James L. Paris's Blog, page 133
October 16, 2016
5 Work From Home Seasonal Gigs
We have done articles over the years highlighting the opportunity of so-called seasonal jobs. These jobs are tied to the increase in shopping and eating out during the holidays. Of course, most people already know about seasonal job openings at UPS and major bricks and mortar retailers. In recent years, however, Amazon.com has become a significant name that has been added to that list. One of the unique side benefits of a seasonal job is that it is not all that unusual for workers in these positions to end up transitioning to full time employees.
This time around, I wanted to take a slightly different angle and focus on work from home seasonal jobs. That's right, an opportunity to earn the extra holiday cash you need, but without having to report to a traditional workplace. This would be especially popular and appropriate for families with children, or situations where being away from the family to work a second job is simply not practical.
1. Major Companies That Hire Work From Home Seasonal Employees
1 -800- Flowers in the past has hired seasonal home workers directly, but now do so through Sutherland Cloudsource. It was interesting to note while reviewing their website, Sutherland Cloudsource appears to be hiring for a large array of other companies as well. This really looks like a significant website to start with if you are looking for a seasonal work from home gig.
Amazon.com is hiring tens of thousands of workers at their distribution centers, but many people do not know that they also have year round and seasonal work from home positions. These positions are only available in specific states, so check out this link for the details.
Apple At Home Adviser positions are year round, but just like with many positions like this there are additional seasonal openings as well - click here for more details.
Convergys is a call center operation based in Cincinnati that has year round and seasonal work from home jobs. After reviewing their site, we were impressed with the wide array of benefits they also offer their workers. - more details click here.
2. Creating Your Own Work From Home Job
I can tell you as someone that has owned multiple businesses in a wide array of industries, virtually all businesses need some degree of extra help around the holidays. Simply putting the word out on Facebook, letting your friends know that you are looking for seasonal work from home, and making a few phone calls, can get you all the work you can handle. Just as one example, many businesses will pay for their Christmas cards to be hand addressed to add that personal touch. I have known individuals that have done very well simply charging a fee to address Christmas cards for local business owners.
The end of the year/first of the year is also prime time for financial planners, insurance agents, mortgage brokers, accountants, and real estate agents, to reach out to clients and prospects for new business. This many times takes the form of a phone call offering a holiday greeting along with a short Q and A to determine if the client may need any services or an end of year review. This is yet another offering that can be made to local business owners.
3. Consider Starting a Website And Sharing Deals With Friends
Between Thanksgiving and Christmas last year there was more than $3 trillion dollars of holiday related spending, most of that on retail gift giving. We also know that each and every year an even greater percentage of retail spending is done online. So, all this being said, I want to remind you of my favorite way to earn extra cash during the holidays -Affiliate Marketing.
Affiliate marketing is a way that you can earn a cut of the money that someone spends by simply sharing affiliate links with your friends on social media. How I love to do this is to share 'deals' and sales with my friends. They really like the information as I am helping them to save money, and I also earn a percentage of everything they buy. While there are a lot of affiliate programs you can sign up with, my favorite is Amazon.com (called Amazon Associates). Companies like Walmart, Best Buy, Target, and so many other big names will gladly pay you for simply sharing links to their products.
It is super easy and free to get started as an affiliate - Who knows? Once you see how much you can earn around the holidays, you might decide to turn this into a year round business.
4. Consider Selling All That Junk Cluttering Your House
Another self made work from home job is to hold a garage sale or use eBay to clear out those unused items in your home. Just an item like an old cell phone can bring $20 to $80 (or more) and most people have a few of these laying around in a junk drawer. As the saying goes, 'One man's junk is another man's treasure.' Last year the average family spent $882 during the holidays. I would bet that most people could easily raise this amount with an eBay or garage sale, and also enjoy the side benefit of reducing their household clutter (just in time to make room for the Christmas tree).
One variation on this idea is to resell on behalf of others. Offer to sell items for others on eBay and charge a 30% fee for your efforts. Most people simply don't want to deal with the hassle and will gladly give you all of their old cell phones, laptops, and other unwanted goods and let you turn them into quick cash for them (just in time for the holidays).
5. Mystery Shopping
Although not technically work from home, mystery shopping does not require that you report to a workplace, so we thought it made sense to include it in our list. First, if you are like most people, you will already be out shopping and in restaurants more than usual during the holiday season. Secondly, there are many times more mystery shopping gigs to be had during the holidays as well. Check out a couple of articles we have previously published on mystery shopping:
How To Earn Great Money As A Mystery Shopper Without Getting Ripped Off
How To Make Money As A Mystery Shopper
Helping you make the most of God���s money!
