 Hello everybody, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the beautiful states of North Carolina. So I don't know what it was about my last video, but in 24 hours after I posted it, my subscribers to my channel tripled from 10 all the way to 30. It's not a big number, but it did triple and that makes me very happy. So today I want to talk about a wonderful book called The World Right Side Up. Now I printed out the cover because I've started reading books on my Android on the Kindle app, which I like. I like it better than the early Kindle device. I used to have one of the early Kindles and I mostly like it better because page turning is quick and responsive. Maybe that's fixed on the Kindle fire, but I don't know, I'm sticking with this for now. Despite the fact that twice now I lost all my notes and marks. It's extremely frustrating and I haven't yet, I think I found a manual backup. I haven't yet found something that manages the notes and marks and makes them readable. I'm messing with the Calibre right now, but to me it seems like it's better integrated with tablets and readers rather than the Kindle app from Android. I have high hopes for the future though. I think a solution will arise on the free market. So let's get started. The World Right Side Up by Christopher Mayer. The title comes from his central thesis that the Western dominance of the economy was kind of an anomaly and the world is being restored to its natural state, which means a lot of the economic activity happens all over the world. He writes that the Western world represented 90% of the world's manufacturing output as late as 1953. 90%. Now I think there are a lot of cultural reasons why the Industrial Revolution started in the West, but this, according to him, was an anomaly and now we are seeing great economic things happening all over the world. Do not take the mercantilistic point of view that the nation with the biggest economy wins. It's good for everybody so long as we are not banned from trading. But this book was a lot of fun. It's a break from the usual libertarian literary diet because it's so optimistic. Usually we read big criticisms of the state and all the horrible things that the state is doing and that's very important. I'm not disparaging that. But this is the optimistic view of an investor and a businessman. I think by nature and by profession he has to be optimistic and I think we all have reason to be optimistic about the free market. He travels all over the world and writes about Vietnam, Colombia, New Zealand, farming in Canada, the Abu Dhabi, the commerce capital of the Middle East. So it's a lot of fun. It's a particularly good read for people who are trying to do a little bit of business and become entrepreneurs big or small because it's not easy to overcome that slave mentality that we were all taught in school. He makes lovely observations in this book like investing with owners is better than investing just with a management team. I think the anti-IP crowd will really appreciate his observations that China makes great knockoffs at a fraction of the cost. He gives advice to one businessman in India and he says, when you're back in America, take note of all the conveniences you enjoy, write them all down. Then when you come back to Mumbai, check that list again. Whatever's missing, start a business around that. I think that's wonderful advice and just also a fun way to look at the world. It reminds me of something that my friend and mentor Michael McKay told me. He runs Radio Free Market, an internet website which you should all check out as well. He said every problem is a business opportunity because that's what business does, problems, any discomfort, any problem, any desire an entrepreneur can fulfill it as long as it's not illegal for him to do so and even when it is. I really like Christopher Mares. I really like the broad view that he takes. He's a traveler, investor and an avid reader and throughout the book he describes the books he reads or the documentaries he watches to get just a deeper sense of the cultures that he visits. Among his recommendations, and I wish I had time to read all of them, among his recommendations are books Africa Rising, China Shakes the World, 4 Million Customers, the website ArabianMoney.net, Travels with a Tangerine, the Conquest of Brazil, the Adventures of Ibn Battuta, a Muslim traveler in the 14th century and the 1952 book Monsoon Seas, the Story of the Indian Ocean. So as you can see, he looks deep into history and into contemporary just to try to understand the culture and understand its opportunities. Sometimes he's, like I said, he's very optimistic which is kind of refreshing, a refreshing break from the usual libertarian diet. A couple observations that he makes which I thought to print out and share, a Colombian businessman asked him, would you have invested in Brazil 15 years ago if you had a