Tag Archives: economy

ECON 666: Already Planning to Make the Next Recession Worse

03 Friday Mar 2017

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The Federal Reserve system is truly amazing.

Built, in secret in a dark room at Jekyll Island, Georgia, it was foisted on the American people more than 100 years ago. It is patently illegal; Congress abdicated its Article I authority to control the currency to a private, unelected, and uncontrollable bank. It destroyed the value of the dollar. It necessitated the 16th Amendment and the income tax (as a prop).

It institutionalized the normal business (boom, bust, boom,…) cycle – privatizing the gains and socializing the loses. It allows for concentration of wealth in the dirty hands of a few bankers and closely associated persons. It places all responsibility and liability on the public. It allows for unlimited government: spending, debt, programs, and wars. It works in conjunction with other central banks and the Bank for International Settlements to maintain a global system of debt slavery.

That this greatest and most evil of ponzi schemes has lasted for 104 years is a testament to either the wiles of its creators and operators or to the blind stupidity of the people. It could be both. And it could signal the completely corrupted nature of the American political class. None of it unfathomable…

Those who rule the economy like gods, even in the midst of preparing for a likely transition in leadership next February, are already plotting and planning their actions for the next American recession:

While in recent weeks there has been a material increase in Fed balance sheet normalization chatter, according to a new report from Deutsche Bank analysts, it may all be for nothing for one simple reason: should the US encounter a recession in the next several years, the most likely reaction by the Fed would be another $1 trillion in QE, delaying indefinitely any expectations for a return to a “normal” balance sheet.

As a reminder, as of this month, the duration of the latest expansionary cycle – as defined by the NBER – has reached 93 months, surpassing the 92 months of the 1982-1990 cycle, and is now the third longest in history. Should the cycle persist for another 27 months, or just under two and a half years, it would be the longest period of “economic growth” in history.

It’s like they know. Like they do this on purpose. “QE”means quantitative easing. That’s fancy banker talk for printing money. In this case, the U.S. Treasury will announce a sale of $1 Trillion in federal bonds. That’s more debt and interest for the taxpayers to work off. The Fed will then “expand its balance sheet” by buying the Treasuries. These are on sale at the Treasury but the Fed will buy them through their favorite middleman, Goldman Sachs.

Goldman will mark up the price, to give the people the worst deal possible and to make a profit. Goldman will finance the initial purchase from the Treasury with a fake money loan from guess who… And how will the Fed obtain the money for the Goldman loan and for the secondary Treasury purchase? By printing money! A lot of money. $1 Trillion for Goldman. And $1 Trillion plus Goldman fees for the Fed. Wait. There’s more (and more and more): the Treasury and the government now have an extra Trillion. That’s the multiplier effect. $3 Trillion+ in extra fake money in circulation.

I do not know what Goldman’s markup is. Let’s say it’s 10%. So $3.1 Trillion is created out of thin air. Poof! The money came from nowhere but it still has an effect. And it has to be paid for despite not being real.

The government gets to spend their Trillion in debt immediately – on war, healthcare, a mission to Mars – literally the sky is the limit (or space). Later the taxpayers will pay that back to the Fed, with interest (on money that never existed). Goldman will instantly pay off its $1 Trillion loan from the Fed through the subsequent sale to the Fed. They keep their 10% – $100 Billion! Good to be them.

Now the Fed will have on the crooked books: the asset of the Treasuries, and: the liability for the $1.1 Trillion to buy them. The balance went to Goldman, remember. Given enough time and hard work and sweat from the taxpaying saps, this liability and associated asset would balance out – back to zero. But, in the meantime, the Fed has that $1 Trillion asset just sitting there! They won’t let it go to waste.

They will use it as an asset to loan more fake money to more commercial banks (in America and abroad). More multiplying. More debt based on something that doesn’t exist.

All of this excess fake money floating around drives down the value of existing money – Gresham’s Law. This makes the taxpayer’s hard-earned money – that little money they’re allowed to keep when not repaying debt and interest via taxes on loans that never really existed – less valuable even as the prices of the things they must buy rise (monetary inflation). In other words, while the globalist instantly profit, the taxpayers take it in both ends for the duration.

