Trump Derangement Syndrome?

Trump derangement syndrome exists - so does Hillary derangement syndrome, Obama derangement syndrome, Bill Clinton derangement syndrome, Bush derangement syndrome - and so on and so forth.  What's the point?

I have a neighbor that works for a house cleaning service, or at least used to.   They have anti-Trump stickers all over the back of their car, and not just "Biden 2020" or something like that, but nasty sort of slogans and whatnot, plus things made with mis-matched mailbox letters that looked, well, a little weird.

Anyway, some of the customers complained to his boss about it.  And his boss offered to let him use a brand-new company van with the company logo on it (but no anti-Trump stickers).   Rather than take him up on this generous offer, the employee quit - if he couldn't drive his own vehicle with his own political views plastered on the back of it, well, his first amendment rights were at stake!

Myself, I would rather drive a free car than put miles on my own.  And anyone who watched "Schoolhouse Rock!" (coming live to a theater near you!) knows that the first amendment only protects your "free speech" from encroachment by the government, not employers.  But tell that to the MAGA- hat wearing crowd.    They talk about the Constitution a lot, but have never read it.

And that's the problem - left or right, it makes no difference - just extremists with bent views who root for political candidates the way people root for their favorite baseball team.   Who's in the playoffs this year?  Who will win the World Series?

People on the right are the same way as my neighbor, only about Hillary.  "Lock her up!" they say, but can't articulate exactly what she did that was criminal.  When asked, they just chant "Benghazi!" or "E-mails!" the way people do the Tomahawk chop (or used to) at Braves games.  It isn't intellectual discourse, it is just a chant - rooting for your team.  It makes about as much sense as "defund the Police!" - as if the Police were an opposing team, and not part of our government.

Of course, you have to ask yourself, who does this benefit? And the answer is, of course, the opposing party.   They want you to see red - so much red that you can't read, or comprehend, or analyze or rationally think about things.   They would rather you root for a team, with unquestioned loyalty, than to have ideas of your own.

Of course, the GOP is largely to blame for this, I think.  Sure, there was a lot of irrational Nixon-hate back in the 1970s. The Republicans tried to do that with Carter, but the worst they could do is accuse him of being weak.  I knew a lot of people - family members included - who would literally froth at the mouth over Reagan or Bush, but not be able to articulate why they hated them so much, except perhaps to barf up, word-for-word, the latest attack on one or the other.   But given that their attention span was so short, they often forgot these attacks later on, and just relied upon a background visceral hatred instead, often amounting to little more than silly name-calling.

With Bill Clinton, the GOP had its revenge for Watergate.  A wildly popular President, who cut the deficit and the national debt, Clinton had to be taken down a notch - and a paid operative recording phone calls illegally was the bag-man for them.  It was an interesting tactic, as I noted before.   Two friends of mine - both Democrats - hated Bill Clinton with a visceral passion.  The reason?  Both had been cheated upon by previous spouses.  I guess that makes sense - you want to vote for the person who least reminds you of your ex-husband or wife.  Makes a lot of sense, right?

And I am sure the Republicans tested this issue and found it had surprising strength.  After all, half of all marriages end in divorce - so there were plenty of sympathetic ears out there for this narrative.

Since then, the rhetoric has gone so far overboard that it is now just the background noise of our political debate.  You no longer prefer one candidate over the other, you rather pledge blind obedience to one and utterly despise the other.  And there is no in-between.  Everything the opposing candidate does is wrong, and nothing your candidate does is ever wrong.   Sometimes this means re-writing history, for example, forgetting (conveniently) that Ronald Reagan offered amnesty to illegal aliens during his tenure as President that never happened.

As a result, politics gets weird.  George W. Bush offered a somewhat humanitarian immigration plan, but it was shouted down by the Democratically controlled Congress on the grounds that, well, no grounds other than "we don't let the other side win" and "any idea that is not our idea is a bad idea."  During the Obama administration, the same thing happened with a Republican Congress - which sometimes isn't a bad thing, sometimes the best thing government can do is nothing.

