When Bad News Hits, It's Often A Great Opportunity for Movers and Shakers
There is a new report out by Sabrina Perry of Graphiq that lists the ten worst cities to get a job right now.
Before we post the list, here's a Nationwide map of the current low to high unemployment rates in the U.S.
So here's the list of the 10 worst towns to get a job in, right now.
10. Pontiac, Michigan : Unemployment rate: 11.60%
9. East St. Louis, Illinois : Unemployment rate: 11.70%
8. Selma, Alabama : Unemployment rate: 11.90%
7. Harvey, Illinois : Unemployment rate: 12.10%
6. Wasco, California : Unemployment rate: 12.30%
5. Detroit, Michigan : Unemployment rate: 12.70%
4. Yuma, Arizona : Unemployment rate: 16.10%
3. El Centro, California : Unemployment rate: 22.10%
2. Brawley, California : Unemployment rate: 25.90%
1. Calexico, California : Unemployment rate: 27.40%
From the average job hunter's perspective, the top ten worst cities for jobs might be a useful list to avoid for certain people on the move, it may be quite useless to the majority of the people living and working in or around those poorly performing towns. After all, if they're stuck there and can't move away easily, this list does nothing to help them a new, better job.
From the investor's perch, however, it may seem like a golden list of places to spend a little and get a lot. May key prices that affect businesses are fairly low in places with high unemployment rates, because anyone doing business there is desperate enough to lower prices to ridiculously low rates. And even the local government often offers various financial incentives, like lower taxes, in order to attract more and new business to their destitute area.
On top of that, the list of cities in the report, actually pretty much all have declining unemployment over the long term. The problem is, they're not declining as fast as other places, or to such low numbers as the national average of 5.1%. Yet they are declining, in the long term. So that means a slow, steady increase in the workforce, and that means a longer time available to create businesses and jobs at lower rates that are more sustainable than elsewhere. Therefore, a smart investor armed with solid accounting can go a long way in slumping cities.
After all, we've all heard the expression "Buy low. Sell high.", and most of us know that when you're at the bottom, there's usually nowhere to go but up. Plus, the most successful entrepreneurs throughout history have nearly all created their best successes by investing in something when it seemed that all around them, the chips were down. They knew when to go all-in, and dare the seemingly unsurmountable odds stacked against them. And they didn't do it sitting pretty in the middle of an easy place or a fully relaxed condition. They did it on edge, when their backs were against the wall, or when they saw a chance to do something huge in the most unlikely of ways.
And that pretty much sums up why it's a great time to be a self-starter or entrepreneur in those cities, willing to do something new and different. No wonder a growing number (over 50 Million US workers, at last count in September 2015) have gone independent, starting their own business venture or finding irregular jobs to make their financial aspirations become increasingly realized. And those that start a business in an environment where the context is difficult, stand to make greater gains from the get-go, despite the challenges on their path to success.
This may explain why productized service marketplaces like Uber, Fiverr, AirBnB and others are all growing fast, especially in economically hard hit areas. They offer individuals the ability to reach customers on their own terms, without having to carry the burdens of the old, heavy legacy institutions of brand-building, marketing and advertising. Instead, their sellers can leverage their market's strength in brand-name recognition, and deliver more specific services to highly targeted prospective customers, at lower rates, even while maximizing their returns.
For an insightful perspective on entrepreneurialism in American history, be sure to watch the following video, which is a speech by John Steele Gordon, Author of "An Empire of Wealth", delivered at Hillsdale College.
Are you thinking of starting your own business? What industry appeals to you the most? Which, if any, marketplaces are at the top of your list as ways to get new customers, and why? Be sure post your comments below, or message us privately if you're shy and opinionated.
Please Note: I am not affiliated with any of the following websites. My colleagues, with whom this research was conducted, are also not affiliated with these sites. We have simply discovered these techniques that anyone can use to earn a little extra. This works especially well if you have an hour or two per day to spend online. And the best part is, there is absolutely nothing to buy. There is No purchase necessary and there is no investment of any kind required to do any of the tactics recommended in this article.
Three great easy current and consistent ways to earn quick bucks
Sometimes, you need a little extra cabbage in your wallet or bank account. It can happen to anyone, for any reason. We're not here to judge anyone on their personal finance circumstances. We're just here to offer some great tips and free advice.
