Europe 2012

If the bulk of the economy is currently based on small business, how can this economy ever "recover" to even a shell of its former self if there's no longer any real incentive for anyone to go into business?
Entrepreneurs will tend to rely on small, less risky, cash only, capital investments, and thus, small production facilities, small workforces, "under the radar" tax payments, no benefits to part-time employees, and the other techniques needed to maintain their enterprises.
While this may result in a fairly good living for the entrepreneur, and perhaps even for his/her favored employees, it's not the stuff of which enough capital is generally produced to develop community wealth.
The main obstacle to renewed economic stability is not lack of printed paper money to be loaned out at interest, and which will only add to future financial instability, but rather, the great fear of mindless government confiscation of any small profit the entrepreneur may accidentally acquire in this very risky business climate.
If this is true, it's clear there will be no recovery, at least in rational terms, until thousands of government regulations which destroy personal incentive are removed from the books.
I can't see this happening anytime soon. In fact, each day brings the news more and more governments are INCREASING taxes, enforcement personnel, regulations...all in the name of maintaining "services" such as government payrolls, pension plans, various w elfare systems, but all of which further destroys entrepreneurial incentive. Therefore, I must also conclude there'll be no stability of the economy any time soon either.
From all evidence, we're now seeing the real-life results of yet another experiment in socialism concluding predictably, but on the largest scale in history.
We now have a population trained almost to a person to believe in the omnipotence of "big daddy" government. So much so, it's abandoned the principles which formerly gave it great strength...principles of self-sufficiency, moral belief in hard-work and enjoying the rewards of this, principles of thrift, respect for the property of others...on and on.
With a belief in "cradle to the grave" so-called "security" offered by glib politicians who have no idea how to deliver such "benefits", this former noble population has been reduced to a nation of beggars demanding eternal handouts...handouts which are dwindling as fast as the former forests of Easter Island.
Again, as I see it, it's not a problem of printing more paper money. It's a problem of individual thinking in terms of personal morality.
Printing money, especially in the form of computer digits, can be done in an instant. Building character and building a nation of solid financial structure takes generations.
The relative value of both is readily apparent.

David versus Goliath

By Dr. Mercola

Monsanto has long been trying to establish control over the seeds of the plants that produce food for the world.

They have already patented a number of genetically altered food crops, which can only be grown with proper license, and the seeds for which must be purchased anew each year.

But genetically engineered crops cannot be contained.

And rather than being found guilty of contaminating farmers' property, Monsanto has successfully sued hundreds of farmers for patent infringement.

Many farmers have subsequently, quite literally, lost their farms.

Percy Schmeiser of Saskatchewan, Canada, was also a victim of Monsanto's vile ways.

Schmeiser worked on farming and developing his own seeds for 50 years, and when his fields were contaminated, Monsanto threatened him, intimidated him, and tried to take his land away.

But Schmeiser refused to give in, and eventually beat them in court.

Today´s movies

"Hollywood has forgotten how to do the one thing that made the American movie industry great: to tell a story."JK
I guess that it simply doesn’t tell the story, because today’s people do not want the story anymore.
It’s like being used to buy frozen food, ready made, and you do not know that food can be cooked too.
Some years ago I had the visit of my cousin’s daughter from San Francisco.
She described me as an old style lady that "even cooks for her dog..." because I fed my poodle with meat and rice instead of opening a can of dog food...
Those are today’s Hollywood customers, they do not read, they do not listen, they look.
They cannot even write anymore "how r you2day?"
We wrote letters, today they write text messages, using one finger.
When they go to "see" a movie they want to have a short message, with a lot of colors and music and the right effects.
I do not like today’s movies.
I found most of them naive and boring.
But I am the lady that even cooks for her dog...

You can find the tools, but only YOU can provide the fantasy...

I still remember how complicated and how long it took to make the very first websites.
I am talking of the time where you had no ecommerce software, not even programs like Dreamweaver or Homesite, when you needed to know the HTML language and it wasn’t so easy for somebody like me.
It was more challenging than easy.
Well, I must confess I used a lot the "view source" and copy and paste, and then I changed text and logos and images...
Nevertheless it took a lot of time to learn to copy in the right way...
But now a day you can find all the ecommerce web design that you can dream, and it is very easy to build your own ecommerce website.
You can see the lay out and decide what will be the right one for your needs and it comes not only with complete designs, but also with shopping cart and unlimited web pages...
And you can even find the best suggestions for a logo, being able to choose among a huge selection of colors and images.
Well, you still need something that can make your website unique...you need taste and fantasy, but sorry, those are things NOBODY can provide...

The right marketing is also using the right tools

I think the best way to promote the products of a company is by promoting the company.
I mean, if you want your products to be trusted or selected or chosen, they need to be backed by a trustable, high quality, reliable company.
First you must analyze the message you want to send your customers.
If you produce good items and you sell them at a competitive price you have to point out that, choosing the right logo, the right message and if you present them in a show, why not with the right trade show flooring?
May be adding a message at the end of it?
Something like we sell quality and it comes cheap...
But if you sell quality goods at a quality price (people know that high quality doesn’t come cheap) you could use a nice trade show carpet to guide the customers to your booth.
That usually adds a nice touch to your show.
Of course you can have something similar for your office or store, and especially if you have more than one the right logo mats can be used to give a touch of continuity to your business image.
If the show is an outdoor event the right thing is usually a logo canopy, something where you can print and display your logo, may be with the right message, describing what you sell in the best and catching way.
Colors are very important, because colors send the message and describe the product.
Marketing is a science, an important one.
How many products are failures, just because they were not able to marketing them in the right way?
And how many, on the contrary, are very successful, thanks to the right marketing?
At the end of the day, attracting a lot of customers also decides if you are successful or not.

The EU and the Euro

Which will end first?
The EU or the Euro?
The EU is the union of countries that send their representatives to the Brussels’ club MED, to measure the dogs tail and care for the exclusivity of Nutella, but do not discuss about futilities like bombing Libya or African migrants, or the Mafia in Europe.
The Euro is a partially unique currency (just for 17 countries out of 27).
It should represent the value of different economies, with different fiscal laws, GDP and public debts that little have in common.
The EU and the Euro have in common the fact that they are both Virtual, they are both a dream.
They exist in the eyes of the beholders.
Their main problem is that nobody believes in dreams anymore.
We will have the collapse of both the moment Merkel and Sarkozy will agree about the square meters of Europe they will be able to get.
The divorce attorneys, the EB and the IMF are already working at it, with the good help of the rating agencies.

The war of webhosting

Since the dawn of the Internet there was the need for any business to create their own presence on it.
If you didn’t have a website, if you were not THERE you had good chances to lose customers to your rivals.
And of course you also faced the need to have a place where to host your web page or website.
The war among webhosting companies began.
And it goes without saying that the winner in this war was the user, because prices went down and quality went up.
So, at this point, who is the best hosting?
Certainly the one with the best value, or as they say, the Ultra Value Website Hosting.
What is the Ultra value, talking about hosting?
Certainly it could be Unlimited Hosting Space,or unlimited bandwidth,or free Domain Name, may be 45 Day Guarantee,and especially NO hidden fees...could you ask for more?
Yes, A VERY SPECIAL PRICE.
In the end, in this war the real winner is the one who satisfies the customers, giving them what they are looking for: quality, reliability of services and the best support.

Winds of Fascism

"Brussels is like a ventriloquist's dummy sitting on Germany's knee. Germany cannot just step up and act like the Boss of Europe. Too many bad memories of an earlier instance, when a gang of maniacs wearing uniforms studded with grinning totenkopf insignia turned the whole region into a charnel house. So, Germany has to pretend to speak through Brussels. The message was: listen up all y'all nations of the Eurozone! Prepare to live on a whole lot less than you're used to! Do not exceed your borrowing and spending! Or else!"JK

I do not understand much of economy, but I know mathematics well enough to understand that paper money gets value from the work and the goods that people produce.
And the fact that you have astronomic debts means just one thing: there is too much money compared to the work and good produced.
Either you reduce the value of the currency and you earn a lot of it, or you reduce the value of your work and goods and you have little of it.
This is the only sustainable mean to live.
Thinking that you can print as much money as you like and that its value is almost the same is a dream that cost USA a lot of wars and will cost a lot more, if they want to go on on this pattern.
Because to make people outside the US to accept your currency´s value either you stop printing it, or you fight and oblige them.
Angela Merkel has, in my opinion, the merit to have said the only right thing that has to be said: if you want to be credible you have to spend as much as you earn, not a penny more.
And since most Europeans enjoyed spending more than what they produced, now they have to do the only thing you do when you are overweight: diet.
As sad, as terrible it can look.
And if that means to be a Nazi, then being one is a good thing.

