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BACKSTABBED!
By
our "friendly" neighbors to the North.
On
or about March 15, 2005, a contract will be signed between China
and Canada that'll change America's oil outlook forever.
The
Canadian government is selling the United States' oil future
down the river.
But
while most resource investors will bail out of their energy
positions, you can cash in - by buying grossly undervalued stock
in the ready-to-explode resource giants that 99% of American
investors overlook.
Get
in NOW, and you'll be able to afford the $5-a-gallon gas that's
coming - along with a Benz or two to burn it in…
http://www.agora-inc.com/reports/OST/WOSTF404
WEALTH
Planning
for Your 2005 Income Tax Return Starts NOW
Did
you get a big tax refund? Forgive us if we don't congratulate
you. Instead of investing that money and earning interest on
it yourself, what you did was give Uncle Sam an interest-free
loan for the year.
According
to Michelle Singletary in her syndicated column "The Color
of Money":
"The
IRS reports that the average [2004] refund was $2,117. If your
refund was huge or you had to pay more tax because not enough
was withheld from your paycheck, consider changing your W-4
form.
"The
amount of money withheld is determined by the number of allowances
you claim on your W-4. The W-4 has a worksheet to help you figure
out how many personal allowances to take, based on what tax
deductions or credits you expect to claim on your return. You
can also use the IRS online withholding calculator at www.irs.gov."
HEALTH
Selling
Sickness: Turning Healthy People Into Patients
In
his book "Selling
Sickness", author Ray Moynihan discloses
comments made by the head of Merck pharmaceuticals some 30 years
ago. Distressed that the market for Merck's products was limited
to sick people, he openly wished for his company to be more
like Wrigley's chewing gum. He dreamed of making drugs for healthy
people so they could "sell to everyone."
Fast-forward
to today. The pharmaceutical giants now fund aggressive, multi-billion-dollar
marketing campaigns that aim to widen the boundaries of illness.
Case in point: statin drugs.
Statins
are already some of the most widely prescribed drugs, and the
pharmaceutical machine is looking for ways to expand that market.
The drug companies are now pushing for statins to be used to
treat everything from Alzheimer's to diabetes and arthritis.
They
have also been successful at reducing the threshold for the
treatment of high cholesterol. In fact, a recent Pfizer study
recommends statins for patients with normal cholesterol levels.
Other patent holders argue that statins should be taken by EVERY
person over the age of 55. And if that's not enough, some medical
professionals are even recommending these drugs for children.
Stay
tuned. Tomorrow, I'll tell you one of the ways they got the
government to lower cholesterol standards.
-
Jon Herring
WISDOM
Personal
Technology in Public Life
"Recently,
when hackers gained access to Paris Hilton's T-Mobile Sidekick,
news organizations had no trouble finding pictures of her talking
and typing into the device to illustrate their stories; Hilton,
like most wireless users, spends a great deal of time in public
engaged in private communications. Why? The cellphone ... offers
a great deal of gratification to our egos. By making us available
to anyone at any time, it serves as a 'publicization of emotional
fulfillment,' as the French sociologist Chantal de Gournay has
argued. Answering the phone and entering into conversation immediately
informs everyone around us that we are in demand by someone,
somewhere. Like a security blanket, the cellphone and other
wireless devices serve as a form of connection when we are alone
- walking down the street, standing in line - and connection
is our contemporary currency."
(Source:
Christine Rosen, writing in The New York Times Magazine)
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The
$84,000 Difference
What
if I told you that starting and following this simple program
could mean an extra $84,000 a year in your pocket?
That's
what happened to Paul H. as soon as he put just one element
of the system into effect.
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here to learn more:
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TODAY'S
MESSAGE
What
You Can Learn by Spending a Weekend in Las Vegas
by Michael Masterson
You
can't help but like Las Vegas. In terms of size, sumptuousness,
and spectacle, there is no other place in the world like it.
The vast, opulent malls America pioneered in the early '90s
prepare you for the size of it - and Disney World/Land can give
you an idea of how friendly replica environments can be. But
they are like sketches to a masterpiece. Las Vegas - the new
Las Vegas - is a one-and-only.
Your
mind tells you it's too much, but your heart can't resist it.
At least not for a long weekend.
In the hotels of Las Vegas, there is no good television and
no minibars. Nor are there places to sit, except in front of
slot machines and blackjack tables. You can't buy a toothbrush
without wandering past several hundred gambling opportunities.
The interesting thing about such manipulations is that they
are noticed and accepted with good humor. Everyone comments
on them, but with a kind of bemused admiration.
There is also a secret in the way Las Vegas gives away room
and board for next to nothing so long as you empty your bank
account at the gaming tables. This gives the average Joe a chance
to stay in hotel rooms he normally couldn't afford and languish
in architectural spaces he would otherwise be prohibited from.
You travel to Las Vegas feeling like you are enjoying a bargain.
You leave your big money on the tables, but you leave feeling
not that you've been tricked into overspending but that you
had a great time and a run of bad luck at the same time.
I don't gamble. And that's a strange thing, really. Because
other than gambling, I've never met a bad habit I didn't like.
I don't gamble because I get no pleasure from it - and because
it's so clear to me that I'd lose money.
If you believe you can beat the system, I'm not going to try
to talk to you about it. Just ask yourself this: How are these
billion-dollar properties being paid for? How is it that the
Bellagio can have a garden so extravagant that it takes 70 full-time
employees just to maintain it? It ain't charitable contributions.
