Year in review

This year has been an interesting one to say the least.  The biggest and best thing that happened was that we had a child.  It’s been awesome and fun to have that whole experience.  There aren’t really any new years goals I have with her and raising her, but maybe I think about that a little more.  Currently she is just smiling and not much else.  Maybe that is current goal.  Make her smile once per day.

Financially things have gotten better for us.  Some of our wealth is tied up in hard assets and is harder to denominate in dollar terms especially since a lot of it was bought retail and those items lose some of their value once bought, but if my recent bullet purchase is any indication, we’re doing pretty good. 

The bullet purchase goes like this.  I wanted more of a certain type of bullet and when I went to go buy it the price was literally 25% more for the EXACT same box I’d purchased just in the last year or two.  So while it sucked to pay 25% more I was also happy that my current box is worth 25% more in dollar terms.  I’m pretty sure it has been less than 2 years since I bought the first box and so if we just call it a good 2 years, then our investment is up 12.5% per year.  Not too bad.

One goal I had this year was to get 5,000 days of hard human labor saved up, or 500 ounces of silver.  With the fortuitous market conditions in real estate we were able to sell and extract our equity and buy an additional year of food storage (since we’d found out we were pregnant with London by that time) and the rest we plowed into silver and we’re about 150 ounces over the 500 ounce goal, which is awesome and I’m very pleased with.  I’m afraid to make the goal, but I’d really like to have 10,000 days of hard human labor saved up by the end of the coming year.  Given that I’d have to make substantially more money at a job or via a business it’d be a very good stretch goal, but I think I can do it.  With silver prices coming down it may be a doable goal.  Current prices would have us saving an additional $8,239 in silver.  That doesn’t sound too bad.  On a weekly basis that’d be $158.44, which I think w/o making any additional income we could do on my current income so we’ll see.  I’ll let you know in a year on that!  Below is what 10,000 ounces looks like in bar form.  I'm pretty sure some kings of England didn't have 1,000 ounces to their name.

This year I systematized scriptures and exercising.  Scriptures is listening to the Book of Mormon on my way to work.  I think I went all the way through the Doctrine and Covenants once this year.  I read/listened to the Book of Mormon twice this year and am in Mosiah 17 today.  I’m going to continue doing that. 

Then at night the wife and I read 10ish verses in the Bible.  That means this year we’ve read 7,300 verses of scripture.  We’re about a quarter/halfway through the old testament.  When we first got married we discussed what we ought to read together as a couple and since the wifey hadn’t got through the Bible just yet we figured we’d just read that from cover to cover.  At our current pace we should be done in like 8 years lol.

This year I decided I was too weak and wanted to get stronger and so I set my goals to workout twice a week doing bench and squat and I wanted to squat 250lbs once and bench 225 lbs once.  I also said I wanted to be able to curl 50 lbs per arm, but that got sidelined for most of the year.  I hit squat and bench.  Here is what 250lbs to squat looks/looked like for me too.

What I’m doing now is this workout a friend of my wife built for me.  She is/was a bodybuilder.  It’s been interesting to learn new workouts and feel the soreness.  I honestly can’t say I feel tons different and I know I don’t look a lot different so we’ll see how things go in the New Year.

One goal was to make 50k, by myself. 

  Tallying up the deposits in our account for the year we’re clocking in well over that.  A portion of that though was from Ashlee’s wages for most of the year and then selling the house too.  I didn’t quite reach that goal, but hope to in the coming year.

This year I learned how to type in a new format to help my joints not get worn out so often. 

I had a goal to go to the temple once a month and do home teaching once a month. 

  I’m pretty sure I went 11 times to the temple and went/called all my home teachees every month this year so that is pretty good.  I’ll have to do better next year.

One goal was to weigh 155lbs.  At one point I hit 159.5 lbs.  Frankly that kinda scared me once I hit it and so I’ve ballooned all the way up to 183.5 lbs this morning.  Part of the gain is muscle I’m sure, but a good amount is fat for sure.  I’d be pleased to be back down in the 160’s by the end of the coming year.  A poundish per month to lose isn’t too hard to do.

One goal was to research and buy a bow and arrow.  I did the research, but didn’t buy.  Maybe I will and maybe I won’t in the coming year.  Perhaps if I reach the silver goal I’ll move onto the bow.

Interestingly enough I actually wrote down that I wanted to creatively get a bigger tv.  Little did I know I’d willingly and happily practically give away our tv and surround sound system.  I have to say that I absolutely love that twist/change.  People complain all the time about how they’re so busy or they don’t have enough time to do this or that they don’t care enough to do this or that even though it is mildly important and yet I know some who have their pet tv shows they “have” to watch and they’ve got to go see the latest blockbuster movie.  Excuses excuses. 

