When it comes to investments, I have lost a lot of money.
That was in the past because of scams by insurance companies that invested the deposits. It should be a great savings plan for the future they said. My future and that of my children.
The Consumers' Association recommended it and of course, it was all approved and there was a guarantee that nothing could go wrong, a minimum of payment. None of this turned out to be true, it was a lie and I suspect even one that was done on purpose. While thousands lost their money, that company carried on merrily. It still exists today. Aegon got away with it. Despite being convicted and having to pay, they never went bankrupt. Their 'good' name remained and so did that of the Consumers' Association and the media. I wonder how that can be possible. Am I the only one with a memory, the only one who tries to do wrong, wrong people and wrong companies as little as possible?
I don't do or buy what feels wrong.
Heinz is a good example. I still remember the unfriendly, stereotypical advertisements of the old days. They are engraved in my memory. The same goes for the crying mothers of Argentina and Biafra. The monstrous acts with which certain countries always get away with lying, cheating and making the people believe that what they do is done out of the goodness of their hearts.
Out of the goodness of the heart, charity is a lie.
No rich person or company does anything solely out of goodness. There must be something to gain and that gain is prestige, more income, making others dependent on you, your help. I wrote before that my grandfather became rich after the second world war. By rich, I mean really rich. A millionaire in the days when the country was under construction and everyone started with the same starting capital. An amount that was not worth much, but money had real value then and for 10 cents you could buy quite a lot.
If you want to make money, you have to be clever. Being handy, and having certain qualities is a must when the country is a mess and when everything has been bombed to pieces.
Those who are handy can own and build something, rent and borrow. Lending money at usurious interest rates and when there is no payment, there is extra property or the rich man is a slave richer. A slave or servant or serf, it all comes down to the same thing. Whoever has debts will have to pay them back one day and if you don't, your family will have to.
Is it worth it? I mean that loan, that extra monthly payment for something that has already lost its value as soon as you own it?
For me, it is not and I am glad that I do not owe anybody anything. I try to prevent my children from getting into debt. A loan is a burden. Nobody can see into the future and what works today may be impossible in a month.
I have gotten over the loss of my investments.
No, I couldn't give my children that amount of money, but I could give them an education, a driving licence, their first car and some savings to start their own lives. After all, those who live independently also need some household goods in addition to what is already theirs (bed, closet, clothes, books, bicycle, etc.).
From the moment a child is independent, for some that is before the age of 18 and others much later, they have to stand on their own two feet. They must do their own washing, cleaning, washing up, repairing broken goods and taking care of their finances. I help my children with this, but they all have the same complaint: how come this is not taught at school?
A bank card does not teach children how to handle money. My opinion is that cash does. If the wallet is empty, you can't buy anything. In shops, nobody likes to stand at the cash register with too little money. It is easy to withdraw money, especially if you have the option of going overdrawn on your current account. I don't have an account where I can do that. I don't want to. If you go overdrawn once, you overdrew every month. The debt is never repaid and the problem of not being able to handle money remains.
The banks, the modern-day tax collectors, are happy with that. Those who have saved up money cannot even count on being able to withdraw the full amount.
Banks invest their customers' savings and lend them out. They have proven in recent years that today's banks are not great investors either. Many have gone bankrupt, merged and received money from the government. Money that comes out of the pocket of the citizen, the citizen that is cheated by these same banks and insurance companies. Why is it that Scrooge from 'a Christmas Carol' is portrayed as a bad and miserly person (the man himself does not live in prosperity and hardly spends any on himself), but we close our eyes to who owns the banks and insurance companies? These sharks complain about less annual income but still earn millions and have done so for decades.
Of course, the citizens are paying the bill again under the pretext that everything is becoming more expensive or that many have collected from insurance companies. I do not believe a word of the latter, because, since 2020, the population has mainly been sitting at home. Sitting at home means hardly any break-ins, fewer traffic accidents, industrial accidents and medical expenses. Fewer health costs indeed, because with Co-vi-d announced and the hysteria in the country, you were not welcome at the doctor's office or in the hospital. In 2020, fewer people will have died than in previous years.
