Is T. Boone Pickens the next Ross Perot?

By now, I’m pretty sure everyone in the U.S. has seen one of T. Boone Pickens’ television commercials that have been running each night during prime time on every major network.

You know, the one with the old guy, T. Boone, talking about his idea for eliminating the dependency on foreign oil. There are even beautiful panoramic vistas of wind farms like the one I passed by on vacation. Some think they’re really ugly, but I think they look pretty cool.

If you haven’t seen the commercial (do you live in a box?), here it is on YouTube.

So, who is this guy?

He’s often referred to as a “legendary oilman” but if you’re under 35, chances are, you haven’t heard of him. I know that I hadn’t.

By the second time I saw the commercial, I couldn’t help but think this was another H. Ross Perot getting a late start in the race for President.

There are a lot of similarities…

They’re both old.

They both have a first name that they don’t use (Henry and Thomas).

And they’re both self-made gazillionaires from deep in the heart of Texas — and have the accent to prove it.

Pickens advertises that he’ll be detailing his proposed “energy plan” in the coming weeks.

Hmmm, could this be anything like when Ross Perot bought all of the programming time on the networks to show his half-hour long campaign commercials during prime time? Pickens, like Perot, has the money to do it. Amazing what a net worth of $3 billion can get you.

Secretly, I’m hoping Pickens uses a ton of easy-to-understand charts like Perot did, gosh, 16 years ago now. That was really cool.

But I don’t think a presidential run is in the cards for Pickens.

Apparently he already considered running (and then decided against it) back in 1988, as a Republican, I’d assume.

He’s also 80 years old, though he may not look or sound it. That’s even a few years older than Ross Perot.

So what’s his point? Why’s he doing this?

Reading up on him a bit, he’s been a very big supporter of the Republican Party but I can’t see how any of this could possibly benefit John McCain. Based on the Adsense ads that frequently appear on this very site, McCain is still all about a gas tax moratorium… Yeah, that’ll solve everything…

Sure, “energy” is an issue in politics right now and it is pretty refreshing that someone who wasn’t elected to office for anything is stepping up and offering a real plan, but why?

My best guess is that it’s a last ditch effort to leave a legacy outside of his native Oklahoma and current state of residence, Texas — while also ensuring that his companies will succeed in the years ahead, even when oil is no longer their cash cow.

He’s diversifying, basically, and spending loads of his own money to get public support, which will, in-turn, garner government support, and then the government (aka the taxpayers) will subsidize his endeavors.

If it works, as crooked as it is, he’s a genius… Not that he wasn’t a proven genius in the business world already…

But maybe I’m alone on this one…

Posted on July 11th, 2008 at 2:13 pm by Brainy Smurf
Current Events, Television | 2 Comments »

Fleeced by Credit Card Foreign Transaction Fees

Last month, I used my AT&T Universal credit card from Citi to buy some CFL football tickets online — the only available option from 500 miles away. It was a game that we were going to attend while on vacation.

Back when I bought them, I bemoaned all of TicketMaster’s surcharges that I was forced to pay. Something about “convenience”…

Little did I know that my credit card company would take a slice as well… just a few weeks after the fact.

Upon returning home from our vacation, I noticed that my credit card was carrying a balance. A nice and even $5.00 balance. Not something that I expected, so I logged in to see the details:

A foreign transaction fee. Okay, whatever. It’s just five bucks, right? Not that big of a deal. But buried in the fine print (yes, the fine print even exists on a computer screen), I came across this:

Your Card provides the convenience of transacting in foreign currencies worldwide wherever MasterCard is accepted without having to exchange and carry more foreign currency than you need for your transaction. Each purchase you make in a foreign currency is subject to a one-time transaction fee. The Annual Percentage Rate for Standard Purchases shown on this statement applies only to purchases made in a foreign currency.

There’s that magic word again: convenience.

I’m sorry, but if a vendor lists that Visa or MasterCard are accepted at their establishment, the consumer shouldn’t be paying any additional fee on their purchases.

Now, again, why am I making such a fuss about one $5 transaction fee? Well, because I used the card SIX more times while in Canada after this last statement came out.

My understanding of the line “each purchase you make in a foreign currency is subject to a one-time transaction fee” means that I’m going to get hit with another $30 in unexpected fees at the end of this month.

That’s a lot of money for “convenience”, don’t you think?

Now I realize that I used a MasterCard in this instance, but I looked up the terms and conditions on my Visa card through Bank of America, and they appear to be the same. Wouldn’t have mattered which card I chose.

Of course, neither discloses what the exact “convenience” fee will actually be in the fine print. Depends on the weather, I guess.

But in Visa’s case, I have a bit more of a problem with the whole idea of foreign transaction fees — especially in countries that they currently operate in and have operated in for years!?

