Category: Wealth Tips

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Choices

I was waiting in line for a ride at the airport. When a cab pulled up, the first thing I noticed was the taxi was polished to a bright shine. Smartly dressed in a white shirt, black tie, and freshly pressed black slacks, the cab driver jumped out and rounded the car to open the back passenger door for me.

He handed me a laminated card and said, “I’m Wasu, your driver. While I’m loading your bags in the trunk, I’d like you to read my mission statement.”

Taken aback, I read the card. It said, “Wasu’s Mission Statement: To get my customers to their destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest way possible in a friendly environment.”

This blew me away. Especially when I noticed the inside of the cab matched the outside. Spotlessly clean!

As he slid behind the wheel, Wasu said, “Would you like a cup of coffee? I have a thermos of regular and one of decaf.”
I said jokingly, “No, I’d prefer a soft drink.”

Wasu smiled and said, “No problem. I have a cooler up front with regular and Diet Coke, lassi, water, and orange juice.”

Almost stuttering, I said, “I’ll take a lassi since I’ve never had one before.”

Handing me my drink, Wasu said, “If you’d like something to read, I have Good Housekeeping magazine, Reader’s Digest, The Bible, and a Travel + Leisure magazine.”

As we were pulling away, Wasu handed me another laminated card, “These are the stations I get and the music they play, if you’d like to listen to the radio.”

And as if that weren’t enough, Wasu told me he had the heater on and asked if the temperature was comfortable for me.
Then he advised me of the best route to my destination for that time of day. He also let me know he’d be happy to chat and tell me about some of the sights or, if I preferred, to leave me with my own thoughts.

“Tell me, Wasu,” I was amazed and asked him, “have you always served customers like this?”

Wasu smiled into the rear view mirror. “No, not always. In fact, it’s only been in the last two years. My first five years driving, I spent most of my time complaining like all the rest of the cabbies do. Then I heard about power of choice one day.”

“Power of choice is that you can be a duck or an eagle. If you get up in the morning expecting to have a bad day, you’ll rarely disappoint yourself. Stop complaining! Don’t be a duck. Be an eagle. Ducks quack and complain. Eagles soar above the crowd.”

“That hit me right,” said Wasu. He continued and said, “It is about me. I was always quacking and complaining, so I decided to change my attitude and become an eagle. I looked around at the other cabs and their drivers. The cabs were dirty, the drivers were unfriendly, and the customers were unhappy. So I decided to make some changes. I put in a few at a time. When my customers responded well, I did more.”

“I take it that has paid off for you,” I said.

“It sure has,” Wasu replied. “My first year as an eagle, I doubled my income from the previous year. This year, I’ll probably quadruple it. My customers call me for appointments on my cell phone or leave a message on it.”

Wasu made a different choice. He decided to stop quacking like ducks and start soaring like eagles. I hope we all decide to soar like an eagle and not quack like a duck.

Credit: Summer Grace Vanni

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Climate Truth

Coal Fired Power Station

My name is Terence Cardwell. I spent 25 years in the Electricity Commission of NSW working, commissioning and operating the various power units. My last was the 4 X 350 MW Munmorah Power Stations near Newcastle.

First coal fired power stations do NOT send 60 to 70% of the energy up the chimney. The boilers of modern power station are 96% efficient and the exhaust heat is captured by the economisers and reheaters that heat the air and water before entering the boilers.

The very slight amount exiting the stack is moist as in condensation and CO2. There is virtually no fly ash because this is removed by the precipitators or bagging plant that are 99.98% efficient. The 4% lost is heat through boiler wall convection.

Coal-fired Power Stations are highly efficient with very little heat loss and can generate a massive amount of energy for our needs. They can generate power at efficiency of less than 10,000 b.t.u. per kilowatt and cost-wise that is very low.
The percentage cost of mining and freight is very low. The total cost of fuel is 8% of total generation cost and does NOT constitute a major production cost.

As for being laughed out of the country, China is building multitudes of coal-fired power stations because they are the most efficient for bulk power generation.

We have, like, the USA , coal-fired power stations because we HAVE the raw materials and are VERY fortunate to have them. Believe me no one is laughing at Australia – exactly the reverse, they are very envious of our raw materials and independence. The major percentage of power in Europe and U.K. is nuclear because they don’t have the coal supply for the future.

