| "For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. " - King James Bible - 1 Timothy 6:10 |
Being in business for 12 years has opened my eyes to a great deal of evil done "behind the scenes", which most people are apparently unaware of. Today, I basically trust no one, and when preparing to do any business, I prepare as if the company or person I am working with desires to steal from me or ruin my business.
Now, you may think I am overreacting, having such a mindset. However, I can tell you, having such a mindset has saved me so many times, I have lost count. And more often than you would expect, perfectly normal businesses were scamming me or trying to rip me off.
The type of business I do is very secular. However, I have also done Christian business (and still do some today). And what I have learned from doing Christian business is that they are just as untrustworthy as secular businesses. The fact is, it does not matter what type of business you are doing, so long as the Almighty Dollar is in charge, you can guarantee there are a few wolves and vipers.
So, quite naturally, when I came upon this website here, ThePinkCross.Org, and had read all the negative testimonials regarding the porn industry, I was not totally shocked. A little shocked, but I also seemed to question what was being said. Maybe I have become too caloused of a observer, yet, it did seem worse than usual business. However, I discovered that some of what is written on The Pink Cross.Org is in fact erroneous or worse yet, lies (see below proofs).
So, I have lost a lot of confidence in men. I do not believe things like "my word is my bond". I take a very balanced approach to trust. I see your history and judge what to trust about you and learn how to work with your character.
OK, so maybe I am a little negative. Possibly, you are wanting me to actually back up what I am saying here. Yes, maybe I should give a few proofs:
Christian Business
Hate to burst your bubble, but a lot of those so called "Christian companies" are no more Christian than your Walmart down the street. This I had to learn the hard way. Actually, there are some true Christians in Christian business. The problem is the wolves are often the top dog abusing the Christian sheep. It is survival of the fittest and sheep are not very fit when they are in a wolves den.
Honestly, I could not find one good article on this topic, so I thought I would just write some of my experiences and share a few stories from other Christian businessmen. The fact is, the good Christian businesses are often on the bottom and small. Only a few at the top are what we would call "good".
I have one friend who was a Bible narrator. He has narrated a few of the top Christian Bibles out there and has many other accomplishments in life (commercials on TV, his own produced plays, etc). At any rate, he has told me a number of eye opening stories, which I shall share with you.
For one particular job, he did a narration of one of the top Bible translations. The company he did it for is probably the second biggest Christian company today (which also has 50% predominant ownership by a secular company now). At any rate, they drafted a contract for him, to where he would get say $20,000 upfront and then say $2 per sale royalties after so many copies of it were sold. I can't remember all the precise numbers, but lets just say it was 60,000 copies. Well, lo and behold, they only sold exactly 60,000 copies. So, basically, he was paid $0.33 per copy sold. They did this on purpose, as they knew almost exactly how many copies of it would sell. This way, they could pay him "slave labor" to do something for $0.33 a copy. Keep in mind, this product is sold for anywhere from $70 to $180 each. $0.33 out of say $120. Does that sound fair, seeing they would not be able to even do the job without him? It was his narration and all they provided was the system to sell it (keep in mind I know the full value of a business system, as I have built my own and paid to use other's systems to sell over the years). I would say he should have been paid about $5 to $10 minimum per sale for his work. Considering the fact that Zondervan gets about $7 to $10 per copy of the NIV Bible text sold in products (or Thomas Nelson getting about $5 per NKJV sold), it would make sense that the narrator would get something equivelant to this.
The first story I just told you is probably the least offensive of the bunch. Yet, you can see, he was paid essentially nothing and scammed by a major Christian business.
Another interesting story. There is another Bible translator named Alexander Scourby. He is a very famous Bible narrator, probably one of the most famous. My narrator friend told me about all the problems he and his family had with other "Christian businesses" stealing from him. It was beyond rediculous. Essentially, there were several "Christian companies" reproducing his narration without even paying him a royalty or even getting permission to do so. Alexander Scourby's family ended up having to take them to court and still have not received most of the royalties for the sales they made.