Is there any harm in this sort of fanaticism?  Yes, a lot and here's why.  When people stop thinking and let other people do their thinking for them by blindly following leaders and relying on slogans and brand-loyalty instead of analysis, trouble ensues.  History has shown this to be the case.  You can't just leave your brains at the door when you go to vote, or go to a political meeting or rally.  You can't just blindly follow a leader - any leader - as people of all stripes and political persuasions have been shown, time and time again, to be liars, cheats, thieves, embezzlers, and sexual predators.

And if you nodded your head to that last sentence and said, "Yea, I know, right?  Like with [Insert Name of Political Enemy Here]" then you missed the point. There are real thieves in our government, who routinely are exposed for graft and corruption - usually petty corruption like selling non-existent "Healthy Holly" books to government contractors. Or being caught in a restroom soliciting sex from an undercover officer.  Same shit, different party.

This of course, flummoxes the loyalists.  "But our party is always right!  Our politicians are above reproach!  It is the other fellow who is corrupt and venal!"   And such folks go so far as to convince themselves that the whole thing is a conspiracy, designed to tear down their favorite pol, instead of just another example of human weakness. Many people do the same thing when their religious leaders are accused of spending the collection plate money on cocaine or molesting the altar boys. Putting absolute faith in fellow human beings and human-made institutions is bound to lead to disappointment.  So just don't do it.

So what's the answer?   Well, first of all, stop being a "fan" - of a rock star, a sports franchise, a politician, a religion, or a political party.  Being a fan of anything is idiotic - it wastes your time and money and is a tacit admission that your life is so shallow and without meaning that you have to drown the deafening silence in your life with mindless fandom.  If you enjoy hearing a performer, going to a game, praying at church, or want to vote - great.   Giving your life over to these outside forces is not great.

Stop obsessing about politics - externalizing your own problems into national issues.  Your student loans are not going to be forgiven by Bernie Sanders.  A better plan is to figure out how to pay them off, over time.  Odds are, they aren't as onerous as they may first seem.  I paid mine off, and a lot of people like me don't see why others shouldn't have to pay off theirs as well.   I mean, is that fair?  Someone scrimps and saves and pays off their debts, while someone else decides to get thousands of dollars in tattoos instead and gets their loans forgiven?  That would make no sense, and odds are, even a Democratic Congress would not go along with it.  So stop obsessing about it.

Perhaps the best thing about Joe Biden is that he doesn't inspire fandom or obsession in voters.  After years of "superstar" Presidents, maybe we need someone is who is, well, more boring.  Because policies are more important than stardom.   And everyday issues are more important than pie-in-the-sky stuff like free money or free college or outlawing abortion or whatever.

Yes, Trump Derangement Syndrome exists, but it is just an extension of Obama Derangement Syndrome that came before it.  Both parties have been throwing gasoline on the fire of extremist politics, convinced that the rabid right or rabid left are huge voting blocs that will turn elections.  I am not so sure.  The jackass with the rebel flag flying from his pickup truck and the jackass throwing Molotov cocktails have one thing in common:  They don't vote.

It is like boring man I talked to the other day.   He went on for hours about all these policies and political views that were affecting his life, before he admitted (or let slip) that at age 40 he was living with his Mother, out of a job, and wasn't even registered to vote.

I'm not sure a political block can be made out of non-voters.

Portable Ice Makers

Portable Ice Makers can be useful in certain situations.  It helps to understand how they work.

Americans love their ice.  If you go overseas, some snooty Europeans will mock you for wanting ice in your drink or drinking your beer cold.   But hey, fuck them.   Just because we're an industrialized country and invented the ice business, refrigeration, ice-making, and air-conditioning, doesn't mean they have to be jealous as they sweat all summer long drinking their warm beer.  (And yet, ask a Frenchman for a glass of Champagne, and see if they serve it at room temperature!).

Refrigeration really wasn't a "thing" until the 1800's when wily Yankees got the idea of harvesting ice from frozen lakes in the North and shipping it worldwide.   Ice houses, buried in the ground, would keep ice frozen all summer long, insulated with sawdust.   When my Mom was a kid, the ice man came around (along with the milkman, etc.) bringing a big block of ice for their "icebox" in the kitchen.   If you asked nicely, he would chip off a cool sliver of ice for you to suck on, on a hot summer's day.

