S.O.P.A. is a new initiative that gives domain registration companies the power to shutdown websites and even take the domain of a website if they have possible stolen images or content. Obviously we need to stop people from stealing content but giving the power to shutdown domains and businesses over a image that might or might not have a stolen image.

This is a huge issue and needs to be stopped. The first step is let these businesses know you do not support giving them the power to take a business over a picture maybe not being used correctly.

There is a way to stop content thieves but this is not the way! This will give too much power to the registration services.

Godaddy (Blacklisted before for stealing domains and adding hidden fees.)
60 Plus Association
ABC
Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies (ASOP)
American Bankers Association (ABA)
American Federation of Musicians (AFM)
American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA)
American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)
Americans for Tax Reform
Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States
Association of American Publishers (AAP)
Association of State Criminal Investigative Agencies
Association of Talent Agents (ATA)
Beachbody, LLC
BMI
BMG Chrysalis
Building and Construction Trades Department
Capitol Records Nashville
CBS
Cengage Learning
Christian Music Trade Association
Church Music Publishers’ Association
Coalition Against Online Video Piracy (CAOVP)
Comcast/NBCUniversal
Concerned Women for America (CWA)
Congressional Fire Services Institute
Copyhype
Copyright Alliance
Coty, Inc.
Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB)
Council of State Governments
Country Music Association
Country Music Television
Creative America
Deluxe
Directors Guild of America (DGA)
Disney Publishing Worldwide, Inc.
Elsevier
EMI Christian Music Group
EMI Music Publishing
Entertainment Software Association (ESA)
ESPN
Estée Lauder Companies
Fraternal Order of Police (FOP)
Gospel Music Association
Graphic Artists Guild
Hachette Book Group
HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide, Inc.
Hyperion
Independent Film & Television Alliance (IFTA)
International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees (IATSE)
International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition (IACC)
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW)
International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT)
International Trademark Association (INTA)
International Union of Police Associations
L’Oreal
Lost Highway Records
Macmillan
Major County Sheriffs
Major League Baseball
Majority City Chiefs
Marvel Entertainment, LLC
MasterCard Worldwide
MCA Records
McGraw-Hill Education
Mercury Nashville
Minor League Baseball (MiLB)
Minority Media & Telecom Council (MMTC)
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)
Moving Picture Technicians
MPA – The Association of Magazine Media
National Association of Manufacturers (NAM)
National Association of Prosecutor Coordinators
National Association of State Chief Information Officers
National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA)
National Center for Victims of Crime
National Crime Justice Association
National District Attorneys Association
National Domestic Preparedness Coalition
National Football League
National Governors Association, Economic Development and Commerce Committee
National League of Cities
National Narcotics Offers’ Associations’ Coalition
National Sheriffs’ Association (NSA)
National Songwriters Association
National Troopers Coalition
News Corporation
Pearson Education
Penguin Group (USA), Inc.
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA)
Pfizer, Inc.
Provident Music Group
Random House
Raulet Property Partners
Republic Nashville
Revlon
Scholastic, Inc.
Screen Actors Guild (SAG)
Showdog Universal Music
Sony/ATV Music Publishing
Sony Music Entertainment
Sony Music Nashville
State International Development Organization (SIDO)
The National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO)
The Perseus Books Groups
The United States Conference of Mayors
Tiffany & Co.
Time Warner
True Religion Brand Jeans
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC)
UMG Publishing Group Nashville
United States Chamber of Commerce
United States Olympic Committee
United States Tennis Association
Universal Music
Universal Music Publishing Group
Viacom
Visa Inc.
W.W. Norton & Company
Wallace Bajjali Development Partners, L.P.
Warner Music Group
Warner Music Nashville
Wolters Kluewer Health
Word Entertainment

Link to list

Link to wiki

Swedish automaker Saab has filed for bankruptcy after months of struggle to stay alive. Saab’s owners have turned the company’s assets over to a Swedish court-appointed receiver.

General Motors (GM, Fortune 500), Saab’s former owner, had objected to a recently proposed deal under which the company would have been sold to Chinese investors including carmaker Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Automobile.

The deal required GM’s cooperation because it still supplies parts, designs and engineering for Saab products. China is one of GM’s largest markets and the U.S. automaker was reportedly concerned that its technology could end up in competing vehicles.

