Is My Cell Phone Going To Be Liberated?
I wrote a column a while back bemoaning the fact that Verizon does not let me control my own phone. I had wanted use MP3 files, recorded by friends and family, as person-specific ring tones on my phone. The idea was, when Fred called, to have my phone announce (in Fred’s voice), “Hey, this is Fred! Pick up, will ya!” But, alas, Verizon disabled my ability to moved files on and off my Motorola Razr, requiring that I use their proprietary V Cast service instead.
Now I read that Verizon has decided to open their cell phone system to developers, and even allow subscribers to use cell phones from other companies on their system. All of this is supposed to take place by the first quarter of 2008, which is coincidently when I should be getting a new phone under Verizon’s New Every Two Plan. There may be some chance that I will be able to have my ultra-geeky ring-tones yet!
Want a Mortgage on a New Home?
For all of you worrying about the twin crises involving housing prices and mortgages, please note that the government is worrying right along with you. According to a report by the Census Bureau, new home prices managed to tumble another 13% in October. That is the largest dip in home prices since 1970. One reason for the fall is the approximately 200,000 new homes that still remain on the market from prior months, driving prices down.
The extreme issues facing the mortgage market are also contributing to the crisis conditions. Facing a record number of foreclosures as payment amount increases hit more and more variable mortgagees, the mortgage market is in disarray. This is keeping many buyers from finding the financing they need to buy a home. The mortgage crisis may be more dangerous than the slide in new home sales, with approximately 250,000 American homeowners currently involved in some sort of foreclosure.
Middle Class Being Tested
This is nothing new, but a report on CNN Money today states once again the middle class in our country is being squeezed financially. It seems that they are paying more for almost everything, especially housing, gasoline, and health care. These costs are cause the American middle class, always the prototypical hard workers, to work even harder to maintain their status.
This latest doom and gloom was triggered by a new study done by Dēmos. This organization has created what they call a Middle Class Security Index that reports on how well middle class families are doing in three critical areas: income, housing, education, and health care. The first report on this index is not encouraging. From all angles, the middle class in America would appear to be in danger.
Placement in Time
I was looking for something in my middle desk drawer this morning and ran across a debit card from an bank account I had closed a few years ago. Normally, that would not be significant. Even in this case, I suspect few people would given it much thought. This particular card, however, had a very special (to me) notation on it. Down in the lower left-hand corner were the words “Customer Since 1972.”
The debit card was from Bank of America in San Francisco. I very clearly remember opening that checking account in Pacifica, CA, just down the coast from San Francisco, on a sunny day thirty-five years ago, just a block and a half from the beach. I stayed in the Bay Area for many years after that, and used account regularly. When I left the overcrowding behind me to return to my roots in 1993, I kept the account open and still used it with some regularity. It just seemed like a shame to close it after more than twenty years.
Black Monday On Line
Just a couple of days after I wrote a column on the idiocy of Black Friday middle-of-the-night promotions and how much smarter it is to shop on line, I find out that on-line retailers are also jumping on the bandwagon. Because of the incredible mess that the little Bush has made of the economy, retailers are expecting their worst year in the last five years. Personally, I think 2007 will underperform against even those lowered expectations.
The economy has been allowed to run down; the current administration has sent much of our money overseas paying for wars that the people do not want. The dollar has been steadily losing value for six or seven years. The mortgage foreclosure rate is still rising. We have more to worry about than yet another overly commercialized Christmas season. Still, everybody has a right to make a buck. It should be interesting to see how deeply reputable on-line merchandisers are willing to cut their already low prices.
Kansas Bites the Dust
The Kansas Jayhawks ran into a buzz saw at Arrowhead stadium Saturday night. When they came out the other end of that device, they were considerably smaller in both stature and reputation. Even the coach was smaller in the latter, which is saying something. It is not possible to blame the players for this loss. If you wish to blame anything, it is the Kansas system, from Lew Perkins down to the assistant coaches.
The Jayhawks played the best team they had faced all year and they just were not up to it. They got rocked back on their heels in the first few minutes of the game and could not recover enough confidence to play well until it was almost over. This is why people have been complaining all year about the level of competition that the Jayhawks have faced. When you get your first test on the last game of the regular season, you have no idea how to respond to the challenge.
Let the Games Begin
It is the day past Thanksgiving and Christmas is now fair game. We will see photos and film at eleven documenting people lined up at the doors of big box stores to begin this years shopping wars. You will see them in the middle of the night in the freezing cold at Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Macys, and every other store of size in our land. There will normally be two hundred people setting their sights on a dozen or two items at an additional ten percent off.
This particular curmudgeon was home, snug in bed, sawing pre-Yule logs. The culture of shop-until-you-drop has never taken hold in my mind. Shopping, rather than being a see-and-be-seen social activity for me, is an opportunity to make intelligent purchasing decisions as far removed as I can get from door-busters in the dark. I try hard not to get caught up in the frenzy of anything, and especially anything commercial.
Who To Thank on Thanksgiving
While you are sitting down at the table this Thanksgiving, I would like you to remember this column, just for a second. You may wish to thank a higher entity, but perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to spend a moment closer to the ground, as well. All of that food did not just magically appear on the table. For that matter, the table didn’t just magically appear in the dining room either, but let’s confine ourselves to the food for now.
We can use the turkey as an example. A long time ago a turkey farmer in Iowa, or someplace like Iowa, incubated the egg that delivered your turkey’s great-great-great-grandfather into the world for someone’s holiday dining pleasure. Years ago, I drove occasionally past a turkey farm along highway 20 in the rolling hills of central Iowa, somewhere west of Fort Dodge. There had to be thousands of turkeys there, at that time running free in the large crowded yards. We can start by thanking that farmer.
Recycling the Wrong Way
I was dismayed over the weekend to learn that much, if not most, of our recycled electronics are involved in a very seedy and human-damaging processes. It would seem that many of the items that we discard ever-so-carefully carefully in order not to harm the environment are being harvested in such a way that they are very harmful to humans, instead. To make matters worse, the process still harms the environment, albeit the environment offshore.
The electronics that we discard in a manner that we are told is “green” turns out to be anything but. Much of our electronic refuse is collected and shipped overseas (China, Nigeria, India, etc.) where very poorly paid workers manually disassemble it, often using their only their bare hands, hand tools and blowtorches to do so. In the process they are exposed, in an up close and personal manner, to the very cocktail of harmful chemicals that we are trying to avoid by recycling these items.
Cell Phone Control
I’m getting close to my “New Every Two” mile marker with Verizon. That is a plan that gives you a new phone free (or more expensive phones with a big discount) every two years. I am nearing that point again and am wondering what to buy. I have been with Verizon, or companies that Verizon has purchased) for fourteen years. They have great coverage and great service where I live and everywhere I go. I never have seen any reason to change.
They almost lost me at the last renewal, though, over the phone they gave me. I know, it’s free, don’t complain. ;o) The phone is a Motorola Razr. It has done a good job for me these last 18 months. The quality is high, the call quality is good, and the feature set is just fine. What annoyed me was the software for the phone. In anticipation of getting the phone, I bought software that would allow me to access the Razr’s programs so that I could use my computer to load sounds on it, and to take photos off the phone. I even bought a gigabyte of flash memory to put things in.
