To Build up the Land part II – God Made a Farmer

2/5/2013 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

Today we continue with our exploration of the concept of building up the land.  We are using, as our living example of someone who dedicated their life to building up a harsh land, a Swiss settler of the sandhills of western Nebraska, Old Jules.

Yesterday, before we deviated into our normal rant about the monetary premium being attached to debt instruments being the root cause of widespread resource misallocation and, by extension, what today is called “climate change,” we explored the idea that mankind was created to live in balance with the earth.

He was neither to overly molest it via excessive development nor ignore it via draconian conservation methods.  Rather, he was to build up the earth, and in turn allow himself to be built up by it.

There are preconditions for man to be able to live in balance with the land.  First and foremost, he must live in relative peace.  If one is to invest adequate time in building up the land, he or she cannot spend an inordinate amount of time preoccupied for and tending to their personal safety.  This is why war, far from being an economic boon, is ultimately fatal to man’s efforts to build up the land.

How, then, can peace be encouraged?  By allowing uninhibited trade between communist style communities, such as families or tribes.  As we explored yesterday, the link between free trade and peace is so strong that it can be said that if goods do not cross borders, soldiers will.

It all seems ideal, doesn’t it?  Living in peace, in perfect balance with nature and our fellow man.  It doesn’t sound like much to ask of everyone.  Yet in practice, building up the land is a difficult endeavor.  It is so difficult, that most people, when given the choice between working to build up the land and enjoying the fruits of the land, naturally choose the latter.  The debt based money supply has allowed an unprecedented number of humans to spend more of their time enjoying the fruits than building up the land, and every day that this situation persists brings the actions of mankind further out of balance with the need to “build up the land.”

What type of person chooses to build up the land?  In gentle climates, like the one we currently enjoy in Oregon, where a minimal effort in planting often leads to an above average yield, gentle persons can build up the land.  As the land is strong, the people don’t have to be.

This has been true of the indigenous groups who inhabited the territories and, at the risk of offending our fellow Portlanders, we dare say that it is true of the population today.  If one can stand the rain, life is relatively easy.  A gentle, forgiving land will produce a gentle and forgiving people.

The corollary to this, naturally, is that a hard and unforgiving land will initially yield a hard and unforgiving people.  Or, as Sunday’s Dodge Ram truck Super Bowl spot reminds us, on the eighth day, God made a Farmer:

Again for proof of this, we turn to Mari Sandoz’s account of her father, Old Jules.  Jules Sandoz, our settler of 100 years ago, lived in a harsh land.  He lived peacefully with the indigenous peoples there, who were being forced away by the Federal Army.  He lived less peacefully with the bankers and cattlemen, who attempted to claim the land he was trying to build up by force.

Sandoz give us a glimpse into her rough, determined, and surprisingly refined father:

“Jules Sandoz was not a nice man, but he was smart and tough and talented, and he was a survivor.”

“Old Jules was always ready to serve as a “locator,” to help a new arrival stake out a claim and “find his corners,” locate the precise boundaries of his land.  For this, he charged little or nothing, as he wanted so badly to “build up, build up” the community.”

“His (Old Jules’) house was briefly the local post office, until he feuded with the officials and they took it away.  His place was the unofficial storytelling center of the community.  His skinny daughter, Marie (later Mari {the author}), would hang back in the darkness to stay up and listen to the immigrants and Indians {Indigenous peoples} and, less frequently, the cowboys tell their tales.

Old Jules maintained a well-stocked medical kit and was the unofficial frontier doctor to one and all.  He befriended the local Indians, some of the last Lakotas to live free in lodges, tipis, near his home.  They called him “Straight Eye,” honoring his shooting skill.  He spent w

To Build up the Land – part I

2/4/2013 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

“Then once more he raised his head, his face alive, his eyes far-focused, burning.  He began to talk slowly, as though his lips were metal, stiffening.  “The whole damn sandhills is deserted.  The cattlemen are broke, the settlers about gone.  I got to start all over-ship in a lot of good farmers in the spring, build up–build–build–”

Old Jules’ dying words from the biography entitled “Old Jules” by Mari Sandoz

Today at The Mint, we continue our journey, and we are glad that you are along with us.  With the inflationary fruits of five, nay, 100 years of loose monetary policy beginning to destroy the very currencies which gave birth to them, the world will all too soon be left to pick up the pieces and boldly move forward when all hope is lost.

