JayBeacham.com-A Voice as an Instrument

In February 2012, I made a blog post called:

Is there a best Social Network?“

Social Networks.

I have been on My Space the longest.

Then Facebook, Stumbleupon, Twitter, Linkedin, etc.

When I didn’t record more on My Space K-solo Karaoke site, a fellow singer invited me to SingSnap.

I’ve been on Karaoke Play, Karaoke for Cash, Karaoke Channel. K-solo, and Sing Snap.

I like Twitter and my connections with people on a number of other sites.

And for the time my daughter has lived in the South Pacific, I’ve found Facebook invaluable in keeping in touch with her. She messaged me from Figi today. Weather is sunny and no rain so the plane may leave as scheduled.

I’ve run into many problems at some of these sites.

but the most frustrating ones seem to be at Facebook.

Let me explain some of those with my post, the responses and my take on things as follows: – link-   go to this link and subscribe.”

The link is no longer any good.

There have been many changes since then.

Stumbledupon is no longer. My Space was sold and that blog feature doesn’t exist now. I was blocked from Facebook but a hacker from Texas was allowed into my personal and two business pages. I need two phase verification but the hacker didn’t. One of my former email providers doesn’t provide email service now, so I can’t get a verification from them and can’t change email addresses without logging in, which I can’t do. So why even go there? If I create a new account, I still won’t be able to get to the former three pages. This could be solved if a real person could be contacted which Facebook doesn’t allow.

So for me none of those former sites are not an option.

Also that year in January, I wrote and asked others on Facebook about our experiences:

“

1/28/2012
Question of all friends:
How do you respond to this?
“We received feedback that you sent friend requests to people you don’t know, so you won’t be able to send friend requests for 30 days. Learn more.””If you think you’re seeing this by mistake, please let us know.”

If I try to request a friend of someone I know I get this message.
How does one “let us know”?
Can’t even send a message to my own brother because I can’t possibly know him.
I know a girl, her grandfather sings with me in the Master Singers, I knew his parents, know his brothers and sister, but fb claims I can’t know them because we have no mutual friends. But I get hundreds of “why not add as friends suggestions from fb for people I’ve never heard of just because we have mutual friends.
Do these actions by fb make any sense to anyone?

Some responses:

Accalia Hancey Hinton: Strange… I don’t know, maybe close your account and start a new one??
January 29 at 1:56am

Relle Hansen: I’ve made a few requests that were not friends of friends when I found them by facebook search, but maybe they’ve changed their policy, though they still offer “search friends”. Could you make requests via Email address? That’s how I got my first friends – imported from my Email contacts list….
January 29 at 2:11am ·
Jay Beacham I’ll try that Relle.
January 29 at 2:14am ·

Steve Brunton: Isn’t this called a social networK? I have made a lot of friends that I wouldn’t of known had I not sent out friend invites to friends of friends but apparently if someone complains, which I don’t understand why they would, all they have to do is decline, big brother facebook steps in and cuts you off from sending out anymore. Apparantly, if someone doesn’t respond in a timely manner it is considered you sending someone a request you don’t know. I have had this happen as well Jay. The other thing is, they do this and there is no way to fight it, it is like guilty before innocent. Maybe it’s time to start a petition like they did to get the banks to back down from adding fees. I am glad you brought this up, it has bothered me as well.
January 29 at 7:58am ·

Relle Hansen: Another tactic might be, when you do know the prospective fb friend, to call them or ask them in person, giving them your E address to “friend” YOU! Or you can Email them the request if you have their E address…
January 29 at 2:09pm ·

