You may not have heard of him but he used to run a $1.4 billion unit for Sun Microsystems that dealt with federal contracts. When Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq:ORCL) later acquired Sun, Vass’ work there played a major role.

And its self-propelled water bots can travel from California to Hawaii without using a single drop of fuel.

But here’s where the big payoff comes in for investors: each bot is packed with sensors that can gather a wide range of critical data about the world’s oceans.

Believe it or not, that opens up a gigantic but little-known opportunity.

According to Vass, that potentially puts Liquid Robotics at the forefront of a $40 billion market.

And from what I can see, Vass is making all the right moves.

In fact, Vass recently launched a new unit that will target the Pentagon for sales at a time when the Navy desperately needs cheaper sources of data.

Meanwhile, just a few weeks earlier, Liquid Robotics snared both a contract and an investment from Schlumberger Ltd. (NYSE:SLB), the oil services giant with a market cap of about $100 billion.

As I see it, that means Liquid Robotics is now on a clear path to issuing shares to the public in as little as three years.

Along the way, Vass is making quite a name for himself and his firm.

For investors that’s a good thing, since it helps build the brand, keeping potential competitors at bay while adding value to any IPO down the road.

While I was on the phone with one of his reps to arrange a chat with Vass, Liquid Robotics was juggling the details of a special about tracking great white sharks that ran on the Discovery Channel.

The TV show featured the firm’s Wave Glider, the wave-powered marine robot that looks like a high-tech surfboard. The autonomous device has already set world records by covering some 13,000 nautical miles on the high seas.

My first question to Vass was why we should care about the oceans and the role his company wants to play in the marine sector.

“I think the first thing that every investor needs to understand is that about $10 trillion a year of our global economy, in one way or another, depends on the oceans,” Vass told me.

“That includes oil coming out of it or minerals or fish coming out of it or goods moving across it. And the number one thing that affects the prices of commodities today is weather. The majority of our weather is controlled by the oceans.”

“Because of the economic value of the oceans, about $40.4 billion is spent annually collecting data and doing ocean operations to manage that $10 trillion of economy.

“They mostly spend that $40 billion on ships, buoys and satellites. Those are the primary ways that data is collected from the ocean today.”

But not if Liquid Robotics has anything to say about it.

See, the firm has a set of bots that are faster, better and cheaper. They could turn the old-school systems employed today upside down.

In the defense sector, Vass notes that the U.S. and other navies need to find cheaper means of conducting surveillance, monitoring and communications. His bots aid in all three.

Not only that, they could be a boon for anti-submarine warfare. The Wave Gliders run silently, meaning the enemy can’t hear them even with advanced acoustic sensors.

Vass has already put Grant Palmer in charge of the defense unit. Palmer arrived with 32 years of defense tech experience. He formerly served as a senior executive at L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. (NYSE:LLL), a large defense firm focused on electronic systems.

And with the Schlumberger deal, Vass created Liquid Robotics Oil & Gas, a joint venture with the services giant to develop data systems for the oil and gas industry.

As Vass notes, the Wave Glider can run up to a year without fuel or the support of marine vessels. They can provide seismic and other data for oil exploration. And they can save lives because ships and other crews in this sector often work in dangerous locales.

Vass also says his decades in business have taught him that success in high tech depends on people. That’s why he’s attracted a team of all-stars to serve on his advisory board. They include:
James Gosling, creator of the Java programming language, who also works for the firm.
Scott McNealy, cofounder and former CEO of Sun Microsystems.
Ed Lu, former NASA astronaut and a leader in the New Space Race.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., attorney and environmentalist.
Chris Welsh, co-founder of Virgin Oceanic (with Sir Richard Branson).
Roger Hine, inventor of the Wave Glider who serves as the firm’s CTO. Just yesterday (Aug. 28), the World Economic Forum named Hine one of its Technology Pioneers for 2013.
Let me close by noting that Liquid Robotics is one of the reasons I remain so upbeat about the future of America.

Despite our current challenges, we still have a deep roster of entrepreneurs.

And they are bursting with energy and ideas–the kind that will make savvy investors quite rich.

One of them could be Liquid Robotics. With a new twist on a $40 billion market they just might end up with an ocean full of contracts.

This is one company to keep an eye on.

Source: Michael A. Robinson, Defense and Technology Specialist

An article in Forbes offers examples. They are everywhere. Businesses are just ignoring the rules. They hire lawyers to help them avoid the law. They are fed up with the federal squid. They are not cooperating.

This is significant for the future. The heart of every legal system is legitimacy. If the government — family, church, or civil — is viewed as legitimate, people who are under its jurisdiction cooperate. They add self-government to external systems of sanctions. If they refuse to do this, the government’s enforcement system cannot force them to obey consistently. The system does not have enough resources to enforce compliance.

At some point, the government loses its ability to gain its goals. Collecting more taxes in Greece is not possible. The Greek government can promise austerity, but it can gain this only by reducing spending, not by collective more taxes. The same is true of Spain. The same is true of Italy.

If the people who live under the regime think the regime is corrupt, they cheat. They feel no guilt. If they think a law is immoral or stupid, they refuse to cooperate. The government can do little to change this outlook, other than shrink. No government does this voluntarily.

The federal government is now at the limit of enforcement. The bureaucrats write 83,000 pages of new rules every year, yet the country changes only slowly. The bureaucrats think they are in charge. They are not.

The Tea Party is a sign that the Feds have reached limits of compliance. The harder the Feds push, the greater the resistance.

Source: Gary North

Everybody knows that China is on the move. Even despite the recent global slowdown — and despite what the naysayers may try to tell you — China’s economy is still growing more than seven times faster than America’s is.

But what most Americans do NOT know — what our media steadfastly refuses to admit — is that China is already so rich, it can now DICTATE economic policy to the world; even to the US.

According to the prestigious Peterson Institute — and based on data just published by the University of Pennsylvania: The Chinese economy will NOT surpass America’s by 2016. Nor will it happen in 2017 or even in 2020, for that matter. Peterson and the University of Pennsylvania say China is ALREADY the world’s #1 economic power.

And the thing is, they proved it.

The U.S. economy produced goods and services valued at $14.6 trillion in 2010 …
But China’s Gross Domestic Product soared to $14.8 trillion.
China’s economy is already larger than America’s.

>> The Beijing government has almost no debt …

>> But Washington has nearly $145 trillion in debt and obligations.

** China has $3.2 trillion in cash — and its cash reserves are growing ever larger, month after month …

** But Washington has almost no cash on hand and has to borrow nearly half of every dollar it spends — much of it is borrowed from China.

>> China’s total tax revenues are up nearly 30% from a year ago …

>> But Washington’s tax revenues are dramatically down due to the sluggish U.S. economy.

** The U.S. has about 160 million workers …

** China has 810 million workers — more than 5 times more than the United States.

>> 97% of all Chinese workers are employed …

>> But 14 million U.S. workers are either unemployed or underemployed.

** In China’s urban areas, wages ROSE 7.6% in 2011 — and the increase was about double that in rural areas.

** Meanwhile, inflation-adjusted wages for U.S. workers dropped 1.7%.

The investment facts are even more startling:

>> I once believed that Las Vegas topped the world when it came to luxury hotels and entertainment …
But even Vegas’ biggest and best can’t hold a candle to the world’s largest hotels and casinos in Macau.

** I just read a study by The Program for International Student Assessment that ranked Chinese students #1 in the world. American students were ranked fourteenth.

>> China’s Tianhe-1A super computer is the fastest in the world, capable of processing more than 2.5 thousand trillion calculations per second.

** And when you look at China’s military, the contrast between the two nations gets downright scary:
China has THE LARGEST ARMY IN THE WORLD — 2.2 million active-duty military personnel — 600,000 more than America has.

And while the U.S. is cutting its military expenditures, China has increased military spending every year for more than 20 years … and is still boosting it by an average of 11.8% per year.

China’s military is state-of-the-art: It just unveiled the J-20 — its first stealth fighter.

>> It also has spy satellites, modern battle tanks, aircraft carriers, nuclear attack submarines, cruise missiles, and more.

China’s nuclear arsenal is especially worrying: While the U.S. has been steadily reducing its stockpiles for nearly 30 years, China continues to build up its forces and is refusing to even begin talks on nuclear arms reduction.

** China has already begun to wage war against the dominance and value of the U.S. dollar …

For decades now, the U.S. dollar has been the world’s currency of choice. Most of the world’s central banks hold their reserves in U.S. dollars. Most international transactions have been settled in U.S. dollars.

That means there is always a high demand for dollars around the world — and as a result of that demand, the greenback has held its value more effectively than many other currencies have.

But since 2009, President Obama has spent more than $10.6 trillion, and run up trillion-dollar deficits year after year.

To fund Washington’s spending addiction, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has borrowed an estimated $4 trillion since 2009. And, Ben Bernanke — the Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve — has created nearly $8 trillion out of thin air since 2009.

U.S. dollar is already being abandoned by many countries and companies in favor of the Chinese currency — the yuan:

> Investors can now buy yuan-denominated bonds in Hong Kong.

> Caterpillar and McDonald’s recently financed their mainland China projects directly via yuan bond offerings instead of U.S. dollars.

> And China’s trade with Russia, Vietnam and Thailand is now being settled in yuan instead of U.S. dollars.

> Apple Computer is even accepting iTunes payments in yuan!

So why does Washington really want to jack up the value of the Chinese yuan? What’s the truth that Washington won’t tell you?

By RAISING the value of the Chinese yuan, Washington and China will automatically CRUSH the value of the U.S. dollar …

So Washington can repay its otherwise unpayable debts with cheaper dollars!

Washington’s only hope of avoiding default is to destroy the value of its own currency, then pay its debts back with dollars that are only a shadow of their former selves.

Plus, with a weak dollar and strong Chinese yuan, China can buy up even more of our debt and protect the massive investment it has already made in America by helping Washington avoid default.

That’s a massive “win-win” for both Washington and Beijing:

Plus, a rising yuan will once and for all solve Beijing’s #1 economic problem: Rising domestic inflation. As the yuan’s buying power rises, price inflation in China will decline dramatically.

More importantly, as the yuan’s purchasing power explodes, China will also be able to lock up even more of the world’s supply of oil, coal, steel, copper, lumber and other natural resources … to take control of thousands more companies … and to extend its economic control throughout the world.

Source: Money and Markets: Larry Elderson

The Guardian and The Huffington Post report that it could “revolutionize everything from nanosurgery to homebuilding”

In fact, Samsung already expects to have its first flexible screens out before Christmas!

I believe the biggest and earliest fortunes will be made not from the breakthrough products we’ll see coming to market over the next few years…

…but rather from the raw resources and materials needed to make them — ALL THREE of which are mined and purified right here in the U.S. and North America.

It’s for these reasons I call these three resources America’s “New Technology Materials.”

So what are America’s three “New Technology Materials”… and how can you use them to go for life-changing gains starting in as little as three months from now?

What exactly is graphene? It is a one-atom-thick sheet of densely packed carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice.

New Technology Material No.1 is graphite.

Yes, graphite — as in the stuff used to make pencil lead. And no, your pencils aren’t about to soar in value — nor have I lost my mind and “gone off the deep end.”

You see, graphite itself isn’t about to change the world…

But a newly discovered, very special REFINED form of graphite — called graphene — is.

This one material alone could prove more revolutionary than — and soon replace — plastic, Kevlar and the silicon chip.

Cooling, efficiency and computing power would reach undreamed-of performance levels — while allowing the size of computers and their components to drastically shrink.

In other words, supercomputers would have the potential to become so small they could fit in the palm of your hand.

What is the key ingredient in this amazing liquid metal mixture?

It’s New Technology Material No. 2: vanadium.

How to Grab Explosive Mining and
Manufacturing Gains All in One Shot

I’ll cut straight to the chase: It’s beryllium.

Why is beryllium a key player in the mix of breakthroughs set to trigger America’s new wave of industrial revolution?

Three reasons: It’s 30% lighter than aluminum. It’s six times stiffer than steel. And it is both nonmagnetic and nonsparking.

Because of this unique blend of properties, beryllium alloys have become vital in the manufacture of everything from CAT scanners and medical lasers… to airbag sensors… to the battery contacts in mobile phones and portable electronics.

What’s of particular interest, though, is the crucial role they play in the extraction of America’s natural resources.

Beryllium’s strength and nonsparking properties have made it indispensible in the recovery of our nation’s shale oil and shale gas…

New directional drilling techniques are allowing rig crews to tap into more and more oil and gas deposits. But to do so, they need tools that can operate reliably with electrical controls… withstand high stress and heat… and have very little tendency to spark.

Beryllium alloys offer the perfect solution: They’re strong enough to withstand the pressure. They’re durable enough to withstand the heat. They easily conduct electrical signals. And they don’t spark.

As the shale boom continues to grow, you can bet your bottom dollar that beryllium will become a hotter and hotter commodity…

Source: For more details go to Agora Financial

Spain is too big to save and too big to fail. The only way for Spanish debt to remain at 6% is for the ECB to basically buy it (or lend to Spanish banks so they can buy it, or whatever creative new program Draghi and team can think up). When Spain goes, it is just a matter of time before we lose Italy and then, yes, even France. The line must be drawn with Spain. And the only outfit with a balance sheet big enough that can also do it in a politically acceptable manner is the ECB, and the only way they can do it is with a printing press.

Will it buy time? Yes, but time for what? To fix government deficits? To deal with bank debts? Sovereign debt? To somehow solve the massive trade imbalances between Germany and the European periphery? To force voters to accept a fiscal union? In the midst of a crisis? If there is some conspiratorial cabal that has a secret plan, they have kept it well hidden. Because from here it looks like they are making up the “plan” as they go along.

Their actual intentions are no secret. They will do whatever it takes to keep the European Union and eurozone together. And whatever it takes is a very open-ended plan. But it is going to cost them trillions of euros.

Someone is going to have to pay that bar bill. And there’s going to be one helluva hangover.

We are back to TANSTAAFL: there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.

