YAHOO ANSWER: Why does it seem every new law seems to be taking away our rights

Thursday, June 14, 2007

QUESTION

AmyB askes:

Why does it seem every new law seems to be taking away our rights and freedoms? Is this just in Maryland?

I just heard on the news the police have a new device that can see in the dark if a seatbelt is being worn and another new device that will ticket if following too close to another vehicle.(It measures the distance.) The police should be stopping violent crimes etc. Not sitting on the side of the road to ticket for a seatbelt. What next. We are already are on camera. The gov’t will know all one day.

ANSWER

Dear Ms. “Amy B”:

No, it’s not just Maryland! It’s the entire world, minus New Hampshire and certain revolutionary areas like Estonia, Poland, Hong Kong, and such.

“The slow loss of freedom was always justified in the name of keeping the people safe.”

When you look at the great genocides in history, you’ll always find that the was a government involved. Government, if it was a virus, would be classified as a “pandemic”. Humans are frail little creatures that survive by being able to think. We huddle together, organize, and prosper via a division of labor. One of the divisions of that labor seems to have been “leader”. Unfortunately, the minute some one becomes the “leader” they begin to feather their own nest.

A paradigm is consultant speak for a way of thinking. How you see things. We’ve all seen the optical illusions that require us to change our thinking to see the other side of the illusion. A meme, like gene is our DNA, is internet jargon for an idea that spreads like a virus. Government is a paradigm or meme that imposes on us by force. Because it has the trappings of legitimacy, humans defer to it either because of its power or because of their thinking.

Government grows itself.

Inexorably, like the blob in the science fiction movie, it “absorbs” things into itself. It uses a variety of excuses. “We’ll keep you safe” delivers us Homeland Security which is the prototype of the German SS where are your papers. “We can do it right!” leads to government garbage collectors. “We can do it fairly for everyone” leads to government education that dumbs down the future voters to stupid followers. It splits and creates more ways to “serve” you. You have 535 legislators, minus Ron Paul, in DC that are as busy as termites legislating away your freedom.

“The final tyranny was the end result of a slow loss of freedom.”

I had the unique opportunity to grow up around a family some of whom survived what they called the Shoah and we called the Holocaust. They described that every small step they could see the loss of freedom. Until, the last step was their being loaded onto the trains. The Father dispatched his children early to relatives. His wife took a “vacation” and never looked back. He walked to Switzerland where his childhood friend took him in and sent him to America as Swiss business lawyer. Otherwise, the USA would have sent him back to Germany. From him, I learned that any loss of freedom anywhere must be opposed vigorously. You can’t wait until they are loading you on a train. Every slight move in the wrong direction must be treated as if it was “being loaded on the train”.

How do we stop the trend?

One can move from Maryland, which like NY, CA, FL, and DC, is firmly locked into the Socialist Statist Big Gooferment paradigm. Liberty minded people are migrating lock, stock, and barrel to New Hampshire under the banner of the Free State Project. There’s no agenda other that “liberty and freedom”. Upon “landing”, the activists are organizing themselves “organically” without “leadership” in the things they see need doing. It’s a fascinating concept. If you don’t have “anchors” in Maryland, I’d urge you to consider it.

If you like me and tied down by family, a job, and “responsibility”, then you can “fight in place”. Like McAulife’s order at the Battle of the Bulge or Stalin’s order at Stalingrad, stop where you are and resist to the last. I like DONWSIZEDC. They are seeking to build a grass roots internet based activist base for small government. If we have to have one (and I’m not so sure we do), then a tiny one would be less oppressive than a big one.

I think you can support Ron Paul, the only true anti-war candidate. And, be vocal. Get a blog. Talk to your family, fiends, and neighbors.

The most effective weapon is laughter. The bozos in power, like the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz, can’t afford to be laughed at. It makes people not take government seriously. I use as an example, the tax on cell phones and telephone service. So wag started calling it the Spanish American War Tax. That meme caught on and I heard it called that on the Main Stream Media (i.e., I heard it on NBC). Several people told me. (Like I didn’t know that!) Everyone was chuckling over it and starting to get steamed about it. The Congress Critters and the FCC was falling all over each other to get rid of it. When was the last time you heard a tax being repealed? It was the laughter that threatened to undermine their cloak of legitimacy.

