Ameru Trading del Peru S.A.

Many of you have asked me some questions about our bearing import company in Peru: Ameru Trading del Peru S.A.  Because Lilia sent me the double logo, that is what I present to you, this is our face to the world.

I finally was spurred to write about our company here because of a nice little milestone our company achieved with our end of May sales figures:

Codigo	T_Qty	T_Sales
02-6007-RS	367153	$1,012,726.34

The above means is that in the 12 and a half years that I have been keeping track of our bearing sales (each line item comes up to me every week by email on MS Excel, I then massage that data and put into an MS Access database) is that our best selling piece, the KBC 02-6007-RS (the "02-" is our internal coding for KBC brand) bearing has now had over $1,000,000 in total sales (and total quantity of 367,153 pieces sold) over those years.  Yay!  Just that one bearing.  The 02-6007-RS looks very similar to the bearing in the upper left hand corner of the below picture:

Some of you may recognize the above image...  Picture courtesy of KBC of Korea (now owned by Schaeffler of Germany).

The below picture (courtesy of Iljin of Korea) is a picture of a (smaller piece at lower left) double row ball bearing as well as a "Hub and Bearing Assembly" (the big complicated looking piece above the smaller one) which is how most of the car manufacturers now want their bearings:

The Hub and Bearing Assembly above is a "3rd Generation" piece, many of these are also sold with the ABS sensor (we sell some too, but nobody Peru cares about anti-lock braking systems, all they care about is driving faster...).

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Ameru Trading del Peru S.A. was started in 1991 by my (Peruvian) in-laws and myself.  I had a small import/export business at that time, and I was always going back and forth from Lima back here to the USA (where I have always lived).  

Before the founding of our company I was always taking taxis in Lima to different parts of town, and I liked to chat it up with taxi drivers, who in a sense are like me: wanting their freedom.  I would always ask these guys "What do you NEED here in Peru?" as I was importing Peruvian green coffee beans (unroasted) and selling them in the USA.  The taxi drives almost always said "Repuestos, Sr. Gringo, repuestos" (automotive spare parts).  As time went by, I had enough snap to ask them: "What kinds of spare parts, there are lots of parts in a car..."  I started to hear many of the words often enough that I looked them up.

After due deliberation with my Peruvian family (I could not be a luckier man with in-laws like them), we decided to set up our company to bring in general auto parts, but focusing on parts for the very common (at that time) VW Beetle.  We set up our company with a what now seems laughable $25,000 in capital...

As a tiny company that did not really know what we were doing, the early years were very hard.  We had to learn about auto parts.  We had to learn about our market (Lima only at first).  I can still remember when I was pleased when I learned that our monthly sales had reached $800, a record...

As the years passed by, we gradually decided to concentrate on rolling bearings as I had a friend whose family owned a bearing company.  We bought their bearings.  As time went by, we also started buying from Nachi (Japan), MGM (Hungary) and FLT (Poland).  We were still very small, but at least we were in the game.  We then later bought Japanese bearings from middlemen (the "Gray Market", that is businesses that were outside the distribution systems of the big bearing manufacturers) and we bought some from China as well.

Up until 1998 we had our best luck with the Polish bearings.  Then that year a big opportunity opened up.  A new Used Car segment opened up in Peru as the Daewoo Tico stormed in, 80,000 of those used cars entered Peru its peak year.  And we contacted KBC of Korea who supplied most of the bearings for Korean cars.  We bought a small test purchase (as was typical for us, start small to see how things go), brought the pieces to Peru, and they sold very quickly.  Wow!

I put more money into Ameru, so that we could exploit this opportunity.  That same piece mentioned above, the "02-6007-RS" is the wheel bearing for the entire front axle of the Daewoo Tico, meaning four bearings to re-do the entire front axle's bearings.

