India Currency Woes: Policy Laundering

Policy laundering is running a program through another country first, and then presenting it where otherwise it would have an ice cubes chance in hell of being adopted.  "Even India has gotten rid of cash, we should too." Here is an eye-opener regarding the hell India is going through with this experiment in cashless society.  Guess who is behind it?

Austrian economists are academics, so they debate along hypothetical lines, and work within the narratives to which they all ascribe.  Problems such as this arise, as noted in the article:

 No one and no state can secede, and no one can structure business deals apart from government without their having a ready currency at hand. Barter is out of the question. If a state attempted to secede, the federal government could squeeze them monetarily through sanctions and cutting them off from the payments system. There must be alternatives in place or that can be quickly expanded for any such independence movement to succeed.

In spite of being the best, by far, school of economics, their "apodictic" assumption of interest rates on loans forbids the obvious answer: credit is the universal currency, and it may be privately issued.  It is necessary and sufficient to a free market.  Add 100% reserve gold backed actual currency, something else government cannot or will not do, and who needs the hegemon?

There is nothing to keep anyone or any polity from seceding immediately at any time.  As they say, just do it.

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Entrepreneurs Do Not Take Risks

When I first read that back in the mid-1980s, written by Drucker, I was astonished.  How could he say such a thing?  All I ever heard was entrepreneurs and risk were one of the same.  Then I began to reflect on what I had learned so far in business, and realized he was correct. Everyone with whom I was familiar and was successful never took risks, they worked to eliminate risks in the business process. Entrepreneurs do not take risks.

So how come we all hear "entrepreneurs take risks"?  At the risk of achieving sic passim, believe it or not the idea only got started with, guess what, ex nihilo credit in the 1970s.  How come?   Well, once you set up an ex nihilo credit regime, there is no rational limit to what can be lent, because literally nothing is being lent.  Only debt is being agreed to...  well, with a limitless supply of debt on offer, at zero cost to the lenders, well, how do you lend all of it out?

First you must socially condition people to borrow more than they need, and to do so you must overcome their natural prudence and common human sympathies.  What worked was to socially condition through media, schools, entertainment and government the idea that entrepreneurs take risks.  Borrowing from banks (who had "risk capital") was step one in an entrepreneurs saga.

According to Merriam Webster, the term "risk capital" first shows up in 1944.  Since business start-up has been around since Cain settled down after bumping off Abel, is it not a little odd the idea of "risk capital' does not show up until 1944?  These are early abuses of the term, and meanings change as people grab an emerging use to apply to an urgent need.

Let's look at some etymologies -

risk (n.) 

1660s, risque, from French risque (16c.), from Italian risco, riscio (modern rischio), from riscare "run into danger," of uncertain origin. The Englished spelling first recorded 1728. Spanish riesgo and German Risiko are Italian loan-words. With run (v.) from 1660s. Risk aversion is recorded from 1942; risk factor from 1906; risk management from 1963; risk taker from 1892.

So the word risk itself is fairly new, in light of how long we've been doing business on earth.

risk (v.) 

1680s, from risk (n.), or from French risquer, from Italian riscare, rischaire, from the noun. Related: Risked;risks; risking.

Etymology[edit]

From earlier risque, from Middle French risque, from Italian risco ("risk"; > Modern Italian rischio) andrischiare ("to run into danger"). Most dictionaries consider the etymology of these Italian terms uncertain, but some suggest they perhaps come from Latin *resicum ‎(“that which cuts, rock, crag”) (> Medieval Latinresicu), from Latin resecō ‎(“cut off, loose, curtail”, verb), in the sense of that which is a danger to boating or shipping; or from Ancient Greek ῥιζικόν ‎(rhizikón, “root, radical, hazard”).

A few dictionaries express more certainty. Collins says the Italian risco comes from Ancient Greek ῥίζα‎(rhíza, “cliff”) due to the hazards of sailing along rocky coasts. The American Heritage says it probably comes from Byzantine Greek ῥιζικό, ριζικό ‎(rhizikó, rizikó, “sustenance obtained by a soldier through his own initiative, fortune”), from Arabic رِزْق ‎(rizq, “sustenance, that which God allots”), from Syriac [script needed]‎(ruziqā, “daily bread”), from Middle Persian [script needed] ‎(rōčig), from Middle Persian [script needed] ‎(rōč,“day”), from Old Persian [script needed] ‎(*raučah-), from Proto-Indo-European *lewk-.

Cognate with Spanish riesgo, Portuguese risco

The word is a good one, but notice it has more to do with logistics than with business dealings; as to the soldier taking risks, well, war is hardly business, and from the beginning soldiers have had to over run their opponents to gain the necessities to fight.  Rebels assault the armory.  Again an ancient idea, but not business, not trade.  In logistics, oh yes indeed, there are risks, but here again, and expressly, entrepreneurs since the Phoenicians ruled the waves have mitigated risks.  Marine insurance is arguably charity, not insurance, since those whose goods go overboard are made whole by those whose goods did not, thus arguably even halal, especially since the relationship ends with the docking of the vessel.

More here...

