Frequently Asked Questions

The ads you see on ChrisMartenson.com do not necessarily reflect our views, but we do rely on the revenue they generate. At this time we are using Google AdSense to manage the ads shown on our site.  We do not condone or encourage any particular ads. Google uses their own automated technology to determine what types of ads they think will be a good fit for our site.  While we would prefer that no political or religious ads appear on our site, we cannot categorically block ads.

We can choose to block individual URLs if we are aware of them, but we have no way of knowing about them until they pop up on the site and we happen to see them or someone brings them to our attention. If you see an ad that you feel our readership would find offensive, please share with us the destination URL listed beneath the ad so that we can consider blocking it.  Once we have blocked an ad, it may take several hours to be removed from our site, so please be patient.  Thank you for your understanding.

At this time we are using Google AdSense to manage the ads shown on our site.  We have just begun using Google Ads, but it is our understanding that it will soon be possible to target advertising directly at ChrisMartenson.com using Google AdWords. Please contact us if you would like to receive more information about this when it becomes available.

We also intend to invite direct advertising on ChrisMartenson.com in the future.  We are currently working toward making dedicated ad space available to advertisers, but that option is not available at this time.

Chris and the team are currently working hard to produce a DVD as quickly as possible, and we also intend to invest in reproducing/loading in a variety of other formats. We are committed to continuing to offer the Crash Course online for free, and some of these alternate formats will also be free.  An announcement will be made on the website when other formats are available.

You should be able to watch the Crash Course on a Pocket PC/Mobile Phone, but you may need to download and install Flash Lite on the device first.

Click this link to view a threaded conversation about Flash for Mobile devices on Adobe's site.  Also here is a page to download Flash Lite for Windows Mobile: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/devices/wm.html

Occasionally we have visitors mention they are having issues viewing one of the Crash Course chapters.  The issues are not specific to any one given chapter, and most often the problems have to do with browser issues, computer processing/memory, or speed of Internet connection. The current Crash Course format provides a rich viewing experience with high-quality video, but the size of the videos has been known to cause viewing issues for some visitors.

The problem can typically be solved by performing one or more of the following:

• Clear the browser cache.  Some information in the cache may have corrupted the video download.
• Close all instances of the browser and restart.  Often the video will not be displayed in this situation because the browser is using too much computer memory.  This might be because the video is competing for memory with another web page, or the viewer has multiple chapters running in multiple windows at the same time.
• Avoid using "embedded" browsers, such as the browser which comes with AOL.  Instead, access the Internet using a fully functional browser such as Firefox or Internet Explorer.
• Reboot the computer.  Sometimes a program running in the operating system might be causing a conflict with the video.
• Attempt to watch the video with a different Internet connection.  We have had situations where the viewer's Internet connection is either having problems, or just not powerful enough to watch the videos.  He or she was then able to see the video when they took their computer to a coffee shop and connected to the shop's wireless Internet connection.
• Attempt to watch the video on a different computer.  Try on your computer at work, or on a friend's computer.  Some older computers may not have the processing power or memory capacity to handle multiple videos running at once.

We are glad to have offers of help from people who are interested in translating the Crash Course into another language.  We have had several such offers and hope that before long we will be able to provide Crash Course translations in French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, and several other languages.  If you would be willing to take on the task of translating the Crash Course into another language, we would appreciate your help.  Please contact us for more information.

In creating the Crash Course, Chris generally used only what most people would call “Grade-A’ sources for the data.  Some examples of sources used:

• All monetary, bank reserve, and interest rate data comes from the St. Louis Fed.
• All oil production and discovery data comes from the DOE (Tonto).
• Housing bubble data comes from a variety of sources, including OFHEO, BLS, CENSUS, Robert Shiller, Robert Prechter (historical bubble examples).
• Population data comes from the UN (future) and Wikipedia (historical).
• All national debt figures come from the US Treasury Department.
• Much of the data on household debt, credit market growth, etc, comes from the Federal Reserve Z.1 report.
• To fill in a lot of the gaps and to simplify some of the data searching, Chris used economagic.com, and they use only “official” sources.
• Inflation data comes from the BLS, except for the counter-argument data, which, as noted in the presentation, comes from John Williams at Shadowstats.
• ALL of the demonstration graphs (e.g., ore body % and mine waste) were created by Chris in Excel.

