Two good articles about thrift from the May/June, 2009 edition of AARP:

50 thrifty ideas:

http://www.aarpmagazine.org/money/50_thrifty_ideas.html

 

Save the planet the right way:
http://www.aarpmagazine.org/lifestyle/save_the_planet.html

Photos of Chamber of Commerce people I know…

 

Bill Morrison and Keith Johnson

Darryl Bassham and George Partin

Allid Beckstrom

Beverly Brinn, Jeanne Caussin, Laura Landcaster, Susan Johnson, Tom DeMaio

Paul Hulsey, Lisa Sawyer

Beverly Brinn, Larry Marscheck, Don Beckstrum

Dawn Brown and John Bryan

Jeanne Caussin and Larry Levy

Keri Henderson, Rita Story and Steve Crossland

Mike Newton

Chuck Petruska

Ken Smith, Frank Wallmeyer, Bill Morrison

Ken Spinella

Robert Wood, Deborah Eveson, Olivier Villard

 

Photo from Chamber networking event of 4-21-09.

A structured networking event, called a PWC Excellerated event, was held by the PWC Council of the Jacksonville Chamber on April 21 at the Meyer’s Latin Flair restaurant.  Photo courtesy of photographer, Kathryn Brown.

Guide for healthy eating.

 

Calorie, sugar and carbohydrate ranking of healthiest vegetables and fruits.

Note: Green is good, yellow is medium, red is least good; all items on the chart are otherwise relatively healthy because the items are drawn from a book of healthy foods.

 

Sources for data: Book—100 Health Boosting Foods, by Hamlyn; Sugar Busters book, by Steward/Bethea/Andrews/Balart; independent Internet searches for a few items; chart by Roger Kuder.

 

Green is good Red is bad	Calories	Sugar	Carbohydrates- grams
Apples	47	40	12
Avocados	190	low	2
Bananas	95	60	23
Blueberries	57	high	15
Broccoli	33	low	2
Cabbage	26	low	4
Carrots	35	high	8
Cauliflower	34	low	3
Chick Peas	115	*	16
Corn	12	high	12
Grapefruit	105	25	25
Grapes	60	50	15
Lentils	105	low	17
Lettuce	16	low	2
Oranges	34	40	9
Pears	80	*	20
Peas	83	45	11
Pineapples	41	65	10
Potatoes	136	*	32
Spinach	25	low	2
Strawberries	27	medium	6
Tomatoes	17	15	3
Watermelons	31	70	7

 

*Unable to determine.

Timeshares – always a rip-off

Never buy a timeshare from a developer who is selling them on the primary market.  It’s best not to buy one at all, but if you must– buy on the secondary market.  Resale’s average 15 to 25% of developer cost, but can often go for pennies on the dollar.  Timeshares in Orlando for under $100 total cost are plentiful.  There are always people on eBay listing timeshares for sale for $1 or even one penny!  Check it and see!

 

Here is a direct quote from my book published in the year 2000, followed by an update for 2009:

 

“When it comes to timeshares, you might want to avail yourself of some of the free bonuses they offer to bribe you into listening to their spiel, but don’t even consider for moment buying one.  Timeshare companies have been known to offer free stays at their place with meals included, merchandise and even cash to pull you in.  If their offer is worth $50, for instance, and costs you an hour of your time- that’s a pretty good trade-off.  I’m assuming that if you made much more than $50 per hour, you wouldn’t be reading this.  However, people who actually buy timeshares are like people who buy lottery tickets, they apparently don’t understand basic math.  If you pay $10,000 for a one-week timeshare (typical cost in Orlando), the seller is making $10,000 X 52 (=$520,000) for the sale of that unit.  In case you are not familiar with Florida real estate values; that’s about 10 times the value of a luxury suite-sized unit.  That’s how they can afford to give away lavish gifts to hundreds of prospects who don’t buy.  Analyzed another way, if you were one of those rare persons who actually kept your timeshare for as long as 20 years, then the $10,000 would allocate to $500 for your one-week per year use.  But you also have got to pay maintenance fees- a conservative estimate would be $200 per year.  That would make the daily cost for your week $100.  At that price you could rent a luxury suite in Orlando, with money left over for meals.  If you kept the unit less than 20 years (a far more likely scenario), your daily cost would go up drastically.  If you think the salvage value of the unit would be enough to be worthy of entering into this calculation, check the newspaper classifieds of resort areas, and call the sellers to see if they have had any nibbles.  To minimize the amount of time you have to spend for your free bonus, don’t try to convince the salesperson that he’s offering a bad deal.  He’s on a straight commission and has a pat answer to anything you could say.  Just politely make it very clear that under no circumstances are you the least bit interested, you only came for your bonus.  It’s illegal for them to refuse to give it to you, and he will want to move on to a better prospect once he is convinced that you are not a prospect.”

