Category Archives: The World

Obama doing something that hurts us badly.

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I usually don’t talk politics on this blog because this is a business blog,  but Obama did something that for me is unexcuseable.  The main stream media is not talking about it because if people on the left knew about this there would be outrage from manyand they want Obama to win.  But the media in the middle east is talking about it .  I also found it in the NY Post and I first heard about it on Fox News. 

I think that every American should hear about this.  It is on the verge of treason.  Basically here is the gist of the story.  Obama went to Iraq on his tour there.  During a meeting with the Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari he basically presented himself as sure to be the next president.  He then went further to tell the Iraqi leader to NOT make a deal with the Bush adminisration and to wait until the election is over.  The reason he did this is clear, the Iraq war is almost over and if it ended or if there was a major event that was the sign of the end many people would not Vote for Obama.  Getting us out of the war is one of his main positions and if the war was over they may not support him.  

I think that this may be the first time in US history that a presidential candidate under minded the state departments policies by going to a foreign nation and counterdicting the current government.

If you read about it anywhere, you will find that the source of the story is the Iraqi Minister himself.  This delay would add at least 6 months to the war. At the current rate that would cost us about 70 billion dollars and about 70 American lives, all this for one man to be elected.  What ego.

Please click on the links to the news story above,  or do a search for “delay iraq obama” and make up you own mind.

Let me shatter your false sense of security.

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“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”

~ George Orwell

Everywhere you go today there is massive security. They say it is there to keep us safe, to free us from terror. I say that every time they impose their false security on us they are reminding us of the terror causing more fear and terror and therefore the terror is winning. I say false security because there is very little that any of these security measures can do to really stop someone who is determined to cause harm.

Let me talk about the highest level of security most people face, the airport. Flying is a business, and it is needed for many people to feel safe flying. When terror struck our nation many people stopped flying because they were afraid, so the government decided it would be good to increase the pre flight checking, because the more checking they do the more secure the people will feel and the more they will fly. Remember, most people are like sheep, they think small, and they are easy to control, I call them sheeple. Then some moron decided to put a bomb in his shoe, it was big news so the government decided to make people remove their shoes. They did NOT do this because people could put bombs there, they did this because people who fly now knew people could put bombs there and if they did not check for it many sheeple would not fly.  A few years later some other total idiots made a plan to use a binary liquid to make a bomb, and overnight all over the world you could not bring liquids on a plane.

Every time a new item pops up that the people think is a threat they ban it so that the sheeple will feel secure and keep flying.  But here is the truth, the real problem is that with the number of people traveling and the number of things they bring with them there is NO WAY to truly make your flight save and secure.  Everything in life has a small amount of risk, but the time, money and effort they are putting into creating this false does very little to make us more secure, it only wastes my time and my money when I travel.  I say this because the truth is that almost anything can be made into a weapon that is more damaging than the binary liquid or the shoe bomb yet these many other things are not in the mind of the public so they are not checked for.  The people in charge KNOW this fact, they know that what they are doing is a huge sham, but it pays them well so who wants to rock the boat.

checking you out

To give some examples, a laptop is a very common item people fly with, it is important so that people can get their work done, but the battery of the common laptop can be turned into a bomb with ease.  The bottom of most laptops is a sheet of aluminum, you could easily precut a knife blade out of this and it will pass security.  So lets ban all laptops.  Well the typical PDA/Cell Phone/IPod also has a battery, with a few changes it can be used to build a charge and be turned into a taser.  It also could be used to disrupt flight communications.  So lets ban these also.  Next metal detectors can’t see objects that are not metal but are under your clothes.  It is easy to buy/make a knife made of plastic that is almost as strong, and easy to hide.  So it looks like we need to pat everyone down.  But wait the clothes people wear can be made of highly flamable things that could be used to make large fires.  It looks like we need to ban clothes, the airline would need to provide offical passanger clothes.  What about shoes, just beause we x-ray them does not mean they are safe, in fact I doubt an x-ray would have cause the bomb the shoe bomber was using.  Shoes are made of rubber, and many explosives look and act like rubber, so why could you not create a shoe sole made entirelly of an explosive material.  Looks like we need to provide offical passanger shoes also. People can hide things inside their body, we all have seen the shows of the crazy people doing things you never would expect.  I guess we need to ban people all together.  How about we just give up. (Look at the solution Ryan Air came up with as a joke.)

