Alternative Living Choices in a Major City

The price of real estate in major cities has skyrocketed, especially in NYC.  Inflation has caused the prices of everything else to go up too - food, gas, groceries, etc.

A major city has a multitude of wealthy people and business, and just sheer masses of people - there is more of a chance to sell products and services, find a job, become known to a lot of people and generally find extra dollars since there are more of them going around.  You even have a better chance to find money in the street, by the sheer law of averages:).

In exchange for this greater chance to work, landlords, stores, restaurants, etc have cruelly raised the prices of rent, food, etc -DURING the recession.  Way to Go, Jerks.  In Manhattan, the "going rate" is $2000 per "head".  A one bedroom or studio apt is $2,000, a two bedroom $4000, a three bedroom $6000, and so forth.  An average meal is about $10-$20 now, and basic toiletries average between $5-$10 unless you are buying dodgy products from a "dollar" store.

Some enterprising citizens have decided to beat the inflation game, however, and more inventive and creative city dwellers have come up with ways to do it.  This entry will give you some basic ideas - the rest is up to you.  Above all, STAY SAFE - don't eat, live in or use anything that could make you sick. I learned the very hard way earlier in the year that cheap apartments can make a person ill and end up costing way more money than was saved.

***Everybody pretty much Knows by now that Rent is a total scam - landlords want you to move out so they can raise the rent, each time someone moves they have the right to raise it so they have no motivation to treat you well, and actually try to make the place rather miserable in order to manipulate you into moving.  Here are some ways to beat that Scam. ***


In the city, apartments are the only way to go, obviously.  The Tiny House Movement is making great strides in the Suburbs and Rural areas - but what if you live in a city?  What can you do to beat the life-sucking cost of rent/mortgage?  Here are some ideas that others have tried, which have worked:

My first exposure to someone who beat the game was Kate Hashimoto.  She was featured on an issue of Extreme Cheapskates.  She is an accountant who decided to save all her money instead of spending it after being through the traumatic experience of being fired.  Kate Hashimoto uses coupons and free samples to procure all her toiletries, dumpster dives for almost everything else she uses, and has a disturbing habit of using a water bottle and soap instead of toilet paper and reusing paper towels.  She also eats food that she finds in the garbage.  I want to save money but I'm not willing to risk getting a disease from not wiping after using the bathroom - I'll splurge on the $1 for toilet paper, LOL.  And I only eat fresh, organic food.  However, I have to admire how she now has $250,000 in the bank and owns her own studio apt.  She is an accountant and had the ability to sit down and tally all her expenses and find ways to cover them all - for FREE, and modify her own behavior in order to do it.  I'm just looking at her studio apt.  It's in Harlem.  Kate Hashimoto was willing to live in an area that scared most people in order to get a very inexpensive apt.  This may not work for some people but it worked for her.  Can you make it work for you?

Areas that are close to NYC but have bad reputations:

1) Harlem - people say it has "come up" now but it is still one of the cheaper places to live.  I would imagine that's due to a higher crime rate.

2) The Bronx - it was once beautiful and has a lot of really great features like an Armory that looks like a Castle which is now a skating rink, Edgar Allen Poe's old house, and many beautiful old houses and churches.  Unfortunately, it also has a lot of scary sections with soviet-bloc style apt buildings and crime ridden sections.

3) Certain Areas of Brooklyn - Bushwick (which has now become quite expensive), Crown Heights, Bedford-Steyvesent, Flatbush, and the dreaded Brownsville and East New York.

How to make it work:

1) before you move in, TEST FOR MOLD AND VOCs (volatile organic compounds) that could cause health problems and cost you money/time off of work.  There are tests available at Home Depot and test kits you can order online.  The best test kit for mold is an attachment that fits onto the head of a vacuum cleaner.  Mold spores are heavy and end up on the floor.  If you vacuum using the attachment and then send it into the lab for analysis, they will tell you if you have the dreaded Black Mold or just ordinary mold - so that your attempt to save money doesn't affect your health.

2) it works better with a car.  I lived in Bushwick, Brooklyn right before the prices skyrocketed, and it was dodgy.  But my car made it safer.  I scouted the area ahead of time and made sure that I was right next to a gourmet deli (at the time the only one for miles around) and that I could park my car right in front of my apt / plenty of parking on my street.  That way I had a routine established - I would only walk to the deli and to my car, in my neighborhood.  I'd make a triangle - from my door to the store to the car.  It made much less opportunity for anyone in the neighborhood to approach or question me.  Before I'd leave my car, I'd sit in it for a few minutes to see who was walking on my block - if I had any misgivings about them, I'd wait for them to walk far away until I got out of my car.  Or I'd call my boyfriend whom I lived with on my cellphone and have him stay on the phone with me as I walked into my apt door, or to the deli.  Before I'd leave my apt, I'd look out the window and see if there was anyone hanging around my car or anyone in the way of my path to my car.  If there was, I'd wait till they were gone. I only ever usually saw my neighborhood on the short trip to the deli or the car.  Sometimes - only during the day - I'd take a walk around, or risk a visit to the drugstore or local thrift shop.  But most of the time I'd get in my car and continue to use the same stores I used before I was forced to move out of the Village by high rents, or my old neighborhood in Woodside, Queens, a relatively safe neighborhood that I had enjoyed living in.

3) Try to live right next to the train or a major highway if you have a car.  That way you can just get right on it and not have to experience your neighborhood that much.

4) get a Police Lock for your door and expandable bars for the window on the Fire Escape.  If you think that people in your neighborhood have not noticed you move in and not noticed that you have nice things, you're wrong.  The chances of you being broken in on are very high, don't pretend they aren't.  The nicer and friendlier you are, the greater the chances.  Before you even move in, have your lock and window guard installed.  Don't try to save money on those things, it could get you killed.

5) work a night job - working opposite hours than most other people can sometimes save you trouble.  You are awake when most people are sleeping - if your neighborhood is bad, this is a good thing.  They won't see you walking around during the day, and you won't be home if they decide to try to break in at night.  If you are just coming home at 5 or 6am, most of them are going to sleep by that time. And it will keep them guessing about when you are actually home - you and your belongings will be less of a target.  With any luck, you will get through the experience and be able to move with having experienced relatively little trouble, however long you decide to stay there.


Alternative Living Arrangements:

Ok, here's where things get a little bit crazy.  Just crazy enough to survive?  You be the judge of that.

RV LIVING:

Some urban dwellers have taken to living in Recreational Vehicles.  This has advantages and disadvantages.  One advantage is that you can search Craigslist in other areas of the country and find them for as little as $1000 - running and everything.  You can go scout it and pick it up - voila, your new Urban "Tiny House" on wheels!  Apparently the insurance per year is very cheap, only about $500 for the whole year.  It's also legal to park an RV on the streets of Manhattan - boo-yah!

KATE DEVIN has a facinating blog about living in her RV, which she has named "Raven", in first Brooklyn NYC and then LA.  In it she describes what it is like to live in an RV as your primary residence.  It seems that what gave her the most trouble were people who objected to her parking on their streets, even though it is legal.  At the end of the day it cost her on average about $400/month to live in the RV.  Compared to $2000 for a studio or one bedroom, this is great.  It is also private - no roommate, and has the added bonus that she can tour - she is a singer- songwriter and can go on the road and live in her RV, touring in every city.  Smart girl!

The downside is that gas is very expensive right now.  But if it's your ONLY expense…..hmmm…..

She eventually got her employer to give her a permanent parking place in a guarded lot in LA, an ideal situation.  Having lived in NYC for 17 years, I know some streets with no alternate side parking that would be good for an RV to be parked on.  Use your imagination - no alternate side parking and not too close to any residences, or as far away as you can get.  People get upset about the noise from the generator.

OFFICE CUBICLES:

There are very cheap deals being offered on 24 Hour Office Cubicles.  Office buildings have nice, private bathrooms, kitchenettes with microwaves, refrigerators, hot and cold water machines, plastic cutlery, paper towels, dish washing soap, etc.  They also have free Internet, electricity, heat and air conditioning - and unlike RV living, they are sheltered from the elements and people outside.  It's an orderly, controlled atmosphere in which you can actually get work done - there are even copiers, fax machines, scanners, etc included in the rental price.  And you could end up getting to know other businesses there and find a job or some friends.  They are private in that you can lock the door and lock your belongings into desks and lockers.  And you can decorate!  They are also centrally located in the city - you couldn't ask for a better location.

How to make it work:

These places have cameras.  You can't invite your buddies back for a beer or be ostentatious or loud, or give the key to anyone else.  If you quietly do your work at your desk, nobody will notice if you slip under your desk for a nap - for 8 hours.  Use a Mattress Pad or Yoga Mats, rolled up and neatly tied during the day and stashed under your desk.  If anyone asks why they are there, you do Yoga to de-stress during your work shift.  Stash a blanket and pillow in your drawer or locker and use as needed.  If it's really cold, use a heating pad to stay warm - $20 at the local drugstore.  Or a hot water bottle, conveniently filled from the hot water spigot in the kitchenette area.  Bring in fuzzy socks, sweat pants, a sweat shirt and hat to put over your eyes - snooze away.  If caught, say that you live far away and got very tired and didn't want to get into an accident or fall asleep on the subway.  Or that you had a migraine headache, cramps, etc.