But mechanical refrigeration took over in the early part of the 20th Century, at first making ice in ice factories to be delivered to homes, and later on, in the form of the home refrigerator.  Making ice for drinks was a clumsy affair - you needed ice cube trays, usually made of aluminum, and the cubes stuck to the trays half the time.   By the 1960's, you could buy a refrigerator with an ice maker in it, which basically automated the ice-cube-tray deal.  It sort of made white-ish ice cubes, which are OK for kiddie drinks and a glass of lemonade.

But bars and restaurants use commercial ice makers - you see them in hotels at the end of the hall, too.  They are a totally different beast, in that they make clear ice and they don't keep it frozen.  They pass water over a freezing plate, and after a half-inch of ice has formed on the plate, the plate is heated to make the sheet slide off.  It lands on a grid of heated nichrome wires which divide the ice into cubes.   The cubes fall into the bin, where they slowly melt, with the drain water being pumped out by a condensate pump.   They kind of waste water, as you might imagine, although the melting rate is pretty slow, once the bin is full of ice.

Our house came with a home version of a commercial ice machine, and they aren't cheap.  They also require regular maintenance - buildup of lime from the water eventually will kill them, which is one reason I eventually had to replace mine.  The new one has a reminder light telling you when to clean it with the special lime-removal fluid.  Once you have clear ice, it is hard to go back to those semi-circular white cubes.  It just isn't the same!

Many years ago, a friend gave us a portable ice maker, like the one shown above, but much larger.  Back then, they were close to $200 apiece - sometimes more - and were real counter hogs.    We used it down by the lake to make ice, as there was no plumbing there (just lake water).  We had to bring jugs of fresh water to fill it.

These machines are sort of like commercial ice makers, only they don't drain off the meltwater, but recycle it to make more ice.  When turned on, the machine cycles.   A small pan of water is mounted on a hinge.   A pump fills the pan from the reservoir until it overflows (the overflow goes back to the reservoir).    A refrigerated plate with a number of prongs (e.g., 9) on it, is immersed in the pan.  The compressor starts and these prongs get cold, forming ice on them.   In a few minutes (as few as six) nine little bullet-shaped ice "cubes" are formed.   The compressor then shuts off and the prongs are heated, causing the cubes to fall off into the little pan.   The pan then tips over and dumps the cubes into a tray and a mechanical shovel forces them up into the ice cube bin, with the leftover water draining into the reservoir again.   The process continues until the machine runs out of water or the bin overflows with cubes.

The machine uses a conductive sensor to detect if there is water in it, so distilled water usually won't work - the "add water" light will come on.  A temperature probe tells if the bin is full, so it helps to push the ice to the front of the bin, or the machine will shut off prematurely.

The cubes are white ice, not clear, which isn't as nice as clear cubes for a number of reasons, the first and foremost being that they seem to melt fast in a drink.  You have to use a lot of them!

The machine should be left on all the time, unless you are going away for a week or so.   One mistake I see people making is turning these machines off after they've made enough ice for one drink.   If left sitting for a few days, with the water inside at room temperature, bacteria in the water (which is present in all drinking water) will do funky things and create a smell or mold or whatever.    If you are going to shut the machine off, you have to be sure to drain it and dry it out.   It is easier to just let it keep running.

Online, you see reviews of these machines, and like with portable air conditioners, people just don't understand how they work, which is why they can be easily ripped-off..  Operator error is not the fault of the machine.   It would be like a review you read where someone says, "This new Chevy is no good, I put it on "cruise control" and it drove right into a tree!" - the user not understanding that cruise control doesn't steer the car for you (yet).   The same is true of portable air conditioners - people think you can plug them in and they will "make cold" without exhausting the waste heat somewhere.    There is no such thing in Physics as "cold" - only the absence of heat.   But in layman's terms, any air conditioner or refrigerator will produce more heat for every amount of "cold" it makes - and that heat has to be rejected somewhere, or everything just gets hotter and hotter.

And these portable ice makers are no exception.  If you place one in a small closet or cabinet or other enclosed space, that space will heat up to the point where the ice will all melt.  People don't understand that.

