Written by Bob Meyer, Editor of BarterNews

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“The barter industry received tremendous attention when IRTA conducted the last research project in November of 2001, and we continue to receive media inquiries on the barter industry from around the globe. It’s a big job, but we knew it had to get done. Thankfully the IRTA board saw fit to spend the time and money to further the industry in this way.”

—Krista Vardabash, IRTA Executive Director

The bi-annual statistics gathering effort of the International Reciprocal Trade Association (IRTA) will soon be conducted to determine valid and reliable barter industry statistics.

To be a part of this study you are not required to be an IRTA member, nor are you required to join IRTA in order to participate.

IRTA has contracted with Lewis and Clark Research to collect the responses, analyze the data and produce a report of findings, so information about your specific company will be kept confidential.

Further information on the research effort will be available through the Tuesday Report in the coming weeks.

Trade Exchange Owners...
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Active International Forges Historic Private
Trade Agreement With The Dominican Republic

Active International, the world’s largest corporate trading firm, has announced a new trade program that will enable the Instituto Agrario Dominicano (IAD), the Dominican Republic’s national agrarian organization, to trade commodities and finished products in exchange for vital equipment and services.

The IAD is an autonomous government agency formed by the Dominican Republic to improve the economic and social conditions of Dominican farmers and sustain the national agricultural economy. This is the first agreement of its kind forged between government and private enterprise in the Dominican Republic.

Under the agreement, the IAD will be able to leverage commodity and finished products such as tobacco, sugar, and cocoa to acquire equipment and services, including irrigation equipment, tractors, trucks, and energy generators, which will help to further enhance the economic base of the country. Members of the IAD will utilize their products as a currency to purchase critical infrastructure, equipment and services through Active, drastically reducing their cash expenditure.

“By working with Active, the Dominican Republic will be able to maximize the full value of our country’s rich agricultural commodities, while giving participating businesses a financial tool to acquire equipment and services critical to the growth of our country,” said Secretary of State and Director General of the IAD, Tomas Hernandez Alberto. “The Economic Development Program provides us with a unique opportunity to take advantage of the multiple benefits of international corporate trade.”

Active and the IAD will work together to determine the value of the products, which will be used as a form of payment in lieu of currency. In turn, Active will establish a trade bank which will be utilized to purchase infrastructure, equipment and/or services based on predefined requirements.

By working with Active, the IAD has access to new sales distribution channels for products that might otherwise go unsold, distribution of goods to a global marketplace, and the use of products to purchase desired business-related products, creating additional liquidity for the business community.

For more information, please visit www.activeinternational.com.

Every barter company in the world is listed on our web site, click through to our Global List of Barter Companies.

Get New Money-Making Ideas And Valuable Contacts!

You can obtain useful, informative ideas and contacts in every available back-issue of BarterNews.

Article In Costco’s Magazine Lauds Barter

A two-page article titled “Let’s Trade!” was published in the recent July issue of The Costco Connection. Interestingly, it was written by a member of a trade exchange in San Francisco. Steven Van Yoder began the article by sharing his positive personal experiences with the trade exchange, and referring to the book he published, Get Slightly Famous: Become a Celebrity in Your Field and Attract More Business with Less Effort (Bay Tree, 2003). He indicated he bartered more than half of the required costs to publish the book as well as establishing his web site.

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Immigrants Keep U.S. Competitive In Science & Technology

A new study by Stuart Anderson of the National Foundation for American Policy, discloses that the contributions of skilled foreign-born professionals and their offspring are very important to the United States. Without them the country would be hard pressed to maintain its worldwide advantage in such fields as math and science.

Highlights of the study show:

• More than half of the engineers with a Ph.D. working in the U.S., and 45% of the nation’s computer science doctorates, are foreign-born.

• Children of immigrants comprise 65% of the 2004 U.S. Math Olympiad’s top scorers (13 of 20) and 46% of the U.S. Physics Team (11 of 24).

• At this year’s Intel Science Talent Search, which recognizes the nation’s top math and science students, 60% of the finalists and seven of the top 10 award winners were immigrants or their children. Last year, three of the top four awardees were foreign-born.

Anderson concluded, “If we had listened to the anti-immigration crowd over the past 20 years, we could have wiped out two-thirds of the top future scientists and mathematicians in the United States because we would have barred their parents from ever entering America.”

The study, titled The Multiplier Effect, is available at www.nfap.net.

BarterNews issue #62 is now available...Get yourself a copy now! Orders are shipped within two business days. (Click on Order Form.)