 

2009 update:

 

·         Please note if you put the word “timeshares” and the word “scam” into Google, you will get 438,000 entries.  That should give you a hint to stay away.

 

Not convinced yet?…

 

·         As of 4/21/2009, if there were 489 timeshares available on eBay for $100 or less; 67 available for under $100 in the Orlando area alone.  Keep in mind that these are resale’s of units that folks typically paid $8,000 to $15,000 for.

 

·         Per the following blog, http://www.timeshareinsights.com/blog.php, the average price of a timeshare in the primary market in 2008 was over $18,000.

 

·         Here is a time share users group devoted to time share users desperate to sell: http://tug2.com.  Here are some statistics from that site:

 

·         For a list of 32 time share units in central Florida available for sale for a price ranging from $.01 (that’s right! one penny), to $500: click here: http://bit.ly/3tVd3

 

·         You can also rent a timeshare in central Florida for as low as one penny per night, see: http://bit.ly/y99Qk  

Disney’s Animal Kingdom, a review.

Recently I visited the Disney’s Animal Kingdom.  Let me tell you that when it rains the park stays open, but you have to walk through the rain.  Definitely pays to get a weather report in advance.  Also note that if you go to guest services to ask a question but don’t go inside the park and come back the next day, they will refund your $12 parking fee for the day you did not visit the park.  The park is pretty cool, even if you don’t like zoos.  I though the best attraction was “It’s tough to be a bug.”  It’s in the center of the park inside the artificial tree.  It has great 3-D effects.  You will think bugs are buzzing right in front of your face and get squirted by them, with real water that comes through the theatre ceiling.  Its very funny—a real hoot. As you would expect at another attraction an open air vehicle takes you through roaming animals.  There are also several trails you walk and see more animals.  But there is also a dance and acrobatic act called “Festival of the Lion King.”  Its cool.  There is a cool live bird show you see from a stadium called Flights of Wonder.  “Finding Nemo, the Musical” is also a cool show.  The train ride is a disappointment, you stand in a very long line to board what turns out to be a very short ride with little to see on it—with little to see at the destination; then there is no way to get back to the rest of the park except to stand in another long line for the ride back.  You can easily see everything there is to see in the park in one 8-hour day.

See photos of Whole Foods event of 3/9/09

To see photos of Whole Foods event of 3/9/09, click here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rogerk50/

A list of 110 foods and their sugar content

–taken from Trivia-Library.com

American Dental Association findings show that sucrose, another name for common table sugar, is the primary cause of tooth decay. In addition, many researchers agree that it is associated with two other major health problems–obesity and diabetes; other researchers link it with heart disease as well. They do not recommend eliminating it from the diet; rather, they suggest restricting the intake of foods high in sucrose to mealtime and, more important, reducing the frequency of intake.

The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture estimates for 1973 set the average sugar ingestion rate at 125 lb. per person annually in the more affluent countries of the world, including the U.S. and Great Britain. In 1821, sugar consumption was about 10 lb. per person annually in the U.S.; in 1830, people in England consumed about 6 lb. per person annually.

Food manufacturers are not required to state the percent of sugar content in packaged foods on labels. This glaring lack of available information, considering the great amount of sugar in our diets along with its possible health effects, caused concerned researchers at the University of Texas Dental Branch to undertake a massive three-year study to determine the sucrose levels in more than 1,000 common foods and beverages. Their findings have been published in Brand Name Guide to Sugar by Ira L. Shannon, D.M.D., M.S.D. (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1977). The following list is a selection from this book (ranked in descending order by percentage of sugar content):