(I target Visa here because I can’t recall a widespread MasterCard advertising campaign that involves non-domestic transactions.)

See, of late, you can’t watch more than 20 minutes of NBC programming without viewing a Visa commercial where they tout themselves as an official sponsor of next month’s Olympic Games in Beijing.

Going to their website, they boast:

Visa-branded ATMs have been installed in and around Beijing for your convenience.

As a Worldwide Partner, Visa is the only card accepted at any Olympic venue throughout China and for Olympic merchandise purchased online, in Olympic retail stores and by catalog.

Wow. There’s that word again. Convenience.

Odd how they “conveniently” fail to mention that if you use one of those Visa-branded ATMs in Beijing, you’re going to get dinged with an extra fee — from them and probably your bank back home too if you have a linked debit/credit account.

Convenient.

Posted on July 11th, 2008 at 12:41 pm by Brainy Smurf
Rants, Finance, Credit Card | No Comments »

Wouldn’t you know it…

Just days after requesting that the private mortgage insurance from my mortgage be removed, I see that they’ve taken another $85.15 from my escrow account to pay, well, for the private mortgage insurance I shouldn’t have be paying for anymore.

Not that I didn’t expect that to happen — Countrywide did give themselves 3 weeks to “research” the request.

In fact, I’d bet that I even end up paying it yet again in August.

Sure, August 10th is more than 3 weeks in the future, but just you wait…

Posted on July 11th, 2008 at 8:09 am by Brainy Smurf
Rants, Finance, Mortgage, PMI - Mortgage Insurance | No Comments »

Personal Property Taxes Are (were?) Due

Well, it’s that time of year again. Yep — tax time.

That is, if you live in one of the states that has a personal property tax.

Here in Connecticut, we have to pay local property taxes on our automobiles. We used to be pretty unique in that respect but now roughly half of the country has a similar tax.

Each year, the personal property tax is due on July 1st. The city mailed the bills out on July 3rd.

So, by the time we received the bill, after the Independence Day holiday, we were already 5 days late. Hmph!

Maybe it’s just me, but I just can’t understand how municipalities can get away with stuff like that… Granted, they don’t start charging interest until you’re a month overdue, but still…

Even worse, looking at the bill — they don’t have a due date printed anywhere. Seriously. Just a threatening paragraph about not being able to register your vehicle in the future if your paid taxes aren’t current. No return envelope either. And you can’t pay online.

Not very convenient.

I can’t remember the last time I actually addressed a blank envelope.

Probably about this time last July.

Anyway, this year the tax due on my two vehicles totals $427.54.

I’m pretty happy about that. Much less than I’d expected and far less than just last year.

I was prepared, actually, for an increase back in April when I’d read that, “Most homeowners will see a property tax hike of at least $150 this year if the proposed budget eyed by the city’s Board of Finance is approved.”

That proposed budget was approved, but upon re-reading the article, it (the budget) didn’t go into effect until this month so the tax hike will actually hit us on next year’s bill.

For fun, I went back and dug up all of my previous personal property tax bills. Okay, not all of them, but as far back as I still had the stubs on file — back to 2001 — and I was surprised by what I found:

Turns out, I had much reason to be pleasantly surprised by this year’s bill. It’s the least I’ve ever had to pay. A full $200+ less than last year! Fantastic!

Don’t get me wrong though… Not for one second am I saying that getting a $400+ bill in the dead of summer is anything to be jumping for joy about.

It’s not.

But July just so happens to be one of those mystical 3 paycheck months for me, so paring an additional $400 from the budget isn’t anything to worry about.

And how on earth was I able to pay a $701 tax bill back in 2002? Yikes!

Posted on July 10th, 2008 at 2:04 pm by Brainy Smurf
Finance, Current Events, Taxes | 1 Comment »

The Departure of Steve & Barry’s — My Bargain Basement

While on vacation last week, I caught wind of some disappointing news.

My latest favorite store Steve & Barry’s, depending on what paper your read, is on the brink of bankruptcy and is on the verge of closing most of its stores.

I only discovered Steve & Barry’s (wikipedia entry) about a year ago. My sister had a few university sweatshirts with their tag in them, but I’d always kind of brushed it off as a mom & pop shop local to her school or something. That is, until I saw one in a mall relatively close to my house.

The first time I ventured into the store, I was NOT impressed.

A quick run through left me with the impression that it was a store full of poor quality t-shirts with obnoxious slogans on them — obviously geared towards a younger set than me. The t-shirts weren’t lewd or downright disgusting like Abercrombie & Fitch, but not really appropriate for someone in their 30’s either.