Winds of change

Yesterday I was quite depressed.
Nothing really changes and if it does it is not for the best.
Then the unthinkable happened.
First it looks like the Euro is saved, at least for now.
I couldn’t agree more with Merkel.
If you want a change YOU have to change.
You cannot go on forever making debts, sooner or later it must stop.
And sooner is better.
Second a small step against banks and banksters is on the way, and Cameron and the City are leaving Europe.
He doesn’t understand (or cannot understand for votes reasons) that is NOT Europe that needs Britain, it is UK that needs Europe.
It is like if California left the US.
I wouldn’t bet on its future.
Second I have two children and both never cared for politics.
Now you couldn’t find anybody who cares more.
Something is changing, the moment people begin to care you can hope again in the future.
History teaches that there is no weapons that can block a revolution or freedom or justice, when the mass is hit.
The guillotine market will explode, I am looking forward...

What is the worst of worst?

It is having nothing, not even hopes to be able to have a future.
All you have is a past, and sometimes you would like to be able to forget that also, because its memory is more a pain than a sorrow.
In one thing this times are different from what came before: young and old feel the same.
Young people and old people do not have a present and won´t most likely have a future.
If what is gone was nothing else than gone I could say that, as a boomer I had a better life than my children.
I was born after the war, there was almost nothing and the almost was so expensive and looked so unreachable that you couldn´t even see it.
But we had hopes and dreams, we believed in justice, in law, in our nation, in our parents, in our friends, we believed in life.
And when you believe in life, living is so beautiful.
We had an overdose of life and hope.
We went to sleep dreaming that the morrow was going to be a brighter day, that if you worked hard, you could get everything, be everybody, live the way you liked.
Many of us didn´t have what they wanted, but it didn´t matter, the dream and the hope was still there.
But today, today, there is no present and you do not even want to think what the future will be.
Nobody knows what it will be, but everybody knows it will not be something we like.

Say Yes to the Dress

Author: Isiah Williams

Say Yes To The Dress on TLC is one of my favorite shows. I like to watch all the different women (and one time a man) try on dresses. It is so interesting how different people are in shape, style, frame everything. There are so many different shapes and sizes of people and that show really points that out to me. Each and every woman that goes in to Kleinfelds in New York is searching for the perfect dress to walk down the aisle in. It is amazing how they are all looking for a dress usually in a shade of white and they all want something so different. Some girls want princess gowns with large puffy skirts and tulle fabric. Some girls want a more vintage look with all over lace or appliqués. Some ladies even want a short cocktail length dress for something different that stands out. I always DVR this show on my www.direc4u.com so that I can fast forward through the commercials. Who wants to watch commercials when there is a dress decision to be made?!

The flapping of a butterfly's wings in Europe will provoke a hurricane in USA

As soon as the US banking system feasted for being least exposed to the European debt crisis (15 billions)they realized that actually it was not so.
The amount of CDS is around 250 billions, and that changes the picture.
More so, if you realize that the people (banks) who insured the European debt with CDS do NOT actually own the money they should pay.
That means just one thing: if Europe defaults, they will be finished in a few days...
They were successful with the Greece’s hair cut, 50% was voluntarily agreed...that means Greece didn’t default and Goldman Sachs doesn’t have to pay.
A complete different scenario would happen in the case of Italy and the other European states.
After Greece’s hair cut and the discovery that the CDS are not worth the paper they are written on, it was a game among the European bond owners (except Germany)to be the fastest to dump them.
Papademos and Monti the two Goldman Sachs men are the last hope.
GS would have preferred to be in the shadow, but the risk of Greece and especially Italy going into default was a risk they couldn’t contemplate.
Now the fight is with Germany, who doesn’t want to allow the ECB to print money to bail out the countries in debt, as the FED did with the banks.

But there could be a solution, painful, but effective to save Europe and the Euro.
First they should have forbidden the naked CDS, or the restructuring of the debt which is now too high.
But the hunger for more and more won´ t allow this.
They won´ t stop before we will be left without jobs, without money, without life.
But some say that the goal is to reach 500.000 people on the globe.
So, 6,5 billions will have to die.

Finance: the legal theft

Finance is the cancer of our society.
The real meaning of money IS exchange.
When I sell bread I get money, but I can exchange it with my plumber, or paying the driver of the train or the farmer who produces the milk I drink.
When I make money with the Stock Market I simply steal it from the one or the many who lose it.
When you earn with money, you produce nothing.
Making money with money is STEALING, LEGAL THEFT.
In finance nothing is produced, nothing is destroyed, everything is "transformed“ or better changes hands.

Optimized campaigns and more customers

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When it comes to Payday affiliate program, you cannot find a better one.
For affiliates, they offer the right optimized campaigns for better earnings. For advertisers, they can offer more customers on any marketing budget.

How NOT to solve the Italian crisis

Simply NOT addressing the real problem, and of course the REAL solution.
The problem is NOT the huge debt, is NOt the corruption, the bad political behavior, these are certainly problems and make it worse.
But the REAL problem is the Euro.
Imagine China decided to leave the Remimbi or Yuan and use the Euro.
How long would their economic boom last?
And so, the solution for the PIIGS is quite clear.
The big mistake was using a strong currency with a weak economy and the ONLY solution is going back to the weak currency.
Just like China, if you mainly compete with the price, the moment you loose your main weapon, your economy is finished.

Knowing where you stand and what is going to cost you

Do you need marketing solutions?
Very few don’t, and they are the ones (very few)who know how to market their website.
But even among them you can find people who could actually perform MUCH BETTER, if they used some professional SEO reseller to do the right job.
But, how to find and choose the right Resell SEO services, the ones that really fit your needs.
When I have to choose I usually look for the best, the ones the big companies before me choose.
And tell me, who can be better than a company who was founded in 2008 and the founders have extensive Fortune 100 experience with companies like General Electric, AT&T, Verizon, Ford, Nissan, Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola and ChevronTexaco?
What they can do for you is working to improve your position on the big search engines, concentrating on local optimization, may be increase your traffic with sporadic pay per click campaigns, using social media websites (they can bring you millions customers), not forgetting the power of word of mouth (the oldest and still most effective marketing tool).
And they offer industry-leading reports, analytics, email notifications, and workflow access with a privately labeled customer portal.
But the best tool they use is still transforming your website into a hub of information for your category.
Besides having clear goals and means to reach the goals, they also offer clear plans, you will always know where you stand and what is going to cost you.

Freedom always wins

HTC has become the top seller of smartphones in the U.S. with a strategy that’s precisely the opposite of Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s. Where Apple is secretive, HTC is open. Where Apple is exclusive, HTC works with all carriers. Where Apple is proprietary, HTC is collaborative. Where Apple customizes for no one, HTC customizes for everyone. It’s the anti-Apple and, so far, it has worked.

“HTC will make products for you,” “We certainly don’t do design work on Apple products.”

Open source is always the winner.
Why?
Because, like the Internet, leaves open space for developers, and the market teaches, no technological device has any use without content.
It is like discovering electricity and having nothing to use it for.

Who really IS behind Greece and Italy?

November 08, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- Here's what we're told:Greece's economy blew apart because a bunch of olive-spitting, ouzo-guzzling, lazy-ass Greeks refuse to put in a full day's work, retire while they're still teenagers, pocket pensions fit for a pasha; and they've gone on a social-services spending spree using borrowed money. Now that the bill has come due and the Greeks have to pay with higher taxes and cuts in their big fat welfare state, they run riot, screaming in the streets, busting windows and burning banks.

I don't buy it. I don't buy it because of the document in my hand marked, "RESTRICTED DISTRIBUTION."

I'll cut to the indictment: Greece is a crime scene. The people are victims of a fraud, a scam, a hustle and a flim-flam. And––cover the children's ears when I say this––a bank named Goldman Sachs is holding the smoking gun.

In 2002, Goldman Sachs secretly bought up €2.3 billion in Greek government debt, converted it all into yen and dollars, then immediately sold it back to Greece.

Goldman took a huge loss on the trade.

Is Goldman that stupid?

Goldman is stupid—like a fox. The deal was a con, with Goldman making up a phony-baloney exchange rate for the transaction. Why?

Goldman had cut a secret deal with the Greek government in power then. Their game: to conceal a massive budget deficit. Goldman's fake loss was the Greek government's fake gain.

Goldman would get repayment of its “loss” from the government at loan-shark rates.

The point is, through this crazy and costly legerdemain, Greece's right-wing free-market government was able to pretend its deficits never exceeded 3 percent of GDP.

Cool. Fraudulent but cool.

But flim-flam isn’t cheap these days: On top of murderous interest payments, Goldman charged the Greeks over a quarter billion dollars in fees.

When the new Socialist government of George Papandreou came into office, they opened up the books and Goldman's bats flew out. Investors' went berserk, demanding monster interest rates to lend more money to roll over this debt.

Greece's panicked bondholders rushed to buy insurance against the nation going bankrupt. The price of the bond-bust insurance, called a credit default swap (or CDS), also shot through the roof. Who made a big pile selling the CDS insurance? Goldman.

And those rotting bags of CDS's sold by Goldman and others? Didn't they know they were handing their customers gold-painted turds?

