There’s an attraction to the interactive sites suggesting you plug in your age, sex, etc, and see details related to your category peers. From CNN/Money I found;
Yes, I am 45-54. The site also offers median net worth based on your income. Click on the image to be taken to the site to see where you stand. Keep in mind, net worth figures generally include the value of one’s home and median is not the same as average. Median means half the population considered is higher, half lower.
Joe
Usually, such questions are rhetorical. By I have an answer to this one. They are so stupid that yesterday the Associated Press reported, “Republicans for the second time in a week prevented the Senate from taking up a tax bill providing more than $50 billion in renewable energy credits and tax breaks for families and businesses.” I wrote in Bad Energy Mojo a couple weeks back that congress was still bickering over this, but the news came out yesterday that they defeated this bill. Some things are simply beyond my comprehension, add this to my list.
I recently read an article on CNN/Money’s website titled “Credit card rewards are a real rip off“. The page starts with a legitimate gripe, “You got burned with frequent flier miles, which were nearly impossible to redeem and hardly worth the hassle, so credit card issuers turned to other kinds of incentives to entice you to charge more.” Now, I’d be hard pressed to argue with that. I typically use the miles to upgrade to first class on longer flights for a more comfortable ride, but rarely have been able to use miles to get the original ticket, too few seats are available per flight, and tend to get booked well in advance.
But CNN goes on to trash other reward programs as well, suggesting that “though rewards do spur consumers to spend more, the study found that confusing rules and restrictions make most reward cards more trouble than they’re worth.” Really? Let me share my card reward experience:
I use Amex Open. It rebates 5% on gas from dollar one. I calculate the rebate at $600+/yr on just that. Same 5% on any office supply store purchases.
A Fidelity Mastercard that gives 2% (they changed to 1.5 for new applicants, but I kept the 2%) into a 529 account. My child is 10 and we will have a full semester of college paid free with the cards rebates. We only charge what we can pay in full each month.
There is responsible credit card use. We prove that. If one will be too tempted and run the card up on purchases they cannot pay in full, they should use cash only. Me, I’ll enjoy the rebates.
Joe
(Well, just when I finished setting up this post, the mail came, and Amex advised me, that due to the high cost of gasoline, they were reducing the gas rebates down to 3% on this card. Still, that’s cash back in my pocket, just no so much.)
From DopeyCowboy.com comes some advanced technical analysis (Japanese candlestick) with some interesting results;
Enjoy the weekend,
Joe
I received enough email asking why I picked on Obama for what may have been a slip of the tongue regarding distribution of income gains. I think that our elected officials, whoever they are, need to speak with precision and when it comes to numbers, be close enough to exhibit an understanding of what they are discussing.
So, this past Tuesday, I hear Sen John Barrasso (WI) being interviewed by CNBC on the current gas price concerns. He offered that the average American uses 1500 gallons of gasoline each year. I’ll not split hairs to suggest that he meant the average driver, that was understood. But let’s think for a minute. 1500 gallons, even at 20 MPG (which is low, earlier, CNBC said the MPG was up to 30 MPG this year, which seemed high) that’s 30,000 miles per year. That just seemed wrong to me, so a few seconds with The Google and I found the Energy Kid’s Page, a site hosted by the department of energy. There, I found the number to be 500 gallons average with 12,000 miles driven by the average driver. This made a bit more sense to me, and this data was confirmed by the California Energy Commission, which states a US average of 464 gallons used per year. These numbers differ by less than 10%, but are far from the 1500 gallons the honorable Senator from Wisconsin stated.
The price of gas is high, painfully so. In any dialog about economics, it’s important to have your numbers right. Now, at work on Monday, I know that every dollar rise in gasoline impacts the average driver by $500 per year. I don’t aspire to the Cliff Clavin award, but I do want to know my facts before I quote them.
(I just found another beautiful New York Times graphic titled, “The Varying Impact of Gas Prices” illustrating the percent of one’s income going to gasoline purchases, across the country. Take a peek.)
Enjoy the weekend!
Joe
