Uber Arrested in Hong Kong

Cops shutting down Uber is nothing new, it seems to be an advertising tactic of Uber.  But Hong Kong is unique among cities of the world, and so its results may be unique as well.  First a few points:

1. China controls Hong Kong and Uber is doing well in China.  From the comments sections:

Uber came to China late and has been trying to gain market share against Didi Kuaidi ever since. Right now Didi owns around 90% of the market share. If anything what's happening now with Uber and Didi is probably one of the most interesting capitalistic stories going on in the tech world right now. It's pure competition between the two with each one coming up with innovative ways to beat the other. Kalanick has already said he's making China, Uber's number one priority and values it more than the US 

Note that Breitbart put Uber shutdown in Hong Kong under the USA national security section.  I mean, really!

2,  Hong Kong would not allow Alibaba to list its stock on its market, so don't think this is to favor Alibaba.

3. Walmart failed in Hong Kong, so don't think American ideas should fit right in.

4. Anyone who thinks Uber is some free market anarchistic movement is delusional.  Uber has a simple offer: Write new regulations for us and what was once a local tax farm and intelligence system will now become centralized.  The tips and other revenue that was once untaxed is now on the record.  Uber offers central governments total information awareness and maximum tax receipts.  Ridesharing is a great idea, just not by Uber.

5. Hong Kong already has an excellent taxi system, most bas owned by the drivers, and a taxi is ready when you are, very easy to hail anywhere and rarely any wait time.  They are cheap, so paying cash is no big deal.  And the standards are so rick-solid complaints are rare.  

6. Yes, the Legco regulates cabs (after the fact) and problems are usually solved by cutting prices, a more free market approach:

In July 2007, it was reported that many taxi drivers were engaged in rampant illegal price-cutting in their competition with call-cab drivers for passengers. Rates offered were up to 20% lower than the metered fares on long-distance trips, with competition being particularly fierce on the airport route. The warring factions took turns to blockade Hong Kong International Airport to air their grievances.^[10] Andrew Cheng Kar-foo, chairman of the Legislative Council's transport panel, proposed cutting taxi fares to deal with illicit discounting. 

7.  When I ride a car in from the airport, invariably the cabbie gives me his card and offers a flat rate back out.  This is the competition mentioned above.  Government is just window dressing in Hong Kong, the real government is agreements between people every day in very many interactions.

8.  Hong Kong is probably the single most cosmopolitan and visited city in the world, that is to say more people from more places pass through there than any other.  It needs a reliable, fair price, stable taxi system.  It has it.  Hong Kong is governed by its associations, the Hotel people do not get in gamblers business, the produce people don't mess around in meat, the garment people stay out of jewelry, your reputation is everything and disputes are settled at the lowest level.  

Uber is trying to introduce something new and alien to Hong Kong, and that is total tax collection and centralized control over taxi via "rideshare".  I bet it fails since what makes Uber work, government regulation specifically to benefit Uber in return for total control over rideshare, will not work in Hong Kong just as welfare giant Walmart could not make it there either.

Thanks to Anthony for the lead...

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Trade Shows In A Changing World

Trade shows have become big, bloated affairs, attracting non-buyers with swag, and charging too much to do too much.  The EZ mal-Credit economy has allowed people with nothing to really offer talk to people with no customers and then of course there are the subsidized booths which congregate people by country instead of offerings.  This is breaking down especially in the hyper-specialized shows.  Now comes a new show selling everything in one show  Is this a regeneration of the trade show going on?  From Miami:

The newest addition, the Miami Wholesale Show, just completed its second year and is heading into its third. The Asia America Trade Show is from September 27-29, 2015 and the Miami Wholesale Show is from May 26-28, 2016. Both shows will be held at the Miami Beach Convention Center, with an average of 6,000 attendees, more than 224 exhibitors and over 65,000 square feet of exhibition area. For 2016, exhibition space will be doubled. Major companies such as Kole Imports have been exhibiting for five years, as well as many others. Asia America is the major wholesale show in South Florida, getting bigger every year. “We will be setting new attendance records over the next few years. We invite wholesalers and distributors to come experience our shows,” said Michael Finocchiaro, President. “We have got big names that have been with us over the last six years developing the market, and now they have established a large foot-hold. As a result, they have acquired many new accounts.”

Occupy Hong Kong, was disruptive of business in Hong Kong, but apparently not its trade shows:

The Hong Kong Exhibition and Convention Industry Association (HKECIA) surveyed organisers of 101 trade shows with net floor space larger than 2,000sqm.
“In 2014, exhibiting company numbers, visitor numbers, and rental revenue generated from exhibitors were all positive, especially for exhibiting companies and visitors from outside Hong Kong,” said HKECIA chairman Javed Khan. “This is an excellent testimony of the trust that is placed in our city’s capabilities in a time of global economic uncertainty.”

Learn to work trade shows well.