Eva Air, My favorite discount airline. I use them the most.
Eva Air, My favorite discount airline. I try to use them every time I fly to Asia.

This list can go on and on.  So as you can clearly see that all of this checking at the airport does almost nothing to stop someone that really wants to cause harm, all it does is waste all of our time, and all of our money. It may do a little to make people not bring dumb things on the airplane, but it does nothing to stop a planned attack done by professionals.

So now that we know that physical security is NOT the solution, what is then.  Look HERE, HERE or HERE for more proof.  One solution is information security, you can know your customers, and know which ones are very likely to be safe.  But in our nation of political correctness people are afraid to stand up to the types of people who are most likely to be evil doers. The idea of having an armed Air Marshal is a VERY GOOD idea, and I am glad they are using it, the thought of a random Air Marshal puts every evildoer in their place.

But in reality the BEST solution is no solution at all, have an alert public and simply accept the small risk.  Before 9/11 no airplane in the US was attacked other than one thing in the 1970 that was targeted only after money that a bank was transporting.  No attacks have been made after this time.  And I think that no attack will be made, simply because the other people on the plane will stand up and fight.  During WWII one of the strongest forces was that every American was working together with our government to protect our nation.  Some where along the line the government started seeing the people as the enemy, the insecure hordes, and no longer as the strongest tool to combat terror.

So my plea is this.  Lets have an informed and alert public.  Lets stop all of the wasted time and money checking for things that will probably never happen.  Let me keep my shoes on, let me keep my laptop in the bag, let me bring my drinks on the plane.  All of this security is just for show and I think more and more people have figured it out, so lets just stop it already.

Why do Europeans love Obama so much?

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I have noticed over and over again on the web, and talking with my friends in Europe that Europeans really love Obama, in fact if they could vote it would be a landslide election.  Of course all the info they get is from the media, so what is the European media telling people about him.  You can do a Google search and see long lists of glowing articles about him.  In the last two elections here in the US in 2000 and 2004 all of Europe thought that the democrats would win by a landslide and in both cases they were shocked and dismayed.

Maybe it is because Obama wants America to be like Europe in many ways.  He wants higher gas prices, wants to ban new drilling, and limit the importation of oil.  He wants to pay for universal health care, just like Europe.  He want to raise taxes to the point that you are working for the government.  Obama wants a weaker military, just like most of Europe.

Maybe it is true that he has become a celebrity.  Everyone knows how Europe loves those.

Europeans are blogging how they would love to be Americans, just to vote in this election.

But we here in America don’t want the be like Europe, with little economic growth, with a growing stronghold of atheism, with a weaker family structure than even the United States.

If you are in Europe, please tell me your view of Obama, I really would like to know if/why you support him.

A great source for motivation, PF Buzz.

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The world of blogs is huge.  There are over a million active bloggers, and millions more who do it every now and then.  Tens of millions of people read blogs every day.  Of course you know this, you are reading this blog right now.  But what it new that I want to tell you about it a site called PF Buzz.  The PF stands for personal finance.  It is a group of about 50 blogs all about how to make more money and save the money that you make.  Almost anything you want to know about this subject you can find in one of these blogs.

Now I do not agree with all the other viewpoints, many are designed to show you as an employee how to save the money you make, but as I have said before earning more money is a much better focus than saving money. I am a business person not an employee. It is still great to know what other people are thinking.

The biggest value of this site is the awesome blogs on personal motivation, and there are many of them.  They tell you how to think correctly, how to be organized and how to set goals and generally how to be successful.  This is the important stuff that if you read every day will put you in the right mindset for success.  I have PF Buzz on my Firefox Bookmarks toolbar so it is always there, only a click away.  If you want to be successful I suggest you do the same.

We are in trouble, the numbers prove it

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I am a numbers geek, I always have been.  I love charts and data.  Today I found a site that has some of the best data, presented in the best way.  It has been created by Ross Perot, another number geek.  Click here to visit Perot Charts.

It has charts on many subjects, but the one that made the most impact on me is the one about the suicidal spending of the US.  CLICK HERE to view it.  Basically it shows, plain as day with real, unarguable data the problem that the United States has, and how URGENT it is that we change it.  If you think the war is our main problem you are saddly mistaken.  The perscription drug benifit passed a few years ago costs us 6 times as much as we are spending on the entire war.

