tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32408312149500362082024-03-12T23:03:15.915-07:00sport car conceptauto carshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04084381509422256633noreply@blogger.comBlogger501125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3240831214950036208.post-48224787346295786812013-04-12T20:10:00.005-07:002013-04-12T20:10:32.006-07:00Renault Captur Review<div style="text-align: justify;">
Renault captur review <br /><br />2013 <a href="http://www.protocars.com/renault-captur-revealed/">renault captur</a> – the captur is constructed on constant platform that underpins the newest renault muse and as such the nissan juke. It measures four, 120mm long, making it longer in comparison to the 3, 986mm muse but slightly shorter in comparison to the four, 135mm juke. <br /><br />Designed beneath the management of renault’s styling boss american revolutionary leader van den acker, the captur is represented by renault’s very little automotive product boss, benoit bochard, just like a “compact, unaggressive crossover that's particularly user-friendly”. <br />Exterior and interior of renault captur <br /><br /><a href="http://katielikestotakepictures.blogspot.com/2013/04/2013-renault-captur-review.html">2013 renault captur revealed </a><br />the new renault captur features “smooth, fluid, balanced forms” with design components galvanized from the concept version, such as the front fascia which cool forward position on your steeply raked windscreen. The new captur will surely be offered with an original two-tone color theme, combined with large-diameter wheels and sill guards. <br /><br />The new crossover measures 4. 12 meters in length ( 157. 5 inches ), thus it offers a generous interior house, a high-up driving position, giant cargo space, modular interior and innovative stowage solutions. <br /><br />The new captur offers a mix of colours and motifs, therefore the cabin is warm and relaxing. As normal equipment, the crossover can provide hands-free entry, hill begin assist and rear parking sensors. For anyone customers that need to any customize their model, renault also will provide connected, in-dash renault r-link touchscreen multimedia pill, plus a system that comprises six loudspeakers, bluetooth connectivity, audio-streaming and arkamys hi-fi sound. <br />Engine lineup of renault captur <br /><br />beneath the hood, renault can place a selection of each petrol and diesel engines, combined along with the terribly latest renault technologies. Final specifications will surely be unveiled throughout the car’s debut in geneva, however renault has promised the new crossover can come back best-in-class fuel consumption and co2 emissions, beginning from as low as 96g/km. <br />Prices <br /><br />the new renault captur can build its world debut along at the geneva motor show, with sales out to begin later within the summer. Prices will surely be announced with a later date. <br /><br /><b>Competition </b><br />renault developed their new captur as direct competition for nissan juke. In europe, the nissan model is offered with the use of a selection of 1 diesel and 2 a regular. 6-liter gas-burning units, with power ranging from a hundred and ten horsepower out to 190 horsepower. <br /><br />Despite its bulky exterior look, the juke has stolen the hearts of several european customers and therefore the new captur can have out to attempt terribly arduous if it desires to turn into a success that you can purchase.<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03014701069369446029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3240831214950036208.post-36378758343001332602012-12-31T11:28:00.000-08:002013-03-13T00:19:44.540-07:00Last Post<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/JvfG9uFswis?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe> </div> <div style="text-align: center;"><i>When you set out to do what you wanted to do, it is time to stop.</i></div><br />I have enjoyed writing this blog over the last four years. But like all good things, it has to come to an end. I have been writing this blog since November 2008 - almost 2000 posts at this point. It is time to call it a day. Why? A number of reasons.<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">1. I did what I set out to do, and I'm done.<br /><br />2. The bog has become a bit of a time-bandit for me.<br /><br />3. The postings are becoming repetitive and redundant.<br /><br />4. I am not sure my message is getting across - or could get across - due to human nature.</blockquote><br />This last reason is most troubling. The transformation I have gone through in the last five years has not been some sudden revelation on my part, but rather, I think, a transformative change that occurs in most people as they reach a certain stage and age in life. It does not occur in everybody, or at the same age, of course. Many folks never end up "getting it" and go to their graves as angry and destitute middle-class people. <br /><br />But I think when you reach a certain age, and face retirement and death in the face, you realize that life isn't what you thought it was at age 20, or even age 40. And for many people, this becomes a "mid-life crises" where they get a divorce and <i>spend even more money</i>. But for others, it is a time for taking stock and realizing that the party doesn't go on forever, and what's more, that in a very short time, the earning years will end - and that is a good thing. I don't want to work forever. Or if I do, I want it to be a <i>personal choice</i> not something forced upon me.<br /><br />If you try to tell a 20-something that spending all their income on pot, beer, cars, cell phones, and other bling is just a stupid waste of money and net worth, you are shouting to deaf ears. Kids want toys, and being "adults" for the first time in their lives, they want to drink deep from the well of life - even if it means <i>borrowing from their future self to do it</i>. They set themselves up for misery later in life and there ain't much that can be done about it.<br /><br />And when that misery kicks in, at age 30 to 40 - when it seems that they <i>never will get out of debt</i>, and no matter how hard they work, they never seem to get ahead - they will blame others rather than look inward at their own malfeasance. It is Wall Street's fault! It is the Big Corporations! Nothing you can say will convince them that their credit card debt was a result of their own <i>life choices</i> - chasing after frequent flyer miles instead of low interest rates. And their four years of Party U. that was paid for by student loans? Has to be someone else's fault - along with that onerous "funny money" mortgage they signed.<i> Right?</i><br /><br />It is simple human nature. It isn't about to change. A very few people might "get it" - but not many. I know I didn't, until about age 50. I thought, like most Americans, that chasing after "things" was the point in life, and that having nice stuff meant you were wealthy. <i>I was wrong</i>.<br /><br />A reader e-mailed me when I announced I was ending the blog and said, "Congratulations for not falling into the blog trap!" which I thought was an interesting comment. <i>A blog can be a trap</i> - a time bandit that sucks up all your energy and starts to lose focus. And after a while, it just peters out - as so many do that I have seen - and people forget about them or abandon them. Better to leave intentionally than to just give up. Better to <i>leave on a high note</i>, as Seinfeld would say.<br /><br />And who knows? Maybe I can organize and revise these better postings into a more coherent narrative and put them into e-Book on Amazon or something. It would be a better use of my time. I did not "monetize" this blog as the sorts of side-bar ads that would appear would be for the worst sort of odious deals that I rail against. And that is one thing I am proud of. This blog, for better or worse, is not just some <i>Search Engine Optimized</i> "content" designed to generate click-through revenue - like so much of the crap on the Internet today. And I may revisit some of these postings and "polish them up" a bit, correct typos and misspellings, dead links, and whatnot.<br /><br />Writing this blog has improved my writing skills and typing ability, both of which were no slouches to begin with. While I could do about 60-80 wpm before, I am hitting 100 wpm on occasion, and fully "touch-typing" today, not looking at the keyboard at all. It is helpful for my career, which involves a lot of writing.<br /><i><br /></i><i>But what about the journey, and what have I accomplished?</i> When I started this blog, I was in debt. I had been in debt a lot, having well over a million dollars in mortgage debt at one time. But that was for investment properties, most of which I sold before the market crash (my office building sold in 2008, after the crash, but I still realized a $400,00 capital gain from that, which is rally what precipitated the crises that started me down this road).<br /><br />I realized that I made a lot of money in life - millions in fact. Most people do, even at a $50,000 a year job, you will make over a million dollars by the time you retire. But where did it all go? Here I was, 48 years old, having made a ton of money and <i>still in debt</i>. I had a mortgage on my home, another on my vacation home, and thanks to a capital gains fiasco, I had a $40,000 credit card bill to pay off.<br /><br />At the same time, I owned two boats, five cars, a jeep, an RV, an antique tractor, and a host of other "things" all of which were very nice things, and were "paid for" but were in fact costing me money. The taxes alone on my two homes were costing me $10,000 a year. I was spending another $5000 a year on homeowner's insurance. I was paying $500 a month on life insurance policies. I was still making the final payments on my student loans! And I was paying for two internet connections, landlines, cell phones - all sorts of stuff.<br /><br />And foolishly, I did not rent out my vacation home to help cover some of these costs.<br /><br /><i>That is where the money all went</i>. It went to lots of little expenses, lots of little purchases, and a lot to interest payments on credit cards and mortgages.<br /><br />And then of course, the market crashed. My income dropped as the economy collapsed. While I had a good amount in savings, I saw much of this cut in half by the recession. And while I could "keep all the balls in the air" with a high income, as my income declined, it became readily apparent that I was burning through savings to pay expenses.<br /><br />Something had to be done - and should have been done a long time ago. I realized that while I could "afford" fancy cars and vacation homes and boats, having all of them at once was just too much. And it was too much work, as well. Mowing five acres of lawn took hours every week. And changing the oil on five cars? Winterizing two homes and two boats? Forgetaboutit! I realized that I was a slave to possessions - they owned me, I didn't own them.<br /><br />It is possible, in this country, to live the life of what in the past would have been a rich man, on a middle-class salary today. But maintaining all that sort of stuff is where it all breaks down. Really rich folks can afford to hire people to paint their mansions and maintain their fancy cars. When we have to pay someone to do these things, that is where we run out of money.<br /><br />I started by cutting expenses - to the bone. I cut my homeowner's insurance costs in half, merely by shopping around and going to higher deductibles and lower coverage. I cut my life insurance down to zero by converting policies to paid-up status (and they now <i>pay me</i> every year instead). I shopped our cell plan, our landline, our internet services. I looked at every area of spending - our food, our clothing, our utility bills. And I realized that there was no one area of "waste" in my life, but rather a lot of spending a little too much here and a little too much there, that added up to a lot of money over time. You stop watching the little things and they become large things in short order.<br /><br />Just saving $10 a day, for example, adds up to $3650 a year, which if invested, would be a couple hundred thousand in retirement. And for most folks, this "sacrifice" might mean little more than packing your own lunch or not buying a Starbucks. And yet many middle class people say they can't afford to save!<br /><br />And credit cards! I got rid of the high-interest-rate ones and rolled them over into low-rate cards and then paid them off. It was difficult, and it took years to bring the balance down. How I allowed myself to get into that debacle, still eludes me. What was I thinking, signing a loan document at 14.5%? <br /><br />I tried early on to save my lifestyle - which proved to be pointless. While I was able to cut costs, the expense of owning so much "stuff" was still considerable. Cars need repairs over time. Antique Tractors strip a camshaft gear. And while I always wanted to rebuild a flathead Ford, it is better to do such things at a time and place of your own choosing, rather than to be forced to do it as the lawn gets higher and higher.<br /><br />But pride goeth before the fall. And we see this all the time in the recent meltdown - people wanting to hang on to upside-down mini-mansions and luxury cars, rather than be perceived as "giving up" by their neighbors. We see this all the time here on Retirement Island - people getting reverse mortgages so they can "hang onto their homes" even if they really would rather downsize to something simpler and easier to maintain as they get older. The reason? They don't want to be embarrassed in front of people <i>they don't even know or care about</i> and be perceived as "poor".<br /><br />Myself, after owning eight homes over the years, realize that a house is just that - a house. And since none of the houses I owned were Frank Lloyd Wright homes, they were not worthwhile making into showplace estates. You can make the perfect lawn - as my neighbors have done - but who really cares that you have made a bland and inoffensive tract home look tidy? No one. And yet that will be the epitaph of many an older man - "He had a really nice lawn."<br /><br />We were growing tired of maintaining two homes, too. It was a lot of work. And frankly, while it is fun to go on vacation, it is not necessarily fun to go on vacation every year to the same place, and spend half your time on home maintenance. Houses, like cars, don't like to "sit" unoccupied, and vacation homes have special troubles of their own, just from sitting.<br /><br />So we bit the bullet and sold it - at a loss, of course, the first time in our lives we lost money on Real Estate. We sold the boats, we sold the cars, we sold the tractor, the Jeep. It wasn't sad to see it all go. It was <i>liberating</i>. And most people will never have the experience of going into the bank and depositing a check for a half-million dollars - to a befuddled bank-teller in training who had to call the manager.<br /><br />And paying off the mortgage and that remaining credit card debt? Priceless. It was like, well, ecstatic. Like 100 orgasms in a row, that first acid trip, or whatever. The idea that you had <i>no debt whatsoever</i> was as liberating as, well, liberation. I was, for the first time since I was 21, no longer a slave to debt.<br /><br />But it hasn't ended there. I realized that while knocking $30,000 a year out of my budget was good, there were still a lot of expenses in my life - homeowners insurance, car insurance, utilities, property taxes, and the like. It still costs $1000 a month just to live in a house "free and clear" here. And maybe, someday down the road, we will sell this place and move to something smaller and easier to care for - so we can <i>do things rather than own things</i>. When building our pottery studio, we realized that you can build a nice house for not a lot of money - and not need a lot of room to live in. A simple Park Model home, for example, might be all we need. Who knows?<br /><br />As 2012 winds down, the world is more uncertain than ever, but appears to be headed for recovery. What will happen is anyone's guess. But today, we are prepared for the worst far better than we were in the past. We have no mortgage to go upside-down on, and we don't have to worry about making X number of dollars a year to get by, as our personal life expenses are down to nil. If we make more than that, we can spend the money on <i>doing things rather than owning things</i> and we look forward to that a lot. For example, renting a 40' yacht in June of this year, in France for a week. It will cost less that the storage and insurance costs on our 28' boat for one year. And I don't have to change the oil or grease the outdrive, either!<br /><br />And the most wonderful thing of all is that <i>I could retire right now, if I had to</i>, as I have enough money to retire. How did I do that? Simply by lowering my lifestyle costs. If I can live on $50,000 a year, as opposed to $150,000 a year, the money I have in the bank can go a long, long way. More than three times as far, in fact.<br /><br />I suppose some of the old habits may creep back, over time. Perhaps. It is inevitable. As we make more money, we tend to spend more - Boyle's law at work. But I doubt I will be going back to a barbershop and spending $20 on a haircut - for the rest of my life - as we now have these hair clippers. And I doubt I will ever set foot in a Starbucks again - now that we are drinking tea (and coffee today just gives me horrific cramps). And while we may visit the Harris Teeter for their Indian Food Section, we still shop at Wal-Mart for their inexpensive crackers, cheese, and other staples.<br /><br />The battle is never over, and the marketplace is a battlefield. You have to fight the merchants and purveyors all the time. And moreover you have to fight <i>yourself</i> - your own urges to "have it all now" and want the latest shiny, shiny, instead of having less "junk", saving more, and having <i>real wealth</i>.<br /><br />So, dear reader, if you got something out of this blog, I am happy. But as I noted when I started it, I wrote this blog for my own purposes - to turn my own life around. Writing about something tends to reinforce ideas, and the more you pound these ideas into your own head the more you program your brain with <i>positive normative cues</i>.<br /><br />If I can leave you with one thought, that would be it. Stop watching television, the media, and the advertisements that all pound <i>poor normative cues</i> into your head. You don't need to be "up to date on the news!" other than the weather. And obsessing about politics is a bad idea. Concentrate on your own life and what you want out of it. Unplug from society's expectations. Stop worrying about what other people think of you, and worry more about <i>what you think of yourself</i>.<br /><br />Be happy. It isn't hard to do in this country, and sadly, so few do it.<br /><br /><br />auto carshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04084381509422256633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3240831214950036208.post-8593266207860428022012-12-31T07:54:00.000-08:002013-03-13T00:19:44.595-07:00What a Rotten Year! Or...Maybe Not!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo6-4ft-_Qb7DrDMb-yPpqVbwVFSqZWThYCeu76FxgDlmAvBDPNnXNJjs4qPjcORGP5Q4C3hWso20_rwH9vSkMjxbwQCXJLkw3ryi3dNWxWGxQa5MMs4PR_1UU3HqI5BRXoZAr8zZmznE/s320/crying+clown.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo6-4ft-_Qb7DrDMb-yPpqVbwVFSqZWThYCeu76FxgDlmAvBDPNnXNJjs4qPjcORGP5Q4C3hWso20_rwH9vSkMjxbwQCXJLkw3ryi3dNWxWGxQa5MMs4PR_1UU3HqI5BRXoZAr8zZmznE/s320/crying+clown.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Oh what a horrible year we've had! Everything is going so badly. </i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>No, wait, that's not quite right, is it?</i></div><br />On the Internet, you see people trolling and grooming and posting messages about how awful things are. This is nothing new, we've seen it in real life since time began. During every economic recovery I have lived through, there were legions of people willing to tell you how awful things were and why everything was so rotten. These are called <i>depressed people</i> and you shouldn't listen to them.<br /><br />During the 1950's, we had a huge post-war recovery and our nation was prosperous. But to listen to some folks, it was an awful time, what with nuclear annihilation, the cold war, and youth gangs and all. The fabulous fifties, according to some, were a dark and dreary time!<br /><br />And during the 1960's, the economy boomed again. But if you listen to some folks, their only impression of the 1960's was race riots, assassinations, and the Chicago 7. Yea, bad things happen - <i>they always do, you know</i>. But a lot of great things happen as well. People seem to forget the latter.<br /><br />The 1970's? Well, <i>they did kind of suck</i>. Nixon resigned in disgrace, we made a hasty exit from Vietnam, stag-flation and oil embargos paralyzed the country, and Jimmy Carter was President. But you know what? We still drove off to work every day - in our crappy 70's cars - and people still had a lot of fun. I know I did. I spend most of my time water-skiing and smoking pot. There are worse ways to sit out a decade.<br /><br />In the 1980's, the economy slowly recovered - but the naysayers would have you think that "Reaganomics" killed off all economic activity of that decade. The opposite was really the truth. Gas prices eased and salaries shot up. Things were looking up and people were doing well.<br /><br />The 1990's, of course, were the Clinton years. And you may think he was a failed President for getting a blowjob in the oval office, the economy prospered and frankly, I made a ton of money during that decade.<br /><br />the 2000's were marked by our war on Terror - but it is a war we have largely won. While we may never wipe out all these terrorist groups (any jackass with a stick of dynamite and two friends can start another one), I think we proved that the "threat" of Al Quaeda can be kept tamped down. And the economy roared again - and then tanked (as it did in 1959, 1973, 1980, 1992 and in 2001 - perhaps ends-of-decades are a good time to dump stocks!). But by 2010, it was starting to recover.<br /><br />And today? Well, the recession has been officially "over" for over two years now. The definition of "recession" is when an economy shrinks, not expands. And we are expanding - nice and slowly, thank you, which personally is the way I think it should be. The slower the expansion, the longer the recovery will last. Rapid expansion is usually followed by rapid and more severe decline.<br /><br />Unemployment is down, housing starts are up, existing home sales are up, home prices are up, foreclosures are starting to ebb, unemployment is down. And it will get better, too, once we stop extending "unenjoyment" indefinitely and people realize that they aren't getting that overpaid job back, ever again - and take a job they are <i>actually entitled to</i>.<br /><br />And the stock market? <i>Way up over this time last year</i>. In fact, I made more on my investments this year than I did in ordinary income from work. My investment portfolio went up 13% since December of last year, which is not a bad annual rate of return. Will this continue at this rate? Well, we have already seen a drop of a couple of percentage points due to Boehner's boners. But like July 2011, we will bounce back from this, eventually.<br /><br />My life insurance went up a nice 5.7% which today is considered a good rate of return. And while my income reached a nadir in the summer of 2012 (partly because I took a two-month vacation), my income is ticking up for 2013, and looks to be pretty good for the new year.<br /><br />And my debt load is pitiful. I am carrying a small balance on my business credit card ($2000) for some filing fees owed to me by a client, but that is about it. No mortgage, no car loan, no staggering monthly payments to make. Even if the shit hits the fan, I'm set - or at least better off that I was four years ago.<br /><br />In other words, not only are things <i>not all that bad</i>, they are pretty freaking good, compared to say, 2008.<br /><br /><i>But no one wants to admit to that.</i> Why is this? The political types want to say everything is rotten, so they can blame political opponents. This is how you gain power and leverage in a political debate. And both parties do it, although the GOP, being the party out of power, does it more lately.<br /><br />And people like to feel sorry for themselves - wallow in self-pity. <i>It feels good to feel bad</i>, sometimes, and we all like to indulge ourselves, from time to time. But some folks take this too far, and it blows up into a full-blown mental depression, and nothing you can say will make them think otherwise.<br /><br />In fact, <i>good news is bad news</i> to such idiots. You tell them that the stock market is up, and they say, "Well, wait for the <i>double-dip recession</i>! I read about it on a website!" Or you say that housing sales are up, and they argue, "Well, that is only because the banks are holding back on foreclosures!" For every piece of good news, they have some long-winded and improbable theory as to why it is actually bad news.<br /><br />And the way economies work - the way human nature works - things will get better and then get worse. <i>This isn't the last recession you will see in your lifetime or the life of mankind</i>. So the naysayers can <i>always</i> say, "I told you so!" even if they have to wait a decade or more for their negative dreams to come true.<br /><br />But more to the point, life <i>is what it is,</i> regardless of your credit score or the level of the Dow, or who is in the White House. A beautiful day in the park doesn't have a score or level or credit, and never goes into recession or recovery. You have to look at life <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/02/treat-life-as-if-you-were-customer.html"><i>like a customer</i> </a>sometimes, and appreciate it when it is beautiful and not worry so much about nonsense like jet ski payments and new apps for your cell phone.<br /><br />2013 will be a good year - regardless of the debt ceiling, the fiscal cliff, the stock market, or unemployment rates. Whether you enjoy life or not has a lot less to do with money than you think.<br /><br />But even if you measure your life in terms of dollars and cents, 2013 seems poised to be a pretty good year, no matter how you slice it.<br /><br />auto carshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04084381509422256633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3240831214950036208.post-71918422595443476722012-12-30T06:07:00.000-08:002013-03-13T00:19:44.650-07:00Some Fiscal Cliff Myths<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLDHp5d4muhIY7-bP0zRXKJRjjjF3Qfsz98GkF3BgO9KiZ4Cmop-VQYZGsNnn3YMU3L1Pr2WZVdRbQCm4u7ph6HdF9nkBZBcv1O3U6jeCuFQTxncNU75Gm7gdJHm-K70QD_UXEud0YxHA/s1600/thelma.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLDHp5d4muhIY7-bP0zRXKJRjjjF3Qfsz98GkF3BgO9KiZ4Cmop-VQYZGsNnn3YMU3L1Pr2WZVdRbQCm4u7ph6HdF9nkBZBcv1O3U6jeCuFQTxncNU75Gm7gdJHm-K70QD_UXEud0YxHA/s1600/thelma.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>The media is baiting us on Fiscal Cliff horror stories, to get us to watch television and to get us to click on stories. The political parties are also using this man-made crises to try to get us all riled up. Don't be. Things are not as bad as all that.</i></div><br />In a day or two, we will launch off the "Fiscal Cliff" which sounds scary, but is not as bad as people are making it out to be.<br /><br /><a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2012/11/should-you-worry-about-fiscal-cliff-no.html">As I noted in an earlier posting</a>, the only real effect of this "Fiscal Cliff" is to go back to the tax rates of the Clinton Administration (when the country was doing very well, thank you) and to cut government spending across-the-board, which is what we should be doing, anyway.<br /><br />Cutting, that is, except Social Security and some other entitlement programs, which ironically are what the politicians are arguing should be cut, so we can preserve defense spending. Frankly, for the average citizen, the cliff is a better option. Bear in mind that we spend more on defense than the next ten largest countries - and you get an idea that we can afford a few cuts without being "weak on defense".<br /><br /><a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2012/12/why-no-one-cares-about-fiscal-cliff.html">So a lot of people are just saying "ho hum" to the Fiscal Cliff</a> and this has the media apoplectic. After all, if we aren't going to pay attention to the media, the world will come to an end! Oh, wait, they told us that was December 21st. Right?<br /><br />So the media continues to crank up the Fear - to get you to watch. And a lot of "end times scenarios" are batted about in the media, and fortunately, most all of them are outright falsehoods. The media doesn't bother to <i>explain things well</i>, as you get more hits and more viewers with vague explanations and letting people live under misunderstandings.<br /><br />Besides, television isn't really a media well suited to long explanations of anything. As they say in litigation (or in politics), the first side to go technical, loses. And when you try to explain things clearly, people change the channel.<br /><br />So what are the myths the media is spreading, either directly or by error-of-omission? Here are a few:<br /><br /><br /><b>1. If nothing is done by December 31st, we go over the fiscal cliff and this can never be undone, ever, ever, EVER! </b> This is not said outright by the media, but it is implied in every story, and it is the greatest lie never told - as it is an error by omission.<br /><br />Every media story foretelling gloom and doom is predicated on "If we go off the fiscal cliff" such-and-such could happen - provided that Congress <i>does absolutely nothing for a whole year.</i><br /><br />But of course, this is just silliness. While Congress might not agree on a plan by tomorrow, they likely will come to grips with the issue in the coming weeks. It is highly unlikely that Congress will sit on its hands for all of 2013 and do absolutely nothing.<br /><br />So while the "cliff" provisions might kick in for a week or so, it is likely that Congress will act, and a new budget agreed upon, and many of the tax provisions and the like will be made retroactive to January 1st. <br /><br /><br /><b>2. If no agreement is reached by December 31st, we will automatically go into a recession. </b> Again, what the media actually reports (and words so carefully that you might miss it) is that <i>some economists</i> predict that we could have a recession <i>if Congress refuses to act for an entire year</i>. Again, this is a far-fetched possibility.<br /><br />The reality is, the "fiscal cliff" provisions will only kick in for weeks, at most, and this hardly will cause recession. But that doesn't make a story you will sit through five SUV commercials to watch, does it?<br /><br />Even assuming this absurd scenario occurs, where Congress does absolutely nothing for a year, the tax provisions, as I noted, are the same ones we had during the highest period of post-war growth in this country. And as for reduced government spending, isn't that what the teabaggers wanted all along? Cutting the Pentagon budget by 10% will hardly cripple our military. Cutting anything by 10% will hardly cripple it. In fact, I suspect you would see some creative cost-cutting measures enacted, if various government departments had to really tighten their belts.<br /><br /><br /><b>3. Milk will cost $8 a gallon after December 31st!</b> This is another alarmist prediction, based on the assumption that dairy price subsidies will jump next year - to 1949 levels. The price of any commodity is based on the demand and supply in the market. In the USA, we are awash in a sea of milk and orange cheese, simply because we have subsidized the production of these two products for so long.