Open Source Blogging

No, we’re not outsourcing, next Wednesday we’ll be going to China for a sizeable trip to hear from entrepreneurs and venture capitalists there and get some tours around factories. I’m telling you this so we can arrange some fun dinners and other impromptu events. It’s Rocky’s first time there, and I haven’t been to China in 10 years, so it’ll be interesting to see the differences.

November 5. Travel day.
November 6. We arrive in Shanghai in early evening.
November 7. Going to Wuxi to see Seagate’s factory and possibly others there.
November 8. Travel back from Wuxi, we’d like to … Continue Reading

At first I had ignored the new film Zack & Miri Make a Porno but once I found it the premise of the movie was that they had run out of money and were struggling to get out of debt, I had to go see it.

Here is the review that really made me curious to see it.

Smith returns to the kind of characters he introduced in his 1994 debut Clerks - sarcastic but chronically underemployed service employees. Zack (Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) have been friends since first grade, share rent on a shabby Pittsburgh house and mismanage … Continue Reading

Over the last few days, I’ve been dealing with a deep personal disappointment, one that I’d rather not discuss in public (don’t worry, it’s not relevant to The Simple Dollar - it’s wholly personal). It’s left me feeling empty and rather sad and - frankly - not very motivated to write at all. I’ll sit down, intending to write or get other tasks done, and find myself staring out the window, thinking about other things and usually feeling miserable.

This is something that a lot of people go through. A sudden death. A major fight or the … Continue Reading

Credit card lenders include Discover Financial Services LLC, Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Capital One Financial Corp., American Express Co. and HSBC Holdings have finally come together with the help of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, Consumer Federation of America and the Financial Service Roundtable to start the process of creating a debt solution, other than bankruptcy or credit counseling.

That could be potentially really good news for consumers as it starts to make some major movement towards the perfect debt assistance program I outlined before.

At the heart of … Continue Reading

This is the third in a weekly series of articles providing a chapter-by-chapter in-depth “book club” reading of Benjamin Graham’s investing classic The Intelligent Investor. Warren Buffett describes this book: “I read the first edition of this book early in 1950, when I was nineteen. I thought then that it was by far the best book about investing ever written. I still think it is.” I’m reading from the 2003 HarperBusiness Essentials paperback edition. This entry covers the third chapter, which is on pages 65 to … Continue Reading

This article from the UK sadly demonstrates how debt is debt around the world.

Debt is now the number-one problem for people in Wales, new figures from Wales’ Citizens Advice Bureaux showed yesterday.

It is the first time in the CAB’s 69-year history that mortgage debt problems have become its clients’ main concern.

Mounting fuel debt and rocketing credit card, store card and charge card debts in Wales are also revealed in the 2007/08 Citizens Advice Cymru report.

To add to the misery, CAB volunteers say there is growing anecdotal evidence that despite Government calls for lenders to offer more help to … Continue Reading

At a recent home show, we were grabbed by a debt settlement company salesperson who offered to save us at least 40 percent in our effort to get out of debt — not that we have any.

Another salesperson hawked a software program that would direct us how best to pay off debt. It works great, the salesperson testified. Upfront cost: $3,500!

Unfortunately, families experiencing financial hardship often are prime targets for outrageously expensive solutions and outright fraud. When you’re concerned about your family, it’s easy to feel desperate.

Click Here for totally free debt help, advice and answers.

Read the rest here: … Continue Reading

An Israeli archeologist has discovered what he says is the earliest-known Hebrew text, found on a shard of pottery that dates to the time of King David from the Old Testament, about 3,000 years ago.

Carbon dating of the ostracon (meaning “statement”), along with pottery analysis, dates the inscription to time of King David, about a millennium earlier than the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, the university said.

The shard contains five lines of text divided by black lines and measures 15 by 15 centimeters, or about 6 inches square.

Archeologists have yet to decipher all … Continue Reading

Average household debt in the United States is 130 percent of average household income, up 20 percent since 2005 and double what it was 20 years ago. The U.S. household savings rate is close to zero. Consumer confidence has plummeted with the value of 401(k) plans and retirement nest-eggs. Retail sales fell 1.2 percent in September, double the expected decline. Car sales are at a 15-year low. And credit card defaults look like the next shoe to drop as cash-strapped Americans have run up credit card debt to postpone the day of reckoning.

Click Here for totally free debt help, … Continue Reading

We’re taking a bus to the CES show and I needed a way to get Wifi onto the bus and people kept telling me about Autonet, which is a way to turn your car into a wifi hot spot. So today I visited the CEO, Sterling Pratz, and got a demo.

Also car related Ford lent me a Ford Flex this week with Microsoft Sync which is pretty cool. I’ll have a separate video about that on Monday.

       … Continue Reading