My narrator friend should be doing well, but he is always scrounging for money, due to all these companies trying to rip him off. I know one producer who worked with him, who would sell his narration without paying him anything. This man was well known for producing people's work and then ripping them off. He claimed to be a Christian, but here is how it works. You just tell real Christians that you are a Christian, so they will trust you. And then you rip them off. This is how these wolves operate.
I could go on and on. I have not even touched on the "Word of Faith" movement, which are some of the worst hypocrites to walk the Earth. If you want to see how shockingly evil some of these people are, just checkout this book here, "Thieves. One dirty TV Pastor and the man who robbed him". You will not be able to put the book down. Just make sure to take a shower after reading it, and go to confessional to get all the filth off you. After reading it, you may think some of these TV pastors are the Devil incarnate.
| "13 But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in [yourselves], neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. 14 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. 15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. " - KJV Bible - Matthew 23:13-15 |
What people do not realize when they read the Bible is that Jesus points to the scribes and pharisees as the worst of sinners. They pretend to be righteous to cover their evil deeds. So, we should assume that today, the worst of sinners are in the "church" and often they are "ministers", such as these wicked men seen on "Christian TV".
Secular Business
Since I have spent most of my time in secular business, I have more stories than I could write in one article. Personally, I do not think it is easily possible to get rich or have great success, if you have the mindset to trust people and think they are arbitrarily good. From what I can tell, about the only way to have great success or to get rich, is to be very crafty in business, whether it is through being smarter than others, or the alternative: lying, cheating and stealing.
The world of business to me is like war. Honestly, that is the impression I have of it after 12 years. With the advent of the internet, it is even worse than before, not better:
EBAY:
My business online started out with Ebay. I could write 10 pages of horror stories with Ebay, off the top of my head. Here are just a few of the more shocking ones:
- One of my sellers (I own a dropship company), told me that one time, he wanted to be generous and give to a charity some of the money he made from the sale of his items. So, he clicked some link that gave 10% of the sale to some charity of his choosing. However, what occurred was the charity started to auto debit his account. They had attempted to take 10 times what he said he wanted to give them. When he confronted them about it, all he got was silence. So, essentially, there are scam charities on Ebay. Ebay apparently does not checkout its charities very well.
- One time, I sold a guy a cell phone through one of my dropship sellers. He indicated to my seller that it was defective. So, we sent him a second phone, to make the customer happy. Before it even arrives to him, he files a dispute. Since he was in a foreign country, Ebay would not honor our tracking and refunded the customer. So, basically, the customer got two free phones. I also had one seller rip steal 8 phones from me, totaling about $1600. I could tell she was knowledgable in credit card chargebacks as the manner in which she did it clearly indicated to me she had done it before or had special knowledge.
- Over three years of doing the dropship business, I saw so much evil happen to my sellers, I got sick of even doing the dropship business. Sellers having their money frozen for a month, because Ebay wants to make sure the customer is happy. So, you ship the item with no money in your pocket, and have to trust ebay to give you the money later. Or, when ebay would arbitrarily shut down my sellers accounts for no particular reason other than they did not like the goods they were selling. You see, brand name companies threaten ebay daily with lawsuits. So, ebay gives them free accounts to act as police on their website. If any of them see a seller and don't like them for whatever reason, they can send an email to Ebay and ebay will shut down the seller. As a result, only the top dog sellers survive 9 times out of 10. So, I saw so many of my sellers accounts killed over very stupid things.
- Ebay also started a new policy (every year there are new policies which make it worse for sellers) where a customer can return an item for any reason. Its Ebay's buyer guarantee. What this means is Ebay contradicts the sellers wishes and tells the customer they can return for any reason. And Ebay is not the one backing the policy. Rather, they force their sellers to eat the losses. Ebay, on the other hand, just increases their seller fees and makes money essentially off mere digital traffic (they have no physical presence in the game of win and loss).
