Hold Hands, Let’s Pray For A Financial Meltdown

How many people saw the clip of Alessio Rastani brashly predicting the markets would crash? The video turned Rastani in to an overnight Internet sensation, a banker with the balls to confess to his inglorious disregard for everybody else’s money.

The video should be taken with a pinch of salt. Rastani has just as much to gain from ‘outing’ himself as every other banker has in operating quietly. But hidden in the scaremongering is a beautiful little snippet of advice for any hustler, any affiliate with the initiative to make some money when the economy cracks again.

We don’t really care that much about how they’re going to fix the economy, our job is to make money from it.”

The governments don’t rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world.

If you have the right plan set up, you can make a lot of money from this.

These are words of encouragement that should ring out to any readers who enjoyed the bizopp boom of 2008.

I enjoyed my first break in affiliate marketing by following a very simple economic theory that practically any dipship with a keyboard and some web hosting could have copied – and many did.

When people are fearing for their jobs, and when the mortgage walls are closing in, the opportunity to make ‘easy money’ and become self-sufficient is even harder to resist.

Who wouldn’t want to get rich posting links on Google?
Who wouldn’t want to earn $693/day by clicking a button and counting the profit?

Affiliates, blessed with the flexibility of changing business strategies overnight, swept to meet this demand and banked millions of dollars. In the news, and in the papers, all you would see was doom and gloom. More jobs lost, more disaster predicted and even greater incentives for affiliates to leverage in to their landing pages.

Now, admittedly, the products that were rushed on to the market to meet that rising demand were flimsy at best. Anybody promoting them was likely to wake up richer, but in a bed that smelt distinctly unlike roses.

There’s another reason why we should be optimistic about any market crash.

What do consumers do when they start to ‘feel the crunch’? They go online! Instead of spending money willy-fucking-nilly like a single mum of six on benefits (fuck you all, maggots of the state), they actually have to think about their purchases. That means our chances of courting such transactions are massively improved.

Any economic disaster is likely to be devastating to high street shops, or for intricately designed businesses operating on wafer thin margins. But in our industry, the margins are apple pie deep. We can sell products globally and move towards the money in a blinking of the eyelid. The flexible will survive. The smart and flexible will thrive.

Alessio Rastani has copped a lot of jealousy-driven YouTube comments from the proletarians of society. Those who feel eternally battered in to submission by bankers and giant corporations, despite their own mindless devotion to the very entities they claim to hate.

Proles of Society
Image jacked From Sean Powl on Facebook. Cheers!

But what Rastani says is absolutely true, even if his motives are not (get proles get money seems to be his real agenda, very similar to the Warrior Forum pyramid).

A downward market is brilliant for entrepreneurs and innovative minds.

Fear is the incentive to end all, and as we know, every single commission you’ve ever received was registered for no other reason than because the incentive was great enough. Why shouldn’t we be pissing our pants in excitement at the idea of fear sweeping in to households around the world?

When society feels beaten down in to submission, the little hand offering escapism is worth more than ever. As affiliates, we often find ourselves charged with convincing users to behave as we want them. The task becomes much easier when indifference is replaced with fear, insecurity and a constant desire to change.

I certainly won’t be sobbing if the markets crash, or if fear sweeps the nation. If I were you, I’d be preparing for the worst and getting ready to deliver that escapism. If the worst comes to be, escapism will be in hot demand.

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About the author

Finch
Finch

A 29 year old high school dropout (slash academic failure) who sold his soul to make money from the Internet. This blog follows the successes, fuck-ups and ball gags of my career in affiliate marketing.

16 Comments

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  • Why do affiliates and many entrepreneurs have to be so self-centered? All about themselves? Even though certain trends and certain times in the economy provide greater opportunity for us, there is no need to go out and say that “we’d love for the economy to tank”. Does anyone in this business have any feeling for anyone other than themselves? I watched that video a few weeks back – that guy is a total twat. Some things are best left unsaid….

  • It’s self centered, I agree. But it’s true. A bad economy provides some of the best opportunities for entrepreneurs.

    I’m not going to will the markets to collapse, because frankly, I think that ship has already sailed. The markets are inevitably going to collapse. They’re built on a culture of greed and individual irresponsibility that isn’t sustainable anymore.

    The only question is how people actually respond to the challenges ahead.

    They can play the blame game, protesting in streets for change that they barely know the meaning of… or they can teach themselves a lesson in self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency doesn’t have to be affiliate marketing, entrepreneurship…or whatever. In my mind, it simply means not spending money that you don’t have. A crime for which most of our greedy society is guilty.

