Wednesday, September 19, 2018

For Cripes Sakes, It's Scam Season

*Allow me to suggest that you always go to reviews of a product or service.

Avant Personal Loans: 2018 Review

I'm going to skip past the BS and get right to the reviews >

Avant is a scam. They wasted 10 days on my ap. 680 score, 20 tradelines, over 140,000 W2 income and they have 17% Waste of time.

LostinNH 10 months ago

Partially filled out the app last night. Got a rate and monthly payment for $20K over 3 years. The payment was too high for me. Their website would not allow me to change the time to longer than 3 years. Very frustrating.

I called their Cust Serv people tonight. I got a foreign female (I am guessing Phillipino) who was polite but not very helpful. She refused to give me a loan amount and interest rate for $10K over their longest term (48 months she tells me). Isn't that what cust service is for?

I cannot stand talking to foreigners for CS as their English is not great. Based on my poor experience and the reviews below, I will be staying away from this crap company.

bob a year ago

I went online to check rates for a $7,000 loan to pay off 2 credit cards. I have very good credit. Damn the interest rate was higher than my credit card was charging. I did not complete the loan application process. Two weeks later I receive an email stating that my application has expired and I can reapply and in the same email it stated that my loan was denied. Be very careful they say that just to see what rate you will receive they do not check your credit, they do. Remember each time you have an inquiry into your credit history you are marked and that an lower your score.

Risa Kinion Sams a year ago

Changed terms after origination of loan. Over 1 yr into the payback of
the loan I requested payment assistance. They agreed and said the only
change would be in the time line for payback- it would be extended. That
was the only change I was made aware of. Later I had cause to question
this loan. Over the next 9 mns I made multiple call asking for loan
terms and information. They refused. The agents had no information to
give. When I asked for the current balance- I was always told it was "
around" a certain amount. I could call several times in the same day
and the balance amount would be different by many thousands of dollars.
There was nothing in writing. There were no firm figures. By chance I
discovered they had tacked on a fee- $15,327,34 to the new payment plan.
I had not been told this. Of course I would not have accepted such a ridiculous fee. The original loan was $18,500. I also discovered that
Avant uses the term- interest rate- but it is applied as a fee. An
amount is determined by Avant when you make the loan and this amount is
added to your loan. Not interest, a fee. The numbers to not add up,
nothing matches. Numbers seem to be randomly pulled out of the air. They
would not give the correct balance that reflects this added fee. Only
by hammering them with multiple call and multiple lines of questions
was I able to discover this scam. Do not, do not, do not fall into their
trap. I have now hired an attorney to fight to get this mess cleared
off my credit files. It is a Big mess and my credit score has taken a
very large fall.

Annette Cook a year ago

Be very cautious with this Avant. They offered me a refinance on a small loan at a rate of 10% less than my current rate. The loan was approved and I kept getting emails that additional information was needed. Called them and reached some rep in an overseas country who put me on hold and came back to the line stating the emails were a mistake and they have all the information needed. Well two days later I get an email advising of adverse actions and the refinance with an additional $1k was denied for low credit, bunch of crap. My credit score is nearly 200 points higher than when the original loan was approved. People save yourself some misery and move past this Avant.

Virg Prit 2 years ago

I have great credit, great history with Webbank, It took me a while getting the documents. Nothing was good enough. After getting approved by soft pull for $10,000 (I opted for less) i got turned down. This company claims on their facebook site they do no credit check, That is a lie, A soft pull is still a credit check, and the hard pull danmned sure is. Liars.

reallifelisa 2 years ago

Sigh... I completed the application process online & was approved for a loan; spoke to a rep asking for a fax of my documents got the ok to fax them the next day. Checked my email the following morning and was denied??? They do not respond to calls, requests for clarification or removal of your personal info from their site... use caution.

Suzanne Carden 2 years ago

This company does not respond to any written communications. I like to keep all communications in writing so it's not a "he said, she said" type of thing but, instead, it's right there in black and white.

I was told upon signing up for this loan that so long as my payments were current, I could refinance at any time. I tried three times, but was denied, and this was before I became delinquent.