Yes it would be very nice to have clean, quiet, cheap energy in bulk supply. Everyone agrees that it would be ideal. You don’t have to be a genius to work that out. But there is only one problem—It doesn’t exist

Yes – there are wind and solar generators being built all over the world but they only add a small amount to the overall power demand.

The maximum size wind generator is 3 Megawatts, which can rarely be attained on a continuous basis because it requires substantial forces of wind. And for the same reason only generate when there is sufficient wind to drive them. This of course depends where they are located but usually they only run for 45% -65% of the time, mostly well below maximum capacity. They cannot be relied on for a ‘base load ‘because they are too variable. And they certainly could not be used for load control.

The peak load demand for electricity in Australia is approximately 50,000 Megawatts and only small part of this comes from the Snowy Hydro Electric System (the ultimate power Generation) because it is only available when water is there from snow melt or rain. And yes, they can pump it back but it costs to do that. (Long Story).

Tasmania is very fortunate in that they have mostly hydro-electric generation because of their high amounts of snow and rainfall. They also have wind generators (located in the roaring forties) but that is only a small amount of total power generated.

Based on an average generating output of 1.5 megawatts (of unreliable power) you would require over 33,300 wind generators.

As for solar power generation much research has been done over the decades and there are two types.
Solar thermal generation and Solar Electric generation but in each case they cannot generate large amounts of electricity.
Any clean, cheap energy is obviously welcomed but they would NEVER have the capability of replacing Thermal Power Generation. So get your heads out of the clouds, do some basic mathematics and look at the facts, – not going off with the fairies (or some would say the extreme greenies.)

We are all greenies in one form or another and care very much about our planet. The difference is most of us are realistic. Not in some idyllic utopia where everything can be made perfect by standing around holding a banner and being a general pain in the backside.

Here are some facts that will show how ridiculous this financial madness is that the government is following. Do the simple maths and see for yourselves.

According to the ‘believers’ the CO2 in air has risen from .034% to .038% in air over the last 50 years.

To put the percentage of Carbon Dioxide in air in a clearer perspective;
If you had a room 3.7 x 3.7 x 2.1 metres the area carbon dioxide would occupy in that room would be .25 x .25 x ..17m or the size of a large packet of cereal.

Australia emits 1% of the world’s total carbon Dioxide and the government wants to reduce this by 20%t or reduce emissions by 0.2 % of the world’s total CO2 emissions.

What effect will this have on existing CO2 levels?

By their own figures they state the CO2 in air has risen from .034% to .038% in 50 years.

Assuming this is correct, the world CO2 has increased in 50 years by…004%.

Per year that is .004 divided by 50 = .00008%. (Getting confusing -but stay with me).

Of that because we only contribute 1% our emissions would cause CO2 to rise .00008 divided by 100 =
.0000008 %.

Of that 1%, we supposedly emit, the governments wants to reduce it by 20% which is 1/5th of .0000008 =…00000016% effect per year they would have on the world CO2 emissions based on their own figures.

That would equate to an area in the same room, as the size of a small pin.

For that they have gone crazy with the ridiculous trading schemes, Solar and Roofing Installations, Clean Coal Technology Renewable Energy, etc, etc.

How ridiculous it that?

The cost to the general public and industry will be enormous. Cripple and even closing some smaller businesses.

T.L. Cardwell

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We Are On The Cusp Of A Massive Crack-Up Boom

No Avoiding The Crash

A fundamental confidence in the power and authority of governments setting monetary policy is required for fiat currencies to have any validity with its users. If that goes, preferences in favour of a currency become eroded to the point where no sane consumer wants to hold it.

We are now at an important point in that journey to extinction. Interest rates are rising inexorably, and market participants are just beginning to understand that official forecasts, which are after a year or two of slightly higher interest rates price increases will return to a targeted CPI rise of 2%, are propaganda. The financial bubble, which has been decades in its inflating, is now imploding.

