Rappers are giving financial advice
"'How To Survive In A Recession' With Slim Thug: 'Making It Rain? That's Stupid'" (MTV)
Rapper/boss/hustler Slim Thug just added another slash to his handle: author. After boasting this line: “Hard times got the whole United States stressin'/I'm writin' a book, how to survive in a recession” in his second verse on “I Run” from his second solo opus, Boss of All Bosses, the towering MC decided to deliver on his promise to teach the dos and don'ts to those trying to “stack bread” and those just trying to stay in their financial lane by penning the book, "How To Survive In A Recession."
“I said in the second verse of ‘I Run’ I was gonna write a book about how to survive in a recession, so then people began to ask when was the book coming out?” Slim told RapFix. “I was just playing, really. But when people began to inquire, asking and wanting me to write the book, I just started writing in my iPhone different tips you can use to stack up bread. Then I met a girl who was a publisher, so I told her what it was and we put it together. We made it happen.”
The 47-page e-book offers an entertaining prospective into the mind of an independent artist who managed to carve out his own very comfortable financial niche amongst hip-hop’s fiscal elite. The self-proclaimed Black Suze Orman offers sound financial advice in the humorous tone fans have come to recognize via Thugga’s lyrical wordplay and retweetable Twitter commentaries.
“I watch the Suze Orman Show,” Slim told RapFix. “That’s part of the reason I’m cheap. You’ll see regular 9 to 5 people and they’ll be like, 'we have a million in this, $600, 000 in that and this amount of liquid' and they just going to work every day. And I’m like, hold up, man, what are we doing wrong? How regular people gettin’ all this? It just opened my eyes and I started watching the show more and more and I learned. I always been cheap, but it made me more up on game and aware of what’s going on around me.”
For instance, Slim Orman advises one to never have Bentley bills with a Benz salary: "This goes back to one of the most basic rules; don’t live beyond your means. Don’t buy a big house when you don’t make big money. I always say if you can’t buy it THREE times over, you can’t afford it. Don’t drive a Bentley on a Benz income."
Criminals are choosing free room and board over freedom
"Inmate Population Spikes In Local Jail" (WCTV.tv)
Thomas County, Georgia- The Thomas County Jail has seen a 23% increase in inmate population over a three to four month period.
Sheriff's Deputies believe the poor economy could be a contributing factor.
"Some people that are coming to jail are not bonding out because of economics," said Thomas County Sheriff's Office spokesman Capt. Steve Jones. "It's cheaper to stay here and to sit for a couple weeks and then go to court."
State prisons are also trying to reduce their inmate populations, which results in more offenders being placed on probation.
"Work is difficult to find and when they're not working, they're not paying fines, and when they're not paying fines, they're not reporting to probation officers. Thus they revoke probation and when they revoke probation, they come to county jail," Capt. Jones added.
Adult toys are selling better than children's toys
"Sex Toy Market Booms Amid Recession" (RT)
Sex toys have been around for more than a century, and it turns out that the industry is impenetrable in the times of economic downtown.
For many industries across the United States, the economic downtown has resulted in many companies making fewer profits and devoting far fewer resources to innovation and development. One industry that’s not the case for is the sex toy industry.
“There’s three areas of the economy that tend to do okay in a recession: alcohol, make-up and sex toys,” said Jacq Jones, owner of Sugar Sex Toy Store in Baltimore, Maryland. Jones said her store has been open for five years and 2012 has been her best year ever, in terms of sales.
For some specific items, like Luna Balls, sales are through the roof.
“I used to sell one or two a month,” Jones said. “Now I’m selling ten a week.”
"Soft Game Sales Weigh on Hasbro's 2Q Earnings" (Associated Press)
PAWTUCKET, R.I. - Toy maker Hasbro Inc. said Monday its second-quarter net income dropped 25 percent on weak sales in most categories as revenue in major product categories including boys, girls and games declined.
But higher prices and cost-cutting helped the maker of Monopoly, Nerf and My Little Pony beat analysts' earnings expectations. Its shares rose 4 percent.
The second quarter is seasonally small for toy makers, which make the bulk of their sales during the second half of the year and the holiday season. But it can give indications about the strength or weakness of toy demand.
Revenue fell 11 percent in the latest quarter, missing Wall Street expectations. That drop reflected lower sales in Hasbro's boys, girls and games categories. Hasbro said that was partly planned, because the company is working to make inventory more in line with when people buy toys, later on in the year.
Consumers are trying to turn disposables into returnables
"CVS Discovers Used Enemas on Store Shelves" (First Coast News)
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- There's an empty shelf at the CVS store at 9509 San Jose Blvd.
