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July 3, 2007
Written
by Bob Meyer, Editor of BarterNews
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From the desk of Bob
Meyer...07/03/07
ConocoPhillips Thinking Of Barter Strategy
With Venezuela
ConocoPhillips is not settling for below market compensation
from the Venezuelan government on its $10 billion investment
in that country. Instead they exited the nation (and their
investment) so they could preserve their right to seek
international arbitration.
Their
strategy? Knowing that Venezuela has assets in the U.S.,
including refineries owned by the Venezuela state-owned oil
company (PDVSA�s Citgo Petroleum Corp.), the possibility
existed of swapping ConocoPhillips oil fields in Venezuela
for Citgo refineries in Illinois, Louisiana or Texas.
Real Estate Outlook
A wave
of adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) that will reset later
this year and next year, raises the odds that real estate
mortgage defaults will continue to rise. About $515 billion
of ARMs are scheduled to reset this year, and an additional
$680 billion will reset in 2008, according to Bank of
America. Worse, roughly three-fourths of those loans are to
borrowers with poor credit histories.
Ants Aren�t Smart, But Ant Colonies Are
Individual ants lack brain power, but as a group they can
accomplish complex tasks, because animals tackle problems by
unconsciously exchanging cues with other animals. That
mechanism allows ants to forage for food and bees to select
a perfect-size hive.
The
military has used swarm theory to survey dangerous areas. In
one experiment, 66 robots were sent to locate six hidden
objects in a building, armed with simple instructions and
ways to share information. By individually pursuing basic
tasks and minimizing redundancies, such as avoiding rooms
that other robots already had examined, they found the
objects in half an hour.
Sam Walton Would Be Proud
You
never can foresee the magnitude of an idea. Wal-Mart founder
Sam Walton�s initial one would pale next to today�s
actuality...Americans, alone, collectively make 127 million
trips to Wal-Mart each week. As global expansion continues,
Wal-Mart expects to hit $500 billion in annual sales by
2010.
Global Economic Pop Coming?
�In the 16
months leading up to the election, the economy will be well
oiled and optimism high. Then the lights will go out to the
sound of a global economic pop.�
�Harry Aebischer on the U.S. economic outlook.
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See you next week. . .) |
Hotel Fever Strikes
Hotel construction soared last year by 64%, the biggest increase
since 1994, according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Room
starts totaled 136,500 in 2006, as developers tried to cash in on
one of the best periods of hotel profits in 25 years.
One such developer, Sky Development, will soon announce a $200
million mixed-use structure in downtown Orlando (FL), anchored by a
350-room hotel, 120 high-end residences and 515,000 square feet of
office space.
Sky�s CEO, Yizhak Toledano, claims that despite all the hotel and
timeshare construction in Orlando and the condo bust statewide, he
sees opportunity in the city�s downtown, where development is harder
because land is scarcer.
Nationwide, a PricewaterhouseCoopers lodging consultant notes,
we�re entering the mature phase of the cycle. The development
pipeline is accelerating, while profit growth�robust for the past
three years�is now slowing as demand has softened in recent months.
ITEX Continues Business Service Expansion
ITEX
Corporation (OTCBB: ITEX), a leading marketplace for cashless
business transactions in North America, announced the successful
transfer of information server operations to a new co-location
facility in Boise (ID). It�s a switch that CEO Steven White says
affords ITEX better security, higher storage capacity, and
protection from natural disasters.
�Our servers
were moved from their former location (in California) on a Saturday
morning and returned to full service with new upgrades late Sunday
afternoon. The task was accomplished with minimal inconvenience to
our community of 22,000 business members,� he disclosed.
Supported by
new Dell PowerEdge Servers and Cisco routers and firewalls, the
upgraded systems provide service up to eight times faster than their
previous high-speed systems.
�Our new
co-location facility is a top-notch provider with ample bandwidth
and backup power. We believe ongoing enhancements to our systems are
vital to our ongoing growth initiatives,� stated White.
ANNOUNCEMENT !
Check out the
BarterNews daily blog at
www.barternewsblog.com
for new contacts, strategies and techniques.
Youth Program Offers Circle Sentencing With Barter Incentive
The Allied
Community Youth Court, now in its second year, is administered by
Youth Services of Southern Wisconsin, a nonprofit agency
specializing in programs for youths and their families.