Probably six months later, we ran into another Steve & Barry’s at a different mall. By this time, I’d made the connection that the nice sweatshirt that my sister had left behind (and that I currently wore to shovel snow in the driveway) was from the same company. I bought a $7.98 t-shirt that day.

In two weeks time, I’d worn the t-shirt at least 3 times. It was a good quality t-shirt. I even wore it yesterday. And for $7.98? Wow.

For years I’d been paying $10.50 (current price of late is $14.50) for the plain old blank Gap t-shirts. No more. Steve & Barry’s has supplied probably 80% of the t-shirts that I wear with any regularity.

Even on vacation, I plotted out the various Steve & Barry’s in the midwest along our path before we departed, so as to get inexpensive souvenirs from each location. We only stopped at three of them, two in Wisconsin and a HUGE one in Indiana.

Probably added 10 more t-shirts at $7.50 each. (Using their neverending 2 for $15 promo.)

Some are even longsleeve! Yes, you can get a long sleeve t-shirt for $7.50. Even their sweatshirts are the same low price.

Bottom line, they’re cheaper than Walmart, Target, and Old Navy. And unlike those other stores, they’re stylish enough that you don’t look like a townie or a billboard for the store in their clothes. While I can’t stand her, even Sarah Jessica Parker has an exlcusive line of clothing with them and according to the tabloid television shows, she’s apparently a very fashionable dresser. I don’t see it.

But now, it appears, after having just found them, they’ll be pulling out of our market. That sucks.

It’s totally of their own doing — a classic example of getting too big far too fast, but one has to wonder why they can’t just raise their super low price by just one dollar per item. Or make it a nice round $10.

They’d still be cheaper than everyone else (their quality is already better than the previously mentioned stores), and they’d drastically increase their revenue…

Based on the reports, I’d guess they’re in a bit more trouble than a plan like that could solve…

Posted on July 9th, 2008 at 8:42 am by Brainy Smurf
Current Events, Bargains | No Comments »

PMI Eliminated

Well…sort of.

I made the big move yesterday afternoon and made an extra payment of $900 to Countrywide that put my current loan to value percentage at 79.998 percent.

Yes, that’s less than $3 over the mark but they can’t deny that it is, infact, over the mark.

Then I submitted a request to have the mortgage insurance removed.

The automated response:

The research request has been submitted for review. Please allow up to 3 weeks for research to be completed. When the research has been completed, a letter will be sent to the address of record containing the results. Once you receive the letter, should you have any additional questions, please use the contact information provided in the letter.

Three weeks? Sheesh. I dunno, seems like something a computer could do. I could even write the program for them to check their database of customers.

So I guess I’m in a bit of a foggy period. That’s okay, I’ll stay the course with the mortgage as the top priority until the letter arrives.

I’m a bit of a pessimist, so I’m not really expecting a favorable result. Somehow I can just see the letter saying that my loan isn’t old enough (70 months) or that I’m too close to the 80% mark and they won’t drop it until I hit 78% mark.

Even worse, they’ll pull out a recent headline as an excuse and say it can’t be dropped because the value of the property has dropped in recent months. Or ask me to pay for an appraisal. Ugh…

I’ve read that mortgage companies have to legally cancel PMI at 78%. Seems a little crooked to me. Why is it not 80%? Oh, so someone out there can line their pockets for a few extra years… I get it.

Anyway, I’ve got my fingers crossed!

Posted on July 9th, 2008 at 5:57 am by Brainy Smurf
Finance, Mortgage, Success, 2008 Goals, PMI - Mortgage Insurance | 2 Comments »

The Price of Gas didn’t Keep Me from Traveling…

And it shouldn’t keep you from traveling either! It’s not *that* expensive.

This past weekend, we returned from a 10-day/9-night activity filled vacation where we drove 2619.7 miles through 9 states (CT, MA, NY, PA, OH, IN, MI, IL, WI) and 1 province (ON).

With all the doom and gloom reporting of $5/gallon gas by the holiday weekend, we were prepared to spend in excess of $500 on gas alone.

That didn’t happen. Partly because the $5/gallon gas never materialized in the United States and because, well, gas, in reality, isn’t as expensive as people make it out to be.

We overestimated. Big time. And I think a lot of people are doing a lot of “rounding-up” in their heads, like us, making the gas seem a lot more expensive than it really is.

Total spent on gas was $318.77 spread across 8 fill-ups.

Not a small sum but, really, when compared to the cost of a night in a hotel or (gasp!) amusement park admission (and lets not forget the $5+ sodas once inside!), $30/day in travel costs is nothing. Way cheaper than flying and we had room for 5 adults (though that would have been really tight!).

