Last Minute Gift Ideas, More TSA Follies

Bruce’s Poor Man Recession Bulletin
Your choice for urban survival resources
http://www.PoorManSurvival.com


In This Issue:

What I gained When I lost Everything
America now has the worst income disparity in the world
Big Brother on Steroids-Walmart TV-Spy on Fellow Americans
American stupidity-why the sheep are so easily led
Online holiday freebies, Free PDF of Economics in One Lesson, More
Last minute gifts you can print online
The Biggest Bank Robbery




"For everybody has a natural right to defend his own person and property against aggressors, but also to go to the assistance and defense of everybody else, whose person or property is invaded. The natural right of each individual to defend his own person and property against an aggressor, and to go to the assistance and defense of every one else whose person or property is invaded, is a right without which men could not exist on earth."
-- Lysander Spooner
(1808-1887) Political theorist, activist, abolitionist



A blend of the ACLU & Nader’s Raiders-Are we just road kill?
Our country has entirely too much duplication of government agencies

One of the reasons we created the Citizen’s Guide to Screwing Bureaucrats is because many are tired of their ruthless, costly antics but most of us lack either the desire or means of challenging these flatworms in a legal fashion.

It is simply not government creeps that screw things up, it is often corporate jerks too and the most famous for screwing its customers is feebay. There are loads of blogs and sites devoted to exposing at their insidious practices. EBay’s ad network owes me $26.50 and they don’t want to give it back - they even admit they owe it! I will probably wind up filing a complaint with the CA Attorney General’s office (find a link to all 50 states on our Poor Man site).

A former employer of the Poor Man’s wife owes us a few thousand and is dragging his heals and openly shows his disrespect. We’ll file a complaint with the Department of Labor against him. An example from our book on how to use a bigger fish to go after a smaller fish at no out of pocket expenses.

My sister always said I should have been a lawyer and both of us passed the LSAT’s while in high school but never went to law school. However, the Poor Man sits on the board and acts as volunteer executive director of a not-for-profit group which has been essentially sitting idle for the past year. We used to make grants of cash and gifts to other non-profit groups, but that fund is empty.

We grew up in an era when Ralph Nader and his Nader’s Raiders were popular and it is time to revive an organization devoted to citizens rights since most often, the government either falls down on the job or is the problem. Nader went after consumer products, such as GM and their auto, the Corvair along with governmental organizations such as the FTC. There is no doubt we have too many government agencies. Can anyone tell me why the Department of Education needs to be duplicated 51 times? Let each state handle their own educational needs and save the taxpayers some cash!

Over the years, some have accused me of being un-American. Quite the opposite, I love this country but I’ve grown increasingly disgusted at how governments at all levels have trampled the rights of hard working Americans and have squandered our public treasury placing our children into hock for generations to come. Just because a child is sick doesn’t mean you toss it out the window, you try to cure it.

Most folks are too intimidated, too broke or don’t have the time or inclination to battle government agencies. That’s what they count on!

In the eyes of our Washington-Wall Street Cartel, many citizens have become serfs, serving the feudal master and if we no longer serve their purpose - we’re road kill.

My thinking is our activist group would target government agencies primarily as they seem to do the most harm and cost the public the most money - needlessly. If you have any interest in getting involved, drop me a line. Defending our rights under Natural Law is in the interest of every American. I will be seeking paralegals, researchers and lawyers to assist on a pro bono basis.

I’m meeting with the MI branch of the ACLU to get some pointers on approaching law schools to gather volunteers. We’re contemplating as our first case, to go after MI law preventing people from defending themselves using non-lethal tools such as mace and stun guns, something currently against the law.
To learn more about Nader’s Raiders, go here:
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/unreasonableman/beyondraiders.html

Here’s our Christmas Card to all of you…feel free to share it with your friends!
Click here for your card. (if this link doesn’t work, use the one below)


http://ak.imgag.com/imgag/product/preview/flash/bws8Shell_fps24.swf?ihost=http://ak.imgag.com/imgag&brandldrPath=/product/full/el/&cardNum=/product/full/ap/3166187/graphic1


Learn to make your eBay listings stand out-Free guide
http://pagemage.com/docs/eBay_Stand_Out_Guide.pdf

How to profit on eBay-even if you don’t have a product. (Part of a free online course you can sign up for when you visit this site)
http://www.hotitemfinder.com/hotprofits/lesson14_a4fq.php


UPS Adds Photo ID Requirement for Retail Shipping
UPS is expanding its policy to require customers who ship
packages from retail shipping locations to present a
government-issued photo ID for verification of identification.
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y10/m12/i10/s04


It [the State] has taken on a vast mass of new duties and responsibilities; it has spread out its
powers until they penetrate to every act of the citizen, however secret; it has begun to throw
around its operations the high dignity and impeccability of a State religion; its agents become a
separate and superior caste, with authority to bind and loose, and their thumbs in every pot. But it
still remains, as it was in the beginning, the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and
decent men.
Henry L. Mencken, 1926.