So to move from risk in logistics, the problems of time space and matter and botlenecks, and move the idea over to human action took some doing.  But they did it.  How?  Social conditioning, just like today when your smart phone tells you what to think, what to like, where to go, what to do.  (Yesterday a cabbie became perplexed when google maps told him to go one way, and Garmin another...)

Check this bit of research out...

A look at Google Ngram – a search engine tool that allows you to see how often a given word is used across books, newspapers and magazines through time – shows that the usage of “Risk” was fairly stagnant from 1800 to the early 1960s. The frequency with which it appeared during this 160 year stretch ran from 0.002% to 0.004%, about as often as words like “Poverty” or “dog”. Starting in 1970, however, “Risk” became a hot topic. The frequency of its usage increased by over 3.5x, peaking in 2006 at 0.015%. That may not sound like a lot, but the word “Risk” now appears in print four times more often in English-language press than the word “Weather”, according to Ngram. And you know how popular the weather is…Source:Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at Convergex, a global brokerage company based in New York.Full Disclosure: Nothing on this site should ever be considered to be advice, research or an invitation to buy or sell any securities, please see my Terms & Conditions page for a full disclaimer.

Well, there it is.  After 1971, when Nixon went off the gold standard (lite), the hegemon got to work flogging the idea of risk as central to business.  We've always had fake news and state controlled press, and they did their work.  A term normally associated with logistics is hijacked and applied to human action, business, in order to get their cannon fodder to soak up as much of this ex nihilo credit as possible, and enslave them.

Terms do not just show up universally adopted one day.  They need time to incubate.  You can study such incubation of any given word at the Oxford English Dictionary site, and see how at high levels (academia) the idea of risk and investment begins to emerge even 100 years ago or more, with the dates and works in which a term was used.  This demonstrates how slowly a critical mass forms as more an more people address the idea in their own works.  Certainly before Nixon's move there were people referring to risk in investing.  There had also began the implicit criticism of NOT taking risks, with the term risk-averse first showing up in 1961, and the illiterate version of risk-adverse showing up in 1969.

Just as it takes time for a term to solidify, and the idea behind it, it takes time for the idea to have its intended effect.  The point of misinforming entrepreneurs was to get them to take risk in the form of borrowing ex nihilo credit.  Although it was in 1971 that Nixon made lending ex nihilo credit lending possible, bankers needed proof this would not backfire on them.  Two entities that massively borrowed ex nihilo credit when Nixon changed the rules, Chrysler and Penn Central, went bankrupt, Uncle Sam bailed them out.  Bankers then understood.  In the ex nihilo credit regime, profits are privatized and the losses are socialized.  All that was left was how to carry ex nihilo credit loans on the books?

I have in hand a 1983 seminar manual for bankers, "conducted throughout the country", in which bankers are instructed to lend credit instead of money.  (Note bankers know the difference, even if you are not allowed to know the difference.) How?  There is the problem for bankers of reserve requirement and the bank balance sheet liability of such action.  The solution is clever.  Put the ex nihilo credit loans under Standby Letters of Credit, which at once have no reserve requirement and is off balance-sheet financial statement category.  Sound familiar?  The idea was so evil and contrary to sound banking, that the manual carried a sign letter of endorsement from a regulator for the Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

(As a side note, this scam is also the basis for gold leasing, specifically mentioned in the manual, and a matter of great concern worldwide, with Germans and Italians, etc, demanding that gold supposedly in USA for safekeeping be sent back to Germany, Italy etc..  Problem is, the gold may be in China, and legally so, for apparently people did rash things under "gold leasing.")

As each banking disaster occurred, and taxpayers picked up the tab, the practice got worse.  S&L Crisis in the early 80s, the the 87 crash, the 97 crash, the dot com bust, 2008... not to mention the countless individual disasters.  In every instance, the banks get bailed out.  We are now at total saturation. When Boeing builds a jet, ExImBank creates ex nihilo credit for India to buy it, it costs nothing for India to be a customer of Boeing.  The USA taxpayer is on the hook for any default.  Boeing takes the profits.  When an unemployed 18 year old stops off at a gas station and pays for two corn dogs and a supersize drink with his EBT card, the ex nihilo credit is created at that moment.  Again, it it added to the taxpayers tab. What appears to be happening is this regime is over.  The beneficiaries of this boom can no longer get any benefit.

Airlines are dying for too many airplanes.  I flew Seattle Paris round trip at Christmas holidays, $650 (about $400 taxes, $250 to the airlines).  McDonalds can't find anymore victims.  Sorts Authority cannot find enough people who want more junk.  The dinosaurs are dying.

We all love a system that works for us, even if it doesn't.  What Busby Berkeley learned in the 1930s is you could make a lot of money showing unemployed people movies about rich people living it up (We're in the money!)  Hope is a theological virtue, but it can be hijacked by bankers, and affixed to nothing, giving false hopes.  It is cruel, but the victims are all willing accomplices.

By the way, tell me, what is the primary job of the United States Secret Service?  Do you know?

Here is some more reading, which only bolsters my argument.  These open as .pdfs, and here.  That last one, if viewed in terms of promotion of ex nihilo credit, is devastating to modern economics.  Out of the mouth of babes!

