the books sell the seminar? Back to correspondence school model? hard to say, but I'll for a hypothesis and test it. I'll keep you updated...
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
Thirty years later, principles haven't changed, but we are now an impoverished nation, and no more aware of it than the Soviet Union was in 1989. The biggest challenge for the USA, as it has been for the Russians, is too few know how to run a real business. Anyone can get get loans and pretend to be in business for years if need be (serial "entrepreneurs") and our biggest companies have all been on life support for 40 years. There has been no apprenticeship program that led to new masters in each field. We've lost three generations of entrepreneurs to F I R E.
Let me define terms again, first, there is mal-credit and bene-credit. I recall bene-credit, when the vast majority of commerce worked neither on money nor credit-at-interest (usury) but at on credit at no interest. Sure there has always been loan-sharking, but what was new starting in the mid-seventies was the fraud of lending credit with no assets backing the loan. Loan sharks actually lent something and took a risk of loss. But not banks, starting in the very early 1970s.
With no rational limit to what might be financed, astonishing misallocation and malinvestment followed. Anything goes! There has been no rational limit to what we can finance, so instead of alabaster cities we got wars, more wars, poverty, crumbling infrastructure, sports stadiums for billionaires, privatized profits and socialized losses.
What astonishes me is how all commentators look to interest rates as the nexus of the problem. They agree the problem is to the degree the interest rate distorts the economy, we have problems. They only argument is what is the correct interest rate, and in this case each specially pleads that someone else's ox be gored, not their own.
So there is near 100% agreement the problem is interest rates, but the sturm-und-drang is over the right rate and how to achieve it. What do we know?
1. For most of history, most commerce has been on asset-backed, interest-free credit as the basis for an economy. Money (properly defined) is for special deals in which relational obligations are extinguished. There is simply no need for and interest-based loan in commerce. All needs can be met by other means.
2. In this forty-five year experiment in asset-less credit lending, at interest, we have seen interest rates go from a few percent to 21% and now down to zero (and even negative, effectively.) That range pretty much gives every interest advocate an empirical basis to stake a claim on the benefits of charging interest. Care to point out when, since 1970, the economy has been fruitful, prosperous, just, (name your standard)? Show us your ox.
3. You might argue, well, at the current zero (effective) interest rate, is not the usury-free argument destroyed by the present dreadful economy? Not at all, for the overwhelming factor is that presently the zero interest is with asset-free backing. Even if you are not charging interest on cars, you've misallocated resources to make cars the "buyers" will not pay for, and you've "educated" students with content they will not use and student loans they will not repay. Java coders re-educated to be roofers, roofers re-educated to be java-coders.
4. And finally we know the solution to the problem, de-legitimize (not criminalize) the charging of interest on loans. If and when no judge will enforce the interest portion of a contract (like no judge will enforce a gambling debt) then the practice will dwindle and drift away, losing the force needed to maintain the fraud of any loan at interest at any amount for any duration.
There is no rational limit to how far this might go, the bankers simply keep probing further and deeper, without a clue, but always with a jet ready to flee to a paradise prepared elsewhere. There is no rational limit to how far this can go, so when it comes crashing down, it will also be for some irrational reason.
(And as an aside, when I say "bankers" I don't mean Jews, I am not persuaded by the delusional argument "it's the Jews." It's us, the Rockefellers, Morgans, Mellons and their protestant work ethic devotees. It's no coincidence that before this experiment in massive fraud the Chairmen of the Fed Reserve were WASPs, and starting in 1970 (that year again!) the Fed Chairmen have been Jews. If you are going to risk your country's economic health for personal gain, make sure you have some Jews out front to take the blame. It always works. Jimmy Carter, my favorite president, appointed a goy in '79, in an attempt to get us back on track. The guy lasted a couple of months.)
Stockman is doing a good job collecting and distributing commentary... Buchanan on the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld criminal wars, how mal-credit made China a commodity giant, and now it has a giant usury problem. Global Stock markets have lost ten trillion in the last three months. Lost? No, the valuations are just be adjusted and saps paying into pension plans are being gored. One specific loser is a Chinese billionaire who made a bid to create a second Panama canal. Oooops, he is down 90% on his tally, for no billionaire actually has any money, they have nominal tallies of what they have accumulated. No one objected when they were told in 1998 their $200,000 house was worth $300,000 as interest rates (there it goes again, the heart of all of these problems, usury, charging money on loans) dropped from 9% to 6%. But now that interest rates are near zero, and the house is nominally worth a million, and the household income has not gone up, but taxes are still a flat .006 on a million instead of $200k, and the debt on the house cannot be paid... oh ouch, once a millionaire and house rich, now a slave tied to a bank loan.
