Alan Greenspan channels Michelle Malkin:

Bubbles cannot be safely defused by monetary policy before the speculative fever breaks on its own.

The Malkinesque version from late last week was more succinct, if less delicate: Suck it up.

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James Stewart of Smart Money channels Malkin:

Rate Cuts Alone Can’t Fix Financials

Stewart’s in-essence memo to the stock market, given its 2% temper-tantrum drop in response to a rate cut that supposedly wasn’t enough: Suck it up.

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This story should give thundering herd looking to freeze adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) willy-nilly some pause:

Many homeowners with ARMs stand to gain

The biggest beneficiaries of the Federal Reserve Board’s rate cut will be borrowers with adjustable-rate mortgages linked to one-year Treasury bills, says Greg McBride, senior financial analyst for Bankrate.com. About 1.8 million subprime adjustable-rate mortgages will reset in coming months, often to rates sharply higher than their initial “teaser” rates.

The decline in short-term interest rates will make the increases much less painful, McBride says.

The Fed cuts Tuesday and in October and September have caused one-year Treasury yields to plunge from 5% to just over 3%, McBride says.

On an ARM with a margin of 2.5 percentage points above the Treasury index, the new rate would be 5.7%, McBride says, instead of the 7.5% it would have been if the loan had reset in July.

For crying out loud, 5.7% is LESS than the current 30-year FIXED rate for golden credit, according to myfico.com this morning (5.799% for a score between 760 and 850). Treasury-indexed ARMs are about half of all ARMs, according to the article. Yes, I know that most of the rest are based on LIBOR (London Interbank Offered Rate), which is currently higher, but the idea that there is an across-the board, mammoth crisis is absurd.

My turn to channel Malkin: If people with ARMs that are at or moving to 7% or less who are in non-personal crisis situations think they’re going to get a lot of sympathy from the general public, I would suggest an alternative to looking for it: Suck it up.

And what about “fairness”? If profligates get help, and those in otherwise identical circumstances who haven’t been profligate don’t (because they don’t “need” it), won’t there be, and shouldn’t there be, a justifiable resentment factor? What if many of the former avoid foreclosure, and some of the latter fail to?

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UPDATE: A subscription-only Wall Street Journal editorial notes that Ben Bernanke should be added to the list of Malkin channelers:

False Savior

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates again yesterday, and equity markets promptly sold off because it was only a 25-basis-point reduction. This is probably good, if paradoxical, news. The Fed has become so Pavlovian in its response to Wall Street’s begging that even this modest declaration of independence is a welcome reminder that easier money is not the solution to every economic problem.

Short version: “Bernanke to the markets — Suck it up.”

This is a public WSJ link for the moment, but in case it goes away, most of Terri Cullen’s October 14 article is excerpted below for fair use and discussion purposes:

By November, consumers in all 50 states will be able to “freeze” their credit reports at the three major credit bureaus to help prevent identity theft.

Previously, Equifax, TransUnion and Experian Group generally extended this privilege only to identity-theft victims and to senior citizens as required by state law.

When you freeze, or lock, your credit files, lenders and other third parties can’t access your credit report until you request that the credit bureaus “thaw,” or open, it. That means you — or a potential identity thief — can’t open a line of credit in your name until the credit-reporting companies get written permission from you to let third parties see your information.

TransUnion will offer security freezes nationwide starting tomorrow (October 15). Equifax says it will offer freezes by the end of the month. Experian announced last week that it will make freezes available to all on Nov. 1.

….. But it’s not an easy process — or an inexpensive one. To freeze a credit report, you must write to each of the three bureaus (certified mail is recommended). When your file is frozen, you are given a personal identification number (PIN), which you’ll need to remove the freeze from the file. To thaw the files, you must again write to all three bureaus, and the process can take three business days or more. If you can’t remember your PIN, it can take even longer.

Then there are the fees: Generally, victims of identity theft can freeze their credit reports at no charge, but non-victims on average must pay $10 to initiate a freeze on one file and another $10 to thaw it. (Those fees may be reduced or eliminated for residents of states that require lower freeze fees.)

Is a credit freeze right for you? If you’ve been a victim of identity theft, it’s generally a good idea. Even if you haven’t been a victim, freezing your credit files provides a powerful layer of protection against identity theft.

That said, if you know you’ll be opening a line of credit in the near future, or you’re changing jobs and it’s likely potential employers would want access to your credit history, hold off for now. That way you can avoid the fees and hassles of having to lock and unlock your files in the near term.

I would hope that the bureaus figure out a way to allow freezes and thaws online or via mail, with appropriate security precautions. The snail-mail restriction will be a significant deterrent to sign-ups.

Back in April, social service spending advocates in Oregon orchestrated the “Food Stamp Challenge,” claiming that the average program recipient’s benefits of $21 per week were woefully inadequate. Those who took the Food Stamp Challenge attempted to show just how unacceptable this average benefit was by buying $21 worth of food and trying to survive on it for seven days.

