Post by tempus on Mar 31, 2011 18:00:37 GMT -5
So anyone else ever heard of Porter Stansberry?
Me either, until today. While flipping past one of our local "Syndicated 80's shows, 700 Club and conservative panic" channels, I caught a commercial plugging his "EndofAmerica62" video (which would seem to imply the existence of videos 1-61) , complete with sepulchral narration, scary music, and "everything will change, including how you shop, educate your children, and plan for the future" general scariness. One of the things that the narrator kept cominc back to was how Stansberry has made plenty of of scary, crazy predictions, such as the collapse of GM, but "he's usually right."
Without actually sitting through the entire hour-long video--it's available online for free, which here is apparently a codeword for "proof he actually gives a damn about you, since he should be charging money for access to information this important,"--it seems to be making the following points:
(1) I am Porter Stansberry. Porter Stansberry is the most accurate predictor EVAR.
(2) America is so deep in debt it will never, ever get out.
(3) Even if taxes were 100 percent, we would never pay it off.
(4) Government spending is teh bad.
(5)EVERYONE IN CHARGE IS LYING TO YOU!
(6) ZOMG! The world is about to drop the dollar as a reserve currency!
(7)Hyperinflation will ensue, and we'll be paying for bread with wheelbarrows of hundred-dollar bills.
(8) Yugoslavia collapsed in the nineties--PROOF!
(9) NO ONE NOTICES THE SKY IS FALLING UNTIL IT CRUSHES THEM!
(10) The government will lock up 401ks and keep you from withdrawing money from the bank.
(11) People will be starving in the streets. And YOUR CHILDREN may DIE!
(12) You should invest in gold, it will be over 5 thousand dollars an ounce in the near future. You should totally buy my Gold-Investor's Bible book.
(13) Silver is a great investment, but you should hide it. You should totally buy my Secrets of Silver Investing book.
(14) You can make oodles of moneys off of the stock market without ever owning one share of anything. Here's some people who got rich using my investment strategy. Have I mentioned yet that I'm the greatest?
(15) There's ONE ASSET that will assure you and your family's comfortable survival. It's EVEN BETTER THAN GOLD! Uh...you should totally buy my newsletter if you want to find out what it is. Only fitty' bucks, cheap.
(16) there's yet another asset that will let you rule the world when it all burns to the ground. Of course, I'm not gonna tell you what that is, either. Guess you'll need to get my newsletter if you want to find out.
(17) Ignore all the completely wrong predictions I've made, because this is totally legit, guys.
A bit of research--okay, thirty seconds on Google--indicates that Stansberry is the one behind "The US Govt's Secret Colorado Oil Discovery" scam where he advises everyone to dump money into oil shale, those "Super-Insider Tip!" emails that made the rounds a few years ago, the Vaxgen scam, and some fairly egregious securities fraud. link Still, in the interests of fairness, I must admit that if enough people predict the end of the world, eventually, one of them is going to be right, and thank God we have brave men like Porter Stansberry around to remind us that the world is doomed. Eventually. Sometime. Maybe.
Since I've already spent a half hour typing this pile of brain-drippings, I might as well go and give you some of my own tips for surviving the end of the age:
(1) Smart people invest in gold. Smarter people invest in canned food and shotguns, because they can eat the smart people, then use their gold for radiation shielding for their houses. It's as good as lead.
(2) Okay, serious one here, folks--if you REALLY want to prepare for social collapse, you'd be better off to learn a few useful skills you can barter and some valuable skills like how to purify water with basic equipment, and put a few essentials aside. It doesn't matter how big a pile of gold coins you have, how thick your walls are, how much food and fuel you have, or how much ammo you're sitting on, because armies of the desperate, the greedy and the crazy will eventually batter down the walls of your compound, your ammo WILL run out, and then they'll kill you, eat you and steal your pile of gold. Your survival after a massive collapse depends primarily on how useful you are to other people, and how many people actually give a fuck about whether you live or die. If you are an obnoxious douchebag no one likes, then no one has any incentive not to shoot you in the gut and leave you for the roaches. Make some friends you can rely on, and keep in touch with them. Learn to be a decent human being, even if you have to fake it. Collect and store books, because information is more valuable than gold. This is probably good advice for anyone, since all it takes is a hurricane or an earthquake to fuck up your city or town for a few weeks or months.
(3) The new economy probably won't be based on porn, but we can still dream.
(4) If you're a midget or a dwarf, consider making friends with a mentally-handicapped giant. Eventually, you will be able to rule Bartertown with an iron fist.
(5) The man who runs the water treatment plant in Megaton will pay you bottlecaps for any scrap metal you can find. Do not shoot the robot in front of the town gates.
(6) Finally, to keep you and your money safe, you should avoid scams at all cost. For the low, low sum of $499.95. you can buy my book, "How to Avoid Con Artists" to help you protect you and your family, and I'll even throw in my monthly newsletter for free! If you don't jump on this offer, YOUR CHILDREN MAY DIE!
