Makes You Wonder What Else They Are Lying About....

People are forwarding e-mails that say all sorts of things about President Obama that are easily proven as not true.  One e-mail claims that Obama mistook this Wisconsin banner for a Union banner.  But that never happened.  So why do people perpetuate lies?  And what does this say about the opposition's real agenda?

So many forwarded e-mails about the latest outrage that Barack Obama has supposedly committed.  But of course, they are all untrue.  Why do people believe this stuff?  Why do they forward it?  And moreover, who creates these rumors and lies?

For example, as noted above Obama supposedly mistook the flag above for a union banner.  And supposedly, Obama has signed nearly 1000 executive orders, which take over whole sectors of the economy.   Another claims that Fox News "suppressed" a video clip where Obama admits to being a Muslim (Yea, Fox News would do that, of course).

And of course, the grandaddy of them all, Obama is supposedly not a U.S. Citizen.

The list goes on and on.  Obama took off his rings for Ramadan, or whatever.

All these stories have one thing in common.  They are not true.  In fact, they are staggeringly not true, but utter fabrications.  And yet, it seems that these "stories" will not die - and I get these forwarded to me from people who I used to think were smart and at least a little skeptical.  They doubt the Encyclopedia Britannica as not being properly vetted.  But an anonymous e-mail?  It is reliable as the Oracle at Delphi.

To me, these stories smack of desperation - that the GOP has no real "there" there, and so they have to resort not to just distortions or "spin" which is part and parcel of the political process, but outright lies and fabrications, created by and spread by their political operatives.

It makes you wonder:  what else are they lying about?

Well, as it turns out, just about everything.  That cutting taxes of the top income earners by 3% will turn around the economy and reduce the deficit, for example - or cause people to hire more.  That is, as I have noted before, an outright lie.  Personal Income Tax rates do not affect hiring decisions at companies - profitability of hiring additional employees does.  Whether the CEO or owner of the company has to pay 3% more in personal income taxes does not affect the fundamental decision of whether hiring another guy in shipping and receiving will allow the company to ship out more product for that new contract.

In other words, that argument is a huge lie - and one repeated all the time on Fox News (the ones who suppress incriminating Obama videos) and other right-wing outlets.  And no one questions it, as the same boobs who forward these stupid e-mails don't understand the first thing about corporate finances or even income tax brackets.

Or take Social Security.  We are told it will bankrupt the country.  Yet the fund is solvent and the "solution" to Social Security is the same one used since it was founded - raise the cutoff rate.  Again, the same boobs who forward this crap don't realize that once you make more than $108,000, you pay no additional Social Security taxes.

Mitt Romney, who makes $22 million a YEAR, pays no more into Social Security than a young lawyer making $108,000 a year.  Actually, he pays less - if anything.  Since his income is all capital gains, taxed at 15%, he pays no self-employment taxes, which is a pretty neat trick - and proposes vouchers and needs test for the rest of us.

And the boob forwarding me the stupid e-mails?  He is struggling to get by living on Social Security and Medicare.   The very programs Romney and Ryan promise to cut are his lifeline.  They have scared him into thinking the gravy train will "run out" of money unless we stick it to people under age 55.  Turning one group of Americans against another - a keen move, ain't it?

Any business arrangement entered into based on a lie, no matter how trivial, can only go downhill from there.  I've said it a hundred times on this blog - don't do business with liars.  So when the GOP tells obvious whoppers, I have to wonder about the rest of their agenda.

That is, what of there agenda they will even tell us about.  So much of Romney's plans are like his tax returns - a total mystery.   Immigration?   "Elect me," he says, "and I'll fix it."   But he won't say how, where, when or why.  You just have to trust him.  And I don't trust liars.

And so on down the line.  We will cut the deficit but cut taxes at the same time and raise military spending, even as we are winding down two wars and costs should be dropping at the Pentagon.  How can you cut the deficit and increase defense spending?  Again, we have to elect him to find out.  It is buying a pig-in-a-poke, in the classic sense.

