Well today I received another check in the mail from what I thought was a scammer.  They did the classic over pay scam.  Basically they emailed my company, asking if we could reload windows and office on 10 laptops.  They never said where they were from but that they would send us a check and send us the broken laptops to fix.  Simply because their email was, bi.courtney97@gmail.com, not at any company I already had a red flag, this “Courtney Badgett” was using a free email account that can be created with no ID verification.  Red Flag 2 was that there was just plain text in the email most companies have a footer, at least these scammers could speak fluent English which is not really too common among scammers.  (If you ever see the word “Kindly” just run, this is a word that all the English as a second language schools teach people but real speakers almost never use.)

It started simply enough

Hi,
Are you capable of repairing laptops in bulk? Let me know.
Thanks

Of course I said yes.  ”She” then sent a list of what needed to be done and asked how much.  Then after a day I received this email.

Hi,
Thanks for the information. I’ll have the laptops brought out and ready to be shipped to you, and will have my secretary prepare your check as soon as possible.
Thanks.

Not bad, I thought to myself “I will believe it when I see it.”

Then today I received the check. (Click on it to see it in high res)  The paper was simple and plain and the signature was a stamp, did not really look too secure.  Also the check that I asked for was just $750, this check was for about 3 times that amount.

Now, I looked up the routing number, and it really was for Chase.  I also called the company listed on the check, VertiFX Technology, but I got the run around there.  Tracked the package to find the origin, here is what I got.

Phoenix, AZ, United States	12/21/2011	12:51 P.M.	Delivered
	12/21/2011	10:01 A.M.	Destination Scan
	12/21/2011	7:17 A.M.	Out For Delivery
	12/21/2011	6:44 A.M.	Adverse weather conditions.
	12/21/2011	6:40 A.M.	Arrival Scan
	12/21/2011	4:17 A.M.	Late airplane.
Louisville, KY, United States	12/21/2011	4:52 A.M.	Departure Scan
	12/21/2011	1:59 A.M.	Arrival Scan
DFW Airport, TX, United States	12/20/2011	10:38 P.M.	Departure Scan
	12/20/2011	9:21 P.M.	Arrival Scan
Fort Worth, TX, United States	12/20/2011	8:30 P.M.	Departure Scan
	12/20/2011	7:57 P.M.	Pickup Scan
United States	12/20/2011	6:55 A.M.	Order Processed: Ready for UPS

 

So the check for a California company came from Texas.  Very interesting. So I was 95% sure now that the check was a fraud.  I happen to have a Chase branch about a quarter mile from our office so I decided to go there and visit them.  Just as I suspected the account was closed recently, they would not say why but they decided that they would keep the check.  So it was all over….or was it….just an hour ago I got this email.

Hello Jason,
I just tracked the check, and it shows that it has been delivered to you today. I already got in touch with the movers today, and I need to pay them upfront for them to ship the laptops to your place, pick-up some other equipments for the office, and pick-up the laptops when you’re done, and that’s the reason for the extra cash on the check. So I need you to cash the check, deduct your repair fees,and go to a Western Union location to send the balance to the movers. Once they have it, the laptops will be delivered to your place to begin the repairs.
Send the balance to the information below:

Name:    Barry  S. Glick
Address:  6801 Otto Rd
City :       Glendale
State:      NY 11385

Deduct the sending fee from the balance and send the remaining to the information above. Get back to me as soon as possible with the Money Tracking Control Number (MTCN), and payment details (sender’s/receiver’s information) , as you have it on the receipt (I’ll appreciate it if you can scan the receipt to me).
Let me know.
Thanks.

So I replied,

I took the check to the bank and they said that it was bad.   Please just send me my amount by western union also.  That would work good.  They kept the check.

That was it.  I doubt I will hear back, but I wanted to blog about it so that Google will find these names and accounts and be able to help out others in the future.  Also I am thinking of calling Barry Glick, I bet he does not even know that he is part of a scam, I bet he is told to just go get money and keep 10% for his trouble and forward the rest, it is the way that these people keep out of trouble.  Other times they would tell the Barry guy to just use the money to buy stuff for them online, that way they get free stuff.  Lots of scams out there, so keep your eyes out.  So far they have tried it on me about 20 times, and I have not fallen for it yet.  Kind of a fun game really.

