China232.com Blog

Many, well actually most, economists use theories that suggest that all people are 100% “rational” or “logical” when making decisions about money.

The truth is that all people are 100% logical with money when it comes to relatively simple choices.

If you ask someone, “would you prefer I gave you $25 or $100″?  everyone would simply take the $100.  Even a total fool would know that a hundred bucks is better than less than that.  But that’s too obvious.  It’s too easy.

There are many times when people make “stupid” decisions involving money too.  They act ‘emotionally’ instead of ‘logically’.

For example, people buy different foods if they go shopping at the grocery story when they are hungry.  They are more likely to buy high calorie junk food, even if they don’t plan on eating it right away.  That’s an emotional decision.

There are also many scientific studies showing that people spend more money when they are sad.  If you show a group of people a sad scene from a movie and then ask them how much they would spend on some item, they will say MORE money than if they didn’t watch the sad movie clip first.

Marketers and advertisers take advantage of all of this human psychology when they do marketing.  They will make people feel emotional about their product, which makes them spend more money on their product than they otherwise would.

I love to believe that advertising tricks don’t work on me because I study them.  The annoying fact is that they totally do!  I’m just as much of a sucker for good advertising as anyone else.

Last night I watched a really really interesting 1 hour documentary about how psychology affects people’s decisions about spending money.  It also spoke a lot of the economic housing crash that happened in 2008.

An “economic crash” is when the economy suddenly gets very bad, very quickly.  An example is the “housing bubble”.  People believed that house prices would keep getting higher and higher, and that they would never come down.  People were buying houses like crazy and pushing the home prices up super high.  Then one day in 2008, thousands of people couldn’t sell their homes and there were suddenly no more buyers.  Home prices fell very quickly and many many people who owned homes could no longer afford to pay the banks back.  Many people, including me, believe that we are in another bubble right now and that one day within the next couple of years we’ll see another HUGE crash.  I’m not sure exactly when, but I think it’s coming.

The USA has a debt of over 17 trillion dollars!  That is over: $17 000 000 000 000 USD.  That is INSANE.  They are borrowing the money from countries all over the world (China is the biggest lender).  The US government will never be able to pay this money back, and when countries start demanding that they get their money back, we are going to see economic problems like we’ve never seen.

Some people will make a lot of money from the crash.  And people who don’t work on their skills and make sure they are in a good position to get a good job, will likely lose their jobs and be lucky if they can find a job at MacDonald’s.  So……  Another great reason to be focussing on your English (I always like to give you guys extra motivation) but I really do think this will happen.

What do you think about all of this?  Do you think marketing affects people’s financial decisions?  Do you think the world is borrowing FAR too much money and this will cause huge problems in the near future?  Do you believe that now is more important than ever to do what you can to make yourself more competitive in today’s job market?  Please share your ideas and opinions below.

I decided to put the full documentary video here in the VIP community for you guys.  I think you’ll really enjoy it.  I loved it

I was just having an email debate with some of my American friends.  To be honest, I don’t think there is a huge difference on this topic between the thinking of Canadians and Americans in general, but I personally certainly had a different opinion than many of my friends (although, I do understand their point of view)

Here’s what happened…..

There was a really important basketball game yesterday between the Miami Heat and the Indiana Pacers.  After the game, the media always interviews the players on TV.  One of the players was upset and said some “bad words”.  He wasn’t saying them directly to anyone, but he was definitely swearing when he was upset.  The player apologized later for saying the bad words.  The word that really got him into trouble was the word “homo”, which is a very negative term to describe a gay man.

He doesn’t hate gay people, just the word came out when he was angry, and he did say sorry after.

Then…..

The NBA fined him $75 000 USD.  To be honest, $75 000 is nothing for him, because the guy makes 12 million dollars a year, but still, he did have to pay this money.

The question is, “Should the player still have to pay money for saying a bad word and then apologizing?”

I personally think “NO”.  Not if it only happens once or twice.  Sometimes people say things they don’t mean when they are angry.  Then they apologize.  I don’t see the big deal if it’s not happening all the time.