Sandy Davison: Wow, that’s crazy. A request for a friend is just that. They can always deny it! They don’t know what they are missing, Jay!
January 29 at 2:40pm ·
Jay Beacham: ofttimes I don’t know the e-mail address. That is what linkedin demands. Like I ask people for their email address and not their phone number.
January 30 at 1:12am ·
Jay Beacham: Almost as if a person doesn’t exist unless they have an email address and everyone knows what it is, as if there were directories published like phone books telling us everyone’s email address. Let’s start one of those and put it out in hard copy. Steve, I like your idea of a petition. Where do we start to petition FB?
January 30 at 1:16am ·
Jay Beacham: Do you folks mind if I use your ideas in my weekly video blog?
January 30 at 1:17am ·
Steve Swapp: No, they don’t. It’s nonsense. If someone doesn’t want to be my friend on Facebook, it’s easy for them to deny my request. February 2 at 3:05pm
One of them said go ahead.
FB won’t let me contact my younger brother or the guy who stands or sits next to me in the men’s chorus we’re in because I don’t know them.
But 90% of the friend requests I get on facebook are from people I don’t know but have mutual friend with.
Does FB believe that mutual friends is the only way to know people?
And the tech help?
No one to email or call at FB. How do I “let us know” as the message said?
I have no way.
At My Space, Tom, the boss, emails all the newbies and welcomes them to MYSpace.
At Sing Snap Trevor, the boss, video messages everyone on a regular basis telling of contests, events, or other happenings at SingSnap.
If I have a tech problem, I get a response from a real person within 24 hours to help me solve my problem
We all have the common interest in the love of singing.
If I record a song and people come to comment on it, I listen to a recording or more of theirs and comment and visa versa.
There is messaging, which is as good as online chat.
If someone is ill, prayers, songs, and messages of support go out to that person.
Links are shared and people follow them whether to a SS spot or
to somewhere else on the net.
And people are helpful. If they find something good, they share and no one is offended.
People become real friends even off line who didn’t know each other before Sing Snap.
A world of difference between Sing Snap and FB.
Of the two, Sing Snap wins as the best social network.
There are others that are okay and there are those who really don’t care about the people in the network.
The other day I was in a $Tree store and a lady at the check out stand in front of me asked the clerk if the store
carried balloons that sang Happy Birthday.
No was the reply,
“I’ve got to have one for my husbands birthday.”
The lady just in front of me said her husband had bought her one several years back at Albertsons for $6.
“Oh thank you”, came the reply and she left.
Then the clerk at the next register asked if my clerk had told the lady about the Party Store as that is where she had found that item.
No, she hadn’t thought of it.
To this I said to my clerk, as I got to the register, that this was true word of mouth advertising and no one was offended
but grateful for the information.
“Yes”, she said, unlike the internet where people are offended if anyone shares such useful information with them.
Sing Snap is like that experience within the store.
People at Sing Snap like people and enjoy helping each other and are grateful for the help.

It is March 21. 2023 today.

As of today, SingSnap is the best I’ve ever found.

Last year I had a question about my fee to be a gold member for this year. I was able to speak to someone on the phone and get my answer.

(You can sign up for free to listen and comment and record the songs from the free list, so you don’t have to pay, unless you want access to all the songs available to record.)

My primary email provider, Yahoo.com, even had a phone number I could call to resolve a problem.

Sing Snap still is the best site that I have found.

1 Comment »

Today is a rainy day in Ivins, Utah. It’s March 21, 2023

On 9/19/12 I wrote the following.
Today I was working for a couple who live just across the street to my east.
They had just got back from their summer home in Washington state, having missed all the rain and flooding here. The rain has caused a rapid growth in weeds not only in their yard but everywhere the ground is bare.
Fred hired me to help with the overgrowth.
When almost done, he and Carol were out side, resting for a bit.
They said “Go Jay! We’re your cheering section.”
You know its good to be encouraged in what ever we are doing.
Its a shame that for foot races (marathon etc. ) and other sporting events people will cheer the participants on but in the day to day struggles that we all face no one gives a hoot.
Maybe there is something wrong with our priorities.
What do you think?

1 Comment »

a video on You Tube.

I commented:

I was born in North America. That makes me a Native American. Indigenous inhabitants aren’t anymore native than you and I. But, I have indigenous American ancestry too. Next, I can trace my other ancestry to Europe, Northern Africa and Asia. And I bet most people in North America can too. And yes, we all descend from Noah and his three sons and their wives no matter what our skin tone is.

