What Is A Pyramid?
1. Egyptian tomb: a huge stone tomb of ancient Egyptian royalty with a square base and triangular walls that slope to meet in a point at the top
2. solid triangular shape: a solid shape or structure that has triangular sides that slope to meet in a point and a base that is often, but not necessarily, a square. The volume of a pyramid is one-third of the product of the area of the base and the height of the vertex.
3. system with expanding structure: an arrangement or system that has a small number of items at one point and expands gradually to have a large number at the opposite point
4. pointed body part: a pointed or cone-shaped body part, e.g. either of two bundles of fibers located in the brain
5. finance investment method: a financial risk structure that spreads investments between high, medium, and low risk
6. finance stock speculation method: stock speculation involving a series of buying and selling of shares, with paper profits as margin for more purchases
7. crystallography crystalline form: a crystalline form in which three or more nonparallel faces intersect all three axes of the crystal.
Tim Sales(http://www.brilliantexchange.com/) explains:Pyramid: The word pyramid has simply come to mean a business that seems like a scam.
Scam: A fraudulent business scheme. Fraudulent comes from the Latin word fraud, which means deceit. Deceiving someone means to trick them.
FACT: There is no activity (stock trading, charities, law firms, medical doctors, religion, M.L.M, government, etc.) that does not have a history of fraudulent activities.
In looking at scams, it is important to locate the actual source that is creating the scam; there is ALWAYS at least ONE person.
Illegal Pyramid Scheme
An illegal business that involves the exchange of money primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, usually without any product or service being delivered.
Sometimes there may appear to be a product - but it's only there to "look" like a real business. Few people outside of the pyramid desire the product or they can get the same product elsewhere at a less expensive price.
If you enrolled me into your business and I paid $300 to join BUT THERE WAS NO VALUABLE PRODUCT THAT WAS EXCHANGED - that could be an illegal pyramid.
This does not mean that M.L.M is an illegal pyramid because people enroll others into a business. The fine line between legal M.L.M and illegal pyramid scheme (according to the Federal Trade Commission - FTC) is the exchange of a real product.
Yet, if you enrolled me and I bought $300 worth of products to see if I want to do the business - then that is NOT an illegal pyramid as long as the product is a "real" product and not some gimmicky product.
Most legitimate M.L.M companies give a thirty day 100% refund on products if you don't like them. And if you buy inventory to sell and then change your mind about the business, most legitimate M.L.M companies will give you back 90% of the purchased price.
So the primary difference between an illegal pyramid and a legitimate M.L.M company is that a pyramid does not have a "real" product. A legitimate M.L.M company has a real product that people outside of the business desire. - Tim Sales, newsletter, 14 June 2007. http://www.brilliantexchange.com/
Thank you Tim Sales (http://www.brilliantexchange.com/) for your insight about pyramids, scams and how they relate to the M.L.M. industry.
I answer the question, "Is it a pyramid?" this way. "Yes it is." That is an affirmative answer. You did not tell your prospect that they were wrong. You affirmed their thinking with "yes it is." This answer keeps them from feeling upset because you said they were right. Tell them "No it isn't" and the brick wall between your prospect and you has became higher and wider instead of coming down. Thus making the rest of your conversation more difficult. But because you answered in the affirmative now you can teach them what is a pyramid. So now you can ask them empathically, " Prospect, where do you work?" They answer, "The rubber band plant on the north of town." You then say,"Well, in your company, Prospect, may anyone in the rubber band plant earn more than the owner,CEO, President, etc.?"
For the rest of the answer please go to www.miniofficeoutlets.com/gjr
Test
Monday, March 7, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
What is Gene's Mini Office Outlets?
