If you own a vacation home, time share condo, 2nd home or condo or if you rent out your own home you have certainly come across the issue of security for your property. This is usually handled by having the renter pay a security deposit. This works up to a certain extent but it is not a perfect situation to say the least. The collecting of the deposit and the refund of the deposit is a time consuming endeavor. This time could certainly be used in a productive manner.
Well exclusive to ivacationonline.com has worked with Travel Guard in a joint venture to bring accidental damage insurance at an affordable price to short term vacation rentals.
Here how it works, if you are a member of ivacationonlines vacation property manage website it is as simple as a few clicks of the mouse and a fee is added to your rental program. The fee is $39 and this buys you $3000 worth of damage protection. No other website in the world offers this program. Now here is the greatest point, once you set the Travel Guard insurance up in your rental program you actually get a percentage of each policy. That is right you get paid to protect your own property.
To get all the details on the system and to find out how easy it is, just vist Ivon's accidental Damage insurance page.
30 Eylül 2012 Pazar
Protection For Vacation Rental Property Against Accidental Damage
Stop Losing Money With Your Vacation Property.
Many people own a second home or vacation condos and have them on rental programs. These rental programs rarely generate enough income for the home owner to cover the fees of renting their property. With property management companies charging fees as much as 35%, the home or condo owner is left with very little revenue. What if there was a way to achieve 50%, 60% or even 70% occupancy in you vacation rental? What if there was a system that allowed you to easily manage and book your own property?
Well there is way, VACATION RENTALS FOR PROFIT is a vacation rental website that shows you how to rent your own property and turn a profit. They are hosting a free informational seminar at the Sharonville Convention Center Saturday, FEB 25, 2012, 11:00 AM to 6:00PM. The seminar is free to all vacation property owners and their spouses. Any vacation rental owner or anyone interested in buying a vacation rental will recieve FREE admission to the seminar and all of its events. There is no obligations when register for or attend the event, this seminar is 100% free.
Not only is the event free but lunch will be provided for free by one of the events sponsors, Travel Guard. But wait, it gets better, not only is the seminar free, your lunch is free, and everyone who attends will recieve a free copy of "Vacation Rentals For Profit" by Author, Joe Godar. This book which sells for $28.95 and is yours free just for attending.
The seminar is an educational and informational event. Here is just a partial list of what will be covered at the Seminar:
- How to keep our units fully occupied.
- How to price your unit for success.
- How to advertise on the Internet.
- How to set your terms for you guest.
- How to use the booking site www.ivacationonline.com
- Tax advantages of owning real estate.
- Plus much more!
If you are thinking of buying a vacation rental, have had one for years or currently have a management company run it for you, this seminar is for you! Meet Joe Godar, industry professionals, and other home owners who have learned to start making a profit with their vacation property.
RESERVE YOUR SEAT NOW! Seats are limited. To register for the seminar simply follow this link and fill out the registration form online. Go to www.vacationrentalsforprofit.com/seminars.html/
Only A Few Seats Open For Vacation Rental For Profits Seminar
If you have not signed up for the Vacation Rentals For Profit Seminar you will need to hurry. There are only a few remaining seats for this highly sought after event. We apologize in advance to those of you who will not be able to get a ticket to the event. The event is limited to an amount of seats which is dictated by the venue and we are not allowed to exceed the venues maximum occupancy. As stated there are still a few seats available but they will not last through this week.
Many vacation home and beach condo owners are taking advantage of this seminar and we have registrants from around the country flying in to learn how they can stop the bleeding caused by the expenses of owning a vacation home. Especially those that own a second home and do not rent out that property. Taxes, mortgage, HOA fees, special assessments, insurance, repairs, maintenance, furnishings, updating, pest control, land scaping, utilities and many more costs are eating away at many of these home or condo owners saving.
This free seminar will teach you how to cover your costs and actually turn a profit with your property. How do we know this is possible, because the lead instructor at the free seminar is Joe Godar and he has developed this system through his own experience as a vacation home owner and manager. Mr Godar, not only created the system but he is using the system to turn profits on his vacation rental properties and others that he manages, and now he is sharing that knowledge with you, FOR FREE!
Don't wait, there is no obligation, no fees, and you get a free lunch. Visit www.vacationrentalsforprofit.com/seminars.html/ to get registered for the last remaining seats.
Save Time With Ivacationonline's Email Quote System
ivacationonline.com's new email quoting system.
Are you ready to stop wasting time when it comes to replying to rental inquiries for your vacation home or condo? ivacationonline unveils its new Email Quoting System for vacation rental inquires. During the busy seasons of the vacation rental business the inquiries can come in droves. This is especially true when you are property manager and are handling the bookings for ten, twenty, thirty or more properties. With the average property getting 20-30 inquiries a week, multiplying that amount of emails by 30 can lead to an email overload.
Individually answering each email with additional information and pricing, not only wastes time but can cost you bookings as well. The new email quote system gives you the option of answering emails with a single click or just a simple copy and paste.
The email quote system gives you 3 options:
- Property is available email
- Property is unavailable email
- Visitor email
In each pre-propagated email you can put in pertinent information, answer redundant questions, send a price quote, and have a link directly to your properties booking page. This saves you time by not having to answer several emails to the same potential renter, and because now they have practically everything they want to know in one email they can make the decision to rent your property.
Many vacation rental customers will send out 10 or more inquiries and normally cannot remember which property was which, but with the ivacationonline.com Email Quote System you will be sending them; a picture of the property, the address, the pricing breakdown, down payment amount, security deposit, and payment schedule. Don't forget the email includes a direct link to your booking page so that a renter can book their stay online with ease. This link to the booking page makes it easier than ever for a potential renter to book you property online.
The system, once you have set up your responses can save you approximately 80% of the time you were spending answering emails. That is correct 80%, and this time saved is money made. It is proven in this industry that home owners and managers who respond faster to inquiries GET MORE BOOKINGS!
Another great feature of the system is when a visitor clicks on your Email Quote button they have the option to send all of the information to every person in their party. This is a major factor in getting more booking and renting your property faster. Every property owner has heard this, "I love the place but I have to show it to the others in our group to see if it is ok with them". Now everyone involved gets all of the information instantly so that your potential vacationers can make a decision faster.
So now that you know all of the time saving benefits, the money making advantages, and the customer service upgrades, you're probably asking what will this additional service from ivacationonline.com cost me. The answer is, nothing, that's right, if you are already a member of the ivacationonline.com property management software system website there is no charge to you, it' free! Also if you are not already a member of ivacationonline.com simply sign up for a 30 day free trial and see how easy renting your vacation home or condo can be.
Visit http://www.ivacationonline.com/ today, click on the risk free 30 day trial offer, and enjoy the benefits of online property management.
Learn about:
Our live calendar
Emailing contracts
Renter updating email system
Online booking payment system
Credit card acceptance
Damage insurance
Travel insurance
The "Cancel For Any Reason Plan"
Voice description for your property
Video and photos of your home
Google Maps
Picasa
And our new Email Quote System
All of this and more on one easy to use website plus a customer service center that is second to none.
One More Reason To Join ivacationonline's Vacation Rental Software Website
As if there were not enough reason to join ivacationonline.com's vacation rental property management software website, here is another. Ivacationonline is the only property management software website that actually pays to advertise on Google and other major search engines to drive targeted traffic to its website. The traffic that ivacationonline markets for on these search engines is specifically tailored to potential renters who are searching for vacation rentals.
