SWB: Alan B. Rowley II - Success Coach - ECoaching - Email Coaching

Top Tier Money For Ron Paul

In the third quarter, the top tier candidates received about $10 million in campaign contributions each.  Ron Paul shocked the media with his $5.3 million.  I think he was shocked himself and his campaign recovered their composure quickly and set a goal of $12 million for the 4th quarter.

The media mentioned the goal and said it was a very ambitious goal for this third-tier candidate.  After all, if Fred Thompson raised $9.8, Mitt Romney $9.9, and Rudy Giuliani $10.3, what made Ron Paul think that he could raise 12 mil? 

Well interestingly enough, as I write this, Ron Paul's Revolution has raised more money in the 4th quarter than Fred Thompson or Mitt Romney raised in the third.  What's even more impressive about this is that there is still a whole month left, a month which includes December 16th.

The Revolution is hoping to make it to $12 million by the end of November 30th, hoping to get some love from the msm.  You would think that Ron Paul raising more money than the Corporate Candidates would be newsworthy, especially when it's done with plenty of time to add icing to the cake.  He might raise twice what they raised in the 3rd quarter when this quarter is over.  Current projections without taking the Tea Party into account put the 4th quarter numbers around $17 million. 

Quite frankly, he'll probably blow past 17 mil on December 16th.

SWB Debate Recap - Who Won? No one. Who Lost? CNN.

If you can't beat them, join them.  This blog is now as cool and informational as all of the other 3-letter boyz (CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and the others).  This blog has attained that status not because of superior writing or critical thinking but because I have now shortened Success Warrior Blog to SWB.  With my own three letters in place, I am now poised to go mainstream.

I am going to do a recap of CNN's YouTube Debate for those of you that were too busy doing something, anything, more interesting than watching CNN pretend like they were running a debate.  My wife chose to join an assigned college chat room early because she thought the debate was completely pointless.  I almost agree.

There was a point though but the media is not going to report on what that point was.  That means that it's up to more reliable sources, such as SWB, to give you the actual news from the debate.  The point that was clear during the debate and made crystal clear in the post debate talking heads diarrhea was that CNN wants either Rudy or Mitt as the Republican candidate and they are willing to avoid any semblance of an actual debate to ensure that their desire becomes a reality.

Commentary for November 28th, 2007

You have reached the blog of Success Warrior.  Unfortunately, I can't come to my blog at the moment.  Please leave a message.

Right now, as you read this, if you are in fact reading this on the 28th, I'm in the city enjoying myself.

The Trans-Siberian Orchestra is on tour and my wife and I go every year.

In the past, we have taken Trey up to my brother's house where he can play with his cousins for the night.  We go out to dinner and then arrive early at the concert where we can sit and visit.  When the concert is over, we go pick up Trey and then drive for a couple of hours to get home.

It's a long day and it's very enjoyable right up until the time we are sitting in the parking lot, waiting in line to escape the parking lot, so that we can drive north to pick up Trey and then south almost back to where the concert took place, and then west across the loneliest boringest stretch of flat desert on the planet.  By the time we get home, I'm exhausted and all thoughts of how enjoyable the night was are lost as I try to stay awake long enough to unpack the car and get to the bed. 

This year, I came up with a new plan.

Here's a cool theory that I have

We've been told that the housing fiasco is supposed to correct itself next year and that there won't be a recession but slow growth.

Let's say that you own a house that has depreciated by 10% from the artificial high that it once was at because of the house flipping game.

Now, let's say that the Federal Reserve pumps enough fake money into the system that money depreciates in value by 10%.  Voila, your house is now "worth" more because it takes more dollars to buy it.

How cool is that?

Don't forget to take my presidential poll.

Ballpark Taxes

If you have never derived much of your income from tips, you may find this information interesting.

The IRS taxes tips.

How do they do this since there is no way of really knowing how much a person makes?  They just take a guess.

I don't know about you but that just sounds scary.  Having the government guess about how much money they should take from you is a bad idea.

No taxation without quantification!