When there is no hope, one must fight to become hope.  This is our charge to you, fellow taxpayer.  Fortunately, this is far from the first time that mankind has found itself in this situation.  For inspiration, we look back roughly 100 years to a man who had a vision for a place that was then, as now, a place that is difficult to inhabit, the sandhills region of Northwestern Nebraska.  (The sandhills have appeared in the news as a possible route for the long delayed Keystone pipeline.)

That man is Old Jules.

Old Jules was a Swiss immigrant who settled in the sandhills and, as our title implies, devoted much of his interesting life to “building up the land.”  What does it mean to build up the land?  Your idea of building up the land probably means something quite different than my idea of building up the land, and we would both probably have visions quite different for building up the land than someone living 100 years ago, like Old Jules.

Yet all of our visions have merit, for the idea of building up the land, while it may manifest itself in any number of different ways, implies working with the land to help it produce.

The whole idea of man being able to help the land to increase its production and that production helping mankind, in turn, to increase their own production (or reproduction, to be precise), is a miracle.  For those who inhabit urban settings, it may seem a mystery from a far off place.

Yet it is the command received by Adam and Eve at the dawn of creation.

Man was never meant to sit back and simply eat the fruits passively produced by the land, rather, the creation and mankind were created to have an intercourse, if you will, with the fruit of one producing fruit in the other, and vice versa.  Mankind’s activities were meant to be intimately connected to the land.  Mankind is to build up the land, and, in return, the land will build up mankind.

While the Victorian Yeoman farmer ideal may immediately spring to mind when one thinks of building up the land, it should be clear to any thinking person that the division of labor is a far more productive and resilient system by which to build up the land and to reap the benefits of such building.

Even in the Yeoman model, the division of labor existed.  One fetched wood, another dug and plowed, another prepared food, still another shelter, and another fetched water, and so on.

The division of labor could flourish beyond close knit communal groups, such as families or tribes, only via a system of trade.  The concept of trade, which further enables the division of labor to operate, is important not only for the concept of building up the land, but also for the maintenance of peaceful relations amongst communal groups.

The link between mutual trade and maintaining peace between groups is inseparable.  In the words of Frederic Bastait:

“If goods do not cross borders, soldiers will.”

If all of these things, building up the land, the division of labor, and the necessity of trade, are to operate, the concept of money, or what is better described as the emergence of a good of the highest order which carries a monetary premium, must be tacitly agreed upon by all groups that engage in trade.

Today, circa 2013, there is something desperately wrong with where the monetary premium is placed today:  Central bank credits, or what most of us know as currency, or money.  The problem is that they are debt, and not part

Worldwide Gun ownership and homicide rate info-graphic and the purpose of bad news

2/12/2013 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

Tonight’s State of the Union address by President Obama will once again draw a sharp focus on gun control, or lack thereof in the United States.  The theory held out by gun control advocates is that restricting access to guns will serve as a deterrent to violence.  Unfortunately, the statistics on a national and global scale argue firmly against this cause/effect relationship, as the following info-graphic illustrates:

Contrary to Utopian logic, an increase in overall gun ownership serves to decrease the rate of intentional homicides, not the reverse.

If a higher incidence of gun ownership paradoxically produces a lower intentional homicide rate, why would the idea of gun control be floated by the leader of the “Free” world at all, especially when such ideas are in clear contradiction with the document which He has sworn to uphold?

The Benefits of bad news

Mr. Obama and the rest of the well-meaning individuals who are at the head of the rallying cry for increased gun control have one thing in mind when they float such ideas:

Outliers

Columbine, Sandy Hook, and innumerable other mass shootings in recent history have cast a stigma over gun ownership that world improvers, our pet name for those who believe that they and only they know what is best for humanity, have latched on to as evidence that only certain persons should be allowed to possess firearms.