Entrepreneurs do not take risks.  The regime that was based on that is dying off.  What always was and will always be is customers.  You need customers, not finance.  Find customers, and you'll succeed.  And I teach how to find customers first.

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Gold ETF Saps

We will learn more, as we have learned already, of gold-trading scams.  Huge ones await.  Anyone owning Gold ETF shares is surely a sap, for what better way to hide missing gold than to "sell it" to unwitting dupes.  When a crisis forces an accounting, the powers that be will simply "seize it" like they did in 1933 and manage it "for your own good" or issue you fed res notes for the gold, again nothing for something.



Gold ETF Mechanics – An infographic hosted at BullionStar.com

To embed this infographic on your site, copy and past the code below

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Another Reason Why I Like Orthodox Jews

All loans are charitable events.  If interest is involved (usury), then it becomes morally criminal, although perfectly legal.  Now keep in mind when these fellows say usury, they mean any rate on any amount for any period of time.  No such thing as excess interest rates, it is all criminal.

Jewish and Islamic law have something in common when it comes to borrowing and lending with interest. “Lending with interest is one of the gravest transgressions in the Torah, and therefore, one of the greatest mitzvoth [good deeds] is lending without interest,” Rabbi Abraham Fine, from the Court for Interest in Jerusalem, explained to Al-Monitor. Similarly, Ibrahim Salma, imam of the Ajami Mosque in Jaffa, told Al-Monitor, “In Sharia, interest is a grave sin, and a Muslim must not pay or receive interest, even a pittance.”

If you stick to this simple compliance with moral and religious law, then you can have sound banking, which is possible in Israel, although maybe not for long.

The ultra-Orthodox loan societies point to the advantages of strong community. They are outstanding examples of how a unique banking system can benefit society while operating in the real world. What the ultra-Orthodox have discovered is that the real problem today is not the high cost of weddings, but the intolerable interest rates charged by banks and other lenders, who jack up loan costs significantly. So far, the State of Israel has allowed these alternative ultra-Orthodox banks to operate without any problems, even though their activities are unregulated. While there have been attempts over the past few years to impose regulations, the Bank of Israel, the country's central bank, has delayed the process.

Note they say these banks are not regulated.  Correct.  Morally correct banking needs no regulation, another reason I recommend deregulating banking.  These morally correct banks would be a threat to the  morally criminal banks, and therefore if they grew they would need to be regulated out of existence.

Beal Bank was prosecuted by the Feds for not engaging in the morally criminal acts of the other banks back in the mid-2000s.  For the Hegemon, it is not enough for you to decline to do wrong, you must actively engage in wrongdoing if you want to keep your license to work.

By coincidence, before I posted this, I received this from Rabbi Daniel Lapin:

(O)ver the past fifty years most of my fellow Jews have ... tried to help their fellow Americans escape poverty by means quite different from those they employed in their own journey from poverty to prosperity.  Not only do they fail to share their methods, they promote a political panacea almost guaranteed to perpetuate dependency and hopelessness.
...
In 1968 the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, a group rooted in rejection of traditional Judaism in favor of modern, man-centered wisdom, proclaimed, “…American Jews are products of the welfare-oriented civilization of Judaism,” in its efforts to promote welfare and other federal social programs.
That, quite simply, is a lie.  Had Judaism really been “welfare-oriented” Jews would never have achieved the independent financial power that, despite persecution, we gained in most countries.  Instead, we would, quite logically, have remained on welfare. The U.A.H.C was just plain wrong.

I don't have a dog in that fight, but I can see the point of the UAHC.  Yes, it is a slight of hand to switch from what is described in the articles above to state intervention.  But it is an old mistake.  Another Rabbi noted that in 1 Samuel 8, when the Jews demanded a "king like the other peoples had" God could not give them what they wanted, because no other people had a God-given king.  When the UAHC recommended state welfare to the masses, like they had, well, state welfare is not what they had.  But the point is settled now.  State welfare is a disaster.  No better now than when Joseph urged it on Pharoah.

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How Apple Gets a Subsidy Avoiding Taxes

Stumbled across this:

Report: Government Paying Apple Millions to Shelter Overseas Profits  
Bloomberg:

Many of the biggest U.S. multinationals have seized on the same exemption, which lets them avoid or delay repatriation taxes by buying Treasuries with their overseas cash. (The top 10 alone hold over $100 billion of the bonds.) That, in effect, enables the companies to turn billions of dollars in potential tax liabilities into millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies--all while they publicly bemoan the sky-high taxes that make it impossible for them to bring the money home. 

  Yes.  That is not an accident.  It may costs $100,000 a year in lawyer/accountant fees, but it is what you get when you borrow enough ex nihilo credit to get huge, and then have lobbyists write legislation to benefit you.  I can do this thing as well, but it costs $100,000 a year in lawyer/accountant fees.  Not worth it unless I am huge.