If you're a food server in Utah where it's legal for them to pay you less than minimum wage and it's a slow night, you are sitting there for the sole purpose of giving the IRS your paycheck.  You're only going to get the tips that you make and it might be 20 bucks for the night. 

Nevada pays minimum wage which still means that you're starving to death unless the restaurant is pulling in steady business.  Nevada is also talking about changing their law to match Utah's since the Federal government is raising minimum wage.

Nice.

The Wendover Effect

Moving into the middle of BFE was a bit of an adjustment but in the end, we think it has worked out for the best.  Between living here and writing this blog, our financial lives have changed.  Here's some of the factors and some of the results of living in the middle of the desert, 120 miles from a city. 

The first difference is the lack of stores.  There is a grocery store and a poor attempt at a hardware store and an adult toy store and a Family Dollar.  That's it.  If you can't find what you're looking for in any of those, it's a 90 minute drive to get it.

We learned 4 very good lessons from this:

1.  The Internet is a better invention than sliced bread, by far.  We order things on line all the time.  Shipping and handling are cheaper than gas and save us 4 hours of travel time.

2.  We plan better.  We anticipate our needs and we make lists.  If we have to go shopping, we know what we want and what stores we'll be going to.  We don't browse.  When shopping on line, we try to get as much stuff from one place as we can.  Just because S&H is cheaper than gas doesn't mean we don't try to reduce it when we can.

3.  We go without.  We used to impulse buy and now the only thing that stays on the list is stuff that we think we'll really need.  When it's not Christmas, we might go for 3 months without going into town.  If we still want or need something after 3 months, it's usually worth the purchase.  When stores were close by, we'd go on a whim for a single item and then usually pick up some other neato stuff that we didn't really need.

4.  We've learned to improvise with items from the available local stores.  Did you know that you can MacGuyver a rolling pin out of a dildo?  Our Easter sugar cookies with the rabbit imprint were a big hit!

Sword Point Saturday - Resisting Temptation

The Wendover Effect is not what happened to us as a result of drinking the water that's laced with radiation from the nuclear testing done out here.  That's more of an Erin Brockovich thing.  No, the Wendover Effect is what I call the change in our finances that has occurred because we live in such an isolated place.

I'm going to explain it as well as I can in an upcoming post.  Today I would like to ask a couple of questions for Sword Point Saturday.

What do you find to be the biggest unnecessary waste of your money?

I'm not talking about things imposed on you like taxes but things that you voluntarily spend money on.  I'm also not talking about things that you truly enjoy and find to be a good use of the money even if "unneeded".  Things that you cause you regret or buyer's remorse.

The second part of the question is: are you taking any steps to change that pattern and if so, what are you doing?

5 points for everyone that answers both parts of the question.  As always, you can leave your answer in the comments or write it up in your own blog and leave a link in the comments.

Don't forget to take my presidential poll.

Commentary for November 23rd, 2007

My Thanksgiving gift to you yesterday was not mentioning politics.  I'm going to make up for it today but I'll try to keep it to snippets.  =)

I mentioned that a Law Enforcement union was backing Ron Paul but I forgot to mention the other half of that story.  Police Officers are ordered to stand by Hillary Clinton for photo ops.  If they refuse to do it, they are reprimanded for insubordination.  Several have come forward to talk about the displeasure of appearing with her.

Ron Paul supporters have started a new trend.  They are writing the Constitution in chalk on the sidewalks where Ron Paul will be speaking.  When was the last time the Constitution of the United States got this much attention?  200 years ago?

Ron Paul made GQ's list for Men of the Year, the only presidential candidate to do so for this year.

A Zogby political analyst has said that Ron Paul is the only Republican that can beat Hillary.  Everyone is still operating under the assumption that Hillary is going to be the Democrat half of the race.  I'm not so sure.  Each poll that I look at shows that most people just don't like her.  I think the media wants her but they might not get to choose this time.

The Boston Police Department has a new program where they send 3 officers to people's houses and ask for consent to search bedrooms of minors.  They say it's constitutional because the 4th Amendment allows consensual searches but it's going to be challenged because people might not think they are allowed to say no when 3 cops show up at their door "asking" to come in.  People are going to need to learn their rights in Boston real quick.  Here's an idea, why not have another admonition like Miranda?

