Of course this is not the news you’ve been fed, but then it comes from the same people who fed you lies about Covid.
The below comes from one of the finest sources of actual truth about the climate. It is the truth that comes with facts from Anthony Watts.
It took 3 years for the evidence that the jab and a lot of Covid was lying by people who wanted to get rich or control the masses. The world’s Governments, WEF, Big Pharma, MSM, Fauci, Birx and a few others come to mind here.
Now for Climate change. It’s about money. They create a crisis (the world is going to end, the ocean will cover our land, send us money) and then do the money laundering. It was FTX before that ponzi scheme took effect.
There was no consensus (the 97% was an Al Gore lie propagated by the press). COP27 was about money (I’ll get to that in a later post) and the Science is never settled. It’s because actual science has to be challenged to prove it is true.
Dr. Indur M. Goklany, has 30-plus years in federal and state governments and the private sector, during which he has written more than one hundred monographs, book chapters, and papers on topics ranging from climate change, human well-being, economic development, technological change and biotechnology to sustainable development.
He has been a visiting fellow with the American Enterprise Institute and was the first Julian Simon Fellow at the Political Economy Research Center in Bozeman, Montana. Working for the U.S. Department of the Interior, he has represented the United States at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and in the negotiations leading to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Before I start the post, let’s put the real crux of this on the table. It is a false crisis that was generated on wrong data to get money. I worked in this field and know the players and the facts. It is about stuffing their pockets and distracting the attention from the real problems. It is a go to for everything.
There is no better evidence than COP27 that did nothing to pretend to solve the supposed crisis. It was a bunch of elites in private planes who voted to move money from rich nations to poor. The reality is they are moving the money into their own pockets. They penalize the weak who will pay, and dismiss those who are the worst polluters as they get money under the table for that also.
“There is no doubt that these emails are embarrassing and a public-relations disaster for science.” – Andrew Dessler, “Climate E-Mails Cloud the Debate,” December 10, 2009.
It has been 12 years since the intellectual scandal erupted called Climategate. Each anniversary inspires recollections and regurgitation of salient quotations. These quotations speak for themselves; attempts of climate alarmists to parse the words and meaning distracts from what was said in real-time private conversations.
And the scandal got worse after the fact when, according to Paul Stephens, “virtually the entire climate science community tried to pretend that nothing was wrong.” Whitewash exonerations by the educational institutions involved and scientific organizations– was a blow to scholarship and standards as well. The standard of fair, objective, transparent research was sacrificed to a politically correct narrative about the qualitative connection between CO2 forcing and temperature (see Wiki).
Fred Pearce’s The Climate Files: The Battle for the Truth About Global Warming (2010) was a rare mainstream-of-sorts look at the scandal. Michael Mann is the bad actor, despite his I-am-the-victim take in his account, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars(2012). [1]
Background:
On November 19, 2009, a whistle-blower or hacker downloaded more than 1,000 documents and e-mails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia University (United Kingdom). Posted on a Russian server, these documents were soon accessed by websites around the world to trigger the exposé.
These e-mails were part of confidential communications between top climate scientists in the UK, the United States, and other nations over a 15-year period. The scientists involved had developed surface temperature data sets and promoted the “Hockey Stick” global temperature curve, as well as having wrtten/edited the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) physical-science assessment reports.
Branded “Climategate” by British columnist James Delingpole, the emails provided insight into practices that range from bad professionalism to fraudulent science. Bias, data manipulation, dodging freedom of information requests, and efforts to subvert the peer-review process were uncovered.
There is a lot more at the link above, but here are some salient facts.
Man-Made Warming Controversy
“I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards ‘apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data’ but in reality the situation is not quite so simple.”
—Dr. Keith Briffa, Climatic Research Unit, disclosed Climategate e-mail, Sep. 22, 1999.
“Keith’s [Briffa] series…differs in large part in exactly the opposite direction that Phil’s [Jones] does from ours. This is the problem we all picked up on (everyone in the room at IPCC was in agreement that this was a problem and a potential distraction/detraction from the reasonably consensus viewpoint we’d like to show w/ the Jones et al and Mann et al series).”
—Dr. Michael Mann, IPCC Lead Author, disclosed Climategate e-mail, Sep. 22, 1999.
“…it would be nice to try to ‘contain’ the putative ‘MWP’ [Medieval Warm Period]…”
—Dr. Michael Mann, IPCC Lead Author, disclosed Climategate e-mail, June 4, 2003
“By the way, when is Tom C [Crowley] going to formally publish his roughly 1500 year reconstruction??? It would help the cause to be able to refer to that reconstruction as confirming Mann and Jones, etc.”
—Dr. Michael Mann, IPCC Lead Author, disclosed Climategate e-mail, Aug. 3, 2004.
“I gave up on Judith Curry a while ago. I don’t know what she thinks she’s doing, but it’s not helping the cause, or her professional credibility.”
—Dr. Michael Mann, IPCC Lead Author, disclosed Climategate e-mail, May 30, 2008
“Well, I have my own article on where the heck is global warming… The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”
—Dr. Kevin Trenberth, IPCC Lead Author, disclosed Climategate e-mail, Oct. 12, 2009.
Let me end with some actual Climate facts:
That extreme cold has hit the South Pole this month.
That the South Pole had record cold temperatures in the six-month winter of 2020-2021
That 2022 was a relatively mild hurricane period, just like the ten years after Hurricane Katrina hit.
That we had extreme cold weather in the U.S this month along with record snow in the Northeast.
That the Arctic icecaps have been expanding the last ten years, contrary to predictions that the ice would be gone by now.
That the coral reef off Australia is growing with a vengeance
That wildfires were down 80% from the last five-year average.
After 150 years of exponential growth of crude oil and coal use, and rapid growth in the population and all the other components we are told cause warming, the dire predictions have all been false.
The temperature is only up one to two degrees after a Little Ice Age ended in 1860 and the Earth now has a temperature similar to over 1,000 years ago in the Medieval Warming Period.
This year you say something stupid and it’s going to be you sound vaccinated. I am loaded for bear should anyone question who got things right the last few years and who is a conspiracy theorist.
Since I’m the only unjabbed person I know, I’m the final boss. Always be the boss.
Election losers like Stacy Abrams now has 6 million in the bank just for complaining a lot. Winners now can vote themselves more money and have to do what the Uni-Party tells them to do.
I give one bright hope to DeSantis who seems like someone who could actually lead something. He pulled Florida’s ass out of the storm better than any recent leader (heckuva job there on Katrina dubya). He gave a good victory speech that wasn’t sanctimonious.
Most disappointing were the people of Pennsylvania who cut of their nose to spite their faces by electing Fetterman. This is Biden 2.0 of being functionally impaired. That could be the new strategy though, put in a puppet you can control by pulling the strings.
So the losers were the people unless a split government gets nothing done. They’ve inflicted enough damage on us in the last 2 years. Them fighting cuts down on bills that just costs the people and the economy, and the welfare of our children.
The people that put the Covid restrictions on their sheep got re-elected so they aren’t smart in Michigan or NY either. They re-elected people who proved they couldn’t lead during a crisis (see DeSantis and Covid/Hurricane Ian)
It was a mixed bag of results that no one won except the politicians, even the ones that lost their races.
I don’t expect the greenies who worship the earth (read money) who won’t believe it anyway, but the actual science is below. Did we have cars and jets and coal plants during the melting of the ice age? What about the fossils being discovered under conditions the opposite of what they are today?
Having been close to this (not by choice but for work), it is the scam they say it is. It’s about money, not saving the earth.
Why would they fly all those private jets to climate conferences if they were really worried?
Al Gore is the prime example. He has 3 mansions and travels on private jets.
IT’S ABOUT THE MONEY.
This year’s heat waves and subsequent droughts resulted in the hottest summer in recorded European history, according to a report by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) – an EU-funded Earth observation agency.
“We’ve not only had record August temperatures for Europe, but also for the summer, with the previous summer record only being one year old,” said Freja Vamborg, a senior scientist at the Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Of course, this ‘record’ heat in the summer has prompted activists to trot out the same old tropes that this ‘confirms climate change’ is having a catastrophic effect on the world already. With the energy crisis facing Europe, this is not a particularly comfortable topic as numerous nations abandon – albeit apparently temporarily – their green policies in favor of not letting their citizenry starve or freeze.
Given that it’s all ‘settled science’, the following RT News anchor was probably expecting a rote response to his questions about climate change.
The political fiction that humans cause most or all climate change and the claim that the science behind this notion is ‘settled’, has been dealt a savage blow by the publication of a ‘World Climate Declaration (WCD)’ signed by over 1,100 scientists and professionals. There is no climate emergency, say the authors, who are drawn from across the world and led by the Norwegian physics Nobel Prize laureate Professor Ivar Giaever. Climate science is said to have degenerated into a discussion based on beliefs, not on sound self-critical science.
The scale of the opposition to modern day ‘settled’ climate science is remarkable, given how difficult it is in academia to raise grants for any climate research that departs from the political orthodoxy. (A full list of the signatories is available here.) Another lead author of the declaration, Professor Richard Lindzen, has called the current climate narrative “absurd”, but acknowledged that trillions of dollars and the relentless propaganda from grant-dependent academics and agenda-driven journalists currently says it is not absurd.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this has been about money from the beginning. Like all political maneuvering, you create a crisis that only you can fix.
Europe bought it and is now held hostage by Russia, as a former president predicted. The USA is desperately trying to hamstring our economy with false claims about the climate. Look behind it to find the source of these falsehoods, money, power and control.
(from Moonbattery)
THE STUDY
The political fiction that humans cause most or all climate change and the claim that the science behind this notion is ‘settled’, has been dealt a savage blow by the publication of a ‘World Climate Declaration (WCD)’ signed by over 1,100 scientists and professionals.
The scale of the opposition to modern day ‘settled’ climate science is remarkable, given how difficult it is in academia to raise grants for any climate research that departs from the political orthodoxy. (A full list of the signatories is available here.) Another lead author of the declaration, Professor Richard Lindzen, has called the current climate narrative “absurd”, but acknowledged that trillions of dollars and the relentless propaganda from grant-dependent academics and agenda-driven journalists currently says it is not absurd.