Read-Our Enemy, the State-free PDF you might wish to share or watch the video. One of the absolute best treatise on state power grabs and control
http://mises.org/etexts/ourenemy.pdf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL4vOjDWXNs

Homestead series on how to grow garlic. They also offer free how to’s on building a greenhouse and more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vExj4UCmFNA&feature=related

A variety of Christmas-Holiday FREEBIES
Cards, music, catalogs and more…
http://thefreesite.com/Seasonal_Freebies/Christmas/
http://frugalliving.about.com/od/gifts/tp/Free_Christmas_Gifts.htm


Last Minute gifts you can print at home…
Amazon.com - simply click the ‘gift cards’ menu tab and select Print a Gift Card
Restaurant.com - good at more than 15,000 eateries & you pay only 40-60% of the actual value!
Netflix.com - go to their site & click on gift Purchase & choose how many months you’ll give.
!Tunes! - use gift cards to download songs & albums to suit nearly any taste (I like 80s music)

Here’s another idea…several years ago we made up custom gift baskets as presents to family members. Knowing each person allowed us to include their favorite chocolates and I baked up batches of cookies and mini-loaves of blueberry, pumpkin and banana breads. To this we included a 60-page cookbook I had written of unique country recipes…the baskets & cookbook proved a big hit and for several years we got requests for additional copies of our Secrets & Shortcuts of a Country Inn Chef!

<<<>>>

What I Gained When I Lost Everything...
Michael Gates Gill - thanks to Bottom Line for allowing this to be shared! The Poor Man went through a similar experience but he’s not old enough to get medicare and he never worked at Starbucks…but he did rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in uninsured medical bills and bounced back. You can too is the moral of this story.

Fourteen years ago, at age 53, Michael Gates Gill was at the top of his game -- he had a lovely wife, an expensive home and a $160,000-a-year job in advertising. By age 63, he was divorced, unemployed and nearly broke -- then his doctor informed him that he had a slow-growing brain tumor.
In desperate need of health insurance and a regular paycheck, Gill took an entry-level job serving coffee at Starbucks for $10.50 an hour. To his amazement, he loved the work.
Four years later, Gill no longer needs the health insurance -- he now is old enough to qualify for Medicare. He also has sold his life story to Hollywood (Tom Hanks is expected to portray Gill in the film), but he plans to remain at Starbucks -- he enjoys the job. He has chosen “watchful waiting” as the treatment option for his brain tumor.
Bottom Line/Personal asked Gill to share what recent years have taught him about life...

Your own expectations can constrain you. In my earlier life, I defined myself by my career and social status -- I was an affluent, Yale-educated ad executive. When I lost my job in advertising, I was certain that the solution to my problems lay in landing a new job in advertising or, if not that, a new client to get my own advertising consulting business on its feet.

My mental image of myself prevented me from considering opportunities that did not fit that picture. I could not see myself in a service-sector job wearing an apron and a baseball cap -- even though Starbucks’ generous health insurance plan offered a solution to my most immediate problem.
It took an outside force to break me out of this box. I was in my local Starbucks when, out of the blue, a manager asked me if I needed a job -- it turns out that the Starbucks I had entered was having a “Hiring Open House.”
You may not know your true priorities. I spent most of my adult life chasing bigger paychecks, loftier job titles and flashier possessions. These were my goals not because I chose them, but because I never considered that any other goals existed. My friends and family seemed to want these things, and I assumed that I wanted them, too.