People haven’t been on the earth for 40,000 years. Don’t you understand the word native? “My native land” “The land of my nativity” Have you researched my DNA? My Iroquois and Powhatan ancestors won’t agree with you.

A reply to me:

I can easily disprove this ” People haven’t been on the earth for 40,000 years”.

Why does it bother you that you aren’t the first and true American? That instead your European American just like black people here are “African American”? Your native to Europe because that is where your ancestors evolved which is why your skin is white and hair/eye color evolved to be lighter than say an African who evolved in Africa. You are Native to Europe because that’s where you evolved to be European.

I responded:

So how do you get that American Indians are European? And the peoples of Europe came from all over the globe.

And I thought to myself: How does this person know my skin tone, eye color, hair color? They have never seen me. And how can they prove people have been on earth for 40,000 years? Another commenter rightly pointed out that no one was there then and still here now to tell us so.

Then I replied;

And that is so cool that you were there eons ago and know what you say to be true. How old are you?

Haven’t got a rebuttal on that one.

This my last response to that party:

Indigenous Americans, here when Columbus came, arrived about 600 BC. Many nations had peoples who came to the Americas before Columbus.

Where was the garden of Eden? What was Pangea? When did the continents form?

How many people survived the flood at Noah’s time?

Where did the peoples from the tower of Babel go?

Europe isn’t one people. They came from Asia and Africa and everywhere in between.

Some of my ancestors were here when Columbus came,

Some of my ancestors also came from Europe, Africa, and Asia. (Examples: the Hun, Goths, Visigoths, Persians, Ethiopians, Egyptians.

I didn’t evolve to be European,

Europe, like the Americas, is a melting pot.

We are all related.

No comments »

11/17/2022
Yesterday I drove west on Old Dixie Highway 91 from 400 West in Ivins. No waiting was needed to turn right onto the 2 lane highway.
Later in the day, I drove back from the west the same way, turning in on 400 West to go back to Center street. I didn’t have to wait to make the left hand turn.
Last week I drove from my house on Center street in Ivins to 400 West and then across Old Dixie Highwy 91 to Red Mountain Tire and Service. No waiting was required to cross the highway. I crosed the road just fine and returned the same way. A straight drive not hindered by traffic or a roundabout.

Old Highway 91 street sign in Ivins, Utah, Jan. 20, 2022 | Photo by Mori Kessler, St. George News

I’ve learned from some of the farmers and ranchers on the north side of the highway betwwen 400 West and 600 West, that the government of Ivins wants to construct a 5 lane highway there with a roundabout at each intersection.
This is a very bad idea.
Why?
I’ll tell you why:
It’s not needed now or in the future.
It is a waste of money.
This would destroy the character of the old highway that the Washington County Commission has designated as Old Dicie Highway 91.
It would cause traffic obstruction on the old highway, two lanes to the east going to 5 at 400 west and back to 2 at 600 west.
This part of southwestern Utah is the habitat of several endangered species including the Desert Tortoise and the Gila Monster both of which live just east of 400 west Ivins south of highway 91 and west of 600 west Ivins both sides of the highway. and south on Petroglyph Hill-Land Hill.
The Gila Monster is the Utah state reptile. Already endangered,

This species doesn’t need to be subjected to a massive unneeded highway, the distance of which is absurdly short.
It would sure be nice if the town government would use some common sense and not waste tax payer’s monies on such an irrational project.
Sincerely,
Jay Beacham
a citizen of Ivins Utah

