More about simplification

Simplification seems to be a recurring theme in my life. Take this post from January 2010 as an example where I'm writing about wandering around the apartment (early in the new year after Christmas) looking for stuff I don't need to donate or give away to family and friends.

We're in a different apartment in the same apartment complex than we were 7 years ago, but this past week (as I've done on numerous occasions since that post from 2010) I wandered around the apartment and took some time to put stuff in a pile to donate to charity (tea kettle, blanket, fanny pack from my childhood that I'll never use again, etc.) and added some stuff to the recycle bin (saved packaging materials and papers, mostly) and I still have a few things to give family members.

The things I feel like I struggle with are the "collector" mentality and "sentimentality". Things that I collect (CDs mostly) are hard for me to weed out and I have things from my childhood that I'll never use (and some that I don't remember ever using) but for many years, I couldn't seem to part with them.

It seems like the more I move stuff from place to place and have to find new homes for the random stuff I've kept, I wonder more and more why I've actually been keeping things. The more I actually think about it, the less inexplicably attached to things I feel. That makes letting go of things that I don't actually use a little easier.

I've gone through my CD collection and put all of the CDs in sleeves and sold off the jewel cases. I actually took it a step further and donated a small pile of CDs to charity. They take up a lot less room now without the cases and should be easier to move and store. I've sold off all of my guitars except my first one. I sold off or donated most of my computers and accumulated computer stuff. I gave away a few things that I'd been trying to sell on craigslist for quite some time.

I still have to decide what to do with my (>15 year old) snowboard and a box of golf stuff that I may use again someday... ;)

Downsizing Enough to Fit in a Tiny House

Earlier in the year, I found myself thinking fairly often about what it would take for my girlfriend and I to downsize our "stuff" enough that we could comfortably live in a tiny house on wheels. I feel like I would love the freedom to buy property and move the house with us rather than having to try to sell a house and buy another if we should choose to relocate in the future.

We currently live in a 1,000+ square foot apartment with two bedrooms, a large living room, a walk-in storage closet, a small "den", a bathroom with a full size tub and a kitchen with two small closets. One of the bedrooms functions as a craft room and the den is used as a home office but both end up also being used for storage. I'm not going to lie, we have a lot of stuff. Some of this stuff hasn't even been unpacked from the move before last when it went into storage for two years.

So while we do have enough indoor space (and central A/C, which is nice in the summer) we also have horribly loud downstairs neighbors (the second set of them in two years) and we pay too much in rent, especially for the location and the lack of amenities. I have lived within two miles of where I grew up for all but 4 years of my life (2 college years a few hours North and 2 years an hour West) and I'm feeling more and more like it's time for a change of scenery and weather.

If we did decide to try out a tiny house on wheels, we'd need to weed out a lot of our stuff and try to figure out what it is we need to have then take that into consideration when planning of the layout of the space. In our current apartment, most of our time is spent in the living room, so I think that would be the primary space we'd need to plan around. We'd give some extra consideration to the kitchen layout to try to fit a full size oven and sink. I'd also attempt to make the living space flexible enough to occasionally do things other than just sitting around watching TV. Hopefully, having less indoor space (and maybe moving to an area with more mild winters) will help push us outdoors more, though. I miss being outdoors.

I'm thinking that we'd end up getting an additional storage shed for the larger outdoor items that we'd need/want (outdoor tools/bikes, etc.) that are currently in storage with family members but we have a lot of other stuff that would have to be eliminated in order to comfortably fit in a much smaller space. I know, for me at least, that many of the things I have accumulated over the years (mostly CD's, magazines, books, computer parts/equipment, snowboard, skateboard, guitars) could be weeded out a little more aggressively than I've done in the past, but I'm worried that there are things that we'll miss when they're gone. I'm sure a lot of that is just sentimentality (random things from my childhood, souvenirs), but there are things like my girlfriend's sewing machine and books and my desk and CD collection that take up space but we wouldn't really want to part with. Those are probably the biggest things that would be tricky to work into a tiny house floor plan. Then there are some other things that I'm conflicted about. I've always wanted to learn to play guitar and I have two guitars and an amplifier. However, I haven't touched them in the past 5 years except to move apartments twice. Will I make time and the effort to learn someday and wish I kept them? Honestly, probably not, but will I regret getting rid of them and end up buying them again?

I'm really not sure where to start, though, aside from just taking passes through the stuff and selling/donating/recycling/discarding the things that I know I can do without. Then we're left with the more tricky/sentimental things. I don't want to end up moving a bunch of stuff and putting it in storage, so how do you work through getting rid of that kind of stuff?

Have I made any progress?

Just over a year ago I posted a plan for the rebirth of my blog. It's time to see how I'm doing.

Since I made that post, I've only posted 4 blog entries. One was about someone (accidentally?) using my email address to sign up for accounts. Two were observations about behavior of coworkers. The last was about "corporate personhood" and the relentless pursuit of profit. I didn't post about any of the things I was planning on working on and writing about over the past year.