Gene's Mini Office Outlets was born from financial and health crisises in my life. Having worked since I was twleve years old and coming up with injuries, bad health and being unemployed forced me to rethink my path through life. At fifty years old I had nothing, literally nothing. Lying in a hospital very sick with Pott's disease (2009) and recently in 2007 having emergency back surgery to save me from becoming paralyzed, a broken marriage, and being laid off a little more than a month before Pott's disease put me down, I was forced to look at my future and what changes I would need to make.
http://www.miniofficeoutlets.com/gjr
I knew going back to being a supervisor in the LTL industry and shoving money into the company's 401(k) plan for the next twenty years was not going to work and was a terrible plan. Why? Well 401(k) plans are mutual funds and mutual funds are nothing put paper investments that are tied to the stock market and everyone should know the stock market is not a place you can passively invest in. You have to know what you are doing to invest in the stock market to make money or you will lose it. The 401(k) plan representatives will tell you mutual funds is a great way to diversify your investments but a mutual fund is just a part of a stock and the stocks are paper investments. They do not give you options to invest in real estate, that you literally own, a business, or gold and silver. Tangible investment that you can see and touch.
http://www.miniofficeoutlets.com/gjr
Going to work for the next twenty years making me seventy years old plus is not realistic because being a working supervisor, the companies I work for will want younger less expensive person to do what I do. So no one is looking out for me but I am expected to look out for the company's bottom line and retire poor on the governments dole. So I started looking at going to college to become a teacher. With government student loans, after I graduate and become certtified to teach students, I would just be further in debt at a time when my bills should be winding down or disappearing. But, of course, I had no idea what I should do. I was totally broke and I knew I could not start up a business of my own without capital. What do I do?
http://www.miniofficeoutlets.com/gjr
Of course, I started looking for work. Not much luck there because of high unemployment, my age, health and other factors. As I was searching for work I saw an add asking me if I wanted to get out of debt. Of course I did. I sent in the submission form when this lady called me. She was with The Freedom Project. She explained to me how I could start my own home business with a small investment. Grow my home business with a proven process, recieve on going training and teaching for free. It was called The Freedom Project. What sold me was that if I was to give the The Freedom Project process five years I would be able to develop residual income and it would give me a retirement my kids would not have to finance for me. So comparing numbers, my biggest thought was I was willing to work for others for the next twenty years developing a weak retirement but with The Freedom Project I would be working for me and securing a much more lucrative retirement.
http://www.miniofficeoutlets.com/gjr
So the question became,do I want to work for someone else and have a career or do I want to work for myself and develop an income I could retire on? The answer is obvious to me. I became a home business owner with The Freedom Project as the process to financial freedom. I know many people out there are looking for a change where they take control of their lives. I offer you the Freedom Project and a home business of your own. I know many people will feel more secure working for somebody, hoping their retirement account and Social Security will take them into the sunset of their lives. To them I say good luck. Relying on others to take care of you generally does not work. Unless you have much more than a million dollars to retire on when you retire I would say take a look at what I am doing with the Freedom Project.
http://www.miniofficeoutlets.com/gjr
My company name is Gene's Mini Office Outlets, a home business and I am a progrem guide. Let me take you through three online classrooms for free so you may evaluate this home business opportunity with The Freedom Project. Take a hard look at your situation in regards to your retirement. If its great, great! If it is not where you would like to be give me your time and I will not ask you to invest one dollar. I will let you evaluate this Freedom Project program for free.
For more information on The Freedom Project go to: http://miniofficeoutlets.com/gjr
or go to my business website http://www.genesminiofficeoutlets.com
http://www.miniofficeoutlets.com/gjr
I knew going back to being a supervisor in the LTL industry and shoving money into the company's 401(k) plan for the next twenty years was not going to work and was a terrible plan. Why? Well 401(k) plans are mutual funds and mutual funds are nothing put paper investments that are tied to the stock market and everyone should know the stock market is not a place you can passively invest in. You have to know what you are doing to invest in the stock market to make money or you will lose it. The 401(k) plan representatives will tell you mutual funds is a great way to diversify your investments but a mutual fund is just a part of a stock and the stocks are paper investments. They do not give you options to invest in real estate, that you literally own, a business, or gold and silver. Tangible investment that you can see and touch.