So make a joke out of it. Get your FF&N laughing at them!

How about “I hear the State Police has a nighttime seat belt checker, wonder if it can be moded to check all the politicans’ zippers? They seem to need it more than we need our belts checked.”

Make up your own. And, pass them along to me. Here in NuJerzee we have the imperial guvanator that says “seat belts are for serfs”! ;-) Speed limits too.

Let me know how you make out starting your own one-person American Revolution.
fjohn

Sources

http://www.freetalklive.com/
http://www.downsizedc.org/index.shtml
http://www.bigbendgazette.com/blog/Archive/Author/Briggs/_archives/2006/12/18/2582338.html
http://www.issues-views.com/index.php/sect/25000/article/25082
http://www.liberator.net/articles/firstamend.html
http://freestateproject.org/

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Update 2007June17 Just notified awarded a “best by asker”. Basking in success. Resting on laurels. … nuff resting. Time to make another answer. Waz fun while it lasted.

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LIBERTY: Spending money is an election

Thursday, June 14, 2007

http://www.topix.net/forum/source/
south-florida-sun-sentinel/
T17EGVL0UIKD9U1RI/p8#lastPost

***Begin Quote***

[QUOTE who=”Nanci”]Just proves that all we care about in this country is the MONEY/revenues and we’ll give up our freedom for the almighty dollar. [/QUOTE]

***End Quote***

May I humbly suggest that “spending money” is really at its heart an “election” in the marketplace. While everyone thinks “money is the root of all evil”, I’d dare to suggest that it’s about making choices, having needs met, and being “heard”.

We don’t have a national election about is Ford versus Chevy. We have a marketplace where some people buy Ford and some Chevy. In the marketplace it’s not winner take all. AND, one can only have money by serving your fellow humans. So you “earn” the right to vote in “marketplace elections”.

I hope this in some small way turns you away from the gooferment as a way to get our fellow humans what they need to be satisfied. Money is not the root of the problem; it’s the “lubricating oil” that allows everyone in society to have there perceived needs met peacefully. You can TRY to force people to do things OR you can offer them CHOICES.

Yes, I’m a libertarian, that wants the freedom to make the choices that I see fit. For me to have that, I have to allow everyone else the same freedom. See the hallmark of a bad idea is when I have to force people to do something, anything. If it’s such a great idea, then I should be able to convince you.

So let’s recap. Rush is on because people want to listen and patronize his advertisers. You are free not to listen. Neither do I, because to a certain extent, I think he’s anti-liberty. You are free to try to convince others not to listen. You are not free to FORCE him off by gooferment action.

I disagree that all we care about is money. We are, despite the HUGE tax burden of gooferment, very charitable people. Look at NOLA, the Tsunami, the WTC Fund. It’s our gooferment that holds us as a people back imho. And, our thinking that the use of force is somehow OK when the gooferment does it. “It’s for our own good!” Not.

Peace,
fjohn

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JOBSEARCH: STRATEGY self directed learning

Thursday, June 14, 2007

METHODOLOGY ***
STRATEGY self directed learning
TACTICS ***
TECHNOLOGY ***
=======================

Dear fellow turkey,

http://scandinavia.ecademy.com/node.php?id=56335

Articles : Personal Development & FREE Planning tool
by Mark Mortimer on 29-Sep-05 10:26am
The idea that education and training need to be lifelong processes is one that has gained widespread acceptance. We are all aware of how organisational structures and cultures are continually evolving in response to rapid changes in the external environment. Management constantly demands fresh strategies to meet the changing needs of our customers as they emerge. We have to develop new philosophies and different ways of working; we even have to learn a new language to describe the work in which we are involved

Business changes are now so rapid that unless we have a highly motivated workforce with skills to match the needs of our clients we are likely to fail. It is especially important for managers, who have development and training at the heart of their role, to seek to extend their own knowledge base and skills. This can only be achieved if we make people accountable for their own development aligning personal and company goals.