Our entire government is ran on only 38% of the budget, 9% is interest, AND the rest of the budget was spent on entitlement programs.  The pensions, social security and medical care that the government promised the older generation.  A generation that, for the most part, is no longer working to help our economy and is growing in size every day.  $1,143 trillion was spent in FY 2007 for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid alone.  This is more than $10,000 for every working household in the US.  If you have a job that means you gave away over $10,000 last year as a part of this Pyramid Scheme that can not exist in 30 years, unless we bankrupt our nation.  Most people I know who are on social security are MUCH better off than the people I know who are not on it, yet the government forces you to give to them.  This simply is NOT the place of government.  Are you MAD yet, I am.   Please read the charts, get all the data.

Drill Drill Drill

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As you may have guessed this blog is going to be about Oil.  There is so much debate now about oil.  By far the price of oil and the worrys it has caused in the economy is the most important issue to the population of the US.  Over 70% of Americans think that we should drill as much as we can.

But most of the democrats are against this position.  They simply have to be against it because some of their biggest supporters are the radical environmentalists.  They know that this group is very vocal and will cause them problems.  But they also know that 70% of Americans see that the high price of Oil is killing our economy.  Every nation out there that has oil is drilling and sucking the oil out of the ground as fast as they can EXCEPT the United States.  Our leaders how bowed to the environmental lobby and for about three decades now have made it hard to drill oil and almost impossible to build a new place to refine it into gas.

The solution is to drill for oil.  We already know where massive amount of oil is.  There is enough oil off the coast of Santa Barbra, Ca to eliminate our importation of foreign oil for 10 years.  There is enough oil in Utah and Colorado in the form of oil shale that we could be a global exporter for decades.  There is enough oil in Alaska to run the US for the next Century.  But there is a ban on drilling off shore, so the CA oil is out.  And Oil shale takes 8-10 years to get government permits to even explore and then you have to start the process all over again to actually get the oil, so no major companies are even trying.  And we all know that the democrats won’t let anyone drill in Alaska.

We have the means to get out of this oil crisis very fast.  We have the capacity ready to go.  The oil companies are eager to drill, so investment is not a problem. 70% of the people want to drill now for more old.  The only problem is our leadership.  The good thing about that is that I think that most people understand this and this November we get the chance to change our leadership.  Anyone who stands to block more drilling will have a hard time being elected.

The democrats think that this problem can be solved ONLY by saving oil, and becoming more efficient.  That is a big part of it BUT it will not change prices enough in a short enough time to save the economy.  We need to do both save oil and get more.

So where do the presidential candidates stand on this issue?

Obama stands for slashing Carbon Emissions by 80%, no matter the cost to the economy.  He is for investing more in biofuels cause the price of foot to go up even more.  He wants to cap the amount of oil our nation can import, and he wants to not allow any more drilling.  This will cost our government much more for everything, and he wants to spent hundreds of billions on doing this.  This means that everyone will have to pay by having  much higher taxes.  Higher taxes, higher fuel costs, higher food costs, that is what Obama stands for.  Check it out for yourself at his site, CLICK HERE.

McCain stands for expanding domestic oil and natural gas exploration AND production.  He is also for investing in clean energy, promoting energy efficiency and protecting our environment.  He is for nuclear power, which is clean and has no carbon.  Click here for all of his views.

So when you go vote, remember you are voting for the future of our economy.  It is the number one issue that people are interested in but the media is hardly talking about the truth of what candidates are talking about.  They gloss it over with all this other talk, but it is easy for you to see just by looking at their official sites yourself.

There is one quote that I keep hearing Obama Saying that drilling for oil will not produce oil today.  He is implying that it will not fix the problem and he uses that to say the whole idea of drilling dumb.  Everyone knows that you have to drill and invest now to to get a benefit later.  It is like having a kid, it is not instant, and everyone knows that.  Obama’s speech on this just shows everyone how dumb he thinks most Americans are, and how easily fooled they can be.   I just hope he is not right, but I have lost many times before betting that Americans are smart.

