Archives For Motivation

Keep it simple when racking your brain trying to figure out why government takes so long to do anything halfway useful or productive.

Don’t assume they know what they’re doing and that’s why it’s taking so long.  After all, they’re experts right?  Who told you they’re experts?

The reason government takes sweet time providing anything at all is simple.  It doesn’t have to provide excellent customer service.  It doesn’t have to compete in the market place and provide anything at a competitive price.  Why not?  Because it lacks competition.  Government is in the business of eliminating competition, free thinking, and self reliance.  That’s is it’s job security.

The federal gov’t is a for profit corporation.  City, county, and state gov’t are all franchisees of federal gov’t and are all for profits as well.  City, County, and State gov’t all work for the federal gov’t. Not you.

Gov’t is in the business of screwing things up that could work well most of the time if left alone.  Why?  Because it has to struggle to remain relevant in changing times and remain relevant in your life.  Efficiency saves money.  Gov’t is not in the business of saving you money.  If it got efficient and enough folks caught wind of it, said folks would expect lower taxation.  When do you suppose your tax bill will go down?

Asking a gov’t hack to stop taxing you is asking that hack to eliminate his or her job.  Not gonna happen.  Baby needs a new pair of shoes, right?

If you catch on to how stupid, slow and inept gov’t is and how much putting up with it is REALLY costing.  Well, you just might get so pissed that you’d do something about it.  If you had a set of balls.

Gov’t doesn’t want you to know its terrible secret.  The secret is you don’t need it.  The secret is it lies, cheats, and steals as a business model.  Corruption is where big money is made.  There’s plenty of profit in playing fairly for most businesses.  But that’s not enough profit for greedy, illegitimately elected pencil pushers.

Never forget: lying, cheating and stealing is the gov’t business model.  Research your local elected gov’t hack.  Mayor, state representative or governor.  Dig for their profession before and after taking office.  Dig for their net worth before and after taking office.  Who did they marry?  Is politics their family business?  Don’t forget, politics IS a business.  A HUGE one indeed.

As for employees of these corrupt corporations, most are unaware of what’s really going on at the top.  At the top, the job has nothing to do with unselfishly serving people.

Gov’t is supposed to be serving you.  It’s been turned around.  Now you’re the one serving it via taxation.  By the way, the word service is derived from the Latin word servitium, which means servitude, bondage, or slavery.

In the end, we tolerate gov’t for one reason.  We’ve come to rely on it far too much.  We believe it’s not our job to fix things.  The modern welfare state has replaced fathers in homes.  Govt wants it to stay that way, like a big union protecting its workers.  

How do you help change it?  Self reliance.  Learn to be more self reliant in any way possible.  Pick one way for starters.  Do a little bit at a time.  Grow your own vegetables.  Harvest rain water for drinking.  Don’t send your kids to gov’t schools.  Stop taking vaccinations.  Turn off mainstream news.  Give up TV.  Read a book.  A real book with pages.

All things that grow start out as a tiny seed.  They require time, care, and attention.  Just like you do.  Be good to yourself.  Keep that moral compass with you at all times.  Beauty isn’t complicated and it’s not expensive.  Create and share something wonderful with the world.  Go ahead, you can do it.  The rest of us will be right here waiting for you.

Copyright 2021, Debt Shepherd, All Rights Reserved

Having kids should largely be a financial decision. How to solve the welfare problem in America.  (EXPLICIT LANGUAGE WARNING).

Fellas, this one’s for you.

Debts are like children.  You create em.  You have to feed em.  Their life can be a month or 30 yrs.

By creating em, you get something on the front end.  A house, car, clothes, whatever.  You get the thing instantly, no 9 mo. waiting period for it to be born.

With Amazon next day shipping and a credit card, you can create a whole lot of debt children fast.  How many of them you can have is determined by how big your paycheck is.  Paying the bills reminds you how many kids you’ve got.

Ever abandoned a debt child and left someone else with the responsibility?  You decided you didn’t want to honor your contract whatever?  Kinda like getting someone pregnant and walking away leaving others to raise your offspring.  Who picked up the tab for the consequences of your spilled seed?

Walking away from a debt, your price paid might be lower credit scores, collection letters, or foreclosure.

When walking away from a child, the emotional price paid will be realized over time by you, the mother, and the child.  The monetary price society pays is instant and enormous.

