Forever Stamp

Today starts the Forever Stamp and the new 41 Cents Per stamp rate hike. Also, there are new rules about how THICK an envelope may be... must be under 1/4"... failure to do so will result in a fee for not being flat machineable. (80 cents instead of 41 on a First Class Stamp)

So, go on out there and pickup your new stamps. Wahoo! $20 says there will be some type of "emergency" rate hike before the year ends due to gas prices... stay tuned.

BTW, UPS raised their "Fuel Surcharge" on May 7th from 3.5% to 4%.

How Much Money is in the Federal Reserve?

Trick question! The Federal Reserve System is neither Federal nor a Reserve! The Federal Reserve system was developed in secret by the BANKing industry and DELIVERED to congress for approval over many years of legislation and lobbying.

The Federal Reserve loans money to "member banks" so that they can lend more money than they actually have in reserve. The Federal Reserve chairman can produce more or less money as well as increase or lower interest rates charged to the "member banks." Doing these two things can help control inflation.

Inflation is the DEVALUATION of the dollar so that consumer good's prices seem to appear to increase. Inflation is caused by the basic economic principle of Supply and Demand. The more money available to the public, the less valuable it is.

Little known fact: When the government needs money to fund things like the war, they can go to the Federal Reserve Chairman and request those funds. The chairman then writes a check to the US Treasury for the amount needed and CREATES those dollars. Thus flooding the market with money that did not exist the day before.

3 Common Money Floods: (Causes of Inflation)

• As stated previously, borrowing by the government.
• Borrowing by the "member banks". Member banks can loan up to 9 times for every actual dollar they have in reserve. So, if they choose to streatch their dollar, they are actually creating dollars for the loan.
• Frozen Money. Money is frozen for many reasons; stuck in retirement funds, overseas in government vaults, savings by businesses for trade.

When you hear these three things on the news, remember, it's your TAX dollar that is paying for these! When we as a nation are at the highest national debt ever, you and I are being taxed. When the US citizens have more debt than ever, you and I are being taxed. When China buys US debt, they are doing so to help the dollar (since we are their biggest importer), when they sell it... it will tax us. Inflation is a tax!

Most Americans have no understanding of inflation. My statements are not political, if we must go to war... then we must go, but do not under any circumstance believe that it's paid for by anyone but YOU!

It is important that if you are saving money that your savings plan has at least a 6% gain over the long term. (3% inflation plus 3% taxes) Failure to do this means you could be moving backwards by saving.

When was the last time you READ your Bills?

The Wall Street Journal had a blog post yesterday by Nathan Koppel about a Sanford Professor that did a study about billing abuse by attorneys. He pulled 5000 attorneys and found that many of them pad the bills and preform "unnecessary" tasks to bump up the rate.

Ross polled 5,000 attorneys from various walks of life throughout the country, and 251 responded. He worked with Reed Business Information to generate a random sampling of lawyers who work at law firms. Two-thirds said they had “specific knowledge” of bill padding ─ a finding virtually identical to one reached by Ross in a 1995 billing survey. Also, 54.6% of the respondents (as compared with 40.3% in 1995) admitted that they had sometimes performed unnecessary tasks just to bump up their billable output.

Now this post is about Attorneys, but really... how often do you read your bills in detail? Do you know what your credit card rates are, would you know if they changed one month? Do you know what your banking fees are and if you were charged $2 extra for "POS Debit Fee" would you have any idea if you were supposed to?

Having worked in the phone industry, doing contract negotiation, I know that many of the "regulatory fees" are actually phone company charges that stay right in the phone companies pocket.

Chances are you are being ripped of by someone! You should read your bills in detail every month, often, if you pay the bill then you agreed to it's contents and getting credits for longstanding "mistakes" is very difficult.

My recommendation, start negotiating more of your bills. When you call and discuss your utility bills and what you can do to get it reduced you will learn a lot about what you're actually getting billed. Take this negotiation as an opportunity to learn about the business, the better educated you are the better you will understand how to protect your budget. And... think of it as a game, what's the worst that could happen?

Ask questions that have nothing to do with why you are calling... get out of your comfort zone... ask the phone rep if he is paid by the sale or just hourly. Ask if they get in trouble for discounting your bill. Ask if they have a record of how many credits they have already given you, even better, if they have a limit. (annual, monthly, daily, percent) All of these little tid-bits of information will drive you to better negotiate and better understand your bill so you won't get ripped off anymore.

I'll give you one more tip... read these... I know the bill you are negotiating might not be your cell phone bill but read these posts they will give you a real understanding about how customer service reps are paid and think.

• 18 Confessions Of 2 Former T-Mobile Reps
• 10 Things We've Learned From 'Confessions of A Wireless Sales Rep'
• 8 Confessions Of A Former Verizon Sales Rep
• 7 Confessions of a Cingular Sales Rep
• 6 Confessions Of A Former Sprint Sales Rep
• 11 Confessions of a T-Mobile Sales Rep
• 8 Confessions of an Alltel Sales Rep

Facts About Credit Cards

This article from Blueprint for Financial Prosperity offers some of the old history of Credit cards which still exist today. Extremely interresting read.

7. The Visa logo colors were chosen because the blue represented the sky and the gold represented color of the hills in California where Bank of America was founded.

13. Wonder why minimum payments are so low? It allows consumer to carry more debt while keeping to the same low minimum payment. You can give someone with the ability to pay $100 per month a credit limit as high as $5,000 if they only had to pay 2% a month. If the minimum payment were 5%, they could only have a credit limit of $2,000. The lower the minimum payment, the deeper in debt someone could be in.

Blueprint for Financial Prosperity

Rising Credit Card Fees

Do you know what percent you pay on your credit card? Have you ever wondered why your APR is larger than the rate they show monthly? The APR is figured including all [well most] of the hidden fees that are also charged to you.

Not only is your monthly interest rate going up, your fees have doubled over the past 10+ years...

This article from MSN Moeny describes the different charges and the changes that have happened.

MSN Money - "Bank fees are more outrageous than ever"