Since 1962, the U.S. tax code requires overseas profits to be taxed at the corporate tax rates. So, companies can either keep the profits over seas, pay the tax on the already taxed profits, or, as this article details, invest in government securities. Proceeds from such investments are subject to the same tax rules as the overseas profits.
It interesting outlining how Apple's tax scheme works, including its own in-house investment firm to manage its cash investments. Where things go weird on me though is suggesting Apple is getting a tax subsidy buying government debt. The article goes so far to claim Apple has been paid $6 per tax payer over the past 5 years. The fact though is the government sells debt and anyone who buys those securities receives interest on their investments. If Apple, and other companies weren't purchasing the government securities, someone else would.

Not true.  If Apple and other companies were not purchasing them, the interest would be higher, for the demand would be lawyer.  G'ma on fixed income would be doing better.  At higher rates, Uncle Sam could not finance as much whimsy as he can now.

At the same time Uncle Sam taxing those profits in real time would not do anyone any good, for when Uncle Sam has more money, he just starts another war.

This is simply another example of the misallocation and malinvestment that comes with an ex nihilo credit regime.

The solution is to go back to import duties being the sole revenue source for the general (federal) government.  All else is free trade, and all product liability is on the importer.

It was the original design of the USA, a free market, until the bankers, led by Hamilton, overthrew the revolution.

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China Working to Replace USA as #1, The Way USA Did It

If you want a key to understanding China policy, just keep this mantra in mind: China is working to replace the USA as the worlds sole superpower, using the exact same means USA did it.  There is no policy too arcane to miss being adopted.

To be supervised by the People’s Bank of China, it will be the official platform for the trading of bills of exchange in China’s interbank market, according a PBOC document.
With an initial registered capital of 1.85 billion yuan (US$269 million), the platform will allow the first batch of 43 financial institutions, mainly banks, to conduct a trial run from today to February 17, Caixin said earlier.
Financial institutions participating in the platform will need to register the relevant details of the paper bills into the system, and switch the transactions from offline to online, the central bank’s document said.
Bills of exchange, a short-term debt instrument commonly used in financing international trade and small businesses, can be sold among banks at a discount before they mature.

When the USA FED system was deployed in 1913, a huge effort was expended trying to get private credit extended between businesses (vendor financing) pulled into the banking system (where it could interest could be applied and also taxed, a double whammy).  (Search "bills of exchange" on this page to read the new provision in law that he FED so assiduously attempted to foist on industry.)

Even when companies pledged receivables against loans, this too (factoring) was in private hands.  Now the banks have it.  And it gets taxed.  Ouch.

The effort failed miserably, for at the time no business was foolish enough to take up the offer to lose money on sales (the discount mentioned in the quote) and in essence make taxation likely as transaction ran through the banks.

Getting businesses to screw themselves failed, but getting end-users, the consumers to do so succeeded wildly.  Issuing ex nihilo credit based credit cards did the trick, but not until the 1980s, over sixty years later.

Part of China's spectacular growth and success is when they adopt a USA practice, they can skip all the learning hat took 60 years, and on day one match the USA.  China has the ex nihilo consumer credit card system in place, plus the internet and computers to tax immediately and at the most granular level.

When China matches USA, and has the system proofed, they need only back off a few degrees and then China services to the world are preferable to the USA services.  And as anyone in the China trade knows, the Chinese can and will always go a penny less than you, for the same thing.  Trump calls China beating us at our own game "cheating" and "currency manipulation."

The upshot is the entire system is market-distorting, leading to malinvestment and misalloction since we have goods and services called forth based on ex nihilo credit, not wealth as defined as the range of goods and services called forth by people using their own money to purchase.  The Chinese take over of all this will not make the world a better place, except for the fact it will cost a bit less now that the overhead-driven USA economy will lose out.

Of course with free markets we could beat the Chinese, but as a nation there is no interest in free markets.  It is down to individuals to trade in a free market mindset in order to avoid the disasters coming.  Free markets are always unilateral in action.

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Export Food - Repping Supplier Approach - LCL MOQ FOB Part 1

Here is the continuing of the colloquy started last week.  The names & location & product & urls are changed to protect the innocent... it’s the tools, tactic and attitude that matters...

On Nov 19, 2016, at 2:28 PM, J L wrote:

Hi John,

Thanks for sending over all the info for week1. Very insightful!.

So the product I have in mind is Specialty Snack Chips. You can read all about them here https://specialty*chips.com/ but in brief these are Gluten free, Non GMO chips containing only limited ingredients. I have tried them out and they are good. But I guess that does not matter :). This idea came from a restaurant owner in city state and he currently sells it to speciality shops in the area and through his website. I am originally from Ghana and have never heard of or had Specialty Snack (South Ghanian cuisine) chips before. 

I went through the steps outlined by you to find the HTS number but I don't think I have one for something like this. This is what I got 

• HTS 2005.20.0020  ( These are Potato Chips ) and the data came up with nothing which is very odd. Either I'm doing something wrong or data is incorrect

• HTS 2005.90.0000  ( These are Chips made from other vegetables) and the data came up with nothing

• HTS 2005.99.6550  ( These are Other Vegi Preparations ). I do get data for this which I have attached but don't think I have the correct 10 digit HTS number for this product. Any suggestions on how I should go about finding the correct HTS?   