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Well our new computer store is now a month old.  It has been a crazy month, lots of hours worked, and lots to do to set everything up.  Everyday we are still setting up a major part of the business.  The website is mostly done, the marketing is done, just finished training two techs on how to do things the “Emerald” way.  We got networking done last week along with setting up the reception area and my wife’s office, and this week we put art on the walls.  All this while making enough money to keep all the bills paid.

Building a quality infrastructure is important, having all the tools in the right place and working correctly will result in massive amounts of efficiency later on in the process.  One major tool that has been lacking is my old Aztek SUV…yes it still gets us from one place to another, but there are many problems so I am thinking of upgrading.  The next piece to the puzzle is to hire and build up our sales force, at this time it is just me doing sales and that is not enough because I have so much else to do.

I am still hopeful, I just need to get the thing put together right so that we can go to the next level.

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Do you want to do something good for someone today?  Let me tell you about how you can help.  First let me tell you a story.

For many different reasons the Philippines, is very poor in general.  It is a country of over 80 million people, in an area smaller than the state of Arizona.  About 2-3% of the people are what you would call rich, and another 10% or so would be middle class, leaving over 85% that are poor.  It is not the type of poor that we see here in the US, this is real poverty.  Not knowing where your next meal will come from, not owning any new clothes.  Less than 10% of the population owns a car, only about 20% own a computer.  Millions live in large “squatter” towns which are little more that lumber and some tarps.  Families of 8 or more live in 200 square foot cement shells with a tin roof, and they feel luck to have that.

In most countries people go to school and get educated so that they can do better for their nation, but in the Philippines people go to school so that they can leave and lead a better life in other countries.  Over 4 million people, born in the Philippines, now live and work in the US (Read the source), of these over 80% have become US Citizens.  Across the globe over 20M have left.  But the Filipinos are very hard workers, you need to be just to survive there.  So in the US they are one of the richest groups of immigrants.  Because so many Filipinos earn large amounts of money, and they want to support their families back home they send record amounts of money back home.  The Philippines receives the 4th largest total amount of money, from friends and family abroad.  In 2010 it was 21.3 Billion Dollars, contributing 13.2% of their 161.2 Billion Dollar GDP.

In addition to money they send things.  There are companies all over the world that take boxes, load them on pallets, then load then on cargo containers and ship them to the Philippines where they deliver them directly to the receiver.  These are called Balikbayan boxes.  (The word is Tagalog for “Return Home”.)  These boxes are a blessing to these people who just can’t get ahead in life.  They usually are about 6 cubic feet and can be an unlimited weight, and door to door is about $75, but it takes about 6 weeks.  We like to include clothes, shoes, shampoo and soap, candy, school supplies and such.  Many of these things can be bought on sale here in the US for very cheap, our current box has over $900 worth of stuff, but because most was bought on major clearance sales or back to school sales, or using extreme couponing, we have only spent about $220.

If you would like to help some very deserving people in the Philippines have the basics to live then please consider helping me send more boxes.  We already have one box paid for and almost ready to go, but we would like to send a second box.  I am asking my social networking extended family to help us provide more by donating to us on paypal. Just click here and donate any amount you would like.   The main family we are helping this year lives in a 12×12 foot slat wood “house”, which used to be a chicken coop, with 2 adults and 7 kids, they have a small tin roof that has large holes, and they don’t have very much when it comes to clothes, furniture or anything else.  Because the walls are just slats of wood they have no privacy, and they put up a few sheets to try to gain some.  For each $200 we receive we will send one box.  I know that a lot of my friends could easily send $10 or $20 to help out.

If you donate to me to help send these boxes it is NOT tax deductible.  If you would like to directly send money to help out people in the Philippines and you would like it to be tax deductible please donate to Extreme Mercy International.  Matthew, the one who runs it is a friend, heck I even built their blog/website.  They do a radio show and have an outreach Refuge Youth Center where they hold church services.  You even can set up automatic monthly payments.

