Writing for Guardian Liberty Voice

There is an online magazine called Guardian Liberty Voice which aspires to become a major player in the online blogger/magazine universe. Indeed, their efforts have produced a modicum of success as they are listed in the higher end of the online “newspapers” now dappling the internet. They, like many of their ilk, are an online zine composed by others who write in a freelance fashion for the website in an attempt to gather more readers, and also to take advantage of whatever revenue can be attained by attaching Guardian Liberty Voice to Google Adsense and possibly, Google Adwords.

I decided that I would take the paper up on its offer to join them as a writer and see just what the inner workings of this company would entail for the aspiring writer. The operation is run by an entrepreneur who has a high ranking degree and even introduces himself to his audience in a live video presentation over the internet. He spells out his company’s history and current position quite well and is impressive in his personal presentation. Obviously a person of high accomplishment and also individual drive, he is looking for like minded persons whom “just love to write” and would consider writing for his magazine online and perhaps even getting some form of renumeration in the process. 

At first, I liked the whole idea, being a long time blogger myself, and I got involved in the next phase which was a week long “boot camp” for training in the process of writing for the internet magazine. According to them, the key was to follow a code provided on Google which pointed the writer toward the trends of the day, which would provide subject matter for writing. They also would accept those who wished to report on local sports and entertainment events as a correspondent. The boot camp was to last a week, and the volume needed to be produced was at least seven articles of over 500 words which had to be ACCEPTED for publication. Without this litmus being passed, one would not be accepted.

I immediately ran into problems on two fronts. Firstly, when asked what kind of commitment level I would like to join at, I chose the possibility of writing one or two articles a week, which is really all I have time for completing. Considering what it takes to not only write the articles I already produce and then editing them and correcting the myriad of mistakes that happen while “stream of consciousness” writing, there is quite a bit of time taken up in simply making sure that the final product does not confuse or even bore the reader. There is much to consider for each post, and this takes more time than one would at first imagine. The prospect of churning out seven articles in the span of a week, while spending time in boot camp classes each day, which ran for maybe three hours each, was a tall order if one has other responsibilities. I had informed them that I was only able to do one or two articles a week, so the boot camp strategy of “finding out what you can handle” failed on this point for myself. (If you are not available during the day, you must pay for the classes that happen at night.)  

My second problem was that I was unable to find an internet or Wifi connection which didn’t make the three hours plus of class time a major effort to keep up with. The connection was horrendous, and I had to drive here and there to see if I could find a place to be involved with these classes where I didn’t have to suffer through connection break-ups on a ten minute a piece basis. This was arduous to say the least. I never did solve this problem. I attended all of the classes despite these troubles.

The process teaches the aspiring blogger to follow a pattern for writing articles which was created within a text generator program which the writer would pull up online and either type directly into or else paste into from another text generation program. Once inside of the program the writer was guided and trained to follow the set up presentation as per the prescription set forward by the program for gaining the best benefit as per what Google “robots” or “spiders” are looking for in an article. This process was not too difficult to learn and I have kept a lot of what I have learned for my own blog with some results, but not great results.

Google news has a list of items which are trending on the net, and according to Guardian Liberty Voice, these are the things you must concentrate on when writing. This includes things such as World news, United States news, sports, entertainment and several others which fit into the “code word” for what is going to bring in the readers to the site. According to these folks, one must write on what is trending, for there is no money in writing customized posts. I have to agree with this, as one who has blogged for over five years now. 

I have personally taken two individual turns with utilizing Google Adsense and also Google Adwords, and I cannot recommend either one. They simply have never shown me that they work, even when I have attached them to my Youtube account and produced videos. Of course, the young teen who makes funny faces and has a million hits in one week, who just bought her first car with Adsense profits will tell you different, but that is not my testimony. And after trying Guardian Liberty Voice, it still isn’t. 

I wrote five articles for Guardian Liberty Voice before I was unceremoniously cautioned to do no more writing. “Please,” they told me. “”Don’t turn in another article. Obviously you have not attended the classes we hold to prepare you for this.”

“Is that so? Well, you must know something about the week I spent straining to keep connected to your website boot camp, while churning out five articles with no time left in my day that I am just not aware of.” I told them. This did not receive a response.

You, the reader, can see these articles here on my site from the month of April beginning with my movie review of the latest Captain America film from Disney/Marvel and counting the next five articles. All formatted from the squirrley program provided from boot camp, they are mostly as required for optimal Google response, with a few hitches here and there, due to the rush I was forced into by time and tide. These articles should have provided a big jump in response from Google robots due to their formatting, but in actuality, they only provided a minimal bump for the time that they were trending on Google news. Being squeezed for time as it was, I was forced to go into my back log of posts to see if I could cannibalize some information in order to make their deadline, and unfortunately, I write in the first person for you, the reader, and not in the third person. This was a brick wall to run into on a tight deadline and derailed the entire process as it was difficult to re-write an entire article in the third person with no time left for production and editing.

