I’m at Target shopping for a new watch. My son is with me. He’s 15 years old. “Bah,” he says, sizing up the display. “Where’s the platinum stuff?” “Look,” I say, “all I need here is an inexpensive watch that’ll tell me what time it is.” A guy behind us chortles. He knows what I’m talking about; he’s browsing through a rack of $19 Ray-Ban knockoffs. “Buy what you want then,” the boy says. “But my watch is very attractive to the ladies.” “What kind of watch do you have?” He’s not wearing one so I have to ask. “I’ll give you a hint,” he says. “It starts with an ‘R.’” “Very funny. What kind of watch do you have?” “OK, it’s a Casio. But it’s got a really cool band.” Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Money
I Have Some Fundraising Ideas
My son’s roller hockey team is going to Toronto in July for NARCh. We’re batting around fundraising ideas to help defray the cost of the trip. How about an old-fashioned kissing booth? Kiss a hockey mom for $10! Or a pie toss! Throw a pie in the face of a hockey mom for $10! Better yet — dealer’s choice! Kiss a hockey mom or throw a pie in her face — $10. And we’ll throw in a package deal: A kiss and a pie — in either order! — for only $15! Surprisingly, only one of the moms thinks this is a good idea . . . Read more →
Now It’s Tomorrow
Phoenix has achieved the unwelcome distinction of becoming the first major American city where home prices have fallen in half since the market peaked in the middle of the decade, according to data released Tuesday. — Home Prices Continued Their Decline in February – NYTimes.com Money quote from Greg Swann, a Phoenix real estate agent: “We were living during the boom like there was no tomorrow. And guess what? Now it’s tomorrow.” Read more →
Signs of the Times
The house two doors down from us is for sale. The house across the street is empty and for sale. The woman behind us and the woman next door, who was recently laid off, have asked my wife if she knows anything about loan modification . . . Read more →
Thomas Jefferson: Obama Not Up to the Task?
Obama still has the approval of the people, but the establishment is beginning to mumble that the president may not have what it takes. — Newsweek.com Gee — do you really think so? What was your first clue? The loud noise of nest eggs being crushed all over America every time he opens his mouth? President of the United States is not a job for a dilettante three years out of the Illinois state senate. Before I was elected president, I served as governor of Virginia, minister to France, secretary of state under George Washington and vice president under John Adams. I also wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and, in my younger years, at age 33, a little something called the Declaration of Independence. President Obama’s accomplishments? I’ll step aside and let one of his supporters enumerate them: Read more →
Stimulus Bill is Creating Jobs
A friend works at a wind energy company. I asked him if he was getting his share of the money from our new planned economy. His response: “We are stimulated! There is some good stuff in there for renewable. We may need to open a DC office just to chase the $$.” As long as we think that we can grow GDP by having an ever-larger proportion of our best citizens working as full-time lobbyists, it would seem that the stimulus bill is working as advertised. — Philip Greenspun Read more →
Obama the Entertainer
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by 300 points to end below the 6800 mark for the first time in nearly 12 years, as a broad-based selloff seized the markets, sending shares lower in every sector. The S&P 500 briefly dropped below 700 for the first time since October 1996 before ending just at that level amid across-the-board declines, including drops of more than 6% in basic materials, energy, financial and industrial sectors. The Nasdaq Composite Index fell 4%. — WSJ.com, March 2, 2009 CONGA! Read more →
Outside the Lines
It’s the last high school roller hockey game of the regular season. One of the kids’ dads shows up for the first time and asks questions like, “Do they win most of their games?” Do they win most of their games?! Are you kidding?! You should know that. Even if you don’t come to the games, you could ask your kid when he gets home. Another dad has a great answer. “Come over here,” he says. “I want to introduce you to your son.” Over on the moms’ side of the bleachers, they’re talking about financial matters. One woman is sad because they bought their house at the peak of the market and they’re financially stuck in it for the foreseeable future. Another woman almost cries describing how 14 years of contributions to her husband’s 401k have been totally wiped out. Meanwhile on the rink, Northwood dominates Capo Valley pretty… Read more →
Frugality or Faux Pas
Idaho’s first lady wore the same dress twice — to the gala at Saint Al’s Festival of Trees in November, and then again Sunday to the White House for a dinner with the nation’s governors, the Obamas’ first formal soiree. Lori Otter bought the dress — a floor-length black Jovani gown — on sale at the local boutique Karen Louise in Downtown Boise, the governor’s office said. The gown retails for about $700, but Otter got it for about $500. — Idaho Statesman This is news? Out here in the real America, not only do we wear the same clothes–even less expensive items like socks and underwear–dozens of times, but a whole industry has arisen providing equipment, detergents and services for washing clothes between uses. — Best of the Web Today Read more →
Life Imitates Dilbert