Comments Off on Town Government’s Absurdity: endangering the Gila Monster

November 8, 2022
Well, today is election day.
The polls are open in most places across the US of A or soon will be.
I have some thoughts about voting.
Here goes.
At age 22, I voted by absentee ballot, as I was away from my voting district at school.
This election, I voted by early mail-in ballot.
These ways of voting are allowed and for many such as those in the military or abroad for other reasons, truck drivers and others who are away from their voting district for some valid reason. The only way they can vote.
When the polls close in Maine, they are still open on the west coast and in Hawaii.
Exit poll reporting is wrong and shouldn’t be done.
Absentee ballots have not all been received by the end of open polls, as some mail in ballots, that only need to have been postmarked by the previous day, the mail not always being as fast as we would like it to be.
I believe that no candidate should ever concede the election.
When all eligible votes have been counted and verified, then and only then, should a winner be declared.
In the early days of our Republic, some national elections took two weeks to decide as it took that long to get all the results tabulated and reported.
Now with electronic means, results can be known faster than then.
But voting machine malfunctions, eligible voter identification, etc. can often go beyond the voting day and into the night and beyond.
There should be no victory celebrations on election night or ever. It is a waste of time and resources.
A friend of mine came from a foreign country. The last election he witnessed there showed how things shouldn’t be at the election polls. Men with machine guns were stationed at the doors at the polling places.
Here we shouldn’t have sham elections. We shouldn’t use the base alloy of hypocricy, as in places “where they make pretense of liberty”, but have none, such as A. Lincoln referred to Russia, or today, any of a number of dictatorships around the world. We should accurately learn the people’s will and follow it when it is in accordance with the constitutional law of the land, for we are a Republic not a true democracy; a true democracy being mob rule with no regard to law.
If you haven’t voted yet, do so today.
Then go to bed and learn of the results tomorrow, if they are available.
Then once results are known, don’t think that is the end of your responsibility.
It is our duty to watch that government that has been elected.
You must then watch those elected to make sure they follow the law and your will.
A good discourse on the duty of citizens is to be found in the 1943 film “A Stranger in Town”. Starting at 1:01:57 and going to 1:05:59
Quoting some, “… as citizens , we carry a burning responsibility. When we elect men to public office, we cannot do it as lightly as we flip a coin. It means that after we have elected them, we can’t sit back and say our job is done, what they do now doesn’t concern us. That philosophy of indifference is what the enemies of decent government want. If we allow them to have their way to become strong and vicious, then the heoric struggle that welded thousands of lovely towns like this into a great nation means nothing. Then we are not citizens, we’re traitors. The great liberties by which we live have been bought with blood. The kind of government we want is the kind of government we get. Government of the people, by the the people and for the people can mean any kind of government. It’s our duty to make it mean only one kind, uncorrupted, free, united.”
Now let’s vote.

1 Comment »

Taxes in America
Colonial times:
Due to parliament’s taxations on tea, such as the stamp act and the 25% importation tax, the British East India Company was unable to make their tea sales impervious to competition. The colonists could purchase tea from the Dutch for 2 shillings 2 pence a pound and then smuggle it into the colonies for only 3 shillings per pound of tea.
What taxes did the Tea Act impose on the colonists?
The passing of the Tea Act imposed no new taxes on the American colonies. The tax on tea had existed since the passing of the 1767 Townshend Revenue Act. Along with tea, the Townshend Revenue Act also taxed glass, lead, oil, paint, and paper.
Colonial legislatures gave locally produced crops (cereals, corn, tobacco, rice) official value for payment of taxes. Other lawful commodities included beaver skins, cattle, and wampum (black shells were valued at double the rate of white). Milk pails were accepted as tax payments in the town of Hingham.
The Colonial Roots of American Taxation, 1607-1700. For administrative simplicity, the tax was often combined with the country rate. Although the modern income tax dates from the adoption of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913, an income-like tax, known as a “faculty” tax, appeared very early in the New England colonies.
The Tea Act, passed by Parliament on May 10, 1773, granted the British East India Company Tea a monopoly on tea sales in the American colonies. This was what ultimately compelled a group of Sons of Liberty members on the night of December 16, 1773 to disguise themselves as Mohawk Indians, board three ships moored in Boston Harbor, and destroy over 92,000 pounds of tea. The Tea Act was the final straw in a series of unpopular policies and taxes imposed by Britain on her American colonies. The policy ignited a “powder keg” of opposition and resentment among American colonists and was the catalyst of the Boston Tea Party. The passing of the Tea Act imposed no new taxes on the American colonies. The tax on tea had existed since the passing of the 1767 Townshend Revenue Act. Along with tea, the Townshend Revenue Act also taxed glass, lead, oil, paint, and paper. Due to boycotts and protests, the Townshend Revenue Act’s taxes were repealed on all commodities except tea in 1770. The tea tax was kept in order to maintain Parliament’s right to tax the colonies. The Tea Act was not intended to anger American colonists, instead it was meant to be a bailout policy to get the British East India Company out of debt. The British East India Company was suffering from massive amounts of debts incurred primarily from annual contractual payments due to the British government totaling £400,000 per year. Additionally, the British East India Company was suffering financially as a result of unstable political and economic issues in India, and European markets were weak due to debts from the French and Indian War among other things. Besides the tax on tea which had been in place since 1767, what fundamentally angered the American colonists about the Tea Act was the British East India Company’s government sanctioned monopoly on tea. (Or just passing the tax along to the consumer.)

