It was probably twenty years ago that I got an offer in the mail I could not refuse- a shiny Gold credit card with no annual fee.  Fees are annoying and this seemed like a good idea.  I have inherited from my maternal grandfather the need to do things right now- which is another way of saying I am an impulse buyer.

Others can carefully save and plan for stuff, I like to execute - strike while the iron is hot. 

When online shopping got started, I decided that debit cards were pretty unsafe, and that one could charge online purchases safely on a credit card.  Paypal was next, where you could avoid the early (and hopefully not current) issue of them pulling money out of your linked bank account at will to handle charge backs and disputes.   (For a while they had no customer service number to call).  I used to enjoy the ongoing game of chicken with Paypal- who loved to have your bank account - if not they would give you a credit card limit and would refuse to raise it.

Before long my whole financial life revolved around that Gold Card.  I was doing charity contributions with it, and paying for insurance and could impulse buy on Paypal all day long.   The balance would creep up, and the interest rate would too.  My Wife, a former bank auditor, would remind me regularly that this was not sound financial practice, but I had the one thing going I love "payment convenience"

Recently I got a call from the Gold Card company.  They said they had not seen a payment this month.  The person on the phone in a kind voice asked "Sir, are you struggling?"  I said yes, I was struggling to find out where our check to them was.  I got off the phone with them and called our bank.  We mailed a check to the card, but a check in a different amount with that check number had cleared. 

The amount was $400, which interestingly was the average amount used by check forgers.  Our mail had been stolen from our box on a Monday morning, and the checks were "wiped" and written out and signed by someone else.

We found an account that was not impacted, and sent off another check or two to the credit card.  They got these after a while and hit us with a late fee of $40, and raised our interest rate to 25.9%.  Now we had just paid them (late) 20% of the total balance, and have not been late in say ten years on this card.

We called and explained what happened (and the police report) and got a letter saying basically too bad the fee and the new rate were not up for discussion.  I think in this time, people are figuring out that you can should prioritize your debt payments when your back is against the wall. 

Secured debt should be paid first, and the current trend to stop paying your mortgage if your house is worth less than you paid for it is not a good idea.  But I think the credit card companies are starting to worry.

So in the process of getting all the checking accounts fixed we spent a lot of time with our local banks.  And noticed they too had credit cards, at half the rate (actually 1/4 now) I was paying my "Big Bank" shiny card.  6.8% actually. 

I was sternly warned not to link Paypal to my little savings account, as I would pay a fee after six transaction/month.  That would slow me down actually and force planning and prioritization.

I got rid of all the direct transfers from my old credit card, and went to cash for some of those and ditched several.  Why I needed to pay 13% (25.9%) interest on my every word and deed was a good question.

The new local bank card arrived yesterday and I cut up the old one.  I am going to collect some cash, pay off the old one and then call and close it.  They probably don't care why.  And a few weeks from now I'll start getting pre approved "offers" from them for a new card which I will have to take the time to tear up.

A gas station here has a handwritten sign- 3% discount for cash.  I think a law was passed making that discount illegal some years back to protect the then fledgling credit card industry. 

You can't have your identity stolen paying cash.

Why are big bank credit cards so good again?  Somebody remind me I forgot.

 

I am generally an optimistic person, and assume that things will work out, and that people will generally do the right thing. 

I've been watching the election in Iran once in a while.  I am not a big Iran hater.  Iran has not invaded any other country in hundreds if not thousands of years.  The people are smart, and if they want to focus on the practice of Islam, why not.

The western media is just now figuring out that you can't make a decent atomic bomb out of uranium ore, or slightly enriched (a few percent) civilian reactor fuel, any more than you you can make a tank or a gun out of iron ore.  The militarization of nuclear technology is a significant step past a power plant.

They have had this election, and it is pretty interesting to watch the jumping up and down by the media here.  MSNBC (who I have tended to trust) is openly pleading for people to send pictures and video footage.

