327 thoughts on “Why Every Man Must Take Control Of His Finances”

1. The barrier to entry on ebooks is much lower than most people think, but it’s not zero. It does take some knowledge and writing skill to put one together, but after that it’s not as bad as you might suspect. One page per day means 3 standard-sized ebooks per year.
   Other sell-able skills include the ability to do basic home maintenance (particularly toilets, painting, and roofing repair), basic auto work (oil changes, etc), and good old-fashioned coaching/consulting. Basically, anything that anybody probably could do, but most people won’t bother to learn, is money in the bank.*
   *Caveat: you have to be the one person in the industry who calls back promptly, keeps appointments, and does the work as advertised.

   1. Doing eBooks is easy peasy. Selling them and getting a lot of buyers … I think there’s a lot of black magic to that.

      1. From what I’ve witnessed, it seems the biggest thing to successfully marketing an eBook is getting some of the bigger sites to create good reviews of the book. For example, when JohnDoeBodybuilding created his eBook, some hard hitters like Vic Pride pushed it.

         1. In other words, it’s about kissing ass.

         2. What isn’t nowadays?

         3. Dying.

      2. It’s actually writing them that isn’t easy for me. I’m not creative and can’t write so well.

         1. Define ‘creative’. Does it mean to use a lot of fancy words like some English poet?
            I think that the very idea of categorizing into ‘creative’ and ‘uncreative’ kinda kills creativity. We go through school learning what ‘creative’ means. For example, it could mean some flowery very nicely flowing language with lots of emotions and drama and feels … our English teacher told us that’s ‘creative’ and ‘good’. Meh.
            I’d say that in the end, just sit down and start writing from ‘your heart’. Or from your head. Whatever is most meaningful to you. It will find the right people eventually.
            I suppose the bigger question is: How do you reach ‘success’? I think there’s no clear answer for it. Hell, history is full of:
            1. People who broke rules and became famous.
            2. People who followed rules and became famous.
            3. People who broke rules and stayed insignificant.
            4. People who followed rules and stayed insignificant.
            Meh.

         2. Whenever I feel uncreative, I read the first page of Fifty Shades again. If that piece of absolute garbage can be a hit, surely I can.
            But fiction is hard, and writing longer posts without much to say is harder (at least for me). Practice makes it easier.

         3. Who ever said you need to be writing ‘fiction’ or fit into some category? Just write what feels right to you. I always smh when people are like ‘what skills does a REAL WRITER need’. There is no such thing as a ‘writer’. There is a person who writes something. End of story. There are no rules.

         4. There should be basic rules, but it is true they’re often ignored.
            For non-fiction, anecdotes are great filler (especially if you’re a decent story teller).
            The hardest thing for me with fiction is building up an interesting world and interesting people. I don’t really function on that level, but I can churn out programming books in a few weeks if I put my mind to it.

         5. I think that kind of stuff needs to come from the heart. Be inspired by your own life, if you will. Instead of trying to distill the essence of ‘an interesting character’.
            I sometimes get funny intuitions for scenes. Less novel stuff, more movie I guess. Here’s one:
            Quiet guy sitting in a corner of a bar, looking mysterious.
            People ask who he is. Someone remarks: That’s Jack. He used to be a very loud party type of guy. Then, one day, he self-diagnosed himself with narcissism and since that day, he hasn’t spoken a word.

         6. With creative I mean come up with novel ideas.
            As far as writing style I mean a rich active vocabulary.

         7. Why are those important?

         8. Have you ever read “The Secret” and “Think and Grow Rich” back-to-back? They’re basically the same book, except that The Secret is full of feminine self-aggrandizement.
            Don’t worry overmuch about new ideas. The Sword of Shannarah basically ripped off The Lord of the Rings, and it made bank. Eragon did the same.
            As to vocabulary, might I suggest you read classic science fiction and the King James Bible? Your vocabulary will necessarily increase.

         9. Seems obvious to me. the 3 I’s: Innovators, Imitators & Idiots. the first 2 to the party make awesome money, the latter arrive too late and lose.

         10. I had an idea for a Fantasy novel about a regular Joe who, over the course of decades, comes on the idea of forging new magical swords (a lost art). Through hard work and self-discipline, he makes himself a legend.
             I have the end in sight, but that’s as far as I can go right now.

         11. Yeah, that’s the story we’re being told. ‘Be creative and special enough and you will make it big’. I think that’s all part of a ‘entrepreneur’ propaganda.
             Let’s be realistic. Where are all those people who make it big? Most of those people are just talking on stages about it. And their followers enamoured with these ideas? They stay insignificant, but keep talking about and quoting ‘great innovators’.
             My website is very unique in its own way, I’d say. And yet I have relatively little visitors.
             Let’s face it. There is no recipe to success. Not being creative, not being an innovator, not being an imitator. You can start out as an imitator and hit a nerve and BAM, success. You can be innovative as hell, but never land success.

         12. See, here’s the interesting thing. My intuitive response to your idea is that it’s kind of a cliche.
             But then, you can say that about pretty much every epic novel.
             In the end, whether it’s a cliche or not, what really counts is how it is executed. To put it simple, it comes down to: Do I feel like continuing to read this flow of words?
             And considering this, we can almost conclude that the big story-arc is not even that important to our subconscious. It’s the execution. The detail. How real and lifelike it all feels. How deeply it touches us.
             Take Ayn Rand’s work for example. The Fountainhead. Now, the story when put into a single sentence sounds pretty cliched and boring as well.
             But there’s something unique about how it is executed that hooked me personally. I know many hate her writing because it is so formalistic and dry and factual in many aspects. But I actually loved that aspect of it. I could identify with it.

         13. That there is no recipe to success is sort of my original point when I said I’m not creative enough. I truly mean it is an innate feature that no amount of hard work or self-help can change. Steve Jobs was able to create a product that nobody thought they needed with the iPod and later iPhone. They are the innovator in this equation (maybe it’s not really him and he stole it but that’s not the point, somebody came up with it) . Samsung is an imitator but makes money too. MSFT was already late to the party with their Windows Phone 8 so are the proverbial “idiots” this time. ROK was an innovative idea that served a growing need at the time. It is difficult to imitate it now and maybe you were also too late with it. When one can’t innovate, one needs to be ultra quick to follow up with an imitation. I find that even ROK somewhat falls into repetition now. We get it. Millenials, feminists, SJWs, unmanly men, manly women etc. It’s been repeated ad nauseam but there are now a lot of people on board just like Apple stopped truly innovating but they now have enough loyal customers who want iPhone 9, 10, 10s, 10c, 11 etc. (future proofing my post here)

         14. I agree. But let’s not forget those who are innovators, but happen to innovate something nobody is really interested in. Or that doesn’t attract too much attention.
             Hell, let’s take someone who invents a very little almost unimportant tool that helps plumbers do some minor task in half a minute, instead of taking up 10 minutes.
             This little tool may be ingenious and those who know about it value it a lot. And yet, it is nothing that “changes the world”. It’s just something they found at the store and never wondered where it came from, who invented it or whatever.
             The world is full of these little innovations, I think. But their inventors don’t necessarily “make it big”.

      3. Can someone explain how to handle the taxman?
         If your buyers are in the EU you get charged with a detrimental VAT cut. I really don’t see how can a profit be made…

         1. I have no answer. If I were to open up business today, doing tax shit would be among the top 5 reasons not to do it.

2. In the spirit of this post, I will set up a WordPress site for any new business, complete with basic SEO tools, email, and online payment methods.
   Let’s say…$50 for the setup, $15 for SEO research on the field, and expenses for purchasing domain and hosting.
   Additional funding may be required for customized page layouts, logos, etc.

   1. I might take you up on that offer in a few months as a friend and I might be going into a little business venture together and would need a site to promote it.
      In the meantime, do you have a portfolio of sites we may look at to see the quality of work you provide?

      1. I’ve not done any work with online payment thus far (but I know how), but check out evermoreinstructional.com.
         It’s a basic aggregation site for content from, among other things, your blog. Among the features customized out of the design are flashy sliders and professional-looking widgets that don’t really do anything.

         1. Yeah, I knew about that site since you linked my blog to it (thank you again, btw). Was just curious if you have done any other sites.

         2. I did have a simple social media design up that I was trying to sell to my university, but they wouldn’t bite. Apparently they have some ridiculous contracts.

   2. The Indian guy on Facebook does this all for 3$, why should I choose you?

      1. Because his work is pathetic and breaks easily. I’m a security engineer.

         1. Define ‘security engineer’.

         2. An engineer of security. Heh.

         3. Like Hillary?

         4. I work for a Fortune 500 company doing design work for secure servers (security built into the system, not just application-layer security). If desired, I can set up anti-DDoS, protection from SQL-injection attacks (vital for a payment-based system), and coverage for most common attacks.
            Some of that I do gratis, because otherwise the site would quickly become worthless.

         5. Lord, I hope not.

         6. If she’d hired me, you’d never have heard about the emails.

         7. That sounds good. But the Indian guy simply hosts at a major hoster that already does all these. So what do you offer that he doesn’t?

         8. Host in America, provide contact during reasonable hours for American users, and WYSIWYG pricing.
            I keep getting emails from that Indian guy. His work isn’t up to snuff.

         9. Well, the Indian guy uses templates. I don’t think there’s much he can do wrong. In fact, I doubt you are creating customized designs for $50. Hmmmmm….

         10. Using designs I’ve play-tested, patched security loopholes in, and customizing off that.
             Custom PHP designs cost upwards of $5k. There’s a fuckton of code in a simple-looking website.