When I accepted the job at Starbucks, it struck me that I probably would never again have money, titles or expensive possessions -- yet one evening at Starbucks, I realized that I was as happy as I had ever been in my life. This “low-level” job gave me supportive bosses and coworkers, lots of human interaction and enough money to live a simple life. These were my real priorities, and I had never even known it. Instead, I had wasted most of my life pursuing other people’s goals. Perhaps I could have discovered my true priorities long ago if I had listened to my heart, rather than allowing myself to get swept along in what those around me were doing.
Trust the universe. I thought of myself as a master of the universe when I was young and successful. Only later did I discover that no person is a master of the universe, and it is foolish even to aspire to be one. Trying to master the universe means struggling against the tide of events, which rarely works. When the universe pushed me out of the executive suite, I tried to take charge and reclaim the life I had had previously. I did not find happiness again until I stopped fighting the tide and started swimming with it to see where it led.
Any task can be worthwhile if it involves serving others. I had considered serving coffee an unimportant job -- until I figured out that my job was not really serving coffee at all. It was serving my customers and my coworkers. I might not be curing cancer, but I am doing my best to make life a little better for anyone who steps through the Starbucks’ door. There are few feelings as wonderful as the feeling you get when you help someone feel better.
Having money only creates a desire for more money. I earned a lot in my previous career, yet I was always in debt and worried about finances. Today I no longer have a car, a big house, stylish furniture or $2,000 suits... and I do not miss my former possessions in the least. I can’t even remember why I thought they were important. Living without luxuries doesn’t feel like a sacrifice. I love my cozy apartment. I love that I can go for a walk or sit at home reading a book and not feel that I should be out at a business event or an expensive restaurant.
The best jobs are those that keep you in the moment. Much of my 26 years in advertising was wasted in meetings. Many times we had meetings to prepare for other meetings. We were living not for the moment but always in the future.

Only when I started working behind a counter did I discover the joy of work that keeps you in the here and now. There are no long-term projects in my new career. When I prepare a cup of coffee, I don’t worry about past mistakes or future challenges. I just do what I am doing right now to the best of my abilities, and I immediately see the results of what I have done. That is a wonderfully gratifying way to live.
Most people work long hours and think about their jobs even when they are home. When I worked in advertising, a boss once ordered me to fly to Detroit on Christmas while my young children were still opening their presents. I went.
I love the fact that now when I leave work for the day, I do not think about my job again until my next shift. That is what a job should be -- a relatively small part of life.
True, jobs that offer lots of free time are unlikely to be very lucrative -- but the free time they provide can lead to even greater financial success. I used some of my free time to write a book that will soon become a movie. If I were still a “successful” executive, I never could have found the time to write.
The only job that’s beneath you is one that you do not give your full effort to. I no longer consider it degrading to clean the toilets in a coffee shop bathroom. What would be degrading would be cleaning them poorly. Doing a task well -- any task -- is a source of self-respect.
It is natural to fear change, but things are rarely as bad as we fear. When we’re faced with change, we worry that we will not be able to adapt or that we will not enjoy our new situation. I was scared of taking a job at Starbucks... scared that I wouldn’t get along with coworkers half my age... scared when I was put in charge of a cash register, because I have never been very good with money.

Each time, I was scared before the change occurred -- yet once it did, it was never as bad as I had feared. Sometimes we just have to take that leap into a completely unfamiliar situation and expect that we will rise to the challenge.
Bottom Line/Personal interviewed Michael Gates Gill, former creative director at J. Walter Thompson Advertising and currently an employee at a Starbucks in Bronxville, New York. He is author of How Starbucks Saved My Life (Gotham)


Useful Resources…

Do you have multiple social networks that you try to keep updated? Wouldn't it be nice to able to update them all at once? Well now you can with Ping.

You'll have to register to be able to use it, but it's free! So just fill out the registration form with an e-mail address and password and then click the Sign Up button. Then you're whisked off to a list of social network sites. To connect them to your Ping account, all you have to do is click Add Network, and then follow the directions for that social networking site. http://ping.fm/

Consumers Follow Brands on Social Media for Coupons
Forty percent of consumers say they are most likely to search for
coupons or promotions when interacting with a brand via social
media, according to an Empathica survey.
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y10/m12/i08/s04


Appeal Your Property Tax Assessment Workshops
Free assistance for homeowners
Learn how to appeal your property tax assessments by attending a free, two-hour workshop offered by the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance and the Wayne County Taxpayers Association. Currently scheduled are five Workshops for Detroit-area residents. West Michigan and out-state Workshops are being planned.
“Too many struggling homeowners may end up paying too much in property taxes if they don’t appeal their assessments. These workshops will provide valuable, expert and free information to homeowners.”
“Appealing your property tax assessment can be a bit tricky,” stated Leon Drolet, Chair of the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance. “Learn the law and the appeals process and you increase your odds of paying no more than what you legally owe in property taxes.”
http://www.mitaxpayers.org/propertytax.html