The entire premise of the Challenge was bogus from the very beginning, as syndicated columnist Mona Charen and yours truly demonstrated. This table, based on information readily available at the Department of Agriculture, shows what the real benefit levels are, before taking into account any resources (income, etc.) a person or family would be expected to have, based on their actual circumstances, to pay for food themselves (i.e., the average benefit is $21 per person week, AFTER taking those resources into account):

Program advocates should have been trying to live on the higher amounts listed above, depending on their family size. But they didn’t, pretending that the benefit received is all recipients have available to buy food.

Buoyed by the visibility provided when Oregon’s governor participated, the Challenge turned into a nationwide phenomenon, with politicians and journalists all over the country getting in on the act. Time and again, gullible Old Media outlets, including the Associated Press, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, disseminated the myth that the average Food Stamp recipient only has $21 per person per week with which to buy food.

Colorado residents Ari Armstrong and his wife Jennifer could have refuted the Food Stamp Challenge by staying within $284 per month, or $32.68 per person per week. Instead, they went much further.

Originally, Mr. Armstrong’s Serious Food Economy Challenge called out Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News journalists and editorialists (who for some reason chose $3.57 per person per day, and still pronounced that guideline unachievable), to “bet” against the couple’s ability to live on less than $1,080 in food for six months. Losers of the “bet” would have been required to give an amount equivalent to the money not spent by the Armstrongs to charity. Armstrong reports that “all but two supporters of food-stamp increases refused to sponsor our six-month challenge.”

So they went to Plan B. The Armstrongs promised, in their Liberty and Prosperity Challenge, that during the entire month of August they would spend $180 or less on food, or slightly under $3 per person per day. The rules they imposed on themselves to keep critics at bay included starting with an empty cupboard, shopping at traditional grocery outlets (no Wal-Marts, and no clubs like Costco), and taking no freebies from anyone.

The overall result, chronicled in detail (including copies of receipts, pictures of food purchased, etc.) at Armstrong’s Colorado Freedom Report: The couple spent $159.04, had a modest supply of leftovers (meaning they consumed a bit less than $159), lost very little weight, and lived to tell about it. Rounded, the amount they spent was $21 less than the $180 benchmark they had set for themselves, and a whopping $125 (44%) less than the Food Stamp program’s gross monthly benefit of $284 for a 2-person family. Reading through the detail, you will find that Mr. Armstrong even acknowledges having made some mistakes during the month that caused the couple to spend a bit more money than necessary.

Other takeaways from the Armstrongs’ Liberty and Prosperity Challenge:

• Their money-saving efforts, while aggressive, were not in any way, shape, or form over-the-top.
• Most of us could pick up a money-saving tip or two by reading through what they did and how they did it.
• It is not unreasonable, and certainly not an assault on anyone’s dignity, to expect Food Stamp recipients to take similar measures.

Remember, as long as the benefit formulas are fair (I have not seen any of the original Food Stamp Challenge participants attempt to dispute the reasonableness of the benefit formulas), a 2-person family actually has $104, or 58% more than the Armstrongs allowed themselves ($284 minus $180 = $104; $104 divided by $180 = 58%), and $125, or 79% more than they actually spent ($284 minus $159 = $125; $125 divided by $159 = 79%), to buy a month’s worth of food.

Armstrong reported to me a few days ago that Old Media in Colorado, after putting up such a fuss over the alleged inadequacy of Food Stamp benefits earlier this year, has expressed no interest in chronicling the couple’s accomplishment and its all-too-obvious public-policy implications.

Surely you’re not surprised. Nevertheless, the Armstrongs have performed a valuable service whose results should be referenced when needed. It is the definitive rebuttal to mindless and insulting allegations by some that anyone who has the nerve to suggest that current benefit levels are actually adequate must “hate poor people.”

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

August’s federal receipts look like they will come in 5% or so above August of last year, if the Treasury Department’s August monthly report tracks the numbers in August’s final daily statement:

The nice increase in receipts from tax withholdings is consistent with other indicators of decent income growth, as is September 4’s impressive $20.1 billion in withholding collections. The corporate and not-withheld decreases aren’t important, as the big amounts for these items come in during the months when quarterly estimated taxes are due (Jan., April, June, and Sept.). These items, in those months, have consistently had percentage increases close to or exceeding double digits for several years.

August’s Monthly Treasury Statement will come out a week from today.

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In case you missed it — A few weeks ago, disgraced former Durham, North Carolina District Attorney Mike Nifong, forced to mail his law license to the State’s Bar, included a note decrying “the fundamental unfairness” of how the bar had treated him. The unfairness of what he put three innocent Duke students through in the name of political expediency and divisive national publicity clearly isn’t weighing on him. The one day he will have to spend in jail is nowhere near enough.

The unapologetic lynch mob of Duke faculty known as the Group of 88, whose unconscionable statements have been chronicled by the indefatigable KC Johnson since the travesty began (his latest relevant post is here), were apparently unavailable for comment.

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Apple has been cavalier about its first adopters for years, but the just-announced $200 (33%) price drop on the iPhone only 68 days after its debut has to be some kind of record (HT on the news to Data Poobah via NixGuy). People who have bought iPhones for $599 in the past 14 days can get that $200 back.