Interestingly enough, the articles which were accepted have not done as well as the one which was not accepted. The article about Fort Hood and Bill Clinton and Blood Moons and Buffalo, is the top performer among those articles and it was the one rejected by the editors of Guardian Liberty Voice. I love theory as much as the next person, but either something actually does work, doesn’t work, or it only sometimes works, and trying to hire people to write for you under auspices that you have a system figured out and ready to “cash cow” as it were, is just selling. Selling is about as real and valuable as Monopoly money.

As far as responses go, I expected much more from a program that claims it knows what will bring in the Adsense cash for articles. It didn’t work, and one of the reasons Guardian Liberty Voice always needs writers is because they need to multiply a small response from Google by the thousands in order for them to make any headway on profit with Google Adsense. This is my educated guess, I didn’t look into their coffers personally, but I go with experience. 

It can be a real struggle to find something on a weekly basis, much more on a daily basis to write about which fits into the format of only those things trending. I write here about things few others are willing to write on, and consequently I make nothing from it, but I do consider it a public service. It’s alarming to find that if I suddenly went populist, I might make about twenty cents more with Google Adsense. I found the process of subject matter writing as per the parochial requirements set forth to be stultifying and just plain annoying. This holds true especially in light of the fact that I made NOTHING from the articles they did post on their site, and only a small bump in attention on my own Google charts here on this site. I like to write, but I like to write for my own motives and pleasures, and hopefully, people out there will benefit. I’ll make money somewhere else.

One other thing that did crop up over and over during the boot camp classes was the objections of those who were involved. There are quite a few people who are against using photos from the internet to place them on an article in the hopes of bringing in more readership. Photographers should indeed be duly umbraged as there is no payment forth coming for their work which is used in this commercial way. Recently, Gene Simmons of Kiss, complained about the death of Rock music due to file sharing on the internet and the destruction of the financial base for the music industry. He is correct, and this also applies for many other industries involved in the creative process. This ranges from plagiarism, to copyright infringement and beyond. Billions of dollars have been lost on the internet simply because of the loss of access controls in many, many industries. But that is another post, for another time. 

I would suppose that if you are a person who loves to take assignment writing on the current trends, and you don’t mind small amounts of money in return, and maybe you don’t have a lot to do all day, then Guardian Liberty Voice would be a good place to spend time writing and working. I can’t suggest that you do so based upon my own experiences there, for it seems that the magazine will benefit to a greater degree than any individual writer ever will using their system. Try it if you must, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. I would always recommend to anyone that they do a Google search on any business' reputation before you ever put yourself out there. Just keep in mind that commission sales are all about promises, not reality. What CAN happen doesn’t necessarily translate into what DOES happen.   

Are You Thinking About Platinum?

Back in the year 1751, a Swedish chemist coined the phrase “white gold” in relation to platinum. There is so little of it that has been mined throughout history that the total amount might fill something the size of your two car garage. If you know anything about platinum, then you know that in the very, very near future it will be one of the most sought after metals of all those mined today. But, you may ask, why is platinum becoming more of a valued metal today than it has been since its heyday back in the 1700's? The answer here is multi-faceted in its connection to today’s market.

For one thing, there is a production shortage in South Africa, the main source of most of platinum production, and conversely, automobile manufacturing has become wholly dependent on platinum for many aspects of car production. Total platinum extraction is also one of the smallest quantities of any metal on the planet. Extractions per year are about .07% of total gold and .01% of the total amount of silver. It takes about ten tons of raw material to produce an ounce of platinum. South Africa has about 90% of the platinum reserves, and the mining conditions remind one of a subterranean entrance to Hell itself.

Last January the workers in the mines there went on strike and cost the mining companies about 18 billion in the local exchange (1.7 billion for USD). This strike created a loss of about 1.2 million per ounce. No one comes out a winner in this sort of stand off between workers and management. Things have gotten underway in the interim, but the financial conditions of the mining companies could not be more imperiled.

At a cost of $1600 for production of a single ounce, platinum is priced below the cost of production. Eventually, platinum prices will have to rise. This makes no difference to you if you can’t afford the current price of $1500 per ounce, but if you could squeeze something out in order to get in on the wave before it hits, you may find it to be worth it in the long run.

In the nation of India today, there is a “craze” happening in the world of platinum fine jewelry. The climb has come so fast and hard that demand is forecasted to be at around a 65% increase by the years end. 

Catalytic converters for the automobile are wholly dependent upon platinum in their production. 25% of all platinum use on a world wide scale is due to the need of converters for the world’s increasing dependence upon mechanical mobility. It’s a $7 billion dollar market. Anti-pollution standards are making the market move in pre-determined ways that are bankable. The demand is two fold in its make up on both the consumer side and also the ecological side.

