[edna_mode]

Searching for the best banking deals:

http://bankdeals.blogspot.com/

Capital One and Chase are offering $50 and $100 bonuses for opening checking accounts there.

Best reward credit cards:

Fidelity offers an AmEx (2% back on everything, redeem into your Fidelity brokerage account) and a Visa (1.5% back on everything). Discover offers 5% back on certain things, depending on what kind of card you get. One of them is 5% on gas/automotive, the standard one rotates through “categories” quarterly, so that Q1 you get 5% on travel, Q2 “home” stuff, Q3 gas and theme parks…you get the idea. No annual fees, no inflatable “points” system, no problem.

I believe Charles Schwab is also offering a Visa with this good of a rebate, and is reported to not charge foreign currency transaction fees.

I can attest that Capital One’s MC does NOT charge foreign currency fees as of my May statement. But for the great gory lowdown, go to flyerguide:

http://www.flyerguide.com/wiki/index.php/Credit/Debit/ATM_Cards_and_Foreign_Exchange

[edna_mode]

Searching for the best banking deals:

http://bankdeals.blogspot.com/

Capital One and Chase are offering $50 and $100 bonuses for opening checking accounts there.

Best reward credit cards:

Fidelity offers an AmEx (2% back on everything, redeem into your Fidelity brokerage account) and a Visa (1.5% back on everything). Discover offers 5% back on certain things, depending on what kind of card you get. One of them is 5% on gas/automotive, the standard one rotates through “categories” quarterly, so that Q1 you get 5% on travel, Q2 “home” stuff, Q3 gas and theme parks…you get the idea. No annual fees, no inflatable “points” system, no problem.

I believe Charles Schwab is also offering a Visa with this good of a rebate, and is reported to not charge foreign currency transaction fees.

I can attest that Capital One’s MC does NOT charge foreign currency fees as of my May statement. But for the great gory lowdown, go to flyerguide:

http://www.flyerguide.com/wiki/index.php/Credit/Debit/ATM_Cards_and_Foreign_Exchange

[edna_mode]

Searching for the best banking deals:

http://bankdeals.blogspot.com/

Capital One and Chase are offering $50 and $100 bonuses for opening checking accounts there.

Best reward credit cards:

Fidelity offers an AmEx (2% back on everything, redeem into your Fidelity brokerage account) and a Visa (1.5% back on everything). Discover offers 5% back on certain things, depending on what kind of card you get. One of them is 5% on gas/automotive, the standard one rotates through “categories” quarterly, so that Q1 you get 5% on travel, Q2 “home” stuff, Q3 gas and theme parks…you get the idea. No annual fees, no inflatable “points” system, no problem.

I believe Charles Schwab is also offering a Visa with this good of a rebate, and is reported to not charge foreign currency transaction fees.

I can attest that Capital One’s MC does NOT charge foreign currency fees as of my May statement. But for the great gory lowdown, go to flyerguide:

http://www.flyerguide.com/wiki/index.php/Credit/Debit/ATM_Cards_and_Foreign_Exchange

[edna_mode]

Searching for the best banking deals:

http://bankdeals.blogspot.com/

Capital One and Chase are offering $50 and $100 bonuses for opening checking accounts there.

Best reward credit cards:

Fidelity offers an AmEx (2% back on everything, redeem into your Fidelity brokerage account) and a Visa (1.5% back on everything). Discover offers 5% back on certain things, depending on what kind of card you get. One of them is 5% on gas/automotive, the standard one rotates through “categories” quarterly, so that Q1 you get 5% on travel, Q2 “home” stuff, Q3 gas and theme parks…you get the idea. No annual fees, no inflatable “points” system, no problem.

I believe Charles Schwab is also offering a Visa with this good of a rebate, and is reported to not charge foreign currency transaction fees.

I can attest that Capital One’s MC does NOT charge foreign currency fees as of my May statement. But for the great gory lowdown, go to flyerguide:

http://www.flyerguide.com/wiki/index.php/Credit/Debit/ATM_Cards_and_Foreign_Exchange

[edna_mode]

Searching for the best banking deals:

http://bankdeals.blogspot.com/

Capital One and Chase are offering $50 and $100 bonuses for opening checking accounts there.

Best reward credit cards:

Fidelity offers an AmEx (2% back on everything, redeem into your Fidelity brokerage account) and a Visa (1.5% back on everything). Discover offers 5% back on certain things, depending on what kind of card you get. One of them is 5% on gas/automotive, the standard one rotates through “categories” quarterly, so that Q1 you get 5% on travel, Q2 “home” stuff, Q3 gas and theme parks…you get the idea. No annual fees, no inflatable “points” system, no problem.

I believe Charles Schwab is also offering a Visa with this good of a rebate, and is reported to not charge foreign currency transaction fees.