You can take a "sink bath" in the bathroom after hours when nobody is there, or in a private bathroom. But it's always better to have a nice hot shower.  If there is a gym close to your office, join it.  That way you can get a break from being in your cubicle, exercise, use the sauna or steam room if there is one, and of course get a good hot shower.

Often these places need to fill cubicles and won't say anything even if they notice what you are doing, as long as your are quiet and polite.  Just act as low key as possible, and don't act as if the place is your home.  Just do what everyone else is doing.

The downside - it's a communal environment, so don't say anything that you don't want EVERYONE to hear.  But if you are quiet and communicate with texts, instant messages, etc, you can keep your private business private.  You also can't store much there, you have to have an alternate place to store your things - a Storage Space, a friend or family member's basement, etc.  The really cheap cubicles are very small as well.  But if you find yourself badly in need, this can save you.  The cheapest I've ever seen are $375/month - in Manhattan.  Not bad.  Not bad at all.

ABANDONED SUBWAY TUNNELS

I've heard various rumors throughout the years of people living in abandoned subway tunnels, and there is even a book called The Mole People about the subject.  The author claimed there were underground "cities" in these tunnels.  That's pretty amazing.  I personally have never been in one of these tunnels or met anyone who claimed to live there.  But I would imagine that they would keep it secret, so how would you ever know?  I have, once, seen a guy coming up out of a grating in the sidewalk somewhere in Midtown.  He was a young looking Black guy with Dreads.  Could he have been one of them?  He didn't look like any Construction Worker.

I would say use extreme caution and only seek out this kind of lifestyle if you are in EXTREME NEED.  I would imagine it would be extremely dangerous.  $0

THE SHELTER SYSTEM

I used to be in terror of "shelters" - until I had a friend who experienced an injury and had to, out of necessity, live in one.  According to him, they've been updated.  They serve decent food, are clean and safe and allow you to come and go, but you have to keep coming back every night to keep your bed there.  Also, according to him, the staff steals items left in the lockers.  I would say if you must use a shelter, keep all of your belongings in a bag that stays with you at all times, and sleep with the bag next to you.  They are communal and there are many beds in one room. $0

CAR LIVING

I recently read a fascinating blog, SURVIVAL GUIDE TO HOMELESSNESS .   The author, Michael,  lived in his car by choice for 10 years.  He is an amazing writer and a deep and spiritual human being.  In the blog, he gives out a lot of deep wisdom, for free - gleaned from real life experience.  Read it, it is amazing.

If you have no place to live, Michael advises getting a car.  ANY car.  Even if it's rusty and doesn't run- you can push it around.  He says the car will make all the difference.  He describes how you can use a car cover to ensure a private and safe(er) place to sleep, how to stay warm or cool, how to look as though you are not living in your car, etc. and he advises that there is a prejudice against people who do this, so never let anyone know.

When I thought about it, I realized that I know plenty of people who live in their cars, or at least see and experience them - taxi drivers.  There are a ton of taxi drivers who are saving money by living in their cars. A lot of them have Planet Fitness memberships and you can see on a regular basis taxis lined up in front of it with people napping in their taxis, or inside working out and taking showers, socializing, etc.

The few times I had to stay in my car due to my allergies acting up making it so that I couldn't sleep in the house I was staying in,  I put the back seats down and put a mattress pad and futon in the back on top of the folded down seats.  I then added a sleeping bag and lay down with my feet sticking into the trunk space so I could stretch out.  A memory foam pillow and comforter completed my sleeping ensemble.  I also used a canvas tarp as a kind of "tent" over my head so that nobody could see my head sticking out of the sleeping bag as I was sleeping, and so the light wouldn't bother me.  But it got really hot and stuffy and the light was still bright.  If I ever do that again I'm going to pay the $100 or so to get the windows tinted so I don't have to used the canvas cover.  It helps if you go to sleep early and get up early so that the sun doesn't heat your car and make it stuffy.  Cars aren't that comfortable so make sure to fill in all the nooks and crannies with pillows and other padding so you can get a decent night's sleep.

Average car insurance payment per month in Manhattan - $180.  Add this to the price of gas, repairs and tickets.

VAN LIVING

There are a number of people living in vans in urban environments.  The trick is to get one emblazoned on the side with a contractor's logo or some other business logo so that nobody questions it's presence.  Get one with no windows or if there is a window, get a secure blackout curtain so nobody can see light coming out of it.  Put a comfy futon in the back.  You can even put a solar panel on the roof and collect energy to use appliances with, etc.  I would imagine that it's a lot more comfortable than a car, but more easily maneuverable and parkable than an RV, and attracts less attention than an RV- especially if it has the contractor's logo on the side.  After studying alternative city living, now every time I pass a van I wonder if someone's inside.  I would think you could outfit the inside of the van to be a smaller version of the RV and make it quite comfortable.  You could also probably go on tour in a van if you are a singer-songwriter or other artist.  I've seen some pretty creative stuff in Manhattan like old VW busses with curtains in the windows - a sure sign that someone is sleeping in there, at least part time.  I think this is going to get more and more popular until something is done to bring back middle class affordable housing in Manhattan or the surrounding areas.

I'm not sure what the insurance on a Van is as opposed to a Car.  They also use more gas and tend to be less gas-efficient.  Could you get a hybrid van???

BUBBLES

A "hard capitalism" like the USA encourages "bubbles", situations where certain commodities or services creep up in price until it is hardly possible for the average citizen to save money, especially not people who earn minimum wage.  No limits on what prices can be charged for commodities and services does NOT, contrary to popular belief, create a better economy or better services, no matter what rhetoric against "communism" has been cried by those who are making a killing.  Let's examine where most of the Average USA Citizen's money has gone in the past 20 years.

1) GYM CONTRACTS - in 1995 when I first moved to Manhattan, the cheapest possible gym contract for the worst gym was still around $60/month.  A really great gym contract like the one I had with Chelsea Piers was about $120/month.  Notice that it was all on CONTRACT - the month to month gym contract that did not lock you into paying for at least a year was very expensive at that time.  Bally's Total Fitness was still pulling their scam where they would try to lock you into a 3 year contract without telling you, that was more like a car loan or something of that nature, and then ruin your credit if you tried to get out of it or told them you weren't coming any more.  They ruined hundreds of thousands of Americans' credit.

THE RESULT OF GYMS DRIVING THE PRICE UP AND INSISTING ON EXPENSIVE AND OPPRESSIVE CONTRACTS:  Lots of people decided it was too expensive and too much trouble to go to the gym.  (Doh) The USA became the country with the highest obesity rate, high rates of heart disease, stroke, diabetes  and other diseases that could be avoided or made less severe by exercise.  Since Health Insurance was also too expensive and troublesome for almost half the people in the country, hospital emergency rooms got flooded with people with preventable health problems who had no insurance. The Hospitals, and then the Govt. who bailed out the Hospitals when they ran out of money, had to eat the cost of aaaalllll those sick people who were uninsured.

NOW:  The $10/month, 24 hour, "no contract" gym has now been opened in most cities - even small cities and towns that do not allow a club to stay open till 4am, much less a 24 hour business like a gym.  Planet Fitness and it's clones have seeminly sprung up EVERYWHERE with big signs that say "No Judgement! Everybody Welcome!"

So SOMEBODY, SOMEWHERE caught on to the fact that if you allow all gyms to charge whatever they want and drive the price up and up, saddle people with long and binding "contracts" that they DO NOT want, and close them during the time people have off from work (nighttime), nobody will exercise.  F-in DOH.  And now Somebody, Somewhere is pushing it through really quickly, even in little towns that are conservative and most likely never would have allowed, a 24 hour gym.  Keep in mind that this is AFTER not even thousands but MILLIONS of USA citizens have either got sick, got diseases or died - of PREVENTABLE problems.

******So how much of your money, that you could have been saving, was spent on an expensive gym with a contract, with the same service that you can pay $10 or $20 for now?******

2) HEALTH INSURANCE - Health Insurance Companies ran their big scam for many decades, driving the price of health insurance way up while heartlessly figuring out ways not to pay for people's expenses even if they had been paying the monthly premiums for years.  "Fighting your insurance company" to pay for something became par for the course, something EVERY USA Citizen had to do.  It became "normal" for them not to want to pay, even for those who had been paying their premiums for years.  The average price of a premium was anywhere from $300-$1,000/month OR MORE, which 2/3 of USA Citizens couldn't afford.  A third of those who couldn't afford health insurance qualified for Medicade, a Government Health Insurance program(Socialism?), and a third of USA Citizens simply remained unisured or payed the exorbitant rates of medical care out of pocket, or made due with "low cost programs" that gave spotty, low quality or insufficient care.  This third, the Lower Middle Class, were the people flooding Emergency Rooms for problems that were preventable but hadn't been caught until they became an Emergency.  Emergency rooms would then attempt to bill them $500 or more for services that shouldn't have cost much of anything (checking temperature, heart rate, etc?).  Bills of $2500 were common - and sending these bills to people who were there because they couldn't afford regular checkups was kind of insane.  These costs were then eaten by the hospital or the agencies which bailed out the hospital.  Health Care became a nightmare, a scam and a joke in the USA for a third or more of it's citizens.  General Practitioners made hardly anything compared to Specialists, who billed exorbitant rates to insurance companies, so it became hard if not impossible to find a General Practitioner - yet the first question anybody ever asked a sick person is "who is your General Practioner?" as though it was normal to have one.  Health Care became a source of low self esteem, fear, and draining money in the USA.