One is well aware of the conditions in China considering bicycle riding. We’ve all seen the photos of huge sections of the population all riding in one direction on a cavalcade of two and three wheelers. China itself, however, is experiencing an expansion of the middle class, even as America “povert-izes” its own citizenry. By the year 2022, China will have about 300 million “well off” Chinese citizens, according to estimates by those who prepare these kinds of things. Odds are, they will all be giving their bikes to their kids and acquiring some higher end transportation in the form of automobiles and other means of transport.

The United States has about one car per every person in the country, in 2012 China’s ratio was at about 1 to 85. During the coming years, as China becomes more affluent, the growth rate for auto usage looks something like over 9,000%. Government requirements demand a converter on every new car purchased in China. Last May, the sales for cars in China surpassed 1.5 million units in one month. That’s a surge that’s got legs to it. 300 million nouveau riche Chinese will need converters for their new cars and those converters will require MORE platinum. It will take 203 million ounces of platinum to meet that demand.  

Platinum could easily appreciate to around $6,000 an ounce from its current $1500/ounce. If you own even a small amount, you could have a “little monster” in less than ten years. We could see a 17% jump in the price by the end of the year giving a price mark at about $1700/ounce. So far, the rise in price for platinum has been due to the supply constraints and the unrest in mining facilities, but with an additional placement of demand, the spike could be enormous. To regain its cost of capitol, the mining companies will need the price to rise to about $3,000/ounce by the middle of 2015, so taking a wait and see attitude may only be a small window of afford-ability.

If you are thinking about platinum, just keep in mind the rising tide of Chinese affluence and the demands of emissions control combining to effect the overall price. Of course, if you could buy a platinum mine all for yourself, that would be ideal.     

Resident Manager Class with The Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles

The Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles has a class that they hold on a revolving basis which claims to inform students who attend of all they need for becoming a resident manager for apartment buildings, multiple family living situations and other forms of rental living which stay within certain recognized norms. The class runs for a few days each week for the length of about six weeks. For anyone interested in the workings of this industry, the class is very informative.

As I have stated in the past posts, I have been looking into so called business opportunities for those attempting to survive this falling American economy and also those who are looking to create multiple streams of income or perhaps adjust their living situation to match the hardship that most of the country is now experiencing. I have seen quite a few of these so called opportunities over the years, and most.... well, all of them seem constructed to make money for those who sell the program, not for those who work the program, whatever that program may be. 

The AAGLA holds this class in a straight forward and forthright manner, seemingly free of any guile or want for harm to the finances of their participants, and therefore, I wanted to investigate this path direction for those who may be interested. I found NO information ahead of time about complaints of “rip off” type filings by others who have come and gone through this system, so I went ahead and tried it myself. 

Last October, I signed up for the six week class to become a resident manager and I had to take time off from work and miss some pay in order to make this thing happen. The class cost $400.00 dollars and the AAGLA requires payment up front. The class is held in a “meeting” type room in a building not too far from the downtown area of Greater Los Angeles and I have to tell you, the area is less than desirable. Repeatedly, we students were admonished to lock the doors on the bottom level in the parking lot when we had all entered the building. Otherwise, we were told, we might all get shot from some intruder who might happen along one night. The parking lot is fenced in and seemed protected from the street, but the instructor was not convinced of our safety despite this.

In a rather large meeting room of tables and chairs, the class consisted of about 25 students, all from different parts of the city and all having different ages. Some of the students had already been involved in the industry and knew a thing or two about the subjects discussed. On this one six week stretch the AAGLA made $10,000 dollars plus an additional potential $2,500 (which I’ll discuss in a moment) from the proceedings. That’s a pretty good take for the process and this class is repeated more than a few times each year.

The class begins with a very kindly, and genial gentleman instructor who holds all but a few of the classes through the entire course. He’s quite the engaging speaker and story teller. And, OH! what a story teller. There were many times I felt as if I were in the presence of “Grandpa” as we all sat and listened to stories from his past, mostly from the business of managing apartments, but unfortunately not ALL from this work, which he had done for quite some time since early in his twenties. He certainly knew a lot about the process, and I had no doubts about his experience and abilities.

Subjects covered, when we weren’t being regaled with “when I was your age” type personal stories, were: How to work with owners, competing for good tenants (Yes, YOU must compete for the good ones, since there are many nightmares), choosing tenants, screening and collecting, creating a community in the complex, record keeping and evictions. We also covered the fair housing laws, the forms used and also the correct way to go about tenant relations. Also, safety and security, changing rental agreements, security deposits and their deadlines.

