Year: 2008

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Bank Fees: Another Fee Tactic

I’ve just been made aware of a new tactic being used by banks to generate fees.  I thought Bank of America was the absolute worst for engineering mechanisms to maximize overdraft fees.  It seems that WaMu (Washington Mutual) now holds this honor above BOA with a process that is simply evil at it’s core.  They will display a deposit in the accounts “Available Balance” but will then charge overdraft fees on any transactions that occur before the deposit actually moves to a posted status.  They have set this period between “pending” and “posted” at 24 hours.

So here’s how it works: You get a direct payroll deposit at midnight.  WaMu will show this deposit in your “Available Balance” on-line and through any other available inquiry method.  So you have the money to spend correct?  Wrong.  If you spend any money that exceeds the funds available prior to this deposit you will be charged an overdraft fee for each negative transaction.  WaMu explains this through their process of posting all debits before deposits.  But wait.  WaMu displayed the funds as available?  Doesn’t matter.  The funds aren’t actually available to be used until the deposit moves into “posted” status 24 hours after they’ve displayed the funds as available.

Let’s face it.   We’re getting way past the point where the bank is mostly a liability for consumers in todays economy.  These fee tactics and irresponsible lending practices have undermined faith in the banking system for a large segment of Americans.  In fact the number stands at about 36% according to the banking industry itself so we can consider that the most conservative estimate.  It’s actually probably more like 50% and growing.  The banks explain all of this through the repeated proclamation that they are a business intending to make money like any other.  So run, don’t walk to your local credit union and make it known to the banks that if their business is taking our money for nothing then we don’t want their product.

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Undecided…

I am personally undecided who I will vote for now. My personal opinion is irrelevant in my prediction. It should be John McCain who wins this election (provided that he lives that long). Why?

The American public could gradually lose it’s fascination with Obama. His “rock star” persona can fade. Not that it matters. What may ultimately lead Obama down the path to defeat is his position on oil. I’m a registered Democrat (in case you haven’t guessed) and I do believe big business and the banks are out of control and unchecked so I feel there needs to be more government oversight, I despise the situation in Iraq, and I don’t think the Republicans have a plan for a health care system that’s going to do anything but make the rich even richer. So why am I considering a vote for McCain?

Because he supports drilling in the US for oil. While I care about the environment I really despise hyper-tree-huggers. These are the environmentalists who will sacrifice our nations welfare and economy to save another damn species of snail. I know a lot of other Democrats who fall into the category of Independent by default in this election. Hell, let’s face it I might as well change my registration to Independent because I don’t fully support either party’s position on a number of issues.

  1. I want immigration laws enforced – not reformed. Neither candidate is supporting this position to the upset of the Republican party because I’m certain most conservatives want a candidate with a stronger stance on this issue.
  2. I want to drill for oil in America. Obama and the Democrats have made it clear they care nothing about saving our future by attacking the energy problems on all fronts including drilling at home.
  3. I want NAFTA repealed. Again, nothing either party has proclaimed interest in.
  4. I support the withdraw of troops in Iraq using a responsible time table. More Dems support this than Republicans.
  5. I believe we need comprehensive health care reform. From the top down including an attack on the rising cost of health care services. John McCain wants to put the hospital corporations in check but he’s also running the risk of angering big business supporters who believe hospitals and drug manufacturers, as corporations, should be free to profit as much as they like even if the cost is the lives of patients. This is actually an easy fix: price caps. Universal insurance coverage, a Democratic idea, is nothing but a windfall for health insurance companies. Neither side has even mentioned government price caps which would limit hospital corporation profitability but naturally drive down the price of insurance.
  6. I want to pay fair taxes. This is more of a Republican idea but only really benefits the rich and corporations under their model of tax breaks. Democrats will give no one a break here.

Basically I don’t fully support either party and choosing one side or the other is like choosing which foot to be shot in. I don’t want to be shot in either foot.