Regarding the above product, I guess here are my questions

• I guess after the data has been analyzed and once confirmed that there is an opportunity, the next step will be contacting the supplier just like in your sample letter. I don't have a registered company. Does that matter?

• Now I'm assuming the production capacity will be on the lower side for these chips. From an agent perspective and with the process outlined by you, is our supplier generally this small?

• Please let me know your thoughts on this idea

For me I love the breads (Dave's and Eureka) and chips that are produced in USA. I haven't travelled the world that much but love these products and think there is scope. I'll probably do some analysis on Eureka bread too after this :) but they are pretty big and I suspect might not need someone like me to export. What do you think?

And finally thanks for the blog today morning. Very timely. I'm a (job & location) and have a bunch of friends proposing a startup and leaving our jobs to concentrate on it after we get funding :)    

Thanks,

J

On Nov 19, 2016, at 10:07 PM, John Spiers wrote:

Of course you don’t need funding, you need customers.  Until you find customers, you cannot know what funding, if any, you need.  It is rare for a start-up to require any more funding than what is lying around.

On Nov 19, 2016, at 2:28 PM, J L wrote:

Hi John,

Thanks for sending over all the info for week1. Very insightful!.

"Specialty Snack is a kind of pancake made from a fermented batter. Its main ingredients are (ingredients)." well, then they are a rice product, not potato.... nor veggie...

from http://rulings.cbp.gov/index.asp?sjeudjksed=Specialty Snack&vw=detail

"

The applicable subheading for this Specialty Snack will be 1905.90.9090, HTSUS, which provides for bread, pastry, cakes, biscuits and other bakers' wares, whether or not containing cocoa…other…other…other. The duty rate will be 4.5 percent ad valorem.

"

In export, the Sch B number seems to be....

1905.90.9090

But when I go to the report, it said "communion wafers...."

so I dropped back to 1905.90.9030  "..savory chips..."

and here is what I found...

John

On Nov 20, 2016, at 10:18 AM, J L wrote:

Thank you!. I started all wrong by doing a search for chips.

J

On Nov 20, 2016, at 10:29 AM, John Spiers wrote:

I searched Specialty Snack and was surprised there was actually that customs letter on the item...

So now try to do the USITC Trade Data analysis...

John

On Nov 22, 2016, at 1:03 AM, J L wrote:

• So the exports to Canada far exceed any other country, though the amount exported has been decreasing gradually since 2012. Also the Average selling price is less than the world average selling price

• Exports to Australia and Mexico have been increasing since 2012, with the Average selling price is higher in Mexico.

• Philippines exports have somewhat remained constant but have the highest selling price among the top 6

• Exports to Japan and Korea have gone down and they also  have selling price cheaper than world average selling price.

Based on the above analysis, the best target country appear to be Mexico

.[ Analysis attached ]

Thanks,

J

On Nov 22, 2016, at 1:18 AM, John Spiers wrote:

On Nov 22, 2016, at 1:03 AM, J L wrote:

• So the exports to Canada far exceed any other country, though the amount exported has been decreasing gradually since 2012. Also the Average selling price is less than the world average selling price

**Cheap mass production chips, but that means here is market for high end too...***

• Exports to Australia and Mexico have been increasing since 2012, with the Average selling price is higher in Mexico.

• Philippines exports have somewhat remained constant but have the highest selling price among the top 6

• Exports to Japan and Korea have gone down and they also  have selling price cheaper than world average selling price.

Based on the above analysis, the best target country appear to be Mexico.[ Analysis attached ]

*** Very good...  now to create the offer, the LCL MOQ FOB...  you'll need to approach the supplier for  that, let's discuss that...

John

On Nov 25, 2016, at 11:14 PM, J L wrote:

Hi John,

So the owner has closed down his restaurant until further notice but his voicemail says that he still does Specialty Snack chips and points to his website which only has an email address. I guess I’m left with only 2 options now, go meet him personally or email ( which I know you strongly recommend not doing ). Would it not be worth trying to email hom with the details and then calling in a few days?. What do you suggest? 

Thanks,

J

On Nov 26, 2016, at 1:10 AM, John Spiers wrote:

Find a mailing address for him...  google, google...  real estate agent for location would know... 

The second you say “call me” you give u conrrol of the process.  Syat in charge of this business deal.

Find the mailing address and a phone number and then when you've drafted the letter, let me look at it...

JOhn

On Nov 26, 2016, at 6:46 PM, J L wrote:

Hi John,

Appreciate all the advise and help you're offering!. Done. I googled his home mailing address and have attached the initial draft of the letter. For the Company name, I have also included my brothers name as I'd like him to join me if/when this turns into something. I concluded the letter with the alternative of he contacting me as I do not have his direct phone contact.  Please review and let me know.

Thanks,

J

On Nov 26, 2016, at 6:50 PM, John Spiers wrote:

the letter comes thru garbled on a mac...

Why not just call the company L ?

(What's it mean?)

John

On Nov 26, 2016, at 7:02 PM, John Spiers wrote:

On Nov 26, 2016, at 6:46 PM, J L wrote:

 initial draft of the letter.

If you can send it as a .pdf, great...