More as I think of them. Or feel free to add your own!
Me either, until today. While flipping past one of our local "Syndicated 80's shows, 700 Club and conservative panic" channels, I caught a commercial plugging his "EndofAmerica62" video (which would seem to imply the existence of videos 1-61) , complete with sepulchral narration, scary music, and "everything will change, including how you shop, educate your children, and plan for the future" general scariness. One of the things that the narrator kept cominc back to was how Stansberry has made plenty of of scary, crazy predictions, such as the collapse of GM, but "he's usually right."
Without actually sitting through the entire hour-long video--it's available online for free, which here is apparently a codeword for "proof he actually gives a damn about you, since he should be charging money for access to information this important,"--it seems to be making the following points:
(1) I am Porter Stansberry. Porter Stansberry is the most accurate predictor EVAR.
(2) America is so deep in debt it will never, ever get out.
(3) Even if taxes were 100 percent, we would never pay it off.
(4) Government spending is teh bad.
(5)EVERYONE IN CHARGE IS LYING TO YOU!
(6) ZOMG! The world is about to drop the dollar as a reserve currency!
(7)Hyperinflation will ensue, and we'll be paying for bread with wheelbarrows of hundred-dollar bills.
(8) Yugoslavia collapsed in the nineties--PROOF!
(9) NO ONE NOTICES THE SKY IS FALLING UNTIL IT CRUSHES THEM!
(10) The government will lock up 401ks and keep you from withdrawing money from the bank.
(11) People will be starving in the streets. And YOUR CHILDREN may DIE!
(12) You should invest in gold, it will be over 5 thousand dollars an ounce in the near future. You should totally buy my Gold-Investor's Bible book.
(13) Silver is a great investment, but you should hide it. You should totally buy my Secrets of Silver Investing book.
(14) You can make oodles of moneys off of the stock market without ever owning one share of anything. Here's some people who got rich using my investment strategy. Have I mentioned yet that I'm the greatest?
(15) There's ONE ASSET that will assure you and your family's comfortable survival. It's EVEN BETTER THAN GOLD! Uh...you should totally buy my newsletter if you want to find out what it is. Only fitty' bucks, cheap.
(16) there's yet another asset that will let you rule the world when it all burns to the ground. Of course, I'm not gonna tell you what that is, either. Guess you'll need to get my newsletter if you want to find out.
(17) Ignore all the completely wrong predictions I've made, because this is totally legit, guys.
A bit of research--okay, thirty seconds on Google--indicates that Stansberry is the one behind "The US Govt's Secret Colorado Oil Discovery" scam where he advises everyone to dump money into oil shale, those "Super-Insider Tip!" emails that made the rounds a few years ago, the Vaxgen scam, and some fairly egregious securities fraud. link Still, in the interests of fairness, I must admit that if enough people predict the end of the world, eventually, one of them is going to be right, and thank God we have brave men like Porter Stansberry around to remind us that the world is doomed. Eventually. Sometime. Maybe.
Since I've already spent a half hour typing this pile of brain-drippings, I might as well go and give you some of my own tips for surviving the end of the age:
(1) Smart people invest in gold. Smarter people invest in canned food and shotguns, because they can eat the smart people, then use their gold for radiation shielding for their houses. It's as good as lead.
(2) Okay, serious one here, folks--if you REALLY want to prepare for social collapse, you'd be better off to learn a few useful skills you can barter and some valuable skills like how to purify water with basic equipment, and put a few essentials aside. It doesn't matter how big a pile of gold coins you have, how thick your walls are, how much food and fuel you have, or how much ammo you're sitting on, because armies of the desperate, the greedy and the crazy will eventually batter down the walls of your compound, your ammo WILL run out, and then they'll kill you, eat you and steal your pile of gold. Your survival after a massive collapse depends primarily on how useful you are to other people, and how many people actually give a fuck about whether you live or die. If you are an obnoxious douchebag no one likes, then no one has any incentive not to shoot you in the gut and leave you for the roaches. Make some friends you can rely on, and keep in touch with them. Learn to be a decent human being, even if you have to fake it. Collect and store books, because information is more valuable than gold. This is probably good advice for anyone, since all it takes is a hurricane or an earthquake to fuck up your city or town for a few weeks or months.
(3) The new economy probably won't be based on porn, but we can still dream.
(4) If you're a midget or a dwarf, consider making friends with a mentally-handicapped giant. Eventually, you will be able to rule Bartertown with an iron fist.
(5) The man who runs the water treatment plant in Megaton will pay you bottlecaps for any scrap metal you can find. Do not shoot the robot in front of the town gates.
(6) Finally, to keep you and your money safe, you should avoid scams at all cost. For the low, low sum of $499.95. you can buy my book, "How to Avoid Con Artists" to help you protect you and your family, and I'll even throw in my monthly newsletter for free! If you don't jump on this offer, YOUR CHILDREN MAY DIE!
More as I think of them. Or feel free to add your own!