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Hillary Hillraiser Hsu (he’s still on her Hillraiser list, which, though less than ideal in appearance, has been saved for posterity), who first fled and then otherwise avoided jail for previous crimes for about 14 years, was allowed out on bail last week. He has disappeared. Words fail. At least with her husband, we didn’t have donors and others fleeing the country until AFTER he was elected.

Update: Since words fail, this pic is worth 1,000 of them:

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Those who appear almost gleeful over the prediction that the US economy will slow to 2% this year aren’t mentioning the growing negative expectations drag the possible expiration of the Bush tax cuts is beginning to exert on forward-looking investor behavior.

For the naysayers to get their 2% or lower full-year GDP growth, second-half growth will have to slow to less than 1.7%, since first-half growth before final the second quarter’s final revision has been over 2.3% annualized (0.7% in the first quarter, 4.0% in the second). I doubt very much that the second half will come in that low, but now you know where to lay much of the blame if it does.

I’m late getting to this (some of the others who were on this much earlier included RAB [here, here, and here], Matt at WoMD, Conservative Culture, and the Keeler Report), but I surely won’t ignore it:

671,000 more at risk in state data theft

More than 671,000 Ohioans who haven’t cashed refund checks or have done business with the state were added yesterday to the list of people whose personal information may be at risk because of last month’s theft of a state computer backup storage device.

In all, the number of Ohioans or businesses with some form of personal data on the device has climbed to 1.1 million.

Anyone who believes their personal information may be at risk should contact the toll-free number or the web space set up to deal with the matter. They are 800-267-4474 and www.ohio.gov/idprotect, respectively.

Is there anyone left who considers the Strickland Administration’s pattern of drip-by-drip revelation acceptable?

I don’t think the Governor is orchestrating the buffoonery, but it’s understandable that many think he is is. The only way to clear the air is to do something I suggested when we learned that the data involved was, contrary to original assertions, not encrypted, then called for when it was learned that the number of people affected was “only” a couple of hundred thousand, and then “only” a half million: Conduct an independent investigation.

If the Governor doesn’t set up an independent investigation, he will only have himself to blame when the cloud over the ongoing snafu parks over his head, and stays there.

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UPDATE: I have to note that the Blade’s Jim Provance felt it necessary to cite the Governor’s high approval numbers at the end of his report — as if that’s relevant, especially since the poll was done before the latest revelation.

I updated last Thursday’s later related post with what was, and I believe still is, the complete roster of those affected. The data theft occurred, per this Thursday Cincinnati Enquirer article, when “a 22-year-old college intern (was) asked to take a backup computer device home for the weekend, only to have it lifted from his unlocked car in the parking lot of a Hilliard apartment complex.”

I’ll repeat the roster here, and follow it with the latest info on what people should do.

The roster, as of last Thursday evening (I looked for additional updates over the weekend and didn’t find anything new):

“Old News” —
- 64,000 state employees and 75,500 of their dependents.
- 77,000 Medicaid providers.
- 84,000 recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
- Unspecified school district and local government bank accounts.

(The last one doesn’t affect consumers directly, but is a potentially HUGE problem, especially at school districts, whose vigilance may have relaxed during the summer and/or during Finance Directors’ vacations. Every affected school district and local government bank account should be closed and replaced with a new one — Ed.)

Considered “new” victims per the Enquirer article –
- About 225,000 taxpayers with uncashed state or local income tax refunds going back to 2005.
- 602 Ohio Lottery winners who have not cashed checks during the past three months; their names and Social Security numbers also were on the device.
- 2,488 Ohioans who have not cashed checks for unclaimed fund payments.
- Up to 1,000 Ohioans whose electronic fund transfers of state payments failed to go through to their bank.

The total works out to a little less than 520,000.

The Enquirer article also references “338,634 files of data.” Presumably some files had multiple individuals’ data.

As to what to do, the state is advising the following:

Taxpayers with refunds issued in 2005, 2006 and through May 29 (2007) can check www.ohio.gov/idprotect or call 888-644-6812 for updates. For a live person or computer access help, call 800-267-4474, Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m.

The state will pay for a year’s identity theft protection.

All 225,000 taxpayers also are being notified by mail and told how to set up an ID protection account.

The site appears to do a good job of providing the necessary guidance and supplemental warnings. Don’t forget that thieves posing as government officials sometimes try to capitalize on situations such as this one by contacting potential victims and tricking them into giving up their personal information.

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UPDATE: On Saturday, Stephen Morse of the Associated Press did a report (”Experts: Small risk of identity theft”) that reads more like damage control than a solid consumer-advice piece:

….. the sheer amount of information - including the names and Social Security numbers of nearly 400,000 people - means that the state employees, taxpayers and others unlucky enough to be on the tape are actually at a very low risk of having their identities stolen, experts said.

A company that has studied data breaches said personal information is at much greater risk when a particular person or small group of people is targeted - an everyday occurrence with no public announcement to scare away potential thieves.

You are much more at risk if someone goes through your garbage can than if you are part of a large data breach, said Thomas Oscherwitz, vice president of government affairs and chief privacy officer for San-Diego based ID Analytics.

