The 3 Worst Ways People Will Use Their Next Stimulus Check

The 3 Worst Ways People Will Use Their Next Stimulus Check

According to Suze Orman  By  Sigrid Forberg  Sat, February 6, 202

 President Joe Biden’s plan to give Americans a third round of stimulus checks — for as much as $1,400 — is now in the hands of Congress, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement on Friday that final approval could come by the end of February.

That could give you a fresh payment in early March. Personal finance icon Suze Orman wants you to start thinking now about what you'd do with new COVID relief cash. She says there are right ways and wrong ways people have been using their stimulus checks.  Her general advice on the topic is to think "right now" and think long term and think of others. More specifically, Orman says avoid these three common stimulus check mistakes.

1. Not taking care of bills first

Orman tells Yahoo Finance Live that when Americans receive stimulus money, they should use it to pay bills first.

That may sound obvious, but some people don't prioritize. If money is tight or your income is uncertain, don’t focus on paying down your debts with your stimulus check, Orman says. In a recent CNBC interview, she recommended sticking with the minimum payments on credit cards, for now.

Though overall credit card debt plunged by 9% last year, according to the credit bureau Experian, many people have been relying on their plastic more heavily, just to get by. If that sounds familiar, consider rolling your balances into a more affordable debt consolidation loan at a lower interest rate.

Make sure all the big expenses that you must pay are settled: your rent or mortgage, any car payment, auto insurance and student loans.  Note that car insurance companies have been cutting their rates because people have been driving less during the pandemic. If your insurer won’t give you a break, shop around and compare rates to find a better deal.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/worst-ways-next-stimulus-check-154400568.html

What Is Money And Why Do We Need It?

What Is Money And Why Do We Need It?

Articles  Dr  Muhannad Talib Al-Hamdi *

In this article, we review a topic that was most important, but it did not receive the attention it deserves because people take it as if it were an obvious thing. We will talk about the meaning of money, its role in the economy, and what are its uses, among other topics.

Can The Economy Run Without Money?

There are historical examples of economies in which people exchanged goods and commodities in exchange for goods and other goods. In Iraq, for example, when the Bedouins came to the cities, they would exchange their products of carpets, wool and other products in exchange for urban products such as tobacco, sugar, rice and others. But modern economies use cash to carry out trade. Money is defined as any asset that people own and accept by others in exchange for the goods and commodities that they sell or use for financial exchanges. An asset here is everything of value owned by a person or company.

Barter System And The Invention Of Money:

For a better understanding of the importance of money, let us look at the case of an economy that does not use money. The economies in which goods and commodities are exchanged for goods and other commodities are called barter economies. These economies have major fundamental shortcomings. The exchange of goods and commodities in these economies needs to have a bilateral reciprocal desire.

That is, meaning that you need what the other person has, and at the same time the other person needs what you have. It may take a long time and a lot of effort on the part of people for this mutual desire to materialize. This renders the barter system an inefficient system and limits commercial exchanges and thus reduces the size of the economy significantly. Therefore, it is not surprising that the peoples who use this system live in a deplorable economic situation.

In order to get rid of the problems associated with the barter system, societies have incentives to create a commodity that most people will accept in exchange for the goods and goods they exchange. For example, Iraqis used gold and silver as a means of exchanging goods and commodities before the concept of modern money developed. Historically, when a certain commodity began to be widely accepted as money, people would start accepting it even if they had no other use for it.

Selling and buying goods and commodities becomes much easier when the cash is available. People just need to sell what they have for cash and use that cash to buy what they want. When cash is available, families are more likely to specialize in producing specific things rather than producing everything they need.

In modern economies people are highly specialized. They only produce one thing, such as being a doctor, teacher, or accountant, and they use the money they get from their work to buy everything they need. People become more efficient in production when they specialize because they will gain comparative advantage in production.

The high incomes that people achieve in modern economies derive from the specialization in production made possible by the presence of money. Therefore, the answer to the question of why we need money, is that it makes commercial exchange easy and gives people an opportunity to specialize and become more productive and achieve higher incomes.