         11. I know that, which is why I am curious. You can not really afford to do a lot of customizing for $50. Maybe set up a menu hierarchy and choose a logo and background image and insert Lorem Ipsum, but that’s about it.

         12. Using high-feature, reactive templates gives opportunity for a great many diverse sites. That’s the customizing I can do in about two hours ($50 of my time).
             I can also set up template colors, install a host of useful widgets (I playtested a lot of them, so I know which ones work and which don’t), and set up your (self-designed) About Us page with SEO keywords in that time.

         13. You using a particular template framework or something you created yourself?
             Btw, what does ‘playtesting’ mean?
             Btw, you’re cheap. When I was doing web development 2 years back, I was getting 40 EUR an hour.

         14. Gotta start somewhere. It’s an offer for people I trust and like, not a general pricing plan.
             I just did some patching on a couple of available templates.
             When I set up my blog sites, I ran through about 10 SEO services, a half-dozen syndicating platforms, and a few miscellaneous widgets and features. Most of them suck – they’re either ugly, inefficient, or insufficiently customizable to be of use.

         15. From what I have experienced, you can burn hell of a lot of money on SEO alone. My former boss was paying someone 500 EUR a month for SEO stuff and even with that, it hardly took off. I suppose there’s a big component of luck in it.
             Anyhow, I have to say I find it a little irresponsible how Victor and a few other big ones keep advertising blogging. I am not sure they even know their own secret of success. It probably just happened. Maybe through some kind of spiritual manifestation or whatever.

         16. I don’t know – if you’re doing a blog about something like Game, you can use SEO keywords like “Game, Pick-Up, Get Girls, Attractive”, etc. and get a pretty decent spread.
             I blogged about computer science topics. No amount of SEO could beat word-of-mouth on that one.

         17. I’m quite clueless about SEO. Since you’ve seen my blog, any pointers you would suggest about what tags to place on my articles to increase traffic to my site?

         18. Given the semi-eclectic nature of your posts, you need to play the field a bit. Tag your main page with the basic topics (Philosophy, Social Commentary, Masculinity, Neomasculinity, etc.) and each of your posts should get tags/keywords that match that particular topic, even tangentially (e.g. on your “beat depression” post, maybe add “mental health”, “holistic healing”, “treating without medication”, etc.)

         19. Not even sure how to tag my main page. Will have to look into that.

      2. Buy American/European

         1. Why?

3. The following is a list of jobs that will likely disappear within the next 10 years:
   Postal Workers
   If we’re talking about the USA, this is absolutely 100% impossible. Postal workers are essentially protected government employees. They’ll be around for hundreds of thousands of years after the extinction of humanity, with full pensions.

   1. Like rats!

   2. I kinda wish they would dry up and blow away (U.S. postal workers). I got a USPS overnight mail piece last week – and it arrived a day late. No more of that, I’m using FedEx from now on…

      1. I’d go with UPS over Fed-EX to be frank. I’ve experienced a lot of fuck-ups with Fed Ex too.
         UPS runs an extremely tight ship. With the exception of a massive blizzard or Cat 5 Hurricane interfering, UPS pretty much always gets the pkg to your address when it’s scheduled.

      2. I sell shit on ebay. If it’s a large/heavy item, FedEx rates are damn near HALF of what USPS charges. USPS can eat dick.

         1. No kidding! Simple letter delivered overnight? $30 at USPS and less than $15 at FedEx. The old ding-dong at the USPS told me FedEx would charge me $60.

   3. You are correct Sir. Just like a temporary tax that never dies, there isn’t a Federal job that will be extincted by globalism, bad economics, or huge monetary losses. The USPS is the poster child for unnecessary, bloated, money-sucking and unprofitable guberment operations.
      The USPS is something that we haven’t needed since the advent of email and texting, and that private carriers are much better equipped handle for physical mail and parcels — so much so that the USPS has to make it illegal to transport mail via these carriers, lest the USPS be put out of business by the likes of UPS, FedEx, DHL, etc.

      1. To be serious about it for a moment, there is probably some residual value to the USPS, but universal guaranteed six day a week delivery has become an absurdity. Consider that one day a week is likely more than sufficient for low volume users and certain rural locations.

   4. If you’re an American citizen or resident, don’t get into IT. Your job is being given to East Indians on H1bs who will happily do it for peanuts just so they can come into the United States and try to have anchor babies or hope for a green card sponsorship one day. That means, they will NEVER quit their employer, nor will they ever ask for a raise. Try competing with that.

      1. A caveat: you can still make money in IT if…
         – You do IT setup more than support. Most small businesses are willing to subcontract out all the work to set up their computers and VoIP services.
         – You do IT for a defense contractor. They require security clearances that you can’t get without being a citizen.
         – You do anything reasonably complex. Most Indians (even the Ph.D level) have an astoundingly poor grasp of the basic concepts required to create complex code or perform reasonably complex tasks on databases.

         1. Start a company employing a stable of Topless female IT workers.

         2. They don’t even have to be able to actually do the work…

         3. Thats the beauty of it – NO ONE WILL CARE! https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/39ddbdc07a98e78dd9d689ec078dcbdfc6349999d95d995dccc30c419e9a3fdb.jpg

         4. Well said. Didn’t notice you’d actually beaten me to it

         5. Do you know why is it that companies still employ Indians on H1bs who lack coding skills and end up doing more harm than good to an IT project? I still don’t get why they are hired if they’re all shit.

         6. I have no earthly idea. And no, they aren’t all shit. But the ones that are good typically find themselves at an “American” level of pay pretty quickly. The ones that make $5/hr and are “Oracle experts” or “Network engineers”? They are terrible. I could train anyone on this board with a basic grasp of English to be better than that in 1 week.
            A lot of our larger customers have clauses in their contracts for “No India” when they call in for support. It’s about a 30% uplift to the pricing. And roughly 1000% better customer experience.

         7. Google is paying 97$ per hour! Work for few hours and have longer with friends & family! !mj254d:
            On tuesday I got a great new Land Rover Range Rover from having earned $8752 this last four weeks.. Its the most-financialy rewarding I’ve had.. It sounds unbelievable but you wont forgive yourself if you don’t check it
            !mj254d:
            ➽➽
            ➽➽;➽➽ http://GoogleFinancialJobsCash254MarketEasyGetPay$97Hour… ★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★::::::!mj254d:….,……

         8. Sexist pig.

         9. yeah! https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/30ab83f0153509e30b486a35403c7b6cc154e7440ac0a1f5df7837ffc8ce1407.png

      2. The caveat being they’re likely shit at their job. Way beneath the standard required for blue chip projects

      3. “East” Indians? Indians do all that work back in India not in the US.

         1. Uhhh… not entirely. Some are outsourced back, bust most are brought into the United States and end up staying here. Why do you think the state of NJ is swarming with a lot of East Indians? Same as in the Bay Area California.

         2. Can you back that up with some numbers?

         3. I don’t have stats for you to look at, just what I saw with my eyes. I worked in IT at a large AT&T building near Dallas and half of the 1,500 employees were South Asian. Most were shitty coders.

         4. https://www.quora.com/Which-place-has-the-highest-Asian-Indian-population-in-the-USA

         5. Yeah, Dallas, especially Plano and Frisco is filled with low class Indian people.

         6. Yes, the local SYSCO recently was found guilty of fraudulently using the H1B program to import Indians for reasons other than the work they claimed they needed them for. Of course, I don’t think anybody did any jail time over it. IIRC, they just paid a fine.

      4. Want to know how to make it in IT?
         Be competent. Speak understandable English.
         Both skills that 99.99% of the Hindus have not mastered.
         I get hired specifically because I am NOT a Hindu (although they’d never say this outside of closed doors, but they have said it to me). Hindus code like semi-retarded toddlers most of the time, and have a superiority complex such that they won’t take constructive criticism (I’m only talking the IT folks I’ve met, not all Hindus). And 80% of them, despite technically speaking English, are nearly incomprehensible or make cultural assumptions that we don’t make here that usually messes up specs and requirements.

         1. I still don’t understand why companies like Bank of America, Southern Edison, Disney, and etc. hire them when they are shit in their quality of work, their habits, and creativity. Why are corporate entities still bringing them in hoards?

         2. I guess because you can pay them less.

         3. Decisions are usual made by some MBA grad looking for bonus. This info might be incorrect due to my cynicism.

         4. The companies you list couldn’t give a shit about customer service – they already have your money. So, why spend money on a human IT staff?

         5. But in this case, you get what you pay for the vast majority of the time.

         6. Is it possible that’s all they want?

         7. One word, “subsidies”.

         8. That wouldn’t have saved you in my company. They layed off all of the old timer IT people and replaced them with workers out of India. Same with the accounting department but with people for Singapore. They did come to regret it, but the markets we are in are so saturated, I was told they will have to cut half our employees to survive in the coming years. They will accomplish that through automation and outsourcing to countries that cost less.

      5. I figured there was a reason I find this cow’s kinfolk insufferable. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3253297b9ce14e847e5bc71e33b4ae68fdac45e3ddd418e71b8289cc301229f9.jpg

   5. Parcel post services such as UPS and FedEx will continue to grow with internet shopping.

   6. What about email though

   7. Great Recession job loss stats:
      Loss of jobs among workers with high school education, Dec 2007 to Jan 2010: Over 5.7 million, 80% of whom were men.
      Loss of jobs among workers with college education, Dec 2007 to Jan 2010: None. About 150,000 jobs were added.
      Don’t let people tell you that college isn’t worth it.