Walk into any casino and look around. What you'll see will be
people stooped over and locked in concentration. Their eyes
are tired, their mouths drawn in concentration. Wander into
the sports-betting area and you'll see men in refrigerator-sized
cubicles, glancing at a wall of video screens, scratching calculations
on betting forms, and executing orders. It's eerily reminiscent
of a brokerage or stock-exchange trading floor.
Concentration. Focus. Calculations. Long hours. It all seems
like work to me. The only difference is that in Las Vegas the
odds are stacked against you.
In any other field of endeavor, you could take the same people
and put them to work doing virtually these same things - concentrating,
figuring, calculating, and executing -and you'd almost certainly
have a viable (see "Word to the Wise," below) business.
Not in Las Vegas.
Over
the long haul, gambling makes you poorer. Spend the same time
and effort in almost any other endeavor, and you're likely to
get richer.
So why is it that so many people like to gamble and don't like
to work? Is it the allure of big money? As a friend of mine
said, "How else does the average schmo get a chance to
make a zillion dollars?"
That
may be the problem. To the average schmo, working hard (and
smart) is not a good way to make a fortune. Gambling is somehow
better.
It is 100% possible for the average schmo to become wealthy.
Half of the wealthy guys I know are schmos. I myself am a schmo.
Some friends and colleagues would characterize me as a Major
Schmo. In fact, back in high school I was voted most likely
to end up in Schmotown and schmo on. So, when it comes to schmo,
I know.
But I know a few things about wealth building too. I know, for
example, that money that seems easy is usually not. And even
when it does come easily, it goes - as the saying tells us -
quickly.
Boca,
one of my Jiu Jitsu instructors, and I were talking about this
subject this very morning. He asked me how many years I'd worked
to acquire the wealth I had. "Thirty years" was my
reply.
"If
you did what some people I know in Miami do," he said,
"you could make that much money in five years."
"That's
true," I told him. "But if they ever get caught, they'll
spend 25 years in jail. Which means they'll have devoted the
same 30 years to wealth building that I did, but they'll end
up with neither the wealth nor the fun I've had in acquiring
it.
Making
money is hard work, but hard work can be a lot of fun. That's
something most books on money don't tell you. Financial books
fall into one of two categories:
1.
Get Rich Quick.
2. Get Rich Slowly.
The
first category is often comprised of fish stories from people
who made their money not from fishing but from telling fish
stories.
The
second is based on the biggest myth in the moneymaking industry:
"the miracle of compound interest."
Yes,
compounding the interest on your savings can eventually make
your rich, but it will take a long, long time. As I've pointed
out before, most of these books are based on 40-year saving
cycles. And who wants to wait 40 years to get rich?
If
you want to find out how to get rich the right way - neither
too quickly nor too slowly - read my book "Automatic
Wealth". It's not the best book ever written
on making money (well, maybe it is), but it does tell you what
I know to be true: that you can become wealthy in 7 to 15 years.
You
can get rich in 7 to 15 years by following the path that has
been cut by thousands of millionaires who have attained their
wealth in that amount of time. "Automatic Wealth"
includes at least a dozen examples of people I've mentored who
have done just that. Some, in fact, managed to do it in as few
as 3 years.
Forget
gambling. Don't waste your dollars on the lottery. Avoid get-rich-quick
schemes and eschew get-rich-slowly programs.
Do
something. Start now.
If you stick with ETR, you'll learn dozens of ways to get a
piece of the action and - just as importantly - you'll be encouraged
and chastised into doing so. Then you'll be on your way. You'll
be getting richer every day. But to become wealthy, you'll have
to learn to keep the wealth you earn. And that means saying
"no" to gambling.
Gambling is a sucker's game. The odds are stacked against you.
The comps - well, the comps are about as useful as a bouquet
of flowers from your wife's boyfriend.
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TODAY'S
ACTION PLAN
Don't
gamble. Not in Vegas. Not in the stock market. Not in your own
business. Next time the sirens sing to you, tighten up the ropes
of self-restraint and wait till you sail on by. A good businessman
owns a piece of the casino. He doesn't gamble there.
INTERNET
MARKETING
Demystifying
File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
File
Transfer Protocol (FTP) intimidates people more than any other
part of the website-building process ... probably because it
"sounds" intimidating.
The
word "protocol" makes me think of some dreadful medical
procedure out of a Frankenstein movie. Yet FTP is simply the
process of transferring (uploading) your Web pages from your
computer to another computer (a Web "server").
A
Web server is a computer that is permanently connected to the
Internet to "serve" files to your website visitors.
That's all it is. Just another computer that Web surfers connect
to in order to view your Web pages.
Go
to www.SmartFTP.com for a free program that works virtually
identically to "Windows Explorer" and allows you to
just "drag and drop" html files to your Web server.
(Source:
Jim Edwards, author of "Mini-Site
Creator," a program that lets you capitalize
on small, profitable niche markets online, fast and on a shoestring
budget.)
WORD
TO THE WISE
Something
that is "viable" (VY-uh-bul) is capable
of living, developing, or germinating under favorable conditions.
The word comes from the Latin "vita" ("life").
Example (as I used it in Today's Message): "In any other
field of endeavor, you could take the same people and put them
to work doing virtually these same things - concentrating, figuring,
calculating, and executing - and you'd almost certainly have
a viable business. Not in Las Vegas."
