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iAm iStupid

That’s what this iPhone application should have been called.

I Am Rich was available for purchase from the phone’s App Store for, get this, $999.99 — the highest amount a developer can charge through the digital retailer, said Armin Heinrich, the program’s developer. Once downloaded, it doesn’t do much — a red icon sits on the iPhone home screen like any other application, with the subtext “I Am Rich.”

Apple has since removed this application from its store, but not before eight people bought it.  I say bully for the developer and his clever application.

I keep waiting for Apple to come up with a clever “A Fool and His Money” commercial.

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Credit Card Regulation, Free Markets, and Paying Cash

The Coyote Chronicles challenges Free Marketers to defend deregulation of the credit card industry: 

You can make the argument that people who can’t pay their balances in full every month should not take out a credit card, but thats more than a little disingenuous since we would see a staggering drop in consumer spending if people only spent when they could pay cash. The restaurant and travel industries would suffer immediately. I doubt there would be a Black Friday at all. Don’t even get me started about the car business.

I’ll take a shot at this one.  First of all, Black Friday, car financing, and credit cards themselves are all fairly new concepts.  Somehow, civilization survived before they existed, and suspect it will survive long after they are gone.  The assertion that our economy is propped up by the insane amount of consumer credit that exists currently tells me that we are, as a country, living above our means.  The fact that the savings rate keeps declining while consumer debt continues to rise tells me that we are in denial of this fact.  Government regulation that enables this foolish behavior only delays the inevitable crash that must occur to correct the market and insures with each passing year that the crash will be harder.

What would happen to the economy if people stopped using credit cards and started paying cash?  One thing is for sure.  Every debt free individual would have greatly increased buying power because a higher percentage of his income would be available to purchase goods and services instead of paying interest on the Big Mac Value Meal he bought 4 months ago.

Hat tip to MCB.

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Your Computer Will Get Thinner–Guaranteed

I’ve been saying for quite a while, at least 5 years, that we aren’t far away from a time when your desktop computer will be little more than a browser, with all of your applications and data stored server side–somewhere out there.  The day may be closer than you think according to the Wall Street Journal.

Google is preparing a service that would let users store on its computers essentially all of the files they might keep on their personal-computer hard drives — such as word-processing documents, digital music, video clips and images, say people familiar with the matter. The service could let users access their files via the Internet from different computers and mobile devices when they sign on with a password, and share them online with friends. It could be released as early as a few months from now, one of the people said.

I think this is a good and bad thing.  Good because it will open up the ability to store and share information between individuals.  Bad in that Google is the entity doing it.  As far as I can imagine, no competitor has both the resources and the power to do it.  Microsoft?  Maybe, but they are going in so many directions and have their fingerss in a lot of pies.  Google is web focused.

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Milton Friedman and Phil Donahue

This one is making the rounds, and worth watching.

It’s widely known that Phil did his show free of charge for many years. When he was finally forced to accept compensation, he handed what was left after taxes over to the gov’ment to do with as they saw fit. A real humanitarian.

[youtube RWsx1X8PV_A]

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I Hope Southwest Rethinks Their Policies

If they insist on continuing to refuse service to attractive chicks I’ll have to adjust my travel strategies.

Not that I really care about their stupid policy–they should be free to turn away whatever business they wish. But I’ll definitely think twice about driving all the way to Nashville to jump on a Southwest flight. I’m safe with my ugly ass friends, but traveling with the missus is risky because of her high level of hottivity.

If Southwest sincerely wants to go after the hot not market, they need to find the right celebrity spokespeople. Maybe Bea Arthur or Rosie?

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Local Currencies — A Brilliant Idea

CNN has the story of a local community printing its own currency that tracks to the dollar at a rate of 1 BerkShare (the local currency) to $.90. Yes, this is legal.

Since large national chains aren’t entering into agreements to accept local bills, only the small, locally owned shops are accepting them. And based on the rate at which they track to dollars, customers receive a 10% discount for using the local currency.

For all of you people who complain about the big box stores and that the gov’ment should do something about them, apparently some LOCAL governments have, and it works well.

