Friday, October 31, 2008

Persimmons Gallore!

I met up with my 80/10/10 buddy Ian today to go grocery shopping. We went to 10th St. Market, an oriental market, and this time I cleaned them out of their fuyu persimmons (99c/lb). I'm so excited for the to ripen. Ian was right, I had gotten the two different kinds of persimmons confused. The hachiya persimmons are taller and redder. The fuyu persimmons are shorter, fatter, squarer, and yellowish-orange.

Fuyu Persimmon



Hachiya Persimmon


I think I will try the Hachiya next week as the local organic grocery store has just gotten them in. It's really amusing how many times people in the grocery store have asked me, "what are you going to do with all of those bananas?" I respond "eat them of course, what else do you do with them?" One person tonight asked me if I was having a banana party, I guess for Halloween or something. Well, that certainly would not be very scary. If only more people had read the The 80/10/10 Diet by Dr. Douglas N. Graham, more people would understand the rewards of eating sweet fruits and greens. When has any doctor suggested against eating more fruits and vegetables, I've just never heard of it. When I got my annual physical in August, the doctor said to keep doing whatever I was doing because I was perfectly healthy. Now all I have to do is to place myself in a suitable environment (1000 miles north or south of the equator) and I'll be in fairy tale land. Until then, we have Bloomington, IN.

On the Outside Looking In

Here's an article that was published on the front page of the Indiana Daily Student today. I was interviewed for at least an hour and was quoted many times in the article, which was exciting to see. What's actually amazing is directly bellow this is an article comparing what they called this years "icons," Barack Obama and John McCain. Somehow, this beat that article to the top, which I'm grateful for, considering that this newspaper has an average daily readership of at least 10,000, if not more. While some points in the article may have been twisted a bit cynically, overall, I think it's great to see some opposing views on campus, other than Democrat vs. Republican. Take a look for yourself and get a taste of what it's like to be a Libertarian at Indiana University Bloomington.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Times of Opportunity

Now is the time to screw your head on straight and asses the current situation for what it really is. In hard times are some of the best opportunities. Why suffer when you can profit from the economic collapse. All it takes is a little bit of common sense and voila, you have financial sense. I take my hat off to the Financial Sense News Hour team for sharing with me a wealth of information since I started listening to their podcasts in late June. They have truly helped me to see things for what they are, and have helped me to understand how to profit from things and to get out of paper.

For some crazy reason, our government thinks that they can fix the problem by doing the same thing that caused the problem in the first place: PRINTING MONEY.

Who prints the money?

The Federal Reserve System.

The Federal Reserve System is a private banking cartel that prints fiat money (money backed by nothing but debt) as it desires. It can literally wipe out your wealth with the flick of a pen. When the government wants money for something, instead of raising taxes, they go say "Hey! Bernake! We want some more of that good stuff!" And you know what Bernake says, "Sure thing! Just pass this bailout for the banks and keep the system propped up so we can continue to profit from risky bank loans that make us money from interest on money that we created out of nothing." So The Fed prints a whole bunch of money, trades it with the government for government backed bonds, general Treasury Bills, and BOOM, as in the case of the last bailout, 800 billion dollars rushed into the economy, created from nothing.

What this essentially does is increase the money supply and devalue the currency. The more you hold on to your dollars, the more purchasing power you loose. And as time moves on, there will be many more bailouts to come. It is predicted that when all is said and done, the Fed will have printed 5 trillion dollars. This is not an unreasonable estimate since the Feds balance sheet was $897 trillion in August of 2008, then on October 15 it was expanded to $1.8 trillion., an increase of 103% in two months. Quoting Jim Pupplava, "The Fed's balance sheet looks like a hockey stick." And boy is that scary. I don't think that there hasn't been such a rapid expansion of the money supply since FDR put in place his public works programs during the Great Deppression. And I don't wish this on any nation, but I think another Great Depression is what we are in for.

We never learn from our mistakes, and we are making the same mistakes that we made in the 1920s and '30s. In the 1920s, the roaring '20s, there was a period of prosperity. The Fed created an artificial boom by over-inflating the economy and loaning tons of money to many entrepurneurs and new companies. However, all artificial booms come to an end, and this ended in a contraction of the money supply, leading to a bust period. Hence, a stock market collapse. Here there was a brief period of deflation as asset values declined and there was a mass attempt at the liqidation of assets, causing a hording of dollars as the dollar rose in relation to asset prices (the same thing we are seeing today). However, one must see the man behind the smokescreen. When FDR became president, he started printing money without end to fund all of his socialist-esq programs. Today, the Fed is printing trillions of dollars to fund the bailouts. In fact, both candidates have $1 trillion worth of spending programs, and this is likely to be on top of the many trillions more that will be deemed "neccassary" to "rescue" the financial institutions.

