Meltdown, bailout and aftermath

October 4, 2008

Anyone who is concerned about or affected by the crisis in the US economy (i.e.. anyone who is reading this) should take some time to listen to this week's This American Life. It includes detailed and understandable explanations of what is happening, the options for the bailout and the vastly preferable (for taxpayers) bailout option which was included in the bailout bill as an option and which we all need to make sure is actually used.

America's secret

May 8, 2007

Marketplace had a great commentary yesterday about American's unwillingness to talk about money problems. It seems more people file bankruptcy than divorce yet we're far more secretive about the challenges we have with finances than when something goes terribly wrong in the family.

Second-chance fraud

January 26, 2006

Consumers Reports Money Matters flyer this month has an article on avoiding fraudulent "Second-Chance" offers on eBay. Reading the article I thought it should have taken a bit different approach. The bulk of the article focused on the high rate of fraudulent offers that attempt to mimic eBay's legitimate program.

The bottom line is this. If you use eBay to buy or sell do these two things:

Always handle transactions by going to http://www.ebay.com/ and logging in to the site with your username and password.
Always pay with Pay-Pal or a credit card. Anybody who is a legitimate seller in this day and age must accept these forms of payment. Most won't take anything else

eBay has some more tiips.

There are also several things you should never do: Read more about Second-chance fraud

Another form of inflation

April 29, 2003

Apple yesterday released it's new iTunes with the associated online store. Most songs are priced at $0.99 each. At first glance this seems reasonable but with a second look it's far too much. While the record industry consistently cites distribution as one of it's costs and artists consistently talk about how little they make from a typical album there should be a lower cost online. The cost to Apple of delivering a stream of bits is much lower than shipping plastic discs around the country. At this rate the average 10-15 song album will cost $10-$15.... the same as it does today at the record store. This seeming great idea ends up being yet another form of inflation in costs to the consumer.