BEST BUY, WORST BUY

There once was a man who worked very hard for his family. His wife was unhappy one day because the projection tv they had viewed for 10 years was on its last legs from a picture quality standpoint. The new age tvs were plasma, lcd, and led. Tvs that would weigh less, and be made thinner taking up less space than those conventional tvs of the past. The man understood his wife's pain and after work decided to go to Best Buy (the store) and asked his wife to meet him there. She agreed. He arrived early and had done his homework on finding the tv that would work best for their home. He looked all over for the tv as there were many on display. He could not find the model he was looking for so at last he spoke to a salesperson and this person said that the tv was not available on display but there were two brand new tvs of the same model in the warehouse. The man had looked at the tv on the internet and printed out the one he wanted with the sales price. The slaesperson told him that if he he bought the tv in the store it would cost more. He asked why? The salesperson said that the internet website for the store was national and some stores have to price the tv higher due to their specific locations. The man then said if that was the case he would just buy the tv on the internet. The salesperson then went on to say that the store would match the price of whatever the tv cos on the store website with shipping and handling but the man would have to pay extra for the in store delivery and taxes on top of the store's website final price. The man found this to be strange. It did not seem like a better deal. The salesperson explained to the man that if he wanted to buy it they would go to the warehouse and bring it upfront to the register. The man asked the salesperson if he could look at the picture quality of the tv first. The salesperson said that since the tv was not on display and the tv was being discontinued they could not pull one of the two tvs in the warehouse and open one up to show the man the tv because the store would lose money if the man chose not to buy it. The man then asked how could he spend over $1,000 on a tv that he could not view first? The sales person said that this was the store policy. The answer was not good enough for the man so he spoke with his wife who had just reached the store and she told him it may be best to explain it to customer service. There he was told the same thing. He asked to speak with a manager and the manager also said the same story. So, the man walked out of the store with his wife explaining to her that the store was wrong for what they did. If there were two tvs in the back of the warehouse why was the tv on display sold? How would the store be able to sell the tvs to anyone else if they do not have one of the tvs on display? Most people would want to see the tv picture quality before they plan to buy the item. This time the store chose to not lose money over the high probability of the customer planning to buy the tv. Doesn't the old saying go that the customer is always right? In this case the man was proved wrong. The next day he ended up going to Conns Electronic Store and bought the same tv for less money than what Best Buy planned to charge him. The lesson learned for Best Buy is that the customer always wins and this time by walking out of the store for good. He said that he will never return and chooses to do his business elsewhere from now on. I would not be surprised if Best Buy crumbles over time.

Why are we here and what can we do?

We came from a business world many years back before I was born where people would work in a land where people would trust each other, help one another, and make sure not to leave any of their people behind. Where all can prosper together and love everything life brings forth and not worry about what life's troubles bring you tomorrow but instead looking forward to the opportunities life will allow you to seize tomorrow.

Is this America today? I think we all know the answer to that. In America we have businesses that want to be very competitive to take one another out. Businesses that want to get bigger by buying other competitors out. Those businesses then promising employees the world. Employees hoping for better pay for their hard labor. Those employees waking up everyday saying I will do whatever it takes to make sure my company comes out ahead.

As the months go by and the years go by, those same employees pouring their blood out for this company start to wonder and ask themselves "Why am I doing this?". And they answer "For the paycheck that helps pay my bills so I can keep living and working.". The problem with that is after the paycheck not much money is left over to put away to save for a rainy day or an emergency. And most people ask "How did I get here?" and "What can I do to make things better?".

Employees say they have been lied to with believing that their employers would give them more as long as they did more to help the company only to find out later that no matter how much they did, they were recognized with praise and empty promises of hope and extra compensation. As these companies got larger, the quality of products and services got poorer because businesses wanted to cut corners on costs, and those costs included the dispensable employee.

