Mulai Lagi

In Chicago, where politics is a contact sport, we are used to seeing scandal circle around the target of public suspicion. Sometimes, like with our recently-sentenced-to-prison former governor Ryan, the circle tightens until it ensnares the biggest fish. Sometimes, scandal remains in the air and never lands directly on the most interesting target. That seems to be the case with Mayor Daley who has not been directly implicated in any wrong doing but seems to be in charge of a lot of people who have. There have, for example, been recent public scandals involving the city's hired truck program and the hiring of building inspectors. At the same time, the city is a better place to live and work than it has been in years (maybe ever). Yesterday and today (registration required), The New York Times ran articles that imply through attributed and unattributed sources that EPO doping was a fact of life in the 1999 U.S. Postal Service cycling team that brought Lance Armstrong to the first...

Someone from Italy visited my site this week via the search "NAFTA preference override." I am going to assume that means someone is sitting at a desk in Rome right now trying to make sense of the crazy NAFTA marking rules and, in particular, the NAFTA preference override. I'm here to help, paisano. The first thing to understand is that the regular NAFTA rules of origin are designed only to tell you whether something is originating in North America. They do not tell you what country in North America. Normally, that would not be a big deal. Once you know it is originating, you could just apply the normal substantial transformation rules to figure out how to mark it. But, this is not normally. First, because Canada had a head start on duty reduction under the U.S. Canada Free Trade Agreement, the rates for Canada and Mexico were not always the same. Now, they are in all but a few sensitive products from Mexico. Second, there is a general understanding that Mexico and Canad...

Today I spoke at a seminar put on by the International Trade Club of Chicago. The topic was internal reviews and prior disclosures. Three hours listening to me seems like a lot, but I think it went well enough. I took a new approach on my PowerPoint slides. It is a long story, but I am convinced that in the hands of the unskilled ( like me), PowerPoint can suck the life out of a presentation. I've been doing some reading about this and I tried to emulate Stanford professor Lawrence Lessig today. Basically, I had no bullet points, no charts, no slide transitions, and no fancy fonts; just a few key words for each thought. Anyway, I think it was OK. I'll have to keep practicing the method. We had lots of good questions. Rather than find a search engine phrase for my Friday question, I'll just give you some from the meeting this morning. Why do I have to worry about privilege for an internal review? Because you may not want to turn the results over to Customs w...

Someone from Germany visited with the following search: "origin country customs marking." Glücklich zu helfen, Freund. U.S. law requires that all articles of foreign origin imported into the United States be marked with their country of origin. The marking must be permanent and conspicuous. For certain specific articles, Customs has specific marking requirements. This applies, for example, to watches and jewelry in the style of Native American wares. Also, Customs likes to see die cast or etched markings on pipes and the like. Bottom line is that it has to be permanent enough to reach the end user. Deciding on the correct country of origin is tricky. We already discussed NAFTA marking, which is wholly different, so that is not what I am talking about here. The country of origin of goods is generally the country in which the goods originate or last underwent a substantial transformation. So a coconut grown and harvested in Thailand is of Thai origin. No problem. Coconut mi...