Advice to Graduates and College Applicants

Recent grads are in debt an average of $35,000 and will not see job prospects in any of the economy they know about.  Of course there is plenty of work, but they are Sesame-street programmed to be driven to 'tech" or some other false economy Finance Investment Real Estate (FIRE) work.  No wonder the fascination with zombies and vampyres, that is the economy we have.  They were taken for a ride, given unbankruptable debts so they would join the volunteer draft to fight in capitalist all-volunteer wars.

“You’re like, ‘I’ll do anything and apply for everything, but usually it’s an electronic filing and you’re spending all your time on it and never hear back. So far, I have applied for around 30 jobs, if not more, and have heard back on two of them. I didn’t get either job because I don’t have enough experience. These are entry-level jobs, but experienced people are taking them.”

There is plenty of work for the self-employed, and if someone is a recent graduate, they ought to consider agriculture.  And if considering college, should skip it for now, unless they want a humanities degree, the only real reason to go to college anyway.  (All three of my children have humanities degrees: comparative religion, Latin and history.  None has any student loan debt, all are gainfully employed in high paying jobs.  Anyone who treats college as voc-tech is wasting his life.  Take a year off and learn to export food at the small business level:

 Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced a new report showing tremendous demand for recent college graduates with a degree in agricultural programs with an estimated 57,900 high-skilled job openings annually in the food, agriculture, renewable natural resources, and environment fields in the United States. According to an employment outlook report released today by USDA's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and Purdue University, there is an average of 35,400 new U.S. graduates with a bachelor's degree or higher in agriculture related fields, 22,500 short of the jobs available annually.
"There is incredible opportunity for highly-skilled jobs in agriculture," said Secretary Vilsack. 

Exporting food is growing, especially in the specialty foods.

 Look Out for the Small Guy. Small
innovators are rising to the challenge,
with the development of high-quality and
distinct products that have small-scale
appeal, yet big trend potential. This trend
bodes well for U.S. suppliers with high
quality, specialty products ready for export!

There is no place in the United States that teaches how to export food at the small business level, except for me.

While the processed food category includes a diverse array of prepared and packaged products, all of them benefit from a common trend: rapid growth in global demand. Euromonitor, a market research firm, estimates that the retail value of packaged food (a proxy category for high-value food products) will increase by $316 billion over the next five years to $2.6 trillion. One challenge for U.S. exporters is to translate this expansion in food retail into export opportunities. Another challenge is steep competition from other principal suppliers. 

If you want to compete on your own and carve out your own thing, I teach exactly that, with UCBerkeley being an all day boot camp, where once oriented, the course never ends because you join a cohort of my past students from around the world pursuing small business world trade in food and beverage.

Check it out:

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

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Abjure MalCredit, Embrace Comity Credit

Pynchon noted it does not matter what the answer is if you can just get them to ask the wrong question.  All this talk of escaping to gold and silver because of mal-credit (asset-free-backed usury based credit) completely misses the point we only need a revival of asset-backed usury-free credit in commerce.  Ungh!  On the one hand, knowing this gives me a massive advantage in business, but on the other hand, like a fax machine, it becomes more valuable the more people who sign up.

On May 29, 2015, at 7:56 AM, R wrote:
It has been reported that Nothaus was convicted of counterfeiting because his gold coins had the word "dollar" stamped on them. But reading the law, it doesn't seem to me that this is even relevant:        "Whoever, except as authorized by law, makes or utters or passes, or attempts to utter or pass, any coins of gold or silver or other metal, or alloys of metals, intended for use as current money, whether in the resemblance of coins of the United States or of foreign countries, or of original design, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both." ~Title 18 of the United States Code, Pt. I, Ch. 25, Section 486, Uttering Coins of Gold, Silver, or Other MetalNote "or of original design." Doesn't that mean that any gold coins, even those of original design and not having dollar stamped on them are illegal? Whether or not "dollar" is stamped on them should be a moot point. I don't get it.

Nor does the word dollar appear in the statute, so the poor fellow was convicted for a crime not in the codes...

I now see all of this, gold and silver as money, as a subsidiary function for the free market, which works on asset-backed credit extension.  gold and silver shows up in archeology when it is "over" politically.  If the "end" is natural disaster they only find tallies.  if the end is political disintegration, they find caches of silver and gold.

John

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What Soybean Trade Teaches us About World Trade

One in four planted rows of soybeans grown in USA is exported to China.  it is Brazil's largest single export to China as well.