That's Goldman's specialty. In 2007, at the same time banks were selling suspect CDS's and CDOs (packaged sub-prime mortgage securities), Goldman held a “net short” position against these securities. That is, Goldman was betting their financial "products" would end up in the toilet. Goldman picked up another half a billion dollars on their "net short" scam.

But, instead of cuffing Goldman's CEO Lloyd Blankfein and parading him in a cage through the streets of Athens, we have the victims of the frauds, the Greek people, blamed. Blamed and soaked for the cost of it. The "spread" on Greek bonds (the term used for the risk premium paid on Greece's corrupted debt) has now risen to — get ready for this––$14,000 per family per year.

We were like you, you will be like us

Some time ago I read a very interesting book: Confessions of an economic hit man.
It was clearly explained the behavior of the big corporations and the IMF.
What they usually do to grab ALL the raw materials and the richness of a country of the third world.
First they reduce the country in heavy debts, lending money to build "infrastructures" that have very little to do with the name, or with the growth of the economy of the country.
They are exclusively on the interest of the big corporations which plan to be there.
This was John Perkin’s job (the economic hit man).
Second step is making the country insolvent, third step is Stealing all what they can, reducing the population in misery and so having people working for the big corporations for 30 dollars a month.
This allows the big managers to have a few private jets, the high class whores and similia, while people starve even working 12 hours a day, seven days a week...

Well , at that time I didn’t understand.
I didn’t understand that, after the third world it was the time for us.
Just as the written phrase I read when I was little, in the cemetery where my grandparents were buried: We were like you, you will be like us.

And people still do not understand.
First was Greece, now is Italy.
And France and Germany laugh.

We were like you, YOU will be like us.

The pattern is the same:
First putting the country in debts, then giving more money to pay the interests of the debts.
Then increasing the interests and obliging to more debts to pay the interests.
Finally stealing all what they can, making the population in misery, working for less and less, more and more.

IMF, International Mafia Federation, nobody sees that you are but a copy of the Italian Mafia.
Same breed, same ways, but you were smart enough to legalize yourself.
Nevertheless you are as criminal as the “unlegalized” Mafia.

One comment:

Patrizia,
I don't know whether you checked out my comment Mon am. I discussed the whole mafia thing there. "Confessions of an Economic Hitman","Shock Doctrine" and "Griftopia" are books that should be a required reading for anyone who wants to understand what this obscenity we call global capitalism is. They describe the same process in different ways.This thing is so out of control I can't imagine how it can possibly continue.

I know Obama has been an abject failure to get us going in any direction that would be different from the administration before, but just remember, it's a global disaster and the power elite can't change the direction. O is a globalist and neoliberal just like the Republicans and most of the Democrats are, so just understand that this is the system.

Good luck finding anyone that can change this--it has to break before it can change.

Whose fault is it?

Read somewhere:
"In the meantime, looks like Europe is in big trouble and it will affect us as well. If they throw us into another recession--that is if the financial sector gets hurt again"

Funny, in Europe they say exactly the opposite that the economic crisis was the America´s fault.
But there are also the ones who say that in reality it is a Chinese´s fault.
I guess it is just the mathematic´s fault.
If you spend much more than what you earn, sooner or later the minus creates problems, especially if you borrow the money...

Collapsing

Collapsing is not so important.
The important is having somebody to collapse with.
Or it is not important to collapse, the important is to participate.
If Italy defaults on Monday, France follows on tuesday, Germany a few days later.
Ironically Italian banks are much more reliable than French banks, they have many less Italian bonds
(and Greek bonds).

Could you find something more promising than that?

There is nothing more intriguing than making your own website.
Especially if you plan to use it to promote your business.
First you collect the right images, you prepare them, choosing the best and making them small enough to be easily and fast downloaded.
Then it is time to prepare the text.
Not too many words, but not too few.
You have to explain what you sell and why your customers should buy it.
Because of better quality or better price, or special budget or whatever.
Now you are finished and comes the second part: publishing it.
This is as important as making a good website, even more.
Because if nobody or just a few see it, or if the server is down or not easily reachable, all your job was for nothing.
How to find the right web hosting, the one that best suits your needs?
Easy: look one of the best web hosing rating site.
There you can find the one that is the right price for you, with the best service.
For example: do you need Unlimited Disk Space & Traffic, Google Adwords Credit, and may be Money Back Guarantee?
Host Gator is certainly your choice.
As they say "We eat the competition", could you find something more promising than that?

If you need advertisig ( who doesn’t?)

Does your company need advertising?
Who doesn’t?
Even if you are already on the top, you need to keep there.
Advertising is something that in today’s world nobody can live without.
Because, even if your product is the best or among the best, the customers have to KNOW.
And how can they know, if nobody or nothing tells them?
One of the best way on the Internet is using the Pay per click.
Because in this way you can assure that your company’s name and products are ubiquitously widespread on the Net.
In order of achieving the best results, you need a good company, this is their Home page.
Why?
Because the best way of doing something is letting the professionals do so.
They know how to reach your goals in the best way.
Do you want to have the best opportunity to advertise with this Advertiser?
A good company knows how to filter and to sort the traffic by its quality. Thus you can receive only high-quality traffic.
Who cares to have traffic that doesn’t bring revenues?
You consume bandwidth for nothing.
A good company knows the right keywords you need to use in a campaign, not only, they can customize your advertising campaign with this Publisher page in base of time, location, keywords and category.
And you are sure to get the best customer service, the supervising of a personal manager, a 24/7 support and answers for your questions.

US budget, GOK

Let´s pretend US is a family.
Now let’s remove 8 zeros and pretend it’s a household budget.


• Annual family income: $21,700

• Money the family spent: $38,200

• New debt on the credit card: $16,500

• Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710

• Total budget cuts: $385

"I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution - taking from the federal government their power of borrowing."
Thomas Jefferson, 1798

"When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes... Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain."
Napoleon Bonaparte, 1815


How will it finish?
GOK (God Only Knows)

That has nothing to do with Democracy

In answer to : Thanks to the young man from Misurata of Tom Evslin

"to help the young people of Libya build their young democracy (we hope)"

Well, I would add:
If you want to build democracy in Lybia, please do not copy USA or Europe.
That has nothing to do with Democracy.

Who isn’t sensible to a nice discount?

How should a "modern" scrub be?
First of all it should be "practical", that means it should help you to do your job in the best way.
Like on the website:http://www.blueskyscrubs.com/categories/Scrubs/Scrubs-for-Menyou can find the classic scrub turned into a shirt which can be tucked in or worn out, depending on how you feel better, and has a big, practical pocket.
And of course they didn’t forget to make it simple, nice and fashionable.
Who doesn’t like to look better also when he works, considering that he spends most of his day working?
But, they didn’t forget a very important feature: affordability...
Where else can you find so many discount medical scrubs?
Who isn’t sensible to a nice discount?

How China became the first economic power

"This story is told in the brilliant book by Clayton Christensen, Jerome Grossman and Jason Hwang, The Innovator’s Prescription :

ASUSTeK started out making the simple circuit boards within a Dell computer. Then ASUSTeK came to Dell with an interesting value proposition: “We’ve been doing a good job making these little boards. Why don’t you let us make the motherboard for you? Circuit manufacturing isn’t your core competence anyway and we could do it for 20% less.”

Dell accepted the proposal because from a perspective of making money, it made sense: Dell’s revenues were unaffected and its profits improved significantly. On successive occasions, ASUSTeK came back and took over the motherboard, the assembly of the computer, the management of the supply chain and the design of the computer. In each case Dell accepted the proposal because from a perspective of making money, it made sense: Dell’s revenues were unaffected and its profits improved significantly. However, the next time ASUSTeK came back, it wasn’t to talk to Dell. It was to talk to Best Buy and other retailers to tell them that they could offer them their own brand or any brand PC for 20% lower cost. As The Innovator’s Prescription concludes:

Bingo. One company gone, another has taken its place. There’s no stupidity in the story. The managers in both companies did exactly what business school professors and the best management consultants would tell them to do—improve profitability by focus on on those activities that are profitable and by getting out of activities that are less profitable."


I see a war looming on the horizon. Either the US will produce IN China or China will sell directly IN the US

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If you are not there, you do not exist

Big companies now a day have their own IT department, their own IT professionals who know how to place and market the company´s website and so reach the best positions in the major search engines.
Position is everything.
If you are not in among the first in the first ten pages of the most important search engines, you cannot count in a wide exposure of your company and of course your sales will be just local.
So, what to do, if you cannot afford an IT department because your company is too small?
Learn from Mauve and John.
They owned a small publishing company and in spite of being good in their job, lacked the necessary funds to grow enough to afford IT specialists to promote their business.
No marketing, no growth.
But they had the good idea to delegate their success to the right SEO company, which brough them to the first pages of the search engines.
How did they do?
With local SEO, performing well with highly competitive keywords,with constant exposure in the local and global search engines.
Not only.
Since traditional marketing such as yellow pages, newspaper ads, or billboards were disappointing or declining, since more and more people were searching online for business information (especially the younger generation), they increase the exposure with a local small business marketing online.
A company specialized in SEO knows perfectly when the local SEO changes and helps your company to change with it, following daily the company´s placement on the local search engines.
With the right search engine marketingthey can make your business appear before the competition, and at the end of the day, that is what counts, as Mauve and John found out: if you are not there, you do not exist.
So, if have a small or medium business and you want to increase your sales, it pays off to tray with the right company.