I became delinquent because I was unable to reach a person to take a payment over the phone, as they close early, and as I discussed with the last person I actually spoke with - I needed to make payments online. I was told that I would be able to make payments online, but their website would not allow me to do so, or I would not be in this position today.

I begged and pleaded with the CEO of the company. He did not respond, but merely passed my correspondence to the credit department. The credit department did not respond, they merely gave me an accounting of all of my payments.

I filed a formal complaint with the Better Business Buearu and all the company did was fight with me and tell me that I did not qualify for the refinance and they weren't willing to do anything at all to assist me.

They now are ruining my credit. After 18 months of non-payment, they refuse to close the account, but continue to report "x" number of 120 days late. I got this loan to improve my credit.

zacstewart 2 years ago

who all has actually given up their bank account id password and pin number?
I find that its a little fishy to ask for that information from someone.

Budget Hvac 2 years ago

???? I dont get the bad reviews .. Customer service was OUTSTANDING

Matt Volhard Budget Hvac a month ago
I've paid all my payments on time as well, I'm not sure why I am not feeling the same ENTHUSIASM as you toward their customer service. Have you paid off a loan with them recently or are you just excited because they loaned you money where no one else would? When they loaned me money I thought they were a great establishment as well. I paid that entire loan off last week and they screwed me out of more money so that opinion is no longer valid.
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Scandalfan 2 years ago

Interest rate is too high. Yes, they loan to people with bad credit, but so what? People with bad credit shouldn't pay triple the rate. It is taking forever to pay off a loan. DO NOT USE unless you are totally desperate for money.

Funancials Scandalfan 2 years ago
If they're 3 times more likely not to pay the loan back, then yes - they should pay triple the rate.
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DONOTUSE 2 years ago

DO NOT USE! Terrible customer service. You can only reach compliance via email and they take forever to respond. I needed them to simply report the loan to the credit reporting agencies so I can finish getting a mortgage and they were not helpful in the least. They are the reason I have to move back my closing date. They give very vague answers and don't go out of their way to help at all. DO NOT USE!!!!

James Joseph 3 years ago

I have a credit score of 678 and still got denied smh.

Matt Volhard James Joseph a month ago
They obviously didn't find enough flaws in your credit history to screw you over. Had you a slightly lower score then you would've been a prime target
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Bonnie Parker 3 years ago

Unless you are absolutely desperate with no other way to get money, DO NOT go through this company. I have been paying on a loan of $1,500 for a freakin YEAR and have only actually paid $89.60 toward the actual loan. The rest is interest and I give them 52.50 a month!! I won't finish paying these people off until the fall of 2020!!

Craig Bonnie Parker 2 years ago
U should be giving them at least a $120
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SixStringer Bonnie Parker 2 years ago
Your mathematically incorrect.
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- JmpnGHosaFat SixStringer 2 years ago
  No she isn't. What she said is absolutely true. I had a loan through them and it was the same way. May I point out that you are grammatically incorrect? "Your" should have been "you're".
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  - Txsd JmpnGHosaFat 2 years ago
    
    Nice, yall LOL!!!!
    
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Medic4x4 Bonnie Parker 2 years ago
DO NOT go to this company???? There is absolutely nothing wrong with Avant, they are easy to work with, quick to fund loans and easy application process where most jerk you around for days or weeks. . They deal with people who have bad credit which most banks will not even touch, therefore they charge for that, if you do not like the terms, you have no other options, credit is how you will pay them back and if you have bad credit, it means there is a reason. If you took a $1500 loan out for 5yrs which is over 30%, you have bad credit and should be lucky they funded you, don't complain. They disclosed the terms before you signed and took the loan, don't bad mouth a company for doing bad business because you do not like the terms you agreed to. They communicate very well. I have good credit and have a loan for 8.9% better then a bank can offer me.
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- Sharona Medic4x4 4 months ago
  well I have even better rates through a credit union!! with all the negative comments and only a few positive, i will not use this company either.
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- LostinNH Medic4x4 10 months ago
  You write like a plant (aka a Avant employee). How would you know they are "quick to fund loans (plural)"? How do you know that "most (of their competitors) jerk you around for days or weeks"? Do you have many friends who have applied for these loans? Did you apply to many other finance companies?
  
