BitCoin usage rejected because they "could" be used for illegal activity.

Today's topic strikes right at the heart of my greatest concern for the way law is approached in the USA today.   It's the idea that we should blind the poor monkey because he "might" see something evil.  Not only do some people want to outlaw "Hip/Hop" music, they want to outlaw i-pods because they could be used to listen to "Hip/Hop" music.   This type of thinking not only leads to a lack of personal freedom, but it also leads ultimately to a state of economic servitude as well.  Unfortunately, people think like this in all sorts of situations.

I've been a big fan of a website that is a competitor of eBay.  I love the site, and I've plugged them here many times.  Alas, it has become apparent to me that the owners of that site think we should blind the monkey lest it see any evil.  Here is a email I got from the site administrator yesterday:

Title: 3 Foot Computer Power Cord ... Bitcoins Accepted

All of your items have been suspended due to the fact we do not allow Bitcoins as a form of payment on the site nor do we allow them to be sold. You will need to edit those items in order to relist them on the site.

You may relist the item only after the above items have been corrected. Any attempts to relist this item without making the above corrections may result in Webstore account suspension.

I'm always careful to peruse 'terms of service' whenever I open a new account with anyone, so I found the above note a bit curious.  They don't have any written policy against BitCoin anywhere that I could find.  So, I wrote them back:

Message:

Ok, I will remove references to BitCoin in all my postings. Can you give me any information about when this policy was enacted, or why?

To which they replied:

Message:

Hello James, It was enacted shortly after Bitcoins became available. After researching this the owners of the site were not comfortable with them due to their use on the black-market and for the ease of use for illegal activity. Because of this we have banned them from the site. We do realize that some people may use them for legitimate purposes such as yourself, but unfortunately the risk was too great for us to feel comfortable allowing them on the site. We appreciate your cooperation and understanding. Best Regards, ######## Webstore Staff

 So, there you have it, their reason for not allowing BitCoin is because bitcoins could be used for illegal activity.  I don't quite follow the logic since any currency could be used for illegal activity.  Really, I think there are other reasons that they don't want to allow BitCoin, but still, it's this false logic they are trying to sell to justify their decision that I have an issue with.

That same logic is used by our politicians to push a lot of bad laws on us that are not in our best interest.  The laws are written to favor large corporations and wealthy individuals, and this false logic is used to get the people to accept it.   In Texas for example, it is illegal for an individual to own most basic chemistry glassware.  The reason is because the glassware "could" be used to brew illegal substances.  People accept the laws because very few care about having an awesome chemistry set in their garage, and drugs are really bad.

Well, I care.  As your resident money hustler, I've been racking my brain to figure out how to purify scrap gold without using any equipment or chemicals that are considered to be "the monkey's eyes" ... the other stuff that's been made illegal along with the drugs that the government wants to outlaw.  There are all kinds of cool businesses that people could start in their backyards if it weren't for so many regulations against accessory items.   There is one reason people don't have jobs, and that's because life is over regulated in the USA.   Try to see this connection next time you want to vote for a noise ordinance in your neighborhood.   Regulations kill jobs.   Do you want the right to work and buy food, or starve in peace and quiet?

The effect of a lot of regulatory laws, and financial policy, is to monopolize the labor force (us) for large corporations.  People generally don't care when times are good.  But, when times are bad, the myriad of regulations make life more difficult for regular people, and harder for them to find alternative ways to make a living.  We need more economic freedom.  One step in the right direction is to stop outlawing things like Bitcoin that are merely associated with some illegal activity.

Here's my take on this in video:

 Let me know if you all like the catchy tune at the beginning ... I played that myself.

For more information on BitCoin, please see my previous post:  http://mrmoneyhustler.blogspot.com/2011/06/future-of-banking-finance-and-monetary.html

Many ways for a regular person to make money in music.

You don't even have to know how to read notes to make money in music, but if you do, all the better.  In this quick post, I'll throw out some old and new ideas.  New technology brings new ways to make money.


One tried and true way to make some extra cash in music is to give lessons.  If you sing or play, don't get down on your abilities.   Do perform some research so that you're not teaching your students bad habits, but then just go for it.  Teach the little buggers as much as you can and graduate them on to another teacher who can take them to the next level.  I'm sure some parents are snooty and expect you to have at least one platinum album out, but others are just trying to introduce their children to new things.  If you are concerned about your ability, only offer beginner lessons and practice up so you can be the best beginner teacher out there.