Because the Daewoo Tico was a small and poorly made car (the VW Beetle looked BIG, mean and tough next to the Tico) and because Peruvian streets were (and still are) pretty bad, there was a huge demand for that piece.  LOTS of companies make that piece, but KBC offered us a better deal: we would supply cheaper than Japanese bearings, but better quality than Chinese.  And they were the Original Pieces (even though they are the same pieces, we are not allowed to say the Genuine Pieces).  We also bought Japanese and some Chinese bearings (the latter for our "Precio Nada Mas", Price Nothing Else, set of customers).

More recently we started buying Iljin's bearings and assemblies in larger quantities.  Iljin is also Korean.

Inside our warehouse look closely and you can see KBC's logo.  The orange and white boxes hold Iljin's Hub  and Bearing Assemblies, these new pieces are selling well for us, especially for the Hyundai fleet.  Hyundai is who Toyota is scared of...  They should be!

Our company grew in size quickly, which brought a different set of problems and issues.  But, we hung in there the best we could.  We had a nice niche supplying the Asian auto fleets there in Peru and about that time started picking up sales from the provinces (always nice as it was they paid us first, then we shipped the bearings, no credit risk).

Our company is now the Exclusive Distributor in Peru for both KBC and Iljin brands.

We are now at the point where we sold last year some $900,000 of bearings.  This is our 20th year in business.  Check out the below photo they took from our special party we had:

The lovely lady at the lower right is Lilia, my wife's sister.  She is the Office Administrator and my main contact point there in Peru.  Her husband is our General Manager.  I am the Head Cheerleader!

We make it a special point to try and treat everyone we deal with well.  Our employees, our customers and our suppliers.  We brought our employees and our commission salesmen along on a day trip to again celebrate reaching 20 years in business:

OK, that's it!  I hope that you all enjoyed seeing a big part of my world.

We wuz robbed!

Update, Fri, June 3, 5:40 PM ET.


We lost one (1) bearing!  Worth only about $5.00.  Whew!

We believe that it was poor packing by China and / or rough handling in China or in Peru.  Our bearings go along with other cargo in 20' containers.

Because the Chinese pack so poorly (with weak cartons and boxes as well), these kinds of problems can happen.  In this case we were very lucky, as auto parts that are easy to sell often will get stolen by opportunistic thieves.

We were very concerned because many of these bearings were pre-sold, we might have had to give our customers their cash instead of the real thing...  Fortunately we did not have to do a paper default:

"No bearings for you, take some money instead!"

A comment on "pre-sold".  Some of our customers actually PAY us first when the bearings are in Peruvian Customs (and we can give them a real good idea of exactly when we will get the bearings to them).  Any of you who know Latin American culture likely know as well that trust is hard to earn.  Customers paying us BEFORE we even have the goods reflects the high level of trust that some of our customers have in us.

End Update

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But I can't get the picture over here to show...  Our just arrived shipment of bearings from China (ZWZ brand) was partly robbed there in the Port of Callao.  The picture shows where some thieves broke through the shrink wrap and hand-carried various pieces.  We are counting the pieces to see what was stolen from us.  Bummer.

I'll keep working to see if I can get the photo in here.

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ZWZ bearing robbery in port of Callao.  Wow, that was hard to do!  I better get some more practice ASAP!

Another picture:

Another:

An intact pallet (foreground):

OK, I think I got it.  Kind of a pain in the butt this blogging is...

Guns and Ammo: Corrections

Various readers have sent me information pointing out where I was WRONG on certain points re my latest article (just below).  I was told to not publish wrong information: quite correct.

Please read the Comments section of my "TEOTWAWKI  Guns and Ammo Edition" where people who know more than I do point out corrections and/or clarifications on:

-- Shotgun buckshot and even birdshot CAN go through interior walls
-- The deer rifle is correctly called the the "thirty aught six", not thirty odd six

I will look again today at the comments and my emails and correct other information that I published that is BAD or unclear.

Thank you, my alert readers, for advising me where I am wrong and cautioning me to be more careful.

