Five Steps To Freedom

Today my opinion of our banking system dropped a couple of notches from its already-low point on the respectability scale.

About an hour ago I needed to go to the ATM. I was on foot several blocks away from my bank, but there were two other banks within one block. To avoid ridiculous ATM charges, I decided to do a cash advance off my debit card. Exact same result as an ATM withdrawal, but without the unexplainable fees.

I had actually done this a few times over the past year at this particular bank. I walked in, handed my driver’s license and my debit card to the teller and said, “I need a cash advance for $500 please.”

Everything proceeded as normal. She came back about 2 minutes later, handed me the debit card and said, “I’ll be right back. I have to make a copy of your license.” Then she returned, gave me my license, and asked how I wanted the bills. “Four big bills and the rest in 20s please,” I replied. She counted out four 100s, two 20s, and then searched all over her workstation for 20s.

“I only have two 20s,” she told me.

I just looked at her. I wanted to ask the question most would ask: “Am I in a bank?” But I didn’t want to be facetious. Instead I just stared at her and let her words echo in her own head.

How silly is it for a bank to not have more than two 20 dollar bills in it? Obviously this wasn’t the case, but it’s still silly for a teller to be so lazy that she doesn’t automatically get more 20s. This part of the visit isn’t what lowered banks on my respectability scale. Eventually, she found the needed 20s in another drawer.

She handed my the money and then said, “Now all I need is your fingerprint on this receipt here.”

[insert buzzer sound]

Wrong. Sorry, the transaction is over. The opportunity to have a real chance at invading my privacy has surely passed. The money is already in my pocket and the signature ink has already dried on the receipt.

“I refuse,” I replied.

“What?”

“Can you tell me why you need my fingerprint?”

“We just Read the rest of this entry »

Just a bad apple at the ACORN office in Brooklyn? Not exactly. The videos below show similar assistance with Read the rest of this entry »

Do you pay for your groceries? Well have I got a product for you. With grocery insurance you’ll never have to pay the grocery bill again. Don’t let those greedy grocery stores take all your money!

What Can I Do?

Demand that your employer include grocery insurance as part of your employment benefits. Groceries are getting expensive! Insure yourself against rising prices and pay only a $1 co-pay each time you shop at the grocery store.

Coming soon…

Electricity insurance – Stop paying for your electric bill like a fool. Instead just present your electricity insurance card. Don’t let the power companies take you for a ride. Demand that your employer provide you with electricity insurance like any decent human should have. Stop being denied your rights to free electricity.

Entertainment insurance – Armed with your new entertainment card, you’ll be able to watch a movie at nearly any theater and have a beer at any decent bar in the entire country. Included in coverage is one flat screen TV purchase per year,  up to 70 inches. You can also use your entertainment insurance for cable packages of up to 400 channels, excluding pornography and Ben Affleck movies.

[insert sound of record scratching]

What the heck?! That’s not insurance!

Really? Let’s consult Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s just get right to the bottom of what people want: inflation in their income and deflation in their expenses. (Allow me to diverge from the proper definition of inflation in this post; Here I’m talking about price inflation.)

Why do people want inflation? Because they think it symbolizes economic growth and progress. Yeah, that sounds warm and fuzzy. But what is being sought by the individual really? A better job. Almost there, keep going. More income. Bingo!

We think inflation is good because it will result in a bunch of stuff that, when reduced to the effect it will have on our individual lives, is manifested through more income. Great! Who doesn’t like more income? (Forget for the moment that incomes have not exactly been systematically rising over the past decade of inflation.)

Personally, I always prefer more income. Don’t you?

Just when these central economic planners seem to have it all figured out, in comes the other side inflation. What the @#$%! My expenses are going up too! And then the finger-pointing moves to the greed demons of capitalism:

• Healthcare is getting too expensive. We need the government to save us from the greedy health insurance companies.
• Gas is getting too expensive. We need the government to save us from the greedy oil companies.
• Food is getting too expensive. We need the government to save us from the…. errr… uh… greedy farmers? Yeah, the greedy farmers. That’s it.

Gosh, I guess this is the burden of living in a capitalistic society. These greedy bastards are making all our expenses go up!

What a tremendous coincidence, though. In capitalism, the existence of greedy price gougers encourages other entrepreneurs to begin offering competing goods and services. Where are all the competing oil companies, health insurance companies, doctors, and farmers who can take all of the business out from under the greedy pigs? An odd absence, perhaps.

Now let’s return to what we really want: inflation in our incomes and deflation in our expenses.

We want our food, energy, healthcare and [insert any other expenses here] to be cheap! The government can do that right? Can’t they just make a law that caps the price of all the stuff we buy? Let’s assume so and Read the rest of this entry »

When I turned 18 and went out into the world on my own, my dad told me, “Son, you need to get health insurance now. It will cover the cost of any catastrophic accident or illness. Get one with a $5,000 deductible. Anything else is a huge ripoff.”

So I followed his guidance. I got health insurance with a $5,000 deductible. It cost $34 per month. It was an insurance policy. Not a huge cost or a huge item of debate… but just something that would take care of things if anything freakish ever happened to me.

A year later I got a job working for a bank. After signing multiple pages of a huge employment package that I could not have possibly read, I was informed that I was now covered by their health insurance. Hallelujah!

Over the course of working there for two years, I used it once for a doctor visit when I was sick. I had to pay only $20. Awesome. At that point I was really appreciative to have such cheap health care. That is, until my head was pulled out of my rectum in the course of quitting my job.

A few weeks after I quit that job, I got an offer in the mail for a “COBRA” health insurance plan. If I signed up for it, my health insurance through my bank employment would continue covering me. All I had to do was pay the portion of the insurance premium that the bank had been paying for me previously. What a nice offer. I scanned through the letter to the bottom line: $400 per month!!!!

I know you may be asking yourself whether that fourth exclamation mark was needed. Indeed, it was. You see… I was 20 years old at that point. Had I not had low-deductible insurance during that two year period, the financial impact would have been as follows:

• The single doctors visit would have cost about $150 out of my pocket, instead of the $20 co-pay. Total effect: -$130
• The money the bank was paying for insurance premiums on my behalf would have instead gone to me. Total effect: +$9,600.
• Bottom line: $9,600 – $130 = $9,470.

I lost out on getting an extra $9,470. Do you have any idea what that means Read the rest of this entry »

In constant stupendous surprise to the government’s unfamiliarity with the law of supply and demand I endeavor to remind you, rational person. You aren’t so busy running the free world and you certainly have to foot your own bills, so I assume you are very interested in the real outcome of government-run healthcare. There are only two possibilities:

#1 – Higher Healthcare Costs

Part of the idea of the proposed healthcare bill is that it will result in more healthcare services being delivered to more people. The healthcare business likes this. Should you like this?

First, why would this happen? It’s because the people receiving the healthcare wouldn’t be directly paying for it. That results in them getting more of it. Do you eat more at a buffet than you do when ordering from an a la carte menu? Yes, because there is no direct cost to you deciding to get a few more servings of food. Removing the direct cost to healthcare will mean Americans getting a few more servings of healthcare. Inevitably, this would include unnecessary servings of healthcare.

Ask a doctor who works in the emergency room how Read the rest of this entry »