Source: John Mauldin – Waving the White Flag

There are NO exchange-traded funds or mutual funds which own Facebook at this time.

When Google went public in 2004, it was priced around $85. The shares opened that day around $100, and closed that day around $100. No one really knew what to expect. Google seemed really expensive. A year later the stock was $280. That’s a good investment.

On the negative side:
It appears difficult to really promote Facebook as a “growth stock” because it is priced at full value, already has 900 million people using Facebook, they stated in their road show that they may have “issues” monetizing mobile subscribers, in short the stock is “priced to perfection.” This implies if anything goes wrong, the stock may have some trouble.

On the positive side:
As a data mining company, no other organization (to my knowledge) has been able to wrangle so much data from individuals. From a marketing perspective, that is an extremely powerful asset. Additionally, if they can figure out a revenue based business model based on advertising, it has tremendous potential.

There are very few people who can predict what Facebook will be worth in the future.
Or will it become a marketing and ad-selling juggernaut?

Source: Mullooly Asset Management

The proliferation of affordable mobile phones has created a global paradigm shift that will give investors with vision innumerable investment opportunities.

As I discussed in an earlier article, you don’t realize it but there’s a fortune in your wallet right now. Mobile wallet technology will make you rich.

Let me explain.

Traditional wallets and purses are being replaced with smartphone “mobile wallets” that incorporate cameras, Internet connectivity, thousands of “apps” and increasingly, banking, credit and payment transaction technologies.

Knowing who the winners and losers will be in this world of tomorrow is the stuff investors’ dreams are made of.

This report is the first in a series of four articles. Consider it your first reality check. Or better yet, your wake-up call.

From it you’ll learn why the world is moving to mobile wallets, how we’ll all get there, and when.

More importantly, you’ll be primed for making investment decisions on hardware device makers, on network providers, and on what software solutions will be most in demand.

You’ll be able to weigh the future of banks and banking, credit and debit card issuers, and their love-hate relationship with powerful non-bank commerce facilitators.

You’ll be able to picture how some merchants will profit more than others, and what impact social media will have on commerce and payment schemes.

You’ll understand what the singularly most important question is that hangs over our digital future: who will own, control and profit from the data that drives everything.

You will be able to glimpse what the big security issues will be and how to profit from them as well.

You will recognize who the giants are now, who are the up-and-coming giants, and who will be the likely giant killers.

You’ll understand the importance of interoperability and what that means to creating economies of scale.

And you will be able to see how an evolving regulatory environment will change fortunes.

Above all, you will be tuned in and abreast of the changing dynamics and investment opportunities in this brave new world.

At its core, it is about change.

Source: Capital Waves Strategies

As prices fell, TV pundits immediately paraded the usual suspects. They cited disappointing U.S. job figures, renewed concerns over European debt in general, and the Spanish situation in particular, while so-called “analysts” clamored over a possible double-dip recession.

These concerns are not new, nor are they revelations.

Plus, the essential reasons why the price should be moving in the opposite direction – namely up – haven’t gone anywhere. The constriction produced by supply/demand considerations remain, and the insufficient volume available to meet unexpected demand surges and the geopolitical environment – especially the impending European boycott of Iranian crude imports – remain in full force.

The overall market dynamics still point strongly to a rise in price.

Yet the overall movement of crude oil futures has remained peculiarly restrained. In fact, WTI has given back 6.1% in the past week, and some 2.7% for the month.

Here’s what’s really happening… see more details.

Do you call this currency Australian Dollar or Australina Yuan? The same applies to the New Zealand Dollar or Yuan.

Besides all the exciting and potentially damaging political news flowing from China, we got some other surprising news that suggests growth in the region is likely worse off than many now believe.

The bad news came from the two major Western commodity-based currency nations in the region — Australia and New Zealand. This news may be confirming the technical picture for both currencies: Both appear vulnerable and could soon tumble. Let’s take a look …

I often refer to Australia as a satellite country of China given the inordinate amount of its growth driven by Chinese raw materials demand. The central bank there — Reserve Bank of Australia — cut interest rates by 50 basis points. Traders were expecting a rate cut, but only 25 basis points. The Aussie plunged on the news.

And here’s what Reserve Bank Governor Glen Stevens had to say:

“This decision is based on information received over the past few months that suggests that economic conditions have been somewhat weaker than expected, while inflation has moderated.

“In Australia, output growth was somewhat below trend over the past year, notwithstanding that growth in domestic demand ran at its fastest pace for four years.”

This almost sounds tame when you consider housing prices in Australia are starting to accelerate lower, unemployment is rising, and the latest Purchasing Manager’s Index (PMI) for both manufacturing and services are contracting!

I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say the latest deceleration in China’s economic growth is hitting Australia hard. And the Aussie is feeling the pressure, approaching a key support level — 1.0221

The Kiwi is the name currency traders use for the New Zealand dollar. The Kiwi got hit hard on Thursday on surprisingly bad employment news. New Zealand’s unemployment rate rose to 6.7 percent from 6.3 percent. Most analysts thought the unemployment rate would remain unchanged.

Economists are now expecting a rate cut by the New Zealand central bank when they meet in June. But traders aren’t waiting for June … they sold the Kiwi on Thursday.

Based on the commodity-currencies in Asia, it appears economic growth is clearly decelerating. If this proves true, both the Aussie and Kiwi could have plenty of room left to fall against the U.S. dollar given that both currencies have enjoyed the “Asian risk premium” for years.

Source: moneyandmarkets.com

Since the transistor was invented at Bell Labs in New Providence, NJ, back in 1947, the U.S. has vaulted ahead of the rest of the world at every major high-tech milestone.

In the 1960s, for the first time people started using basic electronic calculators to perform addition and multiplication functions.

According to early reports, Google could hit the market with these glasses by the end of 2012. But let me be blunt about one thing. Cynics have blasted Google over this project. They note that the Web giant has made no promise it will ever release the glasses.

That’s true. But it misses the big-picture view.

Even if Google shelves its “Project Glass,” I predict that someone else will quickly step in to fill the void. And that option could turn out to be the better bet for investors.

After all, with its $200 billion market cap Google is such a big company that these glasses, as cool as they are, may not move the stock’s price all that much.

Either way, however, we win.

If Google Glasses do hit the market in time for the holiday, then we can all go out and grab a pair. If not, then we can look for a small-cap leader that’s gearing up to bring them (or something similar) to market and then invest in that company.

In that case, what we hope for as tech investors is a firm like InvenSense Inc. (NYSE: INVN).

This is a small-cap leader that makes motion sensors used in a wide range of electronics, including smartphones equipped with Google’s Android operating system.

Even after a huge recent sell off, the stock has returned more than 35% so far this year. Compared with Google’s year-to-date loss of about 6%, InvenSense is on fire.

As it turns out, there are two small companies on my radar screen with products in the same space as Google’s glasses.

Source: Money Morning

Imagine if we could squeeze that whole process into just a few months… a few weeks… or even a few days. Because that’s exactly what could be happening.

At least a half-dozen labs and companies are working on this, right now.

If they get it right, we could literally “make” as much gas for your car as you need. We could makefuel for planes, trains, and diesel trucks this way too.

All without drilling wells orfighting Middle East wars, ever again.

It’s coming.

In fact, America’s biggest oil company has already invested $300 million.

And the U.S. Department of Energy says that if this works… we could replace all U.S. oil and gas demand using this single, revolutionary process.

Find out more by clicking here Technology Profits Confidential and learn these 6 breakthroughs:

#1: The End of Oil Shortages Forever?
How “Pond Scum” Could Soon Power Your Car

#2: Why It’s Time to Throw Out Your Laptop?
You’ll Never Need to “Save” a File Again

#3: The “Smart Bomb” Drug That Could.
Soon End Cancer Worries Forever

#4: How “Nano-Medicine” Could Soon.
Save Your Life and Make You Millions

#5: The NEW Biotech Wealth Explosion From Now Till 2014.
Over 1,600 Breakthrough Drug Patents!

#6: What if You Could Collect a “Royalty” on Almost Every Mobile Device Sold This Year?

This is the video of the day: Reagan VS Obama Social Economics 101.

Harland “Colonel” Sanders was almost dead broke at age 65.

He used his first Social Security check of $105 to investigate ways to “sell” his special fried chicken recipe.

A year later, he incorporated Kentucky Fried Chicken as a franchiser!

Sanders sold his stake in the company 8 years later while in his mid-70’s for $2 million.

He ended up living out his golden years with enough money to enjoy retirement … and create several charitable foundations.

Colonel Sanders may be the most famous entrepreneur who started later in life, but he certainly isn’t alone.

While Sanders, who died in 1980, may be the ultimate example of an older entrepreneur who struck it rich, Ken Budd, the executive editor of AARP, the magazine, says that seeking business success in one’s golden years is especially common among today’s Baby Boomer generation.

“They’re focusing on possibilities and opportunities and redefining what it means to be old,” Budd said.

Nearly one in three business owners are older than 55, according to a 2006 U.S. Census Bureau survey.

“The idea that you’re just going to retire at 65 is becoming an outdated notion,” Budd said. “It’s more that time when people say, ‘I’m going to do that thing I’ve always dreamed about.’”

Source: abcnews.go.com/Business/Retirement

The Scarcity Mentality is the zero-sum paradigm of life. People with a Scarcity Mentality have a very difficult time sharing recognition and credit, power or profit – even with those who help in the production. The also have a a very hard time being genuinely happy for the success of other people.

The Abundance Mentality, on the other hand, flow out of a deep inner sense of personal worth and security. It is the paradigm that there is plenty out there and enough to spare for everybody. It results in sharing of prestige, of recognition, of profits, of decision making. It opens possibilities, options, alternatives, and creativity.

Utilities are great, aren’t they? Most of us across the globe have water on tap and electricity at a click of a switch – once dreaming of running water (the Romans) and fridges (our grandmothers) these little amenities have become readily abundant and used in our lives daily.

What next do we, humanity, need? With life’s amenities behind us and technology supporting us aren’t we in a terrifyingly beautiful position of being able to dream BIG? With a life span which has doubled over the generations, human beings, today have a unique opportunity to make a life of infinite possibilities.

Peter Diamandis in his recent TED Talks “Abundance is our future” discusses his confidence for the future. Isn’t that reassuring after all the news we have on the oil crisis, war, food stocks and changing climate patterns? Peter highlights the tools, the money and the 3 billion new minds which can make the dreams for humanity bigger, united and abundant.

Are you one of the 3 billion new minds who can participate and contribute to the global conversation on humanity? Are you up for the challenge? If so check out Peter’s Talk! and Peter Diamandis’s Book.

Diamandis Laws:
1. When forced to compromise, ask for more.
2. If it’s worth doing, it’s got to be done right now.
3. If you can’t win, change the rules.
4. If you can’t change the rules, then ignore them.
5. When faced without a challenge, make one.
6. “No” simply means begin again at one level higher
7. Patience is a virtue, but persistence to the point of success is a blessing.
8. The best way to predict the future is to create it yourself!
9. You get what you incentivize.
10. If you think it is impossible, then it is… for you.
11. The day before something is a breakthrough, it’s a crazy idea.
12. Without a target you’ll miss it every time.
13. If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.
14. The world’s most precious resource is the passionate and committed human mind.

After all, the American people now owe the Chinese government nearly $1.5 trillion. This could be the Currency War of 2012 and beyond.

I know big numbers don’t mean much to most people, but keep in mind… this tab is now hundreds of billions of dollars more than what the U.S. government collects in ALL income taxes (both corporate and individual) each year. It’s basically a sum we can never, ever hope to repay – at least, not by normal means.

Of course, the Chinese aren’t stupid. They realize we are both trapped.

We are stuck with an enormous debt we can never realistically repay… And the Chinese are trapped with an outstanding loan they can neither get rid of, nor hope to collect. So the Chinese government is now taking a secret and somewhat radical approach.

China has recently put into place a covert plan to get back as much of its money as possible – by extracting colossal sums from both the United States government and ordinary citizens, like you and me.

The Chinese “State Administration of Foreign Exchange” (SAFE) is now engaged in a full-fledged currency war with the United States. The ultimate goal – as the Chinese have publicly stated – is to create a new dominant world currency, dislodge the U.S. dollar from its current reserve role, and recover as much of the $1.5 trillion the U.S. government has borrowed as possible.

Lucky for us, we know what’s going to happen. And we even have a pretty good idea of how it will all unfold. How do we know so much? Well, this isn’t the first time the U.S. has tried to stiff its foreign creditors.

Most Americans probably don’t remember this, but our last big currency war took place in the 1960s. Back then, French President Charles de Gaulle denounced the U.S. government policy of printing overvalued U.S. dollars to pay for its trade deficits… which allowed U.S. companies to buy European assets with dollars that were artificially held up in value by a gold peg that was nothing more than an accounting fiction. So de Gaulle took action…

In 1965, he took $150 million of his country’s dollar reserves and redeemed the paper currency for U.S. gold from Ft. Knox. De Gaulle even offered to send the French Navy to escort the gold back to France. Today, this gold is worth about $12 billion.

Keep in mind… this occurred during a time when foreign governments could legally redeem their paper dollars for gold, but U.S. citizens could not. And France was not the only nation to do this… Spain soon redeemed $60 million of U.S. dollar reserves for gold, and many other nations followed suit. By March 1968, gold was flowing out of the United States at an alarming rate.

By 1950, U.S. depositories held more gold than had ever been assembled in one place in world history (roughly 702 million ounces). But to manipulate our currency, the U.S. government was willing to give away more than half of the country’s gold.

It’s estimated that during the 1950s and early 1970s, we essentially gave away about two-thirds of our nation’s gold reserves… around 400 million ounces… all because the U.S. government was trying to defend the U.S. dollar at a fixed rate of $35 per ounce of gold.

In short, we gave away 400 million ounces of gold and got $14 billion in exchange. Today, that same gold would be worth $620 billion… a 4,330% difference.