Speaking of excuses I tell myself I don’t have enough time to work on business.  Here is how my excuses play out typically or how I con myself into thinking I don’t have time.  I’ll say I’m too busy to do that with a kid, working out, scouts, going to the temple.  Or I’ve got such and such business book to finish and two ensign magazines on my nightstand or this one "last" fiction book I need to finish reading and THEN I’ll be free to start on the business.  

The way I'm going to combat this in the New Year is that I can't play on our new phablet until I've at least done the prorated amount of work each day needed to stay on track for getting in 3 hours per week, based on working 6 days.  I think this will work since I'd like some down time by playing games and this should motivate me to do that.

I had a goal to go on a date once a week.  I didn't do the best at that.  I'm going to have to figure out how to do that in the coming year.

I had a goal to save up for an Alaskan cruise too.  That got pushed back since we worked at saving up for a kid and all the things that go with that too.

That pretty much sums up my year.  Let me know how your summed up and what goals or processes you have for the coming new year.

My Friend’s Dollar Denial

I have a friend who has been reading a bunch on the unfortunate demise of the US dollar.  He’s also watched some good material about it.  He’s even gone so far as to diversify out of dollars into hard assets.  This morning however he is totally bummed about the dollar price of said assets.  I encouragingly tried to get him to look at the investments in non-dollar terms and he wasn’t having any of it. 

It is hard sometimes for me to even comprehend that the dollar will lose its status and purchasing power completely one day, but I feel they will.  I told my friend yesterday that I am crazy in that I essentially don’t mind (I actually love when they get hammered down in price/dollar terms) when hard assets become worth less in dollar terms cause that just means I can buy more of it before this whole thing goes.  If any of you have ever played the game cash flow and come across the stock card that has MYT4U for sale at $1/share, that is what I feel hard assets are like right now.  They’re the thing you invest 100% of your money into and you just wait out the game until the stock revalues to the appropriate price.  Exciting. 

I am also grateful for the new debt deal the democrats/republicans struck cause it is just going to speed up the collapse that much faster.  Exciting.

Filtering out business ideas is hard work

I’ve brainstormed a whole list of business ideas.  I went through them trying to filter out the good from the bad and still need to do more of that so that I can then get started on the ones I think will do best.  What I will say though is that just going through my list and organizing it and picking out the really bad ones made my brain hurt and was stressful. 

I think part of the stress is that I don’t want to finish filtering the list and then start on the ideas and then not have them pan out.  It’d also be stressful to work on things and then have some initial success and then get discouraged when things got tough/bumpy.

As I sit here it is amazing the victimy/addicty words just spewing forth from my mouth.  Of course things aren’t always going to be perfect.  I just need to stay focused on the small steps.

Body builders are the devil

I’ve switched up my routine for exercising since I hit my goal for the year a few weeks back and since I’m not quite able to go workout like I used to since the place I went to go workout is up for sale.  I did just day one of my routine that my bodybuilder friend built for me last Saturday and boy it wasn’t too bad.  I’ve singing a different tale though for sure for the past three days.  Super sore.  Sore in specifically the areas I worked out, which were my chest and triceps.  It’d be sweet to have ripped triceps this time next year. 

Tonight I’ll be doing my day two workout, which should be legs.  I’ll let you know how it goes.  Freaking bodybuilders…spawn of satan…telling you…making me so sore.

Ya so its the next day now.  I look like my legs are broken.

Thanksgiving vs Black Friday…FIGHT!

I was thinking about how Thanksgiving is a day we are grateful for the many blessings and abundance in our life.  Abraham Lincoln declared it a holiday for the nation during the Civil War, a national day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens*".

Then I was thinking how Satan twists things and is the leader of opposition in all things against us and of course Heavenly Father whom Abe was trying to thank and praise even during the darkest times. 

That led me to see how cunning he is in having THE most SCARCITY mentality day of the year the day after (and now on the evening of) our abundance celebration day.  Think masses trampling each other for the few items available that are a “deal”.  What a twerp.

Also it is unfortunate that our big corporations profit off of both days.  Makes me wonder where their true intentions are.

*quote from declaration of holiday

How long should I invest in a ponzi scheme?

I’ve often wondered this as it pertains to the current ponzi scheme I’m invested in.  If you asked anybody how long you should invest in a ponzi scheme they’d tell you, if they like you that is, not long at all.  

