How Marc Singer Became a Great Filmmaker
- WEALTHY: Keeping an eye on the Fed (Andrew Gordon)
- HEALTHY: 4 reasons to have more sex (Dr. Al Sears)
- WISE: Thomas Edison on ideas
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- The full-speed-ahead approach to the top (Michael Masterson)
- How a Nobel Peace Prize winner solves problems
- It’s Good to Know… about earthen floors
- Add "jimmy-rigged" to your vocabulary
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Which Way Will the Fed Go?
By Andrew M. Gordon
Right now, the Fed is sitting tight on interest rates - not increasing or lowering them. What the Fed does (or doesn’t do) next is going to have an impact on your portfolio … so you need to be aware of the possibilities.
Here are the three scenarios:
1. The Fed continues to do nothing.
That would be horrible news to all those analysts who pray every day for the Fed to lower rates and unleash economic growth. Stocks could still do well if the Fed does nothing, but a so-so economy and lower corporate earnings could test the ability of many companies to grow.
2. The Fed raises rates.
Inflation is poison to the economy, and the Fed will raise rates if it thinks inflation is making a comeback. (Despite what you hear from the mainstream press, inflation is far from tamed.) Higher rates will hurt economic growth and the stock market, and could mean that we’ll see more money flow into bonds - pushing bond prices higher and yields lower.
3. The Fed lowers rates.
This scenario is the overwhelming preference of Wall Street. It would trigger a drop in money fund rates and the take-off of the stock market. The big risk is that in lowering rates to stimulate a stagnant economy, the Fed could open the door to inflation. If the economy is still struggling to find growth, we could end up with stagflation (the combination of inflation and a standstill in business activity). The market would fall far and fast if that happens.
I’d vote for the first scenario - because it would mean that the Fed has achieved a soft landing. But whatever happens, your portfolio should be constructed to benefit from positive developments and be protected from serious loss if the worst happens. Dividend-paying stocks are a way to get the best of both worlds. They ride bull markets with the best of them and are "flight to safety" investments when things go bad.
[Ed. Note: Andrew Gordon, ETR’s financial expert, is the editor of our new investment service, INCOME. Each month, he uncovers specific stocks that promise safety (first and foremost), along with much higher-than-average profit potential.]
"The value of an idea lies in the using of it."
Thomas Edison
Ready! Fire! Aim! How Marc Singer Became a Great Filmmaker
By Michael Masterson
For most dreamers who want to become filmmakers, this would probably be the most sensible path for them to follow:
- Spend six months to a year locating a film school that will accept you.
- Invest tens of thousands of dollars to enroll in the best program you can find.
- Spend two to six years studying film and developing a familiarity with all the major skills: direction, lighting, sound, etc.
- After getting your degree, spend six months to a year looking for a job. And if you don’t find a job (and chances are you won’t), get a non-paid apprenticeship with a movie-related business and work at that till you get a shot at something better.
- Keep at it for 10 or 20 years until you finally get a lucky break.
If you think this is unrealistically pessimistic, consider what the Bureau of Labor Statistics has to say about employment in the film industry: "In television and film, actors and directors typically start in smaller television markets or with independent movie production companies and then work their way up to larger media markets and major studio productions. Intense competition, however, can be expected at each level, because ever more applicants will be vying for increasingly fewer numbers of available positions."
So what if you don’t want to devote half your life to academia and internships and small-time productions and groveling and schlepping and kissing butt?
If that’s the case, you can take my "Ready. Fire. Aim." approach.
On Friday, I explained how taking quick action - action before you have all the facts, knowledge, or experience - can be the best way to accomplish great things. That’s just what Marc Singer did…
Marc was an unemployed immigrant from England when he heard the rumor: Hundreds of homeless people were living beneath the ground in New York City.
There was something about the idea that struck his imagination. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. A village of homeless men and women hidden in a subway tunnel. How did they live? What did they do? And where, exactly, were they?
