I keep meaning to write more about identity theft. It combines several of my favorite themes, including the triumph of compelling narratives over actual facts, cloddish government bureaucracy, and, of course, bad money advice. 
Also, when I write about it I tend to annoy certain people that I enjoy annoying.
Yesterday the FTC and 35 state attorneys general announced a settlement with one of the major players in the ID theft business, LifeLock, in which the company agreed to pay $12M and stop its hitherto deceptive advertising.
I am willing to admit that when I entitled a post The Death of LifeLock last June I jumped the gun a little. Still, the outlook for the company continues to deteriorate. Yes, for a company of its size, a back-of-the-envelope has annual revenue at $180M, forking over $12M is not the end of the world. But it’s a noticeable hit. And the restrictions on advertizing may just be the beginning of the end.
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Heard about the secret millionaire of Lake Forest, Illinois? I’ll assume not and recap. Grace Groner was born in 1909 and graduated from Lake Forest College in 1931, just about the worst year of the 20th Century to enter the job market. Luckily for her, she landed a position as a secretary at the then 
obscure firm Abbott Laboratories. She was a secretary there her entire career, retiring at age 65 in 1974. She never married and lived modestly.
So far, it’s a story that could be called poignantly mundane. But add in a few more facts and it transforms into a personal finance parable that will be repeated, and probably distorted, for some time to come.
In 1935 Groner bought three shares of her employer’s stock. From that day on, she reinvested the dividends and never sold a share. She past passed away this January, having reached 100. Her estate, including what is now a $7 million position in Abbott, was left to her alma mater, Lake Forest College.
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February brought great heaps of snow to parts of the country not used to it, but being shut in for days at a time must inspire frugal thinking, because it was a good month for cutting-edge frugalist tips.
Laundry continues to be a fertile area for frugality. Keeping Kingdom First carried a guest post that thoughtfully reminded us to make sure our dirty laundry is really dirty. But the author may go too far when she advises that you ask yourself "If I was paying someone to wash my laundry, would I want to pay to have this item washed?" Obviously, if a frugalist were paying somebody else to wash their clothes they would do it themselves to save money.
SavingAdvice.com brought us instructions on how to make our own dryer sheets. Finally, a way to save money on these household miracles with a thousand thrifty uses.
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Yesterday the US Postal Service put out a press release Postal Service Outlines 10-Year Plan to Address Declining Revenue, Volume: Seeks Flexibility on Operations, Delivery; Possible 2011 Price Increase.
For fans of the good old USPS (there must be a few out there) it is grim reading. Mail volume is projected to decrease from 177 billion items in 2009 to just 150 billion by 2020. On its present course, the USPS is projected to lose a total of $238 billion over the next decade, a number that makes the shortfalls in Detroit seem relatively manageable.
The AP story on this was headlined Postal Service’s emerging model: Never on Saturday. The media seems to believe that delivery six days a week is a hot button of some kind. Personally, I don’t care very much. Deliver my mail three days a week if you like. Last year Gallup found 66% of Americans favor dropping Saturday to save money.
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Conventional wisdom holds that a mortgage on the house you live in is a special kind of debt, one that, mostly because of favorable tax treatment, is so cheap that you should be in no particular hurry to pay it off.
But there is a popular heresy that opposes this firmly established orthodoxy. It holds that all debt is a bad idea, and paying 3X to the bank so you can save X on your taxes is loopy. Free Money Finance made this case recently. And Dave Ramsey is probably the high priest of this particular sect.
I have an instinctive contempt for orthodoxy and a sympathy for heresies of all kinds. But, alas, this is one of those cases where the conventional wisdom is spot on. Sad and boring, but true.
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Also, when I write about it I tend to annoy certain people that I enjoy annoying.
Government, Identity Theft | Frank Curmudgeon | 
March 10, 2010 12:59 pm | 
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