      1. Agreed, actually with both of sides. A STEM degree of some sort seems to add a lot of potential to one’s earning power. Having a trade skill as a backup seems like just good common sense, and if you never actually need it to survive, you’ll still be ahead of the game through being more self sufficient than most.

         1. Yes, a trade skill for everyone is advisable.
            I’d add that liberal arts majors (like myself two decades ago) should be reserved for those students who are truly excellent at liberal arts, because the ones who are not will never make enough money from their degree to make it worthwhile. Those of us who are excellent do eventually approach STEM salaries — but ya gotta have a lotta drive.
            Colleges should stop promising the average mousy middle-class girl who likes to read Jane Austen that investing $70,000 in a English degree is going to pay out for her and her family. It’s not, at least not for decades.

         2. I absolutely agree with that as well. Lolknee has mentioned as much also.

         3. The risk with liberal arts majors is that so few actually contribute toward better work. All the artists I know with degrees in art were just as good before they dropped $50k on that sheet of paper. The decent philosophers, as a rule, studied the classics on their own long before a professor gave them a casual overview. And it’s shockingly hard to find English majors who actually go on to publish quality work.
            If I had my druthers, I’d have the liberal arts relegated to seminars and certification courses. They’d become cheaper (because there’s no magical paper attached), weed out the bad teachers (because there’s no establishment to pay them), and they’d be more accessible (because seminars tend to become videos).

         4. English/communication/history has been the dunno-what-I-wanna-do major for way too long. The price of a college education is fortunately killing that stupid practice.
            The new fallback major ought to be nursing. It pays well relative to the amount of training needed, and the country could use a lot more of them.
            Interesting study couple years back showed that a woman who wants to have children will make more money, across her whole life, by going into nursing than she will by going to medical school. Chew on that one for a hot minute.

         5. The funny thing I have noticed here in the Silicon Valley area is that I have come across chicks who majored in English Literature or Chinese History in college (they went to Ivy League schools), and yet, they are working as a Senior Marketing Manager for a top tech firm or starting a tech company. I mean, the CEO of Revel, a payment processing company is a chick who majored in US History from Stanford, and yet, she runs a tech company. I just don’t get it.

         6. Yes, and Carly Fiorina majored in medieval history.
            Lesson: If you’re smart and driven, the major doesn’t matter.

         7. How many of them actually built the company up? Most of them were hired and promoted due to divershitty programs.

         8. I’d like to 2nd this; excellent advice. Nursing, however, is a “hard” major compared to psych/history/etc. But, what you said is dead on, we need more of them, it pays well, and it’s an actual marketable skill. I know, totally unreasonable to expect people to select a major based on, you know, logic.

   8. Re: extinction, it’s amazing how many supposed “red-pilled” men are Christian/etc. and still believe such propaganda. Newsflash: when you die, that’s it. Evolution doesn’t give a hoot about you and there is no after party. I have my financial retirement plan in a box locked up: it’s a .38 that I’m going to use to blast away my brains while standing on a tall structure. I will reach nonexistence with this method not be revived by some do-gooder. And that will be it. In the meantime, I’ll be traveling and living it up as best I can. But I’m not going to prepare for retirement and then rot away like my religious family members were brainwashed to accept in a hospital or old age home.

      1. Even more amazing is making definitive statements of disbelief without being able to back any of it up.
         End of the day, you don’t know what happens after you die any more than anybody else. It’s all speculation, no matter how certain you think you are about it.
         Me, I’m not afraid to say “I don’t know”. It doesn’t harm my ego to admit a lack of knowledge.

         1. No one knows 100%. But it’s clear religion is a farce due to the sheer number of varying belief systems and how they’ve evolved. What is certain is that there’s no need to hang around by a thread, literally, with the hope you’ll be rewarded. But hey, who am I to stop you if you want to suffer later in life as you fully decompose.

         2. And again with the whole certainty spiel.
            As I said, it’s ok to say “I don’t know”. In this case neither you, nor I, nor anybody else can say for certain.
            As to “so many religions” consider that it’s a trait of all cultures throughout time, and then question how it can be so universal.

         3. That’s why the word “Faith” is synonymous with Christianity. It’s a belief in a creator that we are not capable of proving to be or even understanding. We just have faith that there is a God and that we should behave well, immediate reward or not.

         4. Those belief systems are all quite similar. Could be something to that…..

      2. Would you like me to double-tap you just in case?

         1. Good call, always go for the pussy.

         2. Won’t need it but if you’d like to help email me lindseywagners @ gmail and I’ll contact you when I’m ready

      3. “I’ll be traveling and living it up as best I can” -> from a fellow traveller, I’m sure you’re not living all that well or even earning any personal profit from your travels (at all).
         “a .38 that I’m going to use to blast away my brains” -> there are 2 ways I can read this. One, I’ll take it as something you’re just saying, carelessly, “to be cool”. Ok, that’s your personality. The second, you really mean what you’re saying. This, can only signify one thing: that moment is not your future, but your present every day (until you finally do it). You eliminated all other outcomes, so the path you choose is irrelevant, as your current experiences are void of meaning. Ergo, you are dead. Already. Without a bullet or a bloody mess…
         You do have a point. Most people involved in religion nowadays do it for social and ritualistic/folkish reasons, while leaving their spirituality uncultivated. These people end up worse or the same way any atheist would. I’ve seen hundreds of people dying like that, some even too senile to remember who they were anymore.
         But there is another side to this. There are (also) satisfying, freeing spiritual experiences. Don’t go straight for the complex stuff, like the Bible or the Vedas (but eventually, try to read them too, without compromise). Visit holy places, have meaningful conversations with devoted people (buddhist monks, catholic nuns, theologists, etc.) about things of your life, that worry you or which you would like to find a meaning to (forget the old tales of Noah and the floods of Indra, your story is the most important of all, and the only one you can change). Leave aside the need for an absolute answer, for the rigourous one and only solution. Embrace small contributions, and the possibility that none of us know for sure about all there is in the Universe, but we certainly know what we lived so far and how things worked (or not) in our lives.
         Try this place, Mount Kailash, away from others, just to find yourself.
         http://kjmain.kailashjourneysp.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/MtKailashNight2.jpg
         And good luck!

   9. Assuming you’re not entirely joking even the government won’t keep hiring postal workers if no one is sending mail. What reason do many of us have to go to the post office? Even Amazon is edging them out.
      One thing that is missing in the above article is learning another language, preferably one widely spoken in Third World countries. TWCs love experienced Western educated people to come to their countries and provide expertise that is literally foreign to them.

   10. USPS, how I hate thee? Let me count the ways. Starting with stuffing my mailbox full of unsolicited, worthless, mass mailed garbage. Funny how we have laws regarding unsolicited email spam but the idiot USPS can fill your mailbox to the brim with unsolicited mail spam with impunity. I’ve taken to putting the ad garbage that doesn’t even have my address on it and stuff it right back into outgoing mail. Envelopes that have no business name in it or are not sent directly to me get a quick “Return to Sender” or “Refused” stamped on them and then they get stuffed right back into outgoing mail. And sometimes, just for fun, I take all the prepaid return envelopes for unsolicited “business reply” mail, stuff them as much as possible with any excess ads and flyers I get and put them in the mail.
       The USPS needs to die a horrible, quick death. It is of no use to anyone and serves no meanginful puropose that can’t be served by other, more efficient means.

       1. You can opt-out of receiving unsolicited mail. https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0262-stopping-unsolicited-mail-phone-calls-and-email

       2. It’s on life support. If it was a private corporation, it would have had the plug pulled already.

   11. I was even thinking, although email might have caused a downturn in the posting of letters, online shopping has caused an increase in delivery of parcels. What, so are they going to really going to fill the skies with drones to deliver parcels? Or robots going up the streets.. I think there will come a point when people will say they don’t want something even though it’s technically possible just how people are probably not going to want RFID chips injected in their ass..

   12. Their livelihood depends upon people using the mail, which has been in steady decline with the advent of electronic communications. The only thing keeping some of these post offices in business is junk mail, something indirectly subsidized by congress via discounted bulk mail rates. End that discount and away goes a lot of the postal workforce.

4. Very well-written.
   In the end, all men are either sovereigns or slaves.
   You might get paid very well at a law firm or an investment bank, but you’re still dependent on someone else for income and forced to live your life in their terms, not much different from a person being dependent on the government to put food the table.
   Better to make $50k/year through your own small business than $80k/year working for someone else.
   As the manual dexterity of robots slowly starts to exceed that of humans and the increasing automation with ever-more sophisticated computer programs , all unskilled manual labour jobs and services will slowly be wiped out.
   Best defense against this is to become self-sufficient and reject consumerism. Learn a skilled trade that is location independent is a huge plus.
   Financial sovereignty is a goal that all men should aspire to in the medium to long term after gaining some experience related to their field.

5. Just yesterday, I saw a report where finally a self driving trailer was put out to deliver beer. This does not bode well for truckers like my own brother.
   http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/238258-self-driving-truck-travels-120-miles-to-make-its-first-shipment-of-beer

   1. While I am still concerned about self-driving vehicles, I cannot wait until all the fast food employees are put out of work for good.

      1. I am tempted to share this sentiment, but I fear that these people would only end up on the government dole, reliably voting democratic.

   2. The Luddite argument is as old as dirt. That self driving trailer enables the same job to be done with very little labor cost. That drops the cost of beer, and your brother will be able to find work elsewhere.
      Think about the reverse argument. Imagine if all petroleum production stopped. People would still have to eat, so manual labor would come in short supply, and nearly everyone could get a job running a pitchfork or scythe. Economy boom, right?

