I recommend the following books from Amazon:
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Life After the Oil Crash
Deal With Reality or Reality Will Deal With You
Editor's Note: Update on California Budget Proposal, the Future of LATOC
If you've missed the last few days of LATOC updates, you should probably check Wednesday's update as LATOC and all other websites located in California who depend on advertising to stay afloat are under *extreme* threat as the California legislature is posed to, for all intents and purposes, make it impossible for websites located in California to take advertising:
If you want an update on what is going on, continue reading. If you just want to jump to today's news, just scroll down a bit.
Can't You Just Incorporate and Set Up Shop Outside of California?
Unfortunately, that, would not solve the problem. I would still be residing in California which means the corporation would still have an officer or employee in California which would mean LATOC as in incorporated entity would still have "presence" in California even if it was incorporated in Nevada or Oregon with all other operations outsourced to people in those states. If you're interested, I've also posted an explanation to the LATOC Forum.
Can't You Just Move Out of California All Together?
In theory, yes. But that would just replace one set of problems - financing LATOC, making a living - with another - moving to a totally new area where I know nobody, just as the shit is hitting the fan and law/order is breaking down.
But isn't California a total sh-thole?
Large parts of it, such as Los Angeles, absolutely are complete hell-holes. But the area I live in (Sonoma County) is almost as different from Los Angeles as most parts of Oregon or Washington are. The counties immediately north of here are 180 degrees opposite of sh-tholes like Los Angeles. Lake and Mendocino counties, where my parents live, for instance are loaded to the gills with heavily armed former military and other hard working libertarian types. (That's why my parents moved here from Los Angeles when I was 15 in the first place.)
Can You Take Subscriptions?
Yes, and I'm exploring how to set those up as well as lining up content from experts with names familiar to you. The news page here will stay free, it will only be the newsletter and perhaps a private part of the forum. Even if California doesn't pass this proposal, I should probably have set up a private subscribers only service years ago as people have been requesting a subscription only service for a long time.
What Happens Next?
Yesterday I got this email from Google:
I recommend the following books from Amazon:
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I've heard through the grapevine that the vast majority of senators who voted for the latest budget proposal didn't even realize the AB 178 nexus language had been rolled into it. A number of others have stopped taking emails on it, saying "they've heard enough." Meanwhile the AP is reporting that they're taking time off to pay Michael Jackson a tribute. (Source) So right now, nobody knows what is going to happen. Whatever does happen, I will keep you posted.
It's worth noting that North Carolina just passed an identical law yersterday. Amazon immediately terminated all of their North Carolina associates and other companies will probably follow suit. (Source) What that means is North Carolina will *not* be getting any additional tax but it will seeing scores of its in-state online businesses go belly up.
I'm a longtime reader and would like to make a donation. How do I do so?
Just click on the Paypal button below. Note that you do not need a paypal account in order to make a donation:
SUBJECT: URGENT ACTION REQUIRED
The legislative fight to block the anti-affiliate tax has changed quickly this week. Last weekend we asked you to email some legislators, and you did such a great job that they had our emails blocked. We need to keep up the pressure, so we’re asking for your participation one more time. We want you to create a brief description of your business, including screen shots and links to your sites. Tomorrow, Friday the 26th, we will print out and hand deliver these pages to key leaders and the governor. Consistently, the primary message that resonates with lawmakers is the devastating impact on California businesses.
By 10am tomorrow:
Create a one-pager about your business. It should be brief, describe your business and how you earn money from affiliate marketing, earnings and state sales taxes you paid, if you are willing to share, # of employees, and screen shots/links on your pages. Please be polite; our politicians are under a tremendous amount of pressure. A template is below and attached.
email them to: Rebecca@performancemarketingalliance.com
Here's a copy of the letter I addressed to Governor Schwarzenegger, although I've deleted out what my income and how much I paid in state income tax as obviously it's not the world's business what I make or pay in state income taxes. The reason I included those in the letter is to underscore the devastating effects this will have on taxes paid to the state and money circulated within the California economy.
I crafted identical letters to the 5 other key legislators the above email listed.
This morning I received the following email from the PMA:
I received your personal profiles, and they will be hand delivered a bit later today. These are really great, they will definitely have a big impact.
We don’t exactly know next steps yet, nor do the legislators themselves, so I hear. It all depends on the success of their votes, which changes day by day. We’ll keep you posted!
