You see, in actuality, most things can be boiled down to simple concepts. Economics, I believe, is one of these. Sure, there are nuances and the pursuit of turning theories into mathematical concepts, but let’s not forget that Adam Smith’s master work, The Wealth Of Nations, was based on extensive observations of actual people doing actual things.

So that leads me back to the current economic situation of the United States. While President Obama stated in the Q&A tonight that he didn’t “think it’s accurate to say that consumer spending got us into this mess” in fact, it did. Consumers bought things they couldn’t afford – houses they assumed would keep appreciating, stocks they thought would get more valuable, or just plain stuff they didn’t really need. Of course, more spending means less saving. So when the economy started heading south and people started losing their jobs, too many people didn’t have an emergency fund to tide them over and help them meet their payments. This isn’t to say that there wouldn’t be an economic downturn or that nobody would be affected by a recession, but if more people in this country were savers rather than spenders, we wouldn’t have the crisis we do.

President Obama was heading in the right direction when he said, “putting zero down and buying a house that is probably not affordable for you in case something goes wrong, that’s something that has to be reconsidered. So we’re going to have to change our — our bad habits.” But our bad habits exceed beyond just stupid mortgage terms, they come from an entire economy that’s survival the government is betting comes from increasing credit and getting people spending.

It doesn’t take a genius (or an economist) to see you can’t spend your way out of debt.

• Nintendo Wii – Perfectly happy pulling out my old school PS2 once a month to play Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Offline. We just don’t game enough to justify buying another console.
• iPhone/gPhone – My Treo 650 that I’ve had for about 5 years does everything I need it to. Yes, a better mobile web browser and a faster network would be nice, but I don’t need the bills of additional hardware, monthly costs, and seemingly required application purchases to make the current generation devices usable.
• iPod/mp3 player – My Treo functions as an mp3 player, and gets used rarely. If I’m listening to music it’s usually in the car.
• mp3s & CDs – I’m odd – the musician that doesn’t listen to a lot of music. But when I do, it’s usually courtesy of the XM receiver in the car. Technically, it’s Amanda’s, but since she’s not commuting, I usually have it. The XM subscription is discretionary spending, but we find it to be a better value than purchasing music.
• DVDs – Even though I don’t have one at the moment, I found a Netflix membership to be a far better value than buying movies. Why should I pay to store movies when I can have someone else house my library for me and send me one when I want it? And we all know that we’re quickly moving towards that entire collection being available on-demand, so even the extremely-impatient-I-can’t-wait-2-days-to-see-this-movie crowd will be placated soon enough.

You won’t find me lined up outside a store at 4am the day after Thanksgiving. No deal is worth risking your life over. It’s bad enough a store employee would get knocked down as people try to get in for a bargain, but to have 2000 people walk on or over them for a good buy says to me that consumerism has gone awry – well beyond simply buying unneeded products to putting price before life. I’ll take a raincheck.

On money:
The Steinway piano she craves? “I have the space. It’s just waiting for the piano, but, you know, they’re expensive!” The SUV she desires? “They’re expensive, too!” She is still driving around in the Mustang she won on American Idol.
“But what if I don’t earn any more next year? What if something awful happens? I’m not at the point where I say, ‘OK, I’ve made enough.’ I don’t know what the limit is.”

Good for you Carrie!

Pay particular attention to 1997 onward.

via Consumerism Commentary

Adults aged 19 to 35 do not believe they earn enough to keep pace with the cost of living, according to the report by Qvisory, a nonprofit online advocacy and service organization. Forty-three percent cite the cost of gas as their top financial concern.

Now this one:

Fifty-seven percent of young adults said they only pay the minimum monthly amount on their credit cards, while 36% said they have paid a late fee on a card in the past year.

Among credit card holders, 41% are more likely to have accumulated debt in the last year, while 33% of young adults who owe money on their credit cards are over $10,000 in debt.

Listen, kids. Your problem is not the cost of gas – it’s that you have too damn much credit card debt! You’re not trying to keep pace with the cost of living, you’re trying to keep pace with the marketing industry. Not one of these kids has accumulated $10,000 in debt by paying at the pump, but I’m willing to bet they have a laptop, iPhone, iPod, Xbox, and a fine selection in designer clothing.