Perpetual Wars, Endless Enemies-our government is the biggest arms dealer and dealer in death than any other country and it routinely trumps the Constitution.
As the Poor Man has stated…it’s about control & the corporations making money from the technology they sell to Uncle Scam. Our government has in reality, declared war on its own citizens-Straight out of 1984 the movie AND it’s disgusting! Government extremists are everywhere.
Janet’s Homeland Security TV at WalMart - 1984 Style Tyranny
http://alex-jones-infowars.blogspot.com/2010/12/wal-mart-invasion-part-of-larger-dhs.html



Marsha J. Evans, President and CEO of the American Red Cross...
Salary for year ending 06/30/09 was $651,957 plus expenses…while
Salvation Army's Commissioner Todd Bassett receives a salary of
only $13,000 per year (plus housing) for managing this $2 billion
dollar organization.


What is your plan B?
THE PERFECT STORM
The financial problems we all face are now bigger than the government alone can handle. These problems are now becoming global problems:

1. Value of the dollar falling
2. National debt increasing
3. Baby boomers starting to retire
4. Oil prices rising
5. Gap increasing between the rich and everyone else
6. Wages decreasing
7. Jobs being exported
8. Social Security and Medicare going bankrupt
9. Savings being wiped out
10. Lack of financial education being taught
http://kiyosaki-blog.blogspot.com/2010/12/what-is-your-plan-b.html

Congress"borrowed" nearly 43% of the money you paid into Social Security last year.

American Stupidity with Bill Maher…let this perk up your day!
It’s little wonder this country is in trouble & why the sheep are so easily led.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0LZcN4Qf3Y&feature=related

The average person will spend a buck on a lottery ticket or cup of coffee,
But they won’t drop a dime on something which will improve their brain
Or earning power…many no longer read anything.


Lawyer: U.S. to Indict Assange

Get ready for hacker mayhem. Lawyers for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange say he'll soon be indicted by the United States for spying. "Our position of course is that we don't believe it applies to Mr. Assange and that in any event he's entitled to First Amendment protection as publisher of WikiLeaks and any prosecution under the Espionage Act would in my view be unconstitutional and puts at risk all media organizations in the U.S.," said his lawyer. He's currently being held in solitary confinement in Britain on sexual-assault charges from Sweden.


Parting shots…

Freedom of speech...especially when its inconvenient

It's probably safe to assume that Australian Internet activist Julian Assange wasn't thinking specifically about Iran when his brainchild, the information clearinghouse WikiLeaks, released its latest round of classified U.S. government cables. Still, the data dump, encompassing more than a quarter-million internal memos issued by the State Department and U.S. embassies overseas, successfully demolishes a number of sacred cows relating to American policy toward the Islamic republic and its burgeoning nuclear effort. What truly amazes me however, the first rule one learns in the spy game is to never keep written records of damaging information! So what happened?

Part of me wants to cheer the guy on. He’s taken on the behemoth US government and appears to me sort of like David & Goliath…then again, it is our country?! I must remind myself how the Washington-Wall Street Cartel decimated our middle class and perhaps…

…when the workers decide they are tired of being exploited, and if anyone else wants their job they’re welcome to it. We will see worker slowdowns similar to those popular in Europe. Suddenly, corporate profits will be jeopardized.

And as I began writing in the mid 1980s, what will happen when corporations no longer have anyone left to sell to. In other words, if the number of unemployed keeps rising, at some point there will no longer be anyone left to buy things until they get employed again. At this point corporate survival will dictate the need to hire people if only to continue selling their products.

And as most of us already knew…despite the changes in ‘leadership’ of the past election, Congress will do little to change their spending habits. Oh yeah, there will be a lot of lip service to reining in the budget, but don’t count on it.


Closing thought on the economy…

In conversations with associates whose business it is to know (industrial, business & real estate forecasting), this will be the slowest recovering recession ever…2014 at the earliest in terms of jobs. Personally, I’m not as certain. I realize those calculations are based on current trends and stats but as I’ve warned readers before…it wouldn’t take much to upset the apple cart!

The fed says no inflation…but most of us know we’re being lied to again with manipulated statistics. The price of fuel and therefore, grains, has soared recently…expect the US to continue to under report inflation even as the average American continues to be pinched.

{I know economics bores most folks, but it is your pocket that is being picked. I suggest reading -FREE- the 1946 book Economics in One Lesson. Get it here}:
http://www.fee.org/pdf/books/Economics_in_one_lesson.pdf

Another war with (take your pick)…more crushing government rules, regulation or the production of even more fiat money, more taxes at any level, no pick up in hiring, etc.- even so, Wall Street - see below.