Yes, even as the banks instantly get richer for doing nothing, the people get poorer. And this crazed debt cycle runs parallel to the usual business cycle (boom, bust, growth, contraction, …) until the next recession, depression, or downturn – when it will all be repeated.

That’s partly the nature of these bars on the graph from Zero Hedge:

expansion-duration

We’re at the end of the red bar (2009-present). That’s supposed to be a boom market or good times. For most they haven’t felt so good. And that’s because the people have struggled with the debt and inflation and lose of buying power from the last round of QE, circa 2008-09.

Cozy, huh? This cycle will keep repeating until the economy totally collapses or until the people finally wake up and rise up (or both).

From the graph one can also see we are, by historical average, overdue for a recession right now.

Additionally from the graph one might catch a glimpse of the Depression of 1921. It was the one immediately prior to the Great Depression. And it only lasted for six months. That’s because it was the last major depression/recession before the Fed really got the game up and running.

Cycles naturally come and go. They naturally correct themselves in very rapid fashion. It takes a central bank and a government, working together, to prolong their effects – and to build upon the cycle for the next time.

It seems the next time is coming and the criminals are already planning for it. If you don’t mind flirting with utter disaster and if you’re not ready to wake up yet, then at least heed the warnings. They’ve already told you so. If you’re caught off guard, that’s on you. Hell, it’s all going to be on you anyway…

Train Your Replacement so We can Fire You

02 Thursday Mar 2017

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Just yesterday I wrote of the Diminishing Value of Degrees and the fact that major companies no longer require them. It seems private companies aren’t the only ones feeling that way; public universities are joining on.

At the University of California’s San Francisco campus, 79 IT employees lost their jobs this week, some of them after explaining to their replacements at Indian outsourcing firm HCL how to do their jobs.

The union representing the employees, University Professional and Technical Employees CWA Local 9119, says it’s the first time a public university has offshored American IT jobs.

In a statement sent yesterday, UPTE-CWA says the layoffs could spread, since the HCL contract can be utilized by any of the 10 campuses in the University of California system, the nation’s largest public university. “US taxes should be used to create jobs in the US, not in other countries,” said Kurt Ho, a systems administrator who was quoted in the union’s press release. Ho was required to train his replacement as a condition of getting his severance pay.

In its statement on the matter, UCSF says that it was pushed to hire outside contractors due to “increased demand for information technology and escalating costs for these services.” The university says it will save more than $30 million by hiring HCL, after seeing IT costs nearly triple between 2011 and 2016, “driven by the introduction of the electronic medical record and increased digital connectivity.”

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Career Hub Blog.

The old, temporarily somewhat true story went like this: go to a “good” school; get a degree there; use the degree to get a “good” job; work there for 30-40 years; retire happy in Florida. That’s no longer true at all, even at the “good” schools, the places that confer the degrees.

UCSF terminated skilled, dedicated, degreed American professionals in favor of who-knows-the skills?, who-knows-the language H-1B immigrants (or remotes). All to save a few dollars. Odds are, this plan will backfire, with the replacements costing much more in repetition, poor communication, failed systems, and other problems.

Look for this to spread, especially at the hypocritical schools. Tuition is higher than ever and rising. Presidents, administrators, and football coaches are paid like royalty. But there’s no money… And no jobs. Even with one of those trusty degrees.

I wonder what the students in the UCSF Computer Sciences Department, where they’re “Computing for a better tomorrow“, think? Tomorrow,who knows. Today doesn’t look so hot.

The Diminishing Value of Degrees

01 Wednesday Mar 2017

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Over the past few years I have written extensively about the joke that is modern “higher” education. I started with my own experience. The only ideas I learned in college were essentially self-taught lessons in (elective) areas that interested me (philosophy, classics, etc.). Only too late did I realize my mistake with a business major. The only things I remember from business school is that: 1) about 3% of targeted people respond to advertising campaigns, and 2) let the calculator do the amortizations.