Unique among
the Youth Services courts, the Allied Community program uses circle
sentencing, a restorative justice process that involves members of
the accused�s community, including adults. All other Youth Services
programs are peer courts where teens, under the guidance of an
adult, determine sentences.
Youths ages 12
to 16 who live in or offend in the Allied area can be referred to
youth court for such ordinance violations as curfew offenses,
habitual truancy, tobacco use, trespassing or fighting. They have
909 days to complete their sentences.
�For youth
offenders, standing before other teenagers to acknowledge
misbehavior cuts down on the BS factor,� said Madison Police Officer
Greg Rossetti. �Kids who go through the youth court seem to
stabilize their behavior, and the ones who stay on to train and
serve as jurors develop leadership, public speaking, and critical
thinking skills.�
The court in
Darbo-Worthington is run by the Dan County Timebank Network. Youths
who serve as jurors in that court earn �time dollars� that they can
use to barter for services�like karate lessons or hair
styling�offered by other members of the network. Timebank and Youth
Services are working to merge aspects of their youth court programs,
including making the time dollars available to all juvenile jurors.
"Trade is nothing but the release of what one has in abundance to
obtain some other thing one wants."
By Frank Chodorov (1887�1966)
[This article is excerpted from
chapter 6 of The Rise and Fall of Society.]
Part I
Wherever two boys swap tops for
marbles, that is the marketplace. The simple barter, in terms of
human happiness, is no different from a trade transaction involving
banking operations, insurance, ships, railroads, wholesale and
retail establishments; for in any case the effect and purpose of
trade is to make up a lack of satisfactions.
The boy with a pocketful of
marbles is handicapped in the enjoyment of life by his lack of tops,
while the other is similarly discomfited by his need for marbles;
both have a better time of it after the swap.
In like manner, the Detroit
worker who has helped to pile up a heap of automobiles in the
warehouse is none the better off for his efforts until the product
has been shipped to Brazil in exchange for his morning cup of
coffee. Trade is nothing but the release of what one has in
abundance to obtain some other thing one wants. It is as pertinent
for the buyer to say �thank you� as for the seller.
The marketplace is not
necessarily a specific site, although every trade must take place
somewhere. It is more exactly a system of channeling goods or
services from one worker to another, from fabricator to consumer,
from where a superfluity exists to where there is a need. It is a
method devised by man in his pursuit of happiness to diffuse
satisfactions, and operating only by the human instinct of value.
Its function is not only to
transfer ownership from one person to another, but also to direct
the current of human exertion; for the price indicator on the chart
of the marketplace registers the desires of people, and the
intensity of these desires, so that other people (looking to their
own profit) may know how best to employ themselves.
Living without trade may be
possible, but it would hardly be living; at best it would be mere
existence. Until the marketplace appears, men are reduced to getting
by with what they can find in nature in the way of food and raiment;
nothing more. But the will to live is not merely a craving for
existence; it is rather an urge to reach out in all directions for a
fuller enjoyment of life, and it is by trade that this inner drive
achieves some measure of fulfillment.
The greater the volume and
fluidity of marketplace transactions the higher the wage level of
Society; and, insofar as things and services make for happiness, the
higher the wage level the greater the fund of happiness.
The importance of the
marketplace to the enjoyment of life is illustrated by a custom
recorded by Franz Oppenheimer in The State. In ancient times,
on days designated as holy, the marketplace and its approaches were
held inviolable even by professional robbers; in fact, stepping out
of character, these robbers acted as policemen for the trade routes,
seeing to it that merchants and caravans were not molested.
Why? Because they had
accumulated a superfluity of loot of one kind, more than they could
consume, and the easiest way of transmuting it into other
satisfactions was through trade. Too much of anything is too much.
The marketplace serves not only
to diffuse the abundances that human specialization makes possible,
but it is also a distributor of the munificences of nature. For, in
her inscrutable way, nature has spread the raw materials by which
humans live over the face of the globe; unless some way were devised
for distributing these raw materials, they would serve no human
purpose.
Thus, through the conduit of
trade the fish of the sea reach the miner's table and fuel from the
inland mine or well reaches the boiler of the fishing boat; tropical
fruits are made available to northerners, whose iron mines,
translated into tools, make production easier in the tropics. It is
by trade that the far-flung warehouses of nature are made accessible
to all the peoples of the world and life on this planet becomes that
much more enjoyable.