  I call BS on this guy.
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- - −
  GameTime Medic4x4 a year ago
  
  30% is highway robbery, bad credit or no credit. Don't know what you are accustomed to, but that's absurd. How is "bad credit" being defined here? Less than excellent? That's not a standard. That's a subjective opinion.
  
  They send out these wide-net advertisements to people with less than excellent credit hoping to reel in a few fish. They are in the financial "technology" industry. All these "soft" inquiries helps them build their data bases and then sell that information off to other companies. Their denials are making them money - at your expense.
  
  Do your due diligence, people.

You should receive copies of things like this when you hire a professional SEO tech

*If he/she/they can't provide such documentation, you're probably being taken for a ride.

Never say, "I'm sorry"

I had an altercation, my first of 2018' A gentleman was way out of line yet he eventually said, "I'm sorry" to which I replied, "You certainly are and I'd venture to say worthless but are you apologetic"?

Now I really want something good to eat.

It's going to be a good day

My supervisor just wrang me from the job and said that I have two checks waiting for me. I'm not in Daytona but ok, I'll get there when I get there.

The 100 Best Jobs *Link w/ CV Upload

No single job suits all of us, but many of the best ones have a few attributes in common: They pay well, challenge us year after year, match our talents and skills, aren't too stressful, offer room to advance throughout our careers and provide a satisfying work-life balance. Whether the position is in demand is also a consideration, especially among job seekers. U.S. News uses these qualities to rank the 100 Best Jobs of 2018. Software developer, physician assistant, dentist, nurse practitioner and orthodontist are among the top-ranked careers on the list. You can also explore the best paying jobs and other more specific career rankings.

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Are you overweight, maybe you eat backward *Updated

It tends to be customary in the states to eat the biggest meal for dinner at the end of the day, that's ass backward. I don't need to quantify this statement as anyone with two eyes sees the population getting bigger and bigger while living shorter and shorter lives. (Contrary to what you may think, overweight people don't live so long)

A typical lunch for me.

Your biggest meal of the day should be breakfast as you are "more likely" to burn the calories throughout the day. Lunch should always be simple and light so as not to bog down in the middle of your day. The last meal of the day should be your smallest. You'll be going to bed soon so how many calories do you think you'll burn over night? Snacks like plain popcorn, celery and carrots are great for a little treat after dinner.

****Someone emailed and said that they see what I eat for dinner in my posts.
I can imagine what you may think but not many teens can keep up with me as I go about my daily routine.
I only sleep 5 hours per day and sit for less than 4 hours per day. I don't drive anywhere and walk or ride a bike. I don't eat processed foods, fast foods or garbage. I don't eat salt or butter. I only fry and cook with peanut oil. I don't drink alcohol.
All in all, most are not going to do what I do to eat as I do.

$1.7 Billion Federal Job Training Program Is ‘Failing the Students’

By Glenn Thrush

McKINNEY, Tex. — The North Texas Job Corps Center squats behind a chain-link fence here in a suburb north of Dallas, accessible only through a gate manned 24 hours a day by guards hired to keep out intruders — and to keep in the center’s 436 students.

“It’s a little bit like prison,” said Donnell Strange, 17, who joined the electrical apprenticeship program about six months ago after struggling in school back home in Mansfield, near Dallas.

This is not what the founders of a flagship federal program with a $1.7 billion annual budget — an iconic Great Society program meant to prepare impoverished young people for the work force — had in mind. Started in 1964 by R. Sargent Shriver, President John F. Kennedy’s brother-in-law, as a ladder out of hopelessness, Job Corps today has become a 20th-century holdover incapable of meeting the demands of a national shortage of job-ready workers.

“Job Corps doesn’t work,” said Teresa Sanders, a former teacher at the North Texas center who quit in frustration in 2015 after a rash of violent episodes inside the center, but who keeps in touch with dozens of former students through a Facebook page. “The adults are making money, the politicians are getting photo ops. But we are all failing the students.”

