Posted by Bill McGonigle
Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:44:00 GMT
Dear Mr. Hodes,
I'm writing to describe a problem the federal government is causing in the current economic environment, and to offer a suggested solution.
As you know, due to tough economic times, many are un- or under-employed, even if they've had very good jobs in the past. Those who fall into this category are likely to have amassed substantial 401(k), 403(b), or IRA savings. However, making a withdrawal against these savings can incur a 40% tax hit, that is, a penalty paid to the federal government for accessing one's money.
Taking this kind of money from people who are struggling to meet monthly bills, keep their houses, and even buy food is immoral. What's worse is it's putting an additional burden on social welfare programs for people who otherwise would not need to partake. This causes a further hit to local, federal, and state budgets. The money to avoid these problems exists, but is inaccessible by federal regulation.
I'd like to see you introduce legislation that would allow individuals in this kind of situation to withdraw a portion of their retirement savings each year without penalty. By setting limits (e.g. taxable income under 2x the federal poverty limit, $20,000 per year maximum, etc.) abuse can be avoided.
Thank you for your consideration of this pressing matter.
Posted by Bill McGonigle
Tue, 02 Jun 2009 05:40:00 GMT
If I were going to start a car dealership here in the wilds of New Hampshire it would be called "The 4-Wheel Warehouse". OK, so I'd actually spend some time thinking up a less terrible name, but I'd just sell four-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive vehicles. I won't buy anything else living here, so why would I sell anything else?
Well, with the current model, that means I'd pretty much have to be a Subaru dealer because nobody else makes a full line of AWD vehicles. Subaru's are great, don't get me wrong, but not everybody wants a Subaru.
The only way this would make sense to me would be for me to carry an Impreza, an Outback, and a Forester. I don't imagine many WRX's sell up here, and nobody likes the Tribecca. But Mercedes also makes some good 4Matic vehicles, and Lexus makes an AWD sedan now, as well as their SUV. Honda still makes a Minivan, and Toyota has the Matrix. Honda also has the Element, which is also cheap and quirky. Maybe I don't care for the RAV-4 or the CRV or the 4-Runner. But I definitely want to carry the Tundra, but the Ridgeline I don't think has great market appeal.
What am I doing here? I'm thinking like any normal retail business owner, choosing to sell the products that make sense in my market. Creating a place of commerce where customers can find, review, and compare the products they're interested in. What do I have to do now if I'm interested in getting an all-wheel vehicle? Drive all over creation and spend days test driving, talking to salesmen who know even less about the competition than I do walking in, and perhaps their own products. There's no value-add there, and my dream car dealership would create great value in a largely undifferentiated market. Every salesguy would know alot about car traction and be able to help people pick the right car for them. I think I could even command a market premium for the service.
Pick just about any other store that's not "an X dealer" and that's how they work. I can walk to the tool aisle of Home Depot and compare a DeWalt to a Milwaukee to a Bosch, and yes, even a Rigid. It's true Home Depot doesn't handle tool repair, but every corner garage manages to repair all kinds of cars, so it doesn't seem plausible that a dedicated dealer would have any trouble at all, unless the manufacturers purposely impede.
But the current model makes selling cars the way my market would prefer impossible, or next to it. Maybe there are too many car dealers out there, but perhaps our countryside is just littered with inefficient, irrelevant car dealerships that are relics of a time gone by. Instead of bemoaning the loss in quantity, perhaps it's time to start addressing quality.
Posted by Bill McGonigle
Fri, 22 May 2009 22:11:00 GMT
A comment I left on Bob Cringely's WAAS Up article:
Whenever I’ve been interviewed for a newspaper, words and facts have been twisted and/or just gotten wrong. Whenever I read a popular press article in an area where I have in-depth knowledge, it’s wrong, at least in the details.
So, I just assume that’s true all the time and go to specialists for real news reporting. I haven’t checked, but I’d assume a place like Jane’s would have a good article on this GPS thing.
How about this business model: be a journalist who’s a bona-fide expert on GPS. Write completely accurate, insightful, and helpful news articles on GPS happenings. Charge alot for them.
The last part is the trick of course. But how many GPS journalists does the world need? No more than a handful. With the Internet it should be possible to greatly reduce the number of generalist journalists and start making ‘newspapers’ much better with experts. There’s probably too much inertia at established papers but a disruptive model seems possible.