Suppose you don't even know how to read notes, but you like to tinker on a guitar or the piano.  Can you make up a tune in your head?  Could you write a jingle for a commercial?  Could you play some ambient background music for people to use in their YouTube videos?   


There are many websites that are always looking for new musical content.   Here's one:  http://www.freesoundtrackmusic.com/.   Now, perhaps you noticed the word "free" in there and you're wondering how you're going to make any money at this.   If you check out the site, you'll see that artists must offer some of their songs for free, but they can also sell others.  If you're smart, you'll put some teaser work out there for the free stuff and save your best sound tracks for paying customers.   Of course, if you can produce some quality content, you can pound the pavement and sell your tracks directly to end users.  The hosting website method is just a quick easy way to get started.


If you are good at making up a tune on the fly, consider offering your services to video production studios.  With YouTube getting so popular, there are many small time producers that do not have the ability to produce sound tracks that custom fit their videos.  It's kinda like the old days again where someone would play on the piano at the theater to go along with the silent movie.  


Of course you could also produce your own videos, and the corresponding music.   Working up a YouTube partner channel will be the subject of another blog entry, but good music can certainly help your video endeavors. 


I'm not good enough to sell my music, but I do make background sound tracks to use in my own YouTube videos.  Here's a quick view into the process:

And then if you care to see the "how to" video where I used the sound track:

Here's another great link to give you more information on this topic:  http://zirconmusic.com/tutorials/text/how-to-make-money-from-music-licensing/


What ideas can you think of to make money doing music?   Please leave comments below!

Why pay to exercise somewhere when you can make money exercising?

I really don't get the appeal of a treadmill or fake bike in a gym.  Wow, how boring can you get?  OK, the gym is in A/C, but even in Texas in August where the highs are 104 plus, at 7am it's pretty nice outside.  As it turns out, 7 to 8 am is a perfect time to hunt for treasure in parking lots.  There aren't any cars in the rows. Monday morning, in particular, is a great time to search the parking lot of a busy mall or weekend venue.

Now, honestly, the odds of finding any real cash are too low to justify this activity solely on the premise of making money.  But, there's always the potential of scoring a gold tennis bracelet or a signed portrait of John Wayne.  The trick is to cover a lot of ground fast, and to be able to quickly inspect and retrieve found items.   The best way I've found to do this is on roller blades.

Roller blades are great because they give you the option to get between parking lots quickly, and to slow it down when searching back and forth across the parking rows.  There's no blockage to your visibility and with a little practice you can pick stuff up without even stopping.  

After a busy weekend, you can find more stuff roller blading than by metal detecting because you can cover so much ground and you don't have to stop to dig.   Although I have yet to search a grass parking lot with a metal detector after a large event scenario, I'm guessing you won't find as much stuff as I did in an hour in the video above.   I will try the grass lot/metal detector next and offer data on items found per hour as compared to a roller blade/parking lot search.  Stay tuned, but for now my preferred treasure hunting technique is on wheels.

Plants

My sister has opened a plant nursery in her front yard, so this is a good time to mention the money making potential in plants.

For me, part of the idea of making money from plants is that I enjoy working with plants.  They're so kewl.   Seriously, it is quite relaxing work for those of you who, like me, are somewhat of a spaz when we're not working on something that relaxes us.   Whatever, the point is that working with something that makes you feel good is totally awesome, only to be out-awesomed by something you enjoy AND you can make money doing it.  That's the subject of a future post, finding that sweet spot where your talent, your passion, and financial viability come together ... stay tuned for, "Being on Mission!"

There's one drawback with starting a plant business though.  Plants take time.  It would really help if you plan ahead ... you know, like get started before you're dead broke.  I mean really, plants don't grow overnight.  So, start now ... fill that yard up with fruit trees and hardwoods and hedges and Seiko palms and ... all in pots of course.   Haha, I just got that.

... listening to YouTube channel .. I'm gonna just go ahead and pulse this a minute ... ah never mind  ...haha, never mind the mess.  That's definitely "yeehaw".  Wow, guess you had to be there ... it was a cooking show ... no, really, I promise.