Corporate Scandals’ Legacy Especially Tough
On Small Business

The recent corporate scandals by Enron, MCI, and others have not only destroyed the life savings of thousands of employees and undermined the public’s faith in the integrity of corporate America, they have also created a situation that may have the most far-reaching aspect—making it tougher for smaller corporations in this country to grow and prosper.

That’s because the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley law—passed as a reaction to the corporate scandals—has had the effect of discouraging the creation of publicly traded companies. Many promising firms are now without access to what historically has been among the most efficient ways to raise capital and expand.

Complying with Sarbanes-Oxley means spending more on audits, lawyers and other functions. Plus premiums for insurance policies that indemnify company directors and offices are rising 100% to 300% annually. On average, the cost of being a public company has climbed from $1.3 million a year to $2.5 million, according to a study by Chicago law firm Foley & Lardner.

Max Donner of California.com, a San Diego research firm, figures that largely because of Sarbanes-Oxley about 1,000 public companies will eventually cease trading on public exchanges and transition to private ownership.

Bottomline: Although from the short term point of view this looks ominous, we must wait and see what the effects of Sarbanes-Oxley will be in the long run.

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Here & There...

• Deadline is August 1 for advertising in the up-coming issue #63 of BarterNews, which will be out prior to the NATE and IRTA conventions. For complete rates click on “Advertising” (above navigational bar) or contact Bob Meyer...e-mail: bmeyer@barternews.com.

• International Monetary Systems (OTCBB:INLM) enrolled 211 new clients in the second quarter of 2004. It was the second highest reported quarterly total sign-ups in the company’s history, and represented an 83% increase over the second quarter figure of 2003.

  “Once again, this demonstrates our (Continental Trade Exchange’s) ability to grow internally, and not just through acquisitions,” CEO Don Mardak declared. “As we continue to add new outside salespeople, we should be able to maintain this recent trend of increased client enrollments.”

• Don Miller, a long time trader and BXI Area Director in Denver, Colorado, is retiring after 32 years in the business. Congratulations on all of your successes and achievements Don, and best wishes as you move forward in other directions in your life.

• Barter (syndication) is a “win-win model” for the smaller players among China’s 1,150 state-owned TV broadcasters. Lacking the ratings to raise their ad rates, they find that marketers and media-buying companies with shows containing product placement or ads is the way to go. The broadcasters take the product in exchange for a block of program time and the ad space around it. As more cable and digital TV channels are launched, demand for programming is expected to grow dramatically.

• Have you signed up to receive a summary via e-mail of the Tuesday Report every week? If not, go to the top of this issue (right hand corner) and sign up!

• Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts is about to build the M/S Four Seasons, a super luxury liner that will rival the first such floating condominium, The World of ResidenSea, which was launched in 2002. The Four Seasons ship will have 100 private apartments, expected to sell for $4 million and up.

• Alex McDowell, a Hollywood production designer who built an airline terminal for movie director Steven Spielberg’s movie The Terminal, studied airport terminals in Japan, Europe and the USA. He came away convinced that European airports do a better job than U.S. counterparts in making a comfortable environment for travelers, such as better seating, more entertainment...anything to help pass the waiting hours.

• Membership in the National Association of Realtors, which represents most of the nation’s more-active agents, has soared to more than one million. That’s up 39% from five years ago when the current real estate boom started.

  The dawn of the last real estate downturn saw a similar growth in the number of people moving into sales—hoping to cash in on the surge in house prices before the actual downturn took place.

• Mexico, a nation with 110 million people, has only 28 million checking and savings accounts at commercial banks. A true indication of the distrust and unwillingness to pay high fees by its citizenry. Banco de Mexico, the country’s central bank, estimates that bank lending to businesses and individuals accounts for less than 9% of gross domestic product...one-sixth of the U.S. level (52%).

  Fees at Mexican banks account for an average of 31% of income...higher than any other Latin American country. For example, a bounced check runs about $75, compared with about $22 for a U.S. bank.

• Pimco’s Bill Gross, the dean of American bond-fund managers, says America is in the beginning stages of what can aptly be called hegemonic decay. In short, Gross says the country is overextended...we’re trying to do too much, borrow too much, and we spend too much.

• The Federal Reserve’s latest study says that U.S. house prices are likely to grow at the slowest pace in more than three decades, as interest rates climb and land prices take a tumble over the next three years. Of primary concern is whether the recent run-up in aggregate home prices will be somewhat reversed, much like the 1985-1990 and the 1990-1995 experience.