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Start-Up Back Country Trading Post

On Aug 12, 2015, at 9:17 PM, JD wrote:
Hello John,
I'm an American expat living in (exotic locale) and would like to possibly import some food stuffs for a retail operation here. It would be a small retail operation with potential for growth. With the expat community growing here it's niche market with potential as you just can't find the products you want. Any advice would be very helpful.
Cheers,
JD

Hey Jason,

Simple enough, find a relative who will mix a pallet load for you and ship it to you, not so much you can't afford to lose, but enough to meet all of the players and reach accommodations upon which you can build a long term and growing business.  Just keep working absolute minimums and repetitions as a inexpensive way to become a master of the process.  You'll win some and lose some, but you will be in control.  Once everyone knows you, you'll be fine.

Avoid the mistake of the grand gesture, big opening.

Also, after you work out the process, you can move on up to mixed full container loads by being a unpaid (except for what profits you yield) market research manager for Costco.

http://www.costco.com/export-sales.html

(Read the whole page very carefully, it's all there.)

Please let me know how it goes...

John

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World Trade Steady

So here it is...  you can drill down to specifics...

http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/data/index.html

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Hamilton?

Wait, what?  Alexander Hamilton is the arch criminal of USA politics, the counter-revolutionary who brought in corporate welfare, warfare and all the horrors of capitalism into the USA project.

Marc Jacobs stood in line for the buffet. Jake Gyllenhaal ran into buddies on the terrace. And Susan Sarandon got political. “I liked it better than the hype,” Ms. Sarandon, said about “Hamilton.” “We are ready for another revolution. Maybe this will help people remember our beginnings: our brave, young and un-corporate spirit.”

In USA, we talk Thos. Jefferson and freedom, etc, but our policies are all warfare/welfare Hamiltonian.

The only good thing about him is he was a bad shot, and Burr, the sitting Vice President at the time,  killed him in a dual.  Man, the good old days!

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Junk Writing on Usury

From a popular book:

Finally, Leo signed a papal bull that said: “Usury means nothing else than gain or profit drawn from such a thing that is by its nature sterile, a profit that is acquired without labor, cost or risk.” (p. 93) With the stroke of a pen Leo made lending money lawful in the eyes of the church since every loan involved either labor, cost, or risk, sometimes all three. “As long as a loan passed that easy test, the lender was off the hook. Fugger's lobbying had paid off in spectacular fashion. He and others were now free to charge borrowers and pay depositors interest with the full blessing of the church. Leo's decree, issued in conjunction with the Fifth Lateran Council, was a breakthrough for capitalism. Debt financing accelerated. The modern economy was under way.” 

No he didn't.  Just not so... if you'd like read a Pope as recently as 2009 on this:

Furthermore, the experience of micro-finance,which has its roots in the thinking and activity of the civil humanists — I am thinking especially of the birth of pawnbroking — should be strengthened and fine-tuned. This is all the more necessary in these days when financial difficulties can become severe for many of the more vulnerable sectors of the population, who should be protected from the risk of usury and from despair. The weakest members of society should be helped to defend themselves against usury, just as poor peoples should be helped to derive real benefit from micro-credit, in order to discourage the exploitation that is possible in these two areas. Since rich countries are also experiencing new forms of poverty, micro-finance can give practical assistance by launching new initiatives and opening up new sectors for the benefit of the weaker elements in society, even at a time of general economic downturn.

Now, microfinance is booming, without usury.  Expressly without usury.  How anyone can claim today usury is accepted by the church is being simply mendacious.

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Alternative Currencies

Clearly these are fiat currencies, and nice they are voluntary, but no explanation of how they  re spent into the economy.  What asset is backing them?

The local currency, though, is intended not as collectible but to encourage trade at the community businesses where they are accepted, rather than chain stores, where money taken in tends to flow out of town and into the coffers of multinational corporations. 

And this

One success story has been the BerkShare, a currency used in the region of Great Barrington, Mass. First issued in 2006, BerkShare notes were supported by research and development funding secured by the Schumacher Center for a New Economics. The notes, of which nearly $1 million worth were printed and roughly $138,000 worth are in circulation, highlight historical figures, like W. E. B. Du Bois and Norman Rockwell, and showcase the work of local artists.

Issued by whom, against what.  Recall that currency are only tallies, marking who has assets backed by the note.

Dubbed a “great economic experiment” by The New York Times, BerkShares are a local currency for the Berkshire region of Massachusetts. Federal currency is exchanged for BerkShares at six branch offices of three local banks and spent at more than 400 locally owned participating businesses. The circulation of BerkShares encourages money to remain within the region, building a greater affinity between the local business community and its citizens. 

Oh.  So just like a dollar, but less useful.  Scrip, like at a county fair, which compels you to waste your money.  And easy to counterfeit and then trade into dollars?

When will industry begin to remit to each other for hard assets in an alternative form of tally, like the WIR?  We need to achieve a strict separation of industry and state, and end this Hamiltonian madness of the capitalist economic system, and move to what is proven to be just, peaceful and prosperous.  We need to return to free markets.

