Saturday, January 04, 2014

9 Ways to make a Million -A +A Entrepreneur

http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/9-ways-to-make-a-million-203855561.html

9 Ways to make a Million

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By Steve Tobak | Entrepreneur – Fri, Jan 3, 2014 3:38 PM EST

It's a safe bet that more ink and paper have been expended in the name of how to make money than just about any topic. In case you're wondering why, here's a hint: Do you know how the dollar sign originated? Try overlapping the letters U and S, as in United States.

Capitalism and the American Dream are both alive and well, and with good reason. Who would have thought basic staples like food, shelter, transportation and healthcare would cost so damn much? We used to think of a millionaire as rich. Pretty soon that's going to be the poverty level.

So how do you get ahead — and stay ahead — of the ever-increasing cost of living? Surprisingly enough, there's no secret to making big bucks. The problem is people want it to be easy, like a winning lottery ticket, a magic formula for timing the stock market or a get-rich-quick pill.

Sorry to break this to you, but you live in the real world, not a fantasy novel. And while there is no silver bullet for making it big, it isn't rocket science, either — unless you happen to be Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk. For the rest of us, this is how real people make gobs of money in the real world.

Start with nothing and grow up in a tough neighborhood. Lots of wildly successful people started with nothing and fought hard every day of their lives to make it. Starbucks founder and CEO Howard Schultz and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein grew up not far from where I did in Brooklyn. Competition and adversity breed great leaders.

Do what you love ... and pray there's a market for it. Steve Jobs said, "The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle." He was absolutely right. If you follow your passion — and so do customers — the money will follow.

Follow the yellow brick road ... to Silicon Valley. The high-tech industry has created enormous wealth for millions of people, and not just top executives, either. Microsoft alone accounts for an estimated 12,000 millionaires among former or current employees. The reason? Technology startups are the land of equity and opportunity.

Own your own business and live like a monk. Two-thirds of America's millionaires are self-employed. The vast majority are small business owners who live on budgets well below their means, invest their money, and never received any kind of inheritance, according to the book "The Millionaire Next Door." Do you really need that new car or iPad? Nope.

Take risks, make mistakes and trust your gut. Most people are either ridiculously risk averse or take dumb risks they know they shouldn't take. Take smart risks, the ones that make sense to you. Trust your gut. You'll be wrong more often than not but that's okay. Nobody ever got ahead by playing it safe.

Work your living tail off and make lots of sacrifices. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is a serious workaholic who works 90 hours a week. So does Elon Musk, who runs two companies and is not much of a delegator. The same was true of Steve Jobs when he ran Apple and Pixar. You get out of life what you put in.

Manufacture your own luck. It's said that luck is when opportunity meets preparedness. While it's true that I've been very, very lucky, it's also true that I never stopped searching for opportunities and never hesitated to go for it when I found even a glimmer of a possibility. My advice: quit tweeting and linking and get out and network with real people in the real world.

Stay married. I've seen it over and over again: one of the most common killers of wealth is the good old "divide by two." Think about it. Each time you get divorced, that's another divide by two. Divorce is a geometric progression — to the poor house. That's why only the poor and very rich can afford it. If you're in the middle, forget it.

Diversify, diversify, diversify. That age-old axiom is so true it isn't funny. I have an old friend — a former senior executive like me — whose investment strategy has always been to put his money in as many different places as possible. It takes time and effort but the payoff is huge. Save your money, invest it wisely and diversify.

Of course, you can always call yourself a social media entrepreneur or a self-branded CEO of one and generate all sorts of free online content while the folks at Google and Facebook get rich. The truth is, nobody ever got anywhere by doing what everyone else is doing. You may as well just buy lottery tickets and pray for a miracle.

Edward Snowden's Relationship With WikiLeaks Should Concern Everyone

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/edward-snowdens-relationship-wikileaks-concern-132100366.html

Sat, Jan 4, 2014, 11:08pm EST - US Markets are closed

Edward Snowden's Relationship With WikiLeaks Should Concern Everyone

By Michael Kelley14 hours ago

Free Software Foundation

Julian Assange holding a photo of Edward Snowden.

Amid calls for the clemency of Edward Snowden, many questions remain about the 30-year-old's flight from America and asylum in Russia.

One major unresolved issue is the relationship between "the most dangerous leaker in American history" and WikiLeaks, an organization with an admitted antagonism toward the U.S. and a cozy history with the Kremlin.