GM still maintains an ownership stake in Saab.
Saab’s greatest hits (and misses)

The Board of Saab Automobile subsequently decided that without further funding the company will be insolvent, and that filing bankruptcy was in the best interests of its creditors.

There is a chance that Saab could be purchased, in whole or in parts, out of receivership, Saab spokesman Eric Geers said. Potential buyers would have to negotiate with the defense and aerospace company Saab Group, a separate company which still owns the rights to the Saab name and trademark, and with GM.

“Once an administrator or a receiver is appointed, it is up to them to see what they can do,” he said.

GM had no immediate comment on Saab’s decision.

GM sold Saab to Swedish Automotive in early 2010 as part of GM’s bankruptcy reorganization. Swedish Automotive is a Dutch company that was then known as Spyker, a high-end brand of hand-made sports cars. But Saab continued to struggle under the new ownership.
The most disliked cars of 2011

Swedish Automotive said it does not expect to realize any value from its ownership of Saab.

Saab had announced a different tentative deal with two Chinese companies in June. But within weeks it said it had run out of the cash it needed to pay its workers.

Even after Saab arranged financing to resume paying salaries, it had problems making payments to suppliers, which essentially stopped it from resuming production. By early September it was forced to file for bankruptcy protection.

Saab still operates a network of U.S. dealers, but sales have been suffering as the company has struggled to survive. This year, U.S. sales dropped to 5,305 as of the end of November. As recently as 2000, it had sold 39,479 cars to U.S. buyers.

Saab was founded as airplane maker Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget (Swedish Airplane Inc.) in 1937 and entered the car business in 1946. The defense company Saab Group is a separate company today and remains in business.

The best time to buy a stock and make a lot of money off of it is often when the company is universally hated. When so many investors think a company is doomed, it doesn’t take much to move the stock higher again.

Research in Motion (RIMM) is probably not one of those stocks.

The BlackBerry maker is now absurdly cheap based on any conventional metric. Shares fetch less than 3 times earnings estimates for its next fiscal year. The company is trading at about a third of its expected sales.

And RIM is well below book value, the price it theoretically would be worth if it liquidated and sold off assets.

But none of that matters. For anyone who thinks RIM may be a value stock, I give you these sage words of advice from Admiral Ackbar in “Return of the Jedi”: “It’s a trap!”

There is no sugarcoating RIM’s latest earnings report. The company warned that sales and profits for the next quarter will be far below already reduced forecasts.

It also announced that its new BlackBerry 10 smartphones, trumpeted as the company’s savior, have been delayed until the end of 2012. That’s an eon in the fast-moving consumer tech world.

That’s why the stock plunged 12% Friday morning. Shares are now down 77% year-to-date and are trading at their lowest level since January 2004.

The company can’t afford to be Research in Slow Motion at a time when it is facing brutal competition from Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) and from handset makers like Samsung and HTC that have latched themselves to Google’s (GOOG, Fortune 500) Android wagon. Even Nokia (NOK), thanks to an alliance with Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500), is a threat.
BlackBerry drops BBX name after court order

If you take a look at some of the analyst reports on the company following its most recent disaster, you have to wonder if it maybe should change its name and ticker to GRIM. Or DIM.

“We give management credit for an honest appraisal and outlook,” wrote Cowen and Company analyst Matthew Hoffman.

That’s about the most charitable thing I could find.

“We now believe that RIMM needs to adopt an existing ecosystem (Windows Phone) in order to remain a relevant player in the smartphone market,” wrote Alkesh Shah with Evercore Partners.

In other words, RIM has to become the Canadian version of Nokia.

“We have modest BB 10 sales estimates,” warned Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley.

“If management’s marketing-based strategy to support sales fails, then the company may have to resort to gross margin cuts to retain relevance. Once this happens, we expect device business margins to fall to zero and possibly into negative territory,” was the dire prediction from Nomura analyst Stuart Jeffrey.

If you’re looking for gloomiest forecast of all, Kris Thompson at National Bank Financial in Toronto — essentially RIM’s home turf — takes first prize.

“This could be game over for the BlackBerry franchise,” Thompson wrote. “We can’t be confident RIM even hits the 2012 holiday season.”

For the win!

So what, if anything, can RIM do to save itself? The company had no comment beyond what co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis said during the earnings conference call. They stressed the need for patience and touted RIM’s strength outside the U.S.

