Bear’s Book Blog

This book was a gift to me from my good friend and brother in Christ, Keith Boyd. He is particularly well read on the issues of conspiracies and the new world order that many believe is coming.

Is there a conspiracy? Isn’t there always? Is change coming? Isn’t it always? What, oh what do we do?

Well, if you ain’t able to pay your power bill or feed your kids I think it is a moot point, is it not? As for why people shake their heads and call you crazy for believing that the super rich oligarchs who control the banking systems and the relative value of currencies would try to consolidate ever more power in their hands, I have no good answer. If you see my short side rant when writing about the work of fiction “I Am Legend” you will see that I no longer care.

Besides, I am no longer certain that either of us can get out of the way of this thing anyway. The American middle class has become a herd of stone stupid cattle being run towards the cliff because they have served their purpose. It is now time to cull the herd and collect what wealth the middle class has built. Why do you think the banks as a whole decided to not remain true to the frugal ad prudent underwriting standards of the past? Think about it. Mortgages and student loans. First they made it impossible to bankrupt against student loans even when most people do not use their degrees and then they changed the bankruptcy laws further to prevent you from exercising your right to depend on the banking industry to do their due diligence in underwriting. Yes, yes, I agree that YOU should have known better, too, but the bankers get paid the big bucks to look out for the shareholders’ interest.

The one battle I CAN win is one child at a time through organizations like Children’s International.  We knew these things  and times were coming 2,000 years ago. We need to stick to our knitting and attend to our own houses, in my opinion. This means being as productive as possible in our own businesses and as frugal as possible in our own expenditures. As swiftly as possible relieve your home of all debts to others, make sure your taxes are in order, learn to do on less and to build capital in your own home so that others do not have a hold on you. Be the BEST employee your boss has so that he or she sees you as indespensible. Helping your employer’s business helps them be able to help you. No, I am not completely certain of all that needs to be done to achieve this, but I do know that credit is why our economy is in a ruin and families are breaking due to the stress of credit driven enslavement.

“The True Story of the Bilderberg Group” is written as the story of a man who has followed the Bilderbergers from their inception. He narrates facts, research, and conversations with people inside and outside of the group. Apparently there are those inside who do not completely condone the ultimate aims of the group.

It is a story worth reading.

Well, the author’s intentions were good, I think. Sadly, there was nothing here that was too terribly inspiring for me. The only reason I bought the book was Robert Kiyosaki’s willingness to do a foreword.

The author speaks in the very generalities that Kiyosaki rails against in his books, so I can only guess that he wrote a foreword on a fee schedule. It is okay, I ain’t mad at him. It is what authors do; they write.

As I say, I think the author’s intentions were totally jake and above board. I do not think it was a particularly inspiring book. In my opinion, you would do better going to the bible in your own home and reading the entire book of Proverbs and analyzing what Solomon has to say on the subject. If you do not have a Bible in you home, you can find Proverbs on line here.  Also, if you prefer, it is also available in audio for download. (Both Old and New Testaments in their entirety online and in audio format, King James versions are here, along with the rest of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints scriptures and references such as the Book of Mormon.

If you want a free Bible, email me, post here, or call my toll free number and I will see if I can get one to you. My Church used to have a program where you could order a free Bible and I believe they still have the program running.

If you still want to get others’ opinions, you can read them here. Perhaps it will inspire you.

Here is Children International’s website. Feeling down? Wishing your life had meaning? Need some good karma points or fairly sure you will bust hell wide open when you die?

Then help these Children EAT.

Yes, I know the Henry Kissinger’s of the world would like to pontificate that these are  useless eaters and that professor from Utah says the best thing in the world to happen is for Ebola to become an airborn pathogen (no kidding…I will have to look up his name as I cannot recall it. He says the HIV virus is too slow to be an effective culling agent on human population. Talk about someone with a devil on each shoulder!) but these kids are humans with minds and hopes and dreams and for $22 a month, you can give them food, clothing and some education.