Having discarded the use of empirical evidence, pseudo-scientific priests of the climate cult who are paid by Big Government to prop up global warming ideology rely on models. These models find whatever they are designed to find, and according to the WCD, “are not remotely plausible as global policy tools.”
I had to work with climatards who bought into Carbon poisoning the atmosphere, to the point of them wanting to tax it a dollar a pound. They and their co-founder went under. I knew for lack of facts. They were always begging us for money so there you have your real reason. They and the other green analysts would gladly jet to the conferences all around the world, like their hero’s who fly private jets to climate conferences.
“More CO2 is beneficial for nature, greening the Earth; additional CO2 in the air has promoted growth in global plant biomass. It is also good for agriculture, increasing the yield of crops worldwide.”
The Declaration also observes there is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying natural disasters, as the liberal media hysterically shrieks.
“There is no climate emergency,” the Declaration goes on. “We strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy proposed for 2050,” it says, adding that the aim of global policy should be “prosperity for all” by providing reliable and affordable energy at all times.
CONVINCING THE CLIMATE WORSHIPERS
There is no telling someone who to worship. We all worship something and those people selected both money and the Earth. Good luck with that one. It ranks so far down the list with ordinary people that even scaring them isn’t working. The statue of Liberty isn’t under water, Greenland ice is growing, Florida is still here and there is no change in the water level at Plymouth Rock.
I don’t try to convince them because you can’t talk to someone who has declared their hill to die on.
EUROPE STEPPING ON IT’S OWN DICK
Here is a list of their progress down the toilet of energy shortage because of green polices and environmental policies by their government. – Courtesy of WUWT.
Very low French nuclear availability (EDF recently scaled back its output guidance for 2023 to 300-330TWh and is now facing cooling issues that are impacting an already weak 2022 availability)
Historically low hydro storage levels from Scandinavia to Iberia (given widespread drought conditions)
Thermal plant closures across Western Europe (across ageing coal, nuclear & gas plants)
Fuel supply logistics driven by a combination of very low Rhine water levels (e.g. impacting barge coal delivery to German power stations) & logistical issues driven by the Russian conflict
Periods of low wind & solar output where the factors above are driving a deficit in residual generation.
The combination of these factors is pushing the power crisis onto centre stage.
Power crisis now driving the gas crisis
Europe is short molecules of gas across the next 3 years. Given lack of any material supply response across this period (in the absence of a return to higher Russian flows), there are three demand side reduction options to balance the market:
Industrial demand (already facing destruction of ~15% so far in 2022 due to higher prices)
Power sector demand
Residential & commercial demand (the sector that governments are most likely to try and protect in case of rationing).
Normally very high gas prices would incentivise reduced demand from the power sector. But going forward Europe is now short electrons as well a molecules. And the marginal source of incremental electrons comes from burning molecules.
In other words in order to keep the lights on, Europe has no alternative but to burn more gas, aside from intervention to reduce power demand which may also be coming.
A 2020 scientific analysis revealed that “models overpredict warming in every target observational analog, in most cases significantly so, and the average differences between models and observations are statistically significant.”
Scientist Ross McKitrick calls out errors of modelers that exaggerate future temperature increases.
“I get it that modeling the climate is incredibly difficult, and no one faults the scientific community for finding it a tough problem to solve,” writes McKitrick. “But we are all living with the consequences of climate modelers stubbornly using generation after generation of models that exhibit too much surface and tropospheric warming, in addition to running grossly exaggerated forcing scenarios.” (Forcing is the mechanism by which greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere.)
I earlier quoted the 97% of scientists agree there is global warming. I put this near the end because no one believes it, even those claiming that lie. It’s useful life is over and has been exposed.
Just to show how much the rest of the world and the top polluters care about this issue, look at China and India. Good job there Nancy.
China Scraps (Already Scant) Climate Cooperation Over Pelosi Taiwan Visit
The Chinese Communist Party was very displeased with U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) well-publicized visit to Taiwan reaffirming the United States’ commitment to the island’s continued independence from mainland China. To demonstrate its displeasure—in addition to the usual rattling of sabers, sending of new naval ships into the area, flying jets into Taiwanese airspace, and test-firing missiles into the sea around the island—China announced it was suspending cooperation with the United States in the fight against climate change. Heaven forbid!
China played the rest of the world’s leaders like a drum during the negotiations for the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015. In an agreement that included no mandatory reductions except what countries imposed on themselves, all China would concede was that it expected its emissions to peak by 2030, maybe 2035. Climate negotiators and leaders of environmental NGOs hailed this as a historic step. Climate realists such as I asked: Peak at what level? Chinese Communist Party leaders smirked behind their hands at their PR coup. Our question has gone unanswered to this day.
This is all supported by working people who pay excessive taxes and unnecessarily high energy bills. Some employed in the fossil fuel industry pay with loss of livelihoods. The price for the poorest among us — particularly in the developing world — may be lives lost through further impoverishment and early death.
Some climate warmists may be ignorant of science’s corruption. However, others cynically take advantage of it for money and power. At some point, this facade will collapse because of the lack of reality behind it. Nonetheless, we are obligated to do what we can to accelerate the falsehood’s dismantlement if only to honor sacrifices made by others in the name of truth.
In the 16th century, Martin Luther freed millions from the tyranny of a corrupt church by refusing to recant what he knew to be true. He managed to avoid torture and death by fire for his alleged heresies. Others were not so fortunate.
Yet our obligation is deeper than memorializing the past. As biographer Eric Metaxas writes: “In the end, what Luther did was not merely to open a door in which people were free to rebel against their leaders but to open a door in which people were obliged by God to take responsibility for themselves.”
Those who recognize the wrong can do no other than to point it out. And so we do.
Inflation is going to get harder to cure if they keep passing the green new deal crap and their latest inflation reduction act bill. In another dose of irony, this bill will worsen inflation into perpetuity.
Bringing down the Economy is part of the Cloward Piven strategy.
When you put career politicians in charge, they work for themselves, not the people.
For a few decades, they have created a crisis, only to take credit for solving it, unless there is more money to be milked.
Science and racism are current go to words for divide people to vote. Just look at the last election and think if they brought us together or divided us with lies. Everyone is now a racist or Hitler, or both.
One of my favorite ruses is global warming. It’s been around as a money crutch for decades. Let’s look.
Almost all of the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” was lies to make money. Florida, the Statue of Liberty and all the Islands are still there with the same beaches. We haven’t frozen or burned to death. In fact the weather is astonishingly similar to many centuries prior.
Enough about that as people have made up their minds to be buffaloed by the fake science or to engage in real science, which is to constantly challenge the hypothesis for truth.
I’ve spent years now saying what is coming true. The Pandemic is over, but it’s been over a long time. In fact, 99.8% of the people survived it. It is another set of lies we were fed to control the people.
Remember how the end of the world happens?
If you are thirty or younger, then you have never heard your government tell you to be anything other than afraid. “We have nothing to fear but fear itself” is just some lost relic from the past. Whatever the perceived problem these last three decades — changing climate, war, HIV, bird flu, swine flu, terrorism, religious extremism, COVID, world famine — never once has the permanent ruling class running Washington, D.C., into the ground decided that the appropriate message to broadcast to the country should be an encouraging, “Don’t worry, America, we’ve got this.” It’s always the exact opposite: “Be very afraid…about everything.” The propagandists might talk about “hope” as if they have it stored in giant crates out back, but without a doubt, every tin drum labeled “hope” is just another off-brand version of “mass fear.” And in return for gobbling up the government’s free helpings of fear, Americans have been rewarded with a broken financial system, crumbling institutions, and a rotting culture so putrid that even questioning the state’s need to sexualize children is regarded as strangely “controversial.”
What is the moral of the story? The government is crying wolf to get money, power and re-elected. Unless they say the policy is to leave you alone (and even then I wouldn’t trust it), scare mongers and politicians are out for themselves, not constituents.
Since 2010, our government has “given free money” to people. Yes, billions were siphoned off the top to people that don’t need it and were just dipping their hands in the till. There are plenty of cases documented. In the court of law, it’s called money laundering.
We’ve known about the fraud associated with the COVID relief program known as the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP):
Many who participated in what prosecutors are calling the largest fraud in U.S. history — the theft of hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money intended to help those harmed by the coronavirus pandemic — couldn’t resist purchasing luxury automobiles. Also mansions, private jet flights and swanky vacations.
They came into their riches by participating in what experts say is the theft of as much as $80 billion — or about 10 percent — of the $800 billion handed out in a Covid relief plan known as the Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP. That’s on top of the $90 billion to $400 billion believed to have been stolen from the $900 billion Covid unemployment relief program — at least half taken by international fraudsters — as NBC News reported last year. And another $80 billion potentially pilfered from a separate Covid disaster relief program.
Like hitchhiking; it’s ass, grass or cash, no one rides for free. The bill is now due and it’s being paid at the grocery store and the gas pump. I’ll give it to you that the gas pump prices don’t have to happen, but the current administration is just giving us pain. It was half the price a year and a half ago and the ability to take it back to that prices is available still, if they wanted to do it.
Pattern’s exist. They reveal themselves eventually. In the case of UPenn, it is like Watergate, follow the money.
The crap about a dude with his male equipment kicking ass on the women’s swim team and dressing in their locker room was just the tip of the iceberg. The University has been in the news for nefarious reasons lately. When nothing is done over such obvious things, which have obvious outcomes and can be obviously cured, it begins to come together.
Documents obtained by NATIONAL FILE show that the University of Pennsylvania, which hosts and funds Joe Biden’s think tank called the Penn Biden Center, directly profits from the sale of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna Coronavirus vaccines. The University gets more money if more vaccines are sold. The University of Pennsylvania also gets “milestone payments” when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves a Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. BioNTech pays the University of Pennsylvania Board of Trustees directly, and the university is protected from civil liability if people try to sue for “bodily injury” or “death” caused by BioNTech vaccines.
BioNTech signed a licensing agreement in 2018 with the University of Pennsylvania, which directly funds the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. Even though Coronavirus had not yet broken out when the deal was made, the 2018 agreement ensured massive payments for the University of Pennsylvania if its technology ended up getting used in new mRNA-based vaccines. Well, UPenn’s technology did end up getting used in the mRNA-based Coronavirus vaccine produced by Pfizer and BioNTech, and the deal has led to massive revenue for the university. Joe Biden, who was working for the University of Pennsylvania when the deal was made, received more than $900,000 from the University of Pennsylvania in the two years before he ran for president in this past election.