So, here's an accountability-type update, as brutal as it's going to be for me. These were the things that I had planned on working on and writing about:

• eating more healthy / in-season / local food
• cooking at home more
• eating less prepared / fast food
• incorporating more enjoyable physical activity into my life
• finding ways to reduce stress
• worrying less
• meeting new people
• spending more time with family and friends
• keeping in touch with non-local friends
• simplifying and decluttering
• learning new things
• attempting to work on more creative / artistic things
• sharing thoughts and ideas
• starting new hobbies and revisiting old ones
• reading more books
• spending less time in front of TV
• spending less time aimlessly browsing on the internet

To be completely honest, I feel I've done so poorly, it's embarrassing.

I didn't make much of an effort to do too much with the food related topics. We did buy a little bit more fruit and vegetables and tried to work them into meals a little bit more. We ate a little bit less fast food but a little bit more prepackaged, frozen meals.

I went for a few walks, mostly on my days off, but that was about it for additional physical activity.

Reducing stress, worrying less: Not really.

Family and friends: Probably worse than before. I live close to my family (after being an hour away for a couple years) but really only see them on holidays and special occasions. I spend most of my time doing the things I was trying to do less of (TV and internet browsing).

Simplifying and decluttering is one of the areas that I've made some progress. After our last move, where most of our stuff was in storage for 2 years, we moved it into our new apartment where it continued to stay boxed up in our office and craft rooms. Much of it had never been unboxed in probably 3 1/2 years. So we started going through it and weeding out much of it for donations. We have made a few trips to Salvation Army to donate stuff already and have another small pile ready to go. A lot of the challenge here is the sentimentality of objects we've had for a long time, but don't really have any use for. I've been trying to periodically and repeatedly go through things like this and find more and more I'm willing to let go with each pass. I don't really want to move it again and have to find new places to store things that aren't useful.

Learning new things: I've worked a little bit on brushing up on some programming skills and started learning about some new programming languages, but at work I've been pushed more in the direction of business analysis instead of coding, so I'm also picking up a bit of project management and business analyst skills.

I haven't done too much with creative and artistic pursuits. I haven't spent much time on photography, painting or writing. I haven't picked up any new hobbies. As far as old hobbies go, I have spent a little bit of time working on computers (doing upgrades) and have spent a little time playing some computer games (Minecraft, Farming Simulator 2015, Forza 6, Fallout 4) and done a little bit of website work for my dad's business. I haven't spent any time working on cars or anything really mechanical. I read a couple books, but not too much more or less than usual.

I haven't decreased my TV or internet browsing time much, but that is one of the things that I really want to focus on this year now that the weather is getting a little warmer here in the Northeast. Making an effort to get outside will help keep from sitting in front of various screens for the majority of my life.

My realistic plans for the future are to actually try to eat a little bit more healthy. I plan to also get outdoors much more often to walk, run, ride my bike and do some easy hikes. I really want to make an effort to be more social, to see friends I haven't seen in a long time and be with my family. I want to continue to work on simplifying and decluttering to make it easier to move, should I choose to do so... which leads into my biggest thing to consider: moving.

Our current lease is up at the end of the summer and we don't want to renew. Work has been less engaging, more stressful and less rewarding. I'm getting tired of the area I've lived in for most of my life. I don't know where I would go if I didn't stay here, though...

Corporate profit before all else.

Certainly there will come a time when the "corporate profit before all else" mentality has to come to an end. The questions are: When and how are we going to get there?

As a younger, more idealistic version of myself, I used to think that I had a strong dislike for "corporate America" but didn't completely know what that meant. Now that I'm a little bit older, I realize that I still don't know what it means.

I remember standing in a corporate bookstore flipping through a copy of Adbusters magazine, but (of course) not buying it. (Aside: How can you justify buying something with the whole profit model based off of convincing you not to buy something else? Wait, isn't that how a large portion of our consumer culture works? "You'll certainly be happier if you buy this brand of dishwashing liquid instead of that cheap ass one that's sure to leave your dishes dirty and make you the laughing stock of the whole neighborhood!!!") I'm sure I stood there for a few minutes in my [brand name] sneakers also flipping through a stack of magazines about mountain bikes, cars, running and whatever else I was interested in at the time thinking about "culture jamming" and the destruction that corporations were causing the world.

I remember eventually coming to the conclusion that it's hard to walk the line between feeling like a socially conscious, responsible person and a complete hypocrite... and the days I feel like I'm more on the former side, it's just complete and total ignorance.

The fact is that it's close to impossible to opt out of the "system" and still survive. Even if you pick an area of focus and do something that you think is a better, more responsible choice like buying "organic" foods at the supermarket from smaller companies, chances are good those brands are now owned by giant corporate conglomerates that have snatched them up for the brand name and the increased profit that comes with them.

In this example, larger companies snatch up smaller companies with good ideas / market share / turf that they desire and then slowly kill them off internally, fold them into their massive corporate structure and then "downsize" or just grab the brand and/or patents and sit on them. There are hundreds of things that are done purely in the name of profit that are much more questionable or unethical than buying up your competition, but I don't want to turn this into a massive list / rant.

