Aren't you tired of being manipulated?

Originally posted Jan 6, 2011

Ever since I can remember I have felt like this world of ours is just heading down the wrong path.  I have tried to stay optimistic and positive about life and the future, but I am finding it more difficult as days go by. I try to remain honest and I have certain "golden rules" that I live by.  I always strive to treat others as I wish to be treated; I want to be a positive influence in this world.  I believe in sayings like: "an honest day's pay for an honest day's work", "it takes a village to raise a child" and "what goes around comes around". I also believe that we are all here together on this planet and everybody's actions affect all of us to one degree or another.  We need to learn to come together and focus on what really matters:  health and happiness.  Could you even try to imagine a world where these two things were everyone's priority?  Wouldn't it be nice if we could learn to work together?

Growing up, I had dreams for a wonderful life filled with security, prosperity and hope.  I was raised a Catholic and I used to believe in God, now I don't know what to believe about all that.  Would God not be freaking out by now?  My feeling about religion nowadays is: I think someone, way back when, saw where society was headed and created a story to scare people into being good.

Religion has turned into a political money making marketing outfit out to serve it's own purpose - it is responsible for so many wars and so many deaths, it is plagued with corruption.  When I see televangelists like Benny Hinn dripping with gold asking for money so he can go and preach at another exotic location - I have to ask myself how we got to this point and how people can be so gullible?  People seem to want to believe just about anything, it's in our nature to want to believe anything and everything - it's just a matter of how it's presented to us.  We are even being marketed to believe that we can have it all - even eternal life!  Cryogenics is a huge business based on the desire of us all have wanting to live forever - people pay extraordinary sums of money to have their bodies frozen.  Meanwhile, science has proven that our bodies suffer too much damage from being frozen, but we buy into a technology that doesn't exist yet - it's all about the marketing... and marketers are having a field day with us!

The rich are getting richer...

"It takes money to make money" - you've heard that saying before - but you have also heard: "money does not buy happiness" - so why the money race?  Everyone wants financial security - being poor can make your life miserable - but it shouldn't be that way.  We should be able to survive and thrive without money really, this planet freely provides all we need to stay alive and be happy.  Governments have decided that they own the land - which in reality they don't - they just make us believe that.  Taxation has gotten way out of control and yet people's needs are far from being met.  Here is an interesting link on the origins of taxation, how it works and how the money is spent:  http://www.prolognet.qc.ca/clyde/tax.htm

Politicians are the master manipulators of today's society.  We have heard the campaign promisses so many times, many of us don't even bother voting anymore.  Most of us are at the point that we just assume all politicians are crooked.  We see how government squanders our hard earned tax dollars and we feel hopeless in the face of the all the corruption.  The double standards they keep setting and the way they keep making up the rules as they go along makes me wonder how they keep getting away with it all.  How come we keep putting up with it, as a society, should we not demand more of civil servants?  Ever wonder how come they are entitled to have such outlandish benefits packages?  Aren't our tax dollars paying for their dental plans, their (way too many) sick days, etc.?  Shouldn't we all be getting the same treatment, since we are all paying for it?  Ever wonder about that?   How come any government sponsored projects always costs many many times more than in the private sector?  The difference between the cost of private sector and government contracts is ridiculous.

Part of my dream as I child was to make this world a better place, I had envisioned myself making enough money to be a very charitable person.  It's been my experience however that without money to begin with, it's been so hard to get ahead.  It seems I started out in debt and I find making decent money is harder and harder to come by and yet it disappears so easily.  The more time goes by, the less money can buy.  It's costing more and more just to get by.  The cost of living is just getting out of control and so many people are living off of credit in order to survive.  Forty years ago people had the opportunity to buy a double lot on the Ottawa River in Ontario for only $500!  The properties alone have increased in value by a whopping 100% in 40 years putting them at a modest value of $250,000 - an achievement my generation just could not dream of copying - these opportunities just no longer exist.  It makes me worry for my kids' generation - what kind of a world have we created for them?  Government and banks work together setting interest rates, they change the lending rules to curb inflation or increase public spending.  It's all money game and we are the pawns.

Nowadays banks are coming up with all kinds of creative ways to make more money. Their profits are in the billions and yet sevice charges keep rising. Is that really fair?  Our government regulates and so it must think so!  You can take out a mortgage for super large sums of money and not even ever be expected to pay it all back in your lifetime. As people cannot afford the over inflated prices of homes - banks are offering mortgages for periods up to 60 years. Why buy a house, if you'll never own it? Each bank now offers it's own credit cards - credit cards are one of biggest money making schemes of all time. Credit cards are creatively offering all kinds of rewards to entice us and all the while raising interests rates to ridiculous amounts making it almost impossible to ever pay back any large purchases you charge on them. It used to be very difficult to get a credit card - now, getting approved for a $5000 credit card is common place. Did you know it takes 33 years to pay off a $5000 credit card making the minimum payments suggested by the lending company?  And how many people do you see charging their basic necessities on credit cards?  You shouldn't have to feed your family on credit!