In April, the Labor Department’s own inspector general starkly concluded that “Job Corps could not demonstrate beneficial job training outcomes.”

The labor secretary, Alexander Acosta, who oversees Job Corps, is the latest in a succession of federal officials, starting in the Reagan administration, who have vowed to overhaul the program. Job Corps, Mr. Acosta said in an email, “requires fundamental reform.”

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“It is not enough to make changes at the margins,” he added. “We need large-scale changes.”

Job Corps — from which two million students have graduated since it was started — boasts some inspiring success stories among the 50,000 students who enroll every year. Two-thirds of them high school dropouts, the students train for more than 100 trades, including welding, automotive repair, plumbing, electrical work and the hospital and hospitality industries.

But at a cost to taxpayers of $15,000 to $45,000 per student, it was a ripe target for President Trump’s proposed budget cuts. This year, he unsuccessfully tried to cut funding for the program, which principally serves black and Hispanic youths, despite his pledge that job training and reducing minority unemployment were his top priorities.

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R. Sargent Shriver talking with young men in 1966 at a Job Corps center in New Bedford, Mass. Mr. Shriver, President John F. Kennedy’s brother-in-law, started Job Corps in 1964 as a ladder out of hopelessness.CreditAssociated Press
Its budget, protected by lawmakers in both parties, is safe for now. Yet almost everybody involved in the program — including students and the labor secretary — questions whether the target population of inner-city and rural youths is well served by a 50-year-old work force model based on housing students in fenced-in former military bases and shuttered hospitals, often miles from the jobs they need.

Jeff Smith, a University of Wisconsin professor who studies job programs, said a major quandary is that worthwhile training programs for the poor seldom yield stunningly positive results. “Work force development is very hard, and the results you see aren’t always great,” he said. “If these populations were easily employable, they would already have jobs.”

A Need for Workers
The current employment boom should be a moment of opportunity for Job Corps: Companies report 6.7 million jobs unfilled because of the shortage of skilled workers, even as millions of inner-city and rural youths languish in poverty or dead-end jobs.

Superficially, the system seems successful. Centers report that, on average, 87 percent of graduates at most centers were placed in jobs. But many of those placements were in the same low-wage, low-skill jobs at fast-food restaurants or in the military that they could have gotten without the program, studies have shown.

The first major external analysis of the program’s effectiveness, published a quarter-century ago, was encouraging, with students making solid if unspectacular progress. But follow-up studies by Mathematica Policy Research showed that many benefits faded over time, and that older students had better outcomes.

The inspector general’s report in April, studying the program’s outcomes, found that the training offered no discernible long-term benefit for graduates when compared with the non-college-educated population in general.

Although the program’s most successful participants have been able to earn $40,000 or more in their chosen trades, the Labor Department found that after five years, Job Corps participants on average earned $12,486 a year, barely above the poverty threshold, according to the limited payroll data investigators were able to obtain.

The report also found the most serious problems with post-graduation placement services. The program could not account for 94 percent of $50 million spent nationally each year on transition counseling for graduates.

“Job Corps doesn’t work,” said Teresa Sanders, a former teacher at the North Texas center who quit in frustration in 2015.CreditBrandon Thibodeaux for The New York Times
Despite the availability of jobs in Dallas, the North Texas campus was ranked near the bottom nationally, 120th, in terms of overall performance in 2017, according to a Department of Labor scorecard.

Its relatively remote location, a 40-minute commute north of Dallas, makes it hard to compete with more agile, nonresidential job training programs in the city like CitySquare, a local community development organization that runs jobs programs and a food pantry. When students complained that they were missing out on job offers, the group’s leaders scaled back a 12-week construction trades course to six weeks.

“We aren’t tied down, so we can move quickly,” said Jarie Bradley, who runs CitySquare.

One vocational instructor at North Texas, all too aware of the program’s shortcomings, has tried to focus on the barest basics of being a wage-earning employee: Show up on time, do not cuss out the boss and refrain from drinking or getting high during work hours.

