Government Jokes: Laughing All the Way to the Bank

Government Jokes: Laughing All the Way to the Bank

"One of the biggest lies in American is. I'm from the government and I'm here to help." This famous joke leads to more wasteful spending by encouraging cynicism. Thousands of government programs have been created and funded because a majority of lawmakers believed these initiatives were essential and will benefit our democracy.

With government programs representing over 30% of our economy, it's inevitable that there are plenty of instances where they don't work as intended, for example:

• helping survivors who were hit by a hurricane
• giving farm subsidies to millionaires
• taking 10 years to deliver a letter
• finding weapons of mass destruction
  

The media is loaded with stories about government waste and incompetence because bad news sells. These stories continually seep into the minds of ordinary taxpayers who support reasonable and valuable programs but this compassionate attitude is extinguished by the widespread belief that everything our government does is terrible. This cynicism causes Americans to wind up not caring what the government does as long as it stays away from them.

The result of this leave-me-alone attitude leaves more government money to those who know how to use the system rather than hate it. Most every large company in America takes advantage of government grants, loans, contracts or free services. Real estate entrepreneurs like Donald Trump credits using government programs to make his first million dollar deal. Vice President Dick Cheney received over $3 billion in government contracts when he was running Halliburton. George W. Bush received $200 million in government loan for his baseball team. Even millionaire broadcaster Sam Donaldson tapped little-known government services to fund his cancer surgery. And why do families making over $100,000 a year receive more financial aid for college than those making less than that (1). Seniors with incomes over $150,000 receive more government benefits than older folks living on less than $15,000 (2). And here is something most American's would find hard to believe...only 12% of government handouts goes to the poor (2)

As long as average Americans ignore government programs and don't care how they are run, there will be more jokes about incompetence. If you paid for a service from a private company, you would invest effort to find out about that service and complain loudly if it does not work right. The media has been successful in convincing ordinary taxpayers that it's not worth it to demand an end to wasteful spending. Meanwhile there are plenty of folks and companies that are laughing all the way to the bank.

Matthew Lesko
Entrepreneur and Author of over 100 books on government benefits
matthew@lesko.com
303-929-8400

1) U.S. Office Of Education, National Center For Education Statistics, http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d05/tables/dt05_317.asp?referer=list
2) Page 151 "Running On Empty", Peter G. Peterson, former Chairman of Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2004

3 Things All Affiliate Marketers Need To Survive Online

Every affiliate marketer is always looking for the successful market that gives the biggest paycheck. Sometimes they think it is a magic formula that is readily available for them. Actually, it is more complicated than that. It is just good marketing practices that have been proven over years of hard work and dedication.
There are tactics that have worked before with online marketing and is continuing to work in the online affiliate marketing world of today. With these top three marketing tips, you will be able to able to increase your sales and survive in the affiliate marketing online.

What are these three tactics?

1. Using unique web pages to promote each separate product you are marketing. Do not lump all of it together just to save some money on web hosting. It is best to have a site focusing on each and every product and nothing more.

Always include product reviews on the website so visitors will have an initial understanding on what the product can do to those who buys them. Also include testimonials from users who have already tried the product. Be sure that these customers are more than willing to allow you to use their names and photos on the site of the specific product you are marketing.

You can also write articles highlighting the uses of the product and include them on the website as an additional page. Make the pages attractive compelling and include calls to act on the information. Each headline should attract the readers to try and read more, even contact you. Highlight your special points. This will help your readers to learn what the page is about and will want to find out more.

2. Offer free reports to your readers. If possible position them at the very top side of your page so it they simply cannot be missed. Try to create autoresponder messages that will be mailed to those who input their personal information into your sign up box. According to research, a sale is closed usually on the seventh contact with a prospect.

Only two things can possibly happen with the web page alone: closed sale or the prospect leaving the page and never return again. By placing useful information into their inboxes at certain specified period, you will remind them of the product they thought they want later and will find out that the sale is closed. Be sure that the content is directed toward specific reasons to buy the product. Do not make it sound like a sales pitch.

Focus on important points like how your product can make life and things easier and more enjoyable. Include compelling subject lines in the email. As much as possible, avoid using the word “free” because there are still older spam filters that dumps those kind of contents into the junk before even anyone reading them first. Convince those who signed up for your free reports that they will be missing something big if they do not avail of your products and services.

3. Get the kind of traffic that is targeted to your product. Just think, if the person who visited your website has no interest whatsoever in what you are offering, they will be among those who move on and never come back. Write articles for publication in e-zines and e-reports. This way you can locate publications that is focusing on your target customers and what you have put up might just grab their interest.

Try to write a minimum of 2 articles per week, with at least 300-600 words in length. By continuously writing and maintaining these articles you can generate as many as 100 targeted readers to your site in a day.
Always remember that only 1 out of 100 people are likely to buy your product or get your services. If you can generate as much as 1,000 targeted hits for your website in a day, that means you can made 10 sales based on the average statistic.

The tactics given above does not really sound very difficult to do, if you think about it. It just requires a little time and an action plan on your part.

Try to use these tips for several affiliate marketing programs. You can end maintaining a good source of income and surviving in this business that not all marketers can do.
Besides, think of the huge paychecks you will be receiving…

11 *hidden* sources of traffic...

How often do you find yourself saying...

"If only I knew how to get traffic like the big boys"

Well, here's your exclusive opportunity.

Look over the shoulder of "Mr X" as he shows you how
he took a website from 151 unique visitors to over a
whopping 60,000 in less than 5 days.(and he didn't
have to pay a dime in advertising)

As you know, I never endorse anything that I haven't
tried myself. So you know that I don't simply give any
product my 'stamp of approval' unless it's the real deal.

