Consumption Rules

From The Wall Street Journal:

2006: Iraq, energy, health care

On Iraq: “Fellow citizens, we are in this fight to win, and we are winning. The road of victory is the road that will take our troops home. As we make progress on the ground, and Iraqi forces increasingly take the lead, we should be able to further decrease our troop levels.”
[2006]

After perhaps the bloodiest year for both American troops and Iraqis since the 2003 invasion, the strategy in Iraq has shifted dramatically — as has the language used to discuss the conflict. “Stay the course” is out, while “the way forward” is in.

Support among Americans and their representatives in Congress hit lows as the country spiraled toward a sectarian civil war and kidnappings and killings made daily headlines. Just after the midterm elections, in which voter anger about the war helped Democrats retake control of the House and Senate, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was pushed out. The Iraq Study Group report, released in December, provided both a searing critique of the administration’s policies and a bleak picture of how bad the situation really is. Conceding in an address earlier this month,”Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me,” Mr. Bush acknowledged a litany of American failures and announced plans to send at least 20,000 more troops to Iraq.
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From CNN. An Example:

In July, bankrupt Northwest Airlines begins laying off thousands of ground workers, but not before issuing some of them a handy guide, “101 Ways to Save Money.”

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In anticipation of the broadcast of The Power of Choice on PBS January 29, ideachannel.tv is streaming all of the original and updated versions of Milton Friedman’s series, Free to Choose.

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Yahoo today launched a new branch of their finance website called Yahoo Personal Finance. According to the Wall Street Journal it will:
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Just ask:

About a third of credit-card users have pressed for a lower interest rate, according to a September survey by Synergistics Research Corp. More than 75% of those who asked to pay less said they got their rate reduced. “Card issuers have few choices. They either agree to lower rates or lose relationships,” says Genie Driskill, chief operating officer of the Atlanta research firm.

The steep rise in interest rates led by the Federal Reserve over the past two years has been a boon to credit-card companies and a nightmare to many consumers. The average American adult carries more than three bank credit cards, according to CardWeb.com Inc., a card-research firm in Frederick, Md. Issuers have been particularly aggressive in pushing variable-rate cards, which carry an average rate of 16.6% as of last month, up from 12.5% at the end of 2004. In 2005, 11% of U.S. cardholders at major issuers were hit with interest rates of at least 25%, the Government Accountability Office found, compared with 5% in 2003. According to the GAO report, at least half of cardholders carry a balance; the six major card issuers reported that about half of their active accounts paid no finance charges for most of 2005.

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“A dear friend of mine was drawing inquisitively upon my vast array of financial knowledge … and then I realized that he must not yet know about TeachMeFinance.com.” It’s also listed under the Useful Links page. It provides a lot of good information about basic finance and personal finance terms, topics, and calculations. Check it out.

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From their website:

WHAT IS THE IEM?

The faculty at the University of Iowa developed the IEM to be an Internet-based teaching and research tool. It allows students to invest real money ($5.00-$500.00) and to trade in a variety of contracts. You may be familiar with the best-known part of the IEM, the political markets. Here students can trade “shares” of political candidates or parties (the payoff depends on the election results). Students also have the opportunity to trade in contracts whose eventual payoff depends on a future event such as an economic indicator, a company’s quarterly earnings, a corporation’s stock price returns or a movie’s box office receipts.
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An interesting read from the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal which ran in Saturday’s paper. A few excerpts:

…When it comes to the decline of risk premiums and financial stability, securitization and the use of derivatives have both played an unsung role.

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