We are being sold out for power, money and control. I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of this and don’t want to stand for it. We need a Canadian Trucker Movement for our next election to clean out these grifters and liars.
These are merely short term affects. Soon, those who’s organs and brains that will become affected will start showing up. They will be hidden from the propaganda arm of the government, known as the MSM.
The fact that they are forcing on people should have been the wake up call for everyone, except the sheep. That they knowingly suppressed the real cure (Ivermectin, HCQ and mono-clonal anti-bodies) is a crime and against the Hippocratic Oath.
I’m not against the vaccine, but against the mandates which hurt stupid people, our economy and our country. It was about power, control and money like the rest of human history.
Great, not only doesn’t it work (unlike Ivermectin which does cure Covid) it could cause new variants. Why doesn’t the government and Pharmaceutical industry just try to cure it instead of keeping it going? Oh right, there is no money in curing the disease. There is no control when the country is free and the money is in creating new patients.
Why doesn’t the media call them to task and report the facts? Oh right, they are the propaganda arm of the government.
Why is social media banning scientists who know the truth? Oh right, curing it would end the crisis, the money and the control.
Discussion surrounding Merck’s newly-authorized COVID-19 pill, molnupiravir, has mostly concerned the risk it might pose to pregnant women. But some experts worry it could also lead to the outbreak of a new variant of the virus it’s designed to treat.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency use authorization to two antiviral pills to treat COVID-19 this week, one from Pfizer (paxlovid) and another from Merck (molnupiravir). The Pfizer EUA was generally lacking in controversy, but the authorization of molnupiravir was far more contentious.
The FDA’s Antimicrobial Drugs Advisory Committee (ADAC) voted at the end of November to recommend authorization of molnupiravir, but it was by a narrow 13-10 margin. Even the members who voted in favor did so with qualifiers: some said the pill shouldn’t be given to pregnant women, and others were skeptical of its efficacy.
“I don’t think I would want to take this drug, not knowing the effect it could have on my unborn child,” Dr. Roblena Walker, CEO of public health non-profit EMAGAHA Inc. and ADAC member, said at the time. She voted yes.
Some of the members who voted against recommending authorization expressed more serious concerns, that rather than help solve the pandemic with its 30% efficacy rate, molnupiravir could cause the breakout of a new variant.
Molnupiravir works by triggering mutations in the virus of an infected individual, and those mutations go on to eventually kill the infection, Dr. Peter Weina told the Daily Caller. Weina, an infectious disease specialist and director of the Defense Health Agency, is an ADAC member who voted against recommending authorization.
“The drug works by mutating the organism, and this is an organism in which we have a lot of mutations creating problems for us already,” Weina said. “Just like influenza and just like a lot of viruses, there’s a baseline relatively high mutation rate in these viruses. The fact is that most mutations are probably lethal to the organism, but a couple of them are going to end up being beneficial for the organism, and we’ve seen that with the successive different variants that have come out.”
In other words, while the overwhelming majority of mutations triggered by molnupiravir will do their job and kill the virus, its not inconceivable that one of those mutations could be beneficial to COVID-19 and lead to another dangerous variant…….
If you read this from time to time, sooner or later you get around to the facts I present on Climate/Global Warming and what is really behind it. If it offends you, either present me with facts how it is true (I’ll start with the movie Inconvenient (bunch of lies) Truth, or go away.
For most it is about money and control (kind of like Covid). I think Greta has been brainwashed and is being used by those who pull the strings. Knowing what I know about the autism spectrum, it is easy to do and is tragic that they’ve used her like this. They gave her a taste of fame and social media likes as a trade and there is no going back for her now.
Nevertheless, it provides me with meme material, so here it is.
This explains everything. It’s always a new scare or a threat that the world is going to end. It never does, nor do any of the predictions come through.
Both Pfizer and Merck are introducing pills that actually help cure Covid, unlike the Vaxx, which is proving to be both not effective and comes with more side effects and deaths than all others combined.
So they will now have a pill to cure them from Covid that their vaxx didn’t prevent. They’ll have to create another pill for the damage done by their jab. All of this and the cure, Ivermectin is being banned because they can’t make enough money on it.
Here is the crux of the story from The Last Refuge. You can scan this part because the selected comments really tell the story. They will be below. Note: they’ve used the Red Pill from The Matrix, like the one I have above (I took the Red Pill). Pfizer’s is a ruse.
The majority of prior studies for the COVID-19 vaccinations -writ large- generate an efficacy range around 60 to 70 percent in prevention of COVID hospitalization. The efficacy for virus infection is essentially nil. The vaccine does nothing to prevent infection or transmission; their only claims are now a reduction in hospitalization rates.
Therapeutics, preventative medicines and healthy lifestyle choices to avoid negative outcomes, have been mostly ignored, often ridiculed, and largely downplayed by politicians, media and Big Pharma. Instead their preferred collective strategy has been a massive, overemphasized and almost exclusive effort to force vaccinations as the only medical option for SARS-CoV-2 infections.
The most studied and widespread therapeutic treatment on a global scale has been the use of an oral antiviral pill known as Ivermectin and a regime of supportive medications. Japan and India have embraced the Ivermectin protocol with reported large scale success rates.
However, the U.S., Europe and Australia have focused exclusively on treating and chasing the SARS-CoV-2 virus with vaccines for the virus and boosters for the variants.
Today Pfizer, the #1 vaccine maker on a global scale, is introducing their version of a pill form of therapeutic. With Ivermectin, a Merck product, costing somewhere around 30¢/dose, it appears Pfizer sees an opening for a $xx/dose pill option to enhance their growing profit margin. It is interesting to note the Pfizer study for their pill was conducted on a non-vaccinated population.
(VIA ABC) – A course of pills developed by Pfizer can slash the risk of being hospitalized or dying from COVID-19 by 89% if taken within three days of developing symptoms, according to results released Friday by the pharmaceutical company.
The net of it is that the side effects of the Jab are about to be exposed, hurting their bottom line. They are down to jabbing kids because the dupes who got stabbed have done it and the educated have decided they don’t want it in their DNA, harming their immune systems.
Conversely, Merck doesn’t have a jab, but they have the actual cure, Ivermectin. Their problem is that it is out of patent and doesn’t make enough money. So they re-invent the same thing and voila, a new cure.
NOW THE COMMENTS
it is likely to rapidly lead to drug resistant viruses if used as a single agent (as has happened with HIV). Historically, serine proteases have problems with specificity and toxicity. that is all I can say for now.
Note: Malone invented the mRNA for Pfizer and recommends against it.
Grumpy Old Woman November 6, 2021 10:01 am Reply to Farmkid
“If ‘they’ had not repressed HCQ and Ivermectin(plus others)” then big pharma would not have been able to make billions of dollars on vaccines and boosters and thousands of people would not have died. Both outcomes were intended.
Wvvet November 6, 2021 12:30 am
I’ve read that both of these new drugs work in the same manner as Ivermectin. If you look at the chemical structure, they are similar to Ivermectin.
47Yinzer November 6, 2021 9:18 am Reply to Big Earl
If true, Pfizer has advanced to Level Two of their financial scam. First they convinced the goobermint to mandate their jabs (and pay handsomely for each one). Now they may have de-generic’d a generic drug so as to patent it, jack up the price, and get the goobermint to mandate it as well. Crony capitalism pays off handsomely, does it not.
Jocko November 6, 2021 5:47 am
Repackaged Ivermectin at 100 times the price?
IF YOU DON’T READ ANY OTHER COMMENT, READ THIS ONE
regitiger November 6, 2021 6:31 am
Fluvoxamine ( “other name”: LUVOX)Last Updated: April 23, 2021 Fluvoxamine is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) that is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder and is used for other conditions, including depression. Fluvoxamine is not FDA-approved for the treatment of any infection.
the mouth jab “pill”
Considerations in ChildrenFluvoxamine is approved by the FDA for the treatment of obsessive compulsive disorder in children aged ≥8 years.9 Adverse effects due to SSRI use seen in children are similar to those seen in adults, although children and adolescents appear to have higher rates of behavioral activation and vomiting than adults.10 There are no data on the use of fluvoxamine for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19 in children.
and NOW, for the BIG LIST….check this out and see what is going down with actual phase three trials in the sidelines right now? spot anything familiar?
Allocation:Randomized Intervention Model:Parallel Assignment Intervention Model Description:Patients will be randomly allocated to one of six treatment arms in a 1:1:1:1:1:1 ratio:
Fluvoxamine
Ivermectin
Doxazosin
Peginterferon Lambda
Peginterferon Beta
Placebo We will use a centralized random allocation schedule, generated by computer and stratified by site and age.
I will circle back with some information about the drug
Fluvoxamine
Then when time provided will do a full report on the other therapeutic drugs in the pipeline:
Severe illness enough to require hospitalization or already meeting the study’s primary endpoint for clinical deterioration
Patients who cannot take oral medication
Pregnancy or breastfeeding
History of the psychiatric disorder including major depressive disorder
Patients who are taking or took selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, serotonin and noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor, or tricyclic anti-depressants within 2 weeks
Patients who are taking an anti-epileptic drug
Patients who are taking co-prescribed drugs (as below) which are contraindicated by manufacturers due to drug-drug interaction
Alosetron, tizanidine, theophylline, clozapine, olanzapine (drugs with a narrow therapeutic index that are primarily metabolized by cytochrome P450 1A2)
Donepezil, sertraline (sigma-1 receptor agonists)
Warfarin (increased risk of bleeding)
Phenytoin (rationale: fluvoxamine inhibits its metabolism)
Clopidogrel (fluvoxamine inhibits its metabolism from pro-drug to active drug which raises the risk of cardiovascular events)
Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (linezolid, rasagiline, selegiline), triptans (sumatriptan, naratriptan, almotriptan, frovatriptan, zolmitriptan, rizatriptan), lithium, tramadol (rationale: to prevent the possible development of serotonin syndrome)
Alprazolam, diazepam (fluvoxamine modestly inhibits the metabolism of these drugs): The patient could be enrolled in case of agreeing 25% dose reduction of these medications.