That employee who is nothing but a number that can be replaced by a younger work force that does not know what they are in for because they have been blinded by the truth of all that their careers can be. Those same employees know they can do more and can always work hard to bring a company to life, but without a vision and without compensation for a better way they begin to lose hope as prices for everything they wanted to work for keeps going higher to a point where there is no incentive to work harder anymore because these employees have been lied to, and they believe that prices have reached a very unreasonable level that in their minds is truly unattainable.

With little pay and lots of hard work people begin to believe that they will cut out spending. It is unbelievable to believe that in America 70% of the consumer is what drives the american economy. That is pretty sad. It is also very believable that people do not want to spend because they are not compensated for their hard work. That makes a lot of sense.

Employees were misled to believe, with all the profits these companies were making, that they would get a share. They did not get much if anything at all. Employees were lied to for many years that if they did get a raise, that raise would be in line with inflation. The problem with that was the inflation rate they wanted to peg it to was 3%. The inflation rate was and still has been much higher than 3%. These rates would be at times double to quadruple that 3% rate. If you do not believe this, just go to shadowstats.com. This is a very reliable source that will lead you to believe why the employee's standard of living is diminshing.

And we have a culture where the top executives will get all the rewards because they had something to do with leading these employees in the right direction. The problem with that is a lot of these employees are going above and beyond their work hours to demonstrate their abilities and most likely have a lot to do with the profitability of the company never being noticed. Ande while their top executives get all the credit, these employees can not believe they get little or nothing for their efforts sacrificing everything they could be doing outside their work life.

That on top of bureacracy and what they consider top talent. I bet these big ego leaders would be surprised how smart the hard working americans are. That if given the opportunity, there is a strong likelihood the hard working american who did not go to the big name school or is not in the high network of who knows who but simply has a lot of experience would outperform due to his own hard work ethic. Have the top executives ever thought about that? Probably, and my guess is the top executives are scared to lose their status to ever allow this. Lets get back to where these morons have gotten us to.

As fast profits continued to be made from mass production the quality deteriorated. The result is businesses got greedy, they wanted to spend less, consumers (those being the employees) had less money to work so they spent less after being indebted to their eyeballs on standard of living prices that are unreachable making the modern day employee fell like in order to live I have to live as a slave. They say in their minds, I work more, spend even more and save less if nothing.

Our country is living with more debt because powerful people don't want to share the success of profits that every hard worker in our country contributed to. The result has been nothing but a reality of people who have lost hope and trust. And our government wants to spend our way out of this mess. To me that means more added pressure to higher prices and higher taxes. Of course you will not see this in the short term, but it will happen. What can we do? All you can do is ask for more pay. And I believe the likelihood of that action actually making a dent into the problem for every hard working american is nothing but a dream. Why? Simple. Greed.

Lies we were told by our Public Schools about our American History and Let the Truth be Heard for the sake of our children

Please read the following blog as I have come across evidence to agree with this writer on this topic and believe it is a strong condensed version of a firm foundation to what more americans should know about our country's history.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/This-Financial-Mess--Caus-by-Mike-Kirchubel-081227-842.html

We have the power to change the direction of this country if we all are more aware of what got us here.

The Financial Markets and Election Choices

I've been in the Financial Services Industry for almost twelve years and find it amazing how people such as myself have been led to believe in the stock market's bull market buuble euphoria. I also learned very quickly to believe in the bull market's bubble busts.

Bear markets happen and the media is one to immediatley turn around after many people have lost money and say stocks are cheap. Before you believe in this squawk box media with rich moguls saying I'm buying US Stocks because they're cheap, think like a contrarian. They want you to buy up because they are telling you to do this in order for their stock interests to rise so they can appreciate the value of their wealth and make you lose when they choose to sell off.

How do you feel now that your account has lost somewhere in the tune of 25% to 50% from where it was a year ago. Stocks are not all undervalued so you should do your homework accordingly and I believe stocks are fair value to overvalued currently. Although, it continues to create constant energy to know when to buy and when to sell. You want to make a good decision, but ask yourself contantly are these good decsisions?