If God existed he would probably be an atheist...

If God existed he would probably be an atheist...
And you are terribly wrong about Europe Mr. Kunstler.
What is so terrible if Europe went back to be what it always was: France, Italy, Spain, Germany etc...
Do you really believe that there was one Europe?
Europe will exist the moment people will think of themselves as Europeans and not as French, Italians, Germans and so on...
What will really happen will be a deja vu..while Europeans Nations will fight against each other to find out who is the best or the worst, who deserves to be saved and who doesn’t...the Chinese will buy ALL what they can, and who will be the winner, or better the less looser...the ones who have the biggest debts.
The Italians have good chances to be saved...because France has 500 billions Italian debts, and losing Italy would mean complete bankruptcy of French banks...as the old saying goes, if you have to be in debt, it is worth to have huge debts.
Greece will probably go into default; the losses will be very low compared to Italy and Spain...

Tough solutions for tough times

The business environment has never been tougher. Companies need to grow their revenues while reducing network operating costs. Telecom developers are working on new innovative applications, with fewer development resources. How can the industry achieve these seemingly contradictory goals during lean economic times? How can one do more with less?
The answer can be but one: delegate.
Let the professionals do your marketing, in the only possible way: the right one.
When choosing your future Advertising Agency, you must have in mind just one very important goal: to reach your customers in the best way.
But what do I mean when I talk about the best way?
I mean the only possible way to ensure the best results for any marketing campaign, which is enhancing your revenues and if possible, lowering the operating costs.
Let the advertising company decide which is the best way to reach the highest number and how and when.
It can be through the traditional media, TV, Radio, Newspapers or the new interactive way: the Internet.
Let them decide the right approach and the right way.
Let the masterminds and analytical professionals do the job for you and let yourself do the job you like best: seeing the results.
Because at the end of the day, it comes down to one only truth. What is the return on your investment? It's the only question to ask, and it's one the right advertising company will be able to answer.
And answer in a way you will certainly like, believe me.

The future of the Internet

The Internet is nothing else that "dumb pipes"....with intelligence at the edges, the opposite of the pre-existing networks.
The dumb network in a world of intelligent networks.
But the Internet is much more than that.
It is a "universal content delivery", but even though the "universal" would make it already the winning application, most do not see that its innovative feature is not only in the widespread footprint but in the fact that it is the first network that can afford the delivery of "moving content" besides the usual "static content" to which we are used.

Radio, TV, Satellite, they all were means of distribution of "static content" or "one way network".
The Internet is the first "two way network", in the sense that the customer can be in the same time consumer and producer.
I can download, but I can also upload.
This small detail changes dramatichally the full picture.
And this is something the young Arabs understood.
An infographic about Digital Marketing Trends in the Middle East estimated the number of Twitter users in the Arab region to be around 5.5 Million users, that is 136.5 % growth rate! The infographic goes to reveal that 40% of them are from UAE.
And following this trend it becomes obvious that internet marketing in the Middle Eastis getting more and more important, if you want to find the future customers of the Internet.
What do you need?
A good SEO company ,a company which is able to develop Social Media monitoring and world-class Website Design. A company which is able to provide proprietary tracking with EssentialPPC technology.
You need a company with a 24/7 customer service philosophy providing the best online marketing tools, enabling all of its clients to exceed their digital advertising goals on day one.
The value in today’s economy is principally knowledge and information, but knowledge is for nothing if you do not know how to use it.
Let the professionals explain you how to.

Occupy Wall Street:: who is gonna win?

All our history has been the fight between the ones who had little and the ones who had a lot and wanted more.
All our history has been the sequel of victory of the ones who had nothing in having all and loosing it again, to struggle and fight again to get it back.
Because historia magistra vitae, but the problem being that there are never enough pupils and the ones who should remember never do, on both sides.
Nothing new on the horizon, may be soon another fight and another victory, either the "restoration" of the life as ever or the "new that comes" and brings a new redistribution of wealth.
How long will it last?
The time to go back to the new old state of things, where a few arrogant ad presumptuous will get it all back in their few greedy hands.

What kind of democracy?

It makes me laugh (and cry) when they talk about bringing democracy to Libya.
What kind of democracy?

Our democratic education?
Our education is getting more and more expensive and less and less democratic.
Infact, just the rich can afford to study...

Oue health system?
Also the health system is getting more and more expensive, at the point that n USA the principal cause of bankrouptcy is medical bills...

In Libya they have free education for all, free medical assitance for all...
THEY should teach US democracy.

What is the advantage of our "democratic" regime?

“Before a presidential election in the U.S., everyone who’s even contemplating running for president spends 100 percent of his time announcing how he would change everything if he was elected,” said Kenneth Lieberthal, who held Russel’s post under President Bill Clinton.
“In China, the incentives are exactly the opposite, your incentives are to do nothing except praise what the current leaders are doing because they’re the ones who decide whether you replace them.”

The results are, paradoxically, exactly the same.
Because the elected president will go on leaving everything as it is, as the ones who paid for his campaign want.
In China, at least, they save the money in campaigns that are for nothing, in election expenses, and the time the average voter spends to look, to listen, to decide, to vote.(which anyway is wasted time).

Could somebody ask for more?

Isn’t it nice to have somebody doing all the most annoying tasks?
And in a very professional way, the way you wouldn’t be able to do any way?
And what about saving money and having from the same company http://www.thesteamteam.com/austin-restoration-services/smoke-fire.shtml all services, and besides carpet cleaning, also, cleaning and maintaining commercial and residential flooring, upholstery, air ducting, tile, commercial water damage austin, and ALSO restoration, from water extraction to smoke and fire damage restoration...
Whatever happens, you call them and it is done!
Not only done, but done in the best way, because since 1983 their main goal has been customer satisfaction, they even GUARANTEE their services!
Could somebody ask for more?
It is a real pity, if you do not live in the Austin area...

Steve Jobs

Every minute in the world 267 people are born and 108 die.
Steve Jobs was one of the seconds.
Everybody talks about him, nobody talks about the other 107.
Some were worse, but may be some were even better.
We just talk and mourn about the known, but what about the millions unknown?

Watching The Big Bang Theory with my boyfriend

Guest post written by Kelly Simpson

There have been all types of shows that my boyfriend and I have tried watching together. But there's just so much that we disagree on when it comes to entertainment. I would rather be reading Jane Austen when he would rather be playing a first person shooter game. So you can imagine that we wouldn't really want to watch the same type of TV. But there's at least one show that we know that we can watch together, The Big Bang Theory.



I actually started watching the show by myself and then one night he was over when it came on, so we watched it together. Well, now he even looks looks up spoilers on the Internet for what's going to happen the rest of the season! When he was doing that a few nights ago, I ran across some information on Internet Companies. After I looked through it some, I decided to change over my company to one of those I was reading about.

Sometimes I'll tease my boyfriend about being a nerd and that there should be a show about him like that. But that's just because he works in a lab and he takes it all in stride.

Big Brother is HERE

"But logging out of Facebook only de-authorizes your browser from the web application, a number of cookies (including your account number)are still sent along to all requests to facebook.com. ***Even if you are logged out, Facebook still knows and can track every page you visit.
The only solution is to delete every Facebook cookie in your browser,or to use a separate browser for Facebook interactions."

Chrome "Incognito" mode should be a help dealing with this.
Of course, most users don't know what Facebook is doing, so they wouldn't be the wiser.

I view Facebook's new "track everything you do" Open Graph technology to be among the most essentially privacy-invasive -- and potentially dangerous to users -- development, perhaps in the history of the Net.
The major problem is that by eliminating the need for persons to explictly decide what to share, users are sending out a continuous "stream of consciousness" that has little or no contextual underpinning, and can be easily misconstrued either in real-time or retrospectively.

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren

You can lose weight eating as much as you like

If I had to do with somebody who owes me billions I would help him the way he can actually repay his debts.
What they are doing (German banks in first row) is taking advantage of a bad situation, squeezing the more they can, in a way that makes it clear that they KNOW Greece will default...
It is like giving an extra dose of heroin to somebody who is in abstinence crisis.
A normal doctor would cure the symptoms and help the patient to recover and THEN curing him NOT letting him assuming any drug...
A bad doctor would just give the patient additional heroin as long as necessary to have a fast death...
The only reason Greece hasn’t default or it is going through a "controlled default" is not to create panic in the market.
That would mean EVERYBODY selling everything.
I do not think the situation is as tragic as it looks.
After WW2 people were much poorer, everything had to be rebuilt and with no resources.
They did it.
That means that when you want you can.
The problem is that people are not aware of the situation and in principle they do not want.
They are waiting for some miracle to save them in a painless way.
They would like to save, but there is nothing they want to say good bye to.
It is like dieting eating.
How many promise: you can lose weight eating as much as you like.
This is the miracle everybody likes to believe in.