Many reviewers also complain that the machine won't keep the ice frozen.   Again, this is more like a commercial ice machine, where ice is continuously made and continuously melts.   If you leave the machine on all the time, there is always ice in it (provided you keep adding water to it as you use the ice).   Karen buys one of these machines, has it make nine ice cubes and then shuts it off and wonders why, an hour later, there is no ice in it!   It must be broken!   What a ripoff!   Shut up, Karen!

It reminds me of a review I saw online about a thermoelectric ice chest sold by Coleman.  Ours is 10 years old and works just fine.  But thermoelectric refrigerators are pretty weak and only cool down to 30 degrees below ambient.  You need to run them for a day to cool down things, or make sure the things you put in them are already cold.  Once cold, it will keep them cold.   But again, Karen decided to load it up with two cases of warm soda and then plug it in ten minutes after the little league game started, and wondered why a machine that runs on 12 volts can't instantly chill 48 cans of soda-pop to near-freezing temperatures.   We have raised a generation of helpless idiots in a technological world.

I am not meaning to take a piss on the Karens of the world - there are plenty of Kevins out there as well.   But it is disturbing to me that so many people in the world today have strong opinions about things they don't understand, and what's more they have no inclination to want to understand or learn, and posit that being uneducated about things is actually superior, because only lower-class people understand technology, and the Karens and Kevins of the world were born to the corner office and some management job.

These are the kind of people who are against nuclear power because they think the power plant will blow up like Hiroshima.  Granted, there are logical arguments to be made - largely today the cost of such plants, which never pay for themselves, or the nuclear waste problem, or the issue of meltdowns when the reserve water supply is interrupted.   They are against nuclear power - but for all the wrong reasons.   It is sort of like 20-something white kids from the suburbs trying to tell me what it is like to be black, because they know, by dint of being "woke" and having gone to college.  Maybe they are "right" - but for all the wrong reasons.

But I digress.

When we sold the lake house, the new owners wanted the ice machine (and half the furniture) so we sold it to them.  A lot easier than moving stuff!   But in the camper, we have had to use ice bags to either make ice, or buy bags of ice, which at $2.00 to $2.50 a bag, gets expensive over time, and inconvenient, if there is no retail store nearby.  So we thought about a portable ice maker.

Since the old days, they have gotten cheaper and smaller (thank you, China!).   Today, they have a footprint about the size of a legal pad (remember those?) and cost about $99 at WalMart.   They make them under a number of different brand names, but they all look exactly the same.   Amazon sells the same damn thing for $150.   Score:  Walmart 1, Bezos 0.   While they claim to draw only 2 amps (200 watts) they will not work on the 400 Watt inverter on our truck, as the inrush current for the compressor is too much for the inverter.  So the idea of making ice and mixing martinis while driving down the road is out - probably a bad idea, anyway.

Are they a good value?   Well, at $2.50 for a bag of ice, it will pay for itself after it's made 40 bags of ice.  Most ice is sold in ten pound bags, and this machine can make "up to" 26 pounds a day.  So in about 20 days, it could pay for itself.  But I think convenience is the real deal.  While the machine will keep its little basket full of cubes if you leave it on, Karen,  ice from the store needs to be stored in the freezer, or left to slowly melt in an ice bucket.   In our camper, the freezer is a lot larger than in our old camper, but a ten-pound bag of ice still takes up about 1/4 the space.

Of course, it still requires electricity, and we are going "off the grid" for a few weeks, so we may go back to using ice bags then (the refrigerator runs on gas).

As an economic proposition, these ice makers are not a very good one.  The payback, versus buying ice, is still pretty long.  For home use, you are better off installing an icemaker kit in your refrigerator.  They are not hard to install - I've done it myself at our old condo in Florida.   They even have a device that taps off the water line under the sink, so you don't have to dick around with the plumbing too much.  And an icemaker kit for a standard refrigerator is cheap and most refrigerators today - even the simple two-door ones -  are pre-wired for the icemaker, even if they didn't come with one.

But if you have a camp, a boat, or a camper, and have electricity but not a standard refrigerator, these kind of icemakers can be convenient and less hassle than dragging bags of ice along.   And really, the darn thing doesn't weigh much more than a bag of ice, really.  As an added bonus, it does keep the camper warm on cold nights - or at least takes the chill off - as it does produce a modest amount of heat.