Functions Of Money:

Anything that is used as money, for example gold, salt in North Africa, cigarettes in prisons, dinars or dollars must perform four functions:

Exchange Broker:

Money serves the function of a medium of exchange when the sellers are ready to accept it in exchange for the goods and commodities they sell. When a food store accepts a banknote in exchange for some bread and milk, that paper acts as an exchange. Through the medium of exchange, people can sell goods and goods for cash and use the cash to buy what they want. An economy becomes more efficient when people accept a single commodity as a medium of exchange for goods and commodities.

Measuring Unit:

In a barter system, each commodity has a very large number of prices. Maybe the price of a cow is fifty chickens, or 200 eggs, or 2 tons of wheat or other things. When one commodity is used as money, each commodity will have one price instead of multiple prices. This function of money gives buyers and sellers a unit of measure, that is, a means of measuring the value of a good in the economy using money. And because the Iraqi economy uses dinars as money, all goods and commodities have a fixed price in dinars.

Stock Value:

Money allows people to store the value of their money with the money itself. That is, if you did not spend all of your money to buy goods and commodities, you could keep part of the money with you for future use. It is not just money that can be a store of value. Any asset of value, such as a plot of land, a painting, or a piece of carpet, for example can be a store of value.

Financial assets, such as stocks and bonds, have an important benefit compared to keeping cash as store value because they yield higher interest or may increase in value in the future. You also have other assets over money for this job because it provides some services: for example, your house provides you with housing service.

So why do people keep some cash with them? The answer is simply liquidity, that is, the ease of transferring assets to an exchange broker. Because money acts as a direct medium of exchange, it is the most liquid asset. If you want to buy something and need to sell an asset you own in order to do so, it is very likely that it will cost you some costs.

For example, if you want to buy a house and you want to sell gold items owned by the family, you may have to sell them at a lower price now. To avoid such costs, people are prepared to keep a portion of their wealth in the form of cash. There are at least two problems with using cash as a store of value. The first is that money loses some of its value over time due to inflation. Second, there is a physical risk like fire, theft, or maybe mice.

Deferred Payment Standard:

Money is useful because it provides a standard for deferred payments in borrowing and lending matters. It can facilitate exchanges at a given moment in time by providing exchange broker function and unit of measure. But it can also facilitate exchanges over time by providing a valuable stockpile function and standard deferred payments. For example, you could buy a car today and pay in deferred installments over a period of time with cash.

How important is it for cash to act as a store of value and a reliable deferred payment standard?

People care about what their dinars can buy in terms of food, clothing, commodities, and other goods. In other words, the value of money depends on its purchasing power, that is, its ability to purchase goods and commodities. Inflation causes a decrease in the purchasing power of money because higher prices make the same amount of money able to buy fewer goods and commodities. When inflation reaches very high levels, the money becomes a store of value and an unreliable deferred payment standard.

What can be used as money?

When something can be used as a medium of exchange that makes commercial exchanges easier, the economy can operate more efficiently. So the question is, what are the assets that can be used as a medium of exchange? And as we indicated earlier that for anything to be used as money it must be, at least, generally accepted as a method of financial payments. But in practice there are other requirements.

There are five criteria for any asset to be used as a broker:

The original has to be accepted by the majority of people.

It should be of modular quality, that is, every two units of it are identical. Hence, the use of precious metals as money becomes a difficult process due to concerns about the different purity of different metal pieces.

It should continue to exist for a long time so that it does not lose its value as a result of continuous use.

It should be of comparable value to its weight so that large quantities of it can be transported easily in order to be useful for commercial use.

It should be divisible so that people can use it to buy goods and commodities of less than its value and receive the remainder at a value less than the asset itself. (Unless you're a cowboy hero like John Wayne or Clint Eastwood who walk into the bar and shoot, drink, eat, pay and don't take the rest.)

