Islamacist London Mayor; Gold Set to Soar?

Gold bugs thrill at any talk of Islam reviving a gold standard.  Western observers have seized on a recent article, but wait, this is in the article:

So far, Islamic investors have been reluctant to invest in gold because to do so, they would need the metal in physical form as an underlying asset, which is rarely the case in conventional gold trade. Because of that, broadly traded gold futures do not qualify as a Shariah-compliant investment. Other conventional gold-based financial offerings in the form of derivatives are also widely viewed as unacceptable for Islamic scholars. On the other hand, investment that involves a forward purchase agreement at an agreed price against future delivery (the principle of salam) would, but there is still physical gold in the play.

Well, that says a whole lot.  (The article takes a minute to load).  First, the western observer anticipates a gold price spike due to heretofore unexercised event of speculation in gold, not trade in gold.  The same article says trade in real gold is happening, but insignificant.  So the spike in price will come due to, as the article explains, an initiative based in London and being supported by Malaysian Islamic authorities.

Could it be Islamic traders simply understand gold's proper place, and therefor have not gotten in trouble speculating in gold futures?

Anyway, there is a geography of Islamic finance, with some countries more strict that others.  Of course  London would love to lure Islamic finance under its capitalist wings, and now the City of London, home of the Anglo financial world, now has an Islamic mayor.

Then this:

London-headquartered World Gold Council (WGC), together with Kuala Lumpur-based Amanie Advisors, an independent advisory firm on Shariah investments and the Accounting and Auditing Organisation for Islamic Financial Institutions in Bahrain, now have been developing a “Shariah Standard on Gold” which aims at “providing guidance from the Shariah perspective on the usage of gold in financial and investment transactions for Islamic financial institutions and participants,” as WGC head Natalie Dempster puts it. The standard also aims to increase transparency and harmonisation of the use of gold investments and reduce unclear specifications on what’s haram and what’s halal in trading the metal.

Thanks, Natalie Dempster, for this insight into Islamic finance.

Guess which Islamic countries are the most liberal about Sharia finance, and at the same time experience the harshest market vagaries?  Why, Malaysia, Bahrain and London.

There already is a gold standard.  It is 100% private.  Those on it are safe from the vagaries of malcredit false economy.  Many on the gold standard ALSO engage in the malcredit false economy, since it is tradable,  and you can within it enjoy things you have not earned.  Someone downstream, as yet unborn, will curse your memory as they are forced to pay then for your excesses today, but hey, let them wail.

And of course, there are countless in the false economy not on the gold standard.

Finally, you can be on the gold standard with no gold, since it is possible to engage is benecredit true economy not actually owning any gold, but operating within the bounds of a gold standard.

A gold standard's main value is as a price signal to the entire market, while being a medium of exchange and store of value to individuals who engage in one-off liquidation transactions.

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Trade Show Metrics

I like metrics, so when I read this I was delighted:

Meeting with a prospect at a tradeshow costs an average of $142. Meeting that same prospect at a his or her office costs $259. Social media and online channels have overtaken more traditional face-to-face meetings, but tradeshows can still pay off for those willing to work to get the most out of their investment.

These are averages and you can always beat them.  My metric for trade show participation is the show must generate in sales ten times the cost of the event. A $10,000 show cost must gain $100,000 in orders at the show.  If not, you must beef up the more effective (if slower) marketing efforts, before going to shows (or lower costs of the show by JV a booth, etc.)

The assertion rearding social media overtaking "more tradtiional" is unwarranted. Cite the studies.  CErtainly far more people waste time on facebook, etc than sell then ever before, but it is no replacement for results.  People who have Smart Phones have no idea what they are missing.

(If the "costs $259" citation link does not work, here it is...  http://www.sageworld.com/blog/index.php/2015/05/14/suppliers-18-powerful-statistics-on-the-value-of-exhibiting-at-tradeshows/   )

This paragraph is problematic, a false dilemma...

"If I find out...you're not a qualified person for my booth, I don't say, 'All right, Kerry, you're not qualified, you're not going to be interested in our product, see you later,' because you'll have a bad negative experience with me, and you'll talk to someone who's qualified later and say, 'You shouldn't talk to company ABC, they were rude to me.'"

The choice is not keep talking to someone who is wasting both of your time, the choice is either end the conversation or waste time.  You can end the conversation nicely or not, and nicely is to hand the person the LCL MOQ FOB and welcome them to come back when they can place an order.

I have a .pdf with a decision tree on when to attend a trade show to sell, and in what capacity at what level.  Feel free to email me for a copy.

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Without Panama, USA Needs a Hong Kong

Panama was the closest thing to Hong Kong that USA had in way of of a free market zone. With that came off-shore money laundering and asset seclusion.  Who burned all those investors in Panamanian registry and why is a mystery, but that key aspect is over.