One thing is clear - the Romney/Ryan Agenda will cut all non-defense spending down to nothing.  And that is the spending that helps most Americans, and even American businesses.  If we don't spend money on roads, highways, bridges, and infrastructure, we will end up like Costa Rica - low taxes, but also low incomes, and crappy blown out roads and bridges, which make driving over 30 mph a life-threatening risk.   Or perhaps Brazil, where the Romneys of that country fly by helicopter and everyone else lives in a cardboard shanty and picks through trash in the dump to live.

Sorry, but when someone lies about one thing - outright lies - I have to start to question the rest of it.  And once you start unwinding the ball of string that is Romney's evasiveness and lying, you end up with nothing in the center, except a giant screw-job for the average American.

Sorry, Mitt, no sale.

Living in a third world country means low taxes.  But it also means roads that are crap and bridges with holes in them big enough to swallow a car.  I am not kidding.  Is this how we want to live in the USA?  Cutting all spending to the bone so the very rich can get a 3% tax cut?  Or would it be a better idea to have good roads for everyone, and put people to work fixing them.  I vote for the latter.

Time Enough For Love

Suppose you could know the exact date you are going to die.  Would you live your life differently if you knew?  In a way, you already know, so why not act on this information?

In one of Robert Heinlein's early science-fiction stories, Life-Line, he tells the story of a Dr. Pinero, who invents a machine that can tell a person their exact date of death, down to the minute.  In that story, Dr. Pinero ends up predicting his own death, which occurs after an angry mob storms his offices and smashes his machine.

Would you want to know when you are going to die?  And how would it affect how you live?

In a way, you already know when you are going to die, although most people try to avoid thinking about this.   When it comes to numbers, most people are idiots.  For example, when I ask someone what the price of something was, they say, "Well, I don't remember, exactly!"

"OK," I reply, "Was it more than a dollar?"

"Well, yea, of course it was!" they say.

"Was it less than a million dollars?"

"Well, Duh!" they reply.

"Well, we've narrowed down considerably from infinity, let's see if we can narrow it further."

And so on - we can narrow down the range until, voila! the person who claims they "can't remember" the price of an item, can give you the actual price within a fairly accurate range.

We are taught in school that numbers have to be exact or they have no meaning - and giving a wrong answer is worse than no answer at all.  But in real life, it doesn't work that way, and being able to estimate things and use ballpark figures is a sign that you are mathematically literate.  People who need exact numbers in order to think, just don't understand mathematics.

While I have digressed here, it illustrates that your life expectancy is indeed a finite number - it is not infinity, unless you are Lazarus Long.   The oldest person living in the USA (at the time of this writing) lives in Georgia, and is 116 years old.  You will not likely live that long.  Factor in things like your body weight, habits (smoking, drinking, etc.) existing health conditions, as well as family history of heart disease, cancer, and how long your relatives lived, you can get a pretty good idea of how much time you have here on planet Earth.  In the USA, this is about 75 years on average.

And how old you are factors in as well.  If you are 75, the odds of reaching 80 improve dramatically.  So, don't assume that since you are 75 and have lived an average lifespan, you are going to die next year.  Each day you live longer, improves the odds of living the next day.  It is weird like that.

So, we all have an idea that we have mortality.  And if we were to die tomorrow, or next month, surely we would "live for today" and have a good time - right?   On the other hand, if we were to live until age 90, we would want to plan carefully for our lifespan, to insure that we had enough money to last us the rest of our lives - right?

And here's the kicker - and the point of this posting - Americans do neither.

Americans are accused of "living for today" too much, in that they spend all their money and save little or nothing.  But this is not really true.  Americans spend all their money on crap - like smart phones and cable Television - and then borrow more so they can have a shiny car.  They are not "living for today" but rather squandering what little precious time they have on the planet, on stupid things like television shows and "apps" on their iPhones.

Trust me when I say that if you were given three months to live, you would not spend it catching up on Reality TV shows.

Your average American, therefore, goes off to work every day to "pay the bills" on crap they don't really need and doesn't really add to their life.  They harbor vague hopes of "someday" paying it all off and living a life of ease and relaxation.  But of course, that never happens - they lurch from one bad buying decision to another, going further and further into debt, and never really experiencing the now in their lives.  They live for tomorrow, without planning for it.