The Iraqi Dinar has these characteristics. What makes the Iraqi dinar acceptable as a medium of exchange? Simply, it stems from personal expectations. You regard an asset as money if you believe that others will accept it in exchange for goods and commodities they give you. Society's acceptance of the use of dinars as money is what makes it acceptable as a medium of exchange.

From here emerges the need to differentiate between the different types of money. We focus here on two types of money.

Commodity money:

They are assets that have intrinsic value separate from their use as money. For example, gold has value in the manufacture of jewelry, dental fillings, and most importantly in the manufacture of microelectronics. But using gold as money is a big problem. The money supply will face great difficulties for the government to control because it depends on the quantities of gold present or that are being discovered.

Paper money (including coins):

The economy would be inefficient if it relied on gold as money. Transporting quantities of gold for use as a medium of exchange for commercial transactions would be difficult, dangerous and costly. In order to avoid this, people in Britain began and by the year 1500 to store gold with goldsmiths and goldsmiths began to issue papers proving the holder's ownership of a certain amount of gold.

People took to exchange these papers to meet their needs from purchases. Governments and companies in Europe took notice and began issuing documents that could be bought back for gold. As long as people had confidence that the gold backing up those securities was there and available when they asked for it, those documents remained in circulation as an exchange medium. As a matter of fact, paper money was invented.

In modern economies, paper money is issued by the central bank of the state which is one of the state institutions responsible for regulating money supply. The Central Bank of Iraq was established in 1947 by royal will and was previously called the National Bank of Iraq until 1956. At present, there is no country in the world that issues paper money covered with a gold cap. Paper money has no value except that it is used as money and therefore it is not commodity money. Paper money is a currency issued by the monetary authority with a decision to consider paper as a currency only.

If you look at the Iraqi dinar, you will see some words that say "a banknote issued by law," meaning that the Central Bank officially issued the note to be used as money. The Central Bank of Iraq is not required to exchange the dinar for gold if the holder of the dinars so desires. The banknotes issued by the central bank are a legal document in Iraq, meaning that the Iraqi government imposes its acceptance by people and companies in their dealings and the payment of government fees.

Although it is a legal document, it will not be of much use to use as a medium of exchange and it will not work as money if people stop accepting it in general. The key to accepting cash is that families and companies have confidence that if they accept these papers in exchange for the goods and services they sell, they will not lose their value while they hold it before using it again. Without this trust, the banknotes will not function as an exchange.

* Professor of Economics and Political Science, Kansas State University, USA.

Number of observations 107 Date added 01/19/2021    https://economy-news.net/content.php?id=23698

Strategic Ways to Distribute Your Required Minimum Distribution

Strategic Ways to Distribute Your Required Minimum Distribution

There are several ways to better preserve your account balance

By DENISE APPLEBY   Updated Jan 24, 2021

As life expectancy increases, more people want to defer making withdrawals from their retirement accounts for as long as possible to ensure that their nest eggs will meet their retirement income needs. However, withdrawals must begin by a certain age to avoid penalties.

If you are at least age 72 as of 2020, you need to withdraw required minimum distribution (RMD) amounts from your traditional, SEP, and SIMPLE individual retirement accounts (IRAs). Depending on the provisions of the plan, you may also need to withdraw from your qualified, 403(b), or 457(b) plans.1

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Some distribution strategies—such as equalizing balances for your beneficiaries and rolling over excess amounts—may help you maximize your returns and minimize your tax burden.

The new age as of 2020 for taking required minimum distributions (RMDs) from your traditional, SEP, or SIMPLE IRAs is 72.1

The $2 trillion coronavirus emergency stimulus package suspended RMDs from retirement accounts for 2020.2

RMDs Suspended Due to COVID-19

On March 27, 2020, President Trump signed a $2 trillion coronavirus emergency stimulus package called the CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act. It suspended RMDs for people ages 72 and older for 2020, allowing retirement accounts more time to recover from the year's stock market downturn.2

In normal years, you can apply certain strategies to your retirement account withdrawals that will help you to preserve your account balance. Here we highlight some of these considerations.