In it past time to consider the policy makers’ response. Having discarded the quantity theory of money, we can see that the imploding financial bubble requires central banks to increase the rate of currency expansion and to underwrite the expansion of bank credit, by rescuing the entire commercial banking network if called upon.

We are about to experience the worst of two worlds simultaneously: while the financial bubble collapses, in anticipation of and the response to an accelerated debasement of fiat currencies, prices of everything from commodities to finished goods will soar as a crack-up boom materialises.

https://kingworldnews.com/we-are-on-the-cusp-of-a-massive-crack-up-boom/

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You Are Eternal

You Are Eternal

Never truer words spoken! Everything that makes you think you are less than an immortal, indestructible being is something that was added, with your agreement I’m sorry to tell you, to make you think you are less than this. So stop being so damned agreeable! Start being uncompromising in your recognition that you are more powerful than you have been led to believe. If you weren’t that powerful they wouldn’t have put so much effort into making you believe otherwise!

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“Meltdown”: Bank Of America Sounding The Alarm On Collapsing Freight Demand

Trucking Big Rig

Freight is often looked at as a bellwether for the rest of the economy. If industries ranging from retail to housing to lumber are estimating that they’ll need fewer truckers, many economists see that as an omen of an economic downturn. If people aren’t buying or building as much stuff, there’s less of a need for truckers. Trucks move 72% of all freight.

One 2019 study from Convoy, a trucking brokerage firm, found that six out of 12 trucking recessions led to macroeconomic downturns. For example, the trucking industry dipped in April 2006 — more than a year before the Great Recession slammed the larger economy.

Trucking experiences recessionary periods twice as much as the rest of the economy. But for the 2 million American truck drivers who power much of this industry, the effects can be brutal.

Trucking demand is “near freight recession levels,” according to Bank of America. Shippers’ outlook on rates, capacity and inventory levels are matching attitudes not seen since May and June 2020, when pandemic lockdowns sent freight volumes into a historic decline.

As FreightWaves reports, in a Friday note to investors, Ken Hoexter (available to Zero Hedge professional subscribers), the managing director of Bank of America’s trucking research, wrote that shippers’ view of demand is down 23% year-over-year. The proprietary Truckload Demand Indicator hit 58 — the lowest since June 2020. 

https://www.activistpost.com/2022/04/meltdown-bank-of-america-sounding-the-alarm-on-collapsing-freight-demand.html

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The Path to Mastery

Got to thinking about how to increase my results in life. Looked over what I had learned and put together this. Hope you get something from it.

It started with recalling that anything I cannot confront (face without flinching) I cannot see. Anything I cannot see I cannot do much with. So I figured I should simply raise my confront to the point where I could confront anything. The more I thought on it the more a sequence of actions formed that led to total mastery in an area. I compared it to my experiences in life and it matches.

First, we assume a BEINGNESS
Then we adopt a VIEWPOINT, a point from which to view.
We LOOK at the environment, and, as a result
We consider something, make a CONSIDERATION
Make a DECISION to pursue a course of action
Formulate and maintain the INTENTION to accomplish something.
(The rest of these items are not so much a label for a point as they are a label for a gradient scale of ability as each capitalized item can [and should] be improved.)
Maintain the DISCIPLINE to overcome obstacles and ignore distractions that are present or will manifest.
Either be able to or raise the willingness to CONFRONT a thing,
The confronting will raise our AWARENESS
Such that we can increase our PERCEPTION of our environment
Which will raise our OBSERVATION of it
Which will allow COMMUNICATION with it
To improve our REALITY on it
And raise our AFFINITY with it.
The previous three will deliver UNDERSTANDING of it
So we have KNOWLEDGE of it.
With knowledge, if we are prepared to take RESPONSIBILITY for it
We can then CONTROL it.
If we then exercise DISCIPLINE to
Engage in PRACTICE or DRILLING to
Acquire COMPETENCE with it
And, eventually, MASTERY of it.

It will be observed that it is impossible to attain an item later on the list with an item earlier not being present.

This raised my respect for people who have acquired a high level of competence or mastery in an area. There are a lot of elements that go to make up mastery of a sport, art, profession, relationship or even life itself!

So if you are pretty damn good at something, take a bow!

Recognise what you have done and don’t lose sight of the journey when starting a new endeavour.