Now usually when people become outraged by something they clamor for "increased regulations" but that usually just makes things worse. Tying shit up in bureaucracy for years and trusting someone that somewhere up to half of the population didn't vote for based on the side they label themselves as or even just how familiar their name is. Then these "representatives" hopefully ignore their convictions, biases and contributors and do the right thing for the country and the majority of the people. Yeah. That sounds like *exactly* what happens. (/sarcasm.)

There have been some headlines in the past few years about "corporate personhood" here in the United States (in light of a recent Supreme Court decision regarding Hobby Lobby, contraception coverage by insurance and religious convictions) and how it's probably time that it's ended. Many of the comments about these type of articles tend to lead to the conclusion that if a corporation was actually a person it would be a heavy-handed, greedy, money-driven psychopath with no empathy, sympathy or conscience.

That's the whole game, though. If (corporate) profit drives all available choices, and every one of those choices is a bad choice for someone or something else, why not just pick the best choice for you and get on with your day? Why care at all?

Acknowledging this isn't me giving up. This is me realizing that just saying you don't like something isn't going to change it. It's time to break free of conspicuous consumption and unchecked corporate profit and power.

We need to find better ways of defining what it is that makes us happy and better ways to get there if we want to have any sort of a future.

• We need to figure out how to destroy the notion of corporate personhood.
• We need to take away incentives to destroy everything (the environment, people's rights and freedoms, etc.) in the ruthless pursuit of profit.
• We need to tweak the legal system to end frivolous lawsuits.
• We need to stop funding government organizations that don't have the best interests of the people they serve as their only reasons for existence.

Most of all, though, it starts with making better choices as individuals. Some things that will help:

• Stop coveting other people's stuff.
• Pick some concerns that you're passionate about to focus on (environment, local business, etc.) and try to work them into all purchasing decisions.
• Take a few extra minutes to consider whether you really need something when making purchasing decisions.
• Try to buy secondhand goods, when possible.
• Donate or sell things that you've accumulated that someone might make better use of.
• Look for more durable, locally made products as an alternative to the mass-produced junk at the local big-box store.
• Services aren't exempt, either. Find a local Credit Union to do your banking. Skip chain restaurants, haircuts, stores...

The more we can shift power (money) back into our local economies and businesses, the more quickly change will come.

Cleaning up the past.

For the past few years I've been working pretty intently on paying off the debt (student loans, credit cards) that I've accumulated over the past 15 (-ish) years.

The student loans are all paid off. The credit card debt is mostly paid off. After this month I should have about $3,000 left to pay, which I'll whittle down over the next few months.

Once all of that is done, I'll have just my auto loan for my truck and the next focus is to get money in the bank for a down payment on a house. I have a little bit in there, but not enough to be a worthwhile down payment.

It feels kind of crazy, though, to spend so long paying everything down/off and then take out another even bigger loan... so I've been debating the pros and cons of home ownership versus renting again. It would be good to have the freedom to do what I want to the place that I'm living and be paying into something that I'll have equity in. It'll be nice to find a place with a garage and a yard to hang out in. On the negative side, though, I'll have to worry about the big things that can (and do) fail in houses and have the money saved up to repair and replace things as needed. I'll be a grown-up worrying about taxes and things like that.

In an effort to help offset the costs of home ownership I've been trying to talk myself into looking at multi-family properties that I could rent out part of in order to pay the mortgage, but I just can't get excited about the responsibility of being a landlord on top of being a new home owner while still working a full time job, also.

Part of me wants the stability and income of having someone else help offset my costs, but the rest of me doesn't want to deal with the potential hassles. So far the second part of me is winning.

The next problem is that if we do buy rather than rent, do we look in the area that we were planning to or do we go back to where we were? It's 45 minutes to an hour away from the more mainstream areas where we used to live and where the jobs, culture and other stuff we like is, but it's much less expensive and less populated (both good things for us). We can get a much nicer house on more property for less money, but it'll be harder to sell and it won't really appreciate in value much. We'll probably get our money back out when we're ready to sell. The biggest downside is putting 120 miles a day on my truck... or whatever I'd end up getting to replace it that gets better gas mileage if we do decide to buy something near where we are now.

While I'm working on figuring out that part of the puzzle, I've recently started the effort of decluttering again. I've started to list up some old bike parts and some computer cables and adapters on eBay. I have some golf clubs and other miscellaneous stuff on craigslist, also. So, hopefully, by the time I figure out where I'm going I'll have less stuff to move. ;)

What is suburbicide?

This really should have been an introductory post written years ago when I started this blog but the truth is that I really didn't know what this blog would evolve into and, honestly, I still don't. Every now and then I'll get a little bit of inspiration and write a few posts and then forget about it for varying lengths of time...

The story begins simply. Anyone who's tried to come up with a .com domain name in the last 10+ years knows that it's a frustrating effort to come up with something that can be easily remembered but isn't already taken and being used or held for resale way more than it's worth.

One day while thinking up possible domain names the word "suburbicide" came to mind. It seemed simple enough. Somewhat easy to remember. Not (too) bad to spell and it was available! My thoughts on the "meaning" of the word suburbicide are already written on my about page so I won't rehash them again here.

