Consumption Rules

For those interested in investing but without much cash to begin with or much knowledge of what to do, Richard Jenkins of MSN Money has an interesting strategy that can help you keep your portfolio well diversified with relatively low transaction costs. The idea surrounds an account from an investment company called ShareBuilder which has no minimum balance requirements, no inactivity fees, and only costs $4 for every trade you make. The gist of the strategy goes something like this:

After opening an account, put your first $100 in a broadly diversified ETF that represents the entire stock market, such as the Vanguard Total Stock Market VIPER. Every month after that, continue investing as much as you can. Put 100% of each month’s contribution into one of the following ETFs, each of which invests broadly in one of five major asset classes:

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For anyone interested in investing in mutual funds, or any of their variations, I would suggest visiting the Investment Company Institute’s website. The Investment Company Institute (ICI) describes themself as such:

The Investment Company Institute (ICI) is the national association of U.S. investment companies. Founded in 1940, its membership as of June 1, 2006 included 8,698 mutual funds, 656 closed-end funds, 166 exchange-traded funds, and five sponsors of unit investment trusts. Its mutual fund members serve 89.5 million individual shareholders and manage $9.378 trillion in investor assets. Membership in ICI is available to any SEC-registered investment company (open-end or closed-end), its investment adviser, and its underwriter.

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The following breakdown was provided by my University’s newspaper of how much is pocketed by each beneficiary when we purchase our textbooks:

(source: The Daily Universe)

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I would recommend The Richest Man in Babylon, by George S. Clason, to anyone who wants a good book about the principles of personal finance. It doesn’t flash any promises of high wealth, or fancy cars or anything, it just presents the basic principles in an easy-to-read story. While you’re reading it, it seems like the concepts are pretty common sense and obvious. It’s like putting down on paper what you already knew but had never really realized or tried.

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We’ve talked before about a website called gethuman.com, started by Paul English, that maintains a list of companies’ customer service numbers and ways to circumvent their automated menus. Now someone just needs to come up with ways to circumvent terrible customer service from the actual customer service representatives themselves:

The run-around, now common to the customer service experience, has apparently reached a new apex. CNBC recently covered a story about a man who tried to cancel his AOL account. The representative really took things to a new level in all but refusing to cancel the account, telling the customer what he does and doesn’t do and even asking to talk to his father (the customer is 30 years old).

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The New York Times reported that many Ivy league females’ career path includes the desire to be a stay-at-home mom. I think the feminist movement has distorted reality by making sane women think that they are a minority. What a blow to the feminist movement and how enigmatic to today’s senseless feminist! How could a feminist possibly understand why an Ivy league girl with an advanced degree would ever want to be a housewife.   http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=30154

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Dear ______________:

Thank you for contacting me to express your support for a proposed
Constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one
woman. I appreciate hearing from you.

Senator Wayne Allard (R-CO) introduced the Marriage Protection Amendment (S.J. Res. 1) on January 25, 2005. On May 18, 2006, the Senate Judiciary Committee favorably reported S.J.Res. 1 to the full Senate on a party line vote, 10 - 8. Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist (R-TN), has scheduled
consideration of this legislation for the first week of June.

I personally believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman.
As a Nevada voter, I supported the Question 2 ballot initiative that
established this principle in Nevada law. As a member of Congress, I
supported the federal Defense of Marriage Act of 1996, which defines
marriage for purposes of federal programs as the union of a man and a
woman and which ensures that no state is required to recognize a same-sex
marriage from another state.

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From http://70.168.46.200:

At the request of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the US Army Foreign Military Studies Office has created this portal to provide the general public with access to unclassified documents and media captured during Operation Iraqi Freedom. The US Government has made no determination regarding the authenticity of the documents, validity or factual accuracy of the information contained therein, or the quality of any translations, when available. The ODNI press release and public affairs contact information is available at http://www.odni.gov

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