On Nov 26, 2016, at 7:39 PM, J L wrote:

Attached is the pdf format.  

The name L does keeps it short. So just L?. No Company or Corp or Inc after it? or maybe the old fashioned way L & Sons. 

Are you asking what does L mean ?? ?    I actually don't know. I'll have to ask my parents

On Nov 26, 2016, at 7:56 PM, John Spiers wrote:

Here are some notes...  do you have your name spelling in (ancient script)?  And the suppliers usually has a capital D.

Problems in the letter:

do we know "savory"?

I think price per kilo, but includes plain old potato chips...

Initially we'll discover what market there is in Mexico, and then whether we can work together building this new market,and after that...

 best to find his phone number,. what was the phone number of the restaurant?  do cached webpages say?  Even if dead, name a phone number...

John

On Nov 26, 2016, at 9:56 PM, J L wrote:

Thanks John. I've updated the draft with your recommendations.

• "Do we know savory?". The chip is not sweet and is crunchy with little salt added. The HTS number 1905.90.9030 is for "Corn chips and similar crisp savory snack foods". I'd say these are similar to corn chips 

• I found suppiers landline number and have listed both landline / restaurant numbers in the letter. John, I'm hoping he won't mind me contacting him at Home address & number. On specialty*chips.com, he's clearly mentioned the email address as contact info and that's the reason I'm being a little skeptical.

• You're right. I checked the HTS for units and it is Kg. So then is the analysis correct?. The Specialty Snack chips, 1 packet is 5 OZ and cost ~ $5 (retail). For Mexico the average price is $4.55 per Kg!

• So my first name means "whatever" :) and here's the first and last name in Anciet Script.

On Nov 27, 2016, at 3:50 AM, John Spiers wrote:

On Nov 26, 2016, at 9:56 PM, J L wrote:

Thanks John. I've updated the draft with your recommendations.

• "Do we know savory?". The chip is not sweet and is crunchy with little salt added. The HTS number 1905.90.9030 is for "Corn chips and similar crisp savory snack foods". I'd say these are similar to corn chips 

***Good...  gotta be careful when using words and representing data, you have...***

• I found his landline number and have listed both landline / restaurant numbers in the letter. John, I'm hoping he won't mind me contacting his at Home address & number. On specilty*chips.com, he's clearly mentioned the email address as contact info and that's the reason I'm being a little skeptical.

*** He very well may freak out, but I doubt it. He already put himself waaaay out there opening a retail biz...  as to the phone number,  it's tactical...

1. He pre-empts you, calls you with a 

a,.  I'm interested

b. get lost...

With a, you proceed, humbly, with him in charge...  with b, you find a new source for Specialty Snack chips...

2. The phone number is dead, THEN you email saying, "I wrote, I called, and now I email....

You are driving at a contact, and rather obliging him to answer yes/no...***

***

• You're right. I checked the HTS for units and it is Kg. So then is the analysis correct?. The Specialty Snack chips, 1 packet is 5 OZ and cost ~ $5 (retail). For Mexico the average price is $4.55 per Kg!

***Right, mostly chips...  at costco chips are about that...  he might say, that's too cheap, you reply..

a. that includes the cheapest mass produced chips too, it's the average, so skews very low give the mass amount of bad chips going in...  

b.  the bigger the mass market, the bigger the specialty market too...  

It's the trends that tell... ***

• So my first name means "whatever" :) and here's the first and last name in ancient text.

*** Maybe your parents will answer first, but let's see what my sources say...

There are brand names like Ernest and Julio Gallo, and of course just a last name, Nordstrom.  People read it first, then sound it out, and then maybe wonder what it means...   You can always change it, maybe ask a dozen random people at a starbucks...  I am starting a food biz selling Specialty Snack chips, what do you think of these two names (L and then brothers L and J & ?  L...    Indeed Brothers L J might be interesting...

*** As to the letter, make it Dear Mr. d’Daddy  be formal...

clean this up...

 what market there is in Mexico and then whether we can work together building this new market and after that can negotiate if we are the team to represent you. 

maybe : what market there is in Mexico and then discuss (negotiate is too hard) if we are the team to help build market for Specialty Snack chips in Mexico.  

I see now the two phone numbers,  do just the restaurant one, avoid the home one if possible...  

So now it is attitude - he'll want to know about you...

Answer matrix:

I am nobody, (Fedex driver?) hate it and love your chips... (what's your "conversion story"? keep this real short...)

I am Ghanian, but did not know about Specialty Snack of Specialty Snack chips...  (south v north) it's Ghanian, clearly, but new to me...

"I'm hungry for change, you might be hungry for more customers, let's find people hungry for your chips, and then see if there is work for me too..."

Took some training on how to break into new markets, but no accomplishments yet, so no demands on my part: if I find customers, please sell to them, but if you don't want to work with me, OK, I'll find another product I love....  it really is not hard to find out if the customers are there...

(Also, who knows, "you may want to take mexico, and let me have France...  way too early to decide anything because we know nothing...")

So once this letter goes out, you shift to attitude with the supplier...  "you get free market info, I get a chance to maybe start my export food biz with you...***

Indeed, to use his very nice website to add the lcl moq fob would be ideal...

anyway, good to see this proceeding...  your views?