Drilling for Oil, WILL have a fast effect on prices.  10 days again bush talked about drilling more and asked congress to act on this and remove all limits to off shore drilling.  After saying that the price of OIL has dropped by over 12%, almost $20.  If we actually passed this change it would drop by more, and as soon as we did the oil companies would drill drill drill and the price would be below $2 at the pump within 5 years, below $3 in a few months.

Computer Entry: How to select a laptop.

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This article is part of my Computer series, click here for the list of other entries.

Today there are so many features on laptops. For most businesses they simple need a good laptop that works for a long period of time and at a great low price. So when they look at laptops they see units that are almost exactly the same with huge price differences. Many upgrades and things in the laptop world simply are not logical and not needed. I will talk about many of them and tell you the secret to finding the best prices.

For example 250 GB hard drives are fairly new, and 320GB laptop hard drives are still very rare. The standard is a 160GB hard drive. The larger hard drive, can ad 100-200 dollars to the price of the laptop, for just a bit more space. The average business customer uses less than 40GB of space so it is crazy to pay extra for this space.

One thing that you should know about laptops is that all laptops sold are really only made by 7 companies, and all of these companies are Chinese. Every brand you see is really a laptop from one of these companies branded with the company logo. Dell uses 5 of these 7 companies. Because of this you will notice laptops from different brands that look exactly the same, you will also notice laptops from the same brands that look totally different. The only one of these makers that sells laptops direct is Acer, but their laptops are usually very low quality and it is usually better to pay a bit more for better quality.

In the world of computers the price of something is more about how many of them are being sold and NOT about how good or complex the item is. The main cost in any item is the designing of the item and the equipment to make the item. For a CPU for example it costs up to a billion dollars to design a new chip and may cost less than $10 to actually make the chip. So if you make 20 million of these chips the cost is $60 per chip, but if you make 500 million of them your cost is $11 per chip. You even get more savings that that when you build a lot of the same item. Because of this many newer, better and faster things are much cheaper. Many CPUs are much higher in level than what you are buying but the maker just takes the higher ones and disables some higher features and sells them as a lower unit because it is cheaper to do this than make the lower unit any longer. RAM is also the same way, DDR2 is much better and faster than DDR but because it is made in much larger amounts it is cheaper. This is called “Economy of Scale” and it hold true from everything from your TV to you Car.

In the world of laptops this idea works all over the place. In my opinion HP and Toshiba make great laptops and because they sell so many they are actually better and more updated than laptops made for the same price by other companies. Because Sony is so much more money they sell less, and have a higher cost, a bad situation to be in. By far most laptops that are sold have a 15.4 inch screen, so laptops with this size are also the lowest priced of all laptops. Touchpads are by far the most popular and their price has plummeted so they now have the lowest price and are now the only choice most companies offer. DVD burners do everything you would want an optical drive to do, and because they are built in such number now they are cheaper than all of the lower types to put in, thus every laptop you will see has a DVD burner, because it is cheaper and has a larger perceived value to the customer.

The choice of CPU, Hard Drive, Optical Drive and many of the other parts of a laptop, and computers in general are based on this idea. Now to get the best deal you need to look at many different laptops and notice the trends. A laptop that floods the market may be $100 less than the others and yet be much better. This is why people hire my company to find their next laptop, we know the trends and we have a very small markup. They can pay us and still end up with a faster and better laptop and pay LESS money than if they went to wherever they normally go for laptops.

What Exactly to look for in a business laptop.

When you look for your laptop simply compare the specs from one laptop to another, but it pays to have a huge source and look at large lists of laptops because you will often find a better deal on that list.

Balance: When you look for any computer look for balance, too much CPU power at the cost of everything else will result in a slower computer. Also think about what you want to use the laptop for. If you want to play high end games then insist on a laptop with a higher end video card, it may cost $100 or more extra but will do what you want. With computers running vista you really need at least 2GB of RAM to do things efficiently. If you find a great deal on a laptop with only 1GB, buy it then upgrade the RAM later, it may be much cheaper. Don’t spend the extra money getting a much larger hard drive, first 90% of all users never use the space, second if you need more space you can get an external hard drive later, but mostly that extra bit of space really costs a lot of money in most cases. Almost every laptop comes with Vista Home Premium. This is ok for about 90% of the people out there, but if you expect to join a domain be sure to get the business version. Also if you really need XP you are looking for a older out of production laptop, these would have been sold at a much higher price to the seller and they will be asking more for them, and you get less new features than a Vista laptop.

