Financial Crisis Means Opportunity For Some

Although the financial pundits claim that the credit freeze is thawing, the U.S. banks have yet to really resume lending to Joe and Jane Consumer. Foreclosures have now transitioned from subprime “slime” loans to prime mortgages because well-meaning owners who have been current on their loans are walking away because of their home’s depressed value.

Why pay on a loan whose principal is thousands of dollars over the current market value?

Unemployment has risen to 9% with13.7 million people looking for work, a 25 year high. Manufacturing contracted again last month, the 16th month in a a row of continued contraction. Home prices continue to decline at a 19% annual rate. In spite of the Fed (Federal Reserve) lowering short term interest rates to a mere 25 basis points, long term interest rates are rising as less buyers come to the table to buy U.S. government securities.

All of these problems are the result of excessive leverage. Joe and Jane Consumer over-leveraged by purchasing a home they could not afford. Mortgages were bundled together into Mortgaged Backed Securities (MBS) or Consolidated Debt Obligations (CDO) which were purchased by governments, hedge funds, and institutions around the world using additional leverage. Lastly, insurance, known as Credit Default Swaps, was sold on these derivatives using even more leverage… all of this without any oversight or regulation… crazy!

In order to bail out financial institutions and auto companies, the U.S. is creating money out of thin air! Although deflationary forces have dominated recently, all this new money in the system will ultimately result in high inflation and debasement of the U.S. dollar as the world’s Reserve Currency.

All is not lost, however. Just like the Great Depression of the 1930’s, this financial crisis is one of the great opportunities, if not THE greatest opportunity in our lifetime.

Read more...

I got that from someone else's pitch to some self improvement/ self development blog that I do not know enough about to recommend one way or another but... it got me thinking:

For some, the financial meltdown is catastrophic, for others it's a boon, for the disaffected they see little change at all. Those who lack ambition, in my experience, are complaining because the old status quo meant that they could "get by" without creating anything, without striving for goals. If you work to "have something" your world view is X, if you work to "have a weekend", your world view is Y... and X has little to do with Y.

Paradigms = the fishbowl to the fish. Or hockey players don't hang around chess players.

My Dad, before he died, used to follow MLM opportunities, while I understand the basic business model and that business model isn't all bad, I'm not a fan of MLM. Someone always seems to be left holding the bag. There was one MLM guy who pitched this line and I love it:

"take your 6 closest friends income and average that out. Your income will fall within that median"

Think about that. If you are a $9.00 an hour warehouse worker and your friends all make less than $12.00 from your perspective making $30.00 an hour or $300.00 an hour doesn't just "seem out of reach", the fishbowl you live in prevents and precludes your making that kind of money.

As a matter of fact, if the size of your financial fishbowl is >$12.00 an hour, virtually everyone who makes more than that, from your perspective is stealing it or somehow cheating.

In my current field, I'm enjoying a boom like no other I've seen. I attribute that to my willingness to dump my career and start over in a heartbeat. It could be argued that I'm a smart guy and change is easier for me because of that... but I don't buy it.

Way back in the 70's this guy named Alvin Toffler wrote a book titled "Future Shock", in it he claimed that change is happening at an increasing rate. I came away from that book thinking an entire industry could be obsolete in less than a decade. The old model of learning a trade and expecting that trade to still be there at the end of your working life is now a fantasy. We should, in my opinion, expect to switch careers every 7 years.

I sell advertising, I do not come from an advertising background, my only qualifications were that I lived with my Dad and he inculcated marketing into every breath he took and shared his mindset with me 24/7/ 365.

But I don't sell conventional advertising, I sell internet advertising, and a very specific sub-set of internet advertising which is search engine marketing, search engine ranking, search engine optimization, and I'm a social media consultant.

Why is it everyone else is "sweatin bullets" and I'm unable to keep up with the clients coming my way (and I doubled my fees recently, that actually INCREASED demand for what I do)?

Is it because the economy sucks?

Not in my fishbowl, dump your entire fishbowl and start over if you don't like the results you're currently getting.

My 2.5 cents worth...

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Although I'm a registered Republican, I often vote Libertarian... we need more than two parties.
Support the Fair Tax
Income tax kills the goose that laid the golden economic egg!

Obamacare - It's Not About Healthcare -

It's a Power Grab

This is important info about the Government's proposed health care and why they will never let go of the public option. It is not about health care, but a destruction of our basic constitutional rights. It is a power grab. Everyone should read what this Constitutional Lawyer has to say about health care legislation.

READ WHAT A CONSTITUTIONAL LAWYER HAS TO SAY……..