TEOTWAWKI -- Guns and Ammo Edition

I am hoping to do occasional articles on TEOTWAWKI (and guns & ammo).  I am not going to deal with the legalities of firearms here, you either know what the legalities are where you live, or you can find out easily enough.  Today is "Firearms for TEOTWAWKI 101".

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Modern Survival Theory (MST, actually I just made-up both the term and acronym, but maybe there IS MST already out there) tells us that being armed will help you survive and live better through a TEOTWAWKI ("The End Of The World As We Know It"), you know, what happens after the SHTF...

Preparing for a TEOTWAWKI was my first real article (look in the May archives) here at my blog.  Preparing for that is a long, hard and expensive process.  And everyone will around you will think that you are completely crazy.  References are also given to books and blogs that are about MST at my other article.

But, how will you defend your gold and your family when the Golden Horde / MZBs (Mutant Zombie Bikers) come to your home?  You will have to be armed.

I have read in various places the below guidelines re firearms for the prepared:

-- a semi-auto "assault rifle" (AK-47, AR-15)
-- a handgun, preferably a high caliber one
-- a Mossberg 12 gauge shotgun
-- a .22 LR rifle for hunting squirrels, rabbits, etc.
-- a 30-06 ("thirty odd six")  deer rifle

With 2000 rounds for EACH of the first two.  I have not seen guidelines for the other three, but would imagine that they would be around 500 - 1000 rounds each.

I myself own an AK-47 clone and a 9mm Beretta.  I have about 700 rounds for each.  So I would get a failing grade in "MST 101".  I have read sneers about the 9mm pistol, a women's gun...  But, you have to be comfortable with your gun.  You want to practice, and if the gun is too big, you might just skip doing that...

You also must be proficient in their use.  I have read, and can confirm that just going to the range or to the country to fire them once every four to six months just is not good enough.  Marksmanship is perishable as they say.

And maintenance, you have to know how to clean your weapons typically by "field stripping" them and have and use cleaning supplies.

Let us explore the above five weapons:

(1)  The semi-auto carbine / "assault rifle" will fire one bullet each as fast as you can keep pulling the trigger.  You might need the firepower if a crowd is coming at you.  My thinking is that both the AK-47 clones and the AR-15 are roughly equal over all.  I bought the AK because it can be seriously abused, hardly ever cleaned and still fire (not get jammed).  If I am in the rain, or behind a ridge-line or a sand dune, I want a bullet to come out when I pull the trigger.  A friend of mine as an AR-15.  He chose it because it is American, it also has less recoil ("kick") than the AK and is less noisy.  But when we went out to shoot our weapons a few weeks ago, his jammed up...  Effective range for the AK is claimed to be up to 300 meters, but unless you practice a lot, don't expect to hit much over, say, even 150 meters unless you are just hosing down whatever you are shooting at.  This is the gun even the police are scared of, the gun they keep trying to ban.  Better "git while the gittin's good".

(2)  "The pistol is what you use to get to your rifle."  A genuine quotation, but I do not know who said that.  A pistol is handy if "they" are close.  Once again, point and shoot.  Gun fans argue endlessly about what pistol calibers and brands are "best".  It all depends.  I chose the 9mm because it does not kick too much and the round will drop 'em fairly well, depending...  9mm is about the minimum caliber called for by most MST.  Lots of people say to just go with the old 1912 .45 caliber.  In Iraq, I read, US Army officers are discarding their government issue 9mm Berettas and instead go out with a .45.  Imagine that, a 99 year-old design is what the officers themselves want...  The .45 was designed to drop a man for SURE (when we fought in the Philippines against insurgents after the Spanish-American War).

