This news was sure interesting and creating some controversy. Here in Canada a plan is currently being rolled out to compensate Chinese people who immigrated into Canada from 1885 to 1923. During those years, a head tax was imposed on all Chinese immigrants who wished to enter into Canada. The first fee structure was $50 per head and in 1903 that fee rose to $500. To get a sense of how much that was back then, $500 was apparently equivalent to about 2 years worth of wage for a Chinese laborer.

Of course, this is creating some controversy as since this tax was paid in a voluntarily manner, many are saying that it was a choice whether or not to enter into the country and that the head tax was simply a rule and regulation that one must agree to upon entering Canada. The flip side of course is that it was a very discriminating thing to do and so it is being recognized and dealt with now. I’ll probably be hearing more about this as time goes on, but for those who qualify you can get all of the details from the Department of Canadian Heritage site at www.canadianheritage.gc.ca or you can phone the help line at 1-888-776-8584.

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The main theme that I have been hearing from various individuals this week was how some people seem to take things for granted when they receive something financially rewarding or if they are offered a tremendous amount of support to get a business started. It boggled the mind on how you have to nag some people into treasuring or fully utilizing what is being offered to them when they should be self motivated to do things by themselves. As an example, it would be like you needing a job and then someone offered you a $30 an hour position to simply greet people at the door and yet you would constantly take it for granted by frequently showing up late for the job. The question is can you really change people like that in terms of motivating them to change for the best?

There are so many times that I have experienced this myself where I see someone struggling and so I go out of my way to help them. While they seem all motivated to start making a difference, the second I stop monitoring them in hopes that they will now start taking initiative by themselves, they simply fall back to their old habits. From my experience, the main type of circumstances that I have seen which motivates and makes people fully appreciate what they are receiving is when they have personally gone through some type of similar scenario by themselves to fully recognize and appreciate what they are getting. Basically, I don’t think that you can truly change a person but rather you can shed some light into their situation and hopefully through their own life experience they will learn to value things differently. This also makes them understand themselves as a person better which in turn also makes them realize for themselves on what motivates them in life.

Now the other way that was suggested is that you can change people’s attitude quickly by simply using fear tactics. For example, if you had a job that paid you about $200 a day to do something that you loved and your work ethic was not up to standards, simply threatening to fire or cutting your wage will make you change quickly and permanently. I actually know people who frequently do this with much success and so there is obviously some merit to this method as well.

I personally think using fear tactics to motivate people is kind of a quick fix solution as while you will probably get an immediate response, it will also bring people into a defensive mode and will cause them to be extremely resentful towards you. In most cases, I think it is better to simply guide people and let them change for themselves as people are generally motivated by different things such as opportunities to grow as a person or having the ability to have a positive impact in people’s lives. Once they discover what motivates them, then you won’t really have to do anything as they can always reflect back on why they are doing something to motivate themselves.

In some cases though like say in those reality TV shows like The Apprentice or Hell’s Kitchen where people are competing for an opportunity of a lifetime, in those types of situation I would say that having a fear of loss mentality is a constructive way to motivate people into doing things due to the circumstances. Some people even use both ways together with much success as well, so I guess we should be open minded too where you can take what is effective from both ways to help motivate people. In the end though, in my opinion if you ever have to constantly nag someone into doing something when really they should be self motivated to do it for themselves, sometimes it is best to let them be and to offer them help once they are ready.

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To start things off for this new section, here is a very common e-mail that I normally get where someone claims that they discovered some type of hidden wealth and require your assistants to claim it. Of course, they ask for your personal information to get things rolling. While it is tempting to e-mail people like these back and tell them to go the other way, it is normally advisable to just ignore it as responding to it just tells the recipient that they have a live candidate to spam even further.

__________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 04 Aug 2006 06:06:54 -0800
From: maxwelltambo103@webmail.co.za
Subject: Hello/Urgent
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am Mr MAXWELL TAMBO, Bank Manager of a Reputable bank in Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, and Republic of South Africa. I have an urgent and very confidential business proposition for you. On feb 27, 2001, a British Oil Consultant/contractor with the South African Mining Corporation, (Name deliberately with held) made a numbered time (Fixed) Deposit for twelve calendar months, valued at US$50,000,000.00 (Ffity Million Dollars) in my branch. Upon maturity, I sent a routine notification to his forwarding address but got no reply.

After a month, we sent a reminder and finally we discovered from his contract employers, the South African Mining Corporation, that the depositor died from an automobile accident. On further investigation, I found out that he died without making a WILL, and all attempts to trace his next of kin was fruitless. I therefore made further investigation and discovered that the depositor did not declare any next of kin or relations in all his official documents,US$50,00,000.00 is still sitting in my Bank and the interest is being rolled over with the principal sum at the end of each year. No one will ever come forward to claim it. According to Laws of Republic of South Africa,at the expiration of 5(five) years, the money will revert to the ownership of the South African Government if nobody applies to claim the fund. Consequently, my proposal is that I will like you as a foreigner to stand in as THE NEXT OF KIN to the depositor so that the fruits of this old man’s labour will not get into the hands of some corrupt government officials.

This is simple, I will like you to provide immediately your full names and address so that the attorney will prepare the Necessary documents and affidavits that will put you in place as the next of kin.We shall employ the services of an attorney for drafting and notarisation of the WILL and to obtain the necessary documents and letter of probate/administration in your favour for the transfer. A bank account in any part of the world that you will provide will then facilitate the transfer of this money to you as the beneficiary/next of kin.The money will be paid into your account for us to share in the ratio of 60%for me and 35% for you and 5% for any expenses that we are going to incue.There is no risk at all as all the paperwork for this transaction will be done by the attorney and my position as the Branch Manager guarantees the successful execution of this transaction. If you are interested, please reply immediately via the private email address.Upon your response, I shall then provide you with more details and relevant documents that will help you understand the transaction. Please send me your full name, confidential telephone and fax numbers for easy communication. Also, Please observe utmost confidentiality, and be rest assured that this transaction would be most profitable for both of us because I shall require your assistance to invest my share in your country.

Thanks and Regards.
Mr.Maxwell Tambo
Phone: +27 73 366 0963
Reply me via my alternative email address: maxwelltambo@myway.com
___________________________________________________________________

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Everyday it seems like I encounter some kind of offer or claim that people can make some quick fast cash by doing something that seems ridiculously simple. Everywhere from my own e-mail box to seeing postings on the Internet, surprisingly there are actually a lot of people that get suckered into these types of money making scams. With that, I always kind of wanted to keep a collection of all of the crazy offers and proposals that I have seen to hopefully help others from being taken advantage of it.

So starting today, I have added this new section to my blog and whenever I receive or encounter something that is clearly a scam, I will publish the message here. Should be interesting for everyone to see as well on the different things that some people try to do in order to take your money and personal information.

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I was reading in the paper today about how the company PropertyShark.com has created a program that uses its real estate data files that is normally meant for users to determine say the value of a certain property to create maps that show where wealthy single men and women would hang around. Right now there are mainly maps that locate single rich men with the maps being called as “man maps” and apparently maps to locate single rich women are in the works. It looks like this is a US only thing right now, so maybe I’ll be able to hear some stories in the future on how resourceful people find these types of maps to be. This must be a very good way for the company to attract new business though.

I can already imagine all of the wacky stories that can arise out of something like this as a person who would actually attempt to use these maps to find a mate has no clue whether or not the person is currently in a relationship, has a completely opposite personality and so fourth. What will people think of next?

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