I can attest that Capital One’s MC does NOT charge foreign currency fees as of my May statement. But for the great gory lowdown, go to flyerguide:

http://www.flyerguide.com/wiki/index.php/Credit/Debit/ATM_Cards_and_Foreign_Exchange

[edna_mode]

Hear hear DWCAP.

Judge not, lest ye be judged.

I resemble ocrenter’s remark. I am one of those Seasonale “freeloaders”. Mostly because I prefer to be totally incapacitated 1/3 of the time, as opposed to losing a few days a month to debilitating pain. I tried all kinds of other BC. Allergic to latex. Progesterone only is bad for the bones. Generic pills? You ever see the QC of them? Pray that you never have a reaction to the ever-changing fillers that accompany the active ingredient — and remember, the generics will change frequently as various companies low-ball each other, and you can only refill your prescription in 3-month blocks.

And remember, any BC is waaay cheaper than pregnancy or abortion, from the insurance provider’s point of view.

I do understand the need to control health care costs. However, I hardly believe that the choice of BC is a major cost factor. And most technological advances drop in cost the more widely deployed they are, so what is going on here?

My not so humble proposal:

What about reducing costs by standardizing billing codes across the industry, so people could really comparison shop, or even understand what the hell they are being billed for? I suspect 25-50% of the cost of medical care is sucked up TRACKING the billing! I spent months one time trying to convince my insurer that “no, really, it’s impossible for the hospital that YOU cover to have a radiology department that is OUT OF NETWORK!” It turned out that the insurer had the wrong tax ID number! Off by one digit! All that time spent with the billing reps, wasted.

[edna_mode]

Hear hear DWCAP.

Judge not, lest ye be judged.

I resemble ocrenter’s remark. I am one of those Seasonale “freeloaders”. Mostly because I prefer to be totally incapacitated 1/3 of the time, as opposed to losing a few days a month to debilitating pain. I tried all kinds of other BC. Allergic to latex. Progesterone only is bad for the bones. Generic pills? You ever see the QC of them? Pray that you never have a reaction to the ever-changing fillers that accompany the active ingredient — and remember, the generics will change frequently as various companies low-ball each other, and you can only refill your prescription in 3-month blocks.

And remember, any BC is waaay cheaper than pregnancy or abortion, from the insurance provider’s point of view.

I do understand the need to control health care costs. However, I hardly believe that the choice of BC is a major cost factor. And most technological advances drop in cost the more widely deployed they are, so what is going on here?

My not so humble proposal:

What about reducing costs by standardizing billing codes across the industry, so people could really comparison shop, or even understand what the hell they are being billed for? I suspect 25-50% of the cost of medical care is sucked up TRACKING the billing! I spent months one time trying to convince my insurer that “no, really, it’s impossible for the hospital that YOU cover to have a radiology department that is OUT OF NETWORK!” It turned out that the insurer had the wrong tax ID number! Off by one digit! All that time spent with the billing reps, wasted.

[edna_mode]

Hear hear DWCAP.

Judge not, lest ye be judged.

I resemble ocrenter’s remark. I am one of those Seasonale “freeloaders”. Mostly because I prefer to be totally incapacitated 1/3 of the time, as opposed to losing a few days a month to debilitating pain. I tried all kinds of other BC. Allergic to latex. Progesterone only is bad for the bones. Generic pills? You ever see the QC of them? Pray that you never have a reaction to the ever-changing fillers that accompany the active ingredient — and remember, the generics will change frequently as various companies low-ball each other, and you can only refill your prescription in 3-month blocks.

And remember, any BC is waaay cheaper than pregnancy or abortion, from the insurance provider’s point of view.

I do understand the need to control health care costs. However, I hardly believe that the choice of BC is a major cost factor. And most technological advances drop in cost the more widely deployed they are, so what is going on here?

My not so humble proposal:

What about reducing costs by standardizing billing codes across the industry, so people could really comparison shop, or even understand what the hell they are being billed for? I suspect 25-50% of the cost of medical care is sucked up TRACKING the billing! I spent months one time trying to convince my insurer that “no, really, it’s impossible for the hospital that YOU cover to have a radiology department that is OUT OF NETWORK!” It turned out that the insurer had the wrong tax ID number! Off by one digit! All that time spent with the billing reps, wasted.

[edna_mode]

Hear hear DWCAP.

Judge not, lest ye be judged.

I resemble ocrenter’s remark. I am one of those Seasonale “freeloaders”. Mostly because I prefer to be totally incapacitated 1/3 of the time, as opposed to losing a few days a month to debilitating pain. I tried all kinds of other BC. Allergic to latex. Progesterone only is bad for the bones. Generic pills? You ever see the QC of them? Pray that you never have a reaction to the ever-changing fillers that accompany the active ingredient — and remember, the generics will change frequently as various companies low-ball each other, and you can only refill your prescription in 3-month blocks.