We bought the "Frigidaire" model from WalMart, although we looked online (a lot!) and saw them advertised in a number of colors and under a number of brands at a number of price points - but they all looked identical.   I am not sure it is worth paying $20 more for a red one, although we saw a baby-blue one on sale at a WalMart for $55 (returned) but it was gone by the time we got there (damn!).  $99 seems to be the lowest price.  WalMart seems to be the place to get them - not all stores carry them in stock, and they may be a seasonal item (probably going on sale, soon).

Frigidaire, of course, used to be owned by my alma mater, General Motors.   The brand is now owned by Electrolux, apparently, which oddly enough owns (among other things) Dometic, which makes the stove, the gas refrigerator, the air conditioner, the awning, and God-knows-what-else on our camper.  Busy folks, those Swedes.

In Roman times, they had elaborate bathhouses, where you could sit in what we call a sauna, but they called a Caldarium.   Once you were hot enough, you could cool down in the Frigidarium which was a cool room or bath, or lounge in the Tepidarium, where the temperatures were temperate.  I had always assumed that "Frigidaire" was a portmanteau of "Frigid" and "Air" but perhaps it is a nod to our Roman forebears.

All that being said, they are not a product for everyone.  While they may start to make ice in as little as six minutes, they won't make mountains of it - but more than enough for two people, provided you leave it on......

Law and Order Wins Out

The Mayor of Chicago gives in and supports Trump's Federal response to gun violations.  Did she really have a choice?   Criminals don't vote!

A recent news story is interesting in that it illustrates how the Feds busted a number of people in Chicago for gun charges - violent felons who were in the possession of loaded handguns in violation of the law.   These are not nice people.   The felons, not the Feds.  Criminals with loaded handguns are not out to bring you flowers.   Get over that and get real.   Chicago has seen a rash of shootings lately - moreso than normal.  Word is out that thanks to "abolish bail" and "abolish fines" and "let all the prisoners go - they're innocent!" movements (usually supported by and propagated by, liberal whites in the suburbs), crime is up.

But a funny thing.   The mayor of Chicago realized that criminals don't vote and that law-abiding citizens make up the vast majority of the electorate.  So after resisting Trump's offer of "help" she finally went along with it and swallowed her bile and said she supports the President in this instance.

Good move.

I noted before that Law & Order will be on the menu this November.  The lawlessness we are seeing nationwide - which may be orchestrated and enhanced by outside forces via social networking - is pushing people to re-think a lot of things.  Sadly, Democrats and Liberals were baited by this whole thing, not realizing they were falling into a trap.   By defending violence and looting and arson, they are going to lose at the polling place.

Fast Facts:

1.  Over 70% of Americans are white.  That's why minorities are called minorities.  Calling for a "majority" of "people of color" on your board is not per capita representation, it is just overkill and pandering of the worst sort.   Yes, minorities are under-represented.   Over-representation isn't the answer.  I'm talking at you, Sierra Club. 

2.  The vast majority (99% or more) of Americans are not criminals and not sympathetic to criminals.  People - oddly enough - don't want to be mugged, raped, assaulted, robbed, or burgled.   No one wants to be killed for the keys to their SUV. 

3.  Minorities don't vote.   Hillary thought she could cobble together a coalition of "better together" of minorities and gays and liberals.  Sadly, it was an ill-conceived plan.  The big problem for Hillary was that minorities stayed home in 2016 and Trump got out the rural, white vote.   Hillary didn't even make a play for it. Until minorities are willing to vote for a candidate that supports their interests even if they are not of the same color, not much is going to change. 

4. Minorities don't add up to a majority.  Seems like a simple thing - you can't make a majority out of a minority - or even a group of them.  See #1 above.  While diverse group of women and gay men in "Hillyland" thought that the vast majority of Americans were of some minority identity group or were of a liberal bent, they failed to take into account that there are a lot of people outside of their own inner circle that they don't even know exist.

Taken all together, it points to a simple thing: America really hasn't changed all that much in 50 years.  All this talk about white people becoming a minority or Hispanics taking over is a little far-fetched, or at least wildly premature.

