There is great positive benefit in simply eliminating
the negative.Physically, if you cut yourself badly, you don’t worry about all the blood you’ve lost and how to get it back. You stop the bleeding so you won’t lose any more blood. This applies both to small cuts and large cuts. Financial worth operates like blood. It should be increased but also preserved. We often forget that building financial worth is not just about acquiring assets and building savings but eliminating drains on our resources.


    Ongoing financial losses and costs that withdraw financial lifeblood from you a little at a time over a long period of time may feel less painful but they end up costing a lot more.Healing the small and large cuts that result in financial bleeding make a tremendous difference. Many people know that early saving and investments can pay off gigantically in net worth down the road. Few really grasp that stopping ongoing financial losses early can do the same.

    Both processes are exponential. Stopping the bleeding of your financial worth also provides long-term mental and emotional benefits by ridding you of leeches on your attention and peace of mind.So you gave the material American Dream a try and it didn’t work out. What now? If
you cannot gain from housing, switch your mentality. Limit your housing cost! It is most people’s greatest living expense. If you can save a thousand dollars a month by renting, building your own house, moving
in with another family, or paying for a smaller house in cash, you are a thousand dollars a month richer. Not only that, you have the satisfaction of a thousand dollars less per month going to some bank.Deeper values and sense. Your choice.

    Because people get emotionally attached to things, including rising expectations, they do not see that supporting a thing, i.e. holding on to properties for continuing financial losses, is diminishing their ability to care for and support actual people, to save for education, or to start a small business, to invest in something better. It is not that much different than people who hold on to a degrading job. In the end, it is “your money and your life”.

  Why not research and compare the relative long-term financial benefits of strategic default on an underwater mortgage to the negative credit consequences? Why not rebel against inflated expectations by de-expensing your lifestyle (Transforming Economy, pg. 245)? Why not reinvest the money and time you save into relationships,family, and community— the real American Dream?

    Here is a perfect practical example. How many of you have paid more for a storage locker than the stuff inside is worth? Honestly? Practically everyone. Is this rational? No. Why do we do it? We have an emotional attachment to “stuff.” We convince ourselves that “having” our stuff means “having” our feelings, experiences, and history attached to the stuff (even if it is basically junk that we never use anymore).Upon closer look, however, “stuff” is just another demand and expense that weighs on your mind. It is not a store of value.

   If you want a higher quality life, clear your economic and mental clutter. Get rid of what you don’t need. Empty your storage lockers. Getting rid of stuff will not only save you money but also free up resources for people you care about. If selling your stuff is too much hassle, give it away. Just think of it as a double bonus—a load off your mind and karma points. If trends continue, in a few years everyone will start selling their stuff out of necessity. Why not get a good price for yours now. It is personal decision time. Apply civil disobedience
to your value-draining financial habits. Once you start clearing things out, you will have more time, energy, and money to pursue the more important things in life instead of just thinking about them.
You are now ready for Step #4.

To Be Continued...come back to read all 5 steps! We would love to hear your thoughts on the third step below.

Zeus Yiamouyiannis, Ph.D. is an economics blogger, futurist, and author of Transforming Economy: From Corrupted Capitalism to Connected Communities. He has written regularly for top alternative economics blogs, including ZeroHedge.com and OfTwoMinds.com. He has appeared as a guest on “The Keiser Report” and “On the Edge with Max Keiser” on RT TV as well as the “Inside the Eye” radio program. Zeus is a “performance educator” with expertise in philosophy and cultural foundations of education. His own blog, Citizen Zeus (http://citizenzeus.com)

Pick up a copy of the Transforming Economy e-book here. Visit Citizen Zeus to engage other essays on transforming yourself and your society. Contact Zeus at [email protected] to engage his "learn to transform" consulting services.

Damian Washington makes the plea:

Pay America's Workers A Livable Wage!
(1) Many minimum wage earners are adults who are major breadwinners for their families; 
(2) had the minimum wage fifty years ago merely kept up with inflation it would be over $15 today; 
(3) when these giant corporations don’t pay living wages the rest of us pay Medicaid and food stamps to help these families stay out of poverty; 
(4) a $15 living wage puts more money into the pockets of people who will spend it, thereby creating more jobs, not fewer.

Not only does he prove he has rapping chops, but he truly shows he IS a gentleman and scholar too!

The United States Department of Labor has some mythbusters provided on their website here are some of the highlights:

Myth: Raising the minimum wage will only benefit teens.