These days, I'm finding myself more and more interested in the idea of trying to break down old ideas and find better, more responsible ways of doing things. I'm tired of hearing people blame problems on others while never taking responsibility as their role as a cog in the machine. I'm not excluding myself, I'm definitely guilty of this.

Waaaaaay, back in March 2009 I read a feature that I found interesting on TIME called "10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now" and in particular a portion called "Recycling the Suburbs".

I had already owned this domain at the time and had been working on trying to tie ideas like this into my blog, so I filed this article away for a day that I felt like writing a post about "suburbicide" and why the idea stuck in my head.

I live in an area that is a perfect example of suburban sprawl. there are three "cities" within 30 minutes of each other and suburbs in between and all around. At the place that I work in one of the three cities, most have a commute from suburbs of one of the other cities.

What would bring people back to the cities? Is that what we want? If we did go back to cities what would happen to all of the unwanted things in the suburbs? Are we just going to continue to move and expand leaving a trail of unwanted buildings and decay in our wake?

What makes us happy?

If you take (or have taken) a few minutes to venture around my blog you'll see that like many other people I struggle between the conflicting feelings of wanting to simplify my life and eliminate my debt and buying shiny new toys.

Over the past couple years I've been more on the simplification side of the struggle but I have to admit that I have a few websites that I like to browse regularly for new gadgets and car stuff. I've been really good about not buying much stuff lately but sometimes I temporarily feel unhappy when I see something that I think that I would really like but know deep down that it would be foolish (financially or otherwise) to buy it. That feeling subsides somewhat quickly once I start to think about all of the things I've purchased over the years and ended up rarely using.

Over the past couple years I have sold and donated quite a few things that I know I'll never use again and haven't missed them. I know that I still have quite a few things left that I know I wouldn't mind seeing gone... I just have to make the time to put stuff up on craigslist, eBay, Amazon and gather together the rest to donate.

Another reason behind my quest for simplification is that I really don't like clutter. Clutter makes me unhappy and in our two-bedroom apartment with a den/office both the spare bedroom and the office have a good amount of semi-organized clutter, most of which is mine. I would love to see that gone. That would make me happy.

So my question is: What makes us happy?

Money? Stuff? Vacations? Cars? Clothes? Simplification? Having lots of things around? Plain walls? Pictures and decorations all over? Having money in the bank? Being outdoors? Movies? Music?

Is it more about things or is it experiences? Is it security or possibly rewarding risks? Is it what others think of you or what you think of yourself?

I think for me it's:

Trying to straddle the fine line between having hobbies and things that I really like but keeping everything else in check.

Getting rid of the "clutter" of things that I don't use and won't need but keeping my CD collection and books.

Spending time doing things I like like going to see bands and making it to a beach every once in awhile.

Spending time with my family, having friends over or spending quiet nights at home instead of spending hundreds of dollars out for dinner and drinks.

Spending more money on car washes than clothes.

Wearing said clothes until they're worn out instead of getting a new wardrobe every year.

Not buying a bigger, better TV or computer every year even though I might think I want one.

I guess I'm probably pretty average. I could never do a 100 item challenge or anything like that... but I think I'd feel a lot better if I could get rid of extra stuff, keep control over my desire to spend money, pay off my debt and get myself to a position where I feel more stable.

Aside: This blog post was brought to you by the Friends episode "The One With The Secret Closet" ("hidden" clutter) and the recent New York Times article "But Will It Make You Happy?" (simplification and conspicuous consumption).

Want - Energy Star Certified Gasoline-Powered Alarm Clock

On Inhabitat today there was a story that was reported on NY Times [paywalled link] about the US Government Accountability Office looking into the Energy Star certification process and how easy it was to get an Energy Star label. They created a few fictitious products including a gasoline-powered alarm clock and put them through the system and received Energy Star certification.

The articles made a few good points, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's all well and good but now I want a gasoline-powered alarm clock. Make mine a supercharged LS9 from a Corvette C6 ZR1. I'd wake up to that!

On a serious note, though, it's kind of good that we have government organizations to keep an eye on stuff like this. I mean, Energy Star certification, that's super important! Wow... What's wrong with me? I just can't be serious today.

[02/13/2024: Removed broken inhabitat story link. Noted that NY Times link is now paywalled.]

Simplification

Every year around this time it seems like I go through a period of feeling like I want to weed out some of my belongings that I don't ever use and try to simplify my life.

I don't like the feeling of clutter so I wander around the apartment and look for things that I don't use, don't need and wouldn't ever use again. I generally make a pile of stuff to go to charity, stuff to give away to friends or family and stuff to sell.

I'm putting a little dent in the stuff I've managed to accumulate over the years. I sold off my netbook that I used for one week when I was on vacation over the summer and a couple miscellaneous computer parts. I'm working on getting rid of an old cell phone, more older computer parts, possibly my old PowerMac G4, one of my guitars and an amplifier, miscellaneous guitar stuff, etc. I have some clothes and household type stuff to give to charity.