Ivacationonline.com does not directly benefit from this traffic or from the rentals its customers receive. So why do they do it? Simple they what their customers to be successful. Ivacationonline.com is sending potential renters directly to you and they are paying the bill. It's just one of the many, many reasons you should be using ivacationonline's online property management software and if you already are a member it is just one more reason for something you already know. That ivacationonline.com is the best way to manage your vacation properties, 2nd home, timeshare condos, or rental property.
29 Eylül 2012 Cumartesi
Save Time With Ivacationonline's Email Quote System
ivacationonline.com's new email quoting system.
Are you ready to stop wasting time when it comes to replying to rental inquiries for your vacation home or condo? ivacationonline unveils its new Email Quoting System for vacation rental inquires. During the busy seasons of the vacation rental business the inquiries can come in droves. This is especially true when you are property manager and are handling the bookings for ten, twenty, thirty or more properties. With the average property getting 20-30 inquiries a week, multiplying that amount of emails by 30 can lead to an email overload.
Individually answering each email with additional information and pricing, not only wastes time but can cost you bookings as well. The new email quote system gives you the option of answering emails with a single click or just a simple copy and paste.
The email quote system gives you 3 options:
- Property is available email
- Property is unavailable email
- Visitor email
In each pre-propagated email you can put in pertinent information, answer redundant questions, send a price quote, and have a link directly to your properties booking page. This saves you time by not having to answer several emails to the same potential renter, and because now they have practically everything they want to know in one email they can make the decision to rent your property.
Many vacation rental customers will send out 10 or more inquiries and normally cannot remember which property was which, but with the ivacationonline.com Email Quote System you will be sending them; a picture of the property, the address, the pricing breakdown, down payment amount, security deposit, and payment schedule. Don't forget the email includes a direct link to your booking page so that a renter can book their stay online with ease. This link to the booking page makes it easier than ever for a potential renter to book you property online.
The system, once you have set up your responses can save you approximately 80% of the time you were spending answering emails. That is correct 80%, and this time saved is money made. It is proven in this industry that home owners and managers who respond faster to inquiries GET MORE BOOKINGS!
Another great feature of the system is when a visitor clicks on your Email Quote button they have the option to send all of the information to every person in their party. This is a major factor in getting more booking and renting your property faster. Every property owner has heard this, "I love the place but I have to show it to the others in our group to see if it is ok with them". Now everyone involved gets all of the information instantly so that your potential vacationers can make a decision faster.
So now that you know all of the time saving benefits, the money making advantages, and the customer service upgrades, you're probably asking what will this additional service from ivacationonline.com cost me. The answer is, nothing, that's right, if you are already a member of the ivacationonline.com property management software system website there is no charge to you, it' free! Also if you are not already a member of ivacationonline.com simply sign up for a 30 day free trial and see how easy renting your vacation home or condo can be.
Visit http://www.ivacationonline.com/ today, click on the risk free 30 day trial offer, and enjoy the benefits of online property management.
Learn about:
Our live calendar
Emailing contracts
Renter updating email system
Online booking payment system
Credit card acceptance
Damage insurance
Travel insurance
The "Cancel For Any Reason Plan"
Voice description for your property
Video and photos of your home
Google Maps
Picasa
And our new Email Quote System
All of this and more on one easy to use website plus a customer service center that is second to none.
Beware Of Fake Email From Homeaway.
As many of our customers are Homeaway customers as well, we here at ivacationonline.com felt that is was important to share this information with our customers and followers. The HomeAway Security team discovered an unauthorized and false email solicitation inviting customers to download free anti-theft software from HomeAway. This email is not from HomeAway.
These types of attacks often appear to come from a company you trust such as your bank, credit card company or even your favorite department store, but this email looks like it comes from HomeAway themselves. Always practice caution when clicking on links in email. Simply clicking on a link in this email will cause the unauthorized software to download onto your computer.
If you receive this email that appears to come from Homeaway, do not click on any of the links in it.
If you already clicked on any link in the email, and believe you may have installed this unauthorized software, contact HomeAway's Customer Support Team by phone at 877-228-3145.
ivacationonline.com has not had any issues or problems with any fake or spoofed emails appearing to originate from us but we felt it was important to inform our friends of this potential threat.
Travel Guard Product Training Through ivacationonline.com
If you are a member of ivacationonline.com then you are very familiar with the benefits and peace of mind that travel guard offers to those who invest in their insurance programs to protect themselves and renters from accidental damage and travel insurance. If you are not a member here is a golden opportunity to learn about Travel Guard and their relationship with ivacationonline.com
You are invited to join us for a Webinar on April 17 2012, this open-forum training session will allow ivacationonline.com members and non-members to learn about the travel insurance and damage protection available through the ivacationonline.com system and the benefits to the homeowner and their guests.
Details of the event:
Title: Travel Guard Product Training: ivacationonline.com
Date: Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Time: 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM CDT
After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.
System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server
Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.5 or newer
Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/481660576
ivacationonline.com vacation rental software now offers full access to the past 2 years rental rates
Ivacationonline.com has great news for all owners. As usual we are alwyas improving the usability of our online vacation rental software and website. Here is just one more thing we have done to help you book and run your vacation rental business or vacation rental by owner.We now have full access to the past 2 years rental rates to help you determine what you need to be charging for the next year. So if you go into your Rental Rates section of your property you will now see that 2012 and 2011 are fully available. 2012 will be shown in this years rates at the beginning of the rates section and we now have a button above this years rates for 2011. You can also print out both of these pages to make it easier to copy your rates over to another year. This will help you see what you were charging and what you should be charging for the upcoming year.
One More Reason To Join ivacationonline's Vacation Rental Software Website
As if there were not enough reason to join ivacationonline.com's vacation rental property management software website, here is another. Ivacationonline is the only property management software website that actually pays to advertise on Google and other major search engines to drive targeted traffic to its website. The traffic that ivacationonline markets for on these search engines is specifically tailored to potential renters who are searching for vacation rentals.
Ivacationonline.com does not directly benefit from this traffic or from the rentals its customers receive. So why do they do it? Simple they what their customers to be successful. Ivacationonline.com is sending potential renters directly to you and they are paying the bill. It's just one of the many, many reasons you should be using ivacationonline's online property management software and if you already are a member it is just one more reason for something you already know. That ivacationonline.com is the best way to manage your vacation properties, 2nd home, timeshare condos, or rental property.
28 Eylül 2012 Cuma
Use More Photos to Increase Vacation Rental Bookings
10% off Vacation Rentals Listings on Owners Direct : Use Code AFF10
Flipkey recently shared statistics from vacation rental listings on their sites, which indicates that vacation rental listings with more than 20 photos generate more bookings.
Taking vacation rental listings with 5 photos as a baseline, the breakdown of bookings is:
Listings with 20 or more photos generate generate 54% more bookings
Listings with 11-20 photos generate 13% more bookings
Listings with 6 -10 photos generate 14% more bookings
Listings with less than 5 photos generate 29% less bookings
Of course, there may be other reasons that those vacation rental listings with more than 20 photos generate more bookings. For example, listings with more than 20 photos are more likely to be premium listings. Also, it is possible that the owners of listings with lots of photos may be more proactive in managing all aspects of their vacation rental listing. (For examlpe, if they have taken the time to upload 20 or more photos, they may also be the sort of owner who keeps their calendars up to date and respond promptly to enquiries.)