"You have the right to privacy.  If you give up your right to privacy, anything that we find can be used in a court of law.  You have the right to have an attorney present during our search.  If you cannot afford an attorney, one may be appointed to you."

What do you think?

Here's Something To Be Thankful For - The Van Is Paid Off!

We wanted it paid off before Thanksgiving.  We cut it kind of close but it's done.  We paid it off in about 2.5 years or so.  The balance was zero yesterday, a day before Thanksgiving.  That means that we'll be going through the holiday season with one less bill and when we get the title in our dirty little hands, we'll call the insurance company and get our insurance lowered.

We're going to ease off on paying things off (things? My Saturn and a house that's up for sale) until January.  We are planning on putting the extra money from January into savings to prepare for my wife to cut down to one job.  She works in a school where 9 months of work is spread out over 12 months of pay and we aren't sure what will happen if she quits in the middle of the year.

Once we know that outcome, we'll be off and running to pay off the Saturn (and then lower the insurance again - schwinggg!).

Unless we sell the house.

Commentary for November 21st, 2007

Today's Chronicles post is about the danger that donuts exhibit.  It's story that involve me, PTE Rick, Shane, and Blaine during my teenage years and as a 14 year old driver. 

My next statement might come as a bit of shock to people.

I agree with Hillary Clinton.

There, I said.

She has said something that I totally and completely agree with.  She said that our economy is in a bad state and that the next president needs to be someone with experience in dealing with economic problems.

I concur.

That's why I'll be voting for someone from the Joint Economics Committee who knows that devaluing the dollar is going to lead to economic collapse. 

Thanks for advice, Hillary.

Success Warrior Retirement Plan

Cherise requested that I do a post on retirement.  I fear that she will find this significantly lacking in useful information.  Not because I don't know anything about what to do for retirement but because I don't agree with what I read.  It's a personal thing.  Most of the information out there is probably good but it has never resonated with me (add "resonated" to my list of overused words for this election - too many Ron Paul articles include "his message resonates with people" and as a coach, I read the word way too much).

With that disclaimer in place, let me describe my personal retirement plan at this point in my life.  It could very well change in the future but this is what's going on right now.

First, I fully expect to work until I just can't work anymore.  Until the Alzheimer's kicks in to the point where I just don't make sense any more (and doesn't continue to help in my humor posts), I'm going to be doing something that brings in money. 

Not because I have to so that I'm surviving on cat food and crackers but because I think that human beings were built to serve a purpose.  When people stop serving a purpose, they die quicker.  Not that making money is necessarily a purpose but I have no dream of working hard until I'm 60 and then never working again.  I fully expect to live to be at least 100 years old and I don't want to be bored during that time.  I will probably be doing something that gives me an extremely flexible schedule and not necessarily be 40 hours a week so that I can spend time with kids and grandkids.  I'll be doing something though.  I may be a writer or speaker or something.  After our next move, I'm thinking about going back to college to be Economist.  It will be something that doesn't require too much physical strength and keeps my mind active.

Commentary for November 19th, 2007

Today's post in Chronicles is the next installment of the August 6th story.  It's about what it was like when I finally got to go home.  From the time of the incident until I got to go home seemed like forever but sleep came quickly which was a surprise.

We put our house up for sale a couple days ago.  We have been talking about it for quite a while and have had a "For Sale" sign in the house just waiting for us to quit stalling.  I grabbed the sign, walked outside, and planted it into the lawn.

From that point on, we've been trying to get the house ready to be seen.  I know it's backwards but for us, this was the only way we were going to get motivated to do it.  Our schedules are such that we always have something that we can be doing. 

Since putting the sign out, we try harder to do something, anything, every single day.  My office is a mess right now because I'm completely changing how it's organized.  I am throwing away as much stuff as I can and putting anything we don't use regularly into boxes.  Essentially, we're acting as if we are moving.  We are taking the pictures off the walls and everything.  We are going to strip the house down to the bare essentials. 