We've spent thousands of hours researching the web for possible ways to earn extra income so you don't have to. We did this because there was a time when we needed to know this, and frankly we were massively disappointed in what we found. Nothing and no one was truly sharing really helpful advice about how to do this. It was all either pie-in-the-sky or there was some things we found out that they did not disclose fully and up front. We did not appreciate that, and we thought that it would make our search for an answer more helpful if it was spelled out clearly, with supporting videos where possible, in order to make it accessible to anyone who can get on the internets, now and in the future.
Here are the best three ways we have found to keep yourself out of the poor house, pay extra bills, or simply have a little extra to relieve that endless financial stress that keeps you from achieving your other, more important life goals.
Method #1
How to earn thirty bucks an hour by filling out surveys, without any costly signup fee or hidden charges.
The basic premise here is very simple, and it involves just a few, easy to repeat steps.
Step 1): Join a Survey Network.
You sign up for free to a survey site like Vindale Research. Then you go ahead and scan the available surveys for ones that take the least amount of time, and payout the most amount. For example, a survey that pays $2 and takes only 5 minutes is financially equivalent to a survey that takes 10 minutes and pays $4. So do the math and see how much you earn per minute and per hour and then it's easy to pick the ones you can earn the most from.
Step 2): Promote your chosen survey site's affiliate link
After you've signed up to the survey site of your choice, and you have earned your first few extra coins or bills, you'll quickly realize how easy it is to do, and how much more you'll be able to earn if just a few of your friends sign up and do the same. In order to do this properly and quickly, the easiest thing to do is to go on to the forums where people are in a similar boat, looking for proven ways and effective means to improve their finances. One of the easiest places to do this, is to join the fora where musicians and other sorts of artists hang out and chat online. Artists tend to be a group of people constantly in need of extra capital. Surely you've heard of, or even know a starving artist or two, right?
So you go onto sites like Bandmix, where you signup for free, and after you've introduced yourself to the community according to the forum rules, and after you've made a couple of other useful posts or comments about the topics on the forum where you have something interesting to say, you then (and only then!) promote your chosen survey site's affiliate link in the relevant Forum board. You'll be surprised at how many great people are out there looking for ways to sustain their lifestyle with online earnings. Done right, you can easily get a few people to sign up through your affiliate link, and then you're earning a nice, small extra amount through their efforts.
Step 3: Choose another survey site and repeat
Once you have done your part to fill out surveys and promote your affiliate link on a forum where people are looking for secure ways to earn quickly, you should be able to repeat this process on other trustworthy sites. Some sites you will come across will even pay you smaller amounts (pennies, usually) to write reviews for songs or other fun, entertaining media. One example of this is Slice The Pie. You sign up, for free, and then you start to listen to music it plays for you. After you hear the selection, you post your review, and you earn some pennies or nickels for your opinion. The thing to do here is to make sure you actually post something useful and insightful. An honest review. Not a bunch of garbage or just one or two sentences. If you just post junk, these sorts of sites will very quickly see that you are just trying to exploit their system and they will ban your account. So just be real and honest and let them know what you think of what they played for you. After all, they went through all the work to build a system that pays you for your opinion. Think about how often you post long responses to facebook posts or tweets. And how much and often have those sites ever paid you? So why not make your comments worth your while?
And again, the best music and entertainment review sites will also let you join an affiliate program for free, and you should join it and promote your affiliate link on similar forums as mentioned above.
Method #2
How to earn a grand in one hour of work, using two websites:
This is probably our favorite big ticket method to pad any wallet quickly. It requires just a few simple, free steps.
Step 1: Signup to Clickbank
Join Clickbank for free. Use it as an online payment processor, to enable online sales, watch your commissions grow, and tap into a huge database of insights that can help you grow your sales stream easily and effectively. Basically, you'll use Clickbank to promote the links you want to promote in this method. When people buy something you're selling, it will be tracked and processed safely and securely by Clickbank, which then disburses your funds to you in any of the many ways they offer. It can even be on a weekly basis.
Step 2: Sign up to Seize Cars
Lookup the Seize Cars website. Sign up for free. Join their affiliate program for free. Get your affiliate links to the cars you want to offer for sale.