No enemas; instead, a sign directed people who bought them to call a consumer hotline. Police are concerned that people unknowingly bought used enemas.
Police say a man began buying the enemas in March and started returning them in April.
On Tuesday, a CVS clerk thought it was strange the same man kept returning enemas. When they checked the enema boxes currently on the shelf, they discovered they were already used.
More testing confirmed the dirty truth: fecal matter on the enemas bottles ready for sale.
"I was just kinda shocked. But in today's economic times, like I said before, people are doing some strange things. This has got to rank up there with strange," said customer Bob Robbins.
Moving stairs are the new restrooms
"Human Waste Shuts Down BART Escalators" (SFGate)
When work crews pulled open a broken BART escalator at San Francisco's Civic Center Station last month, they found so much human excrement in its works they had to call a hazardous-materials team.
While the sheer volume of human waste was surprising, its presence was not. Once the stations close, the bottom of BART station stairwells in downtown San Francisco are often a prime location for homeless people to camp for the night or find a private place to relieve themselves.
All those biological excretions can gum up the wheels and gears of BART's escalators, shutting them down for long periods of extended repairs, increasing station cleaning costs and creating an unpleasant aroma for morning commuters.
Of course, that doesn't even include run-of-the-mill weirdness like Presiden't Barack Obama's claim that "the private sector is doing fine" or Republican challenger (and multimillionare) Mitt Romney's remark that "there were a couple of times I wondered whether I was going to get a pink slip."
To paraphrase the Grateful Dead, what a long strange trip it is nowadays.
Strange times
Consumers are trying to turn disposables into returnables
"CVS Discovers Used Enemas on Store Shelves" (First Coast News)
http://www.ksdk.com/news/article/326830/9/CVS-discovers-used-enemas-on-store-shelves-
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- There's an empty shelf at the CVS store at 9509 San Jose Blvd.
No enemas; instead, a sign directed people who bought them to call a consumer hotline. Police are concerned
that people unknowingly bought used enemas.
Police say a man began buying the enemas in March and started returning them in April.
On Tuesday, a CVS clerk thought it was strange the same man kept returning enemas. When they checked the
enema boxes currently on the shelf, they discovered they were already used.
More testing confirmed the dirty truth: fecal matter on the enemas bottles ready for sale.
"I was just kinda shocked. But in today's economic times, like I said before, people are doing some strange
things. This has got to rank up there with strange," said customer Bob Robbins.
Rappers are giving financial advice
"'How To Survive In A Recession' With Slim Thug: 'Making It Rain? That's Stupid'" (MTV)
http://rapfix.mtv.com/2012/07/24/slim-thug-how-to-survive-in-a-recession-ebook-tips/
Rapper/boss/hustler Slim Thug just added another slash to his handle: author. After boasting this line:
“Hard times got the whole United States stressin'/I'm writin' a book, how to survive in a recession” in his
second verse on “I Run” from his second solo opus, Boss of All Bosses, the towering MC decided to deliver on
his promise to teach the dos and don'ts to those trying to “stack bread” and those just trying to stay in
their financial lane by penning the book, "How To Survive In A Recession."
“I said in the second verse of ‘I Run’ I was gonna write a book about how to survive in a recession, so then
people began to ask when was the book coming out?” Slim told RapFix. “I was just playing, really. But when
people began to inquire, asking and wanting me to write the book, I just started writing in my iPhone
different tips you can use to stack up bread. Then I met a girl who was a publisher, so I told her what it
was and we put it together. We made it happen.”
The 47-page e-book offers an entertaining prospective into the mind of an independent artist who managed to
carve out his own very comfortable financial niche amongst hip-hop’s fiscal elite. The self-proclaimed Black
Suze Orman offers sound financial advice in the humorous tone fans have come to recognize via Thugga’s
lyrical wordplay and retweetable Twitter commentaries.
“I watch the Suze Orman Show,” Slim told RapFix. “That’s part of the reason I’m cheap. You’ll see regular 9
to 5 people and they’ll be like, 'we have a million in this, $600, 000 in that and this amount of liquid'
and they just going to work every day. And I’m like, hold up, man, what are we doing wrong? How regular
people gettin’ all this? It just opened my eyes and I started watching the show more and more and I learned.
I always been cheap, but it made me more up on game and aware of what’s going on around me.”
For instance, Slim Orman advises one to never have Bentley bills with a Benz salary: "This goes back to one
of the most basic rules; don’t live beyond your means. Don’t buy a big house when you don’t make big money.
I always say if you can’t buy it THREE times over, you can’t afford it. Don’t drive a Bentley on a Benz
income."