Incredibly stupid, wouldn’t you agree? This blunder cost the U.S. much of its gold hoard.

When the history books are finally written, this chapter will go down as one of our nation’s most incompetent political blunders. Of course, as is typical with politicians, they managed to make a bad situation even worse…

The root cause of the weakness in the U.S. dollar was easy to understand. Americans were consuming far more than they were producing. You could see this by looking at our government’s annual deficits, which were larger than ever and growing… thanks to the gigantic new welfare programs and the Vietnam “police action.” You could also see this by looking at our trade deficit, which continued to get bigger and bigger, forecasting a dramatic drop (eventually) in the value of the U.S. dollar.

Of course, economic realities are never foremost on the minds of politicians – especially not Richard Nixon’s. On August 15, 1971, he went on live television before the most popular show in America (Bonanza) and announced a new plan…

The U.S. gold window would close effective immediately – and no nation or individual anywhere in the world would be allowed to exchange U.S. dollars for gold. The president announced a 10% surtax on ALL imports! Such tariffs never accomplish much in terms of actually altering the balance of trade, as our trading partners simply put matching charges on our exports. So what actually happens is just less trade overall, which slows the whole global economy, making the impact of inflation worse.

Of course, Nixon pitched these moves as patriotic, saying: “I am determined that the American dollar must never again be a hostage in the hands of international speculators.”

The “sheeple” cheered, as they always do whenever something is done to “stop the speculators.” But the joke was on them. Within two years, America was in its worst recession since WWII… with an oil crisis, skyrocketing unemployment, a 30% drop in the stock market, and soaring inflation. Instead of becoming richer, millions of Americans got a lot poorer, practically overnight.

And that brings us to today…

Roughly 40 years later, the United States is in the middle of another currency war. But this time, our main adversary is not Europe. It’s China. And this time, the situation is far more serious. Our nation and our economy are already in an extremely fragile state. In the 1960s, the American economy was growing rapidly, with decades of expansion still to come. That’s not the case today.

This new currency war with China will wreak absolute havoc on the lives of millions of ordinary Americans, much sooner than most people think. It’s critical over the next few years for you to understand exactly what the Chinese are doing, why they are doing it, and the near-certain outcome.

In tomorrow’s essay, I’ll explain the rest of the story… and what it means for you as an investor.

In June 2012, China has announced plans to open something called the Pan Asia Gold Exchange (PAGE).

This is basically a direct competitor to the London Metals Exchange and the COMEX in New York.

The way things work right now, the futures market in London “fixes” the spot price of gold each morning and afternoon, based on trading in London and on America’s COMEX market.

But both of these markets back gold contracts with only 10% of the actual metal. The new China PAGE market could have a much larger gold backing, and could forever change the way gold is traded.

How China’s Secret Gold Plan Will Affect You

To me, it is now abundantly clear that China is accumulating so much gold for two simple purposes…
#1. First, they want to diversify as much of their foreign reserves as possible away from U.S. dollars and other devalued currencies, which are backed by nothing but a foreign government promise.

#2. And second, China wants to establish a world-class currency, backed by as much gold as possible, which can eventually be integral to the world of international trade… and perhaps even become the world’s top “reserve currency” one day soon.

I think it’s going to continue to drive gold prices higher… much higher in the years to come. And it’s going to make some gold investments extremely lucrative over the next few years.

Source: Porter Stansberry S&A Investment Research

Over the past two centuries, every great leap forward has been driven by a corresponding technological advance related to energy.
Coal — along with the steam engine and the transcontinental railroad — catapulted the economy into the new industrial age.
Electricity lit up the nation’s cities, transformed communications and set off a chain reaction of inventions, innovations and changes that continue to this day.

Gasoline and the internal combustion engine drove the next great fuel revolutions, as Henry Ford began to mass produce the Model T.
Each of these energy revolutions was sparked by a new technology.
Each was powered by a new source of fuel.
And each made early investors wealthy beyond their wildest dreams …

• J.P. Morgan and The Railroad Revolution

J.P. Morgan amassed a fortune of about $1.3 billion, approximately equivalent to $28 billion today.

• The Electric Revolution and the Making of a Giant

Adjusting for the subsequent growth in the U.S. economy, Vanderbilt’s fortune at the time of his death would be equal to approximately $143 billion today.

Rockefeller founded the Standard Oil Company and pioneered vertical integration for the industry, controlling development, refining, distribution and marketing. Plus, at the same time, he also integrated the industry horizontally — investing in other, related fuels.
Within a decade, his companies had achieved a virtual monopoly over the industry, emerging as the largest corporate empire in the entire world. How much would his fortune be worth in today’s dollars? Approximately $700 billion, far more than any other individual ever.

We have every reason to believe that crude oil simply cannot continue to be the primary fuel source of energy in this century.
Fortunately, however, there is an alternative, and I’m not talking about a utopian vision of solar or wind power.

Source: Money and Markets

The Great Energy Reversal

Change No. 1: It moves the U.S. market from a price-taker to a price-setter.

Change No. 2: Having sufficient domestic volume makes us less susceptible to pricing spikes.

Change No. 3: (and most important): Crude is no longer “the fuel of choice.”

Now, this is not going to happen overnight. The domestic replacement of reliance upon some of the crude oil and oil products import volume will not be inexpensive or quick.

The international stage will still pressure both prices and availability.

But, as we roll out this new energy balance, what happens here in America will have a greater determining factor in our market pricing and value.

Source: Energy Advantage

No, it’s not any of those things (although you can make great arguments for all of them, and many of them do contribute in some way.)

So what is it?

The magical #1 predictor of your future wealth is…
Your “savings”!

It’s true…that magical number between how much you produce on this planet and how much you consume on this planet (or how much you earn vs. how much you spend) is the single-most important predictor of your future wealth.

What You Produce – What You Consume = “Savings”

(And hopefully that “Savings” is a positive number!)

But wait a minute…what does “savings” have to do with the Maker Faire and with creativity and creation?

Let me show you…but first I need to go all kung fu on that horrid word, “savings”.

When most people think of “savings” they think of only the right half of the equation—“What You Consume” (or how to save on your expenses). They struggle over their budget, clip coupons to save on grocery expenses, pack their lunch instead of eating out, and otherwise try to be frugal.

This is not a bad thing, necessarily, but it is only half of the equation!

What You Produce – What You Consume = ?

It is time to redefine “savings”, much like Robert Kiyosaki redefined “assets” and “liabilities”.

(He said assets are things that put money into your pockets, and liabilities are things that take money out of your pockets, hence why your home is not an asset. Any homeowner will tell you just how expensive a house really is and how much money gets sucked out of your pocket each month to pay your mortgage, property taxes, insurance, maintenance, remodeling expenses, and on and on!)

On the same note, “savings” doesn’t fully explain the magic number equation, either—when you are “saving” money you are simply “not spending” it—it completely ignores the entire producing and earning and income side of the equation!

So, we need a new word to describe that magic number that is such an important predictor of your future wealth, one that accurately represents both sides of the equation, not just “expenses”.

Something like…

What You Produce – What You Consume = Your Stored Value

(or maybe Your Wealth Chest!)

You should constantly be trying to maximize your stored value, both by creating more value and helping more people (which will earn you more income) and by saving on your expenses. (Both Yin and Yang are equally important!)

Hopefully, you are creating immense value for others by solving their problems, whether you own your own business and solve your customers’ problems or whether you have a job and solve problems for your employer, and hopefully you aren’t consuming more value than you’re producing. (But if you are, fear not…heck, even the government is trillions of dollars in debt!)

So what is then left over from all of this awesome value you’ve created and not spent?

Why the value you’re storing for the future, of course– your stored value, your wealth chest, the money that will become your investing capital and build your future wealthy empire!

I have to be honest with you—I almost titled this article “What to Do if You Suck at Saving Money”, and I hope by now the answer is clear—don’t focus just on “saving” (which is really “how not to spend money” or “how to save money on your expenses by paying for them more cheaply”). Instead, focus on your income, too—on creating value for other people, just like the Makers do!

And then, store up all of that extra value you’ve created by helping other people (congratulations!) and build your awesome wealthy empire!

Source: kungfufinance.com

I’ve found it’s much easier to get a gangbuster designer than it is finding a great programmer. The biggest reason there is PROOF that they are good. Like many of you mentioned, you can’t really tell how good a programmer is by looking at a picture.

I can tell if you someone’s design is good or not in 2 seconds. I look for style, uniqueness and the over aesthetic. You can’t see code quality in a picture.

The good news is this: All of these problems can be solved. Remember, you are dealing with the same pool of people that me (and everyone else that finds great programmers) are dealing with, so please don’t fall into the negative mindset that “all the good guys are taken”.

This is simply NOT TRUE.

Right now there are 22,819 game developers and 40,669 app developers JUST on odesk.

So, how do we dig through 50,000 people to find someone good?!

I’ve got a system that’s worked great for me. I just hired two more programmers full time from an outsource site last week and they are starting July 1st. They are phenomenal programmers and super awesome guys. One of them is a game server specialist and the other one a cocos2d master. This will put my team up to 5 full time employees and about 5 part time.

My full time guys are all AAA top notch producers that could rival the best. We push out amazing products faster than about anyone else I know for our team size, but it hasn’t all been roses and cherries. I’ve spent over $40,000 on outsource sites and hire all sorts of people. Good, bad, horrible and awesome.

After 2 years of doing this, I’ve developed a specific way of doing things. Here’s how I now consistently hire good guys:

The Ad

I write ads quickly (You’re about to see a very common thread in all of this. To move quickly. This starts with the ad. I keep my ads short and sweet. I rarely discuss project details and put a focus on the fact that the project is unique and it will turn into something amazing. Usually I write an ad in one pass and it takes about 5-6 minutes)

I never search for someone, I only hire people that respond to an ad. (This reason is simple… people that respond to your ad are hungry for work and interested in what you are doing. Two very important things)

I post ads like CRAZY (I post on multiple sites and post multiple times. Sometimes I will post an ad even when I’m not actively looking, just to see whose out there. Last week I posted 3 ads and had some amazing people reply. I didn’t hire any of them. They were great but not PERFECT. I am not scared to post 10 ads before hiring someone. Seriously, I’m psycho about this. Whenever I talk to someone who is having problems, 99% of the time they’ve posted just a few ads and haven’t found someone. Think about it this way, if every time I hire someone I go through 200 people and you go through 20, who do you think will end up with the best guy?)

I ALWAYS go with my gut (Why didn’t I hire anyone from last weeks posting even though some seemed really good? Different reasons. Some seemed good not great. Others didn’t reply to me quick enough when I messaged them. Some I talked to on skype but they kept me waiting for a few minutes between interview questions. If it’s not perfect, I move on)

I move quickly (I don’t spend much time on each one, I am quick to hide someone if they don’t look perfect. It’s better to scan 200 people quickly than review 20 people slowly)

I don’t get bogged down (Ok, this is basically the same thing as moving quickly, but this is the biggest issue I see people having. I really want to drill this down. If you think it’s a pain in the ass to post a bunch of jobs or to go through a lot of people, then you are not moving quick enough. You have to cover a lot of ground fast and look for diamonds in the rough)

The Interview

If they don’t respond quickly during an interview, I close the interview immediately (I don’t wait around for 3 minutes every time they are responding. I can’t stand that. If that happens I just tell them it’s not working out and move on)

If they are sarcastic or a smart ass, I close it immediately (This one baffles me. I’d say about 1 out of 7 programmers I interview ends up being sarcastic or shows a bit of attitude. I will never understand it but if that happens I immediately tell them it’s not working out and move on. Don’t be scared to turn someone down. I always just say “Look, it’s not personal but I don’t think this is working out. Thanks though.” Rarely will they even ask why. If they do, I just say that I’m talking with another guy that is better suited.)

I dive deep into their answers (This is huge for you guys. First off I always question people about their talent. I ask them point blank how good are they. Could they make a game like this or that… what is the extent of their ability. I might not know all the programming lingo, but I know how to ask them “Could you make a 3D shooter game?” or “Would you know how to create the server part of a turn based game?”. I let them know it’s OK to answer no, that I am just trying to find out what all they are comfortable with. If they say yes, I don’t just end it. I say “Ok cool, how would you do it?”. Then if they say I would use python I say “Is python hard, I don’t know it. Is it common to use? Is it scalable?”. I dig and dig and dig and dig until I can tell they are either very competent or they are BSing. The secret is the word “HOW”… no matter what they say you can always ask HOW is that done)

I actually PLAY their previous games (I have never hired someone without first trying out one of their games and making sure it’s not a buggy mess)

I only hire people that I bond with(If we don’t get along, I don’t hire them. I want someone with a similar personality. This is someone you will spend a LOT of time with so it really helps if both of you bond during the interview. Again, go with your gut, if you get ANY weird feelings then don’t hire them EVER)

If I am unsure of either price or their ability, I just offer a SMALL PORTION of the project (Ok, at this point in my career I don’t have to do this much, but I have done it in the past and it will help some of the newbies here. If you are really unsure about someone but think it might be YOUR lack of knowledge and not them, then hire them to do 1/4 of the project at a set price. If you are making a jumping game, get them to make a rough prototype with nothing but a bouncing circle jumping on rectangles. If it’s a running game get them to make a circle that runs and jumps over squares. Anything super simple like this should take a matter of 2-3 days max for a rough demo. Pay them for that if they deliver on time and then work out a deal for the rest of the project. Guys, if you are scared to jump in with someone this tip is REALLY strong. It works well)

Regardless, ALWAYS go full price and not hourly (Man, I used to always go hourly until a couple of times it cost me thousands. Always demand them to look at the project as a whole and give you a price. If the price is to high, then negotiate with them and cut features. They will always negotiate with you. I try to pay $500-$1000 for a cheap game and $2000-$3000 for a solid title. If I’m going to make a high end title then I always hire them full time after testing them out on a cheap or medium game and do it internally. Again, making a big title with an inexperienced person is a nightmare. This completely avoids that from ever happening)

Don’t pay anything until first prototype (Not only do I always do full pay, I also don’t give any money until they’ve done a prototype. Giving money before work has caused to many problems in the past)

5 main traits to hire outsourcers

Ok, so that’s 12 tips I use when hiring people. The sites I like best are eLance, Odesk, Freelancer and Vworker.