   3. I have yet to hear how these things are going to account for actual drivers and motorcyclists. It’s easy to say “They’ll outlaw it!” but then, consider, motorcyclists are a fucking *huge* voting block. Most of us don’t ride because of necessity but more for pleasure, so we’re heavily invested in it as a recreation PLUS it’s a very large social outlet as well. I can see them eventually outlawing regular driving, but bikers are going to be another matter entirely. Watch one Rolling Thunder event on D.C. and then find one politician who will vote against that kind of dedicated bloc.

      1. They will keep pulling off the ‘those are just man-children who need to get over themselves and sacrifice some of their egotistical desires for the greater good and a safe society for our children’ crap. At first, people will laugh at it. Two generations later, they will be uncertain. Two generations later still, they will be so deeply brainwashed that they will feel ashamed even of the thought of driving a motorcycle.

         1. They’ve been trying that for a few generations with their “Donor-cycle” line.
            Doesn’t change the feeling of getting on a bike in the slightest.

         2. Dude, that’s 4 generations. That’s a hell of a long time. Four generations including me would be my parents, my grandparents and my great grandparents, my great grandparents being functional back in the 19th century.
            I’m talking more along the lines of in the next ten or twenty years.

         3. Yeah well, I don’t think next twenty years will change that a lot, unless civilization collapses.

         4. You don’t understand the madness well enough. I suppose that’s lucky you.
            The point is: They make men ashamed of feeling like men. In the end result, a man does something, feels the greatness flowing through him, and immediately a voice comes into his head: This is wrong. My male greatness is hurting others.

         5. Actually if predictions are true, and they show every sign of being so far, driverless cars will be normal on roads within the next 5-10 years.
            I just don’t see the advantage of having them, and cars that are still manually driven, on the same stretch of asphalt. Now something that occurs to me is that they could create a far left lane, kind of like a HOV lane, that is functional on the same highways but which only driverless cars inhabit. Seems a pretty big investment in infrastructure though.

         6. They can’t pull that off with bikers. We’ve been distilled enough already that we’re impervious to their mockery. We’re not talking touchy, feely sensitive men who give a fuck what others think here.

         7. They do exist, but they become pavement patties or sell their bikes.

         8. Right, wasn’t really referencing “corporate advertisement” clad bikers so much as the normal real bikers. Your guy who tows his bike to a biking event then untrailers it two miles before the event, those kind, they’re not prone to stay bikers long regardless, they see it only as a status thing. I mean the actual biker sub-culture.

         9. A very good but also very neurotic rock guitarist I used to know told a story about how he was on a plane with Hell’s Angels members. Supposedly, it was something like: Stewardess told them to sit down and put on safety belts or something. They laughed, grabbed her ass or something and said ‘This plane belongs to us now’

         10. It will be like in Minority Report. You try to get away from the evil agents. And they will just redirect your car.

         11. That sounds more or less like an accurate description of what I’m talking about. This is a group of men (and some small amount of women) whose immediate impulse is to flip you off if you even pretend to suggest that somebody has authority over them (outside of their respective cliques).

         12. Yeah, I have zero desire to use a driverless car. Not because “old fuddy duddy”, I can see how they can be a benefit in many ways, it’s just that I have no desire to cede control of my fate to an automated system that can and will come pre-designed to be overriden on a whim by “Authority”. You also lose your privacy with this as well, unless I’m misunderstanding how this will work. I guess if they’re 100% standalone and not in one central network type control grid you can still remain anonymous, but if it requires hubs and controllers, that’s just bad, bad news.

         13. There’s a part of me that hates the idea and a part of me that loves it. In a way that’s what I always wanted to be. On the other hand, I would hate surrendering myself into a clique and established hierarchy. It would feel like I had not won that much after all.

         14. You don’t have to be in an M.C. I’m not in one. I just hang around with basically anybody. A lone wolf, except without the bad connotations. You get to choose what you want to be, in this subculture, nobody forces you to join anything that you don’t want to be a part of.

         15. It will invite hackers who will trick the system into getting privileges like other cars moving out of one’s way, Heh.

         16. I’ve got invites to all sorts of sub-communities, but I haven’t taken them up on it, either.
             I can still ride with whoever I want, though. Well, except maybe the Angels, but they’re probably the most gang-like of all the groups I know.

         17. Sounds good. But then, is there any place in this world where there are truly no expectations at all? I bet that in that culture, I would probably get quite a lot of the good ol ‘don’t be a wimp’ game.

         18. It’s a very masculine subculture Tom. Every social interaction, even between just two people, has a certain amount of built in expectations.
             Meaning, if you just hang around with bikers at biking events and rode on some tours with them, you’re cool. If you start putting on pink shirts and talking like a faggot and shit, you’re going to be shunned. There are no groups anywhere, even groups of two, that do not have a level of expectation.

         19. My leather working has made me friends with all of the local M.C., including the 1%’ers. I can mix and mingle as I wish, and do.

         20. Or getting the cars to go to your preferred gas stations, restaurants, etc.
             “We’re currently on route to arrive at a 5-star McDonalds. Would you like a super-sized fries and a fresh soda during the duration of this hour-long commute?”

         21. Hey, I rock that pink shirt!

         22. I believe that I’m going to punch you. Heh.

         23. Correction: Pizza Hut. There’s only Pizza Hut in the future.

         24. Anyone but a biker, I’d say “bring it” – I can either tank the hit and laugh, or they’re just posing.

         25. Lol. That doesn’t sound like something I’m prone to be doing.

         26. They will make your insurance premiums so absurd, you will be forced to buy a self-driving car with lower premiums

         27. There was this badass halfway-narcissist tough Albanian I used to live with (as a kid, in a government-funded therapeutic community). He always bought Hugo Boss shirts for a shitload of money. Mild pink, almost white. I never understood that shit. And he certainly wasn’t gay.

         28. Certain shades of pink accent my skin tone well, and a good cut shows off my shoulders and chest.
             Reclaim all the colors from the hippies, feminists, and queers.

         29. I always liked black, because I have a terrible body shape.

         30. I would use them as with public transportation around large city and population centres. I’m kind of half way off the grid. When the shit hits the fan an old truck or motorcycle will be invaluable.

         31. And that would be easily seen being done. This voting block isn’t going to tolerate that and hell, 3/4 of them would say “fuck you” and just not buy motorcycle insurance. Hell I think 1/2 of them already have no coverage or even valid licenses, heh.

         32. That’s where I see their value too, automated taxi cabs for when I’m someplace unfamiliar or I just can’t be arsed to drive (like, it’s Saturday night and I don’t want to drive or pay to take Uber).

         33. Wrong. Only Taco Bells. And they will be vegan. I know. Demolition Man said so.

         34. Im talking about cars, not bikes. Theres a new job market: Interior car design. The exterior wont matter much, because you wont be able to drive it yourself. All about the interior. Mine would have leopard skin upholstery, a mirror ball, a wet bar, and a velvet painting of Elvise Presley

         35. GOJ,
             Depends what “driverless” really means. A car that can only drive itself on the highway? Well, my car can pretty much do that now, it’s nice, but not at all “game changing”.
             A car that I can get in at my house, enter GPS info into, and then wake up when we get there (are we there yet?!)? Now that’s a game changer. A car that can take me downtown, let me hop out at where ever I want to be, go park itself (or just drive around) and then pick me back up? A car that will pick me up blind drunk and take me home afterwards? A car that I can dispatch to pick up women for me? Those are all game changers and will fundamentally alter the way we live. Why live in a city when you can get all the convenience without the hassle of parking or not being able to drink? Why not have your GF come over at 3AM, just send the car to get her.
             Wonder if the license plate “BTYCALL” is taken. Have to check. 🙂

         36. About to buy my first street bike after I move to the country. Can’t wait! Shocked at what I’ve fallen for, I expected to like the Busa or something like that. Instead, I’ve got a raging hard on for the vRod. Yeah, I know, it’s not really a Harley. But OMG, that thing is fucking sex on wheels and it’s also really exciting and fun to ride.

         37. Good for you! Good luck with the new ride.

         38. Thanks Ghost, still working on the renovations up at the new place, but just another month or 2 before the move. Drooling at the thought of being able to do basically whateverthefuck I want to on a daily basis without my neighbors calling the HOA nazis. Including starting up a VRod with load ass pipes in my front yard and just letting it idle to hear it purr. 😉 I lived in the country before and used to race dirt bikes (MX), but I’m too old for the hits now, my back just won’t take a triple anymore.

   4. Not sure you should worry yet:
      “As required by current law,
      there was a human driver in the cab, but according to Otto, he wasn’t
      actually sitting at the wheel.”
      In some places, the irrational fears and feelings of women are actually beneficial. And as long as moms thing their children will be slaughtered by robots without a human to intervene, this law won’t change.
      Plus, the truck does the driving, but who unloads the truck when it gets to the destination? Not saying trucks can’t displace workers, but technology has its limits.

