Daily Archives: October 5, 2007

More News Of The Same In The Real Estate World, Long Beach

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I know, you’re bored, so am I, so is everybody with real estate news. It’s more of the same. Every week yields headlines of Pending Home Sales Hit New Low, over and over, and over and over…

NAR, in their ever quest to discredit themselves has been revising optimistic estimates since the beginning of the year. These latest numbers announced on Tuesday of Pending Home Sales, showed yet another drop, in this case of 6.5% in August marking its lowest level since the index was created in 2001. I’m torn between talking about it, as it just seems obvious. So who doesn’t understand this out there? Do we still have some unbridled enthusiastic investors and sellers wanting to cash in?

I guess everything is relevant. Those who bought years ago and have seen their homes go from $420,000 to $650,000 should be happy. Yes, a year and half ago they could have gotten $725,000 but they didn’t. That is not the worth of the home now. The home is worth what the current market reflects and buyers are not paying yesterday’s prices. Would you?

NAR is admitting that: “Fewer contracts were being written because of mortgage availability issues, and a separate internal survey of our members shows more than 10% of sales contracts fell through at the last moment in August, primarily the result of canceled loan commitments.” I would venture to say that number is pretty low. The real number might be closer to 30% if not 40 according to what I hear locally.

Yes mortgages are getting harder to find. Even good credit scores don’t guaranty a loan. In the space of a week in August we went from having a FICO score of over 720 for a normal loan to over 740, plus 20% down and proof of 6 to 12 months reserve in the bank to pay the mortgage. Consider a $700,000 loan, that’s $140,000 down payment plus close to another $50,000 in the bank account. I don’t know about you but seeing how most people live above their means, there are not too many who can show that kind of savings.

Alternative Healings, The Laws Trying To Prevent Them, Long Beach

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One thing we have seen these last few years is to make it increasingly harder and harder to find and use natural and alternative healing methods. It started a few years ago with talks when Congress was considering slipping in a few bills that would eventually outlaw Homeopathy. Now it seems it’s other healers’ turn.

Modern medicine has done tremendous good work by eradicating some sickness. However these last few decades have seen rapid growths in the pharmaceutical industry, leading to companies getting richer and of course, lobbying. Lobbying for good causes is understandable, but lobbying on behave of companies that reap huge profits is questionable, especially when it involves doing it covertly and deliberately deforming the facts.

The following was taken from Gnostic News, a yahoo.com group. Just one word of clarification, I don’t follow any systems, I don’t advocate one system or another but I don’t advocate awareness as to what is going on in our society.

“Ministers enjoy certain rights in order to better serve the people who place their trust in them. These rights include administering the sacraments of baptism, confirmation, confession, communion, marriage, unction and supreme unction. Some governments require baptisms to be registered. Most jurisdictions require a marriage
license and most bar same sex marriages.

Unction is healing through prayer, meditation, contemplation, laying on of hands or anointing the afflicted. Recently some licensing boards in the USA and Canada have sanctioned ministers for doing things other than these five healing modalities. For example, some massage therapy licensing boards define moving the hands as massage therapy rather than anointing or laying on of hands. Some also claim that laying on of hands done anyplace other than on the head is also massage therapy. Others claim that reflexology is massage by law.

Some medical licensing boards now consider energy medicine such as Reiki to be illegal for anybody who is not a licenced doctor unless it is done under the supervision of a medical doctor. Recently, a few aromatherapists have been cited for practicing medicine without a license because they “prescribed” or “recommended” essential oils be used to help some medical condition.

In many parts of the USA and the rest of the world, astrologers, psychics and tarot readers are coming under attack… The process is to: 1)promote a “Fortune Telling” Law citing the “well-known fact” that fortune telling is a scam, 2)these laws pass easily where brought to a vote, 3)classify astrology, psychics and tarot readers as fortune tellers, and 4)file charges against these professionals for practicing fortune telling.

The problem with all of these claims is that the person charged is guilty until proven innocent by the preponderance of evidence. This is very difficult — almost impossible — to prove. Thankfully,
there are ways to avoid this difficulty:

1. All of the above can become licensed as a spiritual healer or spiritual health coach. See http://HealerCoach.com or http://SpiritualHealthCoach.com or http://ACHLB.com for details.

2. Aromatherapsists and reflexologists can become certified as an Aromatherapy Coach or Reflexology Coach by the Natural Therapies Certification Board. (http://NTCB.org )

3. Level 2 Reiki Healers and Reiki Masters can become licensed as a Reiki practitioner by the International Board of Reiki Licensing. (http://ReikiLicense.com)

Separation of Church and State in America and Canada give spiritual people the opportunity to become licensed as spiritual healers and legally practice aromatherapy, astrology, divination, energy healing, psychic readings, reflexology, Reiki, tarot reading and similar techniques as part of their spiritual healing practice.
While ministers may not be able to legally practice these things under their ministerial license, they can do so by becoming licensed as a spiritual healer. “

Ultimately, the thing we will be left with is choosing quality food over mass produced. I still believe that, plus awareness of one’s life are the best tools to prevent sickness.