<br /><br />The market determines prices, not the government. If milk goes to $8 a gallon, a lot of people will stop buying it, and demand will go down, which in turn will drive prices down. The net result will be that milk will reach an equilibrium in the marketplace<i>.</i><br /><br /><i>If the government is forced to buy milk at inflated prices, this just means the government will end up with a lot of milk on its hands - which may flood the market when the government then tries to unload it. </i><br /><br />Efforts to control milk prices really only affect farmers, not consumers. In California last year, a lot of dairy producers went bankrupt as the State tried to control milk prices and as a result, the cost of producing milk was higher than the state-mandated price. Farmers lost money and went bankrupt. The farmers will suffer from dramatic shifts in price supports, but consumers will simply choose to consume other products.<br /><br />And unfortunately, they already have. Milk consumption is down in the USA - supplanted by cheap soft drinks. Already many Americans are guzzling down cheap soda pop in place of milk. The end of subsidies would likely just accelerate this trend.<br /><br />And as for cheese, I am not sure that prices would go up that much. Imported cheeses are not that much more expensive that American-made cheeses, so again, this acts as a price-check in the marketplace (unless some milk producers start pushing for higher tariffs). And frankly, the same could happen to milk - we would end up, as the largest milk producing country, importing milk on a large scale.<br /><br />So, sorry, I have to call bullshit on this one. The price of milk will be determined by consumer demand, not the presence or absence of subsidies. And frankly, we need to eliminate all of these farm subsidies, anyway, as they act as a distorting factor in our so-called "free market." <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/02/gub-ment-chee.html">Gub-Ment Chee</a> and <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2012/10/food-stamps-for-millionaires-maybe.html">Food Stamps</a> have fans in farm country, but they result in a lot of bad food being made.<br /><br /><i>But of course, all this talk is speculation, as it is unlikely we will go off the "fiscal cliff" for more than a few weeks at most</i>. These price support programs will be re-enacted, unfortunately, and at most, the Dairy farmers may gain wild milk prices - to the government for a week or two. But even this scenario looks to be a little far-fetched. The USDA would have to issue a notice saying it was going to pay the increased price for dairy products, then set up a schedule for when purchases would start, a process that could take a few weeks. And likely, by then Congress will have made a deal and make the reinstatement retroactive to January 1.<br /><br />$8 a gallon milk? <i>Ain't Happening</i>. People will make other choices.<br /><br /><b>UPDATE:</b> It appears a compromise has been reached on dairy price supports. Now Congress acts like it did us all a big favor and "saved the day" when in fact the "peril" we faced was one of their own making. Sheesh! <br /><br /><br /><b>4. People won't know what their tax bills will be! The IRS will be in a panic! People won't be able to file early! Other scary scenarios with exclamation points! </b> Relax, Cletus. It ain't all that bad.<br /><br />First of all, your 2012 tax rates will be unaffected. So there is no "uncertainty" as to how to calculate your taxes for FY 2012. Tax rates for 2013 will be affected, but you don't have to worry about that return until April 15, 2014.<br /><br />And for most people, their taxes - if they go up at all - will go up no more than 3%. The upper marginal rates will go up by that amount, but that applies only to income <i>over a certain level</i>, and as such, it may mean less than a 3% increase in your taxes.<br /><br />Three percent - you think you can handle that? If you can't your finances are in a mess. For poorer people, it is likely they won't pay much more taxes, as most of them don't pay any taxes anyway - their deductions exceed their pitiful incomes as it is.<br /><br />Yes, Captial gains rates may go up, and some very rich people may have to pay a lot more in Capital gains. Boo-Hoo. But for retired middle-class people cashing in their 401(k) plans, their tax rates will still be at ordinary income rates.<br /><br />And as I noted before, you can convert ordinary income into Capital Gains and vice-versa. Mitt Romney pays himself in deferred Capital Gains to get a 15% rate. You can bet if it was cheaper, he would become a salaried employee of Bain Capital and convert those Capital Gains right back again.<br /><br />Companies might pay more dividends, if Capital Gains rates go up. This might be a good thing, as lets face it, Wall Street has been playing the Capital Gains game for so long that Dividends are looked upon as "old school".<br /><br /><i>But of course, all this talk is speculation, as it is unlikely we will go off the "fiscal cliff" for more than a few weeks at most</i>. Tax rates will likely be "fixed" based on some compromise, and likely this will be made retroactive.<br /><br /><b><br /></b><b>5. Your paycheck will drop as your employer will have to withhold more taxes: </b> This one is also specious, with alarmed teabaggers (the ones who wanted a fiscal cliff in the first place) saying things like, "I don't know what my taxes will be! I won't know whether I can buy a new car or not!"<br /><br />Your income taxes might go up by 3% if that. And Obama's "payroll tax vacation" will end, and we will start funding Social Security at the full 9% rate. Your paycheck will hardly be cut in half or anything stupid.<br /><br />Payroll companies have already said they will continue to withhold at the 2012 levels for now. Employers can "make up" any additional withholding later in the year, if need be. But as the Compromise will likely extend tax cuts for the middle class (retroactively to January 1) you won't have to make up anything at all.<br /><br />So again, no fire here.<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>* * *</b></span></div><br />The list goes on and on. Politicans and the Media are both like a child with a toy trumpet. They make noise and want to be heard, and the more you ignore them, the louder they play. "Pay attention to me!" they scream. "What I have to say is important!"<br /><br />And sadly, we have fallen for this, in recent years - thinking that what the media says is relevant to our daily lives and what politicians do actually controls the economy.<br /><br />And both parties play this latter game. Republicans like to say that government doesn't create jobs. But Mitt Romney ran on the platform that he was a "jobs creator" - which was a far cry from Ronald Reagan's platform of "get the government out of the jobs business completely!"<br /><br />Some sort of muddled compromise will be worked out in Washington - it always works that way. The world won't end, and even if Congress decides not to act (which is far-fetched) I am not sure that the result would be all that bad, for most Americans. Our taxes would go up slightly, and government spending would drop by 10%. We would eliminate deficits and people would be forced to go back to work, rather than collect 99 weeks of unemployment.<br /><br />It is sad, in a way, that the Fiscal Cliff provisions <i>won't kick in</i> for very long. Because they really are a strong dose of medicine that this country really needs.auto carshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04084381509422256633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3240831214950036208.post-24537579662332711732012-12-29T11:31:00.000-08:002013-03-13T00:19:44.704-07:00Hidden Costs of Car Buying<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2008/12/1/1228150017930/Sale-at-new-car-lot-in-Wa-001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2008/12/1/1228150017930/Sale-at-new-car-lot-in-Wa-001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>There are a lot of hidden costs in buying a car - costs you might not think about while looking at a shiny new car under the bright lights of the dealer showroom. The <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2010/03/used-car-dealer.html">dealer</a> says you are approved for the loan, but think about other costs before you sign on the dotted line.</i></div><br />I was having the front-end aligned on the X5 the other day. <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2012/12/suspension-work.html">I had replaced the struts, control arms, ball joints, tie rod ends, axle half-shafts, wheel bearings, and a number of other parts</a>, which requires that the front-end be re-aligned (actually all four wheels aligned on this car). While I was waiting, I went though our service records and noticed that there were a lot of costs in owning a car that I had not thought about. (I keep all the records for the car in a big binder with page protectors. It is interesting to see how much you can spend on a car, over time!).<br /><br />When we bought this car, <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2012/07/late-model-used-cars.html">secondhand</a>, in Florida, <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2012/06/should-you-buy-wrecked-car.html">we paid $25,900 for it</a>. It had a little under 50,000 miles, and was four years old, and the price paid was a little more than <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/04/low-mileage-used-cars.html">half the retail price </a>when new (again, most cars depreciate about 50% every five years).<br /><br />We've put 100,000 miles on it, over the last six years, and it is showing signs of age. The end game might not be here yet, but I can see it on the horizon, and I am starting to think about what to replace the vehicle with. As its resale value drops to below $10,000, and as small things start to break and become annoying, it is only a matter of time before we have to buy something else.<br /><br />But what? And when? Does it make sense to jump ship now, or hang on until the bitter end? The more I started investigating the matter, the more it dawned upon me that there are a lot of "hidden" costs in <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2012/01/new-car-trap.html">buying a new or newer car</a> - costs that we don't think about when looking at the shiny dealer brochures.<br /><br /><br /><b><u>1. Taxes</u></b><br /><br />In going through my records, what staggered me was the sales tax we had to pay to Florida - a whopping 5% or more, totaling <i>over $1500 just in taxes alone!</i> And yes, $1500 is a lot of money. I have bought cars for less than this.<br /><i><br /></i><i>And that is the irony right there</i>. A lot of people will "dump" a used car because it needs $1000 in repairs, and then go out and buy a new (or newer) car and pay $1500 in sales taxes <i>right off the bat</i>.<br /><br />And the tax man doesn't end his bite there. In many jurisdictions, an annual property tax or <i>ad valorum</i> tax is added to your registration fee, or collected separately. Until recently, in Georgia, we paid this tax - about 1.2% every year, or about $250 on a $20,000 car. In Alexandria, Virginia, we paid "personal property taxes" as high as 4.5% on our cars - which could be well over $1000 a year on even a modest mid-sized sedan.<br /><br />And you wonder why this "tax revolt" thing has taken hold in the South.....<br /><br />Your used car, parked in the driveway, requires no sales tax payments. And moreover, since it has a very low "book value" your <i>ad valorum</i> or property tax every year, will be low - and get lower over time.<br /><br />Here in Georgia, <a href="http://www.11alive.com/news/article/234824/40/Sales-tax-AND-ad-valorem-tax-on-vehicles-in-Georgia-being-replaced-by-title-tax">they recently abolished the <i>ad valorum</i> tax</a> and claimed to abolish the "sales tax" on cars. But of course, they just replaced these both with a one-time <i>title tax</i> of a whopping 7%. So on a $20,000 car, you will have to cough up $1400 just in "title tax" before you can drive it home. And yes, $1400 is a lot of money.<br /><br />(<b>UPDATE: </b> In Georgia, the "sales tax" was only applicable to sales from Car Dealers (you would think this would have boosted private party sales tremendously, but most folks don't think that carefully - and that is why these are "hidden" costs). Effective March 1, 2013, the "Title Tax" will be applied to <i>all car sales, dealer or private</i>, and <a href="http://georgia.gov/blog/2012-08-20/ending-annual-ad-valorem-tax">the <i>Ad Valorum</i> tax will go away for cars titled after March 1, 2013</a> (according to the radio). However, the <i>Ad Valorum</i> tax will still be applied to cars you own before then. This amounts to about $50 a car for me. However, you may opt to pay the Title tax between now and then, and avoid the <i>Ad Valroum</i> tax perpetually. It appears that an interesting "loophole" exists between now and March 15. If you buy a car from a private seller between now and then, you can pay the 6.6% sales tax but you won't have to pay <i>Ad Valorum</i> tax. Or, if the car is of lesser value, you may opt to pay the <i>Ad Valorum</i> tax, particularly if you are buying from a private seller and don't plan on keeping the car very long. An interesting calculation would have to be made.)<br /><br />But most people don't think about taxes - or if they do, they think about their Federal Income Taxes, which of all the taxes they pay (if indeed, they pay any) are likely the smallest of any single tax. There are people in the middle class or lower middle class who likely would pay more in sales taxes in any given year than they do in Federal Income tax. <i>But they are all teabaggers and convinced that Obama has "raised my taxes!". Go Figure.</i><br /><br />But to people with poor money skills (which was me, until a few years ago) sales tax is sort of a "whatever" kind of thing - the <i>cost of doing business</i> and a trivial few percentage points. And when the tax is 4% or less, I guess we can think that. But in places like Georgia and New York, where the tax is 7% or more, it becomes a big deal - even for small purchases.<br /><br />Of course, one way to cheat the tax man is to consume less. A $10,000 car has half the tax bill of a $20,000 car, and so on. And this applies to all parts of your life. If you spend a dollar less, the tax man is cheated out of seven more cents. The more you consume, the more taxes you end up paying.<br /><br /><i>The best used car value is often parked in your driveway</i> - as I like to note, time and again. If you decide to "swap" cars on a regular basis, you end up paying a lot in transaction costs alone, including this sales tax or title tax, or whatever - plus other tag and title fees.<br /><br />Of course, eventually, all cars wear out, and you have to get something newer to drive. Death and Taxes - they are unavoidable. But the longer you can cost-effectively keep your car, the less you pay in taxes, overall, in your life.<br /><br />If you have a car that is getting old - but is still serviceable - think about whether you are buying new or newer because you <i>need</i> a new car, or merely because you<i> want</i> one.<br /><br /><br /><b><u>2. Insurance</u></b><br /><br />I have <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2010/05/should-you-insure-with-geico.html">very cheap insurance through GEICO</a>. I pay about $16 a month in liability coverage, and if I want it, Collision and Comprehensive is another $17 a month. That's about $420 a year, which is pretty cheap insurance coverage. <i>Most people pay far more than this for car insurance.</i><br /><br />GEICO rocks, and their website is very well done. By going online and logging in, I can get a quote on the cost of deleting one car and replacing with another. If I delete the X5 and replace it with a $22,000 Nissan Pickup truck, my insurance will go up by $295.20 a year.<br /><br />Again, this might not seem like a lot of money to most folks, but it does add up, over time. If you add this to the sales taxes and the <i>ad valorum</i> taxes (if applicable in your jurisdiction), you may be looking at close to $2,000 just in added expenses during the first year - above and beyond the car payments you make.<br /><br />And this is assuming insurance rates remain constant. The big trap - as I have noted before - for younger people, is to buy a new car, get some speeding tickets or get in an accident (or a DUI), and then see insurance rates spike to $3000 a year or more - sometimes far more. At age 25, you can buy a new car, get a few tickets, and literally go bankrupt. <br /><br /><i>And those car payments aren't cheap</i>, either. Even at low, low financing rates, you are looking at $400 a month or more for payments on even a modest car. Paying cash may save you a little in interest charges, but it still takes a huge dent out of your net worth.<br /><br />Again, <i>overall costs</i> trump <i>monthly expenses</i> but most folks only think in terms of the latter.<br /><br /><br /><b><u>3. Loan Costs: </u></b> If you finance a car purchase (new or used) they often tack on "loan document fees" or some other such crap, if you finance through the dealer. Some dealers have the chutzpah to tack on as much as $500 in "document fees" or some such nonsense - if you are dumb enough to pay it.<br /><br />And of course, you pay interest, although today this is far less than the 10% we used to pay. Even if you can get one of these 2.9% financing deals (which are usually a gag - they tell you that you can't qualify and offer you a higher interest rate) then you end up paying $1509.40 in interest, over five years.<br /><br />There are other costs, of course. Many dealers charge you a nominal amount for temp tags and licensing the car. They collect a whole bunch of registrations together and then once a week (or month) send a low-paid flunky down to DMV to stand in line for all of them. This saves you time, of course, but you do pay for it. And as likely they will get you new tags, you will pay a new tag and registration fee as well. This can end up costing $100 to $250 depending on the dealer. If you buy a car from an individual or do the tagwork yourself, you may be able to transfer tags and save some money here. But few people do it. Why? Because they are spending $20,000 or more and think that "$100 isn't a lot of money!"<br /><br />Note that I didn't raise <i>opportunity cost</i> arguments here. A dealer salesman will say stupid things like, "If you pay cash for the car, you are losing the <i>opportunity cost</i> of investing that money!" - particularly when they are trying to <i>lease</i> you a car. The argument makes little sense and can be cut both ways. Buy purchasing the car, period, you are forgoing the <i>opportunity cost</i> of putting $22,000 into your IRA or 401(k), at the rate of $500 a month. Borrowing money to save money is an argument that makes no sense at all.<br /><br /><br /><b><u>4. Overall Cost to Your Net Worth.</u></b><br /><br />The main thing people miss, in buying and selling cars, is the overall cost of the transaction, or the dent it puts in your <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/01/importance-of-net-worth.html"><i>net worth</i></a>. Let's take a look at the overall transaction costs of keeping the X5 for another five years versus buying the small pickup truck.<br /><br />If we assume that a vehicle depreciates about 50% in value every five years (which is a rational assumption, <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2012/04/cars-with-low-depreciation-self.html">as most vehicles fall roughly within this range</a>), the X5 will depreciate about $4500 in five years. The new or newer Nissan pickup will depreciate $11,000 in the same five years.<br /><br />The sales tax will be 7% or about $1540. Since we don't have <i>ad valorum</i> taxes anymore, we can skip that. But the insurance (at $292.20 per year) will be an additional $1462.50 overall, for five years.<br /><br />The gas mileage and general maintenance (oil changes, etc.) will be about the same, although some dealers are offering "free oil changes for life" as an incentive to come back to the dealership often, to sell warranty service or to try to entice an owner into a new car. Oil changes are so infrequent these days, and so inexpensive (if you do them at home) that this is not a major expense. But let's throw in $100 a year for oil changes.<br /><br />Repairs are where things get hard to calculate. It is not possible to precisely predict repairs on an older car. And whether a car will last another X miles is difficult to predict. Usually, what kills off a car is an accident or repair that exceeds resale value. So even a minor collision or an engine or transmission overhaul is enough to send most 10-20 year old cars to the wreckers, in short order. At 140,000 miles, I think we can safely assume that the major components of the X5 will last until 200,000 miles or so, although the engine will likely be using more oil by then.<br /><br />But the car will likely need a new set of tires ($600 to $1200) before then, and perhaps a new clutch ($1200) as well as other miscellaneous repairs and overhauls (although I have replaced so many parts on the car already, that perhaps the latter is not that great). But let's assume $1000 a year for repairs - which is generous - which would amount to $5000 over five years.<br /><br />So, which is the better deal over five years?<br /><br />New (or Newer) $22,000 Pickup truck:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">1. Depreciation: $11,000<br />2. Sales Tax: $1,540<br />3. Insurance (increase): $1,462.50<br />4. Repairs: $0<br /><br /><b>Total: $14,002.50</b></blockquote><br />Interesting to note that on a $22,000 truck, the actual costs, over five years, are nearly 3/4 of the sales price. So how does this compare to keeping the older car for five years?<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">1. Depreciation: $4500<br />2. Sales Tax: $0<br />3. Insurance (increase): $0<br />4. Repairs: $5000<br /><br /><b>Total: $9500</b><br /><br /><b>Savings: $4502.50</b></blockquote><br />So there is considerable savings in keeping the older car<b><i> </i></b><i>- about $1000 a year</i>.<b> </b> Add in loan interest (if applicable) and you've got another $1500 in the mix. And this calculation was made by <i>generously assuming that repair costs would be $1000 per year</i>. But as a consumer, I have some control over repair costs, as I <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2012/06/scratch-and-dent-repair-car.html">do a lot of work myself</a> (the front end work cost $700 in parts, whereas a mechanic would have charged over $3000 for such a repair, and <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/06/never-take-used-car-to-dealer-for.html">the dealer</a>, over $5000) and also I can control repairs to some extent by how aggressively I drive the vehicle. So the savings could be even greater.<br /><br />When you buy a car, you are jumping on a new depreciation curve. You pay $20,000 for a car, your net worth is decreased by $20,000 and increased by the resale value of the car (usually 10-15% less than the price paid for the car, if bought new). And over time, you use up that car, and eventually end up poorer as a result.<br /><br />The longer you can keep a car, the further you come out ahead - <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2010/08/bathtub-or-weibull-curve.html">until the car reaches its end game</a>. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>* * * </b></span></div><br />There are a couple of caveats and "But, what about..." kind of things that I am sure that some folks will point out.<br /><br /><br /><b>1. You'd have to pay the sales tax eventually:</b> Yes, it is true that the X5, like most cars, will go to the boneyard eventually. Even cars that end up as "collectors items" end up going out of service, as they become more <i>talismans of cars</i> than actual cars. People keep an old muscle car in their garage for 40 years, true - but they don't drive it as general transportation, as a general rule.<br /><br />So it is true that this car will be junked someday, and I likely will "fish further upstream" for a newer car. And at that point, I will have to pay that $1540 in sales tax.<br /><br /><i>But a tax deferred is a tax denied</i>. If, over your lifetime, you buy 10 cars for $22,000 each, you will pay $15,400 in sales taxes on those cars (at the 7% rate, anyway). On the other hand, if you can buy 9 cars, or eight cars, you will save $1540 for each car you don't end up adding to your collection.<br /><br />Life is finite, and the number of cars you own is finite. So there is a real savings on deferring a tax, if you can possibly do it. And there is an additional savings in that the money not paid in taxes is money that stays in your 401(k) or could be invested - yielding income over time. And yes, this is an "opportunity cost" argument - but <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2012/02/should-you-own-your-home-free-and-clear.html">one that makes sense</a>, when you are saving money (car dealers will use "opportunity cost" arguments to convince you to <i>buy</i>, but <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/10/why-opportunity-cost-has-no-place-in.html">such arguments are </a><i><a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/10/why-opportunity-cost-has-no-place-in.html">specious at best</a>.</i>)<br /><br />Similarly, while all cars depreciate at about the same rate (about 50% every five years) the cash amount is less as the car gets older. In your lifetime, if you buy 10 cars for $22,000 each and keep each car for five years, you will spend about $110,000 in depreciation. On the other hand, if you buy 5 cars for $22,000 each, and keep each one for 10 years, you will spend about $82,500 on depreciation - a savings of $27,500 over your lifetime (which is more than most people <i>have</i> in their 401(k)).<br /><br /><br /><br /><b>2. Reliability: </b> A lot of people say, "Well, I need a car that is <i>reliable</i> as I have to get to work!" And this is true. But reliability and age of a vehicle, while related, do not necessarily go hand in hand.<br /><br />As I wrote before, <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2010/08/bathtub-or-weibull-curve.html">the Weibull curve</a> does kick in, over time, and eventually it makes no sense to keep a car forever. Cars wear out and it is time to junk them - eventually. But the reliability thing is, to some extent, a function of how you care for a car and what kind of car it is.<br /><br />A clunker near the end of its design life, that is treated indifferently, will tend to leave you by the side of the road, on occasion, and this can be inconvenient. But, if you have AAA towing, it need not be expensive. And if you don't <i>panic</i> and throw money at a car, it need not be costly.<br /><br />During my last trip North, the X5 coolant expansion tank (which is pressurized) started to crack. I noticed the "coolant low" light come on more than once, and after refilling the coolant a few times, I noticed that there was a small crack in the bottle. A quick drive to the dealer and $180 later I had a new coolant bottle, which took an hour to replace (it snaps in).<br /><br />Even if I had to go to a mechanic, this would have delayed my trip by no more than a day, and cost maybe $300 to replace - well within my $1000 annual budget above.<br /><br />But of course, many others are not so handy - and many people are <i>afraid</i> of breakdowns "on the road somewhere". Fear is a good selling tool, and not surprisingly, dealers use it to sell cars.<br /><br /><a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2009/10/fear-least-useful-emotion.html">Fear is never an emotion to be trusted, period</a>.<br /><br />In my experience, however, the "reliability" argument is used by people who <i>want a new car</i> but don't necessarily <i>need</i> one. They get Grandma to <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2009/04/never-co-sign-loan.html">co-sign a loan</a> saying "Grandma, I <i>need a new car</i> to get to work! I don't want to <i>break down on the road somewhere</i> and <i>get raped</i>!" And Grandma, finally glad that their granddaughter is "off crack" and "has a job" will fall for this argument, oblivious to the fact that while her 20-something granddaughter is tooling around in a brand-new car, Grandma is driving a 10-year-old Buick.<br /><br />So no, other than <i>end of design life issues</i>, the "reliability" issue makes no sense. Most modern cars can be run reliably for 10-15 years before they reach the end of the Weibull curve. Selling a car at the five-year mark is just vanity. Leasing every three years, even more so.<br /><br />If my car breaks down, I'd just go and <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/06/should-you-buy-used-rental-car-probably.html"><i>rent one</i> </a>for a while.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>* * *</b></span></div><br />The point is not that you should <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/05/why-your-car-wont-last-forever.html"><i>keep your car forever</i></a>. That is not practical, affordable, or physically possible, <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2012/07/will-your-car-go-three-million-miles.html">in most cases</a>. The point is that the longer you can keep your existing car, the cheaper it is to drive. Constantly trading in cars every 3-5 years results in a lot of excessive costs, both in terms of sales taxes, as well as depreciation and insurance costs.<br /><br />When <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2010/10/will-your-car-really-go-300000-miles.html">repair costs exceed the value of the vehicle</a>, then junk it and buy something newer. But buying new cars, serially, is one sure way to squander a lot of cash.<br /><br />But until then, <i>the best used-car value is likely parked in your driveway</i>. The more crap you buy, the poorer you will be, over time, not richer. <br /><br />auto carshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04084381509422256633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3240831214950036208.post-8336528485621933732012-12-27T08:33:00.000-08:002013-03-13T00:19:44.759-07:00What is MyLife and why am I to blame for it?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuoCbqRoj4W8mrlL59AjbS0W_EtCLERY12-2LNb9eDmiByIUDeCEAYcbLzK2lGM3cOgtw7v0-EJmvAwHxIpMooYIg0JyAxhDwMhuh5IvecdE1qbc_RCSkrgzTjsdON-pVkGiX1wNx91RQ/s1600/mylife.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuoCbqRoj4W8mrlL59AjbS0W_EtCLERY12-2LNb9eDmiByIUDeCEAYcbLzK2lGM3cOgtw7v0-EJmvAwHxIpMooYIg0JyAxhDwMhuh5IvecdE1qbc_RCSkrgzTjsdON-pVkGiX1wNx91RQ/s1600/mylife.png" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>What the heck is this Mylife thing? And how do they find out so much information about you?</i></div><br />If you ever google your own name (an exercise in narcissism, but then again, so is a blog), or that of a friend or family member, you will get hits from a website called "mylife". And if you click on the link, you will see some information about you or the person whose name you entered. Some of it is right, some of it is wrong, and it seems alarmingly personal to some folks.<br /><br />How do they get this information? And what are they doing with it and why? To answer the second question, you need to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MyLife">read this Wikipedia entry</a> about the company, which was formerly Reunion.com, a website for high school reunions. Apparently they want you to "join" the site and perhaps pay a fee. I would recommend neither.<br /><br />But how do they get this information about you? And should you be worried that personal information is available on the Internet? The answer to the second question is "No" and I'll explain why later. But with regard to the first question, I think you can blame me, in part.