As children we learn by watching others and by trying things out for ourselves. This process never stops during our lives; we are all constantly learning as we experience life and work. The best person to help focus and direct the growth of your natural abilities is you, in a systematic programme of personal development. As a self developer, you will be unlocking your own untapped potential; not just developing, but learning to learn. You will also be acquiring skills which will enable you to support other people involved in personal development programmes.

In consultancy and service related businesses your people are your products. The problem is that, people development is not generally self directed and occurs in a fairly haphazard manner. We have little time or energy to apply the same standards of quality to our own development that we do providing our service to our customers.

Typical steps in self directed learning are:
• Assess your development needs
• Devise a personal development plan
• Continuously develop your own knowledge and skills
• Monitor your action plan and evaluate the outcomes.

To get the best results a support infrastructure should be made available for the learner and this can be best provided through coaching and action learning sets. Both these approaches focus on learning in the workplace which is a speciality of www.kerobi.com

Planning and Reviewing Your Development

Once you have pinpointed your development needs, the next step is to plan how to meet them. Drawing up an action plan will put you in control of your rate of progress and will ensure that you fit in your development with all the other tasks that you have to accomplish.

Like other parts of the personal development process, planning is not a once and for all activity but a continuous process of setting and updating targets, and strategies for achieving them. Once you have made an action plan, you will need to review it regularly in order to make sure that you are making the progress you desire.

For your free workbook on how to make an effective personal development plan please contact me on mark.mortimer@kerobi.com

###


GUNS: law enforcement had inappropriately removed firearms

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

http://www.lawrencian.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=448&Itemid=45

Guns and Anarchy in Greensburg
Written by Amber Fraley
Jun 01, 2007 at 02:40 PM

 

***Begin Quote***

NRA officials are about as tight-lipped about the gun incident in Greensburg as the Lawrence Police are about the anarchists, but they seem to be satisfied that the folks in Greensburg are at least having their firearms returned to them. When asked if they thought resident’s guns had been handled improperly, they declined to say.

But they did issue this press release, which is posted on their Web site:

Last week, NRA reported that we were investigating allegations of gun confiscation in the aftermath of the tornado that ravaged Greensburg, Kan. NRA received a number of phone calls from troubled NRA members in Greensburg who were concerned that law enforcement had inappropriately removed firearms from their homes after the deadly tornadoes. In response, NRA sent representatives to Greensburg to gather as much information as possible, spoke with area law enforcement and local elected officials to determine what had transpired.

After investigating these complaints, there was no evidence of any illegal gun confiscations or seizures. However, there were firearms recovered by law enforcement that are now in the process of being returned.

Gun owners whose firearms were recovered by area law enforcement may claim them at the ‘gun trailer,’ located east of Davis Park on the north side of US 54. Please bring proper identification. The trailer is open from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Monday through Friday until all firearms are returned.

NRA will continue to monitor the situation in Greensburg, and we will remain vigilant in investigating any future complaints of illegal gun confiscation wherever it may happen. If your firearms were recovered by law enforcement following the tornado in Greensburg and you have any trouble retrieving your firearms, please call us at 1-800-392-8683.

An NRA official did say that if it became necessary to release the film they took while in the small Kansas town they would, but that right now they didn’t think that was the case.

***End Quote***

Well, I have no first hand knowledge, nor do I know the source of this report, nor do I entirely trust the NRA, all that being said, I’d say we MAY have another example for the gooferment at work.

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INTERESTING: ‘Mr. Wizard’ taught science to young baby boomers

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-herbert13jun13,0,7656221.story

Don Herbert, 89; TV’s ‘Mr. Wizard’ taught science to young baby boomers
By Dennis McLellan, Times Staff Writer
June 13, 2007

***Begin Quote***

Don Herbert, who explained the wonderful world of science to millions of young baby boomers on television in the 1950s and ’60s as “Mr. Wizard” and did the same for another generation of youngsters on the Nickelodeon cable TV channel in the 1980s, died Tuesday. He was 89.

***End Quote***

I will never forget seeing him collapse a gas can demonstrating air pressure. I just sat there and said “No way”. So I went and did it. From that I concluded there was a lot I didn’t know. (Earth shaking to supposedly bright kid; everyone said so. Just coasting along.) I became fascinate with physics. And, an injineer was born.

Thanks, Mr. Wizard.

