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 →
EppsNet Archive: Money
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 →
Aloha, Gary
My wife tells me the Gary’s Island store in Newport Beach is going out of business. I hope it’s not true. It’s a great store, but I suppose in a down economy, high-end Hawaiian shirts are even more of a luxury item than usual . . . Read more →
Let’s Get Fiscal
A simple rule dictates my buying: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful. — Warren Buffett BIG DEAL! I said the same thing last week! Who needs Warren Buffett when you have a good dog? Talking about Warren Buffett is making me hungry because his name looks like “buffet.” I wish someone would open an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant for dogs. I would invest in that . . . — Lightning Read more →
Good News, Bad News
First the bad news: ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! THERE’S NOTHING BUT BAD NEWS! THE HOUSING MARKET HAS COLLAPSED! GLOBAL MARKETS ARE IMPLODING! EVERYTHING IS SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL! THE FALCON CANNOT HEAR THE FALCONER! THE CEREMONY OF INNOCENCE IS DROWNED! THE BEST LACK ALL CONVICTION WHILE THE WORST ARE FULL OF PASSIONATE INTENSITY! EVERYBODY PANIC! OK, now the good news: Hmmm . . . well . . . as long as I have a job, I can make enough to live on . . . I think . . . Read more →
Fun with Charts
I use charts like this one to track open project tickets, color-coded by priority. At a meeting last week, I pointed out that the number of open tickets on this particular project had peaked out at 70 and was now dropping faster than the value of my house, at which one of the attendees laughed more enthusiastically than I thought was necessary. “Why is that funny?” I asked. I mean, it was supposed to be a little funny, but not laugh-out-loud funny. “I’ve been there,” she said. Read more →
We Have a New Chair
This chair showed up in my house the other day . . . “It’s the most comfortable chair ever!” my son raves. “How much did it cost?” I ask him. “I dunno. Mom handled the paying part.” The dog seems to like it as well . . . Read more →
Depression 2.0
Mr. Obama is proposing to raise taxes on capital gains and dividends by a staggering two-thirds, moving the rate up 10 percentage points to 25%, which could curtail investment and business on Wall Street, a backbone of the city’s and state’s economy. — New York Sun OK, let me get this straight . . . the stock market’s dropping, banks are failing from lack of liquidity, no one wants to invest in American companies, and Obama’s solution is to raise the capital gains tax?! In the event of an Obama presidency, I will taking a long position in blankets, canned goods and shotgun shells . . . Read more →
House of Cards
My son suggests that we buy some red wheels for the SUV to match the color of the vehicle. “How much would that cost?” my wife asks. “I don’t know,” I say. “A lot of money.” “But it’d be the pimpingest pimp sauce thing you could ever do,” the boy replies. That’s what Ed McMahon’s financial adviser used to say when Ed said, “Are you kidding?! The only way I could afford that is to work till I’m 90!” Read more →
The Price of Gas
I can remember the first time I paid $20 for a tank of gas. I can remember the first time I paid $30. And $40. But I’ve recently blown through the $50, $60 and $70 barriers so fast that they don’t even seem like milestones anymore . . . Read more →
Heath Ledger, 1979-2008
NEW YORK — Actor Heath Ledger was found dead Tuesday of a possible drug overdose in a Lower Manhattan apartment, the New York Police Department said. — CNN.com Possible drug overdose, possible suicide! Oh dear . . . another blow to the theory that being rich and/or famous is the ticket to happiness. I think most famous actors — not all, obviously — are convinced that they can do things that nobody else can do, that they’re not cardboard people who are adored for no reason. Tom Cruise, for example, I don’t think will ever commit suicide. Oh well . . . Read more →
Pricey Pet Photos
I’ll be the first to admit that these are cute pug photos, but are people really paying $1,100 to take photos of their pets?! Read more →
What Am I Thankful For?
I’m thankful that I have a job! A lot of people don’t! I lost my last job a few months ago, along with 9,499 other people in the Orange County real estate/finance industry over the past year. We all got to compete against each other to find another one. The Orange County Register ran a story yesterday on how some of these folks are doing . . . Delia DeYulia, a grandmother, was recently forced to take her first retail job. For the holiday shopping season, DeYulia, 53, is working part-time at Kohl’s, placing clothes on racks and cleaning dressing rooms. She resorted to taking the temporary work after not finding other employment. After 15 years with Fremont Investment and Loan, she lost her mortgage job in Anaheim Hills in March. “I’m used to sitting in an office,” said DeYulia, who audited loans at Fremont, a firm from which she… Read more →
Subprime Sinkhole
The rising tide of the mortgage industry lifted some pretty spurious boats here in Orange County, so it’s fun now to watch the subprime sinkhole laying them low. Example: John Lynch, the “surfing banker,” executive VP of Secured Funding Corp., specialists in home equity loans and second mortgages to people with bad credit. I had this guy pegged as a moron years ago, around the same time OC Metro ran a fawning blowjob of a profile on him: For the foreseeable future, he will continue as a master of both the surfboard and the boardroom — plus anything else that he decides to do. — OC Metro, Jan. 8, 2004 Well, that was then and this is now: The party is over in Orange County. These days, Secured Funding’s once-buzzing office building in Costa Mesa, near John Wayne Airport, is gutted. The imprint of “Secured Funding” is all that remains… Read more →
Slaves of Things
I adjure you by the gods, cease to admire material things, cease to make yourselves slaves, first of things, and next, for their sake, of men who can acquire them or take them away. — EPICTETUS, Discourses, Book III, Ch. 20 When we moved recently, having to pick up everything we own and transport it from Point A to Point B confirmed something I’d long suspected, which is that we’ve accumulated way too much junk and clutter in our lives. And if I were to walk away from here with nothing but the clothes I’m wearing, how much of it would I really miss? Answer: Not much. Read more →
An Open Letter to My Former Employer
No hard feelings, but I’m looking at the company president’s new employment agreement on EDGAR . . . the stock’s down 50 percent, the bond rating’s been lowered to junk, you laid off 400 people end of July and announced plans to lay off 1,000 more, and yet shareholders will still be paying for a really fabulous set of benefits for this lout: luxury automobiles, first-class air travel, $35,000 a year for financial planning services, and not one, but two, country club memberships. The rest of the peasants — er, employees — have to pay for their own cars, green fees, financial planners, etc., which is even tougher when you’ve been laid off thanks to my man’s (lack of) stewardship at the mortgage bank. Let them eat cake! I challenge you post a link to the employment agreement on the company web site and see if he isn’t guillotined within… Read more →
Life Lessons
My friend PE was laid off recently. He’s leasing out his house and renting a smaller place in an effort to keep his finances under control. This should be a good lesson for that boy of his: Work hard all your life, try to do the right things, and you too can wind up with no house, no job and a wife who hates you . . . Read more →
Why Men Make More Money Than Women
Another study quizzed graduating master’s degree students who had received job offers about whether they had simply accepted the offered starting salary or had tried to negotiate for more. Four times as many men — 51 percent of the men vs. 12.5 percent of the women — said they had pushed for a better deal. Not surprisingly, those who negotiated tended to be rewarded — they got 7.4 percent more, on average — compared with those who did not negotiate. — Washington Post A Carnegie Mellon professor has figured out why men make more than women for the same job. I actually figured that out myself the first time I heard about it. Salaries are negotiable. You can’t pay someone less than they’re willing to work for. Hence, women must be willing to work for less money. It’s the only possible explanation. UPDATE: I should have emphasized that 7.4 percent… Read more →