  • Yeah, I agree. There is always a huge opportunity for anyone, yet nearly no one does anything (but complain). I am still unsure why so many people do nothing. But that doesn’t mean we need to criticize them or wish for worse. Let them live their lives like that if that is what they want. Even with the state of the economy now, there is tons of money to be made. However, the world is not all about money, and our focus should be helping people, not wishing them hell. People who are praying for a financial meltdown are self-centered, arrogant assholes. The meltdown is already occurring, we are already making loads of money, why wish people worse? Like I said, some things are better left unsaid.

  • Patrick – “If I see an opportunity to make money I go with that”. There are other businesses that flourish in a bad economy (Rental agents, dollar stores, walmart, etc.) I feel like the point of this article is stating that you should turn a bad economy into something good for yourself.
    I have plenty of care for the world…but I still need food & a roof.

  • Finch is a pretty cool guy, like the R rated version of Mrgreen.am.

    Also, justin dupre or should i say ur va stop being a hardcore faggot.

  • @Patrick – I understand what you’re saying, but I think you’re basing my view on the title rather than the content of the post. It’s not that I’m willing a financial meltdown – because you’re right, there are a lot of hard working individuals who would be affected that don’t deserve to be – but in reality, that financial meltdown is inevitable. It’s unavoidable, and in my opinion, a lot of individuals deserve very little sympathy if the sudden dawn of austerity forces them to stop spending money they never had.

    I understand the humanitarian argument that we should never wish doom on the world, but this post has absolutely nothing compared to the gigantic media machines that print newspapers by the million to encourage fear in the masses. Again, that’s unavoidable. All I’m saying is that we should collectively stop shaking with fear, stop listening to the hysteria in the press of “jobs lost, futures ruined”, and actually do something ourselves about preparing for the worst and being ready to monetize our own businesses.

    @Justin’s VA – A financial meltdown affects everybody, but not everybody has to be affected for the worse.

  • Monetizing your business through financial meltdowns are not a bad thing! Think of all the people enrolled into higher education courses due to affiliate marketers putting education campaigns in front of them at the right time. Although affiliates have made a killing on these types of offers, it’s a win win situation as the users that filled out the lead forms and enrolled into the schools that contacted them now have added value to themselves through higher education.

  • Holy cow Finch, you sound more like a Philosopher than a generic “I don’t really know what I’m talking about” marketing blogger. Good job!

  • The problem, at least to me, is not that you are advocating monetizing economic downturns or crises. It’s how some would suggest we do so. Like you say, people are more likely to be looking for “escapism” when things are shitty. But this is a very general term. If you’re offering this escapism through garbage bizopps that will do nothing but make peoples’ lives even worse, then you are just selfishly exploiting the situation. True it’s their own fault for being stupid, but the blame doesn’t fall entirely on them either. If you are running legit offers that could actually help people, like the education offers Ruben suggested, then obviously there’s nothing wrong with this.

    And I also just have to say that the picture above is extremely disingenuous. Of course they are going to use products from corporations. How else are they supposed to get by in society? And most of them (although admittedly there are some crazies like any other giant crowd) are not trying to bring corporations down, they are just trying to get some of their bullshit under control. Case in point: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-october-17-2011/ellen-schultz

  • Lol this guy is such an expert at writing titles… and he got you talking! just what he wanted. The best affiliate marketing blog by far.

    Keep going.

  • One common theme you’ll find amongst those that are aggrieved about others making money in times of economic hardship is the idea that the world owes them something. It doesn’t.

    They’ve worked hard but have now lost their job. It’s unfair. The world is unfair.

    Sure, it would be really nice if everyone got along and the world was one big utopia. But it isn’t. It would be just lovely if governments treated all their citizens fairly and disbanded their armies. But they won’t.

    And that’s the crux of the matter. There are things that are within our control and things that aren’t.

    No matter what you think is right or wrong, it’s unlikely that you’re in a position to stop a financial meltdown. You can, however, protect yourself in the event that such a situation were to occur.

  • What you need to realize, is that the very people that protest now, brought this onto themselves. And its always the corporations to blame.

    Corporations were not responsible for any of these events:

    The Most Recent Boom Period
    The Most Recent Recession
    The Most Recent Hyperinflation
    The Most Recent Stock Market Crash
    The Most Recent Currency Crash
    or any event of such nature that preceded them

    World War 1
    World War 2
    The Cold War
    The numerous adventures of american military in the iraque/afghanistan general area

    The 7 to 8 figure body count of the war on drugs
    Millions of people losing their homes
    Millions of people losing their jobs

    The ONLY thing corporations are interested in, is making money. Homeless/Jobless people are not a solid boundary condition for making money.

    I can not stress that enough. Corporations do no evil. They invent cool things to make our lives cooler and we pay for them. Or we do not. Thats the thing – with corporations, we can choose. Dont like them? Dont pay them. Easy as that.

    Whats responsible for these events is the ill-minded attempts of western governments to control the market by employing the teachings of keynes.