He got his chance to find out when an article in an independent newspaper gave him a clue as to where this urban Atlantis might be - and it wasn’t far from where he lived. For several weeks, Singer poked around and talked to homeless people. Finally, he found what he was looking for - an otherwise unremarkable pile of rubbish in a tunnel stretching north from Penn Station to Harlem.
For several days, he watched raggedy people disappear into the tunnel and come out again. Eventually, he approached them. He told them that he was interested in getting to know them. They thought he was crazy.
He had a feeling that in the blackness beneath that hole lay his destiny. So he kept talking to the homeless people who were using it, trying to make friends with them, until one of them finally invited him down.
It was an Alice in Wonderland experience for Singer. In the cavernous darkness, he discovered dozens and dozens of painstakingly constructed huts made from discarded plywood, plastic, and canvas - huts that housed hundreds of squatters.
The property they were squatting on had been abandoned long ago when the subway stopped running along that route. There were still, however, electrical wires and water pipes running through it that the crafty squatters had tapped. Inside the shacks, radios played. Beneath a jimmy-rigged water line, the denizens of this dark city showered. There was everything here that Singer had imagined … and more. He built himself a little shelter among his new neighbors and, for several months, spent half his days there.
At one point, sitting around a makeshift campfire, playing cards and talking to several of the men, someone suggested that Singer make a film about it all. The moment he heard it, the idea struck him as exactly right. Despite the fact that he knew nothing about filmmaking ("If I ever picked up a camera in my life, it was a little disposable throw-away one," he told reporter Amy Goodman of IndieWire), he got started immediately.
Singer spent the next several weeks hustling around the city, gathering up equipment and reading books on filmmaking. He used his newfound (and equally inexperienced) friends as his crew and, relying mostly on instinct, directed the filming, lighting, and sound. As the weeks went by, he accumulated hundreds of hours of film. When he ran out of film, he borrowed money and shot more film.
After several months of shooting, Amtrak announced that they were going to clean up this abandoned tunnel to make way for some new project. They contacted the police to force the squatters out. Singer went to Amtrak and asked for a deal. If they would give him just a month or two of leeway, he said, he would sell the film and use the money to find other places for the squatters to live.
It was a promise without a foundation, based entirely on faith. But, miraculously, he pulled it off. The second half of the amazing black and white film he produced down in the tunnel tells the story of how these people fought for their right to stay… and then, when that effort failed, worked with Singer until he found homes and jobs for them.
The film, a documentary called Dark Days, went on to win the 2000 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award and the Freedom of Expression Award, and it shared the Cinematography Award. Marc Singer became an instantly credible and credited filmmaker, and his career has been uphill ever since.
Rent the film and enjoy it. But then watch the extra feature that describes how Singer made it. You will be impressed by his ingenuity and the tenacity he showed given the obstacles that faced him. For me, the big lesson was that he went full-speed ahead with his goal of making the film the moment the idea popped into his head.
After spending all that time and effort getting integrated into this unusual community, he recognized - on a gut level - that making the documentary was the right thing for him to do. He didn’t let his complete ignorance of filmmaking or his lack of money or contacts or anything else stand in his way.
He had the right idea, and he was emotionally ready to pursue it. That is how many, many great things are done.
Ready. Fire. Aim.
[Ed. Note: Learn how you can be part of an exclusive group of 25 to 50 ambitious businesspeople that Michael will be leading through an elite 5-day program that can help you dramatically increase the profitability of your business here.]
Jump On Now and Make 300%… Before Wall Street Discovers the Stealth Market in Uranium
Thirty years ago, the biggest energy giants walked away from millions of acres of land with proven uranium reserves… land that wasn’t worth exploiting when prices hit rock bottom. But one company grabbed the best of that land for as little as $1 an acre.
Now, with the price of uranium skyrocketing, the value of those reserves has increased more than 1,300%… yet you can still purchase this company’s stock for pennies on the dollar.
But you’ve got to jump on this now before Wall Street discovers the stealth bull market in uranium. Once they do, this stock is going to POP. Get the full story here.
