Posts filed under ‘Don't Get Ripped Off’
HSN: A $250.00 Razor?
High school kids were standing outside my local grocery store the other day asking people to pick-up simple items poor and homeless people do without. One of the items was disposable razors.
As a food bank volunteer I know razors are coveted but scarce so I forked over six bucks for a 12-pack.
Three days later I see this:
$249.50 for a “Hair Removal Kit?”
Are you kidding me?
That would be — in essence — $250.00 for a cordless razor.
Go here people:
$24.99.
Donate $250.00 to yourself or to your local homeless shelter.
Oy.
Amazing what people will buy.
About Those Budget Cuts
It’s 10:48 p.m. EDT on 4/11 and we still don’t know what Obama and the wingers cut from the budget on Friday (4/8):
Never mind that we don’t know what’s been cut, the American people blindly trust both Obama and the RWRadicals.
Filed under Dumbed Down and They Think We’re Idiots (which we apparently are because we keep taking it).
What Did You Cut?!
Is the royalty in D.C. ever going to tell us what they cut? Thus far, we have no idea, and mind-blowing as it is, that’s just fine by Republicans and Democrats:
Rep. James Clyburn, Third-Ranking Democrat in House, Support Speaker Boehner Keeping Budget Cuts Secret During Negotiations
Why are they afraid to tell us what’s going on?
I have a feeling it’s because we’ll be furious.
My God. It’s time to take the ol’ head off and set it down again because the sound of the founding fathers spinning in their grave is more than I can take.
Out. Rageous.
.
VOTE — Wisconsin — VOTE — Vote Yes and Yes
The Koch Brothers bought this Supreme Court decision: Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
Now they want to buy Wisconsin’s Supreme Court.
Tuesday, April 5, say NO — NO MORE! – but to say NO MOR, you’ve got to vote, and youv’ve got to vote YES.
Fingers crossed.
XO.
.
2,000 Protestors March on Koch Industries’ D.C. Office
Remember that Tea Party “rally” in D.C. last Thursday? You know, the one where so few people (200 max is what I heard) showed up Fox restored to blaming the lack of attendance on the weather? Yeah. That one. If you watch the cable “news” channels you heard about it.
Fast forward to today. Let me know if you hear about 2,000 — 2,000! — people marching on Koch Industries’ D.C. offices. I bet ten bucks the “liberal media” won’t mention it (nor will Fox). They’re freezing us out.
(Video via.)
Bravo to each and every marcher. Seems to me marching and protesting is the only “voice” we have left:
The phrase consent of the governed has been turned into a cruel joke. There is no way to vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs. Civil Disobedience is the only tool we have left.
We will not halt the laying off of teachers and other public employees, the slashing of unemployment benefits, the closing of public libraries, the reduction of student loans, the foreclosures, the gutting of public education and early childhood programs or the dismantling of basic social services such as heating assistance for the elderly until we start to carry out sustained acts of civil disobedience against the financial institutions responsible for our debacle. The banks and Wall Street, which have erected the corporate state to serve their interests at our expense, caused the financial crisis. The bankers and their lobbyists crafted tax havens that account for up to $1 trillion in tax revenue lost every decade. They rewrote tax laws so the nation’s most profitable corporations, including Bank of America, could avoid paying any federal taxes. They engaged in massive fraud and deception that wiped out an estimated $40 trillion in global wealth. The banks are the ones that should be made to pay for the financial collapse. Not us. And for this reason at 11 a.m. April 15 I will join protesters in Union Square in New York City in front of the Bank of America.
Cut Taxes, Raise Deficits
This seems so simple to me: Cut taxes without cutting services, you create a deficit. Raise taxes, and you have money to do what you need to do. Period.
Image: MediaBistro.com
The U.S. has been on a tax cutting binge for thirty years and here we are:
In his new budget proposal, Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich calls for extending a generous 21 percent cut in state income taxes. The measure was originally part of a sweeping 2005 tax overhaul that abolished the state corporate income tax and phased out a business property tax.
The tax cuts were supposed to stimulate Ohio’s economy and create jobs. But that never happened once the economy tanked. Instead, the changes ended up costing Ohio more than $2 billion a year in lost tax revenue; money that would go a long way toward closing the state’s $8 billion budget gap for fiscal year 2012.
“At least half of our current budget problem is a direct result of the tax changes we made in 2005. A lot of people don’t want to hear that, but that’s the reality. Much of our pain is self-inflicted,” said Zach Schiller, research director at Policy Matters Ohio, a liberal government-research group in Cleveland.
Schiller’s lament is by no means unique. Across the country, taxpayers jarred by cuts to government jobs and services are reassessing the risks and costs of a variety of tax reductions, exemptions and credits, and the ideology that drives them. States cut taxes in hopes of spurring economic growth, but in state after state, it hasn’t worked.