What people of all races want is law and order.  Granted, people in the city might want to see policing techniques changed and less harassment of people of color.  But the largest group of victims of crime in the inner cities are the residents themselves.   For all this talk about whites fearing blacks, the majority of crime committed by blacks is against other blacks.

The idea that criminality is some sort of black cultural value or should be tolerated is just nonsense.  And when most of the rioters disrupting these protests are suburban whites or just homeless crazy people on drugs, the protest should be over and the police should be called to remove the rioters.

I predicted before that Trump would use "Law and Order" this fall to get elected (100 days from now!).   It is 1968 all over again, and Mr. and Mrs. White Suburban American are watching the television in horror and are not impressed with your CHAZ or CHOP or whatever you want to call it, they are scared by it.   Scared enough to vote for Trump - and maybe that was the design all along - from outside forces encouraging these riots.

Democrats have to get off the rioting bandwagon.   Rioting is not protesting, and nothing excuses violence in a protest - no matter what the grievance.

Even the Mayor of Chicago understands that!

More Fake Trading on Reddit

Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, or any online forum where people don't use their real names and facts cannot be verified, should never be the primary or sole source for a legitimate news article.

A reader writes:

I read your "Imaginary Trading on Reddit" article post and it reminded me of something I saw on Reddit a bit ago.

A guy posts his, totally real, chart of over a million gains on TSLA calls, and not-so-subtly plugs his Twitter account where he is selling access to a Discord server trading group for $110 (!!!!!) a month!

From googling this group, it's a glorified options gambling group, where they of course... hype up the gains whenever somebody makes money and tries to silence/downplay anytime somebody loses money throwing it at speculative option plays. I'm sure they throw in fake charts and fake gains as well, for good measure.

I deleted the links in that e-mail, only because I don't want to inadvertently advertise the trading sites.

This sort of thing illustrates how Reddit is all just one big advertisement, and no doubt Reddit is aware of this site using their "Wall Street Bets" forum to plug their day-trading and margin-trading schemes.   They are likely aware as they were paid to host these threads.

(The forum went dark recently as the founder of that subreddit was accused of using it to sell a book and promote his own trading site.  He probably didn't pay - that was the problem. The subreddit is back up and worse than ever, though!)

It has gotten to the point where when you read any discussion thread, you can rightfully assume that half the people posting are paid to do so.  The spontaneous thread celebrating a new product or just casually mentioning it is likely a paid put-up job.   We are all being baited and shilled.

So, who falls for these stupid stock gambling schemes?   And that is all they are, is gambling schemes, not "investing".    Well, boring man, for one.   He admitted to losing over fifty grand in margin trading in his 30's - something that no retail investor should be doing at any age.

But what is sadder is that "journalists" will take these stories from the Internet, and without vetting them at all, will publish them in a "mainstream" media outlet.  Oh, sure, they qualify it by saying "allegedly" - but what's the point?   That's just admitting that you didn't even try to e-mail the guy in question who claimed to make all this money in so little time - or that he would provide any documentation to prove this actually happened (instead of just reconstructing a fictitious scenario using historic data).

And shame on the said same "journalist" for promoting such schemes under the rubric of a "financial advice" column or page.  Why on earth would they do this?   Do they have no journalistic ethics whatsoever?

And the answer of course is, no, they don't.   They are only interested in printing titillating articles designed to sell newspapers (in the past) get ratings on TV (in the recent past) or generate click-through revenue (today).

This would not be so bad, if it weren't for said same "journalists" positing they are some sort of folk heroes, exposing the truth, standing up to tyranny, and informing the public.    They have been whining and moaning about how journalists are under attack, worldwide, and how their noble profession is under threat.

Noble profession?   Hardly.    The reality is, often the journalists overseas are indeed under threat, but these are often "stringers" - independent journalists who develop stories and sell them to the mainstream media, who then puts a superstar face on the story (a known journalist celebrity) and prints it.

Yes, we feel sorry for the guy in Somalia who sold a story to the wire services for $15 and then got shot by some terrorist group.   We don't feel sorry for the hair helmet on the evening news who reports that same story as a "special investigation" - and acts as though he personally investigated it and wrote it up.

Journalists need to up their game and improve their credibility.   That's why they are being criticized in the United States.

