Your credit score hurts more than your credit

At a party this week, I was chatting with a friend. She relayed to me a story regarding her credit which serves as a good cautionary tale to all, the gist of which is this: your credit score can affect more than just your the rate on your cards.

You see, companies have figured out that FICO scores are good predictors of who will pay their bills on time. Insurance companies have started giving discounts to customers with higher scores on the notion that they will pay on time and are generally more responsible. Actuarial data tend to support this. Of course, we could easily look at it the other way: that insurance companies penalize those with lower scores by raising their premium.

A Greek Tragedy for Anti-Keynsians

It's common for Austrians and pro-freemarketers to lambast even light Keynesians about their conclusions. We hear things such as "you just don't understand" economics or markets constantly. For better or worse, Wall Street is overwhelmingly pro- free market and anti-Keynesian. As we often point out, people have a fantastic ability to fool themselves. Here is a great example.

Chinese Effrontery, part II

We have an old saying, "the pot calling the kettle black". This English proverb simply means "when you accuse a person of doing something that you are guilty of doing yourself."  Perhaps there is no such similar Chinese proverb? I wonder this aloud because China's Premier is doing just that.

A Ski Day

A significant storm dropped 3 feet of snow on the southern Rocky Mountains last week. Friday was the first full day since the snow stopped and if ski patrol had time to clear avalanche danger, the ridge would be open. Forecast to be clear, sunny  and warm, taking a ski day was certainly in the cards.

My day started with the best breakfast burrito one can find, from Abe's Cantina in the  tiny hamlet town of Arroyo Seco, NM, about 12 miles from Taos Ski Valley. Not long after I  found myself warming up on a few groomed runs in perfect conditions. Arriving at the  top of the highest lift, the view of the ridge opened up with it's bright white  cornice reflecting the morning sun. It was time.

The irksome version of "going green"

This will be a short one.

It seems everyone, everywhere is "going green". This usually consists of going "paperless" by sending invoices and account statements electronically. I'm all for that.

What irks me is when retailers print lots of posters, signs, banners, end-caps and other in-store promotional materials just to tell me they are "going green". What also irks me a great deal are companies that find it important enough to put something like "XYZ co is proud to be green" in all their electronic communication, then attaches the forms you need to renew your policy/account/billing info etc. Of course, those electronic forms must be printed and mailed or faxed back. This is what is known as "greenwashing"- promoting the intangible niceties reflected by green initiatives without actually accomplishing anything green. Most often, these activities merely shift the cost of printing to you rather than truly eliminating paper and ink from the process.

This irks me almost as much a the prolific tip jar that springs up everywhere from coffee shops to fast food joints and just about every service counter in America. But that's a rant for another day.

Always blame the speculators

"Speculators" are an old scapegoat standby. Those with fiduciary responsibility always like to blame someone else for their mistakes. I suppose it's a natural human reaction that it must be someone else's fault. The most recent nonsensical iteration of this phenomenon is currently being played out in Europe as officials there seek someone to blame for Greece's woes.