For some reason, the conservative radio station in Charlottesville, VA has been following me for the past 3 years. In my 2nd year, the music station I had my alarm clock set to suddenly became the talk show. It didn't annoy me, so I left it. Then I decided that I wanted music, so I changed to another music station. On Jan 1st, guess what showed up again? I left it, again, because it isn't too bad. Except for the chosen commercials, which is what I'm here to talk about.
It's amazing what type of commercials I hear on this station. The one that prompted me to write this is about a website that they advertised for. It's apparently about the predictions some guy made about the end of America. When you watch the video, he will show you how he accurately predicted the fall of "Fannie and Freddie" and a couple of those banks after the housing collapse, to convince you that he knows when the end of America will be. I HAVE NOT YET WATCHED THE VIDEO. So, saying that, I'm going to make my own predictions about the video. You should believe me because I predicted that the housing market would collapse when I was 16 years old. I admit I was slightly off. In my predictions, I said that the market would collapse somewhere around my freshman year of college, then would rebound and I was hoping that by the time I graduated from college the market would still be weak so that I could get a decent house for cheap. My predictions were wrong because I didn't know that the fall was going to be that steep or that the banking market was so tragically linked to the housing market--all my observations came from the fact that housing prices were going out of control--I didn't know why they got so high so quickly.
My predictions about the video are that it will be vague. I also believe that it will be in some way propaganda. So my predictions aren't so vague I will risk being specific: it will have to do with governmental actions. I'm not sure if this will be from causing ultimate warfare or if it will be from internal misdeeds. I'll probably be wrong with this prediction, but at least I'm not vague. Now I'll go to the website and see how I did. I'll probably only make it through about 2 minutes of the video.
OH! I forgot. I'm sure that there will be advertisements on the site. When a person decides to put advertisements on their website they get paid for hosting those advertisements--yes, that's why I have advertisements on my blog--if people are going to read this then I might as well make a buck or two. But I'm not forcing people to come here. I'm not advertising propaganda on the radio to scare people into checking the website. Whether from fear or curiosity, I'm sure that after that that commercial aired a lot of people went to the website. And I'm sure a lot of them are the type to click on any advertisements they see: especially if those advertisements are for other "end of America" stuff. It's convenient that whoever made the video will be making a tidy sum of money from it.
Now I'll go check out that video.
Huh. Well, I WAS wrong. The page is actually a very plain. The "video" isn't even really a video, but the animation of a letter written by a guy in an investment bank. He says that he did predict the collapse of all those banks accurately, but doesn't have proof. He claims that what's going to tear down the country is that he says he sees the same issues he saw in those collapsing banks in the U.S. Treasury and that all of America's savings are going to be wiped out.
Want to know MY problem with this analysis? Life is a self-fulfilling prophesy, especially in banks. If you say there's going to be a run on the bank, there WILL be a run on the bank as everyone who hears it wants to get their money out first. So, this guy's prediction can be fulfilled just because enough people believe him.
I went back to the letter to scroll through it (when you try to leave it takes you to a written out version of the letter, much better--it's HUGE) there are facts and figures, but I think you should take them with a grain of salt. Here's why: when you get to the end of the letter, he wants you to purchase a $50 subscription (normally $99--HE'S SAVING YOU MONEY!!) to hear more. He wants to talk you into profiting off of the problems with the economy. So, all those cushy figures showing the rising cost of copper and cotton? Well, he wants you to get into the market--which will artificially raise the prices. So, you can bet that anyone who's heard of this guy in the past 10 years...crap. I just looked at the x-axis scale on his gold and silver scale--it starts in year 2000. His commodity figure is only 2 years old. Biased?!? Yeah, totally. How about we look at a 100 year figure--so we can see the comparison to what was going on before the Great Depression.
If this guy was actually trying to make money responsibly, and if he did care about saving America, he wouldn't be making awareness this way. If he has a problem with the way the U.S. Treasury is being run, he should go to them and do whatever in his power (or outside his power) to FIX IT. But no, he wants you to buy his product (so he's guaranteed to make money) to teach you how to invest your money--which you could lose since that's the way of investments. My conclusion: it's a scam. Could he be right about the U.S. Treasury? Maybe. But getting into the commodities market will drive up the prices of the actual commodity. If you buy a barrel of crude oil for $100 and sell it for $150, then yeah, you make $50, but you also will lose that money when you go to the gas pump and it now costs you the added amount for the price of the crude oil used to make the gas. And it hurts everyone around you even more because they didn't make that $50. Can your conscience handle that?