Common tasks and functions such as complex safety, cleaning, rent collections, dealing with vendors, showing and marketing the apartments, maintenance (a word about this in a moment), and tenant screening were all covered in one way or another over the course of the first few weeks, but not without the “entertaining” side of story telling of our host. If you have no patience for this sort of presentation, you may want to enroll somewhere else for this training where they will simply lay it all out for you and stick more closely to the relevant points of the class for which you have paid $400 dollars and for which you are also spending six weeks in an evening class attending. Those classes may also be shorter, and also less expensive.

We were also referred to books such as “Landlord Lingo” (tenant law) and “California Evictions”. It was during this period of the class that I became aware of the rather insane practice of the California court system to protect those who have less legal rights than the persons who are actually working within the system correctly. Let me just give you a brief idea of what I mean by that. Many people here in Los Angeles have rotten credit for various reasons, and many building owners will not rent to them because of this credit. Which makes sense since bad credit usually means someone cannot pay their bills for whatever reason. 

Therefore, many of those folks will go looking for a roommate situation in which they can share an apartment based upon an agreement between persons living in the unit. They can’t be put on the lease, but they can stay and pay as a “guest” of the master tenant. NEVER DO THIS. Never let someone be a roomie off of the lease, because they LEGALLY can stop paying the rent, and YOU can’t make them continue. The courts will back them up and not you. If you get a roomie who is paying YOU and not the landlord, then YOU are his/her landlord. You must take care of them as though you were the legal landlord, but just for them. You will not win in court if you are taken advantage of by someone who is really a “freeloader” and you will have to pay for whatever costs they incur from non payment or damage to the apartment - all backed by the court. In fact, if you leave and they are still there, they have legal right to stay as the tenant, even though they never signed on to the lease. Only the sheriff can come and drag them away, but only after all legal recourse has been taken to solve the situation. NIGHTMARE!

We also leaned about something called “premises liability lawyers”. These are lawyers whose sole purpose is to sue apartment owners for anything that might constitute possible litigable events. Due to this, attorneys have a hard time finding apartments. Managers are tough on them even if they have never sued a complex. Many of the suits placed are about death incidents, injuries or even rapes. Whatever the case, there are professional wolves out there looking to make a manager’s job the worst he has ever had.

In this industry, pets are a major problem. Insurance companies may cancel on a complex for allowing pets. Tenants can actually get bitten by a flea, be allergic, and then sue the complex owner for their trouble. Usually, if a complex has ONE dog, it has all animals sooner or later. People who don’t like pets will move out and cause your occupancy to be less that 100%, not the desired position for any manager. We were warned against having any pets at all simply due to the increased risk of being sued.

Other troubles with apartments included: People stealing your water if it is not locked off. This refers to folks from the surrounding area who come and hook up to your faucets to wash their cars and run up your water bill. Building codes which include subjects such as fire codes, magnet doors, extinguishers and escapes. Smoke detectors and where they should be placed. The trouble with double key dead bolt locks (double cylinder), which usually keep small kids inside of the unit, but these are illegal. Safety glass which must be able to shatter into small pieces if broken, these being used in shower doors and large plate glass windows. 

Swimming pools are also another major concern as no one wants to see a kid meet his untimely end in one of them. There are a dozen stipulations that must also be adhered to as well concerning pools, and at this point you should just know that you would be better off without them. The instructor suggests teaching the tenant’s kids how to swim if you have a pool. You should have heard this story of how a teacher once threw kids screaming and kicking into the deep end in order to give them a swimming lesson. 

Mental trauma aside and abuse lawsuits from parents not withstanding, "Grandpa" didn’t seem to mind this method of teaching. I don’t mean to be negative where this instructor is concerned, but there were several times where his ideas on dealing with kids in the complex raised a few eyebrows among us students. Not just throwing them in the deep end of the pool, but also keeping them in your place until parents come home from work in order to help them avoid the government taking the children away, and also having the kids clean up the complex by making a game for them to see who gets the most trash. He’s a great guy, an fine teacher, but I take issue with this kind of “loose cannon” type instruction when it comes to dealing with other people’s children.

There was a lot of time also spent on deciding what the agreements between yourself and the owner would be. Most folks who look into this type of work are looking to find a way to get free rent for their living place in exchange for the work they will be doing. Free rent isn’t always the best deal. Many of these owners will insist that you work for them with free rent, and then you’ll also have to go and get a second job to make any kind of cash money. When there is money involved, many times the minimum wage laws are violated and you will be taken advantage of.

As a manager you’ll often have weekend obligations and or be “on call” for the job at any time. When one is living on the property, it’s very difficult to get away from the constant call of 16  plus units who may have a rotating list of problems. Not to mention that there are few perfect tenants. Usually, there is always someone on the verge of being evicted.

Owners who interview you will want to know why you are looking for employment as a manager and you simply cannot tell them the wrong answer. They will ask if you drink or smoke, if you have family or if you are taking care of parents, and if you are bondable. Being bondable is a special position. You can’t have any criminal background, you have to show a competent credit record and your entire life will be reviewed by the bonding board. They will call up your second grade teacher, your old girlfriends from high school, your grandmother and they will look at all of your purchases recorded on your debit card for the last five years. Yes, they can do this. I haven’t even mentioned the part about drug testing. Well, I just did.  