    When the economy is down, americans go to war. Germans use a 10 figure amount of money to build new streets. Its what they do. They have a fixed growth per year target and want to meet that. In germany, its 2 percent annual growth.

    When the economy grows more than that, they actively suppress it by raising taxes and whatnet. When it grows less or even declines, they do all sorts of vicious shit to get it back up.

    These boom recession cycles are all caused by keynesianism. Every single one of them.

    Heres a simplified example of keynesianism. Dont take it too seriously because its obviously not exactly whats going on, but gives insight to the principle:

    Keynes says that by spending instead of saving, you end up with more than you had.

    Apply that to joe the plumber:

    Joe the plumber has 1000 dollars and can either put them in the bank and save for rainy days or buy a new plasma. By keynes laws, he gets the new plasma and afterwards has a plasma plus an amount in excess of 1000 dollars in his bank account. And thats not an exaggeration, its exactly as weird as it sounds – just on a way larger scale. Thats the reason these wars are fought – because highly decorated economists insist that these principles hold.

    The other thing governments have to do – or want to do – is to reign. Even though theyre “omg only elected for such and such amount of time” the reigning powers – even though theyre two opposing parties – act and behave a lot like a unit – protecting their select few positions at the top from anyone trying to enter. Just think about how they treat newcomers like ron paul. All their animosities dont matter the second a new player enters the game.

    Another thing they have to do is to lie, cheat and steal. And they have to keep their people in check.

    To do that, they employ a divide and conquer approach. In this case I can more easily draw from my experience with germany. Germany is a lot more socialist than america ever will be and a lot more vicious in dealing with their paying customers (income tax victims).

    The german government sucks up as much money as it can – only to release it back to its people.

    Heres a general example:

    Family: 4 kids, 1 Dad, 1 Mom – not divorced (rare enough):

    Dad goes to work, earns above average money, gets to surrender most of that to the government. We are talking about 80% – and that is no exaggeration. In a second round, he gets most of that back because he has 4 kids and a lot of tax reducing plans that the government approves of, and ends up with about 50%. That is still a lot but its actually 2.5 times what he originally ended up with (to understand the calculation, you have to compare 20% to 50%).

    People then say: how does it matter whether he only pays 50% tax or goes this way? It matters, because it forces people into behaving the way the government wants you to. And if you do that long enough, it actually forces the mind into this slavery-like mindset. And germany begins to treat its kids to it at a very young age.

    Now, some day people could decide that its not for them anymore, and rise up against the reigning class. In order to prevent that, the government splits up the benefactors of money-redistribution into tiny groups that all receive essentially the same but under differing circumstances and rules.

    The most recent change to parents receiving money for having kids is that parents who were actually employed get a couple more euros than those who werent. What happens? Media shitstorm. “Oh my god thats so unfair”. There youve got two parties who now are pitted against in public opinion.

    Youve got immigrants vs. citizens, young vs. old, women vs. men, academics vs. working class, unemployed vs. employed. Most people belong to multiple groups with multiple adversaries and everyone hates everyone in at least some way.

    Then you get to the most vicious of all – the disruption of families.

    Family structures in germany almost dont exist anymore. Everyone depends not on help from their families but upon the well-meaning government helping them through every minor inconvenience in life.

    Families that stay together, have to work together.

    Mothers that divorce from the dads of their children can get a court-order in no time that forces the dad to take as many jobs as it takes to pay for the children – and often even her. People think that thats well meant and it might even be. But think about what a gigantic incentive that is for couples to not stay together and disrupt every bond that has ever existed.

    And stuff doesnt end there. There are so many rules and laws and bullshit that makes everyone miserable. Everyone involved.

    Governments always find someone who is responsible. In this case its wallstreet, a couple years ago it was BP, before that it was wallstreet, before that it was something else.

    Evil tax evasionists, evil car manufacturers, the jews, the bankers, the blacks, the bible belt, the gun lovers, the russians. An evil entity for everything government fucks up. Blame can be pushed onto anything and it doesnt matter, because people will believe. Because people cant elect not to believe. Their minds are clouded. Every day they turn on cnn and treat it like its objective reports.

    Sure, on paper, media is objective. Just ask the german newspaper cicero that got raided by the german “secret service” because it published details that had better gotten unnoticed by the public. I dont make that up and its no rumor – over media reported on it.

    Just do yourself a favor and, for once, use your own brain – think stuff through – do the numbers, and then blame whoever you think is responsible. If its still the corporations, then thats cool. Its your judgement. Im probably not on your side but at least you tried.

    Im not some insider, and im not claiming to be. All you need to understand whats going on is a working knowledge of 6th grade math. There are so many things that governments dont want you to understand and they use all theyve got to shape public opinion.

    Every single human being on this planet is responsible for not questioning whats going on.