Nevertheless, having plenty of good quality photos is likely to encourage renters to consider your vacation rental property. Hence, having as many photos as possible in your vacation rentals listings makes good business sense.
Vacation Rental Listings: Longer Descriptions mean more Enquiries
Data from Flipkey indicates that vacation rental listings with more detailed descriptions generate more enquiries.
Vacation rental listings with description of more than 2,000 characters generate 54% more enquiries than those listings with descripions of 500 characters.
Using a baseline of 500 words, the breakdown of enquiries is as follows:
Vacation rental listings with descriptions of more than 2,000 characters generate 54% more enquiries
Vacation rental listings with descriptions of 1,000 to 2,00 characters generate 20% more enquiries
Vacation rental listings with description of 500 to 1,000 characters generate 16% more enquiries
Vacation rental listings with description of less than 500 characters generate 10% less enquiries
Of course, there may be other factors as play. For example, vacation rental listings with longer descriptions may also tend to have more vacation rental photos or a more engaged owner.
However, having a detailed description of your vacation rental in your listing, particularly one that describes the amenities available, may help your vacation rental to stand out from others in your location.
Hence, I would recommend you take a look at the descriptions you are using to see if you can add some more detail. Even if it generates only 1 extra booking for your vacation rental, it will be well worth it!
List on HomeAway and get 5x more exposure than other sites. Pay 1 low price to be listed on 5 websites.
Getaway Earth Holiday Rentals
To celebrate Getaway Earth's new website features, vacation rental owners are currently being offered a free, full featured listing until 31 May 2013. Features include:
Unlimited bulk photo uploads to a large format rental gallery
Quick import of an availability calendar
Detailed property description
Local weather
Link to owner website
Link to owner facebook or twitter accounts
Full owner contact details
Addition of local places of interest
Property map
An optional additional blog post on the owner and his/her property
Vacation rental reviews
No payment or credit card details required at signup
For full details simply visit Getaway Earth Holiday Rentals
Visitor Traffic to your Vacation Rental Listing
VacationHomeRentals Free 30 Day Trial
Listing your vacation rental on one of the larger Vacation Rentals by Owner sites has the advantage that these sites get much more traffic than the smaller rental sites. And certainly, I would encourage vacation rentals owners to consider listing on sites such as HomeAway
However, because these large sites have so many vacation rental listings, there is a danger that your listing will get lost among the vast numbers of vacation rental properties listed. This is particularly true if your vacation rental is in one of the more popular destinations.
Hence, it's possible that your listing might actually get more visitors if you are listed on one of the smaller vacation rentals sites.
For example, VacationHomeRentals indicate that on average, listings on vacationhomerentals.com sget more visits than a typical listing on one of the larger sites.
Based on data from Compete.com , VacationHomerentals indicates that during April 2012, a listing received 25.6 visits, compared with values of 3.7 to 14.9 for larger sites.
Worth considering? VacationHomeRentals offers a free 30 day trial if you want to check it out.
VacationHomeRentals Free 30 Day Trial
Preferred Escapes Luxury Villas
Vacation Rentals Site Profile: PREFERRED ESCAPES LUXURY VILLASLuxury Villa Specialist in the Caribbean, Hawaii, Mexico, Europe and AsiaPreferred Escapes is a boutique luxury villa company who provide hands on service to the traveling elite. Recognized for their exceptional service, the team of highly experienced villa specialists have earned the trust of the most discerning of luxury travelers.Trust has been earned by Preferred Escapes by providing their clientele with the most exquisite luxury villas at the best rates. The company represents the owners of these magnificent properties and do not charge their clients any booking or service fees for rentals. Based in Toronto, Ontario Canada, Preferred Escapes is governed by the Ontario Travel Industry Act 2002. All villa rentals are processed through a regulated travel industry trust account ensuring safety and security.Each luxury villa that has been accepted to the Preferred Escapes collection has met the finite approval requirement and standards. With over 500 luxury villa properties within 27 destinations and growing, Preferred Escapes has become one of the leading luxury villa rental companies in the world.Preferred Escapes takes care of all of the details and offers premium service, safety, security and confidentiality for their clientele.To view the collection visit www.preferredescapes.com
27 Eylül 2012 Perşembe
Para-Science
Para-Science is used to sell books, seminars, or investment scams. What is puzzling about this phenomenon is why some people are obsessed with following Para-Science, almost as a religion. I believe it is just a matter of weak minds trying to drown out the deafening silence in their lives.A Vegan friend of mine likes to drone on about how milk and dairy products are bad for you, as the human body wasn't "designed" to digest milk. This is a neat argument, as there is no citation to any science behind it, and it validates their lifestyle choice. It is made as a statement that cannot be refuted, putting the onus on the opponent to disprove the argument. Para-Science at its best.
But of course, the human body wasn't "designed" - unless you are particularly stupid and believe in "Intelligent Design" theology. But even then, if you buy into that, then God designed the cows, too, and in the Bible told us to take dominion over them. But getting back to real Science, the human body has evolved over millions of years to digest a whole host of food products. We are omnivores, not carnivores or herbivores. We can eat just about anything, even Oysters. And milk is good for you, as is cheese - in proper portions, of course.
But the rantings of Vegans (who tout their lifestyle as "healthy" even as they all look a little sickly) are not the point of this post. Increasingly, Para-Science is taking over our society, or at least the media. And you see this increasingly, and to me it is a sign of the decline of our society, as we substitute superstition and religion for the Scientific process.
I wrote before about the Howard Johnson Motor. It was one of a string of "perpetual motion machines" that have been touted since time began. And in Para-Science tradition, the people pushing these things claim that the onus is on the rest of use to prove they don't work, rather than on the inventor to prove that they do.
And of course, when they are proven to be hoaxes or cons, even that evidence is swept under the rug, with the reasoning, of course, that the oil companies fabricated it to "suppress the technology". It is like trying to argue with someone who believes in Space Aliens or Ghosts - no matter what you say, they have a "yea, but...." argument, and they completely ignore the basic proposition that the burden is on THEM to prove these things exist, not on society at large to prove they don't.
Para-Science freaks like to use the phrase, "Well, anything is possible, after all the Universe is vast...." as if that proved that Sasquatch existed, by default. Since, in an infinite universe, the probability that the Loch Ness Monster exists is greater than 0:1, therefore it must exist, after all. Ball in your court, world! Prove I'm wrong!
But this is a perverse reversal of the Scientific Method. In real science, we accumulate data through testing and observation, and then come up with a theory to fit that data (and not vice-versa, like in politics). If further testing shows the theory flawed, we revise the theory or throw it out. And such theories are published, in peer-review journals, where they are subject to scrutiny and further testing, and thus can be shown to be wrong, or validated as possibly right (a theory is never proven right, just possible, but its nature).
But in Para-Science, peer review is avoided. Data and theories are published in press releases or in non-scientific or quasi-scientific journals. No critical evaluation or analysis is allowed, and any that gets through is denounced as propaganda for the oil companies, the government, or anyone else trying to suppress the "truth" about 9/11 or whatever.
It is a zero-sum game trying to argue with such folks, as their minds are made up and they tailor the data (which often is made up from whole cloth) to fit the preordained conclusion. So their theories about the Kennedy Assassination or whatever, are set in stone, and their minds are made of a similar material.