Food Sucrose (%)
1. Certs Spearmint Breath Mints 95.4
2. Chiclets Peppermint Chewing Gum (conventional) 86.3
3. Cloret’s Clear Breath Mints 86.2
4. Ferrara Red Hots Candy 85.6
5. Warner-Lambert Listerine Regular Flavor Throat Lozenges 68.9
6. Dentyne Regular Flavor Chewing Gum (conventional) 68.3
7. Vicks Medicating Throat Lozenges 66.2
8. Wrigley’s Spearmint Chewing Gum (conventional) 62.8
9. Barricini Jelly Beans 61.3
10. Kellogg’s Sugar Smacks Breakfast Cereal 61.3
11. Sucrets Sore Throat Lozenges for Children 58.9
12. Miles Laboratories Chewable Chocks Vitamins 55.9
13. Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Peanut 52.5
14. M & Ms Plain Chocolate Candies 52.2
15. Rugby Laboratories Poly-Vitamin Tablets 49.1
16. Rugby Laboratories Chewable Vitamin E Tablets 48.8
17. Pillsbury Vanilla Instant Breakfast Powder 47.5
18. Kellogg’s Froot Loops Breakfast Cereal 47.4
19. General Mills Trix Breakfast Cereal 46.6
20. Nabisco Chocolate Chip Snap Cookies 45.0
21. Mother’s Circus Animal Cookies 44.7
22. Upjohn Orthoxicol Cough Syrup 44.1
23. Nestle’s Crunch Chocolate Bar 43.5
24. Pillsbury Chocolate Instant Breakfast Powder 41.8
25. St. Joseph Cough Syrup 40.6
26. General Mills Vanilla Breakfast Squares (artificially flavored) 40.4
27. M & M Mars 3 Musketeers Chocolate Bar 36.1
28. M. J. Holloway Milk Duds Candy 36.0
29. Nabisco Oreo Creme Sandwich Cookie 35.3
30. Hershey’s Mr. Goodbar 34.2
31. Pepperidge Farm Cinnamon Sugar Cookies 32.1
32. Cadbury’s Milk Chocolate 32.1
33. Hostess Twinkie (cream-filled) 32.0
34. Carnation Chocolate Chip Breakfast Bars 31.8
35. General Mills Butter Pecan Breakfast Squares (artificially flavored) 31.6
36. Ward Candies Oh Henry! 31.2
37. Curtiss Candies Butterfinger 29.5
38. Food Club Sweet Pickles 29.2
39. Good & Plenty Licorice Candy 28.2
40. M & M Mars Snickers Candy Bar 28.0
41. Bristol Myers Congespirin Cough Syrup for Children 26.9
42. M & M Mars Milky Way Candy Bar 26.8
43. Pepperidge Farm Gingerman Cookies 26.0
44. Depree Baby Cough Syrup 25.9
45. Hostess Ding Dongs 25.9
46. Curtiss Candies Baby Ruth Candy Bar 23.7
47. Nabisco Fig Newton Cakes 23.3
48. Nabisco Confections Sugar Daddy Candy 22.0
49. Heinz Sweet Gherkins 21.9
50. Tootsie Roll Candy 21.1
51. Eskimo Pie Ice Cream Bar 20.7
52. Peter Paul Almond Joy 20.0
53. Peter Paul Mounds 19.9
54. Carnation Granola Breakfast Bar with Cinnamon 19.8
55. Nabisco Graham Crackers 15.8
56. Hunt’s Butterscotch Snack Pudding 15.4
57. Borden Cracker Jack Caramel Corn and Nuts 14.7
58. Del Monte Vanilla Snack Pudding 14.7
59. Gerber Plums with Tapioca Baby Food Dessert 13.5
60. Betty Crocker Chocolate Snack Pudding 13.3
61. Popsicle 11.8
62. Gerber Orange Pudding Baby Food Dessert 11.1
63. Hunt’s Fruit Cup 10.2
64. General Mills Total Breakfast Cereal 8.1
65. General Foods Koolaid Punch Soft Drink 8.0
66. Kellogg’s Corn Flakes Breakfast Cereal 7.8
67. Hawaiian Punch Soft Drink 6.9
68. Carrots (fresh) 5.4
69. Coca-Cola Hi C Cherry Soft Drink 5.2
70. Prunes (fresh) 4.8
71. Loma Linda i-Soyalac Commercial Infant Formula 4.8
72. General Mills Wheaties Breakfast Cereal 4.7
73. Apples (red Delicious, fresh) 4.6
74. Potatoes (sweet, fresh) 4.5
75. Pineapples (fresh) 4.5
76. Coca-Cola Soft Drink (conventional) 4.2
77. Syntex Laboratories Bremil Commercial Infant Formula 4.0
78. Mead Johnson Prosobee Commercial Infant Formula 3.8
79. Dr. Pepper Soft Drink (conventional) 3.4
80. Nabisco Ritz Crackers 3.2
81. Oranges (fresh) 2.5
82. General Mills Cheerios Breakfast Cereal 2.2
83. Nabisco Shredded Wheat Breakfast Cereal (large biscuit) 1.0
84. Strawberries (fresh) 0.9
85. Grapes (green, fresh) 0.8
86. Frito Lay Fritos Corn Chips 0.8
87. Manischewitz Unsalted Matzos 0.7
88. Potatoes (Irish, fresh) 0.5
89. Onions (white, fresh) 0.5
90. Flavor Tree Sesame Sticks 0.4
91. Armour Bologna 0.2
92. Lettuce 0.2
93. Oroweat Northridge Stone Ground 100% Whole Wheat Bread 0.1
94. Tomatoes (fresh) 0.0
95. Avocados 0.0
96. Oscar Mayer Fully Cooked Wieners 0.0
97. Keebler Zesta Saltine Crackers 0.0
98. Diet Pepsi Cola 0.0
99. Coca-Cola Tab 0.0
100. Weight Watchers Cola 0.0
In addition, the March, 1978, issue of Consumer Reports listed 24 brand-name foods and their sucrose contents. Ten of these 24 are as follows:
101. Jello-O Cherry (artificial flavor) 82.6
102. Shake ‘n Bake Barbecue Style 50.9
103. Sara Lee Chocolate Cake 35.9
104. Wish Bone Russian Salad Dressing 30.2
105. Heinz Tomato Ketchup 28.9
106. Quaker 100% Natural Cereal 23.9
107. Hamburger Helper 23.0
108. Birdseye Cool Whip Nondairy Dessert Topping 21.0
109. Dannon Blueberry Lowfat Yogurt 13.7
110. Skippy Creamy Style Peanut Butter 9.2