Step 3: Promote your links on Craig's List
Copy/Paste those links in places where buyers are looking for exactly those sorts of products. Popular buyer fora include Craigs List and many, many others. Local fora are often best, because then you can promote a local item, which can be quickly delivered to the customer. On Craig's List, you go into the Car Buyer's message boards, and you offer to Sell a car or truck as an owner. You then fill out the form as a seller/owner, because the cars you are promoting on the Seized Cars website are usually sold by the owner, or by the government which has seized the car and is selling it on behalf of the owner. When your affiliate link leads to a sale of a high ticket item like a car, truck or boat, you can easily make a grand or more, even on a small commission rate.
This method basically teaches anyone how to use the methods and practices done by the verified pitchman, to create their own services available online.
Step 1: Signup to MakeFiverrMoney
Join the site for free and subscribe to his free weekly tips on how you can earn extra on the digital services marketplace.
Step 2: Follow the recommended steps
Set up your seller account and start creating gigs. You can have up to 20 at a time. The more, the better, as it will show you, over time, which of your services sell, and which ones don't. And then you can edit the ones that work to work better, and edit the ones that don't work to work better, or remove them, or keep them if they drive good leads to your more successful services.
Step 3: Put in an hour or two per day for at least 3 months, to promote your services across your website, blog and social networks
Once your services are made and ready to sell, make sure you tell everyone about them. Do this by naturally mentioning your links in places where it is appropriate, relevant and useful to the readers, listeners or viewers. You can mention it in a blog post, a website, a social network, even an audio file, ebook or YouTube video clip.
While you should not expect to see immediate sales, you will notice an increase in interest over the first few weeks, and eventually you will start to see sales after a month or two. Persistence and regular tweaks to your posting methods will help you grow past the ground floor to significant sales levels within a few months of maintaining a good effort.
How we learned, tested and reported on these techniques
So here's how we created this study, what we found, and what it all means to your bottom line. We urge you to read this section, test it for yourself, and let us know in the comments below what your honest experiences are.
Methodology
Our 4-points criteria for achieving this list required that the methods were:
1) trustworthy and verifiable,
2) consistently reliable over 90 days or more,
3) easy to replicate and independent of market forces, and
4) free of charge to join, and did not require any financial outlay, capital investment or other monetary expense.
We kept copious notes during our research and built this report over time, so that it would be available to you as quickly as possible as soon as we concluded our study and had it peer reviewed.
Research
We studied the offers of over 4,700 sites over a period of 2 years and 3 months (concluded last month).
Discovery
What we have found is that there are an enormous amount of sites promising ways to earn extra capital, yet very few (less than 1.7%) actually meet our criteria. The overwhelming amount of them require either too much time, and financial charges that they do not disclose up front. These two basic barriers to entry prevent most people from following through, because either they do not have the time, or they do not wish to spend in order to earn.
On top of that, we have found that most of the sites (over 78%) are either promoting methods that are not trustworthy or verifiable, do not last longer than a few months. Usually the programs offered are unsustainable, or they shut down or go offline or become exclusive, with paid fees keeping out those who ironically need their offerings the most. As a result, most people who are looking for ways to add some liquid assets to their purse do not believe what they are being offered will work. The net effect of that is that the person in need remains needy, while the person or people selling their wares remain without sales growth.
And a pure majority (more than 83%) are difficult, if not impossible, to replicate, and are too dependent on market forces, relying on things beyond your control. If you're fortunate enough to make one of the oft-seen methods work, you'll be hard pressed to make it work again and again, for any significant period of time. Either they take up too much time, or they go offline, or the market forces will make the method obsolete. This immediately eliminated thousands of programs, where the groups paying out to people are essentially exploiting the market to drop the standards to the lowest possible level. What this means is that it's just not worth it unless you live in a poverty stricken third world nation, or are otherwise living on less than a couple of bucks a day.
Conclusion
The top 3 methods presented in this article are proven, effective ways of generating extra capital. The first two are easily done to earn relatively quickly (days and weeks). The third method is quick and easy to set up (a few hours of time) and then requires effort promoting your links across your website, blogs and social networks, and then it requires patience and time.
We have found that it takes up to a month or two to start seeing our services sell, and then within a few months, to see a heavier stream of sales start to happen. And it takes up to 12 - 18 months to see the extra earnings grow from a nice pocket money source, to something akin to a full salary level.
