The brown bag is back

According to CNBC, brown-bagging it is back in style

Goodbye power lunch. Hello brown bag.

As hard times prompt Americans to cut spending, more workers are bringing their lunch to work rather than buying it at a food outlet, or even the company cafeteria.

Major food companies, like Kraft and Conagra are looking to capitalize it, launching new portable meals and advertising campaigns targeted at the brown-bag crowd.

"In terms of value, it’s always going to be cheaper,” says Harry Balzer, an analyst at market researcher NPD Group.

Of course, it's a typical idiotic CNBC take on things. Which agribusiness stocks represent a good play, based on this development. And naturally there's an embedded advertisement for something called a "Deli Creation."

Rather than buy yet more processed overpackaged industrial "food products" for lunch, Bluebird packs a brown paper back with a piece of bread, a piece of cheese, and a piece of fruit.

Every day.

And has, for about 4 years.

Could you be any more disgusted?

You could if you read the New York Times today...

Hedge Funds Attempt to Block Mortgage Relief

Several Democratic lawmakers lashed out Friday at hedge funds that have threatened to block attempts to renegotiate mortgages for struggling homeowners.

At least two funds, Greenwich Financial Services and Braddock Financial, have told banks that they may take legal action if loans are renegotiated in a way that hurts the funds’ financial interests.

Many hedge funds have purchased securities backed by mortgages. The New York Times reported Friday that Greenwich Financial and Braddock Financial, and possibly other funds, were resisting attempts to renegotiate the loans.

Big Banks Not Using Bailout Bucks to Lend

“Chase recently received $25 billion in federal funding. What effect will that have on the business side and will it change our strategic lending policy?”

It was Oct. 17, just four days after JPMorgan Chase’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon, agreed to take a $25 billion capital injection courtesy of the United States government, when a JPMorgan employee asked that question. It came toward the end of an employee-only conference call that had been largely devoted to meshing certain divisions of JPMorgan with its new acquisition, Washington Mutual.
...
The JPMorgan executive who was moderating the employee conference call didn’t hesitate to answer a question that was pretty politically sensitive given the events of the previous few weeks.

“Twenty-five billion dollars is obviously going to help the folks who are struggling more than Chase,” he began. “What we do think it will help us do is perhaps be a little bit more active on the acquisition side or opportunistic side for some banks who are still struggling. And I would not assume that we are done on the acquisition side just because of the Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns mergers. I think there are going to be some great opportunities for us to grow in this environment, and I think we have an opportunity to use that $25 billion in that way and obviously depending on whether recession turns into depression or what happens in the future, you know, we have that as a backstop.”

82-Year Old Twit Channels Claude Rains

WASHINGTON — For years, a Congressional hearing with Alan Greenspan was a marquee event. Lawmakers doted on him as an economic sage. Markets jumped up or down depending on what he said. Politicians in both parties wanted the maestro on their side.

But on Thursday, almost three years after stepping down as chairman of the Federal Reserve, a humbled Mr. Greenspan admitted that he had put too much faith in the self-correcting power of free markets and had failed to anticipate the self-destructive power of wanton mortgage lending.

“Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief,” he told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Deer in the headlights

I'm so sorry for not having posted anything for, what is it now, close to a month. Things have just been crazy-busy, and the shorter days mean less time to do more stuff.

But I've been meaning to post something (anything) for a while, and recent article in the Times has launched me off the dime: Banks Mine Data and Woo Troubled Borrowers

Using techniques that grew more sophisticated over the last decade, businesses comb through an array of sources, including bank and court records, to create detailed profiles of the financial lives of more than 100 million Americans.

They then sell that information as marketing leads to banks, credit card issuers and mortgage brokers, who fiercely compete to find untapped customers — even those who would normally have trouble qualifying for the credit they were being pitched.

These tailor-made offers land in mailboxes, or are sold over the phone by telemarketers, just ahead of the next big financial step in consumers’ lives, creating the appearance of almost irresistible serendipity.

These leads, which typically cost a few cents for each household profile, are often called “trigger lists” in the industry. One company, First American, sells a list of consumers to lenders called a “farming kit.”

This marketplace for personal data has been a crucial factor in powering the unrivaled lending machine in the United States. European countries, by contrast, have far stricter laws limiting the sale of personal information. Those countries also have far lower per-capita debt levels.

I know, yadda yadda yadda. Big banks, credit reporting industry, access to credit for more Americans. But really, whose interests are being served here?

Oh hey, look at this: Claire has a new post about belt tightening. I'd have to say that we're starting to move in that direction. I am working on our 2009 family budget, and frankly it isn't looking pretty. I'm not expecting much of a raise (and probably a very minimal bonus) next year. Son number one is now in public school, but w%e're looking at three years of pre-K and/or daycare expenses for number two, starting next year. Oil and gas costs will be down slightly next year, but property taxes have nowhere to go but up. Another round of stimulus checks would be nice, but I'm not counting on that either.

I don't have time to post a lot of household budget details, but here are the hard expenses around which the rest of the budget gets built (all numbers are monthly)

$750 property tax
$377 insurance (life, home, auto)
$297 mortgage
$279 oil
$145 electricity

And then some softer expenses, like:

$700 groceries
$541 school tuition
$300 gasoline
$120 cable/internet/phone
$45 cell phones (2)

Unlike Claire, we have only one source of income (me).