But for the two or three students he feels are work-ready, he offers different advice: Drop out of the Job Corps the minute someone offers you a decent job paying around $12 per hour. The teacher wanted his name withheld because his approach conflicted with that of the management company.

Students, teachers and administrators at North Texas cited the legal requirement that the centers house the students they serve as the single biggest obstacle to meaningful reform. The dormitories have housed students who brought with them grudges from their neighborhoods in Dallas, sometimes stoked by gang affiliations.

But officials at the National Job Corps Association, funded by the operators, argue that the dormitory model is the program’s greatest virtue, plucking young people from dangerous neighborhoods and giving them vital life skills.

“This is the toughest population to deal with, these at-risk kids, and most of them wouldn’t make it without Job Corps. They would be a drag on society,” said Jim Lindenmayer, the association’s chairman.

Mr. Lindenmayer conceded that many centers were not responsive enough to local employment conditions, but laid much of the blame on “a ton of regulations” put out by the Labor Department that squelch innovation.

Alexander Acosta, the labor secretary, decided to make an overhaul of Job Corps one of his top priorities.CreditDoug Mills/The New York Times
Federal officials said that the conditions at some of the centers necessitated a heavier hand, especially when it comes to enforcing a nationwide no-tolerance of violence and drugs at the centers, a chronic problem. Operators, according to a 2017 report by the Government Accountability Office, often played down or covered up episodes to make it appear that their facilities were better run than they appeared.

North Texas was one of worst, officials said. Fistfights were commonplace. Drug use was so rampant that one student filmed another snorting white powder off a textbook in the middle of a class in 2014. A student was sexually assaulted in his bunk by several other male residents of his dormitory, which the center’s management did not initially report to the local police, as required by law.

The situation has improved under the management of a new operator, Horizons Youth Services, which runs several of Job Corps’ highest-performing centers. But students in McKinney are still grasping for their elusive share of the prosperity around them, which they see etched in the Dallas skyline by dozens of construction cranes.

Congressional Protection
The biggest hurdle Mr. Acosta faces is Congress, which jealously controls the most arcane details of Job Corps to keep the Labor Department from shuttering it or cutting the head count at centers in lawmakers’ districts.

Few federal programs have ever enjoyed such broad bipartisan political support. Progressives see it as an enduring commitment to the poor rooted in a golden age of liberalism. Conservative lawmakers support Job Corps because it encourages low-income young people to work hard.

The website for the trade association of Job Corps contractors is plastered with pictures of smiling politicians from both parties. The centerpiece is a snapshot of Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, hugging a Job Corps student in Morganfield — one of seven centers in his home state.

During the Obama administration, budget officials floated the idea of shuttering a handful of the lowest-performing centers, according to former aides. The idea ran into immediate resistance from members of Congress in both parties.

In the end, officials succeeded in closing only three, two of them underutilized rural forestry service sites in Arkansas and Oklahoma, plus the troubled center in Homestead, Fla., the site of a grisly murder in 2015.

Federal officials said that the conditions at some of the centers, including the McKinney, Tex., location, necessitated a heavier hand, especially when it comes to enforcing a nationwide no-tolerance of violence and drugs.CreditBrandon Thibodeaux for The New York Times
The Labor Department had even less success carrying out another main recommendation: widening the pool of contractors running the centers beyond the six large management companies that run 63 of them.

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Mr. Acosta said he wanted to break that impasse by using new performance measures to force companies to focus on moving students into jobs. Reimbursements have historically been pegged to benchmarks like graduation rates and certificate programs, which are important but do not necessarily lead to employment.

Mr. Acosta, two officials familiar with his plans said, is considering turning 10 to 12 of the 123 existing centers into pilot projects — the most sweeping changes he can make without congressional approval. He has reached out to governors in several states to gauge interest in converting existing centers into pre-apprenticeship academies based on the National Guard’s YouthChallenge program, a 17-month program for high-school-age youths.

He is considering increasing department partnerships with community colleges based, in part, on a successful collaboration between the Ottumwa, Iowa, center and local educational institutions.

