#98: Economic Spending Tips, Derek Johnson, and VTechTV

3rd Year Anniversary Edition!!

Sponsored by GoToMeeting, try it FREE for 30 days: http://www.gotomeeting.com/techpodcasts

You heard right, this is the third year anniversary edition of the Taylor Marek Podcast. I hope you are learning alot over all these years.

Finances: Economic Spending Tips

Here’s a tip for you in these economic times, why don’t you look into local events near you? They might be better then you thought…

Business: Derek Johnson

Today I interview Derek Johnson of Tatango. Good stuff in this interview and well worth a listen. ;D

Technology: VTechTV

I reviewed the VTechTV video podcast today. Interested in the latest in the gaming world? Then hop on over: http://vtechtv.com/

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Lets continue the conversation, comment below or use these options:

• Toll Free Comment Line: 1-866-867(TMP)-2860
• Send me an e-mail.
• @taylormarek me on Twitter
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/taylormarek

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:25 — 26.9MB)

Follow Friday Challenge, Week 1 #FFwk1

I’ve had this idea in my head since the beginning of the week, and am totally pumped to release it to the world!

What I want to do is give you a FREE 30min consultation with me. I will be giving away one spot every week on Friday in conjunction with the “Follow Friday” meme brought about through Twitter. What will it be on? Social Media, New Media, Podcasting, Personal Finances, or Small Business/ Entrepreneurship. You choose the topic you want. I’ve been involved in Social Media/New Media for the past 3 years, and Personal Finances/Small Business for at least 8. I want to share with you the knowledge I know, and help you out. I want to see you succeed.

Now, the all important part. What do you need to do to win this? I need you to answer the following question below:

“How has the economy affected your life/business?”

If you answer it on twitter, use the hashtag #FFwk1. Otherwise you can leave a comment. You are allowed one blog comment entry and one twitter entry at maximum. At 8pm CST I will close the challenge. I will then group both the twitter and blog comments together and pick a tweet/comment at random. I will announce the winner over twitter, and will then contact them privately to setup a consultation time.

How much is this worth? I charge $200/hr for a private consultation. If I were you, I’d be banging down the door right now. How bad do you want it?

#92: You and the Economy, My Business is Crashing, and Internet Hoaxes

Yes, new episode everyone! Come take a listen!

In this episode, learn whether you should take control of your money, if you should let your business go, and what kind of April Fools Day pranks went down on the internet.

My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-c501184f1dce9e6d9ffaeb0a846bff3a}

Links:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jsONW-3iv58PvU4osW9nhIevnJ2gD97A0FDO0

Continue the Conversation:

• Toll-Free Comment Line: 1-866-TMP(867)-2860
• Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/taylormarek
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/people/Taylor-Marek/784580234
• Or leave a comment below…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:58 — 20.1MB)

But I thought this stimulus package was supposed to help!

Honestly, I’m not trying to make this into a political blog, but this is just too funny to notice.

Browsing Reuters, I ran across this article: http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSTRE51K0A920090221?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews&rpc=23&sp=true

I thought this stimulus package was supposed to pull us out of this “recession” and bring everything back to normal? Was I wrong in thinking this? Did we do something worse?

Renowned investor George Soros said on Friday the world financial system has effectively disintegrated, adding that there is yet no prospect of a near-term resolution to the crisis.

Yup, it seems we killed the market. We shall start noticing lines for food soon…

Honestly people, come on. I was being sarcastic when I made the past couple questions/comments and for good reason. We are in this mess because you are fooling around in the economy. Get your fat greedy fingers out of it and let it fix itself!

Soros said the turbulence is actually more severe than during the Great Depression, comparing the current situation to the demise of the Soviet Union.

Oh, don’t even get me started on that path. I’ll let my tweets say it all (be sure to read these in order):

http://twitter.com/taylormarek/statuses/1162936839

http://twitter.com/taylormarek/statuses/1162969030

http://twitter.com/taylormarek/statuses/1162976422

http://twitter.com/taylormarek/statuses/1162981805

http://twitter.com/taylormarek/statuses/1162991444

If you haven’t already read this post, please do: http://taylormarek.com/2009/02/21/the-best-stimulus-is-no-stimulus/

The Best Stimulus is no Stimulus

I said I would explain this quote in the next post, enjoy.

In my previous post, I said, “The best stimulus to our economy is no stimulus at all.”

I am a free market capitalist, meaning that I prefer complete government absence from the economy. Markets and businesses can take care of themselves best if left alone. We’ve never really experienced this yet, but that is beside the point.

In simple economic terms, think of it this way. There are two variables, supply and demand. Supply is how much of something you have at a given time, demand is how many people want what is supplied. The more demand there is for supply, the more it shrinks to nothing. The more supply there is, the less people want of it, because there is so much supply floating around. Big and small companies deal with this all the time, hence why they try to find a nice median range to stick in.

That is a brief explanation of economics. Now lets apply this in a business sense and I will show you the meaning behind the quote I gave.

Businesses are here to make money, if they cannot generate a profit, the business will close shop. If they are able to generate a profit, they will stay around and grow into a bigger company. At this point, there are two possibilities. They might be bought out by another company, thus merging into that company and growing it bigger, or they will control a majority of the market, thus becoming a monopoly. Monopolies tend to last for a while, then implode, or become passed by from another company. This back and forth, from closing shop to a monopoly, is the way to finding a median. A median meaning making enough of a profit to continue, but not so large that they are a monopoly.

Are you noticing how businesses are self-regulating themselves? They are taking care of themselves, purging businesses that don’t work and knocking down monopolies in the effort that all the businesses in that industry share a happy median. There will always be this back and forth between companies in every industry. But what if that were not so? What if someone controlled whether your company lived or died?

Say that one person said one business was better then the rest, and killed the others in that industry, leaving that one. Is there room for improvement? How is that business to know whether it is doing a good job or not? Simply put, they have no idea. There is no competition, hence no improvement or measure to go off of. But what if that person let this competition and noticed one company dying. Say that person throws that company a lifeline, thus preserving the company. The company does good for a while, but then flounders around again. Why? It could be that the goods or service that company was providing was not working and no one was interested in buying what they had to offer. It could also be internal problems going on inside the company, thus an implosion is inevitable. Did that person do a good job helping out that company, or did it just prolong the suffering?

Are you starting to notice the meaning behind my quote? If you are able to understand well enough, you will come to notice that this is prolonging the suffering to the market as a whole. This is not allowing the markets to purge that which needs to be purged, thus preventing our economy as a whole to return to a happy median.

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