"And, please, stop hoping for a quick technological fix. You have no idea, unless you're an engineer working in the field, the difficulty of having alternative energy replace what oil can do."
I wish more people could understand this. It is the truest thing in this whole thread.
Remember that today's car engine is the result of 100 years of research & development by many, many companies. All that research has been based on using gasoline as a fuel. You simply can not expect alternative fuels to work as well as gas and yet cost less.
The only real alternative is to start over and design a completely new type of power source for a car that will be powerful, cheap to manufacture, cheap to maintain, environmentally friendly,and run on a renewable or sustainable fuel source.
That's quite a technological challenge.
One last thing - we haven't built any refineries for 30 years because the EPA will not let us. I'm not saying this is right or wrong, just stating a fact.
As the following link will show you, Walgreen's does, in fact, sell store brand 6V lantern batteries. If you were unable to find one at your local sore, you may have to shop around town.
is unknown to me. I tried the hack on an Energizer to no avail. But in the pursuit of truth, I will invest another $8 to try it on the Walgreen's store brand. Hey... $16 for 32 AA's comes out to $.50 per battery. Still one helluva deal in comparison to retail prices.
I think you're absolutely right about energy, but I think that's almost divorced from the financial issues: Oil prices would be going up even if the dollar weren't in such trouble.
I'm much less worried about other stuff, such as lumber. The US has something like two-year's supply of unsold houses, so we could get along with a lot less lumber. (Granted, it's also used to build other things, make paper, etc. But, still--surging prices for lumber would hurt many businesses, but would not be a major factor for most people.)
But you're right--what we're going to see is surging prices for everything. Some of that surging price is going to be inflation (the money becoming less valuable, as people want to hold less) and some of it is going to be a falling standard of living (as the prices of everything that trades in global commerce rise, not just in dollar terms, but in real terms).
It's not going to be any fun, but the hard parts are set to happen anyway--no matter what foreign holders of US treasury paper do.
I am probably just rehashing the point of the original post and several of the comments, but I just have to say that libraries absolutely rock and that it is sad the way that they are generally thought as being redundant in the era of the Internet.
True, I don't visit the library very often now that I have a busy life and that I can look up a lot of reference type information online, but I look back at how much time I have spent in my local library as a kid (reading cartoons as well as fiction and non-fiction books), as well as the information I got out of the technical library at my university.
Libraries are a necessary part of a knowledge culture. Full stop.
A friend told me that when he is invited to a party he makes a point of watching Jay Leno and taping Letterman (here they are on at the same time, so he watches one and tapes the other) the night before. Leno's show is laid out so the good stuff is over in the first 20 minutes, then Jay has his first guest come out. Letterman's is laid out differently but that's what the fast forward button is for.
With both shows fresh in his mind he has something to use as raw material for any conversation....
"Did you see Leno's pice on the car he's having rebuilt? It's the last Stanley Steamer left..." for the techie type...
or "Did you see Letterman's top ten list last night on how to save gas? I really don't think I want to car pool to the local WalMart or Costco..."
Anyway, for the time it takes to start the VCR for Letterman, and 20-25 minutes to watch the beginning of Leno, you can have some useful raw material.
A boycott is not an individual shopping decision - it's a collective action by a large group of people. It costs money, because you have to find alternatives.
When they boycotted the buses, they had to manage carpools to keep people off the bus. Those carpools cost money. They had to figure out their impact, and if it was working, tell the boycotters -- it's war, and they needed to know if they were winning. They had pickets, to inform people of the boycott.
The inconvenience of the boycott is directly related to its impact. The viability of a business usually hinges on how well it fulfills its niche, by lowering costs to, and increasing the satisfaction of, its customers. The business becomes nearly indispensible to the customer. When you can convince these customers to bear extra burdens, and suffer using another business, then, you're going to have a real impact.