And this is sad, and also illustrates why our country is falling behind in real Science - it is far easier to believe in bullshit, as it doesn't require four semesters of Calculus, Differential Equations, Electromagnetics, or Thermodynamics. Besides, Nazi Alien Antigravity is so much more fun! Although you can't get college credit for it, except perhaps at Syracuse University.
What is puzzling about para-science is not the people who promote it - who are often doing so to sell a book, an investment scheme, or a ghost-hunting kit - but rather the people who obsessively follow it. What does it profit a man to obsess about Area 57 or a perpetual motion machine? It adds nothing to your own bottom line, and arguably detracts, as rational people will correctly perceive you are off your rocker - which can cost you a job, friendships, and relationships. No one wants to marry a conspiracy nut, and I highly recommend you avoid them as friends, spouses, and employees or employers.
The answer, of course, is that people like to drown out the deafening silence in their lives - and forget about how pathetically unimportant our own existence on this planet is. We are all, for the most part, forgettable people who will do little of significance that will even merit a Wikipedia entry, once we are gone.
Buying into conspiracy theories or Para-Science, on the other hand, is way of pretending you are part of something more important in the world. A chance to be in on the secrets of those in-the-know! And so people do this, to feel significant, just as lonely old Gay men build a shrine to Cher in their basements. It helps to avoid thinking about our own insignificance and impending death.
For me, however, living in reality is far better than pretending to believe in things that are impossible. I do not need distractions to drown out the silence in my life. I am comfortable that my stay on this planet will not generate any Earth-shattering changes or leave a mark for Centuries to come. And I am not afraid of death, but, as Woody Allen said, would not like to be there when it happens.
Still Time To Book Your Summer Vacation
It seems just like yesterday I was writing that summer has finally arrived and now it seems like summer is almost over. It is only 5 weeks until many schools are back in session. Don't panic, if you have not planned your summer vacation and have just started trying to find a home to rent in some of the more popular destinations, you still have time and you can still find a place to stay. You may even save yourself some money in the long run. Even tough ivacationonline.com is a fantastic website to manage your vacation property and to get more bookings for your listing than any other website, there are always a few weeks that have not been booked by someone for one reason or another.
You can search the ivol database for the area you want, date, how many bedrooms, and property type. Very rarely does every single property have the week you are looking for completely sold out. When you find one you can contact the owner to work out a price for those last minute bookings. Often times many owners are willing to offer a discount for a week they have rented which is quickly approaching. A word to wise, don't insult a property owner and make a offer of $1000 for a property that rents for $3000 during that time frame. In most cases if you do that the owner may not reply back to you. Just make a reasonable fair offer for the property you want. In many cases the owner has already lowered the price, or has posted a coupon or special for the property, so there is no need to haggle over a price.
In some instances owner will not negotiate prices, don't be offended by this. Often times to avoid wheeling and dealing and to keep their prices fair for all of the renters, the owner will set a fair price for the property and keep to that price, even if the unit may go empty a week. I personally like this approach that way my renters know they are going to get the best price available on my properties and do not have to worry about negotiating for a deal.
So if you are still in need of a vacation rental property, relax visit ivacationonline.com and find the perfect rental at the price you want to pay.
Finding the perfect home, condo, townhouse is just one of things we do here at ivacationonline.com to help our visitors and owners have exceptional vacations. There are few things better in the world than searching for a luxury home in the vacation destination of your choice at a price that you are happy with. That is why ivacationonline.com is the favorite online destination for hundreds of thousands of travelers who are searching for just that.
If you follow our blog you have read some of our blogs posts that deal with property ownership, how to make money as a property owner and other topics such as how to get a good deal on a vacation rental. As our blogs like to cover all areas of traveling and vacationing we would like to write about a vacation on the water. No I'm not talking about staying in cottage built on the water or an island retreat of something of that nature. No I'm speaking a luxury cruise. When I say luxury I mean luxury. 5 star quality from beginning to end. Fine dining, luxurious spas, suites and staterooms decorated with lavish decor.
TrustedLuxury.com is a luxury travel specialist that deals only with high end luxury cruises either on the ocean, seas or large rivers. They have destinations such as the Mediterranean, the Nile River, Alaska, Panama, South America, Transatlantic, or even a world tour.
When planning such a trip the many options can be confusing and it truly takes an expert with years of experience and knowledge to take the guess work out of planning your vacation and make your trip a worry free experience.
Contact TrustedLuxury.com to see if they can help you have the ocean or river voyage of a lifetime.
Property Management Website Features
This blog post for ivacationonline.com property management software system is going to be a intoduction for some and a refresher for others. Often times when you have been using a software and have become comfortable with it, you tend not to investigate other options of the software or try the new features that come along. Why would you, everything is working perfect now. Don't fix it if it's not broken right?
That is true the ivacationonline website works perfectly the owner is constantly trying to improve the system, adapting to new changes in the industry and bring you the lastest upgrades available.
These are just going to be snippets and you can click on the link to read the full details.
Registering a domain and having a website for your property. You be so booked in your units that you do not need any additional renters but one thing that can help you is having a domain and website for each of your properties. Ivacationonline can build youe website and you can register a domain name through their site.
Travel Insurance.
This have been a lifesaver, and a big selling point for many of our property owners and managers. Many of the homes our members rent are large, expensive homes. A week in prime season can cost $10,000 or more. This can create tension and stress for a potential renter. What better way to close a rental than to offer a product that insures the potential renter that they can get a refund for any reason or no reason at all. Talk about peace of mind. Visit travel insurance.
Damage Insurance. Are you still dealing with collecting a security deposit? Why? Iavacation with Travel Guard has set up a program that you can automatically add $3000 worth of damage insurance to your property for a fee of $39. This fee is typically passed on to the owner and can be a potential revenue stream for the owner. The customer actually appreciates it because now they no longer have to wait to get their money back from you the owner, they are not nervous about being charged for damage they did not do. If every there was a perfect product for the owner and renter alike this may be it. Read more at Rental Damage Insurance
If everything here seems foreign to you or you have never used ivacationonline.com online property management website then here is a great opportunity. You can try it for free for 30 days with no obligation. Use this link to start you free 30 day trail with the best property management software available.
Hurricane Insurance When Traveling. Do Not Travel Without It!
The storm--with sustained winds of 65 mph--is moving northwest at 14 mph. According to the National Weather Service, New Orleans is in the projected path of the storm. Wednesday marks the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in late August 2005.
Hurricane warnings have been issued along the northern Gulf Coast from Morgan City, La., to Destin, Florida. According to the National Hurricane Center, a storm surge between six and 12 feet could threaten the northern Gulf Coast if the storm makes landfall during high tide.
I know many of our rentors and owners are in the path and have already dealth with the storm. Anyone who has properties in these areas have probably dealt with question from rentors and potential rentors alike.
What happens if a hurricane hits the condo or house that you rented? Will the owner refund your money? Good questions! ivacationonline.com has partnered with Travel Guard to help you with whatever Mother Nature throws at us. No one should go on a trip without travel insurance. ivacationonline.com offers the unique ability to purchase this security-giving insurance right on the site. With coverage available for bad weather, ivacationonline.com offers you the ability to customize and purchase your insurance while making the reservation.
This is a win win for owners and rentors alike. Peace of mind for the rentor who will know their hard earner vacation is insured and as a owner you benefit from guests who are happy and become repeat customers.