Some people think it’s really terrible, and this player should pay this money for saying these words.  They think it’s very bad if some kids are watching TV at that time.  To be honest, I think I understand that point of view, but I just don’t really think it’s SO TERRIBLE if a kid hears a bad word.  They will hear these words anyway in life, and as a parent, you can just say “Those are bad words so you shouldn’t say them”.

I think the world is getting too “politically correct”.  People are too worried about saying the right thing all the time.  I think this worry makes for boring and fake people on TV.  No one can give an opinion any more without worrying about the consequences.  People are so scared to say something “bad” on TV that they “play it safe” and don’t share their real personalities, opinions, jokes, etc.  It’s like we’re forcing famous people to be like perfect little fake robots.

I hate it!  I think it’s foolish and it’s not helping society.  But I do realize that it is not a fact, but rather my opinion on the situation.  I’d love to hear your opinions below.

And I also want to point out something new and exciting.  Within the past 5 minutes, Add and I just opened up our new private English learning community.  We really hope you take a look and see if it’s right for you.  As of right now, Add and I are the only members, BUT this will grow fast and we will stop accepting members at some point.  It’s not for everyone.  If you think you might be interested, now is the time to try it out.  Looking forward to seeing you in the kick ass private community

We’ll talk to you on there.  Lot’s of awesome stuff to come on there.  Join up and see what it’s all about if it sounds interesting to you.  (I’m only about 99.9% sure you’ll love it)

This may sound like a weird topic, but I think it’s a very interesting idea.

(In case anyone didn’t know, “VS” is short for “verses” and means “compared with” or “competing with”)

My message of this blog post is this:

LEARNING ENGLISH IS NOT REALLY THE SAME THING AS LEARNING A LANGUAGE

Ok, I hope to have your attention now.  You might be thinking, “What the hell is this crazy guy talking about”?

Well, think about this.  Imagine I told you that I will start to learn Swedish.  That might be fun.  It might be interesting.  It might be a great thing for me to do.  But, I’m probably not going to do it.  (If you are Swedish, please don’t be angry with me  I chose this example because many people from Sweden are very smart and will understand this example without being offended)

Why don’t I try to learn Swedish?  Well, the thing is that there are a lot of things that I want to do in this world and I don’t have time to do them all.  There are only about 9 million Swedish people in the world, and they have a great English program already in their country.  I can communicate with many them already with using English.  For me, learning Swedish would be similar to learning a new hobby.  I could learn to play the guitar, I could learn how to cook fancy food, I could learn how to dance, I could learn a lot of things.  I might do some of these things one day, but I’m not going to right now.  We all have only 24 hours in a day and we can’t do everything we want.

Why is learning English SO different?  It might sound like I’m being unfair or something.   Well, here is the thing…

English is the world’s language.  By not having REALLY GOOD English, you are missing out on SO MUCH of what is going on in the world.  Yes!  I’m talking about making a lot more money.  But that is only part of it.  I’m talking about improving your entire life.

The purpose of learning English is NOT to learn a new language and communicate with more people.

The purpose of learning English is to JOIN THE REAL WORLD!!!!!!!!!

You might have an awesome life already, and I hope you do, but I guarantee that it will be a hell of a lot better, richer, and more interesting if you put focussing on learning English as one of the most important things you do in your life for the next few years!

You should absolutely keep your own language and never forget your culture, but it’s almost weird and ridiculous to not take English learning super seriously.  It’s absolutely possible to do it now, it’s fun, and it’s not going to cost you a fortune.  I could write a whole book about the major benefits of learning English, but I think you are smart enough to imagine what some of those are.

I’m not talking about getting to just an “ok” level.  I’m talking about totally kicking ass!  This is what we are doing here.  We are having fun, but we aren’t joking around.  We are serious about making sure your improve your English improves to the point where it makes your life (WAY better, much more interesting, much happier, and it makes MUCH more money for you)

This is not going to happen in one or two days, but it will happen if you take it seriously, and we’re here to help.  The process will be more fun than you think, the results will come faster than you could guess, and the benefits to your life will be MUCH better than you can imagine even now.

