Freelance Nightmares

So supposedly we have a new world order in the job market and methods of seeking income in trade for your skills and services. Sure, I have been a "private contractor" for awhile now getting hired to be a performer at parties or provide entertainment services or working as a brand ambassador or hired by temp agencies. This has been all fine and dandy however when I started a few weeks ago looking to supplement this meager income that's earned me no more than $10 grand a year EVER so that I might actually break out of mere starving artist status, IT HAS BEEN A FREAKING NIGHTMARE!!!

First of all there's tons of bloggers out there who live off of affiliate income and will affiliate with anyone. It's actually a lot easier and likely more profitable to just sign up as an affiliate and start recommending and funneling traffic towards a website from the millions of desperately seeking searchers online just like myself. Just because a blogger (or writer/reporter since there's no difference between news and "news") says that something pays people for doing things certainly does not mean it will nor that the blogger tested that aspect before saying it. So far from my experiences the majority that do actually pay you, only pay you pennies or are completely flooded with decently skilled workers living in India where pennies may work out to be of some actual value in currency exchange. In America where even the lowest minimum wages are $5 an hour which is still not anywhere close to substantial compared to cost of living, these are scams! Slavery has been abolished already...

I'm going to start blogging about each and every experience so that if you are like me then perhaps I can serve you with a warning to avoid them! None of us like wasting our time. 

Stress kills and this overwhelming feeling I get every day that passes me by that I have not achieved my goal of simply having more money coming in than going out of my bank account is not improving.

scam #1: Spare5

This one was recommended in a book I found on Amazon called Active Income Streams and as you can see after a good long hard evening I have earned myself 61 cents.

scam #2: Freelancer.com

Now this one I found surprising! I used this site to hire some Indian graphic designers and bought my logo, some posters, and other really cool designs from people before so I when I decided to give it a shot and turn the tables from being a cheap American starving artist/business owner to an "okay I'm really fucking starving now" freelancer willing to do just about anything for work it was not so pleasant. I got hit up to be a webcam girl aka "special chat friend ;)" on skype for $250 and #suckit I mean #shutup when I hit accept figuring that every hiring person would be as kind as I was when I offered to pay the runners up in my logo contest consolation prizes.. so nothing bad could happen if we just discussed stuff in sorta person, right? Wrong. I immediately received a notification from paypal that I PAID FREELANCER -$25!? Yup. Apparently they just go right on ahead and collect their 10% commission on your future to be completed and then approved and then transferred and hopefully released to you income!! Get this too ~ an employer can delete a job listing/offer for $5 so in theory you could potentially do the work or chat porn thing and then go to collect your completed payment and it's long gone leaving you with nothing to even try to dispute that you are owed. Omfg, and no.. this did not happen to me because I was already freaking out about my lunch money being gone to pick up my skype calls. I'm just sick that I'm going backwards and decided to quit for the night and write a blog instead.

PS. There's no affiliate codes in this blog entry but I think there's ads on my blog that have earned me a grand total of maybe 40 cents in the time it's existed so don't click em if you don't want me to get a fraction of a penny from google or amazon. Cheers ~

I'm not privileged

Wow! That made me tear up a bit. I feel privileged. I'm a spoiled white girl who grew up in the suburbs and still gets help from her parents. But as a female who's been raped, grew up pagan in the bible belt, battled with addiction, worked in the service industry my whole adulthood, I'm not a an utter over privileged spoiled fucking brat! How about that...

 Know Thyself! ~

You live with 28 out of 100 points of privilege.

1. 

   You’re not privileged at all. You grew up with an intersectional, complicated identity, and life never let you forget it. You’ve had your fair share of struggles, and you’ve worked hard to overcome them. We do not live in an ideal world and you had to learn that the hard way. It is not your responsibility to educate those with more advantages than you, but if you decide you want to, go ahead and send them this quiz. Hopefully it will help.