We have elected a new President who is thankfully smarter than all of the other world leaders this time around.  We need to trust him on his reaction or lack of one to the events over there.  Our status for a long time as an easy mark, that could be set up and trapped by evil and cynical dictators is over.  We are giving them fits- for failing to fall into their traps.

The world will be a better and safer place if we can keep this up.

We went to an excellent party the other night put on by a couple we know.   The family is non traditional but they have great kids and a large group of supportive and fun friends. 

They are good communicators and help each other, and have a very traditional family operating model.  One partner is the primary money person and the other is focused on the kids.  They co parent well.

They have family dinner every night, and work on providing a supportive environment for the kids.  They also take care of their relationship, as well as their parents, extended family, etc.  They are a model of good parenting practice and have avoided the recent traps many have fallen into:

1. Child centric marriages. In these, the whims of the kids, and the redirected (sometimes failed) dreams of the parents are focused on the kids.  Every purchase is granted, and every possible sport, activity and recreation is planned and directed.  There is an obsessive focus of keeping up with neighbors, and a perceived set of steps needed for a lifetime of success and accomplishment.   The parents ignore each other in this quest for youthful perfection.  Eventually the wheels fall off, the parents get cranky and resentful, the kids rebel from all the pressure, and somebody fails to meet expectations and joins a gang or takes up drugs.

2. Adult centric marriages.  Kids are left with babysitters, and the TV and cash to order pizza.  Adults need to find themselves and go off to the spa and vacations and out to bars every night.  The kids get the clear sense that they are on the list of priorities, somewhere.  Acting out is a way to get higher on the list.  Getting arrested or having  a baby at 15 is actually perfect for that.

3. Workaholism or substance abuse.  Anything to focus on either personal angst, or in working 60 hours a week to "take care of the family" - everyone soon figures out what is really going on and soldiers on in the absence of the person who has checked themselves out.

It is all about balance, and keeping the big picture in mind.  We are all on the same journey, and start out and finish up with nothing.  So it is how well we work with what we have and what we can earn through hard work and caring and giving.

One of the things I like about my hobby of bring a volunteer relationship advisor and life coach is solving problems. 

Unlike my day job, where any technical advice I give is based on a stack of textbooks and years of training classes and references,  in my hobby I tell everyone I got my Life Coach License in a Cracker Jack box.  Every problem is learned about via the school of experience.

Here is the issue: 

I have several high powered women buddies who have married these bright and successful and charming men.  There is one problem, the guys are really insecure, controlling, manuipulative and mean.  So behind the scenes there is the force of evil going on.  Nobody can see it, as on the surface things are fine. 

So my women friends wriggle free, and file for divorce.  The evil doers (often to the surprise of many) are booted out and have to fend for themselves.

The puzzling part is these guys, instead of taking their looks, money and charm and moving on to greener pastures, stay behind and essentially stalk and hound and torture their ex wives.  They are calling and making threats and suing and sending a froth of evil back via the kids.  This sometimes goes on for years and years. 

Why is this this?  I can come up with a saying "that which you cannot have you must destroy" but that does not answer the why?


 

This week, (4/22/09) the British charity Oxfam is reporting that 375 million people will be impacted by climate disasters worldwide in the next six years.    There is starting to be a pretty good link between increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, warmer temperatures and more violent weather and other events, like rivers drying up from changing rain/snow patterns.

About a third of manmade carbon dioxide emissions come from power generation, most of that from coal.  Coal is cheap and abundant and provides a lot of BTUs per ton.  It is also rich in CO2, mercury, arsenic, etc. 

Alternatives include wind, solar and nuclear fission.   The concept of "base load power" has emerged, which is how do we replace the major sources of electricy that run around the clock, and work when the wind is calm and the sun is down, like it is right here as I am writing this.

The best case scenarios for wind look like around ten percent, and solar (depending on location) are maybe around 30%.  So what about the rest?  Conservation is important- if we use less, the rate of new plant construction can slow.  Natural gas is OK, but is does produce CO2.

Nuclear fusion is not ready yet, and needs like a trillion dollars worth of R&D (about the cost of a big war) to get going. 