Strategic Ways to Distribute From Designated IRAs

If you own multiple traditional, SEP, and SIMPLE IRAs, you must calculate the RMD amounts separately, but you can aggregate and distribute the total from one or more of those IRAs.1 When determining the IRA from which you’ll distribute your RMD for the year, you may want to consider the following strategies.

Equalizing balances for your beneficiaries

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/retirement/05/strategicrmds.asp?utm_campaign=quote-yahoo&utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=referral

A Conversation About Perceived Value

A Conversation About Perceived Value

A customer asked a contractor friend of mine how much it would cost to do this project.

My friend gave him a proposal: $4500

The customer responded: That’s seems really high.

My friend asked: What do you think is a reasonable price for this job?

The customer answered: $2500 maximum

My friend responded: Ok, then I invite you to do it yourself.

The customer answered: I don't know how to.

My friend responded: Alright, then how about for $2500 I'll teach you how to. So besides saving you $2000, you'll learn valuable skills that will benefit you in the future.

The customer answered: Sounds good! Let’s do it!

My friend responded: Great! To get started, you are going to need some tools. You will need a chop saw, table saw, cordless drill, bit set, router, skill saw, jig saw, tool belt, hammer, etc..

The customer answered: But I don't have any of those tools and I can't justify buying all of these for one job.

My friend responded: Ok. Well then for an additional $300 I can rent my tools to you to use for this project.

The customer answered: Okay. That’s fair.

My friend responded: Great! We will start the project on Monday.

The customer answered: I work Monday through Friday. I’m only available on the weekends.

My friend responded: If you want to learn from me then you will need to work when I work. This project will take 3 days so you will need to take 3 days off work.

The customer answered: That means I’m going to have to sacrifice my pay for 3 days or use my vacation time!

My friend responded: That’s true. Remember, when you do a job yourself you need to account for unproductive factors.

The customer answered: What do you mean by that?

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:
https://www.ipdga.com/ipdga-e-blog/a-conversation-about-perceived-value

7 Key Home-Buying Numbers to Know

7 Key Home-Buying Numbers to Know
Shopping for a House? Here are 7 Key Home-Buying Numbers to Know

by Larissa Runkle  Contributor  JANUARY 25, 2021

There’s a lot that goes into buying a new home, starting with finding the right one all the way down to finalizing the paperwork. Somewhere in that process, you’ll likely find yourself trying to decipher myriad new terms and figuring out what they mean for you.

We’ve compiled this list of seven key numbers you’ll need to know when buying a home — plus the details on how understanding these terms can help you land your dream home

Here are seven all-important home-buying numbers to know.

1. Cost per Square Foot

One of the first numbers you’ll encounter when shopping for homes is cost per square foot. While this number is based on a relatively simple calculation, it’s an important one to understand since ultimately it helps you determine how much house you’re getting for your money.

“Cost per square foot is simply the list price divided by the number of livable square feet,” said Tyler Forte, founder & CEO of Felix Homes. “This number is important because it allows a homeowner to compare the relative price of homes that are different sizes.”

But there’s more to consider, he said. “While cost per square foot is an important metric, you should also consider the layout of the home. In many cases, a home with an open floor-plan may seem larger even if it has a smaller livable square footage.”

Forte defines livable square footage as any interior space that’s heated and cooled, which is why a garage wouldn’t necessarily fit the bill. One of the best ways to understand how much home you can afford is to break it down by cost per square foot, which will vary from city to city and neighborhood to neighborhood.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:
https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/home-buying/home-buying-numbers-to-know/?aff_sub2=homepage

50 Ways You’re Throwing Money Away

50 Ways You’re Throwing Money Away

Sabah Karimi  Updated Tue, February 2, 2021,

You probably don’t realize all the ways you’re wasting money and leaving free money on the table — and these little missteps can add up to big dollar losses. Fortunately, once you’re aware of these bad money behaviors, you can take steps to change them. Making small tweaks to your lifestyle and spending habits could pay off in a big way.

Keep reading to find out the costly money mistakes you’re making — and how to stop making them so you can keep more money in your wallet.