One way a citizen could get a descent Health Care Plan was by working for a corporation that enrolled them in their shared plan, so the message was "work for a Corporation or Die", "you are of no worth to the USA UNLESS a Corporation finds you useful", "spending your life in service to a corporation is the only way to stay alive and healthy in the USA", "You are not worth being kept alive UNLESS a Corporation finds you useful", and other life destroying messages.  How many millions of people lost their lives in service to a Corporation, a life that was never fully lived because of the need to keep Health Insurance? The USA, a country filled with quietly despairing and dying people, wasting their lives on things they don't care about, don't believe in and don't want - just to stay alive.  Sound like a fun place?

THE RESULTS OF HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANIES BEING ALLOWED TO DRIVE THE PRICE OF A PREMIUM SKY HIGH: I have a friend who is in his 80s, and he remembers when the doctor cost $10 and he came to your house.  Since then, being a Doctor evolved into a social class that makes millions, "jet sets" and has it's pick of the cream of USA living and culture.  There is a class barrier when visiting the Doctor that is evident to the extreme when dealing with Doctors - so few of them genuinely care and are more worried about their golf club, the expensive Rolex they are wearing and their $100,000 car, talk down to patients and make it obvious that they don't care.  This is almost certainly due to the Insurance Companies that made it possible for them to make millions, and cruelly drove the price of a health plan premium way out of the reach of the average Lower Middle Class citizen while denying policy holders care whenever they could.  This is so Evil - yet there are millions of people out there supporting this as "capitalism over communism", fighting against their own good, tricked by Republicans who have a huge promotion engine to change people's minds against things that are good for them.

NOW: After millions of deaths from preventable diseases and poor or non existent Health Care, forces in Govt and the seats of power in the USA have recognized that they MUST have a basic government  health care plan in place for the Lower Middle Class, as Europe and Scandinavia have already had for decades.  Hillary Clinton tried to implement such a plan during her tenancy in the White House as First Lady,  but she was of course blocked by Republicans.  Now President Obama has finally pushed through the Affordable Care Act which limits these companies from being able to deny people for Health Insurance, limits their ability to charge, and forces them to insure anyone who needs insurance.  The nastiness with which this has been fought against by people who were making money from the suffering of the people is kind of unbelievable.  But on October 1st, the Insurance Marketplace in all 50 states will begin accepting applications, and the plans awarded to the people will begin to be utilized on Jan. 1st, 2014.

A friend who luckily for him lives in a state where "Obamacare" is already being implemented (not every state is so cruel as to wait until the last minute to implement the Affordable Care Act), reported that his fee is $8 for his plan, after subsidization.  How different would our lives have been if we had an $8 health plan?

*****So how much of your money, that you could have been saving, was spent on expensive Health Insurance Premiums or Out Of Pocket costs for Health Care?  How much of your money was lost due to sickness due to inadequate Health Care?  How would your life be different right now if you had Health Care aviailable to you at crucial times in your life instead of "not going because it's too expensive and it will probably get better on it's own"?  The costs in money, human suffering and loss of function are kind of incalculable.  Yet, the USA considered itself "civilized". *****

3) COMMUNICATION - a Cell Phone Plan used to cost hundreds of dollars a month.  It's down to around $50/month now - unless you want to use a Smart Phone, which is increasingly necessary in today's world.  During a period of sickness, my Smart Phone allowed me to call multiple people for as many hours as I needed while looking up and comparing health services online and lawyers, govt. agencies, etc all while staying away from home, and be in continuous contact with friends and family, so it really was a lifesaving tool.  With it's ability to take high quality video and pictures and forward them or store them in other places, this phone is a must-have self defense mechanism for women in urban situations as well as others who need protection.

A Smart Phone is kind of not worth it unless you have an Unlimited Plan due to it's capacity to use data and allow hundreds of texts to be traded at high speeds - it can suck up money like crazy unless you have a plan in place to counteract that.  For me, Basic iPhone Service with Unlimited Text and Data with sufficient Talk Minutes and Rollover Plan - $110.  This is with Unlimited Data Service "grandfathered" in - others must pay more for their Data.  Very few companies offered iPhone service, so the few that did were able to set high prices for their service.  Now that bubble has been burst this year with other companies becoming able to service iPhones, and a variety of pre-paid services in place for the iPhone.  Service has now come down to about $50 with Unlimited Talk, Text and Data.

NOW- you will save about $60 - $120/month on your Smart Phone plan.   That's $720 - $1,440 / year. What could you have done with that much money in the past?  When you add up what you have been paying each year for the amount of years you've had your phone... that could have been a new car, a downpayment on property....anything.  For Phone Service that in the past used to cost very little.  In the 80s, telephone service was about $15 or $20 per month.   These corporations expanded the amount everybody was paying over 1000%.  And for what???

4) TRANSPORTATION - cities are the only places in the USA which have sufficent public transportation.  Outside of cities, EVERYBODY must own a car.  This is a form of societal control (cars are frequently stopped by police and the occupants IDed, addresses must be given at the DMV so any citizen can be located quickly and easily, cars must be paid for so people must work, etc.

The cost of a car that reliably runs is about $10,000 used, and car insurance is another scam - everybody must have it in order to drive, and everybody must pay exorbitant prices for it.  With a perfect driving record I was still being charged $200/month living 15 minutes outside NYC in Woodside.  Even more exorbitant is the gas, which is about $4.10/gallon for Premium and creeping higher - the $5 gallon is probably going to hit within our lifetime - and gasoline dependancy is another story in the USA.  Tensions in the Middle East where the gas is coming from have finally forced the Powers That Be to break USA's dependency on gas as a fuel.  Previous to this, a Republican Oil Family had purchased the Presidency (the Bush family), and no progress towards reducing the amount of oil used was allowed.  Solar and other alternative energy sources were suppressed, and the Republican Rhetoric Machine had everybody believing that "alternative energy wasn't possible" (all BS of course, many people are ALL SOLAR in their homes and getting along fine.  That is another section).

Electric cars were viciously suppressed and in some cases the inventors done away with, that Oil could become a huge business in the USA.  Everybody knows it, nobody could do anything about it.  The internet is full of stories of inventors that had bad things happen to them, or were simply "bought out", paid off, etc.

NOW- Enter the PRIUS, a "hybrid" vehicle that still uses SOME gas but far less than previous all-gas models. In a twinkling, all cabs in NYC became Prius, and some city vehicles as well like police cars, etc.  In the future, hybrids and all-electric models will be the norm.

*****How much money did you spend in your life on gas, that you could have been saving?  And how much car exhaust have you sucked down into your lungs, eaten, absorbed through your skin, etc? Will we ever be able to get the toxins out of the atmosphere that we have polluted?  Imagine the human suffering that could have been prevented since the days of electric cars? What do you think it has done to your system, your children, family members, etcc  to have these toxins in their bodies?  What do you think it has done to the Earth in general?*****

****Soon the All-Electric Car will be out, and Solar will be the accepted form of energy with panels on every building.  How much money did you spend on Con Ed - your Electric bill, that could have been coming from Solar Panels EASILY???****

5) RENT/MORTGAGES - I already have a blog here about the Mortgage Scam - People's living arrangements were the biggest form of societal control and the most money being taken from them.  Rents crept from about $300-$500 in the 80s to a whopping $1200-$2500 today, with heavy Credit Checks, References demanded and other forms of screening that discriminate against anyone not wealthy or in a Corporate Job.  Mortgages are rife with out and out Usery and Loan Sharking from banks that ultimately make people pay $400,000 for borrowing $100,000.  Draconian Zoning Regulations in most places actively prevent people from just building their own places to live, even if they are young, strong and healthy enough to wield a hammer, saw and nails - even if they or their family are homeless.

NOW: the Small/Tiny House Movement and other social movements in the USA are pioneering the taking back of Property Ownership and shedding light on the senseless fleecing that Banks/Landords have perpetuated on USA citizens.  Average cost per month after building expenses: $200-$500(as it was in the 70s/80s originally).

*****How much money have YOU wasted on Rent/Mortgage that you could have saved had you been allowed to build your own place to live in a size that you could afford at the appropriate time in your life?  By skewing the amounts people had to pay at innapropriate times in their lives (should a recent college grad be saddled with a $400,000 debt and huge payments?  Should a recently divorced person be saddled with a high rent?  Etc, etc) by not allowing low cost rentals to be built in safe places, how much human suffering and deprivation has been caused in the USA?*****

Can you think of any other "bubbles"???