The Southern Cal supermarket strikes of 2003 were very inconvenient, but effective. Hundreds of thousands of sympathetic people suffered, went along with the boycott, and cost the supermarkets billions of dollars. The contract they got back then wasn't that good -- but the one they got recently is pretty close to pre-strike levels, and across the country, I think it's been easier for their union to negotiate. That inconvenient boycott has gained millions of dollars for supermarket workers. This is money that gets spent on consumer goods, and invested in families.
If the people hadn't gone along with that boycott, we'd have more jobs in the supermarket that pay $7.50 an hour, and more turnover because of the crappy wages. Last week, I overheard a cashier discussing with a bagger about how to invest the $600 stimulus check in their retirement fund. That's proof to me that boycotts work!
Look, there are lots of opinions out here, and outspoken financial gurus are notorious for being a little crazy and hard to understand.
I like this article b/c it moves toward bridging that gap. Most people don't understand "what" the federal debt it, they just know it exists and that it has lots of zeros. This article doesn't quite speak to those people, but it's getting there, so congrats.
Me, I'm going to cut straight to the quotes:
All they can do is sell the securities they've got.
Yes this is true (I guess they can trade them too) and you use this to segue into interest rates. But there's something else here: this stuff needs to be cashed in for services or commodities at some point.
Right now there are hundreds of billions of dollars in money still waiting to be cashed in for stuff. You talk about exchange rates, but right now it's a game of chicken in terms of exchange rates. The US dollar is being held afloat because:
1. Everyone has them
2. They're the unit of trade for oil
It's a game of chicken b/c everyone wants to get the most real value from their little IOUs. But if everyone decided to try and cash in all of their US debt notes, the economy would just collapse and inflate away the rest of the IOUs.
Now, without any real stretch I think that it can be generally agreed that the average US standard of living will go down in the next few years (not up). There are simply more powerful downward forces than upwards forces right now.
And so I really like this comment: Finally, expect a lower standard of living. b/c it's not generally expected right now. In fact, most people expect the "infinitely expanding" standard of living which is really part of the money problem we're having.
So kudos, but I think there is one issue with which I will disagree completely:
The US (because it is large and well-endowed with both natural resources and skilled workers) could actually produce most of what it needs domestically.
This is utterly false. I'm a Canadian currently living in the US and I know this to be simply untrue. The US can clearly produce enough food for your its purposes, but the US cannot produce enough oil, gas, lumber or energy to support itself right now.
Lumber:
All told, those imports fed nearly one-third of the 65 billion board feet the U.S. consumed, according to statistics from U.S. Census Bureau's
Energy:
35% of the energy in the US is currently imported. And that demand is growing, who remembers rolling blackouts in California?
The US cannot power its long-term energy growth right now. The reason these numbers are very important is that the current US economy is founded on the concept of inexpensive access to energy sources. I live in KC right now and most people don't live anywhere close to work. There's no good public transportation, so people expend tons of money just getting to/from work. And most of the shopping is done on these multi-mile major thoroughfares filled with shops. These shops are completely inaccessible to people without personal vehicles. There's a whole major shopping center (Legends) that's like 30-45 minutes drive from where basically everyone lives. It's just "out in the middle of nowhere" off the interstate, but everyone merrily piles into the car on the weekend and drives out!
And that's just the tip of the energy iceberg: constantly increasing personal square footage over the last decades requires extra heating/cooling, bigger TVs, bigger fridges, more powerful computers...
Of course, I guess it all gets back to your last point: expect a lower standard of living and expect that lowered standard to include a lot higher valuation on location and "local living". Not being accessible by public transportation is going to hurt some businesses who long ago exchanged "cheap land" for my gas and time.
An online book store sent me a book sandwiched between two sheets of brown corrugated cardboard, and rubber-cemented together. The "wings" helped prevent damage. I successfully copied the design, with some 77 spray adhesive and old cardboard. You cut the cardboard into two large sheets, then spray on the 77 or brush on rubber cement, and let it dry. Wrap your book in newspaper, and then make the sandwich. Trim edges, add the address, and mail it.
Don't forget neighborhood stores such as JC Penney and Kohl's. They get shipments once to twice a week and they don't mind giving boxes away. You will find everything from small to large and everything in between.