The methods and secrets revealed in this article are most likely not going to make you a zillionaire. They are not intended to do so. However, if you actually need extra dead presidents in the next 7 - 30 days, you can use the sites listed above and follow the methods revealed, to get what you need, reliably and repeatedly.
Do these methods work for you? Do they live up to your expectations? What shortcomings did you find with any of the ways demonstrated in this article? What better methods have you found to fund yourself quickly in times of critical or urgent need for extra beans? Your reviews and feedback are vital to this process, and we thank you for sharing your opinions with us.
At first you might be dismayed about the general coverage of the SEO space and its importance in the industry.
But when you consider people like Jason DeMers, an SEO with a blog / guest column regularly appearing on Forbes, it seems an increasing number of SEOs are pushing the topic forward, and helping to demystify the things SEOs do.
Whether or not that play is as wise as it may seem, is not a universally accepted view. Some SEO experts view it as a way of informing lots of SMBs who don't know about SEO, but they may get the wrong ideas relative to their own SEO needs.
Of course, anytime anyone tries to lift the veil of secrecy off of any trade or profession, some incumbents will reject the notion as a lowering of standards, in one way or another. And in time, the naysayers are consumed by the overwhelming market size that make the formerly secretive knowledge normal, common, almost banal.
The trouble seems to stem from the typical washed down coverage of almost generic topics, rather than deeper insights into more advanced topics that experienced professionals might be concerned with or interested in.
And of course, in the case of SEO, the elements of Desktop and Mobile SEO are a big topic which get constant coverage, even if more fundamental issues remain under the surface.
Regardless of one's stance, of course, an SEO must remain on top of the current issues related to doing the necessary work. So even if you don't like reading about SEO in major media, the fact is you have to read up on what they're publishing. At least, you must do this from time to time, just to make sure you don't fall behind your competitors. Remember, they are focused on bringing home the bacon, and damn the consequences of ignoring the more significant issues that newbies do not understand.
For example, Google Now On Tap, an insightful feature, is one new tool that SEOs are starting to use to improve their SEO/SERP results. But not every SEO agrees that this is a good use of their time, at least not yet. Yet the coverage of it is almost ubiquitous in secondary and tertiary media outlets that feature search engine optimization in their news conetnt.
And that's it, for now. Your latest SEO Science & Arts Update, from Randy Marshall.
Note: If you are interested in learning more about the best ways to maximize the effectiveness of SEO for Google News, watch the following video from the Google Webmasters channel on YouTube.
Fermented fruit in nature has higher alcohol content than you might think at first.
The frequency of episodes involving drunk chimps happen somewhat rarely, but when they do drink, they do it for a span of time ranging from a few minutes to over an hour.
There are also cases in Africa, researched by scientists including Dr. Tatyana Hummel and Prof. Katherine Hill of the Royal Society Open Science, where chimps will avail themselves to drinking when given the chance, while others will get to the fruits used for making the alcohol. When they do, they make themselves unpopular with the local villagers who use fruit to make things like banana beer and other alcoholic elixirs.
They are not seeking out the fruit for alcoholic effect. It seems to be more opportunistic.
This is different, of course, from recent studies that showed chimpanzees prefer cooked food to the raw variety, and that they would actually wait for food to be cooked, even bringing raw food to cooking devices, knowing that the output of their effort would result in cooked food.
Chimps also smile, just like we do. It's been known that they grin, though we did not know why. Although scientists have noted the behavior of humans found that making faces was a very human response to things like fear, it is evident now that chimps smile in much the same biomechanical way, and that you can trace this behavior of smiling back probably around 5 million years. The research found that our evolutionary ancestors smiled when they played.
A long time ago, on this very planet, scientists dreamt of a working fusion reactor.
Fission vs. Fusion: Fission reactors exist in many places. Fission splits heavy atoms (Uranium, Plutonium)
So why is Fusion so elusive? (the combination of light atoms, ie: Hydrogen atoms, to make a Helium). The power of fusion is massive. see any footage of the H-bomb for reference.
Protons and Neutrons are key to fusion. Deuterium and Tritium are the two base combination of a Proton and a Neutron, or a Proton and two Neutrons.
For a little bit more scientific learning, watch the following video about fission and fusion and how they work.