<br /><br />Data mining or data-scraping is how the site gets data. And I <a href="http://www.freepatentsonline.com/8019699.pdf">prosecuted the Patent </a>for a company that does this sort of work for Ancestry.com and other sites. It turns out that biographical data is formatted pretty much the same on many sites, and smart neural-network type "learning algorithm" can be trained to fetch such data. Train the program to recognize certain patterns and then set it loose on the Internet, and watch the fun begin. So blame me, if you want to. But I think data harvesting and data scraping are here to stay.<br /><br />What sort of information do they collect on you? Here is my entry on MyLife, apparently scraped from phone books and tax records, and perhaps even obituaries.<br /><div class="person-data"><div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="label-box">URL</div><div class="value-box"><a href="http://www.mylife.com/c-177672001" rel="v:url">mylife.com/c-177672001</a></div></blockquote></div><blockquote><div class="label-box">Places Lived</div><div class="value-box">Jekyll Island, GA<br />Ledyard, NY</div><div><div class="label-box">Phone</div><div class="value-box">(912) 635-XXXX</div></div><div></div><div></div></blockquote></div><blockquote><div class="about-name">About Robert Bell </div><b>Robert Platt Bell </b> was born in 1960. Robert currently lives in Jekyll Island, Georgia. Before that, Robert lived in Jekyll Island, GA from 2005 to 2011. Before that, Robert lived in Ledyard, NY in 2010. <br />Robert Platt Bell is related to Mark See, who is 47 years old and lives in Alexandria, VA. Robert Platt Bell is also related to John Bell, who is 61 years old and lives in Cambridge, MA. </blockquote><br />In my case, the information is accurate, although I have run other people's names in the system and found some data inaccurate - claiming relationships to people with the same last name that are not correct. It is interesting that after publishing online all this information that they somehow felt that the last four digits of my phone number should be blanked out. That data is available on the <a href="http://www.anywho.com/whitepages">online white pages</a> and a number of other sites and indeed, is on my own website. They have privacy concerns about my address and phone number, but not more intimate information. <i>Weird</i>.<br /><br />But getting back to "should you be concerned about this information being online?" I would answer "NO" and let me explain why.<br /><br />First of all, people put up a lot of data about themselves online - a staggering amount and at a startling level of intimacy. So-called self-appointed "Privacy Advocates" scream bloody murder about Google publishing a photo of us walking on a public sidewalk. But at the same time, families put up "family websites" with photos of their children, as well as all sorts of personal information such as when they are leaving on vacation, what time they get home from work, and when little Suzie gets out of swim practice (along with a photo of Suzie in her swimsuit). Burglars, robbers, and pedophiles could have a field day with such data - and yet people post it willingly.<br /><br />And of course, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and the like take this whole concept to a new level - and then <i>sell the data </i>to marketers. People willingly "like" their favorite restaurants and products and even sign up to link what they buy to their Facebook page. And then they scream about "privacy".<br /><br />But in addition to all of that, there is something called <i>Public Records</i>, which are old as the hills and are now available, at least in limited form, online. You may think you have a lot of privacy in your life, but a lot of what you do is public record, and I, or anyone else, has a legal right to those records.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/25/us/new-york-gun-permit-map/index.html">A newspaper recently published the names of gun owners </a>in their County and people got "up in arms" (sorry, again) about it. But the information is public record and a Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) request is all it took to get the data.<br /><br />But there are other records that are easier to find - online - without an FoIA request.<br /><br />For example, property tax records are usually computerized in most Counties - as well as deed data. Usually, the .pdf files of the actual documents are not available online, unless you sign up for a subscription service, or pay a small fee for copies of the documents.<br /><br />But with the click of a mouse, I can find out how much your house is assessed for, what your property taxes are, and whether you have paid them on time. A few more clicks and I can tell when your parents died and whether they left a will. A few clicks later, and I can find that your no-good brother has an unsatisfied judgement against him. These are all recorded at the public records office of most counties, and the abstracted data is available with a click of a mouse.<br /><br />And if you order a copy of the will, people can figure out how much you inherited, etc. <br /><br />Before you get all riled up about this, bear in mind that such <i>public records</i> have been public for generations, and this is not some new "Internet Thing". The Internet just makes such records more easy to retrieve - which may or may not be a good thing.<br /><br />There is lots of other data you can download online as well. That no-good brother, for example, has a mugshot which can be downloaded from some law enforcement sites. And if your sister went to college, I can download an abstract of her Master's Thesis. The list goes on and on.<br /><br />And if you are good at Internet searching, you can spend about 20 minutes and pretty much parcel out how people are living, where they are living, what their income level is, and what they are doing. And all of this is without even looking at their Facebook page or their family website, or whatever.<br /><br />Of course, other sites are also goldmines for data. Newspaper obituaries list relatives of a deceased person and their relationship, which is how MyLife no doubt found my brother (through my Mother's obituary) but for some reason left out my late Sister and other brother. By the way, "MyLife" shows my late sister alive and well at age 63, which is sort of creepy.<br /><br />Employment websites are another source of data. Many sites have biographies of various employees, particularly if they are professionals, teachers, or the like. With a few clicks, you can figure out where someone has been working, what they did, and what they are doing now. And this is all without having to access LinkedIn, either.<br /><br />If you "scrape" discussion groups (which you can search on Google) you might find the person commenting on a news story or on a USENET group from back in the day. This data may fill in other areas of their background - their employment history, where they lived, etc. This may also tell you about their political views or personal views on issues. Product reviews can be very illuminating, particularly when the products are books or personal items. You can tell a lot about a person from what they post online, that is for sure.<br /><br />And if you have their address (which yields all that tax data) you can look at a satellite view of their house on Google Maps, and if they have "street view" you can even see a photo of their house as well as the car in the driveway and its <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/07/fear-and-paranoia-on-internet.html">license number</a> (and yes, I have done this, and it is creepy). <br /><br />Now, it isn't always possible to do this, of course. You need some seed data to start with. If a person has a unique name (Robert Platt Bell, as opposed to Robert Bell) then it is easier to find information on them. A fellow named "John Smith" is harder to search, unless you have a middle name and a city of residence.<br /><br />The more data you have, of course, the more data you find. If you have a full name, residence, and occupation, even the elusive "Mr. Smith" can be tracked down.<br /><br />(It is funny, but I knew two couples who work or worked for the CIA, and both had a last name of Smith. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but I always gave them a hard time about it).<br /><br />So, I would not sweat "MyLife". In fact, I think it is a classic <i>baiting game</i> they are playing. They scrape all this information and package it and get you <i>worried about it</i>. In fact, this seems to be a common theme among a number of sites, such as <a href="http://www.snopes.com/computer/internet/zabasearch.asp">ZabaSearch</a> and <a href="http://www.snopes.com/computer/internet/spokeo.asp">Spokeo</a><i>.</i> They send you e-mails saying that they have all this personal information about you, and that you should sign up to "opt out" of their site and/or correct the data.<br /><br />In a way, it is like the "Who is searching for you on Facebook?" scams that claim to be able to track who searches for you on Facebook, or who unfriended you, or whatever. These sorts of pitches seem to hit an anxiety point in a lot of people, who are worried about what people are saying about them behind their back. People, it seems, <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2010/11/perpetual-high-school.html">never really graduate from High School</a>.<br /><br />Of course, the easiest and cheapest way around this, is to just not give a shit what people are saying about you, or more specifically, what some robot website has scraped about you from public records. Worry more about what you think of yourself than what others think of you.<br /><br />And don't worry that your life is an "open book" as really there is no reason for secrecy in anyone's life - at least not anymore. While you may think your life is special and private, as Facebook as shown us, most of us lead very similar and dull and boring lives. <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2010/09/should-you-be-worried-about-privacy-on.html">Everyone's Facebook page looks the same</a>. You are not as unique and special as you might like to think. And being <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2010/06/secrect-people.html">weird and secret</a> about the mundane things in your life is just creepy and a form of self-aggrandizement that shallow people use to make themselves appear to be more mysterious and deep than they really are.<br /><br />So, don't sweat it. You life is already an open book. And why shouldn't it be? If nothing else, you will leave an electronic trail or legacy after you die - some indication that you existed on this planet. Trying to be "private" really just means that you won't have existed.<br /><br />That is one way of looking at it.auto carshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04084381509422256633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3240831214950036208.post-44218605197404627602012-12-26T10:00:00.000-08:002013-03-13T00:19:44.847-07:00The Death of Journalism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN0rr-Uf09NUomV6S6bBrNwRD3RxOuXpMgN2rCf-dbKEbJjI2yvLDUE7zAlliJi2Keol-6TUMGLnf9RqxGZiUDNLIu3LVl_-sFMF_i9fU37QtGaghEPhFjyLhg46KFQxst3hNL5eVBULA/s1600/newspaper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN0rr-Uf09NUomV6S6bBrNwRD3RxOuXpMgN2rCf-dbKEbJjI2yvLDUE7zAlliJi2Keol-6TUMGLnf9RqxGZiUDNLIu3LVl_-sFMF_i9fU37QtGaghEPhFjyLhg46KFQxst3hNL5eVBULA/s400/newspaper.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>A lot of people are crying that newspapers are dying - because of the Internet. But the Internet is little more than a format-change. Journalism started dying long before the Internet came along.</i></div><br /><br />The terms "Journalism" and "Journalist" have taken on new meanings in recent years. We tend to think, without thinking, of "Journalism" as "The News" and a "Journalist" as a Newscaster or reporter, or perhaps a writer for a daily paper.<br /><br />But the terms once had a different meaning. Literally, Journalism referred to keeping a journal, and a journalist as one who wrote for a journal. Mary Chestnut, who wrote a diary of the Civil War, which today is viewed as an amazing historical record, was a Journalist in that regard. She wrote of her life experiences. Samuel Clemens and H.L. Mencken were <i>journalists</i> in the sense that they were people with experiences in life who wrote, not people who set out to be copy writers.<br /><br />Today, Journalists are cranked out by schools, such as the Newhouse School at Syracuse University. And my brief brush with their sort of "Journalism" as a student was a real eye-opener. What passes for writing, in today's papers and online sites, is often horrifically bad. The idea is to get people to buy papers, or today, to click on stories. Gaudy headlines sell papers or generate <a href="http://www.theonion.com/articles/please-click-on-our-websites-banner-ads,30513/">click-through revenue.</a> So the idea is to punch up or sensationalize a story.<br /><br />That is, unless, of course, it might annoy the advertisers or piss off the powers-that-be. In that case, they can turn any story into a series of blandishments that say little or nothing of value, unless you can really read between the lines.<br /><br />I wrote a story for the <i>Daily Orange</i> once, about a student retreat held by S.U. for "student leaders" (which for some reason, included me). A student had recently been raped by a football player and it made the national news. We wanted to discuss this, but the people in charge nixed it. The Assistant Dean of Students, an old battle axe said to me, "Mr. Bell, what you fail to understand is that the football program brings in a lot of money to the school!"<br /><br />So there you have it. Anyone in the football program can do as they please - rape co-eds, or apparently in the case of Penn State, abuse 11-year-old boys. Maybe times have changed since then. And maybe they would have changed sooner had the media not been a complicit ally.<br /><br />I wrote the story, telling what I heard and say. The editor said it was a good story, but I needed to "punch it up with quotes!". That was his line - "punch it up with quotes!" which apparently a professor at Newhouse told him. I thought the one quote - from the Assistant Dean of Students, was punchy enough. But that was the one quote he didn't want to put in. "We don't want to be too controversial" he said, realizing that the school held the purse strings to the student fee, and hence his budget.<br /><br />So the story got watered down and I walked away from it and asked them to take my name off it. It was published as "Students Leaders Attend Retreat, Discuss Student Issues" with three paragraphs of non-alarming fluff.<br /><br />That was the drivel coming out of the Newhouse School back then. And since then, it has gotten worse. Today it is all about capturing eyeballs and click-bait. They want you to "stay tuned" for a story that is made to seem more than it is - or get you to click on a story just so they can get click-through revenue. So they put alarming headlines on plebeian stories. <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2008/12/theyre-baiting-you.html">You are being <i>baited</i></a>.<br /><br />And few media outlets are honest enough to say this. Well, there is one, <i>the Onion</i>. In a recent article entitled, <a href="http://www.theonion.com/articles/please-click-on-our-websites-banner-ads,30513/">"Please Click on Our Banner Ads"</a> the satirical newspaper stretched irony so far as to expose the underlying truth:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Oh, I'm sorry. Did you think The Onion actually cared about the integrity of its brand? Or that we paid even one single thought to the expectations of our readers? Or that the enduring quality of The Onion's content mattered even in the slightest? Ha! That's rich. No, none of that stuff matters at all. I mean, don't get me wrong, we want tons of people to go to our website and click on our news stories, for sure. But the only reason we want this to happen is so that their eyes might, by chance, wander over, like little lost children, to a nearby ad. You think the New York Times is any different? Don't kid yourself. What you are taking part in here is not a free exchange of information provided by The Onion as some sort of noble act of public service. Lord, no. What you are taking part in here is, essentially, a scam. A scam in which we trick you in to visiting our website and looking at ads so that some large, omnipotent corporation will give us a big stack of cash. Or a small stack of cash. Or, really, any amount of cash at all, preferably arranged in stacks. </blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">By the way, what I just described above is the sole aim of every website on the Internet. Literally, every one of them. It is also the sole aim of every newspaper, every magazine, and every television program. And you—you clueless, literate <i>schmuck</i>—are but a pawn in this game. So just let go. Just accept the fact that you are reading this column right now simply because we can count you as a number on a spreadsheet. You are a pageview, my friend. You are a "monthly unique visitor." One of millions. Nothing more, nothing less.</blockquote><br />There you have it. You are click-bait, nothing more. auto carshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04084381509422256633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3240831214950036208.post-85497971508732544232012-12-25T20:26:00.000-08:002013-03-13T00:19:44.900-07:00Radio Shack?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtBbn1fF1d5GvkJyeiOVIoMl2lhMn7uPWhyphenhyphentVnXjw-7sM6FqNaCIoZ1EiCehyphenhyphenmrkKuqJZvwrkwHlqxurcxLgTuOpyjSUKsO4-EYjTUuCDO5ite7Dauq-EpxCdshFmto5socpBOkp_sip8/s320/radioshack.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtBbn1fF1d5GvkJyeiOVIoMl2lhMn7uPWhyphenhyphentVnXjw-7sM6FqNaCIoZ1EiCehyphenhyphenmrkKuqJZvwrkwHlqxurcxLgTuOpyjSUKsO4-EYjTUuCDO5ite7Dauq-EpxCdshFmto5socpBOkp_sip8/s400/radioshack.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>How does this place stay in business?</i></div><br />In a previous posting, I opined that <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/01/radio-shack-gone-in-2011.html">Radio Shack might be gone in 2011</a>, as many prognosticators had suggested. It was a Zombie company, the living dead, just waiting for that final shotgun blast to the head.<br /><br />But here it is, almost 2013 and the company still is in business.<br /><br />But for how long?<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><br /><table cellspacing="0" class="earning_history"><tbody><tr><th><a href="http://www.streetinsider.com/ec_earnings.php?sort=earning_date&q=RSH" title="Sort by Date">Date</a></th><th></th> <th><a href="http://www.streetinsider.com/ec_earnings.php?sort=qtr&q=RSH" title="Sort by Qtr">Qtr</a></th> <th><a href="http://www.streetinsider.com/ec_earnings.php?sort=reported&q=RSH" title="Sort by EPS">EPS</a></th> <th><br /></th> <th><br /></th><th><a href="http://www.streetinsider.com/ec_earnings.php?sort=revenue&q=RSH" title="Sort by Revenue">Revs</a></th> <th><br /></th> <th><br /></th> <th title="Guidance"><br /></th> <th><br /></th><th><br /></th> </tr><tr class="LiteHover" style="background-color: transparent;"><td>10/23/12 <img src="http://www.streetinsider.com/images/icons/check-icon.gif" title="Confirmed" /></td><td><a href="http://www.streetinsider.com/Press+Releases/RadioShack+Corporation+Sets+Date+For+Third-Quarter+2012+Earnings+Announcement/7795357.html"><img src="http://www.streetinsider.com/images/icons/telephone.png" style="cursor: move;" title="Conference Call" /></a></td> <td>Q312</td> <td class="nowrap">-$0.33</td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td>$1B</td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td></tr><tr class="LiteHover" style="background-color: transparent;"><td>7/25/12 <img src="http://www.streetinsider.com/images/icons/check-icon.gif" title="Confirmed" /></td><td><a href="http://www.streetinsider.com/Press+Releases/Radioshack+Corporation+Sets+Date+For+Second-Quarter+2012+Earnings+Announcement/7589616.html"><img src="http://www.streetinsider.com/images/icons/telephone.png" title="Conference Call" /></a></td> <td>Q212</td> <td class="nowrap">-$0.21</td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td>$953.2M</td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td></tr><tr class="LiteHover" style="background-color: transparent;"><td>4/24/12 <img src="http://www.streetinsider.com/images/icons/check-icon.gif" title="Confirmed" /></td><td><a href="http://www.streetinsider.com/Press+Releases/RadioShack+Corporation+Sets+Date+for+First-Quarter+2012+Earnings+Announcement/7351341.html"><img src="http://www.streetinsider.com/images/icons/telephone.png" title="Conference Call" /></a></td> <td>Q112</td> <td class="nowrap">-$0.08</td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td>$1.01B</td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td></tr><tr class="LiteHover" style="background-color: transparent;"><td>2/21/12 <img src="http://www.streetinsider.com/images/icons/check-icon.gif" title="Confirmed" /></td><td><a href="http://www.streetinsider.com/Press+Releases/RadioShack+Corporation+Sets+Date+for+Fourth-Quarter+2011+Earnings+Announcement/7157224.html"><img src="http://www.streetinsider.com/images/icons/telephone.png" title="Conference Call" /></a></td> <td>Q411</td> <td class="nowrap">$0.12</td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td>$1.39B</td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td></tr><tr class="LiteHover" style="background-color: transparent;"><td>10/25/11 <img src="http://www.streetinsider.com/images/icons/check-icon.gif" title="Confirmed" /></td><td><a href="http://www.streetinsider.com/Press+Releases/RadioShack+Corporation+Sets+Date+for+Third-Quarter+2011+Earnings+Announcement/6872336.html"><img src="http://www.streetinsider.com/images/icons/telephone.png" title="Conference Call" /></a></td> <td>Q311</td> <td class="nowrap">$0.15</td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td>$1.03B</td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td></tr><tr class="LiteHover" style="background-color: transparent;"><td>7/26/11 <img src="http://www.streetinsider.com/images/icons/check-icon.gif" title="Confirmed" /></td><td><a href="http://www.streetinsider.com/Press+Releases/RadioShack+Corporation+Sets+Date+for+Second-Quarter+2011+Earnings+Results+and+Conference+Call/6655010.html"><img src="http://www.streetinsider.com/images/icons/telephone.png" title="Conference Call" /></a></td> <td>Q211</td> <td class="nowrap">$0.31</td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td>$941.9M</td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td></tr><tr class="LiteHover" style="background-color: transparent;"><td>4/25/11 <img src="http://www.streetinsider.com/images/icons/check-icon.gif" title="Confirmed" /></td><td><a href="http://www.streetinsider.com/Press+Releases/RadioShack+Corporation+Sets+Date+for+First-Quarter+2011+Earnings+Announcement/6434542.html"><img src="http://www.streetinsider.com/images/icons/telephone.png" title="Conference Call" /></a></td> <td>Q111</td> <td class="nowrap">$0.33</td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td>$1.06B</td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td></tr><tr class="LiteHover" style="background-color: transparent;"><td>2/22/11 <img src="http://www.streetinsider.com/images/icons/check-icon.gif" title="Confirmed" /></td><td><a href="http://www.streetinsider.com/Press+Releases/RadioShack+Corporation+Sets+Date+for+Fourth-Quarter+2010+Earnings+Announcement+and+Investor+Conference+Call/6270018.html"><img src="http://www.streetinsider.com/images/icons/telephone.png" title="Conference Call" /></a></td> <td>Q410</td> <td class="nowrap">$0.51</td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td>$1.37B</td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td><td><br /></td></tr></tbody></table></blockquote>Note that "revenues" are not <i>profits</i> but merely gross income. Net profit per share at Radio Shack is negative, which means they are losing money.<br /><br /><br />The earnings trend does not look good. But oddly enough, their revenues are relatively flat, if not trending upward slightly. What is really crazy is that even as the company is losing money, it is still paying dividends!<br /><br /><br /><table align="Center" border="1" cellspacing="1" class="dataGrid" id="dividendhistoryGrid" rules="all"><tbody><tr align="left" class="evengr" style="font-weight: bold;"><th scope="col"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3937637033844218209">Ex/Eff Date</a></th><th scope="col"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3937637033844218209">Type</a></th><th scope="col"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3937637033844218209">Cash Amount</a></th><th scope="col"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3937637033844218209">Declaration Date</a></th><th scope="col"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3937637033844218209">Record Date</a></th><th scope="col"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3937637033844218209">Payment Date</a></th> </tr><tr class="oddgr"> <td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_exdate_0">5/30/2012</span> </td><td>Cash</td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_CashAmount_0">0.125</span> </td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_DeclDate_0">5/17/2012</span> </td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_RecDate_0">6/1/2012</span> </td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_PayDate_0">6/22/2012</span> </td> </tr><tr class="evengr"> <td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_exdate_1">3/14/2012</span> </td><td>Cash</td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_CashAmount_1">0.125</span> </td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_DeclDate_1">2/16/2012</span> </td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_RecDate_1">3/16/2012</span> </td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_PayDate_1">3/30/2012</span> </td> </tr><tr class="oddgr"> <td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_exdate_2">11/22/2011</span> </td><td>Cash</td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_CashAmount_2">0.5</span> </td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_DeclDate_2">10/25/2011</span> </td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_RecDate_2">11/25/2011</span> </td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_PayDate_2">12/15/2011</span> </td> </tr><tr class="evengr"> <td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_exdate_3">11/23/2010</span> </td><td>Cash</td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_CashAmount_3">0.25</span> </td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_DeclDate_3">11/8/2010</span> </td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_RecDate_3">11/26/2010</span> </td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_PayDate_3">12/16/2010</span> </td> </tr><tr class="oddgr"> <td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_exdate_4">11/24/2009</span> </td><td>Cash</td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_CashAmount_4">0.25</span> </td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_DeclDate_4">11/9/2009</span> </td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_RecDate_4">11/27/2009</span> </td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_PayDate_4">12/16/2009</span> </td> </tr><tr class="evengr"> <td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_exdate_5">11/25/2008</span> </td><td>Cash</td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_CashAmount_5">0.25</span> </td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_DeclDate_5">11/6/2008</span> </td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_RecDate_5">11/28/2008</span> </td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_PayDate_5">12/17/2008</span> </td> </tr><tr class="oddgr"> <td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_exdate_6">11/27/2007</span> </td><td>Cash</td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_CashAmount_6">0.25</span> </td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_DeclDate_6">11/12/2007</span> </td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_RecDate_6">11/29/2007</span> </td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_PayDate_6">12/19/2007</span> </td> </tr><tr class="evengr"> <td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_exdate_7">11/29/2006</span> </td><td>Cash</td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_CashAmount_7">0.25</span> </td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_DeclDate_7">11/6/2006</span> </td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_RecDate_7">12/1/2006</span> </td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_PayDate_7">12/20/2006</span> </td> </tr><tr class="oddgr"> <td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_exdate_8">11/29/2005</span> </td><td>Cash</td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_CashAmount_8">0.25</span> </td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_DeclDate_8">9/30/2005</span> </td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_RecDate_8">12/1/2005</span> </td><td><span id="dividendhistoryGrid_PayDate_8">12/19/2005</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><br />What is up with that? As I discussed before with regard to dividend stocks, dividends are great, provided the company is making money to pay for them. When a company pays dividends while losing money, the end result is that the company is eating itself. <br /><br />And the market seems to be recognizing this, as the share price has dropped below $2 - down from as much as $11 in the last year (you have to feel sorry for those who paid that much for the stock!).<br /><br />What is going on here? Is the company merely failing, or is it being driven into the ground (<a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2012/01/how-to-drive-company-bankrupt-for-fun.html">Bain-style</a>)? After all, if revenues are flat, why are profits (earnings) dropping? Part of the problem might be debt load, part might be tighter margins on newer cell phone products. Part might be <a href="http://seekingalpha.com/article/328302-radioshack-s-problem-is-management-not-the-economy">poor management a</a>nd poor cost controls. Or is <a href="http://247wallst.com/2012/06/12/radio-shack-left-for-dead-dies/">Amazon taking down another brick-and-mortar store?</a> Or could it be all of the above?<br /><br /><a href="http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/08/01/4144424/is-radioshack-a-bankrupt-dinosaur.html">As this article noted</a>, the company's debt rating is in the tank. With about<a href="http://www.wikinvest.com/stock/Radioshack_%28RSH%29/Data/Long-Term_Debt"> $700 Million in debt</a>, until recently, the company had a pretty hefty load (although according to some sources, the company had, at least until recently, about $500 Million in cash and cash equivalents).<br /><br />It is hard to know what is going on at Radio Shack, which is a good reason not to bet on it. As I noted in a <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/12/2012-end-for-sears-well-see.html">previous posting about Sears</a>, it can take a long time for a company to finally sputter and die. No company can continue indefinitely with negative earnings. And I for one am not convinced that the company has the cache in the market to attract customers anymore. There is no value in the Trademarks and underlying good will. To my mind, Radio Shack used to mean a place you went to buy resistors and solder - until it morphed into a place to buy cheap radio-controlled cars.<br /><br />2013 will be an interesting year for a lot of companies like Radio Shack, Sears, J.C. Penny, Martha Stewart, and others - companies that have been hemorrhaging cash and whose business models are outdated or out of style.<br /><br /><br /><br />auto carshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04084381509422256633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3240831214950036208.post-80999852969456206402012-12-25T09:05:00.000-08:002013-03-13T00:19:44.955-07:00Insights from Annual Credit Report<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigKd4pmJhTZ5aDjUFQzoFbT35i2owP59GH6DFLPN0AX4Vm6nQqTxgstfVVZKteo1nHXbraon-oEQxmNzhDZg7DyeGY51OL4QG9Vy4TqnzUT4NrNRab6faZyIDKWGxBMSvT5QKwL5SkE-A/s320/annualcreditreportdotcom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigKd4pmJhTZ5aDjUFQzoFbT35i2owP59GH6DFLPN0AX4Vm6nQqTxgstfVVZKteo1nHXbraon-oEQxmNzhDZg7DyeGY51OL4QG9Vy4TqnzUT4NrNRab6faZyIDKWGxBMSvT5QKwL5SkE-A/s320/annualcreditreportdotcom.