Greg's Corner

Updates from January, 2019 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

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  Geebo 10:19 am on January 3, 2019 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Ajit Pai ( 20 ), FCC ( 29 ), net neutrality ( 32 )   

  Ajit Pai celebrates bipartisan defeat of net neutrality, except that’s not what happened 

  

  If you’re old enough to remember the second Gulf War you may remember that Saddam Hussein had a spokesperson who would frequently appear in the media making outrageous claims about how the then dictator of Iraq was going to defeat the US Armed Forces while tanks were rolling into Baghdad. His statements were so outlandish that the American Media nicknamed him Comical Ali. Now it seems that FCC Chairman has taken a page out of his playbook.

  After Congress failed to reinstate net neutrality protections during their latest session, Pai released the following statement to the media…

  “I’m pleased that a strong bipartisan majority of the U.S. House of Representatives declined to reinstate heavy-handed Internet regulation,” Pai said in a statement. “They did the right thing — especially considering the positive results for American consumers since the adoption of the Restoring Internet Freedom Order.”

  Except, that’s not even remotely close to what happened. While Pai makes it sound like there was unilateral support for his ironically named Restoring Internet Freedom Order that’s not what happened. As Ars Technica points out…

  The Pai-led Federal Communications Commission repealed Obama-era net neutrality rules, but the repeal could have been reversed by Congress if it acted before the end of its session. Democrats won a vote to reverse the repeal in the Senate but weren’t able to get enough votes in the House of Representatives before time ran out.

  So, it wasn’t bipartisan support as much as it was the Democrats not being able to get enough votes in the Senate. That’s not bipartisan support, that’s just Congress voting along party lines.

  [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhNV15CiULE%5D

  Sadly, this is just a symptom of a larger problem within this administration as the current regime seems to have an edict that if you tell the same lies long enough they’ll become perceived as truth. It’s hard to think of another administration that represents the dystopian future of George Orwell’s 1984 any more than the current one.

   

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  Geebo 10:15 am on January 2, 2019 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Amazon ( 108 ), make money on Amazon, marketing ( 3 )   

  It’s not that easy to make money on Amazon 

  

  Have you ever come across an ad online that poses as an employment ad promising that you can make money beyond your wildest dreams? Usually, these ads are for Multi Level Marketing schemes or MLMs. MLMs usually require you to buy a certain amount of the product they’re trying to sell and then you have to not only try to sell the product but you have to try to get your friends to become marketers too. What these MLMs don’t tell you is that it’s almost mathematically impossible to get people underneath you on the MLM ladder to recruit more marketers. Now there’s a newer ploy that borrows heavily from MLMs and involves the biggest online retailer in the world, Amazon.

  According to The Atlantic, there is a cottage industry of people who want to teach you how to make incredulous wealth by becoming a third-party seller on Amazon. These classes are said to teach you how to sell cheap products made in China on Amazon for a huge markup. These so-called Amazon entrepreneurs often display the money they’ve made off of Amazon and imply that you can make the same kind of money. In reality, they’re usually more interested in getting you to sign up for their classes which can be priced in the thousands of dollars. If you search YouTube for how to make money on Amazon, you’ll find scores of videos like this.

  [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xbzdWNoAoQ%5D

  Much like the MLMs, these Amazon whisperers like to target people who are desperate to make a large amount of money quickly. Now to be fair, it is possible to make money on Amazon this way, however, it’s a very risky venture that could cause you to sink more money into the process and not see a lot of return. When dealing with any kind of financial investment you should never risk more than you can afford to lose since there are no guarantees that the investment will be successful. If you’re struggling to make ends meet then something like this is not for you as it requires a hefty initial investment of money that you probably can’t afford to lose. Remember, there really is no such thing as getting rich quick.