Criminals are choosing prison over freedom
http://www.wctv.tv/news/headlines/Local_Jail__162403936.html?ref=936
"Inmate Population Spikes In Local Jail" (WCTV.tv)
Thomas County, Georgia- The Thomas County Jail has seen a 23% increase in inmate population over a three to
four month period.
Sheriff's Deputies believe the poor economy could be a contributing factor.
"Some people that are coming to jail are not bonding out because of economics," said Thomas County Sheriff's
Office spokesman Capt. Steve Jones. "It's cheaper to stay here and to sit for a couple weeks and then go to
court."
State prisons are also trying to reduce their inmate populations, which results in more offenders being
placed on probation.
"Work is difficult to find and when they're not working, they're not paying fines, and when they're not
paying fines, they're not reporting to probation officers. Thus they revoke probation and when they revoke
probation, they come to county jail," Capt. Jones added.
Adult toys are selling better than children's toys
"Sex Toy Market Booms Amid Recession" (RT)
http://rt.com/usa/news/recession-sex-industry-toy-531/
Sex toys have been around for more than a century, and it turns out that the industry is impenetrable in the
times of economic downtown.
For many industries across the United States, the economic downtown has resulted in many companies making
fewer profits and devoting far fewer resources to innovation and development. One industry that’s not the
case for is the sex toy industry.
“There’s three areas of the economy that tend to do okay in a recession: alcohol, make-up and sex toys,”
said Jacq Jones, owner of Sugar Sex Toy Store in Baltimore, Maryland. Jones said her store has been open for
five years and 2012 has been her best year ever, in terms of sales.
For some specific items, like Luna Balls, sales are through the roof.
“I used to sell one or two a month,” Jones said. “Now I’m selling ten a week.”
"Soft Game Sales Weigh on Hasbro's 2Q Earnings" (Associated Press)
http://www.live5news.com/story/19086781/soft-game-sales-weigh-on-hasbros-2q-earnings
PAWTUCKET, R.I. - Toy maker Hasbro Inc. said Monday its second-quarter net income dropped 25 percent on weak
sales in most categories as revenue in major product categories including boys, girls and games declined.
But higher prices and cost-cutting helped the maker of Monopoly, Nerf and My Little Pony beat analysts'
earnings expectations. Its shares rose 4 percent.
The second quarter is seasonally small for toy makers, which make the bulk of their sales during the second
half of the year and the holiday season. But it can give indications about the strength or weakness of toy
demand.
Revenue fell 11 percent in the latest quarter, missing Wall Street expectations. That drop reflected lower
sales in Hasbro's boys, girls and games categories. Hasbro said that was partly planned, because the company
is working to make inventory more in line with when people buy toys, later on in the year.
Escalators are the new restrooms
"Human Waste Shuts Down BART Escalators" (SFGate)
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Human-waste-shuts-down-BART-escalators-3735981.php
When work crews pulled open a broken BART escalator at San Francisco's Civic Center Station last month, they
found so much human excrement in its works they had to call a hazardous-materials team.
While the sheer volume of human waste was surprising, its presence was not. Once the stations close, the
bottom of BART station stairwells in downtown San Francisco are often a prime location for homeless people
to camp for the night or find a private place to relieve themselves.
All those biological excretions can gum up the wheels and gears of BART's escalators, shutting them down for
long periods of extended repairs, increasing station cleaning costs and creating an unpleasant aroma for
morning commuters.
Good stuff Michael!
here's another perspective regarding the upcoming (faux) election:
http://questioneverything.typepad.com/question_everything/2012/07/watching-the-political-system-er-circus.html
Watching the Political System (er, Circus)
What Happened to the Political System?
(from the link)
"The political process as it is playing out in the United States this summer and early fall will be something else to watch. I seriously doubt that there are too many observers of what has been going on so far who do not believe that the system is broken badly. The presidential race is an amplified version of a comedy that is playing out all over the world, at all scales of governance districts. Corrupt, stupid, narcissistic, politicians are playing into the hands of corrupt, stupid, narcissistic capitalists everywhere and in every level of governments. These days even those few earnest and generally honest politicians who got into public service because they really believed they could help the system and people living under it find they have to play the game by the rules that have evolved which are mostly about money, power, and getting re-elected (or not getting assassinated in a coup). In the US this season is further made preposterous by the Supreme Court's Citizen United decision which basically gave corporate powers carte blanche in purchasing the best candidates for representing their interests. Judges are supposed to exercise good judgment. The courts and laws are the backbone of civil society. When the back is broken, nothing else will work properly. What happened with the justices who found in favor of this abomination? What they will have done is simply accelerate the collapse of the political process and the collapse of governance."