Clearly, mass shootings are horrific tragedies and attempts to avoid them should be made at all costs.   Again, paradoxically, they seem to occur in environments when the instigator(s) are the only ones in possession of a firearm.  However, while they race to the top of the news feeds when they occur, mass shootings are generally outliers to the human experience.  As such, while they are horrific tragedies, they are not as common as one would think.

It is for these reasons, both that they are uncommon and that they are horrific, that the national psyche attaches to them and examines them the way one would rise to investigate an unexpected sound in the night.  For it is our rightly held belief as human beings that these things should not be, and if they have occurred, then something must be wrong.  The glory of free societies is the indomitable belief that if something is wrong, we, the people, can work to make it right.

In this sense, while we cringe at the many headlines that announce a mass shooting, or any act of violence, for that matter, we have trained ourselves to breathe a sigh of relief.  For the very fact that they are being reported on means that an investigation of their root causes will rise to a level of national debate.  This reporting and national debate is one of the healthiest expressions of free speech that can occur.

While we do not believe that gun control will serve to mitigate tragedies, we are pleased that the debate rages on, for the answers are out there, and it gives us hope for all of mankind that we are diligently searching for it.

After you are shocked by the next tragic headline that comes your way, remember to give thanks for your reaction.  For this reaction, at its core, is an inkling of the hope for the betterment of all mankind that is alive and well within you.

So carry on, Mr. President, as Free men and women, we are privileged to hear you out, as well as disagree on solutions.  We share your sorrow at these events, and will work to make a better world for ourselves and our posterity.

Stay tuned and Trust Jesus.

BlogThis!

The GDP and Unemployment Red Herrings

2/1/2013 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

As we begin the month of February, it would appear that the US Economy has suffered from a couple of data shocks, which, taken at face value, would call into question the validity of the current rally in nearly every asset class (save bonds) and give rise to fears of the US slipping into another Recession or worse.

First, the Gross Domestic Product read came in at a negative 0.1% for the fourth quarter.  The GDP is mostly a bogus data point in an economy with a debt based currency.  At this point, the negative data, like most data that will appear this year, will give the Federal Reserve the statistical cover they need to continue QE and decimate the dollar.

The Unemployment rate, which inched up slightly, falls into the same category.  Given the paradigm shift that the US workforce is undergoing as the internet makes geography a non issue for anyone who works from a computer, and the demographic shift as the Baby Boomers ease into retirement make it hard to say what would constitute an appropriate amount of Unemployment at this time.

Full employment has always been a slippery concept, and at this point, the BLS statistics can be counted on to err on the side of covering the inflationary consequences of QE as well.

What has not changed is that people, when given the chance, will tend to spend more money than they have.  This tendency is again being allowed to manifest itself as credit restrictions are easing in the US and soon, even your cat will begin to receive credit card offers as they did in the good old days of 2005.

The Federal Reserve and every Central Bank on the planet have stuffed every orifice of the financial system with cash, so much so that they must lend gobs of it out to remain solvent.  The consumers are taking the bait, and the wave of inflation is now rolling through stocks and commodities.  It will not stop until QE stops.

And given the propaganda that passed as economic data prints this past week, QE will be with us for quite some time.  Plan and invest accordingly.

Stay tuned and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

Key Indicators for February 1, 2013

Copper Price per Lb: $3.75
Oil Price per Barrel:  $97.77
Corn Price per Bushel:  $7.36
10 Yr US Treasury Bond:  2.01%
FED Target Rate:  0.15%  ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!
Gold Price Per Ounce:  $1,667 THE GOLD RUSH IS ON!
MINT Perceived Target Rate*:  0.25%
Unemployment Rate:  7.9%
Inflation Rate (CPI):  0.0%
Dow Jones Industrial Average:  14,010 
M1 Monetary Base:  $2,455,100,000,000 LOTS OF DOUGH ON THE STREET!
M2 Monetary Base:  $10,412,500,000,000

Anarchy is an Ultimate Given - A New Ebook on Kindle

The following is the introduction to our latest ebook, which is now available on Kindle.  It is the latest volume in the Why what we use as Money Matters series.  Enjoy!