http://www.miniofficeoutlets.com/gjr
Going to work for the next twenty years making me seventy years old plus is not realistic because being a working supervisor, the companies I work for will want younger less expensive person to do what I do. So no one is looking out for me but I am expected to look out for the company's bottom line and retire poor on the governments dole. So I started looking at going to college to become a teacher. With government student loans, after I graduate and become certtified to teach students, I would just be further in debt at a time when my bills should be winding down or disappearing. But, of course, I had no idea what I should do. I was totally broke and I knew I could not start up a business of my own without capital. What do I do?
http://www.miniofficeoutlets.com/gjr
Of course, I started looking for work. Not much luck there because of high unemployment, my age, health and other factors. As I was searching for work I saw an add asking me if I wanted to get out of debt. Of course I did. I sent in the submission form when this lady called me. She was with The Freedom Project. She explained to me how I could start my own home business with a small investment. Grow my home business with a proven process, recieve on going training and teaching for free. It was called The Freedom Project. What sold me was that if I was to give the The Freedom Project process five years I would be able to develop residual income and it would give me a retirement my kids would not have to finance for me. So comparing numbers, my biggest thought was I was willing to work for others for the next twenty years developing a weak retirement but with The Freedom Project I would be working for me and securing a much more lucrative retirement.
http://www.miniofficeoutlets.com/gjr
So the question became,do I want to work for someone else and have a career or do I want to work for myself and develop an income I could retire on? The answer is obvious to me. I became a home business owner with The Freedom Project as the process to financial freedom. I know many people out there are looking for a change where they take control of their lives. I offer you the Freedom Project and a home business of your own. I know many people will feel more secure working for somebody, hoping their retirement account and Social Security will take them into the sunset of their lives. To them I say good luck. Relying on others to take care of you generally does not work. Unless you have much more than a million dollars to retire on when you retire I would say take a look at what I am doing with the Freedom Project.
http://www.miniofficeoutlets.com/gjr
My company name is Gene's Mini Office Outlets, a home business and I am a progrem guide. Let me take you through three online classrooms for free so you may evaluate this home business opportunity with The Freedom Project. Take a hard look at your situation in regards to your retirement. If its great, great! If it is not where you would like to be give me your time and I will not ask you to invest one dollar. I will let you evaluate this Freedom Project program for free.
For more information on The Freedom Project go to: http://miniofficeoutlets.com/gjr
or go to my business website http://www.genesminiofficeoutlets.com
Saturday, February 12, 2011
What Is It Like In The Freedom Project
Looking for Go-Getters, Who are Coachable, Open Minded and Ready to Start Now!
The Freedom Project
As you all know being an entrepreneur is natural to some but to most of us it is a huge puzzle. We have different avenues to learn how to own and run a business. One way is to spend many years working in an industry to gain the experience you need. This is a great way to learn how to run a business, yet many find they did not learn everything. The actual managing of a business happens behind closed doors were only the business owners work with financing, taxes, legal considerations, employee law, looking at spreadsheet information, and a multitude of other problems which are particular to the industry. Small business owners may put in 16 to 18 hours a day starting up a new business venture.
A second way to learn to open your own business is to have gone to school to learn entrepreneurship. This is a great because you will learn business theory, law, and management of business. Your education most likely would teach you how to research, use feedback information and teach you analysis. The school would also give you practical management applications as a intern at a local business.
The biggest block in the road is capital. How to capitalize your start up business is difficult and sometimes the biggest risk a prospective business owner may take on. Many mortgage their home, pull from their retirement accounts, borrow from friends and family and take out business loans to subsidize their start up business. Risk is huge and many new businesses live on a shoestring budget where any little disaster may sink the company.