Fix your priorities. Your top financial concern should be your debt, not the cost of gas.

Gas

Gas prices are ever increasing and I drive a lot. I’m projecting putting about 20,000 miles this year on my car, and Amanda’s will probably see 8-10,000. How to ease the pain at the pump? A gas station credit card. Now, I’ve always charged my gas, usually to my Discover card which generally gets me 1% cash back. However, I’m in a unique situation where I almost always go to Sunoco to get gas for my WRX, since it will take 91 octane, and Sunoco is generally the only place around that carries it. Putting in anything higher than what the manufacturer recommends is a waste of money. I realized that instead of getting the measly 1% back on my Discover card, if I signed up for a Sunoco card I could bump that up to 4%. I’m not one to sign up for every credit card that comes along, but there was a real benefit to having this card. Starting in July, Discover offers 5% back on gas purchases, so I’ll switch back to using that card for a couple of months to maximize the rewards.

Maternity Clothes

The reason I love my Discover card so much is that whatever Cashback bonus awards I get from using it can generally net me more savings if I turn them into gift cards for various retailers. Frequently, you can cash in $20 to get a $25 card, for example. The terms vary by store. In the past, we’ve used them for Bed Bath and Beyond, Sunglass Hut, and Omaha Steaks. But what has really been a big help lately has been redeeming them for Motherhood Maternity. We cashed in $80 in rewards to get $100 in gifts cards when Amanda had finally ran out of things that fit her, and she got to go on a mini shopping spree. This eases some of the mental pain as well of spending money on clothes that you know are going to have a short usefulness to them. Today, a flyer came in the mail reminding us that Motherhood is moving out of the Galleria and down the street to a new Destination Maternity supercenter store, so another $50 card is on the way.

If you can use credit cards responsibly, there’s lots of ways to maximize their benefits. Just don’t succumb to “debt disease“.

On the heels of his plan to freeze interest rates on subprime mortgages for responsible homeowners who simply needed a helping hand, President Bush announced today he is ready to shift his attention to assisting the “stupid, irresponsible homeowners who knowingly bought houses they couldn’t possibly afford at variable interest rates only a slow-witted monkey would accept.”

If put into law, the plan, tentatively titled Operation: I’m With Stupid, would assign a government agent to every homeowner who fits the above criteria. The agent would assist the homeowner with cutting their food, walking their children to school, dressing them for work each day and other remedial tasks that are likely too much for the homeowner to handle alone.

“These people obviously need our help in areas beyond their ridiculous home mortgages,” Bush told reporters.

“How are they getting to work each day? Are they driving themselves? That’s a scary thought. And who buys their groceries? Who helps them calculate tips at restaurants? Who stops them from running around in open fields with aluminum baseball bats in the middle of lightning storms?”

Read the rest…

A capital improvement is an addition or alteration to real property that:

• substantially adds to the value of the real property, or appreciably prolongs the useful life of the real property;
• becomes part of the real property or is permanently affixed to the real property so that removal would cause material damage to the property or article itself; and
• is intended to become a permanent installation.

Our new house was only wired for an electric dryer and stove, and since our appliances were gas, I had Strykersville Hardware come out to install some new gas lines. While the dryer was easy, the stove was a bit trickier, as running the line involved drilling it under some cabinets. Regardless, they were able to install both lines, shutoff valves, and hook the appliances up to them.

I was surprised when I received the invoice to see that 8.75% sales tax was added on to the entire bill, material and labor both. I called Strykersville Hardware to ask why, and the response I got was that gas pipes were not considered a capital improvement. I might have believed the woman I spoke with, had I not had the same work done at our previous house, where I didn’t pay tax on it. I decided to investigate further, so I went on the NYS Dept of Taxation website and found the document (Publication 862) which said that “additions to piping systems” were considered a capital improvement. So I called Strykersville Hardware back and said that and she said, “Well that’s not how it was explained to me, but if you want to sign the [Certificate of Capital Improvement] form saying it was, then that removes our liability and then you’ll have to deal with it if you get audited.” I told her that was fine with me, since it’s $35 in tax on a $400 bill, and I was pretty confident in my interpretation of the code. But I decided to be really, really sure, and called the Department of Taxation to ask them directly. The person I talked to wasn’t quite sure at first, since the second bullet point above about removing of the pipe may not permanently damage the property. He said that there’s usually no question about water piping, but I pointed out to him that Publication 862 doesn’t distinguish between water and gas piping, it only refers to “Plumbing – piping”. He put me on hold for a minute, and when he returned said, “Yes, if it’s a new piping addition it would be considered a capital improvement.”