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The Triangle Town Center “Riot”

As many people know Amy and I once lived in a house off of Louisburg Rd. behind Triangle Town Center.   It’s where we lived when Connor was born.  We moved out of the area specifically because it was going down hill.  The location became full of dumb little thugs.  In fact a house on our street was converted to a rental and the equivalent of a gang moved in.  They called themselves a “riding club” as the sped in and out of the neighborhood on their crotch rockets all day and night.

Needless to say I got the hell outta Dodge.  It was only a matter of time before the thug culture proliferating in the area moved towards the mall.  Crapital Blvd. has always been notorious for these African American bike gangs striking fear into anyone wanting to stop for gas as they congregate by the dozens and enjoy the fact that they’ve staked their turf.  That’s right, I called them out as black bike gangs.  There is no use burying our head and imagining that this is anything less than a racial and cultural issue.

Some of the the dumb little thugs got outta control last Saturday night and 15 to 20 of them got in a fight in Triangle Town Center causing the mall to be closed an hour early.  According to reports approx. 200 little thug bumpers ran crazy in the mall.  The media labeled it a “riot”.  While it was far from a riot it was definitely a wake up call.  A call that may never be heeded.  You see the fact that this entire problem was caused by black kids flashing gang signs has been disputed by members of the black community.  They denounce the fact that there is any mention of race in the problem.

Let me be straight:  In the office next to me is one of the coolest women I know.  Her name is Jackie and she is in charge of accounts payable at our company.  And she’s a black woman from Durham.  She’s great.  And she agrees with me on many points I will make here including the fact that if the black community works harder at dispelling the notion that this was not a black on black thug issue verses trying to solve the root of the problem it will never go away.

Many people on WRAL’s GOLO forum are screaming about lack of parenting, supervision and anything they can find to displace the responsibility of this event away from the kids who did the fighting.  I can tell you first hand that only people with a completely unrealistic and idealistic view of the world believe that all parents can and should have control of their kids at all times.  Sorry Ozzy and Harriet, the world just doesn’t work that way.

The core of the problem is that these black kids have an unrealistic sense of entitlement.  And they now feel the only way to acquire what they’re entitled to is through their own.  What do I mean by this?  I mean through their peers and their attitude.  They drop out of school, realize their never going to be an NBA star so they figure what the hell, Tupac and 50 cent got famous, watch me.  And this is the lifestyle, and the culture, they make a conscious decision to live in.  And the black community at large shuns any criticism, internal or external, of this culture.

If a black man dares speak up about the trajedy of black youth today he will be labeled a traitor by everyone all the way up to the NAACP.  If a white person says “black kids today have a problem” they are an automatic racist.  Never mind the statistics: 50% of black students will drop out of high school verses approx. 22% of all other races combined. Less than 10% of “gang” members are white.  It’s probably below 5% in an area like Raleigh.  So when blacks deny that the problem primarily exists among blacks it is only adding fuel to the fire.  They are percieved to be accepted and supported by their own.

It’s time to end dumb thuggery regardless of skin color or socio-economic status.  If the problem just happens to be among black kids well then, they are the ones going to jail or boot camp.  Trying legitimize this gun toting, violent lifestyle by labeling it “Hip Hop” or any other name only gives it the merit required to draw future generations into it’s downward cycle.  Here’s a news flash: hating cops is not cool.  And if you or anyone you associate with share an anti-law enforcement attitude it’s because you’ve got something immoral or illegal to hide.  Making excuses for a dumb-ass thug is almost as bad as being one.

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Brightstar Communications in Raleigh, NC

Here’s a customer service story for you.  I just had to send this email to the CFO of Trimaco regarding an emergency service call I had to place with Brightstar Communications yesterday regarding a down fax line:

Drew,

Yesterday I contacted Brightstar Communications regarding our down fax line.  I was told to open a ticket through their on-line form which I did.  I was informed a tech would call me shortly to schedule a time for the repair.  I never received a call.  My follow up with Brightstar revealed that the ticket had been assigned to Tim Beach (Beech?).  I never received any communication from Tim Beech.  This morning I had to call and had to insist to speak with him.  It was apparently a big problem that I actually speak to the guy assigned to the call.