Scientists are now getting to the point where they (deuterium and tritium) are almost close enough to fuse. In 2011, Livermore Labs was expected to reach the "break even" ingnition phase. Despite that, we remain nowhere near having the capability of producing more energy than we're putting in, and certainly not for large markets.
Even though physicists have reached the break even point, they are using all (and more) of the "excess" energy produced, to power the process itself. Energy used to power the lasers needed to fuse the atoms is still massive and more costly than the output energy gain from the process. So essentially there is no real gain in energy yet.
Also, the process of using the energy produced to convert into applied energy, involves heating an element, ie: water. To do this, a "blanket" is put around the water, and a particle that hits it, causes it to heat up. Eventually it gets to a boiling point, and that's what you need to generate higher amounts of usable energy. The problem is that sometimes the particle hits the blanket AOK, and often it hits in different directions and fails to heat the water as desired.
This and many other technical problems are standing in the way of the challenges scientists face.
Is "The Big Lie" (the name given by doubters to the whole idea of practical fusion) on its way to a final defeat? That may well depend on the success or failure of current experiments underway to prove or disprove the potential of better conversion rates of some pellets.
Right now the pellets necessary to do this project are cost prohibitive for any significant scaling up.
Take part in a scientific project and unhook the moon!
A crowdfunding campaign is being organized to help researchers Natural History Museum of Vienna, to acquire, display and analyze fragments of a meteorite of lunar origin found less than a year ago in Western Sahara.
Oued Awlitis 001
The main fragment of the meteorite of lunar origin Oued Awlitis 001 just after its discovery in Western Sahara on 15 January 2014.
With over 1100 samples exposed the meteorite collection of the Natural History Museum in Vienna, Austria, is one of the largest and oldest in the world. Ludovic Ferriere, a young French researcher born in 1982, Doctor of Geology and passionate terrestrial and extraterrestrial rocks, is the chief curator of collections of rocks and co-curator of the meteorite collection of the NHM since 2011. As such, he recently launched a crowdfunding campaign on the site ulule to acquire fragments of a meteorite of lunar origin.
Oued Awlitis 001
The scientific study of lunar meteorite Oued Awlitis 001 will include work to accurately determine its age, the duration of its tour in the solar system and to have an idea of the time that elapsed between its fall on our planet and its discovery.
The objective of this campaign is multiple. This is, of course, to present to the public one of the larger pieces of Moon available on Earth, but also to study in detail several small fragments of this block all scientific means of investigation available today. It is, finally, to preserve this unique sample for generations and future research. The market for meteorites is indeed very rapidly in recent years, too many samples disappear into private collections before they could be analyzed by scientists.
Oued Awlitis 001
These three small fragments of lunar meteorite Oued Awlitis 001 will be used for scientific analyzes if the Vienna Natural History Museum managed to acquire through its crowdfunding campaign.
This interest in stones fallen from the sky causes the market to rise and the NHM needs € 110,000 to acquire the pieces of this meteorite and fund their analyses. Discovered January 15, 2014 in Western Sahara and called Oued Awlitis 001 this fallen meteorite collection includes several fragments. The largest, measuring 7.7 cm in its largest dimension and weighs 362 g, will be incorporated into public collections of the NHM and may be used by scientists in non-destructive testing. Three other smaller fragments will be studied by researchers around the world under the direction of Ludovic Ferriere.
Naturhistorisches Museum
View of the hall of meteorites Naturhistorisches Museum.
€ 110,000 is a nice amount of money, but it's nothing compared to the costs involved in a mission to return lunar samples! Everyone can contribute to its means starting from € 5 and if the amount collected is less than the expected € 110,000, donors will be refunded in full. In a recent email, Ludovic Ferriere pointed out to French science news journalist Guillaume Cannat that among the first donors, a 7 year old had contributed € 250 in order to hold the moon rock in his hand and his dream of interplanetary travel. I propose Jean-Victor Meyers switches to using scientific philanthropy in an exemplary manner, from a small share of the money he will win with the improbable sale of his cashmere sweaters, and participate in this campaign Lunar financing!
The activist fund Starboard Value threatens the patron Yahoo!
Yahoo! Captain Marissa Mayer
To Starboard Value, Marissa Mayer, President and CEO of Yahoo, should focus on cutting costs and focus on reconciliation with AOL instead of continuing its acquisitions policy.
