Weekly Wrap Up March 9-15

Image by mookio 阿默

It has been a busy week but I definitely want to shine the light on the great writing I have read around the web last week so this is a belated weekly wrap up.

PT Money had a great post (it was actually a guest post from Wide Open Wallet, but I read it on PT Money so they get the first mention 😉 ) about something I have never heard of called The Rule of 72. The rule essentially helps measure the amount of time an investment will take to make money and the post goes on to tell how the rule actually is inaccurate and gives a more accurate way to measure investments…The Rule of 70!

The Rule of 70 provides more accurate doubling times for more interest rates between 2% and 20% and for more compounding frequencies than the Rule of 72. Simply divide 70 by the interest rate rather than 72.

There has been a ton of talk about the Jon Stewart vs CNBC and Jim Cramer. Basically Jon Stewart who has what I believe to be a comedy show ( I dont have cable) has launched an all out attack, comedic in nature of course but with a serious baseline, on CNBC and Jim Cramer because of the basically bogus info they spew out on their show regarding finance. Pimp Your Finances covers it pretty well here and here. Jon even had Cramer on his show and drilled him for about 20 minutes. Cramer really had no defense for the endless stream of clips and comments followed by applause from Jon and his audience. It was a really entertaining 20 minutes and there were some great points made.

Another fairly major piece of news was the sentence of Bernard Madoff for his major Ponzi Scheme and for those that don’t know, Free From Broke gave a pretty good explanation of a Ponzi Scheme in simple terms (another reference to a reference as this explanation was written by another author over at amoores.com)

I mentioned a few weeks ago that California decided to give IOU’s as tax returns this year, it looks like that just didn’t cut it. Now they are changing their tax laws. This doesn’t have too much affect on me but my parents still live in California and my mom subscribes so this is just for her (Hi Mom!)…Yes I really did publish that. One major point is the sales tax will increase by a penny per dollar:

#1 – Sales Tax
Starting April 1st, the base sales tax rate will rise from 7.25% to 8.25%. While this is only one additional penny per dollar, relatively it is a 12% increase in sales taxes. The base rate doesn’t include taxes added by individual cities and counties. For example, the total sales tax rate in San Francisco will now be 9.5%. In some cities it will break 10%.

In light of my recent writing slow down, I thought I would throw this post into the mix; Jason at Side Hustle Blogging put out a post about How to Apologize for a Writing Hiatus with a pretty interesting take on it. I think my problem is I just don’t have a proper schedule set out for my writing so I write sporadically throughout the week without a planned day to publish. But I have seen just what Jason states here, even with my small reader base, so thank you all!

I think as bloggers we underestimate the loyalty of our readers and overestimate our own self-importance. After all, I recognize that the 150 of you that subscribe here have other things on your feed reader to read, and other things to do than read a blog about blogging.

However, I also recognize that at least some of you are fans (I hope), and are willing to hang around for a while waiting for my next post. In fact, some argue a little time away makes the heart grow fonder. I don’t know about that, but I do admit to a twinge of excitement when I see one of my favorite bloggers has posted after some time away.

Clever Dude posted a pretty cool video of a guy named Benjamin Wallace and how he (with financial backing) went and tasted/experienced some of the most expensive things in the world to see if the price tag really does make things better. The result? Jump over there and watch it. Its a bit lengthy at 14 minutes but it is pretty interesting to see what he thought of these high priced items such as a $120 bar of soap laced with silver and some steak from Japan that cost $160 a cut.

Another big piece of news that has been talked about all over the web is the use of our tax money on bailouts for companies but in this particular case, AIG and their use of our money to pay over $165 Million in what they are calling “retention bonuses”. They say this is to keep the best and the brightest talent at AIG yet some of whom are receiving bonuses no longer work at AIG! For a fraction of that bonus, AIG can retain my brilliant mind 😉 I could probably give them some tips on running the company into the ground.

A few more posts all in good fun:

I recently saw the film Twilight. It was pretty good. I haven’t read any of the books and was a bit disappointed in the action scene which was a bit too brief for my liking but overall it was pretty enjoyable. The one thing I hear the most about it from friends and family though is that the main guy is ever so dreamy…I really couldn’t see it and neither could Corrin from Oh, Hey. I am really glad I am not the only one. (and just for the record, I too think his nose is crazy crooked)

A huge congrats goes out to Pimp Your Finances for hitting the 100th post! Nice going there and keep it up! (I am mentioned on his post! Thanks David!)

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