You also have to know how to market your property. This means researching the surrounding competition and advertising for your own. You’ll take photos, place ads, tweet, YouTube and whatever else it requires to get vacancies filled, all the while dealing with the merry go round of people and mechanical problems at home. Vacancies are rarely tolerated by owners because they represent loss of cash flow. You’ll be a rental marketer as well as a manager, and if you are getting free rent but only minimum wage, you have to decide if this is really a thing you want to do. Of course, the instructor will tell you what a great idea it is because you will be protecting yourself against the cost of high rent, but there is so much more to consider.

We did also have another Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles instructor for a brief time, a very informative lady, who interestingly enough told us that when she was a resident manager, it was the worst job she had ever had. This was due mainly to the round robin of incredibly bad tenants she had to deal with, and she also told us a few stories. They are not for the faint of heart. The bottom line of her classes seems to be that one would be better off interning in a complex before ever committing to the full time job of resident manager so as to see just what the realities of the work entail. I agree fully.

Tenants love you as long as things go their way, she told us. Then they hate you when something bad happens. Discrimination was a big part of her class. Accordingly, this ugly monster still exists today with owners and managers refusing to rent to persons based upon ANYTHING other than the person or persons ability to pay the rent. 

She covered the ideas behind rent control before and after 1978, and the legal problems that come from a manager’s being fired for refusing to break the laws concerning rent control. I understood that there is a common practice of avoiding the rent control status if owners find that they can get away with this. Are you shaking your head wearily yet?  

Belive it or not, there are laws concerning square footage and the number of people who can live in a unit. If a family ends up having too many children over time, a manager is required to notify them that they are now in violation of the occupation standards. They could well lose their home just because they have too many babies. By the way, when speaking about tenant’s kids, a manger can never use the words “children” or “minor”, they must always be referred to as “person, occupant or resident”. This is due to their classification under tenant law. 

Are you ready to be a resident manager yet? Are ya????

When dealing with the handicapped, March 13, 1991 is the cut off date for receiving assistance from the government in order to get handicapped compliance. Any building built after this date must pay for their own compliance, and if modifications are made, then they become a part of the property even after the handicapped person leaves. If you have a handicapped person who requests accommodation, it is a violation of privacy laws to call their medical provider to ask for confirmation of handicapped need. You must trust the handicapped person’s judgment in relation to the accommodation that you must pay for. Nice, huh?

Okay, so I have said a lot about what is covered in the The Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles resident manager class, and yet I have been only brief on the subjects covered. But, you might say, what happens now? Well, now you must buy a list they have provided for the purpose of finding those apartments you wish to find employment with. You aren’t required to do so, but they suggest it strongly. This list is a compiled listing from five different zip codes in the areas where you would like to work and comprises about 300 items. This list costs $100 dollars.

Now, you would be wrong to assume that this list is a list of available apartment manager job openings. You would be very wrong. I spent the better part of maybe two months making phone calls to these listings only to find that the “list” you are given is about 12 years old. Many of the companies I called were management companies themselves, which are listed for free all over the net, or they were numbers that had gone out of order, were the numbers of long standing managers who were shocked to hear from someone who had some kind of list.... or, and this is the sad one, a hand full of people who had suffered years of phone ringing abuse by people calling them looking for resident manager jobs which had nothing to do with the person’s private number. The numbers were just WRONG. Period. Let me just say at this point, I am not a resident manager some 9 months after taking the class, and I must have talked to about 250 people on the phone. Over and over and over again it was the same thing: “Sorry, we’re not looking for anyone at this time”. 

I did manage to get a few interviews, with people who were more curious than serious, and one in particular old gentleman who just wanted someone to talk to..... and TALK DOWN to, but the real interviews revealed something that seems obvious to even someone who is not involved. Mainly, like any other position, it does’nt matter how many resident manager classes you paid for, you have to have experience or they don’t want you. Even the Craig’s List ads for managers come straight out and state this: If you haven’t any experience, don’t call us!

A second point to make here is one about maintenance of the property. The class instructor casually informs the class that if you have never fixed anything, then you can just go to YouTube and watch a video and learn how to fix anything you might need in an apartment complex. When I mentioned this in my interviews I got chuckles and eye rolls as a response. That might make great sales chatter in a class room setting, but NO one else in a hiring position agrees with this. Plainly: you HAVE TO BE ABLE TO FIX THINGS YOURSELF. Owners don’t want to have to hire handy men from outside if they don’t have to, and the jobs that are available will go to those with experience.

Y’know...if you can find them.

Is this The Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles class worth $400 dollars for education and information? Probably. There is a lot I learned which I could never have guessed on my own about resident manager work.