Given WikiLeaks' penchant for facilitating U.S. government leaks, its early involvement in the Snowden saga deserves scrutiny.

After the NSA contractor outed himself in Hong Kong on June 9, he parted ways with the journalists he met there and went underground.

On June 12, the same day he leaked specific details of NSA hacking in China to the South China Morning Post, Snowden contacted WikiLeaks. The organization subsequently paid for his lodgings and sent top advisor Sarah Harrison to help.

Harrison accompanied Snowden as he met with Russian officials (perhaps in the Kremlin consulate), and WikiLeaks bought his ticket to Moscow on June 23.

( Some suspect Russia and/or WikiLeaks contacted Snowden before June 12, but there is no clear evidence of that.)

Snowden and his closest supporters contend that he was on his way to Latin America when the U.S. government stranded him in Moscow, but there are several reasons to doubt that claim.

First, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told Janet Reitman of Rolling Stone that he advised Snowden against going to Latin America because " he would be physically safest in Russia."

Second, the U.S. revoked Snowden's passport by June 22 , and the unsigned Ecuadorian travel documentacquired by Assange was void when Snowden landed in Moscow.

WikiLeaks told BI that the Ecuadorian document was meant help Snowden leave Hong Kong. The organization has not explained why it would send the American to Russia knowing he was carrying a void passport and a bunk travel document.

On July 12, Snowden's Moscow lawyer Anatoly Kucherena explained that Snowden " is in a situation with no way out. He has no passport and can travel nowhere; he has no visa."

Third, even if Snowden had proper travel documentation, it's unclear if Russia's post-Soviet security services (FSB) would have allowed an NSA-trained hacker who beat the NSA vetting system and stole a bunch of intel to simply "pass through the business lounge, on the way to Cuba.”

On Aug. 1 Kucherena, who is employed by the FSB, explained why Russia granted Snowden temporary asylum: "Edward couldn't come and buy himself tickets to Havana or any other countries since he had no passport."

We would like to thank the Russian people and all those others who have helped to protect Mr. Snowden. We have won the battle--now the war.

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 1, 2013

Beyond its role in Snowden's getaway and its friendliness with Russia, WikiLeaks is also connected to three of the main people with access to the leaked NSA files. This fact does not necessarily tarnish their reporting, but it is intriguing in light of Wikileaks' deep involvement with Snowden.

Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald, two journalists contacted by Snowden and then given tens of thousands of documents by Snowden in Hong Kong, sit on the board of a foundation that launched in December 2012 tocrowd-source funding for WikiLeaks.

Jacob Applebaum, a close friend of Poitras and lead author of at least one Der Spiegel story citing the Snowden leaks, is known as "The American WikiLeaks Hacker" and has co-authored others articles drawing from " internal NSA documents viewed by SPIEGEL."

Applebaum is not a journalist and does not hide his disdain for the NSA. This week he ended a talk — during which he presented never-before-seen NSA documents — by saying: "[If] you work for the NSA, I’d just like to encourage you to leak more documents."

Assange told the same audience to " join the CIA. Go in there. Go into the ballpark and get the ball and bring it out ... all those organizations will be infiltrated by this generation."

That is the same man largely credited with saving Snowden from extradition to the U.S. by sending him to Moscow. The 42-year-old Australian has also hosted a Kremlin-funded TV show. And his political party recentlymet with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, who is staunchly backed by the Kremlin.

No wonder Greenwald told Rolling Stone that "Julian stepping forward and being the face of the story wasn't great for Snowden."

Snowden also hurt his own cause. Although he initiated an important debate, his statements and actions also pushed him beyond honest whistleblower.

All things considered, Snowden's affiliation with Assange and WikiLeaks raises a legitimate question: Is the fact that his life is now overseen by a Russian security more than an extraordinary coincidence?

Given that we still don't know how many classified documents Snowden stole or when he gave up access, that question should concern everyone.

Editor's note: Here's a graphic that we put together in November to summarize the Snowden saga:

Mike Nudelman/Business Insider

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Floyd Mayweather: Shrewd or Cowardly for Nixing Possibility of Pacquiao Fight?

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/floyd-mayweather-shrewd-cowardly-nixing-possibility-pacquiao-fight-165200305--box.html

By Paul MagnoJanuary 3, 2014 11:52 AM

COMMENTARY | Let's face it, it's hard to dive into the Mayweather-Pacquiao fiasco without being accused of favoring one side or the other.