"Alternative Scenes" that are not an Alternative

"Don't Be Mainstream!" is the war-cry of many subcultures, countercultures and "scenes" (groups of people who decide to do things differently from  the "mainstream" of the USA).  Brightly colored hair, piercings, tattoos, retro looks and styles, different ways of acting and thinking about things....what is the hope here?  Do the people involved in these things truly understand what they are doing, what they are hoping will happen, what they are "pushing", what statements they are making?

What is the hope of splinter scenes like Rockabilly?  Deathrock? Punk Rock, Rave, Hippie, New Age, Hardcore, Metal....the list is endless.  WHAT ARE THEY TRYING TO DO?

If you ask any person in any of these groups, they will say "I want to be different from everyone else".  "I want to be accepted for who I really am and not have to be somebody I'm not in order to be accepted".  "I want to get everyone to think differently".  "I want people not to be so materialistic and to focus on what's really important in life".  "I want people to stop being so decadent, and I want not to be decadent but to live simply in a way that makes sense for me as a person".  "I want to include more Art in my life and less cookie-cutter".  "I want people to recognize my pain in not being accepted and not being listened to".

So what is at the end of this journey?  After you've been SO "different", and SO "away from the mainstream", and SO "unique", what kind of a person are you hoping to become?  And what are you going to do if nobody decides to change as a result of the living performance art you've been giving this whole time?

So you decide to be this way, and you get all the clothes, and you do your hair, and you are outspoken against all the "hypocracy" and "sheeple" that you see.  You join a group of people whom you assume think the same way you do.  BUT DO THEY?

If you are a woman, how many times have you been slighted, ignored and not given a leadership position in your group in favor of a man- WITHIN A GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO ARE SUPPOSEDLY "ALTERNATIVE"???  Have you been abused in a relationship with a man who is supposedly "alternative?" Have you been taken advantage of or slighted in a band situation, or group situation which is supposed to be creating art or accomplishing some other goal?  Have you been shunted into a managerial or promotional role, or made to be a "bartender" or "door girl" when what you should have been was the main event?  Have you been treated like "someone's property" because you're dating them, and "not allowed" to speak normally to the other people in the environment you are in, or somehow restricted?  HOW IS THIS AN "ALTERNATIVE" TO WHAT HAPPENS IN THE MAINSTREAM???  So the man has Manic Panic dyed hair, or a shaved head, or long hair, or whatever.  So the other people in your group are wearing tye dye, or bondage pants, or rave pants, or whatever statement they make.   IF YOU ARE GETTING TREATED THE SAME WAY AS THE "MAINSTREAM", YOU ARE *NOT* IN AN ALTERNATIVE SCENE- you just look a little bit different and have a little more attitude- THAT'S IT.  You need to take a hard look at the people around you.  WHAT IS IT THAT THEY ARE GETTING OUT OF ALL THIS???  If they just want to get laid by hot girls with colored hair or piercings or whatever, but treat them exactly the same as jocks would, YOU NEED TO GET OUT AND GET NEW FRIENDS.

Let's talk about appearance.  When the goal of your group is to get several thousand dollars worth of supposed "alternative" clothing, HOW IS THAT DIFFERENT FROM BEING A CONSUMER???  How about a very expensive haircut and dye job with multiple levels of color that took 5 hours to execute?  Or high rent to live in the most "bohemian" area of town?  THIS IS THE ULTIMATE IN CONSUMERISM - yet you are supposedly "against consumerism????  How is this "not materialistic"?  Stores that sell $1000 items yet are supposedly "not mainstream"??? NO WAY.  This is just simple fetishism.  And there's nothing wrong with that, at all - but you should know what you're doing rather than believe you are being different from the guy who wants that really great car and that really great house.  It's a little more creative and artsy, but it's pretty much the same in it's lust for material things.

What is it that you TRULY want to achieve?  Make sure that the people around you match up to these goals.  If you want equality, you can NOT hang out with "jocks in alternative clothing".  If you want clarity, you can NOT hang out with drug addicts or alcoholics.  If you want non-materialism, you can't hang out with expensive clothes collectors.  Or record collectors.  Or other hoarders.

How about social pecking order.  Does anyone in your group tell you that you are "not allowed" to like a certain person or people?  Why?  Do they change who you are not supposed to like on a regular basis, or give various and conflicting reasons why you are "not supposed" to like them ?  Have you ever seen members of your group physically attack others? Why?  Did you agree with what happened?  Does anyone in your group constantly badmouth another person or constantly say abusive things? Is there any reason you should be "taking orders" from someone else about how you feel?  Why would you do that?  Are you "not being allowed" to make social decisions for yourself?  Do you ever hold things inside about the way you feel or the people you like,  knowing that "you could be next" if you "say the wrong thing" ?  Does anyone in your group make you feel uncomfortable or controlled?  This is NOT FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION.  THIS IS NOT BEING YOURSELF.  This is gang violence, and it is a very serious and dangerous matter, so much so that when you realize you are in it, you should get out right away.  This type of thing can seriously injure someone mentally and physically and is NOT cool to be involved in, in any shape or form.  It is analogous to groups of jocks looking for a fight or exiling someone from their group or their town, bullying, and in many cases can lead to illegal activity or is illegal in and of itself.  If your group has problems like this, YOU NEED TO LEAVE RIGHT AWAY.  Choose a group of less violent, more socially aware and reasonable individuals to spend your time with.

Let's talk about uniqueness- if everybody in your group is dressing the same way, HOW IS THIS UNIQUE?  The uniqueness has a shelf-life of until everyone else in the country finds out about it- then merchants can make a lot of money hawking these wares to others who wish they were unique.  It's a BUSINESS, with musicians as the high-priests, record labels, book stores and clothing/accessory merchants following in at a close second in importance.  Make no mistake about it, it's a sales engine and COMPLETELY MATERIALISTIC.  Which is COOL- if THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT. If this is NOT what you want, then you've got some thinking to do about where you should be and who you should be with.

Take a look around.  Do your friends TRULY share your views?  How about your partner?  Are you unhappy?  Why?  Did the way you got treated in any situation make you feel upset?  What is your real enjoyment in doing what you are doing, and where is it coming from?

How this is a Scam:

A true Alternative Scene is in actuality very different from Mainstream Culture.  Too many people missed their chance to be popular in High School or Collage and are now bent on dominating a group of people with the same values they "missed out" on being able to take part in when they were in school.  Real "Alternative" people are out there doing things differently, being different, and in actuality don't care how many clothes they've amassed, how many albums they own, if they have the coolest hairstyle and so forth.  Young people can be duped into spending a lot of money, being in an abusive relationship, hanging out in groups of people which have aspects of gang violence or hyper materialism, and spending years enmeshed in these "scenes" until they finally realize what THEY are all about and that their "scene" really doesn't match up with their goals.

How To Cut And Run:

Quit buying things, first of all.  One of the biggest things about Mainstream Culture in the USA is that it is Consumerist and tells you that your main worth is in what you buy.  Just stop.  Start putting your money toward things that you TRULY care about- for example, a cause you care about, or a savings account for your future, or a music studio you wanted to build, or anything that you really needed.

Quit listening to others about what to do - you can listen to your own heart about who you like, what you'd like to do and what steps to take next in your life.  It's not as though you shouldn't take other's opinions into consideration, but always be aware that this is an opinion and you are under no obligation to take that person's opinion into account in your own decisions about yourself and your life.

And most definitely if you've experienced or seen abuse, don't take a second glance backward - get all your stuff and BE GONE.  Act first, ask questions later.  Do what it takes to insulate yourself from anyone who would treat you or others abusively, wether it's blocking them on social networking or out of your phone, or making a police report - make sure that you yourself are safe, even if it's not you that was being attacked, because in that situation it could be you next.  "Alternative Scenes" can act as a gateway for abusers to find vulnerable people to abuse- make sure you are NOT one of them.

The Mortgage Scam

Learn How To Lay This Burden Down! It never should have been yours!  Cut bankers out of the equation!


Q: Why does a house in the USA cost $300,000 when the same house would cost about E 50,000 in Europe or Scandinavia?

A: Banks  who strive to OWN EVERYTHING and turn you into a workhorse who never TRULY owns your own property.  And BROKERS and AGENTS, who strive to drive the price UP so that they can get a healthy cut of the proceeds, often for very little work.