Anarchy is an Ultimate Given

An∙ar∙chy – noun – ‘anərkē

The definition of anarchy, according to the Merriam-webster Dictionary:

1.a:  absence of government

  b:  a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority

  c:  a utopian society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government

2.a:  absence or denial of any authority or established order

  b:  absence of order

Disarming the State is as simple as changing and then using one’s mind

Anarchy.  The word strikes fear in the hearts general public, who have been trained to conjure images from fraternity house shenanigans to rioting and looting on the streets of important cities at its mention.  For most civilized persons, with these mental images close at hand, anarchy is something to be avoided at all costs.  How can civilized society carry on with the threat of bombs and looting effectively slamming the brakes on human progress?

In this volume, we seek to free the concept of anarchy from these negative connotations.  For anarchy, far from being the greater evil in the choice amongst evils when it comes to man’s state in this world, is really not a choice at all.  Rather, anarchy is something that every human being and animal on the planet is born into.  It is the basic state of man in this world.  It is an ultimate given.

As an ultimate given, it is futile, nay, self-destructive for men and women to live their lives fretting about falling from a state of order into one of anarchy.  The line of thinking is debilitating and counterproductive to what must be mankind’s highest and most urgent calling in the physical realm:  How best to respond to the state of anarchy in which they live.

For it is not anarchy itself that causes disorder and the other maladies which the mere mention of the word bring to mind, but mankind’s failed responses to this ultimate given under which they labor and cause others to labor on their behalf.  The only thing more dangerous than confusing anarchy for the disorder which arises from the collapse of a failed response to it, is to spend ones life’s toils aiding another person’s failed response to his or her inherently anarchic surroundings.

Further, this volume seeks to give the reader a sufficient level of awareness to step back, if even for a moment, to evaluate the response to anarchy under which they are currently laboring and make a sober evaluation as to whether they are truly laboring in alignment with their own best interests.

Too many lives have been wasted laboring under a mistaken fear and avoidance of anarchy, and we hope this volume will steer the reader away from this fate.  It may not change the way you think or what you do at all, and that is good.  For to personally validate ones own course in life with a firmer grasp of the facts has caused harm to no one.  In fact, it should cause one to carry on with a renewed sense of pride and purpose.  We only encourage you, then, to offer others the chance to give their own lives a sober evaluation, and respect their decision to change once they truly understand the wonderful anarchy into which we are all born.

The book is now available on Kindle and will be available on Smashwords in early May.

Stay tuned and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

Open Debauchery of the Money Supply

12/21/2012 Portland, Oregon – Pop in your mints…

As the world carries on we offer a glimpse of what is to come.  Two playful headlines that have appeared in the past two days which is essentially an advertisement that inflation has taken hold and will not soon go away:

U.S. Mint testing new metals to make coins cheaper

This article confirms what metals watchers have known for some time now, that the US Mint will have to change the content of pennies and nickels, at a minimum.  The Nickel inflation hedge we’ve mentioned before is about to go into effect.  You can read the gory details in the US Mint’s 2012 Biennial Report to Congress on the matter.

Next, we see that, strangely it seems, demand for $100 bills has begun to pick up.

Cash is King:  Printing of $100 Bills Soars

It appears that the dollar debasement is hitting main street.  To keep tabs on the matter, we refer you to the M2 money supply which we present below in our Key Statistics.
The debauchery of the US currency is now hitting the street, which may mean its days are numbered.  Once the moronic Fiscal Cliff and the upcoming Debt ceiling redux in March 2013 are resolved, the party will begin in earnest.

We reckon that over the next few months there will be a narrow window to get precious metals at what, in retrospect, will be a bargain price.  We look for the price to rise in fits and starts from early January through March, then take off through May.  Part of this is seasonal, and part of it is the debauchery related above.  However, it is the debauchery which will punctuate the upcoming move.
We would like to take this opportunity to send you all a big hug and wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday Season from us here at the Mint!