Travel insurance allows rentors to vacation with the peace of mind that their investment is backed up by the chosen type of insurance. With plans available in the $50.00 range, travel insurance is more affordable than you might think. An estimate is always given before you purchase, and you can check this insurance option out by clicking here. Travel Insurance
Ivacationonline through TravelGuard also has a Cancel For Any Reason Insurance. I will be wrting more about that in the near future.
26 Eylül 2012 Çarşamba
Out Behind the Barn...
Our High School had a barn like this out back, and I spent many a Spring afternoon out there, just staring at the sky, rather than going to class."Robert could be a great success, if he would just learn to apply himself" one of my elementary school teachers wrote on my "permanent record." Even back then, I had a hard time taking things seriously - or at least the things they wanted us to take seriously.
School, in my mind, was a training ground, not for education, but to program us to get used to the idea of getting up every morning, putting on uncomfortable clothes, rushing off with a mass of people, and then doing everything in unison with a host of others, for the rest of the day, in an overheated and uncomfortable building, behind a cramped and uncomfortable desk. School is nothing more than a training ground for cubicle life. And cubicle life isn't living.
Much of school is just wasted time - study halls, gym, lunch, and "free periods" which few students used to actually do their homework (many student's parents would do their homework for them, to insure their kids got good grades - talk about missing the point!). It could be compressed into three hours, if you think about it.
One friend of mine actually accelerated his high school career, graduating at age 16 as an "emancipated minor" - illustrating how much the curricula could be compressed. But he had special family issues that dictated he get out quickly. When I asked if I could do the same thing, I was told, no, not for me.
For me, goofing off has always had an attraction, and this is still true today. Owning yourself and owning your own life are things that few people get to do anymore. This is not to say that doing nothing is desirable, only that doing what you think is important is. And let's face it, most "jobs" out there are about as time-wasting as High School. Donuts in the conference room, to listen to some middle-manager drone on with a power-point presentation on how we should all be "more productive" and "work smarter, not work harder!" is about akin to the hour you wasted in study hall or in the school cafeteria.
We all work from 9 to 5, but most of us really only spend about an hour or so, I estimate, actually "working". The rest of the time is busy-work, filling out forms or going through procedures, or just getting stuck in meetings, office gossip, or whatever, that wastes your time. I fail to see the point of it.
And it does fill your time - and for most people, this is the "busy life" that they lead - which leads them to believe it is a life filled with meaning. After all, they have to get up every morning, dash off to work, fight traffic, and then in the evening dash back home to watch their favorite TeeVee shows. Who has the time to even cook? Busy, busy, busy! But in reality, it is the appearance of busyness without actually being busy at anything. After a decade of such "work" there is often little to show for it, mentally or monetarily.
There is a different way, I believe. If you can make time in your life to truly think, and to truly do what you want to do, you can accomplish a lot - or nothing at all. But the key is, you get to do what you want to do. I have written before how so many people pass up opportunities in life because they have financial obligations - often trivial ones. They cannot join a startup company because they have to make payments on a car or a house. They have traded opportunity for consumerism - and then resent the folks who made other choices.
Granted, in many instances, the people who can "afford" to do what they want, often have a head start. Bill Gates is often touted by the far right (in glurges and forwarded e-mails) as a "rags to riches" kind of guy. But in reality, he came from an upper middle-class family and could afford to take risks that perhaps a person struggling to get by could not. But even then, he made a choice to drop out of Harvard and join a struggling software company. He could have graduated from Harvard business school and gone to work for some big corporation, and no doubt had a swell cubicle and car payments on a 1981 BMW back at the time. And his friends would have thought him successful.
And we see this, all the time, among the middle class. Myself, at age 34, not even two years out of Law School, I decided to hang out my own shingle and start my own law practice. In retrospect, it seems like a ballsy move - one that the more conservative me of today would be reluctant to make. Did I make a lot of dough? Was I a staggering success? I did OK. But the main thing is, I had my own life, from that point on. I wasn't confined to the cubicle, chasing the big salary and struggling to make the bills every month, while at the same time looking at new car brochures and buying new electronic toys. I have friends who did that - and are doing that - and are working 60 hours a week, well into their 50's, to try to scrape together enough money to retire, in a manner they are "accustomed to". They will need millions in their 401(k) to keep up their latte and iPhone lifestyle after they stop working - if they ever do.
But even after opening my own business, I was still caught on the treadmill, or should I say, I allowed myself to fall back into it. We started spending, once we started making, and before long, I was back where I started, trying to hump to make money to pay bills for stuff I didn't have enough time to enjoy, because I was always trying to make money. It was a pretty idiotic way to live.
So I chucked all that, and am spending a lot more time these days behind the barn, just leaning against a weathered board and looking up at a clear blue sky, framed with green leaves. I did this just yesterday, falling into a profound and deep sleep. And let me tell you, the freedom to be able to do that is far better than all the jet-skis and other idiotic consumer goods in the world.
You cannot own possessions - they own you. Less is more. Experiences are more important than owning things. And owning things is never as good as experiencing things. Hard lessons for me to learn. Most never do. They live a life on a treadmill and view all the crap they collect as their reward. Pack rats operate on the same principle.
No thanks!
The Late Bus
Tight School Budgets are nothing new. But in the past, we were more willing to sacrifice unimportant things. Today, we chuck the important to save the trivial.When I was in Elementary school, we lived briefly in a town called Lake Forest, Illinois, which is part of the depressed rust-belt region of the United States. No, actually, Lake Forest is a wealthy suburb of Chicago, and in fact, one of the poshest places to live. People there are not hurting for money today, or even back in 1968.
The school I went to, Everett Elementary, was a flat-roofed 1960's building built for the baby boom generation, of which my birth year was the largest part. My older brother went to the middle-school, which was in a creaky old fire-trap built in the 1930's. Enrollment was up, and just finding classroom space was a challenge. And the growing pains were putting pressure on school budgets. There was not enough money in the budget to pay for all the school buses and school bus drivers needed to bus all those students. And the idea of "just raising property taxes" to pay for it all, even in posh Lake Forest, during the relative prosperity of the mid 1960's, was just not thinkable.
(Today, they would just go out and buy more buses and hire more Unionized bus drivers and then raise everyone's taxes to pay for it. Or they would cut art and music classes as "unnecessary" but of course never touch the football program. We have priorities!)
So how did they do it back then? They were clever, resourceful, and willing to make sacrifices. As I noted before, much of school is "free periods" and "study hall" and "lunch". So they divided the student body in half - with the first half having a "study hall" or "recess" in the morning before school started, and the second half having the same free period at the end of school.
The buses made two runs - an early run and a late run, both in the morning and afternoon. For the early students, it meant getting up an hour earlier to go to school. And for us late kids, it meant we had to wait for the buses to return, at the end of the school day, to make a second run to bring us "late" kids home.
Was it a hassle? Maybe. But if you think about it, it made better use of the equipment and also the drivers, who worked a full day, instead of part-time. And it solved a budget problem without raising property taxes.
Again, today, such solutions would not be thought of. In the small town near Aurora New York, where we had our vacation home, the brand-new high school had a planetarium. Today, they have closed the brand-new elementary school there for lack of enrollment and combined the two schools into one, which still does not fill even that one school. And a nearly brand-new elementary school sits abandoned and empty, along with the original 1930's high school that builders convinced the school board was "outdated" (after all, it has no planetarium!).
(This is Central New York, so I suspect the school builders, who fanned out across the State to build these monstrosities, were probably tied to the Mob. Corruption in that State adds to the cost of everything).