Over the past few years I've realized just how much stuff I have that I don't use or don't need but wanted really badly at one point in time. My guitars are a prime example of this. At one point I had 3 guitars, 2 amplifiers and tons of other miscellaneous guitar related stuff. I messed around on the guitar a little bit but never took lessons or teaching myself how to really play all that seriously and I haven't picked up any of my guitars in probably at least 3 years.

I think part of the reason I go through this is the realization of just how much Christmas is focused on buying stuff and another reason is that when the weather is cold and gloomy I tend to stay in my apartment more and seeing stuff around that is little more than a waste of space and money is kind of depressing.

I'm going to work more on trying to decide whether I'm really going to use something enough to make it worthwhile to purchase more in the future...

Past goals & progress.

I was randomly looking at old posts on my blog today and I found an old post from January 23, 2007 entitled Douglas Coupland books & my to do list which, I'm sure you'll be surprised to read, contained a "to do" list.

In fact, this was the list:
1) finish cleaning up all my junk at the apartment (did some, accumulated more)
2) refinish an old coffee table to bring to the apartment (started...)
3) get my parent's old orange chair over to my apartment (scrapped this idea)
4) pull my mountain bike apart, repaint the frame and overhaul the rest (It's orange now!)
5) go through my accumulated bike parts and sell/donate what I'm never going to use (I donated quite a few bikes and parts but still have some left that can go.)
6) finish selling off the misc. car parts I've accumulated over the past 5 years that don't fit my current car (I haven't done too much with this.)
7) sell off my small guitar practice amp, distortion pedal and cables that I never use (Gone.)
8) (maybe: get rid of one of my guitars) (Acoustic/electric gone.)
9) (maybe: go through my CD's and sell off the ones I'm never going to listen to) (ruled out for now.)
10) (maybe: build a new "entertainment center" that isn't ugly and has room for the TV and all of the electronics) (bought one)

I thought it would be amusing to see how many of these that I actually did since then... so I crossed off the ones that I did. I completely finished 4 and ruled out 2. Out of the remaining 4, I started 3... I should probably get going on those. ;)

FairTax, anyone?

I just finished reading The Fair Tax Book: Saying Goodbye to the Income Tax and the IRS by Neal Boortz and John Linder. My brother actually lent it to me months ago and I finally got around to reading it this morning.

At the time he lent me the book, we were in a heated discussion as to whether the Federal government or the State governments needed more (or less) power compared to each other and which should have more responsibility. Honestly, I can't remember how the discussion even started. I believe we were talking about Nationalized health care or something to that effect and we kind of trailed off...

Back to the book, though. I chewed through it pretty quickly. I did find that there was some repetition in the writing which kind of made it a little bit annoying to read in spots, but I understood the need to drive certain concepts home by repeating them.

The main purpose of the book was to explain the FairTax plan of taxation compared to the current web of taxes we're currently paying here in America. FairTax is a consumption tax on all goods and services in place of every other Federal tax that we currently pay. This would mean no more income tax or payroll deductions for Medicare/Medicaid or Social Security. Instead you pay tax when you purchase something new in a retail environment or you are buying a service.

The plan was created to provide the same level of revenue to the government but in a much more simple (but harder to evade) system.

A few of the benefits of this system are:

• the ability to take home your whole paycheck
• the end of the IRS and complicated tax code
• everyone who buys a good or service in America pays into the system (including tourists and people who, through usage of the current tax code, have managed to avoid paying taxes but still benefit from living in or visiting America)
• a "prebate" offsets the amount every individual would be taxed up to the poverty level of consumption (doesn't hurt the poor)
• should (if all of the theories pan out) help lower costs of products and services by eliminating all of the "hidden taxes" that are passed along from companies through products and services - which, even with the added FairTax, should allow the price of things to stay close to the same as they were before the tax
• doesn't tax ANYTHING used/pre-owned which would provide a slight incentive to purchase pre-owned products where possible (better for the environment?)

It sounds almost too good to be true... but I still haven't managed to put any big holes in it.

Anyone out there as interested in this as I am?

Where is this magical place called out?

I saw an interesting story on Time Magazine's website this morning about a guy named Dave Chameides who is not throwing any trash out for an entire year to help him visualize what his "waste footprint" is. I think this interesting because not too many people stop to think how much trash they throw "out" or where this place called "out" really is.

I've thought about how much garbage my girlfriend and I throw out and where it goes on a few occasions. (Mostly as I'm lugging it down from our third floor apartment and across the parking lots to the dumpsters at the edge of our apartment complex.)

I don't think that we throw out as much as the average partially because our apartment complex recycles most recyclable plastic, glass and cans but we still throw out quite a bit.

It seems to me that a good portion of our waste is the plastic and printed cardboard packaging that pretty much everything is packaged in. It wouldn't be so bad if all of that packaging was actually necessary but in MANY cases it's not even close to necessary.

I'll have to look into ways to help reduce this. (Buying in bulk and things like that will probably help a lot!)

[05/19/2026: Fixed Time link.]

Scented laptops?

Here's another product for the list of "Do we really need this?" products. ASUSTeK is rolling out a line of scented laptops.