Stay tuned and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

Key Indicators for December 21 2012

Copper Price per Lb: $3.55
Oil Price per Barrel:  $88.66
Corn Price per Bushel:  $7.02
10 Yr US Treasury Bond:  1.75%
FED Target Rate:  0.17%  ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!
Gold Price Per Ounce:  $1,657 THE GOLD RUSH IS ON!
MINT Perceived Target Rate*:  0.25%
Unemployment Rate:  7.7%
Inflation Rate (CPI):  0.1%
Dow Jones Industrial Average:  13,190
M1 Monetary Base:  $2,374,000,000,000 LOTS OF DOUGH ON THE STREET!
M2 Monetary Base:  $10,428,000,000,000

What is a Virtual CFO?

12/3/2012 Portland, Oregon - Pop in your mints…

What is a Virtual CFO?  At The Mint, we like to sum it up in the words of one of John Travolta's greatest characters, Chili Palmer from the classic Get Shorty:

"Bo Catlett: Harry called you his associate.  What exactly does that mean? I mean, I never heard your name, or read it in Variety, or The Star, or anyplace.

Chili Palmer: It's what he said, I'm his associate.

Bo Catlett: You must bring something heavy to the deal.

Chili Palmer: I do: me."

To help readers to fully grasp this captivating analogy, we have prepared the following legend to accompany the above movie quote:

Harry:  You, our client

Bo Catlett - Any banker, vendor, potential investor, potential partner, government regulator, tax collector, client, CPA, attorney, or loan shark.

Chili Palmer:  The Mint (us) as your Virtual CFO.

Associate:  The Virtual CFO.

If you need a CFO, but don't want or need to pay one full time, we're here to help.

As your Virtual CFO, we take care of your high level number problems, plain and simple.  As an entrepreneur, you know your business like the back of your hand, and you can tell by feel when things are going well, and when they are not.

However, there comes a time when every Entrepreneur begins to panic.  They understand that they have generated a flurry of activity in which money changes hands.  They may even have a vague understanding of which of their actions are profitable and which ones cost them money, on net, to perform.

The entrepreneur is also painfully aware that their time is limited.  In order to take their vision to the next level, they need to know, with absolute certainty, that what they are doing is scalable, meaning that it will continue to be profitable as it expands.

What many entrepreneurs do at this point, in the midst of this all to common panic attack, is to engage a CPA to help with their company's financial management.  The CPA, in turn, begins to bill on the order of $150 per hour as the entrepreneur passes along problems to the CPA that most well trained bookkeepers can handle, or worse, the entrepreneur begins to spend their priceless time mired in the details of the accounting of their organization.  Again, a task generally best left to the well-trained bookkeeper.

As the CPA fees begin to mount, the entrepreneur then relents and decides that they need a CFO.  They are not certain why, but they believe that this magical individual can help to reassure them that the numbers are working in their favor as well as eliminate their CPA bill.

What the unhappy entrepreneur finds, once the CFO is hired, is that not only has their CPA bill not gone away, but they now have a staff person who, all in, represents between $100,000 to $200,000 USD of direct annual costs and any number of indirect costs as they begin to hire their friends, recommend large investments in accounting software, and create incessant demands on the already overworked and underpaid, above mentioned, well-trained book keeper, the non-key position that it seems always needs to be filled by an expensive recruiting agency by someone who sees it as a stepping stone to their next gig.

As a result, the unhappy entrepreneur is left rolling the dice with the integrity of their financial data and often must resort to hiring an expensive consultant to piece together the rubble of his or her precious financial data, from which they had hoped, before the nightmare of the full time CFO began, to glean useful information from by which to guide their entrepreneurial activities.

There must be a better way.

Enter The Mint's Virtual CFO service, where we offer all of the benefits of having a CFO, without the high direct and indirect costs, which are often associated with the creation of a position that all too often morphs into a sinecure.

Our value proposition is simple:  For $1,000 each month that you engage our services, you and your company receive 10 ours of our undivided attention, with no strings or golden parachutes attached.

What will we do for you in those 10 hours each month?  Depending upon your needs, we will take the financial statements produced by your happy, well-trained bookkeeper on a monthly basis and perform one or all of the following:

- Create a detailed ratio analysis in the form of a dashboard containing ratios and other financial metrics specifically tailored to gauge your company's financial health and forward looking prospects.

- Benchmark your dashboard data against that of your competitors to the extent possible.