No matter the route taken by a prospective business owner there is a cost to receiving professional business counseling for their new company. Many companies just cannot afford to pay for professional business evaluation and counseling. There is free advice from business groups but most likely the advice will not be targeted for the new business owner's business. The free advice will not come with a through business evaluation making the free advice to the business owner to be less useful.
There is a business model and process where capital for a start up is low as most franchises cost thousand to millions of dollars to open and where training and future business evaluation and coaching is absolutely free. The Freedom Project gives you at least three hours of classroom evaluation. The Freedom Project will ask you to do your own due diligence to research the business. The Freedom Project gives all prospective business owners all the time they need to evaluate and learn the business before committing themselves to spend one dollar on investment.
Then after investing into the prospects own business the Freedom Project follows up with free training, unlimited access to program guides (teachers)and an online training site full of information and tools. There is even an online university for continuing education at the disposal of the new business owner.
For me the financial risk was right where I needed it to be. Just a few hundred dollars as opposed to thousands or millions of dollars. I did not need to take out a mortgage on my home or ask friends and family for money. I receive more training and education for free than if I ever would have paid for it. What is more impressive is I move and build my business at the pace I need and can afford. My question is are you ready to evaluate a business for free and make a change in your lifestyle to gain more time and financial freedom with your own online home business. The Freedom Project.
Go to www.miniofficeoutlets.com/gjr watch the movie and read through the site to see if this business appeals to you.
As you all know being an entrepreneur is natural to some but to most of us it is a huge puzzle. We have different avenues to learn how to own and run a business. One way is to spend many years working in an industry to gain the experience you need. This is a great way to learn how to run a business, yet many find they did not learn everything. The actual managing of a business happens behind closed doors were only the business owners work with financing, taxes, legal considerations, employee law, looking at spreadsheet information, and a multitude of other problems which are particular to the industry. Small business owners may put in 16 to 18 hours a day starting up a new business venture.
A second way to learn to open your own business is to have gone to school to learn entrepreneurship. This is a great because you will learn business theory, law, and management of business. Your education most likely would teach you how to research, use feedback information and teach you analysis. The school would also give you practical management applications as a intern at a local business.
The biggest block in the road is capital. How to capitalize your start up business is difficult and sometimes the biggest risk a prospective business owner may take on. Many mortgage their home, pull from their retirement accounts, borrow from friends and family and take out business loans to subsidize their start up business. Risk is huge and many new businesses live on a shoestring budget where any little disaster may sink the company.
No matter the route taken by a prospective business owner there is a cost to receiving professional business counseling for their new company. Many companies just cannot afford to pay for professional business evaluation and counseling. There is free advice from business groups but most likely the advice will not be targeted for the new business owner's business. The free advice will not come with a through business evaluation making the free advice to the business owner to be less useful.
There is a business model and process where capital for a start up is low as most franchises cost thousand to millions of dollars to open and where training and future business evaluation and coaching is absolutely free. The Freedom Project gives you at least three hours of classroom evaluation. The Freedom Project will ask you to do your own due diligence to research the business. The Freedom Project gives all prospective business owners all the time they need to evaluate and learn the business before committing themselves to spend one dollar on investment.
Then after investing into the prospects own business the Freedom Project follows up with free training, unlimited access to program guides (teachers)and an online training site full of information and tools. There is even an online university for continuing education at the disposal of the new business owner.
For me the financial risk was right where I needed it to be. Just a few hundred dollars as opposed to thousands or millions of dollars. I did not need to take out a mortgage on my home or ask friends and family for money. I receive more training and education for free than if I ever would have paid for it. What is more impressive is I move and build my business at the pace I need and can afford. My question is are you ready to evaluate a business for free and make a change in your lifestyle to gain more time and financial freedom with your own online home business. The Freedom Project.
Go to www.miniofficeoutlets.com/gjr watch the movie and read through the site to see if this business appeals to you.