With the central digital currency on the horizon, the world is going to look different.
It will be decided for you on what you can and cannot spend it.
Of course, there will be a social credit system. The big companies are already watching you. The supermarkets with their loyalty cards, Ikea, Klarna, Bol.com, Amazon, E-bay, and Alibaba with their newly developed system to force people to waste less and banks.
Table manners and other norms and values will start to fade.
You don't need to look great, not even good or clean. Licking your plate clean, for example, is good for 200+ points at Alibaba. I assume that many people will take part in this. Just like collecting stamps for discounts on groceries, people will start collecting points for 'good' behaviour because they 'earn' parts of their taken away freedom with it.
My question is what the big companies will do to be less polluting. We now know that even if the entire world population were to save CO2, the pollution and CO2 emissions of those few cannot be undone.
Big Pharma, those companies that are constantly being sued and brought to justice, have caused more damage to nature in the last few years than the world's population put together.
Not to mention the face mask pollution! That may be something to think about, something the newspapers would rather keep quiet about. We only read rubbish reports that the air was cleaner during lockdowns. The air outside not inside. Inside people's homes, the polluted air was at a life-threatening high level.
Meanwhile, everything is 'back to normal', at least that is what many people think.
It is not true, but those who are allowed outside again after sitting inside for a long time, going on holiday, no longer think about what was. Forgotten are the forced injections, the physical consequences, the deaths, the bankrupt shops, companies, the lying doctors and the media. Long live fun. The banks that just kept on collecting, the mega supermarkets and pharmacies that earned billions from the population in need have been forgiven their Scrooge attitude.
The conspiracy theory has come true and the majority is silent about it, just like about the broken friendships and broken families. Who is gone is gone from the heart and mind and who died is just dead.
As soon as the sun shines, a person does not need much and those who have never learned to save will not start saving. No money and no goods for the (hunger) winter coming our way. In a world where everything is for sale (even if we can't afford to buy it), the average person has forgotten how to prepare for winter, the future. When the problem arises it's early enough to worry is the motto. After all, everything is for sale so we live now, buy what we see without giving a thought to later.
We believe that everything is possible, everything will remain forever.
The soul may be eternal, but the body is not, health isn't, and neither is faith, a salary, possible savings and investments.
You have to be lucky if it comes to investing.
Even big investors lose capital. Therefore, an investor will never bet on a horse. Neither have I when it comes to cryptocurrency. As everyone knows by now, crypto is going downhill. Enough loss of value these weeks/months not to make one happy.
My investments, I still have 1/10 left and this is thought-provoking. No, I'm not going to sell what I own, but to me, this is proof that the decentralized coins are also owned by one or a handful of rich people. Even those who say they are not dependent on the value of Bitcoin are now showing the opposite of their claims.
Is this a sign of a storm, change?
It feels like the central banks (that handful of rich people) have taken over the crypto world. Finally, the intention is that we, worldwide, will use the central digital currency of our government. A coin that allows them to monitor every step you take, just for your convenience and security (against scams, hackers at least that's how it's promoted).
Soon the national currency will belong to the collection of coin collectors and before you can count to ten most people have forgotten that it ever existed.
The bank card will also become an item of the past. If a chip in your hand is not your thing, Mastercard will arrange it. You will soon be able to pay with facial recognition or your handprint. Nice and easy and user-friendly, is what Mastercard calls it (a plus is they don't need to print or send cards and you cannot lose your card but you can still be robbed, scammed...), but in reality, it is about total control of the person who will no longer be unique.
Individuality, creativity, independence and openness will soon be prohibited, as will personal property, humanity and freedom because a few people consider themselves better than others, more omniscient and more important. With that attitude and their power, God will also be forbidden (again) since there can be only one. It's a price most people will pay because they fear fear itself, a lack of safety and security as a result of a government they don't trust and their stupidity.
