“What we do is monetise a company’s underutilized, underperforming or perishable as-sets by exchanging them with other members of the network for trade credit up to the fair market value,” explains Chris Shaw, Managing Director, BizX Middle East, which is based in Dubai. “The trade credits are used to pay for budgeted cash expenses, in full or in part, freeing up resources to be invested in other areas.”

“In the US, BizXchange has conducted over AED1.1 billion (US$300 million) worth of barter transactions since 2002 and has saved our clients tens of millions of dollars every year. Through our robust worldwide network of members and affiliates, we intend to provide this innovative business tool to more and more businesses in the region,” added Shaw.

The Conference provides Association Members and attendees a forum for industry professionals to exchange ideas and information. In light of new regulations and changes that have been proposed by Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission, this is an important opportunity for Members to collectively voice their positions on issues that could severely impact the industry.

Attendees at the Conference will be FINRA Member Investment Bankers, Boutique Corporate Finance Firms, Specialized Investment Brokerages, Fund Managers, Private Equity Groups, Money Managers, RIAs, Institutional Investors, Accredited Investors, Capital Market Service Providers and many other Investment Professionals.

“NIBA’s ‘Land of Opportunity Conference’ will feature: Opportunities for knowledge regarding current regulatory issues from the experts, including 5122; Opportunities for networking with the industries best boutique investment bankers, fund managers, small issuer service providers and others; Opportunities to interact with quality emerging companies and Opportunities to enhance your business,” stated Emily Foshee, NIBA Executive Director.

International Monetary Systems will be represented at the Conference by CEO Don Mardak, Executive Vice President John Strabley, and Assistant Secretary Judy Mardak.

The First Canadian Barter company along with their affiliated partner ESN held their annual barter cruise in the beautiful surroundings of downtown waterways and coastal mountains last Thursday, which was a packed affair with more than 200 business people attending. As usual, the beautiful surrounding made the dinner and drinks highly enjoyable and then there was dancing on the deck. Even though it was a non-Indo-Canadian cruise with a very mixed crowd, there was still Bhangra to get everybody jumping.

More at http://www.thelinkpaper.ca/?p=1752

Off the Waffle in Eugene, Oregon is not your typical waffle house. You won’t find pads of butter, bottles of fake maple syrup, or sides of hash browns and eggs here.

The owners, brothers Omer and Dave Orian, are in their mid-twenties and usually sport matching red afros. They and their seven employees serve traditional Belgian Liège waffles made from yeast-leavened batter. They use pearled sugar imported from Belgium, which caramelizes through the waffles, making them crunchy on the outside and moist on the inside.

And if you’re low on cash, Omer and Dave are happy to make a trade, because they’re big fans of bartering.

“When we were in elementary school, Dave would carry with him a little suitcase full of toys in hopes of trading them for cool stuff that other kids had,” says Omer.

Dave says the brothers have traded all kinds of things for waffles, including “acupuncture, massage, plumbing, a trumpet, and art.” And Omer adds that they received yard rakes from one customer.

“We have bartered for things we never would have gotten were we to have to pay cash for them,” Dave says.

This is one you should read in its entirety. Check it out at http://news.yourolivebranch.org/2010/07/21/how-to-share-a-waffle/

According to the release, this year’s convention should be the biggest IRTA convention in over a decade and have more than 70 exchanges represented. The convention will feature renowned speakers, broker training/seminars, media trading, social networking seminars, latest technological developments, community currency programs and much more.

IRTA Member rates are freely offered to all NATE members. For more information see http://www.irta.com

This year’s convention is hosted by Green Apple Barter Services.

“While about 23 exchanges said “YES” to attending a conference and specifically asked for Las Vegas, only 6 exchanges actually filled out the form”, admits Barry Cohen, co-founder of Barter 21. Interested exchanges are encouraged to attend the upcoming IRTA conference in October.