Something just hit me while I was writing this article. I realized that I knew all 5 of my full time employees were going to be COMPLETE badasses before I hired them. When I found their profile and talked to them on skype, I immediately knew they would be great. I knew they would be A TEAM guys.

They all had these things in common:

1. They responded quickly.

2. They were very knowledgeable.

3. They were respectful.

4. They were passionate. They LOVED making games.

5. They wanted to be a part of something big.

There is a theory in Silicon Valley of 10X engineers. Guys who can deliver 10X the results of a regular engineer. All my full time guys are 10X guys. Designers and programmers… and I knew they would be from the start.

Now, that said, I haven’t mentioned the 30 other people I hired and don’t use anymore. They are not ALL going to be 10X’ers… actually MOST will not, but I bet when you find them, you’ll know it immediately.

The most important thing is don’t get bogged down. Do quick passes and stop when someone really sticks out. If you don’t find someone you like the first few times, then post again.

I told some friends last year the best thing I’ve learned in business is to PLOW THROUGH. If you hit a speed bump, then don’t stop. If you have a bad batch of applicants 3 different times, then don’t start worrying. Just plow through every obstacle until you’ve met your goal.

Source: Trey Smith

Some people think so. And they’ve let the media know. But you’ll understand exactly why Capitalism don’t in a moment.

First, here’s a couple comments we’ve received lately:

I am not paying for information that you should be helping with for free.
This is wrong. Shame on you.
And here’s another:

I’m considering becoming a member of your group, but I have a question. I have been concerned about the “fear-tactics” of the newsletters, and I’m glad that you addressed this today. But I want to know, if you are doing this because you care about people who are financially unprepared for the disaster you see coming, why are you charging for membership at all? Why not just give the information away to as many people as possible for free? … Something’s amiss here, what gives?

At first, the argument both readers make seems logical. The line of reasoning goes like this:
University has information that will help people avoid the coming financial meltdown.
University information could save people from losing all their money.
University wants to help people with this information.
Therefore, University should give away the information for free.

Seems logical, right? After all, how caring is it to withhold such vital information?
Or actually charge money for it. Shame on us!
But let’s stop right there…

Take a deep breath … and look at this argument a little more critically.

First, let’s see how this argument applies to other professions. Say, for example, doctors.

A doctor has knowledge and information that could be vital to your future physical well-being. In fact, it could be the difference between life and death.

Using the logic of our critics, doctors should therefore give all consultations for free, right? Shame on them for charging money for their services!

Oops. Now the logic isn’t so airtight, huh?
“But wait …” you say. “That’s different!”
No, actually, it’s not.

You see, every University is a business. We’re in business to make money. Just like any doctor or lawyer or accountant you might hire.
You pay those professionals for their expertise. Their guidance. Their knowledge.
But it’s Just Information…

Yes, it’s “just” information. But the information these professionals have can change your life.
Doctors, lawyers, accountants. They’re in business to help you. They are ready and willing to give you the life-changing information you need.

But it’s not their responsibility to give it to you for free.
In fact, their information is SO valuable, they charge a lot for it.

And people are willing to pay for information that adds value to their life.

Same thing with any University. They trade their knowledge and information for your money. All you have at graduation is a piece of paper that says you have a degree.

Which means you’ve acquired some knowledge. Accumulated information. And learned how to sift through it all and apply it.

It’s just information, but it can be incredibly valuable for securing a high-paying job.

We at The University Group have valuable information. It can change your life. Help you avert financial doom. Teach you how to prosper in good times and bad.
It’s so valuable, we charge for it.
And we believe it’s worth every penny.

Maybe Chuck’s Story Can Help You Understand

In case you’re still not sure you should have to pay for valuable information, here’s a little story that may help…

Chuck worked for years as the head maintenance technician at a large manufacturing plant. His job was to keep the old production machines running smoothly … and he was very good at it.

He knew the machinery inside and out.

The company was eventually sold, and the new owner wanted to cut costs. He noticed the equipment hadn’t broken down in years. “Why do I need Chuck?” he thought. So he fired Chuck.

Everything went smoothly for a couple months. The new owner was patting himself on the back for having made such a wise decision.

But then the most important machine in the plant suddenly broke down. All production came to a halt.

The new owner panicked. He was losing thousands of dollars by the minute.

The plant was full of idle workers … but nobody had any idea how to fix the big machine.

Everyone said the only one who knew how to repair that machine was Chuck.

With reluctance, the owner called Chuck and asked him to take a look.

“Sure. I’d be happy to come in and help you out,” said Chuck. “But I’m in business for myself now as a consultant. And I charge $60 an hour for my time, charged by the minute.”

The owner agreed and asked Chuck to come take a look.
Chuck showed up to the plant within the hour. He pulled a hammer out of his toolbox and began lightly tapping parts here and there.
After about a minute, he stopped. He cocked his ear and lightly tapped the same place three more times.

Then, with a purposeful stare, he reared back the hammer and gave the machine a mighty whack.
The machine started right up. And everyone went back to work.
Chuck replaced the hammer in his toolbox and wiped his hands.
Without a word he pulled out a pad of paper and a pen. He neatly wrote out this simple invoice:
Repair of equipment … $10,000.

“Ten thousand dollars?!?” sputtered the owner. “All you did was whack the machine with a hammer! That’s outrageous! You said you charged $60 an hour. I demand an itemization of all your work.”

Chuck took back the invoice, retrieved the pen from his shirt pocket, and scribbled a few words on the paper. He handed the invoice back.
Here’s what he wrote:

ITEMIZATION OF CHARGES
One minute of time to tap the machine … $1
Knowing exactly where and how hard to whack it … $9,999

The Take Away
It’s a fictitious story, but it drives home an important point.
Information and expertise are valuable.
Chuck had it. The owner didn’t. Without it, the owner was losing thousands of dollars by the minute.
It wasn’t Chuck’s responsibility to give it to him for free. His fee was a bargain compared to the alternative.

The University Group has valuable information. We have priceless expertise.

And we’re not shy about charging money for it. In fact, we believe it’s worth much more than we charge.
But we make it affordable enough for everyone.
Obviously, it’s your choice whether you want to pay us for the information we have or not. It’s your money.

You might be able to figure it all out on your own. And if you decide to go that route, we wish you the best of luck.

Frankly, we think you’ll need it.
Of course, we’d much rather have you join us … because we don’t leave our own financial future to luck.
We study trends. We hire experts. We pay for technology. We buy financial expertise and information. We pay employees a fair wage. We package the information up in easy-to-digest formats.

In short, we run a business and it costs money.

Nevertheless, we understand your reluctance to trust us. There are lots of people in the financial world shouting for attention. They all claim to have the answers. We understand your confusion.

That’s why we are currently reaching out with our daily emails. We want to give you something of value. We want to earn your trust.
Let Us Prove Our Worth
But the simplest way to test us out is by giving us an honest test-run. You get a full 30 day money-back trial period to go through the entire member’s area.

If our specialized information and Rolodex of connections doesn’t thrill you, we want you to let us know.
We’ll either make it right, or give your money back. No questions asked. And we can still be friends.
Fair enough?

If you have any doubts at all about the value of an EVG membership, give us a try today.

Go through the information. Put it to work. It’s incredibly powerful stuff. Life-changing. Valuable.
And we’re confident that it’s worth every penny you’ll pay for it. Guaranteed.
Join The Elevation Group Now

A Final Note on Giving Stuff Away

Please don’t think that The Elevation Group is just about making money. We also feel it’s our responsibility to give back to society.
Part of that is through charitable giving, and it’s a huge part of the larger Elevation Group vision.
We’ll be sharing more information in the months ahead, but Mike and Robert’s trip to Necker Island in April to meet with Richard Branson was incredibly productive in this area.
Diary entry #6 in our membership site gives a nice introduction to this part of our vision for the future.
We hope you’ll give us a try so you can read all about it:
Become an Elevation Group Member Today

There was a time, not long ago, when you could sum up each company quite neatly: Apple made consumer electronics, Google ran a search engine, Amazon was a web store, and Facebook was a social network. How quaint that assessment seems today.

The four American companies that have come to define 21st-century information technology and entertainment are on the verge of war. Over the next two years, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google will increasingly collide in the markets for mobile phones and tablets, mobile apps, social networking, and more. This competition will be intense. Each of the four has shown competitive excellence, strategic genius, and superb execution that have left the rest of the world in the dust.

Jeff Bezos, who was ahead of the curve in creating a cloud data service, is pushing Amazon into digital media, book publishing, and, with his highly buzzed-about new line of Kindle tablets, including the $199 Fire, a direct assault on the iPad. Amazon almost doubled in size from 2008 to 2010, when it hit $34 billion in annual revenue; analysts expect it to reach $100 billion in annual revenue by 2015, faster than any company ever.

Facebook, meanwhile, is now more than just the world’s biggest social network; it is the world’s most expansive enabler of human communication. It has changed the ways in which we interact (witness its new Timeline interface); it has redefined the way we share–personal info, pictures (more than 250 million a day), and now news, music, TV, and movies. With access to the “Likes” of more than 800 million people, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has an unequaled trove of data on individual consumer behavior that he can use to personalize both media and advertising.

1. The Road Map: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google do not talk about their plans. Coca-Cola would tweet its secret formula before any of them would even hint at what’s next. “That is a part of the magic of Apple,” says new CEO Tim Cook.

2. The Inevitable War: Hardware. Media. Data. With each company sharing a vision dependent on these three big ideas, conflict over pretty much every strategic move seems guaranteed. Amazon, for example, needs a better media tablet to drive more customers to its Kindle, MP3, and app stores. But how to avoid an HP-like disaster?

3. The Profit Game: Late in 2010, Jobs made a surprise visit to Apple’s quarterly earnings call. The purported reason was to celebrate Apple’s first $20 billion quarter, but Jobs clearly had something else on his mind: Android. At the time, Google’s free mobile operating system was beginning to eclipse the iPhone’s market share.

4. The Living Room: In the spring of 2010, Rishi Chandra, a Google product manager, took to the stage at the company’s developer conference to announce Google’s next victim: the TV business.

5. The Phone Barrier: One industry stands directly between the Fab Four and global domination. It’s an industry that frustrates you every day, one that consistently ranks at the bottom of consumer satisfaction surveys, that poster child for stifling innovation and creativity: your phone carrier. And your cable or DSL firm. For Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google, the world’s wireless and broadband companies are a blessing and a curse.

Source: So, who will win in 2012?

Michel didn’t like the school system a.k.a. the mind prison.

Look at these negative suggestions that are drilled into you in the public school system and college and tell me how much freedom, curiosity and joy they inspire…

Learning means hard work…

Learning means trying hard…

Learning creates pain…

Learning requires concentrated effort…

Learning demands study…

Learning generates tension…

Learning requires homework…

Learning creates anxiety…

Learning requires memorizing and learning by rote…

Learning requires cramming for tests and being examined…

And worst of all . . . Your future depends on learning and whether you’re going to succeed in life depends on whether or not you succeed here and if you fail here you will fail miserably in everything you do!

Did you have these beliefs rammed down our throat every day you went to school?

I did.

And I believe they unintentionally did their best to make me hate the process of learning. They almost won. And despite their best efforts, I stand here today sharing what I learn from studying every day.

This list of garbage beliefs above are the doctrine that’s drilled into the minds of children in the dis-educational system. And living as many decades as he had, he saw three democracies fall and he blamed the public education system for their collapse.

These beliefs and the environment are designed to create tension and stress. Children are given all sorts of negative programming and their self esteem is tied up with their success or lack thereof in the mind prison.

It’s no wonder that our desire for learning is destroyed and we stop doing it as soon as no one is forcing us to attend a dis-educational institution.

Surviving the disastrous dis-educational system is the ultimate testament to the resiliency of humans; that we endure such a disastrous system and come out the other side relatively sane and healthy people. That, is the real miracle.

Here’s How “The Michel Thomas” Approach Differs From “The Mind Prison” Approach

Michel was a renegade who didn’t want to play by “The Herd’s” rules. He pretty much took the opposite view to learning which is what allowed for his students to achieve such rapid progress.

One of his primary goals was to relieve the learning environment of tension.

Here’s how it wasn’t business as usual when teaching content with Michel:

1. You Always Start With What The Student Already Knows

You connect what you want people to learn to the familiar. To learn is assimilate and connect up so this led him to begin with the known.

2. Have a Sharpened Awareness of One’s Own First Language

One of the huge problems with learning a foreign language is not even knowing how to properly speak your own.

3. Learn How To Speak Using Correct Grammar

If you’re going to learn to speak, you want to learn to speak right first, then add the slang and shortcuts later.

4. Learn It Right The First Time

It is far more difficult to unlearn than to learn. As a matter of fact, he refused to teach people who’d been taught the language previously.

5. The Heart of The Language Is The Verbs

6. Build Meaningful Associations Based On Memory

For everything Michel would teach he come up with analogies and metaphors so that you could automatically remember instead of trying to remember.

7. Teach For Understanding; Not For Memorization

8. Teach For Acquisition of Knowledge

The Enlightened Learning Environment

Michel would bring you in where you were seated in comfortable easy chairs . . . there was no black board . . . there were no flip charts . . . there was no writing material in the room . . . there were no desks because you were not going to be taking any notes . . . there was no written material . . . there was no homework . . . there was no writing . . . and there was no trying to remember anything.

You would come in and he would first ask you to first make yourself comfortable.

He would then say . . .

“Let go of any tension you may have. This course is about understanding and knowledge; not about memorization. Never, never try to remember. You don’t forget what you know. You may block it but you don’t forget it.

In this course there is no need to take notes. There is no homework but there may be research projects.