6. Nice article. Speaking of corporate greed…I was waiting for a cab yesterday at Pappadeaux restaurant, right next to the hotel I’m staying at in the Phoenix area. The cab was late and I’d been waiting for about 45 minutes. Finally, this bartender I know, asked me why I didn’t call Uber. I told him what if there was a version of Uber for the bartending industry, and its minions worked for half the normal pay, while agreeing to give the company over half of their tips – would he like that idea? I think the light bulb went off in his head, he got a very pensive look…

   1. On the other hand, cab drivers live in a distorted market, due to the monopoly.
      You may (righteously) ask whether cab driver is even a valid job and not a form of normal social courtesy that people simply give to each other for a small or nonexistent reward.
      Like, imagine it ass-backwards. Imagine we live in a world where cabs don’t exist. And all there is is Uber, an app that brings people together to get somewhere, in all the spirit of solidarity and all that. Nobody really lives from the money they get there … it’s more like something on top, something to do for fun.
      And now from nowhere comes a company … with the fixed idea in their heads that they need to create a fixed category job called ‘cab driver’. And they see that nobody wants to pay a lot of money for it, because … why would they? It’s a normal act of courtesy to give someone a lift, so why pay a lot for it? This company would be seen as greedy and be likely very unsympathetic. Then that company would go engage itself with politicians who would then give it a monopoly, preventing people from helping each other out and being from now on dependent on those bastards.
      I am sure you have no trouble imagining that scenario … it’s all about perspective.
      But for argument’s sake, let’s take another fictional example:
      Asking for directions. Asking someone for directions is something normal. Giving that help is also normal. Everyone can do it.
      But now a company comes along and says: Many people are misdirected by unprofessional civilians. Thus, to protect the people, we create the job ‘direction-giver’. Everyone who gives directions without a license will be fined.
      And suddenly there’s a monopoly on direction-giving. And then they turn it around to look like victims. The poor direction-givers who just want to make a living and are sabotaged by evil civilians. And if you ask someone to give you directions in the future, they will lower their heads and say ‘dude, come on. Pay some respect to our professional educated licensed direction-givers. They have families, women and children to feed. Ask them, please. Be a decent human being’

      1. I think you have touched on an idea for a good futuristic novel there…

         1. Have you read my utopia/dystopia short story?

         2. In case you’re curious: http://manwithoutfather.com/2016/06/14/short-story-altropia/

7. I really appreciated the article especially for the precious metal-section. But as you said IF Trump will win the election gold prices will skyrocket…however I am sure he won’t win. Can anybody tell me roughly what happens if Hillary takes the lead?

   1. Precious metals soar on growing uncertainty, weakness of the dollar.
      Under Trump, real economic data published, same result.
      Honestly, win-win for the metals market.

   2. If crooked Hillary wins, war is coming. Hence, invest in steel.

8. Good points. however blue collar work should be separated by skilled trades. How are you going to replace a plumber? An arborist?
   For your finances, use mint and mint bills. If you don’t track it you won’t know anything.

9. I noticed some people here in the comments section talking about SEO. That’s my area of expertise. I currently have over 100 real estate websites online (real estate is a very competitive field). Most of the sites get 100 or more visitors per day, from the search engines alone. One of them gets 100,000-plus visitors per month. I’ve done sites for psychics, home builders, an alpaca rancher, a jeweler, etc. So if anybody wants some pointers, fire when ready. I’ll give you whatever ammo I can, unless it gets too involved. Heh.

   1. Dang it, Bob! You and your actual experience trump my forays into the field!
      But if you want a subcontractor…

      1. Well. Forays are good. SEO just happens to be my thing. I got an email from an “SEO expert” today – I get them all the time. “Dear Sir – we noticed that your site is not in the Top 10 at Google for the most important keywords. We would be glad to conduct a free evaluation of your site.” Etc. The site in question is No. 1 for virtually all the top traffic-driving search phrases. Heh. These SEO experts really know their shit; they don’t even bother to check the site out, they just send out a thousand blind emails. (Rant over.)

         1. Devirahaman loves sending me those emails.
            Or at least, he did before I sent them straight to the burn pile. I have no idea whether he’s still sending them.

   2. This is my website.
      https://thegentlemensclub2016.wordpress.com/
      Until I can figure out how to tag pages (looks like it requires a plugin), I would appreciate any pointers on creating SEO tags for my articles. Right now I’m kind of winging it and it doesn’t seem to really be pulling in good traffic.

      1. On each article, to the left, the tags I’ve added to that article is shown so you can see my general approach.

         1. One piece of basic advice I know is to over-tag (at least to start), then pull it back once you have info on what’s working best.
            SEO tags can be as long or short as you want. Mix up the short, general topic terms with more specific searches?

         2. I’ll give it a shot. Is it better to use single word tags like “nutrition” or multi-word tags like “nutrition for building muscle”?

         3. Both.

         4. Ok, should I use both of those example tags in the same post if they both applied?

         5. I’ll get back to you on this in a bit…

         6. In this particular case, “nutrition” would probably hit-or-miss, because of the vegan health nuts with no interest in supplementing. But “nutrition for building muscle” would be a reasonable search for lifters, and it would boost your rankings.
            As you rise on the “nutrition for building muscle” tag, the other tags will rise as well (because most search engines are a bit loose about which tags are really meaningful).

         7. Much appreciated.

         8. I guess my main area of confusion is how literal search engines use tags. If I used “nutrition for building muscle”, would Google pull this tag if someone just searched for “building muscle”?

         9. As a point of example, Evermore Instructional breaks 100/day primarily because I reviewed Cappy Cap’s books favorably (good stuff) and I syndicate the highly-popular Danger and Play. Even without much original content lately, I get site traffic from these kinds of posts.
            The titles count toward SEO, as do the tags.

         10. As a rule, no. To hit all your bases, you want “nutrition”, “building muscle” and “nutrition for building muscle”.

         11. I see. Good to know. Thanks for the advice. Looks like I have not been employing enough tags in my articles.

         12. At least until your site starts hitting the top of the charts. As the general tags start pulling more traffic for you, you can dial it back.

         13. Surprised nobody mentioned it, but there’s a great thing you can do to check how good your keywords are:
             https://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=advertising,real%20estate
             Google Trends. Shows you how this particular keyword is doing.
             https://adwords.google.com/ko/KeywordPlanner
             Google Keyword Planner. This one shows you the search volume of keywords as well as the amount of competition on them. Unfortunately, it seems the tool has changed a bit. If I recall correctly, it used to show results for auto-suggested keywords as well. But you simply write down a long list of keywords you think are good and then see what Google thinks about them.

         14. I’ll look into those as well. Thanks.

         15. Also, send Ivan Thorne an email about your review. He might just link back to you as self-advertising, and you get more traffic.
             1/20 who see a link click it. 1/20 of those check out other articles. 1/20 of those tell others. So you need 80 or so viewers to get the ball rolling. Self-published authors are excellent sources of those views.

         16. Title of page should include the major keyword phrases you want to target, with the top major phrase appearing twice. (The Nine Laws by Ivan Throne: A Book Review of The Nine Laws)
             Page description should be laid out in a fashion similar to this – The Nine Laws: A book review of Ivan Throne’s The Nine Laws. Read the Gentleman’s Club’s in-depth book review of The Nine Laws by Ivan Throne, right here.
             (Formula for page description tags – lead the description of the page off, with the top major search phrase you want to target, and include it two more times in the description, for a total of three times.)
             All major keyword phrases should appear in the body of the article, several times, and optimally, at least once per paragraph. If articles are submitted by other authors, skip this. You can get around this problem by placing your major keywords in caps, and in bold, meaning, the title of the article – The Nine Laws by Ivan Throne: A Book Review of The Nine Laws – at various locations in the article. Meaning, you can put that precise keyword-stuffed title in between every two paragraphs, for example…you can put Part 1, Part 2, next to each entry, if you think it looks weird without it.
             Your keyword tags should include the major keyword phrase you want to target, first, in a series. Related keywords should appear after that major keyword phrase. Try to avoid putting any keyword phrase into the keyword tags more than once. This is referred to as keyword-stuffing and you can get penalized by the search engines.
             All images should include the major keyword phrase (or phrases) in the Alt. Image tags, too. This is critical. Most people don’t know this one, simple trick. And it’s huge.
             Links should be placed on other websites, best-case scenario, where you can get free advertising, which incorporate the exact major keyword phrase in the link verbiage. Start the link off, with the exact phrase in question. For example – “The Nine Laws: A Book Review of The Nine Laws”..double-up the major keyword phrase in each link you place on another site.
             Approach other blog owners who have relevant, similar content, about link advertising on their sites. You should be able to get some freebies, and if not, you should be able to get some paid links, and it probably won’t cost you that much…this will increase your link pop (link popularity) and your search engine rankings will climb accordingly.
             The idea is to drive as much organic search engine traffic as possible, to the site, via SEO, and as much link traffic to the site, as you can possibly muster. This will develop over time. People will actually link to your site of their own volition, if they like your content. The more inbound links you have, the more the search engines will like you – and you’ll get more traffic from those links, just by having them on other sites.
             That’s a brief outline of some simple and effective tricks…

         17. I once bought an SEO book that contained far less useful information.
             Excellent post.

         18. Thanks, bro. It’s one of those fields where you can find out very little useful information in books. All the good stuff is learned by experimentation. In other words, virtually nobody is going to give out their “A Game” in a book…most of the things you read are either outdated, or flat-out wrong. Weird field, for sure.

