This may be why

I knew this but never thought to post it figuring everyone else knew it to. Someone sent it to me in an email today and the lightbulb came on!

Being a marketer I knew I could have had my way with every email address that people forwarded to me. I even had software to extract them!

But didn’t…… Just couldn’t bring myself to do it…..  I would have even been nice and sent an optin request and never sent another thing if they didn’t opt in ….. but I didn’t!

Must be the Vermonter in me…….

I could not believe the people that were puttting their friends and families email addresses out for the scum of the earth to take advantage of. I used to reply with a warning but few took heed. Now I am Just letting you all know it can and is done every day.

The best way to protect everyone (you never know what could be in these "forward" emails anyway!) is to copy and paste (without formating) to a new email. This will stop the email address collection cycle most of the time.

1) Any time you see an E-Mail that says forward this on to ’10′ of your friends sign this petition, or you’ll get bad luck, or whatever, it has either an E-Mail tracker program attached that tracks the cookies and E-Mails of those folks you forward. The host sender is getting a copy each time it gets forwarded and then is able to get lists of ‘active’ E-Mails to use in SPAM E-Mails, or sell to others that do.

2) Almost all E-Mails that ask you to add your name and forward on to others are similar to that mass letter years ago that asked people to send business cards to the little kid in Florida who wanted to break the Guinness Book of Records for the most cards. All it was, and all any of this type of E-Mail is, is a way to get names and ‘cookie’ tracking information for telemarketers and spammers – - to validate active E-Mail accounts for their own purposes.

You can do your friends and family members a favor by sending this information to them; you will be providing a service to your friends, and will be rewarded by not getting thousands of Spam E-Mails in the future!

If you have been sending out (FORWARDING) the above kinds of E-Mail, now you know why you get so much SPAM!

Do yourself a favor and STOP adding your name(S) to those type listings regardless how inviting they might sound! You think you are supporting a GREAT cause, but you are NOT in the long run. Instead, you will be getting tons of junk mail later in life!

Also: E-Mail petitions are NOT acceptable to Congress or any other organization. To be acceptable, petitions must have a signed signature and full address of the person signing the petition. Read the full story here: http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/petition/internet.asp "

In my internet marketing travels I have come across some interesting people and get some very interesting emails from time to time. Not that I believe we can put all the blame on any one person, even Bush. This seems to fit the situation.

This article comes origanially from:  http://www.urbansurvival.com/week.htm

"Strong Dollars" and other Foreign Policies

As the end of the Bush Presidency rolls into view, the headlines continue to underscore that despite arguments to the contrary, we seem not to be doing so well in the foreign policy arena.

Not to picks on just one example like "Poland rejects U.S. missile shield offer", or The Wars, I’d point to the largest problem the administration has brought to both investors and regular everyday Main Street America.

That’s the often claimed "strong dollar policy" of the White House, mouthed by various Treasury and Federal Reserve officials on cue.

Let’s roll back the clock to see where the dollar was when The Decider was one day into his Presidency on January 20, 2001.  But first, here’s a headline from that day to put you into the mood for this little exercise in forensic economics:  "We got some dancing to do," Bush says!‘

On that day, ONE U.S. Dollar bought 1.07030 Euro according to the Oanda.com historical exchange data.

When the markets closed on Friday the Fourth yesterday, the exchange was ONE U.S. Dollar buying 0.63180 Euro.

In other words, relative to Europe, the Dollar has lost more than 40% of its overseas purchasing power under Bush.  Say, that’s some "strong dollar policy" don’tcha think?

Not that the decline has been entirely relative to the Euro.  When Bush took office ONE U.S. Dollar would buy $1.51340 Canadian. and the conversion to gold (or more properly, the XSAU proxy) was based on $264.55.

One U.S. dollar now buy 1.0156 Canadian, a loss of 32.9% when we’re bidding against Canadian money for world market goods.  Can you say "Spot the lunies/loonies?"  And the price of gold (via the XAU proxy) closed this week at $932.

And that’s without getting into how oil prices have fared…

The fact is, we continue to spend more than we make…so we water down our currency. Balance of trade deficits do come home to roost one way or t’other.

Even Wikipedia, which seems to have an answer for just about everything, seems a bit unclear on what the Bushistas have mean when they talk about the ‘strong dollar policy’:

"Strong dollar policy is a U.S. policy based on the assumption that a strong exchange rate of the U.S. dollar is in the U.S. national interest and the interests of the whole world."

That works as long as you don’t remember the definition of Narcissism is:

"Narcissism describes the trait of excessive self-love, based on self-image or ego."

Strong Dollar is strong ego coupled with an untreated case of denial with a dose of spendthrift thrown in.

A simple thought experiment makes the point:  With 195 countries in the world, how many can have the strongest currency relative to all others?  (Hint: One, last time I checked).  And we’re not even in the running, yet jingoism about strong dollars makes us look like Global Buffoons.

—

Here are a couple of inconvenient results of Bush foreign & economic policy (and that mythical ‘strong dollar’) after 7 1/2 years of Bush at the helm:

• The U.S. has slipped relative to India  One buck buys 43.28250 Rupees now, versus 46.43 at Inauguration in 2001. 

• The US has slipped versus Russia.  One US buck bought 28.3540 Rubles back when and it’s down to 23.44150 Friday.

• And we’ve slipped relative to Brazil.  From 1.9580 Reals to 1.6095 at Friday’s close.

I will give the Bush crowd credit for improving our position slightly vis-à-vis Mexico..  Incoming, the dollar bought 9.792 Pesos.  Today it buys 10.3883 Pesos.  This foreign & economic policy triumph has only cost us a drug war on the southern border, which seems to be dissolving before our eyes, while Mexican truckers undercut US drivers.  And oh yeah, there’s the www.spp.gov movement, too. And rumors of the Amero persist, although a little research says nope, not yet.  That’s yet..

It may seem a little harsh, but I measure foreign policy by what it puts on the tables of Mains Street Americans.  Less.

Eight years of corpgov’s "strong dollar policy" has been delusional are best and deliberately deceptive at worst.  We keep coming back to that "The harder we work, the behinder we get" problem. Joseph Tainter notes that’s when past civilizations have either walked away or revolted…when the marginal rate of return on harder work falls below zero, a country or siciety is in trouble.

Are we working hard/longer than we were 8 years ago?  I expect so.  Further ahead?  LOL, you’re kidding, right?

The dollar is less sound than when Bush took office, as evidenced by the soaring values of currencies of other countries.  Can the administration do anything about it in the final six months?  I wouldn’t bet on it. Rumors of another BANKruptcy continue, and a further meltdown in the markets seems probable this fall.

Oh, and did I mention tourism to the US is declining, too?"

A bad ending for the Amber Alert last night. It came over the Channel 3 News, A press release  by the state police stating Brooke Bennet’s body was believed to have been found. An empty feeling came over me. My heart goes out to Jim Bennet and his family.

In the beginning  it was thought Brooke had met up with someone she had been talking to on MySpace but it now seems that was a cover up by the real criminals and was not posted by Brooke. Proves you never can tell who wrote what on the Internet. One must really do their due diligence when communicating over the Internet and don’t believe the first site you see just because it was top in the search engine you used.

I have always heard these bad things are usually tied to someone the victim knows. It sure looks like its the case here. I think it would have been easier to take if it was someone from far away on the Internet.

As the investigation continues, the facts will come out and we will all know who, how and why.  A happy little town in Vermont had some very ugly secrets and I hope for all of us this cleans them up. The death of a 12 year old must  cause positive repercussions to balance life.