Um... yeah. What will they think of next?

Goodbye to one big bank...

I noticed that in June one of the two credit card companies that I am currently doing business with (which shall remain nameless) raised the APR on my account by 4% for no apparent reason (other than the fact that they wanted more money from me). I switched to e-statements many months ago and haven't used the card in quite awhile but carried a balance. I haven't made any late payments and haven't exceeded my credit limit. However, I really didn't scrutinize the statements each month like I should have. I just scanned to make sure there were no new charges each month and that my payment was credited on time and then I scheduled my next payment online. When was looking at my statement this month and I noticed that they increased my rate I sent a message through their secure online message system and received a canned response back that I should call their 800 number.

That answer was not good enough for me, so, they immediately lost my credit card balance (to a 0% transfer offer) along with my car loan (to my credit union at a lower interest rate) this week. I was shocked at how easy re-financing my car was. I thought it was going too much of a pain for only a few bucks a month, so I didn't do it. I ended up saving more than I thought I was going to, plus it was simple!

So, I guess I owe a thank you to the big, stupid bank for having the net effect of saving me some money each month for pissing me off enough to go through the "hassle" of ditching you. Goodbye and good riddance. Now I have to get rid of the other bigger bank that I have the pleasure of owing money to...

On capitalism and conspicuous consumption

I've said before that I dislike capitalism but I've never really clarified or elaborated on that general statement here. However, I've been thinking more about it lately (thanks mostly to my boss) and I've edited my "shit list" on the main page of my website today to say "conspicuous consumption." instead of "capitalism. (why do we make so many shiny, awesome things?)"

I think this better reflects my views on capitalism than to just say that I don't like it and the many awesome products that it produces. I think that, as far as economic systems go, capitalism tends to be one of the better ones in practice, compared to other major economic systems that have been attempted. Human nature tends to completely kill any notion of the various socialist or communist economic systems. People aspire to improve their status in life as well as to strive to appear better than or, at the very least, to differentiate themselves from everyone else. This is where the whole notion of "keeping up with the Joneses" (which is also known as conspicuous consumption) comes in. (There are other proposed/theorized systems out there such as Natural Capitalism but they also seem to be compromised by human nature, as well.)

Pure Laissez-faire capitalism is an amazing system where the people who purchase products and services determine what is available (and at what price) by either purchasing or not purchasing that product or service until it becomes attractive or advantageous to do so. Competition between different providers helps to bring prices down and quality up among everyone offering a particular good or service. In this system the government (or regulators of any sort) should only step in to protect consumers from harm. (This system, however, is also not without it's own major drawbacks or problems... but that's a subject for another time.)

Our present system, however, seems to be a bastardization of that system where huge mega-corporations (economies of scale), government regulations/subsidies/taxes, price-fixing, monopolization/mergers/buyouts and intense advertising and marketing all are thrown in with a million other factors and shuffled up leading to a system that is unbelievably complicated but still called "capitalism".

Take that mess and factor human nature and the notion of conspicuous consumption into the whole mix we end up with a slew of products that people are led to believe will make others think that they're of a higher status than everyone else which leads to much more expensive (and exclusive) products (of no better quality) so that there can be something better still.

It's a vicious cycle that no one wins aside from the giant companies who sell us the crappy products (with the trendy brand name of the day) that are made in countries where workers aren't paid a fair wage with materials that are probably barely, if at all, different from the crap that you can buy at Wal-Mart. The only difference is that the one with the brand name commands a huge premium over the generic because we have been convinced to pay more for it just because of that brand name.

That is (part of) the side of "capitalism" that I dislike. I know that I (somewhat hypocritically) play into the whole system even just by purchasing anything that goes above and beyond just meeting my basic needs of food, water and shelter. Maybe I am a hypocrite because there are people out there that aspire to buy the products that I have, or things that are better.

I don't expect (or want) us to shift to communism. I don't want to have exactly what everyone else has, no more or no less, based on my needs. I want to be able to purchase the best quality product that I can afford and have many choices when I am shopping for something. However, I don't want to be bombarded with advertisements constantly. I don't want people to look down on each other because they don't drive a BMW/Bentley/Ferrari/Porsche or live in the biggest house in the best zip code. I don't want us to continue to pillage the environment in the relentless pursuit of bigger and better products and higher and higher profits.

I'm not sure how we can change the economy, government and human nature to achieve this... or if it's even possible... but that's how I feel about "capitalism". It's better than many of the options out there but it's not without it's own set of problems. Human nature tends to make these flaws worse as we exploit the flaws in an effort to make more money and be better than the next guy...

The Ecology of Commerce - Paul Hawken

I just finished reading The Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken which my girlfriend bought me for my birthday last week.

It was a good read if you're into economics and the environment and you like to think about shaking things up and making the world a better place. However, I found many of the major concepts in the book to be a little too idealistic to make it to the real world without being forced in some major ways. I'm not sure who could or would step up to the challenge and force some of these concepts into practice, such as a shift toward green taxes in place of income taxes and a large reduction in military spending. If they could be implemented, there is little doubt in my mind that they would help us move towards a more sustainable economy that doesn't completely destroy the planet in the name of ever larger profits, meaningless products and never ending conflicts. Large corporations wield so much power in our current political system that making the large changes that are suggested in the book isn't a likely scenario.

