Reinke Faces Life

http://www.smartmoney.com/consumer/index.cfm?story=20071227

Consumer Action
New Year, New Consumer Scams
By Aleksandra Todorova |Aleksandra Todorova Archive |Published: December 27, 2007

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IT’S BEEN A tough year for consumers. With housing prices falling and the subprime-mortgage mess raging on, we won’t blame you if you’re looking forward to a fresh start in 2008.

Better watch out: The financial woes and natural disasters of 2007 have armed scammers with plenty of new tricks — or resourceful spins on old ones — aimed at separating you from your cash. Here the five most treacherous scams to watch out for in 2008.

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As a notary, I “hear” a lot of scams going on. It seems that they all boil down to the elemental “something4nothing”. You’ll magically get, for example, a grazillion bucks from your long lost aunt tillie, if you’ll just send a “shipping & handling” fee.

Right?

Last time I looked, the tooth fairy made house calls. No “s&h”.

Fore warned is fore armed!

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http://www.survivalblog.com/2007/12/odds_n_sods_635.html

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SurvivalBlog reader Mary R. forwarded us this odd notice from the US Treasury: Annual Purchase Limit For Savings Bonds Set at $5,000. Could the Treasury have been warned that the Fed plans to further lower interest rates, potentially making even low-yield savings bonds more attractive? We live in strange times, dear readers.

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http://www.treasurydirect.gov/news/pressroom/pressroom_reducedpurchaselimit.htm

Very very strange!

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http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2007/12/15/economic_recession_2008_scobles_advice.htm

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Economic Recession 2008: Scoble’s Advice The Only Way To Go?
By Robin Good on Independent Publishing
I loveRobert Scoble mostly because he is a very positive, optimistic and friendly person
CounterPoint to: Surviving the 2008 Recession
by Robert Scoble and Robin Good
1. Get some income from overseas.
2. Cut expenses.
3. Lock down clients into longer-term contracts.
4. Ensure you’re seen as valuable at work. Do an honest assessment.
5. Network more than usual. You might get laid off
6. Watch the job listings.
7. Dust off your blog.
8. Start a company.
9. Move to a bigger company
10. If you are in a big company, join a group that isn’t going to get cut.
11. If you’re in a small company, get real friendly with two groups
12. Look at your stock portfolio and make smart moves.
13. Try to get into hot new markets. Russia, for instance
14. ComputerWeekly is recommending CIOs get two budgets together
15. Work the basics: build a cash reserve; manage inventory; renegotiate your lease; reward loyal customers;
16. See where you stand in the story line.
17. Write a blog about how to brilliantly sail through a recession.
18. Clean up your balance sheet.
19. Keep your ear to the ground,

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Batten down the hatches!

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It’s a fact of life that the “old folks” who go into nursing homes run out of money and become wards of the state. It happened to a wealthy aunt decades ago, who took a “fortune” and wound up on the dole. (I was young and not privy to the exact numbers.) And, it’s happening to another aunt and I am privy to the numbers.

She worked her whole life at menial jobs. Saved her pennies and accumulated a nice nest egg. (Probably 5 times her annual salary!) Had social security and a tiny pension. And she’ll die on the dole. (I’m not planning on telling her because she just get upset.)

It’s NOT her fault.

That “social security insurance” theft didn’t provide her with “social insurance”. Proper insurance with MetLife, Prudential, or Allstate over fifty years would have given her a substantial annuity.

Argh!

Now I read about folks going into assisted living. I read about old folks living on cruise ships. I read about people going overseas for expensive medical procedures.I read about old folks in Japan needing robots.

Will old people become America’s new export? Will the American equivalent of the Eskimos putting old folks on ice flows going out to sea be sending our old folks to old age homes in Third World countries where they can get taken care of “humanely”?

Warped thought, but who is going to take care of an “old” America?

Is that a consequence of our love of abortion and our failure to cherish life?

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http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2007/10/24/understanding-the-seven-habits-of-wealth

Understanding the Seven Habits of Wealth
Wednesday, 24th October 2007 (by J.D.)

This is a guest post from Dough Roller, a Washington D.C. blogger who writes about building wealth, one dollar at a time.

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit. — Aristotle

We tend to define our lives by the big events: graduation, marriage, children, a big promotion, retirement. What often gets neglected are the little things we do every day, the little things that make the big events possible. As Aristotle said, it’s what we “repeatedly do” that produces excellence. When it comes to money and wealth, what do you repeatedly do?

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Hard Work
Modest Living
Patience
Perseverance
Balance
Self-Awareness
Learning

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I remember, but didn’t “learn” until much later, that “small leaks sink big ships”.

Singularly, I have demonstrated “big leaks sing ships quickly”. It’s my personal objective to plug all my “big leaks” before I “sop earning and start burning”.

I have to get organized!

:-(

Maybe that’s the “eighth” idea. Organization. You have to be organized to succeed?