America worst income disparity in world
Top Wall Street firms will once again break their own salary record this year and as the gap between the haves and have-nots worsens, could it get worse? Most of the government benefits have gone to help Wall Street get on its feet while others suffer. Mike Norman says what is happening to the United States is very disturbing and the US now ranks the lowest in income disparity in the world.
http://geraldcelentechannel.blogspot.com/2010/12/america-worst-income-disparity-in-world.html

Suggested reading from Laissez faire books…(a company I once tried to buy).
Tax Revolt: The Rebellion Against an Overbearing, Bloated, Arrogant, and Abusive Government

One more you might enjoy about ‘The Biggest Bank Robbery yet
http://geraldcelentechannel.blogspot.com/2010/12/gerald-celente-biggest-bank-robbery-non.html

That’s it for this week from the Poor Man, curator of the Museum of Lost Civil Rights and all around bon vivant.


http://www.PoorManSurvival.com
http://www.OldBooknook.com
http://www.GreenIrene.com/Poorman

Don't Get Caught With Your Pantry Down-New 11th Ed.
http://tinyurl.com/PMBasics

A Shallow Planet Production

How to Beat the Bureaucrat-New, Your Eroding Rights

Bruce’s Poor Man Survival Bulletin
Your choice for urban survival resources
http://www.PoorManSurvival.com


In this issue:

PM’s newest ebook “How to Beat the Bureaucrats”-excerpt below
4 Things not to buy at Costco
TSA Funnies
New PayPal Alternatives
160+FREE Preparedness files-for subscribers-only
New download site address for PM II


"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself." - Thomas Jefferson,


Funny TSA photos posted & more!

Like many, the Poor Man got full of turkey & stuffing. For the rest of the week we’ll live on leftovers plus I made a generous pot of chili using our own tomatoes and deer meat…yummy and goes great with shredded cheddar cheese and some leftover biscuits!

The annual spending race has kicked off & retailers are sure hoping you keep the Black Friday tradition alive by purchasing more stuff that you don’t need or that will be obsolete before the next holiday season. It would appear the recession is now officially over with.

The Poor Man has completed another ebook titled How to Screw the Bureaucrats: Terrorcrats Gone Wild. In my research it was scary to learn how many citizens are tired of the chicanery posed by bureaucrats at every level of government and how much it cost this nation. As many have suggested that unions have lost their way over the years, I would argue most bureaucrats have lost their way too and become agents of an out of control government quagmire which burden our system and greatly stunts job growth.

Bureaucratic bungling & BS cost this country billions
And it’s time to put an end to it.

This ebook will cover some of the stats as well as legitimate ways of defeating them and what to avoid (knowing this will keep you out of jail) plus I wind it up with a collection of whimsical revenge stunts you can use to inflict punishment.

I placed a test ad on my eBay storefront on turkey day…after the test we’ll place it on our download site for easy access. A complete description & PayPal link now appears on our site. http://poormansurvival.com/BeatBureaucrats.aspx

It’s available now as an emailed PDF to save shipping costs. I’m going to try an experiment by offering it on a strictly donation basis and will offer a link to a huge library of self sufficiency how to materials as a bonus. We’ll see how it goes…if you’d like a copy now, send a donation using your PayPal account and our email address of poormansurvivor@yahoo.com

America has been compromised by Washington…
But does anyone care or remember?

Most folks would agree that the Poor Man practically gives his how-to library away compared to others on the net or eBay selling similar materials…we’re sure not getting rich doing it and if I could afford to, I’d give everything away so you can prepare for the unpredictable and volatile future. Scroll down to get the link to nearly 180 free survival reports and how to order our new ebook…this is for subscribers only and the link will not appear on our public blog sites.


Finally, the TSA continues to amaze and anger much of the public and as we have stated, these stroke n gropes are a violation of your civil rights. Private citizens have caught more terrorists than the government…it’s like our gun laws. They’ve not prevented bad guys from getting guns, only honest citizens (who have the most to fear and lose to the government). The TSA crap is just another step toward creating an atmosphere of obedience among the serfs (you & I)…the march continues to total dominance.

From Jeffrey Goldberg writing for The Atlantic…

But come November 24th, here’s an idea you might try to make the day extra-special. It’s a one-word idea: Kilts.

Think about it — if you’re a male, and you want to bollix-up the nonsensical airport security-industrial complex, one way to do so would be to wear a kilt. If nothing else, this will cause TSA employees to throw up their hands in disgust. If you want to go the extra extra mile, I suggest commando-style kilt-wearing. While it is probably illegal to fly without pants, I can’t imagine that it’s illegal to fly without underpants.