         19. Yeah, pretty much everything I’ve been saying here came from trial-and-error.

         20. Use laser-beam focus when building your keyword and keyword phrase list. Yes, include both versions that you mentioned. It’s all about keyword correlation. Are your keywords related? Yes. Don’t reach too far, don’t go after single, huge-volume words, especially if they aren’t related, as you are very unlikely to rank for those single words. (Unrelated keywords, placed in your keyword tags, will actually make you LOSE ranking.) This is about defining a niche, and then working to own it. Make sure those words are in the actual article. If not, use the trick I explained in my long-winded advice comment, and put the keyword phrase(s) in question at staggered locations throughout the article, in between paragraphs…

         21. SEO is obviously beneficial. But there’s way more to an effective, money-making website than just SEO alone. For example, page-load time. This is critical. People will leave if your site takes too long to load, so every second counts. Especially since a lot people use their phones, and they can get lousy Internet connections, depending on where they are located. There’s a sweet spot for page size. Anything over that sweet spot is going to slow down the page-load time. So size matters here – the smaller the better. Keep your pages as small as possible.
             Also, color schemes are vital. Black is too morose, and it doesn’t soothe the eye. Blue soothes the eyes, a dark turquoise works really well when it comes to soothing the eye. So consider that for your main color. Use white on your pages, for the background of the actual content that people will be reading. And an easy-to-see font, like Arial, black color only. You don’t want to shock the eyes of your visitors, you want to calm their eyes. Heavy header text up top (flash banners, big, gawdy banners that advertise the site) will make people leave. Every single thing you put on the page that might compromise the page’s load time comes into play here. Less is more. Smaller is better. Keep your images small in size.
             ***Also – put your most important information as close to the top of the page as is humanly possible. You want your visitors to access what they came to the page to access, on the first screen, without having to scroll down to get it.

         22. So use the words I put in the tag area in the article as well, correct? Do search engines search the actual articles for those tagged words?

         23. Rule No. 1 – Google lies. They are not going to tell you the truth about anything. The only way you will know which keywords are working the best, is by tracking your own site logs. Adwords is a scam, period. So don’t listen to anything Google tells you. Google actually approached me, and a group of other SEO experts, for advice about how to optimize websites way back in the day…heh. Think of it this way. There’s a site called Alexa. They allegedly rank sites according to traffic. How in the hell do they get those traffic reports? Do they hack your site and check it out? Their reports are bogus. I have compared their reported traffic figures for my sites, and they are way off. Just steer clear of any advice Google gives you, and consult an expert who isn’t going to try and steer you in a direction, so they can make bank off those Adwords ads you get sucked into placing…that’s the scam there.

         24. Yes. They search the entire content of the page…every single word. And be sure to put your vital keywords in your Alt. Image tags. You will draw traffic just by having keywords in your images, when people do image searches. Plus you’ll get added pop in your rankings, way more pop, by putting them in your Alt. Image tags.

         25. Fantastic! Thank you very much. I’ll need to go back and start updating my old posts to optimize their search results.

         26. Glad to help a brother out…my pleasure.

         27. Yeah, Alexa always striked me as fraud. I assumed that the explanation was that they had some kind of toolbar installed for some people and tracking their behavior. Obviously a skewed sample.
             That said, I use Google Analytics. Can’t say I feel like it is deluding me a lot, but who knows. It’s a very comfortable frontend and good enough for my needs. It’s not like I am making money with my site either way.
             Anyhow, Google does have the data. Whether they release it correctly can be doubted. But I don’t see much reason for them to skew the results regarding keyword demand, apart from maybe a few controversial topics.

         28. Unabashed…scroll down a bit, as I put more advice in comments below.

         29. I saw that comment as well. Thanks again.

         30. Here’s another perspective: Most visitors come through Google. So there’s really no point in them skewing the feedback about keywords, since they can easily skew the search results themselves.
             So yeah, you may be getting fucked over. But considering that SEO pretty much means ‘optimizing for Google’, there’s not much you can do about it either way. Correct me if I’m wrong.

         31. It’s a red-pill thing. What I relate here, is based on extremely in-depth, practical experience. “Don’t be evil.” Heh. My ass. Google is the Lucifer of the corporate world…

         32. So you are saying that Google’s market share is not as high as we may think it is?

         33. Google’s market share is huge. Their advice is designed to make you a slave to their AdWords clusterfuck. And it isn’t accurate. It’s self-serving.

         34. How does that work, tho?

         35. Not sure what you are asking…how does what work.

         36. Making me a slave of the AdWords clusterfuck.

         37. If you mean to imply that AdWords are bullshit and nobody really clicks on that stuff, I wouldn’t disagree. AdWords are about the last thing I would use to get more visitors.

         38. AdWords is a black box. So is AdSense. AdWords, you place ads by bidding on keyword phrases. Let’s say 50 cents a click. Every time somebody clicks on your AdWords ad, which is displayed right next to, or above, or below, the actual organic search engine results, money is drained from your account. Who monitors that draining? Google. I did AdSense for a couple of years. Meaning, I displayed ads on my sites, sponsored by Google, and every time somebody clicked an ad, I was supposed to get paid. But who does the accounting? Google. No accounting is provided to the end-user, at least when I did it (that was two years ago). A sweet scam, that one. On the AdWords side, who is going to prevent a couple hundred people in an office in Taiwan, who click on those ads all day long (AdWords). Nobody.
             When I did AdSense, I immediately smelled a rat. I had a website that featured psychic material. People always sent emails asking for free psychic readings. So I had ads that were for free psychic readings. The first day, boom, got a bunch of clicks. Bagged about $30! Sweet. After that – virtually nothing. There is no accountability. They empty pockets. It’s a black box, and nobody can prove they skim, but I can see it, because I can infer it mathematically. They want you hooked on the AdWords and AdSense avenues. And they skim. They will milk you dry, drive keyword prices up, and those keywords are not necessarily conducive to making you any money or driving traffic to you. They prey on people’s ignorance of the keyword game.
             For example…real estate. Ask any dipshit real estate agent what search phrase they want to be No. 1 for, and they will all say, “Real estate!” Hmm. Sounds good, right? Wrong. “Homes” is searched more often, along with “houses”. But even more importantly, “homes for sale in city, state” is way more beneficial to the end user. And a specific type of home – “bungalows for sale in city, state” is even better. Why? Because the person who uses that search phrase knows exactly what type of property they want to buy, in an exact city. It’s about relevancy, and establishing a niche market, while minimizing the influx of tire-kickers. Anyway…maybe this will help you get a better idea of the bigger picture.

         39. I agree with all you say. AdWords always smelled funky to me. When I see them on Google, like with practically any ad, I ask myself: Who the fuck is actually clicking on this? Must be some braindead zombies with zero internet experience.
             But my former boss used to say: Tom, you think differently than most people. I ended up accepting that argument, because frankly, it’s true.
             I would never use AdWords, for much the reason you pointed out. It’s so obviously stupid that it wouldn’t even enter my mind to call it a ‘scam’. To call it a scam, it would have to be at least a little convincing in my mind.
             But then, that depends on the person. Just think of those hideous and super-obvious scams on fat people or dating. It gets you hooked on your emotions, on your traumata. And when you look at it with a clear mind, you just laugh the shit out of yourself and wonder how you could have ever fallen for that nonsense.
             That said, I don’t see why the Keyword Planner would give you false data. How it would benefit AdWords or Google to do that.
             You can take that data and use it without regards to AdWords.

         40. Hey Bob, I just had a guy on Facebook telling me that he doesn’t care about Hillary’s deleted emails and that in his eyes, this election is about: Love vs. Hate.
             The brainwashing works! 😀

         41. Bob, I have made many of the changes you suggested to my book review article. If you would be so kind to see I employed these rules correctly, I would greatly appreciate it. There’s still a few tweaks I might make, but I wanted to be sure I was on the right path.
             https://thegentlemensclub2016.wordpress.com/2016/10/13/book-review-the-nine-laws/

         42. Hmmm….
             – Website exists: Check.
             – Website has URL: Check.
             – Article contains text: Check.
             I think you’re good to go!
             Jokes aside, I love the layout in that article. Really cool.

         43. Thank you. I’ve played with the templates quite a few times as I never could really nail down the style I wanted for the site. I am really happy with the current style as it looks very polished and professional.

         44. I would put the first paragraph of each article up top, in place of a photo, so the viewer can immediately start reading. You don’t want them to have to scroll down to find the content…

         45. Underneath ‘Best Regards,
             Gentleman Jak’ there is a big empty space of about a fist height or so. Is that an error or is there supposed to be some kind of plugin or widget?

         46. Don’t take this personally, I’m just giving it to you straight. I’d ditch the black background on the actual content that people read. It’s a killer on the eyes. Can you use white background, for the article content? If there’s a way that you can do that, I would do it…you’ll see results right away in your “site-stickiness” – how long people stay on the site, reading. Also, use a more soothing font, like 12-point Arial, black lettering (normal Arial, not Arial Black, which is too dense), for the words themselves, on the white background. Just doing these two things will really help you out…

         47. You have a point. The other option would be to make the text brighter. It’s a little too much ‘dark on dark’.

         48. Don’t follow him during a natural disaster…

         49. Hmmm…I’m not seeing that on my side, neither on my PC or iPhone. There’s a space for ads that WordPress reserves but that’s all I can think of. Here’s what I see. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cfdd63ab06a502a70d7df3da8fbcacdf065fc1256639cfcc975a030543905620.png

         50. But but, he would lead me into the arms of love.

         51. Ah, that’s it. I have AdBlock enabled.

         52. You’re not going to offend me, bring on the constructive criticism. I originally had it as black text on white background, but it just didn’t seem to fit the style of the site. Any thoughts?

         53. Heh. He’d think a rattlesnake was a water hose with rocks inside, rattling…

         54. That’s what I tell girls when they ask ‘is that your dick?’

         55. Btw, who says he wouldn’t be right? If he believed in it strongly enough, maybe it would come true.
             Power of the dreamer and all that…

         56. It’s a killer. You really need to change it to a white background, with 12-point Arial. Black type on white background. Also, increase the size of the links up top. Kick them up at least two more point sizes, as they are tough to see. And move the first paragraph of each article up to where people can immediately start reading, without having to scroll down, to access the content. Meaning, move the top photo down to say, after the second paragraph. And I’d try to reduce the size of that photo. About 65% of the current size…the idea here is, give them access to what they want – the content. Get them to start reading, instead of scrolling. This will increase your site-stickiness, big-time (the amount of time people spend on the site, average length of visit).