And finally, I would be remiss if I didn't disclose the extent of our financial losses (so far) from the current downturn:

Savings: $107,000 lost this year.
House value: $50,000 lost this year (est)

Ouch. I have been trying to avoid even looking at our various investment accounts, but I figured I needed to get the straight dope for this post. Unlike a lot of Americans, I am still contributing to my 401(k) and Roth accounts (because of my advanced age, I am using my Roth accounts as our primary college savings vehicle), and I am happy to think that each contribution is buying more shares than it used to. But still, $150 large is a big wallop.

OMG an actual post about personal finance!

We get our cable TV and high-speed internet from Comcast. We have an odd menu of cable features: Local channels (but not "basic cable"), a package of sports channels, an HD box, and the DVR feature. The total is $92 per month, including 6MB internet.

The fly in the ointment is our landline telephone. Mrs. Bluebird absolutely requires that we have one. Currently, we have a traditional copper line from Verizon for our telephone service. Every six months, the price for this indifferent product goes up few dollars. Right now, it's $56 a month for basic unlimited local and long distance service. No caller ID, no features.

I've been watching the various Comcast ads and mailings concerning their Digital Voice service, but I haven't been able to figure out how much it would cost. Their marketing talks a lot about features, but it's tough to get a straight story on what it costs. The best price that I have seen published is $29.99 per month for six months, then $39.99 thereafter, plus $128 installation.

So I bit the bullet and called. The sales agent first offered the Comcast "triple play" offering. $99 for cable, internet, and phone. But by the time he added back in the HD box, DVR, and sports channels, the price was up to $142. When I pointed out that this meant that the phone service would cost an extra $55 per month, he promptly switched to the "add-in" offer: $24.99 a month for 12 months. When I asked about the installation cost, he said he would waive it.

So the ultimate offer was significantly better (by $250) than the best published price.

I had been expecting to have to bargain harder for what I viewed as an acceptable price, and I was expecting to have to resort to dropping the F-bomb.

Yes, FIOS.

Verizon has rolled out its FIOS fiber-to-premises internet and phone in my town, but they haven't gotten a license for cable TV yet. My sources in town hall tell me that the town will grant them a license this month, but as of today, they don't have a competitive offering.

I was hoping that I would be able to use the looming threat of competition to get Comcast to give me a good price and lock out Verizon.

Which they did, without my even asking.

Now the price they gave was for 12 months. The Comcast guy couldn't tell me what it was going to cost after that. I'm not worried, of course, because 12 months from now FIOS will definitely be available, and I expect that, if anything, Comcast's offering will be cheaper still.

How are you feeling about all of this?

Well, as you can tell by the recent posts on this blog, I've been pretty ticked off about the prospect of congress taking $700 billion of my money to buy worthless securities from troubled banks.

So I've been following this pretty closely. I was amazed when the house voted it down. And what a spectacle is when events deviate from the published script! It would seem, at the moment, that there will be some kind of bailout passed before congress recesses. Congress seems to feel a compulsion to act, even though we would all be better off if they did not. ("No one's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session." -- Mark Twain)

I haven't, however, been checking my stocks, until just now. I'm down about $50,000 since the peak. I'm not doing anything about it, though. I'm not sure what I would do. Sell stocks? Buy stocks? Who knows? When the market can go up or down 5 or 10 percent in a day, how can you possibly make a good investing decision?

But what's it doing to my happiness? Well, at the moment, not much. Every day I get to watch my two great boys get up and have breakfast. I don't really have any money worries. I like my job well enough.


Most mornings, I'm able to take a nice walk around town. I always walk through the cemetery, which has graves from the 18th century through the present day. The other day I happened to notice a civil war-era grave. A 34-year old man, killed in Virginia in 1862. What life must have been like here in Massachusetts during the civil war. Sometimes it's overwhelming to think about the losses that all those graves represent. Children lost to illness and war, fathers and mothers gone too soon.

If you're feeling freaked out, anxious, or depressed about what's going on, here are a couple of good links to try.

From the Globe, Six Tips for Coping with Economic Stress:

• Give yourself the permission to be human.
• Recognize the value of hardship.
• Spend time with nears and dears.
• Find positive distractors.
• Exercise regularly.
• Appreciate the positive.

From Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, the Global Equity Strategy for Happiness:

1. Don't equate happiness with money. People adapt to income shift relatively quickly, the long lasting benefits are essentially zero.
2. Exercise regularly. Regular exercise is an effective cure for mild depression and anxiety. It also stimulates more energy, and is good for the mind and body.
3. Have sex (preferably with someone you love). Need I say more?
4. Devote time and effort to close relationships. Confiding and discussing problems and issues is good for happiness, so work on these relationships.
5. Pause for reflection, meditate on the good things in life. Focusing on the good aspects of life helps to prevent hedonic adaptation.
6. Seek work that engages your skills, look to enjoy your job. Doing well at work creates happiness, and the easiest way of doing well at work, is doing a job you enjoy.
7. Give your body the sleep it needs. Too many people have a sleep deficit, resulting in fatigue, gloomy moods and lack of concentration.
8. Don't pursue happiness for its own sake, enjoy the moment. Because people don't understand what makes them happy, pursuing happiness can be self-defeating. Additionally, if people start to aim for happiness they are doing activities for happiness's sake rather than actually enjoying the activity itself.
9. Take control of your life, set yourself achievable goals. People are happiest when they achieve their aims, so set yourself goals which stretch you, but are achievable.
10. Remember to follow rules 1-9. Following these guidelines sounds easy, but actually requires willpower and effort.

Be well!