Law school was a similar fiasco. “Government good. Government all powerful. Government give some rights. Thanks be to government for government…” Bullsh!t! on that!

Lately I’ve explored the PC circus permanently encamped on our campuses. Outside of the hard sciences there is next to no education, just indoctrination in the wonders of victimhood, white guilt, and socialism. No formal learning. Anything of value actually picked up is done so incidentally and autodidactically. And they pay big money for all this garbage.

This is how it is possible for so many to come out of four, five, seven, and eight+ year programs and know nothing – literally with the experience and mentality of seven-year-olds (along with bad, snooty attitudes and loads of debt).

People outside the ivory towers are beginning to notice the decline. And they’re reacting accordingly:

Ernst & Young, one of the UK’s biggest graduate recruiters, has announced it will be removing the degree classification from its entry criteria, saying there is “no evidence” success at university correlates with achievement in later life.

In an unprecendented move, the accountancy firm is scrapping its policy of requiring a 2:1 and the equivalent of three B grades at A-level in order to open opportunities for talented individuals “regardless of their background”.

In other words, at Ernst, a college degree may be an enhancer for some, but it is no longer a base requirement. Why? Because, as stated, there’s no longer any evidence it means anything. Time was when a degree meant you had a smart, well-read, and hard-working man on your hands. Now, it likely means you’re interviewing an SJW, know-nothing, nitwit and future HR headache, someone who understands little and will accomplish even less. Ernst is not alone in this development.

Martin Armstrong also commented on this story:

The best education has ALWAYS been an apprenticeship – not some university course taught by someone who has never practiced what they teach.
Roman_school

In ancient Rome, at between nine and twelve years of age, boys from affluent families would leave their basic education behind and take up study with a grammaticus, who was a teacher that refined his students’ writing and speaking skills. They would be versed in the art of poetic analysis and taught them Greek if they did not yet know it. They would be taught logic and how to think. By this point, lower class boys would already be working as apprentices. If someone wanted to be a sculptor, he would apply to be an apprentice at a sculptor shop. Girls, both rich and poor, would be focused on making themselves attractive brides and, subsequently, capable mothers. It was the women who often ran the household.

We still have trade schools, which are regarded as less than university. Yet, our education in university was supposed to follow the Roman model of apprentice for the lower class and higher education for the upper class. But somehow, university moved beyond grammaticus and pretended to prepare someone for a skill, which the Roman system did not seek to accomplish – merely refine the character of the student.
Even economics at its beginning under Adam Smith was regarded as part of moral philosophy. Economics was not taught as a subject by itself until 1901.

From Greco-Roman through Victorian times, all trades worked through apprenticeships. All – cobblers, chimney-sweeps, sailors, lawyers, doctors, economists, teachers, masons, carpenters, manufacturers, salesmen, architects, fishermen – all of them offered apprenticeships.

Higher education, elite education, existed all throughout those times. It was intended, for those of given aptitude and circumstance, to gain a level of understanding and intellectual exposure above and beyond the ordinary – and above what was required in their chosen field of employment.

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Socrates – no degrees. Leonidas Drosis (Athens) / Wikipedia.

Today, there are a precious few institutions still in business that provide the basics of a real advanced education. Very few and very far between. We’re lucky to have them.

We’re even luckier to have the internet. Essentially 100% of the contents of a good college curriculum are available on-line and mostly for free. Any enterprising person with a basic grasp of reading and math (all that’s afforded by most “lower” schools anyway) can learn anything they like about any given subject.

Share this information with young people you might know and care about. If you, at any age, want an education, then get one. Don’t fall for the modern college/student loan slavery trap. Learn what you like, in your own time, at your own pace. And forget the degrees – there’s “no evidence” they mean anything and they are no longer golden tickets (manacles, maybe; tickets, no).

Production: Tracking and Hacking

18 Saturday Feb 2017

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I saw this Story about office sensors tracking your every move. It struck me as something the great James Altucher (who won’t answer a text) would comment on. He didn’t, that I’m aware of, so I will.