Tomorrow is a euphemism for “I can’t think about that right now”.
Nora, I love that quote, and I hope you don't mind if I post it in my journal. It's not just relevant to finances... Right now, I can't think about trying to renew my passport and clean the house and learn the local education laws and become an expert in learning disabilities and figure out how to use up everything I've stored in the freezer and sort out all these papers waiting for me and keep my toddler from destructing the house too much and improve my health and probably another dozen things I can't remember right now. :P My current plan is to assemble the big list of things I can't think about yet, work out how I'll find time to be able to think about them, and give each their proper consideration in turn. Hopefully, I won't have to wait until my sweetling is in Kindergarten to find the chance!
Hyperinflation is probably the second-worst thing that can happen to an economy (after a war or natural disaster actually destroying productive assets). But I don't think hyperinflation is the most likely scenario, simply because too many rich, powerful people have lots of money. In a hyperinflation, they're the losers. Since they're also the people in a position to make sure that things don't go that way, I don't think they will.
I could be wrong. Maybe rich, powerful people are more heavily leveraged than I realize (in which case they, like other debtors, come out ahead in a hyperinflation). Also, even if hyperinflation isn't a goal, it's possible to cause one by mistake: Meaning to create a "just a little inflation"--enough to grease the wheels of the economy--the central bank could, through a series of errors, destroy the value of the money.
The thing about inflation is that it's easy to stop. There are now many instances of runaway inflation brought to a halt before the currency is destroyed. That may make central banks prone to be a bit reckless. Right now the Fed is tolerating an inflation rate that's running 4% and rising. We can assume that they're betting they can stave off systemic financial problems without inflation rising more than a point or two. If they're wrong, inflation might surge to 6%, 8%, 10%. But at any point during that progression, the Fed can say, "That's it--we've reached the point where inflation is the greater threat," and bring inflation back down. (At the cost of a recession and terrible trouble for debtors, of course--but that's where they're starting anyway.)
A great reminder that we need to start NOW to change how we do things. You can always find a reason to put things off til tomorrow, and since tomorrow never actually arrives, you can put them off indefinitely. Great post on why we need to just do it today!
If you are over 17 and she claims you on her return, neither of you will get anything. Sucks huh? See below.
Amid the rebate revelry, it’s important to keep in mind that some people simply aren’t eligible for one — including many college students. That’s the point that a grandfather raised in his message to MoneyLine:
Q: I do my granddaughter’s taxes, and she is [a] 21-year-old college student. [In] 2007 she made $12,000 part-time, and she paid $700 in federal income taxes, and she does not claim herself as a dependent, because her parents claim her. According to what I have read in your columns, if I am not mistaken, it seems to me she will not receive [a] rebate because her parents claim her as a dependent. And, on the other side, her parents won’t get a $300 rebate because she is over 17 years old. I hope I am wrong on this, but it seems to me like Congress really has not thought about this and there will be thousands and thousands of students that would be falling into this category. . . .
— W.S., Woonsocket
A: You’re right. Millions of Americans will share in the rebate bounty, but some will not — including your granddaughter.
As the new economic stimulus law makes clear, several categories of people aren’t eligible for a rebate — including those who can be claimed as a dependent on another’s return.
Your granddaughter is obviously working hard to help pay for her college-related expenses. My hat’s off to her (and to you, for looking out for her).
Unfortunately, she falls into a kind of gap in the rebate program:
•She won’t be eligible for a rebate because she can be claimed as a dependent on her parents’ return.
•Parents generally are able to claim an extra rebate amount of up to $300 for each of their qualifying children. But IRS Acting Commissioner Linda Stiff made it clear yesterday that, for rebate purposes this year, a “qualifying child” is one who was under 17 as of Dec. 31, 2007. So your granddaughter’s parents can’t get the extra $300 for her, because she’s 21.
The reason people such as your granddaughter fall into the gap is because of the way the new economic stimulus law was written. “It’s the way the statute was crafted,” Stiff said when I asked her about this issue in a conference call yesterday.