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YAHOO ANSWER: 401k questions

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

QUESTION

melissa126978: 401k questions?

I am currently 22 years old. I put about $100 into my 401k every other week. I plan on contributing more in the future but for now I am just doing $100. My employer matches 50%. I have 2 questions.

1.) If I were to continue for the next 40 years at $100 every 2 weeks how much would I have in my account after 40 years.

2.) When is the earliest I can withdrawl funds from my 401k without being penalized.

ANSWER

Dear Ms. “melissa126978”:

(1) It depends. “How much” depend on measured how?

(100$ yours + 50$ employer) * 26 weeks * 40 years = 156k$

BUT, you really have to figure rate of return on investments and inflation. Which requires some guess work.

Rate of Return is because you are just not going to put them over in the corner or under your mattress. You’ll invest in stocks or bonds. You’re working hard; your savings should too.

Inflation is the evil government printing money dollars making yours worth less.

So lets make some assumptions.

You’ll use the old wall street rule of thumb that says 100 minus your age so you’ll put 78% in equity and 22% in fixed income. You’ll pick low cost mutual funds from Vanguard if offered.

When you start to amass your fortune say at 100k, you’ll begin using the other Wall Street rule of thumb “no more than 5% in any one thing” but that’s for another day.

So let’s say your 22% fixed income makes 5% and your 78% equity makes 8%. (0.22*0.05)= 0.0110 AND (0.78*0.08)=0.0624 OR your blended rate of return is 0.0734. Let’s assume the evil Federal Reserve has a 0.04 inflation rate. That reduces your real rate of return. SO your real rate of return in today’s dollars is 0.0224.

That gives you ~317k$ in 40 years.

So, my guess is you’d have about ~317k$ in today’s dollars or if you ignore inflation ~850k$ in future dollars.

Dial in a better or worse rate of return. You’re guess is as good as mine. (Mine is based on conservative Wall Street assumptions.) (If you listen to anyone’s sales pitch about investments, ask what the assumed rate of return is. I’ve had bozos tell me to assume 15%! I might as well assume I’m going to retire and win the lotto. Used car salesmen that can’t sell cars seem to sell investments.)

See the dollar isn’t a constant, your rates of returns will vary, and who knows what inflation or your tax rate will be in 40 years.

One things for sure, today’s common wisdom is that you’re better off saving than depending upon some employer, social security, or the tooth fairy to help you in retirement.

Pay close attention to YOUR 401k, what it is invested in, and the fees associated. The immediate 50% return of your employer’s matching contribution is nothing to be sneered at. BUT, if the investment choices are terrible, the fees high, or the provisions onerous, it may be a bad bargain.

On the face, grab it. BUT like the employees at Enron learned not all that glitters is gold.

(2) 59½ except for certain exception that you may or may not what to use.

Remember to take anyone’s investment advice, even mine, with a large grain of salt.

I’ll leave you with two more wall street rules of thumb.

“Anyone promises to double your money, do it yourself. Fold it in half and put it in your pocket. Firmly.”

“If you don’t understand EXACTLY how the earnings will be made, don’t invest.”

Good luck, and while I won’t be around in forty years, I’ll be rooting for you, from upstairs or down, give me a progress report on how my guesses are doing,
fjohn

Sources

http://www.uic.edu/classes/actg/actg500/pfvatutor.htm
http://www.studyfinance.com/lessons/timevalue/index.mv?page=19

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UPDATE Chosen as “best” by the Asker. Now that is worth being proud of!

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MONEY:The Tsunami of Credit

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

http://www.clairewolfe.com/wolfesblog/00002602.html

06/13/2007 Entry: “The Tsunami of Credit”

***Begin Quote***

Certainly my anecdotal evidence, gained from talking to friends and acquaintances, strangers I meet in my travels, and observing lots of closing businesses and neighbors losing jobs, suggests that times are hard, not good.

Surprise! The government figures regarding inflation and the economy are tissues of lies.

John Williams’ Shadow Government Statistics paint a far different picture. Mr. Williams generally reports economic figures the old fashioned way, avoiding the many gimmicks introduced since the Reagan robbery of social security.