Throwing Money Away on Layaway

While layaway might seem like a sensible way to hold onto something you want to buy, it’s not always a smart way to net savings. That’s because layaway locks you into a certain price and — if ultimately financed by a credit card — additional interest charges.

Not Using a High-Interest Savings Account

Having a high-interest savings account can help you grow your money and build an emergency fund more quickly than with a traditional bank account — so if you don’t have one, you’re leaving free money on the table.

The average savings account interest rate is 0.09%, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., but high-interest savings accounts can offer rates that are much higher — easily reaching over 1.00%, which is quite a difference compared to the average rate.

Trying To Time the Stock Market

When stocks are on the rise, it’s tempting to think you’re smart enough to know when to get in and out to make a killing. But this move is one of the worst mistakes rookie investors make.

Experts say it’s nearly impossible to do this correctly every single time. After all, you need to be right twice — when you get out of the market and when you get back in.

Ignoring Refurbished Goods

 It’s easy to dismiss refurbished electronics as rejects or factory failures. 

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/50-ways-throwing-money-away-010000053.html

What To Do If You’ve Depleted Your Savings Over the Last Year

What To Do If You’ve Depleted Your Savings Over the Last Year 

Gabrielle Olya   February 1, 2021,

The coronavirus pandemic has led to millions of Americans losing their jobs, and oftentimes, unemployment income alone just isn’t enough to make ends meet. As a result, some Americans may have depleted all of their savings to make it through 2020.

A survey conducted by CNBC+ and Acorns last September found that 14% of Americans — up to 46 million people — had wiped out their emergency savings since the start of the pandemic. And a survey conducted by the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies last May found that 15% of Americans had already dipped into their retirement accounts to cover living expenses, and an additional 13% planned to do so.

If you’re one of the millions of people who now need to rebuild their savings from scratch — while making ends meet in the short term without piling on debt — you may not know where to begin. Here’s what financial experts say you should do.

Build a Basic Budget

If you’re struggling to make ends meet right now, you may not have anything left over to contribute to savings. But you need to have a clear picture of your financial circumstances before you can make any moves to improve them.

“In the short term, take a look at what you have coming in, what’s going out and what’s left over,” said Andrew Meadows, senior vice president at Ubiquity Retirement + Savings. “Those are the three basic questions for building a budget. By not spending more than you have, you won’t be piling on to the debt.”

If you lost a job and are newly employed, you need to review your budget based on your new income.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ve-depleted-savings-over-last-220004476.html

The Financial Advice Your Parents Gave You is… Outdated.

The Financial Advice Your Parents Gave You is… Outdated. Here’s What to Do Instead

by Mike Brassfield  Senior Writer

Pound the pavement. Just go and deliver your resume in person. Get out there and shake some hands, why don’t ya!   We’ve all heard these financial pearls of wisdom from our parents (and not always because we asked). Despite their best intentions, a lot of these tips from our elders are, well… outdated. To say the least.

Here are six pieces of advice from our parents that simply don’t apply to us anymore — and some smarter options.

1. Work Your Way Through College

Working your way through college used to be an option — back when tuition cost a reasonable amount. That was a long time ago, though.  Most colleges’ tuitions have easily doubled or tripled since the 1980s and ’90s. Working a job while you attend college can help pay the bills, but it won’t pay for college. That’s why so many of us are saddled with student loans.

Once you graduate, refinancing could help you pay off your loans faster and save money in the long run. By combining multiple loans into one, you’ll replace your federal and private loans with a single private loan. In addition to simplifying the repayment process, refinancing can reduce your interest rate and lower your monthly payments.

2. Keep Your Money in a Savings Account

This is standard parental advice: Open a savings account. That’s the best way to save money.  Yeah, OK, fine. The problem is, with interest rates so low, a savings account these days will pay you pretty much zero interest. You may as well stick some cash under your mattress. However, a debit card and digital account called Aspiration lets you earn up to 5% cash back and up to 16 times the average interest on the money in your account.

