humidhaney

Why a collapse of the economy is good for some of us and maybe the country as a whole.

Boot Straps: Got canned? Start a business.

Warm home cooked meals: Stop eating out so oftern and spend time in the kitchen. It will calm you and make you healthier.

Friends and family: Hanging out is free.

Streamline: Figure out how to simplify your life, be more efficient, more green to save green, etc.

Volunteer: Have time on your hands. Do the pay forward thing.

Localism: Walk your hood, buy local goods, meet your neighbors.

Humility: Wished you had saved before when you were kicking ass don't you? I know I do.

Happiness in the intimate rather than the inanimate: Self explanatory.

The Federal (it is not Federal) Reserve (it has no reserves) is the great ponzi scheme our great, great broke ass grand children will learn about in school.

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/128241/

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency… the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered… The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of [private] lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.”
President Thomas Jefferson (letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin, 1802)

“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the government of the U.S. ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.”
President FDR (during the “Great Depression” on de facto Fascist rule in a letter to corporate monopoly charlatan “Colonel” Edward M. House, co-founder of the Council on Foreign Relations and political fixer for the ruling class. House also handled President Wilson. 11/21/ l933 from "F.D.R.: His Personal Letters”)

“The minority, the ruling class at present, has the schools and press, usually the Church as well, under its thumb. This enables it to organize and sway the emotions of the masses, and make its tool of them.”
Doctor Albert Einstein (letter to Sigmund Freud 7/30/1932. 1879-1955)

“We disapprove of slavery and the cost of the maintenance and upkeep of slaves. We prefer our English model in which we control the issuance of currency, and control of money, it allows us to control labor without the cost of maintaining it.”
Lord Baron Rothschild (private owner of the Bank of England. Quote 1849)

"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value - zero."
"Those who can make you believe in absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
Voltaire (1694-1778)

Only risk what you can.

People think entrepreneurs are risk-loving. Really what you find is successful entrepreneurs hate risk, because the founding of the enterprise is already so risky that what they do is take their early resources, the small amounts of capital that they have, whatever assets they have, and they deploy those resources systematically, eliminating the largest risk first, the second-largest risk, and so on, and so on.

—Jeff Bezos

http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1516-people-think-entrepreneurs-are-risk-loving

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As an entrepreneur all the decisions I have made for projects have not been too risky.  It was always a risk I could manage and back-up with my own hard work and investment.

Dirty Coast began because I had all I needed to start it. I had the ideas for shirts, I knew the designers and illustrators through my work with Whence: the studio and we could built websites. The only risk I had to take on was 40k in up-front financing that was my own money. So no debt to a bank and no partners I had to answer to or who could direct the company creatively or financially. Thus I had complete freedom. But freedom also demands extreme focus and diligence. If the company fails it is all on you.

Make smart small decisions.

With Whence: the studio it started out of necessity. I didn't want to work for anyone else. So I started my own thing with my close friend Jason Melancon. I didn't know what I was doing but I was willing to learn and make mistakes (which there were a lot of in the beginning).  Overtime I was able to establish a process, a team and confidence in how to manage and keep in the black my own company. The success and resources from Whence were then used to launch Dirty Coast and soon Humid Beings and The Canary Collective.

All of my projects have a starting point that is low risk and then prepare expansion plans designed to work organically based on cause and effect. If this happens we will do this, if this happens we will do that, if neither happens we will re-work the project based on a re-assessment of its failure or lack of success as we had envisioned it.  This takes flexibility in thought and openness to allow the project/brand to go where it wants to based on the needs of your audience.

What I have learned over the past 7 years I will post here in my new section "Business/Economy" and this will shift over to the HumidBeings.com publishing platform on the 20th.

I hope it helps with your own plans to start your own venture.