Rebecca Madigan
Founder, Performance Marketing Alliance, Inc.
www.performancemarketingalliance.com
On to the day's news:
Up to this point, the U.S. government has been very successful in dupingmarket sheep (i.e. the "experts") through publishing totally fraudulentmonthly jobs reports. With the U.S. economy losing roughly 2 million jobseach month, thegovernment claimed that less than 400,000 jobs were lostin May. The fact that the unemployment rate continues soaring highereach month, that “mass lay-offs” are at record levels, and with stategovernments across the U.S. slashing spending to meet budget shortfalls(slashing jobs) conclusively demonstrates "official" government reports have absolutely no connection to reality. Even if this rate of decline is nowlinear (falling at the same rate each month), this does not imply "stability".Jobs are being lost in the U.S. at least as fast as during the Depression - ifnot faster. To suggest that this implies “moderation” is simply stupidity,from people who have absolutely no understanding of basic arithmetic.The hangover from the last three presidential terms, but especially the lasttwo, has taken the American economy down the rabbit hole, with theinternational monetary system begging for mercy while hitched to its off-the-ralls crazy train. But the ride has stopped, and some countries yokedto America's currency, and therefore its cratering empire, don't want toget back on. Namely, Brazil, Russia, India and China, loosely termed BRICby Goldman Sachs economist Jim O'Neill, who is not alone in predicting thefour countries' ascendant power, as the United States and the Eurozonefade into the 20th century. With Brazil and Russia lording over a large shareof what's left of the planet's natural gas & oil, and China and India providinga titanic labor force rivaling the intelligence, productivity andregimentationof workers anywhere outside their borders, BRIC is in thehouse, big time. In its current issue, HSL reports rumors that "Some U.S. embassies are being advised to purchase massive amounts of local currencies; enough tolast them a year. Some embassies are being sent enormous amounts ofU.S. cash to purchase currencies from those governments, quietly. But notpound sterling. Inside the State Department, there is a sense of sadnessand foreboding that 'something' is about to happen . . . within 180 days"At least 19 states are still hammering out their spending plans as therecession wreaks havoc with their finances and sparks fights betweengovernors and lawmakers. If spending plans aren't approved, state workersmay not receive their paychecks and some government offices may shutdown. "A lot of states are coming down to the wire," said Todd Haggerty,research analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures . . .Known for his early warnings on Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, analystMartin Weiss of Weiss Research is now sounding the alarm about state ofCalifornia municipal bonds. In a new report, Weiss has some rather bluntadvice for California muni investors: "Sell all California paper now!" Hisreasoning? California is facing a $24 billion budget gap with no obvious wayto close it. The state has appealed to Washington for a federal bailout, butit got a cool response from the Obama Administration. The next step isdraconian cuts in services and payroll, but Weiss says that will only deepenthe "depression" in California, where the unemployment rate is 11.5% . . .. . . there remains concern that the deeper California's woes get, the moreit will delay the potential U.S. recovery . . . The worry is that these effortsto balance California's state budget would work in a direct cross-purposewith the $787 billion U.S. stimulus package . . . Though few experts thinkCalifornia will default on its debt — following the example New York City setin 1975 and Cleveland in 1978 — the mere possibility is troubling for thecredit markets. "If California truly defaults, I am sure it will shake the faithof bondholders and noteholders in the overall municipal finance system,"says Dan Boyd, senior fellow at the Rockefeller Institute of Government. Signaling that California is slipping deeper into financial crisis, the state’scontroller said Wednesday that his office would soon be forced to issuei.o.u.’s to scores of the state’s creditors, the first time since 1992, when100,000 state employees were paid with them."Next Wednesday we starta fiscal year with a massively unbalanced spending plan and a shortfall notseen since the Great Depression," Mr. Chiang said in a written statement.California will shed more than 1 million jobs before the recession ends thisfall, according to a forecast released Wednesday. The pace of job-losses will slow over the next few months, but state and local government layoffsare beginning, the Business Forecasting Center at the University of thePacific said in its latest California and Metro Forecast released Wednesday.Sinking home prices and a weak job market have forced normally restlessAmericans to stay put in an uncharacteristic shift that has, among otherthings, clobbered the moving industry. "Property values have dropped somuch, people can't pick up and move the way they used to," said MichaelHicks, a demographer at Ball State University who has tracked the nationalslowdown using data from several sources, including moving companies.Michigan's generous jobless benefits and strict eligibility rules have kept thewelfare rolls down despite the state's 14.1% unemployment rate, thehighest in the country. But a surge in jobless workers reaching the time limit for unemployment benefits in coming months could change that. Amajor test for the state's welfare system could come by January, whennearly one in seven unemployed workers will have exhausted their joblessbenefits. Many of the more than 680,000 unemployed workers in the stateare collecting jobless benefits, which last for as long as 79 weeks.With the unemployment rate at 9.4%, some Americans are willing to gowherever they can to nab a job, even if it is temporary. To adapt, theyfind living quarters near the job in campers or cheap apartments, giving upnormal family life for a paycheck, in a contemporary echo of the itinerantswho roamed the country [looking] for work during the Great Depression.The age of peak oil is coming, and some say we're already there. So whenthe effects of rapidly rising oil prices start to seriously affect the world, willyour community be ready? To Michael Brownlee, a driving force behind anonprofit here currently known as Transition Boulder County, there is notime to lose in answering that question. Transition Boulder County is thelocal outcrop of a growing international movement built around the conceptof Transition, or getting ready for a post-peak oil world, and the concernthe effects could wreak havoc on just about every facet of human life.LATOC readers bought the following at Amazon:
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