Not too shabby! You just have to get with the times and move beyond using a brick-and-mortar bank.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/bank-accounts/outdated-advice/?aff_sub2=homepage

Five Ways To Loosen Big Tech’s Grip On Your Life

Five Ways To Loosen Big Tech’s Grip On Your Life

Notes From The Field By Simon Black

January 25, 2021  Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

I imagine there are countless people right now who feel a wide range of emotions when it comes to Big Tech companies. Anger. Disgust. Confusion. Fear.  We’ve watched with exasperation as Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. have systematically squashed intellectual dissent; their actions have been so commonplace that there’s even a name for it: “De-platforming”.  We all know there’s a ton of garbage on the Internet, including from mainstream sources.

But de-platforming has proven to be wholeheartedly biased, totally arbitrary, and often comically ridiculous. This isn’t just about the election or the Capitol. For example, if you dare utter a word on social media that goes against the infinite and infallible wisdom of the Chinese-controlled World Health Organization, then you might find yourself banned. 

YouTube even suspended a renowned epidemiologist– a bona fide pandemic expert– because he opposed lockdowns and was hence ‘dangerous’.

Facebook censored more than 22 million posts in Q2 of 2020 for ‘hate speech’. Naturally, its entirely up to Facebook to define hate speech and judge whether or not you’re using it.

#killallmen, for example, is NOT considered hate speech. And even by the company’s own admission, hate speech against men, or white people, is a low priority.

It’s clear these companies have an enormous amount of unchecked power. They have the ability to erase you from the Internet, destroy your reputation, and, if you’re someone who makes money online, terminate your livelihood.

But the only reason they have this power is because we’ve given it to them. Hundreds of millions of people have intertwined their entire lives into the Big Tech ecosystem, to the point that they know absolutely everything about us.

People post practically every detail of their lives on Instagram. They tell Zuckerberg what they like and dislike on their Facebook profiles. They tell Jack Dorsey what they believe in on their Twitter feeds.

They give Google free license to spy on every single email that’s sent or received; Google even keeps track of the things that you buy, archiving receipts from online purchases in your inbox and aggregating all of it into your advertising profile.

Through its Maps, Drive, and Calendar applications, Google has access to our schedule, our location, and our confidential files.

They know what we’re searching for. They know what we’re saying. They know what we’re doing.

And at a certain point, a rational human being might be compelled to say “enough is enough”. How can anyone possibly trust these people with their data anymore?

The good news is that there are tons of solutions.

In fact, distancing yourself from the Big Tech companies is one of the easiest ways you can declare your own independence and regain a bit of freedom and security. Below I outline a few options to consider:

1. Absolutely use a VPN

Your device, whether your mobile phone, laptop, or even smart TV, has an IP address, and it’s something that the tech companies use to track you.

Whenever you go to Google’s homepage to search for something, for example, Google already knows it’s you.

And many websites around the Internet will track you by IP address, often sharing this information with Google, Facebook, etc.

Using a VPN helps create anonymity online because you’re no longer accessing those websites from your own IP address.

Right now, for example, even though I’m sitting at home in Puerto Rico, I’m using a VPN service and accessing the Internet through a server in Panama. So any website I visit thinks that I’m in Panama.

There are several VPN providers which, as a policy, do NOT keep logs of their customers’ activities, including VyprVPN and NordVPN.

2) Change your search engine

There’s more to the world than Google search, and plenty of other search engines exist which won’t spy on you. Among them– DuckDuckGo, which is based in the United States, and SwissCows, which is based in Switzerland.

3) Change your web browser

If you use Google Chrome, chances are pretty good that your browser is constantly feeding data back to the mother ship. Everywhere you go on the Internet, Chrome is telling Google about it.

But there are plenty of other browsers out there which are far more privacy oriented. “Brave” is one such browser; it’s open-source, which means that its source code is freely available. And it is automatically set up to block trackers and ads to help protect your privacy.

If you do those three things: VPN, change your search engine, and change your browser, you will take a giant leap forward in distancing yourself from Big Tech.