But that is unlikely to end calls for one, if not both, CEOs to step down — even after each agreed to cut their salary next year to $1 (American, not loonies). Many investors feel that RIM desperately needs a fresh new look at the top.

“The cosmetic change of taking a dollar a year in salary is a slap in the face to shareholders,” said Vic Albioni, chairman and CEO of Jaguar Financial, a Toronto-based bank that owns a stake in RIM and has been pressing the company to make leadership changes.

“They see it as an admirable thing to do. The admirable thing to do is recognize they are the problem, not the money that they receive,” he added.

Still, even a new CEO (or two) may not be enough. At this point, with product launches for phones and new PlayBook tablets massively delayed, the company may need to follow the lead of Palm — the company RIM is drawing unfortunate comparisons to — and sell out.

Palm, which like RIM was once a leader in mobile devices, sold itself last year to Hewlett-Packard (HPQ, Fortune 500).

Of course, HP wound up shutting down Palm’s hardware business only a few months later and is now “contributing” its WebOS software to the open source community. But that’s another story.

To be fair, RIM may be able to get a lot more than what is trading at now in a takeover or breakup scenario.
New BlackBerry tool to support iPhone and Android

The company has a treasure trove of patents, and tech giants are showing a willingness to pay up for them. The most prominent example of that was Google’s stunning decision to buy Motorola Mobility (MMI) for a more than 60% premium earlier this year.

Evercore’s Shah estimates that the sum of RIM’s parts could be worth $20 a share, with more than a third of that coming from its intellectual property. A $20 price is about 50% higher than its current price.

Then again, the stock began the year at $58.13. Oops.

The fact that RIM is so wounded right now doesn’t help the company’s chances of a takeover at a big premium. Nomura’s Jeffrey wrote that RIM may only be worth $15 in a break-up — and that a suitor may not need to make a bid unless the stock falls below $10.

That’s a big problem. Albioni worries that things will have to get even worse before RIM will decide to do something drastic like look for a white knight. In that regard, Balsillie and Lazaridis may be acting more like European leaders dealing with the debt crisis.

“We don’t have tremendous confidence in this board stepping up and putting someone in charge like Sanjay Jha at Motorola who sold the company to Google,” he said. “I hope we’re wrong.”

If recent RIM history is any guide, the best chance for a major change in the executive suite may only come if one of the CEOs gets inebriated and kicked off a plane. But you probably shouldn’t hold your breath — or chew through restraints — waiting for that.

Best of StockTwits and reader comment of the week: RIMM wasn’t the only tech stock making waves Friday. A little gaming company called Zynga went public too.

howardlindzon The 100th person to short $ZNGA tomorrow gets a virtual cow….exciting times in the markets

Hail to the chief of StockTwits! Very funny, Howard.

intelligentspec: $ZNGA to be valued at $7B with $306M revenues last quarter compared to $LNKD $6.4B val with $140M revenues…

Good point. One reason for the “lackluster” first day performance of Zynga (ZNGA) is that the company and bankers did the admirable thing and didn’t overprice the offering as much as other recent social IPOs.

ZorTrades: So if $ZNGA is coming out with 100 million shares then what is the lock up going to look like 180 days from now? Probably small, everyone selling now.

Another good point. The big initial float may reduce lockup expiration and secondary offering risk. This isn’t Groupon (GRPN), which sold only about 5% of its total shares in the IPO. LinkedIn (LNKD) also sold a smaller percentage of its total shares in its offering than Zynga.

As anyone following me on Twitter knows, I have been OBSESSED with a certain NFL quarterback this week. Readers have had plenty to say about the former Florida Gator play-caller. But my favorite was this one from Alex Ferguson.

“I wonder if they’ll start calling the last 2 hours of the trading day ‘Tebow Time’ $SPY,” he tweeted.

If stocks keep experiencing big moves up in the closing moments, trademark that puppy Alex! Although the realist in me has a sinking feeling that the wheels on the Tim Tebow bandwagon will fall off against the Pats Sunday.

A bankruptcy hurts everyone. It besmirches the reputation of the CEO. It destroys stockholders’s faith in the company. It threatens the livelihood of employees. It disrupts the lives of customers, and it is a harbinger for hassles that children of the future will face. So how could a company that was the first to offer curbside check-in, the frequent flyer program, computerized reservations, and the supersaver fare, see its $41 peak share price in January of 2007 fall to 39 cents share today?

