Today’s picture: A detail photo of the very bottom of a commercial invoice made by Tauer, signature to the left, below the “preferential origin” statement, and the company stamp to the right. I also introduced a new tag with this post, “general craziness”.  And stampometer.

I am convinced that looking at the world through a stampometer (or custometer) helps understanding it. Both meters come also with a good prognostic factor, for instance for economic development of a particular country/region. An example (no offense to anybody anywhere): I face on a weekly basis the fact that customs in one of the larger countries in South America where people like to play football is out of control and super ineffective. Think: A sample set sits in customs for one month before being dealt with. Dealing with a 33$ value item often translates into asking pitiable inhabitants of this country to provide tax id etc.  The same applies for goods imported by companies. Guess what: I a world, globalized and with labor divisioned all over the globe, as an economic region, you will not unlock your full potential if your country is shielded by customs.

I guess  one could start an investment fond and become really rich, using a stampometer-custometer approach.

Other examples: Company stamps are 100% needed for some middle East countries. It does not matter how they look, what’s on the stamp, all irrelevant. Completely irrelevant, BUT: The stamp MUST be in blue. No way if it is not. I’d assume that not even the normal bribe mode would help with papers stamped in red. Thus, I got sort of a company stamp, Tauer GmbH being the official name of the company that employs me. Yep: I am just an employee, like most of you. The stamp is simple, and in blue.

And guess what: Since I have this stamp, I stamp everything that comes near it and looks like it might end up on any customs desk.

Da Puff!