Ultimately, the average joe has no say in what the government does. If it wants to create money, it will do so to maintain its elite status, at the expense of the American citizens. But this all sounds terrible! There is no hope!

Ahhh....that's where you are mistaken. With every bad there is good. When wealth leaves one person, it has to shift to another. And it will shift to those who own tangible assets. Gold and silver have stood the test of time and have always proved to be safe-heavens in times of financial unrest, and especially in times of hyper-inflation, which we are likely to see once all of this money printing hits home. Gold and silver have ALWAYS outperformed inflation and are assets that no portfolio would be complete without. With these undervalued prices due to government manipulation to give the dollar one last death rally, precious metals are truly a steal and a bargain.

Do what you can. Unfortunately, we can't all back up the truck. I wish I could, I really do. But, I do what I can. This month I bought 20 ounces of silver. But it's 20 ounces more than I previously had. Sure, I wish I could buy 1000 ounces, because I know what a steal the price is, but hey, I got some more, and that's what counts. So go out and be proactive! Add to your position, or take this great opportunity to start accumulating!

Remember, it's not what you say, but what you do.


Happy thoughts,

Sam

Fruit Trees!

I haven't posted an update on the growth of my fruit trees since July, and I would think we're well overdue! So, when I was home two weeks ago I grabbed a few picks to share with everyone.

Mamey Sapote:



















It's got new leaves!


Sugar Apple (Annona fruit):






















Banana plant:

corrupt file :(
I will try desperately to get this picture as it has grown tremendously compared to the other two.

That's all for now.

Sam

Topics

Now, I've heard that some bloggers suggest picking a topic and sticking with it, but I think that sticking with the TRUTH is most important. Now there are many topics that fall under TRUTH:

Health/Wellness TRUTH
Financial TRUTH
Political TRUTH
Economic TRUTH
Scientific TRUTH (actually, technically nothing in science is proven fact according to my Bioanthropology B200 course)
Mathematical TRUTH

Anyway, you get my point. Well, on this blog I'd like to cover the TRUTHs of politics, investing, economics, and health. These are all very touchy subjects, and many people shun talking about money (or it's assumed your greedy), politics (you're corrupt because so are they), economics (no one understands it, therefore it's impossible to know = not true; it is purposely made to seem overcomplicated), financial truth (how to profit from the current economic collapse and the demise of the US Dollar), and health truth (how to stay fit and well and eat and live healthfully).

Now, all of this may seem a bit strange, and you may wonder where I'm going with all of this, but it's really all quite simple.

1. Protect yourself from disease
2. Protect yourself from ignorance (I really dislike that word because it makes me sound arrogant, but I swear I'm not, or at least not trying to be)
3. Protect yourself from government

It's a shame that there are a handful of people that profit from the masses' lack of knowledge. It is time that WE get educated to learn how to protect ourselves for whatever may come our way. From here on out, I will try to educate my audience on all of the above mentioned topics, and provide real, valuable education on how one can be "in the know" and achieve success.

Birthday Food Extravaganza


I have waited forever to try a persimmon, and on my birthday, October 17th, my friend took me to an oriental market where they actually had what we were on our quest for, durian! I was so excited to try it! Though it was frozen, it was worth the try for a one time experience. However, they also had fresh fuyu persimmons! So, I have waited two weeks and one of them has finally ripened, and boy was it amazingly sweet and juicy! It tasted amazing! Well worth the wait! I can't imagine how vial it must taste hard, like most uneducated people eat their fruit. It tasted even sweeter than the bananas that I ate after it, and THAT is TRUE sweetness. All I wanted to eat after that was just more persimmons, but the under ripe ones would have killed my taste for them. What a great way to start a day, the persimmon way!

One last note, I ate the durian a week ago and don't even know how to begin to explain it. What an experience. I think that both the smell and flavor would have been a lot more distinct and pungent had it been fresh. Oh well. It was still definitely worth it!