Battery Life: Also think about battery life, for the road warrior out there it is important to have that computer last a long time. So this is what you should look for, first you need to have a processor that can scale back and use less power when you don’t need full power, but can scale up as when you do need the power. The AMD Turion is the best AMD chip at this job, but Intel really dominates this concept with their Core 2 Duo and their entire Centrino line.  Companies have spent a lot of time and money focusing on power saving, so newer technology chips are much better at this than older ones.  For any laptop the MAIN use of power is for the screen, usually it is hard to find the power consumption of the screen, but again newer technology is better.  To get all this best technology be willing to pay for it.

Size: For many people, the size of the laptop is very important, they want a smaller, thinner and more portable laptop. Because of economy of scale there is a common size that most makers make, small enough to sell in huge number and large enough to not be too much money to make. When you want to go smaller you fight economy of scale and also the fact that smaller parts cost more. Because of this smaller, thinner laptops cost much more. Every now and then a company will make a really small laptop in a large quantity and if you find that you can get a great deal on a laptop just the way you want. Don’t get the smaller laptop unless you really have figured out how much you are really paying for that option.

Laptops also change really fast. Think about how they are made. The design of the laptop, and making the first one is over half the cost of the entire run. So companies will make the really hard analysis to decide how many of a laptop design to order from the places that make them. Once the production run is over that laptop is usually never made again. Because it takes so long to build a container of laptops, maybe 2 weeks, then 2 more weeks to ship them it these companies have to predict upfront how many may sell. Usually the production run is less than a few full shipping containers. So the company, lets use HP, designs a laptop, orders 10,000 of them. They are made and shipped, they arrive in the US and are quickly sent to wholesale warehouses and retail stores all over the US. Amazon buys some, Wal-Mart buys some. Before the container even lands in the US HP will try to have it all sold. If it is all sold they may order another production run of 10,000. Almost every week a new, better chipset or CPU or something comes out, and often for a better price. So the designers are always looking to go to the next thing. And that brand new, popular design is now put out of production, never to be made again. Most designs are already put out of production before the first customer even gets one. It is a harsh business with huge risks and huge investments. This is also why only a few companies are really players in this business.

Every now and then a design is produced in a larger amount than that which can be quickly sold off. When this happens they slash the price and dump it on the wholesale market. Sometimes they just sold this computer for $700 to Wal-Mart and have only 500 units left and the design is no longer made so they dump it for $500 or less. Most wholesale companies only mark up parts 10% or less because there is huge competition. Only computer companies can usually buy from these wholesale places, this is exactly what we do here at Emerald Computers. We look for the best of these wholesale deals, select them and we post an online flyer and send email updates to our customers. If you are not getting our email you really are missing some great deals.

So what would I do it I was going to buy a laptop today? You choice for a laptop or any computer is based on what you plan to use the computer for and your personal habits.  Here is the logic that I use, if you need help choosing a laptop then email me your phone number and I will call you and help you with the process.  Lets make it fair and give me a budget of under $1000.  First I would budget in a Microsoft Wireless Laser Optical Laptop Mouse.  They are really a must have for me for long usage, and at under $25 they are a bargain.  Next I would look for a Turion based laptop unless I could find a special on a Intel based one.  The Turion ones are usually at least $100 less for the same speed.  I almost never go a long time on battery power so for me personally batter life is not much of a concern.  What is a concern is a high resolution screen.  I would stick to a 15.4″ size simply because it is just the right size for me, 17″ it is a bit to big, but I try to get at least the 1440×900 resolution, maybe the 1680×1050 (WSXGA+).  I would not get the very common 1280×800 because for me and my eyes I can see much better than that and I need the space.  I don’t game on my laptop so an average video card is good for me.  And I have a few external hard drives, and most of my data will stay on my main computer so a 160GB drive is ok for me.  I like to multitask so I would need 2GB of RAM, I would not get more than 2GB because it takes extra power to run that extra ram, and I almost never go over 2GB, also I like to hibernate my computer and more RAM makes that much slower. When a new OS comes out I may upgrade the RAM.  I would still look at computers with 1GB because I know can upgrade the RAM very cheap on my own.  I do watch DVD movies and I like to have good sound so I would look for a computer with a nice DVD drive and good speakers.  I would also look at a picture of the laptop first, different makers have much different styles and I only like some of them.  I also like black better than silver, but that will not kill the deal.  I found a laptop just like this for only a bit over the budget.  You need to look for one based on your needs.