It’s not ‘mere blog aggregation’ because most bloggers aren’t writing in the form or quality required, but some scheme with writers, aggregators, and integrators could get it done. I don’t see the value in local newspapers doing anything but inserting their local stories into layout and selling ads these days - find an integrator that matches your editorial values and outsource it.
Posted by Bill McGonigle
Wed, 21 Jan 2009 19:46:00 GMT
Tim Geithner has to acknowledge one of four possibilities:
The tax code is too complex for a treasury secretary to comprehend
This particular treasury secretary can't understand the tax code
This particular treasury secretary doesn't pay attention to details when it comes to accounting
This particular treasury secretary did understand the tax code and defied it
In an era where nobody alive understands the whole tax code and calling the IRS will get a taxpayer seemingly random answers to questions, let's hope Tim goes for Door #1 and uses his unique position to disassemble a legal monstrosity that makes every American a criminal.
Tim may have painted himself into this corner, but he can parlay that embarrassment into heralded accomplishment.
Posted by Bill McGonigle
Tue, 06 Jan 2009 06:21:00 GMT
This is a great chart that illustrates in a simple manner why the US economy is having such problems:
In terms of the Dollar, decoupled from real assets, we had a market boom in the 2000's. But if you figure out what that Dollar actually buys, in terms of real commodities, not traders on Wall Street, we see that the Dollar has been in decline since 1999, and has lost nearly 75% of its value over that period.
Washington's solution to the problem? Weaken the Dollar further with inflationary spending. The obvious way to buck the trend is to switch holdings from Dollars to the commodities that are 'gaining value'.
Posted by Bill McGonigle
Tue, 23 Dec 2008 04:15:00 GMT
I've been confused for a while about what the Fed is up to. Their usual cycle is to contract the money supply to cause economic downturns:
"The Federal Reserve definitely caused the Great Depression by contracting the amount of currency in circulation by one-third from 1929 to 1933." - Milton Friedman
"However, this time around the Fed is lowering interest rates to stimulate borrowing, right?" This is the kind of muddy thinking that let me to confusion for the past couple months.
Of course not! Our economic problem today is the unwillingness of the banks to lend money, not that there is a lack of people who want to borrow it. The rationale is that due to the housing-bubble collapse the loans are riskier today than they've been in a long time. So, what convinces a lender to lend to risky borrowers? High interest rates. What is the Fed doing? Lowering interest rates.
The perfect cover for not lending money, and contracting the money supply.
At the same time, those banks are cashing out as many US Dollars are they can get their hands on from Washington, while the exchange rates still have some value. Once the 'bailout' is done, we can expect the government to start monetizing the debt (it can't borrow that much) and the exchange rates will rationally go through the roof. This is the same game that was played in 1934 when the US was selling all its gold for ~$20/oz before confiscating all the citizens' gold and raising the price to $35.
This time around, the instruments are slightly different but the game hasn't really changed much. The last play ended at Bretton Woods, with the US Dollar as the world reserve currency. Who will win this time? The Euro? The Yuan? Something new? Picking the right horse in this race is likely to pay off well for the winner.
Posted by Bill McGonigle
Fri, 19 Dec 2008 06:07:00 GMT
For those who appreciated VerizonMath allow me to follow-up with a more modest 'Famous Gift Catalog Math':
Note 1: this isn't wrapping right - turn off page style for this article. View...Page Style...No Style in Firefox.
Note 2: this was top-quoted, the quote levels will look odd.
> >>> -------------
> >>>> On Wednesday, November 19, 2008 1:43:00 AM, bill-
> >>>> h********.com@mcgonigle.us wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Question: Re Item 73425 the personalized throw I wanted to
> >>>> verify the
> >>>> dimensions. One part of the description says 300 square inches
> >>>> one part says
> >>>> 50 x 60. I assume its just a typo and should be 3000 square
> >>>> inches but wanted
> >>>> to verify its not smaller than I expected. Also once I get the
> >>>> kit whats the
> >>>> lead time on prodution?