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The world is moving to the internet, and more and more people research things before they plan to spend money. The smart company manages their online presence with a good website, SEO, and they ask clients who are happy to leave positive feedback for them on one of the many sites that have been created to rate companies.

Most of these sites really use this as a way to find companies to sell advertising to but that is a whole different blog. I have been helping a few companies get online recently. Last month I helped a company with a fairly negative review history to create a new blog, website and then create profiles on many of these pages. I then created a page that he can send happy clients to so that they can review him. It makes the world better, he will feel more responsible to make people happy, and these happy clients will send more clients to him to make him more successful. Everyone is happy. He now gets a client or so per week from the web.

The odd thing is that many of these businesses have little or no knowledge of these online boards, that vast majority of business owners are oblivious, and sometimes it is really to their determent. I have seen time and time again companies that have a large number of negative reviews, often right on Google maps (The number one way people find you). A business may see 100 clients in a day but many of them won’t even receive 10 reviews in a year, and when 8 of them come from ANGRY and RANTING clients, that business will see very little traffic from people who research online.

Being a geek and knowing the power of this, I know that you NEVER want to make a geek mad at your business. One good geek can really hurt your online presence, a few and you are dead online. Geeks know this, and sometimes they even use to to hurt your business if you are their competition.

This computer repair guy really must have made someone mad, he has pages full of bad reviews about his company. Click HERE to see for yourself.

Also see MY PAGE.  I had one fake, negative review, so I asked my Facebook friends who were clients in the past to post an honest review for my company.  Look at the results.

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I really like the way that Morgan Spurlock thinks. He has created a movie about advertising and product placement, and pays for the movie by going out and getting more product placements than any movie in history. He gets free drinks, free cars, free shoes, free flights, free hotel rooms and millions of dollars given to him to make this movie. It is really awesome as he debates if he really is a sell out, and decided that he is, then he embraces it. If you have not seen this movie, and you are at all interested in advertising or business I would suggest it.

Here is the trailer.

One very interesting concept that I liked from the movie is the idea that Fame and Credibility are linked. “In the world we live in you can not be credible unless you are visible.” This is a very interesting concept. This is why people tout how many followers they have, or max out their friends on facebook.

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There is one major thing that I see so many businesses doing wrong, and that is their failure to communicate correctly. So many companies send out a message but they never ensure that it is received. Then they flip out when you are not aware of their message that they did not properly communicate. When I was in college I learned that communication is defined as this…

Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender’s intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast distances in time and space. Communication requires that the communicating parties share an area of communicative commonality. The communication process is complete once the receiver has understood the message of the sender.

The last part is the most important. First you need to make sure that the receiver has received the message and understood it. The problem is that people are flooded with messages. Over 100 billion emails are sent world wide each day. I get 100′s of texts per day, I get a pile of snail mail every day except sunday. Email is the worst though, I get over 1000 per day, but and those are sorted to over 50 different folders, and about 800 or so of them are detected as spam and sent to a spam folder. What makes me really unhappy is when someone emails me once or twice, and then a day or two later calls me and is totally mad me because of their lack of communication. When a message is urgent it is the responsibility of the SENDER and not the RECEIVER to make sure that message is delivered.

Businesses send out urgent notices, bills and much more over email, and they assume they are delivered. My web-host is really bad at this…when they see a problem with my account they email me and then disconnect my account like 10 minutes later, usually because some database locked up or something stupid like that, they don’t bother calling or texting or anything like that. They wait for me to have a customer call me and tell me that it is down, usually after I have lost 100′s of hits and client confidence. It really urks me. Because of facebook and texting many people are using email less for important things and they check it less often. So if you are waiting for an important message to be received please simply pick up the phone and tell them that you sent an important message and if they received it and never assume that they received it until you hear a reply. BTW if you are still in the stone age and use faxes this applies even more to you.

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On Wednesday the 16th I plan to go to the capital and speak about HB2677, here is what I plan to say.  If you read this and can think of something major to change please leave a comment.   This is my first time trying to change a law.  At the end I suggest a change to the bill that would actually result in the intent being accomplished, with almost no negative side effects and a few positive ones.  Here is what I plan to say.

Hello. I am Jason Dragon, I am an elected PC and State Committeeman in the Republican party. I am here to talk to you today about HB2677.