I figure I can also have this list serve as a guide as to what might be out if I am not attaining the results I desire.

And this is about as good an example as you will get of an over-simplification because you could write a book about each one of those capitalized letters. In fact books have been written about them.

And of course, because there is a gradient scale of competence for each point and each of these items applies to any given area of endeavour, we can be at different levels of competence for the same point in different areas.

Let me know if this was of use.

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Education vs Schooling

Education vs Schooling

And along that line, something I read years ago from Larry Ellison:

Following is a talk given by Larry Ellison (Oracle Founder) to Yale Graduates in 2000.

“Graduates of Yale University, I apologize if you have endured this type of prologue before, but I want you to do something for me. Please, take a good look around you. Look at the classmate on your left. Look at the classmate on your right. Now, consider this: five years from now, 10 years from now, even 30 years from now, odds are the person on your left is going to be a loser. The person on your right, meanwhile, will also be a loser. And you, in the middle? What can you expect? Loser. Loserhood. Loser Cum Laude.

“In fact, as I look out before me today, I don’t see a thousand hopes for a bright tomorrow. I don’t see a thousand future leaders in a thousand industries. I see a thousand losers.

“You’re upset. That’s understandable. After all, how can I, Lawrence ‘Larry’ Ellison, college dropout, have the audacity to spout such heresy to the graduating class of one of the nation’s most prestigious institutions? I’ll tell you why.

Because I, Lawrence “Larry” Ellison, second richest man on the planet, am a college dropout, and you are not.

“Because Bill Gates, richest man on the planet — for now, anyway — is a college dropout, and you are not.

“Because Paul Allen, the third richest man on the planet, dropped out of college, and you did not.

“And for good measure, because Michael Dell, No. 9 on the list and moving up fast, is a college dropout, and you, yet again, are not.

“Hmm . . . you’re very upset. That’s understandable. So let me stroke your egos for a moment by pointing out, quite sincerely, that your diplomas were not attained in vain. Most of you, I imagine, have spent four to five years here, and in many ways what you’ve learned and endured will serve you well in the years ahead. You’ve established good work habits. You’ve established a network of people that will help you down the road. And you’ve established what will be lifelong relationships with the word ‘therapy.’ All that of is good. For in truth, you will need that network. You will need those strong work habits. You will need that therapy.

“You will need them because you didn’t drop out, and so you will never be among the richest people in the world. Oh sure, you may, perhaps, work your way up to No. 10 or No. 11, like Steve Ballmer. But then, I don’t have to tell you who he really works for, do I? And for the record, he dropped out of grad school. Bit of a late bloomer.

“Finally, I realize that many of you, and hopefully by now most of you, are wondering, ‘Is there anything I can do? Is there any hope for me at all?’ Actually, no. It’s too late. You’ve absorbed too much, think you know too much. You’re not 19 anymore. You have a built-in cap, and I’m not referring to the mortar boards on your heads.

“Hmm… you’re really very upset. That’s understandable. So perhaps this would be a good time to bring up the silver lining. Not for you, Class of ’00. You are a write-off, so I’ll let you slink off to your pathetic $200,000-a-year jobs, where your checks will be signed by former classmates who dropped out two years ago.

“Instead, I want to give hope to any underclassmen here today. I say to you, and I can’t stress this enough: leave. Pack your things and your ideas and don’t come back. Drop out. Start up.

“For I can tell you that a cap and gown will keep you down just as surely as these security guards dragging me off this stage are keeping me down . . .”

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The Dominoes Have Started Falling – Sri Lanka Government Suspends All External Debt Payments Signaling Bankruptcy

Weakest Die First

The Sri Lankan government announced on Tuesday a temporary suspension of repayment in all external debts of about $51 billion due to the worsening economic crisis in the country caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war.

“We have lost the ability to repay foreign debt. It has come to a point that making debt payments are challenging and impossible,” Central Bank Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe said at the media briefing.

Half a million people have sunk into poverty since the pandemic, with rising costs forcing many to cut back on food, the Guardian reported.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/04/sri-lanka-government-suspends-external-debt-payments-signaling-bankruptcy-due-impacts-covid-19-ukraine-war/