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Dear Friends:Please accept my humble apologies for not having written in a long while. I have spent a great deal of time discussing the global economy with too many people. Most of them want to place blame -- or to complain about the failure of national governments (and the loosely-bound "world government") to properly rescue a world which appears to be both economically and emotionally depressed -- or to ask me what I personally would offer by way of a suggestion to solve the problem. My response to this last question is always the same: "First, you have to give the resources to change Human Nature..." That usually earns its fair share of eye-rolling or the use of the once-popular expression, "Sheesh!" I am a sentimentalist lexicographer, and I enjoy the use of this exclamation. My British friends have a wonderful alternative, which is "No! Get off!"Here are several things to ponder. They are a short list of observations, acknowledgements, trends and other items that I think are important.BANKING AND CREDITA true credit "Catch 22" is helping to fuel economic contraction worldwide. Banks are taking their government bailout funds and...buying government securities, instead of providing business loans and consumer credit. Credit access is being cut, and credit standards are becoming increasingly stringent, except in cases where a business is self-financing just to liquidate its inventory or to put sales on its books.
Synopsis:
In a society where there is utter dependence upon credit for fuel, where savings are actually negative (e.g., where people have to pay for their ongoing expnses using borrowed funds), and immediate gratification is a consumption propellant, credit card companies have not only decided to drastically cut lines of credit (even for their very best customers), give belated (and embarrassing) notification of this bad news, and are almost universally charging over limit fees to customers who were not over their contractual limits. Without consumer credit, there can be no economic stimulus or recovery. Period. The credit card companies (affiliates of bailed-out and bloated banks) know this, of course, but it seems that they are not fully in accord to stimulate anyone's economy except that of their executives. If I were judgmental, I would call this type of action, immoral, illegal and treasonous....but, fortunately, I am not sitting in judgment.
If these institutions refuse to become reasonable, civilian credit facilities and a private lending and borrowing business will have to be cobbled together amongst entrepreneurs, vendors and suppliers to fund demand and growth. I would truly delight in seeing this type of a "grassroots" banking movement. Wouldn't you?
SOCIAL MEDIA
If Facebook were to become a nation, it would be the sixth most populous nation in the entire world. The trend toward social and business networking over the internet expands daily. The operators and hosts of these various media are very powerful indeed...we have entrusted them with virtually all of our personal and financial information, as well as with a large amount of our files and records. They offer us instant communication through cyberspace (Frank Herbert would have called it the "folding" of space in his celebrated DUNE series of science fiction books), which gives us a great deal of creative power -- but they hold the key to our destruction. How much do you trust these facilitators? What might make them turn into dominators or decimators? My career would evaporate in a millisecond if I were to be disengaged from social internet media. I sometimes worry about this.
Mark Joyner, a personal development consultant, prolific writer and powerful internet marketer (the inventor of Simpleology) recently sent out a mailing to subscribers to his courses which made the point about social media wonderfully. You have to respect Mark Joyner:
####
Douglas,
Many years ago Seth Godin promoted the importance of blogs ... I thought he was out of his mind.
Well, Seth was right on that one - and I was totally wrong.
Yes, I have my share of accurate predictions, but that was one where I had it wrong ...
Seth was right on another one that I predictedwould fail: his own website "Squidoo."
In fact, I am so willing to admit I was wrong that we are offering a new Cashmap you can downloadright now that will show you how to use Squidoo to get obscene traffic to your site:
http://www.simpleology.com/courses/squidoo/
So, this is an e-tip-of-the-hat to Seth Godin.