And remember, any BC is waaay cheaper than pregnancy or abortion, from the insurance provider’s point of view.

I do understand the need to control health care costs. However, I hardly believe that the choice of BC is a major cost factor. And most technological advances drop in cost the more widely deployed they are, so what is going on here?

My not so humble proposal:

What about reducing costs by standardizing billing codes across the industry, so people could really comparison shop, or even understand what the hell they are being billed for? I suspect 25-50% of the cost of medical care is sucked up TRACKING the billing! I spent months one time trying to convince my insurer that “no, really, it’s impossible for the hospital that YOU cover to have a radiology department that is OUT OF NETWORK!” It turned out that the insurer had the wrong tax ID number! Off by one digit! All that time spent with the billing reps, wasted.

[edna_mode]

Hear hear DWCAP.

Judge not, lest ye be judged.

I resemble ocrenter’s remark. I am one of those Seasonale “freeloaders”. Mostly because I prefer to be totally incapacitated 1/3 of the time, as opposed to losing a few days a month to debilitating pain. I tried all kinds of other BC. Allergic to latex. Progesterone only is bad for the bones. Generic pills? You ever see the QC of them? Pray that you never have a reaction to the ever-changing fillers that accompany the active ingredient — and remember, the generics will change frequently as various companies low-ball each other, and you can only refill your prescription in 3-month blocks.

And remember, any BC is waaay cheaper than pregnancy or abortion, from the insurance provider’s point of view.

I do understand the need to control health care costs. However, I hardly believe that the choice of BC is a major cost factor. And most technological advances drop in cost the more widely deployed they are, so what is going on here?

My not so humble proposal:

What about reducing costs by standardizing billing codes across the industry, so people could really comparison shop, or even understand what the hell they are being billed for? I suspect 25-50% of the cost of medical care is sucked up TRACKING the billing! I spent months one time trying to convince my insurer that “no, really, it’s impossible for the hospital that YOU cover to have a radiology department that is OUT OF NETWORK!” It turned out that the insurer had the wrong tax ID number! Off by one digit! All that time spent with the billing reps, wasted.

[edna_mode]

To add fuel to the fire of speculation about the fate of 4S Ranch, this article appeared today in the UT:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20071025/news_1n25stay.html#

[edna_mode]

To add fuel to the fire of speculation about the fate of 4S Ranch, this article appeared today in the UT:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20071025/news_1n25stay.html#

[edna_mode]

To add fuel to the fire of speculation about the fate of 4S Ranch, this article appeared today in the UT:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20071025/news_1n25stay.html#

[edna_mode]

Patientlywaiting, are you proposing this carbon tax on kids going forward, or would you be willing to pay that on the kids you already have too?

People universally subsidize education because it’s more optimistic to presume that keeping kids occupied with a constructive outlet for their curious natures will turn them into productive citizens, as opposed to say, having to build more juvi halls for delinquents. I’d rather build more schools than prisons, assuming you’ll have to build one or the other.

And for the obligatory ha-ha:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39495

Housewife Charged In Sex-For-Security Scam

[edna_mode]

Ah, for scenario #2, you would have to assume the bank has the *authority* to renegotiate the loan! They may not own it anymore, despite still servicing (ie collecting payment) on the loan, because they repackaged it up like a bit of meat in a sausage and sold it as part of a mortgage-backed security (MBS). And picking out one tiny piece of meat to examine it more closely *after* it’s been made into a sausage is pretty difficult, no?

If you were the sausage-buyer, you’d be pretty pissed off if it turned out that due to the rising cost of meat, they substituted in sawdust, right? You paid for all-beef sausage, you want it to perform like an all-beef sausage.

Same thing for the MBS buyer. People bought it at a certain price on the expectation of a certain quality of product, ie that all the mortgages in it would say, be paid off in 30 years at 5.5%. You’d be pissed off if after paying a premium now for a future cash stream, people could just change the terms after your money’s gone, right? Just like biting into the sausage after the Del Mar Fair is over and finding what you can only hope is a green herb.

To complete the analogy, you are proposing trying to go back to the original butcher and complaining about the quality of his meat, which he had long ago sold off to the sausage maker. You may have a point, but the sausage maker was culpable for buying rotten meat. You can’t pin the responsibility for fixing the situation clearly on one party anymore. You’d have to get the butcher, the sausage maker and whoever sold this “all beef patty” to you all in the same room to discuss how to make it all better. Similarly, the responsibility for fixing the loan is diffused across too many parties for it to try to re-negotiate, and it’s not clear at this point who would have the authority to fix a contract that’s been handled by so many people.

[Author]

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