Know how of the Chinese

Some time ago I bought a can opener.
Nice, stainless steel, with a white plastic handle, Made in China, cost 4 Euros.
The first time I used it I had big problems.
It worked well for half a centimeter then stopped.
No way to cut that piece.
Began again and cut another centimeter and the same happened, stooped and didn’t want to cut that piece.
At the end I had several small pieces cut, I could empty the juice, but no way to open the can.
I thought, as last resource, to use a knife.
It worked, also because the can, even though the peas were Germans, was Made in China, and the Aluminum was very thin.
Unfortunately, almost at the end, I cut one finger of the hand that was keeping the can still.
I immediately washed, dried the finger and put a plaster.
The plaster (Made in China) lasted a few seconds.
My husband (the German) had immediately a solution (German blood)"Why don’t I put a tape ON the plaster so that it keeps it?
Good idea, but the tape was also Made in China.
Lasted a few minutes, then opened.
I still remember the old plasters you took away after two days and you had to water them before, in order NOT to remove your own skin with the plaster...

Some time ago we had a similar experience with our doors.
They were a little bit "shabby", but still in good shape, in my opinion.
Which was not the opinion of my husband (the German).
We usually have different point of view...
"I will paint them anyway..."
I would have simply put a piece of cartoon on the floor and painted them "in loco"
Of course that would be TOO SIMPLE for a German.
In order to perform the work in the BEST way "we (pluralis Majestatis) need four working goats".
We need four because the doors are three.
When the first coat dries in door A, I can paint the first coat in door B. In the meantime I can free part one and paint the first coat in door C. And so on...
We go to OBI.
The working goats were, as the label said "German quality, Chinese price"
And we agreed, because when you talk about saving, Italians and Germans have the same point of view...
Then we had to buy the paint : the cheap one was 5 Euros and the expensive 35 Euros.
It wasn’t difficult to decide, of course for the one which was SEVEN times cheaper.
The Brush.
German Brush: 8 Euros for on brush.
Chinese: 6 brushes 5 Euros.
The German dared to say: The German lasts longer..
The Italian: when you are finished, you have to wash it, dry it and then you put it somewhere and the next time you need it, you have to buy a new one ANYWAY because you do not remember where it is..
The German agreed, mostly to the last reason...in our house 90% of the time spent to do something IS spent to look for the tools to do it, and if you want the job done, you have to buy NEW tools.

So, dismount the doors, put door A on the first two working goats and door B on the seconds...
On the paint is written: no need to add solvent..
It comes out that it looks like a thick glue, colored in white.
You must be careful and fast to use it.
The brushes revealed soon to be NOT what you would need with such a paint.
Most of the hair stayed on the paint, and ON the door...

But the worst was the German quality, Chinese price goats.
They were good, they opened right, they were even at the same level, but they were made for the height of the average Chinese, who is smaller than the average German.
Result?
A pain in the back, cured, this time with Aspirin Made in Germany.

I am not so sure the Chinese copied the HOW, but certainly not the know.

Swallows

The best moment of my year is when I see the first swallow.
And the worst is like today, when you see the firsts preparing to go.
They group on the electric wires, and they make tests on how to fly together.
At the beginning there is one leading, the others following and always two or three left in the back, who struggle to follow.
They try again and these laters are in the middle, and the fastest on the borders.
And after a few days they leave.
Will I be here again when they will come back?

Then it is the time to collect my geraniums plants.
To cut them short, to group them in a few vases, to put them on the windows, to protect them from the first, unexpected frost.
I will water them, I will look after them, thinking of when it will be time again to make new vases, and they will bloom and grow and make the best colored flowers.
All our life is spent waiting, preparing and dreaming.
The future is just a few moments, but it is in the eyes and the heart of the beholder, much longer before and after.

In Germany position is Everything

Did you ever eat one of those Currywurst bought from a stall on the road?

The German government to make a little bit of extra cash decided that:

If you eat standing, the Vat is 7%

If you sit the Vat is 19%

In Italy is 20% whatever you do....

Preparing for the collapse

My whole life has been living the future and living the present in view of the future.
Needless to say that in times like this my main reading has been about collapse.
And what better example than the previous collapses?(1929, URRSS collapse)

What will be?
How to be prepared?
First you must think with a "post collapse mind" and NOT as you would react today.
First thing: how to save what I have, or better, what will I need that I can prepare now?
Many invest in gold.
Currencies will collapse, so gold will be the new currency.
Now, what do you think you need mostly when there is no money, no state, no welfare, nothing?
To whom do you sell your gold?
Who will need gold?

You will need food and a place to live.
No or little energy will mean you need a place where you do not need too much energy and you can produce it.
So: no gold, but may be a house.
A house in a place not too cold, with a piece of land where to grow my food, fruit trees, may be a few chickens, or a pond with fishes and geese.
Second: some solar panels or a wind turbine.

May be, if I lived in US a good buy could be a house in Florida.
But not Miami or a fancy place.
Not even on the beach.
A place where with a little money you can buy a nice house and a good piece of land.
Then, as I said, solar panels and so on.

If the collapse really comes, who will live better:

A financial guy with a lot of gold in a safe in a bank, living in a penthouse on the top of a skyscraper which cost him a fortune just in electricity for the elevator, or me, in my small house in a sunny place, with my kitchen garden, my chickens and my geese?

Beppe Grillo the phony

Dear Mr. Grillo,

I am once more deluded.
I thought and hoped that the Movimento 5 stelle that you so vehemently proposed was the "new" the "right" the "freedom" the "democracy" you were claiming shouting.
I thought that your vaffanculo meant "go away old and fake" "come new and honest".
You talked about "direct democracy" you said that the "people" had to be "free" to decide for their future.

WHAT A SHAME!

You, yourself, the warrior of truth, of honesty, of freedom, are NUMBER FIRST for CENSORSHIP!
People who slightly disagree are laughed after, denigrated, mocked, then, as last resource, BANNED.

This is nothing else than dictatorship and it is even more bitter to swallow because it is done by somebody Who PREACHES against it!

At the beginning I was enthusiastic about your ideas, just like the Italians with Mussolini or the Americans with Obama.
Now you showed your real face, and you should be ASHAMED

You are worth much less than the people you joke about, you are a FAKE, a phony, this is not a "change" this is nothing else than the usual, trivial, cheating Italian way to fuck Italian people.
I will never vote for your Movimento and, as much as I can, I will invite people NOT TO VOTE for somebody like you ( or somebody sponsored by you).

We had enough of Mussolini, we do not need a new DICTATORSHIP.

Success is proof of excellence

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Their success is the proof of their excellence in consistent results, reputable services, and proven in-house offers.

The deception of money

I was wondering this morning how Chinese people are stupid, and Europeans and so on.
Everybody is so eager to produce to export to US to be paid...in dollars.
And how Americans are smart paying with freshly printed paper.
Chinese do not want to see that they work for getting back paper.
If I was in the Chinese government, since they are so good in copying, I would just print dollars and pay the production to be exported with paper home made.
I would then give the production to the people for the current value in Yuan, making a huge internal market.

Why should they keep alive a zombie economy, where they consume products of others giving them paper in exchange?

Wouldn´t it be time to stop pretending?
This could also be good for America.
They would HAVE to produce again.

Why Gold and silver are a bubble

Buy gold, buy silver, if you want to protect your savings...

Many years ago my father (we lived in Italy, with the lira, a currency with very high rates of inflation) used to say: if you want to protect the value of your savings, you should buy gold.
Or you should have bought real estate.
The prices of gold and real estate were the ones that always went "up".
In reality was the value of the Lira that went down.
But this was the way: if for a Kg of bread you had to pay 2000 liras and for the same bread 5 years later you had to pay 3000 liras, that meant you had an inflation of 50% in 5 years.
The same happened to gold and real estate.
More or less their value "upgraded" with the devaluation of the currency.
Sometimes you also had a bigger upgrade or a lower one, depending on the demand.
But for real estate you had for many years a good demand (from 50 millios people we became 60 millions, so we had 10 millions more people who needed a house) especially in the city, where many found a job in the new factories.

In USA you had a great demand for real estates till 2007.
prices grew exponentially because there was an exponentially growing demand.
The demand was inflated by the "propaganda" of a never ending demand and never ending upgrade of prices.

In 2007 the artificially created "demand" stopped and the prices slumped.

The same is happening to gold.
The value of the dollar is slumping, but NOT at the same rate the gold prices are upgraded.
From 600 dollars to almost 1800 dollars per ounce you have an upgrade in price of 1200 dollars in five years.
Nobody says that it is 300%.

Did the bread price upgrade 300%?
Did the cost of living upgrade 300%?

What upgraded the price was the "never ending“ demand.

The house value NEVER upgraded 300% in 5 years, not even in the bubble time...