Reddit should not be a "source" for news.   But guess who owns Reddit?   Conde Nasty Publications, who tried to sanitize their image by claiming it is now owned by "Advance Publications" an "independent" subsidiary of Conde Nasty.   How can something be owned by you and claim to be independent?     Again, more lies from the media.

The only thing worthwhile reading on Reddit is r/comics - but then again, never read the comments, as each one is quickly hijacked into a discussion about whether Capitalism is doomed to fail (as if it were some sort of political movement and not the default mode of human interaction).

But once again, I digress.

Speaking of boring man and idiots who think they can get-rich-quick on the Internet, I met another nice young man the other day and it was a refreshing contrast to boring man in terms of his outlook on life.  While he was only in his 30's, he was an entrepreneur.  He opened two Subway franchises, but while he initially made money, like so many other franchisees of that chain these days, he ended up losing his shirt.

Not deterred by failure and learning from his mistakes, he now owns two gas stations.  He is making money at them, but it is hard work.   Finding employees who give a damn is hard to do, particularly these days ("Hey boss, can I have a day off to go riot?").

He is also looking to buy foreclosure and tax-sale properties, to fix up and rent out, making a little money in the short term, getting a nice tax deduction over time, and maybe some capital gains over time as well.  No "get-rich-quick" or "buy-and-flip" mentality, but the realization that wealth is not easy to come by (otherwise we'd all be wealthy) and that real wealth requires hard work, careful thought, and some luck - and that you won't always win out.

Like I said, it was refreshing to talk to this "young" man and it reminded me of how I was at that age - investing in real estate, starting my own business, and so forth.   It can be done, and if you are persistent, over time, you will make out.

On the other hand, expecting - realistically - to take a small amount of money and leverage it into a fortune overnight by knowing the "secret tips 'n tricks" to investing is just deluding oneself.   The secret tip is this:  Set up a trading site and con a lot of 20-somethings into handing over what pitifully small amount of money they've managed to save up.   Get a million chumps to give you a few dollars each, and you're set!

Why people fall for this, again and again, over the decades, is beyond me.  It is not like it isn't well documented.   It is not like no one every told them, If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't true.

Chex Mix

No, this isn't what I am talking about.

People obsess about their credit score and credit report.  And to some extent, you should monitor your credit report, which you can do, for free, at annualcreditreport.com.  As a reader helpfully noted, you can space out the three reports (from the three reporting agencies) over the year, so every four months, you can check one of them and see if someone is trying to open credit in your name, or some creditor has made an erroneous report.

You can also lock these reports so that no one can open credit in your name (or shouldn't be able to) without written permission or unlocking of your account online.  It is pretty easy to use, and you can lock and unlock your credit report online, for one day, or for a predetermined period of time (one month) in some cases, which might be handy if you are car shopping.  It then automatically re-locks.

But your credit report is not the end-all of your financial history.  Banks have their own reporting system known as "Chex" which produces a report of your banking history.   Again, obsessing about this report is probably silly.  If you have your financial house in order, odds are, you credit report and Chex report are just fine.

On the other hand, if you routinely bounce checks and stiff the bank, your report may be less-than-stellar. And no, banks are not obligated to offer you an account, if your financial history is checkered.

I related before how a friend of mine who worked at the Patent Office Credit Union explained the problems with poverty banking.  Every payday, the GS-2 clerks would line up at the Credit Union and have money orders made out to their landlord, the utility company, and so on and so forth.   Each cost 75 cents!   I asked my friend why, and he said, "We tried giving them checking accounts, but they just wrote checks until they ran out!"   Some people just don't get finances, which is why student loans and payday loans proliferate.   It is sad, but it puts the problems of middle-class people (credit card debts, buying timeshares, leasing cars) into perspective.

Of course, there are others who simply defraud banks - borrowing money and not paying it back.  Writing bad checks and then skipping town.   That sort of thing.  And banks have a need to know who it is they are dealing with.

But like with the credit reports, you have a right to a copy of this document and a right to contest any inaccurate information (and inaccurate information can appear in anyone's report).  I ordered a copy online, but I guess since I am a new customer, so to speak, they would not e-mail it to me, but mail it to my home address.  I will update this blog posting when I receive it, if it is of any interest.