…

Sensors that keep tabs on more than temperature are already all over offices—they’re just less conspicuous and don’t have names that suggest Bond villains. “Most people, when they walk into buildings, don’t even notice them,” says Joe Costello, chief executive officer of Enlighted, whose sensors, he says, are collecting data at more than 350 companies, including 15 percent of the Fortune 500. They’re hidden in lights, ID badges, and elsewhere, tracking things such as conference room usage, employee whereabouts, and “latency”—how long someone goes without speaking to another co-worker.

Proponents claim the goal is efficiency: Some sensors generate heat maps that show how people move through an office, to help maximize space; others, such as OccupEye, tap into HVAC systems. The office-design company Gensler has 1,000 Enlighted sensors lining its new space in New York. Embedded in light fixtures, the dime-size devices detect motion, daylight, and energy usage; a back-end system adjusts lighting levels. The sensors also learn employees’ behavior patterns. If workers in a given department start the day at 10 a.m., lights will stay dim until about that hour. So far, Gensler has seen a 25 percent savings in energy costs. It estimates the investment—installation cost the company about $1.70 per square foot, or roughly $200,000—will pay off in five years.

Legally speaking, U.S. businesses are within their rights to go full-on Eye of Sauron. “Employers can do any kind of monitoring they want in the workplace that doesn’t involve the bathroom,” says Lewis Maltby, president of the National Workrights Institute. And as long as the data is anonymized, as Enlighted’s is, some people don’t mind tracking if it makes work life easier. “It doesn’t bother me. It doesn’t feel intrusive,” says Luke Rondel, 31, a design strategist at Gensler. “It’s kind of cozy when you’re working late at night to be in a pod of light.” A majority of U.S. workers the Pew Research Center surveyed last year said they’d tolerate surveillance and data collection in the name of safety.

Up to a point, perhaps. The Boston Consulting Group has outfitted about 100 volunteer employees in its new Manhattan office with badges that embed a microphone and a location sensor. Made by Humanyze in Boston, the badges track physical and verbal interactions. BCG says it intends to use the data to see how office design affects employee communication. Outside critics have called the plan Orwellian and despotic—“It is a little bit invasive,” says Ross Love, 57, a BCG managing partner who volunteered—but the data collected is anonymized, and the company has pledged not to use it for performance evaluation.

…

Full Eye of Sauron? And, just who would that make your employer?

Companies, large and small, always look for ways to save money. It helps the bottom line. But it’s also a method of control – control of the HVAC, the light bill, and you. If ever you tire of slaving for the Dark Lord, you might consider self-employment. Altucher did it with writing, among other things. I’ve followed suit.

Startup Stock Photos

Pexels.

The other day James posted some tips on overcoming the obstacles to successful writing, as books are concerned. These points are worth considering. His points (with my commentary):

A) SITTING

Writing is boring. It’s unnatural. It’s basically sitting and staring at a scream and typing into a keyboard.

 

This one is a killer – perhaps literally. Sitting is unhealthy. Break it up with bouts of random movement. Exercise during the day, twice if you can. Drink some coffee while you sit.

B) NO DISTRACTIONS

Because of the above, I always had to create an environment of zero distractions.

For my very first book, my family went to stay with my in-laws and I spent two weeks locked in my house and did nothing but write.

I turned off Internet, no TV, nothing. Just wrote. This was very hard. I’m too used to being distracted. It’s natural to be distracted.

I’m lucky in this regard as I can usually write anywhere and under any circumstance. However, for serious or strenuous work – editing for example – it needs to be quiet. No way around that.

C) STORY

Everything has a story.

Fiction, non-fiction, self-help, even a good tweet.

 

A good story helps work flow. That leads to better reading and more engagement – even if one writes about tax policy or book writing tips. I started this piece with an “Eye of Sauron” hook…

D) BOOK-SPECIFIC STUFF

This is a post about books and not writing in general so there are other book-specific items that a writer can’t ignore.

A book is not just the 40–80,000 words in the middle.

A book is a cover. A back-cover. Two flaps. And an interior.

