Mindconnection eNL, 2019-08-04

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Item 1. 1.4 million job opportunities abound for those qualified to fill those jobs. Read the full story here:

http://dailytorch.com/2019/07/trump-economy-keeps-chugging-along-with-1-4-million-more-job-openings-than-jobless/.

Item 2. Research indicates there is a maximum level of stupidity that can be maintained in a population. Several studies show stupidity is, at a certain point, self-eliminating or self-correcting. Stupid people have a higher rate of incident fatality and chronic disease, for example. The higher the level of stupidity in an individual, the higher the risk of a premature death. While the percentage of stupidity-inflicted people continues to grow, a corrective factor is people can become only so stupid before it's terminal. That means a lower overall stupidity level than there otherwise would be. And that's good news.

The next time you see someone texting while driving, you can comfort yourself with the knowledge that terminal stupidity will remove the texting fool from the human population long before his/her normal expiration date.

Spanish Voice Translator and Hidden Camera USB Charger Bundle

Secure your home, office, or hotel room discreetly. Just plug this USB charger into a receptacle and the hidden camera will catch any intruder.

When you're traveling, this translator allows you to communicate voice to voice (no connection needed) and this hidden camera /USB charger keeps an eye on your devices while charging them. Just plug it into your travel converter (if overseas) and you have an instant surveillance camera.

When you're back home, you can use this hidden camera charger in any standard outlet at home or in the office. Just pull the SD card to view the footage (micro SD card reader included in package). Motion detection avoids wasted recording and wasted time viewing recordings. No WiFi needed, just plug it in and let it watch the area you want to protect (90 degree viewing angle).

Translator

• Speak into 900 Pro and it translates from English to Spanish or vice-versa.
• No external connection needed, use it anywhere.
• Hi-resolution camera is great for Skype and allows you to use the Photo Translator app (both functions require a WiFi connection).
• Runs on Android OS, so you can load hundreds of apps from the Google Playstore.
• No SIM needed, just use WiFi to connect to the outside world.

Hidden Camera

• The functional USB charger contains a 1080P full HD camera with motion detection.
• Does not require WiFi to provide surveillance.
• 90 degree viewing angle.
• No complicated installation or set-up with the charger, just plug it in.
• Video is safely stored on SD card (up to 32GB).
• A 16GB card and Micro SD card reader are included with system.

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When a problem develops, a good practice is to ask yourself, "Is there any way I could have contributed to this problem or prevented it?"

While anybody can be laid off through no fault of their own, let's look at the layoff problem through this lens.

1. Like 70% of Americans, Andy hates his job and is disengaged at work. He has a knack for playing work avoidance games. When Andy gets laid off, he blames the company for being cold and ruthless.
2. Like 70% of Americans, Bob hates his job and is disengaged at work. He does what he is asked to do, so when Bob gets laid off he does not understand why.
3. Connie likes her job and has a positive attitude. When asked to do something, she does it with a smile. Her bosses like her, but there is no compelling reason to keep her off the layoff list.
4. David does not feel he has a "job." Charlie is passionate about what he does and sees himself as a solution-bringer. He is often looking for ways to innovate, and he has a record of both saving the company money and increasing its revenue. He's been laid off three times, and each time he's analyzed the company's circumstances and helped the next employer prevent those.
5. Erin is like David, except she keeps a close eye on what's going on inside and around the company. As a problem emerges, she waltzes into the appropriate senior executive's office, closes the door, and reveals what she's found. She tosses out a couple of "exploratory" ideas and asks for mentoring so she can solve this problem for the company. But when she sees the problem is too much of a threat, she simply contacts someone in her massive, well-cultivated network about their problems (which she's also aware of) and after some discussion accepts their offer to come onboard.

Look these over again and see what lessons you can draw. There's a natural progression as you go from 1 to 5.

1. Andy isn't self-motivated and blames circumstances or others even though he doesn't do what is asked of him.
2. Bob does what is asked of him, but the problem is someone has to ask.
3. Connie's like Bob, but she is more pleasant to be around.
4. David solves the problems he sees in front of him and those he can see in the rear-view mirror.
5. Erin is like David, but she also is looking at emerging trends rather than waiting for a problem to manifest. She also has a Plan B rather than to stay flailing away in a losing battle.