How many taxes are there in the United States in 2022?
There are seven federal income tax rates in 2022: 10 percent, 12 percent, 22 percent, 24 percent, 32 percent, 35 percent, and 37 percent. The top marginal income tax rate of 37 percent will hit taxpayers with taxable income above $539,900 for single filers and above $647,850 for married couples filing jointly.
Property tax on real estate, motor vehicles, boats, etc. (Not payable by commodities but money.)
The United States federal excise tax on gasoline is 18.4 cents per gallon and 24.4 cents per gallon for diesel fuel. The federal tax was last raised October 1, 1993 and is not indexed to inflation, plus in some places added state and city fuel taxes.
Sales Tax: Paid by consumer
( In Utah: The state sales tax rate in Utah is 4.850%. With local taxes, the total sales tax rate is between 6.100% and 9.050%. Utah has recent rate changes (Thu Jul 01 2021).
3 % on food.
Taxable services performed in Utah are subject to Utah sales and use tax even if the service is performed on goods later shipped to another state. business purposes, for the time period need to transport it to the borders.
On phone, gas, electric usage.
Vehicle registration tax
Road tax, weight tax for trucks
Inventory tax
Business license tax, corporate tax,
Shipping and handling taxes
Permit taxes for building, hunting, fishing, water usage by homeowners, irrigation companies, licenses for weddings, passports, etc.
County and municipal taxes on property, services, permits.
Fee taxes to visit a national or state park.
Gift tax for both parties.
Employee taxes.
FICA tax.
Special taxes to pay for special items of government: ie. garbage collection, sewer usage, future road and storm drain construction, water conservancy districts, library boards, school boards, mosquito abatement, weed control, etc.
Death tax, inheritance tax,
Licenses to own a dog or in some places a cat.
Luxury tax.
Extra tax on commodities like alcohol, tobacco, firearms,
All paid by consumers or producers.
Would those people from 1776 rebel today?

No comments »

4/7/2022
Why shouldn’t they be free?
Should we in the United States of America still be British, Spanish, French, Dutch, Portuguese, Russian?
Should Ukraine stay Polish, Russian, Habsburg, Ottoman?
I’ve heard a lot of talk recently about how the Ukrainian people are really Russian, and that Russia is only trying to reclaim it’s territory in it’s unprovoked war.
And about the aggressor being a lily white saint compared to the corrupt Ukraine government and people.
Maybe this is because they believe in slavery, or maybe they just don’t know history well enough or maybe they believe a land and people should be killed on the whim of a wicked man.
Let’s look at a little history.

A chaotic period of warfare ensued after the Russian Revolutions of 1917. The partially-recognized Ukrainian People’s Republic emerged from its own civil war of 1917–1921. The Soviet–Ukrainian War (1917–1921) followed, in which the Bolshevik Red Army established control in late 1919. The Ukrainian Bolsheviks, who had defeated the national government in Kyiv, established the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, which on 30 December 1922 became one of the founding republics of the Soviet Union.