Friday, January 28, 2011
What to look for in An Online Home Based Business Proposition
1. The advertiser does not require any money up front.
2. The advertiser presents the business so you may evaluate the business on it merits.
3. The advertiser does not put a time limit on your evaluation of the business.
4. The advertisers lets you ask as many questions as you would like.
5. The advertiser answers all your questions.
6. The advertiser helps you do research on the business they are presenting.
7. The advertiser tells you like it is, “All businesses require some financial investment.”
8. The advertiser explains that it will take time to achieve results.
9. The advertiser explains the business is not a get rich quick scheme.
10. The advertiser gives you their number if you have any questions.
11. The advertiser offers unlimited free coaching
12. The advertiser offers unlimited training and promises you they will be there when you need their assistance.
13. The advertiser is able and willing to answer the “Is it a scam?” question that you understand and agree with.
14. The advertiser has a product that is of extremely high quality, strong desirability and a fool proof money back guarantee.
15. The advertiser is so proud of the product they use the product for themselves and their family.
16. The advertiser adheres to the highest standards of business ethics.
The Freedom Project stands by and delivers this and more. Go to www.miniofficeoutlets.com/gjr to learn more!
2. The advertiser presents the business so you may evaluate the business on it merits.
3. The advertiser does not put a time limit on your evaluation of the business.
4. The advertisers lets you ask as many questions as you would like.
5. The advertiser answers all your questions.
6. The advertiser helps you do research on the business they are presenting.
7. The advertiser tells you like it is, “All businesses require some financial investment.”
8. The advertiser explains that it will take time to achieve results.
9. The advertiser explains the business is not a get rich quick scheme.
10. The advertiser gives you their number if you have any questions.
11. The advertiser offers unlimited free coaching
12. The advertiser offers unlimited training and promises you they will be there when you need their assistance.
13. The advertiser is able and willing to answer the “Is it a scam?” question that you understand and agree with.
14. The advertiser has a product that is of extremely high quality, strong desirability and a fool proof money back guarantee.
15. The advertiser is so proud of the product they use the product for themselves and their family.
16. The advertiser adheres to the highest standards of business ethics.
The Freedom Project stands by and delivers this and more. Go to www.miniofficeoutlets.com/gjr to learn more!
Thursday, January 27, 2011
One Billion Dollars!
ONE BILLION DOLLARS!Of Course You Won't Get A Billion Dollars!
But you can Start Your Own Online Home Based Business!
Do you want to be your own boss?
Do you want financial and time freedom?
Earn $3000+ per month working 5-10 hours per week from home.
www.miniofficeoutlets.com/gjr
Join the Freedom Project and become a program guide.
What’s in it for you?
- Security and advancement
- Free training and ongoing support
- Tax breaks
- Expense paid travel
- More time with family
- No large financial risk
You can choose how much you earn, when you work, where you work, and who you will work with.
www.miniofficeoutlets.com/gjr
The more you guide, the more you earn!
Earn an excellent part time or full time income using this step-by-step duplicatable system.
To evaluate this incredible online business opportunity, visit:
www.miniofficeoutlets.com/gjr
Monday, January 17, 2011
The Treadmill Of Insanity
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.Albert Einstein, (attributed)
US (German-born) physicist (1879 - 1955)
We send our children to school everyday. We go to work everyday. We create bills everyday. As long as we work and produce an income we will continue to be in debt. Who are we in debt to? Who do we owe most of our time to?
Of course we do not want to answer those questions. If we do and think deeply about the answers to these questions we find we are slaves to our employment and then in retirement to the government for Social Security. A very uncomfortable feeling and thought to those caught in the cycle of this systemic insanity. Go to school, get a good job, buy a house ,have children, send your children to school, retire to the shackles of social security These answers leave many with an indifference towards their circumstance and hoping things will be okay in the end. Otherwise, having to address these questions would be added daily stress which no one needs.