If you asked what triggered this major selloff, all you have to do is look to the bailout plan. If you see the way the votes played out on that House floor, you get a better understanding of Washington. The two party system is rigged to one party majority and the American people have no other option according to the media. You might disagree and say that's not true.

How can one see Obama and McCain the same when they have different views? I'll tell you how. They both voted for that bailout plan which has proved to be a major disaster for the American Taxpayer. Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke, and George W. Bush pushed this plan in a way where it was being shoved down the American Taxpayers throats quickly. The funny thing is the majority of the Democrats voted for it. Where most people would think grid-lock, it was absolutely the opposite with wall street bank fraudsters walking away unscathed and corporations getting lots of goodies.

On C-Span one representative said the day prior to the voting of the bill that if representatives voted no and the bill was turned down a second time, there would be martial law declared on the United States. I read from other sources that Army Raiders would be on our streets here in America. Well you and I might be happy that none of this happened but it is clear that this is a scare tactic that can now be used and enforced in the future if necessary if we do not follow their ways.

I used to believe we the people had choices in America but the choices for this election our media has placed upon us is virtually the same and that is if you want a War Mongerer in office that is going to continue to inflate the deficit, vote for John McCain. If you want the country to be continuing nationalization, vote for Obama. Too bad nobody voted for Ron Paul, because he was right all along but of course the media did not want to hear it and as this country moves forward you will all see what a mistake we've made with a lack of understanding of what is sound money. This will impact all our wallets and pocket books. With McCain or Obama, as our only two candidates according to the media, we will pay more taxes into the future with increasing inflation because the money has got to come from somewhere now that we gave $700 billion out of thin air which will turn into multiple trillions of dollars to the banksters so they can turn around and make us pay for that too.

I am a strong believer that the dollar will collapse, treasuries will default, and physical gold not paper gold will be the only resolution to all of this. Why? Simple, because for all the paper dollars that are printed in the United States all you have to do is look the other way and notice the scarcity of physical gold and realize the price is being rigged by the COMEX. If you play the futures contract market all you have to do is take delivery instead of rolling over contracts and Gold will spike through the roof because the warehouses don't have much gold.

Gold is sound money, it does not have a liability. Central Banks carry it because it is the last resort if all this monopoly money fails and it will continue to inflate in value into the future as long as it is scarce and high demand triggers for the physical gold. It is true they can suppress the price of Gold but that is paper gold not physical gold. And once people recognize the difference between the two, you will see the true price reflected. Therefore, as we continue to see into the future more bubbles and busts we will see that monopoly money doesn't mean anything except paying for what we make and being left with debt that will continue to make us borrow on inflated prices of what we can not afford making the masses poor and the few elite richer.

If you read your history about the sound money of Gold of thousands of years you will soon see why that may work out better for the masses as we try to save for some sort of a retirement that looks currently bleak. How's your brokerage account, IRA or 401K doing? Got Gold?

The Bailout Plan and the Election

Today is a historic moment in American History. The American Taxpayers have communicated their voices in regards to the Paulson Bush Bernanke Bailout Plan. It is clear today that in regards to the votes of the Bailout plan pushing in the house, there were more republicans than democrats that said Nay.

It is so astonishing that the person who helped make this happen was Ron Paul. He was a major contributor to fighting for the rights of the American Taxpayer regardless of whether he gets air play or not thru the media. And all those republicans that voted today must of sided with him directly or indirectly.

So that means there are less republicans backing the Bush Administration (who happened to back Senator John McCain). It also casts shame on the part of the democrats because they voted a whole lot more yay than nay which is a blow to Senator Obama. Frankly after seeing the way this went down, I might not vote for either of these two candidates because honestly it looks like to me both of them were trying to sell American Taxpayers as slaves down for the future of the rich and greedy.

May God bless the people today in the house who voted Nay and please make sure you know who you are really voting for in November. Today was historic. Breaking it down if John McCain is voted in this November, he will continue to support OPEC's protection with our American Military and China's role of playing dominance in the 21st century at our expense which will put us in a recession. If Senator Obama wins, China and OPEC will dump our treasuries and that will put us in a recession as well. Let's put America back on the right path. Don't vote for either candidate and see what other options we have. Our votes do count. God Bless America.