Michael Connelly ( http://michaelconnelly.viviti.com/ ) is a Constitutional lawyer and has read the entire health care bill and has some comments, not about the bill, but about the effects on our Constitution . It's a broader picture than just health care reform .

All of you and those to whom you communicate had better sit up and pay attention; once this sort of thing happens, it will be irreversible.

http://michaelconnelly.viviti.com/ Take a look and let me know what you think.

The blog will concentrate of his concerns as a retired attorney about the imminent and growing threats to our Constitution and our form of government. We have reason to be very afraid of what is happening.

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE HEALTH CARE BILLS ?

"Well, I have done it! I read the entire text of proposed House Bill 3200: The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009. He studied it with particular emphasis from my area of expertise, constitutional law . I was frankly concerned that parts of the proposed law that were being discussed might be unconstitutional. What I found was far worse than what I had heard or expected.

To begin with, much of what has been said about the law and its implications is in fact true, despite what the Democrats and the media are saying. The law does provide for rationing of health care, particularly where senior citizens and other classes of citizens are involved, free health care for illegal immigrants, free abortion services, and probably
forced participation in abortions by members of the medical profession.

The Bill will also eventually force private insurance companies out of business and put everyone into a government run system. All decisions about personal health care will
ultimately be made by federal bureaucrats and most of them will not be health care professionals. Hospital admissions, payments to physicians, and allocations of necessary medical devices will be strictly controlled.

However, as scary as all of that it, it just scratches the surface. In fact, I have concluded that this legislation really has no intention of providing affordable health care choices. Instead it is a convenient cover for the most massive transfer of power to the Executive Branch of government that has ever occurred, or even been contemplated. If this law or a similar one is adopted, major portions of the Constitution of the United States will effectively have been destroyed.

The first thing to go will be the masterfully crafted balance of power between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the U.S. Government. The Congress will be transferring to the Obama Administration authority in a number of different
areas over the lives of the American people and the businesses they own. The irony is that the Congress doesn't have any authority to legislate in most of those areas to begin with. I defy anyone to read the text of the U.S. Constitution and find any authority granted to the members of Congress to regulate health care.

The paragraph below is really frightening

This legislation also provides for access by the appointees of the Obama administration of all of your personal health care information, your personal financial information, and the information of your employer, physician, and hospital. All of this is a
direct violation of the specific provisions of the 4thAmendment to the Constitution protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures . You can also forget about the right to privacy. That will have been legislated into oblivion regardless of what the 3rd and 4th Amendments may provide.

If you decide not to have health care insurance or if you have private insurance that is not deemed "acceptable" to the "Health Choices Administrator" appointed by Obama there will be a tax imposed on you. It is called a "tax" instead of a fine because of the intent to avoid application of the due process clause of the 5th Amendment. However, that doesn't work because since there is nothing in the law that allows you to contest or appeal the imposition of the tax, it is definitely depriving someone of property without the " due process of law
.
So, there are three of those pesky amendments that the far left hate so much out the original ten in the Bill of Rights that are effectively nullified by this law. It doesn't stop there though. The 9th Amendment that provides: "The enumeration in the Constitution,
of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people;" The 10th Amendment states : "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are preserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Under the provisions of this piece of Congressional
handiwork neither the people nor the states are going to have any rights or powers at all in many areas that once were theirs to control.

I could write many more pages about this legislation, but I think you get the idea. This is not about health care; it is about seizing power and limiting rights. Article 6 of the Constitution requires the members of both houses of Congress to "be bound by oath or affirmation" to support the Constitution. If I was a member of Congress I would not be
able to vote for this legislation or anything like it without feeling I was violating that sacred oath or affirmation. If I voted for it anyway I would hope the American people would hold me accountable.

For those who might doubt the nature of this threat I suggest they consult the source. Here is a link to the Constitution: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transc...

And another to the Bill of Rights: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters bill_of_rights_transcript.html

There you can see exactly what we are about to have taken from us.

Michael Connelly
Retired Attorney,
Constitutional Law Instructor"

==========
Although I'm a registered Republican, I often vote Libertarian... we need more than two parties.
Support the Fair Tax
Income tax kills the goose that laid the golden economic egg!

Baltimore Democrat Organization ACORN + Ethics? in the same sentence?

ACORN in their own words...

ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is the nation's largest community organization of low and moderate income families working ...


Umm, working girls?


So what is A.C.O.R.N.?
Well, wikipedia says:
ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is a community-based organization in the USA that advocates for low- and moderate-income families by working on neighborhood safety,

...yeah, I can see them doing just that.