Initial Soviet policy on Ukrainian language and Ukrainian culture made Ukrainian the official language of administration and schools
Policy in the 1930s turned to Russification. In 1932 and 1933, millions of people, mostly peasants, in Ukraine starved to death in a devastating famine, known as Holodomor. It is estimated by Encyclopædia Britannica that 6 to 8 million people died from hunger in the Soviet Union during this period, of whom 4 to 5 million were Ukrainians. Nikita Khrushchev was appointed the head of the Ukrainian Communist Party in 1938.
Major causes include the 1932–33 confiscations of grain and other food by the Soviet authorities which contributed to the famine and affected more than forty million people, especially in the south on the Don and Kuban areas and in Ukraine, whereby various estimates millions starved to death or died due to famine.
But most scholars agree that at least 2 million Ukrainians died of starvation between 1930 and 1933. However, during any famine, the number of people who die from starvation isn’t the best way to determine the total death toll. The stress of long-term hunger makes people more likely to develop deadly illnesses like typhus and cholera.

Bol·she·vik
[ˈbōlSHəˌvik]
NOUN
Bolsheviks (plural noun)
historical
a member of the majority faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party, which was renamed the Communist Party after seizing power in the October Revolution of 1917.
synonyms:
Marxist · socialist · leftist · collectivist · radical socialist · anticapitalist · Marxist–Leninist · Leninist · Soviet · Bolshevist · neo-Marxist · Trotskyist · Trotskyite · Maoist

Russification (Russian: Русификация, romanized: Rusifikatsiya), or Russianization, is a form of cultural assimilation in which non-Russians, whether involuntarily or voluntarily, give up their culture and language in favor of the Russian culture and the Russian language
In a historical sense, the term refers to both official and unofficial policies of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union with respect to their national constituents and to national minorities in Russia, aimed at Russian domination and hegemony.

he·gem·o·ny
[həˈjemənē, ˈhejəˌmōnē]
NOUN
leadership or dominance, especially by one country or social group over others:
“Germany was united under Prussian hegemony after 1871”
synonyms:
leadership · dominance · dominion · supremacy · ascendancy · predominance · primacy · authority · mastery · control · power · sway · rule · sovereignty · predomination · paramountcy · prepotence · prepotency · prepollency

Stalin’s extremely brutal 30-year rule as absolute ruler of the Soviet Union featured so many atrocities, including purges, expulsions, forced displacements, imprisonment in labor camps, manufactured famines, torture and good old-fashioned acts of mass murder and massacres (not to mention World War II) that the complete toll of bloodshed will likely never be known.
In February 1989, two years before the fall of the Soviet Union, a research paper by Georgian historian Roy Aleksandrovich Medvedev published in the weekly tabloid Argumenti i Fakti estimated that the death toll directly attributable to Stalin’s rule ”Those numbers include my father.”
Medevedev’s grim bookkeeping included the following tragic episodes: 1 million imprisoned or exiled between 1927 to 1929; 9 to 11 million peasants forced off their lands and another 2 to 3 million peasants arrested or exiled in the mass collectivization program; 6 to 7 million killed by an artificial famine in 1932-1934; 1 million exiled from Moscow and Leningrad in 1935; 1 million executed during the ”Great Terror” of 1937-1938; 4 to 6 million dispatched to forced labor camps; 10 to 12 million people forcibly relocated during World War II; and at least 1 million arrested for various “political crimes” from 1946 to 1953. mounted to some 20 million lives
Indeed, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the literary giant who wrote harrowingly about the Soviet gulag system, claimed the true number of Stalin’s victims might have been as high as 60 million.

Why would Ukraine want to stay a part of the Soviets?

Ukraine became independent again when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. This started a period of transition to a market economy, in which Ukraine suffered an eight-year recession. Subsequently however, the economy experienced a high increase in GDP growth. Ukraine was caught up in the worldwide economic crisis in 2008 and the economy plunged. GDP fell 20% from spring 2008 to spring 2009, then leveled off.

Again I ask:
Why shouldn’t they be free?
Should we in the United States of America still be British, Spanish, French, Dutch, Portuguese, Russian?

No comments »

I got busy recording audio versions of articles for Chatfellow, a company that has a unique language learning program that is free to individuals if they are willing to go to the website weekly and spend 3 minutes a day reading scripts in the language they want to learn.