Marketing and advertising have always interested me, I find it challenging to try and get the word across of just how good a products is. Using marketing practices to paint a picture and to entice buyers to buy products always seemed like something I wanted to do. I began to see marketing and advertising in a new light though when I tuned to the late comedian Bill Hicks: Totally Bill Hicks the documentary

Advertisers and marketers have also gone too far in their efforts to make money. Honesty and integrity used to be the cornerstone of every good marketing company - now it's how much money they can make for their clients, that's the bottom line. It used to be that we could believe in advertisers and good products could speak for themselves - we used to have trust. Now, we are bombarded with commercialism every second of the day. We are constantly being lied to and manipulated - anything to make more money. More and more often we, as consumers, need to read between the lines in order to find the truth. The more we get lied to, the more we lose trust. The biggest problem is, for those of us who know better, we don't know who to believe anymore and so we have doubts. Advertisers and marketers, with their greed, are helping to create a world of mistrust.   They have even gone as far as to create fake worlds and sell fake things to fake people - they are now selling us a second life!: Link to the site : Second Life 

People are losing faith in each other - after all, we know deep down that it's people lying to us and we are putting up our guards. We don't know who is being honest and not anymore, the more we get lied to the more we doubt - who can you trust? And those consumers who are less aware of the manipulation keep buying into these lies and are spending money foolishly and usually with regret. Usually money they don't have, as they bought into the credit card scheme as well...

We, as a society, need to say: Enough!  We need to come together and create change.  We need to speak up and we need to try harder to make this world a better place for our children and for us all. 

Consumers are getting tired of being had, they are tired of buying junk, they are tired of getting ripped off.  Consumers are getting tired of being manipulated, more and more people like me are speaking up.

I am only one voice, but I want to make a difference.  I believe if we can come together to make one voice louder and stronger, a unified voice, we can speak out and be heard and we can begin to change the world.  Bit by bit, the crowd will gather.  Bit by bit, our voice will grow and reach everyone and bit by bit we can change the world.

My YouTube channel - gerrystiling

Cash Makes More Cents

This post is short and sweet.  

Do you like to save money?  So do I.  That's why I do not use my debit card and I do not own credit cards, either.  I pay with cash!  Good old cold hard cash! 

Did you know that when shopping with a credit card you are likely to spend 12 to 18% MORE than if you were using cash.  . This is an important fact to remember when you are shopping.

With both debit cards and credit cards it's very easy to lose track of how much you spend, a coffee here, a magazine there; by the end of the day, the week or the month you have no idea how much you have spent.  If you are looking in your wallet - you see how much you have left - it's right there in front of you.

By shopping with cash you have better control of your money.  You are much less likely to overspend.  You can put aside a certain amount of money each week and easily stay on budget. The other thing that happens when you use cash instead of debit cards or credit cards if that you start noticing how much you are spending.  Instead of just blindly swiping a card at the checkout and not even paying attention to the amount, you notice the cost of things when you are dishing out the bills and receiving exact change.

Try it - you'll see what I mean!  And don't forget to save your change - it adds up fast - in a month I squirrel away a cup of change.  (pays for my gas)

Sources:

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/08/pay-in-cash.asp

Why are large corporations like BP allowed to take such dangerous risks?

I just don't understand it. Government is full of rules and regulations when it comes to us homeowners and the little guy. Take a permit for this, get a permit for that. You need a license to have a dog, you must hire an engineer to make plans for a septic field bed in the middle of nowhere, but BP on the other hand is allowed to undertake huge projects that can have irreversible and horrendously detremental consequences for the entire planet. And all in the name of profits or should I say greed. Don't kid yourself folks, this is an environmental disaster. Since day one, BP has minimined the damage this is creating. They have continually lied about how much oil is leaking out and of course they are minimizing the damage this is causing.

I am really tired of this double standard, big companies and governments seem to be able to do what they want. On Mayne Island, BC a resort developer is getting away with breaking the rules, having larger water tanks than approved. Despite complaints from the residents, goverment is turning a blind eye. But then a resident is being forced to take down her deck because a permit was not taken. You hear of it all the time...Let the big guy get away with it but stick it to little guy. It's more cost efficient for the big company to fight the government than to start over, the government does not want to get into a long legal battle - the homeowner is a do it yourselfer and cannot even afford to file a complaint. That's how it goes...

This latest oil disaster will affect us FOREVER. It will kill countless birds, fish and mammals and will more than likely even cause extinctions of species. This oil spill has contaminated our oceans and our water system and probably beyond repair. What were they thinking?

Alternative fuels have been around for quite awhile now, why aren't we focussing all our attention on solar, wind, tidal and other cleaner sources of energy? Why do companies like BP and the powers that rule the world decide to keep being greedy and keep exploiting the earth's gas supply - no matter how bad for the environment it is. I just don't understand it. Don't they know it will affect them as well - they need clean water as much as the rest of us. Oh ya...with all their millions they can build themselves a water purification plant and then sell us clean water - I get it now - government will then tax that water, and so on...

I have often wondered why we are not completely solar/wind/green powered by now? Why hasn't government pushed to go green. I have heard that the economy will colapse if the oil industry is abandoned. So? Let's rebuilt it, better and greener for all. I am for it.

How could anyone be allowed to do something that can negatively affect the whole world, how can any one corporation have that much power? So much for democracy! Did we not learn anything from the Exxon Valez oil spill? They are still finding oil there 20 years later!!! If you lift a stone on the beach you will find oil buried in the sand. And that's only from one tanker, what is this fiasco of an oil spill going to do to the US coast? To our oceans? To our planet?

I am glad BC is waiting to develop any off shore oil exploration on the west coast. It must be banned it forever.

I am so angry that this happened, as so many other people are. When will we draw the line and place life above money, when will we realize that too late means too late! Should have, would have, could have... There's no room for that - when your actions affect the whole entire planet.

The CEOs of these companies make ridiculous amounts of money and they are well paid because of their money making talents. They got paid to be snaeky, deceitful and dishonest. These CEO's should be stripped of their wealth, they should not be allowed to get away with profitting at the expense of so many.

It seems the more money you have, the more you can get away with. Like governments, large corporations, CEOs. The rich get richer at the expense of the poor - and at the expense of the world.