Archive for September, 2007
stop condos
Living on the east side of Milwaukee, I can relate.
Here’s another gem:
Filed under Milwaukee, culture : Comments (2) : Sep 29th, 2007
May Or May Not - A Kaleidoscope of Egos
I’ve been reading a music/mash-up blog for awhile now and I’m a big fan: www.thehoodinternet.com (Note that their site is down at the moment. They must be getting popular because they just exceeded the bandwidth limit on their host!)
Imagine my delight when I discovered that they released a full length album of original music! For free!
May Or May Not | A Kaleidoscope of Egos [via Rapidshare; 72MB zip]
May Or May Not | A Kaleidoscope of Egos [via Sendspace; 72MB zip]
It gets better: they’re from Chicago! So for any of you Chicago readers, keep a look out for these guys. They’ve got some talent.
Filed under culture : Comments (0) : Sep 29th, 2007
hacked
Posted by mobile phone:
perhaps?
Filed under Uncategorized : Comments (2) : Sep 29th, 2007
Mass transit
When I was a kid, you could buy a gallon of gasoline for under a dollar. Those day are long since past, with gas prices hovering near $3/gallon and $4 on the horizon.
Surprisingly, American drivers don’t seem to mind. Our collective memory is so short that whenever gas drops by a few cents we forget that it just went up by a quarter. $2.89 gas doesn’t hurt so bad once you’ve purchased $3.25 gas for a few weeks.
The trouble is that we’re not doing anything substantial to provide options to drivers. I live in Milwaukee and currently have two choices to get to work: drive 15 minutes by car or ride the bus for nearly an hour. Not surprisingly, I choose the former. (Actually, I am working on a third option involving my bicycle, but that’s for another post).
What we need are some new options.
As the price of gas climbs, the economics of mass transit changes. The number of commuters who would ride metro train when gas is at $4/gallon is much higher than the number of riders at $2/gallon. The trouble is, gas prices can rise much faster than we can build mass transit alternatives. It’s time that we made some forward-looking predictions and planned for the extremely likely occurrence of gasoline prices continuing to rise.
The primary reason mass transit development is so hard is that it has high up-front costs. Building a light rail system requires planning and capital investment. (Two skills that most state and federal legislators lack). The critical flaw in calculating the cost of a mass transit system is that we don’t give it a fair comparison. In the 1950s and 60s, the booming post-war economy invested billions of dollars building the interstate highway system. Due to our collective memory problem (remember?) we assume the cost of highways to be zero. Worse, the highway system is so ingrained in our culture that we mindlessly shovel billions of dollars each year to keep it running.
And our highway system is dying. This year, highway congestion will cost $100 billion in lost productivity. This problem will only get worse as demand increases with limited change in supply. Are these costs factored into the economic analysis of mass transit? Hardly.
We need to start building mass transit solutions now. This year. Today. We need express bus lanes, metro and regional rail. We need to proactively plan (gasp!) for increased gas prices and increased demand. We simply cannot wait for $5/gallon gas to come around because by then it will be too late.
Filed under Milwaukee, climate change, economics, politics : Comments (4) : Sep 27th, 2007
Google payday
I reached another milestone in my blogging career: my second Google payday!
Long-time readers will note that I first implemented Google Adsense in February 2006. In the last year and a half, I’ve migrated to Wordpress, grown my readership, and increased posting frequency. Together, these factors have contributed to a successful and profitable blog. My expenses of hosting are now supported by reader ad-clicks. Great!
I’m coming up on my three year anniversary of launching tadfad.com so I’m planning a retrospective look back through the years. Thanks to all of you who read the blog and thanks especially to everyone who comments. I really enjoy writing this thing and hope to keep improving in the years to come.
Filed under Uncategorized : Comments (1) : Sep 27th, 2007
Brewers last home stand
I had the good fortune of attending a Brewers game at Miller Park in the Friday’s section. We ate dinner on the patio in center field and had a great view of the game.
In the 6th inning, Braun hit a deep homer to center field that sailed right over our heads, hit the rear wall of the stadium, and bounced back towards our table. My colleague Andrew stood on his chair and snatched the ball out of the air. Great catch Andrew!
The Brewers proceeded to route the Cards 13-5 and are just games away from making the playoffs.
Filed under Milwaukee, culture : Comments (3) : Sep 24th, 2007
Don’t Tax; Spend Even More!
The old insult hurled across the aisle is “tax and spend Democrats!”. In a new twist, the current crop of conservatives (in name but not policy) have managed to both cut taxes and significantly increase spending. To spin the phrase, “don’t tax and spend even more!”
This article from the NY Times gives a good brief. And don’t worry, they mostly quote from the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation which are libertarian and conservative think-tanks (respectively).