So put on a kilt, and strike a blow against stupidity!

I can’t help but wonder if this entire TSA crap is less about security, but rather the airport security devices sold by former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff. Well, as our rights are diminished in the name of security, here’s a chuckle for you-cute country song on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9a8jGVXOMsw


In the past few months we’ve written about new laws that have gone into effect which curtail your freedoms such as the new passport rules, costs and restrictions on law abiding citizens, the new law forbidding you to mail tobacco to soldiers, etc. Slowly but surely we’re all cooking. It’s all about conditioning the sheep-most terrorists caught are on the way here, caught by civilians…not innocent Americans going about their business. Folks, did stringent gun control laws stop bad guys from getting guns -NO!

Just like most events in this country, it’s about the money. Corporate America sells the security devices so of course they push for this crap.

Go to the Group site to see some humorous TSA photos I placed.

Due to my holiday schedule…this is a short bulletin for the week!


The people are the masters of both Congress and the courts, not to
overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who would pervert it!
-- Abraham Lincoln



4 Things Not to Buy at Costco

Most of us are notoriously poor at assessing a true bargain, says C.W. Park, professor of marketing at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, and editor of The Journal of Consumer Psychology. Seduced by the prospect of saving money, we give in to impulse buys. Eventually, we regret the purchase or throw much of a past-its-prime product away. It's called the Costco Effect, and it's actually part of the store's incredibly successful retail strategy. But the effect on your wallet is that you spent more than you would have if you'd never seen that "bargain.”

The Poor Man likes their meat dept., good pharmacy and tires are usually a good deal and it’s the only place I can find the 5lb or larger bags of baking soda which we use for so many things. Get the rest at:
http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/111341/things-not-to-buy-at-costco

Updated government grant resources
To view the Grants.gov Fall 2010 Newsletter please click here:
http://www.grants.gov//help/newsletter.jsp

More, Extreme Weapons Resource Site
http://www.weaponscombat.com/

From Pig Book 2010 from the Citizens Against Government Waste. It's clear that Congress could save billions by a one to five-year hiatus on spending. The country would not collapse. Yes, some people might lose jobs. Others would gain. Would Mississippi collapse without the $10 million for the Sustainable Energy Research Center? Or, would or country go down without ten C-17 aircraft that cost $2.5 billion?
http://www.cagw.org/reports/pig-book/2010/


eBay Exec Takes Social Commerce Ideas and Launches Yardsellr

A former eBay executive thinks he can bring the excitement of
eBay's early days to Facebook through his startup, Yardsellr. We
chatted with Danny Leffel to learn more about his ideas on social
commerce, Facebook and more.
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y10/m11/i24/s03


FBI Wants Expanded Internet Wiretapping Capabilities

The FBI is lobbying tech companies including Google and Facebook to win support for an Obama administration proposal to expand its Internet wiretapping capabilities, according to a report in the New York Times. The administration is urging Congress to revise the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), claiming that law enforcement needs to keep pace with technological changes. The original law, passed in 1994, compels telecommunications and broadband companies to make their services wiretap-ready.


Collection Of FREE Internet Business
& Marketing Gifts That You Can
Start Profiting From Today!"
The Poor Man hasn’t had time to check ‘em all out but worth a ‘look see’
http://seorevengetactics.com/

Will a Food Bubble Be the Next Phase of Financial Chaos?
Is a "food bubble" the next financial crisis on the horizon? Some of the same sinister forces that brought down stocks and housing seem to be aligning to push the price of food products into the danger zone for nations and consumers around the globe.

Food prices soared 21% in Egypt and 17% in India last year. The UK has experienced a 22% increase in the past three years. Wheat and corn prices have gone up 57% over the past six months, with sugar rising 55% and rice not far behind at 45%. Food riots in Mozambique recently killed twelve people. Every nation will be affected by steep increases in these fundamental dietary necessities of the world's food supply and we’ve seen fuel and food jump overnight in the US…bet you a Big Mac it continues!

Another Tear Gas substitute…good on nasty attack dogs.
Formaldehyde-97% solution. Place in a spray or aerosol dispenser and fire away. Will temporarily blind the attacker.