But he has not ruled out trying to close centers, and is looking into the possibility of separating younger students from older ones, who are in need of quick-turnaround jobs training.

All of these moves are aimed at jolting the system out of its doldrums. Mr. Acosta’s larger goal, aides said, is to supplant some for-profit companies that run the centers with more innovative operators.

Mr. Lindenmayer said his association was supportive of the changes. But former federal officials who tried to overhaul the system are skeptical of the prospects for reform.

“You have a program with a rich and complicated history that’s one of the biggest leftovers from the war on poverty, and it is enormously complicated to make any significant changes,” said Eric M. Seleznow, who tried to revamp the system as head of the department’s worker training division during former President Barack Obama’s second term.

I wish someone could teach me

I observe individuals that care greatly for their countries, their cities and states. I also witness those who care deeply for their cars, homes, etc. and I just don't.
Everything I see is a gift and it's a gift, through experience, can be taken away in the blink of an eye. For the better part of my life, this has led me to discipline of emotions about such things. So what do I care about? Fresh air, a butterfly, clean water, good food, my puppy's health, a bird chirping, being clean, being organized and that's about it. And even these things may be gone in the blink of an eye.
Maybe I'm just cold hearted?

*I remember a kid falling into the marina water in Merritt Island FL / Banana River Marina and as people yelled and screamed because of the alligators that were notorious there, I just dove in and grabbed the brat.
After I pushed him up onto the dock I looked at the small crowd in disgust and walked back to my boat.
Giving a shit is not my best quality.

To my international friends, the United States is a joke

I'm guessing that the "majority" of Trump supporters don't travel overseas much yet nonetheless the US has become a great source of amusement, dirty jokes and an all out laughing stock for the rest of the world. *I can't reveal who gave me this info or their country but it was put quite firmly that now even the police are backing down from protecting "blue-eyed, blonde" foreign travelers and trust me when I say, "Their protection wasn't that great before".

Kavanaugh's accuser made her move -- now Republicans have to choose

You're welcome to click it but there's not much to it.

Tuesday, September 18, 2018

The only thing I see on this plate is the Nicaraguan meat salsa and the madura!

This Sony a6000 with telephoto lens & Tripod is Awesome $425

This Sony a6000 with the telephoto lens really is a bad A$$ camera. I'm a systems engineer that buys refurbished Blu phones from Amazon LOL With all the YouTube videos and tutorials I could learn it but for what? Too big, too much to carry and too cumbersome, I'll stick with my phone. The shots that I upload here are from a quarter mile to a mile away taken off a floating yacht. The Fuji is $150 OBO / Trade.

Can you imagine what these pics would look like if I had a clue of what I was doing?

Doggy quick note

If you have a water head puppy like my own that likes to get into everything pay attention.
My puppy ate the absorbent material from the bottom of two meat packages today but it's a quick fix, give him/her 1 teaspoon of Hydrogen Peroxide per 10 pounds the dog's weight.
Hahah, get the dog outside because it's going to barf it all up.

Wow, this is old, "Not All Your Life"

Not All Your Life...

I truly understand the amount of indoctrination that the average person has but...you do not have to wear blinders all your life.

Let’s take a quick glimpse at the garbage you may believe.

I was indoctrinated to believe that the war of 1812 was about expanding, freedom, the Indians, taxes, policy and a ton of other semi-truths of little substance.

There is one aspect of that war seldom observed or discussed. We were fighting to free ourselves from the British Central Banking System. Money loaned at interest with little or no way to ever pay it back.

Do you actually believe that your government makes the money you have or that the FDIC is government owned? The lie started before 1812.

Do you believe that the Great Depression sprang up from a hidden abyss? The Great Depression was a well planned effort to create the central bank / monetary system that has enlightened individuals a bit concerned.

Take the time to read about the Jekyll Island Duck Hunt. You may find yourself in disbelief.

*Negative and positive only exists within your mind. Nothing has emotional ties until you attach your emotion.