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>It's that time of year again. Time to go see a movie and get Chinese take-out - and run my Annual Credit Report.</i></div><br /><br />Christmas is a dull time, nothing to do except see a movie and get Chinese take-out. Everything else is closed, although this is changing as retailers realized everyone is bored out of their minds staying with family, so they want to go shopping.<br /><br />Myself, I run my <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/12/my-christmas-tradition.html">annual credit report</a> - although at this stage in my life, I really don't need to do so, as I have no debts and no need for debt. <br /><br />(And by the way, if you want your free annual credit report, go to annualcreditreport.com for the real deal, not that faked-up "free" one which is a scam. )<br /><br />Nevertheless it is an interesting exercise and a good way to monitor for illegal activity involving your credit.<br /><br />And it provides some insights, too. Profound ones. I came away with several:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">1. I took out a lot of mortgages in my life, many of them re-fis. I paid a lot of fees to refinance debts, which was just a way of moving debt around and creating more debt, over time.<br /><br />2. I had a lot of credit card debt at one time - <i>tens of thousands of it</i>. I am lucky I had the assets to sell to pay them off. <i>Most folks don't</i>. The amount of interest paid, over time, was staggering.<br /><br />3. I had a mortgage payment of over $2700 a month at one time - on a 30 year note. Do the math on this! The income stream needed to support that debt load was well over $100,000 a year. And for what?</blockquote>This last item was illuminating. If I had paid off the note on that loan, I would have paid nearly <i>a million dollars</i>, over time, on a loan having a principal of $350,000.<br /><br />And yet, that is not an unusual amount for a mortgage in many parts of the country. And yet these same people claim they will never be able to save up a million dollars by retirement. But they will pay nearly half that much in interest, over time!<br /><br />And other folks will say, "Well, it makes no sense to pay off a mortgage or pay it down, as it is tax-deductible interest!" But even if you are in the 35% tax bracket, it only means that you get back maybe $200,000 of this interest expense, over time, on your taxes.<br /><br />Not paying $2700 a month (I've paid less than that for <i>cars</i>, for chrissakes!) means that I can put aside more and live on far less - two big pluses when heading to retirement.<br /><br />"But," you say, "Everyone needs a place to live! You have to have a mortgage when you first start out!"<br /><br />And that is true. But in my case, I didn't "need" a $350,000 mortgage so much as I ended up with one. I started out with a $180,000 mortgage and worked my way up - using home equity loans and refinancing to add to my debt over time (as housing values increased) rather than paying down debt.<br /><br />This is a familiar scenario to many people - many of my friends and acquaintances - as they lived beyond their means then then paid for it all with borrowed money from phantom equity in their homes.<br /><br />I was lucky, of course. Or smart, or both. I had equity in investment Real Estate that I could sell and pay off all this debt. This meant, of course, having less "stuff" but it also meant being debt-free.<br /><br />A lot of folks at my age and station in life are not so lucky. Middle-aged professionals, making the six-figure salary, figure they are "doing OK" as they are making all their bills every month. They owe the bank more on their home that they paid for it, thanks to refinancing. And the term of their mortgage will extend well into their retirement years at this point.<br /><br />They have to hope that they never lose their job and that their house continues to increase in value, over time, so they can sell it before they retire.<br /><br />Debt is a trap - a huge trap. If you are already in it, there is not much you can do. But as someone who escaped from that trap by <i>gnawing off their own leg</i>, let me tell you younger folks to think twice before stepping in it. You may not be as lucky as I was.<br /><br />The economy will improve in the next 5-10 years, and interest rates may remain low. It will be tempting, as your salary increases, to take on more debt for consumer toys, a larger house, or whatever. And when the payments get to be too much, it will be tempting to "refinance" that debt in a home equity loan and then leverage yourself further. <i>This was the pattern for the middle class over the last decade</i>.<br /><br />Learn from the mistakes of my generation, if you can. Debt is a deadly trap, and there is no easy way out of it. The best thing you can do is avoid stepping in it.auto carshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04084381509422256633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3240831214950036208.post-24384577768194673592012-12-24T19:50:00.000-08:002013-03-13T00:19:45.007-07:00Gun Nutz<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE_AWCiBMThBCTOM5WrZxfYSIcJfhW-6y1NVkErPExEtU3sz3ihC5EpeerVbY6Ri-fBvnfNAuywwBBcnvmzMjoUMz51sZKo7gLMFBk6BB-iMXvJq2P9QYjKDugBMkQ2G4S3tiL4zFTLTY/s1600/Gun_Collection_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE_AWCiBMThBCTOM5WrZxfYSIcJfhW-6y1NVkErPExEtU3sz3ihC5EpeerVbY6Ri-fBvnfNAuywwBBcnvmzMjoUMz51sZKo7gLMFBk6BB-iMXvJq2P9QYjKDugBMkQ2G4S3tiL4zFTLTY/s320/Gun_Collection_2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Want to creep out your friends, make yourself unattractive to the opposite sex, as well as basically unemployable? Start collecting high-powered weaponry! Gun Nutz are just that - crazy. And no one likes crazy people!</i></div><br />The recent shootings in America (and there a lot of them, every day, that do not get reported beyond the local papers) have everyone "up in arms" (if you will pardon the pun) about gun control.<br /><br />The NRA, which represents <i>4 million members</i> (out of a country of 300+ Million) has Washington terrorized. Cross the NRA and you will not get re-elected! Those 4 million people must vote twice or something.<br /><br />But the NRA is an interesting beast. Many of my hunting friends are disgusted with it. They keep their membership only to get member benefits and discounts. Others have dropped their memberships, particularly when Wayne "Call Me Crazy" LaPierre says offensive and bizarre things. George HW Bush <a href="http://www.snopes.com/politics/guns/bushnra.asp">tore up his life member card</a> in 1996 over LaPierre's comments following the Oklahoma City bombing.<br /><br />The idea that the NRA represents the voices of all gun owners is flawed. And as hunting declines in popularity in this country, more and more of the "hard core" NRA membership comprises gun collectors who collect arsenals of assault weapons - spending the weekend shooting up old appliances and cars (instead of deer or paper targets) on modern, automatic-weapon-friendly shooting ranges.<br /><br />As sales of hunting rifles have dropped, sales of assault-style firearms to non-hunters has risen. The NRA is following the market - or perhaps leading it. By creating demand for high-power weaponry (and arsenals of weapons) among citizens, the NRA primes the pump on sales. And every time new gun legislation is talked about, the NRA raises the alarm - and gun sales skyrocket.<br /><br />As I noted in another posting, <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2009/07/gun-trap-do-you-really-need-one.html">I have nothing against firearms.</a> Owning a rifle or shotgun for hunting is not a bad thing. You might even buy a handgun for "protection" - although as I noted, it is like buying a <i>parachute </i>on the premise you might fall off a tall building. It is an expensive form of protection, <i>and the odds you will need it are slim</i> - and the odds you will have it, at the right time and right place, are even slimmer. But the odds that it will go off at the wrong time and hurt someone - including yourself - are pretty high.<br /><br /><i>But that is the thing about poor and stupid people (which are overlapping groups): One profound tagging characteristic of the poor is their inability to comprehend probability or understand their real risks in life. They over-insure for long-shots, while leaving huge vulnerabilities unprotected. They gamble in casinos, convinced they can "win" when the odds are stacked against them. They are convinced that confronting a criminal is a common even in life, but that failing to save for retirement is nothing to worry about. The less you understand probability, the poorer you will be.</i><br /><br />The odds of you being a victim of a violent crime are slim - despite what you see on the television (which is all crime shows, mostly). The odds that you will "twart" a crime with a gun of your own are infinitesimal. That is the sum and substance of it, really, if you want to believe the real numbers. The NRA prefers instead to tout <i>anecdotal evidence</i> of robberies and other crimes thwarted by gun-toting citizens. The reality is, this rarely happens in real life.<br /><br />But hey, if you want to buy a pistol, then go for it. <i>Just be very careful with it</i>. I have a number of friends who have or had guns, and from what I can see, many of them are not very careful. They <i>show them off </i>to friends (a bad idea in and of itself), for example, not realizing they are loaded (an even worse idea). And this happens a lot, too. Just the other day, some guy shot his own kid, not realizing there was a bullet in the chamber. Dumb, yea, but with a gun, there often is <i>no second chance</i>.<br /><br />Out in the country, we have rifles and pistols for other reasons - dispatching rabid raccoons, for example. They do have legitimate uses. And having a firearm around - kept safely - can be handy.<br /><br />But there are a number of people in this country who are not just buying a pistol for protection or a rifle to go hunting with. They buy <i>many weapons</i> - often dozens - and thousands of rounds of ammunition. They hoard guns and then spend their leisure time shooting them. These are what I call "Gun Nutz".<br /><br />Now granted, some are <i>collectors</i>, looking to own a number of fine antiques. These are not what I am talking about. The collector values a gun for its rarity, craftsmanship, cultural or historical significance. They take care of them, shoot them only occasionally (if at all), and cherish them as part of a collection.<br /><br />The Gun Nutz are more concerned with <i>firepower</i> - how many rounds the gun will hold, its "stopping power" and the like. And when they shoot, they don't go after paper targets, but rather, like little children, like to shoot at old cars or appliances, to witness the destruction involved. Or they shoot at watermelons, secretly pretending it is someone's head they are exploding with their teflon-coated "cop-killer" bullets.<br /><br />Gun Nutz are just <i>plain crazy</i>.<br /><br />And unfortunately, this kind of crazy makes people shy away from them, which in turn leads them to feel more and more isolated. Many of them - usually men - take up this form of hobby as a means of feeling more powerful - part and parcel of the <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/02/culture-of-belligerence.html"><i>Culture of Belligerence</i></a> that I wrote about before. They buy guns to feel more in control of their lives, which are often on the verge of falling apart. And of course, part of this is due to the face they spend so much money on guns.<br /><br />And Gun Nutz make all sorts of crazy claims which are part and parcel of their craziness and distance from reality:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"Our freedom to own firearms is the only thing preventing our country from turning into a Police State!" one says, neglecting to realize that most of Europe, Japan, Australia, and a number of other countries have more <i>reasonable restrictions</i> on firearms (but not outright bans, despite what they may say) and are hardly <i>Police States</i>.<br /><br />"No country would dare attack us, because our citizenry is armed!" another says. Again this sense of self-aggrandizement raises its ugly head. Our country is safe because we have the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world, plus the largest Navy, Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps - and a Defense budget larger than <i>the next ten largest countries combined</i>. That is what is keeping us free, not a bunch of yahoos shooting at washing machines in a gully on the weekends.</blockquote>But again, Gun Nutz live in their own little world, full of conspiracy theories, and dark secrets, usually spread by e-mails and wacky websites - information that the "mainstream media" doesn't want to read, of course! They are, nuts.<br /><br />And I predict that is only a matter of time before they start arguing that the recent shootings were in fact <i>staged</i>, so "Obama can use them as justification to take away our guns!" Coming soon to a conspiracy website near you!<br /><br />The problem with being Gun Nutz is that is isolates you from society. Normal human beings will shun you for being crazy (because you likely<i> are a little off</i>) and thus add to your feelings of isolation. Relying more and more on reinforcement from fringe websites and peer groups, the gun nut will become more and more paranoid, and thus buy more guns. And the NRA is complicit in this scheme, as they crank up the paranoia to level 11 in every publication and plea for more money. Like the fundamentalist churches, they claim to be persecuted, even as everyone goes out of their way not to step on any toes.<br /><br />And one sure way to improve your mental health is to <i>stop acting crazy.</i> Renounce <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2009/01/conspiracy-theories-other-time-wasters.html">conspiracy theories</a> (which are total time wasters and do nothing for your personal life) and stop acting weird. Pretty soon, you may actually stop <i>being weird</i>. It can't hurt to try, can it? <br /><br /><div class="post-message publisher-anchor-color " data-role="message">I had a friend who had a small arsenal of about 15 guns - rifles, shotguns, pistols, etc, including an assault-style rifle. And no, he didn't hunt, either. He lived in a nice wealthy suburban neighborhood that was hardly "dangerous". He lived in <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/08/crank-up-fear.html"><i>fear</i> </a>of being robbed or burgled. And f<a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2009/10/fear-least-useful-emotion.html">ear is an emotion not to be trusted</a>. He was always having financial troubles, but every spare dollar he put into weaponry and ammo. <i>And he was creepy and weird</i>. He had trouble making friends and finding a mate. Women got creeped out by him after a date or two, particularly when he suggested they go to the firing range. Maybe that works as a romantic date in <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/01/wacky-conservatism.html">Wasilla, Alaska</a>, but in most urban areas, it just makes people edgy. <br /><br />And his friends and employers started to view him as an oddball - and wonder when he would "go off" with all these weapons that he had for <i>no apparent real reason</i>. His view of the world was paranoid. He was convinced that he would be robbed, burgled, mugged, or assaulted at any given moment. And of course, he held wild right-wing views and listened to talk radio all day long. He was a <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/01/political-junike.html">political junkie</a>, and made his personality so toxic that no one wanted to be around him - except his Mom.<br /><br />Another fellow, at the Patent Office, brought his gun to work, so he could park in a bad part of town and walk to the office. This was, of course, a violation of Federal Law. And on one dark night, some kids jumped him, and he pulled out his gun. They took it away from him and shot him with it, killing him. The NRA made him a poster-boy for gun rights, even as he was killed <i>with his own handgun</i>. Go figure.<br /><br />Was it really worth it?<br /><br />He was a creepy dude, too. Never bathed. And he had a life-sized poster of Oliver North on his office wall. The last time I saw him, he couldn't understand why he wasn't getting any job offers from law firms. Can you think of some reasons why you wouldn't hire him? I can.<br /> <br />These are the same kind of folks who are buying gold or building bunkers for "the end times". But none of them are funding their 401(k) as they think "Wall Street is a scam". Betting on the rapture as your retirement plan is pretty short-sighted. The reality is, you will likely get old and retire, and be broke, sitting in your bunker with your 20,000 rounds of moldy ammunition and canned goods.<br />Is that how you want to live? Really? All you gun nuts? <i>There is another way.....</i></div><br /><div class="post-message publisher-anchor-color " data-role="message">People who collect guns are creepy and weird. Frankly, almost everyone I know who has multiple firearms (not for hunting) is someone I would not be surprised to hear about in the news as a mass-shooter. But even if they don't "go off" over time, these sorts of people are <i>creating their own misery </i>in life, one gun at a time. With every purchase, they push themselves closer and closer to weirdness. And the end result is, well, the spokesman for creepy and weird, Wayne "Call Me Crazy" LaPierre.<br /><br />No one likes gun nuts, except other gun nuts, which probably lends to their isolation and feelings of alienation. You go down the gun-nut road, expect to end up like this disturbed kid and his Mom (who was not a "warm and caring person" if she kept an AR-15 in the house, PERIOD) or like <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/04/quote-of-the-day-ted-nugent-threatens-barack-obama/256025/">Ted Nugent</a> (who said, live on stage, that he wanted Obama to suck on his machine gun and make Hillary "ride" it as well - sick, sick, sick!).<br /><br /><i>Fun people, huh? </i>And Fox News had Nugent as a regular contributor. And yes, it is a crime to threaten the President, and the Secret Service paid a visit to Mr. Nugent as a result of his "joke". He is one sick MF, is all I can say. And his music sucks.<br /><br />Maybe what we need are <i>public service announcements</i>, like they have for cigarettes - to drive home the point that owning a lot of guns isn't cool - its just <i>creepy and weird</i>. Maybe if gun nuts understood the reason the rest of us avoid them is because we think they are crazy. And no one likes crazy.<br /><br />And to all of you folks who say stupid stuff like "Guns don't kill people, people kill people", I am TALKING ABOUT YOU. You are creepy and weird and no one likes you - because you use guns to overcompensate for your feelings of inadequacy and powerlessness. They are just mechanical penises.</div><br />The NRA argues that "Well, any attempt to regulate firearms won't work 100% of the time because....." And that is true, nothing is 100% effective, whether it is seatbelt laws or whatever. You can only try to improve the situation, not make things PERFECT. The NRA argument is that if you can't do something that is 100% effective you might as well NOT BOTHER TRYING. Makes sense, right? Unless something works all the time, why bother? But even if we could reduce the incidence of these types of crimes by 50% or even 10%, it would be worthwhile to do SOMETHING.<br /><br />And they dig this up every time there is a shooting. "Well, existing gun laws clearly don't work, so why pass more?" Well, of course, one reason they don't work is that the NRA has insured that any existing gun laws are so crippled so they don't work. The instant background check is a good idea, but covers only sales through gun stores. Buy at a gun show or from a neighbor, and the system isn't applicable.<br /><br />That would be akin to saying marijuana is illegal to sell - in grocery stores. Such a law wouldn't do much, would it?<br /><br />Every time there is a mass-shooting like this, the NRA trots out the same tired old arguments:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">1. " HOW DARE YOU bring up gun control, so soon after a tragic incident?" - an effective argument, as there are so many "tragic incidents" that they overlap these days, effectively <i>cutting off any debate</i>. My response: HOW DARE THE NRA tells us when we can talk about things!<br /><br />2. "Unless the Proposed Reform works 100% of the time, why bother trying?" See above. Again, this is an effective argument for cutting off all debate, as no solution will work all the time. Even in countries with gun control laws, like the UK and Denmark, there are shootings. JUST NOT AS MANY.....</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"> 3. "Guns Don't Kill People, People Kill People!" - this is a non-sequitur and makes no sense at all. This week, a man went into a classroom in China and assaulted a number of kids - with a knife. No one died as a result. Why? Because it is a lot harder and takes longer to kill with a knife. Guns are different than other weapons.<br /><br />4. "They have gun laws in Europe and I read about a shooting there the other day!" Again, the 100%-or-nothing argument, with some <i>anecdotal evidence</i> tossed in. Gun laws in Europe <i>do work</i> and the evidence of this is in the utter lack of significant gun crime there. Yes, they have crime there, but on a scale far, far smaller than in the USA. Isn't <i>less crime</i> a desirable thing?</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">5. "The mainstream media never reports how many crimes are thwarted by gun-carrying citizens! Why just the other day in Squirrel Hollow, a rapist was stopped by a man with a gun!" The media doesn't report these stories as there are <i>not that many of them</i>. In terms of crime-stopping, people carrying handguns thwart a pathetically tiny fraction of crimes. Again, <i>ancedotal evidence</i> is not real evidence. It is just stories people tell each other like the stories about "voter fraud" the GOP likes to toss around. </blockquote><br />Expect to see more damage control in the next few weeks, as the NRA circles the wagons and raises these same three issues, again and again.<br /><br />Yea, Gun Nutz have a firm grip on reality, that's for sure!<br /><br />But the main thing is, if you want to be a gun nut, you are intentionally going down a path of poverty and privation. Most gun nutz are from the lower classes and by spending thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars on weaponry and ammunition, they keep themselves there.<br /><br />I have seen people who can barely feed themselves and who are "living paycheck to paycheck" go out and buy a $500 pistol and spend hundreds of dollars on ammunition every weekend at the firing range, firing it. To solve this problem, they go out and by a match target pistol (another $250) that fires cheaper ammunition.<br /><br />Yes, it is fun to have a hobby, but if you can't afford to fund your retirement, think hard before you spend bucks on guns. And think about how it is going to affect your social life and employability.<br /><br />Because when you go to a job interview spouting off conspiracy theory shit and showing people pictures of your gun collection on your iPhone (yes, I have seen this) your resume goes in the trash.<br /><br />There is no profit in being a gun nut!auto carshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04084381509422256633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3240831214950036208.post-15766484221223979242012-12-24T13:14:00.000-08:002013-03-13T00:19:45.090-07:00Magic Wands - Get Out Of Debt Guy Site<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikWIeRkQ0nTK_0lLu6QiQ2cc9_VQ0b8VkJkDjNbzasAPqofuqPl3SrqE8MNJEOHBULiRGWe5VG8hEkz8RS7PkSAY6zHJplK7l0bw37R-SFwHAXz5jkYxBKQW-xKY02svPrqhD5Z3rPlO8/s1600/wand.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikWIeRkQ0nTK_0lLu6QiQ2cc9_VQ0b8VkJkDjNbzasAPqofuqPl3SrqE8MNJEOHBULiRGWe5VG8hEkz8RS7PkSAY6zHJplK7l0bw37R-SFwHAXz5jkYxBKQW-xKY02svPrqhD5Z3rPlO8/s320/wand.gif" width="285" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>When people get into debt, they want someone to wave a magic wand and make it go away. This makes them vulnerable to debt reduction scams. It also means they tend to wait until things horribly go wrong before taking action.</i></div><br /><br /><br />I get regular updates from the <a href="http://getoutofdebt.org/">Get Out Of Debt Guy</a> site, which is a horror show of a site, as it has entries from all sorts of white trash, with their sob stories of stupidity and debt. In 99% of the cases, these people got into debt over their head through utter stupidity - buying crap on time and then taking on onerous loans as a means of "tiding themselves over" without figuring out how they could pay back a 14% to 25% interest rate loan over time, if they can't even make their paycheck last to the end of the month.<br /><br />There are a few sad cases were people have medical debts. But the advice there is pretty simple: Declare Bankruptcy and start over. Instead, they try to make payments on a debt that will never get paid off. They tear through their pitiful savings in their IRA or 401(k) and then decide that maybe it isn't happening. And only then, when they are utterly destitute, do they think about Bankruptcy.<br /><br />And what most of these people are looking for is a <i>magic wand</i>, which the Get Out Of Debt Guy doesn't have. They want their debts to "go away" without any effort or work on their part, and without declaring Bankruptcy. And of course, it goes without saying that they don't want to give up Cable TV, their Smart Phone, or the Harley.<br /><br />So these folks engage in <i>wishful thinking</i>. What is the harm in that? A lot. What usually ends up happening to them is this:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">1. They take on more debt to pay off debt - debt consolidation loans, home equity loans, and the sort. This does not reduce debt, just makes the payments last longer and lowers the monthly payments slightly. The consumer congratulates himself on this financial acumen and runs up more debt. After all, with lower monthly payments, he can "afford" it - right? Wrong.<br /><br />2. They try to make payments on loans they cannot afford, and go through their savings - which might be protected in Bankruptcy - instead of cutting to the chase.<br /><br />3. They send off money to people who promise to "reduce debt - without Bankruptcy!" - folks who claim to have <i>magic wands</i>. Such folks, of course, are charlatans, and they just take your money and do nothing. About half the letters to the Debt Guy are along the lines of "how can I get my money back from them?" or "How can I make them take action on my debts?" <i>They just don't get it</i>. They signed onerous loan agreements, and now they have tossed money away to a Con Artists - and yet <i>they still believe</i> that it will all work out somehow.<br /><br />4. As the debts pile up, they start going after more and more onerous and odious deals in life - payday loans, title pawn loans, whatever, as a means of "tiding themselves over". More debt is just gasoline on the fire at this point, but <i>they don't get it</i>. They are engaged in self-immolation.<br /><br />5. Rather than seek out a legitimate Bankruptcy Attorney (because in Redneck parlance, "Lawyers are a rip-off!") they just let things go to collection and have judgements recorded against them. The car gets towed, the house foreclosed upon, wages are garnished, bank accounts seized. Instead of taking action early on and possibly preserving some of these assets and getting some breathing room, they wait until they are nearly homeless before they take action.<br /><br />6. At this point, they don't even have the $500 to pay a real Lawyer for a basic Bankruptcy proceeding. And moreover, they've made their finances so complicated that the poor Lawyer who does take their case will spend months untangling it all - if he can do much of anything at that point.</blockquote>So how do you "get out of debt" like the <a href="http://getoutofdebt.org/">Get Out Of Debt Guy</a> says you can do? Well, first of all, let's address how you got in. You have to get out of the mindset that debt is <i>normal</i>, <i>desirable</i>,<i> and inevitable</i>. It is basic math. If you make $50,000 a year, borrowing $10,000 more doesn't make you $10,000 richer, but rather $5,000 poorer, after you get done paying all that interest and other charges. And with each debt you take on, you <i>risk your financial future and well-being</i>. So debt should not be taken on for frivolous reasons like smart phones (which really are a debt instrument, as they have fixed contracts that basically pay off the cost of the phone over time) or a motorcycle, a bass boat, a pool table, or whatever.<br /><br />If you take on debt, do it for smart things - your first house, or a <i>real</i> education. And be smart about it. Get the best rates and shop around. Buy as much house as you need, not what you want. Don't take out private student loans and ask parents to co-sign. Go to a real school, not a for-profit college. Major in something useful, not frivolous. And borrow only what you need to get by, not stuff that just makes you comfortable. Yes, it is true, many students borrow money on private student loans so they can have four years of cable-TV while in college. That's about $5000 right there - and a distraction from your studies!<br /><br />Even a car loan is a frivolous loan. People say they <i>need</i> a car, but what they really <i>want</i> is a brand-new one, and a fancy one at that. So they pay through the nose and pay a ton extra for collision insurance, drive it badly, drive their rates up, and end up over a barrel. Maybe when you start out, a loan from your credit union for a short term to buy a used car is not a bad idea. Spending big bucks on a new car at age 22? Just dumb.<br /><br />OK, you say, fine advice. <i>I get it</i>. I fucked up by not taking this seriously. Now I am over a barrel, how is this going to help me? I need to know how to get out, not how I got in. But it is important to know how you got into debt, otherwise, any efforts to get out will be short-circuited by the same bad behaviors that got you into debt. You will pay down debt and then think, "Gee, I can go spend more money, now!" and end up back where you started. It is like congratulating yourself for losing 20 pounds by eating a whole chocolate cake. It makes no sense.<br /><br />But once you figure out how you got into this mess - and who is to blame (you, not the government or the banks). You can take steps to get out:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><br /><b>1. Cut services, sell stuff: </b>If you are falling behind on your bills, or "living paycheck to paycheck" or even "making all your payments" but <i>not saving for the future</i>, you are <i>living beyond your means</i>. The only way out of this is to <i>lower your lifestyle standards</i>. You are living a lifestyle you can't afford, and you need to come to grips with this. You can't have it all, so figure out what it is that you really <i>need</i> and get rid of the rest. And a lot of what you think you <i>need</i> is really just crap you <i>want</i>. You will have to do this, no matter what you do in the next steps, otherwise you will end up where you started in a few years. So do this and do it now. Cut Cable, get rid of cell phones, sell that hobby car, bike, boat, etc. You can't afford it. You only think you can. $100 a month is $125,000 out of your 401(k) at retirement.