         57. Well, after you follow him around for a while, let me know how it works out…

         58. I’m following nobody unless circumstance forces me to. I don’t trust anybody.

         59. Wow. An Anaconda, huh…that has to be a good thing.

         60. You’re breaking my heart. Hah!
             How’s this looking?
             https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a631e74626e4e32a333232be34f71ea2ea8359249ec96bd339369ff025dc0152.jpg

         61. Better. Whiten it at least one more shade…possibly two. A gray cast is okay as long as it’s still whitish…off-white is better than gray. Much better.

         62. I disagree with Bob here. I think a bright font like here would already greatly improve readability. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1b846cff4b0c652fdf5d1bf2893065a798167a93865b5362b760d800ee5d53cb.png
             But if you want a bright background, consider only using it for the main content:
             https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f3713037415cdde7c1d81c97b2156de788f4695dacdb84b7d8c80e9a3473be1e.png
             Positive side effect: Thanks to the contrast to the dark background, the white appears brighter. Remember, brightness is relative. When you post that screenshot of a shade here on Disqus ROK (with a perfectly white background) it appears dark, while it would appear much brighter on your side.

         63. Take a look at it now using the link I posted earlier for the book review and let me know what you think.

         64. Looks terrible right now. If you’re going for totally bright, you need to change the top menu as well. I personally dig that dark shit, but oh well. To each their own.

         65. I would try that, but since I am using the free version of WordPress, I cannot directly control the color of the font. It automatically changes based on the background color.

         66. Wtf. Are you using WordPress.com or what? In normal WordPress you can customize absolutely everything. This stuff only takes a few lines of CSS code.

         67. Now we are cooking with gas, my friend. Much better. Last tip – make the links on the pages themselves royal blue. Much easier for a first-time user to spot them as being links, and it will soothe the eye…

         68. WordPress.com, yes.

         69. Meh, shit. Consider switching to a hosted account where you can install your own WordPress. It’s terribly easy to do (might take you 1-2 hours if you have no experience) and you can customize everything.

         70. I tried that on my old website a year or two ago and could never figure it out. I’m horribly illiterate with this kind of stuff.

         71. Here’s what I mean about the royal blue links…
             https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2a244277b00d4237a2608265179f5a85760354efcffb70f04033d69d1b923b10.jpg

         72. I’ve experimented with every color scheme and background you can imagine. Tracked the traffic stats for years, I’ve run A/B experiments using different color schemes and backgrounds. White background wins, hands-down. It’s so much easier to read. People get into the aesthetic trap. Meaning, what they think looks good, is actually no good for the end user. A white background for anything a person reads is critical. To illustrate my point, I’ve sold over $300 million in residential real estate for my clients. I not only know how to make websites that function at top effectiveness, from an aesthetics perspective, I know how to write copy and arrange a website so that it actually makes money for my clients. So do with that what you will…but I know what I’m talking about. How one person thinks something looks, is irrelevant. What matters is effectiveness. What does the majority of the online visitors want? They want a white background. Black backgrounds kill sites. I had a couple heh. They looked good to me, aesthetically, but they are god-awfully hard to read…

         73. But Bob, you have experience with a specific market. Real estate is something where people want to feel clarity, light, transparency. A dark theme seems weird and suspect there. But take something that digs into the holes of existence and darkness is something you may want in your theme.

         74. I might have found a middle ground. The dark background fits my site’s style but I have to admit the contrast between it and the font was not quite enough. I have come across this combination, but the blue is…well…take a look.
             The links are gray, that highlight blue when you hover over them. I’m limited on my options as this is the free version of WordPress.com.
             https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b3fff90652979a8c2da65d09055e08a855a1f55e16f02dbb36903bfae05aa684.jpg

         75. I know that, when I’m working on code, I like to use a template that is just off-black background with slightly off-white text. Still contrasting enough to be clear, but less stark to reduce overall eyestrain.
             If I were to write longer pieces, that’s a format I might consider.

         76. I have tons of copy on those real estate websites. People read articles there. They get informed. They read, and they look at homes. And all the other sites I’ve designed have tons of copy. See above comment. What matters is what the public at large prefers. They prefer a white background. And you’re a Gemini, you’ll take the opposite stance of anything. (Wink.)

         77. I liked the green – it felt like a gentleman’s club.

         78. My average site visit is over 45 minutes. The average, in general, online, for a website, is less than 1 minute. I’ve done this for 15 years. Ignore the master at your own folly, Grasshoppers…

         79. Lol. Yeah dude, but it’s real estate. The layout you want depends on the spirit you want to present.
             White background, I partially agree. My website has a white background, although a generally dark theme. BoldandDetermined is like that too. There’s a black background and on top of that, white background for the text.
             Well, I suppose there’s no perfect answer. But for me, a website is like a kind of place to be … it has a character. Like a bar. If it doesn’t transport the vibe I need to feel comfortable, it’s not optimal.

         80. How do we know you’re saying the truth, master? You can claim anything.

         81. Yeah, the more I play with it, the more I’m falling back to the original template. I’m definitely making a few tweaks to the style (font style, SEO optimization, etc), but for now, I might keep the overall look to the site until I can really sit down and work on it for a few hours to hammer out every small detail.

         82. Well, he’s kept you talking to him here for hours, so…..
             Heh

         83. Let us know when you settle on a style you like. We’ll happily shit all over it…constructively!

         84. Maybe you can go with a kind of brighter green or cyan that makes it bright enough to be readable, but still keeps the character.

         85. Haha!

         86. Take a gander at it now. I think I’ve accomplished just that.

         87. 
             This will be lost on those who don’t speak a modicum of German.

         88. But have you run tests, and correlated data, and tracked average-length-of-visit stats, with any of those sites…comparing a white background format, to other versions…
             Somebody posted a comment about liking the green layout better. You know why they liked it better? They got used to it. When a website changes color, a frequent visitor always hates the new layout. A first-time visitor won’t. Ask that first-time visitor who is exposed to the royal blue color scheme, what they think, when you switch it to the green scheme. They’ll hate it. “I liked the blue color better”…heh. People are weird that way.

         89. Now I’d just make the normal text a little brighter to fit in with the brighter links and improve readability a little.

         90. True enough. Still, you can’t stretch it endlessly.
             Do you think ROK would work well with pink and rainbow colors and girly ornaments all over?

         91. I don’t follow your logic.

         92. Not saying blue can’t work, but the image presented, while easy to view, was somewhat inconsistent. I think it’s a color wheel thing – the backdrop was muted along the warm color scale, and the text was stark, bright blue. The disharmony of elements doesn’t really make sense to me.
             Edit: This only really applies to the title. The text looks much cleaner than the original.

         93. Unfortunately, that’s as bright as I can make the regular text.

         94. Run tests. Try your old layout. Then try the white-background and black text. It’s called A/B-ing. Track average length of stay figures. People get used to a website’s original color scheme. That’s why people say they don’t like it when it’s changed. Show a first-time user the white background, and blue color scheme, then switch it to your older scheme, and they’ll say, “I liked the old one better…” Anyway, best of luck. The SEO tips I gave you will help. Eventually, you should think about getting a stand-alone URL (your own domain, not a WordPress domain). You’ll get better rankings. But one step at a time…

         95. Lol. What a fucked up system.
             Check if this works for you: https://en.support.wordpress.com/custom-design/editing-css/
             This allows custom CSS. If you can do that, you can do practically anything with your site.

         96. A good point, Grasshopper. Trust your heart.

         97. Tom brought up that as well. I am horribly illiterate with that kind of stuff and had a nightmare of a time trying to do just that for my old martial arts site. I eventually gave up.

         98. I would offer to do it, but I currently can’t be arsed to do anything. I’m sure Taignobias can do it though, with ease.

         99. “I think this is better…” Famous last words. “I know this is better, because I’ve tested it mercilessly, talked to other website owners who have highly trafficked sites, and it’s a Web Design 101 truism”. Which one should a person go with here…that’s the question.

         100. Geezer vs Grasshopper Part 1.

         101. Geezer and the Grasshopper…or Leave it to Geezer? Heh.

         102. My heart is a strained black void, I don’t know how to listen to it. Why else do you think I keep arguing for basically all perspectives without ever taking sides?

         103. He’s kept you on this website for well over 45 minutes.
              Jesus dude, making me explain my stupid quips is really harshing my mellow. Heh.

         104. So?
              Is harshing your what? You have opened up a big bottle of Tom Arrow confusion, I am afraid.

         105. I would have to upgrade my current plan to something other than free. Might just have to do that and stop being a cheapskate.

         106. It was a silly quip. He’s keeping people “on websites” due to technical reasons, you ask him to prove it, I remove “technical reasons” without saying it and then note he’s kept you on a website for hours. A little verbal sleight of hand as “proof”.
              Harshing my mellow. A hippie turn of phrase from the early 1970’s (maybe earlier). They’d get high and if you tried to bring them back to reality with some kind of “bummer” statement, they’d tell you not to harsh their mellow.

         107. Took a look, and that more or less matches my costs.
              Yearly Domain Name: ~$.80/month ($10/year)
              Yearly Service Hosting: ~$7 to $12/month
              If you’re going to go premium, you almost might as well go independent hosting.