One of those articles was about work and how to make improvements in one’s wealth, and employment position.

I have some examples about how to grow one’s wealth. The article said “Don’t buy what you don’t need”

Bad habits can use up lots of money. Example: Two brothers I know of started out the same. One was adopted by an old couple who couldn’t have children, the other one was older and wouldn’t allow his name to be changed even though they both lived with the old couple until the older one went with his birth mother and her new husband.

The adopted brother took over the family farm at age 14 and the older brother ran away from his stepfather after his mother died at age 14.

The brothers stayed in touch. Each of them started to smoke tobacco. After two weeks, the younger one thought it a terrible waste of money, so he stopped. The older one kept smoking tobacco until in his 50s when he stopped.

The younger one inherited some land from his adopted parents and was able to add to it by buying more land with cash he had saved.

The older of the two didn’t own a house until in his 50s, having moved around a lot for work.

Both married and raised families. The only difference in land ownership was that one wasted money smoking tobacco and the other didn’t.

Money spent on what one doesn’t really need made the difference.

Comments Off on some thoughts

I haven’t posted here for a while as malware removal and link repairs have used up time.

But after a very enjoyable month as Santa Jay,  it’s time to start again.

Lots has happened in the world, my life and yours that I could have commented on.

But after dreaming about this topic, I awoke several nights ago thinking about my experience with gold and silver investing.

Several years ago, I bought some silver coins.  When I got the coins that cost more than spot price, I became the recipient of two years of the company’s newsletter.   Well after several years when the price was up and I needed some cash, I thought to sell the coins.

The local coin shop wouldn’t pay spot price but only about a third of it, so the could make their big profit.

So I sold them back to the people I’d bought them from.    They paid spot price, less two more years of their newsletter, which I didn’t want.    But they had the cons, so what could I do?

A great investment but not so great when selling.

Then I got gold and silver options with a firm that you could “buy, sell, or trade at any time” or so they said each time I called.

I was going to sell out the silver options when the price hit $20 an ounce.

For a while as the prices rose, I received monthly earned income off of those options.  Then one day my broker wasn’t there anymore but at another firm.

I was assigned a new guy to work with.  he seemed very interested in my investment.   One day he called and said I might have to sell or lose money when the prices went down.  A while later, he called back and said it was a false alarm but that he’d watch it carefully.

If the price went down by Friday, I should sell, so call him on Friday.

Friday I called from my home in the Mountain Time zone.   The firm was in the Eastern Time zone.

I called, again hearing that I could buy, sell, or trade at any time.  My broker was at lunch and he never came back the rest of the day.  I called several times before 4 pm ET.  He wasn’t back yet i was told.  Could I sell like we’d planned?  No, I had to work with him I was told.

So much for buy, sell, or trad at any time.

The following Monday the price fell and I’d lose it all unless I bought the difference.

I foolishly did.

But the prices rose and I could make it all back, my original investment and the makeup investment.

I waited until the price was $22 per oz.

But then could not sell as the firm had been shut down by the Feds.

The owner of the firm had been caught driving home one day with $29 million in gold bullion in his car.

That wasn’t all, for months he’d been going to their bank and in two withdrawals daily, taking out several thousand dollars at a time, which when combined equaled more that $10 grand a day.  The feds had established that when $10 grand or more a day was withdrawn form someone’s account, the federal government was to be informed so as to check on preventing some illegal action.  Be cause he took less that that out with each withdrawal, even though the daily total was more than $10 grand, the bank didn’t think anything of it.

Over time the owner had embezzled  all the funds of the company and all invested funds as they came in.   That’s why the broker who paid me dividends was let go and why I couldn’t sell that Friday, and why the broker working with me was told to go home and not come back that day.  There were no funds to pay out with.  The owner had them all.

Well, he was caught and given 12 years in prison with furloughs for certain reasons, health, family needs etc. And ordered by the courts to pay back $19 million to investors.

There was no money, so the feds sold all the assets of the company even down to the office furniture.