First, be sure to watch Crash Course: Chapter 20.  Downloadable self-assessment materials are available if you click on “Act” on the homepage.  For more information on what you can do to protect yourself from the effects of the present and future economic storm, you can find information on the Planning Guides pages as well as in past Martenson Reports. 

We understand that this is a big question for many people, ourselves included.  We are currently working on developing more site content that will directly address this question.

Yes, of course!  We encourage anyone and everyone to link to the Crash
Course wherever you feel it is appropriate.  This is the heart of our
viral marketing strategy, and by linking to the Crash Course, you help
play a critical role in spreading the word.  So please do, and thanks!

Absolutely!  In fact, we strongly encourage it.  If you would like to use all or part of the existing Crash Course in a presentation, you may.  However, you may not alter the Crash Course content for this or any other purpose without specific permission.

Chris asks three things in return:  First, to be given credit for his work; second, to have his URL (ChrisMartenson.com) included as part of your presentation, and third, that he be provided with feedback on how well-received the materials were.  Thank you for helping to spread Chris' message.

In order to protect the integrity of Chris’ message, we cannot allow others to modify the content of the Crash Course.  We are currently working on a 42-minute version of the Crash Course for use on television and will make it available as soon as possible.  You are welcome to use the existing version as-is.  If you would like to make your specific needs known so that we can consider them as we plan future offerings, please contact us.  Thank you for your understanding.

We regret that we are unable to give refunds of any kind. Chris Martenson has devoted five full-time years of his life to developing the content on this site while supporting his family exclusively from his personal savings. The subscriptions and donations received by ChrisMartenson.com are applied toward site maintenance and projects that benefit site readers. Chris is passionately devoted to making as much of this information free to the public as possible while drawing enough financial support to keep the site running. We simply do not have the resources to process refunds.

We hope and anticipate that ChrisMartenson.com will continue for as long as its message is needed, and we feel the message will be valid for a very long time. By subscribing, you are agreeing to our no-refund policy and accepting the risk that, should the site become financially unviable, your subscription might end prematurely. We will do everything possible to prevent this situation but want to be clear about this possibility so that you can make an informed choice when purchasing a subscription. Thank you for your understanding.

SITE RULES AND POSTING GUIDELINES

ChrisMartenson.com provides an exchange of information and entertainment for those interested in the Three “E”s. The site is for learning about our global condition, staying current, and acting on that information.

Chris has invested a lot into this site, and many others are volunteering their valuable skills and time to continually improve the site’s quality. We offer these benefits out of the greatest respect for our readers, and we deserve the very highest level of respect in return.

We expect that this respect will be reflected in the tone and content of readers’ comments on the site. We will defend our right to keep the quality of the site as high as possible. In the interest of ensuring this level of quality, we have spelled out a few rules, understandings, and expectations.

OUR EXPECTATIONS

We expect people to maintain the same level of civility in posting that they would use with their words at the dinner table at a wedding. Before drinks are served.

In a community, social courtesies are observed, just as at a physical gathering. One doesn't monopolize the conversation, pound the table about a single point till others' eyes glaze over, or spew patently offensive slurs. Tactfulness is a reasonable expectation within a voluntary community. We expect and require courteous interactions on the Forums.

RULES

Play nice.

GUIDING PRINCIPLES

Integrity
Accuracy
Post only what you’d say in person
Use facts to state your case
Offer solutions, not just problems

GUIDELINES

For posts that stray outside of our admittedly subjective boundary lines, we reserve the right to modify or even remove any given post to conform to our definition of “acceptable posting.”

Please avoid any of the following:

• Personal attacks.
• Posts which are in violation of any law or openly advocate breaking the law.
• Posts containing information known to be false.
• Posts violating copyright laws.
• Hateful, taunting, violent, or harassing posts.
• Posts which are invasive of personal privacy.
• Posts containing any language not suitable for all audiences or that would trigger a corporate firewall or cause responsible parents to block us out. This includes all swear words.

Please be sure to always:

• Include a link to the source for any posted material. A snip and a link, please. Do not post entire articles.

