It happened in Church – October 19, 1962
Epilogue – Was it?
It Started In Church – October 19, 1962
http://www.itstartedinchurch.com
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WRITING: TEOTWAWKI fiction – It happened in Church – Epilogue – Was it?
Thursday, October 16, 2008
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Posted by reinkefj
RANT: “Poverty” versus “Poor”
Thursday, October 16, 2008http://www.thinkinghomebusiness.com/2008/10/16/dealing-with-poverty-closer-to-home-wendys-list/
*** begin quote ***
To Easton Ellsworth who has labored mightily to bring us Blog Action Day 2008 and poke and prod us to participate, and to all my blogging colleagues who have posted about poverty and about what can be and is being done about it, my admiration and my thanks.
*** end quote ***
I heard the clarion call all bloggers to much ado about nothing. And, I ignored it as “drivel” at best; socialism at worst.
Not that anyone cares, but here’s why!
Sigh, seems so obvious to me.
“Poverty” is a industry here in the USA. There are folks who are deriving a lot of earnings, moral superiority, and kudos that they don’t deserve. Like the United Way CEO that earns megabucks. Like all the paid gooferment employees, that earn a healthy chunk of change now and in their future retirement, for their “public service”.
Don’t make me barf!
First, poverty, the industry is despicable. To be truly poor is a terrible human condition. But, not having stuff, isn’t being poor. Go to Africa, where folks die of starvation. Or, disease from not having clean water. Where their gooferment really does kill them. Or, they have massive inflation of money.
That’s true poverty.
Any time any one talks about “poverty” here in the USA, I am instantly reminded of the TV interview of this shell of a fellow waiting on line in some African community to get an application for a green card. The interviewer asked the fellow why he wanted to come to the USA. He responded immediately “You have fat poor people.”
I think that sums it up. We need folks like him. I’d have given him a green card just for that service to our country.
See the “poverty industry” wants us to think that the bottom ten, twenty five, or fifty percent is “poor”.
Sorry!
They aren’t. Not by that fellow’s metric.
And, their situation is USUALLY either due to their own mistakes or the gooferment.
So, that’s why I think all the blogging would do a bit of good. The problem is defined wrong!
I happily contribute to Homefront New Jersey, where a very underpaid lady, make a nickel in to six pennies, as she helps single moms (mostly) move off welfare and onto their own two feet. That’s progress.
We should be striking at the heart of the problem but that is the misconceptions and gooferment welfare. Good luck doing that.
Argh!
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POLITICAL: Last night’s “debate”
Thursday, October 16, 2008We are in for a rough road!
Anyone remember Clinton’s promise to lower taxes? Who’s more likely to lower taxes? Certainly not O.
Anyone remember that corporations do NOT pay taxes? They just pass them along.
O, flat out, lied about Infantacide! Reminded me of Clinton parsing the word ‘is’!
McC will give us nuke power; just like France and the Navy. That’ll take us a long way to energy independence.
Doesn’t anyone else feel that O is an empty suit. The guy doesn’t have ANY qualifications. Zero! Of all them, only Palin has ever actually run anything!
Didn’t anyone find it humorous that O refers to Biden’s foreign policy experience? Is the ticket upside down?
Finally, it all boils dow to who do you trust. O with his Chicago corruption machine, some strange bedfellows, and the usual democratic special interests (i.e., tort lawyers, teacher’s union, assorted left wing loons). Or the cranky old guy from the last generation.
Both are socialists. Both won’t be able to do much. But, whose ‘much’ do you want.
Batten down your “financial hatches”. I think we are going to have another Carter.
Argh!
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Posted by reinkefj
WRITING: TEOTWAWKI fiction – It happened in Church – Chapter One Hundred – Reading the will
Wednesday, October 15, 2008It happened in Church – October 19, 1962
Chapter One Hundred – Reading the will
It Started In Church – October 19, 1962
http://www.itstartedinchurch.com
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JOBSEARCH: “Succeess Security”?
Wednesday, October 15, 2008http://www.linkedin.com/answers
Jason Alba CEO of JibberJobber.com, Author
*** begin quote ***
Might this be the new way to say “job security?”
I was speaking at a library on Bainbridge Island (near Seattle) last night and tried out a new phrase to replace “job security.”
… because everyone says there is no such thing as “job security” anymore. But I still want to talk about some kind of security for my future. “career security” doesn’t seem to fit… what about:
income security?
*** end quote ***
TO WHICH I RESPONDED
I think it’s two different things to two different class of people. Consultants (Yeah I know an employee is a consultant with no choice where they go tomorrow!) and Employees. To consultants, it’s the ability to diversify revenue stream and enhance it. To employees, it’s the ability to keep the paycheck flowing in and develop the next stream of paychecks. (One of my Turkey-isms is that you are, or should be, looking for your next job while you keep the current one happy.)
So I think there will be some confusion between what “it” means to those different communities when looked through the two different lenses. (Yeah, I love Gartner’s simplistic four box view of the world!)
It corresponds with what I tell younger folks who might be open to a “pearl”. Success for your generation is: (1) ruthless financial discipline — no bad debt; (2) a life long interest in learning — education — a degree — they can’t take it away from you; (3) a white collar job in order to save big bux; (4) a blue collar skill for hard times — never saw a poor plumber; (5) one or more internet based businesses — your store is always open; (6) a free time hobby that generates income; and (7) a large will-maintained network of people who can “help” you.
So, imho, with apologies to Covey, it’s “The Seven Dimensions of Success”.
Yeah, everything I ever learned was from a self-help book! Isn’t that the definition of a book? “Help Yourself!”