His figures show GDP growth is -2%, and we have been in a recession since the burst of the Greenspan dot-com bubble at the end of 2000. Consumer price inflation is above 10% and rising. (Nixon imposed wage and price controls in 1971 when price inflation rose above 4%.) M3, the broadest measure of the money supply, is rising at over 13% year-over-year.

What’s that? The FED stopped reporting M3 in 2006, claiming it was too costly to produce. Mr. Williams, like all free market actors, is able to produce with very little effort what the bloated FED cannot, or does not want to do. Inflation of the supply of money is the root cause of price inflation, and the FED doesn’t want too many people to pay attention to the men behind the curtains.

I believe the huge increase in M3 explains a lot about why we don’t already have a full-blown, widely recognized depression. At the current rate of growth, an astonishing $1.4 trillion in new money is being created every year. The GDP is $13.6 trillion; adding 10% of that figure in brand new, created from thin air money to the economy increases GDP only 0.6%? Clearly we are losing ground.

***End Quote***

Well, if the fellow is right, and I suspect he is, perhaps we’re both wrong, but it certainly feels like “hard times”. I think my “turkey pen” is now full. (I counsel out of work execs as a hobby and constant reminder that I might be next.)

So how does one “action” this report.

(1) Closely monitor one’s personal “burn” rate. How much are you spending, committing to spend, agreeing to spend? Stolen from the venture capital world, the “burn rate” was probably stolen from the rocket launches where the amount of fuel being consumed was monitored. To a Venture Capitalist who’s invested with a start up, the burn rate is outgo minus income measured on an almost daily basis. To start a successful business one must invest in the future.

(2) Zero debt. Certainly at the very least zero short term debt. Even colateralized debt (i.e., your home mortgage) maybe “bad debt” if you don’t have a job. You must recognize the fact that you may not be able to sell for what you owe. If you can’t sell and can’t pay, then you’re foreclosed. For high net worth people, where a mortgage is more of a tax saving device (i.e., having a low-rate mortgage that is covered by assets for the purpose of being able to itemize deductions), one doesn’t have to go nuts. Everyone else should be “storing up” for long cold financial winter.

(3) Network in your white collar job. You only sure of your last paycheck that cashed.

(4) Develop a blue collar skill; never met a poor plumber.

(5) Explore entrepreneurial business on the inet. For under a grand, you can incorporate “Your Wild Ideas” as your personal incubator. Sell stuff for a profit. It’s the new wild west gold rush.

(6) Learn from the Amish and the Mormons about self-reliance.

Fasten your seat belts; there’s turbulence ahead.

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JOBSEARCH: STRATEGY have a war chest

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

METHODOLOGY ***
STRATEGY have a war chest
TACTICS ***
TECHNOLOGY ***
=======================

Dear fellow turkey,

This advice is for all turkeys, both those earning and those seeking. Probably more aimed at the earning ones, lest they fall into complacency.

Remember that one of the principle tenets of the Turkey faith is that you are only sure of the last paycheck you cashed.

With the bankruptcy of <insert your favorite company>, you secure do you think the highly paid pilots are? What about the and suppliers?
How about the casino workers in Mississippi and NOLA after Katrina?

Last paycheck you cashed is yours; everyone in the future is speculation.

Uncertainty abounds. Back when I took my first turn at unemployment, I got a little more than a year’s pay to leave and was “out” 11 days. Five of those days were waiting for the drug and finger print check, Four of them were weekends. Total elapsed job search time time from the “offer to get out” to “first day on the new job” was 23 days. I’ve never matched that since. Even in a voluntary change.

Somewhere between Lucht’s book, my own thinking, reading “Parachute”, and counseling turkeys, I have come up with my own copyrighted, trademarked, super-secret secret formula for estimating what you need as a war chest. Personally, I have a meeting with myself on the first Sunday of every month as the CFO of “Me, myself, and I Unincorporated” to review my financials and the first item on the agenda is “Expectations”. I review quickly the factors in the computation and then look at the bank statement for my war chest account. When first in the earning phase, I try to as quickly as possible rebuild the account to required guesstimate. When in the seeking phase, I monitor closely the draw down from that reserve. It has served me well thru four cycles. It certainly takes the stress out of the cycles. Any turkey that doesn’t think there will be cycles has not been paying attention during the “Church of the Big Turkey” sermons. As an aside, the only reasons for not having a reserve is maybe that you work for the government. But even that is not assured, a la Brown of FEMA.