We all know that there are a lot of grey areas when it comes to tax codes, but it’s important as a homeowner to be aware of what is and isn’t taxable. Sometimes, even the professionals get it wrong. I have no desire to pay any more taxes than I have to, and I’m sure you don’t either, so be sure to take a second look at that bill the next time you have work done on your house.

I was lucky enough that I was able to save a lot of money at the start of my career, which I used to pay off one of my loans right away. My other loan has just been getting diminshed payment by payment for the last eight years, until now when the amount was down to an amount where the stock sale and a bit of savings could bring the payments to an end. I feel pretty fortunate that I was able to pay off all my college loans within a decade of graduating.

The next step in our financial goals will be to build our savings back up to have three full months of expenses, and then pay off Amanda’s school loan. That will leave us with a 0% APR loan for furniture we bought this year, two car loans, one of which will be payed off on schedule in 2008, and our mortgage, which has another 29 and 3/4 years to go.

Check out the site for cards four and five, and for the detailed explanation of all the concepts.

Not surprisingly, in my research I uncovered many bloggers that focus on trying to achieve a debt-free lifestyle, such as Becoming & Staying Debt Free. Different bloggers tend to have differing willpowers towards achieving those goals, ranging from just swearing off credit cards, to living on tunafish and ramen noodles so every dollar possible can be applied towards debt.

Amanda will certainly attest to the fact that I’m a saver more than a spender, but I’m not object to making big purchases when it’s well thought out and planned ahead of time. As with many young, middle-class families, we have a considerable amount of debt in the form of a mortgage, school loans, and car loans. But, what I also uncovered in my surfing through debt blogs is that most of the people who are focusing on debt reduction have a considerable negative net worth, which we do not. This, to me, makes a good starting point for determining how heavily you need to focus on debt reduction.

Determining Net Worth

For all my ultra-liberal friends out there, let me preface this by stating this is only your financial net worth, not your value as a human being. Anyways, this process is relatively simple. Add up the value of all your assets – savings accounts, investments, bonds, 401k plans, IRAs, and the value of your home. The last one may be tricky since a home’s value can change over time, but you want to use the amount that you could realistically sell your house for. Now that you have your total assets, you need to determine your total debt. That includes the outstanding balance of your mortgage, school loans, car loans, personal loans, and of course credit card balances. You may have additional items in each of these categories that I didn’t list, so be sure those get included as well. Now for the big number – subtract your total debt from your total assets and you have your net worth.

If your net worth is positive by a significant amount, let’s say at least the amount of your yearly gross income, you’re probably in good shape. Statistically speaking, the median net worth of the American family in 2004 was $93,100. That number, of course, doesn’t apply well to individual financial situations, so I like to use the yearly gross income as a better guideline. If your net worth is between that and $0, you’re not too bad off, but as long as you have an emergency fund established, put any extra income towards paying off debt that can be relatively easily eliminated, such as credit cards, before dumping the money into a savings account. If your net worth is in the negative range, you’re going to have to really focus on eliminating your debt, because it’s going to eat away at any amount of savings you may have stashed away.

Derek’s Turning Debt Into Non-Debt Plan®

Disclaimer: I’m not a financial planner, nor do I have a degree in finance, results are not guaranteed, check with your doctor before starting. These tips are a combination of my own research, thoughts, and personal experiences, which you may or may not be comfortable with applying to your own situation. That’s fine, I take no offense. Personal finances are exactly that – personal. Each person has differing feelings towards how much debt they’re comfortable with carrying, so one size certainly won’t fit all. That being said, these guidelines generally apply to everyone, regardless of their net worth situation. They’ve certainly helped me successfully manage my finances, and I hope they can help you.