         108. I seeee. Well, that explains a lot.
              Hey, shouldn’t you be a super-wealthy alpha male or something?

         109. My heart is a stained black void
              Permeated by melancholy
              Punctured by happenstance
              Poisoned by the frivolity of tormenters
              But sometimes, when I see a girl’s eyes
              Deep within, I long to say to her –
              I am here, as I have always been
              Waiting patiently
              Kiss me, my love, just one time
              And make me come alive again…
              But I say none of those things
              Retreating to the darkness –
              To the stained, black void that is my heart…
              And afterwards, I go home

         110. Lol! Damn, GOJ. You make nice jokes. It’s a bummer that half of the time I just don’t get them.
              Yeah, that makes sense. May be because tripping gives you insight into another kind of reality.

         111. Are you a telepath, Bob?

         112. That’s a bit restrictive, isn’t it…heh.

         113. Indeed. Well played.

         114. Btw, it’s ‘strained’, not ‘stained’. Little technicality.

         115. What, a super-wealthy alpha male can’t be a cheapskate?

         116. I’ll chalk it up to eye strain…

         117. Of course, Mr. McDuck.

         118. In the end…I’m what the person chooses to see…just like you.

         119. One of the many things I do is interior book design, and believe you me, the old rules exist for reason in that field as well. Plain white background, 12-pt serif font, appropriate margins, hit save and back the fuck off. Don’t go trying to reinvent the wheel.

         120. Amen, brother…

   3. Where can I seek your services? I have a ecommerce business that needs setting up (website and marketing) and could use some advice. Is there a way I can get a hold of you?

10. “Once our currency reaches a critical mass, it will be impossible to import anything due to our ridiculously low currency value. In other words, 85% of the goods that we depend on (from China, Thailand, and Malaysia) will no longer be accessible.”
    Totally oblivious to the fact that every country in the world uses fiat currency too.

    1. This is the thing I never understand about the fiat currency argument. I understand the point they’re trying to make, but when every other country is doing it, it’s not like people can jump to a different currency that is backed by gold. Everything these days is backed by the government, and therefore in reality “trust” in the government. Our currency bubble may pop when that trust fails, but to keep it afloat, all we have to do is be more trustworthy than the other players, and so far we’re ahead of the curve. Maybe not forever, but we’re a long way from popping at this point.

       1. Indeed it is backed y trust but also the fact that a country creates actual wealth. Zimbabwe thought printing money was creating actual wealth and the rest is History.

11. weed stocks in canada are growing fyi kuz trudeau wants to legalize in 2017

    1. Now THAT is a stock tip.

       1. Yeah i’m not kidding i think there is potential.
          Grow-ops, merchandise, health-care research, pharmaceuticals…

          1. Hydroponics companies? Always a smart move to bet farther down the line.

12. Somehow the yarmulkes were left off the “What it really is” part of the globalism pic at the beginning of the article.

13. I predict the reverse (disclaimer: i havent got enough money to invest in anything, so dont rely on me unless you think the logic is good). If trump is elected it will lead to greater stability and less interest in precious metals. If the schoolmarm is elected then the markets will panic and metals will rise.

    1. They’ve been lying about the numbers to make Obama seem better than he is. If Trump gets elected, that all ends so he can look like a bad manager and terrible economist.
       So, I see a rise either way.

    2. At this moment I have a fantastic prospect of investment in Russian Rubles, with a higher interest return, however I rather wait until after the US election… it may be that the Russian banks are after liquiid money and hence offering these high return deals, so the government has cash enough to arm for Hillary’s war. I cannot predict what will happen in this scenario.
       If the dirty witch gets elected I’ll invest in Russian or Chinese steel.

14. I always treat the unemployment figures with scant regard. The one figure they never include in their calculations are the numbers of people getting the fuck out of the country when the economy tanks. The figure they are giving you is the people employed at that particular time in that particular country. There could be 15 people out of 100 unemployed but 5 to 8% of the employable population that left are not taken into account.

15. The real UE is more like 25%. 70% of Americans have less than $1000 in the bank.
    Everyone going into the trades is just going to suppress wages. Who do blue collar guys make their money off? White collar guys, who are going the way of the dinosaur. I live in a yuuge city, a lot of the gigs you’d think a well paid blue collar guy would perform get sub-contracted out- no union wages to be found there. Maybe Im cynical.

16. Construction/Civil engineering specialties can not be outsourced either

17. Have to disagree with writing/blogging/websites as a way to make extra money. Five years ago, maybe, but now that everyone and their dog has a blog, three twatter accounts, and nothing to say, there’s far too much noise out there for all but a handful of people to make real money at it.
    Sure there are outliers like Cernovich, Roosh and others who have carved out profitable niches for themselves because they worked hard and started before it became popular. But most people who start in 2016 will log into AdSense, realize how much traffic they need just to make the 20 bucks a month to cover hosting, and rightly look for something more productive to do.

    1. Seeing how ruthless the taxman gets with time, I’m not sure how profitable the online content / ebooks selling really is now.
       Recently the EU introduced a nefarious European VAT-MOSS tax that seems made to nail your ass to bankruptcy.
       Not sure how it works with the IRS.

18. Gawd, I keep reading the title as”Why Every Man Must Take Control Of His FIANCEES”!!!!

    1. That would also be a fine and appropriate article.

19. More than money focus on how the essentials function around you and keep connections with the right people. This will enable you to survive any collapse and rebuild.

20. “If you don’t have a skill that you can perform as a service, consider making an eBook and selling it for $100/day in passive revenue. I know plenty of men, Roosh and myself included, that make a good income from selling eBooks”
    For fuck’s sake get real. Not everyone who puts out an ebook is making money off of it. I personally know of a couple of authors who have put out some great books – pragmatic information but cannot survive from the sales.
    I get the impression that this article was written by a high school kid who knows not enough of the real world.

    1. To me the E-Books thing sounds more like an illusion. http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/6/8160679/eu-ebooks-vat-tax-electronic-service

21. Regarding factory workers, what about maintenance guys or supervisors?

22. In my humble opinion, Fishing and farming are here in North America to stay. If for no other reason that our natural resources are great and secondly they are two of the last jobs that are 99.9% men and therefore masculine. No HR bs and political correctness to deal with

    1. machines will take these jobes away from humans

23. The following is a list of jobs that will likely disappear within the next 10 years.
    Well, engineering will never disappear.
    It could get outsorced, but on the flip side, you get exploding mobile phones.

24. Google is paying 97$ per hour! Work for few hours and have longer with friends & family! !mj254d:
    On tuesday I got a great new Land Rover Range Rover from having earned $8752 this last four weeks.. Its the most-financialy rewarding I’ve had.. It sounds unbelievable but you wont forgive yourself if you don’t check it
    !mj254d:
    ➽➽
    ➽➽;➽➽ http://GoogleFinancialJobsCash254MarketEasyGetPay$97Hour… ★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★✫★★::::::!mj254d:….,…..

25. Turns out my Philosophy degree is worth something afterall 😉
    On a serious note though, solid advice. I’ve switched my role from demanding shiftwork to steady 9 – 5. This will help with my health and fitness. A routine will help me develop a side gig. 6 months expenses saved (10 – 12 if I’m a frugal bastard).

26. “The very first thing that you must do is get a skill set that will be valuable 100% of the time. This includes things such as blue collar trades, medical professions, sales, and construction”
    I would add to this to make sure you don’t have asinine expectations for what you will earn in these trades. Remember, I can hire Raj for medical professional, Vald for sales and jose for construction just as easily as you. Chances are likely you are much more lazy than these people and will want more money to boot.

27. My first hire!

28. Ok, he had me until precious metals (still wildly risky, even under favorable conditions. Fed manipulation can interfere with this plan very quickly). And SEO manipulation? Uh, that’s been dead the past few years since Google, Youtube and others have adjusted their algorithms to prevent users gaming the system. You can still do a few things, but ideas like meta-tagging the hell out of your pages is ridiculous – Google ignores metas completely.
    Finally, paid as a writer? e-books? Haha! Ask a paid writer how that’s going for them lately – eBooks are supplemental income at best. Most make nothing at all. BTW, are we not all writing here for free?

29. buy some bitcoins

30. You said: “expect IT jobs to shoot through the roof”.
    I’m a IT systems & networks technician, fluent with both Windows and Unix environments, expert in Internet/Intranet services, security, firewalls, routers…
    and I have been UNEMPLOYED SINCE 2007. Nobody hires people over 35 in IT !!!

31. Just how many plumbers, electrical workers, or heat and air people do we need? Especially when you consider half the population couldn’t afford to hire these people? As for farmers disappearing, I doubt that. As long as you have people who understand the product that is produced in factory farms, there will always be a market for small farmers.

32. Um, every single currency in the world is currently a fiat currency. The last time any country was on the gold standard was 1914.
    https://eh.net/encyclopedia/gold-standard/

33. The real tipping point will be when the BRIC’s convince the world that the petrodollar as a world currency is a bad idea. The world has been subsidizing the U.S. for the last 50 years, buying dollars and keeping hyperinflation at bay. They are fast realizing that they should be supporting themselves not us (China has dumped record amounts of treasuries in the last year). Once the petrodollar is dethroned, expect a depression the likes of which has never been seen.

34. It may sound simplistic, but when it comes to your personal finances… “If it don’t add points to your credit score or digits to your bank balance, don’t get involved!”

35. Luckily, I am employed by a local software company owned by a domestic bank. (Yes, 100% domestic) which involves the use of a pretty unique language which isn’t spoken anywhere else… worst thing that happened is that a local will take my job if I screw it, but virtually no chance will it be outsourced.

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