 

 

In an odd way, writing the base material is the easiest part. It’s what writers do, in defiance of that history James mentioned. The other stuff, so much of it, is actual work.

E) PSYCHOLOGY

Finishing the book, delivering the book, watching the book come out, dealing with both good and bad reviews, requires some self-awareness.

…

Dealing with that psychology is painful.

Most of us in this business over think the hell out of everything. Analysis becomes paralysis if you let it.

F) THE NEXT BOOK

The hardest part of finishing a book is starting the next book. This is often the most important way to market the first book. How many authors didn’t achieve success until their second or third books?

 

Here, James is way ahead of me. When that first tome is finished there’s a temptation to relax. It’s needed but can lead back to paralysis. I finished my second book two months after my first – and that was 14 months ago… A few little pseudo e-books and pubs for other people later and I’m still looking at several new drafts.

We’ve all got something to work on. I’m going to work on my coffee now. Y’all enjoy life in Mordor…

Top 17 Reasons MAGA Really Can’t Happen Fast Enough

15 Wednesday Feb 2017

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Once again the Heritage Foundation released its annual Index of Economic Freedom.

And once again, America slides. Last year we were number 11. Now, we’re number 17. Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, Australia, Estonia, Canada, UAE, Ireland, Chile, Taiwan, the UK, Georgia, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, and Lithuania all placed ahead of the U.S.

We’re number one! Until we’re not. I’ve tracked this index for a long time. It’s been a while since we’ve even been in the top ten. The indispensable nation.

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Heritage.

We’re still in the “mostly free” category. But we’re drifting closer to “moderately free” – where one starts to find the third world.

MAGA. Please.

Are Employees a Thing of the Past? Probably

02 Thursday Feb 2017

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So hints the Wall Street Journal today, in an excellent, thought-provoking article by Lauren Weber. The gist of the matter is that large corporations across the country are doing everything they can to cut labor costs. This means, for now, outsourcing, independent contractors, other contractors, temps, and freelancers. I took away three things from the article.

First, it’s absolutely true. Employers no longer wish to employ employees. Read the material and look at the graphs. Consult Google – or your own employment experiences. I’ve talked about this before. James Altucher regularly says the same things. It’s happening (or happened).

And it is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. Yes, “traditional” career jobs are harder to come by, vanishing, in fact. But they were a relatively new phenomenon anyway. The 40 hours a week for 40 years thing came along some time in the industrial revolution. Before that people either worked in small businesses, worked for themselves, or grew crops. Things changed. They’ll change again.

Ms. Weber looks into the desperation (and greed) of some of these job-cutting companies. She also looks at the downside(s) for displaced employees (several of those). What jumped out at me, my second take-away, was this:

Some economists liken the strategy to Hollywood studios, which greenlight movies and then hire directors, actors, editors, special-effects teams and marketing agencies for production. All those outsiders work together to deliver the movie, but the studio has no long-term obligations after the film’s release.

This, I see as the silver lining. The silver screen lining, we’ll wittily call it. The directors, actors, editors, effects, and marketing people of Hollywood clean up – at least for the big films and productions. The actors get the fame so I’ll concentrate on them. Jennifer Lawrence (who is so hot) doesn’t care if a movie is a one-time contract gig because she gets $10 Million for her part. She likely also negotiates residual income from it as well.

Actors can command these sums (some of them) and dictate some terms because the have value. They have it, they know it, and they sell it.

This may be the short-term future of employment. Gerry Spence once wrote (and I cannot remember in which excellent book…) that he hoped some day people would be paid based on their talents. He hoped the employees could dictate their own terms. Big business had that reversed for years; society came to accept it – for most jobs. The actors did not. They sold their talent for what it was worth – what people would pay for it within market limits.

Hopefully this trend will spread outside of Hollywood and Burbank. Whoever you are, whatever you do, you have talent and value. Use it. For now. I say “for now” because of the third thing that jumped out at me, the 800-pound mechanical gorilla in the room:

BNY Chairman and CEO Gerald Hassell vowed to “drive down the labor component of our company” with technology that can perform tasks currently done by people. Other companies view contracting as a stopgap until more jobs are automated, freeing firms to dispense with some workers altogether.