We really don’t want to remove anyone’s posts or censor anyone’s words, and it is a very, very rare event for us, but we need to make sure this community stays focused on the reasons we are here. Please be responsible for your words and do your best to ensure that none of your own posts ever need to be removed. Thank you for your understanding.

CONSEQUENCES

• 1st offense – A warning will be issued and the offending post(s) will be modified/removed.
• 2nd offense – The user will be suspended from posting for seven days.
• 3rd offense – The user will be permanently banned from posting on the site.

OFF LIMITS

We are not currently pre-banning any topics as long as the discussion adheres to the rules and guidelines above. If certain subjects veer off of the mission and purpose of this site, or create excessive moderation duties for our limited staff, we reserve the right to remove any topics or posts from current or future discussion.

YOUR HELP IS NEEDED

We can’t be everywhere at once. If you encounter a post that crosses a line, please click on the "alert moderator" button at the bottom of the post to let us know immediately. Please give us specific information about why you are flagging the item so that we can take action if it is warranted. Thanks.

We are a very small team and are working very hard to make critical changes and improvements to the site while preparing for future ventures, such as the upcoming DVD. Chris himself is spending every available moment working on upcoming projects, keeping his finger on the pulse of the market, continuing to offer blog posts and Martenson reports, and providing occasional forum input. We hope this effort will be appreciated by readers. You may also want to post your question on the site in the Site Feedback and Comments forum so that other community members can offer helpful input.

Chris is not able to respond personally to every message he receives, but he is encouraged to know that readers are seeking more information on the issues. Suggestions for site improvement or blog topics are also welcome. You may also want to post your suggestion on the site in the Site Feedback and Comments forum so that others can discuss it and offer feedback as well.

While Chris is not able to respond personally to all of the email he receives, he is always grateful for tips from astute readers. You may want to post your link on the site in the Current News & Events forum so that others can discuss it.  Subscribers also receive privileged access to an inner Subscribers-Only forum, where Chris personally answers questions and discusses the issues. The Subscribers-Only forum is also a great place to get Chris’ attention about current news.

Simply send us an e-mail and let us know how you feel!  Chris works hard to help people and finds it encouraging knowing that his efforts are appreciated.  He especially appreciates hearing how his work has been meaningful to individuals.  If we feel your testimonial is one others would find helpful, we will post it on the Testimonials page (with minimal editing for grammar and punctuation).

At this time there is no simple way to extend the length of your subscription when renewing. We hope to be able to offer this option in the future, but until then, there are two options to consider:

First, you can wait until your subscription expires and then resubscribe for a different length of time using the Subscribe Today button. This option is only available after expiration, and you will not even see it on your screen during the time your subscription is current. When you resubscribe, your subscription access will be immediately reinstated (assuming proper payment information is provided).

Second, you can click "renew" while your subscription is still active, then click the "shopping cart" link while on the checkout page. This takes you to a page that will allow you to add multiple subscriptions to your account, provided they are of the same term length as your current subscription. You will need to contact us immediately so that we can extend your subscription for the proper length of time and refund any discount that may apply to the length of time your subscription covers.

For example, you might have recently subscribed for one month, but now you want to upgrade to a one-year subscription. Your current account can only be renewed in one-month increments, so you choose a quantity of "12" for an invoice total of $360. You promptly e-mail us to let us know, and we make sure your subscription is extended for the 12 months AND refund the $60 that you would have saved had you purchased a one-year subscription for $300. This allows you to upgrade your subscription length without waiting for your account to expire first. Just be sure to communicate with us if you choose this option.

We are doing our best to meet subscriber needs with limited resources, and we appreciate your understanding as we address needed changes over time. Thanks.

The Martenson Reports and Martenson Summaries that are available with a subscription are all in print form. There is currently no information exclusively for subscribers that comes in video form, although there are plans for future chapters of the Crash Course that may be available only for subscribers.

Renewals must be made manually, as we cannot currently offer automatic subscription renewal. There are two ways to renew your subscription, depending on when you are renewing.

If you currently have an active subscription, do this

1. Make sure you are logged in.
2. At the top of any page, click on "My Account."
3. You will see a series of gray tabs. Click on the rightmost tab, "Subscriptions."
4. On the right-hand side, click "Renew" and follow the instructions.