This is THE 'missing link' to getting you MASSIVE
traffic without having to burn a hole in your pocket.

We're talking about real CRASHING tsunami of unique,
laser targeted, hungry visitors.

This is NOT:

* Viral Marketing
* A Guaranteed Visitors package
* A Search Engine Submission Tool
* An Ebook teaching you to write Ezine articles
* A Yahoo listing technique
* Search Engine Cloaking
* An Expired domains redirection
* A Forums Posting Technique

And the best part is, you got to know about this before
anyone else (I called in some serious favors to make
sure of this).

RUN, don't walk to:




Unless you want the competition to get there before you.






    

Andy Borowitz: Working at Home: The Ugly Truth - Business on The Huffington Post

Andy Borowitz: Working at Home: The Ugly Truth - Business on The Huffington Post

In the future, thanks to advances in personal computing and Internet connectivity, more and more people will be working at home. While there are some obvious benefits to this arrangement, such as gasoline cost savings and the ability to devote more of the workweek to bidding on Battlestar Gallactica memorabilia, there is a dark side as well: working at home greatly reduces the opportunities for office romance.

Gone are the liquor-fueled holiday parties and the team-building retreats that have traditionally served as the tinderboxes for employee-on-employee passion. Gone, too, are the monthly budget meetings, where passed notes and stolen glances often lead to more -- so much more. Lonely and isolated, the home-based employee will start looking for love in all the wrong places. And therein lies the ugly truth of working at home: when you're your own boss, you have no one to sexually harass but yourself.

Consider my story a cautionary tale. When I got the opportunity to start working at home a couple of years ago, I jumped at the chance, envisioning the huge spike in productivity that would naturally result from not having to shave or put on pants. In those early, innocent days, I was putting in robust eight-hour workdays, interrupted only by lunch and semi-hourly visits to YouTube. But then, after three days of this happy routine, everything changed in an instant. After using the bathroom one morning, I caught sight of myself in the mirror and, almost without thinking, I uttered these two fateful words: "Looking good."

When I got back to my desk, I was rattled. Perhaps my comment to myself in the bathroom had merely been friendly, but a part of me felt that it was inappropriate. And that come-hither expression on my face was unmistakable: I had seen it many times before, most notably on my Match.com profile. No, there could be little doubt: I was my own boss, and I was hitting on myself.

Feelings of unease soon gave way to other feelings -- feelings of shame. Had I, as my own boss, created a hostile work environment for myself? Or had I, as my own employee, "asked for it" by showing up to work wearing nothing but underwear? Making matters worse, I had no one to turn to in my hour of torment. One thing they don't tell you when you decide to work at home: in addition to being your own boss, you're your own H.R. person.

Trapped in a hell of my own creation, I had no choice but to downsize myself and outsource my job to India. As draconian as that solution might sound, it felt then, and still feels today, like the only way out. At this very moment, I am probably sexually harassing myself in an industrial park in Bangalore, but at least I don't have to know about it.

Andy Borowitz is a comedian and writer whose work appears in The New Yorker and The New York Times.

http://www.homebizhelper.com

Small Business Resources, Business Advice and Forms from Small Business Informer -- Online Business Opportunity: Income Or Scam?

Small Business Resources, Business Advice and Forms from Small Business Informer -- Online Business Opportunity: Income Or Scam?

by Liz Roberts

July 27, 2007

Today, many people are taking advantage of home based businesses to earn extra income for their families. Mothers or those with handicaps can benefit a lot form work-at-home business opportunities. In fact, many have been so successful that even those who have regular work have resigned from their day jobs to concentrate on their work at home business.

What a Home Based Business Involves
However, it is important to remember that although many have been successful, a home business still requires planning, preparation, time and a lot of hard work. Those businesses who promise to bring millions for just a short time and without doing much work at all are clearly a scam. Sadly, many people have fallen victims to such promises. They invested their money on such home based business scams hoping to get back double or even more than what they paid. Not very long after, they found out that they’ve lost the money they worked so hard for.

For this reason, care must be taken when choosing a home based business opportunity. It is easy to get tempted with instant money-making schemes. But don’t be fooled. For instance, there are multi-level marketing schemes that do not even have any product to sell. Your income solely depends on the registration fees from new members. Another common home business scam is envelope stuffing. Usually, you are required to give an upfront fee in order to receive your tasks. Obviously, if you have to pay for an upfront fee there is a great risk that you are being scammed.

Watch Out From Other Scams!
Be particularly wary of gambling scams that claim to increase your chances of winning the lottery if you buy your lottery tickets online instead of from regular lottery booths. Most of these scams are designed to collect money from unsuspecting people.

Also, watch out for new businesses that sell products that are not proven to be efficient. For example, some products claim to bring wondrous results. However, see to it that these products have been approved by the national organizations especially if it’s health product or a beauty product. You wouldn’t want to be involved in a business that sells damaging or harmful products.

There are indeed legitimate home business opportunities out there. If you do sufficient research before signing up for a business, you can find a legitimate source of income for you and your family. One way to make sure is by checking from the Better Business Bureau about the reputation of the company. If there have been complaints in the past, then definitely you should back out immediately. However, if there are no complaints against that particular business, it does not mean you can let your guard down and accept the offer right away. Do extensive research on the company’s background.

Another important thing to consider when joining home based businesses is to choose the one that matches your skills and knowledge. If you have the knowledge and if you enjoy the work you’re doing, you will not easily give up and have more chances to succeed.

http://www.homebizhelper.com