It's been kind of funny because we have changed the living room, our bedroom, and Trey's bedroom and we really like the new feel of the place.  We've been joking that we're going to get it to where we really enjoy our home environment and then someone will buy it and we'll have to move out.

Blowback - Liberty Dollars and Ron Paul Dollars

It makes a statement that our president and our government are no longer concerned about the repercussions of their actions.  They just don't care anymore what people think about what they do or say.  That indicates that they either think the American people are just going to sit around letting the government do what it wants against our wishes or that they think they can suppress any resistance that arises from their immoral or criminal actions.

I've already said that if the Fed would have just let the Ron Paul Dollars be sold as the collector item that they are, nothing would have been said about it.  I had never heard of Liberty Dollars or Ron Paul Dollars until the government robbed the business.  That's what made the whole thing into a news item covered all the way up through msm.

Liberty Dollar has been in business for 9 or 10 years and have been under official investigation for 2 years.  Last year, the government warned people not use Liberty Dollars as money or suffer their wrath.  Now, if the money was counterfeit and being done out in the open, why did it take 2 years to get to this point?  It wasn't like they had to do this great undercover sting and work a guy into the inside to see what was going on.  They could order the coins on line or walk in the store.

That makes the timing suspect and also ill-advised for a couple of reasons.

Sword Point Saturday - You Choose

Let's get back to Sword Point Saturday's, shall we?

I had my groove thrown off and sometimes it's hard for me to readjust for some reason.  Add to that natural tendency the fact that I type my posts the day before they are released now and you have a recipe for confusion for my brain. 

I was used to writing Sword Point Saturday posts on, well you know, Saturday.  The last couple of Saturdays, I've gone to type a post and then realized that it would be released on Sunday.  I should have written a note to myself.

I got it right this time and have two questions for all of you.

No points for the first question: Why have all of you allowed me to misspell "seize" for the last couple of weeks?  Come on folks, I can take some constructive criticism.  Don't tell me that I have a spell checker, that's for people that can't spel. 

5 Points for answering the second question:  If I were to actually listen to your requests, what one post would you like me to write next week?  I'm in the mood to write and I might even humor you by writing about what you want.  Leave your request in the comment section (money in my PayPal account will increase the likelihood of your request being honored).

Don't forget to take my presidential poll.

Want to know where money comes from?

Hint: It's not the stork.

Or maybe it is.  If storks can magically bring babies, maybe they can magically bring money.

Speaking of mony, do we have to pay income tax?  Yes.  Why?  Because it's protection money.  If we don't, the government will screw with our lives big time.  Unlike the mafia though, there is no one we can report this to.  We pay protection money to the government to keep them from stealing our houses, our whole paychecks, and our freedom.  How screwed up is that?

We have a messed up system.

Commentary for November 15th, 2007

Today's post on Chronicles is a fun presidential poll that I am doing to test a theory by Tony Robbins.  Please go to that post and take part in the poll so we can see if the theory holds true.

I just mentioned how great some of the YouTube videos have been that were created not by the campaigns, but by the supporters.  Not just the Ron Paul supporters, mind you, but all the supporters.  Ron Paul has the most YouTube subscribers but Obama gets the most YouTube views (probably because of the hot Obama girl videos).  Ron Paul is playing catch up even though he has far more subscribers.

I mention it again because Ron Paul's campaign just put out this message:

"CNN has asked the Ron Paul campaign to create a 30 second video to air during the CNN/YouTube debate scheduled for November 28th.  In keeping with the spirit of this campaign, we want YOU to create the video that will air.  Please read all of the contest details here to learn the rules and submission details."

I love it.  In keeping with the spirit of the campaign and saving Ron Paul production money, the Revolution will make the video that will be aired for the debate.  How absolutely cool is that?

Controlling the Internet? Wanna Bet?

Those evil people trying to circumvent the IRS are all kinds of sneaky.  To keep their American customers from getting caught for gambling online, they show the charges on credit cards being from companies other than a gambling company.