The robots are not coming. They’re here now. And they’re getting “better” every day. What’s coming is their revolution. Right now there are very few jobs which cannot be performed by some android, bot, or AI. In a few years (years, not decades) it will be virtually 100% of the jobs. The decades part will fully round out the 100%. 0 humans needed at that point. And that means 0 jobs. Which means 0 pay. Which will make it a little difficult to pay for the goods and services the bots produce.

TERMINATOR GENISYS

The new boss may not be a people person. May not be a person. Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions.

This can of worms is open and we’re all getting into it (look – there’s one crawling on your ankle right now). This revolution will either be the greatest thing to ever happen to humanity, one of the absolute worst, or the very last. Fun will be had by all…

Ron Paul Cautiously Praises Trump, Roundly Faults the Fed

01 Wednesday Feb 2017

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Trump is making major changes at warp speed. The markets and the general economy seem to respond favorably. Still, there are forces at work which even a maverick president my find difficult to stop. From Zero Hedge and LRC:

Paul noted that he thinks U.S. policy has created a “failed system” in the country. “All empires end and we’re the empire. It’s going to end and it’s going to be for economic reasons…we’re going to fail because we’re working within a failed system…this is a monetary problem…a spending problem…it’s going to be financial,” Paul emphatically claimed, once again stating the collapse of America is imminent. “We have something arriving worse than 2008, 2009, much worse…It was the fault of the Federal Reserve,” Paul said, adding, the Keynesian economic model contributed greatly to the first bubble burst. Paul said the left will blame Trump for it like the right did to Obama, but he says it’s bigger than the office of the president, and blames the federal reserve and the previous 17 years of governmental spending.

If you think Ron Paul’s comments hold no water, think again. As the Free Thought Project reported last year, even the former chairmen of the Federal Reserve is predicting this crisis.

We are in very early days of a crisis which has got a way to go,” asserted Alan Greenspan to Bloomberg last year. “This is the worst period, I recall since I’ve been in public service. There’s nothing like it, including the crisis — remember October 19th, 1987, when the Dow went down by a record amount 23 percent? That I thought was the bottom of all potential problems. This has a corrosive effect that will not go away. I’d love to find something positive to say…..I don’t know how it’s going to resolve, but there’s going to be a crisis.”

When the man who used to run the very central bank Ron Paul says is responsible for the collapse, also says there’s going to be a collapse – it’s time to pay attention.

Watch the RP video interview. I agree that Trump is doing everything (almost) humanly possible to avert disaster. However, late in the fourth, one Hail Mary (or two or three) may not be enough.

Perhaps, in a worst case scenario, he can ease us down as gently as possible. I still maintain that the best solution to the Imperial end game was to elect Paul in 2008 (not 2012). It’s a little late for that; Trump is who we have and all we have.

The difference between Trump and Obama or Bush is that Trump will not take the unjust blame lying down. And given his ability to keep the press, the opposition, and the GOP barking and clapping like trained seals, this will be interesting, even entertaining – even in the event of calamity.

Developing…

A Matter Of Time Or Timing: Slightly Divergent Views On The Economy

15 Thursday Dec 2016

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Both are probably right. The difference is a matter both of timing and of probability.

Gerald Celente sees a Trump-based boom right now and into next year.

TREND FORECAST: The trend is your friend. Approve or disapprove of his choices, Trump has picked a corporate cabinet of top-notch business leaders. Unlike politicians, Trump will run the White House like he runs his businesses. It’s about the bottom line. Therefore, we forecast a strong dollar and steady economic growth. For US exporters, however, the strong dollar will dampen profits.

Celente is likely correct. Bob Moriarty takes a long-term view. And it is not as rosy as Celente’s.