Extreme Survival Guide For The Modern World!
One stop online resource for learning extreme survival skills.
Forget sissy government issued “emergency preparedness” leaflets written for the weak and vulnerable.
Take ownership of your and your families survival in an emergency or disaster, don’t rely on “authorities” or other civil defense type organizations – Read our survival guides NOW.
http://www.weaponscombat.com/


New, Viable alternatives to PayPal Debut

Over the years we’ve all heard horror stories about losing money due some of its practices and with the IRS now snooping on those who make more than $20K or more than 200 annual transactions, it might be time to consider other tools to send and receive money.

Popmoney.com which launched last year and ZashPay.com work like PayPal for payments in that you only need the recipients email address or mobile phone number. If you have a PayPal account, you must first fund it via a bank account or credit card while the above services transfer money directly from your bank account directly to the person you are paying. Both services are offshoots of CashEdge and Fizerv respectively. Sender and receiver must hold accounts on these services.

More and more banks are now offering the above services in order to eliminate checks and some banks will set up these accounts automatically for you. Each require a verification process which takes about 48 hours. ZashPay charges 75 cents to and cash up to $500.

Two more services worth looking at include AlertPay and Obopay, each of which work essentially like PayPal and can be used on mobile services as well. AlertPay accepts money orders and lets you send money to people in 190 countries.

Check them out but exercise normal prudence and caution.

<<<>>>
Cherry Stuffed Pork Chops-thanks Tina for this after holiday entre idea!

Get some nice porch chops about ¾ or 1” thick & butterfly them
Tenderize them if desired (beat them silly with a mallet)

Stuff with dried cherries or other fruit and nuts if desired
Wrap with bacom

Bake at 350 - about 10 minutes before they’re done…
Coat with a light brown sugar topping and bake another 10 minutes

The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal salary data.
Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession’s first 18 months — and that’s before overtime pay and bonuses are counted.
Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time — in pay and hiring — during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector.

>>><<< The signs of deflation are around us:
Consumer Prices Are Flat. U.S. consumer inflation decelerated in October, according to the Labor Department. The consumer price index increased 0.2% in October. And the core CPI, excluding food and energy costs, was flat for the third straight month. In the past year, the core CPI rate is up 0.6%, the slowest pace on record.
Housing Slump Is Getting Worse. Housing starts plunged 11.7% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 519,000 from 588,000 in September. That was far worse than the forecast of 598,000. And in October, Clear Capital declared they were seeing the quickest decline in home values since mid-2009, with prices dropping 6% over September and October. Looking ahead, the picture remains grim: Standard & Poor's predicts that home prices will fall another 7% to 10% through 2011.
So it's understandable that Americans think prices will remain flat and potentially go lower. The problem is our "deflation" is localized. Across the world, especially in emerging markets, prices are going higher.

Here are some recent gold facts from the World Gold Council ...
Total gold demand in the third quarter of 2010 was 922 tonnes, an increase of 12% from the same period a year ago. In U.S. dollar value terms, demand grew 43% to $36.4 billion over the same period.

Demand for gold jewelry increased by 8% from third quarter of last year, with four of the best performing markets — India, China, Russia and Turkey — accounting for 63% of global demand.

The total value of net retail investments during the quarter was a record $9.6 billion, representing a 60% increase from the year-earlier quarter. The largest contribution to total demand growth came from bar hoarding, which increased 44% from the previous year.

Gold jewelry demand is likely to exceed that of 2009 due to an anticipated recovery in India, the most significant gold jewelry market, and continuing strength in China.

Bottom line: Americans continue to be lulled into thinking everything is hunky dory!



More TSA horror stories emerge
But other stories did emerge over the weekend that appear factual -- and that are indeed quite cringe-worthy. One retired special-education teacher on his way to a wedding in Florida had an experience with that he, or anyone who hears about it, likely won't soon forget. A bladder cancer survivor, Thomas Sawyer now wears a wears a urostomy bag, which collects his urine through an opening in his stomach. When the bag was fondled by a TSA agent after the bag set off alarms in the airport's scanner, urine spilled all over Sawyer's clothes.
Post holiday stories report how few delays there were at airports as the protest fizzled. Did mainstream media miss the point again? There is still a significant portion of Americans who are tired of seeing their rights go up in smoke…every day another right is eroded and the sheep won’t bleat.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20101122/ts_yblog_thelookout/more-tsa-horror-stories-emerge-while-agency-ponders-what-to-do

“The Internet becomes the tactical nuke of the digital age,”Doug Kass told CNBC. “I believe cybercrime is going to explode exponentially next year as the web is invaded by hackers.”---Commenting on the likelihood of attack on NYSE


A few facts about how bureaucrats screw things up in the US:
An excerpt from out new ebook How to Beat the Bureaucrat

In 1910, the United States had a population of 92 million; of that population, 950,000 were government employees (all levels). This yielded just over 1 percent of the total, or 1 government employee per 97 people.