We were told that if we cut taxes on the “job creators,” they’d create jobs, but they haven’t. We’ve been waiting for decades. It didn’t work. That economic model, if you can call it that, is totally flawed.
Maybe we’re finally — finally! — coming to see that. If so, hallelujah!
Leave Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security Alone!
Quickie: Wanna halve the budget? Don’t cut Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security or the EPA:
American Lung Association
(Via.)
Instead, do nothing. Nothing: “Just let the Bush tax cuts expire in 2012, as they’re currently scheduled to do.”
Damn if they aren’t going to make cuts that affect middle and working class people instead.
Frightened Workers in Wisconsin
I came across this tweet a few minutes ago and I thought hey, I’ve got a blog so why not help tell the story.
So sad:
From this day forward, I hope the whole country understands that to vote Republican — never mind the glitzy ads that promise morning in America — means to vote for quashing workers — their rights and their wages — and creating a system that allows for unlimited corporate profit.
For example, do you want your Republican-run government to have the power to fire your democratically elected city council and turn the management of your city or town over to oh say, Halliburton? Blackwater (now deceptively known as “Xe“)? Or GE?
That’s the reality in Michigan as of yesterday.
Think about it.
Cut a Trillion Dollars from the Budget
Want to save a trillion — yes, a trillion – of your tax dollars?
End the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Impulse Buy: A $1,752.00 Bracelet
QVC hawked this bracelet today on its “California Gold Rush” show:
There are people out there who woke up this morning with no intention whatsoever of spending $1,750.00+ on a piece of jewelry today, but they did.
It’s the high. Right about now, they’re probably experiencing the low.
Sad.
Glenn Beck Craps on Wilmington, Ohio
You may have heard, back in early December, that Glenn Beck — a loveable guy whose mission is to “defeat anger and find compassion” — took his road show to Wilmington, Ohio.
He made a fool of himself there
while praying with the long-suffering, economically devastated people (tickets cost $125.00), urging them to “stand up, and stand together, and pull yourself up,” ignoring the corporatist policies that have gutted the American economy.
The bottom line?
Note Beck’s website claims that all “net proceeds” will go to local non-profits. It should be noted that Glenn is not donating the total proceeds, but the net.
Fast forward to today and this is what Beck, the snake-oil salesman who wants us to believe he’s devoting his life to “saving” the country is up to:
Remember Glenn Beck’s charity event in Wilmington, OH last month where Beck charged $125 a ticket in a town with 15.8% unemployment? It has been over a month now, and the charities that had been promised donations would really like to see a check. Glenn Beck’s viewers stepped up to the plate to help Wilmington, but Glenn Beck has yet to follow through.
.
Joe Wilson (R-SC) Panders to Tea Partiers; Wastes Our Time and Money
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) – yes — this Joe Wilson:
pledged to hold hearings on The Gays in the military today.
He’s thinking: The Tea Partiers will love me if I do. I know it’s a waste of time — DADT will never be repealed — but seeing a photo of me up there on the bench, pounding the gavel, on the front page of my local newspaper, will be an awesome way to start my 2012 campaign.
And no, I don’t care how much it costs the taxpayers:
The new Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee’s military personnel panel says he will hold hearings to look at the Pentagon’s plans allow openly gay people to serve, and he will look for chances to reinstate the ban lifted by Congress in December.
Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., who became the personnel subcommittee chairman on Wednesday when the 112th Congress convened, said it was “irresponsible” for Congress to repeal the ban on openly gay service members without giving the House of Representatives time to hold hearings into what is involved in changing the law and how the change might effect current and future service members.
Wilson said he wants the service chiefs to testify before the armed services committee about how they plan to repeal the ban. Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the full armed services committee, said battlefield commanders, down to the battalion level, might be called to testify about whether lifting the ban will hurt morale and readiness.
Wilson said he personally believes that lifting the ban “will hurt unit cohesion” and that he “would support the repeal of the repeal” if House Republican leaders take on that fight.
Reversing course would be difficult. There might be enough votes in the Republican-controlled House to reinstate the ban, but the Senate remains under Democratic control.
Oy. And we’re only 30-hours into the next two years.
Do You Look Like This When You Eat a Salad?
Hey, I like salads — I try to eat a big huge one with lots of veggies at least four or five times a week — but I don’t look like this while I’m doing so:
Edith Zimmerman over at The Hairpin has put together some photos of women laughing while eating a salad. I love it. It makes a mockery of the ads we see all the time of people either laughing or wearing a full-blown smile while oh, doing the laundry or vacuuming or washing the car, and who does that?
