February 22,
2005 Written
by Bob Meyer, Editor of BarterNews
We
Want You To Know...When you sign up to receive the
FREE weekly Tuesday Report announcement your e-mail address
will never be sold, traded, or given to another party.
Bond
Guru Bill Gross Considers Our Huge Challenge
The chief investment
wizard of the Pimco bond-trading empire in Newport Beach says the
social security system does not require an immediate and dramatic
overhaul...it’s not our major problem.
Gross, a billionaire,
is running a business that’s owed $400 billion-plus by a globe’s
worth of governments and corporations. He became wealthy by using
a much longer-term vision than most traders.
Basically, he
contends that the entire American economy faces huge demographic
challenges because of our aging population and impending worker
shortage.
And the grand
solution, Gross believes, is to drastically reduce federal budget
deficits. He says we need a leaner U.S. government with less debt
on its books, so as to better cope with the upcoming demographic
imbalance.
Because of the
aging population today’s idea of younger workers buying stocks
and bonds for higher gains is wishful thinking. Gross sees considerable
downward selling pressure on prices of many assets, since retired
boomers will greatly outnumber the younger workers.
And, he foresees
that the young owners of these inspired investment accounts will
end up with paper that has to be devalued as retirees sell their
own holdings.
No matter how
you cut it, Gross cautions, the plan is a recipe for either dramatically
lower investment returns for their social security savings accounts—or
significantly higher inflation.
Bottomline:
Gross says borrowing tons of money (in the form of today’s
massive federal deficits), so people can bet on the future of the
U.S. stock market, solves little.
What does Gross
foresee in the future? Be prepared to retire later than you expected,
as the upcoming shortage of workers will in one way or another force
many Americans to stay employed. He also says the American workforce
will need to significantly increase its immigration. And finally,
Americans must become comfortable with our economic fate increasingly
being tied to foreign interests, since foreign investors help keep
our interest rates low with big purchases of American bonds.
Editor’s
Note: On February 16, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan
gave his qualified blessing to President George W. Bush’s
call to create private investment accounts as part of an overall
for Social Security, but Greenspan expressed concerns about the
high costs. He advised Congress to proceed with care. “Doing
nothing is risky; doing any solution is risky,” Greenspan
said. “The problem that we have is there’s a huge transition
cost...any solution cannot get around the fact that there is a huge
hole in the system and we have no choice but to fill it.”
“What
we have here is a failure to communicate!”
Years ago, one
of the most visible people in the barter industry said the #1 reason
why the industry wasn’t farther along in its development was
due to a “failure to communicate” by those in the business.
This realization
was the genesis of The Competitive Edge newsletter, now
into its 18th year of publication. Trade exchange owners who use
this powerful marketing and promotional tool are never guilty of
“failing to communicate.”
As the owner
of a trade exchange you must stay in front of your clients.
Informing, educating, and inspiring them, because your clients’
bartering is a relatively small percentage of their overall business.
So if you don’t keep their interest and enthusiasm for trade
at a high level, you lose.
Your primary
aim, like all other businesses, is to get your clients coming back
for more. Every extraordinary business (and every trade exchange
owner who wants to be extraordinary) knows that the customer you
have, is a lot less expensive to sell than the customer you don’t
yet have!
Want to take
your exchange to a higher level? Use The Competitive Edge
newsletter in your operation—it “sells” the many
benefits of working through your trade exchange like nothing else!
To
learn more about The Competitive Edge newsletter and how
it can help build your trade exchange,
click here.
Boat
Swapping Site Introduced
Boat
owners vacationing in foreign waters are now able to swap boats
on www.boatswop.com.
The new web site launched in January is the brainchild of British
sailing enthusiasts.
Owners can register
their vessels and then search for other boat owners in their own
countries or other areas of the world. Swapping boats saves the
cost of chartering a boat far from home. Plus owners can advise
one another on the best local harbors and marinas, as well as share
concerns about local conditions and hazards.
Non-members
can search the site to see where boats in the service are moored,
but only members can get details or make contact with other owners.
So far members
are primarily from Britain, and no trades have been arranged yet.
Membership is free for the first 200 people registering their boats.
Afterward, it is $92 with an annual subscription fee of $92.
Just
published...BarterNews issue #64, get your copy
now! Orders will be shipped within two business days of publication.
Click on Order Form.
(If you
are not sure if your subscription has lapsed, e-mail your name,
address, and zip code to bmeyer@barternews.com.)
Mark
Burnett Keeps Striking Deals
Two weeks ago,
in our February 8 newsletter, we reported on reality-TV czar Mark
Burnett’s lucrative trade with Martha Stewart (of her company’s
stock). Seems Burnett is now wearing his barter hat permanently,
striking deals as he goes, and in the process making way more than
his producer’s fees ever could.
His latest effort
includes “investing” in Everlast which will feature
prominently in his boxing show, The Contender, premiering
in March. Everlast couldn’t pay the traditional product-placement
charges, so Burnett (and his five partners on the show) cut a deal
for 5% of Everlast’s stock per season.
