From the desk of Bob Meyer...12/05/06

?We Are Not Swappers!!?
(Krista Vardabash, IRTA Executive Director)

A November article in The Wall Street Journal about online sites promoting the art of barter followed their usual pattern of reporting examples and opinions on both sides of a question.

Most of the article focused on various online sites that offer direct, one-to-one trading opportunities for members. Krista Vardabash was called and the article alluded to her conversation with the author:

?Not everyone is convinced online bartering, at least pure direct-trading sites, will work. Krista Vardabash, executive director of the International Reciprocal Trade Association, says Web sites that count on direct trading are impractical. ?It?s for the same reason that old-fashioned barter didn?t work,? she says. ?Eventually some of them are going to find out that they have to introduce a trade credit.??

In a follow-up conversation with Vardabash, she told me that the reporter contacted IRTA to inquire about online trading, and wanted statistics regarding swapping sites. Vardabash says she explained to the reporter that swap sites are a different model than commercial trade exchanges.

She then provided the reporter a brief tutorial on what commercial exchanges do and how they operate. She explained that a trading unit is necessary to make more swaps happen, because of the restrictive nature of direct trading...which is what most swapping sites facilitate.

Vardabash said it was good to be quoted in the WSJ, but thinks the idea of having commercial trade exchanges lumped together with swapping sites is an indication that more education is needed. She indicated that perhaps the word barter is doing the commercial barter industry more harm than good...concluding vigorously that we are not swappers!!

Readers, what are your thoughts?

Billionaire Encourages Young People To Government Service

Samuel Heyman has amassed a fortune in real estate, building materials and chemicals. And today the 67-year-old American investor also owns a part of one of the world?s most storied financial markets, the London Stock Exchange.

Educated at Yale and a graduate of Harvard Law School, Heyman started his career in the Justice Department as a trial lawyer during the administration of John F. Kennedy, earning $2,500 a year. Five years later, the early death of his father in 1968 brought him back to his family?s real estate business in Connecticut.

He still encourages young people to go into government service, noting in a 2002 interview with The Wall Street Journal that 30% of his fellow 1963 Harvard Law graduates went on to work for the government, but only about 3% of 2001 graduates did.

(He has donated $45 million to found the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit agency that aims to motivate graduates to consider jobs in the federal government.)

Think Tank Changes Name To Peterson Institute

Peter Peterson is a former U.S. Secretary of Commerce and the senior chairman of Blackstone Group, a private investment banking firm he co-founded in 1985. He is an outspoken advocate of reducing the U.S. budget deficit and has authored two books on the subject. Peterson has also been chairman of the Institute for International Economics since its founding in 1981.

The Institute, a prominent voice in policy debates over globalization and free trade, is changing its name to the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics?or the Peterson Institute, for short?in honor of the think tank?s founding chairman.

China Becoming R&D Center For Pharmaceutical Companies

Major drug manufacturers around the world are eyeing China as the answer to sophisticated laboratory services. And they see China as an emerging competitor to India...long the most-popular destination for outsourcing chemistry research and drug development.

Estimates to develop and market a new drug often run as high as $1.2 billion. Much of that cost goes for the slow process of sifting through thousands of compounds, in hopes of finding one that works against the disease being targeted.

In the U.S., the overall cost of a chemist to do drug development work is around $250,000 a year. In China, chemists with similar educational backgrounds may be hired for as little as $25,000 a year.

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