1. Pay off high-interest credit card debt. Credit cards are not inherently evil, even though many debt-free advocates profess getting rid of them all. What is evil are the interest rates they carry. People are attracted to low introductory rates, initial purchase discounts, or other perks for opening new cards, and all of those can certainly be used to your advantage IF you don’t carry a balance on the card. Don’t believe what you hear about keeping the credit card companies happy with carrying just a little balance from month to month, it’s unnecessary. I’ve been using credit cards as my primary method of payment for just about everything for over 10 years, always pay in full every month, and I’ve never had a company drop me. The golden rule of credit card usage is never use it to buy something that you can’t pay cash for. If you’re carrying debt on credit cards, and the APR isn’t 0.0%, this needs to be the debt you focus on eliminating first.
2. Fund your retirement account. I know this doesn’t seem like it has much to do with eliminating debt, but it’s a matter of priority. You need money for retirement, and that money needs time to compound, so the earlier you start saving, the better. If your employer offers a 401k plan, you need to fund it to the point that gets you the maximum employer-matched funds. Otherwise, not only are you not saving, you’re throwing away free money. If your employer doesn’t offer a 401k plan, you can invest in an IRA instead.
3. Build your emergency fund. Sometimes the best offense is a good defense. It’s hard to feel like you’re making any progress eliminating debt if every time something out of the ordinary comes up, you’re adding to your debt balance. Most financial planners will tell you that you want 3-6 months worth of expenses in your emergency fund, which not only helps with that unexpected car repair, but also gives you a solid cushion should you lose your job. I lean a bit more conservatively with this item, choosing to have 6 months in monthly income saved, rather than expenses. For people in that negative net worth column, your focus is going to need to be on debt elimination rather than building savings. The 3-6 month guideline is probably out of reach for you, but you should still build a small cushion so that you’re not continually adding to your debt baseline.
4. Eliminate “unnecessary” loans. I put three types of loans into this category: personal loans, school loans, and home equity loans/lines of credit. These loans were probably seemed necessary when you took them out, but they’re the type of debt that once eliminated won’t keep coming back. They’re also the type of loans that aren’t backed by something tangible, like your mortgage or your car. Home equity is a bit tricky, because it is backed by your home, but unless you’re using it to fund actual home improvements that will “guarantee” a return if you sell your house today, you’re essentially “betting the house” with your purchases and could end up owing more than your house is worth between the home equity loan and your mortgage. That being said, home equity is a better way to fund emergency purchases than with credit cards, because the fact it’s secured by your house means you’ll get a much better long term interest rate. You can also transfer high interest credit card debt to a lower interest home equity line of credit so save you some money in the long run, provided you focus on paying it off. Personal loans and school loans are backed by intangible assets, faith and presumed knowledge, and once you’ve taken care of the high interest debt, eliminating these loans will free up your cash flow and reduce that compounding interest that keeps you in debt longer.
5. Pay off car loans. If you’re eliminated all your other debt and gotten to this point, you’re in pretty good shape. If you have car loans and you’ve fully funded your emergency account, why not get rid of these loans too? This is where it begins to make sense to look at interest rates. If you’re getting 5% in a savings account and paying 4.9% on a new car loan, you’re losing money, not gaining. Inflation will eat away that margin difference. You’ll be better off shifting your savings towards paying off the loan early, then putting the extra income into your savings account. This is also important if you purchased a new car with a low down payment, as you can end up “upside down” on your car loan, meaning the car is worth less than you owe on it. Hop over to Kelley Blue Book and punch in your car to see the current value. If it’s less than what you owe on it, make this a priority.
6. Make extra mortgage payments. If you’re fortunate enough to have eliminated all your other debt and all that’s left is your mortgage, there’s no reason you need to keep making that same payment for 30 years. Can you afford to make an extra payment each year? You’ll cut at least 5 years off your mortgage. Since the IRS still lets you deduct mortgage interest, you’ll get a tax advantage too. If you’re a really, really focused person, have considerable free income, and are willing to eat a lot of rice and beans, it is possible to pay off that mortgage in 5-7 years like Cummuta says. It’s probably not the lifestyle that most of us want to live, though.