I already knew Plumas County was right for me, and reading this just helps confirm that moving 2,700 miles is the right thing to do. Hurray for Plumas County! The gold rush is back on!
I grabbed two tubes of polishing paste for a DVD i wasted.
One tube of "Autosol", wich is a paste for removing scratches on cars, and one tube of special plastic polish for small scratches.
I then used the Autosol until the deep scratches were gone, then i used the plastic polish (this is where the toothpaste with polishing agent may be used) until the disc was as good as i would ever get it.
The only thing you have to make sure of is that the paste you use does not damage the plastic or the paint on the reverse of the disc, it may allso be a good idea not to let the back of the disc rub against anything if it's a CD since that will let the polishing agent eat away at the extremely thin layer that protects the data.
Oh, and NEVER use any kind of electrical polisher not made for CD/DVD, anything else is most likely too fast and will melt the plastic with the friction heat, making the problem worse.
Seattle and King County Library Systems FTW! Both are top notch systems and though similar, work independently of each other. It used to be that you could basically work with them interchangeably but due to costs, now if you're a Seattle resident, you can't reserve titles at King County Libraries. But, with the Seattle library system, you can reserve as many titles as you want, they email you when the titles are available, and also when they are due. The DVD selection is massive, almost as good as netflix, and all DVDs are good for 2 weeks. CDs and books I believe, are good for 3. Also there are digital downloads, audio books and e-books that are usable for a certain amount of time before they expire. All books, CDs, DVDs, etc. have RFID tags in them so when you check out, you just scan your library card, put the books on a panel, and bam, you're checked out. I've kind of taken it for granted, but the Seattle/KCLS systems are the best I've ever seen.
Don't forget libraries' "special collections". My small town library has a huge selection of various cake pans - yes, cake pans - you can check out. I've heard of libraries that have tools and all kinds of weird things you can check out and use.
The charters of most state colleges and universities mandate free access for citizens of their state. The University of Iowa library is a repository library for the Government Printing Office, so it has a copy of EVERY publication produced by the U.S. Government. It also has special collections of railroad photographs, the letters and papers of many famous Iowans, etc.
I'm sure many of us can help ourselves to boxes from work. I've been lucky and I've had access to good supplies of sturdy boxes with handles. Some workplaces might frown upon this, but if it's going in the trash anyway, why not?
My employer requires me to have a car as an ancillary condition of employment and subsidizes a minimal amount for gas expenses.
I work in a fairly specialized field and the jobs are not very common nor plentiful.
I work 40 miles from home and my work is not in the nicest of neighborhoods so taking the bus, rail or moving here is not even on the books either.
On top of that, I have to wear a business suit for work so motorcycles or scooters would be out unless I pay $1,200 for one of those 1 piece protective jumpsuits like Aerostitch because I won't ride without wearing protective gear. Then you figure in how much gas would it take to earn back even the initial outlay for the Aerostitch suit before you can break even from driving a car with its greater utility, stereo entertainment and comfort in all weather conditions. If I save $15/week on gas from riding a bike everyday, it would still take 80 weeks (~20 months) for me to start breaking even just from the suit, not to mention the cost of the bike.
Which means... not much will change for me no matter what the gas prices are other than I will be job hunting closer to home to no avail just like the last few years. Maybe I should go full boat and just get the H1 Hummer?
Excellent post. Just one word of caution - if you get boxes from a dumpster (especially from a grocery store), it could have bugs. Just a word from personal experience...
This is what my dad has always told me since I was a kid.
It is better to make $100 by having $1 profit from 100 workers than to make $100 by doing all the work yourself. (Something like that, I am paraphrasing very poorly here but you get the idea)
"And, please, stop hoping for a quick technological fix. You have no idea, unless you're an engineer working in the field, the difficulty of having alternative energy replace what oil can do."
I wish more people could understand this. It is the truest thing in this whole thread.
Remember that today's car engine is the result of 100 years of research & development by many, many companies. All that research has been based on using gasoline as a fuel. You simply can not expect alternative fuels to work as well as gas and yet cost less.
