Here are a few articles that I liked this week:
- The Binary Dollar asks the age old question, is it better to Rent or Own. Matt mentions that owning a home is part of the “American Dream.” Makes me wonder if terminology like that is leading people to take mortgages that they can’t afford.
- Sun is a half millionaire. How he got there is a very uplifting story.
- Ben at MoneySmartLife has developed another business selling bargains that he’s found on Ebay. I had never heard of Tuesday Morning, but there’s one right down the street from me. I may stop by today.
- Jeremy at Generation X Finance finishes up his 24 Signs you Could be in Financial Trouble series.
- The Digerati Life has 5 interesting money facts. I probably would have turned down $500, $1000, $10,000, and $100,000 bills as counterfeit if I were offered them.
- Golbguru gets more than twice as much junk mail from Chase than other places. In just a few weeks they sent him 27 pieces of mail. Environmentalists should take it to Chase.
- I didn’t realize that I missed Tax Freedom Day. Thanks to Five Cent Nickel for reminding me. It’s all gravy from here on out – after rent, and car, and food… ugh.
- Mighty Bargain Hunter is thinking about getting a GPS system. I covered buying a GPS unit previously – it’s one of the better purchases I’ve made.
- Blueprint for Financial Prosperity has a Devil’s Advocate post on why Adjustable Rate Mortgages are Awesome. I wouldn’t get one or recommend one, but I know some people who did and actually did well before refinancing or moving.
- Free Money Finance asks whether it’s better to spend your career at one place or whether it’s best to switch jobs regularly. I think it depends on the career choice. As a software engineer, I think it’s looked at as a good thing if you move around to different companies. It exposes you to new technologies making you more valuable.
Do Not Mail Opt-Out Law would be fair to everyone.
The proposed recent “Do not mail” is an Opt-Out law. Only those not desiring advertising mail need opt-out. Anyone desiring advertising mail can do nothing – and continue to receive it. Why deny those wishing to avoid advertising mail the power to do so?
I do not consider handling unwanted advertising placed against my will on my personal property to be a civic obligation!
The US Supreme Court said in the Rowan case in 1970, “”In today’s [1970] complex society we are inescapably captive audiences for many purposes, but a sufficient measure of individual autonomy must survive to permit every householder to exercise control over unwanted mail. To make the householder the exclusive and final judge of what will cross his threshold undoubtedly has the effect of impeding the flow of ideas, information, and arguments that, ideally, he should receive and consider. Today’s merchandising methods, the plethora of mass mailings subsidized by low postal rates, and the growth of the sale of large mailing lists as an industry in itself have changed the mailman from a carrier of primarily private communications, as he was in a more leisurely day, and have made him an adjunct of the mass mailer who sends unsolicited and often unwanted mail into every home. It places no strain on the doctrine of judicial notice to observe that whether measured by pieces or pounds, Everyman’s mail today is made up overwhelmingly of material he did not seek from persons he does not know. And all too often it is matter he finds offensive.”
Furthermore, the Supreme Court said, “the mailer’s right to communicate is circumscribed only by an affirmative act of the addressee giving notice that he wishes no further mailings from that mailer.
To hold less would tend to license a form of trespass and would make hardly more sense than to say that a radio or television viewer may not twist the dial to cut off an offensive or boring communication and thus bar its entering his home. Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit; we see no basis for according the printed word or pictures a different or more preferred status because they are sent by mail.”
We need a nationwide “Do Not Mail” law to create a one-stop, convenient place for homeowners to give senders the aforementioned affirmative notice that we do not want certain kinds of mail sent to our homes.
Signed,
Ramsey A Fahel