So we are left with nuclear fission.  This technology, around 50 years old, is pretty well developed.  Using western technology, there have been few accidents and even worldwide, few fatalities.   The big issue is spent fuel disposal.    Currently in the US we have a policy against reprocessing used reactor fuel.  So we have to store it, currently in big metal cans in power plant parking lots.  This is not very good.

The government is being pressured in some cases to re-think bans on new fission plants and to re-open the debate.  After all this time, and now with facts and figures on climate change rolling in, the debate has shifted slightly or a lot.

1. Terrorism.  You can't make anything other than a "dirty bomb" with anything in a civilian power station.  The fuel is 4% enriched, and bombs need 30% enriched fuel, most commonly 80%.  Plants are a hard target and well defended.  Terrorists need the element of surprise, and a high probability of success to be in the headlines.  The more than 100 plants in the USA have not been targeted.  

2. Spent fuel.  We have this storage facility in Yucca Mountain which is still underway.  It was funded in large part by $22B in power plant contributions (not subsidies) to a storage fund.  The NRC said last week they are still working on the license.  A reprocessing strategy might be better.  

3. Danger to civilians.  So far, there has not been any.  The big issue is insurance- there has not been a serious accident with damages here, so how do you quantify the risk?  Newer plants are intended to be less risky.  This point is very emotional but the number of deaths from coal mining is 5,000 per year, and mercury poisoning is a big deal and if we can kill the oceans from CO2 led acidification (underway) 1B people depend on the sea for their food.

4. Subsidies.  Yes the NRC is a goverment agency, but like public transportation, many forms of energy (like solar and wind) are getting support from here and there.

5. Cost.  Electric utilities are businesses, and will try to buy the cheapest power.  The fact that there are few/no taxes on coal make it the cheapest power.  There is great concern in the government  and environmental groups about rates for new plants.  They can fix this by taxing carbon emissions, but have chosen not to.  



 

One of the pioneering research centers worldwide in the study of alage as a source of fuel is back on the project again.  The research there on algae was shut down ten years ago.

This is very good news.

http://www.nrel.gov/features/20090403_algae.html

The last edition of National Public Radio Science Friday 4/17/09 was a well done piece on algae power.  The more PR this subject gets the better.  They interviewed an algae catalog person, who said he was getting all kinds of calls for algae that was good for converting sunlight and CO2 into useful energy related products like oils. 
One other expert said there were "more than 100" companies working on algae to energy projects, which was very encouraging.

http://www.sciencefriday.com/

The notion of using algae to make biofuel is getting some much deserved attention.  Scientists and inventors have been working away trying to get algae to absorb waste carbon dioxide and fertilizer and produce commercial quantities of biodiesel fuel.

A Minnesota company, SarTec, has now announced a continuous flow process that can produce biofuel for $1.75 a gallon.  The company has figured out to convert some of the free-fatty acids that would clog the conversion system into useful byproducts.  There have been issues around growing the algae, and in converting it to fuel, and this process seems to address both areas.

http://www.startribune.com/business/42939492.html?elr=KArksUUUU


 

I think all the partisanship in Washington and even down to the States is not helping much.  One of the parties is walking around with some old ideas that are not working any more, and if they get refocused on issues rather than dogma people might pay more attention.  The concept is to do what is right for the country and not to serve your ideological leaders. 

1. Balanced Federal Budget.  I was very proud of a Republican leader recently who said that deficits are bad - they are. 
2. Limit the size of government.  There needs to be a cap on the number of full time government employees.  We have this in the military.  Why not across the board.  If more services need to be performed- hire contractors. 
3. Save Creation.  The idea that the earth is too big and limitless for us to trash and destroy was big years ago- so was the idea the earth is flat.  Both are not true any more.
4. Protect individual freedom.  The US is not full of spies and fifth columnists.  The terrorists worldwide send their kids to college here as it is safe.
5. Protect the right to worship.  This country was founded in large part to promote religious choice.