- Back in 2008, Ebay came out with a new search feature called "Best Match". When they first launched it, it did not work correctly (per how they described it). It was suppose to rank those with higher feedback and with the auction ending sooner, at the top. Yet, there were sellers with very low feedback (79%) who were right on the top, while there were sellers with 99.8% at the middle of the listings. I confronted Ebay about this, as my auctions were ending up right at the bottom (with a 98% positive feedback). Ebay basically said there was nothing wrong with their feature. My profits started to lower greatly (I was loosing about $3000 to $4000 a month). I presented them evidence that it was not working properly, and they basically ignored what I said. I then asked them to give me a $4000 refund, as I had lost $12,000 over 3 or so months. They refused. Actually, they refused three times (I had submitted a request three times with proof it was not working). Now, I had already paid them $400,000 in advertising fees over eight years of time. Why is it Ebay could not refund me $4000, after I had paid them almost a half a million in fees? At any rate, I never was able to convince them and had to shut down that ebay account.
I could write so many stories, but you get the idea. Ebay started changing its business around 2008, and now, sellers can EASILY get ripped off by any buyer. The customer can return an item at any time for any reason. They could use it for 2 months, break it, and send it back and the seller has to take it and give a full refund. Keep in mind, Ebay has no obligations on its end. It just collects revenue from advertising and puts a heavy burden on the backs of sellers and requires them to carry all the weight of any dispute or problem whatsoever. This is one of the many reasons I do not sell on ebay anymore. I pity ebay sellers, even the big ones who can absorb some of it. I look at it as slave labor to make ebay rich. After a while, I grew a brain and realized all the leverage was on the side of the buyer. So, now I exclusively buy on there, as the buyer has free reign.
WALMART:
A lot of people love Walmart, but do not realize some of the underworkings of their company.
Back around 1995, Walmart started to push all its vendors to lower the costs of their goods. As a result, most of the manufacturing that was in America, had to be moved overseas. Many of these manufacturers did it reluctantly, as they had to layoff or fire many workers. Companies like "Huffy" had to close down its factories in America and move them abroad. Now, this is one of the main reasons you do not see manufacturing jobs in the USA anymore. It is a result of monopolized companies like Walmart, pushing vendors to lower prices. If Walmart tells a vendor something, they have to comply or go out of business, as Walmart is the largest customer of many of these manufacturers. (in case you have not noticed, this exactly mirrors how ebay treats their sellers. A very common pattern in business).
A good friend of mine told me about a friend's business. They made pizzas. He told me that one time, they got an order from Walmart for 10,000 pizzas. So, naturally, they were quite happy about landing such a big deal and made the 10,000 pizzas. With how Walmart makes contracts, they do not have to pay you until after so many days (I believe it was 90 days) for goods they get from your company. So, when Walmart was not able to sell these pizzas fast enough, they returned most of the pizzas back to this company after a few weeks of being on shelves. Now, the question is, what do you do with say 8000 pizzas that will go bad soon? I guess we will have a big cookout? They ended up going out of business because of Walmart's actions.
The story of Walmart is one of putting many mom and pop shops out of business. Now, you can guess where many of those people went after loosing their business. Likely to companies like Walmart for a job. Walmart appears to care so much for its workers, that it takes out Life Insurance policies on them. Just in case you die, so they can get some extra money. Walmart ACTUALLY takes out life insurance on you, so they can make monetary gain off your death.
THE PORN BUSINESS
With Porn, it is like any other business. You are going to have young people niave, thinking they will become an actress or model. Yet, they end up in porn. The feminist and conservative Christian speak as if she was deceived and had no choice in the matter. They speak of her as if she has no mind of her own, and that she is captured to the porn business.
The fact is, though, it is like all other business. Those in charge make the rules and put burden on those below. Its not slavery, as you agree or disagree to it. But, with porn, as with hollywood, top actors and actresses have a lavish lifestyle.
When doing research on this topic, I first found a website called "The Pink Cross.Org" and some other Christian and feminist websites (near the top of google searches) denouncing the evil of the porn industry. So, at first, you will find those, such as Shelley Lubben, who will corroborate such a mindset that porn is an abusive industry that enslaves women. To get an idea of what they preach, checkout a few of the articles here.
Ironically, I am guessing this is where the research stops with many Christians. They have "proven" their viewpoint so there is no more need of research. Yet, after doing just a little bit more research and questioning some of what was being said on these websites, I found videos such as these:
Dear Supporters of Shelley Lubben ...