A law firm  came to represent the victimized investors.   They got judgments against all senior officers of the company.

A judgement is of no value unless  a property or something is sold to satisfy the judgement.  But the court can’t sell ones’s house to get this judgement paid, so these were practically worthless to the investors.

Even firm consultants had judgments brought against them amounting to their full consulting fees.  One such consultant was in legal trouble for some shady investment dealings he done and in order to stay out of prison before the trial, his family posted a bail bond of $200,000. I don’t know the result of his trial, but that amount was more than the consulting fee he’d received form the gold and silver firm I was involved with. How could he pay the Judgement when the court has 200 grand of his family’s money?

The bank involved was bought out by a larger banking group so the lawyers went after them and an agreement was made that the bank owed 1.3 million dollars to satisfy their error as the new bank owner  they’d assumed all parts of the smaller bank with it’s purchase, even their debts and mistakes.

That would be a nice amount, however the judge awarded the lawyers for the victims hourly wages and the lawyers for the bank hourly wages. Who ever heard of the losing lawyers getting paid?  That left very littler for the investors.

One man from Atlanta, Ga., who I spoke to on the phone, had invested $140 grand, one man $538 grand, I only lost 21,400 (after what I did receive earlier form them).

After pocketing nearly 3/4 of a million from the deal, the lawyers for the victims made the handsome sum of one cent on the dollar pay out to the victims.  I got $214.  The man who invested $538 grand got 1 cent on the dollar too.  Between the time of the collapse of the company and the settlement, he had died, thus his heirs pay out wouldn’t even have paid for his funeral.

Who got all the money?

The company owner, who never paid a cent back, the Attorneys for the victims, other attorneys and the courts.

You know if people believed the Biblical command “Thou Shalt Not Steal” no investor would have lost money.

 

Comments Off on December 2021

Comment about a video clip
6/26/2021
Today I watched a video clip of an actress on a late night talk show.
It was from several years ago.
The actress said that genetic testing showed she was more Irish that she had been told by her family who said the family was mostly Scottish and Welsh, She said they were thus proven wrong.
She obviously doesn’t know much about the connections between Scotland and Ireland.
At one time the kingdom of Ireland was the west coast of Scotland and the northern tip of the island of Ireland. And the Welch don’t live millions of miles away either.
And genetic testing? How many gene pools was she tested against?
I’ve found from genealogical records that she is a 10th cousin of mine. I Didn’t need genetic testing to show that.
I did some online searching:
SIL Ethnologue lists six living Celtic languages, of which four have retained a substantial number of native speakers. These are the Goidelic languages (i.e. Irish and Scottish Gaelic, which are both descended from Middle Irish) and the Brittonic languages (i.e. Welsh and Breton, which are both descended from Common Brittonic); these are Insular Celtic languages-Wikipedia
There is a shared root between the native languages of Ireland (Irish) and the Scottish Highlands (Scots Gaelic). Both are part of the Goidelic family of languages, which come from the Celts who settled in both Ireland and Scotland.
Modern residents of Scotland and Ireland won’t share much DNA with these ancient ancestors. Instead, they can trace most of their genetic makeup to the Celtic tribes that expanded from Central Europe at least 2,500 years ago.Apr 20, 2021
https://whoareyoumadeof.com/blog/what-is-the-ireland-and-scotland-dna-ethnicity-on-ancestry/
What is the Ireland and Scotland DNA Ethnicity on Ancestry?
The Ireland and Scotland DNA region on Ancestry is located in the British Isles and covers all of Ireland, including Northern Ireland, and all of Scotland. DNA from this region is also commonly found in Wales and parts of England and France. (Celtic)
Scot, any member of an ancient Gaelic-speaking people of Ireland or Scotland in the early Middle Ages. … Originally (until the 10th century) “Scotia” denoted Ireland, and the inhabitants of Scotia were Scotti.
Scot | ancient people | Britannica https://www.britannica.com › topic › Scot
So the actress”s family wasn’t wrong at all. The actress just didn’t know enough.

 

Comments Off on Comment about a video clip