Burnett is happy,
suggesting that it’s likely the stock price will go up due
to the show’s exposure.
For his upcoming
CBS show Rock Star this summer, featuring INXS’ search
for a new frontman, Burnett has already secured rights to 50% of
any subsequent touring and CD sales.
Get
New Money-Making Ideas And Valuable Contacts!
You can obtain
useful, informative ideas and contacts in every available back-issue
of BarterNews.
Corporate
Incentive Trends Moving In Positive Direction
The profile
of the typical incentive program goes something like this: A 12-month
campaign, designed to increase sales across the board, has as its
reward a group travel program to a domestic destination such as
Florida, Hawaii, or California. The CEO selected the destination
and an in-house team handled the logistics. Just over 200 employees
qualified for the trip, and per-qualifier spending topped $2,650.
That’s
a quick snapshot of the aggregate results of the 2004 Corporate
Incentive Trends survey. The complete story is far more nuanced.
For example,
a third of respondents are designing incentives to deal with targeted
goals such as growing product awareness or increasing sales of a
particular product. Only one in four respondents is using outsource
partners such as incentive houses and independent planners to help
with incentive travel logistics. A full 50% of respondents’
current or upcoming major incentives are planned for international
destinations or a cruise ship. And, 75% of site-selection decisions
for incentive travel are made by either C-level executives or sales-and-marketing
management.
Overall, incentives—and
especially incentive travel rewards—appear to be trending
in a positive direction. Almost two-thirds of respondents reward
their salespeople and distributors with either individual or group
travel. And while per-person spending on these programs shows steady
growth, when budgets do shrink respondents say that cutting the
number of qualifiers is their least likely response.
Most respondents
(81%) geared their incentive programs to salespeople, and about
a third (35%) ran dealer-distributor programs, but other workers
were not forgotten. Half the people who answered the survey had
incentive programs in place for their non-sales employees.
Not everyone
is rewarded equally, however. Salespeople and distributors are more
likely to have travel incentives dangled as their reward than non-sales
employees. Although group travel is the No. 1 reward for all three
groups, non-sales workers are almost as likely to be offered merchandise
and cash for good performance.
Every
barter company in the world is listed on our web site,
click through to our Global List
of Barter Companies.
New
Web Site Offers Skin For Sale
You may have
heard about the young man who sold space on his forehead to an advertiser.
Now a web site has emerged where advertisers, and those selling
some skin, can meet and greet...www.bodybillboardz.com.
Interested advertisers
can choose from nine categories. In addition to arm ads, there are
belly, head, leg, T-shirt, back, chest, international bodies, and
pets.
Give
A Gift To A Friend Or Associate. If you know someone
who might benefit from this newsletter, feel free to forward it
to them! (See the “box” at the end of the newsletter
for the forwarding service.)
Here
& There...
- The 270,000
Tejon Ranch, located 70 miles north of Los Angeles, is moving
forward in a partnership agreement with the New York-based Rockefeller
Group Development Corp. to get the property designated as a foreign
trade zone. Tejon Ranch Company is contributing the land, valued
at a little more than $65 million, and Rockefeller Group is putting
up the same amount in cash for development.
- Corporate
barter company ICON has acquired senior advertising executive
Evangeline Ames-Murray. Prior to joining ICON she held an executive
position at BBDO NY, a global leader in advertising and marketing.
- Have
you signed up to receive a summary via e-mail of the
Tuesday Report every week? If not, go to the top of this
issue (right hand corner) and sign up!
- JupiterResearch
reports that spending on e-mail marketing in the U.S. jumped 38%
to $2.1 billion in 2003 (latest year for figures). In comparison,
spending on direct mail rose 5% to $48.4 billion in 2003, per
Robert J. Coen, senior vice president of forecasting at media-services
firm Universal McCann. Coen estimates that direct-mail spending
climbed 8% to $52.2 billion in 2004, helped in part by the recent
restrictions on telemarketing.
- The 2000
U.S. Census found that nearly one in five U.S. residents—about
47 million people—speaks a language other than English at
home. That’s double the number from 1980, and pay television
companies are noticing the fact. EchoStar Communications leads
the field in providing TV viewing options these days—from
Chinese variety shows to Mexican soap operas to Polish news.
- For the first
time ever, the median price for a condo exceeded the median price
of a single-family home in the United States. Out of a total 970,000
existing condos and co-ops sold in 2004, the median condo price
rose 17% to $193,600...a record high (from $164,100 in 2003).
In contrast, figures from the National Association of Realtors
show the resale price for a single-family home was $184,100.
- What’s
the largest net income (or quarterly profit) ever for a U.S. public
company? Exxon Mobil’s recently posted fourth-quarter profits
of $8.4 billion is considered the biggest ever! Exxon’s
market value is $357 billion.
|