One key part of the plan that doesn't seem practical on a long term basis is the entire concept of green taxes. My particular problem with them is that the government in America seems to be inclined to just keep getting bigger and more out of control and the overwhelming majority of Americans don't care or don't know how to change anything. The idea of adding green taxes into the mix but taking out income taxes in an equal amount to encourage work but discourage the use of resources seems like a good idea on paper. However, I'm sure that instead of taking away income taxes in favor of green taxes, we'll end up with both and much less real money in our pockets which will just hasten the downward spiral.

The book also seemed to place the lion's share of both improving the economy and the condition of the environment upon the idea that business (and the government) had to make gigantic sweeping changes that would (at the very least, in the short term) cause them to lose money. It also made the assumption that human nature was something that could be retrained into a state where people didn't over-consume and would be satisfied with a more simple life. I'm not sure that there is any way to go back to a more simple life at this stage of the game.

My views on the future are not all gloom and doom, though. I do think that we do need to start heading toward a direction where our progress into the future is much more sustainable. However, I am coming to the point of understanding that little changes that individuals can make such as separating out their recyclables and driving hybrid cars hundreds of miles to work aren't enough to do much good in the big picture. We do need to work out ways of improving the world we live in that do more than put a little dent in the problem. We need to start looking at the bigger picture.

More thoughts on fewer choices

Earlier this year I read a book by Barry Schwartz called The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less and gave a quick overview of it.

I've been thinking about this book (and some of the main ideas in it) more and more over the past few weeks and I wanted to write down a few more thoughts on the whole concept of simplification and having fewer choices.

Like most people I have things that I care about and want to have tons of choices and things that I just want to be simple that I don't have to put a lot of thought behind.

I looked at reviews on hundreds of different tires before I picked the set I wanted. However, walking down the cereal aisle in the supermarket and being presented with plain Cheerios^® in three different sized boxes (8.9, 14 & 18 oz.) just seems a tad ridiculous to me. How much of a waste is it to have three different package sizes, three different cases that have to be shipped to the store, three different spots on a shelf that have to be stocked, three different UPC's that have to be maintained in computer systems and on and on... all for the SAME EXACT product. Now expand this thinking to all of the other cereals... and then on to all of the other products available in a typical supermarket.

Do stores really need to carry a half dozen or so different brands of pasta? (I've never had pasta that tasted any different than any other pasta.) How is "pizza sauce" different from "pasta sauce" or "tomato sauce"? Aren't they all just basically tomatoes and spices? I'm not going to lie and say that I don't have preferences or favorite products and foods but I'm usually so overwhelmed when I walk in the supermarket that I don't pay attention to different prices or sizes and just grab what I'm used to eating but I can spend many hours spread over a few months researching tires for my car beginning months before they're even ready to be replaced.

I don't really know how to justify what I'm thinking and I'm sure that Cheerios^®, pasta and various sauces are important to some people in the same way that tires are important to me. I wouldn't just walk into a tire store and say: "I'd like to buy some tires." the same way I walk into the supermarket and grab a random box of rotini and jar of Prego^®. However, I think I'd have a meltdown if I tried to compare Prego^® to Ragu^® to Bertolli^® to Classico^® to Emerill's^® to Hunt's^® to Newman's Own^® to Muir Glen^® to Gia Russa^® to the store brand (and I could go on and on and on here...) the same way I obsessed about tires.

The whole concept of having too many choices is such a tricky situation that we've gotten ourselves into in pursuit of the almighty dollar... everything is a balancing act. Retailers don't want to piss off customers by taking away their choices and they want to keep adding new products to their lineup to relieve you of some of your cash while you're picking up your necessities but at the same time they want to save money and increase their profits. New brands pop up to take a share of your pasta sauce budget. Retail stores just keep getting bigger and more overwhelming. At many Wal-Mart stores you can have your car's oil changed while you purchase Miller Lite, shrimp, boxer shorts and a big screen TV.

I know there are other people out there that feel a lot like I do. The same simplification argument applies to pretty much everything from the supermarket example to computer software user interfaces. Sometimes having too many choices is overwhelming and wasteful... but how do we go back to a more simple existence? How do we remove choices without taking away a person's freedom to choose?

No way, Jose...

Not that I generally hold sports stars in very high regard but I'm going to give Jose Canseco the benefit for the doubt for now and say that maybe he misspoke on the TV show Inside Edition when he said: "I do have a judgment on my home and it to me is very strange because it didn't make financial sense for me to keep paying a mortgage on a home that was basically owned by someone else."

I'm going to say he misspoke because I basically translated that statement as: "I don't understand what a mortgage is. There's no way I'm going to continue to pay for my freakin' mansion because paying for something you don't own is stupid even if you will own it someday by continuing to pay for it."