Two employees at the Baltimore, Maryland, branch of the liberal community organizing group ACORN were caught on tape allegedly offering advice to a pair posing as a pimp and prostitute on setting up a prostitution ring and evading the IRS.

The video footage -- which has been edited and goes to black in some areas -- was recorded and posted online Thursday by James O'Keefe, a conservative activist. He was joined on the video by another conservative, Hannah Giles, who posed as the prostitute in the filmmakers' undercover sting.

The video shows the pair approaching two women working at the ACORN Baltimore office and asking them for advice on how to set up a prostitution ring involving more than a dozen underage girls from El Salvador. Read full article »





# Story Highlights
# Video shows pair ask ACORN employees for advice on setting up prostitution ring
# Workers suggest to stop saying "prostitution," use "performing artist" on tax forms
# Conservative activists James O'Keefe, Hannah Giles pose as pimp and prostitute
# ACORN spokesman calls portrayal defamatory, says ruse attempted in other offices

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Although I'm a registered Republican, I often vote Libertarian... we need more than two parties.
Support the Fair Tax
Income tax kills the goose that laid the golden economic egg!

Generation Y will have to save itself

Almost half -- 47% -- of Americans born between 1977 and 1994, also known as Generation Y, are below average when it comes to financial literacy, with little understanding of how to budget and save efficiently, according to a survey by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling.

Social Security was never meant to be the sole support for Americans in retirement. Pensions, tax-advantaged retirement accounts and individual savings were supposed to be the other legs of the stool, as financial planners and Social Security administrators like to say. The trouble is, for the majority of older Americans the stool has been sawed off at the Social Security knees, leaving them to survive on those payments alone.

With pensions rapidly becoming an anachronism, already paltry nest eggs depleted by a horrendous market decade and individual savings wiped out by job loss and recession, everybody's stool is going to stay wobbly for some time. And, in case anyone has forgotten, Social Security is not actuarially sound as it is.

That's especially disturbing news for younger workers, those in Generation Y, the first of whom will turn 62 just as Social Security exhausts its trust fund. The only good news for younger folks: They have a long time to reap the benefits of saving. But the bad news is Gen Y is, for the most part, financially illiterate and not all that adept at saving.

Unless we all take some financial lessons to heart, a stool won't do us any good anyway. We're going to need a ladder to crawl out of the retirement-savings hole we've dug.

-- Steve Kerch, assistant managing editor/personal finance

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Yarbourough talks with Charlie Rose about what's wrong with the republican party and why extremeism is not true conservatism. Bush the second hurt our cause more ways than we can count. Limbaugh isn't helping us any. Why are we kicking out Colin Powell?

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Although I'm a registered Republican, I often vote Libertarian... we need more than two parties.
Support the Fair Tax
Income tax kills the goose that laid the golden economic egg!

We The People Stimulus Package

==========
Although I'm a registered Republican, I often vote Libertarian... we need more than two parties.
Support the Fair Tax
Income tax kills the goose that laid the golden economic egg!

Should Congress Protect You From Your Credit Cards?

Wallet Reform: Should Congress Protect You From Your Credit Cards?

After a weekend compromise between the leaders of the Senate Banking Committee, a new bill tightening regulations on credit card issuers has a good chance of making it out of the Senate this week. (The House already passed a weaker version of the bill.) However, the American Bankers Association is attempting to sink or water down the legislation, claiming that it would "have a dramatic impact on the ability of consumers, small businesses, students, and others to get credit at a time when our economy can least afford such constraints."

The battle is over new restrictions such as one limiting the ability of credit card issuers to increase interest rates on existing balances; the Senate may even consider an amendment to impose a strict cap on credit card interest rates. While the practical stakes are relatively clear -- banks want higher interest rates; consumers don't -- this issue also illustrates two types of economic thinking.

http://baselinescenario.com/2009/05/14/the-skirmish-over-credit-cards/

the debate as one between two economic perspectives: classical economics (credit card issuers should be able to offer any terms they want; if people accept them, that by definition means it increases their utility) and behavioral economics (people suffer from cognitive fallacies, like thinking that they will never pay any of those fees threatened in the credit card agreement, so regulations should help people make better decisions and protect them from bad decisions).

==========
Although I'm a registered Republican, I often vote Libertarian... we need more than two parties.
Support the Fair Tax
Income tax kills the goose that laid the golden economic egg!

We Need Another Jack Kemp

>We Need More Republicans Like Jack Kemp

Former Congressman Jack Kemp succumbed to cancer over the weekend. He left behind a political career which seems sadly incomplete, full of potential greatness which was never quite realized. His legacy is a reminder of what the Republican Party could have become, and perhaps a suggestion of where it ought to go in the future.