Now to the formula.

First I have to swear you to secrecy. Secrecy because if you tell a non-believer, they will look at you like you have two heads. A non-believer doesn’t believe that they are a turkey.

COMPONENT #1: YOUR BURN RATE

My first component is based on how much you spend. You should be able to look at your checkbook and see your net pay go into it and your expenses come out of it. Hopefully, you are not spending more than you earn. That’s a different more serious problem. You need to listen to Suzzie Orman or Doctor Phil in that case. That’s your basic burn rate. How much money you burn each month. Yes, I know you can cut it but that future cutting is your error margin for now. You may want to cut to build up your war chest, increase your savings, or just want to stop wasting it.

As special note about medical insurance coverage, you need it. The worst disasters occur when you let your coverage lapse and someone gets sick. Assuming that you don’t have your own medical coverage, independent of your employment, you need to look at your pay stub for how much you pay for it now. You have to add that into your burn rate.

Also, you’ll have to find out what your COBRA amount is from your employer. Usually, that is much more that your regular rate. Assuming that you get a severance, your employer usually gives you some basic coverage for a short period of time (i.e., a month or two. Not out of generosity, but their insurer makes them pay by quarter.). They then offer you, because Federal law requires it, the opportunity to continue it at their cost (Or at least that is what they are supposed to do. I’m not so sure that there isn’t some markup in these rates.) You have to have it; so you have plan for it. I have seen COBRA offerings in excess of 1k$ per month. Be ready to swallow hard and take it.

And, you’ll have to find out how much a medical insurance policy would cost you without a group. In many cases, these are BARGAINS. I know one turkey who has three policies he has picked up thru his umbrella consulting society, his church, and aarp. Keep looking around and if you’re offered one, you may want to take it.

If you feel the urge to skimp, remember the last explanation of benefits you got when someone was real sick. If you don’t have one, I’ll send you one of mine from when Frau was sick and the bill was over 250k$. Also, remember the phrase preexisting condition! It means if some one gets something while uninsured, that’s exclude from coverage when you get insurance. Even a bare bones policy, keeps this ogre at bay.

So, add to your basic burn rate the cost of medical insurance and anything else on your pay stub that you would have to pay when unemployed. Think loans that get directly deducted from your paycheck. Convenient but easy to forget.

That is your run rate. It represents the rough amount of spending that will occur when you are fired, tossed out on your keister, unceremoniously run out on a rail … … ON MONDAY MORNING!

Worried. Good!

COMPONENT #2: HOW HOT IS YOUR SKILL?

My first component is a measure of how much you are earning. It’s the easiest to come up with and the easiest to understand. On the theory, that, for example, the burger flipper at MickyD’s doesn’t have to worry too much about finding another burger flipping job. However, a CxO has to recognize that there are not a lot of C anything jobs just waiting for the right candidate. So I like to develop a number that represents the overall market for your particular skill. If I was considering CICS programmer and a C Language programmer, I say that the CICS person would wait 3 times as long as the C person in the queue. So I would award the CICS programmer a score of 3 and the C programmer a 1. You’ll see why later. If you can’t judge it, use the net to develop a feel for it.

COMPONENT #2: HOW HOT IS YOUR INDUSTRY?

On the other hand, in the late 70’s, my cousin was a highly paid nuclear engineer. He was a leader in his industry. Gave talks, wrote articles, was in demand. He used to tell me about all the offers he was made. Chernobyl, TMI, and the anti-nuke wave just ended his industry. He turned out the lights on his division after a decade of ever downward spiral. He had to drop back and regroup. His skills in making buildings to house a controlled bomb where transferable to making building to hold unruly kids (i.e., skools for the government). But he never made as much money or was as “hot” as he was. He’s happy but it taught me that the industry can cycle as well. SO you have to assign a multiplier to your industry. Government workers get a 1; Wall Street workers get a 3; everyone else is in the middle somewhere.