The intent of this bill is to find a way to tax people who are here illegally and use the money to build the border fence, but it fails miserably in both of these goals. I think that we do need to protect our border, and I am for building a fence but I am against this bill.

The first, and main reason that it fails is that it will tax everyone who sends money using a wire transfer service to any nation for any reason. The bill says that this is refundable, but it is only to the extent of a tax obligation. On top of the sender will need to wait up to a year so that they can file their taxes, and then they will need to keep records of these sends, and if needed will likely be required to provide these to the DOR. The majority of citizens in Arizona do not have an Arizona tax obligation due to many deductions or other credits and not enough income; all of these people will not receive a refund. In addition many other people and businesses may send money from Arizona who do not reside here, and thus will not be able to receive a tax credit.

Illegals don’t use these services. Existing state laws, designed to stop money laundering and criminal activity, already have strict ID requirements to send money using these services. They can not pass these ID requirements if they are here illegally unless they have very professionally forged documents, so the vast majority of illegal immigrants don’t send using the services this bill intends to tax. They often will hand the money a friend who can send.

As someone who has lived overseas, operated a business overseas and sends money overseas often I know that there are much easier and cheaper ways to send money than using wire transfers that this bill simply does not cover. Illegal’s and legal’s often also use these methods to send money. The most common way would be to open a bank account in the US and receive a debit card, or buy a PrePaid credit card and simply mail that card to your receiver in the foreign nation. Once they have it you simply deposit money into that account here in the US and the person in the other nation goes to an ATM and withdraws it. They also could choose to use the card at any major merchant for purchases. Because these are withdraws and not wire transfers they are not taxed. This does not even touch on the ability of people to simply mail a check or cash to a loved one overseas. Before this law even goes into effect I would bet that some smart company located in another state will offer a service where someone can send money to them and they would resend it overseas, and they only need to charge a fee slightly less than the tax charged by Arizona to get a lot of business.

The government is going to severely hamper these money transferring businesses, while other methods will prosper. The government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers.

This bill would also make our state even more business unfriendly. We would pass the burden of collecting and tracking this tax onto local businesses. We also would harm businesses that import, have overseas offices or overseas workers, taxing the money that they pay. I for one have freelance web programmers in a handful of nations in Asia, this would cost me more to pay them. I also send money every month supporting kids in Christian schools in Asia, this would cost me more to do that. I have already been contacted by missionaries who receive support from Arizona who are shocked by this bill and hope that it will not pass. I have figured that this bill would cost me about $800 per year if it passes, and the rate of 5%, as has been published in the media, would be charged.

And that leads me to the next major problem in this bill, the fact that the actual rate of the tax is not set, we should not leave ANY tax rate up to the discretion of some unelected director to decide. Where is the oversight?

Because of the complexity of international money and other existing laws this simply is not a workable bill, and it will never generate the funds needed to build a complete fence.

I don’t like to speak unless I have a solution to the problem. I have an idea of a way to amend this law to make it actually achieve the advertised goal without creating a new tax and by only targeting illegal aliens. Basically you would strike this text and replace it with text that would create a law enforcement activity, stating that during the course of law enforcement activity if someone other than a victim was discovered to be an illegal alien they would have their real and personal property confiscated. This property would then be auctioned off to generate funds to build the fence. Some protection would need to be put in there to make sure that property of a business or citizen is not swept up. You could even expand it to include people who apply for social services but are found to be here illegally. Then once the fence is built and a maintenance fund established, extra funds would go to help pay for education. Such a bill would likely be about as popular as SB1070 was. It would also function as a great deterrent to an illegal committing a crime or asking for social services in Arizona.

Thank you for your time.

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If you have not heard there is a house bill that was introduced that will dramatically raise the cost of sending money internationally.  It is called HB2677.  It will tax everyone who sends money internationally with the intent to build a fence between Arizona and Mexico.   The problem with this bill is that it is a large new TAX.  They are going to use it for one of the favorite causes of the tea party, to build a border fence, but let’s not get suckered into that.  The tea party is first and foremost an anti-tax group, even if they will use the money for one of our favorite causes.   It is just a bribe, and I am shocked and dismayed that the leaders of the tea party have gotten behind this new tax.