The simplistic answer is that debt caused American Airlines’ bankruptcy. A universally accepted definitive answer will never be agreed upon, but a few factors need to be admitted reluctantly as evidence to examine: fuel cost, labor costs, governmental deregulation, 9/11, and a cracked crystal ball.

But what about competition? Did other airlines providing a superior product or price give American a run for its money? Did giving each passenger access to Direct TV on Frontier Airlines flights contribute to American Airline’s financial hardship? It’s hard to say how much of a factor competition was.

Papers filed in a bankruptcy court in New York revealed that the AMR Corporation, the parent company of American airlines, had $24.7 billion in assets and $29.6 billion in debt. AMR was unable to reduce labor costs by obtaining new contracts with the unions. AMR claims it spends $600 million more than other airlines because of labor-contract rules. The cost of pensions has had an impact on American Airlines’ profit. A credit downgrade has increased the cost of borrowing money. In the past five years, the cost of jet fuel has risen by more than 60 percent.

Both economic and common sense declare that the cost of baking and distributing bread has to increase over time if the economy is growing. The same economic and common sense declares that the cost of collecting and distributing people should have a corresponding upward direction. It is true, technology and other factors bind together to bring down cost, but at some point the economic law of diminished returns will impact services, just as it does production.

Are you close with your business? Ask yourself what really would you answer to big questions asked about your company. We will have found the must know questions all business owners need to be able to answer about their company business.

This is also useful for starting your business and getting prepared for new business ideas.

1. What are your business’s greatest strengths and weaknesses?
2. What are your biggest challenges and opportunities?
3. Who are your current customers, and why are they patronizing your business?
4. Who are your competitors’ current customers, and why are they patronizing their businesses?
5. What changes or new programs would have the greatest potential to boost your sales?

Answer all of these every six months to keep track of new shifts that happen to most businesses.

The holiday shopping season got off to a strong start on Black Friday, with retail sales up 7 percent over last year, according to one survey. Now stores just have to keep buyers coming back without the promise of super savings.

Buyers spent $11.4 billion at retail stores and malls, up nearly $1 billion from last year, according to a report released Saturday by ShopperTrak. It was the largest amount ever spent on the day that marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season, and the biggest year-over-year increase since 2007. Chicago-based ShopperTrak gathers data from 25,000 outlets across the U.S., including individual stores and shopping centers.

Online shopping was strong as well, with a 24.3 percent increase in online spending on Black Friday, according to IBM, which tracks sales at 500 online retailers.

Bill Martin, who founded ShopperTrak, said he was surprised by the strong showing. He had expected the weak economy to dent consumer confidence and keep more shoppers out of the stores, or at least from spending much. Instead, he said, consumers responded to a blanket of promotions, from 60-percent off deals to door-buster savings on electronics.

“I’m pleased to see it. You can’t have a great season without having a good Black Friday,” Martin told The Associated Press in an interview.

Still, he suspects things will quiet down this weekend, as promotions end and the buying frenzy subsides. ShopperTrak is expecting holiday sales to be up 3.3 percent overall through Christmas.

There were few shoppers at Pioneer Place Mall in Portland, Oregon, on Saturday.

“This is great, I’m glad I waited,” said MaryJane Danan, who drove two hours from Corvallis, Oregon, to go shopping with her teenage daughters. She stayed home on Black Friday because she thought the crowds would be huge. But she was surprised by how few people were out Saturday.

1. Appeal to your followers desire
2. Truly believe in what you are saying (evolved leaders get the trust of their followers by being part of the crowd)
3. Have humility (ghandi, martin luther king) The best leader is the one that has been said to lead rather then someone who seeks it.
4. Have simplicity, be organized, and focused.
5. Never confuse passions with authority, don’t use emotion, people want someone stable.
6. Never raise your voice or lose control.
7. Be respectful to everyone. This gives you charisma

Internet Traffic

The first part of the equation, internet traffic, is possibly the most fought over and hardest part of affiliate marketing. It is best summarized as the quest to get those elusive surfers to your site. Traffic is the foundation of e-commerce and no website is successful without it. There are two fundamental ways people can find you online. The first and most popular is through a search engine.

Search Engines

When most consumers go online to find a product or service, they use a search engine. Popular search engines include Google, Yahoo, and Msn to name a few. Generally, the consumer will go one, maybe two pages deep in their search for a website they’d like to visit. Logically, the better your rank in a search engine, the more consumers that will come to your site. Because surfers won’t go 10 pages deep in a search engine’s results, site ranking is VERY competitive.