The story most don't know about the Wall Street Bailouts

A Credible source has told me the following:

"Hidden inside the AIG Bailout funding package includes a totally corrupt clause permitting the conglomerate financial firms to raid private individual brokerage account funds to relieve their own liquidity pressures. This represents unauthorized loans of your stock account assets. So next, if the conglomerate fails, your stock account is part of the bankruptcy process. In other words this authorizes the raid of your money."

"The runs on US Banks are in progress. Washington Mutual alone could deplete the entire Federal Deposit Insurance Corp fund for bank deposit coverage. Eventually the FDIC will compete for USGovt federal money for bailouts and nationalizations. Eventually, bank deposits will not receive 100 cents per dollar, in a compromise. Next the bank runs will push banks into failure, at a time when bank accounts are under raids, without broad public knowledge."

And my own input on the Paulson Bernanke Bailout Plan is this. It's just another fear tactic of this current administration. Don't buy into it. If the system collapses over top Wall Street fraudsters not getting their way to stick it on the U.S. taxpayers, so be it.

I don't want to have to pay for the government's stupidity of allowing lax lending laws and wall street overleverage of 30 to 1 in all sorts of toxic securities that no one can figure out a price for. This has happened before in U.S. History and we worked through the problem. It may have not put the problem to a complete rest but one thing is for sure. This country has had over 2100%+ of inflation since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913 and national wages have not risen substantially with that. So virtually the middle class has been getting poorer.

From 1700 to 1900 when currencies were backed by gold in the world there was virtually no inflation at all. I would prefer we go back to a currency being backed by gold because then we have more liberty and more independence to fulfill our dreams. Credit is contracting via the standard bank control systems we have in place and as you've read above there is a "run on the banks". And to top it all off... Freddie, Fannie , and AIG are all "nationalized" by the Federal Reserve. Nationalized meaning one of three things in my mind " socialist (if you want to be cute about it), communist (if you want to be dark about it), or fascist (need I say more)."

Merrill Lynch runs for the hills as it gets picked up by Bank of America while earlier this year Bear Stearns disappears into JP Morgan Chase. And next up, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley change from Investment Banks to become Bank Holding Companies. So now they'll have access to the discount window from the Federal Reserve. Is anybody watching this unfold? Wall Street is scared and running from a financial meltdown about to take place here in the United States and they are the fraudsters that brought it upon us all. It's another white collar crime on Wall Street and somebody needs to go to jail for this. The latest I heard is the FBI is going after Wall Street Firms. For all I know they could be in on this too acting like they are going to do justice, meanwhile they are probably going to get paid to take somebody other than the main culprit to jail like they normally do.

The U.S. Treasury's Balance Sheet has just added a hell of a lot more debt due to fear tactics if nothing was done otherwise. So instead of witnessing the destruction of the United States Economy by a Paulson Bernanke Bailout Plan that may makes things better in the short term (Like another band-aid of bailouts) will only make things worse in the long run for the U.S taxpayer. And forget presidential candidate politics for now because both candidates don't know a thing about the markets and they are going to inherit problems in 2009 that no president can handle. A "Classical Distressed Economy".

You think this year was bad, you haven't seen anything yet. Write to your State Senator or Congressman and ask him/her to protect you the taxpayer at all costs and let others know. This is serious business. Take charge.

The preparation of Hurricane Ike and the Aftermath

Days prior to the hurricane I watched Ike continue to form tightly as it devastated Cuba. First glance I said the storm headed to Galveston. I say to myself who knows, it might turn in the upcoming days and miss altogether. That's first thought.

Monday morning I wake up and find out the storm has shifted and tracks toward Corpus Christi, Texas. I'm thinking we might be safe. Tuesday morning I wake up and find out it's headed to Matagorda Bay. I'm like crap. Wednesday morning after I find out it is headed towards Freeport (50 miles southwest of Galveston) and a few days left before getting accurate location for landfall. At this point I'm figuring if Thursday morning I wake up and find out that it has not shifted much, I've got to board up my house in Galveston. And that Thursday morning I'm up at 6 am and realize this thing is headed right for Galveston with President Bush declaring a state of emergency.