If your subscription has already expired, do this:

1. Make sure you are logged in.
2. Click on the "Subscribe Today" button at the top, along the sidebar of any page.
3. Follow the instructions and your account will be reinstated.

If you would like to renew for a different length of time than your current subscription, there is more information here.

We cannot currently offer auto-renewals. You are right, we did offer automatic renewals in the past. Unfortunately, it has recently become clear to us that our auto-renewal function still does not meet our specifications, and we have found it necessary to disable it.

Your subscription will not (and cannot) be automatically renewed, even if you have previously had your account auto-renewed. There is an "auto-renew" option listed under the Subscription options (when your subscription is current), but it doesn't work right now. In the future, you will receive a reminder notice with current renewal instructions seven days before your account expires, and you will need to personally renew your account at that time.

If your subscription has not yet expired, you can renew by clicking on the "Renew" link in the "Product Subscriptions" area of the "My Account" page. If your subscription has already expired, you will need to resubscribe by clicking on the yellow "Subscribe Today" button after the original subscription expires. (If your subscription is still current, you will not see this yellow button.)

There are currently three ways you can donate money to support
Chris’ work.  We can accept donations by Paypal, credit card, or
check/money order.  For more information, click here.

You have our word that we will never sell your info or use it for
anything that is not related to ChrisMartenson.com.  We value the
integrity of our own personal information and take the same care with
your information that we take with our own.

Yes.  You can send PayPal subscriptions to Chris@ChrisMartenson.com or use the Donate button  If you want to mail us a payment by check or money order, please make it payable to Chris Martenson and mail it to PO Box 903, Montague, MA, 01351

If your payment is for a subscription, please indicate “Subscription Payment” as the subject, and be sure to include your username and/or the e-mail address that is associated with your user registration so that we can properly credit your subscription to your account.   We will activate or renew your subscription after your payment has been received.

If you have had trouble getting your subscription process completed, it may be due to a credit card error.  There are a few common problems that could be the culprit.  First, make sure that your name and address are entered exactly as they appear on your credit card statement.  Next, please make sure you have correctly entered the CVV code – this is a common cause of transaction failure.

If you are a customer located outside of the United States, your address will need to be entered in the standard format used in your country. For help in determining this format, you may find the following websites helpful: http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/postal.html and/or http://www.bitboost.com/ref/international-address-formats.html.

Sometimes during the subscription process, a credit card company
will show the transaction related to one
subscription twice.  While the transaction is still pending, you might see
two (or more) incidences of the transaction in your account register. 
Rest assured that when the status of this transaction changes from
“pending” to “completed” – something that is done internally by your
credit card company – the extraneous incidences will disappear and you
will see that you were only charged once for your subscription.  So if
the status on those multiple transactions is pending, please wait a
day or so and check again.  If you find that your credit register
contains multiple completed (not pending) duplicate transactions,
then you should contact us to sort it out.  Thanks.

We understand that some readers do not have the resources to subscribe.  We are considering future changes to our subscription offerings that would address this.  If he could, Chris would give all his services away for free to everyone who was interested in his work. 

Unfortunately, this is not realistic, as the site is costing him thousands of dollars to run, he has supported it almost completely out-of-pocket for the past four years, and he isn't drawing any profit from it, despite working more than fulltime on the site and his cause.  And we just upgraded to a faster, dedicated server, which will increase running costs but will provide more appropriate capacity to meet the needs of site readers.

Subscribers receive access to more extensive site content than non-subscribers, including special in-depth reports and  guides, and to special features such as the Subscribers-Only forum, where Chris personally participates in discussing the issues.  Chris remains generously committed to keeping the entire Crash Course free and available to everyone, along with the other fundamental features of the site. 

Please check to see if you are logged in to the site.  If you are, you will see in the upper left corner language which states, "You are logged in as <your username>."  If you are not logged in, please do so to gain access to the reports.

Often an announcement will be placed on the home page of the site letting everyone know a new Martenson Report is available.  This announcement is not the report itself, just an informational notice.  To access the actual reports, visit the Martenson Reports home page by clicking here.