Already enrolled in another COVID-19 medication trial
Medical comorbidities such as severe underlying lung disease (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on home oxygen, interstitial lung disease, pulmonary hypertension), decompensated cirrhosis, chronic viral hepatitis, congestive heart failure (stage 3 or 4 per patient report and/or medical records), chronic kidney disease, or end-stage renal disease requiring renal replacement therapy
Immuno compromised (solid organ transplant, bone-marrow transplant, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, on biologics and/or high dose steroids [>20mg prednisone per day])
Unable to provide informed consent (e.g., moderate-severe dementia diagnosis)
Unable to perform the study procedures (self-assessment of oxygen saturation, blood pressure, and temperature using self-monitoring equipment)
Here is the truth. We aren’t equal and never have been. Some are going to do better than others. Others will do worse. Some get better or worse breaks in life. Some make better or worse decisions and get the expected results. Actions have consequences. Life is tough. That is the only thing that you can count on being equal.
The current crowd of politicians is perpetuating their money grabbing policies by trying to divide the country on race, sex, ethnicity, gender (sex) and anything else they can. They are more interested in their longevity than the country’s. The two real classes are those in Washington and the rest of the country.
If they pitch one race against the other in classrooms, they are the racists. If they pitch one sex against they other, they are the sexists, misandrists or misogynists.
The communists used to divide people against each other by working class. The current crop has picked new guidelines, but ues the same tactics for power. If they can divide us, they can rule us. It is an election tactic.
There is a trope going on that the government should take care of everyone from cradle to grave. That just makes servants out of those who are subjugated and believe in this nonsense.
There are not really 2 parties behind closed doors, only in front of the media and big tech who are their accomplices and mouthpieces. They agree on almost everything that serves them.
I’m just hoping that there is going to be consequences for those trying to make a monarchy in Washington. We fought to get away from that to start our country and I hope that it can still save what is left.
Everyone has to face the fact that we have a limited lifespan. Steve Jobs found that out 10+ years ago with over $7 billion. How much is that money helping him now?
Bezos has more than anyone at this point, although Elon Musk is giving him a run for his actual money. These guys like Gates, Buffet and others have more than they can spend. As I’ve pointed out before, their currency becomes control, power and the search for meaning.
The one thing you can’t control is mortality. That’s not going to try to stop them from trying. It’s why I found it interesting that Bezos is investing in this.
“Staving off death is a thing that you have to work at,” Bezos wrote then, adding, “More generally, if living things didn’t work actively to prevent it, they would eventually merge into their surroundings, and cease to exist as autonomous beings. That is what happens when they die.”
The new company, incorporated in the US and in the UK earlier this year, will establish several institutes in places including the Bay Area, San Diego, Cambridge, UK and Japan, and is recruiting a large cadre of university scientists with lavish salaries and the promise that they can pursue unfettered blue-sky research on how cells age and how to reverse that process.
Excerpt from the link above:
Among the scientists said to be joining Altos are Juan Carlos Izpisúa Belmonte, a Spanish biologist at the Salk Institute, in La Jolla, California, who has won notoriety for research mixing human and monkey embryos and who has predicted that human lifespans could be increased by 50 years. Salk declined to comment.
Also joining is Steve Horvath, a UCLA professor and developer of a “biological clock” that can accurately measure human aging. Shinya Yamanaka, who shared a 2012 Nobel Prize for the discovery of reprogramming, will be an unpaid senior scientist and will chair the company’s scientific advisory board.
Yamanaka’s breakthrough discovery was that with the addition of just four proteins, now known as Yamanaka factors, cells can be instructed to revert to a primitive state with the properties of embryonic stem cells. By 2016, Izpisúa Belmonte’s lab had applied these factors to entire living mice, achieving signs of age reversal and leading him to term reprogramming a potential “elixir of life.”
Mid-life crisis?
It’s been said that young people dream of being rich, and rich people dream of being young. That paradox is one that people like Milner, age 59, and Bezos, who is 57 years old, may feel acutely. Forbes currently ranks Bezos as the world’s richest person, with a net worth of around $200 billion. Milner’s wealth is estimated at $4.8 billion.
Young and rich
Bezos is said to have a fairly long-standing interest in longevity research, and he previously invested in an anti-aging company called Unity Biotechnology. Rumors of the billionaire making a seismic-sized splash into the field have swirled for months.
The article goes on to mention that there are “side effects”.
The results of such mouse experiments, while tantalizing, were also frightening. Depending on how much reprogramming occurred, some mice developed ugly embryonic tumors called teratomas, even as others showed signs their tissues had become younger.
“Although there are many hurdles to overcome, there is huge potential,” Yamanaka said in an email, in which he confirmed his role in Altos.
I’VE GOT NEWS FOR YOU JEFF
Just like Jobs’ money is not doing him any good right now, Jeff can buy whatever he wants, except a few more breaths.
While the soul may be immortal, the body will never be.
How many days do we have left? I don’t know. No one does, except God. He knows the exact number of years, days, hours and seconds that I will occupy my address on Planet Earth; the exact moment that death will occur.
The government is to serve the people, not the other way around. Underneath the covers of the Covid bill (go research it, you won’t believe me even if I put the facts here, but they are in the bill) is kickback money that they have given organizations who will then contribute to the politicians.
It is a cycle that has made most in congress millionaires and fund their campaign chest for the next election.
I see it and I’m not a political operative. I hope your intelligence lets you connect the dots also. The facts and the history are there. Ruling classes for all of history vote themselves power and money and destroy nations.
“Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody.” – Franklin
I think this was referring to materialism People always want more, even when they get what they want.
King Midas wanted everything he touched to be gold, but he couldn’t eat and lost his child who was turned to gold.
I read that 4 out of 5 NFL players go bankrupt after being multimillionaires. Most lottery winners declare bankruptcy. Steve Jobs, Rockefeller’s, the Rothschild’s, Henry Ford, Howard Hughes and all of the most wealthy died stinking rich but wanting more.
You can’t serve 2 masters. It’s a quote in the Bible. You will serve one or the other, God or money. It also says that where your treasure is, so shall your heart be.
For some, it is not wealth, rather they seek fame or some hobby or a person. None of that will make you rich.
I’ve already said above where to look for answers that will give you your only source of happiness. It isn’t in material things, rather spiritual. There is nothing wrong with having material wealth, just don’t worship it.
In the song Mrs. Robinson is a line that states, Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio? I wondered the same about Al Gore. He went from front page man on global warming to I don’t hear anything about him anymore on #AGW. I wondered where he went and why?
There is a famous statement that goes: Where your treasure is, so will your heart will be also. I thought his heart was with global warming, but he’s no where to be found, so I looked for what his treasure was. If it wasn’t really global warming, what was it?
He enrolled in Divinity school so it appeared that he was looking for his treasure from God, but he didn’t finish his degree either. So what has he been chasing his whole life, really?
The rest of this post is merely an observation based on his actions throughout the years. Some will disagree, others will identify and most won’t care. No judgement is being passed, merely a commentary on the general state of man with the public record as documentation.
If you disagree or want to get into an ideological debate, please see the comments policy on the right.
According to Anthony Watts, one of the most trusted sources on Climate issues, “While preening at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2006 during the premiere of his An Inconvenient Truth fib-umentary, Gore made his grand declaration. The former vice president said, in the words of the AP reporter taking down his story, that unless drastic measures to reduce greenhouse gases are taken within the next 10 years, the world will reach a point of no return.” In Gore’s own words, he claimed we were in “a true planetary emergency.”
10 years later, there has been no measurable change in the Arctic ice. As with most of the climate predictions, it was based on prediction models. Anyone who has watched the weather knows that it is rarely right 5 days from now, let alone 5 years from now, yet he sold this snake oil and it was drunk by many or used as a political tool.
HIS EARLY TREASURE
It is common knowledge that he was funded by coal and tobacco, but people repent and so I supposed this was the case also. As of the latest search, he still hasn’t sold his fortune in Occidental stock and dividends he receives. It is nebulous as to whether he has or not, so we’ll give him a pass on it, although he’s earned $500,000 from zinc royalties (which causes environmental issues to produce) as of the last documented tax return that is public. Perhaps it is a legal reason that prevents him from selling this asset. Armand Hammer, the head of Occidental was well known for his communist ties to the Soviet Union was close to the Gore family.
Nevertheless, it appears that before global warming, it was MONEY that was more important than anything else. In the overall realm of things, climate issues appear to have only been a means to the end, or his treasure and not the end itself.
Most of what is below are documents from Climate Scientists or court records. I don’t challenge the views on climate on either side as minds are already made up. My thesis is that he was after money more than protecting the planet.
THE PATH OF HIS POLITICAL CAREER
He of course was a Senator and a Vice President for which he should be commended for serving his country.
It sticks in the craw of the Gore acolytes who generally are Bush 43 haters, that he lost. No matter how many times the media recounted the votes in Florida, Bush still won every recount. This signaled the end of his political career, but it wasn’t the treasure he was really seeking.
One thing that dogged him was that he had a low net worth compared with the other politicians who were his compatriots. I point to the fact that he wasn’t an astute investor given the fore-knowledge congress has of bills that affect corporations. They are not subject to insider trading laws, so just by being there any idiot should increase their wealth at an exponential rate as almost all have done.
AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH
This film got a lot of play despite blatant errors which were discovered in court, but then Hollywood rarely gets the truth right and a politician making a movie sort of dooms it’s necessity for truth from the beginning. It did finally start the ball rolling for his money making from global warming, a cause he had pushed uphill for years.
He also won a Nobel Peace Prize. They soon after gave one to a President who had accomplished nothing up to that point.
On January 25th, 2006, while at the Sundance film festival screening “An Inconvenient Truth”, Al Gore said this as chronicled in an article by CBS News:
The former vice president came to town for the premiere of “An Inconvenient Truth,” a documentary chronicling what has become his crusade since losing the 2000 presidential election: Educating the masses that global warming is about to toast our ecology and our way of life.
Gore has been saying it for decades, since a college class in the 1960s convinced him that greenhouse gases from oil, coal and other carbon emissions were trapping the sun’s heat in the atmosphere, resulting in a glacial meltdown that could flood much of the planet.