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Fresh Food Exports

The problem to solve is gain a critical mass in LCL fresh shipments to get 3PL providers to support it:

For example, new bags delay cherries from ripening. Most of Idaho’s exported cherries are still flown, but the bags make it feasible to ship via water, which is cheaper.
...
Led by whey and cheese, dairy is Idaho’s largest farm-export sector. While fresh milk lacks the shelf life needed for long-distance shipping, cheese has it.

We are making progress at the small, private business level on the solution.

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Seaweed Economics

There is a quirky magazine for foodies called Lucky Peach a copy of which I found very attractive, but they make it hard to get their content for free, in fact impossible short of buying a copy, which I always think is a mistake.  

Nonetheless the copy cited above had an article on seaweed harvesting on the Northern California Coast.  Splendid.  So many ideas, so anarchistic.  Some observations:

We overfish because with EZ Cheep credit massive fishery company can overwhelm the smaller fishermen by subsidies, regulation and lower prices through volume operations, just like Petco and Office Depot do it in other categories.

When fish costs less than it would in a natural economy, we eat too much too processed fish.  But but but, fish is a neglected source of food in the diet!  Family operation fresh fish would cost more, but we would not need to eat as much and it would be better for us than the frozen with preservatives processed stuff we get that is legally marked "wild fresh".

As to seaweed, we certainly are not eating enough of this, mainly because a market has not emerged.  We do get a lot of it. again, as an ingredient in processed foods, but I am talking about a salad of seaweed.   There is another benefit of developing family businesses in seaweed harvesting, in the article cited above the workers also constitute a coastline early warning system on ecological events along the coast.  Vast swathes of the USA coastline are uninhabited, great for farming seaweed with the added benefit of being watched.

As to fish and seaweed, we eat for nourishment, and good food is also delightful, and such sea fare may more expensive, but less needed.  All in all, you can get better nourishment for the same of less money.

And steps taken to process food either make it harder to digest, or degrade the product so you get less nourishment for ounce, or whatever metric.  It takes energy to digest, and if you are digesting empty food, or unbalanced diet, you are asking for all sorts of problems over time.  The less you need to eat, the better.  You need less food if you eat good food.

These seaweed harvesters are mixing their labor with natural resources to create a product to sell.  This is free market 101.  When they collect otherwise unused seaweed, and dry it, the seaweed becomes their property, with with they then enter into commerce.

Now, recall capitalism is about accumulation, not commonwealth, and the capitalists' work at polity not comity.  Free markets are about comity.

Because of the happy accident of the California coastal act, no one can own the seashore, or any part of it, so we have the reality of what was here among the Indians, and what is present in Hong Kong.  People thriving without owning the real estate under their working place.

Hong Kong is under the aegis of the Communist Party of the People's Republic of China, who have surpassed the capitalists in productivity with no land ownership.  We see in history the communists are a direct lot, they just executed the unneeded landlords.  In capitlaism the Supreme Court simply makes laws allowing for big business to take private lands for themselves.  If you resist, eventually, as in Communism, then the Capitalists will just kill you too.  Capitalists just take longer.

So here again we see peace and prosperity emerge in a free market, private property occurs when you mix your labor with natural resources, or otherwise trade your own services with those who do. Owning real estate is not necessary nor sufficient for a free market, indeed it seems to inhibit it.

The Indians and the communists got this part of the free market right for different reasons, but in any case, leases are necessary and sufficient for free markets.  Private real estate property is neither necessary nor sufficient in a free market.

As to regulation, the users of the seashore, the seaweed harvesters, have created rules and regs on how to sustainably maintain the seaweed beds.  You do not have to tell people whose lives depend on the resource how to manage the resource.

For latecomers, where leases are needed to define the territory (good fences make good neighbors) those earlier rules and regs can be included in the lease, and the lease enshrines them to maintain sustainabillity.  For example, the hegemon, to the extent it has done so,  already has made a hash of regulation of seaweed on the northern caifornia coast, and the only reason it has not killed off the micro-industry is the local regulators do not enforece the whimsical rules.  (What hegemon rules are not whimsical?)

With leases, the lease sustains the environment and those who own the lease mix their labor with natural resources, and the work is handed down to the next generation, who either renew the lease or let it go to the next highest bidder for a new lease.  (What is the entity that grants the lease? To whom the land belongs, the Indians?)

Now this of course is the right way to govern this limited resource we call land (or ther seas, which ought also be leased) but capitalism is about accumulation into ever fewer hands by the means of usury, so for capitalism to obtain its raison d’etre capitalism must have a provision for personal ownership of real estate.  I understand how this may fill you with rage at capitalism and capitalists, but we must remain meek, never resort to violence like the communists, and simply withdraw our consent to be governed by the hegemon so we can move forward, broken people that we all are, to the more just comity of no one owning the lands, or more specifically, giving it back to the Indians, who can then lease it out to one and all.

It will take time.

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