Most wouldn’t have talked with Jeffrey Dahmer yet that same person feels a bit safer because “someone else” did.

That’s the same attitude that has lent help to your current economic situation.*

(1)

So here America sits with a debt of over $16.4 trillion and a GDP of a bit more than $14 trillion.

What happens when you can only pay the interest on your car note with nothing towards the premium?

Now Americans sit back with crossed fingers that the next president will save us from agony. How is he to do this? The bank you got your automobile loan from closed, changed location, did your debt go away?

What does the new or remaining president have to fiscally work with? Few understand that there is only $853 billion US dollars, notes and coins in circulation. The majority of the rest are nothing but numbers in a book or on a computer. The world operates at present on US Bonds and is getting away from them as fast as possible.

If you have to borrow money at interest in order to run your life, business or endeavor, how much power does the president / CEO have? He has the power “allowed” by the granter.

I’d like to think that this relationship would consist of various granters with limited or “no” say in how the loaned money was to be used. Sounds good doesn’t it? Most understand that this is not how life works.

When we stick our hands out for $2 most get the question, “for what” and this becomes the fulcrum on which the money is loaned in most instances.

What we are seeing is joblessness that we created in part. Every time you go out and buy the latest gadget you are in essence and literally putting someone out of work.

(2)

The old gadget needs no more production workers; it only needs service and parts.

Most tend not to realize that you don’t have the latest phone, PC, TV, etc. There are newer models sitting on shelves until your buying trend subsides. At that point, the “new old” gadgets go to Big Lots, Dollar General and second rate retailers.

Here’s the kicker; the money goes from one hand to another and people “think” they have made a good deal or some cash but…there is but one person / entity that actually sees a profit – the original granter of the loan. All we’re doing is shuffling dollars between ourselves for the money to make it until the next day. It’s very similar to the millions of dollars Sea World and Zoos take in yet feed the workers a sliver of what they generate in cash.

Those farm boys we laughed at with no cable, internet, inside plumbing, etc. have been wealthier than most people the whole time.

While you struggle with a mortgage, he’s planting seeds. You’re having “Dish” problems while he / she enjoys communication of substance with family and friends. You’re budgeting your grocery list while he’s walking to the smoke house.

Indoctrination has your life twisted but you didn’t see it until the American Dream / Lie ran out.

Money has never been the root of all evil! Uneducated, unneeded, wasteful and greedy buying of “wants” is the vehicle and spending money that isn’t actually yours is getting a bit closer to the root.

Some will get this; some already have as others will live in denial or “Lala Land” until the noose is tightly around their necks.

(3)

How do we escape this? Most don’t, they’re simply too far in but there are ways to make life more bearable or reverse the actions.

Think before you spend; plant some vegetables in the yard; harness rain water for outside use; run the A/C less and at a more cost effective temperature; barter with your neighbors; fast foods tend not to be sustaining; get all your groceries at once; share rides and a host of other “little” things. Visit the Zeitgeist Movement - http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/

for more ideas and options; you don’t have to agree or disagree with their philosophy to learn new ways.

Tangent – I watch Pat Robertson bash the Muslim people / faith daily. I don’t agree with him but 80% of the other topics are useful to me.

Suggested reading: James Allen, “As a Man Thinketh” free eBook.

Here are some parting thoughts; learn to exercise your option to think differently. You may be ridiculed at times but if Americans were so smart, how did we get here? Inflated egos tend to be self destructive.

That’s right; the same one talking crap about your new approach is in the same turmoil as you if not more.

It takes bravery to set your “self” apart from the crowd.

I catch all kinds of criticism but very few know where I come from or where I’m going. How can they give me directions?

My day to day perception / view of life is fractional and in constant flux. I know nothing.

……not all my life.

Nicholas Johnson

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Free advice

Please be alert and aware that there are numerous individuals that would like to purchase your items by cashiers check and it's mostly a scam. Anytime a buyer wishes to purchase your product(s) without ever seeing them, that should throw up red flag number 1. When they say to deposit it and the money will be available in 24 hours, red flag number 2 and the rest of the warning signs will continue from there.