<br /><br /><b>2. Figure out if you can pay your debts:</b> Chances are, you can't. Most people, once in debt, will never get out, without Bankruptcy. But if you can sell enough crap and cut cable TV, cell phones, get a roommate, or whatever, you might be able to whittle down the debt, over time. I was able to do this, only because I had a lot of crap to get rid of - and was not ashamed to cut <i>everything</i> to the bone! On the other hand, if you are already severely delinquent and have high interest loans, forgetabout it! You are headed to Bankruptcy, and the sooner you go there, the better.<br /><br /><b>3. Declare Bankruptcy: </b> If you have more debts than assets and not enough income to pay off your debts, <i>you are bankrupt, by definition</i>. Cut to the chase and go for it. Find a real Bankruptcy Lawyer, not some stupid online con-man, and talk to him. Bankruptcy won't discharge all your debts, but it will preserve your 401(K) and IRA (which is a good reason to have both) and allow you to keep some things like your car and tools of the trade (in some States) and work out payments on some debts. This surely beats watching your car be towed away and your bank account be drained. And it puts a dead halt to collection agencies.<br /><br /><b>4. You have a fresh start - don't blow it! </b> A lot of people who declare bankruptcy end up in the same trouble down the road, as they just go back to doing what they were doing before, only worse. Within a decade, they are back at step 1, and on their way to step 3 again. <i>If you want to be a perpetual SLAVE in life - owing money for junk and crap and feeling put upon, that is a lifestyle choice, not a preordained condition.</i> Look around and think about what you really want out of life. Is a fancy car worth not funding your retirement? Is having a Harley worth worrying about making the payments? And what happens to this debt bandwagon if you get sick, get in an accident, lose your job, or the economy tanks? Why live on the knife's edge of life so you can have a fancy cell phone? Re-think your priorities and start accumulating real wealth.</blockquote><br />Now, of course, this advice all falls on deaf ears. People read this and whine, "But Bob! That's haaaarrrrd! I wanna keep all my crap and wave a magic wand and make the bad things go away!"<br /><br />And I wish I could help you, but life doesn't work that way. Life may seem harsh and difficult, but if you confront it head on, as opposed to living in denial, it is not as scary as it seems. But this requires you to live in the real world, not some pot-smoke clouded fantasy land.<br /><br />Do the hard thing. It pays off in the long run.<br /><br /><b>A Special Note About Student Loans:</b> Student Loans, at the present time, are not discharged through bankruptcy, unless "extreme hardship" can be shown. And living without a smart phone is not "extreme hardship". Such hardship discharges (usually adjustments) have been few and far between. But help might be on the horizon.<br /><br />First, though, put your debt into perspective. I have seen former students whining about $25,000 to $50,000 in student loan debt. This is the price of one or two medium-priced cars in the United States. Considering that in your lifetime, you will pay off the loans on 5-10 cars, this is hardly a staggering amount of debt to pay off. Once you start making money, and as time and inflation devalue the dollar, you will look back and laugh at how you worried about such trivial amounts. It may seem like a lot of money now, but in 5-10 years, you likely will be buying a house worth twice to three times that amount. Put things in perspective!<br /><br />The other thing is that in 2012, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/16/obama-student-loan-repayment-plan_n_1969860.html">new programs have been initiated</a> to allow for some Student Loan Debt relief. Two programs tie the payments to a percentage (10% or 15%) of your annual income for a number of years, making it easier to make the payments when you first get out of college. But these programs apply toward Federally guaranteed student loans only. Private loans might not qualify. Many people apparently <a href="http://business.time.com/2012/06/12/why-have-so-few-student-loan-borrowers-have-taken-advantage-of-income-based-repayment/">don't even know about these programs</a>, as they are not well advertised, and the application process is not easy.<br /><br />There are proposals for a "<a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cad=rja&ved=0CG0QFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fhansenclarke.house.gov%2Fsites%2Fhansenclarke.house.gov%2Ffiles%2Fdocuments%2F1-pager%2520SLFA.pdf&ei=XMLZULD3JJKc8wTQr4DADA&usg=AFQjCNE5GQlXl9JQQ5QU3dAocd104owLUA&bvm=bv.1355534169,d.eWU">Student Loan Forgiveness</a>" act that would allow you to pay 10% of your <i>discretionary income</i> for ten years, and then forgive the remainder of the debt. However, this is merely a proposal at this point, and would apply to Federal Student Loans only, not private loans. <a href="http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr4170">According to some sources</a>, this act (which is currently in committee) has a 5% chance of being voted on, and a 1% chance of passing. Don't get your hopes up.<br /><br />And if you are reading this and contemplating a Private Student Loan and/or going to a "For Profit" University - RUN AWAY as fast as possible. Such degrees are worthless and such loans are toxic.<br /><br />There are ways to go to college and even graduate school on a budget, but it requires you to think hard, work hard, and scrimp and save - all hard things. But if you really are smart enough to go to college, you should be able to figure these things out.<br /><br />There are no magic wands. There are no <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2010/12/genie-effect.html">Genies</a> out there. Sorry to be bearer of bad tidings, but that is the nature of the world and reality. The good news is, of course, that reality is very value-neutral, and if you choose to live in it (as opposed to fantasy-land) you will do well in this world.<br /><br />All you need do is <i>act rationally in an irrational world</i>. Others will squander while you save, and you will come out on top!<br /><br />auto carshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04084381509422256633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3240831214950036208.post-39489036239731233562012-12-23T22:24:00.000-08:002013-03-13T00:19:45.177-07:00Ugly Little Bears<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizpiN5kfNylnu_xM5W2mslBOQh4NdrD_zszxFKfcRBaMbg0XP-12qkm7wzRHW1EKIs3IeGDmmclUDjM9y60ADiKTnOHfpATQI4FujF5vttAhzCf5BhQGOhqtKwR3xqU2q5x0sZQlv47Vk/s1600/princess-history.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizpiN5kfNylnu_xM5W2mslBOQh4NdrD_zszxFKfcRBaMbg0XP-12qkm7wzRHW1EKIs3IeGDmmclUDjM9y60ADiKTnOHfpATQI4FujF5vttAhzCf5BhQGOhqtKwR3xqU2q5x0sZQlv47Vk/s320/princess-history.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Nearly two decades ago, people tried to convince themselves that these ugly little stuffed bears were "collectibles" and would be worth thousands. What makes people think this way?</i></div><br />Remember <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beanie_Baby"><i>beanie babies</i></a> and the hoopla surrounding them? For some reason these mass-produced stuffed bears (made in China and Indonesia, the source of the cheapest things on earth) were thought to be worth a lot of money. They came out in 1993, and within a couple of years, people were going nuts over them.<br /><br />And as usual, it was the white trash and the poor who got sucked into this "collectible" nonsense. These are the people who buy Franklin Mint crap and Elvis commemorative plates. <br /> <br />By 1999, the fad had ended, and production was halted. From peak to valley, the fad lasted less than five years.<br /><br />It is, alas, yet another example of <i>poverty-think</i> and one reason I am giving up this blog. You just can't convince stupid people of common sense.<br /><i><br /></i><i>But I'll try: </i> A mass-produced item from China will never be "collectible" and it will never be "valuable" just because the manufacturer says it will be so. In fact, any manufactured good can be replicated, once its value rises far enough. You want a numbers-matching Hemi Cuda? People can make one for you. It is as simple as that.<br /><br />And stupid little bears? Be serious.<br /><br />Even the Beanie Baby manufacturer is trying to throw cold water on this. The "Princess Di" bear, arguably one of the most "collectible" of all of them, is worth maybe $50 to some weeping Mom who still misses the "People's Princess". <a href="http://www.tycollector.com/the-scoop/princess-bear.htm">From the Ty website:</a><br /><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td class="style15" colspan="4" style="height: 25px;"><span class="unit">Current Princess Beanie Baby Values</span><span class="Intro-pg-title"></span></td></tr><tr><td class="style15" colspan="4" style="height: 25px;"><span class="news"><i>Princess</i> values updated - December 1, 2012<br /><br /></span></td></tr><tr><td class="style12" style="height: 25px; width: 18%;">Country</td><td class="style12" style="height: 25px; width: 20%;">Swing Tag</td><td class="style12" style="height: 25px; width: 38%;">Pellets shown on Tush Tag</td><td class="style12" style="height: 25px; width: 22%;">Value Range *</td></tr><tr><td class="style13" style="height: 25px; width: 18%;" valign="top">China</td><td class="style13" style="height: 25px; width: 20%;" valign="top">No space</td><td class="style13" style="height: 25px; width: 38%;" valign="top">P.V.C.</td><td class="style13" style="height: 25px; width: 22%;" valign="top">$20 - $45</td></tr><tr><td class="style13" style="height: 25px; width: 18%;" valign="top">China</td><td class="style13" style="height: 25px; width: 20%;" valign="top">No space</td><td class="style13" style="height: 25px; width: 38%;" valign="top">P.E.</td><td class="style13" style="height: 25px; width: 22%;" valign="top">$15 - $20</td></tr><tr><td class="style13" style="height: 25px; width: 18%;" valign="top">Indonesia</td><td class="style13" style="height: 25px; width: 20%;" valign="top">No space</td><td class="style13" style="height: 25px; width: 38%;" valign="top">P.V.C.</td><td class="style13" style="height: 25px; width: 22%;" valign="top">$35 - $50</td></tr><tr><td class="style13" style="height: 25px; width: 18%;" valign="top">Indonesia</td><td class="style13" style="height: 25px; width: 20%;" valign="top">No space</td><td class="style13" style="height: 25px; width: 38%;" valign="top">P.E.</td><td class="style13" style="height: 25px; width: 22%;" valign="top">$15 - $20</td></tr><tr><td class="style13" style="height: 25px; width: 18%;" valign="top">Indonesia</td><td class="style13" style="height: 25px; width: 20%;" valign="top">Space</td><td class="style13" style="height: 25px; width: 38%;" valign="top">P.E.</td><td class="style13" style="height: 25px; width: 22%;" valign="top">$5 - $10</td></tr><tr><td class="style13" style="height: 25px; width: 18%;" valign="top">China</td><td class="style13" style="height: 25px; width: 20%;" valign="top">Space</td><td class="style13" style="height: 25px; width: 38%;" valign="top">P.E. no number inside tush tag</td><td class="style13" style="height: 25px; width: 22%;" valign="top">$6 - $20</td></tr><tr><td class="style13" style="width: 18%;" valign="top">China</td><td class="style13" style="width: 20%;" valign="top">Space</td><td class="style13" style="width: 38%;" valign="top">P.E. red number inside tush tag</td><td class="style13" style="width: 22%;" valign="top">$5 - $15</td></tr><tr><td class="style7" colspan="4" style="height: 25px; width: 18%;"><br />* Values shown in this table apply to a <i>Princess</i> in like-new condition with mint swing and tush tags. <i>Princess</i> without a swing tag is worth only one or two dollars..</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">* * * </span></div><br />So, you would think that would put a little damper on this idea that a $10 bear is worth hundreds, or maybe <i>thousands of dollars</i>, right?<br /><br />Guess again. Dozens of these insipid little bears on on eBay as I speak, with "buy it now" prices ranging from <i>$500 to $2,000,000.</i><br /><br /><i>No really</i>. People want more for a stuffed bear than a vintage Ferrari. They want more for a stuffed bear than I paid for my <i>house</i>:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmcVD3c4sl3eEmtw6yb2HHDQETv0EAHa96tHjSt4V3xjDuEGl0qvQDKiE1z-NanplYmTR_WVcP46ATUCsszgljMJQjYILnIGZEDaTX8sfW9ecuBPWrDZ3uPu13BJIdr3mqVPJxeBCACRg/s1600/dream+on.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmcVD3c4sl3eEmtw6yb2HHDQETv0EAHa96tHjSt4V3xjDuEGl0qvQDKiE1z-NanplYmTR_WVcP46ATUCsszgljMJQjYILnIGZEDaTX8sfW9ecuBPWrDZ3uPu13BJIdr3mqVPJxeBCACRg/s400/dream+on.jpg" width="210" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"> <i>Pages and pages of these ugly bears are on eBay, often asking hundreds of thousands of dollars in price. And yet there are literally hundreds for sale. Not very rare, desirable, or collectible, are they?</i> <i>(click image to enlarge and have a good chuckle).</i></div><br />One of the listings says the bear is "museum quality" - but what museum, pray tell, would have such a thing? The only museum I could find that has beanie babies is the Strong Museum ("the museum of play") in Rochester, New York, and then only because Ty <i>gave them 700 of the damn things.</i> In white-trash fantasy world, museums pay millions for beanie babies, likely at auctions like Sotheby's. But I digress.<br /><br /><i>Rareness does not equate to value, period.</i> I picked up a stone on the beach the other day. It has a neat little line through it that is green. It is unusual and unlike any other stone I have seen. In fact, it is unlike any other stone on the planet. It is unique.<br /><br /><i>But it is worth nothing.</i> Because it has no real function or use. No one really wants to cherish it. No one wants it for any real use that another stone couldn't be used for. And even if they really wanted it, they really could just take another stone sort of shaped like it and chisel it into shape. The earth has abundant resources and labor is cheap.<br /><br />But, people will convince themselves that things have intrinsic value based on <i>perceived rareness</i> and by <i>perceived demand</i>. The problem with the former has already been illustrated. The problem with the latter is that it can evaporate rapidly.<br /><br />The beanie baby craze collapsed a few years after it started. People who paid top dollar for beanie babies realized that they had been had. I recall after the fad died, a friend of mine <i>gave me a bucket of them</i> which I sold on eBay for $1 to $2 apiece at the time. They were just beanbag stuffed animals, nothing special, collectible or even interesting to look at, play with, or display. <i>No one wanted them anymore</i> - when months previous, they were highly coveted. Human nature works that way - how interesting is that?<br /><br />And the same thing has happened to other "collectibles" over time. People lose interest, and more importantly, the <i>media hoopla</i> that hyped these "investments" is quickly forgotten. Things that have no intrinsic value (or little intrinsic value) tend to lose their value over time.<br /><br />But people like to think this way. Someone tried to tell me that a clapped out old snowmobile was worth money because it was a "Limited Golden Anniversary Edition" - as if a set of gold stickers on the side of the cowling negated the seized engine beneath it. The fellow buying the "Limited Edition" car thinks that somehow it is special or rare, compared to the base model, when in fact hundreds of thousands just like his, were made.<br /><br />It is like that stupid "Antiques Roadshow" on PBS, where the yokels bring in some ugly old cuckoo clock or a chair that is so rickety no one can sit in it. And the guy says, "Gee, this would bring $5,000 at auction!" which of course it wouldn't - he is likely pulling numbers out of his ass. Most of the junk is so ugly it hurts your eyes. But these specious appraisals make the yokel's eyes light up - as they are so in awe of money, but <i>understand nothing about it.</i><br /><br /><i>The really fine antiques?</i> Yes, they sell for staggering sums. You go to a place like <a href="http://www.winterthur.org/">Winterthur</a> and look at the furniture there, and you realize pretty quickly the sad shit in your attic is really crap. Either it was inexpensive furniture when it was made, or it is in very bad condition and not worth much - or it is not very old, really, and thus not worth a lot. Keeping ugly broken junk because "it is old and worth something" is idiotic. If you don't like how it looks or works, sell it. Chances are, anything you get for it is a good deal. Most antiques do not appreciate at a rate much faster than inflation. Like collecting old cars, you are deceiving yourself if you think you will make money at it - unless you are a dealer of such items.<br /><br />And yes, this same effect applies to <i>gold</i> as well - which I have written about before, at length. Gold has value based on <i>demand alone</i>, and not any intrinsic value, other than as jewelry and for electronics, which makes up a minor part of the overall demand. Most of the demand driving up the price of gold is from people hoarding it, thinking it will go up even further in value. When that demand slackens, and people start to sell their hoards, what will happen?<br /><br />Same thing that happened to beanie babies. But like the brave lady (or fellow) listing the two million dollar beanie baby on eBay, there will always be <i>true believers</i> out there - convinced that values will hold, if not in fact go up over time - if only enough people believe they will.auto carshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04084381509422256633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3240831214950036208.post-16335026469650955312012-12-20T10:37:00.000-08:002013-03-13T00:19:45.263-07:00Merry Christmas From Costco!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://willmarre.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Costco.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="http://willmarre.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Costco.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Costco also pays a special dividend this year! Ho! Ho! Ho!</i></div><br />I just logged into my e*trade account and found another present under the Christmas Tree. <a href="http://www.nasdaq.com/article/costco-wholesale-corporation-cost-exdividend-date-scheduled-for-december-06-2012-cm195301#.UNNXy6y3pqA">A $7 per share dividend as a special year-end bonus</a>. Costco normally pays a quarterly dividend of about 25 cents, or about 1.11% rate of return at the current share price.<br /><br />I bought a while ago, so my rate of return is more like 2%, which illustrates why long-term investing can pay off handsomely compared to short-term burn&churn.<br /><br />$7 a share amounts to about a 7% rate of return on the stock, which on top of the 1.11% (or close to two percent) I am getting, means a rate of return this year alone, of nearly 9%. <i>And who says the good old days of high returns are behind us?</i><br /><br />That in addition to the 60% increase in stock price since I bought it - I am happy with this "Stock Pick" to be sure.<br /><i> </i><br /><i>But what is going on here? Why are companies paying out high, one-time, year-end dividends? </i><br /><br />Well, there are a number of explanations to be sure. And one of them is the fiscal cliff the the looming tax increases, both in capital gains and ordinary income, for 2013.<br /><br />Taxes are likely to go up in 2013. It is just a matter of how much, and on who. Capital gains may go to 20% under Obama's proposal. Ordinary income rates may go up for the very wealthy.<br /><br />By paying out a dividend, a company can "pay" its shareholders in income, rather than capital gains. For people like me, in the 15% bracket, this might save me money, if capital gains rates go up. <br /><br />But of course, most shareholders are in higher brackets, and paying dividends in 2012 means the income is taxed at 2012 rates, not 2013 rates. This also means that Costco might not pay as much in dividends in coming years, to compensate for the special dividend.<br /><br />Costco cited the "fiscal cliff" or more specifically, the specter of higher taxes, as the reason for the dividend payment. <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/28/investing/costco-dividend/index.html">But they also cited a second reason</a> - greater access to Capital. If you can borrow money freely, at low rates, then why hoard money in a company? On the other hand, if money is tight, then you want to keep cash to pay for expansion, rather than borrow.<br /><br />That whole free ability of capital thing again.<br /><br />Having a lot of cash on your balance sheet has other problems for a company. Like with Apple, shareholders demand a slice of the Apple Pie (sorry) and demand they pay dividends. And if you are cash-rich, you become a takeover target, as folks on the outside see an opportunity to take over, steal the cash, and then sell the shell of the company to chumps on the NASDAQ.<br /><br />Whatever the reason, it looks like a good dividend season! Merry Christmas!auto carshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04084381509422256633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3240831214950036208.post-62871555377872714812012-12-20T08:53:00.000-08:002013-03-13T00:19:45.347-07:00Merry Christmas From Access National Bank<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT-Ei-Op-YogIoSgUtFFENgRBZJcKKiQbG5sl8zBeGtuRs6OWyGUQ" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT-Ei-Op-YogIoSgUtFFENgRBZJcKKiQbG5sl8zBeGtuRs6OWyGUQ" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Sometimes investments really pay off.</i></div><br />I got my Christmas present early this year. The Board of Directors at Access National Bank decided to offer a 70-cent special year-end dividend, which came today in the form of a check for over $1300.<br /><br />As you know, I bought this stock when a friend of mine helped start the bank about 12 years ago. I was offered founders shares and the most I could scrape up was $10,000 at the time.<br /><br />Over the years, I have sold $30,000 of this stock, and today the remaining balance is still worth close to $20,000.<br /><br />In addition to this special dividend, it cranks out a dividend of 6 to 8 cents a share, every quarter.<br /><br />Not a bad return on my investment!<br /><br />Now, if I had only invested $100,000 in the bank, where would I be?<br /><br />Oh, but time machines! They are such devious things!auto carshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04084381509422256633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3240831214950036208.post-33778066141286278402012-12-19T16:10:00.000-08:002013-03-13T00:19:45.432-07:00Happy Festivus<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Festivus_Pole.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Festivus_Pole.jpg" width="210" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Festivus was a joke from the Seinfeld show. Unfortunately, a lot of people didn't get the joke, and actually celebrate this new-found holiday. Is this how Christmas got started? Perhaps.</i></div><br />Christmas time is here, and it is not a favorite time of year for me, or most other people. Kids love it, because they get a shiny new bike and an X-box, and maybe an iPad. Unless you are poor, of course, then it sucks. <i>Too bad for you</i>. Don't be poor - that's the real meaning of Christmas, right?<br /><br />Now, some of you Fox News Geniuses are going to say I am waging "war on Christmas" but as always, people who watch Fox News are full of shit. Christmas, as <i>its original Christian holiday</i> is a fine thing in my book. A minor holiday celebrating the birth of Christ - a good way to break up the Winter Solstice. And as even the Pope reminds us, not a major holiday and no, not really in Winter. But there it is, so there you have it.<br /><br />But the Frosty-the-Snowman, Santa Claus, Little Drummer Boy, Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer, and even the Grinch, are all added on "modern" traditions that date back to no more than 100 years - in some instances less than 50 years. Many were created in my lifetime. These are not time-honored traditions of yore.<br /><br />And new ones are being added all the time, even as we speak.<br /><br />And the worst "tradition that is not a tradition" is this idea that we all have to spend massive amounts of money buying things for people - things they do not want or need - so the retail merchants of America and our corporate overlords can show tidy profit margins. We are exhorted to consume - for little or no purpose whatsoever.<br /><br />And all of this would be fine and all, <i>if it were enjoyable.</i> But Christmas is a season laden with guilt. Did you send out your Christmas cards yet? What about a present for Uncle Henry? What do you get a guy lives in a bunker? A gift box of ammo? Christmas MRE's? What?<br /><br />It is, of course, all silly. It is nice to buy presents for the kiddies - after all, they have no income of their own. And that is how it all started. Santa brought toys for the kiddies. But now it has morphed into this sick <i>gift exchange</i> nonsense, which is more like bartering than anything else. And we keep score as to who gave us what gift.<br /><br />What's worse, is that we've taken a holiday that was a single day, morphed it into the 12 days of Christmas, then a month of Christmas. <a href="http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/fri-december-14-2012-">And now it is wiping out Thanksgiving</a> - after already taking New Year's Eve hostage. <br /><br />Well, it can be that way, <i>if you choose to make it that way</i>. You can <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2008/12/de-militarizing-christmas.html">De-Militarize Christmas</a>, if you choose to do so. And it is a choice, really. No, really. No one, not even the almighty Fox News can force you to celebrate Christmas. Just tell people you are Jewish, or better yet Muslim - as they will honor your "traditions" with quiet reverence as we are all supposed to do.<br /><br />The real meaning of<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festivus"> Festivus </a>was just what I am talking about here - that our traditions are very arbitrary, usually of recent vintage, and often just plain silly. Putting an aluminim pole in your living room makes as much sense as putting in an ugly Christmas tree. Yes, they are ugly -<a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/12/war-on-christmas-trees.html"> Christmas trees are an aesthetic nightmare, period</a>. There, I said it.<br /><br />You can create your own Christmas traditions - I grant you permission. Take a trip to a Carribean Island. Go on a cruise. Take a trip to Disney. Stay at home and paint the garage floor. Whatever. Get Chinese take-out and see a movie. Whatever works for you.<br /><br />My Christmas Tradition is to <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/12/my-christmas-tradition.html">run my free annual credit report</a>. Why not? There's nothing fucking to do on Christmas day, other than eat, watch Television and talk to your relatives. Ugh, Ugh, and Ugh. It works out wells - kills an hour of time and also I am reminded to do it every year. I also total up our finances for the year in preparation for tax season. Christmas - a time for reflecting on how blessed you truly are - right?<br /><br />It is sad to me - and a bit scary - that some folks are taking Festivus to heart and actually "celebrating" this made-up holiday. But you know, Kwanzaa was the same way - a manufactured holiday that people started taking seriously. As Elaine would say, "Fake, Fake, Fake, Fake!"<br />auto carshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04084381509422256633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3240831214950036208.post-82402100374989591282012-12-18T19:32:00.000-08:002013-03-13T00:19:45.518-07:00Who's Who?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/5/20/1305895378960/Whos-Who-2011-book-cover-007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/5/20/1305895378960/Whos-Who-2011-book-cover-007.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>There is a real Who's Who that lists all the names of the beautiful people. You are not among them.</i></div><br /><br />I got another telemarketer call. The telemarketers have realized that the "Do Not Call" registry is about as effective as a restraining order on an abusing husband - and they have given up all pretense of even trying to obey the law.<br /><br />But, like Police Tape, this does help the consumer. You should assume that <i>any unsolicited phone call is for a scam</i>, just as any unsolicited e-mail or regular mail entreaty. If someone calls, e-mails, texts, or mails you, asking for money, just assume it is fraudulent, period.<br /><br />I pick up the phone and I say "hello" and there is a pause. Usually this is a good time to just hang up, as that pause means a computer robodialer has detected your voice and is connecting you with a telemarketer, probably offshore.<br /><br />After a short pause, some clicking and beeping, a foreign-sounding voice says, "Mr. Robert Bell?" and I say, "Hello" and they say, "may I speak to Mr. Robert Bell" to which I say, "Speaking". Since slammers and crammers often try to get you to say the word "YES" over the phone, it is a good idea to avoid saying that word on the phone, as they will record it as use it as "evidence" that you consented to a $50 a month calling feature. Well, at least they <i>used to do that</i>. Today such scams are less common, but not obsolete.<br /><br />I asked, "Who is calling please?" to which she kept saying "Mr. Robert Bell?" which is another sure sign of a scam, as people who don't immediately identify themselves on the phone are usually con artists.<br /><br />Then comes the real tip-off, "How are you today?"<br /><br />Telemarketers always start off with this phrase, as it disarms the listener. "Fine, thank you" is what you are trained from birth to reply. You have to avoid this urge and say, "Who is calling, please?"<br /><br />She finally says, "I am calling from Who's Who, and we want to confirm your entry in this year's edition..."<br /><br />I tell her she is violating the Do Not Call Registry, and she replies, "Well, this is a confirmation call, and...."<br /><br />But I had hung up by then.<br /><br />What is Who's Who and what is this scam? I was prompted to write this as when I mentioned it to Mark, only five years my junior, he said "<i>What the heck is Who's Who?</i>"<br /><br /><i>What the heck, indeed.</i> Back before the turn of the Century - and the previous one as well - there were books like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burke%27s_Peerage">Burke's Peerage</a> and such, where the "important people" were listed in a big book, and if you were someone, you were written up in it. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who%27s_Who">Who's Who</a> was one of these books, and over the years, it has expanded to include celebrities, businesspeople, and the social set. If you were in <i>Who's Who</i> back in 1967, you were important!<br /><br />Of course, the Internet and Social Media have changed all that. Today, nobody reads Who's Who.<br /><br />And by that, I mean the <i>real</i> Who's Who. Since those days, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who%27s_Who">a number of fake ones</a> have sprung up. And those are the ones that call you on the phone and ask to "verify" your information. The lady who called me was not from the original Who's Who, but was from one of the knock-off versions - or could have been an utter scam artist entirely. We'll never know.<br /><br />For people of my generation, I guess, the term "Who's Who" still might resonate, although I think the term is pretty dated in this day and age.