Do the right thing. Go here and sign up for a kid, a kid who loves his or her parents and whose parents cannot give him all he needs no matter how hard they work in the rice fields and jungles or the fields of the land owners.

All you neocons who are against welfare? This ain’t welfare. This is YOU, a person who is CHOOSING to help with a tax deductible contribution to a good cause.

All you leftist liberals out there who are soooooooooooo concerned with helping the poor? Here is you chance to help. Do the right thing and do it with YOUR money, not others’ money  confiscated at gunpoint.

(Don’t believe me about Kissinger and his plans for genocide against third world populations? Just look up “National Security Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests” or google the terms “useless eaters” with “Kissinger.”)

Mob, Messiahs, and Markets: This is a must read for EVERYONE, whether you are a Communist or a Conservative, a liberal or a Libertarian, you need to read this book. If you do not read another book this year on business and politics I must insist, to the extent that I can, this be the one book you read.

“Lisey’s Story” by Stephen King. Well, while I am finally getting into the story, little Stevie’s continued hammering of the Southern dialect is beginning to wear a bit thin. While I realize Mr. King has clearly had some bad experiences in his life, I cannot imagine what has traumatized him so with regards to his Southern readers since so many of us hold him in very high regard. I suspect he would be surprised to find that many Southerners share many of his beliefs. Then again, maybe I am just feeling pissy that John McCain, a wannabe Democrat is the apparent Republican candidate. Congrats, Mr. King, win or lose, YOU get someone who agrees with your politics, LOL. Cannot give a complete review yet, only that it is my current reading project. Like many of his works, it takes a good 150 pages or so for me to become immersed in the characters. Lisey IS beginning to connect, though, since I have so many dysfunctional crazies in my own family, I can relate to dealing with Manda…

I continue to struggle with “The Intelligent Investor.” It is dry, but the two minds (the one that wrote it and the one that benefitted from it so) make it worth bearing down and chewing through it. Learning to read a company’s balance sheets at night while studying for my CCNP and MCSE while doing my own rewrite/edit…hell, it is exhausting to even write it here. Still, my choices are 1) rely on Social Security and my literary idol’s Congressional friends to take care of me in my old age or 2) don’t sleep and manage to tear from this economy a decent asset base in spite of their best efforts to give it away to every SOB on the planet. The key, I am finding out, is to do without and treat your money the way the rich treat theirs and wait for the payoff.

It is unusual that I should review a website, but this one could not be allowed to slip by. You need to go to it, read it, and absorb what this fellow has to say.

To understand why I am promoting this site, you have to understand a little about my business experience. Some years ago during the dot com boom, I wanted to start a little BBS, or Bulletin Board System if you will. The hope, frankly, was that I could simply earn enough doing what I loved and interacting with others who enjoyed online communities. I will not beat the point death, but I miss the days of the command prompt because I think the BBS communities were closer than the so-called communities of today.

For a short, brief, period of time I was on cloud nine, everything possible. I had the respect of my friends, my wife…even my IN-LAWS. Then I went on a trip and my partners then went on a trip. I returned from my tip to find that my partners were not returning from theirs. The fall and demise of my little Internet service provider was spectacular, both from how high we got and how hard we fell. The hole in the ground I and my company hit is still smoking I suspect. Imagine Wile E. Coyote running along and the Road Runner is within inches…he looks down and the ground is gone. If I had had access to the thinking of Warren Buffet and Richard Stoyeck’s thinking I would have known the futility of trying to compete in the arena of supplying a commodity with billion dollar giants. In my naivete, I actually BELIEVED that I could walk out onto the field and stand toe to toe with billion dollar giants in providing a commodity with a diminishing profit margin and falling prices. I also was silly enough to believe what others told me. That lesson cost me probably close to $750,000.00 before it was overwith. If I had invested in AOL instead of trying to compete with them, what would $750,000.00 of AOL stock at 17,000% over some number of years have been worth? You will forgive me if I do not traumatize myself by printing it out here…I have calculated it some number of times and I NEVER seem to be able to recall the number without running the numbers again. I have issues with remembering that number.

But let’s get back to stocksatbottom.com.