And of course, those "overworked" teachers are all being paid scandalous salaries - and the school administrators even moreso. And their retirement benefits are choking off the school budgets, as the number of retired teachers (often making more than their working counterparts) exceeds the number of working teachers, as school enrollments continue to decline. In a parallel to GM, for every working person, there are two who are retired.
These are all challenges, to be sure. The school system made a huge mistake building not one, but two new schools at a time when enrollments were dropping. And the steadily increasing teachers' salaries and retirement benefits are adding to the problem. Staggering increases in property taxes are driving more and more people from the area - and "For Sale" signs are sprouting on once-coveted vacation homes - but no one is buying them. This depresses property prices, which drives down the tax base, which forces them to increase the millage rate yet again.
How did we get here? Well, there was a lack of discipline on the part of the school boards. No one wanted to institute a "Late Bus" as they did in Lake Forest. No one wanted to "make do" with an existing school, when the builders came to town offering to build a "state of the art" school with a swimming pool, all paid for with bonds that are still being paid off.
Well, not everyone jumped on that bandwagon. My high school, Cazenovia Central, is still run out of the same building built in the 1930's. When we moved there in 1968, there was a movement afoot to build one of those new mega-schools, with an indoor pool and an auto shop. And the builder, of course, pushed to get this done. And the citizens of the town voted it down - three times. Many called them shortsighted and said that the bulging enrollments would make things difficult for students. But of course, enrollment flattened out, eventually, as the baby boomers graduated. And we made do with the building we had, even if we didn't have our own pool for the swim team (if we indeed even had a swim team).
Oh, and it was viewed as one of the best schools, academically, in the region. Amazing, isn't it? In that hoary old building from the 1930's, kids can learn calculus. While the kids in the nearby "mega-school" mostly learned how to make trouble and smoke pot.
But of course, you can't unbark the dog, as they say, and other school districts, who are saddled with these mega-school buildings and dwindling enrollments - as well as staggering salaries - are faced with hard choices today. And most are taking the easy way out - raising taxes and cutting content, such as art and music, from the curriculum. The idea of a "Late Bus" of course, would be shouted down as unsafe and inconvenient for parents. And of course, the bus business has been farmed out to a contractor company already. So, we just raise taxes and gut content, making school even less relevant than ever before and less of a value than ever before.
But maybe it is time to bring back the "Late Bus" - in a manner of speaking. Maybe we need to look at ideas other than cutting content and raising taxes, all so that a few people (school builders and school employees) can make more money while delivering less. Maybe we need to take back our schools from the insiders.
Just a thought. We've done it before.
Dream Sequence
Are dreams just nonsense, or a functional part of your brain?I was having a dream the other night, and in the middle of the dream, they interrupted it to have advertisements. It went something like this...
Maybe it didn't quite go like that. But it got me thinking, dreaming is the last venue that the Madison Avenue types haven't co-opted. Or maybe they have, and we just don't know it. It seems half of America is on Ambien, or some other sleep-aid, and they end up sleep-walking or sleep-driving their cars into the sides of buildings. Perhaps the pills are packaged with a suggestion to go to the all-night drive-through at Wendy's.
DREAM: "We pause now, for these messages from our sponsors!"
ME: "Huh? WTF?"
DREAM: "Come on down to Billy-Bobs Ford-Lincoln-Kia, where with every new car lease, you get free gas for a year!"
ME: "Ads, in my dreams? Do they have no shame?"
DREAM: "Be sure to stay tuned for this week's episode of Monsters Under the Bed! Only on Dream-TV!"
ME: "I haven't had that dream since I was a kid. Must be a re-run."
DREAM: "Now back your Dream!"
ME: "mgrflxshansyy...."
Sort of like that old Sci-Fi story, We Can Remember it For You, Wholesale, whose title was shortened when it was made into Total Recall, for obvious reasons.
Dreams are weird, though, and we have them only, it seems, for brief periods during that REM state of Rapid Eye Movement. And although they may seem to go on for days or even years, they take but a few seconds or minutes at most. And usually, we don't remember them, unless we are woken in the middle of the dream. And even then, only if we think to write them down.
What are dreams, exactly? Freudians would say they are symbolic of neuroses in your mind. Psychics would claim they are premonitions of future events. Some medical researchers might argue that they are just electrical storms in your brain - having no meaning and essentially nonsense - a car engine revving while not in gear. And perhaps they are all correct.
As I noted before in Understanding Neural Networks, your brain is a big and very complicated Neural Net - the most sophisticated, in fact, on the planet. And the brain has evolved over time, and it is doubtful that it does things simply by accident. Dreams have a purpose, and people who dream must have survived longer than those who did not, and hence this capability has evolved in us.
I believe that dreaming is your brain's way of training itself. A neural network needs training to work, and by running through test scenarios, your brain modifies the weighting of its neural nodes to "learn" new things. Dreaming may be a way of the brain presenting test scenarios to itself, and then predicting outcomes and adjusting itself.
For example, do you ever worry about things - fantastic scenarios that are largely unlikely to occur? Suppose you left the iron on, and it tipped over, and set the house on fire? It is the kind of nonsense that makes you say, "Stupid brain! Go to sleep!" But then again, such scenarios, worked out in your brain, may be a way that your brain works through problems, by doing what Einstein called "thought experiments" (which is a pretty powerful experiment, as it allowed him to formulate the general theory of relativity).
So maybe dreams are symbolic of neuroses in your mind, as they are based on the existing weighting of the nodes in your brain. And maybe they are "premonitions" in that your brain, "racing" as it does while dreaming, works out all sorts of possible scenarios that might happen in the future, and when one does, you will get that sense of Déjà vu, as you think to yourself, "I've seen this situation before!" - and you have an idea how it turns out. And yes, likely most of your dreams are electrical static - random scenarios worked out in the brain and discarded, as they are too bizarre or weird. And those are the ones that wake you up, the so-called "nightmares" we have some times.
Perhaps. It is all just conjecture on my part. But I suspect dreams have a purpose. Nothing happens by accident. And the first person on Madison Avenue who figures out how to co-opt dreams, will be a Billionaire.
Talk about a captive audience!
Spam Search Tools and Toolbars
Browser extensions may hijack your browser. The best approach is to have NONE of these on your computer. Getting rid of them, once they are on your computer, can be problematic.I wrote before about ASK (formerly ASK JEEVES) and how they try to insinuate themselves onto your computer by making it a default install option when you download some legitimate add-on like Flash Player.
But lately, this type of SPAM Search Tools are becoming more and more popular. I was at a laundromat and a lady was trying to get on the Internet. She was puzzled why she could not find her Roadrunner account. In the past, she booted up her computer, using Google as a default page, and then searched for Roadrunner and then found the page, logged in, and accessed her e-mail.
One day, she says, she gets a message "from Mozilla" that she needs to "update Firefox" and so she does. But the message is, of course, false, and the "update" installs a "Search Helper" which claims to be "powered by Google!"
When she searches for Roadrunner, it keeps redirecting her to Comcast, or some competing company. She literally can't find Roadrunner on the Internet.
The search helper is now on a tool bar on her Firefox, installed as the default home page, and installed as a program on her computer. The program even removed the MENU BAR from Firefox, so you can't use the "Tools" link to remove it.