<br /><br />The scam is simple. And by "scam" I don't mean they are committing any crime - far from it, they are too clever for that! Rather, they just take your money and give you something that I believe is of little or no value in return.<br /><br />They call you up to "confirm" your listing in Who's Who, and then ask for a lot of personal data. For a nominal fee, they say, you can have an "expanded biography" in the book (which no doubt is online these days). People who are narcissists (and we all are, to some extent) fall for this and cough up $25 to $250 or more, just to make themselves famous.<br /><br />And just like <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2008/12/scams-and-how-to-identify-them.html">the poetry scam,</a> the company might <i>actually publish such a book</i>. Since the title is in the Public Domain, they can publish "Who's Who of Lawyers" or "Who's Who of Doctors" or "Who's Who of College Students" or whatever. So long as <i>at least one copy</i> is published, or it is put on a website, they can claim they are fulfilling their half of the obligation. And usually they do sell copies - to the people who paid to get into it! <i>So it is not illegal</i>. It's just a stupid waste of money and ego-stroking.<br /><br />It is not a good value - and in that regard, I consider it a scam. But like most good scams, it preys upon <i>the greed of the mark</i> - that you want your name in lights so badly, that you will pay for the privilege. And like most <i>excellent</i> scams, the mark, once they realize they have been had, will be too embarrassed to tell anyone about their foolishness. Secrecy is the con artist's best friend!<br /><br />Of course, there are "legitimate" books out there that do similar shakedowns. Martindale-Hubbel, for example, has a listing of all the lawyers in the country. <a href="http://www.martindale.com/Robert-P-Bell/1753556-lawyer.htm">I'm in there</a>, and no, I would not pay for an "expanded" listing. (I saw a physical copy in a junk shop the other day, there I was, listed in Alexandria, Virginia). But if you are a Lawyer, they will call you and ask if you want an "expanded biography" published, for an extra fee, of course. No thanks.<br /><br />In a way, it is like<a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/07/whatever-happened-to-yellow-pages.html"> the yellow pages</a> - there are so many of them today. You get a listing for free, but those full-page ads are not cheap. And like the yellow pages, I think these sorts of books are a poor source for leads of any source, and a poor investment for a businessperson. No one uses the yellow pages anymore. And the best leads are from referrals from real live friends (not online review sites!) not advertisement books. <br /><br />I would not waste my money getting into any version of "Who's Who" or other book that claims to honor the "best and brightest". I realize they are a scam, as they asked to list my name, which is proof positive that they are not seeking out the "best and brightest" but instead those with a pulse.<br /><br /><i>Sadly, some folks don't get this</i>. I have seen resumes with "Listed in Who's Who of College Students!" on them. This is not really a credential, and likely, it will be one reason your resume gets tossed in the garbage. "Clueless sod!" the HR manager will say, chuckling softly, as your crumpled resume and cover letter bounce off the edge of his wastebasket....<br /><br />auto carshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04084381509422256633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3240831214950036208.post-78325447532091383922012-12-18T10:29:00.000-08:002013-03-13T00:19:45.573-07:00The Age of Disbelief<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://cryliberty.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/wpid-polls_ron_paul_tin_foil_hat_256x300_2443_657824_poll_xlarge1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://cryliberty.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/wpid-polls_ron_paul_tin_foil_hat_256x300_2443_657824_poll_xlarge1.jpeg" /></a></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Given our technical sophistication, you might think we live in an age of reason. But in reality, today is an age of disbelief - more than ever. Most people live in an alternate-reality or fantasy-world.</i></div><br /><br />According to a recent article, folks in France have <i>blocked access to a mountain</i>, as some new-age freaks posted something online that this mountain would be a "safe zone" during the end-of-the-world on December 21, 2012. You see, that is the end-of-the-world as predicted by the Mayan Calendar, and if you go to this mountain, a big spaceship will pop out and save you.<br /><br />No, I am not kidding. Adult people <i>really believe this</i>.<br /><br />But that is just the <i>disbelief du jour</i>. There are plenty of other crazy stories that people believe in - including most religions - and today people are taking religion to scary new places.<br /><br />When I was a kid, being a Christian had more to do with the teachings of Jesus than anything else. It seems axiomatic now - <i>being a Christian means following the teachings of Christ.</i> And for a guy who wore a sheet and wiped his ass with his hands, Jesus had a lot of good things to say, as opposed to his predecessors, who just wanted to kill or enslave everybody. You know, that love thy neighbor stuff and all - as opposed to eye for an eye.<br /><br />Today, though, so-called Christians - <i>the hatey-kind</i> - are digging through the dregs of the old Testament and a crazy book called Revelations (which was apparently written by a schizophrenic old Jew) to turn Christianity into a <i>creepy pagan superstition</i>. These folks spend hours divining the meanings of Leviticus - picking and choosing the parts that fit their world-view, while ignoring the bits that conflict with modern living (swearing, eating lobster, enslaving people).<br /><br />And then they look for "signs" that the "end times are nigh" and prepare for some end-of-the-world holocaust.<br /><br />My, how Christianity has changed, in just 40 short years. Jesus is no longer the reason for the season - Apocalypse is!<br /><br />But the list goes on and on. UFOs, Conspiracy theories, 9/11 Truthers, Ghost Hunters, you-name-it. And the cable channels that once touted science and discovery and showed nature films, are now catering to this new normal of <i>para-science</i>.<br /><br />What is odd to me, as an Engineer, is that we also live in this high-tech world of semiconductor microchips and home-built spacecraft. We have split the atom down to bosons, and yet people still believe in ghosts and angels - in their daily lives.<br /><br />And this goes beyond mere weird spiritual beliefs, too. People forward e-mails to one another, documenting the latest outrages of our government or our Negro President, without bothering to check whether these things are really true or not. Welfare recipients are all getting free <a href="http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/cellphone.asp">Obamaphones!</a> Well, not exactly. And no, it wasn't Obama who started the program, but Ronald Reagan.<br /><br />They have television shows spouting conspiracy theories. Jesse Ventura supposedly documented the "internment camps" that Obama was going to use to round up dissidents, after the election was over. <i>And I've met people who really believe this</i>, too! <br /><br />It doesn't matter if they are true, only if <i>you believe them to be true</i>.<br /><br />Why do people believe <i>what they want to believe</i> as opposed to seeking out real truth? And is this a trend that has accelerated in recent years, or one that is constant?<br /><br />The first question is easy to answer. <i>People are lazy. People are selfish.</i> And it is easier to believe things that <i>you want to believe</i> than it is to seek out hard knowledge - knowledge that often is painful to learn and personally painful to you.<br /><br />It is easier to buy a narrative that says you are a victim - of the government, big business, welfare queens, <i>take your pick</i>. And the Left and the Right both play this game. If you are a Liberal, you posit yourself as a victim of Wall Street. If you are a Conservative, you posit yourself as a victim of Big Government. And both extremes will tell you that the reason they underfunded their 401(k) were these big trends that were beyond their control. <i>It is all someone else's fault!</i><br /><br />The reality is, of course, that people of all political stripes, myself included, make poor financial decisions and spend money on junk we don't need. It is human nature to goof off now or want now, and pay for it all tomorrow. So we go into debt, we fail to save, and we end up paying the piper. And we don't want to look inwardly at what we did wrong - when so many people out there are <i>selling excuses</i> that you can just try on and wear.<br /><br />So the folks who bought the mini-mansion who later lost it to foreclosure are not stupid for buying a house they cannot afford - they are <i>victims</i> of the Bush economic bubble or the Obama welfare state - take your pick. Either excuse is as equally as lame.<br /><br />So it is human nature to believe in stupid shit - that faeries will grant magic wishes and that Leprachauns have a pot of gold - that is for sale by Glenn Beck!<br /><br />But what about the second question? Are we becoming more unhinged in this day and age than in the past? This is harder to quantify. All I can say is, if you look at history, over time, a large number of people have engaged in wishful thinking or distorted thinking, for huge swaths of our history.<br /><br />Just in the last Century, we had millions of people believe in silly things like Communism, Fascism, or Nazism, just as an example. Millions of people really believed that country would do better with <i>one guy in charge</i>, provided he isn't totally insane. Problem is, the guy in charge usually ends up being insane, nearly every time.<br /><br />Yet people believed fervently in these -isms. They fought wars over them. They were willing to die for these "causes" that in retrospect seem pretty stupid.<br /><br />Or take the hippie movement of the 1960's. Young people actually thought we could "live together in peace and harmony" just by <i>willing it to be so.</i> In the 1970's, folks thought you could do cocaine and it would actually enhance your life. Today it is steroids, oxycontin, or methamphetamine.<br /><br /><i>Crazy religions, crazy cults</i> - they have all been around a long time, or a predecessor religion or cult took their place. Scientology is nothing new - it has just progressed from outlier cult to mainstream religion, much as Mormonism has. And both are based on some pretty fantastic stories - and by "fantastic" I don't mean "really really good" either.<br /><br />Go back the the Century before and look at the attitudes of people then. Folks fought a war over slavery - the very idea of which today seems, well, <i>insane</i>. And yet folks would rationalize enslaving other humans, often using religion as a backstop. And in terms of financial malfeasance, the various trusts and bubbles of the 1800's make today's Wall-Street shenanigans look like child's play. And how could all of this have happened in the age of steam? After all, with such high-tech machinery as the locomotive, could people really believe in ghosts and faeries? You betcha!<br /><br />Yet they did, and today they still do. And perhaps that is because most people have little or no clue how their world actually works. They don't know what a Higg's Boson is, so they read an article in a dumbed-down "science" magazine, calling it the "God Particle". They don't know what goes on inside their smart phones or their flat-screen televisions, or indeed even in their automobiles. It is all so scary and unnerving.<br /><br />So, maybe it is easier to <i>believe in disbelief</i>. One website out there basically claims that all of our science today is based on "captured alien technology" and YouTube videos abound with this sort of nonsense. After all, we are just too darn dumb to build pyramids or microprocessors! Thank God for those aliens! We'd be beating rocks together without them!<br /><br />So what is the point of this posting? Simple. <i>Act rationally in an irrational world</i> and you will get ahead.<br /><br />This is not to say you will end up as rich as Warren Buffet or something, but that you will end up <i>better off in your own life.</i><br /><br />And acting rationally means looking inward at your own life and examining what it is that <i>you have done</i> to affect your life, rather than looking for easy answers in spirituality, myths, conspiracy theories, or victim mentality. God is not going to help you by praying to him - you have to get up off your ass and help yourself.<br /><br />Similarly, if you want to believe that all your setbacks in life are the fault of someone else, chances are, you will continue to have setbacks, as you will never learn from your mistakes and failures. This is not to say that other actors are at work - they are. But in nearly every situation, you have some culpability in the equation.<br /><br />A guy speeding in a blinding rainstorm spins out and whacks into my car. Was I at fault? Most people would say "NO" and when you talk to people about car accidents, they typically have this "He was at fault, I was entirely innocent" story to tell, even if they were the ones who ran through the crosswalk and crushed a gaggle of children.<br /><br />But in looking inwardly, I realize that driving in heavy traffic in a rainstorm is very dangerous, not because I might wipe out, but because some other jackalope will likely plow into me. Today, when it starts raining like that and people start driving too fast and too close together, I get off the road and park it until the traffic dies down and the weather improves. I can't control the other drivers - but <i>I still have control over my own actions and can ameliorate risk</i> - even if I can't eliminate it entirely.<br /><br />In your financial life, this is also true. So many Americans today whine and complain about how hard they have it - sending me messages from their iPhones to that effect. They are living paycheck-to-paycheck, can hardly afford to make the lease payments on their car and their minimum credit card payments!<br /><br />It has to be someone else's fault, as having lots of debt and electronic toys is "normal" and they are <i>entitled to that sort of thing</i>. But really, this is not the case. If you want to get ahead in life, you have to accumulate wealth, not spend it. And if you spend it, you have no one but yourself to blame.<br /><br />Looking for easy answers is looking for the wrong answers. Belief is a fine and wonderful thing for "answering" the imponderables in life - why we are here, what happens after you die, what is existance - that sort of thing. It is a horrific thing to use in your daily life (as some religions suggest you do) for answers like "how much do I have in my checking account" and "how do I pay off this loan?"<br /><br />We may be living in an age of disbelief, but you can take advantage of this by being a rational actor in an irrational world.<br /><br />auto carshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04084381509422256633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3240831214950036208.post-89083852099585589182012-12-18T06:53:00.000-08:002013-03-13T00:19:45.660-07:00Swap Meet<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWdhZcZ26shp2PXvWJS1cpSrTK8e4msQwI6evlkTLJra2L22wxzJ23VqROigj8tAaRJNyrr-KgVbgG5wz5RM1m9Ts-G5pXKYDsln8F4sdd4tH7EQhFJgikIk9HCrs1RIbV8cxTydHSRl0/s1600/t+project.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWdhZcZ26shp2PXvWJS1cpSrTK8e4msQwI6evlkTLJra2L22wxzJ23VqROigj8tAaRJNyrr-KgVbgG5wz5RM1m9Ts-G5pXKYDsln8F4sdd4tH7EQhFJgikIk9HCrs1RIbV8cxTydHSRl0/s400/t+project.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Why do some people want to swap, barter, or trade instead of buy and sell?</i></div><br />The other day, I was going through a stack of Model T Ford Club of America vintage magazines (which I should sell on eBay or something) and saw in the classified ads in the back, this bizarre ad:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"TRADE- 1908 Model T Tourabout, 95% Restored, new wheels, new tires, new bass, irons, bows upholstery. Needs only paint work and finish assembly. Car is NOT for sale! Would like to trade for a really early car. Older restoration considered or car in like condition to mine. Call Joe Dreamer at (555) DREAM-ON."</blockquote>It got me to thinking that "swapping" seems to be popular among a certain sect of our population - the crazy part. Go on to Craigslist sometime (itself a bastion of Crazy - where a clapped out '95 Mustang is a "hot machine" selling for $10,000 or people who are 100 lbs overweight advertise for sex, saying "no fats") and you will see items listed as not "for sale" but as "willing to swap/trade"<br /><br />It is bizarre. Do people really do business this way - and why? And the ads are interesting - a list of surplus goods and unsatiated desires.<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"Will swap Remington 12-gauge pump for jon boat in good condition."<br /><br />"Want to trade my 1979 Corvette for any kind of pickup truck."<br /><br />"Have 1974 Tri-Hull, no motor, will trade for flat-screen TV, 42 inch or larger" </blockquote><br />What is going on here with swapping? Who are these people and why do they want to swap instead of sell?<br /><br />Well, there are three economic motives for swapping, all of which I think are outweighed by the disadvantages of the practice. For cars, boats, motorcycles, and RV's, swapping can actually save "real cash money" (is there any other kind?) in that some States allow you to deduct the value of the item traded from your <i>sales tax amount</i>. So if you trade a $4500 car for a different $4500 car, then you may not owe sales tax - <i>in some States</i>. (Check your State Laws before trying this).<br /><br />A second reason is <i>transaction cost</i>. Simply stated, when you sell an item, you often have to lower the price in order to attract a buyer. You put your shotgun up for sale, and there are no takers. After all, shotguns are offered for sale at the sporting goods store, all day long, and most people, if they want one, buy one there (or are <i>sold one</i>, after seeing the bright shiny display). So you lower the price to the point where someone says, "Gee, that's a good price on a shotgun! I should buy it!" - and they buy it, not so much as they "need" it, but because it appears to be a bargain. The seller does not get full value for his item this way.<br /><br />Now armed with cash, he seeks out a jon boat. But as a buyer who <i>wants something</i>, he has to hope that there is a desperate seller out there. The sporting goods store has jon boats for sale, but they sell for full retail price. And while that price may be similar to the <i>full retail price</i> of a new shotgun, it is likely twice what the seller got for his used gun on the open market. By hoping to swap, the seller of the shotgun hopes to avoid this disparity in pricing between buying and selling. <br /><br />The third reason is a<i> lack of cash or capital</i>. If you have an old shotgun that you are not using because you no longer hunt, and want a jon boat because you want to go fishing, you might want to <i>sell</i> the shotgun and <i>buy</i> the jon boat. The problem is, the people around you might not have the cash to buy the gun, and thus you don't have the cash to buy the boat. And this situation illustrates why when capital is tight, commerce slows down. People may have things they want to sell - but no one has cash to buy. So the seller ends up not buying the things that he wants, and sales and commerce spiral downward.<br /><br />And whenever the economy starts to tank, you see stories in the paper about Bartering and Swapping. This happened in 1980, during our last great recession, and it happened again, in 2009. People set up bartering websites, today, and proclaim to have re-invented basic commerce. One fellow even set up a <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/gadgetbox/swap-o-matic-vending-machine-based-barter-economy-84931"><i>bartering vending machine</i> </a>where you could put items in cubbies and swap them for other items. However, as it was based on the honor system, I suspect it was either a hoax or a huge failure.<br /><br />When the economy improves (as it has) such ideas lose currency rather quickly. And they lose currency simply because <i>real currency</i> becomes available and the advantages of bartering evaporate. And the news stories about how "everyone's going back to Bartering!!" disappear. Once again, the news media gets it all wrong - on purpose, of course, as they want you to buy newspapers or click on idiotic story titles. <i>They're baiting you!</i><br /><br />But taking all that aside, is bartering a good deal? I think not, and for several reasons. As I noted before in my posting <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2008/11/greatest-invention-money.html"><i>Money, the Greatest Invention</i>,</a> money has an almost magical quality. If I want to convert a shotgun into a jon boat, I can <i>sell</i> my shotgun, convert it into cash, travel halfway across the planet, and then convert the cash into a jon boat. It is like Captain Kirk's transporter beam, <i>only better</i>, as not only can it transport goods from one place to another, <i>it can convert them into other goods</i>.<br /><br />Which is why it is so sad when you see poor people moving with U-Haul trucks. They spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars moving <i>junk</i> - stuff that could be disposed of or sold and then converted to transportable cash. Spending $500 on a rented trailer to move an $800 car just makes no sense at all. Sell it, convert to cash, and then buy anew at your destination.<br /><br />But is swapping a good deal? I think not, for several reasons.<br /><br /><b>1. The odds of finding a swapmate are slim:</b> You want to swap your shotgun for a jon boat. However, in the 100-mile radius area near you, there isn't even anyone wanting to <i>sell</i> a used jon boat. And even if there was, he isn't looking for a shotgun. The law of probability dictates that the incidence of each swapper wanting exactly what the other has, is very, very slim.<br /><br /><i>Poor people are not very good at understanding probability and spastics. This is one reason why they gamble. In fact, if you wanted a litmus test for poverty, I suggest testing a person on their probability skills. The poorer they score, the poorer they likely will be. Math <u>is</u> useful in "real life"!</i><br /><br />Of course it might be possible that if you find a jon boat seller, he may take a shotgun in trade, with the idea of selling it himself - or swapping it for something else. But that creates extra work for the seller, as he now has another transaction to work, in order to get paid. He would want to discount the transaction accordingly. Which is why in these swap deals, part of the posturing is "Well, it isn't exactly what I was looking for......"<br /><br />I suppose, theoretically, the shotgun could become a talisman - a form of currency for trading - much as things like whiskey and gold have been, in our nation's history. Some people are claiming <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2012/03/are-people-really-useing-tide-detergent.html">Tide detergent </a>was a medium of exchange very recently, but I find these claims dubious.<br /><br /><br /><br /><b>2. The odds of two items being identical in value are slim: </b> Price depends on condition, and while a shotgun and a jon boat could have equivalent values, it would depend on the condition, age, and model of each item. The idea that you will find a jon boat <i>exactly equivalent in value</i> to your shotgun is ludicrous. <i>The odds are infinitesimal</i>. As a result, most of these "bartering" deals end up involving one party paying some cash to the other to make up the difference in price - if they ever go through at all.<br /><br />Paying cash - so why is bartering better than, well, <i>just paying cash</i>? It really isn't. It is just taking a simple transaction and making it horribly complex. And what have I said about complex transactions? <i>The more complicated you can make any transaction, the easier it is to fleece the mark</i>.<br /><br />Bartering takes a simple transaction (I give you cash, you give me shotgun) and escalates it by a factor of two. And usually poor people are drawn to these complex transactions - convinced they will <i>win</i> somehow by negotiating a better deal than the other fellow.<br /><br /><i>Susceptibility to complex transactions is probably another good indicia of poverty-think. The poor are continually chasing rebates, coupons, and other complex deals, convinced they can "pull a fast one" on a major corporation who is stupidly giving away money.</i><br /><br /><b>3. Equating values of dissimilar items is hard to do: </b> I mentioned before that in car buying, it pays to pick <i>one model, make and year range</i> of car to look at, rather than shopping for different makes and models. Comparing prices of a Chevy and a Toyota is comparing Apples to Oranges. Decide what car you want to buy <i>and then find the best price for that car</i>.<br /><br />Bartering takes this concept to the next level - where you are <i>directly comparing values of apples and oranges</i>. And this is not easy to do. You may be able to find a "book value" for one item, and compare it to the book value of another, it if it is a car or something. But for smaller items, determining market values is harder to do. Thus, the chance of you getting snookered is much larger.<br /><br />And this brings us to the "point" I guess, of bartering. The barterer believes that he can shrewdly "trade" with another fellow and come out on the better side of the deal. Rather than sell his product to the highest bidder, he hopes to trade <i>to his advantage</i> and come out ahead.<br /><br /><i>And perhaps that it is a third indicia of the impoverished mind - the idea that you can trade your way to success. And this illustrates, why in poor areas, people put ridiculous prices on things, or <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2010/05/constipated-commerce.html">park cars and boats on their lawns for years at a time</a>, hoping to find the right buyer. </i><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>* * * </b></span></div><br />I suspect that most of these people looking to swap, barter, or trade, are <i>dreamers of the first order </i>- hoping to turn a rusty non-working shotgun into a nice fishing boat, preferably with motor. But the harsh reality is that the fellow they want to barter with has a dented leaky old Sears jon boat, with no motor, and is hoping to get a nicely oiled and cleaned Remington that was used only once or twice. Both are <i>dreamers</i>, with <i>unrealistic expectations</i> - and no understanding of basic probability.<br /><br />And perhaps that is why these dreamers will put in their ads "Swap only! Not for sale!" as they realize that if offered cash for an item, they likely will have to accept <i>market value for their goods</i> - and lose any opportunity to put one over on their trading partner.<br /><br />Because other than avoiding sales tax on a car transaction (in some States) I can see no financial advantage of such a proposed deal.<br /><br />People wanting to swap or barter are <i>time-wasters of the first order</i>. It is highly likely they don't even want to part with their goods (hoarding disorder) but rather are looking for attention and validation that their goods are valuable and desirable - which hoarders love to do. These folks are similar to the "its for sale, but it's not for sale" people, who list an item online, and then never answer phone calls or e-mails.<br /><br />Time-wasters, is what they are. They want you to pester them with phone call after phone call, e-mail after e-mail, asking about the item for sale, until you have basically handed them all the power in the transaction - if it ever goes through. Never fall for these <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2012/12/power-shifting.html">power-shifting tactics</a>. But that is a subject for another posting.auto carshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04084381509422256633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3240831214950036208.post-32718635340381385972012-12-17T20:18:00.000-08:002013-03-13T00:19:45.747-07:00Gun Nuts<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE_AWCiBMThBCTOM5WrZxfYSIcJfhW-6y1NVkErPExEtU3sz3ihC5EpeerVbY6Ri-fBvnfNAuywwBBcnvmzMjoUMz51sZKo7gLMFBk6BB-iMXvJq2P9QYjKDugBMkQ2G4S3tiL4zFTLTY/s320/Gun_Collection_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE_AWCiBMThBCTOM5WrZxfYSIcJfhW-6y1NVkErPExEtU3sz3ihC5EpeerVbY6Ri-fBvnfNAuywwBBcnvmzMjoUMz51sZKo7gLMFBk6BB-iMXvJq2P9QYjKDugBMkQ2G4S3tiL4zFTLTY/s320/Gun_Collection_2.jpg" /></a></div><br /><br /><br />I recently posted an article, "<a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2012/07/another-day-another-mass-shooting.html">Another Day, Another Mass Shooting</a>" - and since that posting in July of this year, there have been a number of attempted and successful mass shootings at Malls and Schools, including one yesterday.<br /><br />What is going on here? There is a pattern, if you choose to look for it.<br /><br />Incidentally, note how the Media once again falls all over itself trying to "get the facts out" and gets it all wrong. Nearly every fact reported yesterday turns out to be wrong, today. The shooter was misidentified as his Brother. The Mother was not a school teacher. Perhaps tomorrow, we will find out everything the media hyped today was wrong as well. This is a pattern, as I have noted before.<br /><br />And soon, a memorial will be built by concerned citizens, who will attach teddy bears and flowers to a chain-link fence near the school. We will all weep and cry and say what a horror it was and then...<br /><br />....do nothing.<br /><br />We all will claim to be altruistic and shout to everyone how much we "care" about these poor kids and their families, and shake our heads in disbelief, once again, and say "ain't it awful."<br /><br />And people will use this to reinforce their own belief systems - that if we could only "go back to the good old days" none of this would happen. Or if we only had more gun laws - or that guns are not the problem.<br /><br />But sure as clockwork, in about 30 days, no one will really give a shit. You've already forgotten about the people in Aurora Colorado, and since only two were killed at the Clackamas Mall, you mentally wrote that one off.<br /><br />And likely, you've forgotten entirely about Gabby Gifford and that horrific shooting in Arizona (was it Arizona or New Mexico? We forget so soon). She got better, right? It's all good. Time to mentally move on.<br /><br />And of course, if you try to say, "Gee, maybe there is a pattern to all of these cases, and maybe instead of building memorials and making media events of these things, we can really prevent them?" you will be <i>shouted down</i> by people saying it is "too soon" to discuss the issue, as the "bodies are still warm".<br /><br />And that is a convenient argument for people who don't want the<i> Status Quo</i> to be changed. And it is the argument the gun lobby uses - every time - when one of these events happens. It is "too soon" to discuss gun laws. But when it is "appropriate" to do so? Only when people have forgotten? And who gave the gun lobby the right to tell us what to think and when to think it?<br /><br />As I noted in another posting, <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2009/07/gun-trap-do-you-really-need-one.html">I am not anti-gun</a>. But guns present a number of problems on a personal and national level. The are expensive and can be very dangerous, if not handled properly. And few people handle them properly. And there is little or no need to accumulate an arsenal of firearms - for any reason.