Those three steps will make it much more difficult for Facebook and Google to track you. But here are a few more to consider:

4) Consider more privacy-oriented chat applications

In a couple of weeks, WhatsApp (which is owned by Facebook) will force all users to accept its new privacy policy. Among other things, this means that ALL of your contacts will be shared with Zuckerberg.

There are better options– like Signal. Signal is ultra-secure, built for privacy, and its source code is open source. There are versions for iOS, Android, PC, Mac, and Linux.

5) Ditch Gmail

You might think that Gmail is free, but you’re paying for it with your personal data.

Google’s algorithms automatically scan every incoming email and mine data about you, all of which ends up in your advertising profile.

There are plenty of other services to use, free and paid. If you’re interested in encryption and security, you might consider Switzerland-based ProtonMail, or Iceland-based CTemplar.

There are endless possibilities to reduce Big Tech influence in your life, and these suggestions barely scratch the surface.

More advanced readers might ditch their operating system altogether for an open-source Linux distribution, or even load a custom ROM on their phone to replace Google’s Android.

For now, start small. These suggestions above are easy steps to get started, and they’ll make a huge difference.

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To your freedom,  Simon Black, Founder, SovereignMan.com

https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/five-ways-to-loosen-big-techs-grip-on-your-life-30556/ 

Everything’s Fine, There’s Absolutely Nothing To See Here

 Everything’s Fine, There’s Absolutely Nothing To See Here

Notes From The Field By Simon Black January 19, 2021   Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

In the darkest corners of our human instincts lies a psychological phenomenon that is the result of millions of years of evolutionary biology.  It’s called “tonic immobility”. And it refers to a form of paralysis that occurs when we’re terrified and facing extreme mental or emotional trauma.

Tonic immobility is common in nature. Animals in the wild will often freeze in place when confronted by a predator; the idea is that making no movement, and doing absolutely nothing, increases their chances of survival because the threat will simply go away.

But as anyone who has ever been on safari or seen a nature documentary knows, the danger seldom goes away on its own.

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This instinct to ‘do nothing’ in the presence of danger runs very deep in our instincts; and it’s related to a cognitive quirk within our brains that psychologists call ‘normalcy bias’.

We’ve discussed this before. Normalcy bias is what causes human beings to believe, even in the face of obvious perils, that everything is going to be just fine.

Humans are creatures of habit. We easily fall into routines—waking up, going to work, stopping by the coffee shop on the way, spending time with the family in the evening, etc. And those routines define ‘normal’ for each and every one of us.

When the routine is disrupted, we often have a difficult time coping—even with little things. If the bakery down the street is out of the croissant flavor that we order every morning on the way to work, we’re irritated by it and don’t want to break routine by trying something new.

And major disruptions to our ‘normal’ are met by severe psychological backlash. Our brains simply refuse to acknowledge it.

This is normalcy bias. It’s one of the reasons why denial is the first stage of grief. We cannot accept the loss of a loved one who has been part of our routine– our brains won’t allow it.

Or occasionally we might find out someone has passed, and our first reaction is, “But I just saw them last week!” Again, our brains have an extremely difficult time grasping the concept that our deeply entrenched ‘normal’ is about to change.

And that’s why, when faced with something obvious that threatens our ‘normal’, it’s common for us to instinctively do nothing. Our brains are hard wired to believe that the danger will resolve itself and everything will go back to ‘normal’.

Many of us felt this way in 2020.

When the pandemic struck, it was terrifying. No one really understood anything about it; the media practically made it out to be a flesh-eating superbug that would vaporize everyone immediately.

And in the face of this threat, it was easy for politicians to convince people to literally do absolutely nothing: stay home, and shelter in place.

The idea was that if we waited long enough—if we froze in fear long enough—then the danger would pass.

And people maintained a belief throughout the year that life would eventually return to normal, no matter how crazy the world became.

When we were locked down in our homes, we believed that life would return to normal.

When mostly peaceful protestors were rioting and raging in the streets, torching private businesses that had absolutely nothing to do with their cause, we believed that life would return to normal.

