This week we’d like to give a shout-out to Ibett Shipley and her Ibettink at Huebner & Bitters in far north-central San Antonio.  They specialize in embroidery, invitations, and other personalized products and gifts, all delivered with stellar service.

The personalization is further enhanced by custom Ibettink online stores, free of charge for various organizations, schools and associations.  They stick their respective logos on this coffee cup or that towel, and voila; it arrives at their doorstep in 10 days or less.

Ibettink’s survival during the government lockdowns of the last couple years showed classic American grit.  They did it with creativity, partially pivoting to making masks when no one knew for sure what was going around, and wanted to protect themselves and others.

They also printed up the first batch of InfuseSA shirts that you see us wearing around town. 

Ibettink is a great example of a couple things.  One, when a company succeeds in satisfying customers, it expands, until they tap out the local customer base. 

Then, if they haven’t already, they start selling outside their local borders.  This brings in revenue from abroad (whether outside their town, state or country).  In some instances, they might even open branches in other jurisdictions. 

This virtuous wealth-creation cycle leads to several small business opportunities, as it did for Ibettink. 

Enterprising entrepreneurs open restaurants, salons, autobody shops, etc.  Some might franchise dry cleaning, or postal delivery stores chains, for example.  Any of the former, like Ibettink, could find a niche, and morph into the latter, and the cycle keeps flourishing.

We salute establishments like Ibettink who navigated the thicket of public bureacracy to open their doors, and we work toward seeing those regulations slashed so more can enter the fray and push our society to more prosperous heights.

The post InfuseSA in the Community: Ibettink first appeared on Infuse SA.

“Homeownership is a path for building wealth in the U.S. The median homeowner had $254,900 in wealth in 2019, compared with $6,270 for the median renter, according to the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances.
“’It’s a wake-up call,” said Gay Cororaton, senior economist and director of housing and commercial research at NAR. ‘Policies have to be focused more on making sure that the lower-income and many more middle-income folks participate in the benefit of homeownership.’”

So says a report from The Wall Street Journal this morning.

Unless you live where many people want to be, it is and always has been misleading to call home ownership a “path for building wealth.” If anything, it’s an inflation hedge that guards against poor monetary policy and stewardship of the dollar.

The housing bond in May will not help this, and will arguably make things worse.

When the federal government, both the president and the Federal Reserve, support a weak dollar, a couple things happen. One, it makes some things more expensive because, since it has been devalued, it simply takes more dollars to buy things.

This is why the cost of basics such as food and oil/gas rise.

Two, future gains from investment (what actually drives economic prosperity; NOT consumer expenditures) become less predictable because of the weaker dollar, and uncertainty which direction the value of it will go. As a result, the price of gold goes up.

Another ‘asset’ that rises in value is housing. It’s why you see increased investment in rental properties, and home remodeling, for example.

City and county government know this, and cash in via property taxes. Compounding matters, they embody the true definition of greed in our society when they can’t be bothered to cut rates, nevermind doing the right thing and uprooting and abolishing the whole enterprise.

To think government-directed housing policy, which invariably invites cronyism and corruption, can fix this problem is the height of arrogance or ignorance, or both.

Vote “NO” on the housing bond.

The post A Home is a Basic Expense; Not a Wealth-Building Vehicle. first appeared on Infuse SA.

• Government’s “resources” come at our expense, inhibiting our freedom to do more for ourselves, our family, our community
• Taxation chips away at future prosperity
• Politicians’ efforts to grab for more puts us further in debt, entrenches the non-value-added political class, and causes inflation

It’s shameful when politicians leverage personal tragedy for political ends.

First off, “local, state and federal” governments have “resources” only insofar as what they forcibly take from citizens first. On the local level, this comes partially in the form of property taxes. On the federal level, this seizure comes from our work effort, otherwise known as the income tax.

The state of Texas has no such tax, though not for lack of suggestion.

The source of our prosperity is our savings. Those savings don’t simply lounge around in our bank accounts. They get invested in new ideas for ventures that others have. Or, we skip the savings account and invest directly ourselves, in stocks and bonds, our 401K, etc.

Or, we invest in our own human capital via school or training. This in turn creates greater future income for us. To come full circle, whatever we don’t spend on everyday expenditures, or perhaps occasional big-ticket purchases, goes into the aforementioned savings account and/or investments.

That is of course after Uncle Sam has taken his cut of our income, and this is where the mayor’s plea becomes disingenuous. Even after he, the city council, the Bexar County Commissioners court and Washington D.C. have taken a swipe at our quality of life borne of good habits, they have developed a habit of creating their own “resources,” though not without consequence.

For decades, accelerating this century, when taxes on income and investments are insufficient to quench the thirst of federal politicians to spend, they borrow. This has resulted in a $30 trillion national credit card bill. Some of this largesse trickles down into local government budgets.

More indirectly is the local gusher created by federal monetary policy.

When the feds talk down the value of the dollar, or outright depress it by keeping the printing presses in overdrive, investors tend to look more for safer, already-establish assets in which to invest. The poor/unstable policy saps their confidence in the future, and adds artificial risk to how the deploy their resources. The most common refuge is gold, but one we’re more familiar with is housing.

As in other areas in which the government has an outsized, counterproductive presence and/or influence upon, such as education and health care, this increased flow of dollars results in inflated prices. And when the value of our home subsequently rises, what else also rises? Our property tax bill.

Regardless of the degree to which local, state and federal lawmakers are in cahoots, they know they can create “available … resources” out of thin air. The resulting inflation makes no matter to them when they can convince just enough voters of the ‘need’ to do so.

What the mayor was saying was the most insincere form of pandering. It’s a wonder he didn’t say “if it saves just one life.” Maybe voters have gotten wise to such messaging. We’ll see in November and the following May.

The post Politicians Never Met a ‘Resource’ That Wasn’t “Available.” first appeared on Infuse SA.