A Bunch Of Total Morons

Update on Nepal.

The Maoist government of Nepal has decided that the lock down should continue to 16th June.

So it looks like our factory will stick with 30% of staff for the time being.

I assume they have never heard of Belarus or Sweden, or seen any of the evidence that has accumulated since January that this virus is only slightly worse than the flu. 

So they continue to destroy the Nepalese economy. How do they even get in to power having named themselves after the biggest murdered in the history of planet earth. It's totally insane. 

You can visit your bank for 4 hours per week, split between 2 hours on 2 days. So I assume those two hours will be nice and crowded (a bit like when they cut services on the London underground) .

These people in power in every country are completely stupid about everything.  The exception is that they are not bad at enriching themselves or presenting themselves as the least bad option. 

This idiocracy is only possible with fiat money printing and passing debts on to your children. Voting does nothing. All the teams are as stupid and corrupt as each other, especially once they get in to power.

Buy Bitcoin. 

To misquote Hayek, ' we shall never have sound money again until in some sneaky round about way we come up with our own money ' . Sound money is the root of freedom and prosperity.

#Bitcoin. #Nepal

This image is the colonnade in Marianske Lazne, a spa town in Czech Republic, which we visited last week. It was built from cast iron and is beautiful. It is not a coincidence that it was built towards the end of a long period of sound money.

Nepal on Lockdown for 1-Week

Our factory is closed for at least one week.

For customers of Mypashmina.co.uk, this means that bespoke orders will be delayed by at least one week. We have plenty of stock in the UK, so other orders will not be effected.

Nepal has had 2 confirmed cases of COVID-19 so far.

The borders are already closed and from today there is a shutdown for 1 week. I predict that the lock down will get extended.

The effect on the Nepalese economy is going to be devastating.

9% of GDP is from tourism, and that is already down to zero. Exports will be hit next.

Our workers will get paid for as long as we are trading.

SOME NEWS COMING OUT OF NEPAL...

Government bans entry of all passengers, including Nepalis, from midnight March 20

Nepal government puts all tourist visas on hold and cancels all spring climbing expeditions

Thousands of Nepali workers affected as Qatar imposes temporary entry ban amidst Covid-19 outbreak

The Covid-19 outbreak so far and how Nepal can prepare for the worst

Test, test, test, says WHO but Nepal has neither the means nor the matter

https://tkpo.st/2WCfoHW

Power Shedding in Nepal up to 16 hours

This is the guy in charge of Nepal. His nickname is Prachanda.

He is a useless prime minister - absolutely rubbish.

Now, the people of Nepal have to live without electricity for 16 hours per day!

In 2008, in the country with the largest Hydro-Power potential in the world, this is just stupid. Nepal is also a country with huge Solar potential (they tax the import of solar panels 43% - duh!)

This idiot is in charge of a large gang of idiots that ruin a very nice country full of great people. GRRRR !

Mypashmina dream factory

Welcome to beautiful rolling hills, tibetan monasteries, a valley view of farms & cows and children playing in the fields!

We found the perfect place for the factory and have got a 5 year extendable lease, hooray!

The house itself is a 4-storey traditional Nepali house with a big roof top terrace (for drying pashminas), is has big spacious room, clean, lots of bathrooms. And a lovely garden. And for the lunch break we have a nice lawn with swings, hammocks and a picknick table, as well as a place to play basket ball on. I also want a pet baby goat. (they are SOO cute!)

We will build three buildings on the land for the hand knitting machines, and the pashmina looms, and a semi-house for the dyeing. The water that comes out from the dyeing drainage will be filtered properly before it goes out. And it will be solar powered (well half until we convinced our nepalese partners to get more of them!) We will be back in februari and check the progress then it should be ready to move in, we will help with the layout, decorating and get lots and lots of plant pots. Quite different to what its usually like in factories in Nepal, maybe it will start a trend I hope? It doesnt have to tricky to make a nice workplace.