After a successful football career with the Buffalo Bills, Kemp entered Congress representing Buffalo in 1971, serving in that office for the next 18 years, before moving on to take the role of Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the George H. W. Bush administration, and running unsuccessfully for Vice President and President.

Kemp was inspired by the ideas coming out of the Chicago School of Economics in the 1970s and played an important role during the Reagan administration in translating their ideas into a program of lowering taxes and encouraging economic growth which came to be known as Reaganomics. In his book American Renaissance he wrote that "a rising tide lifts all boats," expressing the essence of supply-side economics. He went on to co-author the Kemp-Roth tax cut bill which was the basis of Reagan's low-tax, pro-growth budget. This approach to the economy resulted in the longest period of sustained economic growth in American history.

Kemp stood out from other Republicans of his time because while he was socially moderate, he was strongly fiscally conservative and did not fit with the fading liberal wing of the party or the emerging socially conservative faction. Kemp was poised to lead the GOP in a very different direction when he ran for president in 1988 on a platform of tax cuts, urban enterprise zones and smaller government.

In the campaign Kemp tried to appeal to the conservatives, but his libertarian views on social tolerance and individual liberty and his long-standing support of minority interests and organized labor weakened his appeal. Despite his intellectual acuity and positive reputation, his speeches tended to be long and dry, he prepared poorly for debates and his campaign fund was poorly managed. As a result he did poorly in the early primaries and ended up dropping out of the race in 4th place.

Read the rest of this article here: 

http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/we-need-more-republicans-like-jack/

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Although I'm a registered Republican, I often vote Libertarian... we need more than two parties.
Support the Fair Tax
Income tax kills the goose that laid the golden economic egg!

Income Re-distribution and Ganster Presidency

At first I was impressed by our new president. 

After all he inherited the biggest mess that any president could have since Roosevelt. 

The FDIC was liable, it HAD to cover every ones deposits... It seemed the team Obama selected was doing what I would have done.

And my party?

We shot ourselves in the foot with Palin as badly as the dems did by choosing Dean.

We DID do what we were accused of doing... someone was asleep at the switch, for sure.

Who is really to blame?

I say the SEC failed us.... Obamunism seems to want to blame the rich.

Why??

They didn't do it, the SEC did it. I'm not rich by any stretch but I applaud success when I see it, Rich People Don't Owe any one anything.

Money is like Air: If you breath, I don't run out of air.

No one gets ahead on anothers back- we all have the same chance at entrepreneurship...

In my business, I take on huge companies with entire teams of college educated search engine optimization wizards... and I'm all by my lonesome... they put their pants on one leg at a time...

I SPANKED EM!!!

and I lived in a homeless shelter just over a year ago - don't tell me a person doesn't have a chance!!!

Obamunsim

Instead of following the rule of law, Obama and his henchmen have threatened to kneecap their opposition in the press and use Porkulus as an extortion device to dictate policy. So far, only one group has been the beneficiary of the gangster tactics:The White House denied that it strong-armed Perella Weinberg. The firm issued a statement saying it decided to accept the settlement, but it pointedly did not deny that it had been threatened by the White House.

read more...

==========
Although I'm a registered Republican, I often vote Libertarian... we need more than two parties.
Support the Fair Tax
Income tax kills the goose that laid the golden economic egg!

You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom

A quote by the late Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931–2005

"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."




People are actually thinking not of creating a way to earn money but they are sitting back complaining that they need a bail out. CNN had a story about the police being called to quell disturbances at a line to get on the waiting list for section 8 housing. Apparently people were fighting each other to get to the front of the line.


==========
Although I'm a registered Republican, I often vote Libertarian... we need more than two parties.
Support the Fair Tax
Income tax kills the goose that laid the golden economic egg!

Is CNN becoming more centrist? while Fox remains...

I'm a moderate.

I believe in a centrist not a polarized political solution.

That's why I on Fox I liked Oriley and didn't like Hannity.
Bill O would jump on republicans when it was necessary, Sean just keeps repeating a mantra (sounding dangerously close to fascism, cronyism...

We are more or less out of touch with the voters.
We are more or less guilty of what we've been accused of.
Oligarchy
Aristocracy

Phil Grahmm might have been wrong

And CNN is sounding more and more like they represent MY views/values (Lou Dobbs case in point) than the polarizing effect (read that political gridlock) of Fox News.

Time will soon tell if this president has what it takes... he's saying and doing everything I'd do if I was there, I'm leaning toward giving the guy a break and let him try.

I like the guy (and I'm Gop)

==========
Although I'm a registered Republican, I often vote Libertarian... we need more than two parties.
Support the Fair Tax
Income tax kills the goose that laid the golden economic egg!