SEO

There are two ways to get ranked with a search engine. The first is referred to as SEO (search engine optimization). This is by far the most competitive (and profitable) route. Google, for instance, places a great amount of emphasis on your website’s links. The more links you have going out and coming into your website from other “like” websites, the more “relative” your site becomes. Consequently, the more relative your site is, the higher your page rank. There are numerous other ways to optimize your site for SEs. Our team will be happy to give you with this and point you to more resources.

Pay Per Click (PPC)

The second method by which a website can get ranked with a search engine is using a pay-perclick (PPC) campaign. Above, you can see the PPCs on the right side of the google page. Instead of competing for page rank, these listings pay to get listed here. PPCs are beneficial, because the owner of the ad ONLY pays when someone clicks on their listing. So you’re only paying for surfers to come to your site who’s interests were sparked by your ad.

Most PPCs allow you to write your ad and bid on different keywords of your choice. For example, if you are running a penis enlargement review site, you might choose keywords like “longer penis” or “penis extension”. You could then bid on the keywords, specifying that you’d be willing to pay $0.20 per click. Submit your ad and away you go. Again, a word of caution. If done poorly they can take you to the cleaners. A good rule is to make sure you get sales before buying PPC.

Alternative Traffic Marketing

There are virtually no limits to where you can get traffic for your website. You can set up reciprocal links with other like websites and trade traffic (this also helps your SEO). Email campaigns, as long as they are targeted and are not spam, can work well. Snail mail mailers, flyers, and traditional advertisements can also work. Just like building your site, be creative in its promotion. This helps you stand apart from the crowd and will lead to more traffic to your site.

Product Promotion

So once you have the surfer in your site, what do you do with them? Your task is to get them to want to click on the links to our sites. Different affiliate programs have different ideas on how to do this. A lot of it depends on the products or services that they offer and the site having call to actions done correctly.

Product Matching

A big part of affiliate marketing is matching the products you promote to the site you run. If you can do this well, you can convert well.

The Informative Site

The second and more successful way to market a product is to build your website around it. An example of this is a review site. This kind website is devoted to giving the surfer as much information as it can. It gives information about the different types of products available and then reviews the different products that are out there. It will usually pick one of the products (the product with the best website – OURS!) to be its number one pick. Surfers will come to your site, become educated on the subject and move on through your link to buy a product.

This type of site is successful for a few different reasons:

1) People like to shop around. This site gives them the opportunity to shop around without ever having to leave.

2) Information builds trust. The more information you have in your site, the more the surfer will perceive your site as an authority. Trust = conversions

3) Penis Enlargement, for example, is possible. However a lot of people don’t believe it. Yet, they are still perusing your site in the hopes that it is. The more informative your site is, the more likely you’ll convince them that they CAN enlarge their penis. This will lead to more sales.

4) If you slap an enlargement banner ad on a website that has no relation to penis enlargement at all, the majority of your click-trough’s will come from surfers satisfying their curiosity, not because they are genuinely interested. The informative site mitigates this and ensures only quality surfers get through.

An informative site can be built for ANY product out there. It may take a little more time than throwing a banner up on your site, but your effort will be amply rewarded.

The Psychological Sell

The following tips are meant to help you sell your surfers on the products you are reviewing. The more you pre-sell them before they get to a product site, the higher your conversions will be.

1) Identify your audience
Ask yourself who are they? Most importantly, why are they at your site? What are their fears and what are they hoping to accomplish? The answers to these questions will enable you to write your site’s text with your specific audience in mind. The more your text speaks to them, the more likely they are to buy.

2) Identify your audience’s problem and exploit it
It may sound bad, but you want to foster a feeling of insecurity in your surfers. You must include a section on the problem your surfer’s are there to fix and it’s hazards. Highlight what happens if the problem goes untreated and its detrimental affects. Convince you surfer that it is imperative that they fix this problem.

3) Assure them that their problem is treatable
Fairly self-explanatory, but let them know there is help on the way.

4) Include as much info as you can get your hands on.
The more in depth you go, the more the surfer will trust you as an authority and get lost in your site’s information.

5) Include specific information about each product you review
Again, gains trust.