This attitude gives credence to Albert Einstein's attributed quote, "Insanity:doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." The treadmill of insanity is generational. We teach it to our children to be slaves of the system. We need to teach them to be free of the system. The treadmill of insanity needs drones to keep the treadmill in motion.
Learn how to break the cycle of insanity. Join me and become a Program Guide in the Freedom Project!
The Freedom Project is a highly successful program.
The question is; "Do you have the fortitude, vision and desire to change your financial situation, improve your life and your family's life?"
www.miniofficeoutlets.com/gjr
Sunday, January 16, 2011
The Implications of Answering an Ad
A family member calls you and excitedly tells you about a great business they have found. A friend invites you to their house for a get together. An ad attracts your attention. Your desires for a better life for you and your family drives you to investigate home based business opportunities. Multitudes of reasons have you seeking for something more lucrative than your job. That job is eight plus hours a day, forty plus hours a week. You are commuting, you are working hard, and you are loyal. The company rewards your hard work with promotions, more responsibilities, and a raise. You want a new car and you get it but your family’s circumstance is the same and really you only have added one more bill to your family’s finances. You decide to listen to your friends pitch, interesting but it is not for you. Then one day, you realize your boss is enjoying vacation trips abroad, has a new BMW, his children are going to a prestigious college and your big Christmas bonus amounts to seven hundred dollars and a gift certificate to buy a 12 pound turkey. What a blessing because the seven hundreds dollars will pay down one of your credit cards and you can use it to buy some gifts for Christmas. Meanwhile, the owner of the company is taking his family to Maui for Christmas. You begin wondering why you actually work more hours, spend less time with your family and friends, and worry constantly about paying bills.
You decide to take action against your mounting debt. You are going to put your finances under control. You drive to the local book store. Scouring the shelves of books you find a how to get out of debt book. Previewing the book you find the theme of the book is to spend less than you earn. This makes sense to you so you buy the book.
Oh, you cannot wait until your home on your couch to read this how to book. For the next hour and a half you devour each word, each sentence, each paragraph, and each page. Your thoughts are to enact a financial austerity plan with your family. They will understand because they love you and want to see their husband and father stress less and enjoy life more. You call your family together. At the dining room table you, the father and husband of the family, begin to explain the family’s finances. Everyone has a look of concern but the family seems to understand. They all want to help but as you speak, you realize as your family does, the plan is to live beneath the family’s income meaning the activities and things they have grown used to will no longer be available or dropped to a minimum. You and your family acquiesces to your plan but no one really feels good about it because the financial plan makes the family feel like the family is a financial failure compared to their family and friends.
Your austerity plan has been in place for two weeks and there has been progress but some of the old habits have been sneaking back into the family’s routine. Just yesterday you had to use the credit card to buy tires for your wife’s car even though the idea was to save up for expenses instead of using credit. Your youngest son wants and really needs to go to summer football camp with his team if he is going to have any chance of starting or playing more when the fall football games begin. The cost is staggering to your budget so again you will need to use your credit cards.
At work, you are developing a plan to cut man hours, increase productivity, and turn full time positions into part time positions thus cutting costs. By having more part time position the company will not have to pay for benefits such as medical, vacations and contributions to individual retirement plans. Your plan is met with praise from the owner of the company and his CFO (Chief Financial Officer) but the praise and your plan leaves you feeling empty. As you listen to the CFO speak of department budgets your mind wonders about your financial situation and the financial difficulties you about to push on the employees in your department. Your soul tells you something is just not right in your world. Instead of helping your subordinates you are taking away. Even though your business mind tells you this is just business your heart tells you these are peoples’ lives you are changing for the worst. This just is not you.
Your wife and her sisters have not seen or been together for years. They want to have a small three day holiday together with their mother at their mother’s house. You took your wife away from her family and friends over ten years ago to the job you now have on the other side of the country. Her wife has only seen all of her sisters only once in that time. You know you really cannot afford this trip for her but you will make it happen because you love your wife and you do not want to disappoint her. Sadly, but lucky for you her oldest sister told you she will cover your wife’s expenses while she is with them. This makes you feel embarrassed and less than an adequate provider for you wife who tirelessly takes care of you and your kids needs everyday.