The only real alternative is to start over and design a completely new type of power source for a car that will be powerful, cheap to manufacture, cheap to maintain, environmentally friendly,and run on a renewable or sustainable fuel source.
That's quite a technological challenge.
One last thing - we haven't built any refineries for 30 years because the EPA will not let us. I'm not saying this is right or wrong, just stating a fact.
As the following link will show you, Walgreen's does, in fact, sell store brand 6V lantern batteries. If you were unable to find one at your local sore, you may have to shop around town.
http://www.walgreens.com/search/search_results.jsp?_dyncharset=ASCII&ter...
Now whether or not it's true that they are loaded with batteries of various sizes as this link demonstrates,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBQDGvhr3kE&feature=related
is unknown to me. I tried the hack on an Energizer to no avail. But in the pursuit of truth, I will invest another $8 to try it on the Walgreen's store brand. Hey... $16 for 32 AA's comes out to $.50 per battery. Still one helluva deal in comparison to retail prices.
I think you're absolutely right about energy, but I think that's almost divorced from the financial issues: Oil prices would be going up even if the dollar weren't in such trouble.
I'm much less worried about other stuff, such as lumber. The US has something like two-year's supply of unsold houses, so we could get along with a lot less lumber. (Granted, it's also used to build other things, make paper, etc. But, still--surging prices for lumber would hurt many businesses, but would not be a major factor for most people.)
But you're right--what we're going to see is surging prices for everything. Some of that surging price is going to be inflation (the money becoming less valuable, as people want to hold less) and some of it is going to be a falling standard of living (as the prices of everything that trades in global commerce rise, not just in dollar terms, but in real terms).
It's not going to be any fun, but the hard parts are set to happen anyway--no matter what foreign holders of US treasury paper do.
I am probably just rehashing the point of the original post and several of the comments, but I just have to say that libraries absolutely rock and that it is sad the way that they are generally thought as being redundant in the era of the Internet.
True, I don't visit the library very often now that I have a busy life and that I can look up a lot of reference type information online, but I look back at how much time I have spent in my local library as a kid (reading cartoons as well as fiction and non-fiction books), as well as the information I got out of the technical library at my university.
Libraries are a necessary part of a knowledge culture. Full stop.
A friend told me that when he is invited to a party he makes a point of watching Jay Leno and taping Letterman (here they are on at the same time, so he watches one and tapes the other) the night before. Leno's show is laid out so the good stuff is over in the first 20 minutes, then Jay has his first guest come out. Letterman's is laid out differently but that's what the fast forward button is for.
With both shows fresh in his mind he has something to use as raw material for any conversation....
"Did you see Leno's pice on the car he's having rebuilt? It's the last Stanley Steamer left..." for the techie type...
or "Did you see Letterman's top ten list last night on how to save gas? I really don't think I want to car pool to the local WalMart or Costco..."
Anyway, for the time it takes to start the VCR for Letterman, and 20-25 minutes to watch the beginning of Leno, you can have some useful raw material.
I clicked on the link and it says, "Thank you for visiting the Swingline Tool Kit Item Survey
The Survey ended at 11:59:59 AM (CST) on 4/4/2008."
Oh well...I wanted to try and get one too! Too late for me! :(
that salt water thing is bogus. he's using radio waves to separate out the hydrogen, and burning the hydrogen. that's an energy input.
A boycott is not an individual shopping decision - it's a collective action by a large group of people. It costs money, because you have to find alternatives.
When they boycotted the buses, they had to manage carpools to keep people off the bus. Those carpools cost money. They had to figure out their impact, and if it was working, tell the boycotters -- it's war, and they needed to know if they were winning. They had pickets, to inform people of the boycott.
The inconvenience of the boycott is directly related to its impact. The viability of a business usually hinges on how well it fulfills its niche, by lowering costs to, and increasing the satisfaction of, its customers. The business becomes nearly indispensible to the customer. When you can convince these customers to bear extra burdens, and suffer using another business, then, you're going to have a real impact.