DOGBERT (running for president): I promise to take money from the people who don’t vote for me and give it to the people who do. — Dilbert, Aug. 11, 2007 WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama delivered Congress a $3.6 trillion budget blueprint Thursday that hopes to “break from a troubled past” with a sharp shift toward expanded government activism, tax increases on affluent families and businesses, and spending cuts targeted at those he says profited from “an era of profound irresponsibility.” — “Obama Delivers $3.6 Trillion Budget Blueprint,”, WSJ.com Read more →
Bank Error in Your Favor
A Swedish woman got the shock of her life when she found $US1.13 billion ($1.76 billion) more than expected in her bank account. — The Sydney Morning Herald Hmmm . . . where have I heard of this before? Oh yeah, I remember now . . . Read more →
You’re Getting Stimulated
OLYMPIA, Wash. — The state is sending out hundreds of thousands of $1 checks to the state’s neediest residents. It’s a plan that’s supposed to bring millions of dollars worth of food stamps to the state by March. When you add printing and postage, it seems like a waste, but the state says the economy has them pulling out all the stops to find money wherever they can. — The Olympian Yeah, it seems like a waste now — but wait till the Keynesian multiplier kicks in! Read more →
The Chicago Tea Party
This is America! How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage? President Obama are you listening? How about we all stop paying our mortgage! — Rick Santelli (video), CNBC Chicago I’m rolling over in my grave, as the gentleman from Chicago has already noted. Count me in for the Chicago Tea Party! A little revolution now and then is a good thing; the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. I’ll bring Samuel Adams along. Not the beer, you yahoos, the patriot! He has experience with this sort of thing. P.S. Medary.com has provided a Chicago Tea Party broadside, or whatever you call them nowadays. Read more →
I Got a Passport
I got my first passport yesterday. I can go anywhere! The world is my oyster! Although I really don’t like to travel . . . Some people get annoyed with me when I say that, including members of my own family. It doesn’t make sense to them. My mom, for example, has been to like 30 countries. Maybe 50, I can’t keep track. For me, I start out thinking I’d be happier somewhere else but after I’ve spent all the time and money to get there, I realize I’m still the same person with the same problems I had at home. Not to mention the possibility of being drugged, robbed and killed, or hit by a tsunami. I’m not saying there’s nothing positive about travel. It’s just not worth the investment . . . Read more →
The Work is Its Own Reward
I’m playing hooky from our company meeting. The topic is how the organization calculates compensation, which I don’t care about because I truly feel that the work is its own reward. In fact, I don’t even accept a salary. Most people don’t know that because I keep it to myself . . . Read more →
Then Wear the Gold Hat
Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her; If you can bounce high, bounce for her too, Till she cry “Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover, I must have you!” — Thomas Parke D’Invilliers This is the epigraph to The Great Gatsby, which my son is reading for school. So beautiful, so sad . . . (Thomas Parke D’Invilliers is a character in Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise, used by him here as a nom de plume.) Read more →
Higher Education May Soon Be Unaffordable
The rising cost of college — even before the recession — threatens to put higher education out of reach for most Americans, according to the biennial report from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. — NYTimes.com Good! Long overdue! There are way, way, way too many unqualified people getting college degrees. Higher education has been devalued to the point that you can’t swing a cat without knocking down some idiot with a graduate degree. Read more →
A Mixed Blessing
Reviewing the EppsNet balance sheet: investment accounts down, home equity down. My wife says at least we have our health. Even that’s a mixed blessing as my retirement planning currently includes dying young before the money runs out . . . Read more →
Why Spending Stimulus Plans Fail
Congress doesn’t have its own stash [of money]. Every dollar it injects into the economy must first be taxed or borrowed out of the economy. No new spending power is created. It’s merely redistributed from one group of people to another. — Brian Reidl, The Wall Street Journal As you probably learned in school, we founded this country as a free-market economy and viewed government intervention in the market with the greatest skepticism. The above article is the clearest explanation I’ve seen for why bailouts and “stimulus plans” involving government spending never work. The latest failed companies hoping for a bailout are General Motors and Ford. I hope Henry Ford — a great American like myself, who is currently whirling like a lathe in his Detroit grave — will pardon me for saying so, but these companies are nothing but engines of mass financial destruction. According to the WSJ, GM… Read more →
Thomas Jefferson’s Election Blog
Firstly, I’d like to thank Paul Epps for giving me this space on his web site to express my humble views. He is a real American. What concerns me today is that a candidate for president, Barack Obama, has said that he wants to “spread the wealth around” in America. It was a long time ago, but let me remind those of you who didn’t pay attention in history class that we founded this country as a rebellion against a too-powerful government. We believed in — and fought for — self-reliance and freedom, including the economic freedom to earn a dollar and spend it any way you want to. When someone tells you that he is going to decide how much money you can earn before he starts taking it away from you and giving it to someone else, that man is a scoundrel. And when Americans — the descendants… Read more →