For consistency, we filled up on the cheap stuff on each pit stop — regular 87 octane — and we didn’t “hunt” for the best price or seek out a specific brand. Whatever was closest when we needed gas…

Breaking down the above photo collage into more detail for comparison sake:

1. $39.82 total — $3.999/gallon at a Sheetz in Mill Hall, PA
2. $39.42 total — $3.999/gallon at a Valero in Clyde, OH
3. $40.82 total — $4.119/gallon at a Mobil in Belvidere, IL
4. $30.53 total — $4.199/gallon at a Citgo in Carol Stream, IL
5. $30.59 total — $4.399/gallon at a Mobil in Howe, IN
6. $49.72 total — $1.352/litre at an Esso in Cambridge, ON
7. $47.06 total — $1.339/litre at an Ultramar in Fort Erie, ON
8. $40.91 total — $4.219/gallon at a Hess in Cobleskill, NY

Fill-ups six and seven were in Canada, so a little bit of a calculation is required to “Americanize” them:

6. $48.63 total US — $5.005/gallon
7. $46.26 total US — $4.983/gallon

So you see, south of the International Boundary, gas is still a bargain. It really is. So get out there and travel — the price of gas alone should not be stopping you!

It’s not *that* expensive, hardly prohibitive, and had we made this trip exactly one year ago (when gas was “apparently” a fair price), the difference would have been a mere $80 over 10 days!

That, in my book, is nothing over the span of a planned vacation.

Posted on July 8th, 2008 at 7:42 am by Brainy Smurf
Current Events, Bargains, Vacation | No Comments »

My Review of the Garmin Nuvi 260

While I can’t really compare it to other GPS devices since I’ve never had a different one, I do have a few things to say about the Garmin Nuvi 260.

On our recent vacation, we traversed over 2600 miles with the unit “plugged in” and it got us everywhere we wanted to go.

We didn’t even need to look at our old Rand McNally atlas that we brought along, you know, just in case…

That isn’t to say that the Garmin Nuvi 260 is flawless…

The first problem I found with it was in downtown Chicago. While we were on the city streets, it worked just fine. But on the interstates that are 12 lanes wide with jersey barriers dividing it up every 4 lanes or so and city streets running parallel on each side of the highway, well, the Garmin was obviously unsure of which road we were actually on.

Understandable I suppose, it only appears to be accurate to within a few hundred feet and when there are 3 or more road ways all on top of one another within that accuracy zone, well, of course it was going to have some difficulty.

The good news is that even though we missed the turn it asked us to take (which would have been impossible due to the previously mentioned jersey barrier), the Garmin 260 was still able to guide us to our destination after “recalculating” a few times.

The next small issue I had with the unit came in Toronto — a city I’m semi-familiar with driving in. Like most modern cities, the whole downtown area is set-up in a grid style. My destination was north of the city on Yonge Street (a N-S route). At the time, I was on Dundas Street (an E-W route) about 5 blocks east of Yonge Street.

The simple way to get there would have been to to drive west on Dundas until I hit Yonge, turn right (towards the north) and then hit my destination.

But the Garmin instructed us to turn right, turn left, turn right, turn left, turn right, turn left — basically directing us towards the destination diagonally.

I immediately understood what it was doing, connecting our current position and our destination in a straight line and choosing the closest route.

Have you ever tried turning left in the city? On a main road? Where trolleys still run on rails? With tons of pedestrian traffic? And in a country where you need to give pedestrians the right of way?

It’s something that’s best to avoid.

I didn’t obey the Garmin in this case, mostly because I knew where I was going, but had this been in another city, one I’m unfamiliar with, it would have been quite the stressful drive when it didn’t really need to be.

The last little glitch with the Garmin occurred as we were heading home. We crossed the border in Buffalo, New York where the QEW becomes I-90 or the New York State Thruway. I-90 then eventually turns into the Mass Pike which leads right to Boston — which points us towards Connecticut.

We made a quick side trip to Eden, New York — maybe 10 minutes southwest of Buffalo and I-90 — to visit a kazoo factory. The Garmin 260 worked perfectly. Unfortunately the factory was closed. Boo…

Afterwards, we punched in our home address as our next destination and the Garmin took us through mile after mile of desolate farmland on slow two lane roads.

It was slow going and we were a little low on gas — not an ideal situation. I’d say it added nearly an additional 2 hours to our drive when, technically, the Garmin should have just told us to go back the way we’d come and join up with I-90 for some travel at 70+ mph.

On the bright side, taking the scenic route put us up close and personal to one of the wind farms that have started dotting the upstate New York landscape over the past decade. They’re a pretty neat sight.

In the end, I’d give the Garmin Nuvi 260 a big thumbs up. Its limitations, while annoying, are totally within reason. Best of all, it never failed to get us where we were headed.

Posted on July 7th, 2008 at 12:35 pm by Brainy Smurf
Computers, Vacation | 2 Comments »