That’s the plan that I follow. Amanda and I are currently in step 4, and just this week we paid off a home equity line of credit that we used to reside our house two years ago. Taking a conservative approach, I built up our emergency fund to six months of income. Once it crossed that amount, I shifted a chunk of our savings to completely pay off the HELOC. That knocks us back into the 5-6 months of income savings range, which is still fine, and well within my personal tolerances. Many of the debt-free people would say that I should more aggressively focus on paying off our remaining school debt now, but we’re planning on taking a bigger vacation next year, and I want that to be savings-financed, not debt-financed. This planning is made a lot easier by my budget spreadsheet, where I can easily see how shifting funds around will affect my emergency savings.

It is possible to be debt-free. It’s also possible to get there without making your life a living hell. The first step is understanding your situation and coming up with a plan to get there. I hope this helped.

Unfortunately, 2006 became more of the year of straightening out my portfolio and get it into a more informed selection of stocks. In the end, I had a net loss of… $3. Which isn’t bad, considering that going into it I was sitting on some real losers (BUD, NTMD) and needed to make that back in the process of rearranging the furniture. I consider it a pretty cheap real world class in investing.

So, here we are in 2007, and I’m reinstating my goal to actually make some money this year. So, to start off that goal symbolically and practically, I made my first sale – Yamana Gold (AUY). Purchased 8/11/06 @ $10.40, Sold 1/8/07 @ $11.60. That’s a gain of 11.5% in 5 months. Good luck finding a CD with that rate! I sold Yamana after watching it begin a downward slide last week. I did give back quite a bit of the gains I had already made, but the gold market seems to be particularly unstable at the moment, and I’ve been looking to sell a couple of positions to free up some cash for future acquisitions. We’re nearing the point in the economic cycle where Jim Cramer says to sell gold as well. There’s a great chart in Real Money showing this, and I’m told an updated one in his newest book. I like Cramer’s methodology and presentation. He’s one of the reasons I started paying attention to my stock portfolio again. Next time, Jim, just try not to be bullish on Yamana on Wednesday, and bearish on Friday after it gave up a lot.

Anyways… I’m considering sharing the rest of my portfolio so people can follow along at home. I know a couple of you find my financial posts interesting, and I’d really like to get some feedback from other investors out there as well. Drop a comment if you think you’d find this worthwhile!

States are recognizing that financial literacy is an important “skill for the 21st century,” says Joseph Peri of NCEE. “We don’t wait until college to teach students how to read. Why would we send them into college without teaching them these important money-management skills?”

The movement toward personal-finance education comes at a time when the financial world has gotten more complex, with college costs skyrocketing, credit card fees rising and exotic mortgage products proliferating. Young adults, for the most part, are as confused as ever about money matters.

High school students failed a 2006 quiz from the JumpStart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy, correctly answering an average of only 52.4% of questions about credit cards, insurance, retirement and savings. This is well below high school students’ average 57.3% score in JumpStart’s 1997 poll, but up from a 50.2% low in 2002.

Personal finance is an essential skill that all high school graduates need to know. Many may go through the rest of their lives never having to recall European history or quote Shakespeare, but very few will be able to function without ever needing to use a checking account, credit card, or take out a loan. The national individual savings rate has dipped into negative territory, making it quite apparent that our citizens need a better financial education. That needs to start in high school, where teenagers are being targeted more and more by retailers to spend, spend, spend, and then are shuffled right off to college where they accumulate one of the largest debts of their lives. They should be given the knowledge about how to deal with that before they’re stuck in the middle of it.

The home purchase didn’t come around until the end of 2002, so I had close to three years worth of expense tracking at that point. It made a huge difference when Amanda and I were looking at houses, because even though we were pre-approved for a mortgage, comparing monthly payment for the maximum mortgage amount against our free cash flow instantly sent up red flags. We would never have been able to afford that much house.