Some interesting stats:
While there may be explanations for higher spending, including the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Brian M. Reidl of Heritage says the federal budget has nonetheless grown at a rate of 7 percent a year under Mr. Bush, about twice the 3.5 percent rate under Bill Clinton.
Even if you excuse the war spending (which you shouldn’t):
But both Mr. Reidl and Mr. Edwards say that even so-called nonmilitary discretionary spending — the portion of the budget that a president can rein in, because it does not go to entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid — has grown faster under Mr. Bush than Mr. Clinton.
Why did this happen?
When Republicans ran Congress, Mr. Bush never vetoed a spending bill, despite calls for him to do so from fiscal conservatives, including Jim Nussle, the former chairman of the House Budget Committee who has just become Mr. Bush’s new budget director. Peter Wehner, a former domestic policy adviser to Mr. Bush, says the president sometimes deferred to the House speaker at the time, J. Dennis Hastert.
So there you have it. While blaming the Democrats for all ills, the President has actually presided over a period of massive increases in government spending, ironically caused by a Republican controlled legislature. Please take this note to heart so you can correct the next person who uses the “tax and spend” line.
Filed under economics, politics : Comments (2) : Sep 22nd, 2007
Credit Cards
Credit cards can be a great financial tool or a terrible nightmare. Depending on how you use them, you can either pay 15-30% above your actual purchases or you can politely ask the credit companies to pay you. Which would you prefer? Sadly, you won’t get the same interest rates as the big guys. 1-5% is pretty easy to find, though some people push it further using complicated (and risky) APR arbitrage. But I digress.
The first step to establishing a profitable relationship with your credit card company is to pay off your balance. If you routinely carry a monthly balance, look at your budget (you do have a budget, right?) and figure out what spending you can cut to drive that balance to zero. Once you hit the magical number zero, you’re ready to start making money.
The next step is to find some good rebate cards. I personally use a rebate card from Citibank that gives me 1-2% cash back on all purchases and a BP Chase card that gives me 5% back on BP gasoline and 2% on food & travel. Since I don’t carry a monthly balance, this means that I’m earning a small return on each dollar I spend. Splendid!
Now for the caveats:
- If you don’t have the income stability (or financial discipline) to pay off your balance in full each month, don’t bother with these rebate cards. They generally come with a higher APR than standard cards, so just one month of carrying a balance could cost you more than a year’s worth of rebates.
- Read all the fine print for the card as well. Make sure that you’re getting the deal you want without any bogus strings or exceptions. The BP card advertises 10% cash back but reading the fine print reveals a 60 day bonus period after which the rate drops to 5%. Such marketing tactics are common among card offers.
- Don’t bother with points–go for the green. Some cards offer points that can be redeemed for travel, prizes, or gift cards. Skip over these and go straight for the cash.
Final suggestion: try one of the new online financial management services like Yodlee or Mint that automatically import transactions from all your financial institutions and give you a daily snapshot of your balances. This makes it much easier to stay on top of your spending and prevent any unexpected bills.
Filed under economics, frugal : Comments (1) : Sep 21st, 2007
Terrible parking job
I saw this outside my apartment today. The parking lanes are already pretty narrow in Milwaukee, and this person was clearly not even trying. Wow.
The back wheel was at least 3′ from the curb.
Filed under Uncategorized : Comments (1) : Sep 20th, 2007
US Economic Thesis
Here’s my take on the current economic situation in the US. Please tell me where I’m right/wrong in the comments.
Real estate prices have risen significantly over the last decade in the US. For the latter half of this period, much of this ruse in value can be attributed to a change in supply/demand levels. Due in large part to the excessive capital inflows caused by sub-prime lending, the number of home sales went up. This together with expectations of high returns lead to an unsustainable level of appreciation. Already, the market has reacted to inflated home prices. Unfortunately, much of the sub-prime lending relied on the expectation of continued value appreciation. As soon as prices level off or go down, exotic mortgages like interest-only or ARMs become very unstable. Home owners are facing financial pressures and default rates are climbing.
The ultimate financial risk due to this collapse in the real estate market is amplified by the practice of bundling and securitizing these exotic mortgages. The path from commercial paper back to the underlying asset has become long and convoluted. This not only amplifies risk, but also reduces transparency and thus trust in the
overall financial structure in question. As hedge funds start to drop and mortgage originators close up shop, the damage will likely extend throughout the banking and securities realm.
To make matters worse, this downfall in real estate is occurring along with a global supply crunch of oil and associated price spikes. This element squeezes home owners further and in some cases may actually degrade home prices as geographical proximity becomes more important. The sum of these parts will be a downturn in securities prices and a general downturn in economic activity as markets react to rising risk and shrinking liquidity. Even the Fed’s recent interest rate drop will have its impact attenuated as risk continues to rise. We may look back on this moment and regret such a dramatic decrease since it reduces options for action in the future.
Filed under culture, economics : Comments (1) : Sep 20th, 2007