“In that case you are a targeted victim as opposed to a large population where it will be difficult for a fraudster to go through that list,” Oscherwitz said.

It then refers to a study of four big data breaches covering about 500,000 consumer identities, which concluded that “Less than one-tenth of 1 percent, or one in 1,000 identities, was subjected to fraud in the breach the company described as an intentional target by identity thieves.”

The problems with that conclusion are that:

• It surely looked at only a limited time period after the breaches (perhaps a year).
• The fact that the thieves successfully used up to almost 500 identities (”less than one-tenth of 1%”) means that they probably could have used more of them, but were perhaps skimming the cream of the victim crop.
• The information, if accessed, can be sold on the black market, including overseas. People can be victimized long after the one year of ID-theft protection expires. I would be particularly concerned about the dependents in the list above. To be fair, Morse’s article notes what follows, but not until the very end. Other outlets carrying the story edited out the info — example here.

I feel that Morse’s report provided too much comfort in the circumstances.

UPDATE 2: Columbus Dispatch reporters Strickland Administration mouthpieces Joe Hallett and Mark Niquette totally missed the point in their report yesterday, and in my opinion deliberately (bolds are mine) –

“There was absolutely no negative consequence of any part of our response save the delay in notifying the Highway Patrol,” he (Strickland) said, possibly allowing the trail to grow cold.

The reason for the delay, he said, is that he wasn’t told of the missing tape quickly enough.

Oh, that’s all. (/sarcasm)

Actually, that’s not all:

Budget Director J. Pari Sabety has said that after the theft was discovered, two state workers conducted an automated search of the second backup tape for four days, using keywords to identify sensitive information. It wasn’t until the fifth day that a team of workers started actually examining the data directly.

Geez, why didn’t they copy the data and go through both procedures at the same time? Hallett and Niquette would be ripping a GOP administration limb from limb for what’s described here.

And we’re still taking everyone’s word for what they’re saying. Given the embarrassment the governor and the state have suffered, that’s not good enough. Again: Independent, investigation.

This is why, as suggested in a previous post, you should resist being a camera hound and NOT reveal who you are if you win a big lottery prize:

Police in Montreal say they’ve foiled a bizarre extortion and murder plot apparently aimed at a couple who pocketed a $27 million lottery jackpot last month.

An 18-year-old Mexican citizen was arrested Monday afternoon in a Montreal neighbourhood and arraigned yesterday for conspiracy to abduct, conspiracy to commit murder and other charges.

Edwin Scarlotte Mata Lima, who arrived in Canada four months ago, is alleged to have planned the murder of Zenovij Pacholuk and Dolores Coffey, winners of the second-largest lottery windfall in Quebec history.

Before leaving this item — It isn’t necessarily so, but doesn’t it seem like the report, in describing someone “who arrived in Canada four months ago” and is a “Mexican citizen,” is carefully avoiding the use of the term “illegal immigrant”?

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From the “Can’t Make This Stuff Up” Department:

The faculty at Antioch College said Thursday they blame “gross mismanagement” by trustees as the cause for the undergraduate campus’ decline and will take legal action to keep the college open.

On June 12 the Antioch University board of trustees decided to close the college in 2008, citing a lack of money caused by declining enrollment and poor fundraising. The college has watched enrollment drop from its 1960s heyday of about 2,000 students to 400 today.

Enrollment declined 80% in 40 years. Does anyone think the faculty count dropped by a similar percentage? It looks from here that the faculty workload has steadily dropped over a protracted period of time, while their pay surely didn’t. At one level, it’s nice to have that kind of situation while it lasts, but playing the outrage card when the gravy-train days come to an end isn’t going to get a lot of sympathy from the real world.

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Think Progress has issued a report — “The Right Wing Domination Of Talk Radio And How To End It.” In essence, they want the government to do it for them, when the solution is for “progressives” to figure out how to engage and entertain the audience instead of talking down to them.

In “totally unrelated” news, Roseanne Barr is ending her brief foray into talk radio. With “engaging” guests from across the political spectrum like Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal, Maxine Waters, and Christopher Hitchens, I can’t understand why. (/sarcasm)

Update: I suppose this is Talk Radio’s fault too.

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Dagger of the Day — In the latest episode of “As the Mythical EU ‘Consensus’ Collapses”:

Polish premier Jaroslaw Kaczynski ….. invoked their country’s Nazi past as a negotiating ploy.

He claimed Poland deserved more votes because its population was still recovering from more than six million deaths during the Second World War.

Mr Kaczynski accused the Germans of “incomprehensible crimes” against his country, turning what was already set to be an acrimonious meeting into a confrontation between historical enemies.

Here’s another story about renting someone else’s credit history:

….. Instantcreditbuilders.com, or ICB, helped (Florida resident Alipio) Estruch boost his score by arranging for him to be added as an authorized user on credit cards of people with stellar credit. They were paid to allow this coat tailing.

The pitch to those who are essentially renting their credit history for pay is seductive: You don’t need to worry about users of this service receiving duplicate copies of your credit cards, account numbers or any of your personal information. It’s essentially free money, they are told.