Say hello to a part of the modern welfare state. One reason a community may be in shambles?  Single mothers with no dad in the house.  A mother dependent on a welfare check.  A broken family, broken neighborhood, broken city.

The state has become the father of your child.  And you wonder why an abandoned kid becomes part of the system, turns to gangs and crime.  They turn to gangs for safety.  They turn to crime for survival.  Then they fill the prisons and feed the corporate incarceration machine.

That machine isn’t totally to blame.  Its owners are just picking up where you left off.  They’re feeding, clothing, and housing your offspring.  You drained your balls and felt like a man for a few minutes.  Society gets drained of time, effort, and resources for decades.  

Imagine you get a bill in the mail and walk to every house on the block expecting neighbors to pitch in and pay your debt.

They’d tell you to get lost, get a job, and get off their porch.  

If your baby’s mom applies for welfare, your neighbors don’t see it.  It’s quiet.  The taxes they pay are their cost of your irresponsibility.  You get to avoid the embarrassment of begging others to pay your bill.  No need to beg, Uncle Sam’s got your back.

When I was a young man, a box of good condoms was about $12 bucks.  If you’re gonna fuck and don’t want kids,  be a man and spend the $12.  Don’t be a shit head and say, “It’s her responsibility to use protection.”  Don’t assume she’s on the pill. 

My high school civics teacher gave a nice piece of advice to us parting seniors.  He said, “Sex is just an energy.  Channel that energy wisely.”  He was a mormon I think.

My favorite bumper sticker said, “Porn, it’s cheaper than dating.”  It was a cartoon pic of a man holding a box of Kleenex with a big smile on his face.  You’ve got choices.  Think about it.

I’m not here to insult you.  I’m here to speak a bit of truth and offer a little tough love and encouragement.  Every action has consequences.  Some call it karma.

We all have a biological father.  Not all of us have a Dad.  I was lucky enough to have both.  If you don’t raise your children, someone else will.  And if someone else does, you’re opinion of how that turns out doesn’t count.  Unless you’re contributing financially.

Having kids should largely be a financial decision.  If you don’t have the coin, don’t drain your loins.

Copyright 2021, As The Money Flows, All Rights Reserved

I talk to Andrea. A single mother who, for the very first time, is coming into her own financially speaking.

Get Your Mind Straight. Get Your Money Straight.
Copyright 2018, Debt Shepherd, All Rights Reserved.

LOL vs LOM – 237 DSR

October 21, 2017

Who is responsible for your current financial situation?

1) Perspective – What is poor? What is rich? Where do you look to get your ideas of both? How long do those ideas stay with you?
Media influence.

2) Where are you starting from? Increasing or decreasing?

3) Why change? Necessity or luxury?

4) Environmental Determinism. Are we products of our environment? Start poor, stay poor. Start rich, stay rich.

Recap:
Who is responsible for your current financial situation? You, your parents, your grandparents, your spouse, gov’t?
In the mean time (while waiting for someone else/thing to change).
This is about taking personal responsibility. Own it.
Power of action instead of blame.

Resource:
The Minimalists.com

Get Your Mind Straight. Get Your Money Straight.
Debt Shepherd, 2017. All Rights Reserved

Poverty, Inc. – 236 DSR

September 4, 2017

“Fighting poverty is big business. But who profits most?”

from povertyinc.org

2015 Documentary Film
Winner of over 50 international film festival honors

This isn’t a film review. More a discussion urging you to examine why you give to foreign aid or any charity for that matter.

1) Who are these organizations? NGO’s, UN, Soles for Souls, World Vision, etc.

2) Am I giving due to a temporary crisis? Earthquake, flood, tsunami, etc.

3) How long after the headlines are over do you pay attention to the recipient country’s situation?

4) Foreign Aid is highly government subsidized.

i.e: The US rice company sends rice to Haiti. Haitians get it for free. The US sender gets money from the government, you the tax payer. Local Haitian rice farmers are put out of business. People become dependent on long term aid (food, clothing, etc). Not to mention the rice company who sends it doesn’t have to compete with Haitian rice farmers in a free market. Monopoly creation.

Recap:
Welfare/charity that isn’t temporary, becomes dependency. This is economic addiction, paternalism, colonialism (pc = democracy).