So USA all the more needs such a free market zone.  The best working example is Hong Kong, and it is good to study Hong Kong as a working model.

As USA discusses building walls, for precisely the same three reasons the Soviet block built walls, a New Hong Kong in USA would be, although independent, still somewhat impacted by the hegemon.  This story is instructive.

Another Hong Kong bookseller who was originally reported missing last year has resurfaced in Hong Kong after being released by mainland police.
65-year old Lee Bo is among four Hong Kong booksellers from the same company who are now back in the city after being released on bail.
Mainland police say Lee voluntarily went to the mainland in December to assist in the investigation into fellow bookseller Gui Minhai, who was facing charges in connection with illegally mailing books to the mainland.

Now Mr. Lee might have easily ignored China's chagrin a his activities, but often with relatives etc in China, that might mean losing visiting rights.  Of course, Mr. Lee might have also never shipped forbidden books into China.

USA needs what China has, a Hong Kong.  Tacoma, Washington is an ideal location, since autonomy and independence of the Puyallup Indians as a separate nation is agreed in the treaties, and the Puyallup own almost all of the Port of Tacoma.

Hong Kong took about 100 years to form completely, and so might a New Hong Kong in USA.  time to get to work.

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Over half of All Online Ad Spening is Selling Cars

Someone I know who worked at a leading, famous web news org told me she had to wait to get paid once because General Motors had not paid for its big Camaro ad campaign.  Such were the finances of both the news org and General Motors.

According to a relentlessly contradictory article, a quarter of all ad dollars in USA is spent online, and over half of the auto industry ad budget, $7.3 billion, is spent online.

Most of that spending—60% this year, eMarketer estimates—will be on direct-response efforts. 

So not brand building, but "act now"! or the suckers' pitch.  The auto industry is in a massive balloon, and what happens online ads for cars when tha bubble bursts.

Talk about false economy.

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Health Care in Chaos: Escape to Anarchy

USA's health is getting progressive worse, and even immigrants suffer here:

In 2012, life expectancy in the US ranked 32^nd worldwide.  Strikingly, when poor immigrants come to the United States their health declines and they live shorter lives.  One immigrant succinctly said: “In Mexico, we ate healthily and didn’t even know it.  Here, we know the food we eat is bad for us.  But we eat it anyway.”

I recall when nearly no one had health insurance, but people were healthier and medicine generally more effective.  Charity covered those who could not pay.  To this day I pay cash, and refuse Rmoney/Obamacare.

Uninsured Americans actually report fewer health problems than those who are insured privately and publicly.  They use less health care services, maybe because they have had to learn how to stay healthy without doctoring. 

As a child with the gift of ADHD/ADD, I was often in the hospital getting sewn up and once did a stretch being observed for skull fracture. (My favorite question was "What happens when I push this button?")  No one ever talked money or worried about medical bills, because hospitals charged what things cost, not what insurance companies will pay.  Doctors made a lot, but so did florists and restaurateurs.

It is individual behaviors that determine the health of a population, largely a lack of exercise, obesity and tobacco use.  Most of the credit modern medicine takes for improved health numbers emanates from a steep decline in smoking rates, not an increase in the availability of new medicines or other treatments.

No kidding.

It didn’t help that government, which fashioned the Affordable Care Act, also produced the Food Pyramid that misled Americans to consume refined carbohydrates that convert to sugar in the body at the expense of fats that quell appetite.  Nina Teicholz tells the whole story in her best-selling book THE BIG FAT SURPRISE ... We have a massive diabesity epidemic going on in America spawned by the food industry that spikes foods with high fructose corn sugar (even ketchup, bacon, peanut butter) that induces sugar-craving yeast overgrowth, and other chemicals that cause consumers to lose control of their appetite.  The medical profession then treats diabesity as if it is a lack of exercise and lack of self-control when leanness in other nations like Japan and France is not attributed to frequent attendance at gymnasiums or the reading of diet books.  [American Family Physician 2001]
There is a disconnect between the food industry that is fashioning prepared foods that are spiked with corn syrup and other pleasure-center stimulants that encourage overeating against the backdrop of modern medicine that pretends to treat this behavior as a drug deficiency.  [American Diabetes Association]
Executives from the largest American food companies walked out on a 1999 conclave that explored why half of the nation is diabetic or pre-diabetic and is addicted to food.  They protected their financial bottom line.  [New York TimesFeb 20, 2013]  The diabesity epidemic is good for business.

That's capitalism, happy to kill its customers, indeed, intent on doing so under malthusian eugenics imperatives.  There is a way to end all of this, simply end the subsidies.