And when tomorrow comes, they have no savings to speak of, and a mountain of debt still to pay off.  And they wonder why, during all this time, there was no time for them in their lives.  It was all spent at work, laboring like a slave for someone else, so they could pay off debts to finance companies and banks.  They got two days off a week to do laundry and vacuum the house, and two weeks off a year to "vacation" - which usually involved spending more money.  This is the sum and substance of a human life?

Your life is finite, and it is slipping away, if you are on the debt treadmill or hamster wheel.   If you complain about living "paycheck to paycheck" and at the same time, have a cable TV bill and car payments, you need to take a good look in the mirror.  Because the values you are investing in (or borrowing to buy) are false and phoney.   You are trading life for a series of payments, and frittering away the precious few hours you have, watching Storage Wars.

And these are choices you make not obligations or a predetermined lifestyle.

It is possible to both live for today and to plan for tomorrow.  But it takes a radical re-evaluation of how you choose to live.

Turning off the television, and then throwing it away, is a good start.

The new SMART PHONES are here!

NOTE: This is a re-posting from October 2011.  Every year, a new version of a smart phone comes out, and the media acts like it is the second coming of Christ.   America was this way about "the new model cars!" back in the mid-1950's.  However, that sort of collapsed after the Edsel, when everyone realized it was a bunch of crap and hoopla.  So, once again, I dust off this old number, just in time for the latest-and-greatest piece-of-crap time-waster and wallet-lightener.


The new SMART PHONES are out!  OMG!  OMG!

OMG!  Can you believe it?  The newest SMART PHONE is available!  And the lines for it were around the block!  And that famous guy - he was the first one to get one!  I can't WAIT to get mine!

It is SO MUCH BETTER than this POS phone I got last year.  God, I can't believe I waited in line for three days for that piece of junk!  This NEW PHONE will be SO MUCH BETTER, I can't believe it!

It has to be really good, right?  All the media outlets are heaping praise on it - and writing article after article about it!  And it is all over the news.  After all, EVERYONE has a SMART PHONE, right?  I mean, how can you live without one?

And how can you possibly live with LAST YEAR'S MODEL?  OMG!

And this new phone has 8G technology - which is obviously SOoooooo much better than that lame old 7G technology - even though I have no clue that it means.  But, when I am with my friends, I can talk knowingly about it, and look down my nose at my pals with scratched-up "Last year's models".

Yea, the new SMART PHONE XLS is so cool - and obviously better than the LS model from last year.  After all, putting an "X" on something makes it all tech-y and cool.

And it has all these new FEATURES, too, although I can't quite remember what they are.  And they've fixed most of the bugs in the previous version!  Well, most of them, anyway.  You still have to hold it upside-down to make international calls, which is sort of a pain-in-the-ass. 

But like a good lemming, I will get my sleeping bag out of storage and sleep out for a week by the wireless store to make sure I am FIRST IN LINE to get one!

What exactly is the deal with smart phones?  And why are people going ga-ga over them?  Yes, they are a fun toy to play with - so is the empty box it came in.   But they are hardly a game-changer of anything, at least at the present time.

Oh yea, it has GPS.  That's cool.  So is a GPS unit, which you can buy for under $200 and not pay a monthly fee for - and it won't be obsolete in a year.

You can get on the Internet, too.  Yea, that's nice, but what can you see on those tiny screens?

And you can text with it - although anyone who texts has their brains leaking out their ears, quite literally.  Texting is not working, it is not communicating, it is not anything, but masturbating - and it even looks like it, with these folks with their electronic devices in their laps, their hands in constant motion.

What this all means, however, is huge profits for cell phone companies - and huge holes in the pockets of users.  The phones themselves cost hundreds of dollars - but their real cost is hidden by wrapping part of the purchase price into a monthly service contract "starting at only $15 a month!" the website cheerfully announces.  But most users end up spending $60 to $100 a month, if not more.