Americans Are Guzzling Gas Again
SUV’s Lead U.S. Auto Sales Growth:
With the end of the recession, bigger vehicles have made a comeback, sales figures show, and it has come at the expense of smaller, more-efficient cars.
Leading the growth were sales of midsize sport-utility vehicles, which jumped 41 percent through the first 11 months of the year, led by vehicles such as the Jeep Grand Cherokee and the Honda Pilot, each of which get about 18 miles per gallon.
America, remember this, from 2008:
After years in the slow lane, cars may finally be taking back the roads from sport utility vehicles and trucks.
Soaring gasoline prices and flagging consumer confidence drove the industry to new depths last month, with shoppers — when they did buy — going for fuel-efficient, smaller cars…
For years, sales of trucks and SUVs far outpaced passenger car sales. But in April, Americans bought 64,310 more cars than trucks and SUVs, continuing a trend that began in March, when cars pulled ahead by about 3,000.
And then there’s this, from days ago:
Oil Bulls May Have to Pull in Their Horns
Oil bulls are once again kicking up dust. The intensifying struggle to lift output, they say, will collide with the insatiable thirst of an expanding Asia to push oil above $100 a barrel. In fact, the cost of crude may be held down by a halving of demand growth as producers from Russia to Africa via Brazil ramp up supply.
And this:
China Audo Sales Jump 27 Percent in November:
China’s auto sales powered ahead in November, jumping 27 percent to 1.7 million vehicles as car buyers rushed to beat expected increases in license plate fees in some cities.
America — what are you thinking? Oh, that’s right. You aren’t.
Jon Stewart Rally Draws Roughly 215,000 People
I hate tit-for-tat fights about how many people attended such-and-such a rally. We’ve got more important things to talk about — so I’m not going to get down into the weeds here — just putting out the most scientific info available:
Jon Stewart Rally Attracts an Estimated 215,000 people.
An estimated 215,000 people attended a rally organized by Comedy Central talk show hosts Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert Saturday in Washington, according to a crowd estimate commissioned by CBS News.
The company AirPhotosLive.com based the attendance at the “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” on aerial pictures it took over the rally, which took place on the Mall in Washington. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 10 percent.
CBS News also commissioned AirPhotosLive.com to do a crowd estimate of Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally in August…
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Glenn Beck Rally Attracts an Estimated 87,000 people:
An estimated 87,000 people attended a rally organized by talk-radio host and Fox News commentator Glenn Beck Saturday in Washington, according to a crowd estimate commissioned by CBS News.
The company AirPhotosLive.com based the attendance on aerial pictures it took over the rally, which stretched from in front of the Lincoln Memorial along the Reflecting Pool to the Washington Monument. Beck and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin spoke at the rally.
Of course, the Foxbaggers will immediately blow this off because the estimate was commissioned by the “liberal” CBC News.
What they don’t get is that’s the plan.
Winger media has convinced its followers to distrust all media, other that it, so viewers don’t believe anything other than what it tells them.
Bingo.
Low information voters.
Gold
If you’re like me, you’ve seen the television and newspaper ads urging (desperate) people to sell their bits and pieces of gold — an odd earring here, a piece of necklace there. The Little People will be happy when they get the, ahem, pot o’ gold of cash and all will be good, right?
The advertisers claim they’ll pay “top dollar” and for sure, they won’t rip us off.
Wow. Are we being played or what?
This is what the big girls and boys do:
The world’s wealthiest people have responded to economic worries by buying gold by the bar — and sometimes by the ton — and by moving assets out of the financial system, bankers catering to the very rich said on Monday.
Fears of a double-dip downturn have boosted the appetite for physical bullion as well as for mining company shares and exchange-traded funds, UBS executive Josef Stadler told the Reuters Global Private Banking Summit.
“They don’t only buy ETFs or futures; they buy physical gold,” said Stadler, who runs the Swiss bank’s services for clients with assets of at least $50 million to invest.
UBS is recommending top-tier clients hold 7-10 percent of their assets in precious metals like gold, which is on course for its tenth consecutive yearly gain and traded at around $1,314.50 an ounce on Monday, near the record level reached last week.
“We had a clear example of a couple buying over a ton of gold … and carrying it to another place,” Stadler said. At today’s prices, that shipment would be worth about $42 million.
Something tells me their gold is weighed more accurately than ours.
Don’t Buy Target “@ Home” Towels
Two weekends ago I bought an “@ Home” towel and washcloth at Target.
Right away I noticed that when I dried my face with the towel, I found little pieces of lint on my face.
So, hey, wash it, right? So I did, but two weeks on, the lint’s still there.
Target is cheap but it’s also cheap, if you know what I mean.
Beware.
(There are other reasons to beware of Target. Wish I’d known about this before I bought that towel. Would have saved me a lot of trouble.)