A more accurate rendering of the acronym is Theft Increment Financing.

That's because, except in very rare cases, TIF is used to take wealth from citizens without their permission (an act called "stealing") and transfer it to some private entity such as a developer or retail business or to spend it on a crazy project that has poor (at best) economic justification.

City and county officials who use TIF claim it induces economic growth, but the reality is TIF usually has the opposite effect.

Here's something to think about. If a city or county has to bribe a business with large sums via TIF, then whatever that business brings isn't worth the cost. If it were, the TIF would not be necessary.

TIF is proof that TIF is bad

The very fact that TIF is needed to close the deal shows it's a rotten deal for the city or county that is doling out the money. Instead of growing the local economy, a TIF-induced business or project weakens it. It weakens the local economy by diverting resources (taxpayer money) from productive use to unproductive use. Unproductive means that, rather than contribute to economic growth, it's an economic drag.

To make wise spending decisions, you must always weigh the opportunity costs. Let's say you personally received $5,000 as a tax-free gift. Or maybe you worked for it. It doesn't matter where the money comes from, it's now your money. You found a mutual fund that has returned an average of 12% a year over the past 20 years. But instead of investing the full $5,000 in that mutual fund, you decide to pay that money to Joe Blow and follow his pie in the sky dream of an easy money business. A business he pitched to over a dozen loan officers, who all turned him down. Was this a smart way to use that money? Once you spent it on Joe, it's gone forever and you can't invest it in that mutual fund.

If a business idea is good, then the business can secure financing without TIF. When a developer comes to a community hat in hand, the only rational answer to that developer is a resounding no

What happens with TIF

What happens repeatedly across the country is a Business X takes TIF in the form of huge tax breaks. These must be made up for by other businesses and by individuals through either increased taxes or reduced services. Business X usually must meet some condition such as providing X number of jobs (even if those jobs don't provide a living wage, as in the case of big box retailers like Wal-Mart and Ikea), or stay in a given location for X years (usually one or two).

So Business X:

• Provides X number of jobs and the city leaders pat themselves on the back. Business X can afford to do this because the local taxpayers are the ones actually paying those low wages. After the promise is met, Business X begins scaling back through attrition and most of those jobs disappear.
  ...or
• Stays in that location for one or two years as required, easily done because the TIF money gives them free rent plus plenty left over. As the time limit approaches, Business X seeks TIF in some other unfortunate community and then moves there for free rent once they've met their obligation to the existing victim community.

In one small city, a car dealership company accepted TIF and $2 million in cash to put a dealership in that city for two years. They said they'd need two years to get really established, so zero city taxes for two years, and after that the City would "clean up" in sales taxes on all those cars. The problem is that when the two years expired, the dealership closed and took its scam to another city run by equally clueless people.

Good companies don't need TIF

Not every company tries to rob the communities it does business in. Consider Amazon's recent search for a new HQ-2. Even though some cities offered lucrative TIF packages to land Amazon, the company did not take the bait. This is the same company that has established a company-wide minimum wage of $15/hr and is providing free job training to the 750,000 or so workers whose jobs at Amazon are being replaced by robots.

Rather than toss these people out or play TIF games, Amazon is providing these people with training in higher wage jobs and not even requiring them to pay off the training by staying at Amazon. If they can find a better job elsewhere, Amazon won't stand in their way despite not recouping its investment in them. Now THAT is a company a community should invite rather than one that is just out to rob them using TIF.

Companies aren't the only robbers

It's not just companies that rob communities using TIF. Smaller cities have the problem of being a "resume bullet point gig" for various types of city employees such as city administrators. These folks want to climb the civic pay ladder, and one way they do that is by racking up projects in a series of short-term gigs. They can then say, "Managed budget of X to establish Y in Community Z" and it all sounds so impressive. The city whose job they are trying to fill rarely, if ever, looks at the damage done by those projects. Even if they inquire, the people they would ask are playing the same game and aren't about to come clean about it. Even in a small city, the City Administrator typically makes more than three times the mean wage in the USA. And unlike small business owners, this person gets lavish benefits, weekends off, paid holidays, and paid vacations. You can see the motivation, there.