Americans have been hearing it for decades, wavering between belief and skepticism that it all may just be a natural part of Earth’s cyclical warming and cooling phases.
And politicians and corporations have been ignoring the issue for decades, to the point that unless drastic measures to reduce greenhouse gases are taken within the next 10 years, the world will reach a point of no return, Gore said.
He sees the situation as “a true planetary emergency.”
“If you accept the truth of that, then nothing else really matters that much,” Gore said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We have to organize quickly to come up with a coherent and really strong response, and that’s what I’m devoting myself to.”
Nothing gets lost now thanks to the internet which he invented.
“Al Gore is the principal prophet of doom in the global warming debate, and the 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth is his gospel to true believers. But Gore has misled them.”
Two years ago, British High Court Justice Michael Burton characterized Gore’s film as “alarmism and exaggeration in support of his political thesis.” The court, responding said the film was “one-sided” and could not be shown in British schools unless it contained guidelines to balance Gore’s attempt at “political indoctrination.” This is the antithesis of the scientific method which requires independent proving of a hypothesis to be true science.
Some of these are the decline of Arctic ice (there was a huge re-freeze in 2015), the decline of polar bears and the rising sea level. I was called a flat-earther for questioning the rising tides by a believer in the global warming religion, Tim O’reilly. When I asked for any proof, I received the statement that climate science is hard.
What is hard is for the weatherman to get the forecast right next week. How in the world can you predict 10 years from now? The answer of course has proven to be quite obvious. If you go to the link starting with since (above) Tim, you’ll see that this is bunk. I’ve started to look at the climate change worshipers as the real flat-earther’s now. They seem to be equally as wrong.
HE WAS PROTECTED BY THE MEDIA
The Press Protected His Cause nevertheless as errors weren’t generally reported, and despite trying to kick start the alternative energy sector, most companies didn’t succeed in the free market economy, rather used government subsidies and regulation to survive. He was wise to benefit from the government backing, increasing his fortune.
Al was the nameplate for global warming until that name got tarnished. It morphed to climate change and whatever name that didn’t lose PR favor, but it was still the same gaia cause and Al was the figurehead. It didn’t matter what he said as he had the media covering for him on this initiative.
THE FINAL FRONTIER, HOW HE FOUND HIS HEART’S TREASURE
He started a TV channel, sat on the board of Apple (for which he benefited handsomely) and other money making ventures. While it did nothing to affect Climate change issues to speak of, this appears to be the treasure he was really seeking. He sold Current TV to Al-Jazeera, an oil funded carbon spewing country for hundreds of millions, and that was the antithesis of what he was preaching to the warmers. Al-Jazeera has closed doors on this project in 2016 having not been able to gain an audience in the US. Again, the media was mostly silent, he was one of theirs.
In selling the network to the huge oil producing carbon emitters, he Found the treasure he sought, but sold Out his followers in a big way. It doesn’t matter because what is done, is done. His record is there for history to judge. He is a rich man and now he is seeking ways to release his inner chakra, too bad for Tipper. Name calling for anyone who challenges the “settled science” has been the norm, but it turns out that they are the real flat earthers as they love to call anyone who doesn’t agree with them.
SO WHAT WAS THE REAL TREASURE IN HIS HEART?
Here is where we get to the answer. He was after the money, that was where his treasure really was, gathering wealth. The reason we haven’t heard from him is he is rich and got people to buy into what he was selling. He has big houses with carbon footprints of cities. He flies on private jets to conferences and stays in huge suites, and harass massage therapists.
He got his real treasure which was the dollar, and is riding happily into the sunset a very rich man.
Just like the Mayan calendar in 2012, the earth didn’t end or drown, but we won’t hear anything on Al flying in private jets either. It seems he is the biggest flat Earther of all.
Maybe the delusional devotees who have bought into the weather lie include Tim O’Reilly, who could only tell me that climate science is difficult when he couldn’t explain why the oceans aren’t rising when I asked him. Perhaps he will look past his devotion to this Gaia worship and see the facts, although I don’t expect him to admit both the error in judgement and the fact that he has completely shelved science for ideology. Other devotees like Tom Raftery at GreenMonk have gone out of business because they couldn’t make enough money (bilk companies) or get enough government subsidies. James Governor who helped found Greenmonk told me that he would “save” the planet or make money trying. None of these new Flat-Earthers can explain why it is cooler now than when Al received the Nobel Prize.
They have bought into the lie that Al was peddling and should have invested with him since he was after the money and would do or say whatever he needed to do to achieve it. James in fact never either saved the world or got rich trying.
This was years before Al Gore’s revelation that he was just after the money, so it seems that the climate changers are really just greedy. That makes them the real “Flat-Earthers”.
Here is a recent protest by the Climate change supporters:
A few years ago in a small town, robbers entered a bank and one of them shouted: “Don’t move! The money belongs to the bank. Your lives belong to you. Immediately all the people in the bank laid on the floor quietly and without panic.
This is an example of how the correct wording of a sentence can make everyone change their world view.
One woman lay on the floor in a provocative manner. The robber approached her saying, ” Ma’am, this is a robbery not a rape. Please behave accordingly.”
This is an example of how to behave professionally, and focus on the goal.
While running from the bank the young robber (who had a college degree) said to the older robber (who barely finished elementary school): “Hey, maybe we should count how much we stole.” The older man replied: “Don’t be stupid. It’s a lot of money so let’s wait for the news to be told how much money was taken from the bank.”
This is an example of how life experience is more important than a degree.
After the robbery, the manager of the bank said to his accountant: “Let’s call the cops.” The accountant said: “Wait, before we do that let’s add the $800,000 to the robbery of that we took to ourselves a few months ago and just say that it was stolen.”
This is an example of taking advantage of an opportunity.
The following day it was reported in the news that the bank was robbed of $ 3 million. The robbers counted the money, but they found only $1 million so they started to grumble. “We risked our lives for $1 million, while the bank’s management robbed two million dollars without blinking? Maybe its better to learn how to work the system, instead of being a simple robber.”
This is an example of how knowledge can be more useful than power.
Moral :Give a person a gun, and he can rob a bank . Give a person a bank, and he can rob everyone.
If your credit score has fallen recently, due to a missed payment or two, or perhaps you have too much credit outstanding, there are some simple ways you can improve on your credit score that will get it back on the right track. Doing a combination of several of these could see your credit score rise significantly in just the next few months – and that goes for your credit score at each credit repository.
This may sound beyond obvious, but if you have any late payments in the past year or two, they’re having a disproportionately negative impact on your credit score. You can’t fix this overnight, but the best strategy going forward is to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.
One of the more fortunate aspects of credit scores is that the older negative information gets, the less impact it has. This is why it is so critical that you put any negative credit situations into your past as soon as possible. If you have a late payment that you made three months ago, you may not be able to do anything about that now, but if you make your payments on time for the next nine months, you’ll put that late payment one year into your past. By then, your credit scores should once again begin to rise. But this will happen only if there are no delinquencies in the future.
2. Take a time out on credit.
The credit scoring models favor older, established debt. Conversely, they take a dimmer view of new debt. For this reason, if you’re looking to improve your credit scores, it will help to avoid applying for and accepting new loans. This will be even more important if you have taken a new loan or two in the very recent past.
This will help your credit scores on two fronts. First, any time you apply for credit, your credit report will show a credit inquiry. While credit inquiries do not have a big impact on your credit score, the one they have is definitely negative. If you apply for credit with several lenders over a space of one or two months, the combined impact could be more significant. By not applying for new credit, you will not be adding new inquiries to your credit report.
The second of course is that any time you take a new loan, you receive a negative hit on your credit reports because of the lack of payment experience. You’ll avoid this hit by not taking any new loans.
3. Pay off small balance accounts.
Another factor the credit scoring models consider is the number of loans you have outstanding. In general, a person with three outstanding loans will have a better credit score that someone who has ten outstanding loans.
For this reason, you might want to pay off some of your loans starting with the smallest. If you have seven loans outstanding, and you can pay off three of them with combined balances of $1,000, you will have reduced the number of loans with outstanding balances down to four.
While this may not cause your credit scores to rise by a hundred points, it could cause a smaller increase but one that will happen pretty quickly. This is one of the best ways to get upside action on your credit scores in short order.
4. Pay down a few debts.
This one is big time, and is usually referred to as credit utilization. The credit repositories measure the percentage of outstanding debt against your amount of available credit. If you have $15,000 in outstanding balances on open credit lines of $20,000, your credit utilization is 75% (or $15,000 divided by $20,000).
For comparison sake, credit repositories generally consider a credit utilization of 80% or greater to be a negative. Less than 80% is considered a positive. It is of course a matter of degree; the lower the credit utilization, the more positive the impact on your credit scores. The higher the credit utilization, the greater the negative impact will be.
Credit utilization is considered one of the best predictors of debtor default. This is why it carries such a heavy impact on your credit scores. And even if your credit scores are good despite a high credit utilization, a lender may still make a decision not to extend a loan to you.
In order to improve on this critical metric it is important that you pay your loans down to a level in which they will be at least below 80% of available credit. You should try to get each loan account down below this percentage, as well as for the combination of all of your loan accounts. This is another strategy that can improve your credit scores pretty quickly – by lowering your credit utilization, you lower your risk of default according to the credit scoring models.
5. Check your credit report for errors.
You should review your credit report at least annually to look for errors. Many contain errors that have a negative impact on your credit scores. For example, you could have loan accounts included in your credit report that are not yours. This will increase the amount of debt that you’re carrying, and lower your credit scores.
Worse is if you have derogatory credit that is either not yours, or is reported in error. Unfortunately, when you have derogatory credit, the responsibility to clear it up rests completely upon you – even if the entry is in error. You’ll have to contact the creditor to ask them to correct the information reported. Usually, in order to do that, you’ll have to present some sort of tangible evidence that what the creditor reported was in fact an error. If you don’t have this evidence, the creditor will probably not remove the information.
Once any errors are corrected, you’ll have to specifically request that the creditor remove the derogatory information from your credit report. You should also obtain written confirmation that the entry was an error from the creditor. Just in case the creditor doesn’t get around to reporting the corrected information to the credit repositories, you will then have written evidence to do it yourself.