New exchanges added in the last little while include:

Sun Coast Barter – Bradenton FL
BarTraNet – Bethlem, New Zealand!
South Florida Barter – Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Free Barter Network – Loganville, GA
Tradelink Barter – Okeechobee, FL
Baby Boomer – Las Vegas, NV
visionTRADE – Los Angeles, CA
The Barter Nation – South Pasadena, FL
Barter Euro CLub – Athens, Greece!
e-Barter – France!
Vantage Barter – Austin, TX & Dallas/Fort Worth, TX
Liberty Trade Exchange – Greer, SC
Aloha Barter – Hawaii

As previously reported in the form 10-K, filed April 2, 2010, IMS had appointed Powell as the Company’s interim Chief Financial Officer, designating Mr. Powell as the Company’s principal financial officer and principal accounting officer for purposes of any filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. By the board resolution passed on June 11, 2010, the interim portion of the title was removed and Powell’s appointment as chief financial officer, principal financial officer and principal accounting officer was made permanent.

Powell is a Certified Public Accountant with over 10 years experience in public accounting and more than 15 years experience holding a variety of senior financial positions with a number of companies. Prior to joining IMS, he has served as finance and operations manager for the insurance subsidiaries of US Bancorp for more than 10 years, and most recently spent a year as corporate controller for a privately held group of retail service companies and a year as corporate controller for a privately held wholesale marketing and distribution company. Since joining IMS in July, 2009, he has been involved in tax compliance, risk management, and accounting and financial reporting.

IMS’ CEO, Don Mardak, commented, “We are extremely pleased to make this appointment of Dave Powell official. Since joining our firm last year, he has brought many refreshing ideas and insights into our operation and has helped us improve efficiencies and internal controls.”

While barter used to be seen as somehow countercultural, a rejection of the great impersonal forces of market capitalism, these days, in the same way pot has become mainstream, so has barter. It’s no longer a symbol of anything countercultural; instead, increasingly, it’s a part of the regular business landscape, a way for businesses large and small to find ways to dispose of excess inventory or to take advantage of excess time.

See the full story at http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/content?oid=1433741

Barter has many difficulties which are briefly described below:

1. Lack of Double Coincidence of Wants: In order for act of barter to take place, it is necessary that the persons with matching requirements are brought together. If a person A wants what person B has, person B must also want what person A has.

This is called the double coincidence of wants, which, as we can see, is very rare to obtain in real life. This difficulty makes barter system very cumbersome, even sometimes impossible, especially in an economy where specialization has taken place;

2. Lack of any Common Unit of Measurement of Value: Once the persons wanting each other’s commodity come together, the next problem is to determine the rate at which the exchange will occur. If A has rice, and B has wheat, then how much of rice will exchange for how much of wheat? Even when we have determined such a rate of exchange between the two given commodities, the problem still remains as to how to determine the rates of exchange between all the various commodities which are available in the barter economy. In case there are 500 different goods and services, we will have to work out 1,24,750 possible ratios of exchange which is an enormously difficult task. Not only this, we will have to adjust these ratios with each other in order to avoid unique profiteering by some traders. All the problems add to the difficulties of the barter system;

3. Lack of Means of Sub-division: There are manly kinds of goods (like a shirt, a house, a car etc.) which, when divided, lose their worth. In other words, they are indivisible. In the case of such goods the system of barter fails. If one shirt is exchanged for 2 measures of rice, then to say that half a shirt will exchange for 1 measure of rice has no meaning;

4. Lack of any Common Unit in terms of which Contracts and Agreements requiring Future Payments would be written: In a system of barter economy, another set of difficulties arises when one of the commodities (to be exchanged) is not parted with immediately, and requires to be given away at some future sate. In such a case, there is no way in which we can write a contract, or have an agreement to effect this transaction; and

5. Lack of any Common Unit in terms of which the Generalized Purchasing Power could be stored: An individual’s income is not always spent, and is sometimes set aside for future use. In a system of barter economy, there is no way of storing the purchasing power of the saved income.The money system does not have any of the above problems, and hence it is said that money is the most preferred asset, and money system is the most preferred system for an economy to go ahead.

Modern barter solves all of these problems in an easy way. In modern barter, neither party must have a coincidence of wants, you can just accept barter dollars and spend them on what you really want. Barter dollars provides a common unit of measurement. Barter dollars substitute indivisible goods with incremential units of value. A well managed barter exchange is also a great place to store earnings over time.

Obviously there are exceptions to these solutions. Some mismanaged exchanges don’t do a great job at solving any of the problems, and increase inflation of prices, but a well managed exchange, and there are many of them out there, solve all of these problems and more.

See the full article at http://www.merinews.com/article/the-barter-system-pros-and-cons/15813654.shtml