In the typical small city, there's a City Council that is supposed to represent the citizens. And most citizens mistakenly believe that is what their City Council is doing. The reality is there's a City Council Camp that most small cities send their City Council members to. These people come back after two weeks (of paid vacation) in which they have been brainwashed into believing their job is to spend money and to provide some kind of legacy. When their relatives visit from out of town, they drive them around and point to their many "accomplishments". There is no incentive to manage tax dollars wisely. There is massive incentive to burn the money.

The real costs of TIF

When the city or county engages in enough waste and fraud to get the city or county into financial trouble, what happens next? In counties with property taxes, the solution is simple: the drive-by tax hike. This is where the City has "appraisers" dream up increased "values" of deteriorating houses so that the same mill rate results in a much higher property tax bill.

Remember what we said about opportunity costs? A city that has used TIF too much (and it doesn't take much to get to "too much") now lacks funds for the things that its residents actually need. And the residents, now paying higher taxes, have less money for maintaining their property, much less improving it. Homes and yards degrade, a situation which always results in higher crime. It's downhill from there, sometimes on a slow decent, sometimes in a free-fall.

Stop the stealing

If your city or county is using Theft Induced Financing, it's in your best interests to organize your neighbors to stop them. Keep in mind these facts about TIF:

• TIF replaces good investment with bad.
• TIF almost invariably reduces the economic health of a community.
• TIF steals from honest working people.
• If lending institutions won't back a project, that's because it's not financially sound. TIF won't magically change that.

Robocalls: https://www.malwarebytes.com/scam-call

Photo taken about one week before 40th High School Class Reunion.

Note that the information provided here will likely conflict with the "fad of the moment" and other unsustainable, unproductive ways of looking at health and fitness.

Article appears below.

See my climbing videos here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCyb67uKOxW_TsG6BVPbBIQ/videos

I respect Mr. Haney as a person, and his bodybuilding record speaks for itself. The key here is context. Mr. Haney wasn't talking about a regular person who wants to be healthier and better-looking. He was talking about people who already train and want to either get bigger or get cut for a show. So he's right in one context, but not in the context that applies to most people.

Bill Phillips issued for Body for Life Challenge in the 1990s, and over one million people gained muscle and lost fat to complete the challenge. Their photos and stories show clearly that they lost fat and gained muscle.

Consider the typical American on the typical American diet. This diet retards muscular growth while increasing body fat. Simply changing from that diet to a healthy one will result in a loss of fat and a gain in muscle, even with only light exercise.

But suppose you are an athlete who trains regularly and your body fat is around 8%. You want to increase muscle mass and lose fat. How can you do this? You can't do it by reducing your caloric intake to "show preparation" levels. You just have to change something. What exactly that something would be depends on what you're doing now and how quickly you want to get to your goal.

Here are some ideas to mix and match:

• Pick one day a week to eat half-sized meals. Eat normally on all other days. This will cause a big calorie deficit, but not long enough to trigger the starvation response.
• Pick one meal to eat half-sized for every other day. This will cause a small calorie deficit.
   
• If you eat meat, eliminate it from one meal every other day.
• If you eat wheat, eliminate it entirely.
   
• If you consume "energy drinks," stop doing that. These overload your adrenal system and some modify your endocrine system.
• If you consume protein drinks, closely examine what you are doing. If those are whey, that means they are made from contaminated milk. Also look at how many extra calories you are getting. Consider replacing with an amino complex.
   
• Add a variation of HIIT to your regular weight training. After completing a set, immediately grab a much lower weight and do half-speed reps until failure.
• Add a variation of HIIT to your regular weight training. Before your first "normal" set, do one high volume set with a lower weight; you'll get the intensity as you start to fail. Push through those last few reps.
   
• If you do traditional cardio, stop entirely. It retards muscle growth and trains your body to conserve fuel (store fat).
• If you use an alarm clock to tell you when to wake up, you are sleep-deprived. Sleep deprivation retards muscle growth. Go to bed 10 minutes earlier every night until you can wake up on time without the alarm clock.

• The best workouts are short and intense.
• A good diet contains far more flavors and satisfaction than the typical American diet.

Focusing on the unimportant is how you achieve mediocrity. Guess what you need to focus on to achieve excellence?