(3)  A shotgun can be real handy for home defense.  The "hall cleaner", in which all you have to do is shoot the thing down the hallway and whatever is there will get hit by the buckshot most often used in shotguns.  ((And buckshot does not go through walls, endangering other people in another room or outside your place.  R Mix edit: this is WRONG.  Some of my readers pointed this out to me, buckshot and birdshot CAN go through walls and kill people.))  Mr. Mossberg seems to be the brand I hear and read about the most.  ZH's own Chumbawamba has mentioned his Mossberg 12 gauge, I of course would not know if he actually has, but it SOUNDS like he has one!

(4)  A .22 LR is the rifle most boys who wind up with guns usually fire for the first time.  I fired one when I was 10 years old!  It almost doesn't have ANY recoil and so is suitable for having your children join in when MZBs come-a-calling.  You can also hunt small animals like squirrels ("Tree Rats" as they call them in parts of Texas and the South) and rabbits.  If you shoot at a squirrel with a bigger rifle, you are just going to have all the meat splattered all over the tree...

(5)  A deer rifle with a good scope is also recommended in MST.  Someone (like a deer hunter) who is GOOD can hit a person at 400 meters, about a quarter of a mile.  That's a long way.  Drop a few of the of the apparent leadership of that band of MZBs coming your way from that far away will likely encourage them to find a softer target.  Again, among the aficionados of high powered rifles there is much debate about the "best" way to go.  I myself shared thoughts with two ZH-ers who seemed to know what they were talking about when I was considering buying a .338 Lapua, kind of a beast of a gun.  A gun like that (in well trained hands) can drop someone a MILE away!  After I thought it over, I realized that I would never go shoot the thing!  And it is expensive...  (check the cool .338 Lapua out at www.onlylongrange.com)  A 30-06 ("thirty odd ((R Mix edit: "thirty aught six")) is more than enough however for almost anybody.  There are many smaller and less powerful cartridges out there.  Again personal preference is the way to go.  I myself have shot a 30-06, and it is a pretty serious rifle, LOUD and with a BIG recoil.

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I hope that the readers of this article have enjoyed and learned something about firearms from this article.

If this, or other TEOTWAWKI articles, get(s) good reviews, there will be more.

Perhaps even a Guest Post!  As I do not know much more than the above...

An Article I Just Received!

From my virtual friend, The Pearl of the Pacific!

Gracias 'manita!

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article17568.html

The article is very long, but describes how the Bankers always win.

Communication with Many of You Will be Better by Email

I have gotten a number of interesting comments and emails from some of you all on the "ZH" list.

dp, please think about what I mentioned to you re bearings.

Coronelo, I look forward to any emails you may send as well.  I will try to get my article up first, then I would like to hear about how you could move this topic forward.

I am hoping that the two silver experts get back to me re "The Case for Silver" (or similar), I am hoping that an expert on silver will write a Guest Post...

It is easier for YOU, dear readers, to find ME than the other way around.  I would have to hunt through about 105 email addresses to hunt each one of you down.

But, you all know my email address!  Or probably do anyway...

dochenrollingbearing@gmail.com

Please Help Me To Help My Friend Sell His Art!

I sent an email out to my friends (recently, but pre-blog) chronicling a 13 and 1/2 hour day/night trip: "John and Bob's Most Excellent Adventure" in which we drove up to visit a friend of ours, really more of John's, but still.

Our friend is a real pack rat.  He buys all sorts of different things, especially at auctions.  All kinds of stuff, his house is stuffed with stuff!  He is also a very bright man.  He has had an interesting life, he has been rich and he has been poor.  Unfortunately he is now poor.  Please no: "If he's so smart how come he's poor?"  I will answer that question by saying "life's circumstances..."  He got dealt an unusual hand by life...  And maybe made a bad decision or two along the way.  I have made bad decisions...

It took us HOURS to look at his stuff.  But, pretty quickly I found I was most interested in his fine art collection (although the combo brass knuckles with swing-out knife was very cool!, he bought THAT from a down-and-out biker).  He needs money fast.  And he had four pieces of interesting art works that got my attention:

-- a possible signed Picasso painting on paper
-- a possible, but unsigned Marc Chagall on paper
-- a possible Wolf Kahn (by chance I learned about him via a ZH ad)
-- a possible N. Solidoro (sp?)