Brian Kinney, 44, a retired Army officer in Glendale, Calif., pulls in more than $2,500 a month by lending out 19 credit card spots on two old Citibank cards with strong payment histories. Kinney, whose FICO credit score is above 800 on the scale of 300 to 850, quit his job at a Farmers Insurance agency and uses the ICB income to tide him over until he starts his own agency.

Lenders are worried, however, that they’re taking on greater default risks by unknowingly offering lower interest rates than they otherwise would to applicants who artificially boost their credit scores.

Although the idea of helping someone with low credit score and making money on it in the process has some surface appeal, I can’t help thinking that this is dangerous stuff. What if the people added to Kinney’s accounts run ‘em up?

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State support of “quality newspapers”? Who gets to decide (and enforce) “quality”?

Hugo Chavez would love to implement this idea. Oh, in fact, he is doing just that. I guess it depends on what you mean by “support.”

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Bottom story of the day month year decade so far (which is why it’s not linked) –

“Lawyer: Hilton well after night in jail”

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Even if the measurement methods aren’t the same, this is stunning:

BRUSSELS – Unemployment continued to fall in Brussels in May. At the end of last month there were a total of 90,930 Brussels residents without a job, a decrease of 7.2 percent compared to the same month last year.

The unemployment rate was 19.8 percent, according to a press release from the Brussels regional employment agency BGDA.

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France’s turn to the center-right appears to be a lot more pronounced than Nicolas Sarkozy’s recent 53-47 defeat of his Socialist rival would indicate:

PARIS, June 4, 2007 (AFP) - France on Sunday entered a final week of campaigning for the first round of parliamentary elections, with President Nicolas Sarkozy’s right-wing UMP party set to steamroll to victory.

After winning the presidency last month, Sarkozy is poised to clinch a huge majority — perhaps even a landslide — that would allow him to push through his programme of ambitious reform in parliament.

A poll published Sunday showed the president’s Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) picking up between 420 to 460 seats in the 577-member assembly, up from its current contingent of 359 deputies.

“The left is struggling, the right is sweeping everything,” wrote the Journal du Dimanche weekly.

Who knew that the UMP already has a 62% majority?

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This is really irresponsible on the part of BHOO (Barack Hussein Obambi Obama). He should read this post and ask himself what will happen if the current immigration shamnesty bill, which he appears to support, will help or hurt the situation.

This is REALLY weak — about ten days 2-1/2 weeks after the Food Stamp follies of Oregon’s governor were exposed — first by Mona Charen, then then by BizzyBlog (in more detail), a number of Congresspersons pulled the same bogus publicity stunt (HT Matt at NewsBusters in an e-mail). This time a writer from that supposed top-tier newspaper known as The Washington Post fell for it.

The claim that Food Stamp recipients have to get by on $21 per person per week is demonstrably false. The $21, which is supposed to be “the amount the average food stamp recipient receives in federal assistance,” comes AFTER taking into account available resources, some of which are assumed to be used for food. So the idea that recipients are only spending $21 per person per week on food is simply not correct.

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Mugged by reality by almost getting mugged.

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Following up on this money-saving tip from a couple of years ago, a federal survey tells us that “More than a quarter of young adults have only cell phones, making them the leading edge of a strengthening move away from traditional landline telephones….”

Telcos trying to peddle DSL face a problem not mentioned in the article. I believe that most of them still require a landline phone to put in their DSL service, something the cablecos don’t need to worry about.

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Peter Bronson of the Cincinnati Enquirer must be one of the loneliest reporters on the face of the earth.

He breaks the story (”Planned Parenthood looked the other way, Mason rape victim says”) about a Mason, Ohio girl, who can’t have lived more than 5 miles from the BizzyBlog bunker. The girl is suing Planned Parenthood because the organization didn’t report her father’s abuse of her to the police when she was taken in to get an abortion even though she says she clearly reported it to them. Many have believed that this case provides smoking-gun proof that, despite denials, Planned Parenthood has a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy when minors come in for an abortion.

Meanwhile, Bronson’s newspaper gives puff coverage to Planned Parenthood’s new local chapter executives under “Good Things Happening.”

Related: Planned Parenthood was caught on tape as all too willing to aid and abet statutory rape (link is to a PDF; HT Michelle Malkin, who also caught the Mason, OH situation in an update).

Planned Parenthood’s response, of course, was to legally threaten the student and attempt to suppress the tape. That attempt has been at least partially successful; a link I went to yesterday did not have a working vid. Later, I found it here –scroll down about 1/3 of the way for the link to the vid.

Update: Hot Air notes the lack of Old Media coverage of these stories.

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From the “I’m Not Really Reading This, Am I?” Dept. — The New London Day in Connecticut (link requires registration, and a paid subscription after 7 days) reported the following on May 12 (HT New London Calling) on the planned speed of progress in the area that was the subject of the infamous Kelo ruling and its contentious aftermath:

(New London Development Corporation CEO Michael) Joplin says it will probably be five years, or more, before visitors step foot in the museum. Real progress, he says, comes slowly.