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http://blogs.marketwatch.com/greenberg/2007/12/straight-talk-on-the-mortgage-mess-from-an-insider

Straight Talk on the Mortgage Mess from an Insider
12:11:23 PM December 6th, 2007
Herb Greenberg is senior columnist for MarketWatch. His column also appears in the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal.

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Values are down and these are interest only loans, therefore, many are severely underwater even without negative-amortization on this loan type. They were qualified at a 50% debt-to-income ratio, leaving only 50% of a borrower’s income to pay taxes, all other bills and live their lives. These loans put the borrower in the grave the day they signed their loan docs especially without major appreciation. These loans will not perform as poorly overall as sub-prime, seconds or Option ARMs but they are a perfect example of what is still considered ‘prime’ that is at risk. Eighty-eight percent of Thornburg’s portfolio is this very loan type for example.

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It appears that this mess is not even begun to be cleaned up. Remember the post 9-11 FED with its multi-year near zero interest rate? That’s the cause. Now the PREZ is going to “save us all” with some type of sub-prime bail out.

Fools! The sheep are fools. Just Fools!

It’s immoral for politicians to steal money from the productive class to bail out the unproductive class.

It’s just makes people make even worse decisions.

Hopefully, you’ve been putting away your gold coins. Perhaps, this is truly the end of the Republic.

Messing with the money is always a sure sign of the end.

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http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-466210540567002553&pr=goog-sl

Money, Banking and the Federal Reserve
41 min 25 sec – Jun 1, 1996
Average rating: (868 ratings)

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Description: Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson understood “The Monster”. But to most Americans today, Federal Reserve is just a name on the dollar bill. They have no idea of what the central bank does to the economy, or to their own economic lives; of how and why it was founded and operates; or of the sound money and banking that could end the statism, inflation, and business cycles that the Fed generates. Dedicated to Murray N. Rothbard, steeped in American history and Austrian economics, and featuring Ron Paul, Joseph Salerno, Hans Hoppe, and Lew Rockwell, this extraordinary new film is the clearest, most compelling explanation ever offered of the Fed, and why curbing it must be our first priority. Alan Greenspan is not, we’re told, happy about this 42-minute blockbuster. Watch it, and you’ll understand why. This is economics and history as they are meant to be: fascinating, informative, and motivating. This movie could change America.

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Never?

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http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog

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What Is Insurance and How Does It Fit Into My Plan?

Insurance is the cheapest and most immediate way for a person to displace risks that are too great to assume individually. I can afford the doctor for an annual check-up, but what if I need an MRI and surgery? By paying a smaller amount up front, I am moving the responsibility from my shoulders to a large organization.

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This drives me wild. It is so basic, yet we seem to have zero understanding.

(1) Ever watch the TV commercials made famous by Ed McM. Insure your baby. Insure your funeral expenses. Insure what? What in the Intelligent Designer’s name are you protecting against?

(2) Social Security Insurance? That Ponzi scheme should have never been allowed to assume the word “insurance”.

(3) “Health” Insurance that pays for routine maintenance stuff.

Insurance on the open market for true catastrophes, like death, are cheap and easy to buy. Life Insurance was pioneered by the fraternal organizations to mitigate the death of a wage earner.

So what are you calling “insurance” that isn’t? And, what are you paying for that you shouldn’t even be “insuring”? And, what are your biggest risks? Are they “insurable”? And which ones should you be mitigating and which should you properly be “insuring” (i.e., the big hairy ones)?

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http://www.dolans.com/video/DOEL_avoid_these_401k_mistakes_091207.html?sid=9AG316&cp=IPIE&ct=20071204&cc=eletter&en=3452901

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Avoid These 401(k) Mistakes!

We’ll be straight with you: In our many years of talking to people about their money concerns, we’ve heard from far too many folks who are making serious mistakes with their 401(k) plans. It breaks our hearts to think about how often we come across these mistakes — and how costly they are as well.

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Good folks with good advice!

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http://www.lewrockwell.com/katz-j/katz-j26.html

Knowledge Through Ignorance
by Joshua Katz

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Now, the state of Pennsylvania has outlawed the labels. This is quite harmful to producers who built organic farms, which are much harder to build and maintain, on the expectation of being able to obtain a higher milk price. Now that the milk is not labeled, there will be no price differential, and soon enough there will be no untreated milk available for sale in the state, I’d wager.

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Milk is an excellent example of the fascism that pervades this country. Milk is highly regulated and highly taxed.

(Regulated for your “protection”. Like you couldn’t tell that the milk you were buying wasn’t pastuerized or homogenized. You used to be able to buy a BRAND of milk for it’s assurances. Now milk is a commodity!)

(Taxed because … well they can. When you see a gallon of milk, think of a gallon of gasoline. And, all the taxes on the gasoline that went to produce and deliver it to you are all hidden in the price of the milk that you buy!)

And, to ensure that the gooferment properly protects the fascist milk producers, there are milk price support laws! So you can pay more. And, that makes work for the lobbyists employed by milk fascist.

So where are your lobbyists?

How does this relate to money recognize that you are paying more? And, ask you congress critter why!

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How doe