There are no texts and no examinations. THE TEACHER IS RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING AND REMEMBERING. (the exact opposite of what goes on in the dis-educational system where the student gets blamed by the lazy teachers – in this world, the teacher and the teacher alone is responsible for your remembering and your understanding)

If you don’t remember or understand, it’s the teachers fault. It’s not your fault. The teacher will find out why you don’t remember or understand and will know what to do about it. Just sit back and experience the joys of learning.”
?So once again, Michel’s whole method is teacher-centric:
?So the teacher is responsible for mistakes that occur – any mistakes are Michel’s problem; not the student’s problem.
?Responsibility for learning is Michel’s problem; not the student’s problem.
?Learning and remembering are Michel’s problem; not the student’s problem.
?Michel is at fault; never the student.
?The student’s problems are none; All the student is responsible for is being there and participating.

Within Spanish, Italian, French or German there are lot of common words with different pronunciation so he would start with these words along with words you could very quickly master. This would lead to you being able to speak long sentences very quickly.

This led to you having a sense of accomplishment very fast – within the first hour of being in the room.

And he did this with no text book, no note taking, no emphasis on remembering.

How This Master Deals With His Students Mistakes

So you and I know he believes that if the student makes a blunder, Michel takes 100% of the blame.

And at another level he didn’t want the student to know they’d made a blunder because we only got 7 + 2 or -2 chunks of attention and your attention can be on one of two places – correction mode or it can be in peak performance/improvement mode.

If you make mistakes it triggers the part of you that is cautious, on guard and your focus is turned to correction mode. This is no good. You want all of your attention on improvement mode.

If the student knew the right answer they wouldn’t make the mistake.

So when a student makes a mistake he would not immediately correct the mistake. So the student mispronounces, they didn’t know they have and Michel knows it’s a mistake.

He would then ask himself, “What would have to be the case for the student to make that mistake? What did they fail to remember or did they not understand?”

He would make a note of this in his mind and he would go back and review what they hadn’t understood or forgotten without the student knowing the reason he was doing so and when the student came to what they’d said wrong the student would be able to correct themselves.

He found that the best way to learn was to correct yourself and to do it without having seen that you’d made a mistake when you’d made it. The dis-educational system is all about pointing out your mistakes and making you feel bad about them. Michel never made anyone feel bad about anything. He took all the blame and responsibility.

So with this process you learned all the tenses and had a functional vocabulary in three days and during the last two days you would converse with a native speaker of the language.

How Do You Teach More In Less Time?

Michel was a master at layering. He didn’t have a label for this like Wyatt and his wife did but I’ll tell you what it means. At any moment when you’re teaching you’re doing one of three things:

1) You’re pre-teaching.

You pre-teach without labeling what it is. You teach it in a simple context where people understand it.

2) You formally teach

3) Then you go back and periodically review

When he encountered the students he placed them in three categories in his mind:

The Openly Hostile…

The Bored…

The Shy.

But before this he talked about French and how it was spoken in Africa and how important it was and the role it played in black culture in history and how if they had this language they could converse in many places in the world.

For those who don’t know, Watts is the predominantly black area of Los Angeles and so he was seeking out a way to make this language relevant to his audience. Then he began his process.

He started out by getting the shy people to participate. And what was happening was that by participating some of these kids were getting their very first experience of succeeding in a class room as a result of speaking some fairly complex sentences in a foreign language in a very short period of time.

Next, he worked at activating the bored people. Now his teaching was different because he would only teach by direct eye contact. He didn’t have people raise their hand. The way you knew to respond to him was he would look at you and you would answer. Only eye contact.

And he would see in his peripheral vision who wasn’t listening then he would call on that person with his focus next and put them on the spot to tell him what had just been said. They of course, couldn’t answer and he would ask them, “Well, why didn’t know the answer?” And they would tell him they didn’t remember and he would say, “No. It’s because you weren’t listening and paying attention.”

This yanked people into paying attention not wanting be clueless if they were called on. He used peer pressure to get the bored/distracted people to give him the time of day.

At the end of his first day, he had two-thirds of the class hooked. The next day he wanted to direct his focus towards bringing the troublemakers onboard. The way he did this is he told them, “If you want to be here, sit down and participate. If you don’t, go ahead and leave.”

Kids were always wandering the halls and if they came into the classroom he welcomed them to sit down and participate, or get the hell out. What he did next was turn the trouble makers into the class cops who were telling people to sit and behave and telling people to get out if they were disrupting their learning.

And after doing this, he wasn’t suited with the progress because the kids weren’t 100% on board. They were waaay better than before but they were still screwing around more than he preferred they would.

The Supreme Strategy For Making Learning Stick

There are so many limitations in our mind. Boredom sets in when we don’t a sense of having accomplished something.

Michel’s method is dialogical – He’s asking questions so there’s always a dialogue back and forth and this is his way of making sure you understand and noting down what you misunderstand and figuring out what caused them to misunderstand or forget and then weaving review back into the lesson till the answered the question right.

12-15 interactions between the teacher and student per minute happen in Direct Instruction – one of the best methods of education available to classrooms (that no one uses that you should pursue if you want your kids to be learning).

When a person needs to be ready to be called on, they listen at a whole different level.

With you any subject you’re going to teach, Michel believed you first needed to start off with blocked teaching – no fifty minute periods, you would instead take something like 6 weeks to study it (both times he’s talked about this he’s been this vague about the topic so I’m with you on wanting more), You would find out the major concepts that you need to understand, and you would teach the concepts through a back and forth exchange of questions and answers.

This allows you to uncover where people are confused and teach them correctly before the idea was too doctrine in their mind. Another bonus about this process is that it allows people to feel like they’re making progress as they answer you correctly and correct themselves.

Summation Of How To Use Michel’s Strategy To Learn A Language

1. Concentrate on speaking the language – forget about learning to read or write it initially

2. Learn to speak grammatically correct

3. Look for the real patterns of speech opposed to the grammatical patterns

4. Have a profound knowledge of your own language

He mastered 10 languages and I believe he learned to teach all 10 and if not somewhere close to that.

So if you want to learn to speak Spanish, French, Italian, or German fast AND see what he does that’s different and get a direct experience of him, go get his courses but make sure they’re him doing the teaching and not “The Michel Thomas Method”.

Source: Michel Thomas Method

Most people think that China’s current economic status is a mirage created by government stimulus and relies on exports. However, examination of China’s economic growth over time reveals that consumption and gross capital formation are the two pillars lifting China to the top.

Balance is also a crucial goal for China’s economy – the economy must not grow too quickly or risk a sharp correction. Just this year, China has weathered an epic battle with inflation, drought and floods, poor global macroeconomic conditions, massive accounting/corruption scandals and a tragic accident on one of its marquee achievements-the country’s high speed rail system.

China remains the beacon of hope for the global economy, the largest and, many times, the “sole engine of the world economy,” BCA Research says. China’s real gross domestic product (GDP) is forecasted to grow 8.9% in 2011 and 7.8% in 2012, according to ISI Group. This is a slower rate of growth compared to recent years but “doesn’t look like an economy struggling under tighter credit conditions,” research says.

Ending the country’s dependence on exports is the “professed pursuit of quality over quantity,” says GaveKal and became an immediate necessity for China to maintain economic stability after exports collapsed by 40% from September 2008 to January 2009, triggering a sharp slowdown in growth, BCA says. Recent data shows China has kicked the habit as exports have contributed little to the country’s growth in 2011. Net exports accounted for 18% of China’s total 14.2% GDP growth in 2007, according to CLSA’s Andy Rothman. During the first half of 2011, exports have a negative contribution of -0.7% of China’s 9.6% GDP growth and accounted for only 12% of total industrial sales revenues. We’ll debunk more tall tales of China’s export economy in a moment.

Transitioning Workforce and the Importance of Housing in China

While China’s “ghost cities” have stolen headlines, China’s real estate market sits on a much stronger foundation than China bears would have you believe. In reality, the property market is actually in a much healthier position than it was at the start of the year. CLSA says the government’s focus on keeping housing price growth under control and limiting the availability of mortgages has resulted in “none of the 70 cities monitored by NBS price increases of more than 1%” on a month-over-month basis in July.

Despite this relatively tame market, GaveKal cites Nouriel Roubini as saying these “ghost towns” are evidence that China’s excessive investment in capital stock has crossed a critical threshold – a bubble.

There are many questions surrounding the global market but the Chinese economy remains headed toward the moon. The country, of course, remains vulnerable to external forces but we believe the economy’s strong momentum will be enough to carry the country through, should volatile times persist.

Source: MoneyMorning

Fast food can be an occasional unhealthy indulgence – but fast food stocks can be a healthy dose of profit for your portfolio.

Imagine you were one of the first to buy shares of McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE: MCD), the world’s largest publicly traded fast food company.

When the “golden arches” opened its doors in 1960, it offered just six menu items – including a 15-cent burger and five-cent fries – at its 102 locations. Now it operates more than 33,000 restaurants in 118 countries and serves more than 64 million customers a day.

McDonald’s went public in 1965, selling its shares for $22.50; now its stock trades around $90 a share.

That means today, after 12 stocks splits, 100 shares of the original McDonald’s stock that cost you $2,250 would have grown to 74,360 shares worth roughly $6.7 million – and that doesn’t even count dividends paid out by the company.

No other restaurant chain has matched McDonald’s success, but others have shown phenomenal growth with impressive profits – and I’m going to show you how to find them.

Four Must-Have Factors for Fast Food Stocks
To find a winning fast food stock we have to look at what will drive growth – and related profits – in the future. There are four dominant themes you need to look for.

McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE: MCD), recent price $90.79 – This may be an obvious choice, but it’s hard to argue with success. Mickey D’s strong second-quarter earnings pushed the stock up almost $5 a share in July, and it held most of the gain in spite of the debt-ceiling debacle and resulting market plunge. The company’s profit rose 19%, earning $1.41 billion, or $1.35 a share, on revenue of $6.91 billion.

Year-over-year growth in international revenue grew 5.4% despite a shaky global economy. McDonald’s is making a major push in China, with plans to double its number of franchises over the next three years. It’s also among the first to offer drive-thru service, recognizing China’s recent climb to No. 1 in the world auto market, as well as a “McDelivery” service in dense metropolitan markets.

The company is trying to increase U.S. revenue by remodeling restaurants, adding more playgrounds, and redesigning drive-thru operations to increase efficiency. It broadened the menu to include gourmet coffees and milkshakes, and healthier options like putting fruit rather than fries in kids’ Happy Meals. McDonald’s is also targeting a slightly richer demographic these days, looking to capture some mid-range diners who are scaling back to save money.

Current analyst estimates project full-year earnings for McDonald’s to hit $5.21 a share this year and $5.73 in 2012. The $2.44 dividend provides a current yield of 2.7%, and the median one-year price estimate for the stock is $99.00 a share.

Source: Larry D. Spears, Money Morning

When Groupon sells a Groupon–say, a $25 coupon for $50 of belly-waxing services–Groupon collects the $25 immediately (from the subscriber’s credit card). Then, sometime later, the subscriber generally goes to the belly-waxing salon and gets his or her belly waxed. And, sometime after that, Groupon remits a portion of the $25 to the belly-waxing salon.

What this means is that, when Groupon is growing rapidly, as it is now, it collects a ton of cash from its subscribers long before it has to deliver some of the cash to its merchant partners. And that generates positive cash flow.

This is how Groupon can generate cash even when it is “losing money” on its income statement.

The full-year cash flow statement for 2010 illustrates this.

Groupon “lost” $413 million in 2010 on its income statement. In the same year, however, it generated $72 million of cash.

So What?

The benefit of positive cash flow is that Groupon’s operations can fund the company’s growth even while the company is losing money.

Of course, the benefits of this positive “cash-cycle” won’t last forever. When Groupon’s growth slows, the cash that it has to deliver to the merchants that did Groupons last quarter will start to equal (or even exceed) the cash that Groupon collects from customers who buy Groupons this quarter, and the company’s cash-flow statement will look more like its income statement.

(Amazon went through this transition, too, and it can be a painful one.)

In other words, at some point, unless/until it turns profitable on an income statement basis, Groupon will have a cash hole to fill. And the only way it can sustain its positive cash flow while losing money on the income statement is to keep growing rapidly. If the growth stalls before the company turns profitable, cash flow will turn sharply negative.

But, for now, even though Groupon is “losing money,” it is generating cash. And it can use this cash to fund operations and growth.

Source: businessinsider.com

In a stock market bubble, investors stop thinking about what they’re buying and start looking around them to see who else is buying it.

Joe Investor sees a sizable group of other investors piling into a stock or sector, driving the price higher. He figures they’ve thought things through, so he’ll go along for the ride.

Jill takes Joe’s lead, figuring he knows what he’s doing. Jerry follows Jill. Julie follows Jerry. The blind are leading the blind.

Well guess what?

There are marketing bubbles too…

Some marketing tactic or strategy is hyped beyond all reasonable expectation… newbies who don’t know any better jump in… and a bubble is born. As the hype grows, it creates a kind of vortex that sucks in more and more people. The number of dupes and the number of promoters both skyrocket.

Some investment analysts are calling the recent LinkedIn IPO a warning sign that a new tech bubble might be upon us. The stock debuted at $45 and immediately started gyrating between $80 and $120, hundreds of times 2010 earnings. In plain English, there was no justification for these prices.

Groupon and Facebook are planning IPOs as well, and they will most certainly garner the same kind of senseless, nosebleed valuations. The bubble will balloon and burst. And overnight, billions of dollars will change hands, just as they did during the dot-bomb bust of the late nineties. Foolish investors holding these stocks will get the shirts ripped from their backs.

With marketing bubbles, the damage is subtler…

Bubble stuff. All about Facebook and Twitter and mobile marketing and Groupon and other so called “game changers.” Now I’m not saying there is no value in these things. It’s just that they are hyped into the ozone… out of all proportion… beyond anything even remotely real.