I found this site thanks to Motley Fool investor newsletters. They popped up a blurb about how Warren Buffet claimed some book made him billions of dollars and if you signed up for their newsletter you get the book for free. Helluva deal, right? Well, they might want to rethink actually listing the title in future ads because I looked it up on Amazon.com and found a used copy for $13 and some change. $13 for the book that made Warren Buffet billions vs $99 for the newsletter. Well, I will see where I am when I get my first billion. I will probably buy the newsletter just for recommending the book as a lead in…someday, maybe.

I am not qualified to give investment advice…I am not even qualified to tell you that someone is qualified to give investment advice. I will say that you might want to review this fellow Stoyeck’s qualifications and consider the possibility that he knows what he is talking about.

WHY do they not teach this stuff in high school or require it in college? Oh, yeah, they need to brainwash kids into the so-called fairness of a graduated income tax or how a flexible currency allows a government to use a private central bank to ‘manage’ the economy…another rant for another time.

Go to stocksatbottom.com and read every page. I personally plan to read a Buffet shareholder letter a day and analyze one a week until I get it in my bones. Oh, and stocksatbottom.com has them hyperlinked for your convenience…a very decent thing to do.

Is it worth the $99/quarter or $349/year? Probably, after reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Richest Man in Babylon. Whatever you decide, you need to keep it in your sites. The reason I say that is if you do not have mastery of the concepts in these two books, I suspect that their on point advice will be lost on you.

Well, Santa Monica is having a doozey of a wildlife problem, seems the squirrels are on a rutting rampage, a baby boom, engaging in treeline trysts and basically overrunning the place with little Hambys like tree hopping rats done up in caffiene.

Well? Why should ANYONE be surprised when the land of fruits and nuts gets overrun by, well, squirrels?

Their solution? Are you ready for this?

Birth control shots for squirrels.

I will give you a moment as I am sure you need it to process this information…Yes, birth control shots for squirrels. It seems the Santa Monica population has a preponderance of animal rights activists amongst them, clearly enough to run good sense slap out of the city when trying to deal with something as simple as a rodent infestation problem. I wish I could introduce the concept of what about the squirrels’ reproductive rights to the discussion.

Did you consider that, my animals rights friends? Come on, speak up, what about the squirrels reproductive rights?

Seems Santa Monica also has a homeless problem, too. I know that services funding for the homeless in Santa Monica is dwindling, so I have a solution.

Give the homeless traps for squirrels, use the squirrels to provide dinner for the homeless – I speak from personal experience, squirrel and dumplings is quite good and filling – and give the contraceptive shots to all the girls gone wild in the Santa Monica area so as to prevent the children they refuse to raise from getting pregnant when they decide to do it like they do it on Discovery Channel (or in the Santa Monica trees.) You reduce the costs of feeding the homeless, your reduce the number of squirrels, and you reduce the number of future homeless by cutting down on the current unwed birthrate that leads to more proverty and thus homelessness.

Also, I have a late in the Year’s Resolution: I am going to quit watching the news, reading the news, or anything related to the news for three weeks so I can catch up on my reading.  I swear if the US population gets any nuttier, I will lose the ability to speak English though I think the argument can be made for that already because I clearly have no common frame of reference with people who will go to the expense of contraceptive shots for squirrels while people live in the street.

I am only going to comment shortly on this book after this fashion. I have noticed that the world in the media has been divided up amongst races of man, sexes, and religious and political groups.

We are divided black against white (well, sometimes being white I feel like it is EVERYONE against whites but I am given to understand that that is the view from inside any group looking out so I feel better), men against women, Christian against Muslim and well, you know the rest.

Here are some quotes from Mason’s book:

“Because of my Black History training, I understood the plantation system. I understood the mechanism put in place to keep the slaves dependent upon master for every daily need. Because I understood it as a system of control, not a system of racism, I was able to recognize it when it was used against White America.