If you take one thing away from this Blog, please take this:  You were never meant to be a constant rent or mortgage slave for 30 years.  When the first citizens came to the USA, they were given land if only they would settle, and they built their own houses.  Gradually, this situation has turned into where a person must take out a huge bank loan in order to "buy" their property.   In order to qualify for this all-important loan, they must robotically make payments to companies "on time" and prove themselves to be a good little consumer and slave robot, getting them into a "consumer" mindset and habits much like "breaking" a horse to be ridden.  If  they then qualify, they can receive a loan from a bank which will keep them working for the next 30 years.  If they should fall ill or have any other type of emergency like job loss, etc, which would render them unable to pay their mortgage payment, they run the risk of "foreclosure" - where the bank seizes their house and they then lose all the money they have paid so far on their loan, even if it is almost payed down.  There are various things they could try like quickly selling the house at below market value or asking for forbearance for a period of time, but in all likelihood they will lose the years of work that they put into the house if there is some problem where they can't get right back to work.

This deal is a rather grisly bet with the bank that you can keep working your body and mind for the next 30 years- and if you lose the bet, the "winner takes all".  There are those people who are intelligent  or experienced enough not to go for this deal, but I'm speaking about the average citizen, the ones whom this blog is meant for, who believes that "this is the way things are supposed to be", who has been sold on this idea.  The word Mortgage itself means "death contract", so contemplate the implications of that.

This deal is very evil, for the average price of a home has crept up so much that it requires two working people (parents usually) to comfortably pay it, therefore leaving children alone in the home to send themselves to school and comfort themselves when they come home from school.  The parents usually depart at 6am in order to commute to work and don't return till 12 or 14 hours later.  Aimless children with nothing to do after school and no supervision get in trouble or fall into drug use and other vices, especially when tired parents come home after spending those hours away from the home and have no energy to put towards their children.  In this way you could say that the mortgage industry has eaten into and almost ruined the fabric of USA society and culture.  Generations of nearly parent-less children....what does that sound like to you?  Parents with no time or energy to pay attention to what is happening in their children's lives or to spot warning signs, generations of vulnerable children with no directions in particular, resentful and angry parents robbed of the time in their lives - this is a setup for disaster, which we see the effects of now.

Even in a situation where there are no children and it's just you paying the mortgage, you will pay quadruple what the house was worth by the time your mortgage is done ($100,000 loan equals around $400,000 paid out with interest, etc - provided you do not refinance, then it's even more!!!).  Then when you sell you will lose money in this market.  ALL that work, for nothing, so that bankers can get and stay very wealthy(far wealthier than you).  So that you can have your house earlier than you should have if you had just earned the $100,000 and saved it.

Why this is a Scam:

You will work hundreds of thousands of hours, far more than you should have, to pay a bank four times the amount that you borrowed.  Long ago this was called "usury" and was illegal - not so in the United States of SCAMerica.  Bankers can scam you and act like it's normal.  They can put on quite an air of grandeur and act as though you are a scumbag if you are late on a payment, meanwhile they are practicing an evil trade that was literally illegal in more civilized times.  You will be made into a slave, sleep-deprived robot who gets up at 6am, 5 days a week who works in service of the bank- you will have a pitiful week's vacation per year, you will not be able to guide your children's lives and you will be like a ghost, seen waking in and out of the door before you collapse in your bedroom after trying to de-stress in front of the TV.  This is IF you don't break down, or go into paroxysms of "unexplainable" rage at your fate, take it out on your children and everyone around you and wind up divorced.  Who could stand to be broken down like this?  I know people who have had to go on medication in order to withstand this, even though there was technically nothing wrong with them.

DON'T LET THIS BE YOU!!!!!

How to CUT AND RUN:

DO NOT use a bank as a lending institution.  If you have a way to work and save money, save until you can pay cash for your house and land.  Some keep living with their parents or other family members, others find other cheaper living arrangements.  If you are single or a couple with no children, you do not need as much room and space as if you had children.  Be creative.  Some people are buying their own cheap land and then building their houses themselves over time, as they get the cash.  Others are buying pre-built "Tiny Homes" (although they do not have to be "tiny", 500 or 600 sq feet is as large as a "studio" apt) and making deals with others to park them in their yards and fields and paying the amount you would pay to an RV park, between $200 and $300 per month.   Still others have decided to live in unique situations like houseboats.  Some have worked out deals with the existing owner of the property such as "rent to own".  Be creative, use your imagination.

In this way, they have the ability to enjoy life, spend time with their children and other family members, learn things and do things they have always wanted to do, and basically free themselves from slavery to a bank and a "9-5" job.  Check out the videos below for more ideas.  Be relentless in your search for an alternative to the "Death Contract Mortgage", because if you are lower middle class this will be your death knell.

Money Lust

Our Money has dropped in value ever since the Federal Reserve was empowered to create money out of nothing.  If we don't have enough, we print more- this is called "inflation".  You're really not supposed to do that. I think almost everybody understands that by now, but just in case they don't, here is an article about the Federal Reserve in action that breaks it down fairly simply: FEDERAL RESERVE KEEPS PRINTING MONEY

It's pretty self explanatory that if the Federal Reserve keeps on printing money to cover cheques that the government writes but then can't cover, prices of everyday things rise.  That's why you used to be able to buy a whole cart of groceries for a dollar in 1900, but now that cart costs around $100.

There is obviously a need for money in an Ultra-Capitalism like the USA- money is the only thing that will save you from predators looking to take all your money or use you in some other way, or deny you lifesaving services if you don't have any.

But even worse is the Cult Of Money that has naturally arisen in such a situation.  Everyone likes to have nice things.  But most people in the USA have a low self esteem about their money.   We have been lead to believe that unless we can constantly buy new items we are substandard.  We also have been duped into being slaves to the "credit system" which scores us on a 0-800 scale to tell us "how much we are worth taking a risk on", and punishes us for a lower score by charging what?  MORE MONEY- to the poorest people who were unable to keep up their score, and giving breaks to the rich who are easily able to keep a high score.  Make Sense? We are forced to make payments like clockwork to make sure we are good little consumers who can be counted on to bring in a steady income for our creditor overlords.  Any deviation is punished by a lower score unless you call various companies and ass-kiss like mad, begging and demeaning yourself to get "extra time to pay".  Sound familiar?  The Credit Score will then be used to either accept or deny a human being for all kinds of things like getting accepted into livable apartments in safer neighborhoods, getting loans for cars, houses and other property, and even relationships- yes, there are those people who consider a credit score part of the package.

The truth is that USA citizens have been made to feel substandard if they don't have a high credit score, high credit limits and constant items being bought each week.  They are lead to believe that they need a status symbol car, a large innefficient house to put all their stuff in, and that they need to work the hours necessary to have all these things or else they are not a worthwhile human being.   That if they don't have these things they are letting everyone down, not living up to their potential and so forth.

Anybody who actually believes this should know several things.  The first thing is that most people in the USA are considered BELOW THE POVERTY LINE or LOWER MIDDLE CLASS.

1) In 2011, 46.2 MILLION people in the USA were considered "below the poverty line".  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States  Out of our 315 Million people, this is one in every six people.

3) Lower Middle Class was considered $32,000-$60,000.  So you are still LOWER Middle Class if you earn $60,000??? Depending on where you live, $60,000 could be enough to feed and care for your family, or that could be a modest income like here in NYC.

4) 34% of us are considered Lower Middle Class, at 119 Million people.  One out of every three people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_middle_class

5) Upper Middle Class is if you make $62,000 and up.

6) The Upper Class is only 15% of the USA.

7) Only 15.5% of people have credit scores in the 700-749 range, and only 18.3 had 800 or better.  (So what happens to the REST of the people, those below 700?  Do they all just live in bad neighborhoods?  Do they pay exorbitant rates for credit, car loans, etc?  What are ALL those other people doing to survive since they are effectively cut out of most of the benefits of living in the USA?) This article tries to put a "happy face" on these statistics but falls flat. http://business.time.com/2012/05/14/more-americans-have-fico-scores-of-800/

If you still watch TV, you will be left with the feeling that MOST people in the USA have money to spend on extras.  That's simply not true.  Lots of people get by on very little, especially if they want to save money.  People from poorer countries tend to save a lot of money in the bank, while USA citizens tend to spend money on anything and everything to keep up with the status quo that they feel they should be emulating.

Spending less money will not make you look worse.  It will not make people like you less (if you have REAL friends that is).  Chances are that the person sitting right next to you, whom you think looks so glamorous, has financed their look that day for a minimum and had hookups to buy all the stuff he or she is wearing on discount.

USA Citizens are in a financial crisis from which saving money is the only solution.  We also deserve to be able to live our lives and spend time developing as a person with family, friends, hobbies and interests and do not deserve to spend 80 hours a week working.  We obviously are going to have to downsize the amount we are spending- on rent, on utilities, on everything.  And as far as keeping up with the status quo?  The status quo IS NOT what the media is putting out there.  Most of us are struggling.

Money Lust- why this is a Scam:

You will spend your life chasing after trinkets and toys and never develop as a person or form strong relationships with family members, friends or anyone else.  You will drive yourself to exhaustion and possibly die early of stress related diseases.  And you will not have the energy to affect your community, laws, government, etc because you're struggling to make payments on a nice car, a huge house or a boat.  Or something.  Meanwhile, those who are on the receiving end of your payments WILL NOT be knocking themselves out- they will be living easy lives and controlling the game.