While everyone is anxious for construction on the Fort Trumbull peninsula, Mr. Joplin says the master development plan for the site has always been a 30-year-project.

Someone needs to do a Lexis Nexis or other search and find evidence that Mr. Joplin or anyone else associated with the Fort Trumbull development said before last week that they were on 30-year plan; New London Calling doesn’t.

I’m assuming that would mean that there is little urgency to tear Susette Kelo’s house down if she doesn’t meet the June 15 deadline to move it.

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Demonstrating knowledge of their faith equal to or less than that of what they know of their Constitution:

Eighteen pro-abortion members of Congress lashed out on Monday in a letter opposing remarks Pope Benedict XVI made about pro-abortion Catholic politicians. The Catholic Church leader told reporters last week that any Catholic elected official who supports abortion has automatically excommunicated themselves.

I guess it’s not too big a leap, after spending years pretending to know more than the Founders about what the Constitution really says and means, to say that you know more than the Pope about Church doctrine.

This comes from the BBC about a week, so I don’t know whether it’s limited to the UK, or whether the problem has been solved. But if it is the case in the US, it looks serious enough to cause those wanting Vista to hold off for a bit:

Last Updated: Thursday, 1 March 2007, 12:52 GMT
Net firms tackle Vista headache

Windows Vista is causing problems for some new PC owners hooking up their machine to a broadband connection.

Some old installation discs that simplify the task of configuring a PC for broadband have refused to work on machines loaded with Vista.

One reader was warned by Virgin Media that it would be “weeks” before its software worked with Vista.

Other net service firms have also admitted that the appearance of Vista has caused some hiccups for users.

The credit-card solicitors went absolutely nuts last year:

U.S. consumers received nearly 8.0 billion direct mail credit card solicitations last year, a 30% increase over the prior year. The gain was about double the growth rate of 2005 even though response rates are hovering at 0.3%,

The graph at the link shows that the number of solicitations was “only” about 2.5 billion in 1999, just seven short years ago, and just a bit over 4 billion back in 2003. Since the graph only relates to credit cards, you can add in the additional billions of home-equity, insurance, and other offers that usually originate from “prescreened” information provided by the credit bureaus to the pile.

The “Do Not Call” Registry established a few years ago has no doubt contributed to the tsunami-like increase in direct mail. But there’s also more than a little sloppiness involved:

A new survey has found that 88% of financial consumers claim to receive regular communications for products and services that are not directly relevant to them and their circumstances and 58% claim to regularly receive communications selling them products and services they already have with that company. The research also discovered that 64% of financial consumers claim they are more likely to stop using companies that regularly send them inaccurate or irrelevant communications material and 65% of financial consumers don’t feel like they are being treated as an individual with regard to the communications they receive.

Human nature being what it is, a grain of salt is in order when considering the info just excerpted, because it’s the mistakes companies make that tend to get remembered. Having said that, it seems that financial services firms could do a better job screening out existing customers from repeat offers.

The latest available information from the Federal Trade Commission on how to opt out of “Prescreened Offers of Credit and Insurance” is here. Doing what is suggested there is a good idea for cutting down mail clutter, so someone else can be the lucky recipient of those nearly 8 billion pre-approved offers.

Information Week reports that:

Spam volume is at its highest peak ever, Australia-based Marshal’s Threat Research and Content Engineering Team notes in their latest report. Spam has increased 280% since just last October.”

With spam e-mail out of control, the piece of advice from the same link at Info Week is unfortunately necessary, especially the bolded last sentence, which I suspect many readers didn’t know:

Don’t open spam. Many pieces of spam contain HTML code which will open a connection to a Web server operated by the spammers. When you connect, you have verified that you opened the message. That informs the spammers that they have a good e-mail address, which — you guessed it — results in them sending you even more spam. Delete spam without opening it. Therefore, don’t use your e-mail program’s preview pane. Previewing spam is the same as viewing it.

I will be more than a little disappointed if I discover upon dying that there isn’t a special place in wing of hell for spammers.

This went virtually unnoticed, and it shouldn’t have:

Pennsylvania Court Denies Quixtar Arbitration in Scheibeler Case

On December 21, 2006 the court of Lycoming Pennsylvania in an order and opinion denied Quixtar arbitration in Quixtar’s claims of defamation against former Amway founder’s Emerald distributor and vocal Amway/Quixtar critic, Eric Scheibeler. Scheibeler had filed with the Pennsylvania court for a declaratory judgment to deny the arbitration claim.

In a stinging defeat for Quixtar’s premium outside counsel, Brinks Hofer and the attorney filing the arbitration demand, Robert Sobieraj, the court basically confirmed what was intuitively obvious at the beginning and that is that the arbitration agreement cannot be brought into force against a person who has been out of the Quixtar business for years. Judge Dorr issued his opinion that Quixtar’s arbitration process was unconscionable, anyone entering into arbitration with them can question whether they will even get a fair hearing.

The main points cited in the opinion denying arbitration were that Scheibeler has not been an Amway/Quixtar distributor for years and that the introduction of the Quixtar arbitration was made on a “take it or leave” basis. The opinion also stated that Amway/Quixtar/Alticor could take their complaints against Scheibeler in a public court if they wished to pursue the issue of defamation.

I have chronicled deep concerns about Amway Quixtar’s operations in the past because of the AQ connections of a “local” congressional candidate (here, here, here, and here, for starters), so there’s not point in rehashing the entire litany here.

Suffice it to say that an organization confident in its ethics and business practices wouldn’t force its members to agree to cult-like lifetime gag orders.

One would expect Amway Quixtar to attempt to “remedy” this situation by somehow making its agreement even more slanted against existing and potential new representatives. Anyone considering this “opportunity” should be totally aware of what they’re getting themselves into before signing their rights away.

From PC Magazine’s Lance Ulanoff:

Windows Vista Home Basic could be the most pointless edition of Windows that Microsoft has ever released. Let me be clear: I like Windows Vista. I applaud it, in fact. It’s the smartest, easiest-to-use Windows OS yet. Most of the Vista editions Microsoft is rolling out make good, clean sense—Business, Premium, even Ultimate, though that name does kind of box Microsoft in for future versions (could they ever top Ultimate?).

….. I‘m sorry, but this (Basic) simply perpetuates the myth that there’s such a thing as simple computing needs. The “surfing the Internet” part is my favorite. It’s as if Microsoft’s marketers haven’t been online since 2001. Surfing the Internet these days is about as far from basic as you can get. Web 2.0 has turned many key Web sites into virtual client applications. Yes, these are lighter than, say, true desktop apps, but nowhere near as light and simple as the rudimentary HTML-based pages we recall from the mid-1990s up until, say, 2002.

I have to reluctantly agree with Ulanoff. Even people who are intent on using their computers only for tasks like e-mail and “simple” web surfing are going to get sucked into needing to access advanced features by friends and relatives who send videos, Flash presentations, and the like, and by web sites including more of the same with each passing day. So, in that sense, it’s a disservice to a “basic” user to sell them a machine that will almost certainly lead to a compromised user experience — even if the user doesn’t expect it. This means that, in most cases, you should talk those you know who are considering buying Vista Basic, including yourself, out of it.

Nicely done by MSNBC’s Herb Weisbaum. Here are his Ten Commandments, most of which are meant to help people avoid getting taken in by scams. I’m only presenting the commandments, so you’ll have to go to the link for details:

1. Thou shalt not assume.
2. Thou shalt get all promises in writing.
3. Thou shalt do thy homework before making a major purchase.
4. Thou shalt not be penny wise and pound foolish.
5. Thou shalt not hire a contractor who just shows up at the door.
6. Thou shalt not be pressured into buying.
7. Thou shalt not assume a transaction can be undone.
8. Thou shalt not buy a used car without an inspection.
9. Thou shalt guard all they personal information.
10. Thou shalt be more skeptical.

Weisbaum’s wrap, though is worth noting here:

With most scams the warning signs are there, we just tend to ignore them. We let greed and gullibility replace common sense. Don’t give your hard-earned money to a con artist.

Remember these rules:
- You can’t win a contest or lottery you didn’t enter — even if the prize winning notice says you did.
- If it’s a prize, it’s yours for free. You don’t have pay any money for anything or give out your credit card number.
- You can’t make lots of money doing virtually no work on a part time basis.
- You never have to pay money up front for a credit card or loan.
- No one can “guarantee” you a credit card despite your credit history.

You can direct that your tax refund be directly sent to one or more tax-deferred accounts before you get your hands on it:

The federal government is making it simpler for us to save for retirement: if you’re due a refund on your 2006 tax return, you can instruct the IRS to send all or part of this amount directly to your IRA.

Starting this year, you can tell the IRS to split your refund and send it to up to three different accounts by attaching Form 8888 , “Direct Deposit of Refund to More Than One Account,” to your tax return.* Potential accounts eligible for direct deposit include checking and savings accounts, a Health Savings Account, Coverdell Education Savings Account, and, of course, your IRA.

(But, a word to the wise — Ed.) In the case of IRA contributions, it’s up to you to verify that your IRA custodian has credited the deposit to the correct year. The IRS will not provide any information about this.

Follow-up idea: If you are getting a big refund, that means you lent Uncle Sam the money for a year interest-free, and could have had that money working for you; of course, you might have spent it if you’d had it, which is why tools like CYMnow.com exist, and naturally need to be combined with willpower, to help prevent that. You should increase the withholding allowances you claim with your employer to avoid putting in too much from this point forward. The IRS has a Withholding Calculator that may help, and it also has Publication 919 (a PDF, not linked; got www.irs.gov to find), which is supposed to help you slog your way through the process.

But, IF (emphasis IF) your income and tax situation in 2006 (marital status, number of children, home owned, etc.) aren’t going to change much or at all during 2007, it may be best to download the actual withholding tables from IRS Employer Circular E (first item listed at this search; actual document is a PDF) to see exactly what will happen to your withholding each pay period with each additional exemption you claim. There are tables for almost all filing statuses and pay frequencies.

Deb Fowles at About.com has a pretty good article on the five biggest mistakes to avoid in car-buying, which she says are:

1. Not Knowing How Much Car You Can Really Afford
2. Buying New Versus Used Cars
3. Not Knowing the True Worth of a Rebate Versus a Low Interest Rate on New Cars
4. Choosing a Long-term Loan Versus a Short-term Loan
5. Being Upside Down on Your Existing Car Loan (i.e., owing more on the loan than your car is worth — Ed.)

I’m not sure I agree with Number 2 — I think it depends on facts and circumstances that are beyond the scope of this post. And she missed a big potential mistake, which is not finding out what the dealer paid for the car (if you’re buying new) or what the market is for the used car you are considering if you’re going that route. But I digress.

The biggest mistake is indeed the first one listed, and it’s the one that buyers typically don’t look at very hard (if at all). Even when they try, they are referred to incomplete tools like the Car Payment Calculator at BankRate.com. Don’t get me wrong — an incomplete tool beats no tool, and at least consumers are informed of the general “12%-15%” back-of-napkin threshold for how high a person’s car payments should be as a percentage of their income (that is of NET pay, NOT gross pay).

But there are plenty of people who can’t afford that level of car payment. It may be because they have an extraordinarily high mortgage payment, lots of payments on other debts, or expenses that are out of the ordinary (just a few might include private-school tuition payments, costly children’s activities like sports or music, or extraordinary medical expenses for a handicapped child).

The point is that you don’t know whether you can afford to take on a car loan until you sit down with the numbers — ALL the numbers. CYMnow.com enables you to do just that. After mapping out your current situation, you can copy it to create an alternate scenario that includes the car loan you are considering. BAM! Your answer is there lickety-split. If you conclude that you want the car even if it crimps you a bit financially, you can go through and specifically identify what you’ll have to cut out to be able to stay within your means.

The CYMnow.com subscription fee will pay for itself many times over if you talk yourself out of taking on a loan you shouldn’t commit to (you surely can’t count on the dealer to tell you that you can’t afford it), or if you downsize the debt you take on to a manageable level.

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P.S. It might be useful for readers to know that I went to one of the major car companies with a more primitive version of the CYMnow.com model several years ago in hopes that they might install it on their web site to replace the ridiculously primitive model they had on theirs. They didn’t want to go forward, and I had the distinct impression that the reason was that my early model would have told many of their potential customers that they could not afford the vehicle they were considering. There’s nothing inherently underhanded about that response — It just again shows that no one but you can determine what you can really afford.

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UPDATE: Commenter Cornfed below notes the need to take into account the costs of insurance, licensing, and vehicle personal-property taxes. I didn’t think about those because Ohio doesn’t have a vehicle property tax, license renewal in Ohio is pretty cheap (about the only thing left that is), and our insurance rates are low. People living in states with high vehicle taxes and/or license renewal fees, or drivers who don’t have good safety records, are not going to be that fortunate, and the extra costs of these items with a newly-purchased vehicle (new or used) have to be taken into account when determining affordability. He also notes the importance of needs vs. wants in choosing options and accessories.

Fowles probably would have been better off with a Top 10 instead of a Top 5 list.

From UPI last Friday, some good news, though hardly a reason to break out the champagne:

U.S. identity theft fell 12 percent in 2006, saving $6.4 billion, a major identity-theft report said Thursday.

Still, identity fraud cost the U.S. economy $49.3 billion, the Javelin Strategy & Research report said, with more fraud occurring in traditional, physical businesses than online.

About 500,000 fewer U.S. adults fell victim to identity fraud in 2006 than in 2005. Of the total U.S. adult population, 3.7 percent were victims, compared with 4 percent in 2005.

The growing use of online banking and financial sites that let people frequently monitor their accounts contributed to the decline, the report said.

Carlo at Techdirt is not impressed (para break added by me):

t’s probably worth noting that the study was paid for by Visa, Wells Fargo bank, and a check-processing company. Visa and Wells Fargo are no strangers to data leaks and identity theft, so you’d be forgiven for thinking they have just the slightest vested interest in downplaying the threat.

To be fair, the company that did the survey isn’t saying that identity theft is no longer a problem, but it’s hard to see this as much more than an effort by the companies that paid for it to try and say the problem’s not so bad. Perhaps the public has grown paranoid, but they should try telling that to victims, particularly those who spend lots of time dealing with identity theft’s lingering effects.

The point in the last paragraph of the first excerpt is a good one. Even if you don’t want to actually transact business over the Internet, it’s a good idea to register online at your financial institution(s) so you can check your account balances, review account activity, and detect problems more quickly. You can of course do all of this through the automated phone-inquiry systems that are usually available, but it’s much more tedious and cumbersome, and usually less complete.

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UPDATE: From Techdirt –

Now, the Federal Trade Commission has released its own stats on identity theft, and they paint a different picture. While the number of identity theft complaints made to the FTC has plateaued, losses reported to it have more than doubled since 2004 — contrasting the previous study’s claim that losses had fallen. It should be pointed out that the FTC figures aren’t comprehensive, either, since they only cover complaints made to the FTC, and it’s likely that a small proportion of identity theft victims ever bother to make such a complaint.