6) Build their confidence
Once you have selected a product as your #1 pick, include information about it’s guarantee, the company’s reputation, etc. Shout from the rooftops why this is the best product out there. A word of caution – do not bad-mouth any product. It’s negative, amateur and unprofessional. Read “Website Development” for more website tips…

PPC Campaigns – Product Promotion the Easy Way

Reviews.

The benefit of this new system is that instead of having to build your own informative site, we’ve done it for you!
This system is now available to you to use in any way you wish. If you are using a PPC campaign, you can plug your affiliate code and special link directly into the PPC ad’s url. Surfers will click on your ad, go to our feeder site, move on to our product site, make their purchase and you will always get credit. You can also use our feeder sites as supplements to your own site. Add a link or menu option on your site and link it to our feeder. Our site will do all of the work for you by educating your surfer on our HUGE range of products. You’ll get credit on any product they buy.

Website Development

There’s no arguing it, there’s a lot that goes into developing a quality website. Hundreds if not thousands of books have been written on the topic. Here, in a “do’s and don’ts” format, we’ll give you a few of the most important features your website should incorporate.

Do’s

1) What is your mission? Every company has one and so should you. It doesn’t have to be complex, just figure out what you want to accomplish through your site. If you want to promote ClearPores with an information site, your mission could be something like this –
“Create a website that will inform consumers in a clear and concise format about how sleep works, causes of insomnia, the detrimental effects of losing sleep and include reviews and suggestions of products that are available that can help cure sleep disorders.”

2) Just like writing a paper in college, map out what you want to do first. Get a good idea of the layout of the site, where buttons and images will be located, and how you’re going to organize your information. Once you have an idea of this on paper, move onto doing the html.

3) Make information easy to get to and organized logically for your surfer. One word – usability. Nothing is more frustrating than being on a website and not knowing where to go.

4) Check out other product websites, including your competition, and see what they are doing well. The best places for website ideas are other websites.

5) Spend time on your text. Anyone who is interested in your website and wants to use it as a source of information will read your text. Make sure you spell check, grammar check, and use your words to your advantage. The text is what will sell your surfers on trusting you and using the products you recommend.

6) Post your site on forums and let other take a look at it. You’ll get some great advice on what you could do better.

Don’ts

1) Do not use too many colors. The more colors you use, the more amateur your website looks. Amateur = no trust = no conversions.

2) Do not use too many fonts, same reason as above.

3) Do not make a website that is one looooooooong page. Again, amateur.

4) Do not have HUGE blocks of text. Break up your text with key points. Use headers, bulleted points, etc. for the major statements you don’t want your readers to miss. Surfers will skim through looking for your main points and will be more likely to read your text if you spice it up and make it look interesting. Besides that, breaking up your text makes your site look better.

Alright, now you’ve got the basics. There’s a lot to know about this business and always something new to learn. It’s a dynamic marketplace and those who survive, learn to roll with the punches. Learning, changing and adapting are the keys to making it. If you’re trying something and it’s not working for you, stop, get some advice and try something else.

Copenhagen-based ad agency Bates Y&R created this realistic painting of a giant constrictor snake squeezing a city bus. Very nice. Link here.

For the past two years, there has been a fair amount of talk concerning shared sacrifice. In theory it is a reasonable concept, but in practice it is non-existent. Republicans think it is reasonable for 98% of the population to share the sacrifice so the wealthiest 2% can avoid sacrificing anything. However, there is another class of Americans who avoid sharing or sacrificing and it is high-time they start contributing to America and stop living off the government dole. As more Americans are telling the government to increase taxes on corporations and their wealthy owners to pay down the deficit, create jobs, and rebuild America’s struggling economy, a silent cult of welfare recipients escapes the public’s ire regarding shared sacrifice.

Americans are complaining that the wealthy and corporations pay too little in taxes, but at least they pay something. The religious community though, is paying nothing and it is time they start contributing to their community, state, and Federal governments for the resources they consume and damage they have wrought on this country. It is finally the time to eliminate the tax-exempt, non-profit status of every church in America whether it is the vile Southern Baptist Convention affiliates, Islamic Mosques, Jewish Tabernacles or Buddhist monasteries. At the same time, the tax code must be revised to eliminate the double-dipping statutes that allow the clergy to avoid paying the same rate of income tax as the rest of the American population. Religion has taken welfare from the American people long enough and with communities laying off fire fighters, police officers, and school teachers while struggling to make ends meet, churches of every denomination are enjoying government entitlements working Americans never receive.