/Caroline

Solar Panels & Concrete

Hello,

We are moving the factory, from the southern end of Kathmandu to the northern end. The primary reason is because the ground water here naturally contains too much iron which can affect the dyeing process. The cost of having water brought by truck from an area without the iron is getting too expensive (it's also wasteful).

The new factory will have access to iron-free ground water, more space and conveniently is in a part of the valley which is full of women who are skilled handknitters. So expect to see more items like these 'oh so cute' baby socks/booties on www.mypashmina.co.uk.


Most of the building work in Kathmandu is in concrete. Personally I think it is quite ugly - and the old building style from clay bricks and wood looks nicer. Also the sand to mix with the cement is dredged from the Bagmati river. This is killing the river - as when the river loses it's sand plants grow in from the banks shrinking the river. The other disadvantage of concrete is the amount of CO2 released in the production of cement.

With this in mind, we are keeping the use of concrete in the factory to a minimum. We will have wood floors in most of the production areas, brick walls, bamboo supports and (as in 99% of factorys in Kathmandu) a corrigated iron and glass fibre roof. The wood costs about double the concrete - which explains why nearly all new buildings here are concrete.

We wanted to run the factory completely with solar power (You can import solar panels tax and duty free if you get approved by the government, but can't get approved without having a quality test on 3 types of panels - and they can't test until they have set the fee - which has been in discussion for at least 2 months .... I may be getting cynical, but can't help wonder who benefits from this??).

However we will have the lighting solar powered. This can be expanded later to power the washing machines and dryers. We don't use the horribly noisy 'power looms' so we don't have to have electricity to power them. All our cashmere knitwear and pashminas are made on hand looms.

If anyone wants to find out the test fee , or ask about the testing procedure the email address is sets@ntc.net.np .

We will be back in Nepal in February, at the crucial stage of the building work.

This week at the cashmere factory

This week at the cashmere factory in Kathmandu....

1. We have put in a new rubbish sorting system.

We have put extra bins everywhere, and some big bins near the entrance ready for collection.

The tiny bits of waste cashmere that were thrown away before, are now being collected, and put inside nice cushion covers. (The result is cushions containing about $150 worth of cashmere by weight!). The are for workers who mostly sit down while doing there work and for decoration.

The paper and card will be sold to a recycling company for 2 rupees per kilo.

The hard plastic and metal will be collected by someone who then sells it.

The soft plastic - which there is not much will go to the city dump (not to the Bagmati river, where a lot of rubbish collectors dump their rubbish .. grrrr!)

2. A shiney new noticeboard is clear to see in the middle of the factory
We found from our questionnaire of the staff that they would like to know more about what is going on in the factory, and indeed to work closer with the management. So a noticeboard is a simple solution.

The first things to go on the noticeboard are:
a. News about the new rubbish sorting
b. Information about training options
c. Information about new monthly meetings between different departments and factory management
d. News of a staff picnic on the 20th December - and the planned activites
e. The factory mission (in many Chinese factorys I saw big slogans on the walls). I asked for these to be translated and found out they said things like "Work hard today, and you will have a job tomorrow"). I thought this was a bit threatening - especially in 6ft high red letters! But the idea of having reminders in the factory about the mission for quality and timeliness are good.


3. Quality Control Book
Every piece of cashmere knitwear that is made is thoroughly checked (when i have a good internet connection, i will put some videos of this online).

Now, records of every item are being kept, so at the end of every day it can be reviewed and system inprovements can be made.

Also at the end of every week, statistics from the book can be collected, and displayed on the noticeboard in order to (hopefully) show everyone the continual improvement.

Thats all for now. Today Caroline is making the voiceover on a video about the situation of women in western Nepal - which is shocking and tragic (and will be uploaded once we have decent internet connections) - Doctors and money required .. if anyone out there wants to help contact us, and we will put you in touch with the right people .