JOhn

(Part Two Tomorrow)

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Tontine / Private Micro Banking

Well Fargo got busted slamming customers, a term used for creating accounts a customer did not authorize.  They were fined   Bankers could give a $#*+ when they are fined, because the fine is like taxes, paid by their customers.  The managers who gained $60 million or whatever in bonuses pursuing the scam do not go to jail, nor get their bonuses clawed back.  Hence there is nothing to keep other bankers from doing more of the same.  Since there is no rule of law when it comes to banking we have this kind of chaos, bankers slamming customers.  There is no rule of law because we have regulatory capture, the regulated dictate the rules to the regulators, and then whimsically ignore them anyway.  For their part, it is well documented the regulators simply spend their time watching porn on the internet.  And then they wonder how someone like Trump could get elected.  People want to escape the chaos of failed government policy.

Odd, then comes the story of a government turning to anarchy to curb banker's excesses.

NEW YORK — The state of Illinois is suspending most of its banking relations with Wells Fargo.
Illinois is the second state, following California, to punish Wells Fargo with a one-year business moratorium in the wake of the bank’s fake account scandal.

This is how anarchy works.  When someone misbehaves, others in the community withdraw their support.  If it gets bad enough, you are so shunned you are reduced to living in the woods to survive.  No prisons, but condign punishment.

People who kill murderers and pederasts are also judged, and shunned or not, depending on the community opinion of the action.  Here courts are truth commissions, not "criminal justice" charades.

Since banking in capitalism is necessarily chaos, one ought to establish micro free market banking on one's own.  There is something called a tontine everyone should employ, much diminishing the hegemon's banks.

A tontine is an accommodation of any number of people, say at least four, but can be thousands, who pool contributed funds into an account on say a monthly basis.  Say the four put in $50 each a month, then in a year, the account has $2400, the next $4800, then $7200,  and so on.  More anon, but first a bit of history.

One of the precipitators of the French Revoluton was when the hegemon, in this case the King and his courtiers, had seized the tontines of the common man and used them to finance Versaille, war and other frivolities.

Tontines were formed by a group who each month contributed a set amount to a fund, and then as they aged the fund grew.  The point was to form a pension for anyone who made it to old age.  If you died, well, you did not need anything, so the survivors got the balance. A group of twelve might make it to 45, when the tontine was spit up by the survivors.

The funds were never enough to murder over, and the participants friends and family, enough to maybe open a barber shop or something to do for income into old age.  Not enough to retire on, since the idea of "retirement" was alien, if not evil.

It may not have been much money for each group, but it was collectively a massive amount tempting even the King.  He stole it and paid for it with the lives of himself and his family.  By the time of the French Revolution, the elements of modern banking were in place, and the problems emerged and the system failed much faster.

The idea of the tontine is good if one goes back to the older (even older than the 1700s) notion of banking, and that is currency issued against money, as in gold or silver.

Now I know I have been disparaging holding gold or silver, at least speculating in money, but the idea of forming a tontine, with say 4 people kicking in $50 a month, $200 a month being invested in say silver coins, and left in a coin shop.  Coin shops today often will store the gold and silver of their customers in their vaults, like the original banks (banque, a shelf where gold and silver workers stored customers' bullion.)

Two years in, this tontine has $4800 in silver sitting in the dealers shop.  Someone's auto transmission goes out, and they need $3 grand to replace it.  The tontine makes a loan (no interest) to the member, who repays it in time.  No banks involved (except for the dealer, acting as an original-style banker.)

Can you imagine how much income generation banks would be denied if this practice were reintroduced.  Can you imagine the strides toward peace and prosperity we could make if people got their money to fix the transmission from their own tontine, instead of the modern bank?  Can you imagine the personal transformation people would need to go through to save each month and be responsible to each other?  What a contrast to banking today, where no one is responsible to anyone else.  Ever.

"But but but, no interest?  With the magic of compounding interest, I can be rich at retirement if I contribute $50 a month starting in my youth. "

No you can't.  In a ponzi scheme, which underlies the interest compounding game, it stops all of a sudden.  This is just the start:

The Dallas Police and Fire Pension System's Board of Trustees suspended lump-sum withdrawals from the pension fund Thursday, staving off a possible restraining order and stopping $154 million in withdrawal requests.

The smart money, those who made the most, got out first.  Saps are left behind, with empty bags.

The banks are our enemy.  They charge too much to do too much, and distort the economy.  Withdraw your consent to work with them.  Escape the chaos of no-rules bankers, and flea to anarchy.  Form a tontine, find a coin dealer from which to buy silver and store it for you, and then get some popcorn, and sit back and watch as cops go into retirement impoverished.

And the rich build doomsday bunkers.

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Dow 20,000?

There was a book out during the 1999 dotcom boom entitled Dow 36000, which was roundly criticized as fantasy.  Heck sake, I scoffed.  36,000?  No way.  Let's look at a chart as the DOW races toward 20,000, less than a month after passing 19,000.

