Much fuss was made this week over China’s proposed tariffs on American Chicken.  At first glance, the situation is grave; 50-100% premium on imports of chicken from the US.  However, upon closer examination there are two other important data points to consider:a) the Chinese have a particular interest in parts of the chicken that we typically discard (namely the feet and the wings) and are virtually worthless in the US market and b) Russia announced that they would be allowing exports of chicken from the United States into Russia after a nearly  one year ban.

“640K ought to be enough for anybody…”            

Recently the hard drive crashed on one of our home computers, suddenly and without cause.  When we took it apart to replace the hard drive, we discovered it was a Seagate SATA 500GB / 7200 RPM.  It was a good opportunity to upgrade the operating system, and install a larger drive… perhaps 1TB.  About a year ago when the machine was purchased, 500GB still seemed large, now it seemed small and inadequate, particularly for storing our large and growing collection of home videos.  Cost to replace (without price shopping): $49.00.

Amvona Store: August 1999 - April 2010

• - Initial capital: $300
• - 1999-2003:  One employee -  (mostly) in a dorm room
• - 1999-2005:  Growth completely self-financed - zero debt.
• - 1999-2006:  Compound Annual Growth Rate ~120%
• - 1999-2010:  Shipped over 1 mil products to ~ 300k customers worldwide.
• - April  2010:  Precisely zero bank debt on our balance sheet.

We have seen and been part of a miracle.
 
G.M. Lemelson
Founder and CEO
Now the Amvona Blog...

I had just started writing a blog entry on the state of the union address (which deals mostly with the widespread discomfort, or suffering – if I can use that word, of the American people), when I came across news of a new biography written about Pope John Paul II.   After reading the news article, I tried to go back to writing about politics and the economy, but just couldn’t avoid giving a short commentary instead on the new book "Why he is a Saint: The True story of John Paul II"

It is not my intention to cause controversy, I am not particularly interested in politics per sae, and I know this blog does not have a focus on religion as such, but since I could not avoid either politics or religion in today’s news, I thought this would be a nice break from the “hyper” coverage of the Apple iPad – although I respectfully tip my hat to Mr. Jobs for being a visionary product engineer, and PR genius – I have to confess I want an iPad.

I tried not to write about Haiti this week, but doing anything else seemed profane.  I have seen that our response to Haiti is intense and obvious, perhaps more so than the Tsunami in 2004.  It has been suggested by some, that this may be because Haiti is at our door step.   Generally, the message is one of us Americans, a great philanthropic country, leading the humanitarian effort - and we are, as we always have. 

Four year olds like to make play houses from just about anything, If it looks like a “hut” or “hideout”, even better.  My son is no exception.  Last night we conducted our nightly routine of building a house on the bed constructed of pillows.   The procedure then involved (as usual) camping-out in the “hut”, for story time.

Current “Clean-Tech” enterprises present few “break-through” technologies. Rather there seems to be an improvement in overall efficiency of existing technologies, many of which (e.g. windmills, solar power) are quite old.

The internet may even pose a more precise analogy to “Clean-Tech” businesses than others insofar as the product is fundamentally important to us, and not merely a “want” which gives rise to consumption. In the case of the internet, the promise of the technology itself has more than been fulfilled, even if the promises of a great number of commercial concerns related to it have not. 

I venture to say that an economic movement which is based on our survival and well being as humans may be fundamentally too important to approach merely as a capitalist endeavor. Historically, novel technologies, even when related to existing demand, are difficult to efficiently monetize. Shifts in behavior however, (as they relate to those technologies) are a better bet.  How difficult will it be to create a substantial economic enterprise in an industry which is neither novel, nor benefited by consumption per sae?