HOW TO CUT AND RUN:

Set a cap on the amount of hours you are willing to work at ANY job, no matter what happens.  Make friendships, family and personal development your highest goal, NOT money.  Make rules that if you are sick or feeling terrible you WILL NOT work that day, you will take care of yourself- no matter what.  Downsize the amount you are spending per month, even if others in your life think you SHOULD be spending money on those things.  Save, save, save.  Look into the TINY HOUSE MOVEMENT , Solar Energy for your home (solar systems are cheaper than ever now), going OFF THE GRID, and other ways to stop spending so much money each month.  It CAN be done.  Everything you buy do not buy on credit, pay cash- you will save hundreds of thousands by doing this.  You can put off buying whatever it is until you have saved the cash to pay for it.  It's the instant gratification that creditors are selling, and being paid top dollar for, depleting your life in the process.

Children Of The Corn - High Fructose Corn Syrup

                                                             USA Poison Corn Fields

This week I watched a video called Sugar: The Bitter Truth by Robert A. Lustig, a biochemist.  In it, he described one of the greatest health calamities Americans face- High Fructose Corn Syrup as a sweetener.  It turns out that High Fructose Corn Syrup is a cheap sweetener, cheaper than regular sugar, made from corn.  Unfortunately, it blocks the production of Leptin, a substance in the body that tells you that you are done eating and lets you feel full.  In additon, it blocks another substance in the body that allows you to regulate high blood pressure, causing blood pressure to rise.  It causes a bad reaction in arteries due to it's "browning" ability(it browns the insides of arteries just like it browns steak on the grill, doctors have seen the color change during operations), weakening them, which combined with high blood pressure and the obesity caused by leptin suppression and poor regulation of HFCS in the liver, is deadly.  It's processed in the liver differently than regular sugar, it's treated more like a fat and causes your body to store it as fat.  In short, HFCS is a poison.  It is much sweeter than regular sugar so that it bombards your pancreas like nothing ever used before, making it the crack of sugars.  Now companies have even started using Crystalline High Fructose Corn Syrup which is even sweeter than regular HFCS.  Crystal...hmmmm.  This has the effect on you body of doing shot after shot of alcohol, without the buzz since HFCS is not metabolized in the brain.

Corn is notoriously hard to digest, is an allergen for some people, and most people of European or Scandinavian heritage have metabolisms that are used to Wheat, Barley or Rye, not corn.  Columbus discovered corn along with the American continent. History of Corn

So here is Dr. Lustig's video where he breaks down the chemistry of exactly WHAT HFCS is doing to us, and WHY.  It's a 90 minute video so watch it when you have time to do so, and stick with it, it's well worth stretching to try to understand what he is saying.

High Fructose Corn Syrup is very available because it is one of the products that is produced from Corn.  Corn is the largest crop in the USA and is "subsidized" by the Govt. each year by millions of dollars- according to one article, the govt. had paid $56 BILLION in Corn Subsidies between 1995 and 2006.  Why?  Because when the price of corn is down, certain companies(hmm, I wonder who the shareholders are?) save A LOT of money buying corn for various uses.  Chicken, pork and beef producers (yes, those same people with the huge and horrible antibiotic and growth hormone ridden slaughterhouses of which you've seen terrible photos on the internet), and of course producers of High Fructose Corn Syrup and Ethanol.  Cheap toxic meat and sweetener, and ethanol, a crappy low mileage fuel that unbeknown to most drivers, is mixed with gas that you buy from gas stations.  This is often why you get lower gas mileage than expected, due to the corn ethanol in the mix.  This was supposed to reduce gas prices but it really hasn't.

The cheap US corn undercuts other countries' markets and makes it so that farmers in Mexico and other places really can't really make money with this crop, worsening their conditions considerably.

Why This Is A Scam:

To make things cheaper for certain companies, corn gets subsidies from the US Government every year(millions of dollars). *Who voted on THAT?*  This makes Corn Syrup much cheaper than any other sweetener.  It is also easier to handle and transport, so combined with the low price, it makes it more attractive for companies to use.

In addition, it's addictive properties of slamming sugar right to the bloodstream and not letting the person know when they've had enough cause them to consume more product and come back for more, more frequently.  Sneaky companies add corn syrup in order to purposefully addict "consumers" to their branded flavor.  We found HFCS in products where you would never think there was any added sweetener- condiments, pasta meals, bread, salad dressing, supposedly "healthy" snacks like Granola Bars and "low fat" cakes and cookies (if it tastes like crap after the fat has been removed, they add more sweetener....)  The fact that people would eat "health" products thinking they were being healthy and losing weight, only to have their livers, pancreases and other organs bombarded by High Fructose Corn Syrup's ill effects should be criminal.  The "cooler" the label, the higher HFCS was on the label.  Stuff like "Jack Daniels" brand BBQ sauce and other brand names.  They want you to eat it all up and come back for more, and there's hardly any better way to accomplish this than to add a product that is known to cause this.  Nobody cares when you have a heart attack at 45- as a matter of fact, this is GOOD for the USA- it will churn your insurance if you have any, and create jobs for others.  And they don't need us living to be 100, right?  What if everybody did that- how would they pay everybody's Social Security and Pension and still rake in billions?  SOMEBODY has to die, RIGHT?

Make sure that "somebody" is not YOU.

How to CUT AND RUN:

1) Recognize that you have been messed with.  It's not normal to consume 156 POUNDS OF SUGAR PER YEAR like the average USA "consumer" (I really loathe that word but it suits the purpose here). Sugar is being added to EVERYTHING- in order to ADDICT YOU.  Recognize this- that the Food And Drug Administration did nothing to place a cap on the amount of sugar companies are allowed to put in any food, and do not care if your organs wear out at 45 or if you have a heart attack or become a diabetic or obese.  That they act as the gatekeepers to money (YOUR money) and do not in actuality give a damn about your or anybody else's true health.  This is one of those "anchors" that you must sacrifice in order to free yourself from being a "consumer" and turning into an active, healthy CITIZEN and HUMAN BEING, that I spoke about in the first blog.

2) Find and Recognize the Sources of High Fructose Corn Syrup.  Anything Government Subsidized will be the cheapest possible which means HFCS will be the sweetener- that means cheap grocery stores in bad neighborhoods which are Government Subsidized(those weird brands that you never see anywhere outside Govt. subsidized stores and dollar stores).  WIC programs for mothers with kids are notorious for only allowing the cheapest products and therefore tons of HFCS sweetened products as opposed to natural products- READ YOUR LABLES and try to find the products that don't have HFCS if you are in this situation right now.   HFCS has even been found in BABY FORMULA- do NOT, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES give HFCS to a baby, infant or toddler.  There is an epidemic of obesity in babies toddlers right now due to HFCS, this could cause lifelong health problems for your child.  READ ALL LABLES and you will quickly see how pervasive HFCS has become.  If you see it on the lable, AVOID- in addition, watch out for the other names for it like CORN SYRUP SOLIDS, FRUCTOSE/GLUCOSE, and anything else that sound suspicious.  Better safe than sorry.

3) In order to promote the best health of both mind and body, try to AVOID LABLES ENTIRELY.  If someone could put a patent on a flavor, it means they have a motivation to try to addict you to that flavor- and here in SCAmerica, nobody is going to stop them since this is the Land of Constant Scams.  Choose things that people could never possibly patent, Vegetables and Fruits, Whole Grains and Lean Cuts of Meat and Fish.  I realize this is a tall order when money is tight, but it is much cheaper than some people realize.  Learn how to make your own condiments like Spaghetti Sauce (it is a lot easier than you think, buy cans of tomato sauce and add the spices, onions, garlic, etc yourself, it's not that hard and it's much cheaper than buying it), salad dressing, etc- use the internet to look up recipes.  We have the technology, we can do this!  Stop your sugar addictions, give your organs and brain a break and increase your ability to concentrate and your lifespan!

Other articles of interest:

WHY ARE WE PROPPING UP CORN PRODUCTION, AGAIN?

WHAT EATING TOO MUCH SUGAR DOES TO YOUR BRAIN



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On another note, I watched Children of the Corn again, originally written by Steven King.  It came out in 1984.  At first I was just having some fun watching an old 80s horror flick, but I started to quickly realize that there are some paralells between what I wrote in this blog and what the movie was showing.  SOME people, apparantly, knew about the disaster that was being created by this new "cult of corn" and were making very clear statements about it.  Mr. King, care to comment?:)

1) The premise is a very old and ancient Corn Demon that kills you before you can get old- teens are sacrificed to it on their 19th birthday.  It has been here since before the settlers.  Kills you before you can get old?  SOUNDS LIKE CORN TO ME!

2) The demon has possessed a child who was taught to be a preacher and appointed him to be his priest and way to communicate with the people of the town.  A connection with religion?  Everybody knows that towns in the Midwest where corn is grown are overly religious to the point of being oppressive.  Could Steven King have been making a statement about how religious leaders are pushing corn production on these towns, using religion to do it? (possibly for favours, kickbacks, etc?)