Because the demand of real estate is basically "local".
( even though with derivatives they tried to make it international)
You can sell a house in US usually and mostly to US citizens.
While you can sell an ounce of gold EVERYWHERE in the world.

The price of gold WILL go up, and may be a lot.
But the "demand" will have an end, the moment there will be no buyers any more.

At that point, lucky the ones who bought it for 500 and sell it for the last price, unlucky the ones who believe in "never ending" upgrade.

In Italy we call it "catena di San Antonio" In US you call it Ponzi scheme.
Lucky the first who will buy and sell and very unlucky the last.
The amount of money is NEVER "burned".
The first ones get ALL and the last ones loose ALL ( and the ones in the middle earn a little bit and loose a little bit)

ALL what goes up too fast will come down even faster...

In the worst case scenario the dollar will be worth zero, that means it will loose 100% of its value.
If the value of gold follows this....how much will it REALLY be worth?

Default italian style

Do you remember the movie: Divorce Italian style?
We are a great country, whenever we do something like ALL THE OTHERS we do it in a different way. We just found a week ago 70 billions Euros, cutting a little bit here a little bit there, on the pensions, on the State employees salaries, on the pension age.
Now it looks like it is not enough.
We have to move and move fast.
Why? Because of the letter...
The mystery of the letter.
It is all the fault of the letter.
The letter sent by Trichet and Mario Draghi to the Governo Italiano.
In 150 years of history of the Italian State, NEVER; NEVER there was any need of such a hurry to make a law.
Bossi (chief Lega Nord) says: "I fear the letter was forged in Rome, I fear they want to dump the government."
Bersani (Chief PD,Italian left wing) is sure of the opposite: "the letter was written by them, the very same PDL(Berlusconi) and Lega which brought us to ruin. No need to investigate further."
The journalists, which are always the first to receive the news, they know everything which is written in it, the smallest details, the need to certain cuts and certain taxes.
They even point it out that on the bottom is written very clearly ( and quite impolitely I would add): "If Italy does not follow instructions, can forget our help..."
Di Pietro (Center, Italia dei Valori) shouted: If Bossi has the letter, it is HIS duty to bring it in the Parlamento and show it to ALL.

So, Bossi probably has: written the letter, says that it was written by somebody else in Rome, then hid it, but showed it before to the journalist who wrote the article.
May be we will find out that Bossi has some problem of multiple personality...

"We moved even before the letter" says Bossi and then "Tell them Giulio (Tremonti)( our financial Minister, PDL)"
Giulio" No,I know nothing, I say nothing".

Gianni Letta (responsible of the Government Secret Services)" The letter IS confidential, and the one who received it cannot show it."

Could we at least KNOW who received it?

No one wants to talk.
Tremonti adds "If the one who sent it wanted it to be known, he would have done it..."

I have my fears that on the envelope is written:

"To Italy, letter of foreclosure"

Direct Democracy: Gerald Celente

Mr. Celente,

you are one of the voices I like better to listen to.
Of course a small part of me sees you as an Italian, but the rest sees you like one of the few who says the truth and says it in the best way.
With a smile.
Presstitutes, International Mafia Fund, Gambino and Co.

Who better than an Italian can understand it?
Capisci?
Yes I do.

And you also propose solutions. It is not just talking.

Direct Democracy.
Yes that is what they do in Switzerland.
They vote in the square and decide on the matters that matter for their life.
That is why in a country of banksters they survive.
Because the Banksters make money out of the foreigners and do not rule in their own country. They pay taxes there.

Our square is the Internet.
Let the power to the citizens.
If they fail, they will be the ones who pay.

"People are fed up and taking it out on one another."

"People are fed up and taking it out on one another."

That is exactly what is happening here in Europe.
In Germany: it is the fault of those bastards of Greeks or Italians or Spanish...in Italy it is all for those bastards of Germany, while they do not know (because the Media doesn’t tell)that when the European Bank prints Euro gives them to the banks at 1% interest ant they buy Italian Greek, Spanish etc. bonds at 6% (greek even 13% interest).
So people starve and Banks make huge profits and then, when the country risks to fail their own country bails out the bank...
That is what happens in America too.
AND WE HAVE TO STOP IT.
WE have two goals: producing AGAIN and stop speculation.
How to reach it?
Taxing financial transactions and NOT taxing production.
Do you want to make money?
Instead of gambling on Wall Street open a factory employ people and produce.

I know the politicians do not want it, politicians usually want what the people who pay them better want.
But WE are millions and they are just thousands.
If we are ALL together we can win.

Do NOT smoke

Viral video by ebuzzing

My mother died at 84 for lung cancer due to smoking.
I used to say"smoking is not so bad, look at my mother..."
I do not say it anymore.

The time machine

"We continue to talk about personalities – Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama or Stephen Harper – although the heads of state and elected officials have become largely irrelevant. Corporate lobbyists write the bills. Lobbyists get them passed.
Lobbyists make sure you get the money to be elected. And lobbyists employ you when you get out of office.
Those who hold actual power are the tiny elite who manage the corporations. The share of national income of the top 0.1 percent of Americans since 1974 has grown from 2.7 to 12.3 percent.
One in six American workers may be without a job. Some 40 million Americans may live in poverty, with tens of millions more living in a category called “near poverty.” Six million people may be forced from their homes in the United States because of foreclosures and bank repossessions.
But while the masses suffer, Goldman Sachs, one of the financial firms most responsible for the evaporation of $17 trillion in wages, savings and wealth of small investors and shareholders in the United States, is giddily handing out $17.5 billion in compensation to its managers, including $12.6 million to its CEO, Lloyd Blankfein."
more

We are going into our future, the future planed since long by somebodyelse, at high speed, without knowing where the brakes are, because we do not understand who really drives the time machine.

How to brainwash the average American in 23 steps

1. The key to truly effective brainwashing is to work at people’s most fundamental awareness. Shape them at the neurological level so they develop the faculties to take your input and call it “thinking for myself.” Enable them to stop thinking.
Fill them with soaps that reflect the reality you want them to copy.

2. Limit any and all faculties for self-awareness and self-sensing. Destroy instinct and intuition. Actively and endlessly encourage external awareness. Make people dependent on your external input for as many decisions as possible. Give them idols in which to believe and impersonate.

3. Speed up messages so that the pace and rhythm of information is disorienting and visually biased. Give them sports, movies, celebrities to look forward to

4. Condition people to being bombarded with hundreds of thousands of signals a day. Teach them to attend to this stream of information and to call it Reality. Never let them ask what “reality” is.TV, Internet, Magazines all media you need

5. Framing is everything. Decide what you want people to believe and make sure that any choices you give them are within a framework which assures you of your result. This is called the Illusion of Choice. “Do you want to sweep the floor before or after dinner?” Repeat this formula for economic systems, politicians, news stories, competing product brands and entertainment.Make a mortgage on the existing one, you only live once

6. Appeal to the lowest common denominator. Make sure that all shows model conflict resolution of people with an emotional and intellectual maturity no greater than that of a six year old. Make it funny so no one notices. Keep the level of education at its lowest, feed people with stupidities, show superfluous items as essential.

7. Keep people passive. Encourage the Couch Potato Alpha Wave Escape Plan as the healing elixir for all that ails. Don’t let them think what they should, make them thinking what you want

8. Don’t make people think. Their days are hard enough as is. Bypass the need for opinion making by giving people ready-made opinions. Do it as though you don’t have a conscience – they are probably too stupid to make their own decisions anyway. Show your opinions as right and their as wrong.

9. Ensure that there are no ongoing storylines with meaning or purpose beyond immediate sensory stimulation. Avoid universal themes as much as possible. Make absolutely certain there is no cultural, societal or global story or mythology present that conflicts with the myths of comfort and consumption. Their heroes must act, not think

10. Never encourage responsibility, or so much as suggest that humans could be involved in co-creating their future and the realities in which they reside. Remember, you only live once, why bother?

11. Encourage group-sanctioned individuality only. By making ‘individuality” the new conformity you are generating a powerful illusion of free choice. They must believe that they think and they are free to think and decide.

12. Sensationalize the superficial.Reality is the virtual, virtual is the only reality that counts, because the only pleasant.

13. Keep information bytes infinitesimally small. Promote Attention Deficit Disorder. Several decades of television have already set this in motion.Our is the "visual society, why waisting words, when one image is worth 1K words?

14. Repetition is key. Repeat important messages as often as possible.

15. Repetition is key.

16. Repetition is key.

17. Bypass rationality by any means possible. People don’t need logic to accept information. Belief is emotional. Always remember: WAR=PEACE. Truth is virtual and virtual is reality.

18. Remember –- two half-truths make up a whole truth. Even more if the truth is a lie.

19. Demonize self-knowledge technology of all kinds. Throw around words like “cult” and “brainwashing.” Marginalize anyone involved in such pursuits.Make them scared of the unknown, let them panic for what they do not understand, it will come useful.

20. Keep old models of consciousness alive and well. If you can get away with referring to people’s states as being phlegmatic or sanguine instead of programmable and intentional, do it. Remember truth=lie and Lie= truth.