Soy is central, not so much in terms of the value of its exports, which is not dissimilar to the value ofexports from the sugar-cane sector or the combined meats sector, but for the role this crop plays at a numberof different levels. In the first place, we need to consider the spatial dimensions of the crop, which in Braziloccupies some 28 million hectares, three times that of sugarcane, four times that of planted forests, and ninetimes that of coffee. Furthermore, it is combined with the planting of corn. 60% of this production is nowlocated on “frontier” lands and, in combination with cattle, has been the primary basis of regionaldevelopment in the Center-West of the country – now pushing ever further to the North (Wesz, 2014). 50%of this soy is exported as grains and a further 25% as meal. This huge regional expansion has been fuelled byChina´s demand, which has ensured a long period of high commodity prices. High levels of agriculturalaccumulation from soy production have attracted outside investments and consolidated a new model of largescalefarming in this region (Wilkinson & Pereira, 2015).

Soy is low value but takes a lot of room. it would not work without massive subsidies.  Policy makers of course assume only one possibility: stasis. "a long period of high commodity prices."  As if that will not change...  This is brilliant on the part of the Chinese.  As in the USA, get the local government to subsidize the farming and export of a deleterious GMO crop, set aside lands for the purpose,  invest in the infrastructure to export the crop, and then subsidize the exports.  In the meantime, China, as this report so often repeats, is remarkably self-sufficient in food.  Exactly, they let us run ourselves into the ground as politicians override the markets for their own self-aggrandizement, while the Chinese devote their land resources to the highest best use.

Divert California water to grow alfalfa exported to China to feed their livestock.  State policy overriding the free market.  Socialize the losses, privatize the profits.

The world can be a wicked place, and that is good to know.    Go ahead and listen politely when the bored tenured business professors drones on about "comparative advantage" but know yourself it is complete nonsense.  It is all force and fraud, but it is still tradable.  Just because you look into the abyss does not mean you have to jump in.    Look at it, note the reality, and then plot your course accordingly.

The opportunities are unlimited because the powers that be are so limited in so many ways.


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Credit Hyperinflation

I have a $2 trillion Zimbabwe dollar.  It is only good for something no one else wants.  That is what hyperinflation looks like.  What does credit hyperinflation look like?  Huge numbers for something no one else wants:

Charter Communications’ offer to buy the much larger Time Warner Cable for a red-hot $78.7 billion comes on top of its previously announced but now amended deal to buy Bright House Networks for $10.4 billion. But that deal suddenly requires an additional $2 billion in debt, as Charter disclosed in an SEC filing. In order to pull both deals off, Charter would likely have to issue over $25 billion in new debt.
Charter has already lined up some of its ducks in a row. This is the greatest credit bubble in history, and money for deals is sloshing through the system in utter abundance. According toBloomberg, Bank of America, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, and UBS have committed to provide $31 billion to fund the purchase

No one wants US college education, so it is supported by Zimbabwe credit, or in other words, without the EZ Credit (a trillion and counting in unbankruptable debt) education would not be so big...  cars that cannot sell without EZ Subprime credit are selling like hotcakes with Zimbawe credit...  stocks at fraudulent valuations are being bid up by forced purchase pension plans, more zimbabwe credit.  All the people managing this and the dotcom/medical/banking false economy are all agreeing to prices on homes that they would not offer without Zimbabwe credit.

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Boeing to Relocate to China?

Boeing threatens to leave USA (obviously to China) if we do not reauthorize their welfare program, the EXIM bank....  but these people do not understand Boeing...

Will Boeing really pick up its factories and move abroad if Ex-Im isn’t reauthorized? ...“I doubt I believe it,” Representative Jeb Hensarling of Texas said at a Washington press conference Tuesday about whether failing to extend the bank’s charter would drive major corporations out of the U.S. “I think it’s frankly a bit of bluster.”

Ask Seattle if Boeing will move if they do not get their life-support payments... while it would benefit the USA if Boeing were to move to China and this monstrous welfare queen became a drag on the Chinese economy instead of USA, plus we'd be free to recover a free market in airplanes in USA, the fact is the EXImBank will be reauthorized.  The USA will end because of the welfare-queenism, without welfare-queenism, USA will end.  Either way, the future is an alternative economy.  Capitalism is over, lear how to operate in a free market.

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Hong Kong food Trade Show Plans?

On May 27, 2015, at 7:47 PM, B wrote:

Hi John,

As I mentioned, I am kicking around the idea of attending the Hong Kong Food Show in Aug. (nothing like the last minute!) I was wondering how serious the people you mentioned are about showing product there?  Right now, I have two or three producers expressing some interest.  Really rough back of the envelope calculations, I figure the cost of attending the show at somewhere between $15k - $20k including air, hotels, booth, shipping a 20' refer container, etc.  a 20' container will hold about 10 pallets -- I will need 3 - 4.