The major problem with the bill is that it taxes “Any entity” that sends money overseas.  That means that the next time there is a natural disaster in some faraway place Arizona will have their hand out, take money from the poor and hurting who are in crisis.  I have heard from some sources that they want a 5% fee on all transfers.  The typical fee right now is about $3.50 for the first $500.  This would add $25 to that fee, an outrageous amount.

Another problem is that it is easily circumvented.  People who are smart will avoid this law by setting up intermediaries.  An example would be that someone would set up an office in Nevada, and have their offices in Arizona collect the money, send it to Nevada and then it would be wired from Nevada to the receiver.  They would do this for a fee but it will be well less than 5%.  People are smart and this would really reduce the amount that is collected.

This bill is designed to build a wall between us and Mexico, so I would be FOR this bill if they restricted it to only personal remittances to Mexico.  They may even include Central American nations if they like, but adding this tax to everyone who sends to any location is way too broad.

The key to success for Arizona is to be free to do business and this bill puts a transaction tax on any money sent out of the country from Arizona. The bill does not state the rate of the tax but I know the fence will be costly so it will likely be at least a few %. Most importers have very slim margins and such an added cost will make them flee our state to go to ones that don’t have this cost.

This punishes people like me who want to do nice things and send money overseas. This bill will dramatically increase the current cost of sending money. Right now I use Wells Fargo for most sends and it only costs $3.50 no matter how much I send. Sometimes I use MoneyGram and they charge $10 for the first $500. Even a 3% tax on these transfers would take money and food out of the hands of the people I try to help.   I also send all of this money to either Asia or Europe, and that has very little to do with a fence between us and Mexico.

I would be for this if they changed it to state that it would only effect personal wire transfers going to Mexico, or even Mexico plus central and South America. But this idea of doing it for all business, charity and personal wire transfers for the entire world is a crazy dumb tax that should not be passed.  I am shocked that someone as conservative as Judy Burges would put her name on this totally unfair and punitive tax.

Jason Dragon

Peoria South Tea Party Leader

Area Coordinator, PC and SC in the Republican Party in LD9.

Business Owner, Importer and Entrepreneur.

ALERT: I just posted a follow up to this CLICK HERE!

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The quickest way to improve your credit is to work to remove things on your credit report that are negative.  This is not as hard as people think.  Before going forward, remember that is against the law to lie in any of the forms that you will sending to the credit reporting agencies.  But also remember that the law also says that an item in your report needs to be 100% correct for it to remain in your report; so even one small mistake in data is ground for deletion.  The problem is that the credit reporting industry make more money from someone who has poor credit, because they buy more reports, they try to fix their credit by many very expensive means and they try more often to get credit letting the credit companies to make money when they sell your reports to the companies you apply with.  They have many reasons to try to keep your report as negative as they can.

But the law is on your side.  Now here is the secret that I have seen presented at least twice at really high priced seminars presented by very successful multi-millionaires.  The law states that the info on your credit report MUST be 100% correct.  But there is a conflicting privacy law that forces them to redact most of your account information.  This turns account number 123456789 into xxxxxx789.  Because of the conflict of these two laws it has created a loophole that millionaires walk through.  It allows them to dispute that the information is not 100% correct and MUST be deleted.

They simply send a letter to the credit agency that says something like this.  ”Hello my name is John Doe, and I am writing to clarify an item on my credit report.  My SSN is 111-11-1111.  You have listed an account with account number xxxxxx789.  This account number does not match the number that is on my statements from MegaBux Bank.  Because the information about this account is not accurate I ask that you remove it ASAP as the law requires.”    The credit agencies hate it when they receive a letter like this because they know that there is no way they can keep the item on your report.  The MAJOR problem with this tactic is that it totally removes the trade line, and many people have poor credit more because of a lack of trade lines than from negative information.  If you have a 6xx score and you have less than 12 trade lines, it would actually hurt you more to remove an item with a few 30 day late payment than it would to keep it on your report.   But if you are in the 7xx range and have 20 trade lines it will likely be much better to remove the trade line.  (On a side note, the reason most millionaires use this trick is not to remove negative items, they use it to remove mortgages on investment real estate, because many banks have a limit on how many mortgages you can have at one time…doing this makes them not show up on the credit report.  They still must declare them all in the application but for some reason banks look at the credit report more than the loan application and give the credit anyway.)

