UC Berkeley Extension Export Food Course

So we are talking one kind of wheat trade:

For the total export prospect, the I.G.C. placed the total for the current season at 13,500,000 tonnes of wheat equivalent, the same as the initial forecast issued in May.

And then there is the USA trade in that specific category:

U.S. imports were forecast at 250,000 tonnes of wheat equivalent, against the record of 322,000 in 2014-15. U.S. exports in 2015-16 were forecast at 350,000 tonnes, down from 385,000 in 2014-15.

So we import 250k of the stuff, and export 320k.    How come?  To legally avoid taxes, to launder bad product with good...  lots of reasons.  Such minutiae is how come we must specialize in our product areas, and work be to find joy in solving the problems that cause us pain.

If you need export sales of food, or are responsible for increasing export sales, I teach a seminar at UCBerkeley extension on how start-ups and established businesses can find customers directly, now.  Check it out...  eMail me with any questions...

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

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

Why Better to Vote for Hillary or Jeb

The media circus around people who will not make it to the election is designed to draw folks into the process, as people who would not otherwise vote get interested, buy into, the process as their favorite idealist (or pragmatist) acts out.  We are being lead to an inevitability.

I was reading an article by a Vietnam-era CIA analyst who was making the point trying to bring democracy to that country was quixotic, since they had the concept of "full" politician.  A provincial governor eventually gets enough to where he no longer squeezes the peasants so hard.  Life is better with a lifer.

Newly installed politicians though need to fill up their larders, so they squeeze hard, making life miserable for the peasants.  Better to have a full politician.

In USA, every time we elect someone to "go clean up the waste and corruption" and drain the cesspool, they discover the cesspool is a hot tub and waste and corruption serves a congressman well.  Over half of our congress is millionaire.  The other half is busy working on it.

Obama was certainly only a placeholder, but he too had to have his boots filled with Brazilian oil & industry skim put into his account.

Assuming the Clintons have filled up their larders enough (hmmmm), and certainly he Bushes have, then it makes sense to just vote them back into office, so they do not feel the need to steal as much as the new people.  Also, they would tend to clip the wings of upstarts who want to topple their houses.

This is a benefit of having royalty, kings, who have enough and jealously guard themselves from upstarts.  Why one of our closest allies has beheaded over 100 people so far this year (Saudi Arabia, not ISIS).  Kings whack people who start trouble for them.

So ro protect your pocket book, best to vote in the most corrupt, career, fattest cat on the ticket, if you are going to vote.

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

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

Ice Cream Corporate Welfare

Either this is true and the company depends on corporate welfare to stay in business, or it is not true and the company is crowding out competition by an unfair advantage:

But Strange said his overseas business depends on the credit guarantees he receives from the Export-Import Bank of the United States -- a federal bank that financially backs U.S. companies that export overseas. Even though the bank's charter has lapsed, Strange said, his credit line will last a couple more months. But he's worried Republicans in Congress are going to kill the bank once and for all.

Any business that cannot thrive without corporate welfare needs to go out of business.  This includes, google, boeing and GE.

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

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

When? Another Crash Indicator

Trade Shows are tracked for performance and o verall they are doing very well, just like in...  2007?!?! 

After a big increase in the first quarter of this year, the performance of the business-to-business trade show industry, as measured by the Center for Exhibition Industry Research’s Total Index, remained relatively strong during the second quarter of 2015, posting a year-on-year gain of 3.8 percent.
This growth is the second highest rate since the second quarter of 2007 and also marked the 20th consecutive quarter of year-on-year growth.
"The second-quarter results are very promising,” said CEIR Economist Allen Shaw, Ph.D., Chief Economist for Global Economic Consulting Associates.

Well, the eocnomy tanked after that.  And trade shows  had a hard time.  But a 25% decrease in economic activity means ther eis still 75% going on.  It all gets down to running a trade show booth right, something I will be teaching this year long with my other courses.

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

Bookmark this post --- Email this post

Shorting China

The only supervision a stock market needs is the shortsellers, who sniff out fraud and nonsense then trade on it at their own risk. That is how free markets work.  James Chanos is the best of these and he has some views on China:

What it can tell you, Chanos said, is that China isn’t really reforming its economy. It is not transitioning from an investment-based economy to a consumption-based economy as leaders have promised. Fixed-asset investment was 48% in 2010 when Chanos started looking at the economy. It’s now down to 46%.

From marxism to markets is a tough shift, and Chanos in essence finishes with advice parallel to what I've always said, in essence, don't trade with China direct.

Instead of shorting Shanghai and Shenzen, Chanos looks at industries and asset classes that will be affected by a Chinese slowdown — like the mining sector and commodities. He also looks at the country’s neighbors and trading partners.

China is unique and complicated, you need a front man to get things done right.  You get your price and conditions, and then stay away.  China is for the Chinese, don't set up a business or invest there.  But certainly trade, through an agent, with China.



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

Bookmark this post --- Email this post