(and, further down)
"Because growth and capitalism have now started to diminish well being as resource limits are being approached, the system as a whole is starting to fail. And that motivates each side in the various debates to insist more strongly that their political philosophies are the most appropriate to ‘fix’ things. It never occurs to either side that the problem is in the one thing they both agree on. Talk about irony."
Posted by: Tom | July 31, 2012 at 05:52 AM
When in financial trouble, unemployed,
stressed out, fearful, anxious, by
all means turn to alcohol and sex toys.
For that matter throw in some pot and
cigaretts too.
After you have maxed out the
high interest credit cards, you should
have never had in the first place, drunk
up the booze, etc. etc. pray you can find
a local soup kitchen to have lunch.And
then get your name on the waiting list for
the homeless shelter. A perfect prescription for success and well being.
Posted by: Marion Shaw | July 31, 2012 at 10:42 AM
The CEO Plan to Steal Your Social Security and Medicare
While Pearlstein clearly sees these backroom meetings of corporate chieftains in positive terms (he refers to them as "grown-ups" who have been noticeably absent from the conversation about the budget), the rest of us might view this plotting a bit differently. As Pearlstein openly acknowledges, this corporate coup is an end-run around the electorate. As corrupt as the political process may have become, at least we will get a vote in the election. Pearlstein's plotters are not inviting the rest of us into the conversation.
Many of the same folks who brought the economy to ruin just a few years ago are now going to come up with a plan that is supposed to set the budget and the economy on a forward path. At the center of their proposal are big cuts in Social Security and Medicare.
The most popular Social Security cut among this gang is a reduction in the annual cost of living adjustment (COLA) by 0.3 percentage points. They are betting that are ordinary people are too dumb to notice this cut since it is a relatively small amount each year.
http://truth-out.org/news/item/10600-the-ceo-plan-to-steal-your-social-security-and-medicare
Posted by: mud pies for everyone? | July 31, 2012 at 11:40 AM
Asking the right question is far more important than the answer. There will always be somebody in financial trouble,
there will always be somebody who is homeless,but when these two conditions become the norm,then it is time to ask what is wrong with the system? this belief that people have a free spirit,do has they please by sheer will of power is religious hogwash, the brain a product of nature reacts to the material conditions it is in IE:when it gets cold it reaches for warm clothing,when it gets hungry it reaches for food, if it has no answer it goes berserk and tries to escape. In a fair and secure society the average person will feel the same way,in an aggressive war like
environment it will respond accordingly,Spartans,Nazi Germany. No amount of moralizing can change that.
Posted by: roger | July 31, 2012 at 12:09 PM
Marion:
I have little need for drugs, sweets, sex toys, etc.
Every Sabbath, as one of the 613 commandments, I have an orgasm with God.
Shalom,
Don Levit
Posted by: Don Levit | July 31, 2012 at 01:53 PM
You Know You're in Strange Economic Times When...
(confident Capitalist are turning into paralyzed plutocrats,
when millionaire's confidence is plunging to it's lower point in 9 years, CNBC Robert Frank.)
Now if that is not a material world,I don't know what is.
Posted by: roger | July 31, 2012 at 02:23 PM
Don: With all due respect, God is
gentleman, and you have failed that test today.
Posted by: Marion Shaw | July 31, 2012 at 02:38 PM
Currency & Current
Capital is all about denial, resulting in net misdirection and nonperforming assets under closed system conditions, relative to Nature. Middle Class is all about entitlement, resulting net consumption and scarcity under closed system conditions. Labor is all about fortitude, consumption delay. Does that remind you of something, like V=IR. It’s not about good and evil for Labor; it’s about batteries, direct and alternating current.
When capital creates artificial borders, effectively closing itself off from nature, what do you expect to happen? When the middle class is not semi-permeable, what do you expect to happen? When labor deflates directly, what do you expect to happen? The bomb grows incrementally until it reaches quantum backlash threshold, resulting in creative destruction. In net, it’s all about the aggregate perception of labor. Where is the incentive equilibrium?
Energy is neither created nor destroyed. It is simply transformed, by perception, which may be physically, intellectually, and spiritually filtered into channels, or event horizons. Nature is always at work, regardless of human activity, and its capacity is several orders of magnitude greater than human civilization. Because nature is relatively open to humanity, absent acceptance of status quo perception, the equilibrium depends upon your labor, aggregated.