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Mail Order Catalogs Outperform eMarketing by Far

Marketing online costs about 4 times as much (and likely far more) to gain sales than mail order catalog. Here are the numbers:

Total USA retail sales for 2014 about $4.5 trillion.  (Retail flat for 2014)

About 6 billion dollars spent on mail order catalogs in USA in 2014.

Mail order sales total 2014.  $125 billion

About 57 billion dollars spent on online advertising in 2014.

Online sales total 2014,  $300 billion.

So, at first glance, it looks like it takes nearly ten times as much money to generate about 2.5 times the sales.  But actually it costs far more...

According to USCensus, that is about 7.4% of all USA sales.  According to pro-online marketing emarketer.com,  5.8%.

While brick-and-mortar sales still command a vast majority of the retail market—nearly $4.27 trillion in 2013—ecommerce sales are increasing much faster, contributing significantly to retail’s overall growth throughout our forecast period. eMarketer estimates that US retail ecommerce sales will increase 15.5% in 2014 to reach $304.1 billion, up from $263.3 billion in 2013. That growth will represent more than 20% of this year’s $199.4 billion increase in total retail sales.
Ecommerce still represents a small portion of overall retail sales—a mere 5.8% last year.

First note the varying figures or percents, whichever one you accept, rather proves online marketing is a fools' paradise. Why market where only say 8% of your market exists?  Why not market where 92% of your market shops?  Why market where and when is costs so much more to gain a customer? But as to the uncertain numbers, here is one reason why people have such a disastrously misinformed view of online marketing:

The past year online was another good one for Nordstrom Inc. as the web now accounts for 19% of total sales.

Not a single mention of the fact that Nordstrom sends millions of catalogs a year driving people to purchase, who then elect to use the self-service check out online.  It was not the web marketing that got the sale, it was the mail order catalog.  The article makes "lemonade out of lemons" by saying the high return rate due to EZ ordering brings people into the stores where they make returns.  Well if the return is for the right size of what they ordered online, that is hardly worth the added cost of online sales maintenance.  This is just one article of millions in which people not trained to test claims become socially conditioned to accept sheer nonsense.

Victoria Secret does $1.5 billion online and sends out 400 million catalogs per year.  Yet that gets counted for "internet sales."  it would not happen without the catalog, yet people assume it is just a website and google ads.  Pure socially conditioned nonsense.

Here is an article with some insights on retail and online:

In today's edition of the print-isn't-dead argument, global and online-only retailers are reporting that mailed catalogs still drive sales like crazy. WSJ reports that 2013 witnessed the first upward trend in number of catalogs mailed since 2007, and retailers show no signs of slowing down.
While email marketing gives retailers just the space of a subject line to attract potential customers, stylized lifestyle catalogs that could nearly double as fashion magazines have proved to be wildly popular in an internet-driven culture. Pat Connolly, the chief marketing officer at Williams-Sonoma, admitted that the catalog was still an extremely important part of Williams-Sonoma's overall marketing plan. According to WSJ, the retailer has a database of 2,000 privately owned houses that it uses for catalog photo shoots and over half of Williams-Sonoma's marketing budget is spent on catalog production and mailing.

Do you think Williams Sonoma minds is internet pure-play customers struggle to survive and do not represent demand for catalog creation houses? And this from the same article, regarding pure play internet ecommerce sites:

Online-only menswear retailer Bonobos has also witnessed the ability of the mailed catalog to drive sales. Craig Elbert, the VP of marketing for Bonobos, said that 20% of first-time customers placed an order after receiving a catalog and they spend 1.5x more than customers who didn't receive a catalog first. Bonobos tested the concept over a year ago and has been putting out catalogs ever since, increasing the circulation each time.
British retailer Boden has calculated the power that the catalog has to keep a customer's attention much longer then an email blast or iPad app. Shanie Cunningham, head of U.S. marketing for Boden, told WSJ that shoppers spend up to 15 to 20 minutes with the catalog, while only spending around eight seconds with a Boden email and five minutes with the Boden app.
Plus, the catalog is cost-effective to produce. The article reported that the average catalog costs less than a dollar to make, while typically resulting in about $4 in sales for every catalog mailed. The moral of the story: even with the internet, we still really like to look at pretty pictures for prolonged periods of time and then try our best to cop the look. Who knew.

Who knew?  Well anyone with an organic true economy business, and not one where you just borrow massive malcredit and play at business.  These guys are making it because they took the time to see online marketing is not effective.  They want to stay in business.

The claims of efficacy of online advertising are always the most tortured circumlocutions.  Here are random findings from studies.  Note no one asks or answers the basic question above.

In the 1980s the big fear was mail order catalogs were going to wipe out brick and mortar:

The effect of these and other advances was a 300 percent increase in nonstore retail sales between 1980 and 1990. Indeed, from just $72 billion in 1980, sales in mail-order houses skyrocketed to $211 billion by 1990, representing average annual growth rate of more than 11 percent. By the end of the decade, catalog and mail-order shipments were responsible for about 10 percent of all merchandise sales, more than 3 percent of retail sales, and 1 percent of consumer services sales. Furthermore, trade in the industry represented nearly 2 percent of U.S. gross domestic product.