In the world of investing, the basics are things like earnings growth, return on equity, and profit margins. The boring, common sense stuff that allows you to rationally compare one stock to another. In the marketing world, it’s return on resources invested (RORI). Is marketing this way worth my investment? Is it the best use of my resources?

The fact that there are umpteen million users with a Facebook account makes for great hype. Heck, if it were a country it would be the third-biggest. But what does that mean in terms of the RORI for your particular business?

Most people who market with social media haven’t a clue. Their behavior is driven purely by peer pressure.

And then there’s the whole Groupon thing…

We’re seeing Groupon copycats popping up everywhere, like Whac-a-Mole. They’re hyping the slashing and burning of prices to blue blazes. There are even Groupon wannabes for information products. I’m willing to bet that if it hasn’t happened already, you’re about to get pitched by one of them.

“Let us expose your company to the multitudes,” they say. “You’ll gain hundreds, perhaps thousands, of brand-new customers. All you have to do is let us sell your $1,000 info-product digitally for $17 bucks and pay us a commission.” Come again?

Let your decision on all things bubbly be based on good old-fashioned RORI, not peer pressure.

Source: Daniel Levis

Or was it having the reserve currency of the world since 1945?
No, that would not have been enough. Was it taking that reserve currency off the gold standard on August 15th 1971? And then being able to simply double her debt every seven and a half years for the past four decades?

America is the most powerful county this Earth has ever known. Not even the Ming Dynasty came close to the power and influence that modern day America has.
So how did this happen?

Are Americans smarter, taller, faster or better looking than the rest of the world? Maybe Americans just work harder or longer than anyone else on this planet, maybe that’s it. Or maybe Americans are just better at educating their kids…maybe that’s it?

Well, I went looking to figure out if there was one thing, one thing that set America and Americans apart from the rest of the planet.
And guess what? I found it.

I found the one thing that Americans have over every other county. They didn’t always have this “one thing”. But once America acquired it, they exploited it.
And I mean America exploited it, like Sarah Palin exploited her Vice President nomination in 2008.

So what is this “one thing”?

What do you think? Was that what made the difference?

Let me ask another question, do you think the world will allow America to double her debt again (read: will they continue to buy America’s debt)?

What does this mean for the stock market? The bond market? The commodities market? The price of houses sitting in the middle of two of America’s deserts (Las Vegas and Phoenix)?

What does it mean for the conventional big box financial advisors’ clients? And what should I do? If the US cannot or is not allowed to double their debt again, what does it mean for people’s retirement…and for the future of the US?

I want to be clear. There are a few people that are not only avoiding the pain but are getting richer. Their accounts are growing and their retirement has never looked better. Just because the US is detoxing doesn’t mean you have to.

What happens to the American Miracle when America can no longer take on more debt?

Source: RC Peck

You can use dry ice for a lot – keeping a picnic lunch cool, generating fog for backyard karaoke. Now it’s about to revolutionize computing all over again.

More important, it’s going to touch off a scramble for a wonder substance that’s in high demand, and produced mostly in China. If you feel you missed out on the rare earth boom, you’re on the cusp of something equally lucrative.

The story begins with two breakthroughs, both revealed in the last 10 days.

Researchers at IBM announced this month they’ve built the first integrated circuit made of something called graphene.

The wafer you’re looking at is as thin as humanly possible — exactly one atom layer thick. And yet it’s powerful enough to…

Make mobile phones work in places they can’t now
Make almost any electronic device run faster, with less electricity
Power devices that can see inside the human body without harmful X-rays.

You can’t do that with the stuff that’s made up integrated circuits for the last 40 years — silicon. Graphene is on its way to becoming “the new silicon.”

Also this month, researchers at Northern Illinois University made a parallel breakthrough, equally important: They hit on a way to manufacture graphene in high volumes.

Instead of previous methods — splitting graphite crystals with tape, or heating silicon carbide to high temperatures — the NIU scientists came up with something so simple your teenager could do it in the garage (although we wouldn’t advise it) — burning magnesium in dry ice.

“Up until now,” says professor Narayan Hosmane, “graphene has been synthesized by various methods utilizing hazardous chemicals and tedious techniques. This new method is simple, green and cost-effective.”

Graphene is derived from graphite — which itself is derived from the humble carbon atom. The two scientists at the University of Manchester who isolated graphene in 2004 won the Nobel Prize for physics in 2010.

“As a material, it is completely new,” declared the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences upon bestowing the prize. “As a conductor of electricity, it performs as well as copper. As a conductor of heat, it outperforms all other known materials.

“It is almost completely transparent, yet so dense that not even helium, the smallest gas atom, can pass through it.

“It is not only the thinnest material in the world,” adds The New York Times, “but also the strongest: a sheet of it stretched over a coffee cup could support the weight of a truck bearing down on a pencil point.”

So it will have uses other than electronics. Physicist Michio Kaku from City University of New York envisions more lightweight aircraft and stronger plastics, among other innovations.

Here’s the rub: “Good graphite is not that easy to find,” says our natural resource maven Byron King. “Graphite prices have more than doubled in recent years.” No graphite, no graphene.

On top of that, Byron continues, “China controls 80% of the global graphite market — just like China runs 97% of the world supply of rare earths.” And China’s reserves are dwindling.

So not only are we looking at “the new silicon” in terms of potential… we’re also looking at “the next rare earths” in terms of scarcity. And yes, just as with rare earths, the rush is on to find new sources outside China.

Many lie in developing countries run by dictators who’d love nothing more than to nationalize a big graphite find as soon as some company does the hard work of proving it up. But one of the largest is in North America — 8 million tons — controlled by a tiny firm Byron recently uncovered.

It can produce graphite for $400 a ton and sell it for $2,000. That’s $12.8 billion of potential for a company with a market cap of $58 million.

Source: Agora Financial: The Great Rare Earth Supply Crunch

This is the fifth consecutive month that commodities have outperformed the stock market — their longest streak since 1997.

The key reason commodities outperformed stocks and bonds is the weak dollar.

In the midst of the longest commodity boom since 1997 (see below), the hottest commodities right now are, alas, without a corresponding ETF.

Nor can sophisticated investors trade it in the futures market. But there is a way you can still make money in what appears to be an aggressive uptrend:

The blue line represents the price of neodymium — used in everything from portable headphones to hybrid cars. The red is samarium — an essential metal for precision-guided missiles.

Both are rare earth elements — under the tidy production grip of our friends in China. You’ll recall China slashed rare earth export quotas 35% at the start of this year… on top of a 40% cut six months earlier. World prices for many of these minerals have doubled in 2011… on top of a fourfold increase last year.

New developments make it look as if this trend is with us to stay.

As we’ve been detailing, one after another, attempts to break the Chinese stranglehold are smacking head-on into obstacle

• Lynas, an Australian firm, and a former Byron King favorite, attempted to open the world’s largest rare earth refinery in Malaysia but ran headlong into stubborn regulators. An operating permit is being withheld as protesters raise alarms about the rare earth ore’s radioactive contamination — which is naturally occurring, and low level. Approval has been delayed six months
• Toyota’s running into its own regulatory roadblocks trying to partner up with companies to mine and refine rare earths in Vietnam. The deal was announced last fall, but now production won’t get under way till 2013
• In Japan, Dowa Holding’s attempts to recycle rare earths from old electronics is proving more difficult than first thought. Its factory is up and running, recycling 19 metals — but no rare earths.

The Chinese have even upped the ante again too. As of April 1, new taxes on rare earth miners were imposed. What used to cost producer 50 cents per kilogram of refined product now costs $8.

So the scramble to bring rare earths into production outside China moves into higher gear. Industry darling Molycorp — which is gearing up to reopen a rare earth mine in California — recently made investors do a double take when it bought a 90% stake in a rare earths producer in Estonia.

“Does this mean,” wonders our Byron King, “that Molycorp is hedging its bets? Things might not go as well as planned with the California schedule? It’s possible.”

Readers of Byron’s premium advisory Energy & Scarcity Investor have already made hay with Molycorp, collecting 178% in a scant four months. They collected 109% in two months on another of the sector’s “usual suspects”… and they have open gains of 93% and 147% on other rare earth developers.

But for the biggest potential gains, Byron remains focused the big question — who will be the first outside China to go into production?

Source: Addison Wiggin – The 5 Min. Forecast

Earlier this month, the trio demonstrated just how serious they were, with the Peruvian and Colombian stock exchanges entering into a full-blown merger agreement. These are the three best-run countries in Latin America, with a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of more than $500 billion.

If they get their act together, it’ll be these three countries – and not Brazil, that much-ballyhooed “BRIC” country – that are the “must-have” havens for our money.

Colombia, Peru and Chile have benefited enormously from the zooming surge in commodities and energy prices.

Peru is a commodities bonanza, with major potential in everything from gold to fish. Colombia, on the other hand, is already a significant oil exporter. And in recent years the country has caused the curve of its oil production to turn sharply upward – it produced about 760,000 barrels a day in 2010, and production is increasing at about 10% annually. And Chile is a world leader in copper.

Each of the three countries is larger than any country in the European Union (EU), but their total population is relatively modest at 92 million. Total GDP was $528 million in 2009, but growth is rapid: Colombia grew at 4.4% in 2010, Chile at 5.1% and Peru at an extraordinary 8.7%. While all three countries have excellent relations with the United States (Chile has a free-trade agreement and Colombia has negotiated one subject to ratification by the U.S. Congress).

Also worth noting: China is active as an investor in all three countries, especially Peru.

The real secret to the success of these three countries is that they are competently run and have kept their public sectors under control. Chile, for example, has a public sector (as a share of GDP) that’s about half the size of Brazil.

The big question for investors is whether the countries’ free-market orientation will be maintained. The outlook is the most solid in Chile, where the social democrat government that left office in March 2010 was quite market oriented, and the new government of President Sebastian Piñera is even more so.

In Colombia, a free-market government led by Alvaro Uribe has been replaced by another free market government led by Juan Manuel Santos, in office until 2014.

In Peru, the outlook was cloudy at the time of the last election in 2006. But the prosperity that the country has seen since then has improved matters. Three of the four leading candidates for the April 2011 presidential election are free market in outlook; should one of these candidates win, the collaboration with Colombia and Chile can be expected to continue.

The main gain for the three countries from working together is the ability to achieve economic scale.

Combined, Colombia, Chile and Peru have GDP of about 1% of the world’s total, so if they can persuade investors that they really do represent a single bloc, they will attract a renewed flow of both direct investment by big companies and portfolio investments by the largest institutions.

The stock market merger that I outlined above is the first – and easiest – way for them to cooperate. And it should bring in a flood of new money once it’s completed.

Source: Martin Hutchinson

To counter deflation’s bad effects, and to stimulate the economy – the US plans to spend billions of dollars over the next few years.

Since, the US runs a large deficit, it can finance this stimulus in only two ways:
1. Issuing Debt
2. Printing Money

As the global recession tightens its grips on countries across the world, the appetite for US debt is getting smaller. The yields on US government debt are already at all time lows, and then there is the small matter of – the stimulus that other countries need.

Countries like China, India, Japan, Russia etc. also need to stimulate their domestic economies. They plan to do this by using their dollar reserves, and buying more debt at this time is hardly feasible.

The other option for US to finance this debt is by printing money. Many countries ranging from Germany to Argentina to Zimbabwe have already done this throughout the history of the world. While, you may not see a 100 billion dollar US banknote, inflation is the natural consequence of printing money or quantitative easing and is unavoidable in the current circumstances.

Domestic Inflation effectively reduces the ability of American consumers to buy Chinese goods, Russian oil and Indian software, among other things. As prices rise, people can afford lesser goods and services.

More importantly, domestic inflation reduces the ability of the Chinese, Indian and Russian exporters to sell their stuff to US, and keep their own domestic economy going.

Inflate or Die

Faced with the increased supply of dollars in the market, other countries have two options:

1. Let the values of their own currencies rise, relative to the dollar.
2. Print more domestic currency to match the depreciating dollar.

If the central bankers allow their domestic currencies to rise, then many exporters will lose their competitive edge, and ultimately shut shop.

What if they let the dollar fall?

Developed countries like Canada who are also major exporters to the US can in fact, let the dollar fall, and allow their domestic currencies to rise. This will contain inflation, although it will impact exports, and slow the growth of their economy. Since, Canada is already a developed and rich country – it can allow that.

Countries in the developing world can’t allow a hit on their growth – because that will have severe social and political consequences.

So, there you have it, inflation export – from one country to another – due to the tightly integrated financial markets, and the reserve currency of these markets – dollar.

Source: OneMint

This reminds me of the valuations being assigned to Internet companies leading up to the “dot.bomb” crash. There’s no way a company that relies on nothing more than bits of information – the vast majority of which are summarily ignored by the community that supposedly finds it so compelling – should have a valuation approaching The Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS), equal to The Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA), and greater than Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX).

Still, for the sake of argument, let’s play along and suppose that the $500 million capital infusion is for real and that the $50 billion valuation it implies is correct. Then the question becomes: What does the transaction say about Goldman Sachs, which arranged the deal, and the regulators supposedly overseeing it?

Nothing good that’s for sure.

The way I understand the deal is structured, Digital Sky is investing $50 million and Goldman is investing $450 million for a stake in Facebook that they plan to package and resell to investors. That makes Goldman a principal in the deal, which means in very plain terms that they can no longer claim any obligation to the investor (their customer) who bought the other side. It’s important to keep that in mind.

Now let’s move on to the valuation.

I wonder exactly what the Russians are getting for their money, because Facebook is still a private company, which means nothing it does is reportable.

Reports suggest that some 1/12 of the world’s population gathers together on the popular social networking site – which now ranks ahead of Google as the world’s most-trafficked Web site – and that the collection of human data that’s stored there makes Facebook the largest, self-fueled marketing database in human history.

That point is well taken.

But exactly what is Facebook going to do with all of that data? The presumption appears to be that Internet advertising is the “golden egg.” Unfortunately, that theory’s been dead – or at least passé – for years.