I don't know all of the details and (to be honest) I don't really care enough to find out. The only justification I can see is that his interest rate might have been way out of hand and/or he was paying an interest only mortgage. Paying even an interest only loan on a $2.5M home would suck. I couldn't do it. However, it sounds like he tries to justify letting his home get foreclosed on by saying that it's hard to take care of your family on $17-18M after taxes.

You've got to be kidding me.

Cost analysis of gasoline.

I found a interesting article yesterday on CNN about where your money goes when you're pumping gasoline into your car at $3.00+ per gallon. (Around here it's staying right around $3.25/gallon.)

I wasn't really shocked to see that about 13% of the money goes towards taxes or that less than 4% goes to the gas station owners. (My father's friend owns a gas station and I've heard him say that they don't really make much on the gasoline.) I found it interesting that about 8% went just to transportation costs.

I think the part I found least surprising was that most of the money went to record profits for companies like Exxon Mobil.

Too bad we really can't just stop buying gasoline...

The high price of cookies. Only you can end it.

I just came across the blog called Conditional recoil of a guy who I used to work with on a pretty much daily basis in my last job (through a link on facebook) and I think it's a great read. He doesn't have that many posts up there yet but the ones he does are the type of posts that make you think.

In particular, though, there was a post from last November titled "Where does it end?" that I felt I needed to respond to. If you know me, you'll know why. ;)

I agree with what he is trying to say which is basically that corporate America is hosing the consumers that buy it's products because in many cases they are. However in (slight) defense of the particular industry he picked as an example (and in turn, all other industries). There are many direct costs that people neglect to take into account when figuring out what things really cost. In this exact example:

* He didn't account for labor to bake, package, label and put out said package of cookies. (Plus don't forget the ever increasing cost of benefits for the workers.)

* Then there's the cost of the actual package. (Which due to energy and material costs, which you guessed it, are increasing.)

* Don't forget the energy to run the ovens and keep the lights, heat and a/c on. (Which also increases in cost from year to year. Are you seeing a trend?)

* Transportation costs to get the case of cookies from the warehouse(s) to the stores. (Fuel costs aren't going down, you know.)

* On top of all of that how much is your time worth? How much would you pay to not have to bake the cookies you'd like to eat? Your time and convenience are also worth money...

I'm not going to detail what it costs for the above things. Instead, I'm going to simplify the equation.

Companies ARE in the business of making money and that's exactly what successful companies do. The more money they make for their owners or investors the more successful they are and the longer they stay in business.

So the answer to the question "Where does it end?" is that it all comes back to the consumer. Things tend to cost what people are willing and able to pay. If there are people out there that are willing to pay $3.99 for a package of ready to eat cookies, that's exactly what they're going to cost.

[So now that we simplified everything down to the statement that things cost what people are willing and able to pay, I'm going to re-complicate it if you're willing to continue reading.]

All of the other cookie providers that are competing for your cookie purchase also know what people will pay. How the different businesses differentiate themselves is how they gain your business over the other competitors.

* They can charge slightly less on cookies and hope that you'll buy something else that they make more profit on while you're there. (How much profit is in a cup of coffee?)

* They can have a better location that makes it easier for them to get their cookies in front of you.

* They can advertise.

* They can play up the quality of their cookie and/or how they're freshly baked (and directly or indirectly that they're better than the other guy's cookies).

It goes on and on... but the end result is the same. You want the cookies, you don't want to bake them yourself and the companies that are selling cookies want as much of your money that you're willing to let them have.

The ONLY way to make the price of cookies come down is really just to stop buying them. If nobody is buying cookies the price will either go down to a price that the customer is willing to pay (at which point the customer will resume cookie buying) or the cookies will not be available any more if they cost more to produce than the customer is willing to pay. You'll have to buy the ingredients separately and make them yourself.

The things like the cost of the raw cookie dough or ingredients, packaging, energy, transportation, labor, benefits, etc. do factor back into the equation if you can lower the tangible costs of producing and supplying the cookies in order to get them back to a level where a lower price for finished cookies still leads to an acceptable profit for the company selling them. However, if we attempt to go down this path we'll see that there are many more deep "root causes" for why the cost of everything keeps increasing which makes lowering costs difficult.

* America's "energy policies" (if you can call them that) are a little bit frightening. I'm constantly reading stories about people fighting against wind turbines ("I don't want that eyesore in my backyard." and "What will happen to the birds that fly into them?") and stifling other promising energy production methods for other ridiculous reasons. On top of that there are the people who think we should take over the Middle East by force because we're entitled to drive gas-guzzling SUV's powered by imported oil. We need to find ways to lower the cost of energy and don't involve direct conflict (which costs a lot of money).

* The cost of health care and insurance really needs to be addressed. (That's enough about this one.)

* Property costs were rising at rates we're now beginning to see weren't sustainable. (Which leads to increases in cost for rents, leases and purchases of property which also leads everything to cost more.)

There are tons of issues... I really could go all day on this topic but I keep coming back to the fact that if you really don't like the price of something the only thing you can really do is stop buying it. That'll send a undeniable message that you're not willing to pay what the seller is charging. If others do the same then things start to change...

(Broken links removed March 24, 2010.)