When I asked Tim why no contacted us to schedule a service time he went off explaining some big job they were all on at a hotel or something.  In a somewhat irritated tone, I admit, asked why someone didn’t communicate this to us because the service call was entered as an emergency.  He got irritated and hung up the phone.

I will be finding another vendor to handle this and any future problems with the phone system.  I know several with very good service records including Network South and Atcom.  I will not be conducting business with Brightstar Communications unless specifically directed to do so.  In over 13 years of phone system management and administration I have never seen such poor service or communication from a vendor and will quickly communicate this experience with everyone I know in the industry.

And I didn’t even get to wish him a happy 4th of July.  Mike Seibert, the owner of Brightstar, is listed as the Communications vendor and consultant for “The Business Clinic” in Raleigh which consists of “groups of local professional service firms experienced in offering and implementing fundamental business solutions for small and mid-size businesses.”  This is important because during the coarse of this saga Mike and his staff repeatedly implied the Trimaco was not big enough to warrent emergency service from Brightstar.  Never mind that Trimaco is several times the size of Brightstar with an annual revenue that dwarfs Mike’s.

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Back with a new look .

The conversion from Time Warner to AT&T DSL is complete.  It took a little more time than I anticipated because I didn’t realize their are no phone lines in my office where this server sits.  So the server’s on a wireless network adapter now and seems to be going strong – static IP and all.  I’m still hosting the DNS with No-IP.com because they’re paid for the remainder of the year.

The world’s focus is on the US economy now and so is mine. My rants in the coming months will focus primarily on this topic.  I won’t be watching my language because let’s face it, we’re screwed.  We’ve got job losses, banks are struggling because of loans that can’t be paid back, house values plummetting almost everywhere and gas prices that are through the roof.  Put $1000 under the mattress and get ready to ride out a depression that makes Grandpa’s look like fun.

The talk show pundits make it sound like it’s going to be alright.  The market is “correcting itself” they say.  I laugh at you sirs.  Please do your part to keep hope alive.  As soon as gas hits between $5 and $6 a gallon and the trucking strikes begin you better have food in the house because I hear there’s only 3 days worth on any grocery stores shelves at any time.  Gentelmen, start your gardens.

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WRAL – Man accused in slaying over kid’s baseball bat accident

A guy shot another man dead in front of both their children.  And there are many gun advocates who argue the gun played no role.  The aging “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” argument.  This made me mad.  So this was my final post in a WRAL GOLO forum thread.  Please argue against this logic:

I would not be in support of stricter gun control if we could insure that all firearms that are manufactured fell into the hands of responsible citizens. Unfortunately this is not the case. The supply chain from the manufacturer to the end user / owner cannot be insured. It is now easier for a criminal to buy a stolen gun than it is for a law abiding citizen to buy a legal gun. But the stolen gun had to come from somewhere and it was undoubtedly from a “responsible” citizen. Or a corrupt gun dealer.

More criminals walk armed than there are law abiding citizens who want to. Therefore we are left with little choice but to enforce stricter controls and regulations upon the responsibility of firearm possession. In fact, it’s almost time to hold those criminally negligent who fail to protect a firearm from theft using every available proven resource. Currently even those with a history of mental illness can legally buy a gun. And the NRA argues that’s the way it should be.

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Site Went Down – All appologies.

One of the pitfalls of hosting my own blog is trying to keep Time Warner at bay.  They got me and the site went down for a while as they haggled me about using Dynamic DNS for hosting public services against my consumer grade contract.  So I took an outage during negotiations to avoid paying over $200 a month for a Road Runner Business Class account.  time Warner didn’t budge so I took the site down for a while.

