International Living

Remember a long time ago?  Back when the earth was still cooling, before the dinosaurs, before the Nigerian Scam,  back when the Internet was new?  You remember.

Every now and then you would find in your inbox an email telling you how to make money at home 'stuffing envelopes'.  Those sorts of emails still arrive.  They come in all sorts of different flavors now.  Penny stocks are still around, although I don't see them very often.  But I  digress.

I have traveled in Europe a bit.  I have been to Spain, Italy, France, and dabbled just a bit in a couple of other places.  And as I approach retirement, the thought occurred to me that I might enjoy retiring in France or Spain.  Not in a city, mind you, and not something way out in the country either.  Somewhere I could walk to do my daily shopping, enjoy a glass of wine on a warm summer evening in a local cafe.  Live at a slower pace.

So I looked at what it might cost to rent in the south of France, or outside of Barcelona, and I find that the cost for something I would need is considerably less than I get in income from a piece of rental property I own.  I could afford this, and it would be cheaper than staying in California!

As I meandered about the Internet, looking for ideas and sources of information, I came across a website and magazine called International Living.  A subscription was not expensive, an article I read seemed to have some helpful ideas, so  I subscribed.  I also signed up for a mailing list on the magazine's site that sounded promising.

Now we are getting back to the introduction to this post.

I am now getting at between 5 and 10 emails a day.  Maybe I am missing something in them, there are enough of them that I just scan and delete, but it seems like every one is a come-on to buy some book, attend some conference, or get this absolutely free great information if you will only subscribe to something else.  I am wondering now if International Living is anything more than a shell solely for the purpose of hawking shady money making schemes.

Now I know that up selling is a fact of life.  I have subscribed for years to Motley Fool, and they are constantly trying to up sell me.   But they deliver.  I have taken their advice, bought many of their recommendations, and I am satisfied that I have done much better than I would have on my own, and at much less cost than an advisor would have charged me.

So they can be forgiven for trying to squeeze out a few more bucks, they are a business after all.  And as far as I am concerned the up selling is a minor annoyance compared to the service I received.  With International Living I am not so sure that it is anything else.  I have begun to suspect that all the crap they are hocking is all they've got.

Recently they sent me at least 6 emails all hawking this great 'free' webinar, "Instant Income for English Speakers".  I knew it was going to crap but I decided to watch it on the off chance that there was some useful information in.  Also, I was wondering whether or not anywhere in the pitch would they mention that in order to be able to teach English (what they were hawking), you should probably know the language of the country you would be teaching in.   But no, they carefully avoided mentioning that.  They wanted you to buy their course, booklet, magic beans, something that would reveal all the secrets of turning your ability to speak English into money.

Perhaps there is some useful information yet to be gleaned from International Living.  But I am not holding out a whole lot of hope.

Makers and Takers

You heard it during the last few presidential elections.  You hear it bandied about by the soulless right all the time.  You know who I'm talking about, the ones who proclaim that anything the government might do to help anyone except the rich is socialism.

Well it really is true, there are makers and takers.  Except, the right has it backwards.

Over the past 50 years, the American worker has steadily increased productivity.  They are making more and more with less and less labor.  They are the makers.

The takers?  The CEO's who demand ever increasing salaries, bonuses that bear no relationship to their performance.  And let's not forget the 'investors' who drained the capital out of Sears before firing so many and declaring bankruptcy.

The new election cycle is just gearing up.  You can't sit this one out.

 Tweet