SeniorJunior

To Heck With the Big Guys Someone close to me was one of those victims of Wells Fargo (Could have been B of A or J.P. Morgan Chase, any of the Big Guys... ) charged $35 each for several overdrafts on his debit card before he caught on what was happening. As a college student, $35 here and there amounts to a big deal. And of course I'm groused out about how the big banks are exploiting credit card holders, not lending like they should, soaking up public funds, overpaying their executives, lobbying against reasonable regulations, etc. So we decided to take our meager funds out of Wells Fargo and put them in a local credit union. And that was BEFORE Huffington Post came up with the "Move Your Money" campaign. But I really like how Huffington approaches this. Check it out here . Chances are, you will actually save money by moving it to a credit union or a locally owned bank. art credit

Only Dummies Believe in Free Rides National Debt Growing Huge Infrastructure Falling Apart Education Decaying Medical Bankruptcies Rampant Wars With No Civilian Sacrifice On and on and on and on and on...... Bad stuff, all that. So what do numbnuts do? Attack the IRS! Scream that taxes take "my money." So I'm screaming "take my money!" Tax me fairly. Use the money wisely. Don't let America slide into shambles. Paying our way is the American way. (P.S. as a retired person, I am reminded every day that those FICA taxes were the best money I - and my employers - ever spent.) And I want America to stay the world leader it should be. For that to happen, we all have to shoulder our share of the load. So TAX ME. pix credit

Wouldn't You Know It The Prez sets out to recover our (we the taxpayers') TARP money from the banks we saved. Then before the plans get finalized, we have this Reuters story: Banks, experts eye possible ways around Obama fee Dan Wilchins NEW YORK Thu Jan 14, 2010 6:20pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - No sooner does Washington propose a new tax than an army of experts tries to figure out ways to avoid it. That is already the case with U.S. President Barack Obama's proposed fee on banks, designed to ensure that Wall Street banks pay up to $117 billion to reimburse taxpayers for the financial bailout: Bankers, lawyers and consultants are already considering ways to avoid paying the fee. "This law could be a real boon for lawyers and consultants like me. There are tremendous opportunities for coming up with new mechanisms to avoid it," said Bert Ely, a bank consultant in

86 is a "B" Isn't It? An oft repeated thing I say (and have said and said) is: "I discovered the limits of my brain's capacity in differential equations." Usually I'm explaining how I went through four majors and five years at four universities without winning a degree. (Then I say, "a broad, shallow education.") It's no small thing to actually have a hard number on your limits. But now I have one. 86. Oh, not that I don't strive for and occasionally reach, say, 90. But it never holds up long. The measuring metric is - get this - FreeCell Solitaire. Note: Squint hard, and you will see the "86%." Wins, that is. That, by the way, is up from 80% at about 500 games, begging the question, "How much time do you waste on FreeCell?" Well, Duffer? If I hit 90%, I'll give you an update.

It Just Keeps Getting Worse Ye who have checked this humble blog occasionally might sense that I have been on the anti- BPA ( Bisphenol Acid in common plastics in our lives) bandwagon for quite a while. And NOW... whoo , boy... it seems BPA in the blood correlates with heart disease. Not good. Anyway, check out Web- MD's take on the research. And watch what the stuff you eat and drink is packaged in. [Here are my prior rants on the stuff: http://seniorjunior.blogspot.com/search?q=bpa+]

THE JOY OF PUBLICATION As gratifying as blogging is, there is something more special about seeing one's letter in a paper. This in the Dec 31-09 alibi , the hot "alternative" paper in Albuquerque:

How About Some (brilliant) actual Progressives for Obama's Economic Advisers ? Oh, now that it's out that Lawrence Summers blitzed Harvard for a billion bucks with derivatives (not to mention a huge whack to its gender equality image), ... doesn't our Prez now have the perfect excuse to put some, you know, real Democrats into the financial cat bird seats? I recommend Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman , and Texas University's James Galbraith ( Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. Chair in Government/Business Relations and Professor of Government . ) If you haven't seen these guys on TV, on the Net, in print or somewhere, you are just not paying attention. They are SMART (and I happen to think, right on economic issues). At the very minimum they look more alert than Summers.