I’m very conservative when it comes to managing my money, and my budgeting practices may seem over-the-top for many people. I keep track of every single purchase, to the penny. Every bill paid is entered. At the end of the year, I compare what I thought we would spend at the beginning of the year to what we actually spent, and then make adjustments for the next year. Sometimes the data surprises you. This year, we spent about $50/month more on groceries than I planned, but about $30/month less on the pets. Gasoline purchases were $20/month higher than I estimated. Since projects around the house are finally dwindling and I’ve purchased most of the tools I need over the past three years, I can cut my home improvement budget line significantly for next year. No more I-190 tolls means a big cut in that line item too.

My budget spreadsheet has grown to include 14 separate worksheets, which I use to keep track of not only our expenses and income, but each of our 401k plans, mileage driven for the CTRC (tax deductible!), and an overall view of all our assets and debt. I created a dashboard sheet that shows me my current monthly average spend and projects that over the course of the year. I look at and update it a couple of times a week. While it certainly takes a bit of effort to keep that close of an eye on things, it lets Amanda and I know without a doubt what our financial situation is at any given moment. It helps us plan for larger purchases and vacations. It lets us know if we’re getting carried away with unnecessary purchases that might cause problems down the line.

If you don’t have your own personal budget, I strongly recommend spending some time putting one together. What you find out from keeping track of your expenses might surprise you.

Earlier this year, the New York Stock Exchange became a for-profit corporation and became a public company trading on the market itself. They’ve been moving away from the old-school human trading towards a computerized exchange, reducing overhead along the way. They’re looking at joining up with overseas exchanges. They’re making Mad Money.

Ten days ago, based on a Jim Cramer recommendation, I bought some NYX. Now it’s up over 25% as the short-sellers are finally starting to realize that this ain’t Grasso’s NYSE anymore and are getting squeezed. Spitzer helped make that happen. Cramer says NYX is heading to $250. I’ll ride that train! BOOYAH!

Anyways… Verizon stockholders weren’t too pleased when Verizon disclosed just how much they were spending on building their nationwide fiber optic network – a whopping $22.9 Billion. While the number is staggering, if you step back and take a look at it, it doesn’t look that bad in the bigger picture. They plan on saving $4.9 billion through 2010 by not having to repair aging copper lines. The more important number is that they expect FiOS will become profitable by 2009. That may sound like a long way off, but once completed, Verizon will have the most advanced physical terrestrial network in the country. They’ll be able to offer voice/data/TV all through their single pipe, and with bandwidth being essentially unlimited, they’ll be able to provide pretty much any service they can dream up. Talk about competitive advantage. Satellite TV won’t be able to compete. Cable TV won’t have the bandwidth to offer everything they can’t. The best alternative bet is on wireless companies to provide high speed data services, but until I actually get a cell phone that is crystal clear and never cuts out when I walk through different rooms of my house, I’m not going to bet on that technology.

AT&T is trying the cheapout approach by running fiber only to a locality, and then relying on their existing copper lines to connect to the homes. It’s a patchwork system that will never work long term, and they’ll end up wasting a lot of money to only go full FTTP later on. Maybe they figure that at that point it will be cheaper to run fiber, but they may have lost too much market share by that point to catch up. Somewhere at AT&T, there’s a guy who’s just waiting to say, “I told you so!”

So come on, Verizon. I’m itching to try this out. I’m really itching to have enough bandwidth to switch to a VoIP phone service and save myself like $25/month too. I’ll be your biggest cheerleader. Hook me up!

Many people believed that the oil prices had risen too high, too fast. Many Democrats believed that they should investigate oil companies and sue their asses, or institute “windfall profit” taxes, or other such nonsense. But what happened in the end? The threats have subsided enough that the market price has fallen back down to levels that are appropriate for today. The next hurricane that heads towards the gulf, or the next pipeline shutdown, or the next time Iran utters the words “nuclear program” will send it right back up.

But BuffaloPundit thinks he has this one all figured out.

Let’s see.

It’s September.

November general election is what, 6 weeks away?

Gas prices have been screwing people for quite some time – since before Katrina they’ve hovered at or near $3.00/gallon. That plus the intractable Iraq war has put loads of Republican power hungry, lobbyist-ass-kissing, pork-issuers congressmen in danger of losing their seats.