“I saw all of us Americans being tricked back onto the plantation of dependency. I watched as they attacked our schools by not teaching, only indoctrinating. No Constitutional training on government doctrines such as the Constitution or Federalist Papers was taught. I watched them encourage sexual activities for the young, ensuring poverty and thus dependency upon the government masters.” C.Mason Weaver, 1996 “It’s OK to leave the Plantation.”

I am from Birmingham, Alabama. There was a story here about 8th graders having rainbow parties under parents’ supervision. I will not name the school system in question. Guess what a rainbow party is? It is where they use colored condoms and learn how to properly perform oral sex in order to prevent pregnancy. I have not confirmed that this is so, but it is not an unheard of incident in other places and has been confirmed.

Quote #2:

“Success begins with the family, which is why our families are under such attack by the Plantation Mentality…Once the slave master takes away the importance of the family, he becomes the new family and authority in the community.” C.Mason Weaver, 1996 “It’s OK to leave the Plantation.”

Quote #3:

“However, after four hundred and twenty years of surviving by not showing intelligence, and after four hundred and twenty years of a community discouraging its members to achieve, and after four hundred and twenty years of depending on someone else for basic human needs, Black people found it hard to leave the plantation…however, the overwhelming numbers of slaves were happy to remain on the plantation or to move north to the new plantations called “factories” in the major cities.”

Quote #4:

“Africa was not conquered by a great war. Africans were weakened by spiritual and social decay, not by military might…the Europeans just walked into Africa and took what they wanted.”

Are you listening America?

The Civil War was about maintaining the integrity of the Union as a single nation. It was not about slavery. Slavery was used to justify an unpopular war because most people, yes,even most White people, know that slavery is wrong and evil. Mason Weaver is making the case that the North won, and has steadily copied the slavery system into the bureacracy and extended it slowly, carefully and craftfully into mainstream life so cleverly that we didn’t recognize it for what it is, only knowing that something is wrong, happiness is always elusive and anyone who bucks the system is a troublemaker.

“It’s OK to leave the Plantation” is worth every person’s time to read at least once.

According to Jim Remly, of the Realty Times, not everything is bad in the world, especially the luxury housing market. According to his article…well, I will just quote it for you. I suggest you review his article in its entirety as is it is a good read:

“In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, developer William Zeckendorf, who is building one of the most highly anticipated buildings in New York City, said, “From my vantage point, the super luxury market is as strong as I’ve seen it.”"

Whew! Now I feel better and I am sure all the moms and dads who have lost their jobs to outsourcing to third world countries will feel better, too, once they come on line and see that the folks who outsourced their jobs in order to maximize profits are even more able to afford a million dollar home than before.

…oh, wait a minute. I forgot. Those moms and dads cannot afford a computer much less the monthly access fees for Internet access. Besides, it is not as if they have time anyway what with one or both having to work two full time minimum wage jobs in order to feed and educate their kids.

This article is well written, but it is still an example of the rich being totally uncaring of what is happening on the lower economic rungs in our society.

NOTE: I have to credit him with the title which I borrowed entirely. I am not opposed to owning a luxury home as I plan to own one of my own someday. It is just that I see the gap between the rich and the rest growing larger and larger.

It is no longer a case of someone being innovative and productive and being justly rewarded. It is now a case of the unscrupulous using business practices to drive the middle class into poverty and those dollars into their own pockets. The rich have no loyalty downward to those who helped them build their fortunes.

I wonder what the lesson in loyalty for these fools will look like when it finally arrives?

James Span, a weatherman here in Birmingham, Alabama says that global warming is not related to human production of CO2 and other greenhouse gases and that most meteorologists don’t believe we contribute, either.

Well, if a weatherman says it, it must be true and now I am back to glaring at my last post about Al Gore.

Because weather persons (look ma! politically correct!) are ALL top notch scientists and are always hired because of their qualifications and not because of how they are on camera and how their presence affects ratings, right?

Because weather persons (you know that just kind of wallows off the tongue and hits the floor like something that tasted so bad your nervous system momentarily forgot how to spit when you say it out loud) are always right in their predictions, right? Right?