Will this class help you in finding employment? Probably not. Better to just get an internship and learn on the side. Save your money.

Staywell Research

Staywell Research

It wasn’t all that long ago that I saw a blog post on the internet, giving instructions to whomever reads it, directions in the development of what is called “multiple streams of income”. There are many suggestions for those who are struggling financially and looking to get some assistance. One of those suggestions is to engage yourself in a medical research trial. This kind of trial requires one to take a certain drug and or other type of pill, and perhaps some other form of trial application, and then after a hand full of months there is a compensation paid for the patient’s time and effort. One of these companies is named: Staywell Research.

I decided I would test this idea out, as one of several I will be reviewing over the next year, and I joined a trial. The ad for this trial on the local Craigslist stated that the trial would consist of a six month period with a “diet pill” test which would pay $500.00 with a $500.00 bonus if the person was still participating at the end of the trial. This would, of course, result in a $1,000.00 pay day for those involved. It’s important to note at this point that the ad makes mention of the total amount to be payed when the client is still present at the end of the tial. (Get your Orwell earphones working!)

In March of this year I joined the trial and was given a bottle of green pills which may or may not have been the real thing. The point, so I was told, was to use placebo pills in the tests to find out the ultimate result of whether or not the medical benefits actually worked. For myself, this had to do with weight loss. The pills themselves were actually appetite suppressants which were to be taken a half an hour before eating in order to discover the effects on my personal weight over the six months during usage. 

I was also given several diaries and charts to keep a record going of daily activities, these included what I had eaten each day, how much I had walked, walking everyday being the method of approved exercise in this case, and other things like my daily weight and such. I was also given a thing called “Fitbit” which records your every movement during the day and reports that to a website where one can also record the daily intake of food, water, and watch the number of steps that I took each day. I really like Fitbit, and I would highly recommend it for anyone interested in tracking themselves on a daily basis. I know there have been complaints in the news about people gaining weight with this thing, but I believe you have to get past the initial temptation to eat more than you should, because Fitbit makes you think about it a lot more than usual. Once I got past that, I was fine.

One is also required to make several visits to the Staywell Research offices and also to speak with a nutritionist on the phone about your progress during the study. There is a lot to do, and if done correctly, then one should be paid for their time and effort. Therefore, I spent a good three months of the trial giving the system a good work out. I tracked all of my water intake, changed the food listing for my daily intake, walked everyday, took the pills, filled out the paperwork and also made the five mile trip to have my measurements taken and my weight recorded. Amazingly, the trial worked! The appetite suppressant was very effective and combined with the huge amount of water I had to drink and all the walking I had to do, I lost almost 30 pounds. I sit here today typing, six weeks later and the weight has not come back. Did I drink and walk the weight off? Hmmmm, could be.

During one of these visits, I saw a man come into the office and try to get his compensation, he had been given the run around several times over the phone and had never received anything. A manager then met with him and when he left, he still had nothing. I kept this event in mind the entire time I continued. 

At the end of three months, I was told that the trial was over, and I was required to return Fitbit and my daily logs and the pills to the research center. I was also told that I would NOT be paid the money they owed me. I made an appointment with one of the managers to discuss the problem since it was not myself who had failed to complete the trial or had quit ahead of time. My position is that if the company says that at the end of the trial I am still on the project, then at that time, I will be compensated. Unfortunately, they play games with the definition of when things come to an end, and stick to the original ending date, which would have been some time in August, even if they, themselves, call an end to things. This is crapola of the highest degree.

I was told that because they had “over booked” the trial, they would have to let some of the participants go early and they would only be compensated for the visits they had completed. I had done five visits, but they insisted it was only four. It was not. I was only to receive $160 dollars instead of the $1,000.00 that the “bait and switch” style advertising had promised. No amount of the 45 minutes or so I spent arguing the case with the manager made any difference at all. According to him, they were continuing with the other people in the study and would not continue with me, which is odd, because I was actually making the thing work. Seems you “over book” because you expect a good number of people to do the study incorrectly or perhaps quit prematurely. So, therefore, you need me in the study in case that sort of thing still happens before the ending deadline. 

Regardless, the arrangement is for a certain amount to be paid at the end of the study no matter who ends it. If I quit ahead of time, then I can understand their position, I did not complete the study and therefore, I am not present at the end of it. However, if I am told the company is ending the study, then the study ends NOW, and I am still here and should be compensated. They did not, of course agree, and despite the ease with which they could do this sort of thing over and over with many people involved, they stood their ground. This is called: “Legally scamming the public”. 

If I were to join another study with any company like Staywell Research, I would insist that they sign a contract written up by myself stating that if the company ends the survey, then they have to pay in full. They will, of course, never sign something that states this, which means they are playing the loop hole and probably paying out to NO ONE the $1,000.00 pay day. Basically, they get to a point where they feel you have made the thing work, and they have all the info they need, and then they pull out on you and leave you with pocket change. There is very little evidence to prove that this is NOT the case.

