The theme of this blog, which admittedly I often stretch and occasionally just ignore, is that the money advice we Americans get is lousy.
That advice comes from several sources. There are publications and 
broadcasts of various kinds. Aside from often lacking much wisdom or insight, these sources of information suffer from the fact that they are aimed at a broad and anonymous audience. By their nature, they are one-size-fits-all, leaving individuals to work out for themselves any customizations that might be required. On the other hand, this advice is free or nearly so.
More near-free advice can be had from friends and relatives. Some of this is probably good, but given the general state of PF knowledge out there the chances of hitting on a gifted amateur with sound ideas is low.
At the top of the advice food chain are professionals who give advice to particular individuals, presumably based those individuals’ situations, in exchange for money in the form of fees and/or commissions. In principle, that ought to work best and I have no doubt that there are many paid advisors out there who do a great job. But I am also pretty sure that many others, maybe even most others, are not up to snuff.
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Continuing the seasonal back-to-school theme, two blogs recently addressed essentially the same question, namely are elite colleges worth the elite price?
Last week, Silicon Valley Blogger at The Digerati Life gave us a long and methodical discussion, complete with charts, Should You Invest In An Ivy League College Education? The post tees up the major issues, but stops short of presenting a definitive answer to its own question.
In contrast, Zac Bissonnette’s post at The Consumerist, 5 Reasons Why Every Single College Ranking Is a Pile of Crap, makes it clear where he stands. “A student’s success or failure in college and in life will ultimately be determined by who they are, not which college they attend.”
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15-year-old Jacksonville, Florida resident Bridget Brown was bored. That happens. It’s August and she’s 15.
She had been saving money for a car, but then a better idea came to her.
Why not make a daytrip to Dollywood with her little brother and a friend, aged 13 and 11, respectively. I think we’d all agree that she’d be better off with the car. And it would have been a good idea to discuss it with her parents first. She didn’t.
Bridget grabbed her cash, called a cab, and headed for the airport with boys in tow. Once there she bought three round-trip tickets to Nashville. They went through security without ID, which is allowed if you are under 18.
Once in Nashville, the trio was confronted with the minor detail that Dollywood was still 200 miles away. (Flying to Knoxville would have been a better choice.) Without an obvious way to get there, they panicked and called home. Not that clever, but hey, she’s 15.
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The Consumerist is, according to a popular ranking, the #1 personal finance blog. I am not sure that it fits cleanly into the personal finance category but there is no denying that it is a monster in the blog world, linked to by 8,865 other sites. (For context, this blog has 89 inbound links.) I read it every day.
A post last Friday, written by the Consumerist’s managing editor, ~600,000 Chinese Die Making Our Shiny Toys caught my eye. To save you a click, here is pretty much all of it, links included.
Let’s expand our foreign language vocabulary! Can you say, "guolaosi"? It’s a Mandarin word meaning "death from overwork!" The word describes the phenomenon of Chinese workers falling dead on the spot as they toil in sub-Dickensian conditions so you can save a dollar on your next laptop!
China Daily, an English-language state-run publication, says an estimated 600,000 Chinese workers die each year in this fashion, sometimes falling "off their stools bleeding from the ears, nose and anus," as left-leaning mag The Nation reported in 2007.
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It has been months since I last shared confusion over the way everybody else uses credit cards. Today I am back at it.
Over the weekend the New York Times had a report about a new feature
being rolled out by MasterCard and Citigroup. (By which the Times means Citibank.)
The service, called inControl and already in use by some Barclaycard holders in Britain, is a sort of financial chastity belt that offers the potential to prevent a variety of budget sins and other money traps.
Worried about your restaurant habit? If your bank adopts MasterCard’s service, you could tell it to have your debit or credit card reject any restaurant purchase above whatever monthly cap you set.
I must admit I do like the name of the product. “inControl” neatly implies that without it you would be “outofControl” and I think that if this service appeals to you that is likely true.
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broadcasts of various kinds. Aside from often lacking much wisdom or insight, these sources of information suffer from the fact that they are aimed at a broad and anonymous audience. By their nature, they are one-size-fits-all, leaving individuals to work out for themselves any customizations that might be required. On the other hand, this advice is free or nearly so.
Expert Advice, Housing, Media | Frank Curmudgeon | 
August 25, 2010 12:59 pm | 
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