I'm just throwing the idea out about growing plants.  It is a quick little business you can start up with the hardest part being to find wholesalers willing to work with you and get you stock for a price low enough for you to turn a profit.  That just takes leg work and research.  I thought it was interesting some of the suppliers that my sister found.  Houston is an amazing city in that it has no zoning laws.  So, right up in a regular neighborhood, she found this really cool high-tech, but family run, grower/supplier.

If you don't live where you can just pop up a business in your front yard, and I assume most of you don't, there's always the option to sell online.  You could root cuttings on the balcony of your apartment if that's all you have to work with.  If space is limited, try to specialize in something rare / niche market and then market your items online through eBay, Webstore, Amazon, etc.

There's already tons of great YouTube videos out there on how to do plants.   If you're too lazy to google it, here are some good links:

1.  Grafting fruit trees
2.  House Plants from cuttings
3.  Rooting tree cuttings
4.  Orchids
5.  Starting a Plant Nursery

I'm working on a video to show just how easy it is to get some plants going.  I have over 50 healthy hedge plants that I pulled up by their roots after a rain.  To keep them fresh, I put 20 to 30 of them in a 1 gallon zip-loc bag with some wet paper towels.  They kept fine for a couple of days like that until I could pot them.   Now, all I have to do is plant them in ever bigger pots and water regularly.

In closing, I have three tips on where to get free stuff you can use in your nursery:

1.  Free plastic pots from local landscape businesses.  They often have tons built up over the years and if you make friends, you might get a customer and a source of free pots to start your new plants.

2.  Free potting material.  It's a kill two birds with one stone idea; offer to clean out people's gutters.  The composted leaves in gutters is perfect potting mix.  I've also thought of offering a clean out service for parking lots and gas stations, but I haven't actually tried that yet.  The bonus potential of a parking lot drain is that there may be lost items in there also.  Of course, if you can't find free mulch, plan ahead and start a compost pile in your backyard now.

3.  Free tree / hedge / ornamental seedlings.  While you're scouting for places that you can get free mulch, keep an eye out for plants too.  Lot's of interesting things get started near streams.  Also, I've noticed that office buildings that back up to a wooded area often have a landscape dumping area.  These areas may have all sorts of cool plants that have been uprooted by the landscapers and tossed into the woods.  Sometimes these plants survive long enough for a watchful opportunist to benefit.

Update, selling scrap

Whenever I see a discarded hot water heater, I pick it up.  I can't help myself.  In fact, I keep an old truck bed trailer just for picking up stuff like that.  I pick up small stuff too, screws, washers ... old ovens out in the woods. At $0.12 dollars / pound, any little piece of scrap steel is worth a penny or better.  And as for old appliances, to me they look like a $20 bill sitting on the curb waiting for someone to pick up.

It's not hard to get 1500 lbs of scrap iron in the back of a pickup, and that's enough to go home with $180.00 in your pocket.

Waste not want not.

The Future of Banking, Finance, and Monetary Transactions

The vision has arrived, but the first implementors of the vision are dropping like soldiers on a D-Day beach head.  In a way, money doesn't really exist.  Most of our money is already in a bank account and represented by a few 1's and 0's in some computer.  Money is really just two bits of information: who has it, and how much.  Financial transactions are simply a bit of communication wherein the name of "who has it" and "how much" get updated in that record book in the sky.

Those darn people who control that money book in the sky should just give us all some money ... well, not really.  But, what they shouldn't do is get greedy, or lustful for power.  It seems they always do though, and us common folk get screwed.

Because of the repeated "screwings" many people dream of a financial system that is free from the abuses of the privileged.  Ron Paul is out there touting a return to the gold standard, but others have recognized that money is really just a form of communication.  It is an abstract idea that doesn't need a physical form at all.  Money has always simply been a representation of the "value" that someone has added to the world around him.  The only reason money needed a physical form throughout history is to combat fraud and dishonesty in the form of someone claiming that they have added more value than they ever actually had.  Gold is a good proof that you have added value ... at least you can't just say you have it (like the Federal Reserve); you have to start a war or something to get your hands on it.  What we need is "money" that has all the protections from fraud inherent in a physical amount of gold, but all the ease of transfer as a bit of information on a computer network.