English isn’t really just a choice anymore.  It’s a total MUST in my opinion.  Some people understand this but most people don’t.  They don’t understand how important it is because they can’t see it.

Some people never leave their country for a trip, some people never leave their city for a trip, some people never even leave their town or their village in their entire lives!

They might seem happy, but they are in a little bubble.  Can you imagine if you lived in a small town and NEVER left it even one time to see what was outside?  I guess you might know people like this; people who have never been anywhere and live just a simple life of doing the same thing every day; no new thoughts, no new experiences…

I know people like this in Canada.  They don’t know how important it is for them to get out and see some of the world.  They aren’t dying so it doesn’t seem necessary.  I’m trying to say that not learning English WELL is almost like the person who has never left their little farm village.

I don’t wish to insult or judge these people.  I just want to make a point for the people reading this blog who get what I’m trying to say.  If you can read this blog, good for you! Your English is already not bad at all!  But it’s not enough.  You NEED to keep going.  If you don’t believe me, that’s fine.  I just want to make this point to give you something serious to think about.  This is my honest opinion and I truly believe that you won’t regret it if you follow this advice!

Please leave your comments below  I love reading them as always.  Do you agree with what I’m saying?  Am I making any sense?  Will this help give you more motivation to learn?  Let me know below…

And also, please remember to visit our English Video lessons every day!  We’ve got over 40 now and we’re making a new one every day, 7 days a week.  I hope you go there and watch the video.  Warning!  Your English WILL get a lot better  And also, our monthly membership part of the site will be ready soon.  We know you are gonna LOVE it!

We just made a new free podcast here.  NEW FREE CHINA232 PODCAST

The podcast is actually about Stitcher Radio.  I think you’ll like it!

This free app from Stitcher is the best way to listen to free mp3 English podcasts.

You can use the free Stitcher radio app on your ipad, iphone, Android phone, Android tablet, or Blackberry.  It’s really clean and easy to use.  Just download the free App here and enjoy the 232 lessons wherever you want in a super convenient and comfortable way.

Please watch the video below for more details.  If you can’t see Youtube in your country, Here is the link to China232 on Stitcher!

Hey guys,

Here’s another Canadian song Add and I often listen to while we’re cooking or working out. I’m not sure why we like it, but for some reason it just kind of feels good. I like the lyrics “words of the song” as well as the feeling.

The song is by “Sam Roberts”. It’s called “Brother Down”. The song was what they call a “one hit wonder”. This is a great phrase to understand in spoken English.

If a band or singer is a “One hit wonder” it means they made one and only one song during their career that got super popular.

Some bands and singers make many great and popular songs. Many bands and singers make one song almost everyone knows, and all their other stuff either sucks or just isn’t popular. I haven’t heard a lot of music from Sam Roberts, but I do know this song and I know he’s referred to as a “One hit wonder”. Here is the video of the song. Below are the lyrics. Will LOVE to hear what you think!!

One life to live but we’re doing it wrong you see
Got my brother down ’cause it’s nothing to me
Everyone’s saying that it’s wrong to cheat
But there’s no other way to get my life on easy street

Someone else telling you what you’re living for
Been knocking you down now you’re looking for more
The only sound you hear is a closing door
Been looking for peace but they’re bringing you war

Rich man crying ’cause his money is time
Poor man smiling ’cause he knows he ain’t blind
There’s a man over there says he’s tougher than me
But I got eyes that can see through fantasy

I think my life is passing me by
I think my life is passing me by

Take it all back ’cause it don’t mean nothing
If you give it away and you’re looking for something back
Wake up every morning and there’s nothing there
No reason to die but no reason to care

Someone else telling you what your living for
been knocking you down now your looking for more
The only sound you hear is a closing door
Been looking for peace but they’re bringing you war

One life to live but we’re doing it wrong you see
Got my brother down ’cause it’s nothing to me
Rich man crying crying cause his money is time
Poor man smiling cause he knows he ain’t blind

I think my life is passing me by
I think my life is passing me by

One life to live but we’re doing it wrong you see