My first thought, going back to yesterday's post, is: The government should not know what is on my credit card statement (if I ever use a credit card, that is but you know what I mean).  It's none of their business and if we could get rid of the IRS, a lot of our problems would go away (Go Ron Paul!).  A lot of the laws that get drawn up are designed to take money away from us or to keep us from doing activities that can't be taxed.  The Patriot Act isn't there to keep us safe.  It's there so the government has more control over us and keeps us from doing things they don't like, specifically, not giving them all our money.

My second thought is and I said it yesterday: You cannot control the Internet.  Give up!  It's too big.  As big as our government is, it's impossible for them to do surveillance on 300 million people.  Sure, they have computer programs that flag our email to be read by a human but that in itself has just got to be tedious.  I used to send weird emails to people with the words "President Bush" and "bomb" in them just to give my NSA buddies something to read.  I never hooked them together in a fashion that was a threat to the President but you know they still got flagged.  I did it with blog posts too and at the end I would put, "Hi NSA, how are you today?"

They never did come visit me.  Maybe they thought it was funny too.

Anyway, back to gambling.  You can get a credit card from Canada or a phone card from Australia for gambling if you don't want to worry about the NSA finding something fishy on your credit card statement.

The US government is working on shutting that down but when they do, gambling sites will find another way to allow Americans to play.  We could probably fund Social Security with all the money we spend spying on Americans and trying to stop them from "cheating" the IRS.

Full Article

Commentary for November 13th, 2007

Today's post on Chronicles is a meme about why I'll be voting for Ron Paul.  The meme had 5 reasons so I listed my biggest reasons but let me add one right here.

Donald Kerr wants to redefine Privacy as, "government and businesses properly safeguarding people's private communication and financial information."

In other words, "spying" would be removed from the dictionary and would be replaced with the word, "privacy". 

Is there anyone in America that is going to fall for this?

Ron Paul wants to get rid of the Patriot Act and get the government to quit spying privacying on us.  The government hides more and more of what they do while increasing the amount of privacying they do on us.  It's backwards and it's unacceptable.

On a much lighter note, you need to watch this video of what the TV show "24" would have been like if the events happened in 1994.  This brings back some memories and shows how far we've advanced in 13 years and what we take for granted today.

And finally (trying to shorten up these commentary posts), one thing that I have been impressed with in this election is the quality of the videos being put out.  I wish I had a clue about video editing because I think it would be a lot of fun.  I think it would be fun to do videos too where you are sitting there like a news anchor with the pictures over your shoulder.  Some of them are very well done.  I just have no clue about what that takes but I think it would be fun.

Today's video makes it because the music is Evanescence and I happen to like them.

Who Said Gambling On The Internet Was Illegal?

Supposedly gambling is illegal on the internet in the US.  You are allowed to play the stock market though.  The stock market is not considered gambling.  It's investing.  You put money into a venture that you bet will make you more money.  You can do it online and many people do.  I'm one of them and I use TradeKing for my nongambling ventures.

Some very smart people figured this out and so they have created a site where you can buy stock in events.  It's not gambling.  It's investing.

Do you think that Hillary Clinton is going win the Democratic nomination?  You can buy shares in that event for $71 right now.  If the stock goes up, you can sell and take the winnings earnings.

Obama is trading at $14 right now which tells you who the betting people think will be the Democrat running for president.

Romney is trading at about $69 a share and Rudy is at $7.50.  The media has Rudy in first place but Intrade.com has him in 4th place.  Ron Paul doesn't even register in the primaries.  As far as how Intrade has them ranked on chance to become president, it's Rudy then Mitt then Ron Paul.

Gambling sites need to figure out how you can buy stock in roulette results so they can get around the gambling law too.  At Intrade.com you can buy stock in the election, the primaries, where the first attack will be when we invade Iran, and whether or not OJ Simpson will be bound over for trial in his failed robbery.

Kind of sounds like gambling to me.

Commentary for November 11th, 2007 - Veteran's Day

In the Chronicles blog today, I wrote about why I blog and what I get out of blogging.  One thing that is important for me when discussing writing is the fact that I think that words have meaning and that they have power.

