The Alexa Toolbar has some interesting headlines come across it. It draws on Reddit fairly often. The submitter for this article now has about 1600 net votes from describing their experience calling up a representative at a bank to contest their new monthly service fee. It’s clear that the representative could use some education in … Read more
Luke “Flexo” Landes of Consumerism Commentary has a guest post over at Wealth Pilgrim on whether the government should have a ban on reward credit cards. The post had the flavor of a thought experiment, and I’m not aware of any talk to implement this. Nonetheless, the thought of that idea sends a cold chill … Read more
This article on the NPR Planet Money blog discusses the projected federal budget deficit as compared to the maximum deficit reduction discussed in recent debt-ceiling negotiations. If we cut to the chase, there is a $9 trillion shortfall over the next ten years. The most stringent deficit reduction measures discussed don’t even come close to … Read more
A couple of months ago, the headlines reported that that babies born today have a 40% chance of living to be 150 years old. That’s about 25% longer than the oldest living humans in recent history. Experts base this claim on the advancement of regenerative medicine and the like. Let’s just say for grins that … Read more
This post yesterday on TechCrunch highlights the story of Posies Bakery and Cafe in Portland, Oregon, after running a Groupon campaign last year. Her shop’s aggressive deal campaign ($13 worth of merchandise for $6) set her back $8,000 and caused her to need to withdraw from savings to make payroll and rent. She calls it … Read more
I discovered something last night. Maybe this is old news for you, but then again, maybe not. A little less than a year ago, sixteen states banned the sale of dishwasher detergents that contain more than 0.5% phosphorus. My state is one of those states. (For the record, the states are Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, … Read more
Last weekend I was looking around in a couple of stores for some CD storage. The first store I went to I actually had to ask an employee where they were because it took me so long to find where they were. “Are CDs on the way out already?” I asked only half-jokingly. The next … Read more
If you have at least one website going that has any kind of user interaction whatsoever — heck, if you have an e-mail address — then you’ve had the pleasure of dealing with spammers. It’s always going to be a cat-and-mouse game with spam comments, e-mail, user registrations, trackbacks, etc. I’ve had to extricate this … Read more