According to one report, the cost of owning a smart phone is about $2000 a year.  Ouch.

That's not a lot of money, right?  Think again.  As I have noted before in this blog, even if you are making $100,000 a year, your actual "disposable income" might be only 10% of that.  Once you pay your taxes (huge chunk) your mortgage (huge chunk) and then other living expenses, AND fund your retirement accounts (you ARE doing that, right?  Instead of diverting that money to a phone?  RIGHT?) you might have only $10,000 left over to "spend".  And $2000 a year on a phone is, well, 20% of that disposable income.

So yea, it is cool to be able to scan those 2-D bar codes in the paper or on signs and instantly download a web page in tiny fonts on your tiny screen - so you can be marketed to even more.  But is a cool toy worth that much money to you?

And how much of having a smart phone is actually using it, versus just having a trendy accessory to impress people you don't know?

"Rather than worry about what other people think of you, you should worry about what you think of yourself" -- Stephen M. Pollan

And of course, once you pull your eyeballs away from media saturation, you may realize, that, contrary to what the media hypes, not "everyone" has a smart phone - just as not "everyone" leases cars, gets payday loans, or rents-to-own furniture.

While smart phone usage is on the rise, according to the latest A.C. Nielson report, less than half of all Americans use them.  By the end of 2011, it is projected that smart phone penetration will reach about 50%.

This is an interesting statistic, as some folks naturally believe that penetration is at 100% - folks who just text and talk to folks like themselves, or folks who mimic that the fellow in the next cubicle is doing.

But I suspect that a lot of people will delay getting such a phone - if they ever do.  If you can get by with something that is FREE, why bother paying a monthly fee?  Why bother paying for a book, when you can check it out of the library?

For me, having been on the "bleeding edge" of technology over the years, I plan on waiting - a good long time.  Having the "latest and greatest" technology is not only expensive - staggeringly expensive - it is also time-consuming and frustrating, as you end up as the Beta tester for some large corporation.

The appeal of a smart phone is, of course, that you can access the Internet anywhere with it.  But of course, many of us have been doing that via cellular modem and the like, for years.  And nowadays, getting this sort of service is not hard to do, for free, using WiFi.

We recently traveled for two-and-a-half months by camper in Canada.  For the most part, we had no cell service.  But we did have WiFi about every other day (and in some of the most remote places imaginable) and we were able to contact people by phone using landlines and a long distance calling card.   Total cost:  Not a helluva lot.

Would it have been handy to have a smart phone with GPS and Internet Access?  Yes.  But of course, chances are, service in Labrador would not have been all that extensive.  Was it essential to getting around?  Not really.  Would it have been worth $2000 a year?  Not at all.

A cheap laptop and free WiFi service can provide you with Internet Access on the road.  I find that I only need to get online once every few days to balance my checkbook and erase e-mails.  The "need" to be constantly connected is, to say the least, over-stated.  And of course, you can't do real work on a smart phone - at least I can't.  I need a full-sized QWERTY keyboard to work, thank you, not some texting device that creates short messages.

But of course, some folks have an obsessive-compulsive need to be in constant contact - to be continually texting friends all the time - particularly young people.  And the cell phone companies are there to serve this obsessive-compulsive behavior.  Texting is the new smoking, it appears.

And smart phones are the new crack.

---Sent from my new SMART PHONE XLS 8G (tm)

Keyboard Shortcuts in Firefox - How to Disable

One annoying feature of Firefox are the keyboard shortcuts.  If you hit the "CTRL" key instead of "SHIFT" by accident, you may find your computer doing very odd things.
One problem I have when typing using Firefox, is that since I type fast, I often find that entire documents suddenly seem to erase themselves.  This was a mystery to me at first, until I realized that what was happening is that I was accidentally activating a "keyboard shortcut" in Firefox, and thus telling it do to something I did not intend to do.

The most common instance of this, is when you hit "CTRL-A" instead of SHIFT-A for a Capital A.  what this keyboard shortcut does, in Firefox, is SELECT ALL.  Once you do this, the next letter you type will REPLACE all the selected text with the newly typed text.  If you are a fast typist, it appears as if your entire entry has suddenly disappeared.