The above are not (well, not entirely) rhetorical questions. I do not know what it takes to be a meteorologist, though I am sure that on camera presence will trump graduating summa or better all day long because the weather is about ratings, pure and simple, just like everything else in TV lala land.

I suppose what I have to do now is ask my buddy whom I go to church with who was a weatherman 1) is he a meteorologist? 2) do you have to be a meteorologist to be a weather person?, and 3) is Span correct about most meteorologists disagreeing with most climatologists about the impact of man’s CO2 production?

So, forgive me if I am skeptical about James Span’s comments. Have I read the article in its entirety? No, no I have not. It was raining and the call to nap was just too strong.

He got that one right, by the way.

You know, I wish I could have filed this under business, as in the: The electric car died because there was no demand for it and it was a business decision. I know this is crap because even here in Alabama there would have been a demand for electric cards IF General Motors would have made it available. You see that IF in the last sentence? I wish I could make that word 8 feet tall, with a pulsing red glow. I am angry. Here is why.

I thought the electric car was still available, only not in Alabama yet. I thought they were still going through the process of expanding availability. Instead, they refused to outright SELL the cars; you could only obtain them on a lease. After the lease, GMC carefully and thoroughly collected all the cars and SHREDDED them so they were not available for resell or ownership. I suppose in an era of $3.00 a gallon gasoline you really cannot have a use-no-gas car available. It would be embarrassing, don’t you know? In my opinion it would appear that it is clear that GMC or someone who had influence with GMC was terrified of an electric car.

I drive 12.5 miles one way to work every day. A car with a range of 90 or so miles on a charge would have done me just fine if it meant I did not have to pay $3.00 a gallon for gasoline. $20,000 for a car that put absolutely no CO2 into the atmosphere? I would have paid it, no problem. The EV was here, it worked, it was fast, it was fun, and it was sleek. The problem was it didn’t use gas and oil (which had the oil companies’ knickers in knot tight enough to cut off their air supply I would guess) and it didn’t require any more than 15 to 20 minutes of maintenance every 3 to 6 months and the technician stayed clean. NO oil filters, NO oil, NO transmission fluid…you get the idea. This was a deal killer for the dealerships because they make a huge part of their revenue fixing things that should work right off the bat anyway. Ever compared prices between the NAPA dealer and the dealership for a set of brake pads?

If you have Charter video on demand, look for “Who Killed the Electric Car” and rent it. Then call your congress. It is a heartbreaking story of corporate prostitution on the part of GMC. But after the ‘planned obsolescence’ plan for the K car, we should be used to this by now. Yeah, I know, “Buy American!” Totally agree, but I will not buy from an American who, in my opinion it would appear that, is deliberately trying to sell me an inferior product in order to generate future cash flow.

I will probably comment more on that movie later. You need to watch this show. When large sections of Florida disappear and you start having refugees from the coast lines flooding the heartland perhaps you will think back on this which brings me to another thing that I would never have thought would happen. I suspect Al Gore may not be the complete idiot that I thought he was in the past. Can you give me a minute, please? I just traumatized myself by actually typing those words with the idea of leaving them in the public eye.

Ok. I am back. Had to go get me a Mountain Dew and my blood pressure medicine.

Yes, I said it. Al Gore may not be a complete idiot and Global Warming may be a fact. I had never bothered to research the issue because from what I gathered from the press…you know, the press? The folks who are supposed to report FACTS? (See my comment about the word ‘it’ in the first paragraph.)…was that there was disagreement in the scientific community about whether there was indeed a global warming that could be directly tied to human use of fossil fuels. I was curious about the issue so I spoke to a couple of my college professors about whether they think there is consensus or not amongst the 12 inch high forehead club.

There is no disagreement.

So, check out ‘An inconvenient truth.’ He is actually not boring. Why did I think he was? Oh, yeah. The press’s careful editing, purely for my own good I am sure. Inconvenient truth was an interesting, educational hour or so that will open your eyes on a few things.

Now, excuse me. I have to lie down. I not only paid $3.99 to watch Al Gore’s video, but I just promoted the man in public. I am quite beside myself because if this can happen, then the universe has gone mad.