Tuesday morning your boss calls you into his office. He has a huge smile on his face. He begins to tell you what a wonderful job you are doing and the benefits you bring to the company as a manager. “Your department’s productivity to cost ratio is the best it has been in thirty years!” he powerfully bellows. “Listen, we feel we are top heavy in management. I feel you can handle two departments at once and do just as good handling two departments as you have the department you are managing now.” “Of course, we will reward you for taking on this new responsibility but the direction we want to take this is to bonus you and some of the other managers we retain at the end of our fiscal year which is February. It will be based on department goals with a sliding percentage starting at twenty five percent of your current salary. So if you hit one hundred percent of both your department goals you will receive twenty five percent of your salary. Let’s see, hmm, you make $65,000 a year so twenty five percent is ah, $16,250 bonus! Now how does that sound?” Your boss excitedly says. You meet his excitement with a huge smile and tons of trepidation. You know this greatly benefits the company, doubles your work load and takes more of your free time away. You know the bonus will hardly cover the amount of time you will need to give up to the company.
Breaking your salary down you know the fifty hours a week you are doing now comes out to $25 an hour. Just three dollars an hour above the average American worker. If you hit all your department goals and receive the bonus of $16,250 your total earnings for the year is $81,250. Figuring you will put an additional ten hours a week into working for the company your hourly wage is only one dollar and four cents more. Taxes will surely eat much of the bonus. You are happy with the possible bonus but you know hitting one hundred percent of all the goals is impossible. You also know the bonus will not help you until the following year and it does nothing for your current financial situation.
Late one night at work you open your Face Book page to read some of your friends’ statuses. While you are reading you notice an ad that has a father walking on the beach carrying his daughter and holding his son’s hand. The picture elicits memories of you doing the very same things with your children when your family was young and you were able to spend time, quality time with your children. The ad harkens, “Do you want time and financial freedom for you and your family?” In your distress for wanting more time with your family and to help with your financial problems you click on the ad. You watch an up beat movie then fill in the submission form hoping with all your heart this maybe an answer to your desires and needs.
A gentleman calls you saying that he is answering your request for additional information… Begin Your Story begins with the Freedom Project!
For more information go to http://www.miniofficeoutlet.com/gjr
To see more go to Gene's Mini Office Outlets
Sunday, January 9, 2011
The Rise and Fall of American Democracy
by Robert Kiyosaki
Alexander Tytler (1747-1813) was a Scottish-born English lawyer and historian. Reportedly, Tytler was critical of democracies, pointing to the history of democracies such as Athens and its flaws, cycles, and ultimate failures. Although the authenticity of his following quote is often disputed, the words have eerie relevance today:
A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.
A democracy will continue to exist up until the time voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by dictatorship.
The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
• From bondage to spiritual faith;
• From spiritual faith to great courage;
• From courage to liberty;
• From liberty to abundance;
• From abundance to complacency;
• From complacency to apathy;
• From apathy to dependence;
• From dependence back to bondage.
Tytler's Cycle and the U.S.
In looking at American history, we can see Tytler's sequence in action. In 1620, the Pilgrims sailed to America to escape the religious bondage imposed by the Church of England. Their spiritual faith carried them to the new world.
Because of their deep faith, the Pilgrims left England in spite of the high percentage of deaths incurred by earlier American settlements. For example, when Jamestown, Virginia, was founded in 1607, 70 of the 108 settlers died in the first year. The following winter only 60 of 500 new settlers lived. Between 1619 and 1622, the Virginia Company sent 3,600 more settlers to the colony, and over those three years 3,000 would die.
In 1776, the Declaration of Independence was signed. From spiritual faith the new Americans were garnering great courage. By crafting the Declaration of Independence, the colonists knew they were essentially declaring war on the most powerful country in the world -- England.