- Participate in on-going Strategic Planning.

- Make specific recommendations for improving profitability.

- Perform risk assessments for proposed transactions.

- Perform information systems assessments and oversight for finance, operations, and administrative systems.

- Provide a framework for and assistance in the enterprise budgeting process and create related forecasting activities.

- Create projections of results, cash flow and cash positioning.

- Assess organizational structure and create recommendations for optimization.

- Assess our company's capital structure and make recommendations for optimization.

- Perform business valuations and financial due diligence for potential acquisitions.

- Review of contracts.

- Create requests for proposals to engage banking, credit, audit, tax, accounting software, payroll software, and treasury management services to ensure you get the best value and a product that works for your company when engaging these services.

- Act as a true, independent advisor.

- Much more.

In short, as an Entrepreneur, we've got your back so that you can do what you do best.

What we don't do:

- Sign contracts on your behalf or act as a direct agent for your company (unless you explicitly request us to and then, only under parameters which you set and are comfortable with.)

- Day to day accounting entry, accounts payable, bank reconciliations, and data entry.  This is what you pay your well-trained, happy bookkeeping staff to do at a fraction of the hourly cost of our services.

- Tell you how to run your business.  You are still the boss and the one with the most skin in the game, after all!

- Take an equity stake in your company in exchange for services.  We work on a fee basis, which helps us to better help you with the objectivity required to act in your best interests.  Granting equity stakes, while ultimately being an incredibly expensive way to finance expansion, often comes with the nasty side effect of unnecessary hard feelings and, or, the destruction of your precious enterprise.  Tempting as it may be to be to get in on the ground of the next IBM, we generally advise against granting equity stakes unless it is part of a well structured and documented equity financing plan which is crystal clear to all involved.

What if I require more than 10 hours of your time?

We generally work very efficiently and strive to over deliver to every client.  At a minimum, you will receive a financial dashboard, benchmarking and ratio analysis, and a brief state of the financial union memo with recommendations and relevant forecasts. 

However, if you are contemplating a large acquisition, negotiating a merger, senior debt sale, bond issuance, or restructuring existing debt, converting a software system, etc, we will do whatever humanly possible with whatever time remains.  Anything over the allotted 10 hours we bill out at $150 per hour.

We are efficiency freaks, which is good when it comes to numbers and finance, and many production processes (save wine, cheese, and the like).  With the proper data, equipment, and communications devices, we can generally accomplish in 10 hours what many CFOs accomplish in a month.

Finally, if you need us to bring something heavy to the deal, we will help you to make sure that the deal is valuable enough to you that our $150/hr fee will be a pittance compared to what is gained by our involvement.

What industries do we serve?

Over the course of our professional career, we have had the good fortune to gain a wide variety of experience in the areas of Accounting, Finance, Information Systems, business valuation, Auditing, and Tax matters for a wide variety of companies, both for profit and non profit, in industries as varied as translation and writing to Health Services, Real Estate Development, Property Management, Social services, and packaging.  We have even done a stint in the barricade business.

Intrigued?  Contact us today for a free consultation to see if your company would be a good fit for our services.  Our joy is in your success.

After all, $1,000 a month is a small price to pay for piece of mind as your business grows.  It looks even better when you run the numbers on hiring a full time CFO.

Stay tuned and Trust Jesus.

Stay Fresh!

David Mint

Email: davidminteconomics@gmail.com

Key Indicators for December 3 2012

Copper Price per Lb: $3.63
Oil Price per Barrel:  $88.92
Corn Price per Bushel:  $7.49 
10 Yr US Treasury Bond:  1.63%
FED Target Rate:  0.16%  ON AUTOPILOT, THE FED IS DEAD!
Gold Price Per Ounce:  $1,719 THE GOLD RUSH IS ON!
MINT Perceived Target Rate*:  0.25%
Unemployment Rate:  7.9%
Inflation Rate (CPI):  0.1%
Dow Jones Industrial Average:  12,966
M1 Monetary Base:  $2,377,300,000,000 LOTS OF DOUGH ON THE STREET!
M2 Monetary Base:  $10,302,300,000,000