<br /><br />On one news site, a commenter noted that he had over 300 guns and that under the second amendment, no one was going to take them away. 300 guns is a lot of weaponry. If you have that many, either you are a collector, or a gun nut. And there is a difference between the two.<br /><br />It is not weird or odd to have weapons if you are a hunter or a collector, or perhaps believe you need a gun for protection or for your job. It is a form of mental illness if you are hoarding firearms and ammunition for the "end times" or because you think the government needs to be overthrown. And increasingly, a larger and larger number of gun owners are falling into this second category - goaded and aided by conspiracy theory websites, television shows, and magazines.<br /><br />In Liberal Blue State New York, my massage therapist tells me a friend of his has bought 20,000 rounds of ammunition, "just in case". He is worried that maybe that might not be enough, and has set out to buy 40,000 more. This is a guy who has nothing saved for retirement - which is a pretty predictable event. But if we ever have a Bosnian-style civil war, he is set.<br /><br />This <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2012/05/should-you-build-bunker.html">Bunker Mentality</a> seems to be on the rise in this country. It is related, I think to <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2009/06/tragedy-of-hoarding-disorder.html">Hoarding Disorder </a>- this desire to set aside things for some catastrophic events in the future. And it ties in, I think, with this concept that the Government is somehow intruding into people's lives more and more these days. So-called "Sovereign Movement" people decry government - or at least the parts of it they don't like - and decide they can pick and choose which laws they should obey. Not surprisingly, while they are eager to reap the benefits of civilization (infrastructure, roads, bridges, hospitals, etc.) they eschew the part about paying taxes - at a paltry 25%.<br /><br />This is a dangerous form of mental illness - and seems to be fanned by the far-Right in an attempt to destabilize our own government.<br /><br />While the media is hyping how this latest shooting is "the worst since....." they conveniently forget the worst school mass-murder in history, which occurred in<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster"> Bath, Michigan</a>. A disgruntled nutjob blew up the local school with all the children in it, and then blew himself up using a car bomb loaded with shrapnel, as the "first responders" came to the rescue. A Taliban suicide attack? Some fundamentalist Christian nutjob like in Oklahoma City? No, just a deranged individual back in 1927. Same old shit, different day.<br /><br />But getting back to school shootings, there is a pattern in these as well - but a pattern no one wants to see. We are told about "bullied teens" with a grudge against Christian students, or Goths or a "Trenchcoat Mafia". But the boring reality is these are mentally ill people - usually Schizophrenic - with access to guns.<br /><br />And while some may say, "Gee, he was a nice kid, quiet and all. I never thought he would hurt a fly!" the writing is usually on the wall with <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/04/are-you-crazy-or-just-eccentric.html">crazy people.</a> Like pot smokers (often in the same group, and yes, there is a link between pot smoking and Schizophrenia) they are annoying as all shit. As a result, they "start things" with friends, family members, fellow students, co-workers, and the like.<br /><br />Most only end up hurting themselves. Others, when given access to firearms, often end up hurting others as well, as the events of this year alone have demonstrated - again, and again, and again.<br /><br />So we have a two-pronged issue here. It is not merely a "gun problem" or a mental health problem. It is a combination of these two problems that is particularly deadly.<br /><br />And while we can't guard against all such crimes, it certainly is worthwhile to so something to at least reduce the incidence of such occurrences. We can't stop them from occurring entirely, but like car wrecks, we can at least try to minimize the carnage.<br /><br />Part of the solution is already being enacted. The rapid response to the Clackamas Mall shooting is a case in point. Previously, police were trained to cordon off areas where a shooter was found, and then send for a SWAT team and hostage negotiators. This merely allowed the shooters more time to kill more people, as happened at Columbine. The name of the game is to take out the shooter quickly, and minimize the carnage. It makes more sense.<br /><br />And more and more schools have implemented "lockdown" procedures and secured entrances, which is not a bad idea - but makes our whole society more bunker-like.<br /><br />The two areas we haven't addressed are guns and crazy people - the real causes of these problems, when mixed together.<br /><br />In most of these cases, there is some warning.auto carshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04084381509422256633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3240831214950036208.post-11905964136995213912012-12-17T18:35:00.000-08:002013-03-13T00:19:45.834-07:00In a Drawer, Somewhere....<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://innbrooklyn.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/cluttered-drawer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://innbrooklyn.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/cluttered-drawer.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Eventually, every electronic device you buy ends up in a drawer, somewhere, obsolete, outdated, and unused. Keep this in mind before you get excited over the latest new electronic toy.</i></div><br />Getting old is a little sobering and sometimes not as much fun. <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2008/12/de-militarizing-christmas.html">After 53 Christmases,</a> the excitement and mystery of the holidays starts to evaporate. Doing the same things over and over again loses its appeal, at least to folks who think now and again.<br /><br />And consuming things starts to get old as well. Buying a car is no longer viewed as some special treat, but rather a <i>dreadful process</i> filled with loathing and anxiety. After all, it is a lot of money to spend, and you'd rather just keep it in your bank account anyway, right? And suppose you make the wrong choice?<br /><br />Electronic toys lose their allure entirely. After you've torn open the box on some electronic piece of shit for the 1,000th time, tossed the instructions, ate the desiccant pack, and plugged in the wall-pack transformer, well, you get bored. <br /><br />And the fact that you have a drawer-full of last year's model of electronical crap sort of takes the edge off of it. To a sixteen-year-old, getting that first smart phone must be real fun. All those new features and stuff to try out! How cool is that? But at my age, well, it is just another piece of shit I have to deal with. And likely I will have to manually transfer over all my data to it, and I will never understand all the features of the device until about two months before I throw it away for good.<br /><br />But as depressing as that all sounds, there is an upside to all of this. Not being enamored of technology means I don't squander as much as I used to, accumulating it. When I was young and poor, having the latest technology meant more to me - and I was willing to go into debt for it. When CD players first came out (yes, I am that old) I went and bought one - a Sony for the modest sum of $300, which was a lot of money in 1985. The year before, they were over $1000. And CDs were $14.99 apiece back then, too - which would be like $45 today.<br /><br />But I had to have one - it seemed important at the time.<br /><br />And when "Car Phones" came out, I had to have one of those, too. I think I paid $600 for the installation of my analog Motorola Car phone, in my 1988 Camry. And for only $59 a month, I could talk for only 59 cents a minute, except after 7:00 and on weekends, when minutes were free. I was paying close to $100 a month for a phone in my car, which today would be like $250 or more.<br /><br />I hardly could afford that, but I thought I could, and moreover that I "needed" this luxury in my life, as I was so "busy" all the time, and having a phone for the hour-and-a-half a day I was in my car seemed necessary.<br /><br />The reality was, of course, while it was "handy" on occasion, for the most part, it was just a status symbol and a way of showing off wealth. And it was exciting, I think, to try new technology which at the time seemed like science fiction.<br /><br />You may think cell phones are pretty <span class="st"><i>passé</i> today, but imagine how I felt, back in 1989, <i>getting a dialtone in my car</i>! It was like anti-gravity had been invented. Before then, only Presidents and heads of oil companies had car phones. I still remember making that first phone call - how <i>electric</i> it felt. I think I called my folks and tried to explain to them I was calling from my car. And they didn't understand it. Was I calling from my garage or something?</span><br /><span class="st"><br /></span><span class="st">So I guess that is part and parcel of being in your 20's. All this electronic shit seems so cool. And I am sure that the first iPhone you bought seemed really cool, as you could do all these "apps" and shit. But after a few years, people expect this sort of thing and the novelty wears off.</span><br /><span class="st"><br /></span><span class="st">And before you know it, that piece of technology you bought - and were so excited about - is now in a drawer somewhere, gathering dust. It was a big deal the day you bought it, but now it just seems, well, like <i>so much junk</i>. And while the upgraded model you bought might be nicer, the excitement of getting it just wasn't the same, was it? In fact, by now, it starts to seem like an expensive pain-in-the-ass that it is. Some new "features" you have to learn, and of course they changed how it works, so when you press the button to save someone's name in the directory, it erases it instead.</span><br /><br /><span class="st">And after a few decades, you realize that the electronic crap in your life basically lasts only a few years, before it becomes woefully obsolete. My first real PC (which I borrowed money to buy) ended up in Dumpster, only five years later - or sold for a few dollars. And yet when I got it, it was like, <i>whoa! Color monitor, dude! VGA no less, all 15" inches of it! And check it out - a <u>hard drive </u> 40 MB - suck on that!</i> </span><br /><br /><span class="st">Today, a Terabyte can be had for $199 at the local office supply store. </span><br /><br /><span class="st">Today, it would hardly run my calendar program on Windows. And perhaps this is a problem for the electronic industry. Because if I feel this way about electronics, then I suspect many other people do as well. And given our aging demographic, perhaps more and more people will start to turn away from electronic gadgetry.</span><br /><span class="st"><br /></span><span class="st">Maybe. Maybe not. All I can say is, I am not excited about smart phones, iPads, or any of this crap. The people I see with them, seem like very unhappy and stressed people - constantly fidgeting with then and checking them, all while talking to <i>you</i>. </span><br /><br /><span class="st">And if you even try to have an e-mail conversation with them, it is like "Wassup?" and not much else.</span><br /><span class="st"><br /></span><span class="st">Recently, I met some 20-somethings who are just getting started out in life. It is nice to meet younger people, so full of hope, naivete and whatnot. But trying to communicate with them is impossible. They want to text from their iPhone, and I like to e-mail or talk on the phone. <i>It is a generational communications gap.</i></span><br /><br /><span class="st">And a lot of older people here on Retirement Island are buying smart phones or texting plans, simply so they can stay in touch with their children or more specifically, grandchildren. Because the grandchildren can't write a five-line e-mail and get nervous talking on the phone.</span><br /><span class="st"><i> </i></span><br /><span class="st"><i>It is like someone invented a new method of communication and forgot to tell us old folks about it</i>.</span><br /><span class="st"><br /></span><span class="st">I dunno. I will be dragged, kicking and screaming, in to this new era of Twittering and Twattering and Texting and crap. And the reason why is simple: <i>I don't want to spend the money on more electronic crap.</i></span><br /><br /><span class="st"><i>Electronic crap - that will end up in a drawer somewhere. </i></span><br /><span class="st"><br /></span><span class="st"><br /></span>auto carshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04084381509422256633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3240831214950036208.post-5979420824407880762012-12-14T06:33:00.000-08:002013-03-13T00:19:45.920-07:00Bankruptcy as Usual<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.abovethelaw.com/uploads/2010/09/Monopoly-Mr-Moneybags-broke.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://cdn.abovethelaw.com/uploads/2010/09/Monopoly-Mr-Moneybags-broke.jpg" width="297" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Bankruptcy is a common event in the business world. It is part and parcel of doing business, which is why it is codified into law.</i></div><br />A friend of mine gave me a stack of old car magazines that dealt mostly with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass_Era_car">Brass Era Automobiles</a>, built prior to World War I. Cars of that era were huge, heavy and expensive, and the brand names are largely unknown today.<br /><br />What is fascinating about reading these magazines is how many of the car companies of that time came and went with regularity - being capitalized, going into business, going bankrupt, being re-organized, merged, and finally liquidated. It is estimated that there were over 1,000 manufactures of automobiles in that era - of one sort of another. Many of these makes are ones you never heard of - <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Briggs-Detroiter"><i>the Detroiter</i></a>, for example, whose massive factory no longer even exists.<br /><br />In any new industry, there are bound to be a lot of competitors, and a few will end up as major players. By the end of the World War I, the car market in the United States had already started to coalesce into Ford, GM, and everybody else. By the end of the Depression, the field had been winnowed further. By the mid-50's, it was the "big-3" and American Motors. By the 1980's, we were down to the big-3. Today, these three still soldier on, but historic brands like Mercury, Plymouth, Pontiac, and Oldsmobile have bit the dust.<br /><br />And this is not an uncommon trend. If you look at the early days of oil exploration or the railroads, you see a similar pattern. Many jump into the business, determined to make money. Only a few succeed, and often these end up buying out the others, merging together businesses. The strong survive, the weak fail.<br /><br />The airplane business started out the same way, with a number of competitors, including Wright, Curtiss, Boeing, Douglass, Grumman, Convair (itself a merger of two companies) and the like. Today, we have basically one larger passenger aircraft company in the United States, and two military builders. <br /><br />The computer business was the same way - both for mainframes and PCs, with the latter eventually eclipsing the former. In the early days of mainframes, there were a number of makers, but the market quickly settled to two or three makers - IBM, Control Data, Digital, etc. The PC market had a number of operating systems and types, but by 1985 had settled to MS-DOS and Apple types. And by 1995, the number of PC makers had dropped as well, to the handful we have today. <br /><br />What struck me about this is that there was a lot of wailing and moaning on the Right about alternative energy companies - such as Solyndra and A-123, which have gone bankrupt. By the way, if you want the <i>real engineering reasons</i> why Solyndra went bankrupt, <a href="http://www.edn.com/design/power-management/4368710/Solyndra-Its-technology-and-why-it-failed">you might want to read this link</a>. While a startling and innovative design, the Solyndra tube was just too expensive to justify its purported advantages. And while cheap Chinese solar panels may be the stated cause of its demise, Solyndra was likely doomed to fail in the long-run, as its esoteric technology could not compete with flat-panels made in the United States. <br /><br />In any emerging technology market, this is not to be unexpected. And even the alleged malfeasance at Solyndra (misrepresentation of earnings) has its parallels in the early railroad, oil, and automotive booms, where companies sold stock, had high expectations, and then went bankrupt. In many cases, people experiment with new technologies, or can't get costs under control, and they fail in the marketplace. If they succeed, they leapfrog the competition. If they fail, well, you end up with the Vega engine.<br /><br />Of course, as others will be quick to point out, the main difference between these alternative energy companies and start-up industries of yore is that the government gave loan guarantees and in some cases, money, to these companies. But of course, other industries benefited from government subsidies in the past. Railroads would never have gotten off the ground without rights-of-way. Boeing benefited from military contracts in developing the 707.<br /><br />And it doesn't end there. Federal subsidies for coal and oil businesses go way back - and continue today. Timber subsidies and cattle subsidies exist in the form of cheap leases of vast Federal lands. The Nuclear Industry would never have gotten off the ground, without Federal research and subsidies. And of course, we "pick winners" in the farm business every day by propping up prices of corn, milk, sugar, and a whole host of other products, as well as by providing things like ethanol mandates. If you really believe the USA is a land of "Free Enterprise" you need to look around more carefully.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CFwQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dblinvestors.com%2Fdocuments%2FWhat-Would-Jefferson-Do-Final-Version.pdf&ei=NDHLUJaRKYui8ASUnIGgCw&usg=AFQjCNGkLjqB0inzbzRdBUP9iP4MAYaLUQ&bvm=bv.1355325884,d.eWU">This white paper details </a>the subsides just to energy businesses alone. It is pretty startling, and you realize, reading it, why the "big coal" and "big oil" people are making a big noise about Solyndra.<br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq1lm7tkluDHrv-ZZPHPPu9vBBnceOpcsrt7l32xWXS_IJ39N6u1Fjp_4H8ji6LzWuW9mhQIIc3r8ACr9JhoTnihR-DQiQcjzv_1HWd4bFVlwLIx4wg-YRZIKteF9eR3q4d7iBiOn1OW0/s1600/subsidies.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq1lm7tkluDHrv-ZZPHPPu9vBBnceOpcsrt7l32xWXS_IJ39N6u1Fjp_4H8ji6LzWuW9mhQIIc3r8ACr9JhoTnihR-DQiQcjzv_1HWd4bFVlwLIx4wg-YRZIKteF9eR3q4d7iBiOn1OW0/s400/subsidies.png" width="318" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i> This chart illustrates why the oil industry is against renewable energy subsidies - it cuts into their take!</i></div><br /><br />Solyndra appears to be out of business for good, with a successor company being formed only to take tax write-offs from the losses of the parent. And while this may have been a bad bet for the administration, the overall amount of money involved, compared to the annual budget, is trivial - a tiny fraction of a percent. To hear the right call it, the bankruptcy of Solyndra caused our current economic crises.<br /><br />But that is an effect we see in every discussion of our budget - people fixate on trivial things, like Sesame Street or the cost of Congressional salaries, while ignoring the elephants in the room - <i>Social Security, Medicare, Defense Spending, Welfare </i>- <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/01/what-does-government-spend-money-on-you.html">which combined make up about 3/4 of the budget</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2012/12/12/china-wins-u-s-loses-in-a123-bankruptcy/">The A-123 bankruptcy is a little more troubling</a>. The Chinese are buying it for a relative song ($256 million) which is a bit of irony, as government money helped develop the technology, plant, and infrastructure. In other words, we've given away the store here. A-123 has firm contacts from several car companies for their battery packs - as well as military contracts. With a lower operating cost and overhead, it certainly could be a going concern. Unfortunately, it looks as though it may move offshore, and that gain would end up being a loss.<br /><br />Usually, these sorts of bankruptcies can often have a jump-starting effect on the economy. After the tech crash of the 1990's, there was a huge amount of server and network capacity available at bankruptcy auction for pennies on the dollar. If you wanted to start a new company, you could find office space in Silicon Valley at bargain prices, and office furniture for bubkis. This alone allowed a lot of companies that never would have made it, under ordinary circumstances, to succeed.<br /><br />And mergers of various companies in any industry usually have the effect of lowering overhead costs by increasing overall volume production, and of course, limiting competition. Bankruptcy is a normal process for any developing technology - it is the<i> natural selection</i> of the business world, and only the strong or ruthless survive. <br /><br />Battery technology has leapfrogged in the last few years - making hybrid and electric cars more practical than ever. While not everyone is ready for an electric car, the range of existing cars has nearly doubled, compared to their lead-acid battery forebears. And while the Chevy Volt might not survive long in the marketplace without subsidies, the Toyota Prius has demonstrated that a hybrid vehicle can find a market, in the U.S. and worldwide. Long-term, we will benefit from these successes - and even the failures.<br /><br />I am puzzled as to why this technology hasn't moved to other areas of the marketplace. While the Lithium-Ion battery is popular in cell phones and laptop computers (the latter being the initial application for the devices), plain old D-cells still power my flashlight, and my car battery stubbornly remains a lead-acid type little changed from the brass-lamp era. One would think a Lithium-Ion car battery could replace your lead-acid starting battery at 1/10th the weight and size. One would think, anyway. <br /><br />What is also puzzling is that despite this flood of "cheap Chinese solar panels" into the United States, that solar panels for home use are still staggeringly expensive and are not proliferating across the country - just yet. Installation of such panels is still expensive, and the payback is measured in years, if not decades. And the practical problems of sunlight access and storm and tree-limb damage have yet to be addressed. A panel on my house would not get much sunlight and likely be shattered by a falling tree limb in a matter of months.<br /><br />But, overall, the money spent on these experiments is not necessarily money flushed down the toilet. Even if the electric car turns out (yet again) to be an impractical fantasy, and if solar panels still remain too expensive for regular energy generation, the trickle-down effect of improvements in technology will be felt - just as the Moon landing ended up jump-starting a lot of technologies on Earth.<br /><br />And that is the nature of Engineering. You set out to solve a problem, and end up spending a lot of money on false starts and failures. <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fail-early-fail-often.html"> And you learn from failure more than you do from success</a>. Before there was an iPad, there was something called the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_%28platform%29">Apple Newton</a>. Before there was an iMac, there was something called the "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lisa">Lisa</a>" which was an utter failure. And yet, Apple probably could not have made their successful products, without first experiencing these utter failures. You learn, from failure, not only what works, <i>but what doesn't</i>. You learn what the market wants, <i>and what it doesn't.</i><br /><br />And that is why, I guess, as an Engineer, I am not surprised or worried<i> </i>about the bankruptcy of A-123 or Solyndra. It is to be expected, in any emerging industry, that most of the companies entering the business, will fail. And right there is a<a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2010/12/trendy-stocks-why-stock-picking-is-bad.html"> good reason not to invest in emerging technologies</a>, as "picking winners" is very hard to do - even if you are the Federal Government. Of course, the Federal Government can easily swallow a billion or two on some ill-conceived scheme. You and I, on a personal level, really can't.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />auto carshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04084381509422256633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3240831214950036208.post-59724708122298363072012-12-12T15:09:00.000-08:002013-03-13T00:19:46.008-07:00The Lessons of AOL<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQmXvgfKlyE8UHt8QenrUCT20IczIpuWN2Nc4b2z8AKSF0Bw_9rGBIb9hHPH3Fj8Rg8_lAI9StVf9XIWhB07ljgc9g5qCBw9alz8kMWPwc68raQ6S0Ax4oPs1MkR0od0_9Ra4C4Xs1ogM/s1600/aol-logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQmXvgfKlyE8UHt8QenrUCT20IczIpuWN2Nc4b2z8AKSF0Bw_9rGBIb9hHPH3Fj8Rg8_lAI9StVf9XIWhB07ljgc9g5qCBw9alz8kMWPwc68raQ6S0Ax4oPs1MkR0od0_9Ra4C4Xs1ogM/s1600/aol-logo.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>There are many people alive today who were not around when AOL was born. They likely don't remember the meteoric rise - and fall - of this once-powerful media and social networking company.</i></div><br />I think it is worthwhile to study the history of <i>America Online</i> or <i>AOL</i> as it is now called. A lot of people alive today were not even born when AOL was founded, and were mere children during its heyday. For them, AOL is not something they remember or even know about. But its spectactular rise to the top - and sudden downfall - are a valuable lesson to anyone who might think that investing in popular trends is a swell idea.<br /><br />A brief history of the company <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL#History">can be found here</a>. What is startling about this history is that the company was founded as a means of <i>sharing games online</i> by downloading them via modem. Today we do this and consider ourselves clever and modern. <i>Everything old is new again</i>.<br /><br />The company even proposed <i>licensing and streaming music </i>over modems, back in the 1980's, but was shot down by Warner and since they couldn't get licensed content, the idea died. <br /><br />Actually, much of what we consider to be the modern technology really was tried before, back in the 1980's and even the 1970s. Cable companies offered video on demand, telephone service, and alarm monitoring, back in the 1980's, as part of their efforts to get lucrative cable franchises during the "wired cities" era (in the late 1970's, cable morphed from a rural to urban phenomenon, believe it or not).<br /><br />It is only today that we have the bandwidth, the licensing agreements, and a common formatting that allows a lot of these ideas from "back then" to actually work. And actually a whole lot more of them would work - or work better - if we have more open source code and less "Gimme! Gimme!" proprietary hardware, apps, and formats out there. And yea, I'm talking about Apple.<br /><br />But getting back to AOL, it started out as a dial-up service, one of a few around, such as Prodigy (which was sold by Sears) and Compuserve. You could dial up to AOL and then go onto their primitive version of the Internet and search discussion groups and proto-websites, using proprietary AOL "Keywords". You could go on these sites and join "groups" and have discussions online (and send e-mail) much as we do today with the Internet.<br /><br />At the time, it seemed like "everyone" was on AOL, as the media hyped it relentlessly. Every ad on television had the phrase "AOL keyword...." at the end - or they appeared in print ads, much as these obnoxious 2-D bar codes appear today.<br /><br />It was just assumed that AOL would take over the world, and that everyone would end up on AOL, as it had the largest market share of any online service. And many folks, including myself, resented it, as it seemed like we were being forced into something - a monopoly service - that we didn't want.<br /><br />The company became so popular that when it went public, the stock soared and the whole "dot com" boom took off. Companies like Motley Fool were saying the stock was the greatest thing since sliced bread. From a 1994 report:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"BUY AND HOLD, HOLD, HOLD. We are buying [AOL], and we are holding. And holding. And holding. Because when we come to like a company and its situation this much, we're very unlikely to let go inside of a decade."</blockquote><br />And it didn't stop there. The stock went up 500% by 1998, and s<a href="http://www.fool.com/FoolPort/1998/FoolPort980729.htm">ome folks still thought it was <i>undervalued at that point!</i></a><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">"My valuation model clearly indicated that AOL was undervalued. I also believed that AOL would begin to generate additional revenue from advertising and online commerce in the future, which would only add further to the "fair" stock price that I had calculated. This quantitative data, combined with my knowledge and experience with AOL, gave me the confidence I needed to <i>buy and hold </i>AOL stock for the long-term." </blockquote>Ha-ha! I can only guess that the author also bought a mini-mansion and is now heavily invested in gold.<br /><br />But he wasn't the only one drinking the Kool-Aide. Time Warner, the media company, "merged" with AOL and at the time, AOL was considered the larger of the two companies with a huge "<a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2012/02/myth-of-market-cap.html">Market Cap</a>" in the billions.<br /><br />But things started unwinding, slowly at first, and then more and more quickly.<br /><br />The Internet, which had been around since the early 1980's, became more of a mainstream product for average citizens. Small Internet Service Providers (ISPs) started up, offering dial-up internet access for as little as $10 a month. It was the wild west back then, with small ISPs on every streetcorner (often literally) and everyone getting "online" to the 'net through 56K modems.<br /><br />Of course, the Internet back then was harder to use. Most of the stuff you saw was in ASCII text format, and "web pages" were just starting to appear. We had to run something called "Netscape Navigator" to view a web page. The "user friendly" interface of AOL was much easier to use for the average citizen, and most prognosticators put their money on AOL.<br /><br />Please stop me if any of this sounds familiar at all - in today's context.<br /><br />AOL made a mistake at this point - a costly mistake. They assumed that their <i>proprietary databse</i> of "AOL KEYWORD" topics would be more popular than the real Internet, in the long run. And in fact, they made it hard for AOL users to access the Internet or even send e-mails outside of AOL or receive them from outsiders.<br /><br />The Internet was clunky and difficult to use, but it was also cheaper and also <i>open format</i>. There was no "Keyword" needed, only a URL, and anyone could get one of those. And once Google came along, and made searching the Internet easy, well, the writing was on the wall for AOL.