21. Keep people’s attention on what really matters. Emphasize what’s wrong as much as possible. Their life matters, their happiness matters, not the way to get it

22. Always give the impression that Everything Is Under Control – but just barely so – hammer into the populace the idea that their greatest fear could strike at any moment. So that when they see something out of their control they panic easily.

23. Teach people that they are their thoughts and emotions. Reinforce this by teaching them to feel bad about their ideas, and to feel bad about feeling bad. Remember: Identify, identify, identify –- this will widen the empty void inside of them that only shopping can cure.

By sticking to these simple premises you should be able to produce entire societies capable of thinking so selfish as not caring to do so.
Capable to behave in their interest, but that behave in YOUR interest.
Create a generation of puppets who believe that earning is making money on a computer keyboard, exchanging papers, buying things they do not need paying with money they do not own.
You will create a generation of borrowers, who will make debts to pay previous debts.
Give them abundantly and then suddenly withdraw.
Make them feeling rich and safe and then create panic making worthless what they own.

Congratulations, you were able to create a generation of slaves

Collapse

The biggest tragedy of our times is that we have lost the moral values on which our society was built.
Lies are the normality and young people believe in them as the new mean to build their life.
Lying, committing crimes are not accountable, not punished.
The bigger the crime the more chances you have to profit and being unpunished.
The second tragedy is that we have no mean whatsoever to rebuild them.
The Media are in the hands of the very people who do not want it, schools are in the hands of the wrong people.
And the third tragedy is that we know and we see and we cannot do anything about it.(or very little)
If the collapse of our society was the beginning of a new Era, well it would be very welcome.

Where to chose what you need

To be successful in business you need the right product at the right price.
But that is not all.
You need to find the right customers, in the right way.
As the business world evolves, so should marketing.
TV, Radio, News papers are still a good way to reach a large audience, but the Internet is a "conditio sine qua non" to find a big exposure to your business.
Also in the case of the Internet presence having a nice website is not all, to be successful it is essential to be found 24 hours a day, seven days a week...
So you need to find the right web hosting, the one that suits your needs like having the right bandwidth, the right exposure, the constant presence, all at the right price.
How to decide?
There is a website where you can find all available details about a huge number of web hosting, something like an independent web hosting directory featuring in-depth information on all major web hosting providers accompanied by web hosting reviews and host ratings by real customers.
Do you need unlimited sites, space and traffic, or it is more important the fact that it is reliable with 99.9% Uptime?
Or you are looking for a free Domain and instant setup?
Or you want something really cheap?
Or you want a dedicated server hosting?
Or you prefer a colocation?
Just name it and you will find it.

How to read ratings

"Greece’s credit rating was cut three steps by Moody’s Investors Service, which said the European Union’s rescue for the debt-laden nation will cause substantial losses for investors and amount to a default. "

America is still AAA.
The difference is that Greece is NOT going to default, at least not in the real near future, while America has a much bigger risk ( and in the very near future).

So, how to read rating?

Who gains?

When "Nobody knows anything"

That happens when everybody knows everything.
In Napoli, Palermo, Cagliari, nobody sees,nobody hears, nobody knows, because evrybody knows who resp. Camorra, Mafia and N´drangheta are and everybody has something to earn and a lot to lose.
That is the way you can build the biggest network of criminals that lives on the shoulders of the many who work and believe in "democracy, law and order".

If there were less believers and more viewers, may be, we would have hopes.

How to make a lot of money and keeping it

"Only Wall Street could put the economy at risk and it had an excellent reason to do so: profit.
It made huge profits in the build-up to the credit crisis and huge profits when it sold itself as “too big to fail” and received massive government and Federal Reserve bailouts.
Most of the serious economic damage the U.S. is struggling with today was done by the top 0.1% and they benefited greatly from it.

Not surprisingly, Wall Street and the top of corporate America are doing extremely well as of June 2011.
For example, in Q1 of 2011, America’s top corporations reported 31% profit growth and a 31% reduction in taxes, the latter due to profit outsourcing to low tax rate countries.
Somewhere around 40% of the profits in the S&P 500 come from overseas and stay overseas, with about half of these 500 top corporations having their headquarters in tax havens.
If the corporations don’t repatriate their profits, they pay no U.S. taxes. The year 2010 was a record year for compensation on Wall Street, while corporate CEO compensation rose by over 30%, most Americans struggled.
In 2010 a dozen major companies, including GE, Verizon, Boeing, Wells Fargo, and Fed Ex paid US tax rates between -0.7% and -9.2%. Production, employment, profits, and taxes have all been outsourced.
Major U.S. corporations are currently lobbying to have another “tax-repatriation” window like that in 2004 where they can bring back corporate profits at a 5.25% tax rate versus the usual 35% US corporate tax rate.
Ordinary working citizens with the lowest incomes are taxed at 10%.
A highly complex and largely discrete set of laws and exemptions from laws has been put in place by those in the uppermost reaches of the U.S. financial system.
It allows them to protect and increase their wealth and significantly affect the U.S. political and legislative processes. They have real power and real wealth. Ordinary citizens in the bottom 99.9% are largely not aware of these systems, do not understand how they work, are unlikely to participate in them, and have little likelihood of entering the top 0.5%, much less the top 0.1%. Moreover, those at the very top have no incentive whatsoever for revealing or changing the rules. I am not optimistic."

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If you do not belong to that group, sorry for you, you won´t make a lot of money.

The jobs of the near future

The field that will employ the largest number of newly trained people is the one concerning the manufacturing of products that contain rare-earth elements.
These products include phosphors for lighting and displays as well as magnets for electric motors, wind turbines, cell phones, and of course computers.
In addition, a smaller number of scientists and engineers will be needed to process the elements into the metals that go into magnets and batteries or into the compounds required for phosphors and catalysts.
Others will be needed to explore for sources of ore and to work in mining.
Students with a solid background in rare earths and the fundamentals of chemistry, materials science, and engineering will be needed.
So the need of a dedicated national research center at a college or university with a long tradition in the study of what has become a largely forgotten area of science and engineering.
The industry’s only real alternative is to turn to China, which is already training hundreds of students in this field.
But that would simply re-create the problem US is struggling with: relying on others for such a crucial part of their technological infrastructure.

The fast and easy way to attract visitors to your booth

If you are familiar with trade shows, events, job fairs, you certainly know what pop up displays are.
They can be in a variety of shapes and sizes and you can add graphics to them, usually some catching picture that invites passers by to stop and ask about your company.
You can also buy a trade show pop up that is American made and utilizes Green Materials.
They are premium quality at affordable prices.
You can find different shapes of pop up trade show displays, for example wave pop ups, straight pop ups, curve and even a 20 foot system.
For your pop up booths you can chose a mural package with laminated graphics and duraprint.
To attract visitors to your booth has never been so easy!

If you want to be successful you have to be in the right place at the right moment.

Most companies would like a real marketing that fits their corporate image and marketing strategy.
Most Web developers still think marketing is one of those things lesser people do instead of making a real living by programming.
On the other hand, marketing consulting firms and advertising agencies typically lack the technical expertise to set up an effective marketing for a client. From the very beginning, a market gap existed for firms that could span the two worlds and provide a combination of marketing, advertising and development services for companies wanting to join the Web.
Many concentrate only on marketing online, forgetting the people that still are consumers of the "old " world, that is, TV, radio and print.
That is why a good Advertising Agency should help any business to have the maximal exposure, on ALL the available markets.
Content, creativity and the right communication are the deciding factors in the success of a company.
On TV you catch the audience with content and mix it with commercials, and the audience is kind of passive.
On the Net the offer of content as "channels" is huge compared to TV because open to ALL.
In this environment the customers have a big weapon: freedom of choice, and freedom of mouse.
How to catch the browser and turn him first into audience and second into buyer?
The best is still creating a mixed media marketing experience by combining old and new media.
If you want to be successful you have to be in the right place at the right moment.

Is the newspapers time over?

We need journalists, but for what?
To cook the same news from the same sources?
To report about the same boring press conferences?
To republish today the same news that readers read already YESTERDAY?
To print pages and pages of the same informations nobody is really interested in?
To fill pages and pages of stuff that are in more than one web site?


The real challenge in the news industry is not how many people are journalists, but how many can really change the rules and traditions of a newspaper that does not work anymore.

Today´s problem is: newspapers are loosing or not attracting talented people because talented people cannot express themselves in a new way.