The Southern Cal supermarket strikes of 2003 were very inconvenient, but effective. Hundreds of thousands of sympathetic people suffered, went along with the boycott, and cost the supermarkets billions of dollars. The contract they got back then wasn't that good -- but the one they got recently is pretty close to pre-strike levels, and across the country, I think it's been easier for their union to negotiate. That inconvenient boycott has gained millions of dollars for supermarket workers. This is money that gets spent on consumer goods, and invested in families.
If the people hadn't gone along with that boycott, we'd have more jobs in the supermarket that pay $7.50 an hour, and more turnover because of the crappy wages. Last week, I overheard a cashier discussing with a bagger about how to invest the $600 stimulus check in their retirement fund. That's proof to me that boycotts work!
Look, there are lots of opinions out here, and outspoken financial gurus are notorious for being a little crazy and hard to understand.
I like this article b/c it moves toward bridging that gap. Most people don't understand "what" the federal debt it, they just know it exists and that it has lots of zeros. This article doesn't quite speak to those people, but it's getting there, so congrats.
Me, I'm going to cut straight to the quotes:
All they can do is sell the securities they've got.
Yes this is true (I guess they can trade them too) and you use this to segue into interest rates. But there's something else here: this stuff needs to be cashed in for services or commodities at some point.
Right now there are hundreds of billions of dollars in money still waiting to be cashed in for stuff. You talk about exchange rates, but right now it's a game of chicken in terms of exchange rates. The US dollar is being held afloat because:
1. Everyone has them
2. They're the unit of trade for oil
It's a game of chicken b/c everyone wants to get the most real value from their little IOUs. But if everyone decided to try and cash in all of their US debt notes, the economy would just collapse and inflate away the rest of the IOUs.
Now, without any real stretch I think that it can be generally agreed that the average US standard of living will go down in the next few years (not up). There are simply more powerful downward forces than upwards forces right now.
And so I really like this comment: Finally, expect a lower standard of living. b/c it's not generally expected right now. In fact, most people expect the "infinitely expanding" standard of living which is really part of the money problem we're having.
So kudos, but I think there is one issue with which I will disagree completely:
The US (because it is large and well-endowed with both natural resources and skilled workers) could actually produce most of what it needs domestically.
This is utterly false. I'm a Canadian currently living in the US and I know this to be simply untrue. The US can clearly produce enough food for your its purposes, but the US cannot produce enough oil, gas, lumber or energy to support itself right now.
Lumber:
All told, those imports fed nearly one-third of the 65 billion board feet the U.S. consumed, according to statistics from U.S. Census Bureau's
Energy:
35% of the energy in the US is currently imported. And that demand is growing, who remembers rolling blackouts in California?
The US cannot power its long-term energy growth right now. The reason these numbers are very important is that the current US economy is founded on the concept of inexpensive access to energy sources. I live in KC right now and most people don't live anywhere close to work. There's no good public transportation, so people expend tons of money just getting to/from work. And most of the shopping is done on these multi-mile major thoroughfares filled with shops. These shops are completely inaccessible to people without personal vehicles. There's a whole major shopping center (Legends) that's like 30-45 minutes drive from where basically everyone lives. It's just "out in the middle of nowhere" off the interstate, but everyone merrily piles into the car on the weekend and drives out!
And that's just the tip of the energy iceberg: constantly increasing personal square footage over the last decades requires extra heating/cooling, bigger TVs, bigger fridges, more powerful computers...
Of course, I guess it all gets back to your last point: expect a lower standard of living and expect that lowered standard to include a lot higher valuation on location and "local living". Not being accessible by public transportation is going to hurt some businesses who long ago exchanged "cheap land" for my gas and time.
An online book store sent me a book sandwiched between two sheets of brown corrugated cardboard, and rubber-cemented together. The "wings" helped prevent damage. I successfully copied the design, with some 77 spray adhesive and old cardboard. You cut the cardboard into two large sheets, then spray on the 77 or brush on rubber cement, and let it dry. Wrap your book in newspaper, and then make the sandwich. Trim edges, add the address, and mail it.