Milestone	Date	Time
1,000	November 14, 1972	76 Years
2,000	January 8, 1987	14 Years
3,000	April 17, 1991	4 Years
4,000	February 23, 1985	4 Years
5,000	November 21, 1995	9 Months
6,000	October 14, 1996	11 Months
7,000	February 13, 1997	4 Months
8,000	July 16, 1997	5 Months
9,000	April 6, 1998	9 Months
10,000	March 29, 1999	12 Months
11,000	May 3, 1999	1 Month
12,000	October 19, 2006	7 Years, 5 Months
13,000	April 25, 2007	6 Months
14,000	July 17, 2007	3 Months
15,000	May 7, 2013	5 Years, 10 Months
16,000	November 18, 2013	6 Months
17,000	July 3, 2014	8 Months
18,000	December 23, 2014	5 Months
19,000	November 22, 2016	1 Year, 11 Months
20,000

I would have scoffed at 20,000.  But here we are.

The "fundamentals" of the market are debatable, and this in itself sure looks good, and having gone this far, can it get up to 36,000?  Now I say, "who knows, why not?"

The problem is Dow 20,000 in itself does nothing for the 90 million unemployed, for people living paycheck to paycheck, the countless unemployed teens, for peace and prosperity.  Stock buybacks, tax deferral in pension plans, foreign hot "money" flight to USA all feed this growth, but does any of it represent economic growth?

In a free market, prices fall, not rise.  Money flows into new companies making money and somewhat bids up the price.  The established money making companies make nothing but a bit of  dividend income.  (Rock solid REI is a coop they pays out 10% back on your purchases at the end of the year, in lieu of a dividend, and if they have a bad year, they dip into that ten percent, and maybe pay out 6% to their 6 million owners.  I cannot recall a single instance of REI paying less than 10%)

This 20,000 is based on hot stocks that lose money like FANG, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google (if you count their existential government intel contracts, they are toast.)

Real estate is also hot, another anomaly.  In both instances, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.  If this means all is well, then how come cops and firefighters are cashing out their pensions at these heights?

The result was that hundreds of police officers and firefighters became millionaires while insulated from the whims and risks of the markets. Currently, 517 DROP accounts total in excess of $1 million, according to the city's presentation.
...
That meant when the fund's investments didn't return at least 8 percent, the entire fund, which all their colleagues depend upon in retirement, paid the price.
The lack of withdrawal restrictions led to a run on the bank once retirees caught wind of the pension system's proposed benefit cuts, which include new limits on DROP. Since Aug. 11, the fund paid out nearly $500 million in lump sums. 

Note a couple of things: 517 millionaire cops and firefighters by pension contributions only, and 500 million paid out in lump sums, since August alone.  Take a wild guess who pulled out their million bucks, each?

(If 517 became millionaires due to pension contributions alone, then more are at $900,000, even more at $800,000, even more than that at $700,000, etc.)

Union solidarity achieved this (plus these are house unions, those pension plans were what was used to buy police and firefighter votes) and note how retirees are now acting "I got mine, Jack!" and in effect robbing those newer contributors from having a more equitable share of a dwindling pot.  Share the pain in union solidarity?

"This is the one issue that we're just not going there," Friar said. "We will not do it. The pension board — we will just not go there. ... You cannot put toothpaste back into the tube."

But to say you will not go there is to admit you have gone there.  The first step is taken.  This is how promises are broken, step by step.  And the police and firefighters, and pensioners, of the 9300 of them in Dallas, 500 have cut and run since August.

During the boom, there would be big national conferences of mayors where countless city workers would get together for five days of sex, drugs rock and roll and come away with cool new ways to buy votes.  "This worked in Kansas City, try it in Portland!" These union plans are an example of this activity.  With ex nihilo credit, you can do anything you want.  This problem is everywhere.

And there is the problem.  Dow 20,000 or 36,000, or 10,000 for that matter is tallied in ex nihilo credit. It does not exist.  It is all politicians promises, as solid as a Clinton promise.  But now those promises are proving false.  Share the pain? "I got mine, Jack!"

Dallas politicians say Dallas will not make up the difference, the taxpayers must.  Ahem.  Dallas politicians charged his off to taxpayers to begin with, and who do the Dallas politicians think they get their money from?  The fate of the pensions are in the hands of people whose brains are rather addled.  Probably all those sex, drugs and rock and roll conferences.

Dow 20,000 is partially made up of pensions such as this, and jacking up the Dow sure contributes some to making people they are rich (even if it is only ex nihilo credit tallies.)  But there is an internal contradiction: the Dow is jacked up sky high, but the pensions are not any more solvent.

In 1982, at the ILWU master contract negotiations in San Francisco, I sat on the management side across the table from the Longshoreman negotiators.  Their "strike issue" was unfunded pension liability.  In 1982 this problem had ot be addressed, it just could not go on.  35 years later, the problem has not been addressed.  Each year, since nothing "bad" happened to those benefitting from ex nihilo credit, there was never any effort to solve the problem.

Now extreme measures are not working.  Jacking up the Dow to dizzying heights cannot do the trick.

Watch out below.

I am looking forward to a renaissance in small business in USA.

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