How Privileged Are You?

http://www.buzzfeed.com/regajha/how-privileged-...Check(list) your privilege.

rent rage

  Getting ready to move out of my dream apartment tomorrow to a slightly more affordable one I will be living in with the blessed assistance of my parents (yes, I'm extremely lucky to have financial help). I've lived here at my current residence for 8 years now and I'm sad to leave. In 2004, when I first moved in, rent was $650 a mo. Let's say hypothetical, which is close to the truth as I was waiting tables at the time 5 days a week getting tips but closer to 30 hours than 40.. I was making the Wa state min wage of $7.16 an hour x 40 x 4 = $1146 a mo so rent of $650 was a tiny bit lush but completely doable. My rent has now skyrocketed to a whopping $1450 a mo! So let's say, once again hypothetical, if I were still employed in that same career or min wage range as many of the 99% are I would be making the new 2012 Wa state min wage of $9.04 an hour x 40 x 4 = $1446 a mo or $4 shy of any chance to actually pay my rent. So while my rent has increased a total of $800 a mo in 8 years my salary has only increased by $300 a mo. Now we can add in the rising price of food and gas or bus fares if we'd like to but you see the point.. There's a major problem happening in this country that not only affects the middle class but practically eradicates the lower class into a permanent state of homelessness or death!

Occupy Seattle: Day of 1,000 Umbrellas

Occupy Seattle

This is illegal in Westlake park in Seattle because umbrellas touching the ground constitutes a structure and since no camping is allowed then you're not allowed to have an umbrella structure if it's raining and you're say sitting and waiting for a bus...

Yes, it's utter silliness but somebody has to have fun and not be too serious about every single aspect of the 99% movement especially today, Sat 10/22, since there's a police brutality march happening earlier on.. So need mummery ~ I present to you, yours truly!

I dream of Djinni

If I could have 3 wishes I'd wish for:

~ 4-6 more hours in a day so I'd have time for 8-10 hours sleep, 3 square meals, laundry, grocery shopping trips, and sex...



~ an extra set of arms like Kali or Shiva so I could more effectively multi-task like carrying groceries, while smoking a cigarette, and type a text..








 ~ abolish all credit including the US federal note so that there would be a level the playing field for everyone here on Earth.

how to kill a revolution ~ follow a leader!

 Here's the link: http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/10/10/this-is-how-you-kill-a-movement

 

My comment #162:
Guys ~ you do realize that the system of having 2-8 official leaders elected to represent everyone in the state is precisely what is FAILING. The problem is that if there's only a few leaders at the top then that's only a few to bribe, blackmail, or otherwise corrupt and the people and their interests are no longer represented even remotely.. I keep hearing similar sentiments like this slogger:

"We are fully on board with the message of the 99%, but not with the people who believe the only valid way to make a decision is by consensus." ~Christopher Frizzelle

  How is that on board with the 99%? Either you, just like the city, are contradicting yourself or we find ourselves in a bit of a paradox. Believe me, I find the GA frustrating and annoying as can be but the fact of the matter is that if there are no leaders then it can't be corrupted, though it can creep and crawl and hardly accomplish anything. However, this movement is about change. Everybody fears change therefore is readily willing to defend their current way of life despite the fact that it's a futile facade..

   The OWS has already succeeded in that it's made us think about new models of governing ourselves! It's made us check our egos as to why we want to be in charge of something! It's made us decide if we agree, or don't agree, or don't care, or are prone to sitting on the fence only to decide according to what our peers think! That's pure and simply [R]evolutionary!

If the people lead then the leaders will follow. As much as I hate it I'm willing to test this theory because I'm sick and tired of following leaders while they follow whoever is the highest bidder... 

"None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe that they are free." ~Goethe

who is the 1%

  So last night when I was walking around on stilts during the general assembly meeting of the Seattle Occupants a guy randomly approached me and asked "so how do you determine the 1%?" Not particularly a conversation I felt like having especially while hobbling on stilts (I prefer to cruise around so I work a larger group of leg muscles otherwise I'll cramp up and be sore as hell..) my first instinct was offense since I was obviously not on the same level as him so why did he so aggressive approach me 2.5' above him to dig into a debate with? Well, I suppose it could be argued that I had asked for it since the sign in hand said nothing but "we are the 99%". Being an absolute retard when it comes to mathematics and having no idea who or how those statistics came about nor did I bother to check my resources before selecting my signage, I do hereby declare myself a hypocrite AND will be sure my next sign says something I can get behind 100% but also give an intelligent rebuttal to any dissent. Plus I did attempt to research those quoted demographics today but I will humbly admit that I am not qualified to EVER speak in numbers assuredly as if they're actually factual stats!