The wipe out of brick and mortar by mail order catalogs in the 1980s never happened.  And if online sales were ever going to grow above 8% it would have by now.  It will never happen.  And if and when people properly define terms and categories, and not ascribing to ecommerce what is really mail order catalog sales, then online marketing will look even more doubtful. If ecommerce marketing worked, wouldn't Apple be doing it?

Nothing has changed with the internet, except massive expansion of false economy, FIRE.  A rather expensive self-checkout option is available, and gee-whiz!  Reflecting sanity among small business owners, most USA businesses have no web presence at all.

I do, mostly to test claims and try out my own ideas.  I wish it were true that eMarketing worked.  And I would never say just because I cannot get it to work, neither can you.  I quote those actually trying the work says it does not work, they say so themselves. I provide the facts from the hard numbers. If you plan to have an "internet only" business, say buy on alibaba and sell on Amazon or any other combo, it won't work.  You'll need a paper ad mailed out to your customer base to reach absolute minimal performance.  Selling to brick and mortar remains the only viable means to thrive in business, to reach your potential.

If you want the absolute most cost effective means of mail order marketing (with a website check out?) the USPO has a new service.  You can mail cheap to exactly your demographics at the carrir route level.  Check it out, and nose around.  The USPO sent me a catalog on this and I spoke to a salesperson on the phone.  1975 all over again.

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Credit Cash Money - Fallback Positions

People fear the future, change is afoot.  Rome took 300 years to fall, and even though our world is likely faster-paced, nothing will happen overnight.  And that is the problem, the hegemon cooks the frog slowly.

A good part of life is commercial, and that is where the hegemon directs traffic if allowed to do so.  He is not only allowed, he is adored and glorified by the masses.  We are told if we toss in all of our gold, a golden calf will walk out of the fire!  Then we can party naked!  With scarce assets to support USA's extravagances, we are indeed partying naked.

The Romans got to the point of writing a fugitive landowner act, in which escaping farm owners were returned to their farms to work.  Why did the farmers flee?  Because they were taxed to poverty.  They tried to escape to anarchy.

You cannot escape the hegemon if you do not understand the differences between credit (mal and bene), cash and money.  Most people have been socially conditioned by the hegemon to use all terms interchangeably, although internally the hegemon and its minions maintain strict definitions.

Money is gold and silver.  Done.

Bank credit is malCredit.  Asset-less credit lent at interest, created when the victim (borrower) is confident against all reason and experience malCredit will be a personal benefit.  Think auto loans today. "But but but, auto loans are secured by the auto against which the loan is made."  Sheer nonsense, sheer delusion.  The banks don't want another stinking Cadillac Escalade profoundly overpriced by a capitalist system.  They want yet another human tied down.  If an when the loan goes bad, they bank could care less what happens, they lent air so if all they got was the down payment, that's ok,  They are ahead.  A bank loses nothing on a bad loan because they never had anything at risk, only digits on a tally.

Cash is the most liquid form of medium of exchange in an economy.  AKA currency, it represents either money or malcredit or benecredit, depending on the regime in power. It is the quickest to convert given an day's events, so it is far more valuable in a jam than malCredit than bank credit, what you access with a debit or credit card.  The way to keep currency honest is to let it be produced by competitors in a free market, as it was for much of USA history.

People used to know this...    I was listening to a radio drama from the 1950s in which a crooked banker was trying to bribe someone:  "I'll pay you $25,000... cash!  Not credit!"  Million of common people listening back then knew the significance.  Today social conditioning has dumbed us down.

Enough people do know, so they store cash.  When the Harriet Tubman $20 is ready about 2018, you can bet Uncle Sam will outlaw the old ones, and to legally convert to the new ones, you'll have to explain to the IRS how come you have $10,000, $100,000 a million in cash.  Talk about irony.  A USA escaped slave will be the image of Americans being enslaved.

Mony malCredit Cash.  So what else is there.  The one everyone overlooks: benecredit.  Private credit extended voluntarily based on assets at no interest between two parties engaged in commerce.  A short definition is simply vendor-financing, although that can be dicey since now vendors tend to charge interest too on the time extended (but knowing full well borrowers in these instances tend not to pay the interest.)

A loan is always a charitable event, ethically.  Vendor financing is always a commercial event.  What is lent is goods and services, not money. So benecredit is never charity, always commerce.

And it is always fruit too high and far apart for the hegemon to pursue, as long as your work is your lifestyle.

The alternative is paycheck, property and pension... the low hanging fruit the hegemon must pick first.

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