6. Pay off any collections, charge-offs or other past due amounts.
If you have any outstanding obligations – even if they’re well in the past – they will still be having a negative affect on your credit scores as long as they are showing up in your credit report. Make arrangements to pay them off, and make sure that you get a letter of confirmation from the creditor. The creditor should report this information to the credit repositories, but once again, if they don’t you will have to do it yourself.
Never assume that outstanding balances don’t matter because they’re five or six years old. Paying them off is another way to provide a quick lift to your credit scores, especially if you’re paying off more than one.
Take as many of these steps as you can, and you should be able improve all of your credit scores in just a few months, if not sooner.
If you need additional help improving your credit score you can hire a credit repair company like CreditRepair.com or Lexington Law.
Back to my theme of how the average Joe can be a millionaire, here’s how most people waste money. If you didn’t do these, here is an extra $100k for your pocket
Lesson #1:
U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
* Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000
* New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
* National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
* Recent budget cuts: $ 38,500,000,000
Let’s now remove 8 zeros and pretend it’s a household budget using the
Same numbers:
* 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 so far: $385.00
Easier to understand ??…….OK now,
Lesson #2:
Here’s another way to look at the Debt Ceiling:
Let’s say, You come home from work and find
There has been a sewer backup in your neighborhood….
And your home has sewage all the way up to your ceilings.
What do you think you should do ……
Raise the ceilings, or remove the sewage?
I am not the author, but this is one of the most important financial decisions you’ll make (the other is tithing) The whole article can be found here:
One of my good friends, “Judge Rob,” is a local, elected judge who also owns a small family business. Judge Rob paraphrased Warren Buffett when we were discussing mortgages over a recent breakfast, saying, “If I knew where I was going to live for the next decade or so, I would buy a house with a long-term mortgage.” The idea is that a mortgage is a good hedge against inflation because you pay it off with much cheaper dollars down the road.
Today, many pundits point to low interest rates and encourage people to borrow as much as they can while interest rates are low. While they do have a good point, deciding when to pay off my own mortgage caused a great deal of conflict between the logical and emotional parts of my brain.
In the early days of black-and-white television, much of the programming was old, silent movies. Who can forget the little old widow, confronted by the evil, rich banker, who licked his chops at the opportunity to throw her out as her mortgage payment came due? As the deadline got closer, the piano would bang louder and faster, and somehow Widow Nell would make her payment in the nick of time. Was I programmed by my generation’s version of Sesame Street?
There’s Something to Being “Old School”
I spent a good bit of my breakfast with Judge Rob in “Yes, but!” mode. Here’s why.
When I was contemplating paying off my mortgage, I spoke with a CPA who also happened to be a financial advisor recommended by a good friend. I explained that I was self-employed, so my income fluctuated, and my mortgage was my largest monthly bill. I suggested that there could be some emotional benefit to paying it off. Less stress perhaps?
He insisted that I could invest and out-earn the cost of my first mortgage. He pooh-poohed the idea of paying it off to calm my nerves, and kept repeating that I could easily invest my money and earn more after taxes than the cost of the first mortgage.
When I asked if his mortgage was paid off, he responded with, “Oh, hell yes!” I was flabbergasted. How could he advise me to do one thing when he’d done the exact opposite? He explained that his wife was from Germany – the old school where you pay your bills, don’t borrow money, and stay out of debt.
Then I asked him, “Once you paid off your mortgage, did you sleep better at night?” He pondered a bit and said, “Yeah, I guess I did. I no longer worried about it. No matter how bad things got, we would still have a roof over our heads.”
When I asked Vedran Vuk, our senior research analyst, about when to pay off a first mortgage, he made some excellent points. First, you should no longer view your house as an investment that’s going to rapidly appreciate as it did in the past. A house is a home, and you should look at it that way. Second, right now a mortgage can make sense from an investment perspective. If you can borrow money at 3.5%, invest it, and earn a guaranteed higher return on it, you’ll come out ahead.
The real question becomes: where can you find a guaranteed greater return, even with the low mortgage rates available today? The government is committed to keeping interest rates artificially low for the foreseeable future. Yields on CDs and high-quality bonds are pathetic.
I just checked my brokerage account, and the longest CD they have available is a five-year CD paying 1.15%. A 30-year Treasury bond will pay 2.8%. Neither holds any appeal for me, particularly if I were investing with borrowed money.
If you’ve found an investment that’s a lead-pipe cinch – one that’s absolutely, positively going to pay off – and a low mortgage rate, you may want to roll the dice. However, I want to add one more note of caution.
The upcoming issue of Money Forever‘s premium subscription, which we’re releasing on December 18, takes an in-depth look at reverse mortgages, one of the most controversial ways to help fund your retirement. Our team will explain reverse mortgages in easily understood terms, highlight pitfalls to avoid, and explain how a reverse mortgage is a good way for some (but not all) folks to fund their retirement and maintain their lifestyle.
Before obtaining a reverse mortgage you must go through HUD counseling. While researching our upcoming report, I came across a study of over 20,000 people who had been through HUD counseling between September 2010 and November 2010. A few statistics really jumped off the page!
In 2000, the average age of people receiving reverse mortgages was 73 years old. By November 2010, the average age had dropped to 71.5, and it’s continuing to decline. In other words, retirees are tapping into their home equity at an increasingly younger age, many because they have no other choice.
It was also interesting to learn why these folks wanted a reverse mortgage. In the 70-and-older group, 38% still had mortgage debt. Seventy-one percent owed 25% or more on the current value of their home, and 33% had a mortgage in excess of 50% of the value of their home. Many wanted a reverse mortgage because they could not service their existing debt. A reverse mortgage is based on the net equity in your home. If their homes were paid for, meaning no huge house payment, perhaps they could have put off the reverse mortgage for a few more years. The older the applicant, the higher monthly payment they receive.
I wonder how many of these folks lost money betting on their lead-pipe cinch investment because they had been nudged along by their CPA.
My point is simple. For most baby boomers and retirees, their home is their largest asset. You don’t want to live like the little old widow in a black-and-white film, worrying about getting thrown out of your home, particularly if you’re no longer working.
Nevertheless, if you had a mortgage with a 3.5% interest rate and we were still living in a world where a top-quality bond or CD would pay you 5% or more, it could make sense to take advantage of it. But that’s not the world of today.
Ideally, you would pay off your mortgage and then use the money you’d been setting aside for payments to build a nice portfolio. For many folks, home equity is like a security blanket – and a potential source of income for when they may really need it.
The Judge’s Word Isn’t Always Law
As I left our breakfast meeting, I shared a few parting comments with Judge Rob. The mortgage conundrum has both financial and emotional factors. Paying off your mortgage is a milestone; it really does change your life. I certainly sleep better, and my blood pressure probably dropped ten points. It was the point when my wife and I actually started accumulating true wealth.
Two disturbing articles came my way. I watch the economy and look for trends. I found two that are similar because of political policies, yet would be so easy to fix if the respective governments would stop spending, handing out money to those who don’t deserve it, stop handing to themselves and stop the regulations.
We are headed into a depression and it appears that is what the governments want. History shows they can control a distressed population more easily than a productive, self-reliant successful one…so the preponderance of evidence shows it is intentional.
You’ve been warned, get out of debt, get a strong cash position, stock up on supplies (they are much cheaper now before inflation) and do everything you can to be self reliant rather than convenient. This is against all the pundits who want you to buy into this is just a phase, just like right about 1926.
#1 According to the World Bank, U.S. GDP accounted for 31.8 percent of all global economic activity in 2001. That number dropped to 21.6 percent in 2011. That is not just a decline – that is a freefall. Just check out the chart in this article.
#2 According to The Economist, the United States was the best place in the world to be born into back in 1988. Today, the United States is only tied for 16th place.
#3 The United States has fallen in the global economic competitiveness rankings compiled by the World Economic Forum for four years in a row.
#4 According to the Wall Street Journal, of the 40 biggest publicly traded corporate spenders, half of them plan to reduce capital expenditures in coming months.
#5 More than three times as many new homes were sold in the United States in 2005 as will be sold in 2012.
#6 America once had the greatest manufacturing cities on the face of the earth. Now many of our formerly great manufacturing cities have degenerated into festering hellholes. For example, the city of Detroit is on the verge of financial collapse, and one state lawmaker is now saying that “dissolving Detroit” should be looked at as an option.
#7 In 2007, the unemployment rate for the 20 to 29 age bracket was about 6.5 percent. Today, the unemployment rate for that same age group is about 13 percent.
#9 If you can believe it, approximately one out of every four American workers makes 10 dollars an hour or less.
#10 Sadly, 60 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession were mid-wage jobs, but 58 percent of the jobs created since then have been low wage jobs.
#11 Median household income in America has fallen for four consecutive years. Overall, it has declined by over $4000 during that time span.
#12 The U.S. trade deficit with China during 2011 was 28 times larger than it was back in 1990.
#13 Incredibly, more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities in the United States have been shut down since 2001. During 2010, manufacturing facilities were shutting down at the rate of 23 per day. How can anyone say that “things are getting better” when our economic infrastructure is being absolutely gutted?
#14 Back in early 2005, the average price of a gallon of gasoline was less than 2 dollars a gallon. During 2012, the average price of a gallon of gasoline has been $3.63.
#15 In 1999, 64.1 percent of all Americans were covered by employment-based health insurance. Today, only 55.1 percent are covered by employment-based health insurance.
#16 As I have written about previously, 61 percent of all Americans were “middle income” back in 1971 according to the Pew Research Center. Today, only 51 percent of all Americans are “middle income”.
#17 There are now 20.2 million Americans that spend more than half of their incomes on housing. That represents a 46 percent increase from 2001.
#18 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the poverty rate for children living in the United States is about 22 percent.
#19 Back in 1983, the bottom 95 percent of all income earners in the United States had 62 cents of debt for every dollar that they earned. By 2007, that figure had soared to $1.48.
#20 Total home mortgage debt in the United States is now about 5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago.
#21 Total credit card debt in the United States is now more than 8 times larger than it was just 30 years ago.
#22 The value of the U.S. dollar has declined by more than 96 percent since the Federal Reserve was first created.
#24 Back in 1950, 78 percent of all households in the United States contained a married couple. Today, that number has declined to 48 percent.