My AT&T DSL was installed Friday and I’ll be buying a modem later this week.  They were the same price and they gave me a static IP Address (no more Dynimic DNS hosting required).   I get 3MB down and 768K up.  That’s better upstream than I usually get with cable.  There maybe another site outage whileI work to get the new serviceon-line and my DNS changed over.  Sorry in advance.

In other news – Tiger may lose the 2008 US Open in a minute.  Yay!

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Jad Mouawad and Mireya Navarro -or- 2 innacurate writers for the NY Times

These were the creators of an article that ran this morning titled: Teeth Gritted, Drivers adjust to $4 Gasoline.

Among a couple of inaccurate, opinionated comments one blatant distortion they provided was

“All this has led to a vast transfer of wealth from American drivers to domestic and foreign oil producers.”

Wrong. Or Epic Fail as it would be put on Digg. The transfer of currency to wealthy oil producers is occurring from Oil product companies world wide, not drivers in America. Specifically, Americans are paying current high prices to insure that the refineries (i.e. Exxon, BP, etc.) are going to be able to maintain their current profit levels 13 years from now. That’s right, the price of a gallon of gas today is set based upon the speculation of Energy Traders on 13 year futures. See my article a couple of days ago to learn what futures trading is.

With the media sworn to their own misleading, blanket statements it’s no wonder the population at large has no idea, zero, what makes the current price of gas so high. As long as our current prices at the pump are directly correlated to the current price of oil by these irresponsible writers people will still continue to think this is an issue of supply and demand. We are not in a situation where we need to pay this much at the pump or China’s going to take our gas to get to work.

We pay these prices so that the major oil product producers can continue to guarantee annual record profits to their investors many, many years from now. Should the international price for a barrel of oil come off it’s current record highs the excess in the price you’re paying at the pump today will be recorded as pure profit for the oil product producers, not the oil producers, years from now.

I said it in the previous post and I’ll say it again. Know this: Oil product producers (not oil producers) are going to make money or they are going to make more money. Under their formula there is no risk of loss.

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Why can’t you search and browse through all prints of a certain size on art.com?

I think I know the answer: If this were possible then people would go buy a frame and then browse for prints of a certain size to fit that frame. Art.com must feel this will result in a loss in sales of their outrageously priced frames and custom framing services. They’re probably not making a ton on prints by themselves so they are banking on the revenue from the frames. Therefore I feel their website is designed specifically to detract from people browsing for prints of a specific size to fit an existing frame.

Art.com is a located locally to me right here in Raleigh. I do think they have dominated the on-line decorative print store fronts so I find any alternate answer hard to believe. There’s no way their site designers can’t find a way to query all the prints of a certain size for a return result. Instead they require you to specify an artist’s name or title of a print before you can narrow down the size of the prints you want to see.

I might just buy the new prints for my office elsewhere due to this intentional inconvenience.

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Current gas prices are not the result of supply and demand.

It’s a common mis-conception.  US refineries have near record high stocks of gasoline.  The reason for the outrageous cost at the pump these days is a result of speculation by energy traders on futures.  Put simply, the major refinery owners are selling you gas at current prices based upon what they predict it will cost them to manufacture and replace that gasoline in the future.  It’s a mechanism to insure specific levels of profitability to investors.

So what if the prediction is wrong and the price of oil once again drops below $100 a barrel?  Then the current price elevation will go toward to the now annual record “windfall” profits of the petrol industry producers.  Trust in this: Exxon and the other gasoline manufacturers are going to make money or they are going to make more money.  They’re not gambling one micro percentage point of their projected revenue stream or profit levels.

This is not an overly difficult concept to understand but it does take a little thought.  Therefore it will continue to be sold as a supply and demand driven cost increase to the consumer.  The reality is that the refineries have plenty of gas and absolutely no chance of running out any time soon.  What you’re paying at the pump is insurance.  Insurance that big oil investors are not gambling a single dime as the cost of oil increases.  For all the nay-sayers I’m providing a link to the US Engery Administration website that details, in more complex form, exactly what I have stated here:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/feature_articles/2008/spgmogas2008/spgmogas2008.html