I boarded up and had a conversation with my neighbor. He tells me he's staying. He continues to tell me that the seawall will protect him and his family. I told him there might be flooding regardless. He said him and his family would ride it out.

I tell him I'll contact him later to check up with him. His sons help me board up my house and I leave back Thursday around Noon towards Houston to prepare at my place up there. It takes 2 1/2 hours to get back. It's not as bad as when Rita was around. When people left Galveston we were stuck in 6 hours of traffic just to get to Houston (normally just a one hour drive). So it was an improvement.

Thursday night I hear CNN declaring that to stay on the island is certain death. And if people plan on staying they should write social security numbers on their arms. I called up my neighbors after hearing that and advised him to get out of dodge. Glad to say he did with his family first thing Friday morning.

Friday, I'm pulling in anything that will move on my patio. that may shatter my sliding glass door. Making last shopping preparations for batteries, fuel, whatever necessary. Making sure I've got everything on hand for emergencies.

Friday evening the wind starts to pick up and Xavier (my son) Jennifer (my fiancee) and I are hunkered down for the storm. All eyeballs are on CNN, Weather Channel, Local News Stations. Dry food and canned food, plenty of water and I'm telling Ike bring the noise. And it sure did. I saw water begin to go over Galveston seawall across the island on most news stations. And told the hurricane is 700 miles wide. This thing is massive I'm thinking. I turned towards Jen and tell her we are definitely losing power. And that is what we did around the height of the storm in Houston.

The lights went out. We started hearing loud noises of transformers blowing up, lighting up the dark sky. The windows shrieking at 1:30 AM Saturday morning. I'm hearing scrapes on the roof of my two story townhouse. The outside, pitch black and furious wind bending large trees back and forth. Mother Nature furious as ever. And it goes on strong till about 4:30 AM. After that the wind dies down to tropical storm force and continues to die down.

Thank God, no damage and no flooding. Next move see the damage out there and help neighbors. Large trees blocking most streets. I'm sawing away branches and helping pull trees off the street. A lady was nice enough to give me a $50 bottle of champagne even though I continuously refused. Streetlights ripped and hanging down by a cable. signs blown away, the roof of a gas station's convenience store smashed an angle of a building next door to it and turned over on top of a van. Business windows shattered and some streets flooded by debris.

I call my friends in Sugarland, Katy and told they lost power too. Their homes with a bit of damage and lots of trees down as well. I called a friend of mine that his family lives in Seabrook right on Galveston Bay and was told that high chances their home flooded as well.

With over 3 million people without power, some areas up to this point as I write at 9:30 PM Central Standard time have been restored with power. But the majority are still without power and feeling the heat and humidity. I'm being told it may take the city to get back power 3 to 4 weeks from now. Schools are closed for days on end. Kids must be excited. Most adults have no job to go to because downtown Houston may be down for a week. This city although being cleaned up as quickly as possible may take weeks to fix.

To top that people are growing restless without power. Something needs to be done quickly as people begin to get impatient. Not many gas stations are open and there are curfews being placed to tell people to stay put. Some people can't leave at all even if they wanted to because the areas to get out are completely flooded.

This is definitely a disaster. Galveston, I'm being told may take a week to get back onto the island for residents to assess damages. I'm fortunate, I'm in a place that has power and can write this blog out in Cypress, Texas. But even in some parts of this area, power is still out.

Where is government assistance when you need it? FEMA is saying they will try to help, but so far have'nt done much. Our city mayor has given the mapping of where assistance is needed most and FEMA is balking. I saw Air Force and Coast Guard out to rescue people. So, so far not too impressed by the country's commanders. I pray for those out there to stay strong and be proactive with your community to work together if no one is available to help. For the rest of the country out there reading this blog please pray for us as we get through this difficult time.