James L. Paris
Editor-In-Chief ChristianMoney.com
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Gennifer Flowers: Bill Clinton Paid Me $200 to Get Rid of His Baby
I���m beginning to think that by the time this election is finally, mercifully over, we���re all going to feel as though we need to take a long, hot shower.
On that note, none other than Gennifer Flowers has decided it���s time to jump back into the fray.
You surely remember the name. Gennifer Flowers was the pretty blonde who claimed during the 1992 presidential campaign she���d had a 12-year affair with Bill Clinton that began back in 1977. At the time, Clinton refuted the allegations, but later, in a 1998 deposition, during which Clinton denied having engaged in sexual misdeeds with other women, the former president (who was still a sitting president at that time) did admit to having had sex with Flowers.
Well, as reported in the Daily Mail Online, during a recent appearance on Aaron Klein Investigative Radio, Ms. Flowers made the startling (well, maybe not so startling, under the circumstances) claim that Clinton paid her $200 in 1977, the first year of their alleged affair, to abort his baby. For the record, at that time, Clinton was the Attorney General of Arkansas.
Flowers described the moment she told Clinton that she was pregnant:
���I told him (Bill Clinton). And deep down I wanted to hear him say, ���Okay well I'm going to get a divorce and we'll have this baby and everything is going to be fine.��� And the first words out of his mouth were, ���Well you know I will pay for an abortion.������
According to Flowers, wife Hillary Clinton actually learned of their affair, as well, during the first year of its existence, but that her knowledge of it did not prevent the relationship from continuing for another 11 years. On that note, Flowers further claimed during the interview that she and Bill had a love for the ages, saying, ���He was the love of my life and I was the love of his life and you don't get over those things.���
How many more days until this election is behind us?
By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
For-Profit DeVry University Agrees to Cease Making False Claims About Graduate Job Placement
As the federal government continues to keep for-profit universities in its sights, word comes of a settlement between the Department of Education (ED) and one of the most recognizable names in the for-profit college business, DeVry University, in which DeVry will agree to cease making a long-standing claim about the job placement rate of its graduates.
DeVry has famously advertised that, since 1975, 90 percent of the school���s graduates find work in their degree fields within six months of graduation. However, when the school was asked last year by ED to substantiate they claim, it was unable to do so.
In reporting by Business Insider, the feds also took DeVry to task for claiming that employed students were working in their academic fields when they clearly were not; cited examples of this include a business administration graduate working as a restaurant server, as well as a graduate with a degree in technical management working as a mail carrier; per DeVry���s website, the ���Technical Management degree program is designed to prepare students to meet the challenges of a high-tech, global marketplace.���
Beyond the matter of cleaning up its marketing and advertising claims, the settlement requires DeVry to establish a reserve of $68 million to help ensure that the school can make good on any financial liabilities or hardships it is deemed to have caused; for example, the reserve money could be used as a source of refunds to students if DeVry closes up shop entirely.
By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
October 15, 2016
Federal Judge Says There���s No Value to Law Students Studying Constitution
According to an esteemed federal jurist, law students today should not be wasting any time studying the U.S. Constitution.
That���s right; Judge Richard Posner, who sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago, thinks that studying the Constitution should no longer be required because the document is no longer relevant.
Posner���s comments came to light recently by way of an article in Slate. In the piece, he didn���t have much good to say about law schools in America, and included in his list of grievances is the fact that the Constitution is still being studied. On that subject, he wrote the following:
���I see absolutely no value to a judge of spending decades, years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, or seconds studying the Constitution, the history of its enactment, its amendments, and its implementation (across the centuries ��� well, just a little more than two centuries, and of course less for many of the amendments). Eighteenth-century guys, however smart, could not foresee the culture, technology, etc., of the 21st century.���
In other words, Posner���s objection to studying the Constitution���and, clearly, to the document itself���is the same one we���ve been hearing for years from judicial activists; that because it was written so long ago, it should be seen as a ���living��� document, and, therefore, obsolete as the preeminent legal guidepost in the United States.
He has since tried to walk back his comments a bit, but no sale; anyone with a brain knows he, like so many other sitting federal judges, are all too happy to see the Constitution go the way of the wind. If he did not feel that way, he would not have carefully and thoughtfully written what he did in the first place.
By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
Museum in Estonia Invites Visitors to Desecrate Image of Virgin Mary
Remember when this stuff was actually surprising, even shocking? Not anymore.
It remains, however, awfully sad.
Estonia���s National Museum opened on September 29, and there���s a part of it devoted to the Reformation in that country. A related exhibit features a virtual image of the Virgin Mary projected on to a screen. Visitors are invited to kick a designated spot at the base of the exhibit, at which point the image of Mary is shattered, and the word ���Reformation��� appears in her place.