Even if there are products for sale, which to date is not the case, the backlash that’s building about sharing sensitive information online could kill the company overnight – $50 billion or not. Then there’s the fact that people are losing interest in the two-way drivel that at the end of the day becomes nothing more than another e-mail platform cloaked under the guise of “social media.”

Sure, Facebook has a lot of people trolling through its site, but the important question is how do they monetize that traffic? In other words, they face the same old dilemma salesmen have faced since the beginning of time: How do you convert the “tire-kickers” into buyers.

Personally, I think the more interesting aspect to this transaction is Goldman’s involvement. By helping raise $500 million, the firm is doing more than simply pocketing huge fees. Goldman is positioning itself for the eventual initial public offering (IPO), which this fund raising postpones – at least for the moment.

It would not surprise me in the least to learn that Goldman Sachs has a contractual right to be the manager of Facebook’s IPO. If that proves to be the case, it would mean Goldman has effectively fronted Facebook $450 million for the privilege of orchestrating the company’s forthcoming IPO – and then gotten its money back by selling its stake in the company off to high-end clients looking to get a piece of the social media giant.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

For the moment, Facebook remains a private company and does not have to discuss anything it does – such as the costs it incurs, the mounting complaints regarding personal data, or where it spends its money. Nor does Goldman have to disclose how it’s profiting from the deal or acknowledge related trading positions it’s establishing in the process.

Speaking of which, the other thing that catches my attention when it comes to this entire matter is that Goldman reportedly wants to create another of its “special investment vehicles” – one that would allow a select few additional investors to put as much as $1.5 billion into Facebook. That would mean more fees for Goldman, while also ensuring that it keeps its “investors” outside of the Security and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) public disclosure rules.

Sound familiar?

It should, given that special investment vehicles and limited disclosure played a key role in creating the financial crisis that’s still not over and from which Main Street is still reeling. Never mind the irony that – thanks to a taxpayer funded bailout – Wall Street bonuses are bigger than ever and that it’s already back to business as usual.

All is not lost, though.

Several sources are now reporting that Facebook may already be over the 499-investor limit threshold that requires public disclosure. If this is true, Goldman and Facebook could both be dragged kicking and screaming into a hostile court of public opinion that will highlight just how stacked the deck is.

And speaking of stacked decks, let’s talk about conflicts of interest for a minute. According to the one page investment profile Goldman sent to its wealthiest clients, “GS Group may at any time further reduce its exposure to its investment in Facebook without notice to the fund or investors in the fund.”

If that’s not a conflict of interest, I don’t know what is.

This clause would allow Goldman to hedge or trade against the very same clients it’s now putting into the deal. That, in turn, means the firm can exit or burn the house down without warning!

Of course, I love the small print, which also states that the content of the offering “is not guaranteed as to accuracy or completeness.” Maybe that’s why there’s another line near the very bottom that advises potential clients: “Do not contact Facebook.”

Could you imagine investing your hard earned money into a prospective stock offering and agreeing not to talk to the issuer to do due diligence? What ever happened to the Prudent Man Test – or at the very least common sense?

Sadly, though, my guess is that Goldman will find a way to steer clear of the entire shooting match at all costs to avoid disclosing its business practices – the same way it paid a $550 million fine last year to settle charges of securities fraud related to mortgage investments.

Incidentally, the SEC was very proud of its pound of flesh and the $550 million penalty –apparently they didn’t realize that Goldman booked more than $13 billion in the process.

Source: Keith Fitz-Gerald

Thus, doing the rare earths gig is far more than basic exploration, mining and crushing. Doing rare earths correctly involves being really good in chemistry and chemical engineering as well. There’s nothing easy about it.

The big rare earths story for 2010 was how an otherwise obscure sector of the mining and processing industry became a destination point for billions of dollars of new investment. As 2010 drew to a close, we were in a market mania, in some respects, with some rare earth stocks “melting up.” The story was driven by China and its precipitous reductions in export quotas – front page news across the globe.

You may have seen the statistic that China controls about 97% of the world’s rare earths supply. Let’s not quibble about the exact number – a few fractions one way or the other. And when China ratcheted down its rare earths quotas during 2010 – part of a long-range strategic industrial policy, I must add – it shook the Western world to its industrial foundations. It’s all been a shock to the global trading system.

This shock has produced some shockingly large gains in the shares of rare earth mining companies. A lot of these stocks have become very volatile and frothy. So caution is warranted. But the rare earth story is very real and very exciting.

Don’t miss this one!

Source: Byron King

The audience snickered when she pointed to the recent lower unemployment figures as proof that reform isn’t the job killer that many have made it out to be. Although DeParle cited various facts and figures, she probably didn’t convert any opponents.

But the fact that the Affordable Care Act didn’t cause complaint from the CEOs of the companies directly impacted by it is crucial. On the contrary, they seemed to embrace it – and that’s why I believe it’s going to stick.

The Republicans can fight all they want to get it repealed, but mark my words, as long as the industry is in favor of it, reform is here to stay.

I’ve argued in the past that healthcare reform is President Obama’s legacy and he won’t back down. And perhaps most importantly, with the endorsement from the healthcare sector and the huge lobbying dollars it dishes out, members of Congress will revert to form: Listen to the money talk.

It appears that healthcare companies got what they wanted from reform, which is why they’re not complaining about it. Executives would rather deal with the devil they know rather than the unknown.

I expect some companies to emerge as big winners in the new climate of healthcare reform. Which ones?

Two Winners From Healthcare Reform… And One Trying to Sneak Around It

WellPoint (NYSE: WLP), the largest health benefits provider in the United States, is well positioned to handle both the new influx of patients and regulations. Due to reform and the expansion of Medicaid, WellPoint expects to gain 10 million new customers by 2015.

But Molina Health (NYSE: MOH) might end up as the biggest winner. The company is focused exclusively on government-sponsored healthcare for low-income families – right in the sweet spot of what reform is trying to accomplish.

In 2010, the company expects its medical loss ratio (the percentage of revenue spent on healthcare for its customers) to come in at 85.4%, above the 85% mandated threshold.

Conversely, Healthspring (NYSE: HS) sits below 85%. And rather than discuss any efforts to comply with the requirement, management instead discussed accounting tricks to get above it. Watch for the company’s future guidance on February 17… I suspect it won’t be pretty.

One other point on healthcare reform here: As part of the deal that the industry struck with the government, drug companies will pay an excise fee. However, not one executive I saw appeared annoyed about it. I wouldn’t even call it begrudging acceptance. Rather, they were pragmatic and suggested that these fees are simply part of the agreement – one that they’re satisfied with.

For example, Amgen (Nasdaq: AMGN) CEO Kevin Sharer said his company will pay a fee of $150 million to $200 million after tax. But the upside is that reform “protects innovation and sets a framework for follow-on biologics that’s fair.” In other words, in order to protect his company’ patents, he was willing to pay the fee.

And that leads me to another key theme – and the second of the big three trends that will dominate in 2011…

How to Profit From the “Patent Cliff”

The “patent cliff” situation has loomed large now for the past few years. And today, it’s finally here.

Simply put, the concept refers to the number of everyday blockbuster drugs whose patents are about to expire. As I mentioned in last week’s column, this includes Pfizer’s (NYSE: PFE) cholesterol drug, Lipitor and Merck’s (NYSE: MRK) Singulair, which tackles asthma.

The subject has been a constant topic of conversation this week – and it’s one that gives investors an excellent chance to capitalize. Understandably, though, large pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer, Merck and Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY) didn’t want to focus their presentations on the ominous topic.

But the fact remains that generic companies like TEVA Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: TEVA) and Impax Laboratories (Nasdaq: IPXL) are set to take advantage of the enormous opportunities that the patent cliff represents – and spent time at the conference discussing how their robust pipelines will facilitate that.

Source: Marc Lichtenfeld

The world energy landscape has changed with new developments in extracting natural gas from shale beds and tight sands. Innovative extraction technologies have dramatically altered the economics of natural gas extraction in North America. South Africa’s Sasol Corp., for example, is teaming up with Talisman (NYSE:TLM) to turn otherwise stranded gas into liquid fuel in northern British Columbia. It’s a truly revolutionary process – a point that The New York Times made a few days after I mentioned this joint-venture to the subscribers of Outstanding Investments.

Companies like Consol Energy (NYSE:CNX) and MarkWest Energy (NYSE:MWE) are also benefitting from US, Canadian and now global shale gas development. Even our friends the Chinese are coming to the US, to learn how we’re cracking shale for gas, so they can duplicate the effort back in the Motherland.

At the same time, the technology for freeing shale gas is finding its way into the oil patch, with companies like Venoco (NYSE:VQ) working to turn California’s Monterey Shale into a vast new oil resource. There are a lot of hydrocarbon molecules out there. The trick is to harvest them.

Forward-looking investors should not ignore the fact that shale gas development will provide enormous opportunities for the oil service guys, particularly Schlumberger (NYSE:SLB), Halliburton (NYSE:HAL) and Baker Hughes (NYSE:BHI).

There’s much more to come with the shale gas revolution. We’re just in the early innings on this one. There’s plenty of good investing ahead, and a lot of hydrocarbon molecules yet to be sucked out of the crust.

Source: Byron King

Dell calls it the “Streak.” HP has their own version – the “Touchsmart.” Samsung has the Galaxy Tab. Apple of course has the iPad. There’s also the “Ideos” from a Chinese company called Huawei, and the “Edge” from a Virginia company called Entourage.

In some parts of India, they’re calling this technology the “Adam.”

Many of these versions of the “Chi–Tab” started hitting U.S. stores as early as last spring. Others are on their way…

Like the “Cruz” by a company named Velocity Micro…

If you haven’t seen one yet, just head down to your local Best Buy. Or check out the consumer electronics stores in your local mall. In most cities, you’ll already find them for sale.

In the U.S. – and everywhere else in the world – this trend is still in its infancy…

Mainly hard–core techies and research–intensive businesses have started buying into the trend…

Medtronic, Bausch & Lomb, Wells Fargo, Hyatt Hotels, the University of Chicago Medical Center and the Denver Fire Department, to name a few.

But the much bigger story, we believe, is China’s market… the world’s most fertile ground for a computer revolution like the “Chi–Tab”.

And, as I’ll show you in a few minutes, the Chinese Government may be putting a plan in motion that could turn this already phenomenal opportunity into what may be the biggest trend we’ve ever seen.

Who owns the ‘Chi–Tab?’

As I mentioned earlier, no one single person or company has claim to this technology.

How’s this possible?

Well, let’s consider another technology that has spread to China… and take another quick look at the mobile phone.

Sure, Chinese companies like China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom have their own patented phones and software… and are battling it out for control of the Chinese market…

But mobile phone technology is the application of an idea, which has and always will be up for grabs.

Likewise, right now, companies are battling it out for control of the “Chi–Tab” market… but no one single company or individual has sole claim on the “Chi–Tab” technology either…

So how could you get rich from this trend, regardless of who wins this market?

Well, big cell phone companies did do quite well in China…

China Mobile – the biggest cell phone company in China with over 500 million subscribers saw its stock climb 651%. And China Telecom is up 307%.

But the real winners – the companies that have made an absolute fortune in the Chinese cell phone market, are the tiny companies most people have never heard of, who specialize and control key parts of the technology.

Companies like Cypress Semiconductor, which makes microchips and touch screens for cell phones and holds over 700 patents on its technology.

Most likely you’ve never heard of this obscure company, and neither have the 650 million Chinese who use cell phones… but that doesn’t matter because early investors could have made 2,407% so far.

Then there’s Microsemi, a company that makes a proprietary filter–less audio amplifier for cell phones (to help you hear better.) So far, this stock is up a staggering 4,965%.

Or consider ARM Holdings, which designs microprocessors that are used in more than 95% of the world’s cell phones. Their stock has already shot up 1,213%.

My point is, the same thing that happened with cell phones is happening right now with the “Chi–Tab” market.

Source: Stansberry Research

In a word, No!

If gold is in a bubble, then it’s one heck of a bubble. Not even the 2008, economy-wrecking market crash could pop it. Gold is not in a bubble; it’s in a big bull market, plain and simple.

As stories about quantitative easing and other forms of overt currency debasement crossed the newswires last year, investors became increasingly concerned about the value of the paper they call “wealth.” Increasingly, these concerned investors have been shifting some of their wealth from paper to gold…and other hard assets.

Plus, it’s easier than ever to “own” gold (so to speak) via the rise of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) like SPDR Gold Trust (NYSE:GLD). With a click of your mouse, you can buy into the new gold rush – although in many respects it’s better to buy real gold and take delivery, a point that I’ve made over and over.

At the same time, the world’s gold buyers are chasing declining mine output. That is, despite the rising price of gold, the world is likely past the point of Peak Gold output. All the output from new mines isn’t replacing the decline in output from older mines.

But demand is the main story in the gold market…demand for real money, not the paper kind. The monetary universe is changing in a fundamental way, with the price of gold serving as the barometer, thermometer and inclinometer. The cozy old economic order – post World War II, with the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency – is passing away, and things won’t ever go back to the long, lost “good old days.”

I’ve had endless discussions with skeptics about “why gold prices are rising.” Of course, the skeptics can deny, up and down, the meaning of rising gold prices. But at the end of the day, investors and savers around the globe are becoming increasingly fearful of holding paper currencies.

I won’t even go into the monetary problems that national governments across the world are facing with fiat currencies. Just accept the fact that mankind’s monetary default position is gold, and that’s been the case for 5,000 years or more. Don’t fight history.

Here at Agora Financial, we’ve been recommending that readers buy gold since the late 1990s, when it was selling for under $300 per ounce. We still like it at $1,375 an ounce.

When it comes to gold, there’s one key idea to take into 2011: Gold is money. And gold makes better money than the government-issued kind. The big risk of owning currency and bonds is that any Tom, Dick & Harry – OK, the politicians and bankers – can create as much of it as they want. This year and next, your biggest risk is in not understanding that concept.

When to sell gold?