Miracle of miracles, gas prices are falling faster than Joel Giambra’s chances at political revival.

How conveeeeeenient.

I like Alan, and I respect his views on a lot of things, but this might just be the most ludicrous statement I’ve ever seen him make. To put it in terms that even every liberal would understand… that’s giving the Republicans WAY WAY WAY too much credit. I mean, if Republicans had that kind of power, wouldn’t they have just kept dropping oil prices all throughout the war to justify our being in Iraq? If Republicans were responsible for the price of gas dropping, they’d be shouting that fact from every media outlet, all day, every day. They’d probably launch Fox News 2 just for that purpose.

Alas, the Republicans have no more control over the price of gasoline than the Democrats have over enforcing a “living wage”. It’s all supply and demand.

I got a couple Buca di Beppo gift cards right before Buca closed, and have been stuck with them ever since. So I decided to throw them up on this site. The website lets you select your preferred merchants to help match people in trades. Then, you can use their Wishlist Search to find out who is looking for your cards.

Again, the concept is great. So far, though, I’ve been unable in finding someone to trade for my Buca cards. There may be an art to this somehow, because a couple of trades I’ve proposed have been turned down. Some people definitely appear to be “professional” card traders, and I have yet to figure out exactly how they’re making money off the deal.

Anyways… if you’re in a similar predicament, check out CardAvenue.com. Especially if you need a couple of Buca di Beppo gift cards.

The Google Blog Search just plugs right into the Google Finance page. I think that’s a pretty useful tool… especially for small to midsized publically traded companies. What easier way to keep an eye on who is saying what about your company?

I wonder if every individual will someday have their own page on, say, Google Person. Complete convergence! You could read your Gmail, shout out to your peeps with your Google Talk WiFi phone, which will show you who’s nearby because GPS tracking will be able to overlay your location on Google Earth. Since you’ve got a hack on your GooglePhone to Google Alert you to where the nearest Google RepoMan is, you quickly pay your broadband bill with Google GlobalCurrency (think… Euro on a global scale).

Now if you could just figure out how to tweak the new Google DreamAds from inserting a Parrot Bay(tm) Pina Colada into your hand while you’re snoozing and thinking of basking in the sun in on a tropical beach. It should be clear from your Google Person page that you prefer Bahama Mamas. Damn sponsored ads. Oh well. At least another GoogleCent just dropped itself into your GoogleBank account.

Nighthawk Radiology is a global teleradiology company that IPO’d earlier this year. The company allows hospitals to not have to pay for a radiologist to be on call or available 24 hours a day. Someone in the local hospital sticks you in the appropriate machine (MRI, for example) and runs the sequence of tests. Then, they send the scan overseas where a Nighthawk radiologist reads it and sends back their diagnosis. The hospital only has to pay for each scan they actually need, and their on-staff radiologist gets some sleep in the middle of the night and isn’t so cranky the next day.

Now, the financials. Back up to July 26th. Nighthawk reported record revenue. Great quarter. Stock shoots up over $2, hitting $20. Then, on August 1st, NHWK announces that their Chief Accounting Officer is leaving to pursue other options. Shouldn’t be that big a deal, it’s not the biggest job in the company, but because people are so afraid of anything that looks like it might possibly be bad news, the stock drops to $17 within a few days. Ok, fine. Some investors have weak stomachs and run from any news. Fast forward to today. People are happy with the Producer Price Index news, the DOW end up over 100. Does Nighthawk revel in this? No. Why? Because their recently departed CAO announced that he got a new job as a CFO. Stock drops almost 10%, closing at $16.05. Say what? We already knew the guy left! The press release said he was leaving to pursue other career options! Why should the stock take another hit because he wasn’t lying and in fact actually did get another job – a promotion nonetheless?

Of course, this is a short term issue and I can tolerate the day-to-day risk of investing in some of these smaller cap stocks, but while many see the market as trying to move back into bull mode, events like today’s action on NHWK make me think that we’re not out of the woods just yet. The horses are still getting easily spooked.