When angry Marxists political candidates raged that they want to confiscate private property and nationalize entire industries, we believed that life would return to normal.

Today there are literally tanks lining in the streets of Washington DC and attack helicopters roaming the skies. A new US President is set to be inaugurated tomorrow with more than 20,000 troops guarding him.

They have already announced sweeping legislative and policy changes, ranging from substantially higher taxes to Green New nonsense to debilitating business regulations that will likely frustrate an already weakened economy.

There is absolutely zero fiscal or monetary restraint in government; there’s hardly a single policy initiative that doesn’t carry at least a trillion dollar price tag.

No one cares about the national debt—which is set to reach $30 trillion within the next few months, or the fact that the central bank balance sheet will likely pass $10 trillion this year.

Their solution to everything is to squash productivity and print money.

Yet still, countless people believe that life will return to normal. For them, part of their ‘normal’ is that America is safe, stable, and powerful… and always will be.

Their brains simply cannot accept a reality in which the country they love so dearly has changed. And it’s not going back.

This is normalcy bias, and it compels countless people to do absolutely nothing in the face of obvious threats.

When you see a government racking up trillions of dollars a year in wasteful new debt, and a central bank printing trillions of dollars of new money, a rational person would take steps to preserve his/her savings.

When the Treasury Secretary states in black and white that the Social Security trust funds will run out of money in a few years, a rational person would take steps to safeguard his/her retirement.

When the nation has become so fractured in conflict that it takes tanks and 20,000+ troops to hold a ceremony in the capital, a rational person would create a Plan B and have some backup options.

But normalcy bias makes us believe that everything is going to back to normal. So we freeze in place and do nothing.

There are plenty of solutions to mitigate these threats. But the most important thing to do right now is overcome normalcy bias.

On another note… We think gold could DOUBLE and silver could increase by up to 5 TIMES in the next few years.

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To your freedom,  Simon Black, Founder, SovereignMan.com

https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/everythings-fine-theres-absolutely-nothing-to-see-here-30486/

How To Start A Nonprofit Organization

How To Start A Nonprofit Organization

Posted on January 12, 2021 by fritz@theretirementmanifesto.com

A few years ago, my wife asked how to start a nonprofit organization.  Recently retired, she wanted to “give back” to society.  She wanted to start a charity.  She’s not alone.

Many retirees find that retirement is a great time to give back.  Many have considered starting a charity.  If you’re thinking about ways you can truly make an impact, this post is for you.  Today, we’ll answer the question of How To Start A Nonprofit Organization, with a 10 Step Overview of how to create a 501c3 corporation.

Fortunately, my wife and I figured out the steps. She’s now fully engaged in running Freedom For Fido (“FFF”), the legally incorporated 501c3 nonprofit organization (NPO) she founded in 2019.  The impact she’s had on our local community has exceeded her wildest expectations, and she’s found a true Purpose for her retired years. We answered the question of “How to start a nonprofit organization”, and we learned some things along the way. Today, we share our learnings with you.

Below are the 10 specific steps we followed, using actual examples from our experience.

10 Steps To Start Your Own Charity

1. Identify Your Cause

The Purpose of Freedom For Fido?  “Freeing Dogs From Life On A Chain.”  A short 7-word sentence that captures what my wife’s NPO is all about. Through the generous support of our donors, we build free fences for low-income families in our area.  For those dogs who’ve lived “24/7” on a chain, we also provide a free doghouse. We have over 50 volunteers who willingly serve on our “Fence Building Days”, and we have a great time helping those in need.

What’s Your Cause?  Decide what area you want to impact, and how your NPO can make a difference. What do you want your focus to be?  What is your charity going to do? What needs are present in your community? How wil  you engage volunteers?  How will you reach potential recipients?  Spend a lot of time in this area.  It seems overwhelming at first glance, but this is the foundational question and the first step in How To Start A Nonprofit Organization.  Get it right.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.theretirementmanifesto.com/how-to-start-a-nonprofit-organization/