If you have any interest, or think your guys do, lets talk.

Thanks,

B

Hey B,

thanks for you the email...  although the show will welcome even last minute booth bookings, it is unlikely i have the critical mass to make a go of a booth this August.  You know my argument, do not go to a show until you have had sales, and you have enough buyers lined up to warrant the expense....you CAN make sales before you go, and the real leverage is when you meet customers in a booth..

You know I am also working on the game-changing LCL MOQ FOB Chill reefer project, which I want to be a part of a booth.  This has been a busy year, sorting out capabilitis and interests, but August seems too soon.

What I plan to do is to get a booth in 2016 and host a chill Freight Forwarder and OOCL along with some small exporters (actually from anywhere in the world....)  I will auction off the say six slots, and either make money or or lose some $9000....  but I think by next year I will have a solid critical mass of people who have enough customers to warrant investing in the show presence I host...  plus the show itself will be a seminar on how to leverage marketing money and booth management...

Nothing focusses the mind like a deadline, and I think this cohort I have created of small food exporters will be redy next year...

And an excellent time and place for people to get a jump start on exporting food will be the UCBerkeley Extension all day seminar coming up Saturday July 11...  it’s in San Francisco, but well worth flying to if you are outside the Bay Area.

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

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Will Transports Lead Crash?

So says this report...

Conclusion: according to Dow Theory the bullmarket in US stocks has run its course and it won’t be long before it breaks down into a bearmarket, that is likely to be severe. A catalyst for this could be a collapse in the bond markets. There is no logical reason for investors to hold bonds – they yield nothing and carry an increasing risk of severe capital depreciation, because most governments are either insolvent or fast heading in that direction, which means that they can’t and won’t honor their debts. If we see a collective realization of this reality by bond holders, which could happen at any time, we could quickly witness an ugly stampede for the exits leading to a dramatic spike in interest rates and a global market crash. We have already seen a convulsion in the bond markets in recent weeks, which is viewed as “a shot across the bows” – a warning of much worse to come.

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Pray For Graccident?

Stockman is set, so he can pray for disaster.  

He sure got that right. People who believe in democracy and economic liberty anywhere in the world should pray for a Graccident. During the next several weeks, when $1.8 billion in IMF loans come due that Greece cannot possibly pay, there will occur a glorious moment of irony for Syriza.

For just about everyone else...  a long slow death of capitalism by 1000 cuts, with free markets growing in its wake is to be prayed for.  He is right about what is going on, but there is not enough skilled individuals to live in a free market yet...

Steady as she goes...

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Get Your Own Business Open

The warnings keep coming in from people who understand:

That is totally inappropriate. The unemployment rate is essentially at what economists call “NAIRU” [Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment]… When I went to school, you’d be laughed out of the classroom if you said the right interest rate when unemployment rate was five four [5.4%] was zero – it was just the most preposterous thing you could imagine. Or that the Fed should have quintupled its balance sheet in five years.

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How Credit Became "Money"

Bankers know the difference between money and credit, although they allow customers to remain in the dark between the two.  Note the turning point in this history of money and credit, when the government for the first time, got involved in banking, and how poverty and war followed.

The change in law, first introduced in England in 1704, was to make the promises of bankers enforceable. In other words: if a banker issued a note promising to pay a certain sum of money (gold or silver) to whoever presented the note, the law would support the owner of the note when they went to claim the money. At first sight, this law seems to favour the customer; after all, if a bank promises to pay, it should be held to its word. But the real significance of the law – and this was obvious to everyone concerned when the law was introduced – was that it enabled the promises of bankers to become money: to ‘pass from Man to Man in Payment, which will be an Addition to the Cash of the Nation’ (John Cary, 1695.)

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China to Back Banks with Gold?

Putin's adult supervision kept out of war in Syria and the Ukraine, Kerry is trying to negotiate our way out of the dangerous squabble with Iran.  Our allies crumble in the face of ISIS (boy, we can pick 'em!) In the meantime, China is wasting no time -

Today we got a glimpse of what could be a global game changer, China is planning to launch “a 100 billion yuan fund led by the SGE, …which will in turn facilitate gold purchase for the central banks of member states to increase their holdings of the precious metal.” This was just published by news outlet Xinhua in China mainland. Xinhua also published an important article in late 2013 in which it said, “it’s perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanized world… a self-serving Washington has abused its superpower status and introduced even more chaos into the world by shifting financial risks overseas, instigating regional tensions amid territorial disputes, and fighting unwarranted wars under the cover of outright lies… As a result, the world is still crawling its way out of an economic disaster thanks to the voracious Wall Street elites”. It’s being thought these articles are written indirectly by the Chinese government. 