Not true: The typical minimum wage worker is not a high-school student earning weekend pocket money. In fact, 88 percent of those who would benefit from a federal minimum wage increase are age 20 or older, and 55 percent are women.

Myth: Increasing the minimum wage will cause people to lose their jobs.

Not true: A review of 64 studies on minimum wage increases found no discernable effect on employment. Additionally, more than 600 economists, seven of them Nobel Prize winners in economics, have signed onto a letter in support of raising the minimum wage to $10.10 by 2016.

Myth: Restaurant servers don't need to be paid the minimum wage since they receive tips.

Not true: An employer can pay a tipped employee as little as $2.13 per hour in direct wages, but only if that amount plus tips equal at least the federal minimum wage and the worker retains all tips and customarily and regularly receives more than $30 a month in tips. Often, an employee's tips combined with the employer's direct wages of at least $2.13 an hour do not equal the federal minimum hourly wage. When that occurs, the employer must make up the difference. Some states have minimum wage laws specific to tipped employees. When an employee is subject to both the federal and state wage laws, he or she is entitled to the provisions of each law which provides the greater benefits.

The information provided on their website is excellent regarding this issue so I highly recommend you check it out!

 According to the National Conference of State Legislatures 38 states introduced minimum wage bills during the 2014 session. 

• Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts,Michigan, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia and D.C. have enacted increases during the 2014 session.

 Economists agree that raising the minimum wage reduces poverty. Want to see which 600 Economists Signed a Letter in Support of $10.10 Minimum Wage? Check it out here: Economist Statement on the Federal Minimum Wage

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Sell

Okay, so you've chosen to wake up, ward off the fear and hype, and consult concrete facts and deeper intuition. Now what? Time to ask the question, “If we keep going this way, what is likely to happen?” What are the implications? What do we look for now?

This is the honesty step. Perhaps you or someone close to you has already bought a house at the height of a housing bubble. Now what? 1) Confront your desire to deny financial losses and unwise personal financial decisions. 2) Look at the trends. Say, for example, you are holding on to a typical real estate asset, hoping things turn
around. Neither fundamentals nor trends support a return. Add maintenance, taxes, and fees, and you are staring at more losses.
Why? The real estate bubble has popped in so-called developed countries and is about to pop in developing countries. These cycles were and are being pumped by investors looking for short-term gains before pulling their money out. This is false demand. Overall real demand is declining in middle class America and Europe. Housing supply is glutted from overbuilding, especially in Spain and China. Real incomes have fallen
in the U.S. and Europe among young people in particular. Trust in home owning has been dashed. Long term, these trends push purchase prices down.

Is the market ever going to come back to what it was? Most likely no.

Does this mean that all real estate will decrease in value? No. I would not be at all surprised to see condos near cultural urban centers go up in price as baby boomers retire, even as suburban McMansions plunge in price.

Investment-wise, it is important to anticipate where a shift in visions of the good life will increase or decrease demand and value for certain physical assets.Semi-rural medium-sized college towns with progressive values, farmer’s markets, access to nature, and simple pleasures are positioned well to increase in value as people gravitate toward a simpler, community-oriented life and leave the “rat race” behind. (Transforming Economy, pg. 124)

Transition times are generators of anxiety . We are going through a major social transition now. This often prompts people, in the medium term future, to run toward traditional stores of value hoping for stability. This pushes traditional commodities like gold and silver up in price, maybe even way up if there is a panic and another greed- and
fear-driven bubble. Humans don’t change their habits easily.

When you complete Step #2, you will have a sense of perspective about where we are going, what to expect economically, and why we cannot go back.You are ready for Step #3, to clear the financial clutter and align money priorities with deeper values and sense.

To Be Continued...come back to read all 5 steps! We would love to hear your thoughts on the second step below.

Zeus Yiamouyiannis, Ph.D. is an economics blogger, futurist, and author of Transforming Economy: From Corrupted Capitalism
to Connected Communities. He has written regularly for top alternative economics blogs, including ZeroHedge.com and OfTwoMinds.com. He has appeared as a guest on “The Keiser Report” and “On the Edge with Max Keiser” on RT TV as well as the “Inside the Eye” radio program. Zeus is a “performance educator” with expertise in philosophy and cultural foundations of education. His own blog, Citizen Zeus (http://citizenzeus.com)

Pick up a copy of the Transforming Economy e-book here. Visit Citizen Zeus to engage other essays on transforming yourself and your society. Contact Zeus at [email protected] to engage his "learn to transform" consulting services.

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