If you want to keep the trade line you often can change it to make it less negative by disputing minor issues with it.  What follows is a set of instructions on how to dispute your credit the way most people do it.  Start with this first, you may get 50% or more of your negative items changed to positive, which is much better than deleting them.

With this economy you need all the help you can get to fix the last few years, and I truly hope that this blog entry helped someone.  If this helps you please comment below.

Start the dispute process

You have every right to dispute inaccuracies in your credit report under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), and the credit bureaus and your creditors are obligated to correct inaccurate information in a timely manner.

How to file a dispute

1. Contact the creditor with the incorrect information
   • We’ve created a sample letter that you can use to start the process
   • Some creditors will correct minor errors over the phone, so we recommend that you contact the creditor first
   • Your list of creditors can be found in the Creditor Contact section of your credit report
2. Contact the credit bureaus
   • Disputes may be sent to the credit reporting agencies online or in a letter:
   • Experian – Disputes are not accepted by telephone, but you may file a dispute online(link to Experian online form)
   • Equifax – Disputes are accepted online (link to EFX dispute page), or you use one of our sample letters and mail your dispute
   • Trans Union – Disputes are accepted online (link to TU dispute page), or use one of our sample letters and mail your dispute
   • Once the credit reporting agency receives your request, it has 30 days to investigate and provide a response to you in writing. During its investigation, the credit reporting agency will contact the institution that provided the disputed information to seek verification of its accuracy. If the disputed information cannot be verified, it must be removed from your credit report or updated per your request. Information that is verified as accurate may remain in your credit files for as long as allowed by law.
   • You may file more than one dispute at a time. You may also file disputes with more than one credit reporting agency. Each dispute will be investigated separately, but may be processed simultaneously.
3. Follow up
   • If you have not received a response to your request after 30 days, write a letter to the credit reporting agency indicating that you have not been notified of the results.
   • We’ve created a sample letter that you can customize as necessary to explain your case. Print, sign and mail the letter to the appropriate credit reporting agency, keeping a copy for your records.
4. Don’t give up
   • If upon receiving the results of the investigation you are still not satisfied, you may request information regarding the person or institution that supplied the information.
   • We’ve created a sample letter that you can customize to your needs and include any additional information necessary to explain your case. Print, sign and mail the letter to the appropriate address, keeping a copy for your records.
   • You may also wish to add a 100-word consumer statement to your credit file explaining the reason for the disputed information so potential creditors have the total picture.
5. If you do not recognize information on your credit report and suspect that you may be a victim of identity theft, in addition to filing a dispute, we recommend you file an Identity Theft claim.

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So why do I do this.   Why do I want to be in the tea party and why am I involved politically.  Why did I take time and money away from my family for office.  I think it all really boils down to one principle.  Freedom.

When I was growing up I was told time and time again that we live in a free country.  I went to private school and I was not there to be indoctrinated by the public school system.  By the time I was in high school it was too late for me.  I was already a staunch conservative.  I remember during high school staying up late each night to catch the Rush Limbaugh show.  I grew up living a fairly free life, a life with few rules, but I had morals so I did not stray away from the proper path.

I went to the business school at NAU, and in business school they teach you to be creative and to be a business leader, they teach you that the world is yours if you just go out and grab it.  The funny thing is that in the management track of business school they never tell you about the Government and how they control business, how the restrict business.  I graduated and was eager to start being an Entrepreneur, start my own business and get the success that I was promised, and right away I was hit with Government.  Many pages of paperwork needed to be filled out and many different government offices.  And along with this paper came so many rules that they offered free classes on how to follow all of their rules.  I ran across a few rules when I was in school about running a business out of my dorm room but now I needed to file reports each month to 3 different government offices telling them about all of my sales, if I paid someone to do something for me then it was much more paperwork, all in this free country.