Estonian Christian leaders and politicians are none too pleased with the exhibit, as you might imagine. In reaction to the display, the Archbishop of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church has posted the following:
���I very seriously doubt that this exhibit is suitable for the permanent collection of the National Museum of Estonia, even if it is interesting from a technical point of view or from the perspective of modern approach to the depiction of historical events. The Virgin Mary for a huge number of believers is not some historical figure or event, gone into oblivion, but a reality today. The ridicule was an insult to the feelings of believers.���
The chairman of the Conservative People���s Party and a former ambassador to Russia, Mart Helme, took issue with the exhibit on behalf of the substantial population of Russians living in the country:
���Most Russians living in Estonia are actively religious people and their integration is not helped by religious insult approved on a state level. The image should be removed as soon as possible because the virtual destruction the authors offer insults the feelings of religious Russian-speaking residents and hinders their integration. Mocking the symbols of faith also has a political dimension to it. An attack on symbols may lead to an escalation of social tensions and a cooling of inter-state relations.���
Once again, we are reminded that secular progressives are���everywhere.
By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
October 14, 2016
U.S. Women���s Soccer Star Wambach Says ���A Little Bit Odd��� that Foreigners Play for U.S. Team
Yesterday, I write about how Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg threw some of her fans a bit of a curve ball when she referred to the high-profile national anthem protests by professional athletes as ���dumb and disrespectful.��� Ginsburg is a decidedly left-leaning jurist, but, even so, she clearly thinks that such anthem protests, as well as similar flag protests, are out of bounds for Americans, regardless of their political inclinations.
Enter now-retired U.S. women���s soccer star Abby Wambach. Wambach is another who won���t likely be confused with Ted Cruz or Rush Limbaugh anytime soon; a lesbian who married her longtime girlfriend back in 2013, Wambach is a big supporter of Hillary Clinton, attending several Clinton campaign events during the 2106 primary season. That said, when asked in a recent New York Times interview if she was supportive of current U.S. women���s national team soccer player Megan Rapinoe to kneel during the anthem, Wambach replied this way:
���She is stepping into her own belief system and wanting to peacefully protest for this Black Lives Matter movement, which is near to her heart. Whether you agree or disagree with her choice to do it, she has the right to do it. If I was still on the team, I don���t know if I would join her in her protest, though. I���m fiercely patriotic, and the flag and the anthem is something that I really, really respect. So I don���t know if I could do that.���
Additionally, Wambach has never been a fan of foreign soccer players playing for the U.S. men���s national team, and reiterated that position in the Times interview, as well, saying, ���It feels a little bit odd to me that you have some guys that have never lived in the United States that play for the United States because they were able to secure a passport. To me, that just feels like they weren���t able to make it for their country and earn a living, so they���re coming here.���
It seems as though patriotic leftists are starting to come out of the woodwork. That���s fine with me. As I���ve said previously, I don���t necessarily believe that everyone on the left ���hates��� America, but, that said, the ���patriotic liberal��� is guilty of having allowed brazen progressives to so thoroughly co-opt the left-of-center narrative���that it appears to the casual observer that they all do hate America.
That���s on them, as the kids say.
By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
NBC: Second Chance for News Falsifier Brian Williams, but No Second Chance for Billy Bush
An article over at Boston.com makes an interesting comparison of two fallen stars of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC): the former anchor of Nightly News, Brian Williams, and Billy Bush, the currently-suspended and soon-to-be-gone co-host of the Today show.
Williams, you will certainly recall, found himself in seriously hot water after it was learned he variously embellished���and even outright invented���stories that he reported in his capacity as an NBC news personality. As for Bush, his career at NBC appeared to be going along swimmingly until he recently found himself caught up in the so-called ���Trump tapes,��� which show Bush participating in lewd banter with Donald Trump just before Trump���s scheduled appearance in a segment of Access Hollywood back in 2005, a program Bush was co-hosting at the time.
In the Boston.com piece, the question is raised about why it is that Williams, although out as anchor of Nightly News, was ultimately retained by the network as a ���breaking news anchor��� over at MSNBC and seems to have kept his overall NBC career very much intact in spite of having invented news���while Bush is close to being let go outright for a transgression that, while certainly a source of embarrassment for all involved, does not rise to the same level of journalistic crime.
As Shelley Ross, former honcho at morning shows over at ABC and CBS, pondered aloud, ���How was Brian Williams given a second chance when his journalism sins were far greater?���
Some have speculated Billy Bush���s unpardonable sin to be that his lewd banter took place with Donald Trump, and that all of Bush���s historically admirable work as a journalist, roundly praised by many, is not enough to offset having engaged in ���locker room talk��� with the controversial Republican nominee for president.