Thanks for the comments, all!
And certainly sylrayj, feel free to quote me - I'm flattered. Hopefully you will provide a link back too...(smiles)!
Don't forget neighborhood stores such as JC Penney and Kohl's. They get shipments once to twice a week and they don't mind giving boxes away. You will find everything from small to large and everything in between.
Tomorrow is a euphemism for “I can’t think about that right now”.
Nora, I love that quote, and I hope you don't mind if I post it in my journal. It's not just relevant to finances... Right now, I can't think about trying to renew my passport and clean the house and learn the local education laws and become an expert in learning disabilities and figure out how to use up everything I've stored in the freezer and sort out all these papers waiting for me and keep my toddler from destructing the house too much and improve my health and probably another dozen things I can't remember right now. :P My current plan is to assemble the big list of things I can't think about yet, work out how I'll find time to be able to think about them, and give each their proper consideration in turn. Hopefully, I won't have to wait until my sweetling is in Kindergarten to find the chance!
Hyperinflation is probably the second-worst thing that can happen to an economy (after a war or natural disaster actually destroying productive assets). But I don't think hyperinflation is the most likely scenario, simply because too many rich, powerful people have lots of money. In a hyperinflation, they're the losers. Since they're also the people in a position to make sure that things don't go that way, I don't think they will.
I could be wrong. Maybe rich, powerful people are more heavily leveraged than I realize (in which case they, like other debtors, come out ahead in a hyperinflation). Also, even if hyperinflation isn't a goal, it's possible to cause one by mistake: Meaning to create a "just a little inflation"--enough to grease the wheels of the economy--the central bank could, through a series of errors, destroy the value of the money.
The thing about inflation is that it's easy to stop. There are now many instances of runaway inflation brought to a halt before the currency is destroyed. That may make central banks prone to be a bit reckless. Right now the Fed is tolerating an inflation rate that's running 4% and rising. We can assume that they're betting they can stave off systemic financial problems without inflation rising more than a point or two. If they're wrong, inflation might surge to 6%, 8%, 10%. But at any point during that progression, the Fed can say, "That's it--we've reached the point where inflation is the greater threat," and bring inflation back down. (At the cost of a recession and terrible trouble for debtors, of course--but that's where they're starting anyway.)
A great reminder that we need to start NOW to change how we do things. You can always find a reason to put things off til tomorrow, and since tomorrow never actually arrives, you can put them off indefinitely. Great post on why we need to just do it today!
If you are over 17 and she claims you on her return, neither of you will get anything. Sucks huh? See below.
Amid the rebate revelry, it’s important to keep in mind that some people simply aren’t eligible for one — including many college students. That’s the point that a grandfather raised in his message to MoneyLine:
Q: I do my granddaughter’s taxes, and she is [a] 21-year-old college student. [In] 2007 she made $12,000 part-time, and she paid $700 in federal income taxes, and she does not claim herself as a dependent, because her parents claim her. According to what I have read in your columns, if I am not mistaken, it seems to me she will not receive [a] rebate because her parents claim her as a dependent. And, on the other side, her parents won’t get a $300 rebate because she is over 17 years old. I hope I am wrong on this, but it seems to me like Congress really has not thought about this and there will be thousands and thousands of students that would be falling into this category. . . .
— W.S., Woonsocket
A: You’re right. Millions of Americans will share in the rebate bounty, but some will not — including your granddaughter.
As the new economic stimulus law makes clear, several categories of people aren’t eligible for a rebate — including those who can be claimed as a dependent on another’s return.
Your granddaughter is obviously working hard to help pay for her college-related expenses. My hat’s off to her (and to you, for looking out for her).
Unfortunately, she falls into a kind of gap in the rebate program:
•She won’t be eligible for a rebate because she can be claimed as a dependent on her parents’ return.
•Parents generally are able to claim an extra rebate amount of up to $300 for each of their qualifying children. But IRS Acting Commissioner Linda Stiff made it clear yesterday that, for rebate purposes this year, a “qualifying child” is one who was under 17 as of Dec. 31, 2007. So your granddaughter’s parents can’t get the extra $300 for her, because she’s 21.