Contemporary art is "not my thing", but I wanted to look over these items, that if real, perhaps I would buy.  If real.

I CAREFULLY looked over the "Picasso" and the "Chagall".  They are paintings not prints.  I had never seen  either a Picasso nor a Chagall up close.  Again, non-expert in anything Robert is your writer...  But, up VERY CLOSE (and outside their frames), even I could see that they were beautifully executed pieces of work.  I used to be a photo interpreter for a part of .gov, so I can LOOK at things and SEE them.

I DO KNOW that there is a LOT of fakery in the art world.  Lots of fakes from our friends in China.  I am not an expert in anything, but I did not "just fall off the turnip truck yesterday."

I have a friend who runs an art gallery close to where I live.  She told me she was too busy to want to even to promise to look at these items should my friend want to bring them down (see my earlier article: "Too Busy...") but, to be fair to her, she IS very busy and this kind of art does not pertain directly to her own work.

So, I went to do some work (aagh!  work is a four letter word for me!) on my own.  I called another art person in town that does restoration, etc., and asked her how one goes about getting art authenticated (that is, certified by an expert if it is real).  She referred me to IFAR.org in NYC.  So, I called them up.  The lady I spoke with there told me that, yes, they can authenticate contemporary art, including Picasso and Chagall.  For $3000 each.  It is a two step process, $400 for a "first look" and if THEY like what they see, the second step is $2600 more for the complete study.

I then passed along all of this to our friend, who is madly researching on his own (he already has, for example, a collection digital signatures of many artists that he has put together, like I said, he is very smart, also a good "Technical Trader", again please no "If he's so smart...").

My friend E. and I JUST NOW were talking about our friend's art.  He is a businessman and has some art that he took as payments on debts to him by people who could not pay.  He has originals by fairly famous Latin American artists that I have never heard of.  E. just told me to "roll the dice" on the Picasso and offer our friend, say, $1000 for it...

The purpose of this article is to help my friend get liquid, not to try and peddle art to anyone.  To get ANY of his work authenticated would cost $3000 per item.

I am out of ideas, other than the one that E. just rolled passed me.

If any of you have ideas on how to help my friend get liquid by selling his art, please email me!  Somewhere I have John's two photos from his i-Phone of the "Picasso" and the "Chagall" that he sent me via email.

My Most Amazing Dream This Morning

Most of those who know me personally also know my wife.  I had an amazing dream this morning, in which a number of things fell together just right, an extraordinary set of coincidences that all happened at once.

She and I and a number of others were in a very opulent place for some kind of important meeting (you all know that dreams are kind of incomplete, providing little context, just experience, at least for me).  We went to about three different rooms there.  Very nice place, kind of half French modern, half American opulence.  Like nowhere else I have ever been (The Greenbriar, Versailles, that hotel in coastal Georgia where they met to set up the Federal Reserve, The Breakers in Palm Beach, etc.).  In the last room (not very large) there were a lot of windows so it was brightly lit, and this was where the meeting was going to take place, maybe 10 - 12 other people were there.  I got a phone call from the main guy, who told me it was snowing up there in Pittsburgh, and he was not going to be able to come after all.  Then there was a moment or two of conversation.  I was holding my wife's hand or touching her shoulder, and I mentioned a few words (in English) to her, the last one being "florecita" (little flower in Spanish), and then woke up immediately.

I looked over to my left and saw my wife's elbow up.  I asked her if she was awake, she said yes.

I then told her about my dream.  And so I pass along to you all this extraordinary moment that happened to me waking up this morning.

That I would have such a beautiful and amazing dream about her I think is a very healthy sign that our marriage is in good shape.

This is all completely true.