Both fan bases are so rabidly loyal to their guy that anything resembling reasonable debate is all but impossible at this point. Even among the media, supposedly impartial journalists have chosen sides and allow their own personal opinions to influence allegedly neutral news reports and/or analysis.

So, to put things as directly as possible, fans are not likely to ever get a completely unbiased account of the Pacquiao-Mayweather situation. They will probably never get a completely accurate report of what has been done by both sides to kill boxing's richest fight. Even when one side acts in a completely reasonable manner, expect the other side to complain bitterly.

Pacquiao people will point to the fact that Manny has publicly stated his desire to face Mayweather and, at least, on the surface, has eventually come along on Mayweather's initial demands for random blood testing.

Mayweather people will point to the fact that this bout was signed, sealed, and nearly delivered before Pacquiao's refusal to commit to true random blood testing led to Team Pacquiao walking away. Since then, stories of Pacquiao's willingness to compromise were floated out to the press, but never actually during any real, face-to-face negotiations.

Whatever the case, both fighters have since moved on and Mayweather, whether one likes the man or not, has simply moved ahead of his Filipino rival. In terms of money generation and recent ring resume, Mayweather has far surpassed the fighter who was his neck-to-neck nemesis for several years.

So, as the undisputed top dog, Mayweather has chosen to flex his muscles and insist that all bouts, even against his closest money rival, be on his terms and his terms only.

"The only way he's getting the fight with me is if he signs with Mayweather Promotions," Mayweather told Yahoo's Kevin Iole back in July. "He's got to give me fights with Mayweather Promotions. If he don't give me no fights under Mayweather Promotions, then he's not getting the fight. That's how it is working now, because the ball is in my court."

Just as in any other business, the No. 1 doesn't come to the No. 2, hat in hands, to plead for a cooperation deal. If Coke passes Pepsi in sales by a wide margin, one would never expect to see Coke make a deal that would facilitate Pepsi's return to prominence. If, instead of Mayweather, Pacquiao was the one riding high, would we see Top Rank bending over backwards to bring Mayweather back to the top without wanting some major concessions?

In Mayweather's case, those concessions seem to be that Top Rank, former promoter and now hated rival, be left out of the business equation. Mayweather essentially wants to employ the same in-house deal Top Rank has insisted upon for all of its recent bouts involving Pacquiao. It's the perfect no-lose situation for those strong enough to insist upon it. Mayweather, obviously, feels like he's powerful enough to swing this type of deal now.

With Pacquiao's promotional deal with Top Rank expiring at the end of 2014, this power play is certainly not beyond the realm of possibility. If Team Pacquiao wants Mayweather as much as they say, then there's no reason not to consider giving Mayweather some future fight options in exchange for a legacy-defining fight and Pacquiao's biggest payday, by far.

The critics may label this attempted power play by Mayweather as cowardly or devious, but, in reality, it's only good business and, as we all know, the five-division world champ prides himself on being the pound-for-pound king of shrewd boxing businessmen.

Paul Magno was a licensed official in the state of Michoacan, Mexico and is the author of Notes from the Boxing Underground. His work can also be found on Fox Sports and as Editor-in-Chief of The Boxing Tribune. In the past, Paul has done work for Inside Fights, The Queensberry Rules and Eastside Boxing. For breaking news, additional analysis, and assorted crazy commentary, follow him on Facebook, @TheBoxingTribune or on Twitter,@BoxingBTBC.

Source: Yahoo Sports

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Francis K S Lim

During Mohd Ali era the boxers from George Foreman, Joe Frazier, Ken Norton, are still today held in high regards and honor. These boxers comply with WBA, WBC to be world champion and the peoples champions.

Today, we have clowns' boxers who think highly and vainly of themselves and their prize money are to much to pay to watch... which I do not even pay much attention to them.

What is happening to WBA and WBC???

IF Mohd Ali could be stripped of his blood, sweats and tears for his World Championship WBA, WBC and his boxing license just because of the color of his skin and religion... what is the boxing authority waiting for??

Floyd Mayweather should long ago be kick out of the boxing ring as he would not even made a pimple on Mohd Ali's ass or George Foreman, Joe Frazier, Ken Norton and the rest during Ali's era... Gone are the kind of magic and aura that excites the world!!!

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