We cannot recover our hegemony after now, but we can reject isolationism of the neo-con adventurers and re-integrate on an organix level worldwide.  Although it is important for banks to have gold backing, note USA does not, it not important for individuals to hold gold or silver.  We need only freely extend credit within a asset-backed usury-free credit comity.

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Get Big or Get Out

For the last forty years, in the "get big or get out" regime, to be the biggest, you needed to move monetary assets and their derivatives overseas to avoid taxation and regulation.  Walmart, Starbucks, Amazon, you name it, they all have plaques on walls of small office buildings as their "headquarters" overseas in such places as Ireland and Luxembourg.

You name that game is over too as "conservative governments" such as the UK begin talking taxing that money.  They would never do anything popular unless it was pointless.  GE is not a political party, so it did not bother pretending giving up their financial operations was some act of piety.  the just dumped a now losing proposition.  Now that we have bad credit hyperinflation, all those overseas offices are ineffectual as a way to play USA govt policy.

In this new reverse economy, small businesses need to manage their assets to keep them out of the hands of Uncle Sam.  In fact, this will just be a replay of 1945 - 1965, a golden era of small business in USA.

First, extend credit to your customers.  Now, in deflation, the longer they take to pay, the harder the currency in which you are paid.  Also, you can manage when you book the payment, and when it is taxable.  Next as federal taxes rise, you control how much your business spends. Instead of trying to squeeze every cent out as soon as possible, you keep the money in the business.

You can still see some of the buildings constructed for small businesses in the LA fashion district, mid-century, with very cool amenities.  People usually lived elsewhere, but the business was the lifestyle, and so the facilities were very agreeable.

When taxes get back up to 90%, rejoice.  Big biz will falter more, making for a vacuum into which small business can sell.    And instead of booking $1 million profit and give $900,000 to uncle same, you will remodel your warehouse factory for $950,000 and book $50,000 profit and give Uncle Sam $45,000, not $900,000.  We been her before.

Then as the economy bottoms out, all that land will be dirt cheap... and as we swing back into the loathesome capitalism, you'll get rich off of the real estate you bought cheap.  I've seen this all before.

Your only protection is to get your free-market business going.

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A Case For Usury

There is an incoherent but typical pro-usury article at a hip young site called liberty.me.  The one-minute explanations being for the Sesame Street generation:

There is no objective criteria for what rate of interests is “usury”

The objective fact is usury causes harm in all instances.  It is a process of concentrating economic power in eer fewer hands, to the tipping point where a tiny minority literally call the shots.  This occurs regardless of the amount, rate or duration.

Traders have the right to trade by any terms they wish

Yes, obviously... irrelevant...

Interest is essential to the investment process

Prove it.

Charging interest is essential to guiding the investment process, 

Prove it.

which cannot be sustained by charity 

No one has asked the investment process to be guided by charity.

even it were forthcoming due to the economic calculation problem. 

What does the economic calculation problem have to do with charity?

 Interest rates are required to direct investments to their most productive use.  

Not internal rate of return? Return on investment?  Not personal aspirations?  Only interest rates?  And loans at interest is the only means of investment?

Interest-driven investment is essential to economic growth, and therefore to the very existence of industrial civilization. 

Mere assertion, nothing to warrant the claim.

If charging interest were outlawed, industrial societies would quickly collapse due to the inability to efficiently allocate savings.

Who advocates outlawing interest?  The theory implicit here says if interest rates went to zero, industrial societies would collapse.  Interest rates have gone to zero, and industrial societies are collapsing, in the asset categories of false economy interest-driven investments.  By legalizing (protecting) interest rates, the predators were able to concentrate ever more power in their own hands, and malinvest and misallocate vast swathes of productive capacity.  Interest allows ever fewer people to allocate savings contrary to the savers benefit.

“Loan sharking” is caused by government failure  Loan-sharking (charging high interest rates backed up by the threat of violence) reflects the fact that the loans are being given to creditors with a high risk of default. The need for violence is due to the failure of governments to see this fact, or to adequately enforce the loan contracts (such as with overly lax bankruptcy laws), rather than any immorality inherent in moneylenders.

This from liberty.me?  All we need is good government? How about merely not enforce interest provision ins contracts, as gambling debts are not enforced in law?

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