What is the policy answer? More funny money, until it breaks. if and when, watch out below!
A big unseen monster is global dollar fund shortage. Well, yes and no. Yes, it is a symptom of a terrible disintegration, but a disintegration of the false economy. It has nothing to do with money, everything to do with currency as tallies and nominal valuations. If you see syphilis dying out, you can relax. Watching these problems, I am relaxing. It's an economy dying, their economy, not mine.
Chinese containerized freight is down 30%... bad for the big boys. Good for me and my customers, my economy. In their economy it is all lay-offs and cooking books.
USA Ag exports collapsing, which is disastrous for the big boys, like Monsanto whose unnatural practices are catching up with them, stock down 25% this year. At the same time, the food in my economy is enjoying growing exports.
None of this is secret, but what else can people do? They just await the news, or play on facebook, a drug designed expressly for this time and place.
There is a solution, it is well known, but there is a problem with that. A great idea can be had, but does anyone know how to market a product and develop a business?
Well, not enough people, and certainly no one learns "how to" in school.
They all learned false economy methods in which results do not count.
Let me give you one tiny insight that astonishes any student I teach under 40 years old (for they know no better.) I deliver noncredit courses through colleges on small business international around the USA and Canada both online and in person. The schools have learned online marketing is delusional. To get enrollments, they must still mail out a catalog of course offerings, that is the offerings printed on paper and sent through the USMails. Cost of acquisition of enrollments is about $7 each. With online marketing, cost of acquisition is about $90 each. (Divide the money spent by enrollments gained, learn the cost of acquisition by method.) Since most course fees are less than $90, schools avoid online marketing. This is the problem for all online marketing, whatever the product, the cost of customer acquisition is more than the cost of what you are selling. Yet, try to hire a marketer who is not trained to drain your company of all profitability, sooner or later. (In 22 years of asking, I ask again, someone prove me wrong with evidence of online marketing working.)
On the other hand like paper catalogs of course mailed to homes, there are still principles and practices that actually work, although as perplexing as a slide rule to an engineer who is used to the TI-90.
But access to that cutting edge info is fast becoming lost. How come? Usury again, charging anything on any loan at any amount for any length of time. Student loans, crossing a trillion and a half, have nearly killed the market for continuing ed. Burdened with useless information (as Drucker said, you can tell when info is obsolute, universities make it core curriculum) and crushing loan debt, people who would have gladly taken an improving noncredit course are wondering where the next meal is coming from.
This will come back to haunt university administrators, for it is well-established that continuing education is a prime recruiter for credit programs (degrees).
I've had two seminars cancelled for low enrollments, a first in 30 years of lecturing. The time not lecturing will be spent on considering this development. Often when I see something unexpected of perplexing in business, I look to the music industry as a model. The seminars sell the books? How about the books sell the seminar? Back to correspondence school model? hard to say, but I'll for a hypothesis and test it. I'll keep you updated...
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
2 comments:
According to Wikipedia, 'Overall, Jews have won a total of 41% of all the Nobel Prizes in economics, 28% in medicine, 26% in Physics, 19% in Chemistry, 13% in Literature and 9% of all peace awards.[4] Jews have been recipients of all six awards.' This is a remarkable statistic given that Jews compromise less than .2% of the world population. It would be unfair to criticize these people without recognizing their overall contribution.
Whoa, hang on here... several problems with your post: 1. You offer a balance, and state a positive side, but leave a negative side unstated. State the negative side you’ve left hanging.
2. If Jews are .2 of the world population and 41% of the Nobel prize winners, that easily says more about the Nobel Prize than about Jews. What is the selection criteria?
3. Where is the evidence that nobel laureates have done good any more or less than non-laureates, Jewish or otherwise?
4. Appealing to sentimentality is a weak basis for an argument, and damning by faint praise is a classic foil.
5. The Nazis brought us the superhighway, the jet engine, the volkswagen, Interpol, so many welcomed innovations we've maintained to this day, does that make it "unfair to criticize these people"?
The weight on the positive side is negligible. So what is your weight on the negative side?
Blaming the Jews is wrong because it is untrue, not for any other reason.
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