COMPONENT #4: HOW LONG WILL YOU BE SEEKING

I have two ways that you can come up with this number: you can guess or you can calculate it. Guessers can pick a number. You might even be right. I prefer to calculate. Take your salary and divide by 10k$. Throw away the fractions. Multiply it by how hot or dead is the market. During the 911 doldrums, I was telling people 4. During the dot com bubble, I was giving people .25 or .5 (it was absurd.) Right now I’d say it’s a 2. Talk to any headhunter, recruiter, or anyone connected to the industry and they’ll tell you how hot or cold it is. Multiply the two numbers and that’s you basic replacement factor.

COMPONENT #5: HOW OLD ARE YOU?

Recognizing that there is age discrimination out there, I include a special factor to accommodate that. Less than 40 is 1; 41 to 49 is 2; 50 to 57 is 3; 57 and up is 4. Sad fact of life. Age is not respected. Wisdom is not valued. I can recite all the reasons why it isn’t true. But facts is facts. And us turkeys are factual. You get fired after 57 and you may never work again.

THE FORMULA:

Multiple the component numbers and that is your war chest. Stunning. Yup.

In my particular case: C2=2; C3=1; C4=17; C5=4

So my score of 136 tells me that it might take me 11 years to get back it. Yup. Retirement planning.

I just did this exercise with a younger turkey and they were ASTONISHED that they (1*1*12*1) might be out for a year!

I have used this formula with people. They didn’t believe the results. One turkey (2*2*14*4) told me that my projection of 224 months was absurd. And that he’d be in less than a year. He JUST got in last month after a 7 YEAR SEARCH! Yup, my formula was wrong but he lost his house and all his retirement savings. Talk about being pig headed.

Your mileage can and will vary. But, I’ll tell you that personally with a suitable war chest, I have never been stress when I’ve been out.

I hope no one is ever out. But if you are, this formula should make it less painful.

I’m always interested in feedback.


TECHNOLOGY: An Audience of Zero

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

http://changethis.com/35.03.AgainstYou
http://changethis.com/pdf/35.03.AgainstYou.pdf

Against You: A Manifesto in Favor of Audience
By Andrew Keen

*** begin quote ***

If a tree falls in the forest, and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? Andrew Keen asserts that the same riddle can be applied to Web 2.0. While new Internet technology has revolutionized traditional media and allows everyone to be writer/creator, if everyone is writer/creator, then just who is left to listen to the cacophony?

*** end quote ***

Doesn’t matter if there is an audience. It’s one song. (a universe) The noise is the song!


YAHOO ANSWER: Can one make a career out of working at a bank

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

QUESTION

Can one make a career out of working at a bank?

I just got a job working at a bank as a teller. What are the advancement opportunities within a bank? Can someone make a career out of it with a pretty decent income? I have a bachelors degree in psychology and the bank will pay for any business classes that I want to take leading to an associates or bachelors in business.

ANSWER

Dear Ms. “Cheyenne”:

Congratulations, on getting a job. That’s a start.

Can one make a “career” out of working at a bank?

Sure you can; humans are remarkable adaptable. You have to discover “your” own opportunities. Don’t look at the situation through the eyes of anyone else uncritically. (Even me!) Bear in mind the old folk song “the times they are a changing”. The bank of the next decade is probably not even on the drawing board yet?

You’ve got a psych degree so you should understand motivations. Banking is about scared people putting their money in an illusion of security. You could help the people understand the illusions and intelligently plan their finances. You could help the bank adapt thru helping its people change that future. You could seek out the IT staff and their users and translate between the two communities putting the requirements and capabilities in to each other’s “language”.

Can you make a “career” out of working at a bank?

You can make three careers and not even scratch the surface.

IMHO

And we didn’t event talk about the different banks there are — the Fed, the local “mom ‘n’ pop”, the big regionals, the internationals, the merchants, the investments, and all the kinds I don’t know about.

:-)

I hope that you don’t look from a too close perspective. It’s easy to see your job as “just a teller”, “just a branch manger”, or some other current “dead end” job.

I think that your viewpoint is clearly critical to your future success. Be it at the bank its suppliers, regulators, or customers.

Let me know how you make out,
Ferdinand J. Reinke

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