Mark
Mark Joyner Founder of Simpleology####THE NEW WORLD ORDER (AGAIN)Everyone (including Dan Brown, David Icke, Robert Ludlum) loves the notion of a conspiracy. Whether its government cover-ups, traitorous acts, or other manner of domination and puppeteering, it is always interesting to think about. A friend told me that it would not be surprising (Sheesh!) if certain world elitists had "planned" and orchestrated this global financial meltdown just to pave the way toward a New World Order. He mentioned the usual suspects...The Bilderbergers, Skull & Bones, The Trilateral Commission, The Council On Foreign Relations...he stopped short of naming the Illuminati, The Priory of Sion [Zion], and any former U.S. Presidents who had ever been peanut farmers.Interestingly, the recent G20 Summit started stirring up ideas about neo-globalism and The New World Order. A wonderful article in the Financial Times weekly magazine brought this up for discussion. You'll find this article by going to http://pages.update.ft.com/us/newsletter/april-2009/us-default.htm, and you can download a .pdf of the whole edition of the magazine by clicking on http://www.mediafire.com/?ungcg2ozmjm. I believe that we will see a continuing trend toward globalism, a decreasing dominance by the United States, and an increasing firming up of the EU Members as a sub-alliance within this new G20 organization. Once an organization, subsidized by its constituent governments (and their respective ability to collect taxes), is created, it grows. G20 will grow into something bigger than the WTO or the UN, but these latter two will continue to exert their influence on world events.INTERNET CONTROLSSome years ago, there were pay toilets in the United States. There are still a number of gasoline stations who charge for air (the kind that surrounds us, but that we sometimes need to put into our tires). In Illinois (in the U.S.) there is serious talk about restricting internet access for young people -- someone always wants to contol access, tax or regulate anything that promises to permit the free flow of information. I believe this is because many of us believe that the people around us are as dangerous as we believe ourselves to be...and that we can even exploit them with punishment and payment. Censorship, like slavery, is about as likely to vanish from contemporary society as are toll booths on bridges.You can download an article about this Illinois sensation at http://www.mediafire.com/?1oztyo00qzw. Parents want to protect their children from predators, obscenity, violence and bad influences. The easiest solution (since it is difficult to personally invest time in monitoring and mentoring children, and instilling values in them by virtue of example) is to keep them off of social media. This is rather like stopping terrorism by blocking overseas telephone calls. It is not likely to be successful.What is likely to be successful is for governments worldwide to find innovative ways of taxing internet access -- right now we worry about cable, telephony and connection fees, but soon (within the next three years) internet access will be taxed; there are so many users, and so much dependence that governments will find this an irresistable solution for the repayment of all of the debt created by the global bailout of the failing private sector by the public sector.LEADERSHIP AND GREATNESSIntelligent leadership and intelligent writing are dying arts, and are subject to ever-diminishing standards and expectations. A new writer for THE NATIONAL NETWORKER (you can get a free subscription to this wonderful organization's newsletter by going to http://thetnnwomnigadget.blogspot.com/ , has written a passionate, plainly human essay on the topic of greatness. Yossi Feigenson, who will be a Featured Columnist with TNNW [A column titled, "REAL ESTATE - AND OTHER THINGS OF VALUE"] is a professional real estate broker -- but his also an apt student of Human behavior and a delightful conversationalist. Download Yossi's essay by clicking on http://www.mediafire.com/?2mgyiymynlw. He poses an interesting question: "When the opportunity to do something important arises, will you be ready?" CAREER SURVIVAL SKILLSThe greatest civilizations in recorded history have been built on the efforts of the middle class, of middle management and middle children. The middle world has historically been a stabilizer and a buffer between the immoral robber barons and the indigent sucklings at the government's nipple (some of these latter people hate some of these former people, and vice versa).The middle class, and middle management are fast disappearing. They are increasingly unemployed, without credit, without direction and without economic financial skills. The latchkey kids of the streets and the super-rich have wonderfully-honed survival skills, and cultivated resources. Unemployed middle management folks have very limited entrepreneurial and social skills. They are so used to conformism and dependencies that they have been rendered defenseless without a conventional career-to-retirement path to follow. These people have very limited alternatives; they can join the increasing ranks of the poor; they can become innovators and self-employed titans; or, they can cease to live. My bet is that many will join the ranks of the poor, and that many will come to hate the institutions that they once served and counted upon for protection from the realities of tight budgeting, salesmanship, fierce competition and cold fear. Expect a rise in violent crime, identity theft and pockets of anti-government groups forming their own hives and re-inventing their ideas about social structure.The only portion of the middle class that will be given a pass from intolerable hardship and gut-tearing disillusionment will be those who go to work for the government in some form or fashion. As unemployment continues to rise, expect an increasing perecentage of the "middle" population to working for government agencies, government contractors and other public sector positions of bureaucratic creation and taxpayer funding. The ultimate tax base will be government employees simply tithing a portion of their paychecks back to the government -- this is reminiscent of waste recycling. We need private sector entrepreneurs, and we need them soon! ***
In closing, I wanted to wish all of you a happy and healthy holiday season, and to visit with me at three locations. Click. Lurk. Favoritize. Subscribe. Enjoy...
Faithfully,
Douglas Castle
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