- Patrick Coffey
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The Health Benefits of Sex
By Al Sears, MD
The most credible study connecting overall health with sexual frequency comes from Queens University in Belfast. They tracked the mortality of about 1,000 middle-aged men over the course of a decade. After 10 years, the British Medical Journal revealed, the men who reported the highest frequency of orgasm enjoyed a death rate 50 percent lower than the others.
Other studies show that having sex a few times a week has a direct link to:
- Reduced risk of heart disease: In a 2001 follow-up to the Queens University study, researchers looked at cardiovascular health. They found that by having sex three or more times a week, men lowered their risk of heart attack and stroke by 50 percent.
- Weight loss: Sex is exercise. A vigorous session is about the same as running for 15 minutes or playing a game of tennis. During sex, your pulse rate rises from about 70 beats per minute to 150, similar to what you’d get from a vigorous workout at the gym.
- Pain relief: Just before orgasm, your level of a hormone called oxytocin surges to five times its normal level. This, in turn, releases endorphins, which alleviate the pain of everything from headaches to arthritis - even migraines. (In women, sex stimulates the production of estrogen, which can reduce the pain of PMS.)
[Ed. Note: Dr. Sears, a practicing physician and the author of 12 Secrets to Virility, is a leading authority on longevity, physical fitness, and heart health.]]
Worth Quoting: Muhammad Yunus, Winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, on Simple Solutions
"Business is about problem-solving, but it does not always have to be about maximizing profit. When I went into business, my interest was to figure out how to solve problems I see in front of me. That’s why I looked at the poverty issue. I got involved in lots of things to address it, and one of them was money lending with loans and credits and savings accounts, and in the process I created Grameen Bank. So you can also have social objectives. Ask yourself these questions: Who are you? What kind of world do you want?
"Most of the problems we have and talk about today sound very complicated, but they aren’t. They’re simple. And complications actually hide solutions. So when I’m faced with a problem that looks complicated, I try to bring it back to its simplest state. Like poverty. Poverty is not complicated. It’s deprivation, a denial of resources. Credit is not available to you, so you cannot move forward. Simple. All it takes is one little step: My first loan was one for $27 that I gave to 42 people. But at Grameen [Bank] it’s not that we lend money to people in small or big amounts; it’s that we loan in an appropriate amount to their needs.
"The size is small because the need is small. I could complicate things: I could lend a person $1 million, but if that someone can only handle $20, that would be stupid. But if she can handle $20, it makes sense, and that’s still big money for her. So I say, when you’re trying to solve a problem, always bring it back to the simplest formulation."
(Source: Business 2.0)
It’s Good to Know: About Earthen Floors
For the environmentally conscious and those on a budget, earthen floors can be an inexpensive and unique alternative to hardwood or carpet. An earthen floor - often made of a mixture of dirt, sand, fiber, and lime and sealed with linseed oil and beeswax - is very energy efficient. Its high density and low thermal conductivity can reduce the need for natural gas or electric heating. An added benefit: Earthen floors exposed to direct sunlight absorb heat during the day and release it at night.
(Source: The New York Times)
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Word to the Wise: Jimmy-Rigged
According to the Urban Dictionary, "jimmy-rigged" is a version of "jury-rigged" - a makeshift fix, improvised on the spot. "Jury-rigged" may have been derived from the French "du jour" - meaning "of the day" and, therefore, temporary. "A jury-rigged device will probably work," says the Urban Dictionary website, "but be careful; a jimmy-rigged device will probably NOT, but oh well."
Example (as I used it today): "Beneath a jimmy-rigged water line, the denizens of this dark city showered."
[Ed. Note: Become a more persuasive writer and speaker … build your self-confidence and intellect … increase your attractiveness to others … just by spending 10 VERY enjoyable minutes a day with ETR’s new Words to the Wise CD Library.]
Michael Masterson
Copyright ETR, LLC, 2007