Posts Tagged ‘economy’

Talk about a sucker’s bet

Posted: July 28, 2009 by datechguy in personal
Tags: ,

My oldest son turned 18 this month and is about to start his first year of college in Aug. He has a job, a car that is paid for and easily makes enough to cover insurance, however we decided that it was time to give him a chance to build a credit history. We decided to add him to our credit card. As he is going to college locally and living at home it won’t be a problem to keep an eye on what is charged.

Well less that 24 hours after his card arrived the offers started coming in for more:

And when you DO use the Card there are NO Interest Charges–that’s 0% APR—on ALL your purchases up to $250, so long as you check your Billing Statements each month and make at least the Minimum Payments Due by the Payment Due Dates, and keep the balance on your account below your credit limit.

Sounds pretty good especially when you figure no annual fees, but think about it…

It’s really easy to get a card over $250 for a total balance. That is a max of about $60 a week. Pretty easy to even briefly go over that and once you do….

…the base rate goes to 19.95% as a minimum with the rate being equal to the highest rate published in the Wall Street Journal within a 3 month period plus 10.5%. And if you are late on a payment then you add 20.99% to the rate with a minimum of 25.99%. (not counting fees).

If you are a real careful teenager then you might manage to do OK, but how many real careful teenagers are there. This is a suckers bet, and I’ll wager a ton of teens and their parents fall for it.

Old advice but good advice

Posted: July 28, 2009 by datechguy in local stuff
Tags: , ,

You know I’m reading a very old Book: American History told by Contemporaries Volume 1 Era of Colonization 1492-1689 by historian Albert Bushnell Hart back in 1897. It’s a collection excepts and complete accounts by people who actually lived and experienced events.

Considering the economic situation these days I found this particular package on Suggestions of Granting Lands written in 1665 by a surveyor named Thomas Woodard. He was hired by the proprietors of the “Province of Carolina” and he offered certain interesting advice about making things profitable, he starts by quoting Sir Francis Bacon’s essay of Plantation:

“…The principall thing that hath been the destruction of most Plantations hath bin the hastee drawing of Profit in the first yeares.”

And it is my Opinion, (which I submitt to better Judgements) that it will for some time conduce more to your Lordshipe Profit to permit men to take up what tracts of Land they please at an easie rate, then to stint them to small proportions at a great rent.

In less that 3 days taxes on Meals, sales, liquor etc will be going up 25% here in the state of Massachusetts. We will in a modern advanced and easy society yet ironically even 350 years ago people understood that crushing taxes might make a short terms difference while destroying you long term, but low taxes and fees encourage prosperity with crushing taxes.

New Hampshire is going to do very well over this, but I wish the president and the Governor would take a hint from history.

My healthcare Plan

Posted: July 16, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
Tags: ,

As you might guess my primary plan is to of course do nothing, but if that idea is to be rejected then there are two very easy plans: B and C.

Plan B: Expand Medicare to the uninsured.

All people without insurance are given Medicare coverage via a checkbox on their tax forms. The advantage is very clear. Instead of a new bloated bureaucracy with bunch of new rules designed to rob us and favor interest groups, we bloat an already existing bureaucracy that will make us broke honestly…by sheer inefficiency. There is an actual advantage since although it has plenty of problems almost every medical provider is already familiar with it, so it’s just a question of volume rather than rules.

Plan C: Expand Vet Clinics. Expand the veterans hospital to include the uninsured. Build new VA hospitals and clinics and give incentives to new doctors to work there, or even better have a “doctor draft” whereby medical students will serve two years in such hospitals at the beginning of their practices. Again it will be expensive but is better than any bill that would come from congress and works with the existing bureaucracy.

Yeah I know they will stink but so will anything else. Whatdaya think?

Let’s face it: these guys are just crooks and thugs;

Posted: July 13, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
Tags: , , , ,

You know way back in February although I disagreed with most of the plans of the Obama administration I pointed out that they had only been in power for a few weeks and we really can’t judge where it is going.

Well we’ve now had six months (and boy it seems a WHOLE lot longer) and there is only one conclusion that can be made:

These guy are a bunch of cheap Chicago hoods and thugs who have been given access to the biggest score in their lives and are going to make the most of it.

There are honest liberals who see what they are and are refusing to co-operate.

There are honest liberals who are with him when he goes in their direction but loudly call him when he is wrong.

There are those who are so either so enraptured with the concept of this administration or so afraid of being called racist they will excuse almost anything.

And then there are the pols and business who see what is going on and are going to grab what they can and settle old scores.

This is where we are and we can’t do a thing about it till late next year other than make sure they know we will remember when 2010 comes.

Oh and you might notice that I put this under the tag “just deserts” that’s because we as a nation let this happen.

Update: fixed title

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