3) There is a clear reference to Ethanol in one part, where one of the children has killed the gas station attendant that they were allowing to live because he provided needed gas for the town.  He said "we don't need him any more, we have our own fuel "from the corn!" when Isac, the demon posessed kid, says "you know it is not enough."  That was a statement about how corn production was pushed as a possible fuel source through Ethanol, but as we all know, Ethanol is not enough to truly be a fuel source.

4) Sacrificing adults to the ancient demon in corn?  What is Stephen King trying to say with this?  This message hinted to me, as I pondered EVERYTHING I had struggled to understand as a member of the "counterculture" over the years, of a diabolical system set up by corporations and government that sucks the best working years out of it's members and kills them off before they can become wise enough to figure out a way out of it, and also makes it so that they don't benefit from their work by living out their Golden Years in comfort- they die early, and someone else gets to absorb the profit of the work of their lives(let me guess- corporations and govt which now don't have to pay a pension, medical bills, etc)

5) the way the Demon was eventually conquered in this movie was to burn the cornfields with gasoline.  So the message was clear- use gas and not corn(ethanol), that corn is a threat, a danger and part of a vicious and evil scheme to drain people's lives and well being.  It could be possible that the basic premise of this movie was to protest massive corn production as a supposed fuel source.  But it said so much more.

FOOTBALL is NOT *EDUCATION*

What has this:

To do with THIS? :

In the USA, the answer is MONEY.

The USA has been sold on Football making money for colleges, therefore doesn't even question exposing vulnerable female students to violent, ignorant jocks who by all rights would never even have been accepted to the school if they weren't being used as "cash cows".

In this scam, "student-athletes" who are not even paid due to their "student" status are given scholarships to Universities in exchange for playing football.  The University and it's staff pockets the money they generate.  Coaches in high schools groom and scout players who are allowed to take tests seperately from the rest of the students, allowed to cheat, scored differently, etc because they are "cash cows" for the school.  They learn little of nothing in high schools, little of nothing in colleges, yet emerge with a degree and an NFL career.  The are allowed to commit crimes with impunity, especially crimes against women.

In Ancient Greece, it was considered reprehensible to take money to teach, first of all.  But since we are in an Ultra Capitalism, the allmighty Dollar makes decisions for us unfortunately.  College students are vulnerable and date rapes and out and out rapes like the one in Steubenville happen every single year due to the ultra macho sports culture being harbored by schools as a way to bring in cash.  Don't fall victim to this!

HOW TO CUT AND RUN:

Try to choose a school where sports are not the main way the school secures funding.  Scrutinize State schools especially who need the funds from Football.

If you're stuck going to one of these schools, avoid the areas where athletes congregate, avoid their parties, and even avoid making friends with their girlfriends- the Steubenville Rape Victim was lured to one of their parties by a GIRL who was the girlfriend of one of the players, and was subsequently knocked out by a roofie in her drink and then gang raped at several different parties before being dumped on her parent's lawn.  The girlfriend knew about this and did nothing, and was the catalyst of the situation.  However, she has not been charged with a crime because of the corruption that protects these athletes.  Avoid all of them, male and female, like the plague if you must go to a school with them there.

Just in case you thought I was the only one saying this, FORBES has already written several articles about how Football is corrupting Universities and should be removed. FORBES ARTICLE

Football itself is a ridiculous display of gender role stereotyping, is antiquated, and should be ignored and boycotted by any reasonable, thinking individual.

Rape Culture, the ultimate Scam- on a Human Life

Recently, ROSEANNE BAR partnered with TRACI LORDS to produce a radio talk show dedicated to the factors that cause rapes like the one in Steubenville, Ohio (Stupidville) that happened this past August.  Traci Lords is from Steubenville and she was raped there at age 10, and subsequently molested by her mother's boyfriend as a tween and early teen, which lead to her porn career at age 15-16.  Her mother spent her life in Steubenville, and she was also raped.

I was going to add this video to my blog about this rape, however it contained so much good content that I felt it deserved an entry and title of it's own.  It's about how these roles of victim, abuser, aider-and-abetter, etc, are programmed into us in emotionally and physically violent ways starting at an early age, leading to stunted, painful and abbreviated lives.  Girls- victims, shamed, a caste of second class citizens who don't count and who's status and safety is dependent upon a man.  Women- same as girls, victims and enablers- collude in helping men abuse or take the victim's place.  Men- abusers, advantage takers who are not allowed to care about their victims or else they will risk their "manly" status- the only thing important is the other guys or their status in the group.  Boys- must prove to these abusers who are grooming them that they are tough and manly, they have no sympathy and are able to take advantage of victims, make fun of their pain, etc.

This programming stays with people for life and when crimes are committed as a result of this programming, they are colluded with and covered up by the whole group- Girls- don't report crimes, don't name their abusers, try to keep it covered up to avoid shame Women- act as accessories to the crimes to please men, ignore the crimes and "don't believe it" when it is brought to their attention, try to shield the abusers from the repercussions of their crimes, etc  Men- deny that it happened, minimize the situation and obfuscate, organize cronies to cover up their crime, etc.  Boys- act as tools to commit crimes directed by "leaders", try hard to please these men by being callous to the pain they cause and joking about it, etc, prove their "status" in the "advantage taking group or gang", it's all about other men when they do this, a homoerotic subtext.

The lives lived as a result of this programming are hardly worth living- Girls- repeatedly put themselves in a position where they will be victimized and taken advantage of, don't prosecute the abusers, feel a sense of shame and low self worth, may attempt to harm self, etc.  Women- same as Girls, in addition don't live up to their potential as a human being, low self worth, incapable of breaking away from abusers, expose their children to harm and then must live with the fact that they've done that, etc.  Men- not allowed to have feelings, must be tough and strong or sacrifice status as a "Man", must be in control all the time, not allowed to communicate or show humanity other than to give orders, etc.  Boys- not allowed to care, self esteem dependent on the approval of the group of Men and Boys all the time, being excluded from group of Men and Boys is like worst nightmare, will hurt, abandon and shame a victim rather than risk their status in the group.

Who benefits from this scam? MEN WHO PARTICIPATE IN IT, who form a group of cronies and seize ALL the power, money, opportunity, etc in the area, after having systematically beaten down and controlled everybody else through shame, humiliation, violence, abuse, cronyism, strict enforcement of gender and other roles,  etc.  If they can they will take over all the posts of authority in the place.

These scenarios happen all over, but tend to fester in small towns like Stupidville where it is easy for Rapist Culture to take hold.  GENERATIONS of rapists- are we ready to break the cycle?  Listen to this video, it is great.

HOW TO CUT AND RUN:

If you feel yourself to be trapped in a circle of this kind of thinking and actions, LEAVE IMMEDIATELY.  This could be literally buying a ticket and being gone the next day, or just choosing to cut off everyone you talk to.  It's a situation of dire emergency, you could be attacked, killed, raped, or forced or manipulated to do this to someone else.  DO NOT RAISE YOUR CHILDREN IN THIS, even if you have to get a messy divorce, etc.  If everybody leaves except the rapists, they will be left to sit around and abuse each other(which will quickly happen because they will easily sacrifice one of their group to have another victim) - their system only works if there are victims to abuse.  DO NOT be fodder for this.  If you feel AT ALL that you are not being listened to and are being treated as a second class citizen, GET OUT.  You and your children's lives depend on it, as well as those of other people.  No job, no amount of money, no marriage, NOTHING IS WORTH THIS.

Douchebag Jocks Rape Yet Another Girl

In a scenario that has repeated itself again and again in the United States of SCAmerica, football jocks who have been coddled by the entire town of Stueubenville, Ohio (Stupidville) desperate for football dollars almost got away with raping yet another young girl.  This fits into this website because USUALLY they either get away with it or get a slap on the wrist- a scam that the entire town colludes in.  The ONLY reason why that's not happening in this case is because vigilante hacker group ANNONYMOUS decided to hack the douches computers in search of more evidence, and found one of them laughing and joking about the rape on video, describing it in detail, etc. as only a brain
dead football jock could be capable of doing.  Normally the douche in question would have gotten away with the rape since his mother is the main Prosecuting Attorney for the town.  Any attempts at prosecution had been deflected thus far by the horrid mother, who was in the process of spawning someone as amoral as herself- apparently her son's propensity for rape didn't cause her to bat an eyelash.  That must have been a great home to grow up in, but it's no excuse for his behavior.

You can read more about that sordid case here.

How to CUT AND RUN:

Examine the town you are going to move to very carefully.  Is it organized around football dollars?  Find out.  Do you have a young daughter who will grow up around the meathead jocks that they are spawning?  Do you have a son who is intellectual and not interested in sports in the least?  THINK about what it will do to your children to live in an environment like this one.  Make another choice of town if possible.  DON'T SET YOUR KIDS UP TO LIVE IN A POISONOUS ENVIRONMENT LIKE STUPIDVILLE.