If you do this, DON'T PANIC.  Just hit CTRL-Z which is the universal "Whoops! I didn't mean to do that, please UNDO!" command.  Your deleted text should reappear.  You may have to hit it more than once, however, if you typed a lot after the delete occurred.

But it is a PAIN IN THE ASS and one of the most useless features of Firefox to have this CTRL-A delete a whole page of work, when you hit it by accident.  And it is easy to hit it by accident, as the CTRL and SHIFT keys are close together, particularly on many laptops!

There is no way, within Firefox, to delete or disable these "shortcuts" - that I am aware of.  However, there is an add-on you can install on Firefox that will allow you to REDEFINE (but not DELETE or DISABLE) these keyboard shortcuts.

More information about Keyboard Shortcuts and their definitions can be found at this link.

And the add-on to edit the shortcuts can be found at this link.  A fellow named Tim Taubert developed this add-on.  Nice work, Tim!  Once installed (which does not require a reboot or restart) you can click on "tools" and then "options" and then a new tab will appear - "shortcuts".  Click on it to edit your shortcuts.

You can edit any shortcut to any key combination by highlighting the shortcut and then hitting "edit".  Beware, though, if you screw this up, you may make a simple key command equal some hideous shortcut, so use it carefully.  If you redefine "ENTER" to mean "delete all" you might have a hard time fixing that.

To fix the offending "CTRL-A" problem, I changed the key "shortcut" to CTRL-SHIFT-ALT-A, which would require me to press four keys at once, and thus prevent me from accidentally requesting a "select all" command.  Since I never use this command, I made it nearly impossible to use.

You may similarly edit other commands that you are finding problematic.  You cannot delete these commands, apparently, only edit them.  But editing them to make them nearly unusable without hitting three or four keys at the same time is the next best thing.  You won't hit them by accident, that's for sure!

Why does Firefox use keyboard shortcuts?  They are popular, and Windows uses them, too.  They are useful for people who cannot type fast, I guess.  But for those of us who can, they are a PITA, as a missed keystroke means deleting a long posting, such as this.

Good Luck!

The Unbanked

These folks are squandering what little they have by avoiding banks.
A recent article on CNN discusses the number of people in the USA who are "unbanked" - that is to say, have no bank accounts whatsoever.

Who are these people?  Mostly the poor.  Why do they not have bank accounts?  The answers are various.

Some don't trust banks, which of course is idiotic.  And when you are an idiot, you get shitty deals in life, and end up poor.  So, it is a vicious circle.

Others are denied accounts, because they had checking accounts at other banks, and wrote so many bad checks or failed to pay back overdrafts, that they are bad risks.  And yes, the Banks have their own version of a credit report to check when you apply for an account.

At our credit union, the manager told me of this problem - young people making very little money, who thought that you could just write as many checks as you wanted.  Often drugs were involved, or just plain stupidity, or both, which is redundant.    The Credit Union closed their checking accounts, but allowed them to maintain savings accounts (which are hard to over-draft) and they paid all their bills by money-order.   A pain in the ass, but better than $25 in check-cashing fees.  And of course, they are paying for screwing the pooch by not being more careful with money.   Again, in our economic system, the more mistakes you make, the more you pay, and those least able to pay, pay the most.  Stop making mistakes, like speeding to the check-cashing store so you can bounce another check.

And of course, youth is involved, too.  As a "kid" of 23, I did not keep careful track of my bank balance, and bounced checks as a result.  But the difference was, of course, that I paid the bounce fees and made up for the amount due.

Still others believe that the "fees" associated with having a checking or savings account are too high.  Of course, there are banks with no fees - but they often aren't in poor neighborhoods.  Like the pawn shop and the check-cashing store, the bank that is located in the ghetto has crummy rates and high fees, and many poor people simply believe that is how all banks work.  I have three bank accounts, and none charge fees, and some actually pay interest, albeit at a paltry rate.