If the president and the chairman of the Fed came out and said, ‘We’re going to raise interest rates, we’re going to stop quantitative easing — in fact, we’re going to reverse it a little bit — we’re going to cut corporate taxes to zero, we’re going to eliminate the capital gains tax, we’re going to reduce regulation, and we’re going to make America a magnet for savings and investment. We’re going to have an investment-driven model, rather than a debt- and consumption-driven model, and we’re going to have positive real rates.’

“I would say, ‘Great. Sell your gold, or put it to one side, because gold is over.’

“But none of those things is true. Not one of those policies that I just mentioned is on the table.

“In fact, the opposite is true. We’re getting higher taxes, more regulation, more quantitative easing and zero interest rates as far as the eye can see.”

Source: Byron King

Si tienes algun problema tecnico al completar el formulario abajo, prefiere entonces este link: LINK ENCUESTA

Lo que más me interesa de éste plan de marketing es que lo IMPLEMENTES en tu empresa. Este mismo esquema de 21 pasos lo he usado en mis 3 empresas y tambien para nuestros clientes en Chile, Perú y EE.UU. que hemos asesorado durante los últimos 7 años. No esperes tener una campaña de marketing perfecta en el primer intento, pues cada elemento de éstos 21 pasos son parte de un proceso de mejoramiento continuo. Habrá tambien obstáculos tecnológicos que son parte del proceso. Y recuerda, el objetivo de los anuncios no es ganar premios de creatividad en concursos de publicidad sino que generar resultados en ventas y posicionar tu marca.

PROCESO DE MARKETING EN 5 ETAPAS (21 pasos)

Las 5 etapas son: Prospectos -> Conversion -> Upsell -> Backend -> Continuidad

1. PROSPECTOS: utiliza el método de las 3M para construir campañas de anuncios publicitarios en el nicho adecuado, con el mensaje correcto, probando con un mix de medios relevante para tu audiencia. Siempre parte con una campaña en beta de baja escala. Si es exitosa y genera resultados se aumenta. De lo contrario, se determina que está fallando, sea esto el mensaje, el medio o el potencial cliente del mercado objetivo elegido.

Las 3 M del Marketing: Mercado, Mensaje, Medios.

MERCADO
2. Inteligencia del Cliente: identifica información de tú Cliente Objetivo (demografia, sicografia, intereses complementarios, desafíos y problemas específicos relacionados a tu rubro).
3. Inteligencia Competitiva: identifica las campañas, productos y servicios de la especialidad de cada uno de tus competidores.
4. Inteligencia de Productos: identifica qué alternativas ofrece el mercado con precios, calidad, plazos y servicios complementarios disponibles.
5. Entonces, determina los nichos y sub-nichos en que tendras ventajas comparativas debido a tus fortalezas de conocimiento y recursos.

MENSAJE
6. Identifica la principal diferenciación de tú empresa por la cuál tus potenciales clientes debieran preferirte sobre todas las demás alternativas.
7. Construír una secuencia de beneficios y servicios en tu mensaje. Por ejemplo, hoy los clientes valorizan la velocidad de respuesta con mensajes claros. Otro gran tema de diferenciación es a traves de la innovación a traves del diseño, del proceso, o del servicio.
8. Busca la confianza del potencial cliente entendiendo sus problemas, en vez de concentrarse sólo en la venta inicial.
9. Como es muy difícil ofrecer un producto que sea BBB (bueno, bonito y barato), concentrate en elegir 2 atributos entre precio, calidad y plazo, para aclarar en todos tus mensajes a los potenciales clientes (Son muy pocas las empresas como Google que disponene de una ventaja tecnológica que les permita ofrecer las 3B).
10. Seguimiento: no esperes que el cliente compre al primer contacto. Insiste con diferentes mensajes dando tiempo para que asimila internamente. Espera que él tendrá que escucharte de 5 hasta 12 veces antes de decidir o resolver. Resuelve cadas objección que presente en cada comunicación es vez de resolverlas todas de una vez.
11. Entrega varias alternativas para la orden de compra y varias alternativas para la forma de pago (tarjetas, cheques, pago plazo). Entre más alternativas y más simple y rápido sea la forma de tomar las ordenes y recibir su producto mayor será la conversión.

La 3 principales razones de que un cliente decida no comprar son:

• falta de recursos para pagarlo a pesar que les guste
• desinteres en el producto o servicio
• desconfianza en la empresa, en el vendedor o en el producto en cumplir los beneficios indicados

MEDIOS
12. Determina el MIX de medios óptimo para comenzar las campañas.
13. Es un proceso de mejoramiento continuo con revisiones cada dia, semana y mes de cada campaña.
14. Haz crecer el gasto publicitario en medios y escala a nuevos medios más masivos sólo cuando los mensajes tengan resultados comprobados en las campañas anteriores.
15. Investiga cómo integrar medios online y offline.
16. Preocupate de registrar resultados de cada campaña, para identificar los elementos que no funcionan o funcionan con bajos resultados, para reemplazarlos por otros mensajes o medios y probar nuevamente.

17. CONVERSION: determina muestras, demostraciones y presentaciones que ayuden a convertir prospectos en clientes. Utiliza el método #%%$ para evaluar cada campaña en medios. Si funciona y genera resultados, puedes mejorar esa campaña. De lo contrario, investiga qué está fallando, sea esto el mensaje, el medio o el potencial cliente del mercado objetivo elegido y cambialo.

18. AUMENTO DE VENTAS (UPSELL): existen 3 formas de aumentar las ventas:

• generar nuevos clientes (normalmente concentra el 80% del presupuesto y 20% del tiempo)
• aumentar el monto de cada transacción de venta como hace McDonalds
• aumentar la frecuencia de compra

19. VENTAS DE LARGO PLAZO (BACKEND): busca productos y servicios propios o de empresas complementarias para agregar a tu empresa. En este paso determinaras el presupuesto de marketing con la fórmula $=LTV, donde el presupuesto máximo a invertir en un potencial cliente está determinado por la vida útil esperada de un cliente actual y el margin de contribución que entrega. Tal como lo hace la empresa Amazon con sus tabletas Kindle. Ellos han calculado que pueden vender a pérdida su tableta, conociendo que los clientes comprarán ebooks para breakeven en menos de 3 meses.

20. CONTINUIDAD: investiga como aplicar un modelo de suscripción de clientes, tal como utilizan los diarios y revistas.

COMO CALCULAR EL PRESUPUESTO DE MARKETING

21. Calcula la vida esperada de un cliente promedio segun registros de ventas actuales. Luego, calcula el margen de contribución promedio en ese período. Ese valor determinará el presupuesto máximo a gastar para obtener o mantener clientes. Este método de retorno sobre las campañas pasadas es más preciso que determinar el gasto de marketing sólo como un porcentaje de las ventas.

TAREA: construye tu plan de marketing en 45 minutos y luego implementalo.

La tarea ahora es desarrollar tu Plan de Marketing con éstas 21 etapas para tú empresa. Lo fácil, es encontrar una razón para postergarlo y como no es urgente hacerlo otro día. Si siempre postergamos lo importante por hacer lo urgente, entonces postergamos tambien desarrollar, implementar y obtener nuestras metas estrategicas de largo plazo.

Entonces, más que entender éstas 21 ideas en forma aislada, revisa qué estas haciendo bien para mejorarlo y que elementos te falta implementar o ya están siendo implementados sin resultados satisfactorios.

CONSULTORIA 1-a-1

Si necesitas una visión complementaria al plan de marketing que diseñes para acelerar el crecimiento de tu proyecto, puedes enviarme un email antes del viernes 20/04 a las 5pm para agendar 3 reuniones por telefono de 20 minutos cada una por 3 lunes consecutivos entre 17:00 y 19:00 horas, indicando qué horario prefieres.

Mi email es: Octavio@OctavioUrzua.com

• Mandame un email con tu interes de tomar esta consultoría respondiendo éstas 3 preguntas:

1. ¿Cual es tu principal desafío de marketing y ventas hoy?
2. ¿Que recursos de marketing estas usando ahora y que resultados estas teniendo?
3. ¿Cual es el producto o servicio que estas ofreciendo?

• Para cada sesión por telefono te recomiendo tener preparadas tus preguntas de acuerdo a las 21 etapas de tu plan de marketing para aprovechar el tiempo al máximo.

• Si necesitas revisar otros temas más allá del plan de marketing de tú proyecto, tambien lo podemos revisar.

• El costo de éstas 3 sesiones es de $50.000. Te enviare por email las instrucciones de pago.

CONCLUSION

Recuerda que el marketing no es un evento puntual, sino que es un proceso de mejoramiento continuo que requiere revisiones y mejoras contantes de acuerdo a los cambios de los clientes, de los competidores, y del equipo de trabajo en tú empresa. Esto lo puedes hacer sólo, con tu equipo o con ayuda externa. Entre más perspectivas tengas mayor será el crecimiento y los resultados de tu empresa.

Que tengas un excelente día de marketing y recuerda que tu emprendimiento es importante para tu familia y para Chile. Y la forma que los integres en el proceso hace toda la diferencia.
Atte.
Octavio Urzúa

PS1. Si estás interesado en la consultoría para revisar tu plan pero no puedes pagar los $50.000 entonces mandame un email para revisar tu caso.

PS2. Si te sirvió la charla y tienes cometarios positivos colocalos abajo. Recuerda que por cada hora de aprendizaje debieramos dedicar 10 horas de implementación. Gracias.

* Words sell and words repel
* Words lead and words impede
* Words heal and words kill

Aspire will help you understand what words mean in their purest sense and unlock their importance as you develop a new leadership vocabulary.

From a fateful encounter with a wise shopkeeper in Vienna to a serendipitous introduction to an esteemed etymologist residing in a senior home, Kevin Hall discovers the secret power inherent in words, and invites us all on the journey.

Discovering your purpose through the Power of Words is almost an understatement to this book. Will you find your purpose? I don’t know, but what I do know is that you will be inspired to find your purpose and will have encouragement to turn to again and again as you struggle through the path.

The meaning of ten words:
1. Genshai (not treating anyone, including yourself, small)
2. Pathfinder (leader)
3. Namaste (respecting each person’s authenticity and uniqueness)
4. Passion (suffering for what you value)
5. Sapere Vedere (visioning)
6. Humility (being teachable)
7. Inspire (breathing life into)
8. Empathy (walking the path of another)
9. Coach (mentoring another)
10. Integrity (being congruent)

Source: Kevin Hall “Aspire”

The Chilean miners’ experience reminded us once again of the huge gulf between countries that work and countries that don’t. Just as the Chilean earthquake last February caused only 521 casualties compared to the 200,000 in Haiti the previous month, so the Chilean mine disaster brought together expertise from all over the world in a remarkably effective and competently managed rescue effort. It is a distinction that does not simply measure the difference between rich countries and poor countries: the 2008 Sichuan Chinese earthquake killed an estimated 90,000 people, while the Russian coal mine disaster in May killed 90 people both in countries of comparable wealth per capita to Chile.

Earthquakes are terrifying and mining is a dangerous job anywhere, but you’re much more likely to survive an earthquake or a mine disaster in some countries than in others. Indeed Chile’s performance both in the earthquake and this mine disaster was of the highest quality probably only in Germany, Scandinavia and maybe Singapore could one reliably expect public rescue services to work so effectively.

For investors, the Chilean earthquake and mine disaster experiences have an important lesson: Countries with really good management should be promoted sharply up investor league tables, for a number of reasons.

First, they are likely to enjoy better economic results. Their efficiency will use resources and labor better, there will be fewer sink-holes of value destruction in the public sector and the uncompetitive private sector and they will generally be more open to new ideas and new techniques. The mine rescue for example used people and equipment from all over the world a drill rig and drill bits from Schramm of Pennsylvania, a German-designed rescue pod and video equipment from Japan. Chile’s ability to assemble a state-of-the-art operation for a unique situation demonstrated the country’s ability to flourish in a competitive globalized market.

While there are other countries with Chile’s management capability though not many they do not have Chile’s wealth of natural resources and they generally have labor costs a substantial multiple of Chile’s. Chile has shown itself well managed under governments of both its political parties, but its current pro-business regime seems likely to be more active in removing obstacles to growth and encouraging the investment needed for it. Since it has the capabilities and resources of a much richer country, Chile seems likely to become one in pretty short order, and investors in Chile should benefit from the rapid growth that this emergence will bring.

Investors seeking exposure to the overall Chilean economy should first consider the iShares MSCI Chile Investible Market Index Fund (NYSE: ECH), which invests in the overall Chilean market index. At $500 million, this is large enough to be decently liquid and has an expense ratio of only 0.86%, very reasonable for a single country fund. Its main disadvantage, as for the Chilean market in general, is a price/earnings (P/E) ratio of 25 and a yield of only 1.1%, but you should remember that Chilean trailing earnings currently include the recession of 2009 and the difficult post-earthquake period, so even without rapid economic growth an earnings rebound would be likely.

For a higher yield, you should look at Vina Concha y Toro SA (NYSE:VCO) the country’s largest wine producer, which although trading on 21 times earnings has a dividend yield of 3.9%. Chilean wine has a quality advantage over most other producers in that the country’s remoteness allowed it to avoid the 1873 phylloxera blight, so its grapes are generally considered of exceptional quality. VCO is thus a leader in the country’s exceptional agribusiness sector, selling a product that is marketable at a premium above other commoditized wine producers.

It’s difficult to get direct exposure to Chilean mining because the dominant copper producer, Codelco, is state owned, while the smaller Chilean mining companies like the San Esteban company which owned the San Jose mine where the rescue took place have generally suffered from low investment and have sub-standard safety records. However one major participant in Chile’s mining is Freeport McMoran Copper and Gold (NYSE: FCX) which has three copper/gold mines in Chile and is investing $700 million in expansion of its El Abra project. FCX’s stock price has run up in the last few weeks, as with most mining companies, but at a 12.64 times trailing P/E ratio it remains good value.

Chile isn’t just a spice for your investment portfolio; it’s an essential ingredient!

Source: Martin Hutchinson, Money Morning