So I show her how to make the menu bar re-appear (right click the top part of the page and click "Menu Bar" to make it visible). When we click on "Tools" and "Add-ons" and then "Extensions" it shows a "Fun Search Assistant!" or some such add-on, which is causing all the trouble. We right click on "DELETE" and it tries to take us to a web page to persuade us not to delete it.
It takes three tries to delete the add-on, but it finally takes. I find roadrunner for her and make that her DEFAULT HOME PAGE. (Clicks "Tools", then "Options" and then "General" and under "home page" click on "use current page" - that is, once you have loaded the current page you want as a default home page).
The fun isn't over, as the program is still resident on her computer. We click on the main menu bar for windows, "Control Panel" and then "Uninstall Programs". The list of installed programs appears, and sure enough, "Fun Search Assistant!" appears on the list as installed. We click "uninstall" and guess what? It tries to load the same page to talk us out of uninstalling this worthless program. We dump that page and hit "uninstall" and check to make sure it is gone for good.
Another friend comes to me with no less than FOUR of these types of "Add-ons" on his computer. It takes some doing, but we get them all off. Now he can search the Internet again in peace.
What is the deal with these types of add-ons and extensions? They are a way of making money - for other people. They want to redirect your searches and generate click revenue for their pages. And what they end up doing is making it harder for you to use your computer.
Are any of them legitimate? Hell, no. No legitimate program installs itself on your computer by using deceptive "negative option" install techniques.
How do you avoid these sort of things? To begin with, when you install a program, be sure to READ all the screens you are clicking on. The typical message you see is, "Most of our customers prefer to have the ASK tool bar installed! Click here to not install it!" And you have to look very carefully and click carefully to opt out. And this applies even when uninstalling - one of these programs asked you to unclick all its components to uninstall it. They rely on you being busy and being used to just clicking "continue" on installation programs (why is it that every program has six screens that require you to click "continue" anyway?).
The other thing is to watch out for pages that claim a new plug-in is required or that your flash player or whatever is out of date. They helpfully offer to have you "click here to update!" If your flash player (or whatever) is out of date, then go to the adobe flash web page and install an update there. Odds are, your plug-in is not out of date, but you have stumbled upon a malware page.
And it goes without saying, that you should run SPYBOT and MALWAREBYTES regularly.
The best approach is to not have ANY extensions on your browser. Plug-ins for Shockwave, flash, acrobat, etc, are OK, but extensions are usually crap, and not surprisingly, Facebook has one they want to install on your browser. Even "legitimate" extensions are little more than marketing tools, designed to sell you to marketers. Just say no to Facebook and all that crap.
And no, this is not a "PC" thing, but a browser thing, largely independent of what platform you are using. So no, spending $5000 on a Macbook won't "protect you" from this sort of nonsense.
Was Romney Right?
Mitt Romney stuck his foot in his mouth, to be sure. But even if he stated it poorly, did he say things that were essentially correct?
Gaffe is as gaffe does. And in this political environment, when you make a "Gaffe" or even an alleged gaffe, it is open season on you and your platform.
You may recall a month ago, Obama gave a speech in which he clearly said that infrastructure like roads and bridges and the Internet, which were created or maintained using government funds, help businesses succeed. And in that regard, if you have a business that succeeded, you "didn't build" the roads and bridges that moved your products through commerce.
But, opportunistic Republicans (are there any other kind?) took this out of context, and edited the video to make it sound like Obama was saying that people, such as myself, who created their own businesses, didn't build their own businesses.
Now, the shoe is on the other foot, and fair is fair - the Democrats are running with the ball on Romney's poorly-worded comments about the 47%. And unlike the Obama clip, no editing is needed - Romney really stuck his foot in his mouth on this one.
But what he did was mangle a number of statistics together and come to the wrong conclusions.
Yes, about 47% of Americans pay no INCOME tax (46% if you want to nit-pick). But of course, they pay "payroll tax" if they have a job, and most people don't know what that means. The Payroll tax is the part taken out of your paycheck to pay for Medicare and Social Security - which is matched by your employer. If you are self-employed, you pay the whole deal, which until recently was 18% of your income up to $108,000. 18% - that's a full four percentage points higher than Romney paid in income tax.
And yes, those folks do expect to get paid back in the form of Social Security benefits and Medicare benefits. And to some extent, having paid into the system, they should expect to get paid back - after all, it was a promise made by the government. I analyzed this in previous posts - and while most people get back far more than they pay in, the amount they get back equals, roughly (at least in my case) the money paid in over 30 years of working, plus about 4% interest. Not a bad rate of return and not a bad loan rate for Uncle Sam.
So the idea that these sorts of folks are paying "nothing" in taxes and getting back someone else's money is somewhat wrong. A lot the money they get back will be the payroll taxes they paid in.
But the big error Romney made was in assuming that this 46% of the population was locked into voting for Obama. Surprisingly, many of the very poor and ignorant (it goes hand in hand) are big GOP and Romney fans - convinced that lowering the tax rates of people making $300,000 a year will somehow "trickle down" to them.
As I heard it explained on a Jesus radio station in rural Virginia, "Romney will make things friendlier for business, and when that happens, business will hire more people and we will all go back to work!"
Of course, this neglects the fact that Romney and his ilk have done a good job of making things friendlier for Chinese businesses - by outsourcing jobs overseas. Romney even criticized the tire case brought in the ITC by the Obama Administration (which lead to a staggering increase in the price of tires, as I wrote about earlier) as "protectionism". Today, Romney criticizes Obama for not being stronger on China. If you want to know what Romney believes in, buy a weathervane.
One lady here in rural Virginia remarked, after running into the store to buy $20 of cigarettes and $7 of gas, "I can't afford to put much more gas in my car, I'm so poor!" The fellow she was talking to replied, "That's the way Obama wants it!" and she chimed in, "You got that right!"
Now, of course, I would question her priorities vis-a-vis spending on cigarettes versus gas. And perhaps she didn't really need a Suburban to drive to the grocery store in. But to even raise such issues is to accused of being a Communist in these parts, so I kept my own counsel. But this lady was clearly in the 47% - and Romney was writing her off as an Obama supporter! Bad move!
A lot of these folks are convinced that the GOP is going to help them. Why is this? The answer is varied. The GOP has used "social issues" in a calculated manner to attract the fundamentalist voters. These represent a minority of Americans, but they will get out and vote, if you promise to protect gun rights and oppose abortion and gay marriage. Once in office, of course, you can proceed to loot the treasury and then pass some legislation that nominally moves the ball down the field on social issues. Hey, what do you care? You can afford to fly your daughter to Europe for an abortion, or at least Canada. These sort of things don't affect the 1%, right?
And many believe, wrongly, that the GOP is the party of "business" and if you elect Republican leaders, they will make things better for businesses, and somehow this will equate into wealth for them. However, statistics seem to show otherwise - as Bill Clinton noted during the Democratic convention. Economic growth has been greater under Democratic Presidents than under Republicans. And another disturbing statistic - States that are "Red States" tend to take more in government money that they pay back. Yes, people in New York effectively subsidize Alabama. The 47% are not Obama supporters, but oddly enough, mostly Romney supporters, particularly if they are white.
Yes, race. That is the ugly side of it. People vote or support candidates for odd reasons. When Bill Clinton was being impeached, I was talking about the issue with some friends who were Democrats. I expected them to be sympathetic to the President, but they were vehemently against him. I prodded a bit and found out that both of them had been cheated on by their former spouses, and while they supported Clinton's policies, the emotional issue of marital infidelity was enough to send them over the edge - quite literally.