There are many such complaints about Staywell Research on the internet and I would heed them and myself well if you feel you might be able to make some side money from this endeavor. I realize there will always be the person who will tell you that this has never happened to them and that they make a living doing this sort of thing, but that is not my testimony. I sit here with no payout from this company more than 35 days later and honestly, I expect to receive nothing. 

Be forewarned! 

editor's note: It is now 75 days since this project ended and I still have received nothing. 75 days being the deadline for paying this thing off.

FACTA Will Destroy Your Money

Anyone who may be watching the stock market has seen the S&P 500 nearly reach 2000 in an all time high. In fact, much of what is happening on Wall Street seems downright positive, but don’t be mislead. Trading on the markets is at an all time low as buyers and sellers seem to be sitting on the hands they are holding, like poker players in a high stakes game. What could possibly be causing such a dry run in the trading game? Do they know something most folks are not aware of? They very well could, indeed. Way back in the year 2010, the House of Representatives passed a bill called H. R. 2847. Deeply tucked away inside of this bill is something called FACTA: the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, and it could very well destroy much of your money, holdings and security.

On July 1st, 2014, this bill will begin to perform some very troublesome things. Firstly, it requires all worldwide banks to answer to the IRS, the United States IRS, if they do any business with United States dollars in their transactions. The U.S. dollar is still the world’s reserve currency, at least at the time I am writing this, and this essentially means that all banks, everywhere, must comply. That is, with a few exceptions of smaller community banks. They will be required to dig into their own funds, costing thousands and thousands of their own currency in order to track down, ferreting out and then tax their U.S, dollar transactions by as much as 30%. Failure to comply with this directive will require them to disavow all of their U.S. customers.

The wave of reaction that will come from this directive will be gargantuan. This will entice more and more institutions world wide to move away from using the United States dollar as currency, more so than has been happening for a while now. This also means that Americans in North America will have the hardest time getting their money out of U.S dollars and utilizing banks like Everbank, to help them keep money in whatever the highest yield currency of the day might be. As I write this, international wire transfers are being eliminated around the globe as institutions follow the lead of J.P. Morgan Chase and HSBC. When I say eliminated, I mean OUTLAWED. Yes, international wire transfers are being outlawed to keep United States money out of foreign currency holdings.

What could FACTA possibly do to you and I as it destroys the money in our pockets? The savings of millions of Americans could be wiped out over night, for one thing. It’ll change the way you live your life on a daily basis, where you shop for food, where you send your kids to school, how you protect your family and home. Things could get very bad, very quickly and those FEMA camps don’t seem so far away for those who might not want to tow the line with the Government. The debts that America has run up just won’t disappear, and bailing out crashing companies has its effects. 

Commodity prices are about to skyrocket. You and I may find ourselves paying $20 for the loaf of bread you just bought for $1.29 at the local mart. Many well thought of banks, who seem quite stable, will suddenly start closing their branches all over the country. Our credit cards will stop working. We won’t be allowed to by gold as well as those foreign currencies I spoke of earlier. Will food stamps suddenly fail? Will Social Security checks stop coming in? I personally know a small group of people who live on the edge, who would find themselves out in the street tomorrow if such a thing happened. 

You may laugh at what I have told you as being the rantings of “sky is falling” fear mongering, but let’s talk a bit about why this could all happen. The United States government has been borrowing way too much money for a long time now, often with short term loans, and very soon even the interest will not be affordable. Every single HOUR the Government spends about 200 million that it does not have. In two months time, the Government borrows more money than the annual profits of the 100 biggest traded companies in America. 

We began 2014 with a net public debt that has doubled and more since the year before Obama took office. Government agencies and businesses taken over by the Government have their own 5 trillion dollar obligations. What is the full burden of these debts? We have no idea at the moment due to the Federal Reserve’s power to tweak interest rates, and that power is unlimited. How much of Fannie and Freddie Mac’s bad debts will be covered by the treasury? We have no idea. We also don’t know what long term effects will happen, due to the Reserve’s ongoing expansion of the monetary base. The United States now has more debt than any country in known history. If you combined the debt of every nation in the European Union, you could not equal United States debt.

The Federal Reserve has interest rates down to practically zero at this time. The benchmark rate has been lowered ten times since 2007 from around 5.25% to almost 0%. But that rate couldn’t last forever. In 2014, the rate is now back to about 3%, and could go up 4% each year. If the rate stops around 6%, we’ll need $43.1 trillion dollars just to cover our debts to the world. 

The easy answer, of course, is to simply have the Government prevent the Reserve from ever raising these rates to those levels. The bad news is that politicians seem to belive that they can fix anything with more deficit spending, kicking the can down the road for the next generation; since we’ll all be dead by then anyway. 