> >>>> Thanks
> >>>> Bill
> >>>> Date of Order: mm/dd/yy
> >>>> Order Number:
> >>>> Item Number:
> >>>> Product Name:
> >>>> How to Contact: email
>>>> Name Bill McGonigle
>>> Email: bill-h********.com@mcgonigle.us
>>
>> Email For Promotions:
> >> On Nov 19, 2008, at 15:25, customerservice@h********.com wrote:
> >>
> >>> Dear Bill McGonigle:
> >>> Thank you for your inquiry regarding item 73425. I see that the
> >>> throw is 300 square feet or 50 inches wide by 60 inches high. Also,
> >>> once you recieve the packet and send it out to the manufacture it
> >>> takes approximately 4-6 weeks for you to receive the finished
> >>> product. If you require further assistance feel free to contact us.
> >>> Thank you!
> >>>
> >>> Best regards,
> >>> R***** *****
> >>> Voice: 1-800-233-**** (8am-mid EST, 7 days a week)
> >>>
> > -------------
> >> On Wednesday, November 19, 2008 3:47:00 PM, bill@mcgonigle.us wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi, R*****,
> >>
> >> Thanks for the reply. The throw can't be 300 square feet, that's a
> >> third the size of my house. Is it actually 300 square inches or is
> >> it 3000 square inches, or some other area?
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >> -Bill
> >>
> On Nov 19, 2008, at 19:51, customerservice@h********.com wrote:
>
> > Dear Bill,
> > Thanks for the inquiry. The throw is 300 square inches, or 50" by
> > 60". Sorry about any inconvenience this causes. If you require
> > further assistance please contact us. Thank you!
> >
> > Best regards,
> > R***** *****
> > Voice: 1-800-233-**** (8am-mid EST, 7 days a week)
> >
-------------
> On Thursday, November 20, 2008 3:17:00 PM, bill@mcgonigle.us wrote:
>
> Hi, R*****,
>
> Yes, this is what the catalog says but it's clearly wrong. In terms
> of arithmetic, 50 times 60 is 3000, not 300. I'm questioning whether
> the catalog error is in terms of area or dimension.
>
> Thanks,
> -Bill
>
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Re: H******** S******** Contact Us Form Responses (********)
Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:26:15 -0500
From: customerservice@h********.com
To: bill@mcgonigle.us
Dear Bill,
Thank you for choosing H******** S********. I'm sorry about all the
confusion. I was incorrect the item is 3000 inches in area. Once again
sorry for the inconvenience if I can further assistant you please
contact me. Thank you!
Best regards,
R***** *****
Voice: 1-800-233-**** (8am-mid EST, 7 days a week)
There's no need to get anybody in trouble over this, so the personally-identifying information has been scrubbed. I just found the lack of any bounds-checking particularly giggle-worthy.
Posted by Bill McGonigle
Thu, 04 Dec 2008 03:02:00 GMT
There's been a lot of work in the past couple hundred years on reasons to behave morally that don't require a hierarchy of supreme power.
Game theory, capitalism, free markets, bottom-up economics, wisdom of the masses, democracy, emergent behaviors - these all relate the idea that when people behave well all benefit.
In fact, I'd argue that leaving God out of it makes for a stronger system. If you take the original idea that God grants rights to all people and we then give up certain of those rights to the Government in return for protection of the others, the only thing that keeps the Government from turning tyrannical is the existence of God. Stalin and Mao seemed to understand this.
If instead, you realize that it takes millions of people making smart decisions to keep our society working smoothly then you have to maximize the freedom of each of those actors to get the best possible outcome. Each imposition on those actors brutishly eliminates a possible beneficial outcome in an incomprehensibly complex system, so to the extent that such restrictions aren't essential to the defense of rights required by us of our government, they only act to society's detriment.
This model still strongly supports the free exercise of religion but does not require it. It also recognizes the value of each and every human being as integral to a society, while concomitantly being their own sovereign masters, properly casting a government's role as the servant of society and mechanism to protect the weak. And by putting humans explicitly at the top (bottom?), it reminds those humans that they have to be responsible and make the right decisions, nobody else is granted a higher role.
Or, y'know, like Jesus said, "be nice to each other."
Posted by Bill McGonigle
Fri, 28 Nov 2008 22:11:00 GMT
I saw a TV ad for a new Mortal Combat game that includes the DC Superheroes metering out bloody death to their opponents.
Let's see:
The Ultimate Boy Scout
Truth, Justice, and the American Way
Smashing your opponent into the pavement by crushing his spine.
I'll let Cookie Monster handle this one:
Sure, there's probably contrived rationalization for this, but it's not about nerdly debate it's about branding. And about taking a huge license fee payment in trade for said brand quality.