chance? And Christopher Mares replies, of course, that would have been a home run. And then he turns around and says, welcome to Colombia. He talks about China's dramatic rise. He says, while the Chinese worked all day in their mills and new factories sprouted up like spring peepers all through China, Germany increased taxes and expanded its bloated government programs. In his terrific book, China Shakes the World, James Kynge tells the story of the Thyssenkrupp Steel Mill Endortment, one of the largest in Germany. Within a month of Thyssenkrupp's closing of the mill, a Chinese company bought it with the idea of disassembling the entire mill and taking it back to China near the mouth of the Yangtze River. Soon after this Chinese company bought the mill, 1,000 Chinese workers arrived in Germany to begin the process of taking the plant apart and bring it to China. The Germans got a close-up lesson in why they could not compete against the Chinese who worked 7 days a week for 12 hours a day. Now, this was one of the few parts of the book where he's a little bit more of a critic, but usually the book is gloriously optimistic. But here he just compares, I don't even want to say the decline of the West, even though it may be the decline, but it's certainly the comparable rise of China. I think that's how he would put it. Germans got an up-close lesson. The Germans started to complain, so the Chinese, in deference to local law, took one day off. In the end, the Chinese dismantled the mill in less than one year, a full two years ahead of the time this and drop initially thought it would take. Altogether, 275,000 tons of equipment had been shipped along with 44 tons of documents. 44 tons of documents that explained the intricacies of the reassembly process. Doing all this work was still cheaper by about 60% than building a new mill. As recently as 1975, China's entire output of steel could not match this one mill in Dortmund. Now the Dortmund plant itself stands in China. There's another part about the chapter of China, which I thought was fascinating. I'll read that as well. I don't know that people appreciate just how large China's advantage is in this area. He's talking about manufacturing. But when you look at where things come from, China is often the answer. Often too, a single Chinese city dominates a certain item. For instance, Yi Wu makes one-quarter, one-quarter of the world's drinking straws. The Tang produces one-third of the world's socks. Shang Zhao makes 40% of the world's neckties. Wen Zhao produces 70% of the world's cigarette lighters. Other cities specialize in all kinds of things. He talks about 350 million umbrellas a year coming from one city. Pens, tennis paddles, all centered around cities. About Dubai. A very interesting section about both Abu Dhabi and Dubai. I think the entrenched powers are happy to let us believe that this spectacular city of Dubai was built on oil money and nothing but oil money. I'll read a little excerpt from the book and I think you'll see why we're not going to be taught the reality of Dubai in public school. In Dubai, there is no income, property, or corporate taxes. There are no. Zero. Imagine no IRS, no annual tax reports. The city funds itself with taxes on hotel occupancy, liquor sales, and restaurant meals. As well as permits for roads and such. Part of the budget comes from the Emirates business interests such as Emirates Airlines and aluminum smelters. Now, I think the strictest libertarian moralists might find some tiny little objections in this book. For example, he writes about a company in South Africa that benefits from government privilege. The company with South Africa's first black-owned mining company, founder is one of the richest men in Africa and has made the Forbes 500 list. South Africa post-apartheid has encouraged black ownership of business through black empowerment laws and such. Another contact described the policies to Chris Mayer as, quote, your affirmative action in the states except on steroids. As a result, the company surely enjoys favored sun status in South Africa, something that is significant in mining, which is often as political as it is economic. Another very small objection to this wonderful book, he says, bubbles are part of the weather patterns of markets. They appear every so often like cloudy days. Of course, anyone studied in ABCT, the Austrian Business Cycle Theory, we'll have a little more to say about what causes bubbles. Anyway, fantastic book, something new, something a little bit different. The World Right Side Up by Christopher Mayer. And what turned me on to this book was another YouTube video. It was Jeffrey Tucker and Stefan Malin, you talking at FreedomFest 2012. So I immediately logged in to Led's Affair Books and got a copy which comes free with my membership. That's it for now. Stay tuned for the next one. Thanks for listening. Thanks for subscribing. Bye.