Several companies have popped up and pooped out over the years while they made their attempt to solve the world's "money" problem.  Some of them, like eGold, had some help pooping out courtesy FBI.  They were like the 1st soldiers on the beach, and the governments of the world will protect their financial beaches to the bitter end.  But, the vision is in sight, and others will keep coming and coming with better and better ideas.  Eventually, someone is going to implement a solution that is so much better than what we have today, that no government on earth will be able to stop it.

The latest, most ingenious, solution is the BitCoin.  It is a first stab at some revolutionary new concepts on how to handle the "money" problem.  Here are some features of a BitCoin:

1.  No physical form
2.  Not backed by any physical entity
3.  Internet / computer / open source base
4.  Secure transactions
5.  Available to anyone with internet connection
6.  Predictable growth of money supply
7.  Complete records of activity
8.  Transactions are private

There are pros and cons of each feature above, but the ingenious aspect of this system is the method by which it automates the process of increasing the supply of money as the economy grows.  It takes people, with their bad judgement and selfish ways, out of the process.  (The FED system is an effort to remove decisions about sizing money supply out of the political realm because history has shown that common people don't know how to make good decisions on money supply).  Anyway, BitCoin takes the concept further and takes all decisions about money supply out of the hands of any people.  The odds of BitCoin having the formula completely right on the first try are low, but the concept is what's interesting.

Specifically, it uses a complicated scheme of encryption to produce a predictable level of scarcity to the money supply.  In the beginning, anyone could use their computer to "mine" for a new block of encryption codes that could be used for BitCoins. While more powerful computers are needed today, users are still given  BitCoins when they find a new block.  Wouldn't it be nice if the Federal Reserve gave out $100 bills whenever they needed to increase the money supply?

The value of the BitCoin is increasing as more and more people become willing to provide goods and services in exchange for BitCoins.  The easiest way to get some now is to sell stuff online on sites like Craigslist.  Just take the time to learn all about it because it is money, and money attracts thieves like flies to dead meat.

If you google BitCoin, you can find out more about it than you ever wanted to know.  Some people like the idea, some people hate it.  If it gets popular, the FBI / CIA / IMF / US Military / NATO will probably figure out a way to shut it down.  Hopefully, the BitCoin economic experiment lasts long enough for everyone to learn some better ways to handle money.  Hopefully, banking services and our global financial system will evolve into a system that is as cheap and fair as it can be.  One key to making this so is competition.  Governments have a monopoly on money, and that is the only reason they can get away with doing what they do to part us from so much of our personal "value".  Systems like BitCoin will eventually challenge government monopolies, and that is good for all of us.

Update: Selling Junk Online

I sold my 1st item on www.webstore.com last night.  I only made $3.16 selling an NVIDIA GeForce AGP FX5200-DV128 video card, but that was pretty good for a test run.  This Webstore site is similar to ebay, but they don't charge commissions on sales.  That's a big plus for both buyers and sellers.  There are many "free listing" sites, but most sites don't have the customer base to secure much visibility for what you are selling.  I'm excited because Webstore seems to be different.  Ebay is still better, has more items for sale, and more people looking there to buy, but Webstore is gaining ground.  More and more vendors are moving items over to "free listing" sites where they can afford to list items for less since they don't have to share any of the proceeds with the website.

If you are looking to make extra money working from home, or running a full time sales business, your profit margin may stand to gain if you give some of the "free listing" sites like Webstore a try.  You can accept payment via PayPal and Google Checkout as well as direct methods.

Here are a couple more great websites that I've found lately that will help you buy and sell online:

http://claspics.com

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/6155

The 1st link above can save you a ton of time when inserting pictures into your ad postings.  You can upload whole folders of pics from your computer and always have your pics "online" when and where you need them.  It's really fast and you don't have to worry about the MB size of the pic when you start the upload.  The site gives you a handy HTML text line that you can copy and paste directly into your online ad listing.  When someone views your ad, they just see the pics.  The site also gives you a link to the entire album, so it's easy to share an unlimited number of pictures with your potential buyer.

The 2nd link above is handy if you are looking for stuff to buy on Craigslist.  When you go to http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/6155, look for a link on the left of the page that says: "Remotely hosted version" and click it.  Then allow it to install the plugin.  Then, when you view listings on Craigslist, you will automatically see thumbnail pics of items that are for sale under each items title.  It saves you from having to click on a listing to see the pics.  I know that doesn't sound like a big deal, but for anyone doing a lot of surfing on Craigslist, the time saved does add up.