The strategy of Yahoo's chief executive office, Marissa Mayer, is increasingly resented by Starboard Value, a group of shareholders. Three months after a first attack, these shareholders have addressed this Thursday, January 8, a second open letter to Ms. Mayer.
In this letter, the fund expresses "concerns" about rumors of a big acquisition on the horizon. For them, this strategy would penalize shareholders.
According to the letter from Starboard Value, instead of making acquisitions, Marissa Mayer should instead focus on cost reductions and especially resume dialogue with AOL to negotiate a rapprochement.
"If you choose a big acquisition or a cash-rich split off, it will be a sign that a change in leadership is necessary," Starboard Value threat in his letter. A "cash-rich split off" is an operation of exchanging shares of a company against those of a subsidiary to, under certain conditions, of not paying taxes.
"We hope that our fears are unfounded and that we will continue our constructive dialogue with you. We look forward to your intentions," concludes the activist fund.
Yahoo must end its acquisitions policy!
For the group of shareholders, latest acquisitions made under the leadership of Marissa Mayer have not only been "very expensive", but most are not "directly related to its core business" of Yahoo.
Consequences: Yahoo needs to end its all-out acquisition policy, reduce operating costs and find ways to enhance its overseas activities without tax impact.
The Fund estimates that if Yahoo was implementing his recommendations, he could achieve $ 1 billion in savings.
To Starboard Value, a reconciliation with AOL would allow both groups to better adapt to changing automatic online advertising and the migration of content to mobile devices.
Yahoo currently has a large war chest amassed after he was defeated last year is a part of its stake in the Chinese juggernaut of online business Alibaba. This was reported as 9.5 billion.
Don't hate the player or the game. Play with the player and go find the name.
A Google A Day is an amusing little website apparently made by the search engine behemoth, to keep you using and building their search engine technology.
By simply asking a trivia style question, users generally search around for the answer ... and where else, but on Google? Sure, you could search in other directories or engines, or (heaven forbid) read a book to learn the answer. But with the GOOG at your finger tips, this makes the game's value proposition of instant gratification more instantaneous, and in a visual manner.
Checkout this video that explains more about A Google A Day in a visual way, and how it helps you become a smarter, savvier searcher when you play their trivia game.
Why it matters that we stand united with the French satirical magazine
Charlie Hebdo covers
It happened suddenly, in broad daylight, in the heart of Paris, France.
A group of Islamist terrorists attacked people in the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical magazine.
They murdered 12 people. Those victims included the editorial staff of the magazine, including a top editor and three illustrators, among others.
Charlie Hebdo is known for its often perturbing, even distasteful caricatures. They have a reputation for publishing comic illustrations and editorial cartoons that offend many intolerant people.
And that is their right.
Free speech. Love it or censor yourself.
The hatred borne of ignorance and fear (as we are reading about in hundreds of articles these days) is thick in the air. It should end.
Together, united in love, we can turn hate inside out, and make the world a better, more loving place.
EDF Energy News announced Tuesday, January 6, 2015, the commissioning of two wind farms in France, in the Picardie region (north) and Champagne-Ardenne (northeast), totaling a combined installed capacity of 25 megawatts (MW).
Picardie, the Andigny Plateau wind farm in the Aisne, represents an installed capacity of 21 MW, says EDF EN in a statement.
Consisting of 7 Siemens turbines, the installation is jointly owned by EDF EN and Diamond Generating Europe.
It is located in the communes of Vaux-Andigny, Molain, Valley Mulato and Saint-Martin-Rivière.
The second farm commissioned, located in Marne, is the Trécon-Clamanges Park, in the communes of Villeseneux and Trécon. With a capacity of 4 MW and includes two 2 MW Vestas turbines.
EDF EN has reported that the total production of these two wind farms corresponds to the annual electricity consumption of more than 22,000 inhabitants.
While the amount of power generated may seem small compared to France's national consumption rates, anti-nuclear energy groups say that harnessing wind power is a step in the right direction towards a world that uses less toxic energy and more green energy.
Speaking of wind farms and safety, checkout this classic video clip of a Danish wind turbine exploding and basically vaporizing mid-spin. So much for safer, right? (or is it?)