 Not only that, warn your kids that it IS NOT SAFE TO HANG OUT WITH THE SON OF THE PROSECUTING ATTORNEY, unless you know them personally and can vouch for their moral character.  No matter what happens, that kid will NOT get in trouble no matter what they do and YOURS WILL.  Well, unless ANNONYMOUS gets involved, which luckily for the victim happened in this case, in time to affect her trial.  Will YOUR son or daughter be so lucky as to attract top of the line hackers to assist them?  Do you want to take that chance?  Analyze your town, follow the money trails and then make a decision as to wether you want your kids to grow up there.

Georgia Senator who Took On CPS Corruption Found Dead

Nancy Schaefer, the outspoken Georgia Senator who went against CPS and exposed their corruption, was found shot to death alongside her husband in their home in 2010 after speaking out against the horrific corruption in CPS.  Her death was baselessly labeled as a murder-suicide.  Yeah, right.

We think these things happen in underdeveloped and 3rd World Countries.  Think again.  It happens in our own back yards.

Is the CPS scam THAT LUCRATIVE, that someone would be willing to kill to keep it going?  Or, is there some other reason that a continuous supply of children could be wanted by the State- are there pedophiles in high places?  WHY ARE THEY TAKING THESE CHILDREN?  And who is benefitting from it?  Could they be benefitting in other ways such as child prostitution businesses, which is one of the fastest growing businesses in the USA?  All things must be considered no matter how upsetting.  The wave of children being taken for little or no good reason seems to coincide with the economy worsening, and that to me is very suspicious.

Normally on this blog, for every situation I post, I will post a way to "cut and run" from the situation.  This is the one situation there really is no remedy for- and it happened to be the first one I posted.  There is no way to avoid an assassin hired by someone who has it out for you because you are exposing them and about to cut off their money supply and possibly land them in prison.  UNLESS you employ body guards fulltime and live in a constantly surveilled compound- then you might have a chance.  I guess the lesson is that even if you are a Senator- Hell, even if you are President of the United States of America- don't assume there won't be someone gunning for you if you are exposing them.  Make sure that it would be really expensive for them to do this to you, like writing in a safe place every day about who you think might try to kill you and why, and tell all your friends and post about it online.  Make sure you are part of a daily network of people who know your story and follow it closely.  Not like this Senator wasn't, but perhaps she didn't understand her danger enough.  Make sure that you do.  The people who do these things are ruthless- if they would hurt women, children, families etc this much, do you think they care about YOU?  Hell No.  So just make it as inconvienient as possible to take you down, on a daily basis, and make that woven into the fabric of how you live your life.

SCAMerica Short List

When deciding the next issue of Cut And Run, thought had to be directed toward what was most influential in people's lives.  Should the blog be organized in the order of issues that could affect us from birth to death?  Or should it be order of severity, or importance?

I have decided to put the most dire situations first in order to protect citizens the fastest.  All the situations are dire, but certain situations can involve death or abuse of those involved, and for this reason they will be the first chapters in Cut and Run.  Each of these topics will be dealt with in depth in future installment, with links to YouTube and other video testimony.

1) Criminal Court- The War On Drugs- the industry that is created from criminalizing citizens and in the process creates a "criminal class" to be used as a commodity by prisons, third party businesses which use prisoners as workers, a whole industry of parole and probation officers, drug testing companies, halfway houses, drug programs, etc.  Judges receive kickbacks for placing people and children in third party businesses like "drug programs" or "private juvenile facilities" - follow the trail of "no tolerance judges" or "hanging judges"  to see what is happening in these cases, they are usually the ones getting kickbacks for providing numbers.  Juveniles and Teens are especially preyed upon.

2) Family Court- divorces that use children as bait to drain the family's resources in to the pockets of attorneys, judges and "court appointed forensics".  The cases don't resolve for 10-20 years and cost up to $500,000 in fees.   Conflict is created by lawyers and the case is chuned for years.  Forensics with fake diplomas are used, and only a certain circle of cronies ever gets appointed to the court.  Or, judges receive kickbacks from wealthy fathers to get custody of children so that they don't have to pay child support to the mother which is more expensive than having the child live with you.  Even more sinister are the cases where the child is being sexually abused- the mother reports it and loses custody of the child due to an experimental  government "Father Incentive" program.  She is said to be "alienating the child" from his or her father.  The abuser gains custody and continues sexually abusing the child.

3) Probate Court-  your aging relative is appointed a "guardian ad litem" crony of the judge, and this crony as the conservator has access to your relative's money and you don't.  He or she spends your relative's money on themselves and their friends and gives a healthy kickback to the judge who made this possible.  Meanwhile your relative is neglected/mistreated and you are denied access to them until their money is gone.

4) Psychology- you are never cured, your issues are never resolved and you are made dependent on expensive appointments and/or drugs with terrible side effects.  You continue this for life.

5) CPS- your children are taken for profit under some pretense or exaggeration and then "sold" to wealthy people who would like to adopt them.  Mothers of very "adoptable" children(attractive, etc) would be well advised never to come under CPS's radar, which will begin to "intercept" children being born and take them from you in the hospital shortly after birth.  

6) Banks- your property is almost paid off.  The bank claims you missed payments and forecloses.  It could be  real estate, a vehicle, etc.  Or the bank charges usuriously high interest rates for low credit score individuals.

7) Mortgage Brokers- you are talked into taking out a huge mortgage or refinancing your mortgage and taking equity out of it.  The Broker receives a huge commission each time you do something.  *The govt. has now placed a $1500 cap on ANY commission received for such work*

8) Stock Brokers- your money is traded and traded with the broker receiving a commission each time something is traded, till all your money is gone.

9) Doctors and Hospitals- you don't have insurance but have an emergency.  Suddenly you owe thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills.  Your credit is ruined.  *From what I understand, Obamacare has now put in place a Pre-Existing Condition Insurance that can help some of these cases, but people who had problems before this happened and had run up huge hospital bills are still responsible for paying them back.*  A lot of these bills are eventually quietly written off, a little known fact in the USA.  This pretty much proves that they were overly inflated in the first place.

10) Landlords- landlords are allowed to raise the rent faster if tenants move out.  Your landlord really doesn't want you to stay more than a year.  You are OK for the first year in your apartment, then you start being treated poorly by your landlord.  Things in your building and apartment are not fixed, heat and hot water are cut down to an intolerable level.  Lawyers are paid to find loopholes where they are allowed to raise your rent randomly.  You leave, and pay thousands in moving expenses.  Then the cycle begins again.  There is no stability in your life and it's hard to save money as you move every couple of years, the only way to keep the apt is to be a better litigator than your landlord.  Only lawyers win in this situation.  Apartments are churned year after year until the housing market is as high priced as it can stand to be with everyone straining to make rent each month.

11) Every month, your money is gone toward bills.  No matter how cheaply you try to live, you can't reduce your bills enough to save.  Companies have done exhaustive research on people in your age category, financial background, ethnicity, etc, crunched the numbers down and already worked out a plan to take all your money.  It's not an accident that when one bill goes down, another goes up.  To really save, you have to do something extreme like live for free with parents or friends or out of your car, figure out a life plan that is so cheap that it prices you out of your category and you have a surplus, dumpster dive, figure out how to work coupons to an extreme, learn to live off the land, etc.  If nobody clues you in fast enough you won't save money.

12) Mental Health facilities that insist you need more treatment until your insurance runs out, then you are "miraculously cured" and released immediately.  Or abusive Scared Straight programs or Drug programs that keep children until they can no longer be under their parent's or the Sate's health insurance.

13) Mail Order Brides- a Legal form of Human Trafficking.  A deficient male American Citizen who cannot form normal relationships meets a foreign woman online or in person.  He agrees to marry her, which she does in order to escape an impoverished situation in her home country.   He then proceeds to abuse her and any children she already has or gives birth to within the marriage, but she is not free to leave him or else she will be sent back home and possibly lose her children to the abuser.  She is abused for as long as it takes her to gain legal status, and so are her children.  Nobody wants to help her because they judge her for taking part in the Phony Marriage.  

*The list goes on!  If anyone would like to clue me into another scam or form of corruption, please email me at djxtine@absolutionnyc.com .*

Often these vulture-like entities are like Vampires- the best way to deal with them is not to invite them in in the first place. To "stay off their radar".   Those who fall into their trap are often the young and innocent, inexperienced or foreign people who believed that public officials can and would help them in the USA.

Many people in the USA can describe this feeling…the feeling that "something sinister" is lurking just outside the field of your vision, and you just can't bring yourself to get married and have a child….or buy a house…or invest…that you should just "live for today" because "it could all be taken away tomorrow".   Well the word is out now.  People are connecting the dots and beginning to make a safe place for themselves and their families.  Help has arrived, but every Citizen of the USA has to be part of the new influx of knowledge that will stop the advantage taking and invite in true safety and prosperity.

Data from Community organizations are a way to see where the "hotspots" of fraud activity is happening and choose a safer area.  It's a good idea to join or form a Community Organization in your area so that you can hear about the new scams that are coming out and the scams and corruption that are specific to your area.

                                             Be smart and don't invite scams and corruption in!  Stay off their radar!