    Governments do:

    Take your money – and give you nothing in return
    Make you miserable
    Tell you what to do with your property – and what not
    Employ a personal army (the police)
    Make law – for better or worse
    Dont report to anyone – especially not you
    Get involved in your life – if you like it or not
    Pay “experts” to make public opinion

    Evil corporations do:

    Take your money – if and when you feel like they should

    How do corporations destroy the world? Seriously? If they were such a huge threat and the governments so well meaning, they could destroy every single one of them over the course of a friday afternoon.

    This is a very long rant and my point is a really short one. The thing is, you arrive at the world naked and broke, and nobody owes you shit. Not the government, not evil corporations, not even your mother. You dont owe anyone either. Not your mother, not your favourite evil corporation and especially not your government. All they receive from you without having your permission to take it, is a crime. It is your life thats getting spent, and if you want to spend it at wallstreet protesting, then so be it. The gentlemen inside those buildings spend their time at wallstreet, gaming the a system that the government built up. Its a flawed system and they make the best of it. They dont cheat you because its not their job to make your life pretty. Thats your job.

    You have to realize that even the bible is twisted and turned beyond recognition by what government deems good public opinion.

    When jesus told his people to not fight back but endure the punishment, that was said regarding the oppresive roman government and their tax antics. It was not the intention to make 2000 years worth of servants.

    The bible very clearly says that those who dont work shouldnt eat. The bible says a lot of things that speaks from the hearts of those who despise it. I was the same. I didnt like religion, because of what its become. Its just another way of saying that we should serve, when in reality, it doesnt.

    Read the damn book, its lecture in how to live a life that you can look back to and not feel like a despicable human being.

    That being said, I am a trader and proud of it. Again, people only see the side painted by the government/leftist media. We do obviously take our cuts but isnt that what business is about? The guy making computer takes a cut. The guy producing the processor takes a cut. The guy fixing your roof takes a cut. And we take our cuts. We provide liquidity in the markets, the stocks your pension fund holds? They were that cheap because we were there to sell them. If we didnt exist, farmers wouldnt be able to get reliable prices for their crop, oil would be more expensive, some parts of everyday life would not be the way they are. We get rich in the process, thats a fact, but if the garbage collector would get rich, would you mind? He does a necessary job just like we do. People need to get over the jealousy and turn their life around.

    A last word on nuclear power/fukushima:

    Fukushima was totally safe. It survived the largest earthquake in recent history and a fucking tsunami. It was a partial meltdown but it is secured under lots of metric tons of concrete and steel and a lot of other protective measures that are only there because they are proven to work. Then the german “technische hilfswerk” that gets called when someone technical turns sour arrives and tells everyone how they are qualified. And they pump the entire powerplant full of hydrogen in an effort to cool the reactor. A reactor that is close to meltdown but if it melts down, its secured under whats a lot like the protection they are building around chernobyl thats meant to last for a very long time.

    Hydrogen is one of the most reactive substances in the universe. Reactive means explosive. After the thing is full of hydrogen, it explodes. Which is totally expected because fucking hydrogen. There are a million substances that they could have used for cooling that are totally not dangerous and they choose hydrogen. Im not a chemist so maybe there are upsides to hydrogen over every other element but wtf? It explodes, and if you watch the video closely, you see the concrete shell of around the core vaporize. And thats when shit gets real. Because now radiation can actually be released.

    I have a hard time calling conspiracy on such events because im not a conspiracy guy. But they get the alleged best trained force in the world to deal with a problem thats not really big. I know that its big in public opinion because oh my god nuclear, but in reality its not big. And the first thing they do is explode the outer protective shell.

    Keep in mind that i dont make anything up here. Every fact i use got released by mass media. No special reports or anything, ive just followed the events and apply my own technical knowledge.

    Then we get into nuclear storage. What people get mixed up is actual radiation and radioactive material.

    There are three kinds of radiation, two of them only last very very short distances and are thus not dangerous, even if you are in direct contact with the material. The other one behaves like light and has just way higher energies. Thats radiation. If you radiate something like a mountain for an infinite amount of years, it doesnt get radioactive. Maybe it gets hot because of energy transmission, but elements that dont get radioactive dont do so ever. Thats chemistry.

    The other thing is radioactive material, which radiates. This is where radiation comes from. If you inhale an alpha radiator, youre dead. But this radioactive material gets stored in barrels which are then stored in mountains, so the only thing they can ever release is radiation, not actually material. If you put such a barrel into a river and the water was clean, then the water doesnt get radioactive just because the barrel is in htere. The only thing that might happen is that the water gets warm because of energy.

    The entire nuclear stuff is dangerous is a hype. If it was dangerous, powerplants would not run. Obama might not understand that. German Prime Angela Merkel is a Physics major and knows it. And she ignores her knowledge because it doesnt matter. Governments are all lies and zero facts.

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