Cheapo Groovo

Couch Potato Cash

I have yet to share all of my alternative income streams. I do this so you can realistically see what it takes and understand my philosophy of real diversification. **You can participate in these income streams by clicking them in my sidebar**

1. Utilizing my money seminars!
2. Teaching a few classes during the year.
3. Selling college textbooks on half.com & at Faculty Books.
4. Fiverr allows me to do small tasks (like clciking google ads) and earn $5.
5. Finding freebies and utilizing high-value coupons.
6. Collecting aluminum cans for scrap & the MI deposit.
7. Performing small tasks on Amazon Mechanical Turk.
8. Swagbucks ~ paid to search the Internet.

The Natural Gas Trade Turns To Poisin Gas! #investing #fraud

I have been a big fan of using natural gas for transportation and electricity generation. Unfortunately I was buying the commodity thru stock ticker GAZ when it was near $8 and has since dropped like a rock.

My strategy was to sell out of the money covered call options and wait for the move up. The move up has occured thanks to MARKET MANIPULATION!

First, the real value (Net Asset Value) of GAZ on 2/16  was $3.05. Yesterday it closed at $4.41. Why was it selling at a premium? The managers of GAZ  (iPath) have halted share creation in order to avoid bumping against limits set by regulators like the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. Too much speculative demand w/o enough supply.

Second, the SEC is allowing naked shorting on this security. Sellers don't have to deliver any supply of this product even though it is collateral!

Budget Plan Boondoggle

When it comes to your utility bill, it is almost always better to pay as you go. Here is a recent analysis:

I save $125 a year just paying what I actually owe. Yes, you get the difference back, but you made an interest free loan to your utility company. Take a look at how much forgone interest costs in the long run!

Save on Heat - Insulate Your Windows

You can insulate windows using bubble wrap packing material by spraying a water mist on the window, and then applying bubble wrap. The bubble wrap will usually stay in place for the full season with one spray.

 

Fixing The Economy Without Austerity Measures

The easiest way is to simply ask the banksters for our $16 tillion back. But since the banksters rule the world, I guess we won't get that!

 

 

Social Security
Means test benefits. If you made twice the median salary (approximately $33,000) in your last 5 years of employment, you  get reduced benefits.
Eliminate the income limits. Why should you stop paying in just because you made more than $106,800? There are no income limits on medicare.
Do not raise the retirement age. This will only exacerbate the unemployment problem as fewer job openings will occur.

Revenues
Legalize and tax marijuana. That may be $40 billion to $100 billion in new revenue!
Legalize and tax sports betting. Although only 35 states currently allow "gaming", that number is sure to grow. Adding $50 million to a state budget will help to eliminate the need for federal dollars.

Economic Growth
A natural gas based economy. Get fleet vehicles and 18 wheelers running CNG. Get Detroit making those vehicles. And export LNG to other countries (USA nat gas is $3.76 but it can be liquified and sold at $16).

Commodity Investors Whipsawed by Changing Regulations/Rules

Folks that follow my blog know that I'm not convinced by the "FED induced/M&A" stock market boom and have switched over to trading commodities. Commodities should be dictated by free market forces, a.k.a. supply and demand. But alas, regulators step in and crush the little guy w/o any warning. Here are 2 examples of this:

CME Margin Requirements Keep Changing

Position limits imposed by the CFTC

Facts About Natural Gas (the oil conspiracy)

We are beginning to see natural gas prices fall as the cold weather winds to an end. It happend about the same time last year. 

Funny thing that Texas couldn't find enough natural gas (for electricity generation) to avoid rolling blackouts of hospitals!

Did you know:

• The USA is the largest producer of natural gas in the world.
• The BTU equivalency content of natutal gas is $30 per barrel oil.
• Natural Gas is trading around $4.14 in the USA but is worth $14 or so on the world market. This is a price differential caused by a surplus of natural gas in the US, without the capacity to export it easily.  The only exporting location for liquified natural gas is Alaska.
• The U.S. could have used its stimulus dollars to build a natural gas re-fueling infrastructure that would not only pay for itself in a very short timeframe ($1 billion/day leaving the country for oil would pay for a lot of natural gas refueling stations…), we would have in the meantime reduced foreign oil imports by 5,000,000 barrels a day by transitioning only half the cars and trucks in American to run on nat gas.
• Meanwhile, China is building 20 LNG terminals on its southern coast and is snapping up natural gas assets around the globe – particularly in Australia and, as of yesterday, Canada, when the announcement of an over $5 billion deal with Encana.

So we can heat our homes cheaply, power our new trucks w/o diesel emissions, and become a net exporter again but "something keeps stopping that". 

Nat Gas Sale

Jim Cramer's strategy of buy high sell higher is a losing strategy. Instead, you want to buy things when they're on sale! You can go long nat gas a number of different ways. For more info, check out the nat gas guide

The chart above plots the average price going back ten years as the dotted line. The next closest lines underneath and overtop of the average price represent one standard deviation, which in simplest terms refers to the normal price channel over this period. Right now, the price of natural gas is BELOW the normal range.

Natural Gas Prices Don't Reflect Spillover Costs

3/9/2011 Update: Wyoming, famous for its crisp mountain air and breathtaking, far-as-the-eye-can-see vistas, is looking a little bit like smoggy Los Angeles these days because of a boom in natural gas drilling.

I'm a big advocate of natural gas. It beats foreign oil. It is cleaner than coal. It is ready to implement on a commercial scale unlike solar/wind power.

Natural gas supply outstrips demand by a wide margin; causing prices to fall by 49% in one year!

Supplies have risen due to fracking ~ horizontal drilling where you shoot water and chemicals into rock to recover trapped gas. EIA had to increase its estimate of recoverable domestic shale gas to 827 trillion cubic feet!  (474 trillion cubic feet larger than previously reported)

But having cheap natural gas has a hidden cost ~ destruction of clean water. And as you will see in this video, government & big business are in cahoots once again.