Money, however, and the related idea of credit, is always based upon terms of soundness. It allows the sale and exchange of good and services, which are also taxed, by the way, even though you already pay an income tax. (Add that all up one day and see if you aren’t paying way more than 33% on your overall tax burden.) This helps to specialize labor, and fuel competitive advantage. Pricing guides production and consumption. But, when the money can’t be trusted, the whole system goes to hell.

Our economy refuses to pay those who save money, any real pay back above the rate of inflation on their money. Dividend stocks are a great way to find extra income but they belong to the super rich. A dividend stock may pay 11 cents to a share and if the stock is bought at $30,000 for about $10 a share, then it will pay about $330 dollars monthly. This is hardly an attractive offer, no matter what some will tell you. 

The bottom line here is that a default on the American economy would have already happened by this point, if not for one thing. The United States can legally print it’s own money even though it owes a fortune to the world. The debt doesn’t get paid, but the country stays afloat. If you and I tried that with any credit card or student loan we were way behind on, we would be in court and possibly jail within days. 

The dollar forms the basis of the world’s financial system. Banks around the world hold it in reserve against their loans. We don’t go broke, simply because we just print more money beyond the debt ceiling. But, keep in mind that America is the only country that doesn’t have to pay for its imports in a foreign currency. In America we have been able to consume as much as we want without worrying about the means for paying for it, because dollars are accepted everywhere around the world. We haven’t had to produce anything, or export anything to get all the dollars we need to buy oil and such, because the money is accepted everywhere, and the pricing for goods is also in dollars. We just borrow and print more money.

In the latest round of “Quantitative Easing”, the Federal Reserve began printing about $85 billion dollars a month, over a trillion dollars a year. Creditors WILL, in our lifetime, begin to call in their chips. They will stop accepting the dollar as repayment. Already, China is taking big steps to phase out the dollar as a form of monetary payment. They have already signed international currency agreements with Germany, Brazil, Russia, Australia, Japan, Chile, The United Arab Emirates, India and South Africa. They will put together their own unified currency for replacing the U.S. dollar. FACTA will be a big push to accelerate the destruction of the money in your pocket as more and more nations quickly follow suit and join China in its directive. The U.S, dollar has been the world’s reserve currency for most of the lives of those living today, so most don’t have a clue of the danger that lies ahead. It’s happened before in other places and America is no angel that will be protected from what must, and will happen in the same vein as other historical victims of too much debt and too much consumption. 

Most of America doesn’t know of Britain’s winter of discontent when the Government put a freeze on wages while at the same time devaluing the currency 14% overnight. The country went broke and couldn’t make any money. This was the 1970's. Inflation was 26.9% and they attempted a three day work week for the whole nation. Higher prices for living and less money for the people made for some very angry voters. Electricity was rationed and even garbage couldn’t be picked up and it littered the streets as it lay rotting and endangering the public health.

The U.S. dollar has fallen about 10% since 2010 and continues to fall to this day. But you must understand, the Government cannot simply stop printing money, because we simply cannot pay our debts any other way. As the country devalues everything it prints, more and more, the stocks you hold will devalue perhaps by 40%. U.S. assets will be destroyed by FACTA’s ravaging of the money in our pockets. Everything is priced in our currency, so everything devalues as it devalues.

In the history of our nation, no asset has ever gone up in price for 12 straight years. But, gold has; and the reason is that people are “getting out” of the dollar while they can. As we lose our position as the world’s currency, there will be a brutal downturn in our economy which hasn’t been seen since Germany in the 1920's, just before the rise of Naziism. Massive inflation is something we can look forward to, as they did back then.

These are basic laws of economics and finance, and America is not going to be spared. This kind of problem has arrived at the door step of a dozen or so other nations over the last 100 years and it is always the same. Our Government is a runaway train with the bridge out and “NERO” fiddling as the train races faster and faster towards its inevitable conclusion. 

One need only look at local government to see the politicians running for the hills. A small town in Ohio turned off a large number of street lights to save money and those lights have been off for a few years now. Philadelphia closed 37 schools because they have no other choice. California releases prisoners and mental patients to the streets on a regular basis, and if you have ever been to a big city there, you know the homeless population is a major crying shame. New Jersey is seeking to slash its pension benefits to government employees. Six U.S. communities have declared bankruptcy. And we need not mention Detroit, which has become the poster child for the disassembly of American life. The city of Baltimore is right behind them.

FACTA is coming for you and for me on July 1st, and it has its hand in your pocket, destroying your money from the inside. You’ll see prices go up, jobs being lost, unemployment sky rocketing, the government doing strange things like building FEMA camps (which are surrounded by barbed wire) and there will be rioting in the streets. Whatever happens, there will be a new world around us, and I hate to think just who might step forward to take the reigns.