This first video above came as a surprise to me. A conservative anti-porn Christian women denouncing Shelley Lubben? Why would she do that? Well, if even half of what is said in this video is correct, Shelley really has some serious personal issues. The video claims this is all a ploy to get money. That she is actually still using drugs, getting drunk, etc.
Shelley Lubben's Brother Shares His Story
Just when I thought I had seen it all regarding Shelley Lubben, I found this video, created by her brother. In this video her brother is claiming she is spreading lies about her own family (who appear to be Christian as well). If even half of what her brother says here is true, it would mean she lies regularly as well. Which then, calls into question all the things she claims she has experienced.
The Devil And Shelley Lubben -- Episode #1
Then, I find this video. Here, various performers and porn stars contradict her claims, some of which were in videos with her. One male performer was in the video shoot from which she claimed she was raped. He says it never happened and that she was actually very excited and into the scene (with 6 men from what I recall). So, it appears that a lot of the claims, such as "rape", "drug on sets", forced sex and drugs, etc are simply lies.
However, while saying all of this, I am not denouncing that there are not people using people in the porn industry or doing evil things. From what I can tell, it appears to be like any other business. Whenever money is involved, people get hurt.
I did find one really interesting ministry headed by a woman named Monica Foster on YouTube. She calls herself the "Christian pornstar". From what I can tell, she is out of the lifestyle of porn, for the most part. She does not outright condemn all forms of eroticism as many Christian ministries do, but rather just points out the evils of the porn industry. She mentions that in Los Angelos the porn industry is controlled by organized crime. She mentions how they have a lot of control over the performers and do not allow them to unionize under suspicion of threat. At any rate, check out some of her interesting videos here
There are people who manipulate 18 year olds into getting into sex scenes, when they were actually looking to become models or hollywood actors. The problem, though, is they chose to do it. Yet, there are producers who will manipulate some porn actresses, trying to use their business as leverage to get sexual favors. Of course, word spreads about such directors, so you don't have to work for such. So, there are indeed evil things that happen in the business. So, the point is, yes there is evil, but no they are not forced to work with such evil (as they can choose to not work with such people).
However, with these websites at the top of Google, the feminists and conservative Christians seem to be saying to themselves, I would never do it, so they must be mentally deficient or tricked or forced into doing it. In other words, these people can not believe someone would actually want to do it, if their mind was fully cognitive or if they were thinking straight.
So, do not get me wrong, there are bad things in the industry. From what I understand 60% of them have or had STDs. Yet, what a lot of people do not know is that 30% of the general public also has STDs. This little piece of information is never made known. I have seen Australian, Canadian and American studies and generally it shows that 20% to 30% of the general population has STDs, while in the adult industry it is double. There are indeed people who get into the industry and regret it, no doubt. And I am sure there are many people who have lost money, been tricked, etc. Here are just a few testimonies from those who got out. Keep in mind, though, its from Shelley Lubben's website, which as I have shown above, is not fully trustworthy:
- The Hardcore Story of Porn Star Elizabeth Rollings
- Former Porn Star Becca Brat Story
- Interview with ex porn star Wayne
The porn industry definitly has its stories, like "Debbie Does Dallas". Yet, one can find just as crazy stories as this with normal hollywood movies:
Dark Side of Porn - Debbie Does Dallas Uncovered
But, as I said, there is nothing exactly signicant in difference between the evil found in the porn industry than any other industry. I have seen scammers in the Christian and secular industry, so from what I can tell, its about the same thing here.
HOW TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN BUSINESS
Now, I will point out that I have things working for me, that make me good money. I am not a millionare, but it is possible I could be one day be one with the direction I am now going. Yet, so many times in the past, I have seen my ideas go down in flames, not because they were bad ideas, or that I poorly executed them. In actuality, after about 6 years of trial and error, I had become pretty good at executing my plans with success. However, what I discovered is that my business partners would often cause me to stumble, cut off my business in some way, or ruin my accounts. So, from this, I had to learn how to deal with that problem.
