Pirates Gone Wild

I’m not yet decided if it’s really funny or just plain stupid. Either way, it’s entertaining.

Somali pirates gone wild. It should be a new ride at Disney.

New Tiger Ad

What a fitting slogan for the latest accenture Tiger Woods ad. This one appeared in this week’s issue of Business Week.

The American Foreign Legion

This letter to the editor was published recently in my hometown paper. I’m very curious. Personally, it sounds like a great idea. Tell me what you think.

Enviro-Pirates

Somali pirates are now claiming that they are engaging in kidnapping, murder, and general mayhem in the Indian Ocean on the basis os ENVIRONMENTALISM.

The most recent incident involves a British couple kidnapped and held for ransom. The excuse- people are overfishing our waters. They stole an action item from the Greenpeace/Al Gore playbook. Claim environmental activism and anything goes!

What’s next for the Somali pirates? A Nobel Peace Prize perhaps? Being played by Johnny Depp in a Disney movie?

Business Ready, Ready for Business

I rented Fighting the other day. It was a mixed-martial arts type of movie with Channing Tatum and Terrence Howard. I’m a big MMA fan, so I thought it might be pretty good. Nope. It was a crappy movie. Bad fighting and even worse acting.

I did gain one nugget from the movie that hit me as an entrepreneur. Howard’s character Harvey Boarden always carried around a beat-up briefcase. We never really saw everything that was in the briefcase, kind of like the briefcase carried around in Pulp Fiction, but it contained the magic of the never-stopping entrepreneur.

Boarden’s briefcase carried magic contained in the words echoed over and over by his character when asked about it. To paraphrase…

“My dad said I should always be business ready, ready for business.”

Are you business ready for whatever it is you do?

Businessman, do you always have business cards and brochures?

Christian, do you always have gospel tracts and a Bible?

Artist, do you always have a sketch pad and pencil?

You should always be ‘business ready, ready for business’.

 

Starting a New Cult- Bad Stuff

More thinking about my new cult. What kind of things should I not allow?

No laughing monkeys perhaps?

Starting a New Cult

I posted a question on Facebook about starting my own cult and got quite a few responses…

I’m thinking about starting a cult. Any ideas on what my focus should be?

Tom C. - Cult of Personality

Lisa M.- Vampires

Dorothy H.- CULT OF HUMOR, CAUSE UR FUNNY

Diane D.- A cult of dead pet zombie squirrels!!!!!

Honey V. (my sister)- People jealous of their fabulous sister!!!

Kevin M.- Sweat lodges are hot right now

Carlton W.- When is Haleys Comet due again…

George S.- It is very important to give everyone nick names so they lose their sense of identity.

Kevin M.- coffee

Lisa M.- Love the cult of nick names!!!!

David E.- Cult of the only child (even if it’s fake)

Affordable Housing Wisdom Part II

Had an idea to run by you regarding the creation of more affordable housing.

What if, instead of the myriad tax credits and assistance currently offered by the government, they tried something different? Right now, it’s a bureaucratic mess that few but people can navigate. The most successful affordable housing developers employ fulltime staff to deal with the government. Very few normal folk can do that, but a large number of normal folk would be willing to do it with no payoff.

What if we removed all the roadblocks and did things to help normal financially solvent middle class folks help provide more affordable housing? There are so many of us. If millions of middle class families could get help buying or building a few affordable homes and then renting them out, there would be a large number of homes available that weren’t previously available.

Think about it, what could we do to accomplish that? Or should we just give more confusing options to big developers and more power to the Federal government to control affordable housing?

Affordable Housing Wisdom

Just finished reading the latest issue of Affordable Housing Finance magazine. Not too bad. Wanted to pass on a few words of wisdom I found and also a few notes of my own.

The number of people spending way too much on rent and utilities is rising. Spending more than 25-30% on housing is considered to be a breakpoint. I have to wonder though how many people are living above their means and could be living in smaller digs.

The numbers do indicate that the household size is increasing, although very little. This could mean a lot of things though. People could be taking up tenants, doubling families, or supporting extended family members. Supporting additional family members, such as the elderly, would be indicative of my return to the Andy Griffith days (remember Aunt Bee?). Growth in tenant numbers could also be reflective of the growth of immigrant families, who are more likely to have larger household sizes due to both financial and cultural reasons.

There was an guest commentary by Carol Galante, a HUD deputy assistant secreatary. She said a couple of things I agreed with. With words like these, one could hope that the department could turn around.

“…original owners grow fatigued from decades of navigating the federal bureaucracy.”

“Far too often, HUD has been an obstacle rather than a partner in housing preservation.”

There was an interesting bio of new Affordable Housing Hall of Fame inductee Renee Lewis Glover. For those who don’t know, she was behind the big turnaround in Atlanta’s affordable housing communities. She serves as the CEO of the Atlanta Housing Authority. She bulldozed many of the projects and ghettos in the ATL and created mixed-income, mixed-use communities. Her success is well-documented and admirable. In one area near the Ga. Institute of Technology, crime dropped 90% after her changes.

If you’re at all interested in affordable housing, I would recommend the magazine. My only real drawback is their dependance of government and not private enterprise to provide answers. You can find them at www.housingfinance.com.

Your Job Isn’t Coming Back

The job market has changed. It’s said (in a very depressing manner) that many of the jobs that are lost will not return in the economic upturn. It’s true. Many companies, especially factories and manufacturing concerns, have changed and no longer need the positions they cut.

But job-creating dynamic don’t have to be that depressing. I’ve also heard it said that the majority of the jobs that will exist in a decade haven’t been invented yet. The auto and construction jobs and booms led us out of past downturns, but it will be up to new industries to lead us out of this one.

The future isn’t clear, but several things are. Americans need to become industrious and inventive again. We can’t rely on government, big business, and our parents to bail us out this time.

What’s the best thing you can do as an individual? Go out and create your own job. Don’t wait on someone else to do it for you. Who knows, maybe you’ll create a job for someone else as well.

Check out the Free Agent Underground for more information on job-creators. It’s not depressing. It’s not sad. It’s America and her children at their best.

www.autotrekking.com