#25 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 49 percent of all Americans live in a home that receives direct monetary benefits from the federal government. Back in 1983, less than a third of all Americans lived in a home that received direct monetary benefits from the federal government.
#26 In 1980, government transfer payments accounted for just 11.7 percent of all income. Today, government transfer payments account for more than 18 percent of all income.
#27 In November 2008, 30.8 million Americans were on food stamps. Today, 47.1 million Americans are on food stamps.
#29 As I wrote about the other day, according to one calculation the number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the combined populations of “Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.”
#30 Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid. Today, one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid, and things are about to get a whole lot worse. It is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.
#31 In 2001, the U.S. national debt was less than 6 trillion dollars. Today, it is over 16 trillion dollars and it is increasing by more than 100 million dollars every single hour.
#32 The U.S. national debt is now more than 23 times larger than it was when Jimmy Carter became president.
#33 According to a PBS report from earlier this year, U.S. households that make $13,000 or less per year spend 9 percent of their incomes on lottery tickets. Could that possibly be accurate? Are people really that foolish?
#34 As the U.S. economy has declined, the American people have been downing more antidepressants and other prescription drugs than ever before. In fact, the American people spent 60 billion dollars more on prescription drugs in 2010 than they did in 2005.
2. Unemployment in the eurozone has hit a brand new all-time record high of 11.7 percent.
3. The unemployment rate in Portugal is now up to 16.3 percent. A year ago it was just 13.7 percent.
4. The unemployment rate in Greece is now up to 25.4 percent. A year ago it was just 18.4 percent.
5. The unemployment rate in Spain has hit a brand new all-time record high of 26.2 percent. How much higher can it possibly go? This is already higher than the unemployment rate in the United States ever reached during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
6. Youth unemployment levels in both Greece and Spain are rapidly approaching the 60 percent level.
7. Earlier this month, Moody’s stripped France of its AAA credit rating, and wealthy individuals are leaving France in droves as the socialists implement plans to raise taxes to very high levels on the rich.
8. Industrial production is collapsing all over Europe. Just check out these numbers…
You don’t have to be an economic genius to understand that the perpetual uncertainty over the Eurozone’s future has led to a widespread freeze on industrial investment and development. Industrial production is collapsing at an accelerating rate, falling 7% year-on-year in Spain and Greece, 4.8% in Italy, and 2.1% in France.
9. There are even trouble signs in the “stable” economies in Europe. In Germany, factory orders in September were down 3.3 percent from the month before, and retail sales in October declined 2.8 percent from the previous month.
10. The debt of the Greek government is now projected to hit 189 percent of GDP by the end of this year.
11. The Greek economy has shrunk by more than 7 percent this year, and it is being projected that the Greek economy will contract by another 4.5 percent in 2013.
But sometimes you can’t really get a feel for how bad things really are over there just from the raw economic numbers.
Many people that are living through these depression-like conditions are totally giving in to despair. Just check out the following example from an RT article from earlier this year…
A 61-year-old Greek pensioner has hung himself from a tree in a public park after succumbing to the pressure of crushing debt. A note in his pocket indicates he is merely the latest in a rash of economic crisis-induced suicides.
The pensioner’s lifeless body was found dangling by an attendant in a public park not far from his home in the suburb of Nikaia, Athens. The attendant also found a suicide note in the man’s pocket, The Athens news reports.
The man, identifying himself as Alexandros, said he was a man of few vices who “worked all day.” However, he blamed himself from committing one “horrendous crime”: becoming a professional at the age of 40 and plunging himself into debt. He referred to himself as a 61-year-old idiot who had to pay, hoping his grandchildren would not be born in Greece, as the country’s prospects were so bleak.
Economists have either followed Friedman or Keynes for Economic Theory over the last century. Keynes is being used currently and you can judge the results for yourself. For me, it does not seem to work, nor has history shown it to have worked for any of the presidents who have based their administration on Keynesian theory anywhere in the world.
I quote one of the best authors of our generation on economics for this article.
If Milton Friedman were alive today — and there was never a time when he was more needed — he would be one hundred years old. He was born on July 31, 1912. But Professor Friedman’s death at age 94 deprived the nation of one of those rare thinkers who had both genius and common sense.
Most people would not be able to understand the complex economic analysis that won him a Nobel Prize, but people with no knowledge of economics had no trouble understanding his popular books like “Free to Choose” or the TV series of the same name.
In being able to express himself at both the highest level of his profession and also at a level that the average person could readily understand, Milton Friedman was like the economist whose theories and persona were most different from his own — John Maynard Keynes.
Like many, if not most, people who became prominent as opponents of the left, Professor Friedman began on the left. Decades later, looking back at a statement of his own from his early years, he said: “The most striking feature of this statement is how thoroughly Keynesian it is.” No one converted Milton Friedman, either in economics or in his views on social policy. His own research, analysis and experience converted him.
As a professor, he did not attempt to convert students to his political views. I made no secret of the fact that I was a Marxist when I was a student in Professor Friedman’s course, but he made no effort to change my views. He once said that anybody who was easily converted was not worth converting.
I was still a Marxist after taking Professor Friedman’s class. Working as an economist in the government converted me.
What Milton Friedman is best known for as an economist was his opposition to Keynesian economics, which had largely swept the economics profession on both sides of the Atlantic, with the notable exception of the University of Chicago, where Friedman was both trained as a student and later taught.
In the heyday of Keynesian economics, many economists believed that inflationary government policies could reduce unemployment, and early empirical data seemed to support that view. The inference was that the government could make careful trade-offs between inflation and unemployment, and thus “fine tune” the economy.
Milton Friedman challenged this view with both facts and analysis. He showed that the relationship between inflation and unemployment held only in the short run, when the inflation was unexpected. But, after everyone got used to inflation, unemployment could be just as high with high inflation as it had been with low inflation.
When both unemployment and inflation rose at the same time in the 1970s — “stagflation,” as it was called — the idea of the government “fine tuning” the economy faded away. There are still some die-hard Keynesians today who keep insisting that the government’s “stimulus” spending would have worked, if only it was bigger and lasted longer.
This is one of those heads-I-win-and-tails-you-lose arguments. Even if the government spends itself into bankruptcy and the economy still does not recover, Keynesians can always say that it would have worked if only the government had spent more.
Although Milton Friedman became someone regarded as a conservative icon, he considered himself a liberal in the original sense of the word — someone who believes in the liberty of the individual, free of government intrusions. Far from trying to conserve things as they are, he wrote a book titled “Tyranny of the Status Quo.”
Milton Friedman proposed radical changes in policies and institution ranging from the public schools to the Federal Reserve. It is liberals who want to conserve and expand the welfare state.
As a student of Professor Friedman back in 1960, I was struck by two things — his tough grading standards and the fact that he had a black secretary. This was years before affirmative action. People on the left exhibit blacks as mascots. But I never heard Milton Friedman say that he had a black secretary, though she was with him for decades. Both his grading standards and his refusal to try to be politically correct increased my respect for him.
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His website is www.tsowell.com.
He also wrote this:
When both unemployment and inflation rose at the same time in the 1970s —”stagflation,” as it was called — the idea of the government “fine tuning” the economy faded away. There are still some die-hard Keynesians today who keep insisting that the government’s “stimulus” spending would have worked, if only it was bigger and lasted longer.
This is one of those heads-I-win-and-tails-you-lose arguments. Even if the government spends itself into bankruptcy and the economy still does not recover, Keynesians can always say that it would have worked if only the government had spent more.
Although Milton Friedman became someone regarded as a conservative icon, he considered himself a liberal in the original sense of the word — someone who believes in the liberty of the individual, free of government intrusions. Far from trying to conserve things as they are, he wrote a book titled “Tyranny of the Status Quo.”
Milton Friedman proposed radical changes in policies and institutions ranging from the public schools to the Federal Reserve. It is liberals who want to conserve and expand the welfare state.
As a student of Professor Friedman back in 1960, I was struck by two things — his tough grading standards and the fact that he had a black secretary. This was years before affirmative action. People on the left exhibit blacks as mascots. But I never heard Milton Friedman say that he had a black secretary, though she was with him for decades. Both his grading standards and his refusal to try to be politically correct increased my respect for him.
Notice that I didn’t use the words becoming rich. Having a full life, belief in God, friends, family or a passion for doing something is rich. Becoming a millionaire is about money.
Next, this subject has been addressed by the more knowledgeable than I, but I’m going to talk to the average Joe like me, which is the likely reader here.
Finally, I don’t claim to know it all, nor do I claim to be in any financial category. I do observe trends and try to learn from them. Hopefully I’m eating my own dogfood.
HOW IT IS DONE
It is simple math. You either make money or spend less, or a combination of the two. I realize that we have a burdensome government, a tough economy and a next to impossible IRS tax code. In fact the real unemployment number is not what you read in the main stream media, but the U6 rate which as of this writing is 14.5%.
For the purposes of becoming a millionaire, we will assume employment. That means get a job instead of living on entitlements, because that will disqualify you from this discussion.
Sure it is easy to have received Facebook stock or have invented Facebook, but the average millionaire doesn’t have that at their discretion.
USE YOUR MONEY TO MAKE MONEY
This means compounding what you have in ways other than just putting it in the bank. I had a roommate who was a stockbroker and he told me many stories of secretaries making minimum wage who came to him at retirement with 7 figure 401K accounts. They saved in a way that maximized the return on their investment. This usually involves a company match and some diversification. It also assumes that you take risk when you are younger and seek advice or study investing voraciously as it is a mystery to most….despite the fact that everyone thinks they know about it.
Part of your diversification also means not putting everything in the stock market. As an example, real estate has just undergone a busted bubble (thanks to the Community Reinvestment Act which never should have been enacted), but it means there are properties to be had for a song right now and are ripe for the picking. They will grow and become more valuable. My advice is no different from what you’d expect. Start out small and work your way up. That process allows you to learn about what value really is, and compound your earnings into larger investments that have bigger payoffs.
There are many other ways, but the concept is the same, save and invest wisely by starting small and growing your profits and portfolio. You must also study and read or you could throw your money down the drain if you think you know everything. It also involves patience. If you recall the story from my roommate, it was saving and investing over a lifetime
HOW TO LEARN
There are articles ad-infinitum to read about the aforementioned. The other way is to talk to people who have done this. I suggest that you start with Dave Ramsey or Crown Financial Ministries if you are starting out (or are in trouble, or anywhere in between). It is a tried and true method of handling you money.
