During my spell with FireHow, I’ve begun watching other sites, particularly Studio 101. I’d rejected them almost instantly when I smelled something funny in the same time period. Turns out I wasn’t alone. It seems they tried to gag authors from publishing their rates of pay and comparing it with other rates. This being America you can’t keep anybody’s mouth shut, so now we’re finding out their top author once made $5,000 in a month. I must look into that. Five grand waters my corn. And eyes.My hits are slowly climbing, but only in proportion to the number of articles. This means none of my extra effort has made any difference. There is also a daily lag period between the hits and pay increments, smacking of human intervention. I’m going to try some shadow advertising, say on Craigslist, to beef up my ratings. Other bass teachers are placing ads, maybe I’ll give some free samples.
I have a few guitarists objecting to my totally accurate observations on their collective behavior. The way they bleat, you’d gather there was something unusual about the way a good bass player considers them little better than a bunch of semi-retarded stage hands. Talk about your bunch of sore-heads.
A customer came in with some statistics, him being a gold investor. He knows his spreadsheets, let me tell you. He related some assumptions [the public makes] concerning the traditional 16:1 ratio of gold to silver prices. Having studied this, I was fascinated. If the US government printed enough money to pay off its debts right now, a loaf of bread would cost $125 of the new bills. I was predicting $10 by late this year, boy am I dumb.
Going deeper, we watched a video called “Melt-Up”, kind of heavy on the statistics. One thing is sure, if there really is the amount of gold in Ft. Knox that the government claims, using it to back the dollar means its true value is $1 million per ounce. The video provided today’s trivia that the peak spending of Americans is age of 46. I would have thought something like 35. Anyway, the last of the boomers turn 46 next year.
My plan to practice for retirement should start making a lot more sense now. For a most people, there will be no end to work except death. The video also showed that to live off interest (which many planned on), one needs to have $100 million in the bank. I wonder what kind of job an ex-government employee thinks they’ll pick up in this merciless marketplace. They’d be nuts to compete in the bingo trade.
The video also touched on the Laffer Curve, which shows any increase in tax rates now would result in less revenue. People would quit work or cheat. Other disturbing points were that there are 40 million Americans on food stamps and that the only success story in town is Apple Computers. There were plenty of clips showing Ron Paul talking sense that nobody wants to hear.
My solution to this mess is, I think, what has to eventually happen anyway. Fire all government employees, abolish all government departments, cancel the military for twenty years but step up border patrols, stop immigration, deport all illegals, pay $10 a barrel for oil, tax inheritances over $1 million, abolish minimum wage and privatize education. What kind of hard-working, intelligent person could disagree with that? Ut-tut, I said hard-working and intelligent.
Speaking of the bingo trade, it is now a contender. It has become a part time job, and like a job, I’m finding what I don’t like about it. One is that it is on a weekend, prime time that is. And it is unreliable, for I am chalking up the total income to arrive at my conclusions, not the weekly take. It now represents one more skill-set for the times that are looming ahead. If today’s documentary is correct and oil hits $500 per barrel, bingo will still be $1 per card.