<br /><br />The stock price plummeted. Subscribers fled. Time-Warner extricated itself from the merger. <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/01/wither-aol.html"> The company soldiers on, of course</a>, trying to re-make itself as a content company. Maybe it will succeed at that. But like IBM, it won't be the same company it was before.<br /><br />And the predictions that AOL was "the next big thing!!!" proved to be completely without merit. And with the perspective of time (I have a time machine, but it travels in one direction only, forward) I can look back on the views of people at the time and laugh. And it is a satisfying laugh, as these are the same people who called <i>me</i> a fool for not investing in AOL. I may be a fool, but at least I am not Motley.<br /><br />So what does this mean for today? Well, as recently as two years ago, people were hyping the stock of ZipCar (the next big thing in cars!!!) and that tanked. Then came Groupon (the next big thing in couponing!!!) and that tanked. Facebook came along and tanked as well, but no one wants to admit it just yet. The media is still blaming the "botched IPO" for the stock price not doing well. But I think the market is talking here - and saying that the company isn't worth as much as people initially thought.<br /><br />If you think Facebook stock is undervalued, you have to hope its profits soar by a factor of 10 to 20, in order to have any rational return on investment, over time.<br /><br />Facebook even made the NASDAQ 100 recently - which some are heralding as an indication that the company has a bright future. But Yahoo!, Vodaphone, and First Solar are on the NASDAQ 100, and I am not about to plow money into those anytime soon. Certainly not Facebook with its P/E ratio of 280. I don't think Facebook can grow its way out of a hole like that. Although I am sure others (like our friend quoted above, who had an MBA) think it is undervalued.<br /><br />Yes, just like AOL, it seems that Facebook is everywhere all at once, and that "everyone" is on it - and a lot of people are. And every ad now says "follow us on Facebook!" or some such nonsense. But just as suddenly, users or subscribers can vanish, as they morph over to the next big thing - and if management makes boneheaded mistakes like AOL. And I think in five years, "follow us on Facebook!" will be as quaint and archaic as "AOL Keyword....."<br /><br />Have you every "followed" your favorite restaurant on Facebook? Really? Most of the pages I have seen are pretty lame, rarely updated, and, well, stale. How is a company making money by having a Facebook page - in addition to its own home webpage? How can a company sell product on Facebook - as opposed to eBay and Amazon? In other words, where is the money in this?<br /><br />I was on the website of a small organization the other day. They have a traditional HTML-coded website, a blogger page (with updates on what they are doing), AND a Facebook page. And what was interesting to me was that (a) all three pages had the same information, (b) some poor sap has to update three different web pages in three different formats, at least once a week, and (c) that is a lot of extra make-work for a small organization to undertake - when there is no payout in terms of customers or traffic. Is this an effective use of time for a small company or organization? I didn't check to to see if they also had Twitter, Pinterest, or MySpace accounts (or whatever else is new this week).<br /><br />Another company following in the footsteps of AOL is APPLE. Again, it seems that the iPhone and iPad are everywhere - <i>according to the media</i>. But in reality, the open-architecture <i>Droid</i> platform outsells the iPhone by 2:1 - it just doesn't get a lot of press. And yes, maybe Apple products are "easy to use" for first-timers, but the cost delta doesn't justify that advantage - not in an era where everyone is pretty much computer literate - or at least all your potential customers are.<br /><br />Markets abhor monopolies and proprietary formats. Over time, people propagate to the public domain. It may take a year, five years, a decade, or even a lifetime. But it is a market force that cannot be denied.<br /><br />We drive cars today, not because they are safer or more efficient that trollies, trains, buses, or subways. We drive them because we like <i>freedom of choice</i> and freedom from arbitrary pricing and dependency. Talk to anyone over the age of 70 about the trollies, and once they wipe away the romantic cobwebs of memory, they will tell you that they were keen to buy that Model A Ford, back in the day, and not have to ride that rickety old trolly anymore! (Today we love trollies and trains - as an act of nostalgia. But back in the day, no one mourned their passing. And frankly, if you ride AMTRAK, your nostalgia will be wiped away pretty quickly.)<br /><br />Beta gave way to VHS. AppleDos was trounced by MS-DOS. Polaroid was never as popular as 35 mm. The market abhors proprietary formats, hardware, single-sourcing, and one-stop shopping. It is a pretty inflexible rule. Like Adam Smith's invisible hand, it can be twisted, distorted and manipulated - for a time. But like the running tide, it cannot be denied in the long haul.<br /><br /><i>And fads wear out. </i> Popularity of a site or product can vanish overnight, as people simply get tired of dicking around with things. The music business was big business in the 1970's, when none of us had cable TV or home computers. We all had monster stereos and record collections. Today, no one gives a damn, and they stream music from their computer - when they listen at all. Music listening is down, TeeVee watching (and screwing around with smart phones) is up. Rock and Roll was just a fad it seems. Hopefully, so is rap music.<br /><br />The lesson of AOL is a lesson that has been applied time and time again in our history. The "next big thing!" arrives with a lot of fanfare and hoopla, and falls apart in short order. From a personal perspective, investing in these sorts of things is a really bad idea.<br /><br />Turn away from the noise and spectacle of the media. What they think is important, often really isn't. They have a stellar track record of getting everything all wrong - most all of the time. auto carshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04084381509422256633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3240831214950036208.post-28705591750351860052012-12-12T09:10:00.000-08:002013-03-13T00:19:46.094-07:00Long-Term Investing v. Short-Term Investing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://badgerrealty.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/ar122729892029861.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://badgerrealty.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/ar122729892029861.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Investing for the long-term is the best strategy for the small investor.</i></div><br />Looking at investments over time is an interesting thing. Some things I bought a long time ago did not seem like a good deal a the time, like some blue-chip stocks, or life insurance. But over time, they start to pay off, and in the long run - if you live long enough - they pay out.<br /><br />For example, with my life insurance policies, the cash value increases by about $438.66 every month. I pay $62.41 in premiums on one of my policies and $44.42 on another. I also receive about $98.84 in dividends (on a monthly basis) from my Northwestern policies. So, at the present time, I am making $425.67 a month on these policies, or about $5,108.04 a year.<br /><br />At this point, there is little to be gained by cashing in the policies, which have a cash value of $98,515.99 and a death benefit of $325,000. The "rate of return" on this fairly safe investment, based on the cash value, is over 5%, which is not bad. Of course, the overall rate of return, based on the premiums paid in, is a whole lot less. But over time, this could end up being a reasonable investment and a good adjunct to my portfolio.<br /><br /><i>This is not to say buying life insurance is a good investment</i>. Buying it at age 50 is a horrifically bad investment, as the insurance component will be very expensive. Insurance is a young man's game, and what made this investment "pay off" over time was the fact that it was a <i>long-term</i> investment I started at age 29, not some short-term deal I started last year. <br /><br />Similarly, some stocks, while not stellar in performance initially, end up being worth a lot more to me, over time. For example, if I buy a "blue chip" stock that pays out a dividend at about 2% of the share price, this doesn't sound like much of a good investment, does it?<br /><br />Over time, however, the stock price doubles, and the dividend increases proportionally. For someone buying the stock today, it seems like a pretty paltry deal, as the annual dividend is still 2% of the new stock price. But for someone like myself, who paid half that for the stock, the effective rate of return, in dividends alone, is 4%, which isn't bad in this day and age. Might as well hang on to that investment!<br /><br />Short-term investing, on the other hand, is a lot riskier and where I tend to get wiped out. Trying to buy stocks based on how much they will go up in share price in the next year, is always a dicey deal, as short-term stock predictions are, well, <i>gambling</i>. I lost my shirt on stupid stocks like Martha Stewart and Syntroleum - and based on recommendations from people on television.<br /><br />And buying a stock because it pays a hefty dividend <i>now</i> can also be somewhat problematic. For example, I bought some stock in two tanker companies - <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/12/high-dividend-stocks.html">TeeKay Tankers and Knightsbridge</a>. They were both paying out high dividends (on the order of 15%) which sounds swell. And today they are still paying out 15% dividends. <br /><br /><i>There is a catch, of course.</i> The catch is, they are paying out a lot less in dividends in terms of cash value, and the share price has plummeted as a result, resulting in the ratio of dividend to share price remaining locked in at this 15% rate.<br /><br />As it turns out, the reason these stocks have such high dividend rates is that they are fairly risky, and the market is saying "I expect a high dividend, relative to share price, as I expect the dividends to decline over time".<br /><br /><i>And by design, they do</i>. These types of tanker stocks are interesting beasts, it turns out. What you are buying is literally <i>a piece of a ship</i>. The stock represents an interest in a small fleet of ships (bulk carriers, tankers, containers, whatever) and the profits from the ships are paid out directly in dividends, with a small amount taken out for overhead. When the ships make money, you make money.<br /><br />But as the ships get older and make less money - or the demand for shipping declines, as it has in recent years - the profits drop as well. Knightsbridge has sold three of its four tankers, and likely they were scrapped. It still pays a dividend of 12.05% of the lowered share price - about 6% rate of return based on the price I paid. The stock price has taken a beating, dropping by half. Teekay has done better - its stock price actually rose by 40%, then dropped to about -10% in price. It is cranking out dividends, at 12.88% of share price, which means I am getting back about 10% in dividends, based on the price I paid.<br /><br />At those rates of return, there is little point in selling the stocks. And of course, these stocks represent a tiny, tiny part of my overall portfolio. But the attractive dividends that initially appeared, have decreased over time. If I hang on to these stocks, I may get my money back, over time. But the effective rate of return will not be the 15% initial dividend, but likely far less.<br /><br />Moving forward, profits may go up, as the economy recovers - and dividends may increase. China's appetite for oil will not taper off anytime soon. And oil shale or not, we will still import a lot of oil. But where will Knightsbridge get the cash to buy new tankers? Well, they use the proceeds from the sale of the old ones, and <i>issue new shares of stock</i> instead of tapping into profits (which are all paid out in dividends). So they will sell new shares, diluting the value of my old shares, and basically I will end up "owning" a smaller part of a new ship, along with the new shareholders. The stock, <i>by design</i>, declines in value over time, but pays out hefty dividends. <i> It is an interesting beast!</i><br /><br />It was not necessarily a <i>bad investment</i> but one that I understand better, now that I have bought it. And it never pays to buy an investment you don't fully understand. <i>Oh, but the learning curve is steep, ain't it? </i><br /><br />Other short-term bets I made, based on stock price alone, have not fared as well. <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2010/12/trendy-stocks-why-stock-picking-is-bad.html"> Picking stocks, as I noted before, is a game for chumps and gamblers </a>(and I am being redundant here). Investments in CREE lighting and Syntroleum, for example, were foolish gambles. They were not dividend-paying stocks, and while CREE is profitable, it is getting hammered by cheap Chinese LEDs (Much as the solar market was hammered by cheap Chinese solar panels). The price went up, the price went down, I got out with half my money - and that was a good thing. Today, I would have far less.<br /><br />Long-term, neither of these companies was a good bet at the time I bought them. Most of the stocks I have done well with were more of the "blue chip" variety. They have gone up in value, while chugging out dividends at a regular rate. And since I bought them for a lot less money, in years past, the effective dividend rate of return on my investment, is much higher.<br /><br />What sort of Companies? Stanley Tool, for example, which has doubled in value since I bought it, and pays out a dividend of 2.69% which doesn't sound stellar, but at the share price I paid, is well over 5%. Or United Technologies, up 65% since I bought it a few years back, and cranking out a 2.63% dividend at today's share price (over 4% dividend rate of return at the price I paid).<br /><br />And as I go down the list, the pattern is the same. The winners are "old school" companies like Disney, Cosco, BMW, Kaiser Aluminum, Caterpillar, FMC, Exxon, Kraft, 3M, Kraft, WalMart, AT&T, Dell, Altria, Coca-Cola, and even Ford. To be sure, many of these stocks initially seemed to be poor choices, as they tanked in value after I bought some of them - some by 20-40% or more, such as 3M or Kaiser. But over time, they increased in value and kept paying out those dividends. All are worth more than I paid for them - some doubling in value - and all pay out dividends regularly.<br /><br />And to be sure, there are a few "dogs" in these old-school companies - stocks such as GE, Archer-Daniels, Southwest, Dow Chemical, and Pfizer. But even these stocks - which have declined by 10-50% in value since I bought them, continue, in most instances, to crank out dividends, often at 3% or more of current share prices. And the share prices have been edging up, over time. If I was to sell them today, what would I buy? <i>Probably the same stocks.</i> So I hang on.<br /><br />Of course, I am not suggesting or recommending direct stock investment or stock-picking as a centerpiece of any investment portfolio. <i>Stock-picking is for chumps</i>, remember? I have a trading account, and it represents less than 10% of my overall portfolio. And most of that money is now invested pretty conservatively - in blue-chip stocks that pay dividends and are held for the long-term.<br /><br />And most of my stock investments are through mutual funds, which overall have done about the same, if not better, than my trading account. In fact, my trading account seems to be catching up with my mutual funds, as I move more toward long-term and blue-chip stocks. <br /><br />Initially, when I started this account, I bought a lot of crap - thinking I could outsmart the market by making "smart choices" and buying and selling stocks in the short-term. And fortunately, I did not get burned <i>too badly</i>. But I learned quickly that buying stocks that are talked about on the TeeVee as being "real movers" or listening to the shouting guy or other financial channels, was just a <i>bad, bad idea</i>. All those stocks did was go up in value in the short-term (because they were mentioned on television, and folks like me bought them) and then they would tank for the long-term, as their fundamental value in the marketplace became apparent, once the hoopla died down.<br /><br />Buy-and-hold is now my strategy, unless I really think a stock is going down for the long-term. I tend to buy, using the <i>dividend income</i> from my existing stocks, and add to my stock portfolio, rather than try to <i>buy and sell</i> shares and churn my account. And that dividend income works out to about 2.5% on average, in my trading account, which allows me to add another company to the mix, about every year, from the proceeds of the other investments.<br /><br />Over time, my investments will get more and more conservative. Eventually, I will likely be mostly in treasury bills, CDs, Money Market accounts, or other "safe" investments which have low yields, but also zero risk. Once you are 70, you are not going to make a lot of money <i>from</i> your investments, so you might as well <i>spend</i> it. Trying to "live off the interest" is just too risky, at that age.<br /><br />Now, to a lot of folks, that seems like a "boring" strategy, as they want to see huge gains and get-rich-quick schemes. They want overnight wealth and "secret stock tips" for making lots of money. And other than committing fraud (for example, by hyping penny stocks through e-mails in a pump-and-dump scheme) you really can't do that.<br /><br />Sure, once in a while you get lucky, like I did with <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2012/03/lessons-from-avis.html">Avis stock</a>, and it goes up 1200% in value in a few months (and over 2000% overall). But those are long-shot deals that happen only once in a blue moon (the blue moon in this instance, being the market tanking in 2009, and rumors of the company's imminent bankruptcy proving false). <i>You can't count on that happening with any regularity.</i><br /><br />This is not to say people don't try. They <i>believe</i> (and believe is the word, as belief and logic are two different animals) in things like Facebook stock and Gold, without doing any math on the basic fundamentals of either - much as I did, with my initial investments in speculative stocks, when I opened my trading account.<br /><br />Get-rich-quick schemes always fail. However, if you invest for the <i>long haul</i> you can become comfortably well-off, over time. The key is to invest, soundly and consistently, over time - and to stop chasing the false God of "get rich quick".auto carshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04084381509422256633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3240831214950036208.post-31990005953520882572012-12-11T07:48:00.000-08:002013-03-13T00:19:46.179-07:00Why No One Cares About the "Fiscal Cliff"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLDHp5d4muhIY7-bP0zRXKJRjjjF3Qfsz98GkF3BgO9KiZ4Cmop-VQYZGsNnn3YMU3L1Pr2WZVdRbQCm4u7ph6HdF9nkBZBcv1O3U6jeCuFQTxncNU75Gm7gdJHm-K70QD_UXEud0YxHA/s1600/thelma.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLDHp5d4muhIY7-bP0zRXKJRjjjF3Qfsz98GkF3BgO9KiZ4Cmop-VQYZGsNnn3YMU3L1Pr2WZVdRbQCm4u7ph6HdF9nkBZBcv1O3U6jeCuFQTxncNU75Gm7gdJHm-K70QD_UXEud0YxHA/s1600/thelma.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>People don't seem to care about the "fiscal cliff" as they perceive it to be the political and media creation that it is. Perhaps America is finally growing up?</i></div><br />The media is having a fit! No one is paying attention to their "fiscal cliff" horror stories. People are changing the channel. No one is clicking on the articles! It isn't fair! They have a prime "crises" story to tell - and no one wants to listen!<br /><br />As I have noted before, the media is like a child with a toy trumpet, blaring it loudly and saying "Look at me! Look at me!" - and what makes them really have a temper tantrum is when <i>no one pays attention to them</i>.<br /><br />The "Fiscal Cliff" is all in the news these days. But the thing to remember is that the term itself, and its dire predictions, are in fact a product of the media, not the government. <br /><br />America is bored with the "fiscal cliff" talk - perhaps because we are getting crises-weary. Or more precisely, we are getting tired of <i>everything being presented as a crises</i>. Or perhaps we are all just stoned out of our minds on medical marijuana and just don't give a shit anymore.<br /><br />But I think not. I think people are finally becoming more perceptive, and realizing that every time the media cries "Wolf!" and says that Humpty Dumpty is about to have a great fall, we needn't drop everything we are doing, as nine times out of ten, it is a false alarm.<br /><br />The "Fiscal Cliff", <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2012/11/should-you-worry-about-fiscal-cliff-no.html">as I noted before</a>, is not the end of the world, but just a return to tax rates we had during the Clinton years. Remember those? When we were all making lots of money? <i>We could afford those tax rates then, and we can afford them now</i>. A 3% rise isn't a big deal.<br /><br />And getting rid of the payroll tax "holiday" - which was never intended to be permanent anyway - is a good idea to fully fund Social Security. It is a far better idea than cutting benefits to Seniors. So what is the big deal, there?<br /><br />As for unemployment benefits, <a href="http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2011/04/do-unemployment-benefits-cause.html">as harsh as this may sound</a>, we need to make these reasonable in length. 99 weeks is nearly two years - and when people are paid not to work, not surprisingly, they don't work (just as with food stamps, if you pay people to eat, they get fat).<br /><br />What about Capital Gains taxes? The elderly and retired are being scared by the media that they will have to pay 46% tax rates on their capital gains. This is highly unlikely, for most folks. Older people get pensions, which are taxed at ordinary income rates, which are only going up 3%. People with IRA and 401(k) plans are also taxed only at ordinary income rates.<br /><br />So who does that leave, who will pay these enormous capital gains rates? Millionaire investors with after-tax investment income, that's who. The Mitt Romneys and Warren Buffets of the world, who pay only 15% in taxes - a rate far less than their secretaries pay! Sorry if I do not weep for the Billionaires of the world.<br /><br />And as for cuts in government spending - <i>isn't this what all the teabaggers wanted anyway?</i> If this is such a horrible thing, why is it the centerpiece of nearly every candidate's campaign platform? Cutting government spending by 10% is hardly crippling, eminently do-able, and a good idea. <i>Drive the car off the cliff! We need it!</i> <br /><br />But of course, the fiscal cliff <i>ain't likely to happen</i>, anyway. What the media posits is that the fiscal cliff will happen in January and then <i>we will never be able to change it, ever, ever, ever, ever!</i> Again, the child with the toy trumpet.<br /><br />It is like <i>Obamacare</i>. We are told we have to "overturn it" or nothing. We can't tweak it or fix it or improve it. The two choices presented are revocation (which ain't gonna happen) or dire consequences of "socialized medicine".<br /><br />The reality is, of course, that Obamacare will be tweaked and improved, and if it really doesn't work at all, tossed out. But I suspect it will work after a fashion, and while no one party will really be happy with the outcome, it will chug along and with a few patches, be better than the horrific non-system we had before.<br /><br />But of course, no one wants to hear that. They want to hear Apocalyptic nonsense.<br /><br />What will happen with the "Fiscal Cliff" is this:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">1. Both sides (Obama and Boehner) will keep playing games in the media with press conferences and staged events, each claiming the other side is "not being helpful".<br /><br />2. The cliff may or may not be reached by December 31st. The "sequester" provisions may kick in, for a week or two, in January.<br /><br />3. A compromise will be reached, of course, which neither side will like. This will either make the sequester provisions only effective for a week or two in January, or they will retroactively eliminate them back to January 1.<br /><br />4. Life will go on as before.</blockquote><br />This "fiscal cliff" is not a natural disaster, like a tsunami, a hurricane, or a mega-volcano. It is merely a game of brinksmanship that we are playing <i>by choice</i>. It is not some unsolvable problem, but rather an entirely easily solved problem, simply by having both sides compromise.<br /><br />And the American Public, with its lack of orchestrated "outrage" seems to understand this better than the pundits and the media lackeys.auto carshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04084381509422256633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3240831214950036208.post-52720230696889188842012-12-10T20:20:00.000-08:002013-03-13T00:19:46.232-07:00I'm Better Than You!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC8MYalbdpAfcyxN_5fIdH8RqliqPOc0PLMtuBQYUNuBzegUBC7gjCBt-aZf8d5lMkzoQ3-seJrrvkCYjfsyLuxf62kWqOEzE-ZNH136sGGtxUCCrM3tyZigFmrUmeexd1jIHKErxiIfw/s1600/Tiffin-Motorhome-Allegro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC8MYalbdpAfcyxN_5fIdH8RqliqPOc0PLMtuBQYUNuBzegUBC7gjCBt-aZf8d5lMkzoQ3-seJrrvkCYjfsyLuxf62kWqOEzE-ZNH136sGGtxUCCrM3tyZigFmrUmeexd1jIHKErxiIfw/s320/Tiffin-Motorhome-Allegro.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Hard to believe that people would brag about an RV, when so many other people consider them to be, well, white trash.</i></div><br />Mark had an interesting experience on Rich People's Island the other day. We call it "Rich People's Island" as a joke, as the people who live there only <i>think</i> they are rich, as most are merely middle-class, and in fact many are in debt up to their eyeballs. It is next door to <i>Really Rich People's Island</i>, and yea, half of those people are bankrupt as well and their homes in foreclosure.<br /><br />But hey, they certainly put on a good show!<br /><br />Anyway, this lady he was talking to spend a half-hour trying to <i>impress someone she didn't know.</i> Mark was introduced by a friend, when she mentioned she had visited our island. The conversation went something like this:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Lady: "So why do you live <i>there</i>, instead of rich people's island?"<br /><br />Mark: "Well, it is very quiet and not as crowded."<br /><br />Lady: "We went there once, it was so dreary! I couldn't imagine living there!"<br /><br />Mark: "So, our friend says you have an RV, what kind?"<br /><br />Husband: "We have a forty-foot diesel pusher!"<br /><br />Mark: "Really? What kind?"<br /><br />Husband: "I said, a forty-foot diesel pusher!"<br /><br />Mark: "But what brand?"<br /><br />Husband: "(Inexpensive Brand Name, now Bankrupt)"<br /><br />Mark: "Oh. Did you ever camp at our island?"<br /><br />Lady: "We <i>never</i> stay at anything but a high-end resort! We don't <i>camp</i>! If there isn't a swimming pool and a tennis court, I'm not staying!"<br /><br />Mark: "Well, that's RVing, I guess. Staying at a resort one night, a Wal-Mart parking lot the next!"<br /><br />Lady: "I <i>never</i> would stay at such a place as Wal-Mart!"<br /><br />Mark: "Of course. You still use the RV?"<br /><br />Husband: "Not since we bought our house here. It's been in storage a year, now. Say, honey, we should probably put it up for sale this weekend, right?<br /><br />(Lady gives Husband a glare of hostility)<br /><br />Lady: "<i>Not this weekend!</i> We are going to a friend's house. Did I mention they have a <i>large home</i> here on the island! It's <i>very large</i>!"<br /><br />Mark: "Really? Where is it?"<br /><br />Lady: "Oh, I can't remember exactly where. They showed us, of course. They are very important people here on <i>rich people's island</i> and they invited us to their home!"</blockquote><br />The conversation went on like this for a while longer. It was pretty shallow stuff - not enough to get your ankles wet.<br /><br />What was interesting to me is that they have a motorhome that they paid $250,000 for, and likely is worth half that right now. And yet it has been sitting in storage in the hot sun, depreciating, for a year now. I suspect they are "upside-down" on it.<br /><br />What was really fascinating to me was that this lady was so obsessed with making an impression on a store clerk - someone she hardly knew and would not know for more than the length of the conversation. But she had to "win" - and show that she was wealthier and more important.<br /><br />And yet she failed to realize that she was talking to a Millionaire.<br /><br />And likely, she and her husband were still in debt, not only for the motorhome, but for their house on "Rich People's Island" which actually can be rather inexpensive, particularly if you buy a land-locked home hurriedly made of vinyl and stucco, back in the late 1990's. In fact, despite its reputation, "Rich People's Island" has some real hovels and shacks - and a crime rate to go with it. It is very odd.<br /><br /><i>Status-Seeking</i>. It is ridiculous behavior, yet we all do it, to some extent or another. Yes, <i>all of us</i>, even you and me. We all like to think we are "better" than others, whether it is by dint of wealth, sophistication, moral values, political views, taste, or whatever. It is about as human as breathing.<br /><br />Perhaps it is our innate urge to say "I am important! My life means something! I am somebody of consequence!" We all want to think our lives have deep and rich meaning, when in fact, even the most famous of us will find fame a fleeting thing.<br /><br />My Mother harbored these sorts of <i>illusions of grandeur</i>. She always said she wanted to write the "Great American Novel" but was never able to put pen to paper. And likely this was because she had no story to tell. Or the stories she had to tell, she was embarrassed to tell (usually those are the good ones, consider the greater body of English Literature, or any episode of <i>Seinfeld</i>).<br /><br />And sadly, or should I say <i>inevitably</i>, she died and few will remember her. Most of her friends are dead and once all of her children and grandchildren are dead, no one know she existed. In fact, perhaps her only lasting legacy will be my words written here, preserved on the Internet for all eternity. <i>Sorry, Mom!</i><br /><br />But the same will be said of me as well. I am as insignificant as a grain of dust, just like most people on this planet. If my name is remembered in 50 or 100 years, it will only be because I am listed on the United States Patent Office database on a number of Patents, as Patent Attorney, Agent, Examiner, and yes, even Inventor. In fact, my stature as co-inventor of <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/robertplattbell/Home/some-interesting-patents-i-have-written/beerbrella"><i>Beerbrella</i> </a>will likely be what I am remembered for, if at all.<i> </i><br /><br />And that is just fine with me. Life is for living - and enjoying. Enjoy the here and now and enjoy your own life - don't compare yourself to others.<br /><br />Trying to find fame - which is largely imaginary - or judging your life based on comparisons to others, are exercises in futility. No matter how important you are (or think you are) chances are, there is someone more important and famous than you.<br /><br />Status-seeking is a dead-end. And it is an <i>expensive dead end</i> as well.auto carshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04084381509422256633noreply@blogger.com0