Who you talk to also matters. There are people who talk in $10’s of thousands, $100’s of thousands, millions or Zuckerberg’s and Gates’. I suggest you seek out those who are in the highest category possible as you need to think big in making and investing. I don’t have coffee with Warren Buffet, but his advice is readily available.
Find those who are successful and ask them how they did it. I’m betting that you’ll find there is no secret code or magic key, they just worked at it and kept their long-term goals of financial independence in mind, and kept check over their human nature.
SAVE YOUR MONEY
The other side of the equation is savings. In other words you need to spend less and when you do, spend wisely. Of the people I worked with at my last job, many were high salaried executives who were in debt because they had a keeping up with (or passing) the Jones mentality. This was especially true of those in the New York area for some reason (but demographics shouldn’t really matter). They had big houses with unfurnished rooms because they were house poor. Living within your means is important which is my next segue.
NEED VS. WANT
Including the basics of food, clothing and shelter, one has to look at the way one buys things. Most buy what they want rather than what they need. If you adopt the buy it tomorrow instead of now mentality, you likely will realize that you don’t really want it as badly as you think.
There is the adequacy (not delusions of adequacy ;-)) vs. luxury mentality also. A Casio, Timex or Seiko watch tell as good of time as does a Rolex, so unless you have money to burn, why are you buying the Rolex? This applies to cars, clothes or virtually any tangible item. Ask yourself, self do I need this/do I need to have the very best/am I showing off or would what I can really afford what I have? I have relatives who have to have the very best, but have wasted as much money as I’ve earned on things to show off.
My son said that some people need to wear their paycheck. You can see them coming down the road in cars that are raised with shiny rims and a 24 thousand watt stereo. Others have to order the best wine, food and show off at restaurants (my brother-in-law).
But what if Ranger Rich is like many people who define rich in terms of income instead of net worth? Certainly many drivers feel the need to display their socioeconomic achievements by acquiring prestige makes of motor vehicles. They may think that those who are successful in generating high incomes drive luxury brands. And correspondingly drivers of more common makes have dull normal income credentials. But the hard data suggest that the level of prestige of a car and the income of its driver are not anywhere near being perfect correlates. In fact, many drivers of luxury makes have neither the levels of income nor net worth which would qualify them as high economic achievers.
Along these lines, Joann Muller, writing for Forbes.com, poses “what the rich people really drive.” She defines rich people in terms of income, not net worth.
. . . the richest people were the most likely to buy luxury brands [39% for people with household income above $250,000 vs. 8% for those people who earn less than $100,000 a year].
. . .61% of people who earn $250,000 or more aren’t buying luxury brands at all.
Her analysis indicates that those households with high incomes are more likely to drive luxury cars. But just because someone is driving a luxury brand it does not necessarily mean that the driver has a high income or a high net worth, for that matter.
You have to spend on things that will appreciate, not sparkle. Again, my relatives are the worst offenders who have overspent on toys, baubles, cars and anything else they can waste their money on. It baffles me. When they bought real estate, they over paid, over leveraged and bought for show instead of ROI.
DEBT AND LEVERAGE
This gets most people in trouble. If you can’t pay off your credit card each month, you effectively are paying more for what you bought (because of the interest). Compounding works for debt in the same way as it does for savings. It is the accumulation that is the issue. I’m not just picking on credit cards, anything can be substituted here. If you saved first, you could buy it for less and your want will likely decrease.
For housing, it used to be that you had to put at least 10% down, but due to the above mentioned CRA (can you tell I loathe that legislation?) one could buy a house they couldn’t afford because they were told they qualified for it…. with no money down. You were PLAYED for a fool on this. Living below your means is the best policy.
If you care to splurge on something, it’s OK….just don’t borrow.
The same can be said for leverage. I’ll stay on housing here. Banks will always want you to buy more as the more you borrow, the richer they get. Typically one is paying at least 3 times the amount for a big-ticket item buy leveraging which brings me to my next segue.
PAY OFF YOUR HOUSE
The wisest know that man can not serve two masters. When you have a huge mortgage hanging over your head, it is your boss/master/slave driver/keep you up at night worry/cause of divorce or many other calamities. The bank won’t be calling on you to take your home away nor will you have to file bankruptcy (again, my relatives).
Besides owning a house within or below your means, paying it off early is the best way to get out of debt and improve your cash flow. Take out a mortgage less than 30 years, pay more than the minimum and do everything you can to pay it off early.
Forget the argument that it is a tax deduction. Congress is aiming at trying to take that away as I type. Also, any money you get back on taxes is just an interest free loan to the government at your expense.
By doing this, for most people it will likely be one of the best long-term financial decisions they can make.
In The Millionaire Next Door I quoted the words of a corporate sales professional, a millionaire whom I interviewed. He like other self made millionaires said that he had a “go to hell fund. . . just in case my employer suggests (insists) that I leave Austin for corporate headquarters in Rottenchester.” He never had to leave Austin and he added, “PTL.” In other words, [the millionaires next door] have accumulated enough wealth to live without working for ten or more years.
I was reminded of these words of wisdom after reviewing an email from Ms. F who currently resides in a lovely community in the Southern United States:
I went to my local library this morning, hoping to borrow The Millionaire Next Door. However, the only available book was in Spanish, so I borrowed “Millionaire Women Next Door” instead. By the time I completed the second paragraph on page 8, I had collapsed in a fit of “craughter” – simultaneously crying and laughing at my sad truth. My newest work assignment is no less than 8,200 miles, 18 hours of flying time and 12 time zones away from everyone who means the most to me in this world. Simply put, the situation stinks, but I had convinced myself that it was necessary to pay the bills. Suffice it to say that I have renewed by concerted efforts to become a cultivator of wealth, and I plan to share my transformation with you soon. Thank you for creating this compilation of evidence-based encouragement!
What precipitated Ms. F “crying and laughing?” Consider the words from Millionaire Women Next Door:
Aren’t you growing tired of being among the ranks of hunter-gatherers? Do you enjoy your hyper consumption lifestyle so much that you must fly out of town every week to earn a paycheck to pay your bills? . . . begin making the transformation to a cultivator of wealth. Think about that the next time you are ten thousand miles from home, surrounded by strangers, and flying in dreadful weather. It is up to you. Do you want to spend your life as a hunter and gatherer of income, earning a million mileage points? . . . those financially indpendent folks. . . . They make their own decisions about their next destination. Right now, you and your career are essentially corporate property. Neither one of you has the luxury of self-determination.
I also stated that:
The [millionaire business] women profiled herein will not tolerate such an existence. They are free. They are cultivators of wealth and satisfied with life. They are in control of their own destiny.
People who believe that they will never become wealthy generally fulfill this hypothesis. I explained to Brit, who was once a member of the ultimate income statement affluent club, that he has an excellent chance of becoming a millionaire next door type and that the typical millionaire next door is 57 years old. The Bible states that those with faith and hope can achieve a great deal. Even those with faith the size of a grain of mustard seed will likely reach their intended goals.
The will and discipline that this couple demonstrated in paying off its considerable debt is telling. The same determination can be used in setting aside at least 15% of their income for savings and investing.
What should you anticipate as a typical member of the millionaire next door fraternity? One, given the calculation via the Wealth Equation, actual net worth exceeds its expected value by a factor of 2 or more. Two, the market value of the home is less than 20% of net worth. Three, debt totals the equivalent of less than 5% of net worth. Four, annual income tax is the equivalent of about 2% of net worth. Five, total annual realized income is approximately 8.2% of net worth [median], or the equivalent of $8.20 of income for about every $100 of wealth.
This $8.20 figure from my own research is fairly congruent with the findings of other researchers. For example, three scholars employed by the Treasury Department, Johnson, Raub and Newcomb, compared the wealth characteristics of millionaires via 36,352 federal estate returns who passed away in 2007 with the incomes of these decedents when they were living. Those millionaires who were married and under the age of 70 [like the large majority of the millionaire next door types that I have surveyed] realized the equivalent of $8.45 for every $100 of their net worth. This figure is within approximately 3% of the dollar figure ($8.20) that was determined from my surveys.
IN CONCLUSION
There is no conclusion, just work and keep your long term goal in mind. I may talk later about other basic ideas that contribute to this like paying cash instead of credit (briefly mentioned here), couponing, buying the store brand instead of the premium name brand and other tricks. Nevertheless, adhering to the above puts you well on your way to being the average Joe millionaire.
My relatives laughed at me all my life for watching what I spent, how I lived and called me a skinflint. I knew that I had a long term plan for financial security. Today, at retirement age, they work just to keep up. Who’s laughing now?
After spending a year with the great minds of sustainability, I finally found a Global Warming Scientist that is correct and has some facts to back it up.
Piers Corbyn got laughed at when he made this prediction in November:
While he was laughed at and was told that the science was settled, he was proven right and called out why it is the Sun that is the correct predictor of the weather.
His Website shows how the facts are manipulated and as usual, follow the money….except that the carbon trading exchange has now been closed.
I wonder what the next inconvenient truth will be?
UPDATE: I found out later from Tres idiots Tim O’Reilly, Tom Raftery and James Governor got on their high horses to claim the end of the world because of CO2 and AGW also. They voice support for Hollywood celebrities who live in mansions, fly private jets to global warming conferences and believe all the Al Gore nonsense about settled science without a shred of evidence, hypotheses that could be proven true and not one prediction of a climate crisis that is correct. It turns out that distribution of money to fake environmental causes was the real reason they bought into this along with the worship of earth as their god instead of The God of the Bible as their religion. I hope this makes them feel better as they travel the road paved with good intentions that leads to you know where.
In the song Mrs. Robinson is a line that states, Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio? I wondered the same about Al Gore. He went from front page man on global warming to I don’t hear anything about him anymore on #AGW. I wondered where he went and why?
Nothing gets lost now thanks to the internet which he invented.
Notice that I didn’t use the words becoming rich. Having a full life, belief in God, friends, family or a passion for doing something is rich. Becoming a millionaire is about money.
Delusions of Adequacy 