It is possible to destroy the power of your words.  President Bush is a great example of this.  I'm not talking about being inarticulate, though that surely plays a part, but I'm talking about the deceptiveness.  Whether you liked them or not, previous presidents have been able to create powerful emotion and actions with their words.  Bush, because he is so dangerous to the safety of other countries and the civil liberties of Americans, has even lost the power of humor we once saw when we made fun of his speeches.

Hillary Clinton in recent debates has also damaged the power of her words in her inability to take a stand.  She says a lot without ever saying anything, falling into the stereotype of a politician.  Ask her a yes or no question and you get a 5 minute answer that isn't an answer.  Further clarifying questions are only met with more muddying of the issue so that in the end, everyone is confused.  Unfortunately for all politicians, it's harder to get away with in these days.  I'll cover that more later in this post.

Mitt Romney is feeling the repercussions of his words and their loss of power.  He used one set of words to get elected the first time and now he's using a different set of words to try to get the Republican nomination.  Hillary may be the prime example of not taking a stance but Mitt's flip-flopping shows that he says whatever his campaign strategists say he should say based on polls and in the end, you have no better idea of where he stands than you do of Hillary. 

To the contrary, we have seen a couple of examples where words can gain power.

Looks Like I Was Wrong About the Recession

Ben Bernanke, my close friend who is the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, has said that there won't be a recession.  Economic growth will noticeably slow in the next few months but it's going to rebound halfway through 2008.

Whew!

I know everyone feels better.

I do feel sorry for Bernanke and it's not just because we're such good friends.  He isn't the one that makes the decision to destroy the dollar.  He is just the lucky one that gets to tell Congress that the Fed is doing it and then he has to somehow explain how the Fed is justified in doing it without mentioning that he's bailing out billionaires.  I hope they pay him well (although he's probably like a lot of people these days and demands that he be paid in any currency except US dollars).

I would expect to be paid a 7 figure income in Liberty Dollars or Euros if I had to do what he's doing right now. 

Commentary for November 9th, 2007

I started off my Chroncles post today with the important stuff.  Really, does anyone actually care that JLo is pregnant?  Well besides her and her family.  I look at the headlines on the magazines at the checkout stand in the grocery store and wonder who really cares about this stuff.  Half the time, I don't even know who they're talking about. 

Are you as burned out on government fear as I am?  Do you think people get so burned out on it that the tactic no longer works? 

If Howard Stern puts a naked woman on his show, does it mean anything anymore? 

Maybe if it's a pregnant JLo.

I haven't talked about my own finances for a while

I've been so caught up in the national economics that I haven't posted anything about our situation in quite some time.  Part of that is that much of it is business as usual.  I've gone over our plan enough that repeating much of it doesn't seem worthwhile.

Our net worth did flatten out a bit last month but it still went up.  I don't know how much it will go up in the next two months with the holidays headed our way.  We have several activities planned for the next couple of months that will cost us money.  We'll be using cash of course but that's cash that won't be put toward debt.

The van should be paid off this month.  That's pretty cool.  Once it is, we're going to take a break from the speedy payoff plan and enjoy December with the extra money.  January we are going to just be saving money because my wife is going to be quitting one of her jobs and we want to see how that will effect us.  In February we'll start paying off the car and should have it paid off within a few months.

That just leaves the house which we might sell before the market crashes out here.

Commentary for November 7th, 2007

I wrote another segment of the August 6th story on the Chronicles blog for today.  The mindset that I talk about is something that has stuck with me to this day.  How could it not, I suppose.  I think it's balanced out though because I am a much more peaceful person today.  It's hard to explain and I don't think I'm going to bother trying today.

Here's something that I will point out for new readers.  I have ADD.  Not really.  Well maybe.  Technically, I've never been diagnosed with it because I don't care.  I do have a tendency to start up new things on impulse and drop them just as quickly when distracted by something else.

"Look, something shiny!"

It's amazing that I managed to make it through school. 

It comes out very clearly in my writing.  I switch thoughts in mid post or I change the direction of my posts in general.