Institutions in power don’t want poverty to end. It’s a way to control large portions of the population. If institutions who “fight cancer” cured it, they’d be out of jobs.

Resource:
povertyinc.org / Poverty Inc (film)

Get your mind straight. Get your money straight.

Debt Shepherd 2017, All Rights Reserved

8 Hour Work Day – 234 DSR

August 19, 2017

Why do we work 8 hours a day?

The United States Adamson Act in 1916 established an eight-hour day, with additional pay for overtime, for railroad workers. This was the first federal law that regulated the hours of workers in private companies. The United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Act in Wilson v. New, 243 U.S. 332 (1917).

The eight-hour day might have been realized for many working people in the US in 1937, when what became the Fair Labor Standards Act was first proposed under the New Deal. As enacted, the act applied to industries whose combined employment represented about twenty percent of the US labour force. In those industries, it set the maximum workweek at 40 hours, but provided that employees working beyond 40 hours a week would receive additional overtime bonus salaries.

8 hrs work, 8 hrs recreation, 8 hrs sleep – Australia

1) Why 40 hrs/week other than that it’s law? We’ve been trained? It’s what capitalism requires?

2) What are your options? Four 10 hr days = 40 hrs week. Be your own boss, set your own hrs? It depends. Can you cut your hours and still serve your customers?

3) Do the math and see at 35 hrs week, could you pay your bills?
If not, look at adjusting your bills. Less house, car, credit card, entertainment.

4) What’s important? If you don’t have kids, do the math and ask those who have kids what they’re really spending. Don’t forget to ask how much $ help they’re getting from family.

Debt Shepherd 2017, All Rights Reserved

You can’t borrower your way out of debt. There’s only one way to get rid of it. Pay it off.

1) What where do I start?
Stop borrowing money. Send your Visa & Master Card divorce papers.

2) Which debt should I pay off first?
Smallest balance first, regardless of interest rate. Pre-paying neutralizes compounding interest on revolving debts.

Take min mo pmt, add 10% of your net pay. Divide that number into the balance of the debt. Divide that by 12. That’s how many months until you pay the debt off.

Example: $1,000 balance. $20 min pmt = 50 mo or 4 yrs to payoff. That doesn’t account for revolving interest, which takes longer.

$20 min mo pmt plus $60 extra. $1,000 balance divided by $80 = 12.5 mos to payoff or 1.5 yrs.

3) What about interest rates?
They’re nothing but rent payments. Interest paid is rent for the use of someone else’s money. They borrower it at, say .50% and they’re lending it to you at 4.5% for house, up to 29% on credit cards. Who’s getting the best deal in that equation?

Closing:
Borrowing money is fast and convenient. Ask why are you doing it your entire life? When does it stop?

Resource:
Piece of paper, something to write with, and calculator.

Get in touch. Podcast page. email or voicemail button.
Coaching is available.

I’m Greg Whitaker reminding you:
Get Your Mind Straight. Get Your Money Straight

Debt Shepherd 2017, All Rights Reserved

As the late Jim Rohn once said, “How can you know good paycheck if you’ve never known bad paycheck?”

1) Take a trip to the poor side of town.

Jim John gave the advice of taking your kids to the poor side of town. Show them how people who’ve made different financial decisions live. Trash in the street, cars up on blocks, yards uncut, houses in disrepair.

2) Why can’t you afford it?

Where does the money go? It goes one dollar at a time on beer, cigarettes, entertainment, fast food, etc.

The cost of our habits add up slowly over time. Financially and physically.

3) Contrast can motivate us to move up, move out or move on.

Nothing wrong with your first teenage years job being fast food, for example. Low pay, hard work. Teaches you responsibility, promptness, team work, dealing with customers (good/bad), etc.
And hopefully motivates you to want to get out of there after a short season. There’s the contrast.

By the time you start your first part time job, you should have most of these skills/experiences already instilled in you by your parents.

If they did a good job of providing you with contrast, and not protecting you from the world, your first part time job should be a much better experience.

Contrast. If everyone was the same, life would be boring. But only if we’ve first experienced everyone being different in the first place.

Resource:
Jim Rohn

Get Your Mind Straight. Get Your Money Straight.

Debt Shepherd 2017, All Rights Reserved