Americans want to believe that coups or revolutions and the threat of constant violence is something that only happens in other countries but all the signs are there that say we are due to a revolution soon or at least a coup. I wrote a book in November of last year I called The Art of Peace about my reflections on being at war and what comes our way soon. This is part of how I summed it up on the very last page,

The banking system is collapsing. I don’t mean to say it’s going to collapse, it’s collapsing as I write. Only few recognize it today but when the system grinds to a halt after the banks steal all the deposits of their customers, the world will get it. We may well have our first worldwide revolution as a result. We have already seen just how thrilled the populations were when the banks closed in Argentina, Greece, Italy and Spain. The popularity of Trump and Sanders is a monument to just how pissed Americans are at their government, with recent polls showing 81 per cent of those polled were unhappy with the Federal government. When the banks close, the 99 per cent are going to be some kind of pissed.

…

How close is the US to revolution? Pretty damned close.

Moriarty is likely correct as well.

Not as rosy but probably more realistic. Celente is talking about riding the wave while it lasts. He’s the one who coined the term “banksters”. And the banksters have been in the process of grabbing everything that’s left of value before the collapse. That explains, partly, the swings in the market over the past year or two and the current surges. This may continue for a short while longer. If you can also benefit, then great.

If Trump is moderately successful in making America great again, then the process may drag on, much the same as it has been lately, for years. If he is wildly successful, then things may actually improve in concrete terms. Again, time will tell but the odds are against us.

Make the most of the best if and while you can. Prepare for the worst if and while you can.

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Time.

James Altucher on Day Work and Day Dreams

10 Saturday Dec 2016

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I’m having a case of news fatigue or, rather, bad news fatigue. Therefore, I’d like to present another of James Altucher’s excellent idea columns on doing what you love. Read all 10 of his points. Here’s one of them:

C) More choices

I grew up in a suburb of New York City. It was a middle class suburb.

Which means everyone was middle management in NYC and commuted every day to NYC. Everyone was a “VP of Sales” at an accounting firm.

Around age 50 they all had their first heart attacks. Then strokes. Then cancer. Then some dementia. Then death.

Now, we have choices. A friend of mine spent 20 years working for Wall Street as a graphic designer. Finally she quit.

Since then she’s been inundated on every social media site for requests to do work at some times triple the money.

Why? Because now she posts art and graphics that she makes out of love. She creates her day dreams, the ones she’s had since she was a little girl.

People see them and say, “I want that energy in my life!” and they offer her money to do it.

She also took out the middleman – headhunters, design agencies, HR people, bosses, etc.

Let’s say I want to publish a book. I can’t do it unless: agent, editorial assistant, editor, marketer, publisher, bookstore purchaser, all agree that the book should be published.

Unless I just write the book and upload it to Amazon.

In every industry now you have choices of how you can make more money.

How can you get started? Hold on…

D) All industries are dying

Nobody makes a “buggy” for a horse anymore. That skill set is no longer in demand.

Okay, that was one point and a preview of another. They’re all great. Here’s a link to his article on how to publish – a subject I’ve been known to dabble in.

There’s a lot of uncertainty especially in the job market. President-elect Trump looks like he’s actually going to bring back and keep many decent jobs in the U.S. – for now. However, times are changing. The robots are here and multiplying. The traditional work economy still looks rather bleak for the coming decades and beyond. Which happens to be a good thing. It will “move the cheese”, creating a crisis which brings new and better opportunities. No-one else gets that like Altucher.

I get Christmas ties. Here are … 2! of them! Both snowman themed.

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The big one on the right plays Jingle Bells. And I got it for a song at a discount store – I think it was $4. The quality is worth 4 bucks – will barely stay tied – but the song still plays after many years.

Happy Saturday!

What A Difference 75 Years Makes

07 Wednesday Dec 2016

Posted by in Legal/Political Columns

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The attack on Pearl Harbor happened 75 years ago today. A date that will live in infamy. That date, Dec.7, 1941, yes. Three quarters of a century have brought remarkable changes for the better.

Yesterday the Japanese dropped a good bomb on us. After a meeting with President-elect Trump in New York, SoftBank announced it will invest $50 Billion inn American small businesses. This is a doubling of the previously stated amount. The end goal is to develop 50,000 new real jobs here.

 

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CNBC.