There is absolutely no valid reason to give churches tax-exempt status; in fact it is unconstitutional. Religious fanatics and normal people alike give myriad reasons for why churches should not pay property tax or income tax, but they are all based on the belief that religious people are special and deserve taxpayers’ largesse. Many Americans say that churches and the clergy are doing god’s work and warrant special privileges. If they are doing god’s work, then let god give them welfare now or make them wait till they die and go wherever they think they’re going for their reward. There are other Americans who claim Christian churches deserve welfare because they are doing good work in their communities. Nurses, teachers, fire-fighters, and police officers really do good work in their communities but they are not exempt from paying their fair share in taxes.

In nearly every city in America, there are giant churches sitting on prime real-estate or agricultural land and they pay absolutely nothing in property tax even though they benefit from taxpayer-funded services like roads, law enforcement, schools, and fire protection. In most cities, when churches sponsor evangelical activities, they demand and receive police officer-assisted traffic control and often block off public streets for their events. Who pays for the police officer’s overtime pay for such events? Taxpayers foot the bill with property and sales tax dollars that they are not exempt from paying because they are not special and are not doing god’s work.

There are members of the clergy who argue that not all churches or preachers are wealthy and it is unfair to portray all churches as equal. That argument does not hold water because all taxpayers are not equal either and regardless if a family lives in a $50,000 home or a million dollar palace; they have to pay property tax based on the assessed value of their property. Some of the mega-church complexes are worth millions of dollars and they pay no taxes. Other members of the clergy argue that regardless the size of the church, they do not profit from their god-work and should be exempt from taxation. It is patently absurd that a preacher who gives one or two sermons a week, owns a home and drives a luxury car is not profiting from their work. Except for the extremely wealthy and drug dealers, there are very few Americans who have no job or visible sign of income and still own their own home or drive expensive cars. Someone is profiting from selling superstition and campaigning from the pulpit to elect conservatives who give welfare to the wealthy and religious groups. It is time to end the tax-exempt, non-profit status for these swindlers.

Any two-bit charlatan with a bible and a cross can sign a piece of paper and avoid paying taxes on the money they fleece from their congregations. The tithes and contributions from congregations are also tax-deductible because the government sees fit to give write-offs for religious contributions because churches are non-profit organizations. The clergy not only avoids paying tax on profits from their fear-mongering sermons, they get tax breaks on their income because they are…special and do god’s work? A while back, the wretched Southern Baptist Convention preacher, Rick Warren, complained that working Americans who pay no taxes want to raise taxes on 50% of Americans who do pay. Warren is a scumbag for his un-Christian hatred of the poor, plus the obscene preacher gets tax breaks working-class Americans never see, but Warren never mentioned that in his attack on the poor.

America has a revenue problem and it is unfair that churches and their clergy are not paying their share for the resources they use. In Sacramento California, the sheriff made public service announcements telling residents to arm themselves and pray if they were assaulted or robbed because the city and county had to lay-off officers because of budget cuts. Instead of revoking church’s tax-exempt status and making them pay their share of taxes, county officials issued firearm licenses so taxpayers could protect themselves. Many people claim that if churches and the clergy are not campaigning from the pulpit, they should not lose their tax-exempt status. That is nonsense because whether or not a nurse, teacher, fire-fighter, or police officer works for a political campaign, they still have to pay taxes.

Churches and the clergy have had enough welfare from taxpayers and it is time to cease the obscene non-profit, tax-exempt status. The ridiculously unconstitutional practice must stop immediately and churches should be audited and taxed retroactively from the time the church filed the non-profit form with the IRS. In communities and states, teachers, nurses, police officers, and fire fighters who actually perform a service and do good work are being laid-off while churches and the clergy get tax-exempt status and breaks for preaching fear and discrimination. The Constitution is quite clear that religion is not privileged and should not receive anything from the government; that includes exemption from paying taxes. However, as long as Americans revere the clergy and their obscene mega-churches for doing god’s work, nothing will change and that is the biggest outrage of all. It is time to correct this outrage by eliminating tax-exemption for all churches starting with Rick Warren and his mega-church for being an insensitive dirt-bag and deviant anti-tax crusader.

Credit to: http://www.politicususa.com/en/churches-taxes