All three branches of government are locked up, and according to the sovereign and bond markets, the Fed is locked up. At the most derivative retail level, the equity market, current is still passing, but at what cost? The only option for the Fed, with the effect of jawboning approaching 0, is to accelerate the deflation/inflation lottery centrifuge by another order of magnitude. If you were positioning incentive, what would you do?
The Fed’s position is not quite as simple as many assume, because it depends upon you, aggregated, for feedback. The statists continue to collect big overtime. Under dc conditions (the assumption of top-down command and control that the middle class currently accepts so blindly), equity is a function of the Fed, in a positive feedback loop, but, if individuals do not accept responsibility, the entire system is going to blow up.
Labor says do what you think is best, but if you are wrong, you will be fired and must begin anew, closing off your system. Capital says follow instructions, and when you fail, you will be given more to do, by extension of credit. The middle class is in the middle, approaching threshold anxiety, because it overwhelmingly sided with material capital, becoming efficiently inelastic as a result. You’ll have that from time to time, generation to generation. Labor works for capital, building bridges to nowhere as exercise, until it is time to build a bridge to somewhere, when polarity is reversed.
Obviously, the majority prefers to work at the behest of capital, doing make-work, and labor distills accordingly, until it doesn’t, establishing direction and acceleration. Invest, in gold or anything else, accordingly. From the perspective of chemistry, it’s all about the electrons. From the perspective of biology, it’s all about the protons. Where are you, in the rabbit hole? If you do not like your position, change the channel relative to nature. You are the inductor semi-conductor, and civilization is the aggregate perception.
Emotion does not make you human. It’s a derivative in the feedback loop. It allows you to change channels. Employ it, or the empire will employ you. Is that voice in your head the empire, or the unknown, beckoning your perception? Without risk, there is only death, waiting to happen. Life is about learning. Death is about knowledge. Knowledge is not power; it’s the common. Whether it is supply or return depends upon perspective.
Choice is discrimination. Only a fool seeks both choice and equality, expecting anything other than death. Where you go in life, and the universe, depends upon how you construct your elevator, the time machine. If a CEO says that a company’s fortunes are tied to GDP, what does that tell you? It tells me that I don’t want to work for Boeing, but I always bet on the unknown, and you never know where you are going to find it.
What you seek is always in plain sight, once you remove the filter of false assumptions. Interestingly, Boeing keeps sending me emails stating that if I get a loan and go back to school, to certify that I understand its math, there is a lucrative job waiting for me…California keeps sending me snail mail stating that if I just pay its arbitrary tax, I can go back to work…and there is no end to the non-profits offering guidance, for my spiritual development.
Funny, when I work as an enterprise architect, attitudes reverse polarity. Attack at will, but don’t assume the perception of non-response is passive. I just have better things to do than make-work, and so do you. Labor is always ready and willing, to seek the unknown, locked and loaded for bear. Whether CA is hunting me, I am hunting CA, both, or neither is a matter of perception, your location in the hurricane. All the components of circulation depend upon you.
The empire price reflects the cost of gravity. Break it down and rebuild it to reflect your individual interest in liberty. Digital order and disorder is for robots. You are the meter. Complete the circuit for yourself, as an example to your children. Travel. The real business cycle is ac, not dc.
The majority has the attention span of a gnat, and the payoff for labor is quantum. Responsible young people feel the weight of the world on their shoulders because they do, instead of talk, and drop like flies for lack of example. Expect the opposite of sympathy; misery loves company in the black hole, where current and currency travel in the same direction, until they don’t. What do you suppose creates the eye?
"If China can manage to rebalance its economy and address some of its challenges effectively, that's very good news for China and the world, says Tong Li, senior economist at the Milken Institute…"
Posted by: kevinearick | July 31, 2012 at 03:31 PM
Marion:
With all due respect, God is neither male nor female.
And, yes, it is a commandment for a married couple to have marital relations on the Sabbath. It is not considered work.
However, as I do not personally believe in sexual relations unless one is attempting to have a child, I have to look for other alternatives.
What, you think it is impossible to have an orgasm with God, but God is possible!
Don Levit
Posted by: Don Levit | July 31, 2012 at 07:20 PM
Kevin, on a finite planet there is a limit to the amount of energy we can use before it's gone. There is also a biological limit to the population (it's called "carrying capacity" - the number of people the world can supply with food) and we're already long past it. Although i agree that Nature operates at several orders of magnitude beyond the population, you forgot that this same population gobbles up the resources until they're all gone AND pollutes the entire biosphere in the process with its waste: like yeast in a culture (that's how freaking sapient we are). In short, we're killing our host or alternately, we're too stupid to live here.
It's the same for the entire planet. We're on our way out as a species.
Posted by: Tom | August 02, 2012 at 05:29 PM