By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
October 13, 2016
Left-Leaning Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg Calls Anthem Protests ���Dumb and Disrespectful���
No doubt Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a certified darling of American progressives, threw her biggest fans a bit of a curve ball recently when she referred to the national anthem protests about which we���ve been hearing so much recently���as ���dumb and disrespectful.���
Ginsburg, in an interview with Yahoo News Global Anchor Katie Couric, made it clear that she is no fan of the displays, and effectively said that she objects to them on the same basis that so many other Americans���who sit much further to the right than does Ginsburg���object to them: they are an insult to the nation.
���I think it���s really dumb of them,��� Ginsburg said. ���Would I arrest them for doing it? No. I think it���s dumb and disrespectful. I would have the same answer if you asked me about flag burning.���
She went on: ���I think it���s a terrible thing to do, but I wouldn���t lock a person up for doing it. I would point out how ridiculous it seems to me to do such an act. But it���s dangerous to arrest people for conduct that doesn���t jeopardize the health or well-being of other people.���
���If they want to be stupid, there���s no law that should be preventive,��� continued the jurist. ���If they want to be arrogant, there���s no law that prevents them from that. What I would do is strongly take issue with the point of view that they are expressing when they do that.���
Ginsburg is by no means the first person on the left-hand side of the political spectrum I���ve heard object to flag and anthem protests. The ones who seem to love them so much are progressives, and progressives are not classic liberals. While traditional liberals prefer to see the country governed left-of-center, most remain patriots, of a kind, and love their country, in a fashion. Genuine progressives are a different breed altogether, however, and have no interest in seeing America the nation, let alone America the beautiful, remain intact, wishing instead for us all to be nothing more than global citizens of a one-world order.
Even old liberals don���t want that.
By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
Survey: 41 Million Americans Have Been Victims of Identity Theft
We talk about identity theft quite a lot here, and this latest bit of news on the subject clearly suggests that these discussions will not go away anytime soon.
An article over at CNBC.com is reporting on the results of a Bankrate.com survey that reveals up to 41 million Americans have had their identities stolen. That figure will surely come as a shock to many, and, as a matter of fact, it came as a surprise to me. While I have long been aware of the growing problem of identity theft in this country, I was taken aback to learn that roughly 13 percent of everyone living in the U.S. had been hit this way.
According to Bankrate.com analyst Mike Cetera, ���About 2 in 5 Americans have either been an identity theft victim or know someone who has. This is a widespread problem and many people aren't doing enough to protect themselves.���
Revealingly, the folks over at Bankrate inform us that as the efforts at nefariously capturing identities are as relentless as ever, prospective victims remain less than vigilant, overall, in engaging in the relatively simple steps that can go a long way to stopping a good deal of the trouble: 42 percent of Americans do not check their credit reports regularly, and nearly 40 percent of people are happy to do their banking and engage in other sensitive transactions on unsecured Wi-Fi networks. Additionally, roughly a quarter of the folks polled by Bankrate say that they basically use the same password for all of their different online accounts.
In other words, while the digital neighborhood continues to go down the tubes, it is clear that large numbers of people continue to make life especially easy for the criminals by keeping their windows open and their doors unlocked.
So shut ���em���and lock ���em���because the threat is real, it is growing, and the damage can be positively catastrophic.
By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
October 12, 2016
Religious Investors Demand Greater Accountability from Wells Fargo
One particular set of investors in embattled Wells Fargo has real problems with the way they���ve been doing business. According to Newsmax, investors with various religious affiliations���including a group of nuns���have apparently had it with Wells Fargo and its notorious practices, and have filed a shareholder resolution that asks the banking giant to specifically address the ���root causes��� of the scandal that led to the opening of millions of fake customer accounts.
In addition to the matter of explaining precisely why the scandal happened, the resolution further asks that the company provide an explanation of what new measures will be put in place to ensure nothing like this happens again.
The Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia have been down this road with Wells before. In 2014, the group���along with other religious organizations���filed a similar resolution in 2014, but withdrew it when the bank agreed it would provide more information on the matter of risk controls.
That, however, never happened, much to the chagrin of people like Sister Nora Nash, who serves as director of corporate social responsibility for the Sisters of St. Francis.
���They haven't done what we would have. Now it is biting them in the face,��� said Nash.
Another group of religious shareholders, the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), has filed a resolution asking Wells to study how executive compensation might be formally linked to ethical conduct.
The treasurer of the UUA, Tim Brennan, says that while the bank does, indeed, have an existing code of conduct, the fake accounts scandal is proof that the code presently in use ���had nothing to do with the way the business was conducted.���
By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