We think of trade as the barter
of tangible things simply because that is obvious. But a correlative
of the exchange of things is the exchange of ideas, of the knowledge
and cultural accumulations of the parties to the transaction. In
fact, embodied in the goods is the intelligence of the producers;
the excellent woolens imported from England carry evidence of
thought that has been given to the art of weaving, and Japanese
silks arouse curiosity as to the ideas that went into their
fabrication.
We acquire knowledge of people
through the goods we get from them. Aside from that correlative of
trade, there is the fact that trading involves human contacts; and
when humans meet, either physically or by means of communication,
ideas are exchanged. �Visiting� is the oil that lubricates every
marketplace operation.
"Trade is nothing but the release
of what one has in abundance to obtain some other thing one wants."
It was only after Cuba and the
Philippines were drawn into our trading orbit that interest in the
Spanish language and customs was enlivened, and the interest
increased in proportion to the volume of our trade with South
America.
As a consequence, Americans of
the present generation are as familiar with Spanish dancing and
music as their forefathers, under the influence of commercial
contacts with Europe, were at home with the French minuet and the
Viennese waltz. When ships started coming from Japan, they brought
with them stories of an interesting people, stories that enriched
our literature, broadened our art concepts, and added to our
operatic repertoire.
It is not only that trading in
itself necessitates some understanding of the customs of the people
one trades with, but that the cargoes have a way of arousing
curiosity as to their source, and ships laden with goods are
followed with others carrying explorers of ideas; the open port is a
magnet for the curious.
So, the tendency of trade is to
break down the narrowness of provincialism, to liquidate the
mistrust of ignorance. Society, then, in its most comprehensive
sense, includes all who for the improvement of their several
circumstances engage in trade with one another; its ideational
character tends toward a blend of the heterogeneous cultures of the
traders. The marketplace unifies Society.
The concentration of population
determines the character of Society only because contiguity
facilitates exchange. But contiguity is a relative matter, depending
on the means for making contacts; the neutralization of time and
space by mechanical means makes the whole world contiguous. The
isolationism that breeds an ingrown culture and a mistrust of
outside cultures melts away as faster ships, faster trains, and
faster planes bring goods and ideas from the great beyond.
The perimeter of Society is not
fixed by political frontiers but by the radius of its commercial
contacts. All people who trade with one another are by that very act
brought into community.
Universal Law-Of-Reciprocity Key To Trade Exchange Success
Every trade
exchange owner in the world should not only be aware of the
law-of-reciprocity, but using it, in the operation of their
business.
Trade
exchange owners are invited to e-mail
bmeyer@barternews.com
for more information on how you can become �the exchange of choice�
in your area. When e-mailing Bob Meyer, put �Law of Reciprocity� in
the subject line.
Hotel
General Managers
Here�s
The Easiest $100,000 You�ll Ever
Bring To The Bottomline!
Collect
cash, as usual, from the guest accounts staying at your
facility that require the use of professional AV services.
And rather than shouldering your ongoing employee costs, or
your current vendor�s cash agreement for AV services,
here�s a much better alternative:
Work
with a proven national vendor (a sterling 25-year track
record) who will provide all of the AV services for your
hotel on a 100% TRADE BASIS! (Payment to be in the form of
hotel rooms and/or trade dollars.)
Your hotel�s annual AV billings must be a minimum of $200,000, and this
offer is available only in the continental United States.
For a
confidential introduction contact Bob Meyer via e-mail:
bmeyer@barternews.com.
(Please type in AV Services On Trade in the subject
line of your e-mail.)
Attention Trade Exchange Owners:
If your
member hotel(s) have a minimum of 10,000 sq. feet of meeting
space and annual billings of at least $200,000 for AV
services this is a great opportunity to earn substantial
cash service fees on the hundreds of thousands of trade
dollars your hotel member will be paying the vendor. Contact
Bob Meyer at the above e-mail. |
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The Growth and Use of Secondary Capital (New Money) Creates
Unprecedented Wealth In Today�s New Age Of Possibility
There are
many forms of secondary capital�which can be defined as any
financial instrument that measures and communicates value in a
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www.barternews.com/secondary_capital.htm.
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