Did Digg.com and Twitter beat us?

We lost.

It was supposed to be close and we lost.

Now I'm not some pundit, I'm just a guy who loves being a small business entrepreneur and I loath big government, but I'll tell you what it feels like in the small biz environment here in Frederick Maryland.

They beat us because we're probably guilty of many of what they accused us of.

My party was asleep at the wheel.

How did Exxon make so much when we clearly had supply?
I'm not even gonna go there.

And Iraq? I give Bush a pass because he probably was being Themistocles.

Do you know who Themistocles was? (I probably didn't spell it right, sue me, no forget that, forgive me)

Themistocles was the admiral who had enough foresight to get the EXTRA wealth that ancient Greece fell into with the discovery of silver (or something, the point is that Greece had X amount of GNP, something was discovered and then they ended up with MORE GNP)

Persia had just gotten it's a** kicked at the battle of Marathon (a guy ran himself to death being a messenger to make sure the cavalry came to back up the Greeks in a pivotal battle, damn guy ran the whole way to Marathon, 26.5 miles or so, dropped dead after accomplishing his mission)

Themistocles knew for sure that the Persian King was coming back and coming back with a much bigger fleet and bigger army.

The Greeks on the other hand were "drunk with success". Resting on there laurels, thinkin their crap didn't stink.

Themistocles had to find some way to build a navy and fast. The Greeks were almost capitalistic, individual city states (sorta like the original 13 colony states). NO one wanted to hear: "we gotta raise money for a navy guys".

Just wasn't gonna happen.

Greece didn't want to hear it... but then they came into all this extra money...

So Themistocles Lied to the Greeks.

(yup this is an 'end justifies the means' story)

Themistocles lied about these pirates that were stealing stuff from Greek shipping (not as bad as Somalia is now).

Themistocles exaggerated how bad the problem was and got funding for his navy.

Good thing too, cause he knew that Persia was gunning for them with extra vengeance in mind.

So while we all learned about the 300 Spartans(it was really 1300, 1000 other dudes where there too, but that doesn't make for as dramatic a story)

While the 300 tough guys were holding off the hordes at Thermopylae, Themistocles was doing just as miraculous a job of fighting the Persians at sea.

Kicked there ass twice, with 6 to one odds I might add. (OK, I don't remember the exact number but there were a sh** load of Persians ships and not as many Greek ones)

If Themistocles hadn't done what he did (and the 300 valiant Spartans with there 1000 other back ups that we don't hear about)There wouldn't be any such idea of democracy. That includes both the Republican idea of Democracy and the Left's idea of Democracy.

The concept wouldn't have ever been thought of for us to experiment with 2000 or so years later.

What does Themistocles and Bush have in common?

The US joint chiefs knew well in advance that Russia was going to go after the Georgian pipeline.

So isn't it a coincidence that we have battle tested men and equipment, battle tested Sergeant's, Medics, support staff, logistics just a few minutes response time from Georgia.

I mean our barrels are still warm.

If you were Russia and you wanted to misbehave, wouldn't you think twice knowing that all the shit in the world that could possibly come down on your ass was just 5 minutes away?

What ever you want to say about how mis represented Shock and Awe was... Kim Ill Jung ran his punk ass into the basement when he saw the first explosion on CNN.

No one can stop a B1 if it's coming to get you. He's got to jump out of his skin everytime he looks up cause there is no warning, no radar, if we really wanted to we could take you out.

So does that give Bush a pass?

I dunno, but does Russia have that pipeline confiscated?

or is it in our hands?


====================

Did twitter beat us or did Digg.com

Do you even know what those two things are?

If you want to win next time you'd better be a quick study on facebook and Digg.com

Especially Digg.com

Google has the power of most countries, they bow to no one except maybe a US security council government.

Google organic search results are the equivalent of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

The rich can buy a link, a sponsored ad placement, the rich can buy TV spots...

Google Organic Search Results have to be earned buddy.

I know, it's what I do for a living.

Do you really think people trust an ad they know for sure that some rich bastard bought and paid for or do you think they trust what Google thinks should be in the #1 spot?

if you do not know how to get listed in the organic serps (if you don't know what a serp is... you're doomed)

Do you want to win next time?

I'm speaking to the Jaycees, the next round of delegates, the ones young enough to know what facebook is.

I'll repeat this question:

Do you want to win next time?

You'd better call me if you do.
301 363-8206


==========
Although I'm a registered Republican, I often vote Libertarian... we need more than two parties.
Support the Fair Tax
Income tax kills the goose that laid the golden economic egg!