For the uninitiated the following is from Wikipedia on what a ponzi scheme is.

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to its investors from existing capital or new capital paid by new investors, rather than from profit earned by the individual or organization running the operation. Operators of Ponzi schemes usually entice new investors by offering higher returns than other investments, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent. The perpetuation of the high returns requires an ever-increasing flow of money from new investors to sustain the scheme.

The scheme is named after Charles Ponzi,^[2] who became notorious for using the technique in 1920.^[3]Ponzi did not invent the scheme (for example, Charles Dickens' 1844 novel Martin Chuzzlewit and 1857 novel Little Dorrit each described such a scheme),^[4] but his operation took in so much money that it was the first to become known throughout the United States. Ponzi's original scheme was based on thearbitrage of international reply coupons for postage stamps; however, he soon diverted investors' money to make payments to earlier investors and himself.

Here is the guy who it is named after.

I have a new friend at work.  Lately I’ve shared with him some of my views on the economy.  Surprisingly he actually picked up two books I mentioned that may be of interest to him and he is reading them.  A while back, before the books, I sent him a link about how the dollar is mathematically going to collapse.  Here is the video.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFDe5kUUyT0  Just cause I thought it summed up the video well I also sent this video to another friend of mine and the following is his response just as a testament to how crazy he thought the link was.  This is a direct copy/quote by the way…

“DUDE......... is that really what is going on?  How the? What the? Why are we? Bakjdf;adso;fihaoshgoasdnflsjfoaoenflamflkamsdofjaojfmwagmawg!!!!!! **** saokjgo *****

How in the world did that happen?  Is this the result of going off the gold standard?  That video was amazing..... that guy knows exactly what is going on. I am surprised someone hasn't assassinated him yet for messing with their system.”

Just to hit it home that the above video is indeed a ponzi scheme the following will be a quote from Bernie Maddoff, greatest ponzi scheme artist in history.  Stats on Bernie..."admitted operator of a Ponzi scheme that is considered to be the largest financial fraud in U.S. history, The amount missing from client accounts, including fabricated gains, was almost$65 billion.^[19] The court-appointed trustee estimated actual losses to investors of $18 billion.^[18]On June 29, 2009, Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison, the maximum allowed."  

Now for his quote, "The SEC,looks terrible in this thing. It’s unbelievable, Goldman … no one has any criminal convictions. The whole new regulatory reform is a joke. The whole government is a Ponzi scheme.”

This is found in the New Yorker magazine here, http://nymag.com/news/features/berniemadoff-2011-3/.  

So here we have the largest known ponzi scheme operator in the history of the world, who KNOWS ponzi schemes when he sees one, calling the whole government a ponzi scheme.  He rightly throws Goldman in there as is seen in the video that they, and their too big to fail comrades, are complicit in running the scheme that will eventually implode.

Back to my new friend.  He watched the video and then picked up these two books,

which I’d highly recommend to anybody interested in learning more in depth about our current ponzi scheme.  The first one is shorter and covers much of the same material in the second.  I enjoyed the second one thoroughly because it goes into the history and has many more crazy stories in it.  

My friend has been sharing some of the things he’s read in the first book and I’ve been able to expound upon some of the things in there.  One of the things I found out about my friend is that he sells diamonds to people and high quality watches.  He’s even sent me some things/articles about how the LDS church is also maneuvering for the coming collapse and doing so by diversifying into productive hard assets.  The following link is an example of just such a thing.  http://www.ksl.com/?sid=27615904

What had been interesting to see with my new friend is that he would ask me about prices of silver/gold and where I thought they could go.  I’d dutifully tell him where I thought they might go.  The last time he asked me about it though I responded by saying that I prefer to measure things in terms of other things and not by the measure of the US dollar, because as the crazy video showed there will come a day when it literally doesn’t exist anymore as it is a ponzi scheme.  I then asked him how do you measure the worth of an ounce of gold or silver in dollars, when dollars won’t be able to buy one ounce of either?  

After I’d asked that I went over to talk to him one day and he had built a spreadsheet measuring silver and gold vs home values and the stock market.  Now that makes more sense to me.  I’ll have to go back and ask him if he’s found the historical values for those things and see what assets are overvalued and which are undervalued.

Moral of the story is I (we) should feel free to invest in the ponzi scheme as long as I'm comfortable with potentially losing all the chips I had in on that game.  The getting is good when in the scheme because you get great returns.  This would be like being invested in the stock market right now or buying stuff at Walmart made in China.  Currently it is legit to be invested in the scheme.  I err on the side of "beat the rush, panic now".