But what is vital for the survival of news(papers)?
In a fast changing society the communication means HAVE to change FAST.
Or to die.
"Everything must change in order to be always the same"
Do newspaper want to attract customers as they used to?
They have to understand that life has changed and so the consumers' needs.
When TV appeared Hollywood slowly adapted to the new reality and came to people's home.
Now the Internet has revolutioned the way people buy, entertain and inform themselves.
So that stores, entertainments and information HAS to come to them or just loose them.
This is the choice to do.
And it won't be painless, because gone are also the big revenues.
In a virtual world everything has got very cheap, because there is no paper, no printing, not even few almost monopolistic newspaper, and many which recooked the same news.
There is a huge world which is slowly opening, which could mean huge revenues because of the number.
Yes, in today's world what makes good revenues is the huge number.
What about a newspaper on line for a 10 dollars yearly fee?
Or even less.
It looks very cheap, but it could be profitable.
What about a newspaper made by many selected articles, to suit the tastes of the people.
What about many niche markets?
What about real news in real time?
What about a newspaper which is international and in the same time has local news?
What about the end of "the same size fits all?"
This is the beautiful of the Internet and the virtual THING: everything is cheaply possible.
And the one who will have the best ideas in the shortest time, HE will be the winner.
No, the newspaper time is not over, it just began...

Do not forget to be there when they look for your products or services

I don’t care what it costs to get bits from here to Timbuktu – I care very much what it costs to get from my house to my local school.
They configure networks as if the Internet were far, far away, and they come up with arbitrary peering prices. That doesn’t meant that it’s intrinsically expensive – it means they’ve managed to make it expensive.
Five years ago I had a vision: the Metropolitan Internet.
And I had the same idea about how the Internet bandwidth was wasted when looking for local websites.
How wonderful if when I am looking for something local my request wouldn't travel around the world, but would use the local infrastructures, making it easier, faster and cheaper.
In the same way, when I am looking for a pizza in a small town near nowhere and I want to use a search engine like Google I finish finding ALL the Pizzerias in the big cities and, after a while and 300 pages, I just give up.
What if the search engine, when I am looking for ANY local business, would show me ALL the available in a few pages?
That was my dream, and as very often, it came true, because somebody had the same vision I had.
So, if you own a small or medium sized business and do not need customers in Timbuktu, but are concentrated in the local search, there is a company that can help you in that.
With first class local SEO they can make your website appear every time somebody is looking for your products or services in your zone.
It is a kind of the old yellow pages, but it works much better.
Of course placement on the Internet for a company is everything.
If you are NOT in the first ten pages (but even less) you are NOT there.
If your customers do not find you, they are not your customers.
Being the best doesn’t necessarily mean your company is going to be the best performing.
Beginning September 22, Google will make it much more difficult to fulfill all requirements for its Product Search feature.
For example, merchants must add a lot of additional information’s for their items, like size, category, color availability, gender and age-group specifications.
Without them the website will be pulled and suspended.
That is certainly something nobody is looking forward to.
In this view it becomes quite essential to have the help of a company who is an expert in local search news.
So, after doing all you can to provide your customers with the best products or services at the best price, do not forget to be there when they look for them...

Who profits?

That is the question you have to ask if you want to find a murderer.
Who profits?
That is exactly the same question I asked myself to understand what is happening.
Who are the speculators, who earns out of the situation?
There is just one answer: the BANKS.

Take Italy.
After the speculative attack, the bonds had to pay interest rates almost at 6%...
Who pays the interests? The Italian people
What happens?
The European bank, the International monetary fund (the International Mafia Federation) come at Italy rescue.
They give the money.
To whom?
To Italy?
No to the Banks.
Now the Banks have 50 billion Euros on which they pay 1% interest rates.
Now they CAN lend to Italy 500 billion Euros.
How?
Buying their bonds which pay 6% interest rates...
They pay 1% on 50 billion and can lend 500 billions at 6%...
Not a bad deal...
And the risk is zero, because, if Italy defaults ( which will not happen) the state WILL bail out the banks.

That is exactly who profits.
That is the murderer.

What is behind the speculators

What do you have to do to keep somebody as your slave?
Simply put him in debts with you.

What is happening to Greece in first row and Italy just a few days ago, is very clear to me.
Speculators dump State bonds, obliging the country to upgrade the interest rates to make them more alluring.
But higher interest rates mean to strangle a country and killing it.

What happens?
The BCE and the IMF come to its rescue.
They lend enough money to survive, at a very low interest rate, so that the country can buy back enough bonds to keep the interest rate low. (the money lent is at a very low interest).

And this would be a really good strategy.
If a country has low interests to pay can think of being able to repay the debts.
Where is the catch?

They impose harsh conditions, so that the Nation dies and is swallowed in a higher state, the state of Europe which is ruled by big corporations, banks, financial institutions.
Do you want the money?
Well, you must sell the Parthenon at the price I tell you.
You must buy Monsanto seeds; you must do this and that.

It is like giving food to an animal which is starving at the condition to put it in a cage.

Good bye old nations of Europe, welcome to the new United States of Europe, the exact copy of the United States of America.

Ever asked yourself WHY the unemployment rate is so high?
Why salaries are getting so low?
Why quality food is so bad?
Why what is happening, is happening?

Cola´si vuole dove si puote cio´che si vuole...

Because that is what they want there, where they can, what they want...

The end of an ERA

Space shuttle Atlantis lifted off July 8 on the final flight of the shuttle program, STS-135, a 12-day mission to the International Space Station.
Atlantis carries a crew of four and the Raffaello multipurpose logistics module containing supplies and spare parts for the space station.
The STS-135 astronauts are: Commander Chris Ferguson, Pilot Doug Hurley, and Mission Specialists Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim.
This Friday was a monumental day for the United States of America, a day of decline, of national doom; this puts an end to a fifty years of men space flights by the United States.
When the Atlantis comes back to earth (hopefully) Us will be out of business for what concerns men’s space flights. It is a fall back from the magnificent achievements of Kennedy and Eisenhower.
This is indeed a tragic day, Nasa is moribund, the Space Program has come to an end.
There is money just for wars and Wall Street.
The American dream has come to its complete end.
No more democracy, no more freedom, no more law and more than anything no more dreams.
Just the crude reality of misery, despair, future poverty for many and wars.

What you could do with $1...

An Old Man was reminising about the good ole days.

"when i was a young boy, my mother would send me to the corner store with 1$. I'd come back with 5 bags of potatoes, a dozen eggs, a pound of butter, a hunk of cheese,3 loaves of bread and a gallon of milk!"


"can't do that anymore.....
too many fuckin'security cameras."

How much more you get for much less...

What would you think of a web hosting where the applications you want are available the exact moment you want them, where every detail is backed up daily, where you can have plenty of storage, and where you get unlimited traffic?
And that is not all.
If you can add a fast response support, available 24x7x365, where you can get a personal account manager, regardless of which plan you choose, wouldn´t you agree that you cannot ask for more?
And plans start at as little as $4.99 a month.
But if you are looking for something more, like having your own server, without the hassle of caring for it, you can choose the plan of managed hosting.
Whenever you decide, there is a server ready for you, with the latest hardware customized following on your needs.
If you have a web-based business with your own server, and want to place it in an enterprise-class facility with adequate space, temperature control, and security, you can opt for a colocation plan.
You will have a truly secure and guarded environment, with the latest generation of environmental controls. You will find data centers which are truly state-of-the-art, with parallel redundancies, so that your servers will always have reliable power, backups, and physical security.
And you will even be able to save money.
Thanks to the efficiencies of the proprietary IP backbone and the redundant cross-connections of the infrastructure you will actually be able to have much less expensive bandwidth.
Is 10Mb/s fast enough?
If you consider that the plans start at as little as $99 per month per unit, you can easily calculate how much more you get for much less...

Self Portrait

Believe it or not, this SMART guy stole a camera from a photografer and shot this picture of himself.
Of course a smiling monkey, I wouldn´t be surprised he is a she.

Happy Birthday America!

The 4th of July is a magic day for me.
Even though I am Italian I always feel a little part of myself belongs to that place.
My grandfather was there as a little boy, with his sister and brothers.
They all stayed there, he came back.
He missed his country too much, he wanted to die in Italy, in the small village where he was born, among his friends.
But a small part of his heart was there, in the new land where he lived for a while, chasing the dreams of a better life.
But he found soon out that a better life was not a better income, it was the place where you felt loved.
I was the first time in my life in USA when I was 15 and it was the 4th of July.
I didn’t know it was a big feast, we do not celebrate the birth of our nation.
We do not celebrate our nation, we take it for granted and we hate it more than loving it.
I was surprised of how proud Americans were to be Americans.
How they felt to belong to their land, how they worshipped it.
But today, today, I am not so sure anymore.
Today there is a feeling to be on the verge of an abyss, of something great that will destroy what little still has to be destroyed.
There is this feeling like being an American is not something to be proud of, like not having a future and lacking the present too.
There is not anymore what they called the American dream, there is no dream, but the sight of a sad reality which nobody can escape.
Truth is something nobody wants to talk about because it is an unhappy truth.
Truth is pretending that nothing has changed, that everything will go back as it was.
Truth is believing in miracles, because miracles happened and will happen again in this land.
Nobody talks about the next fourth of July.
Nobody talks about tomorrow.
Let’s talk about yesterday, how we were, how we hoped, how we dreamed.
Happy birthday, even though it is one nobody would like to celebrate.
America has reached the age in which you shouldn’t celebrate birthdays anymore.