I think the term you are looking for is “Success Security”?
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WRITING: TEOTWAWKI fiction – It Happened In Church – Chapter Ninety Nine – John is the last
Monday, October 13, 2008It Happened In Church – October 19, 1962
Chapter Ninety Nine – John is the last
It Started In Church – October 19, 1962
http://www.itstartedinchurch.com
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MONEY: Might your employer be at fault for your 401k loss?
Monday, October 13, 2008http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/023453.html
October 11, 2008 Your 401k Plan – Breach of Fiduciary Duty? Posted by Karen DeCoster at October 11, 2008 06:24 AM
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Some friends and family have asked me to advise them on their choice of investments because they are down – an obvious point – in their 401k plans. A bit late, and there’s not much you can do anyways. But …prior to the meltdown, so few people were really willing to understand and believe that there was a financial storm in their future.
* and *
While snooping around, I immediately noticed something in this Wachovia plan that is epidemic nowadays. There is absolutely no option to invest in something that is low in risk. Typically, if you are predicting that the market will go South (as I have been for years), you’d look for a 100% US T-Bill option in your 401k, even if you only park it there in the short term. However, this person’s plan had absolutely no low-risk option whatsoever.
* end quote *
I know that everyone TRIES to keep liability at arm’s length from the business.
BUT, (there is always a big butt),
in this case, I think there may be a claim that has some merit against the employer and the fund company.
In my younger days, I would sneer at derision at “guaranteed return” offerings. I still do.
(Look at all those “safe” bond funds who have Lehman bonds in their portfolio, and tell me about safe! Money market funds as well. Icelandic banks. Inet banks. Yada, yada, yada!)
If a 401k has no “guaranteed” offering, I suspect that a claim could be made and imho would be paid off quietly.
?
Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer, CPA, or even “thin, young, and handsome” any more. (Any More?)
Get me on the jury, present me with a good case, and I find for the “little guy” all the time.
Just my nickel’s work. (Two cents after inflation?)
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GLOBAL: Looking for an exemplar of what might happen here
Sunday, October 12, 2008http://www.impactlab.com/2008/10/11/studying-japans-dark-years-to-see-how-the-us-might-fare/
October 11th, 2008 at 4:32 am
Studying Japan’s Dark Years to See How the U.S. Might Fare
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Japan in the 1990s saw billions of dollars worth of wealth disappear. A generation of “parasite singles” grew up, living with their parents well into their 30s. The suicide rate spiked, and university graduates spent years in part-time jobs. Japanese entrepreneurs had no or limited access to capital, stymieing innovation. Yet the standard of living for the average Japanese did not dramatically change — the pain of the crisis unfolded over many years and the government refrained from dire pronouncements.
Unemployment would peak at only 5.5 percent, an enviable rate for much of the world in good times. Deflation — or price declines as gloomy consumers and skeptical businesses put off purchasing — sickened the economy. Yet leading experts now agree its impact was not as severe as originally thought.
Japan saw repeated years of low or negative growth, but the final tally was something short of a decade-long recession — with the 10 years leading up to 2000 averaging out at almost 1 percent growth. Companies like Toyota would prosper in adverse times, forced to sharpen their competitive edge. Emerging in the 2000s as the leader in hybrid cars, Toyota found itself on stronger footing than its U.S. counterparts.
*** end quote ***
Well, our politicians are dumber than the average bear in the woods. So what is our five or ten year forecast?
On the plus side, they can’t hide the distress. Unlike the Japanese did.
On the minus side, the Japanese people are savers; we aren’t. (As a nation. Not me personally. Now that I’m in the retirement red zone, I’m trying to make up for lost time and all my relatives will have to fend for themselves. Unless one of my books goes platinum, they would be kept in the style that they’d like to become accustomed to! And Frau Reinke could make a frugal squirrel look like a spendthrift.)
On the minus side, more than half of the people work for the gooferment. That’s not a model that can sustain itself. Especially, if the gooferment raises taxes and “producers” decide to chuck it all and go on the dole.
Inflation is unavoidable. Where do they get all these billions they are printing? Certainly not from savings. “Re capital ization”, my tush. Capital only comes from savings. You know Robinson Crusoe forgoes eating a fish so he can eat while he makes a fish net. Savings. Real savings.
Unfortunately, the sheeple are going to get a real “eddykation in ecckkyynomicks”. It’s called the dismal science for a reason. It’s dismal. There are NO silver bullets in real life. You can’t have it all. And, no amount of printing press money is going to make it so.
Forecast: Runaway inflation. More gooferment spending. More pain in the country at below the Teddie Kennedy level. (Don’t you love how rich politicians — redundant repetition of terms –have the audacity to say “i feel your pain”!) Fixed income folk takes the brunt.
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WRITING: TEOTWAWKI fiction – It Happened In Church – Chapter Ninety Eight – Marie passes
Sunday, October 12, 2008It Happened In Church – October 19, 1962
Chapter Ninety Eight – Marie passes
It Started In Church – October 19, 1962
http://www.itstartedinchurch.com
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POLITICAL: O’s birth certificate again!
Sunday, October 12, 2008POLITICAL: O’s birth certificate again!
Here’s an interesting assertion that I have heard before. So where’s O’s birth certificate? I have no idea what ax these folks have to grind. BUT, they do make a prima facie case that O is Constitutionally disqualified. And, if he is a natural born citizen, he can dispose of this gadfly with one swat. Interesting assertion, and even more interesting questions.
Suggest passing it along. It’s going viral.
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Leave a Comment » | Political | Tagged: Birth Certificate, Challenge, Obama, October Surprise, POTUS08 | Permalink
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