Showing posts with label san francisco. Show all posts
Showing posts with label san francisco. Show all posts

Good Morning Health Insurance and Apartment Hunting

By Glenn 

Good morning. I want to talk a little about the health care/insurance industry but for once NOT about the recent legislation that passed with no Republican support. As many of you know, I am currently without employment. In the United States that means I also don't have health insurance. Since Blanche Lincoln and I conspired to kill the public option, I am left looking into private plans to see what fits best for me. How many mammograms do I plan to get this year? What kind of Crohn's disease will I inherit? Do I need prescription drug coverage? The best plan I can come up with is $46/month and gives me a $2,000,000 lifetime maximum to use. That's a lot of bedpans. I'm also casually looking for apartments in the greater Los Angeles area. The best one I can find is $46/month and gives me 2,000,000 flea bites over the course of a sixty day period. That's a lot of flea bites.

[I've already been vaccinated for Crohn's disease so don't worry about me getting anything besides autism.]


Today's Weather
Tonight the local news said "there is a huge rain storm in Northern California. What happens when it heads here?" or someone else vaguely threatening yet emotionally resonant. That's how I like the poetry written on my garage and how I like my weather forecasts.
I hope this rain stays away but the people on the local news implied that it wouldn't.


Today's Movie

This was one of those "Oscar movies" I never got around to seeing last year because I was too busy trying to pass health care reform and working on my aerobic endurance. I watched it last night and want to recommend it to you this morning. Do you ever see movies or life around you and think "I wish more incredibly young women would start romantic relationships with older men?" I know I do. This movie has that - and more! Peter Saarsgard is great and one of my favorite actors, but this movie is fundamentally about a young woman's search for meaning in her current and future life. All 16 year old females reading this site should watch the movie and then email me to talk about it.


Today's Prediction
kitten, the famous teen who writes into Hi Katy every week, will watch An Education and realize that she doesn't need a man in her life. Then she'll watch a show on CW that appeals to teens. Meanwhile it will continue to rain in Northern California and never travel south, leaving those of us here with beautiful weather. I will get 2nd degree sunburns and 3rd degree autism, neither of which are covered under the most affordable private plan I can find. Blanche Lincoln will smile at this thought until she loses her primary on May 19th. Go Bill Halter!

Credit Cards?

By Glenn 
I have a mostly positive history with credit cards. The first one I ever had was jointly held by my parents and I. It let me build up some positive credit without ever being in danger of getting in over my head. When the time came for the Democrats to take control of Congress in 2006, I decided to finally venture out and get my own card. This would lead me down a road that killed everyone I knew but taught me an important lesson about living within my a personal budget.

I got an American Express card in 2006 with a 16 month grace period. That means for over a year I was able to purchase things, carry the balance over and not have to pay interest. This was perfect for me because I've always loved buying things but hated paying for them immediately. For some strange reason American Express decided to give me an $8,000 limit - so I tested it by buying $7,000 worth of TVs and then returning them a few days later. I found out the limit on that card was indeed $8000, but never counted on how much I'd enjoy having those TVs. In any event, I was glad to have the card and it got me out of some tough blinds. (That was not a typo - I was actually stuck in some blinds in 2007.)

If you fast forward - not unlike what you'd do during several scenes of the movie Showgirls - a few years you'll see a very despondent image. Imagine me sitting on a couch watching Judge Joe Brown on a TV that only gets five channels. Now imagine me without a job, not on speaking terms with my roommate and riding my bike to the public library daily. That was me in the Spring of 2009. Since I was still spending money but not really making any (does unemployment really count as "making" money?), I decided to go down the path of credit card-ism once again. But what card to get?

Some of the credit card commercials of the past five years will always be remembered for tugging at people's emotions. Jerry Seinfeld did commercials for American Express and Seung-hui Cho made a posthumous endorsement of Diner's Club. The phrase most often associated with AE was "don't leave home without it." The phrase most often negatively associated with AE was from VISA commercials with a message akin to "When buying a child prostitute, the pimp may accept your denials of murderous tendencies, but he won't accept American Express." There are a decent number of places here that don't take AE cards so I decided to go with VISA instead.

The day before I applied for this new VISA card I flew to San Francisco to meet with their CEO at company headquarters. I told him that I needed at least six months of 0% APR and he told me that was fine. After four more hours of negotiation I walked out of that building with a brand new VISA card with 0% APR for six months and a promise from me that I would use the card responsibly. And so far I have.

So now I'm at a point where I have a VISA with a $4,000 limit and an American Express with an $8,000 limit. My APR on each ranges from 10.99% to 120%. My VISA is accepted more places but I can't make a $1500 purchase with that card unless I receive their permission ahead of time. Even my parents aren't that strict with large purchases. The new credit card legislation passed by Congress this year now demands that these companies be more straightforward with people about rate increases, penalties and corporate murder at the yearly staff retreats. This means that now is one of the best times to get a credit card.

Credit cards are like a loaded handgun amongst a group of drunk teenagers. They can just as easily be used for good as evil. The objects themselves - plastic, magnetized and filled with tiny crystals of uranium - have no inherent value. But if you're able to use them on big purchases and as an aid to avoid living paycheck to paycheck, they can make your life better. If you use them to finance a trip to Europe (a "Eurotrip" if you will) without stealing gold from victims of the holocaust, you won't be able to pay your balance. That's when bankruptcy happens. Live within your means, whether you own credit cards or not.