With the onset of the Revolutionary War, the colonists were moving from courage to liberty, following Tytler's sequence. By demanding their independence and being willing to fight for it, a new democracy was born. This new democracy grew rapidly for nearly 200 years.
Then, in 1933, the U.S. was thrown into the Great Depression and elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt as president. Facing total economic collapse, Roosevelt took the U.S. dollar off the gold standard. At the same time, Germany, also in financial crisis, elected Adolf Hitler as its leader. World War II soon followed.
In 1944, with WWII coming to an end, the Bretton Woods Agreement was signed by the world powers and the U.S. dollar, once again backed by gold, became the reserve currency of the world.
After the war, America passed England, France, and Germany to become the new world power. Having entered the war late, the U.S. emerged as the creditor nation to the world. Our factories weren't bombed and the world owed us money. The U.S. grew rich financing the rebuilding of England, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan. The American democracy was transitioning from liberty to abundance -- maybe too much abundance.
In 1971 President Nixon violated the Bretton Woods Agreement by taking the U.S. dollar off the gold standard because America was spending more than it was producing and the U.S. gold reserves were being depleted.
In 1972 Nixon visited China to open the door for trade. What followed was the biggest economic boom in history -- a boom fueled by the U.S. borrowing money through the sale of bonds to China, one of the world's poorest countries at that time. The sale of these bonds financed a growing U.S. trade deficit. China produced low-cost goods, and we paid for them with money borrowed from the Chinese workers.
American factory production, which had fueled the American boom after WWII, was "shipped" overseas along with high-paying American jobs. America was shifting from abundance to complacency. Rather than produce, we borrowed and printed money to maintain our standard of living.
In 1976 America celebrated its 200th anniversary as a democracy. Rather than produce, we kept borrowing to finance social-welfare programs. Over the next three decades or so, America slid from complacency to apathy.
In 2007 the subprime crisis reared its ugly head. And by 2010, unemployment increased to double-digits, even as the rich got richer. Once-affluent people walked away from homes they could no longer afford. The U.S. moved from apathy to dependence.
Today we're dependent upon China to finance our debt as well as fill our stores with cheap products. At the same time, millions of Americans are becoming dependent upon the government to take care of them. If Tytler is correct, the American democracy is presently moving from dependence back to bondage.
Filling the Void
History reminds us that dictators and despots arise during times of severe economic crisis. Some of the more infamous despots are Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Napoleon. I find it interesting that the U.S. is now dependent upon Chairman Mao's creation, the People's Republic of China, for the things that we buy and the money that we borrow.
To me, this is spooky, foreboding, and ominous. While the Chinese people, as a rule, are good people, my business dealings with Communist Chinese officials have left me disturbed and concerned about the rise of the Chinese Empire. As you know, China doesn't plan on becoming a democracy. With money, factories, a billion people to feed, and a massive military, could they put the free world into bondage?
Although I don't like the way the Chinese do business, I continue to do business in China. I have to. They're the next world power. I cautiously believe that trade, business, and understanding offer better options for world peace and prosperity than isolationism.
Now the Western world must seek to grow stronger financially as China continues to gain power. To do this, our schools need to offer more sophisticated financial education to children of all ages.
This is not the time to be complacent or apathetic. This is the time to think globally. Putting up trade barriers would be disastrous. Instead, it's time our schools train students to be entrepreneurs who export to the world rather than employees looking for jobs that are being exported to low-wage countries.
Please be clear. I don't fear the Chinese. I fear our own growing weakness. Only a weak people can be oppressed. Today, America has too many people looking to the government for financial salvation.
In 1620 the Pilgrims fled the spiritual oppression of the Church of England. Today Americans may need to flee the financial oppression of our own government as our democracy dies. If we follow Tytler's cycle for democracy, our financial dependence will lead us to financial bondage.
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