One other consideration is your subscription may have recently expired.  To see if you have a current subscription, select "My Account > My Subscription" from the top navigation menu bar when you are logged in to the site.

We're very confident about the stability of the platform we are using. We fully understand how it works, and despite its limitations there is no question in our minds that it is stable. We are working toward providing a greater complement of functionality to make things easier for subscribers and administrators. We appreciate your understanding that these things take time.

A few email clients have rather strict policies in regards to spam and will automatically place any unknown sender in your spam folder. Yahoo Mail is quite notorious for putting valid emails into spam.

To ensure that you receive all of our emails in your inbox, we recommend adding three email address in your email client's address book. When email addresses are added to your address book, you are effectively telling email delivery systems that you consider the sender to be a valid source from which you want to receive messages.

Create new contacts in your email program as you typically would. Add one contact with an email address of "info@chrismartenson.com," a second with an email address of "support@chrismartenson.com," and a third with an email address of chris@chrismartenson.com." By doing so, you will be sure to receive every important newsletter, email, alert, and support message from the site.

When you view your e-mail, are you viewing it as HTML or plain-text? If you are currently viewing in plain-text, try changing that setting to HTML. Viewing the e-mail in HTML should fix the problem. You may want to adjust your settings so that all incoming mail is read as HTML If you still have trouble, please tell us what email client and operating system you are using, and we will try to help.

We are currently working to remedy this issue by changing our outgoing e-mails so that they can be read properly in all formats.

At this time we do not support beta software such as Google Chrome. We do plan to look into this more in the future, but this is our current policy. We suggest the use of Firefox or Internet Explorer if you are seeking a more broadly available browser option. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Please perform the following steps:

• Select "My Account > Edit My Profile" from the menu bar.
• Scroll down to the "Contact Settings" section.
• Select the checkbox for "Personal contact form."
• Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click "Submit."

This will place an email icon underneath your picture on all posts throughout the site. (You won't see an icon under your picture, because you cannot send an email to yourself.) Other registered members will be able to click this icon, which will take them to a page where they can send an email.

Please note, your email address is not displayed to others during this entire process. Only if you decide to respond to the person directly by email will your address be revealed to them.

It's because you're attempting to copy from Microsoft Word to an Internet page. We use a rich text editor for formatting. The rich text editor is the box you type in that has the buttons on the top for options such as bullet point, bold, italic, etc. Performing a direct copy/paste from Microsoft Word can cause extra Microsoft code to show up on the page.

There are two options:

• Use the button on the top that looks like a little Microsoft Word icon.  If you hover over it, it says "Paste from Word." Click the button and paste your text into that window. Click "Insert" when done.
• If you're still having problems, you can use the button next to it, which has a little icon that has a "T" on it.  When you hover over the button, it says "Paste as Plain Text." Do the same thing...click the button, then paste your text into the window. Click "Insert" when done.

One of those two should work, but a third option would be to disable the rich text editor completely by clicking the "disable rich-text" link right beneath the entry field. You can paste your text in this field, but it will lack formatting without adding basic HTML tags.

We can issue you a temporary password if you follow these instructions:

1. Click on the "New Password" link at the top of the homepage. If you're already on the Login page, there is a "New Password" tab that you can click on instead.
2. Enter your username or the e-mail address associated with your account.
3. A temporary password will be e-mailed to that address. This password will expire after one day.  If you don't receive a message from us containing a temporary password, be sure to check your Junk Mail folder or your spam folder to see if it was filtered out by your spam filter.  You may need to make sure your spam filter is set to allow messages from "support@chrismartenson.com."

When you have received your temporary password, you should log into your account and change your password to a new one that you will remember. Here is how:

1. Click the "Secure Login" link at the top of the homepage.
2. Enter your username and temporary password.
3. After you have logged in, select "My Account > Edit My Profile" from the navigation bar to access your user profile edit page.
4. Enter a new password for yourself in the field titled "Password."
5. Confirm your password by re-entering your new password in the field titled "Confirm Password."
6. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click "Submit."
7. Write your password somewhere as a reminder for the future.

On occasion, some users may receive a blank page when attempting to view the site. This is fairly uncommon, but when it does happen can be quite frustrating. In most situations, it has to do with a firewall blocking the website, or a local Internet Service Provider (ISP) not updating their cache frequently enough to see site changes.