After a while I moved to Phoenix, and my business got larger and larger, I rented a store and started hiring people.  Soon the paperwork was so much that I started to just ignore it all, believing I lived in a free country I figured that the Government was not entitled to this information.  I still got larger, opened up a second store, and even had a huge area at the state fair.  And for this success I was rewarded by being audited.  Nothing much ever came of it but it shocked me at how much control our government has over us.  That you must do what they say, no matter how stupid or unproductive, or else they could eventually go so far as take away your freedom. All just for doing nothing more than seeking your happiness by offering a service that people want and giving people jobs, without letting the government be your business partner.

After all of this I was just depressed by it, burned out I sold my business and move on.  I had a friend who invited me to see the world with him so I did and left the united states.  Soon I was in the Philippines, and I saw a level of freedom that surprised me.  They have the freedom to do what they want to be successful with limited influence from the government.  The government is very weak there, with most of the power in local government not federal.   With the freedom to have success they also had the freedom to fail, and many more failed than succeeded.  It was not total freedom, there was still some fairly major places that the government made it hard, but at least you knew all of the rules, they were simple, and mostly fair.

Photo I took in Hong Kong

Then I went to Hong Kong, you know, the former British enclave that is now owned by China, and for the first time I saw what I would call real freedom.  Success was everywhere, I never seen a place with so many nice cars and buildings.  By almost any measure it is the most successful city in the world, and they did it by making business easy.

I came back the US, and by that time the business I built was gone, so I decided to rebuild it, it was the easiest thing I could do to earn a living.  I started to educate myself more on Freedom, and what makes a culture flourish.  I quickly came to the conclusion that we have lost our freedom.  I became active trying to talk to people and try to wake them up to this fact that we don’t have freedom in the United States.  I watched the presidential race with passion, and I was always telling people who I would vote for.  I was very unhappy with the person that my party chose, but after seeing the other guy I was very afraid for our nation as to what would happen if he won.  I spent months talking about it and telling everyone I could of the dangers that our nation was facing.  The people then chose the worst of the two of them.  Who would blame them, it was able bodied, charismatic and most people never really knew where he stood.

Joe and I at a tea party meeting.....

Soon after this I was shocked at the direction he and his congress were taking the nation and I decided to become very active with the Republican party.  I was really inspired by Glenn Beck and I educated myself on the real history of this nation and about all the freedoms we once enjoyed. After a while the tea parties started up and I quickly joined them also.  And a bit later I found out that I could run in 2010 for city council in Peoria.  I figured that it was time for someone with my views to be able to win.  What I did not count on was an unemployed, charismatic and much more liberal opponent who would use my non compliance with our unconstitutional and overbearing government against me.  It was a very close race, and we actually technically tied the first time and had to run a second time.  I had 100’s of people telling me I was on the right track, and that I was just what was needed for this time.  My opponent took huge amounts of money from special interest groups and unions and was able to spend twice as much money attacking me as I spent on the entire race, by the end of it he spent over 20k to my 3.5k, and he won by a few hundred votes.  The unions and special interest groups bought him the seat, and I wonder who he will owe when he takes it.

I was depressed about this and how I felt that it was so unfair.  For all my work trying to make the city a better place I was rewarded a week later with an audit of my business by the city.  This made me almost lose hope in the system, there is no fairness in our government.  At least the guy at the city who was auditing me was nice and said he did not like this audit and would make it very easy on me.  It really made me feel bad about the future of our nation, that even if you stand up and try to do the right thing there are more people trying to preserve the status quo, and block you.

The Governor and I

I decided that I needed to keep trying but on a much different level.  It will be very hard to change government, and I don’t see that we can go down this path much longer.  I decided that now is the time to talk to people about how to prepare for the future that is likely to come.   A week later the chance game, the leader of my tea party group got a job in a different state, and basically it was up to me to lead the group or the group would be disbanded because no one else would take the role. I took it, I am excited by what will happen.  I also decided to change my business and actually develop some ideas that I feel are really good.  And I decided to focus on services so that I don’t have to deal with any future sales tax audits.

From here I think the future for me is bright.  I have a great skill set, great connections and even if everything falls apart I am confident that my family and I will be able to endure it, even if we have to move back to the Philippines.

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