So when you are ready for your next laptop you now have much more information, you will probably have more than the employee selling the products. I wish you good luck, and if you ever need help feel free to email or call my company, we will be happy to help you.

CLICK HERE FOR THE UPDATE I WROTE ABOUT MONITORS

More on our complex world…

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Yesterday I wrote a blog about how our country is too complex.  Then I found that one of the blogs I read often wrote a blog on the same subject, only he did a better job about it than I did.   Read his blog here. As it turns out he is quoting from a book about the same subject, called The Collapse of Complex Societies.  I guess many people are coming to the same conclusion.  Too bad for them they see it as only the fault of the Republicans, when there is much more at fault than just that.   This must be much more important that I thought.

Our world is too complex and getting worse…please help.

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Many people have jobs, where your job is to make something better.  In order to keep your job you need to show results.  Now a problem happens, many companies make their product just about as good as it can get.  In the real world of products they just move on to the next thing, but in software they keep adding features well beyond what is useful.

There are many examples of this. Winamp was perfect 8 years ago, it played music well, it had good skins and an equalizer.  Then they started adding stuff, and adding and adding.  They put in a video player, but it sucks.  They put in a browser, what is the point in that?  Adobe Acrobat is a program that never really worked well.  And every update just makes it slower.  There are third party ones that are much faster and better.  There are many other examples.

So companies that make programs have figured out that most people don’t need their updates, but if people don’t get their updates they can’t push future changes on them, that may include more advertising, or toolbars on your browser, and these companies love to do that.  So they have made their programs “phone home” each time they load, and if the company decided they want to send an update they will do so.  This makes these programs slower, and many of them gripe if you are not online when you load the software.  At least 20 programs I know of now try to push the Yahoo toolbar on their customers each time you update and unless you are very careful and unselect a box hidden somewhere you get it.  And it is hard to remove and almost totally useless.  There is really a battle going on for your attention, and these companies are trying more and more intrusive things to make you use their software, even though most of it is free.  The other day I noticed that if you update java, it tries to install download and install open office, a almost 180MB download.  Java is just a programming language, why should they push an entire office suite on users.  Most users are not smart enough to catch this stuff, then they call me when they see stuff they don’t understand, and these calls are increasing.  (As a note I love open office, I suggest it to many people and install it on all systems we sell.)

Now in the world of software this is a minor annoyance. You can run older versions, or usually disable all updates. But this is also done in many other areas, it is human nature that once something is very good you will keep changing it, even if the change is bad, simply to look like you are doing something.  One area where this is VERY costly and actually dangerous is in the area of Government.  The government keeps adding rules, and regulations in areas where none really is needed.  Many people running for office brag about the number of bills they introduced, and the number of laws they passed.  All of this makes life more complex.  Do we really need such a complex tax system that you have to call an expert for help and even the experts don’t know half the time.  Do we really need over 20,000 classifications for imported items.  Do we really need to have so many regulations on hiring employees, increasing complexity and costs so much that companies get fed up with it and simply hire people in other nations.  Should it really take over a year for a citizen to bring his wife to the US legally?  Do we really need the government to tell us what food is safe, to tell us that we need to give our babies over 20 shots, many of which cause more harm than good?  Should it be so complex to get a Federal grant that Matthew Lesko has become famous for his awesome 3000+ page book with over 15,000 DIFFERENT programs listed (BTW read his blog).  Do we really need a government with 1000’s of different divisions?