The market will always find a way.

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Wal-Mart Walk In Clinics Opposed By…Doctors?

According to this article, doctors in Illinois are directly opposed to Wal-Mart, Walgreens, CVS , and Rite Aid. And why would doctors oppose a service in the marketplace that provides affordable, convenient, and fast health care to patients? Well, mainly because affordable, convenient, and fast health care are bad for their businesses. Oh you didn’t realize that your doctor’s office is a business?

Every day we hear about the rising cost of healthcare, but…

Walk-in clinics represent one of the most advanced and aggressive attempts by US business and entrepreneurs to drive reform of the healthcare system.

Sounds good to me. Of course, doctors are not readily admitting that they Continue reading “Wal-Mart Walk In Clinics Opposed By…Doctors?”

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Helping People Avoid Foreclosures the Right Way

Brad Warbiany has it right when he talks about the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America:

…these guys (a private group) are helping people, so I’m not going to criticize them in any way.

This is how people are helped in a free market.  Those with a vested interest in the success of the individuals who borrowed money from them try to make the best of a bad situation. 

Unforunately, there are plenty of other people, Charles Schumer for instance, who want the federal government to bail out people who borrowed money they can’t pay back, which is basically helping the companies who shouldn’t have loaned them in the first place.  Never mind the fact that the federal government itself already runs at a deficit.

I’ll spell it out for you on simpler terms, with the middle man removed.  You and I will be forced to provide someone else with housing by paying back a loan they took out with a bank who shouldn’t have loaned them the money in the first place.

Surely the banks will expect this money back with no interest.  Right.  Here’s an article that tells the whole story without the common sense slant I just provided.

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Free Market at Work in the Blogosphere

There is quite a soap opera going on at Just Another Pretty Farce regarding Mrs. Coble’s issues with JL Kirk & Associates.

Here’s a quick synopsis:

  • Mr. and Mrs. Coble felt ripped off by an employment agency, and she blogged about it.
  • JL Kirk & Associates got mad about that, and one of their employees posted some comments on to her post on Mrs. Coble’s site (that was stupid). These comments were rather nasty, especially coming from a company trying to defend itself publicly.
  • Mrs. C. has now received a letter threatening a lawsuit if she does not remove her post(s) about JL Kirk & Associates as well as all associated comments. I suspect this has little to do with their desire to eliminate her original post, and more to do with the venemous comment one of their own employees left there.
  • Countless people will now read the account of what happened, most of whom probably would not have read the account had she not been sent a threatening letter and had it picked up by the blogosphere.
  • Many more people will view JL Kirk & Associates as scam artist jerks than ever would have before. Whether they are scam artists and/or jerks is beside the point. They’ve gone a long way through their comments on Mrs. C.’s blog and by sending a letter to give that impression.

Their own actions will hurt them significantly more than Mrs. Coble’s ever could have. You have to love the free market.

Here are some highlights of the comments left by a JL Kirk & Associates employee in her original post:

And by the way, in Mrs. Cobles’ [sic] case, we would recommend (free of charge) to further her writing “career” she learn to spell “wizardry” and polish her grammar and punctuation skills.

Well, couldn’t we all use a little help there now and then? But free of charge? That’s going above and beyond helpful!

…Mr. Coble has had difficulty with sustained upward mobility.

Is the writer trying to stoke some sort of class warfare fire?

That comment is simply stupid.

This could be broadly applied to most comments on most blogs, but usually isn’t what one says when trying to win over an audience. I seriously doubt you’ll hear that in a presidential debate, although it wouldn’t be untrue.

Mrs. Coble’s spiteful meanness precluded her from asking me about it.

Mean and spiteful? I like Mrs. Coble!

Do a Google search on Katherine Coble! She is an angry, opinionated basher of many things

I don’t need to do a Google search. This statement sold me. From this day forward, I vow to be a reader of Katherine Coble’s blog and to never do business with JL Kirk & Associates out of fear that they will send certified junk mail to my house and an unprecedented amount of traffic to my blog.

On second thought…