And similarly, many of the hateful e-mails I get from people with Obama conspiracy theories are really just cover for racism. One fellow who sends me these things is pretty frank in his outright hatred of black people. Another, a Mexican-American, remembers vividly the racial divide between Latinos and Blacks in her high school - and the incidents it sparked. She is against Obama because he doesn't have a valid birth certificate, she says. The personal issue of racism is not the cause, of course. And as for political positions, she really can't articulate any. Politics are funny that way. And that is why you can get people to vote against their self-interest, fairly easily. You just need to find the right emotional hook to bait them with.
So Romney was all wrong, right? Well, not exactly. What he was getting at, in-eloquently, was the specter raised by the far right since the days of Roosevelt. And that is the idea that our society will have a "tipping point" - where more people are getting money from the government than not. And when this happens, well, the government will end up running everything and running it into the ground.
Heinlein expressed this succinctly in one of his Lazarus Long stories. The quote goes along the lines of something like this: "Democracy fails when the plebes all realize they can vote themselves a raise."
And this has happened in our history before. Ancient Rome fell, not because the Visigoths were charging the gates of the city, but because the empire rotted from within. Emperors worried more about keeping the public placated and subsidized. So "Bread and Circuses" were the order of the day - free bread and free entertainment. And fed and distracted, the citizenry was placated and malleable.
Have we reached this point? It is a worthy issue worth discussing. And unfortunately, Romney botched the whole thing. Maybe someone explained it to him quickly backstage, and it all got tossed around in his head. While he is better at pronouncing the hard words than George Bush, it seems he really isn't much of an intellectual heavyweight. Maybe he just had a long day - or a poor speechwriter.
From my perspective, I don't think the tipping point has been reached. Most of the hateful e-mails I get from friends, forwarding the latest Obama conspiracy theories, or even "Birther" paranoia (yes, they are still out there) are from people who are in the 47%. So clearly, Obama doesn't have a "lock" on this segment of the population.
And if he did, what would be the point in Romney running? After all, if your opponent starts with a 47% lead, there is little hope of winning at all. And maybe that is why Romney appears to be phoning it in. He is the sacrificial lamb - the distractor, preventing us from thinking about what is really important in this election - the House and Senate. People obsess about the Presidential election, but meanwhile, gerrymandering and redistricting, along with late-in-the-game voter registration "purges" will insure that many Democratic seats in the House and Senate switch sides this election.
That really is the big enchilada in this election - but not many are talking about it. We are all distracted by the Gaffes and the latest Presidential polls.
25 Eylül 2012 Salı
Makes You Wonder What Else They Are Lying About....
People are forwarding e-mails that say all sorts of things about President Obama that are easily proven as not true. One e-mail claims that Obama mistook this Wisconsin banner for a Union banner. But that never happened. So why do people perpetuate lies? And what does this say about the opposition's real agenda?So many forwarded e-mails about the latest outrage that Barack Obama has supposedly committed. But of course, they are all untrue. Why do people believe this stuff? Why do they forward it? And moreover, who creates these rumors and lies?
For example, as noted above Obama supposedly mistook the flag above for a union banner. And supposedly, Obama has signed nearly 1000 executive orders, which take over whole sectors of the economy. Another claims that Fox News "suppressed" a video clip where Obama admits to being a Muslim (Yea, Fox News would do that, of course).
And of course, the grandaddy of them all, Obama is supposedly not a U.S. Citizen.
The list goes on and on. Obama took off his rings for Ramadan, or whatever.
All these stories have one thing in common. They are not true. In fact, they are staggeringly not true, but utter fabrications. And yet, it seems that these "stories" will not die - and I get these forwarded to me from people who I used to think were smart and at least a little skeptical. They doubt the Encyclopedia Britannica as not being properly vetted. But an anonymous e-mail? It is reliable as the Oracle at Delphi.
To me, these stories smack of desperation - that the GOP has no real "there" there, and so they have to resort not to just distortions or "spin" which is part and parcel of the political process, but outright lies and fabrications, created by and spread by their political operatives.
It makes you wonder: what else are they lying about?
Well, as it turns out, just about everything. That cutting taxes of the top income earners by 3% will turn around the economy and reduce the deficit, for example - or cause people to hire more. That is, as I have noted before, an outright lie. Personal Income Tax rates do not affect hiring decisions at companies - profitability of hiring additional employees does. Whether the CEO or owner of the company has to pay 3% more in personal income taxes does not affect the fundamental decision of whether hiring another guy in shipping and receiving will allow the company to ship out more product for that new contract.
In other words, that argument is a huge lie - and one repeated all the time on Fox News (the ones who suppress incriminating Obama videos) and other right-wing outlets. And no one questions it, as the same boobs who forward these stupid e-mails don't understand the first thing about corporate finances or even income tax brackets.
Or take Social Security. We are told it will bankrupt the country. Yet the fund is solvent and the "solution" to Social Security is the same one used since it was founded - raise the cutoff rate. Again, the same boobs who forward this crap don't realize that once you make more than $108,000, you pay no additional Social Security taxes.
Mitt Romney, who makes $22 million a YEAR, pays no more into Social Security than a young lawyer making $108,000 a year. Actually, he pays less - if anything. Since his income is all capital gains, taxed at 15%, he pays no self-employment taxes, which is a pretty neat trick - and proposes vouchers and needs test for the rest of us.
And the boob forwarding me the stupid e-mails? He is struggling to get by living on Social Security and Medicare. The very programs Romney and Ryan promise to cut are his lifeline. They have scared him into thinking the gravy train will "run out" of money unless we stick it to people under age 55. Turning one group of Americans against another - a keen move, ain't it?
Any business arrangement entered into based on a lie, no matter how trivial, can only go downhill from there. I've said it a hundred times on this blog - don't do business with liars. So when the GOP tells obvious whoppers, I have to wonder about the rest of their agenda.
That is, what of there agenda they will even tell us about. So much of Romney's plans are like his tax returns - a total mystery. Immigration? "Elect me," he says, "and I'll fix it." But he won't say how, where, when or why. You just have to trust him. And I don't trust liars.
And so on down the line. We will cut the deficit but cut taxes at the same time and raise military spending, even as we are winding down two wars and costs should be dropping at the Pentagon. How can you cut the deficit and increase defense spending? Again, we have to elect him to find out. It is buying a pig-in-a-poke, in the classic sense.
One thing is clear - the Romney/Ryan Agenda will cut all non-defense spending down to nothing. And that is the spending that helps most Americans, and even American businesses. If we don't spend money on roads, highways, bridges, and infrastructure, we will end up like Costa Rica - low taxes, but also low incomes, and crappy blown out roads and bridges, which make driving over 30 mph a life-threatening risk. Or perhaps Brazil, where the Romneys of that country fly by helicopter and everyone else lives in a cardboard shanty and picks through trash in the dump to live.
Sorry, but when someone lies about one thing - outright lies - I have to start to question the rest of it. And once you start unwinding the ball of string that is Romney's evasiveness and lying, you end up with nothing in the center, except a giant screw-job for the average American.
Sorry, Mitt, no sale.
Living in a third world country means low taxes. But it also means roads that are crap and bridges with holes in them big enough to swallow a car. I am not kidding. Is this how we want to live in the USA? Cutting all spending to the bone so the very rich can get a 3% tax cut? Or would it be a better idea to have good roads for everyone, and put people to work fixing them. I vote for the latter.