In 2010, the United States has a population of 308 million; of that population, 21.3 million are government employees (all levels). This yields 6.9 percent of the total, or 1 government employee per 14 people.
In the space of one single century, therefore, the number of government employees in relation to the population has increased by 693 percent.

And, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis' figures for 2009, the average government salary is $123,000 per year, which means: 21.3 million bureaucrats are costing this country a whopping $2.6 trillion annually.

And, considering that the entire GDP for 2010 will be approximately $13.3 trillion, this further means: Government employees are being "employed" to the tune of nearly 20 percent of what the entire country will produce this year.

In 1910, by comparison, the GDP was $33.4 billion and the average government salary was $750 per year -- so, 950,000 workers at that time cost us $713 million, or 2.1 percent of that year's GDP.

Now, just for fun, let's apply that 2.1 percent rate to our current GDP, yielding $279 billion, which we can refer to as the amount of money truly needed to pay the bureaucrats to run the country properly. Which, actually, is being pretty charitable, as even in 1910 we had interventionist bureaucrats paid to do little more than hamper trade and restrict the functioning of the free market.

Since we are spending $2.6 trillion instead, however, that means we still pay $2.3 trillion more on government salaries than legitimate operations for our population would dictate.

Yes, government "sucks" alright; it is sucking the monetary lifeblood right out of the country.
Can you imagine what that $2.3 trillion yearly -- itself over 17 percent of our GDP -- could do to the United States' poverty cycle if we fired all those extra bureaucrats and left that money in private hands, to be saved and invested into our economy?

No, we hand it over to incompetent, lazy and overpaid government workers instead -- and then wonder why our freedoms and economic growth are in the toilet.
And that's just salaries, people. When you further consider what it is that most of those bureaucrats are doing -- i.e., whiling away their hours constructing mountains of stupid, stifling, subversive and self-defeating regulatory silliness -- it's pretty clear that those wasted dollars have a negative impact far beyond their actual value, for such controls obliterate the producers' abilities to produce even more. Source: Christian Science Monitor


Two-thirds of Americans say they are willing to give up their rights for added security via TSA pat downs. Where are our Founding Fathers when you need them? As the Poor Man’s mom always said…the masses are asses & they prove it every day.





PARTING SHOTS-Do Stringent Gov’t BS Rules make you feel safe?

The new TSA pat down rules, the new passport rules, gun laws, the new laws preventing tobacco sales to servicemen, etc. are not about safety, they are about control and conditioning.

Post 911 laws and the Patriot Act have only infringed on our rights, they have not helped national security but they help the government train Americans to operate as told and we’re paying for this tyranny with our tax dollars. Do you see the irony? Is it any wonder most high school graduates no nothing about the Bill of Rights or the Constitution?

TSA passenger screenings have resulted in tons of confiscations of items which we now have to pay to get rid of. Tens of thousands of dangerous nail clippers, bottles of shampoo and the like - do you feel any safer?

Think about it, for the most part it is private citizens who catch the bad guys, not the government, yet, we’re treated like dependent children. Government propaganda would have us believe that due to gun laws and background checks that the bad guys no longer have a clue about where to buy guns. If you believe that, I have some swamp land I’d like to sell you.

Recently I mentioned that Microsoft, my web host, recently abandoned its blogging program and migrated it to Wordpress. We were under the impression that that wouldn’t take place until after Jan 2011-but they did it now and you can no longer access the files of Poor Man II there…however, you can now use this link to access these 11 preparedness files. Must be subscriber to access.

The media is reporting things are looking rosier on the economic front as folks are already spending more money for the holidays. Kind of perplexing due to the fact there has been no appreciable jump in the jobs picture and what little improvement has occurred is most likely due to temporary holiday hiring!
Happy spending!

The hidden bonus resource for our readers only…more than 160 downloadable preparedness files-FREE! Must be subscriber to access.

That’s it for the short week - hope all of you had an enjoyable holiday.
The stuffed Poor Man…your new head of Surveillance Information Network (SIN) - watching out for the undesirables in your life!

http://www.PoorManSurvival.com
http://www.GreenIrene.com/Poorman
http://www.OldBookNook.com
 Don't Get Caught With Your Pantry Down-New 11th Ed.
http://tinyurl.com/PMBasics

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