The reason people such as your granddaughter fall into the gap is because of the way the new economic stimulus law was written. “It’s the way the statute was crafted,” Stiff said when I asked her about this issue in a conference call yesterday.
I already knew Plumas County was right for me, and reading this just helps confirm that moving 2,700 miles is the right thing to do. Hurray for Plumas County! The gold rush is back on!
I grabbed two tubes of polishing paste for a DVD i wasted.
One tube of "Autosol", wich is a paste for removing scratches on cars, and one tube of special plastic polish for small scratches.
I then used the Autosol until the deep scratches were gone, then i used the plastic polish (this is where the toothpaste with polishing agent may be used) until the disc was as good as i would ever get it.
The only thing you have to make sure of is that the paste you use does not damage the plastic or the paint on the reverse of the disc, it may allso be a good idea not to let the back of the disc rub against anything if it's a CD since that will let the polishing agent eat away at the extremely thin layer that protects the data.
Oh, and NEVER use any kind of electrical polisher not made for CD/DVD, anything else is most likely too fast and will melt the plastic with the friction heat, making the problem worse.
Seattle and King County Library Systems FTW! Both are top notch systems and though similar, work independently of each other. It used to be that you could basically work with them interchangeably but due to costs, now if you're a Seattle resident, you can't reserve titles at King County Libraries. But, with the Seattle library system, you can reserve as many titles as you want, they email you when the titles are available, and also when they are due. The DVD selection is massive, almost as good as netflix, and all DVDs are good for 2 weeks. CDs and books I believe, are good for 3. Also there are digital downloads, audio books and e-books that are usable for a certain amount of time before they expire. All books, CDs, DVDs, etc. have RFID tags in them so when you check out, you just scan your library card, put the books on a panel, and bam, you're checked out. I've kind of taken it for granted, but the Seattle/KCLS systems are the best I've ever seen.
Don't forget libraries' "special collections". My small town library has a huge selection of various cake pans - yes, cake pans - you can check out. I've heard of libraries that have tools and all kinds of weird things you can check out and use.
The charters of most state colleges and universities mandate free access for citizens of their state. The University of Iowa library is a repository library for the Government Printing Office, so it has a copy of EVERY publication produced by the U.S. Government. It also has special collections of railroad photographs, the letters and papers of many famous Iowans, etc.
All in all, very interesting stuff.
I'm sure many of us can help ourselves to boxes from work. I've been lucky and I've had access to good supplies of sturdy boxes with handles. Some workplaces might frown upon this, but if it's going in the trash anyway, why not?
My employer requires me to have a car as an ancillary condition of employment and subsidizes a minimal amount for gas expenses.
I work in a fairly specialized field and the jobs are not very common nor plentiful.
I work 40 miles from home and my work is not in the nicest of neighborhoods so taking the bus, rail or moving here is not even on the books either.
On top of that, I have to wear a business suit for work so motorcycles or scooters would be out unless I pay $1,200 for one of those 1 piece protective jumpsuits like Aerostitch because I won't ride without wearing protective gear. Then you figure in how much gas would it take to earn back even the initial outlay for the Aerostitch suit before you can break even from driving a car with its greater utility, stereo entertainment and comfort in all weather conditions. If I save $15/week on gas from riding a bike everyday, it would still take 80 weeks (~20 months) for me to start breaking even just from the suit, not to mention the cost of the bike.
Which means... not much will change for me no matter what the gas prices are other than I will be job hunting closer to home to no avail just like the last few years. Maybe I should go full boat and just get the H1 Hummer?
craigslist and freecycle both have free packing materials all the time
Excellent post. Just one word of caution - if you get boxes from a dumpster (especially from a grocery store), it could have bugs. Just a word from personal experience...
This is what my dad has always told me since I was a kid.
It is better to make $100 by having $1 profit from 100 workers than to make $100 by doing all the work yourself. (Something like that, I am paraphrasing very poorly here but you get the idea)