Many unbanked resort to using prepaid debit cards, and as I have some Patents pending for clients in this area, I cannot comment further.  But suffice it to say, that these sorts of cards are one end-run on banks that many folks use.  You can set up a Wal-Mart prepaid credit card to accept a direct deposit from your employer, and thus avoid some fees.  It is like having a bank account, without having a bank account.

But overall, these end-runs end up being more expensive than just going to a bank.  I have an account with Bank of America, and I pay no fees.  And since they are located nearly everywhere (except Vermont), I can use a BoA ATM without incurring any transaction fees.   My Ameris accounts work the same way, although they are not as widespread.

If you are poor, getting out of the mindset that banks are the enemy is as important as getting out of the mindset that wealth is "evil".   Seek out a fee-free bank account, and avoid paying $25 to cash a check or $3 to check the balance on your pre-paid debit card.  There is no reason, if you have very little money, to squander it on stupid stuff like that.  $25 buys a lot of beer.

Check out ALL the local banks - and credit unions.  The latter usually have no fees and can help you out if you have had trouble with a bank account before.  A simple savings account may be a good way to get you in as a customer, so you can cash your paycheck without paying any check-cashing fee, or even have it automatically deposited.  But read the rules - many savings accounts, such as as BoA, do not allow more than a limited number of deposits and withdrawals per month, as they are for savings, not checking.

And if you get a bank account, monitor it like a hawk.  Bouncing checks and other idiotic nonsense is not only expensive, it can add you to the legion of "unbanked" in this country, which will cause you to slide further down the food chain.

Ivacationonline.com is already the best vacation property management website and it is a fantastic way to find a deal on a vacation rental in a travel destination city that you are looking for. Whether it is the easy access to travel insurance for yourself or your renters, or the Travel Guard accidental damage insurance available right on your live booking page it is hard to beat the industry leading options that ivacationonline offers.
As all great businesses do we are not setting back on our achievements and basking in the glory of watching the other vacation rental websites try to play catch-up. We are constantly and consistently moving ahead. As the internet changes and our customer base grows we want to stay ahead of the curve and make our great website even better. That is why we would like to hear what our customers and members have to say about what they like about our site and tings that they would like to see changed or made even better.
You can do that several ways, email us at info@ivacationonline.com, visit us on Facebook, or leave a comment right here on this blog.
Our goal when we set out to change the world of vacation rental property renting nearly a decade ago was to make the process simple and easier for the property owner. That is still our goal and we work every day trying to make the process of renting, booking, communicating, and managing your condo, townhouse, 2nd house or investment property even easier.

Still Time To Book Your Summer Vacation

It seems just like yesterday I was writing that summer has finally arrived and now it seems like summer is almost over. It is only 5 weeks until many schools are back in session. Don't panic, if you have not planned your summer vacation and have just started trying to find a home to rent in some of the more popular destinations, you still have time and you can still find a place to stay. You may even save yourself some money in the long run. Even tough ivacationonline.com is a fantastic website to manage your vacation property and to get more bookings for your listing than any other website, there are always a few weeks that have not been booked by someone for one reason or another.

You can search the ivol database for the area you want, date, how many bedrooms, and property type. Very rarely does every single property have the week you are looking for completely sold out. When you find one you can contact the owner to work out a price for those last minute bookings. Often times many owners are willing to offer a discount for a week they have rented which is quickly approaching. A word to wise, don't insult a property owner and make a offer of $1000 for a property that rents for $3000 during that time frame. In most cases if you do that the owner may not reply back to you. Just make a reasonable fair offer for the property you want. In many cases the owner has already lowered the price, or has posted a coupon or special for the property, so there is no need to haggle over a price.

In some instances owner will not negotiate prices, don't be offended by this. Often times to avoid wheeling and dealing and to keep their prices fair for all of the renters, the owner will set a fair price for the property and keep to that price, even if the unit may go empty a week. I personally like this approach that way my renters know they are going to get the best price available on my properties and do not have to worry about negotiating for a deal.

So if you are still in need of a vacation rental property, relax visit ivacationonline.com and find the perfect rental at the price you want to pay.