What is interesting is I learned that Robert Kiyosaki went through a lot of the same difficulties, namely bad business partners. There was a time when Robert had $1 million in debt (after a short term run of success and being a millionare), due to his business partners basically taking the money and running. Once I read a lot of his story, I started to realize what I was going through was quite normal in the business world.
If you are wanting to go into business, you really need to keep in mind a few things. First, you will not have overnight success 99 times out of 100. Matter of fact, only one out of three businesses succeed. So, what you want to do is come up with three related business plans and do them all simultaneously. This may sound like a lot of work, and it is, but this is about the only guaranteed way to succeed first time out the gates. Second, you will need to perservere. You can not give up when you hit a road block. You will be out of business as fast as you can say "dead", if you not able to think outside the box and perservere. Third, you want to start your business with the right business model. Avoid going into business with friends/family, unless you are looking at them based on their abilities, rather than your friendship or family relation. Your good friend could be a poor business partner. The worst attributes will be made evidentially known when you go into business with them. Fourth, you need to focus on "building assets", not "making money". Making money will get you nowhere.
I made the mistake of focusing on "making money". It is essentially like running on a tread mill, just like any job. So, your focus should be on "building assets", not making money. If you are interested in retiring young, this is about the only way you will do it. I guess theoretically, you could marry someone rich, or win the lottery, but the fact is, money does not make you rich. Once you start to focus on money, you are already dead. Money does not make one rich. A rich person, with no money, will eventually have money. A poor man with a million dollars, will have blown all the money in less than a year. So, money is not the focus. The focus is on building assets.
What do I mean by "building assets"? I am refering to creating business that gives you passive income (net amount of positive cash flow into your bank account). If you build enough assets, you could eventually have enough money coming in a month, to replace your job. This is sort of the idea of retiring early. You will not retire early saving money. Frankly, you will not even retire old while saving money (unless you are very good with money and have a very good job).
Robert Kiyosaki teaches such lessons and I would recommend him to anyone interested in doing business. He covers all of these things and much more. He points out how he was screwed by his very own friends while in business the first and second time. As I said above, friends and family are not necessarily good business partners. The fact is, you can bring out the evil side in your friend when money is involved.
As Robert Kiyosaki says, make sure to have a plan where you win in whatever circumstances. So, if the best case scenerio occurs, you win. If the worst case scenerio occurs, you win. This does work. I do it all the time, as I have to with some of the businesses I work with. You simply have to approach business hoping/praying for the best, and preparing for the worst. This is the only way to get ahead.
To make it clear, you will never get rich working for money. I do not care who you are. This includes top actors and stars, as often, they have the wrong mindset and blow the money. As Robert Kiyosaki says, the poor are always poor, even if they have a lot of money. This is why those who come upon a lot of money go crazy, get into drugs, waste all their money on prostitutes, gambling, etc. It is because they have a poor man's mindset. Consider the Parable of the Prodigal son. He did just that.
The only way to be rich is to have the right mindset. If you are focused on building assets, rather than getting a paycheck, you have a chance of getting rich or retiring early. This requires discipline and focus, for which most do not have. Hopefully, you have it. If you are required to work a job, you focus on building assets on the side, whether it be in real estate, online real estate (websites), or investing. Personally, my ticket is "digital real estate". I feel that only of recent have I really started to see the "light" and just recently have I seen the physical proofs of my labor (passive cash flow in without any work on my part).
Here is the secret to making it in online business. Own real estate. Those who "rent" space on Ebay, Google, etc will never get ahead. You have to become Google, Ebay, etc to become huge online. In other words, you want to be the person providing the traffic and renting your space to others. When you put ads on your website, they are renting space from you. Look at Facebook. They had only 900 million in the bank and they were able to fool everyone to buy into their final IPO. I say final, as no one makes money on such an open public IPO. You only make money in the beginning private IPO (like the Napster guy who got in early on FB). Facebook was only worth a billion until you gave them money. Now, they are worth a lot more, as you have given their brand credibility and put money behind it. Yet, the way FB made money was from renting space to ads and affiliate products, etc. So, the idea is to own the real estate and then if you get big enough, you do an IPO to make even more money.
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