Why I support Universal Health Care.

• I think that health care for folks who get sick or injured is one of the wisest and most compassionate and just uses of tax dollars that I can think of.  Sickness or injury could happen to anyone, including you or me. It could wipe us out financially, unlike in nearly all the rest of the civilized world.  This is true even for people who are well to do.  50% of US bankruptcies are caused by medical expenses that are not covered by insurance. Source: http://bit.ly/k2489.  Our country spends billions on welfare programs for the “poor” such as food stamps, AFDC, HUD housing subsidies, exemptions for dependents, etc.  But many people who are poor are poor because of their own fault – they are lazy, would rather let the government take care of them than to work, spend their money foolishly, fail to save and invest prudently; and these choices lead to them becoming poor.  Persons who choose to educate themselves well and work hard are rarely poor.  People who are sick or injured, on the other hand, are nearly always that way through no fault of their own.

Under the present system of health care (which the Republicans love and would not plan to make any significant changes to):

• 47 million Americans are without health insurance.  Orrin Hatch has challenged this number but the Politifact fact checker website has found that his challenge is only half truth. See: http://bit.ly/YMKqQ.
• 20,000 Americans die every year because they can not afford medical care.   See page 7 of http://bit.ly/rpFKt7.
• The per-capita cost of health care inAmericais about twice what it is in countries that cover everyone for free.  We pay much more and get much less thanCanadaandEngland, for example.
• Health care premiums are increasing 3 times faster than wages are, and will continue to increase even more if nothing is done.
• Millions of folks, who have worked all their lives and been prudent enough to save– still have to continue working, not because they need the wages, but because they need the group health care plans, because many such folks can’t afford the premiums on health care without a group plan. Under universal health care, such folks wouldn’t have to work their entire lives to pay health insurance.
• 50% of US bankruptcies are caused by medical expenses that are not covered by insurance. Source: http://bit.ly/k2489.
• It is OUR tax dollars that pay the funds that are paid out to Medicaid to pay for the health care of folks who are too financially imprudent and/or cheap to buy health care insurance. That amounts to a huge percentage of total federal spending. Why should they get a free ride at the expense of those who choose to pay in to health care?
• Millions of folks fail to get medical treatment they need because they can not afford it. This includes both the un-insured and (due to high premiums, high deductibles, maximum coverage’s in most policies and high health care costs in the USA in general) very many folks who are insured.
• Millions of folks who don’t for what ever reason pay into the health care system either:
  o Sponge off the rest of us if they happen to qualify for Medicaid, or
  o Fail to get the treatment they need when they need it, or
  o In some cases, they just die.