  However this article in Vanity Fair (don't laugh.. it really is well written) Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%
allowed me to come up with a much better response to that question without having to argue sources and fear of incorrect calculations. THE 99% ARE THE PEOPLE WHO GET 1 VOTE FOR THEIR LOCAL REPRESENTATIVE. THE 1% GETS TO VOTE ON EVERY SINGLE BILL THAT COMES THROUGH CONGRESS WHILE OUR NEEDS & CONCERNS ARE INSIGNIFICANT.
 

  Clear it up for you there, confrontational geek man? Good!

Psychopaths who Occupy Wall Street

“Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.”  

~Amschel Mayer Rothschild

“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”  

~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.”  

~Henry Kissinger

  I read an on this psychology study on the psycho-pathological tendencies of brokers on Wall Street on my Discovery News iPhone app which was fascinating. About an hour later I came across a campaign to support the protesters currently staging the Occupy Wall Street campaign and decided to go back and retrieve the link to it AND IT WAS GONE!! So I'm now taking it upon myself to find what few sources still remain accessible to the general public NOW in the US and blog some quotes with links that I assume will still be available archives even though all the reputable major media companies are suddenly dropping these kinds of stories at unreasonable rates leaving them to appear as if they exist only in the minds of conspiracy theorists and criminally contentious activists. Honestly, who do you believe to be more insane, those who would control all the world's resources for their own greedy purposes and enslave the world's population in unnecessary perverse poverty? Or those who would call that a unconscionably corrupt conspiracy?

From The Huffington Post by Alexander Eichler (First Posted: 9/26/11 05:50 PM ET Updated: 9/26/11 05:50 PM ET)  

Stockbrokers More Competitive, Willing To Take Risks Than Psychopaths: Study

 

  A recent study from the University of St. Gallen, in Switzerland, goes one step further. The research, led by forensics expert Pascal Scherrer and prison administrator Thomas Noll, finds that professional stock traders actually outperform diagnosed psychopaths when it comes to competitive and risk-taking behavior.

  

  According to Der Spiegel, Scherrer and Noll had a group of 28 stockbrokers participate in various simulations and intelligence tests, and then compared their results to a group of psychopaths.

They found that the traders showed a higher degree of competitiveness than the psychopaths -- and that the traders were surprisingly willing to cause harm to their competitors if they thought it would bring them an advantage.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/26/stockbroker-psychopath_n_981950.html?view=print&comm_ref=false 

“I sincerely believe the banking institutions having the issuing power of money are more dangerous to liberty than standing armies“.  

~Thomas Jefferson

“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”  

~Henry Ford

when the fat banker sings.. run for the hills!

Just so we're clear.. Everyone does realize that the money does not exist, right? Never really did even.. It's supposedly legal tender or trade notes, IOU's essentially, for gold and silver bullion which is a pain in the ass to carry around in your purse apparently. Here ~


So this means that all those home loans, car loans, mortgages, and any other kind of "credit" was issued, offered, or loaned out by people who didn't really have anything whatsoever but a buddy who will hook them up with a continuous flow of paper making it seem like they're loaded especially since the big dollar amounts go on money orders and/or cashier's checks. The big secret maneuver of the banking business is the classic 'fake it until you make it'. They stood to gain a tremendous amount in interests to the extent that even future forecast of predicted interest earnings too would be printed on paper and beg/barter/bought/sold for a steal.. or so they thought.
I can't believe I didn't see it or rather it hadn't seeped in yet what this whole Comet Elenin scare & frenzy is really all about. The sky IS falling! Just figuratively more than literally. The economy is truly now on the verge of utter and total collapse!    "The federal agency that oversees the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is set to file suits against more than a dozen big banks, accusing them of misrepresenting the quality of mortgage securities they assembled and sold at the height of the housing bubble, and seeking billions of dollars in compensation." ~NY Times http://nyti.ms/pHuffD According to a documentary I watched earlier this evening the value of the dollar would need to decrease by a rate of 98% in order to equal the value of the current federal gold reserves (if they even really exists.. a full inventory count hasn't been done since 1971!) This means that if only 2% of the  cash flow including bank/savings accounts, mutual funds, and stock investments were suddenly cashed in as in WE JUST MARCH INTO OUR LOCAL BANK OF AMERICA AND SAY WE DON'T LIKE THEIR NEW FEE SYSTEM THEY'RE TRYING TO USE TO COMPENSATE FOR THEIR LAWSUITS.. WE WISH TO CLOSE OUR ACCOUNTS AND DO HEREBY DEMAND OUR GOLD BACK!!
that's it... collapse. 

FREEDOM! :D "None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. "  ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe