Posts Tagged ‘money’

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Stuff I did today.

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

Early on this afternoon, I quit fucking around on the internet and went in to the mighty city to buy groceries and get my sister a little something for her birthday. I came back and decided I would go to the USA Furniture store not to far from here and check out the rocking recliners.

I went back after I dropped off the groceries because I was worried about them possibly going bad in the car and found a chair I liked. I asked my mom and she came with me. It was kind of funny because when we walked in, the sales guy asked if my mom was Linda. Linda is my aunt, her sister and it turns out the sales guy went to elementary school with my mom, aunts and uncles.

So after test sitting a few chairs, I found one I liked, but kept checking out more to see if there were any others that I would like more. There was a really nice one, but it was over $100 more than the first one I liked. The guy had me check out the wall recliner, but that one kind of sucked. He said they only keep two in stock because people rarely buy them anymore.

So he and I walked up to the place where you pay for it and my mom was saying that I should just use my debit card and the guy said “We don’t do plastic anymore.” He said they did plastic for a while, but with the merchant fees being getting pretty ridiculous, they were losing a lot of money on the cards. So now they only do checks and cash, which is how it used to be done back in the old days at most stores. They were able to lower their prices a little by going back to cash and checks only. I went and got my checkbook before I went to the furniture store so it wasn’t a problem for me. So yeah, much cooler than the local electronics store that has an 18% annual percentage rate for overdue accounts.

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The Marlins vs. Baseball.

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

It’s amazing to think that the Florida Marlins are being attacked by the players union and Major League Baseball for not spending enough money. The Marlins have for the past 7 seasons had 5 winning seasons, a World Series win and only two losing seasons while sporting one of the lowest payrolls in baseball. They are a symbol of success and achievement despite being relatively unpopular in Florida and not having Yankee and Red Sox money.

They are probably the best run team in baseball. Their scouts and player development people are probably more “on the ball” than probably any other team in baseball. They play in a football stadium and they trade away players at the right time for the right return. In so many words, they are probably better at Moneyball than Billy Beane and the A’s are. Last I checked, Beane hasn’t won a World Series yet as General Manager.

So if they’re so successful at such a low cost, why go after them? You can bet most of the pressure was put on by teams like the Yankees and Red Sox who have to write them revenue sharing checks every years. But I think that’s really just a front for the reason the Marlins have been assaulted like they’ve been. It’s because the Marlins are smarter than the Yankees and Red Sox. Look at how much money the Yankees and Red Sox have to spend to win. Look at how much the Marlins have to spend.

The 2008 Yankees spent over $210 million for an 89 win team. The Marlins spent $36 million on an 84 win team. The Marlins spend money, they just spend it on scouting and player development. They know who to trade for, they know who to draft and they know who to sign in the international market. They Yankees just spend their way to winning. The Marlins think their way to winning.

Somehow the smart guys are being criticized and demonized by the press for being successful with what they have, while the Yankees are being praised for buying 5 World Series wins the last decade and a half. To me this whole thing is stupid and backwards. Next on the attack will be the Pirates, Rays and Royals.

The funny thing is that the Red Sox and Yankees are willing partners in this whole thing. The Yankees traded away Daniel McCutchen, Jeff Karstens Ross Ohlendorf and Jose Tabata to the Pirates for Xavier Nady and Damaso Marte. The Red Sox traded away Hanley Ramirez, Jesus Delgado, Harvey Garcia and Anibal Sanchez to the Marlins for Josh Beckett, Mike Lowell and Guillermo Mota. If either team was so worried about the Marlins and Pirates spending, they could have said no, keep those players because we want you to spend more. But that didn’t happen and so to me it seems stupid for the BoSox and Yanks to complain when they helped the Marlins and Pirates cut payroll….

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Posted in Major League Baseball | 1 Comment »

Bush Tax…cuts?

Sunday, December 27th, 2009

It’s amazing to me that during the Bush years and in the year since he left office that the one thing the media blames the recession on is the so-called “Bush Tax Cuts”. And now that Obama is president, we got the tea party people out there finally acting outraged about taxes because Obama and the Democrats might raise taxes. But you see, Bush raised taxes too. There were no “tax cuts” during the Bush years. The fact is that in the final budget submitted by Bush for FY2009, the federal government collected $2.7 trillion in taxes. In 2002, the federal government collected a little under $2 trillion in taxes. Um, doing the math here, it looks to me that Bush increased taxes by $700 billion annually.

So what exactly do the Paul Krugmans of the world mean by tax cuts? They just mean the amount of money that the federal government collected was less than they would have collected had Bush not rearranged the tax code. And we’re talking about a relatively small amount. They use the term tax cut the same way that they use the term budget cuts. You see, the government doesn’t cut the budgets for most programs. What gets cut is the expected increase in the budget. So if in 2004 a government program cost $5 million and they asked for a $6 million budget the next year and only got $5.5 million budget, they’d be the victims of budget cuts.

But it is incredible that on one side are the tea party folks who complain about tax increases when they just saw the federal budget and the amount of money collected by the federal government skyrocket in the last 8 years. And at the same time, the pro-government left complain about the anti-government bias on the right by pointing to Bush’s 2009 $3.1 trillion government.

Paul Krugman and other Keynesians loves blaming the economic downturn on “tax cuts” because they have a vested interest in making cuts in the government look like the bogeyman that caused the recession. The recession was caused by easy credit, excessive spending and low savings, all of which were encouraged and subsidized by the federal government. At the end of the day, the last 8 years just throughly debunked Keynesian economics as a viable economic theory, but it continues on because it empowers the people in the government and that’s why it just won’t get a whole lot better any time soon.

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Not For Long! Or The NFL.

Friday, December 18th, 2009

This is an interesting article about Dave Pear, a guy who used to play football for the Oakland Raiders in the late 70′s and early 80′s. Despite horrific pain, the Raiders urged him to play through major injuries. He won a Super Bowl, but today he can barely walk and his wife has to work 2 or 3 jobs to support him and their family. He’s not the only one, they mention Earl Campbell who was once the greatest running back in the NFL and today is confined to a wheel chair. These guys aren’t old, they’re my dads age. For every Brett Favre and John Elway in the NFL, there’s probably 50 or 100 guys who play five seasons and spend the rest of their lives sore, injured or disabled. I heard that in his final years, Johnny Unitas couldn’t even close his hand.

The NFL makes a fortune from TV. Not to mention all the money they make at the game itself from tickets that cost hundreds or thousands of dollars to the food, beer, parking and concession stand sales, you’d think somewhere they’d do something to help the guys who made the NFL what it is today and are permanently disabled. I first heard about this a few years ago and it’s a shame that the NFL has done nothing to address this. Articles like this can help put pressure on the NFL to get them to do something to help these guys out.

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Make pizza, not Warcraft.

Monday, December 14th, 2009

So this afternoon I called up the credit union and asked them to unblock Blizzard so that I could get them the payment and start playing. And I got the person on the phone who could do that. So she said that they can now accept the charge and I went along and tried it and it didn’t work. She said wait a while and try again. So I waited 1/2 hour and that didn’t work so I’m now on hold again with the World of Warcraft billing department to see what the fuck is the matter now.

Who thought paying $5 for something could be so much fucking trouble. When the time comes, I’m just going to get the 60 day prepaid cards or use paypal instead of wasting my time on this shit again.

UPDATE 4:50 PM: It’s finally working. It was stupid. My credit union blocks charges from World of Warcraft, which I got lifted so I can finally get my regular account going and World of Warcraft was blocking my card because I had tried too many times and it had been rejected too many times. So after spending an hour on hold this afternoon, I got to a Customer Service Rep and the call dropped. She immediately called me back, which was nice. So now I have my plans ready for tonight. World of Warcraft until I fall asleep at my computer.

UPDATE 11:47 PM: Ok, change of plans. World of Warcraft until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. But I’m still awake.

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A complete waste of time…

Sunday, December 13th, 2009

I drove to my credit union’s grocery store branch to get this World of Warcraft thing taken care of and get a few groceries. The teller couldn’t do anything except looked confused when she brought up my account. The teller handed this problem off to the branch manager. So I went in to her office and she tried to get this straightened out. She called up card security and they would take the hold off my account that they put on because of all the times I tried to do it on Friday night.

So she said that it should be all ready to go now. I came home and was ready to play World of Warcraft. I tried to buy the upgrade and it again did the stupid 202 Error that Warcarft has which means “Duh, we can’t do it.”

So I called up card security thing again and they said that the account is fine and that I should be able to use it and that it’s the credit union that’s blocking it. I thought that the woman at the credit union unblocked it. So I guess I’ll have to go in to the big corporate branch tomorrow to get this figured out…

This problem would be solved by the fuckers at Blizzard letting you upgrade your account by using Paypal (they only allow you to use paypal after paying for the first month?) or the fuckers at the Credit Union letting people charge stuff from Blizzard. All this trouble would be avoided if one or the other happened.

So I guess the lesson is don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Have a credit card from a company that is not in any way associated with your regular bank so that shit like this doesn’t happen. Credit cards suck and are evil and stuff, but what other options do you really have at this point? So Dave Ramsey is wrong about one thing here.

UPDATE 9:15 PM: I was talking to a friend tonight and she said her boyfriend had a very similar problem with the Final Fantasy MMORPG. He was making monthly payments for it and suddenly the bank stopped letting him. He eventually had to use one of those prepaid Visas.

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Christmas and stuff.

Monday, November 16th, 2009

Ugh, it seems like Christmas budget is starting to spin out of control. I told Jesse I’d go in on a computer for mom. Then today, mom asked me to go in on a monument thing for dad. And I’m getting a baby present for a friend in Peoria and everything they really need is expensive, but they don’t have much money. It’s just getting nuts. People are trying to get all my money this month. I can’t imagine what will happen next. Maybe they’ll start going after my savings.

I’m just about ready to quit getting Christmas presents and enjoy the food, booze and family. I remember when Christmas was fun. When I got cool stuff as a kid, mom would get upset with me getting her stuff she didn’t want and I didn’t have to go to school for 11 days. Now it just seems like as an adult all the fun is sucked out of Christmas by the fact that you’re not a kid anymore and it’s right back to work at 4:30 in the evening. And I don’t even have kids to buy presents for. I’m worrying about buying them for the parents.

Looking back now, I wonder how my parents ever put up with the three of us.

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The Hoosier Mash.

Saturday, October 31st, 2009

It was a graveyard smash.

Oh yeah, Iowa coming back again in a game to win 42-24. It was 24-7 Indiana. Then 24-14 Indiana. Then 24-21 Indiana. Then 28-24 Hawkeyes. Then 35-24 Hawkeyes and finally 42-24 Hawkeyes. They could easily be 1-8 this season. But Kirk Ferentz keeps engineering those come back wins. Also next week I’m going to the game. Jennie said something about it this summer and I said sure. I had no preconceived notions of them being 9-0 when I went there. I thought it’d just be a regular game.

In other news, in honor of Halloween, I watched Army of Darkness today. Then I bought an Army of Darkness poster from Amazon. Going to get a poster frame and put it in my living room.

With November coming up tomorrow, I’m going to have to start thinking about Christmas. I only know what to get one person. That’s Jennie’s boyfriend. I have no idea what to get anyone else. Also coming up is the visit to the Dentist, which will cost a lot because of the big X-Ray they’re gonna do. Overall, it’s been a very expensive year. Maybe 2010 will be cheaper…

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Posted in Iowa Hawkeyes, Life, the Universe and Everything | 1 Comment »

World Series thoughts.

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

First of all, Phillies in 7. Game 7 ends with A-Rod hitting it to the fence with bases loaded, but is caught by Shane Victorino to end it.

Secondly, Bucco Fans has written an interesting article about how teams like the Pirates don’t really have a good chance to win or even play in the World Series. A lot of small market teams say they like what Oakland and Minnesota have done, but they haven’t been to the World Series since the early 90′s. Tampa Bay went to the fall classic last year when the Yankees had an off year. And Florida won one, but then traded away most of the team within a few years because they couldn’t afford the guys as they got older.

The real issue for future Pirates teams won’t be so much buying free agents as much as it will be keeping the team together if they’re a good or great team. Will the Pirates be able to keep McCutchen, Alvarez and Milledge or will they be gone as soon as they can leave through free agency or in tades? Unless the Pirates become a lot more popular team and start selling out every game at PNC Park, if the Pirates are successful, we’re going to see a few successful years with a few years of rebuilding bookending it.

Bud Selig talking about parity in baseball is absurd. The Yankees haven’t had a losing season since 1992. The Braves won 14 straight division titles. The Pirates have had 17 straight losing season. The Orioles have 12, the Reds have 9. The Royals have 14 of 15. The Nationals have lost 100+ games each of the last two years. You never see that kind of thing in the NFL or NBA or NHL. Those teams have taken steps to make every team a contender. Meanwhile, Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers and other rich teams are doing their best to stop true economic parity in Major League Baseball.

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What do you know?

Friday, August 21st, 2009

The price for used cars are actually going up. A car salesman says it’ll take 6 to 8 months for the used car market to return to normal.

Oh and it would appear that some dropped out of the Cash for Clunkers because the government was stiffing them on the money. I would bet that it’ll take 6 to 8 months for most of these car dealers to get their money from the government. It sounds like the Cash for Clunkers is turning in to a real depressant for the Auto Dealerships around the country.

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