This has cost our country a huge price.  Our power has allowed us to survive for a while but now a crisis is coming. It is so hard to appease the government regulations that no nuclear power plant or oil refinery has been built here in over 30 years.  Most factories are built overseas simply because lack of regulations make them much more profitable.  Why would you want to build you widget here, and deal with the EPA the IRS and OSHA when you can built it overseas and import it for less.  This is why our balance of trade is so bad, this is why are money is flowing out of this country and we are all in debt, as a nation we are living well beyond our means.  This has been a problem for many years, but just recently it has gotten so bad that people have stopped lending to us, whole nations are writing down our debt, and this is causing problems for millions of Americans.  This is a problem, created by our own government decades ago, the symptoms were hidden for years, the official government report showed almost no inflation from 1997 until 2005 while the average person saw huge inflation.  Now it is all catching up, and millions of people are SHOCKED by it.  It will ruin the lives of millions, it will also improve the lives of millions.  I have written many times about this subject, see here or here.

Anyway this was suppose to be a simple post about how everything is getting more complex simply because people want to keep their job and have nothing better to do.  Please comment on what you think about all of this.

A story from the heart, what drives me.

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I often think about my dreams. To me almost all of my dreams have to do with my legacy, what I leave behind for future generations. For me there are a few things that really give me a great since of satisfaction. First, I really think that it is important to help out people who need help, and want the help. The think that I feel really made my life what it is the fact that I had access to education and tools to take advantage of that access. I started high school in 1989, and I was the only person I knew who had a computer at that time. I also spent a huge amount of time learning. By the end of high school I knew more about computers than any teacher there, same thing went when I was in college, almost all of this was self taught. (In high school I entered into a state competition, and got first place in the entire state for computer expertise) I only placed number 24 when I went to the national competition.

To everyone’s surprise computers turned out to be a huge industry, taking control of much of how the entire world works. I was given a huge advantage. Now we all know that computers are VERY important to success, so I have gone on a plan to give very poor children, access to computers, and access to quality education. These are kids that would not be able to get a good education or maybe even go to school. These are kids that will live a very poor life if we do not step in to help. This year we are looking to support 7 kids. The cost for one year is about $800 per kid. I am trying hard to raise this money now because it needs to be committed by the first of June. If you want to help out you can donate using PayPal. (Just send to my email [dragon(at)capitalactive.com] as a donation) Anything you send will go directly to help these kids.  This photo is of the 4 kids we helped in 2007, before they met us they were living in a small shack, with a tarp as a roof, they never had been more than 10 miles from home, and never even seen a mall.  (I have before pictures also but they would break your heart.)  They were very smart but the schools they went to were very poor, and this kids were years behind the city kids, even though they were near the top of their class in their rural schools.  In one year they were able to catch up and pass the city kids, we gave them quality food, clothes, and housing.  This year I want to do even more.   My goal is to support 7 kids.  We will use these 4 and add 3 boys.  Without your help I don’t know if I can do it.

The next thing is a much larger thing. I really want to develop Real Estate. I have always been interested in architecture and large buildings. When you see a large building you know that someone designed it and also someone thought of it and paid for it to be built. To me this is the ultimate legacy. I want to build great unique buildings that will stand out. I decided to go a different path, and I went into computers and business. But now I want to go into. I firmly believe in the mixed use real estate concept. Basically building communities, of housing, work, and shopping all in the same mega complex. This is the way life used to be but, here in the southwest, the car made all of these things disperse. Most people travel many miles to work, and at least a mile to shop. There is no community left in many places and this lack of community is one of the major things destroying our country. Imagine if you lived on the 7th floor of the building, shopped on the first and second floor and worked in your office on the 15th floor. All the while you had many friends, and felt like you truly belonged. I don’t just want to do real estate; I want to do real estate with a purpose. I have a young son, only 9 months now, and I want to leave him a legacy he can be proud of, and one he can carry on.

I also want to provide quality housing to people in need. Imagine going to a city in Asia, where the people are poor, and getting the community to work together to build a massive complex, I would supply the materials and organization, the community would do most of the work, and we would own the building and charge a very low rent. People would have the ability to move up from the squalor to live in healthy and much higher quality housing. What is I can do that, and impact a thousand lives in a very profound way. This is the legacy that I want to leave.

Now I am only 32 now, I have decades to do this. I am looking for like minded people who will know more than me to advise on these projects. I don’t think I will have the resources for a few years to do such a thing, but once I do it will roll on and on.

This is my WHY, this is the reason I want to be hugely successful, this is the reason why I need to make the things I do work. It is much more than me I do this for.

If you know of ways to get this done faster or cheaper I would love to hear from you. Please email me or comment below. Thanks.