The list below provides some suggestions of what to do if this problem occurs:

• First, try reloading the page.  Sometimes this is all that is needed.
• Temporarily turn off your computer's firewall, and see if you can then view the site. Sometimes firewall settings can be so restrictive that valid websites are also blocked.
• Clear your computer's cache. This can be done by selecting "Clear Private Data" within the Tools menu of Firefox, or by selecting "Delete Browsing History" under the Tools menu on Internet Explorer.
• Use traceroute (http://www.traceroute.org/#USA) to see if you can notice anything odd in the connection between your computer and our server (174.133.161.183).  Sometimes you might be able to see the jump point where the connection breaks.
• Contact your ISP to ask them about connectivity to 174.133.161.183, and caching of 174.133.161.183 server content.  We have seen a number of situations with smaller ISPs where they do not refresh their caches often enough, and the site is briefly not visible.
• Ask your ISP if they have any policies in place for blocking certain websites.
• Ask a friend, family member, or neighbor to go to the site and see if they are able to access it.  This can help to determine if it is more of a local issue or something more specific to your ISP.
• If you have a laptop, take it to a local coffee shop to see if you can connect to the site through their wireless Internet connection.
• If you work in an office with computers, try accessing the site from work.  This can at least narrow the problem to either a hardware or connectivity issue.

At this time we do not allow forum contributions to be edited after they are posted.

Chris agrees with the many website experts who believe that original forum posts (and comments) should not be editable once they are posted. The thought is if someone changes the original post, it may make the entire thread irrelevant, and users will have a hard time understanding the other posts in the thread.

We appreciate your desire to make your post more readable. You may want to make an extra effort to hit preview your words carefully before you hit post. Thank you for understanding.

Yes. First. make sure you are logged in. Click on "My Account" at the top of the page, then click on the "Track" tab.  You'll see a list of all the comments, forum posts, and replies that you have made on the site.

Many people access this site from work.  Whether or not we agree, many work places have content filters that will ban a site based on certain words. Swear words and hate language are two types of content that can get this site on a ban list.

To be fair to the people who might check in at ChrisMartenson.com while at work, and to ensure the accessibility of our message, we need to ask that everyone refrain from using this type of language.  In the event that we find such language, we may modify it.  If the post in question is completely irreparable, we may remove it. 

We hope you will understand why this is necessary.

If attempting to add a link with the rich-text editor enabled, it is necessary to highlight the text to be turned into a link, then click the icon above which looks like a "chain link".  A window will then pop up which allows entry of the URL to be referenced. If "<a href="http://www.chrismartenson.com">link</a>" is written in the rich-text editor, it will be displayed as text, not a link. 

The reason it works this way is the text editor doesn't know if the commenter wants to create a link, or if a comment post is in regards to HTML programming and the goal is to display the actual written code.  This approach allows for both to be included.

Second, it is possible to have "<a href="http://www.chrismartenson.com">link</a>" recognized automatically as a link, but only if the rich-text editor is disabled, and if the URL is prefixed with "http://".  The editor can be disabled by clicking the "disable rich-text" link below any entry field.

There is a known bug with using Safari and the rich-text editor.

If you use Safari, you have one of two options: (a) disable the rich-text editor and type the HTML directly (by clicking the "disable rich-text" link below the text entry field), or (b) use an alternate browser such as Firefox (recommended) or Camino.

Right now the best way you can help is to spread the word by telling others about ChrisMartenson.com and the Crash Course.  We also need to make people aware that we depend on the support of subscribers and donors to make it possible for Chris to do this work.

We know there are a lot of you who have time, energy, and skills to offer that could be useful in specific ways to help further ChrisMartenson.com, the Crash Course, and Chris’ message.  If you would like to contribute in this way, please email us with a description of what you could do for us.  We keep all volunteer offers on file and will contact you if we have need of someone with your skills and interest. 

From time to time, when we have a project we need to recruit volunteers for, we will post a notice in the blog, so stay tuned.  ChrisMartenson.com is run mostly by volunteers at this point, and we are sincerely grateful for all of the offers of help we have receive, whether or not we are in a position to take advantage of them at this time.