
You can charge up to $995 for a service, but many if not most gigs still start at just $5 (of which you make $4), so the key to making money on Fiverr is either working in volume or offering custom add-on services. But it’s free, easy, and quick to get started, and payment happens fairly quickly, so if you’re able to whip up a logo or business card design without much effort, it’s not a bad way to cash in on your creative skills.

What happened was that the Samurai, the warrior class in Japan, had been used to fighting by standing up in front of their armies and making a graceful speech, the other opposing Samurai made an answering graceful speech, and then they had one-on-one combat. The Samurai discovered that the peasants with their guns would shoot the Samurai while the Samurai were making their graceful speeches. So the Samurai realized that guns were a danger because they were such an equalizer. The Samurai first restricted the licensing of gun factories to a hundred factories, and then they licensed fewer factories, and then they said that only three factories could repair guns, and then they said that those three factories could make only a hundred guns a year, then ten guns a year, then three guns a year, until by the 1840s when Commodore Perry came to Japan, Japan no longer had any guns. That represents the loss of a very powerful technology.


What about the German beer industry? Well, the Germans are very efficient in some of their industries. The German metal-working industry and the German steel industry are equal in productivity to those of the United States, but the German beer-producing industry has a productivity only 43% that of the United States. And it's not that the Germans make bad beer; the Germans make wonderful beer. Whenever my wife and I go to Germany, we take along an extra suitcase specifically for the purpose of filling it up with bottles of German beer, which we take back and dole out to ourselves for the year after each of our trips to Germany. Why, then, since the Germans make such great beer, and since their industrial organization works so successfully for steel and metal, can't they achieve a successful industrial organization for beer?         


Individuals who cannot get approved for loans through traditional financial institutions and lenders often turn to alternate sources of financing such as peer-to-peer lending. Because these tend to be higher-risk loans, interest rates typically range from 6 to 10 percent. You can use programs like Lending Club to get involved with peer-to-peer lending quickly and easily.
When Europeans discovered Tasmania in the 17th century, it had technologically the simplest, most "primitive" human society of any society in the modern world. Native Tasmanians could not light a fire from scratch, they did not have bone tools, they did not have multi-piece stone tools, they did not have axes with handles, they did not have spear-throwers, they did not have boomerangs, and they did not even know how to fish. What accounts for this extreme simplicity of Tasmania society? Part of the explanation is that during the 10,000 years of isolation, the Aboriginal Australians, who numbered about 250,000, were inventing things that the isolated 4,000 Tasmanians were not inventing, such as boomerangs. Incredibly, though, archeological investigations have shown one other thing: during those 10,000 years of isolation, the Tasmanians actually lost some technologies that they had carried from the Australian mainland to Tasmania. Notably, the Tasmanians arrived in Tasmania with bone tools, and bone tools disappear from archeological record about 3,000 years ago. That's incredible, because with bone tools you can have needles, and with needles you can have warm clothing. Tasmania is at the latitude of Vladivostok and Chicago: it's snowy in the winter, and yet the Tasmanians went about either naked or just with a cape thrown over the shoulder.

I feel that circumstances really do alter cases. At this point in history Microsoft looks spectacularly successful, and Big Blue and ATT less so. We should remember that ATT lasted a century, however, in spite of many mistakes. (And even now, it is possible for a Lucent scientist to claim , — "they couldn't kill us".) We are as always at a unique point of growth of a particular type of economic entity, and what is successful now has more to do with when we are than with any universal laws. I accept that Diamond's hypotheses in his book explained the past; but prediction is hard, especially of the future.
It turns out that the German beer industry suffers from small-scale production. There are 1,000 little local beer companies in Germany, shielded from competition with each other because each German brewery has virtually a local monopoly, and shielded from competition with imports. The United States has 67 major beer breweries, producing 23 billion liters of beer per year. Germany has 1,000 major beer breweries, producing only half as much beer per year as the United States. That's to say that the average brewery in the U.S. produces 31 times more beer than the average brewery in Germany.



I advocate for the Tim Ferris, multiple income stream strategy. It’s important to have a diversified portfolio and automatic income streams that supplement your basic income earned through work. Selecting the best investment and income streams requires a person do the research, but very basic strategies can be employed that grow the money nest. I think the article is right to say it’s better to earn rather than save more than you spend, because saving money can depend on very specific contexts, while earning money tends to be more predictive. Good article.
Thus, for the last 10,000 years the Tasmanians represented a study of isolation unprecedented in human history except in science fiction novels. Here were 4,000 Aboriginal Australians cut off on an island, and they remained totally cut off from any other people in the world until the year 1642, when Europeans "discovered" Tasmania. What happened during those 10,000 years to that isolated 4,000-person society? And what about nearby Flinders Island, which originally supported a population of 200 cut-off Aboriginal Australians? — what happened to that tiny isolated society of 200 people during those 10,000 years?

It really is that easy, and I think a lot of people don’t realize that. It’s just a psychological barrier nowadays since many can’t imagine what having $1 million feels like. In reality, $1 million isn’t that much money anymore. That might sound ridiculous, but I know I’m going to need much more than $1 million to retire someday. I’m not sure what my millionaire story will be yet, but I’m certain it’s going to involve self-employment since and not a job.

Jared Diamond was in New York several weeks ago and we had an early dinner across the street from the Museum of Natural History where he was scheduled to speak later in the evening. Jared first visited the Museum in 1963, when he was 25 years old, preparing to go to New Guinea on his first expedition to study New Guinea birds. Subsequently he analyzed his bird collections in the museum where he is on the staff of the Museum's Department of Ornithology in addition to his position at UCLA.
I am hoping my success story involves a combination of the blog and consulting. I’ve been really struggling with the consulting lately in an attempt at networking and obtaining more clients. Between the two blogs, keeping up with industry, and maintaining an amicable family relationship I find I am short on time. My wife has not worked for over 2 years so we are on a single income. We do have a child who takes a lot of time and money.

There is no money made without a risk taken. Whether it’s starting a business or investing in stocks, every avenue to making money requires some risk. Even selling your old furniture requires you taking the risk that the buyer will show up and will pay you. It is a comparatively small risk when compared to deciding whether to spend millions of dollars on a new product line, but it is still a risk.
Go hunting or foraging for food. You may need to invest in gear and permits, but if you already have these, this is an inexpensive way to get your own food. If you're ethically against the killing of animals, it's pretty easy to forage for food, depending on where you live. Just make sure to forage only for food whose origin and properties you are sure of. Getting sick or poisoned is never any fun.
Logan is a CPA with a Masters Degree in Taxation from the University of Southern California. He has been featured in publications such as CNBC, USA Today, U.S. News & World Report, and HuffPost on topics ranging from paying down debt to using credit card points to saving money on taxes. After spending nearly 10 years in public accounting, including 5 with professional services firm Ernst & Young where he consulted with multinational companies and high net worth individuals on their tax situations, he launched Money Done Right in 2017 to communicate modern ideas on earning, saving, and investing money.

Again, I don't want you to go home to your several children, and say, "Sweetie-pies, I heard this talk today by this guy Jared Diamond who enunciated some principles that I think would be really good for rearing children. We're going to see what your grades are at mid-term, and based on those grades, whichever one of you comes closer to getting all A's, that one we will support to the hilt, private schools, college, whatever you need, whereas those of you who get poor grades can start jobs as a shoe-shine boy or girl" — No! In a family, and in some other human groups, productivity is not the appropriate consideration for judging the best organization of the group.