The argument that Universal Health Care is socialistic has some validity, but theUSAhas never been a 100% democracy, nor run entirely by the market principles of capitalism. Nor, should it be! We don’t let the market determine if you can buy cocaine or if you can murder someone you don’t like (although the NRA supports the latter idea). Sometimes the government needs to step in to do things that are desirable that the market would not do by itself. Persons who have a heart, by which I mean: compassion for those less fortunate than themselves (folks who find themselves in bad situations that they did not cause for themselves) would agree with most of the civilized world outside the USA that the current system of voluntary health coverage produces unacceptable results (outlined in the bullet list above), and therefore a Universal Health Care system is needed. If this doesn’t convince you, see the movie Sick-o, which shows you just how bad our system is.  There are also videos done by PBS (about as non-partisan as you can get) that show how bad health care reform is needed.

Those who claim that the health care bill passed by Congress is socialistic or amounts to a government takeover are mis-informed.  The health care bill passed by Congress preserves the employer-based health care system, meaning an estimated 200 million (of a total of 300 million) Americans will continue to get their coverage through their employers.  For people buying coverage for themselves, there is a range of private health plans to choose from. Because of Republican/ Conservative pressures and rampant circulation of false statements that it would be a government takeover of the health care system inAmerica, the so-called “public plan” option has been dropped from the health care bill.  The truth is that option would have forced greater competition among insurance plans for the consumer’s business, and per the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office – lowered the cost for health care insurance in most cases.  But the widely circulated mis-information killed it.   The bill passed by the Congress allows people to choose their own doctors and hospitals in all cases.  Thus it is in no way a government takeover of health care.  Conservatives are lying about this and they know it.

Many universal health care advocates hailCanada, a nation that adopted a national single-payer system in 1966, as successful example. With a population of 30.5 million people (roughly the same as California), Canada has an infant mortality rate of 4.6 per 1,000 live births and an average life expectancy of 80.3 years — compared with 6.4 and 78.0, respectively, in the United States.  In short, they get better health care for less money under their system.

Misinformation about the health care law is rampant, due to special interest groups trying to block progress on health care reform by using myths, outright lies and scare tactics. Like the notion that health care reform would ration your care, hurt Medicare, be a form of socialism, be a government takeover or cost too much.  Actually, these claims are all false statements.  Fortunately there are fact checker websites that have worked hard to identify the mis-information pieces and though research debunk what is not true and provide the actual facts of the matter.  For example, a major concern of opponents of health care is the perceived added cost.  However, if we do nothing to fix health care, families with Medicare or employer-based health coverage will likely see their premiums nearly double and the share of their income spent on health care nearly double in the next seven years. Thus we can not afford not to implement health care reform.

The AARP, a nonpartisan organization of 40 million members, has taken a stand to help clear up this mis-information, see http://bit.ly/gDE30.   PolitiFact, a fact-checker project of the St. Petersburg Times, also helps clear up the facts: http://bit.ly/i6Rt4.  The Urban Legends website (www.snopes.com) has also debunked some of the health care bill myths that circulate by e-mails.  Other fact checking websites that have reported on the health care bill include: http://bit.ly/3eiAvY and http://bit.ly/MYdXh.  All such fact checking websites concur that most of the statements being made by persons opposing the health care bill are inaccurate.  All of the fact checker websites cited have an outstanding, if not perfect, record of accuracy.  If they were inaccurate, even occasionally, that fact would be published all over the Internet.   The fact is that there is no reputable website that has discredited any of the major fact checking websites cited above, and they are all so well regarded that they are quoted frequently by newspaper and TV news media (even including the conservative Fox network) all over the country.

The United States is the only developed nation that doesn’t offer its citizens universal health care.  Countries that have Universal Health care include: Afghanistan, Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Cuba, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iraq, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Oman, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. These are shown in blue, below. Countries planning to adopt it are shown in green, below. Countries that do not have universal health care are shown in gray, below. There are no countries that have adopted it and later decided to discontinue it.  On this issue America is in the same boat with Eastern Europe and most of the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa. Other than the USA, it’s mostly backward, third world nations that do not have Universal Health Care.

Technical PC stuff made simple by 3-minute videos…

This website is very cool. Very nicely done, Approximately 3 minute videos (you-tube style) on the following topics: computer software, computer hardware, investing money, borrowing money, saving money, phishing scams, web search strategies, electing a president, social media, podcasting, twitter, on-line photo sharing, blogs, zombies, CFL light bulbs, social bookmarking, social networking, wikis, RSS.
http://www.commoncraft.com/show. For all of my favorite websites, see: http://www.humorandwisdom.com/sites.htm