Don’t Buy Peter Thomas Roth’s BS on QVC
Peter Thomas Roth was on QVC peddling his “SystmAuto-Delivery” hooey-hooey for a mere $148 tonight:
He said his potions are a “breakthrough” that will “give astonishing results.”
If there was a “breakthrough” cream or lotion that gave “astonishing results” against wrinkles, it would be blockbuster, huge, breaking news around the world. It would be written up in science magazines as well as fashion magazines. You’d see headlines in your local newspaper and on your local news. A “breakthrough” “unwrinkle” potion that “gives astonishing results” is something everyone over 30 is looking for these days. So, if it was so great, we’d know about it.
Bottom line: Don’t. Buy. It.
James Taylor and Carole King Advertise on Fox?
It’s 8:50 p.m. MDT and I just saw an advertisement for a Carole King/James Taylor concert on Fox — not my local Fox channel — the Fox channel (Comcaset Channel 42 in Denver). That would be Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Greta VanSustern, Megyn Kelly, Mike Huckabee, Neil Cavuto, John Stossel, and Sean Hannity.
Hey — yo, Carole. James. Don’t pass the “fault” off on TicketNetwork.
This is serious stuff.
Know the people you hire; know their reach. Lay down the law. Don’t let one freakin’ dime go to Rupert Murdoch.
Oh, and where have you been? Why aren’t you on top of that already?
———————————————-
If you don’t know what Fox is about, contact me at the address above. I’ll send you an (autographed!) copy of Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism.
$480 for a “Raclette Machine?” You’ve Got to be Kidding!
It’s amazing to me the things people can be suckered into buying. Take the “Bron-Coucke Quarter Round Raclette Machine,” for sale at Amazon.com (free shipping!) for a mere $480:
Raclette is a firm cheese that is indigenous to Switzerland. Thick slices of the round are heated to near-melting and then scraped onto a plate. Raclette is derived from the French word racler which means to scrape. It is traditionally served with a big hunk of bread, some pickles and potatoes.
Raclette has been around for hundreds of years, and was originally used by Swiss herders who took the cheese with them and placed it near their evening campfire until is reached the perfect consistency.
They didn’t have, and they didn’t need a “Bron-Coucke Quarter Round Raclette Machine.” And you don’t need one either.
Buy a slice of Raclette at your local store. Slice it about 1/4″ thick. Put the slice in a non-stick pan and place it over a burner on your stove, turned to low. Or, put it on a non-stick oven sheet and heat it in the oven at 350º. It only takes a few minutes for the cheese to melt.
When it gets gooey, slide it onto a plate and dig in. Voila. It’s delicious. Oh, and have a glass of white wine at your side and raise a toast to all the suckers who are eating their Raclette, short $480.
Most sunscreens make false claims, can hasten cancer
I’ve had my share of severe burns in the pre-sunscreen days of my youth and live in fear of skin cancer manifesting. To that end I stay in the shade or cover up and wear sunscreen if I must be out in the sun for any length of time. But I had an intuitive feeling that lathering on chemicals would ultimately be proven to have its own downside, and here it is. The study by the Environmental Working Group finds that the FDA knew of these concerns ten years ago and did nothing; now they deny they knew (although the paper trail proves otherwise.) More bureaucratic incompetence, or cynical corporation-favoring suppression of evidence?
A $165.00 “JPK Paris” Nylon Bag? — Don’t Get Ripped Off
File this under “Don’t Get Ripped Off:“
It’s a long story but I made a doohickey for our yard last fall that required a 3′ by 10′ piece of nylon fabric. The cost? $17.00. Meanwhile, add a little bit of leather and some “stylized goldtone hardware” and this bag sells for $165.00?
It’s NYLON!!! If you buy this bag, “JPK Paris” is laughing all the way to the bank. Don’t do it.
Debt Nation
Look at this gaudy bag the Home Shopping Network is hawking tonight. My God. At $260 a pop, it’s sold out!
You have got to be kidding me.
Don’t know whether to file this under “Fashion,” “Financial Crisis,” “Don’t Get Ripped Off,” “Humor/Satire,” or a yet-to-be-established category called something like, Who-Would-Pay-Good-Money-in-This-Economy-For-a-Fly-in-the-Pants-Purchase-Like-This-That-Went-Out-of-Style-in-1200-BC?
Nickle-and-Diming Us to Death Pays Off for the Airlines
Ever get the feeling the airlines employ hordes of people who sit around thinking of things they can charge us a fee for? They probably do because fees are obviously incredibly profitable (just ask the banks and credit card companies): the airlines made $7.8 billion from fees last year alone:
The government on Monday confirmed what many travelers already suspected: U.S. airlines made a lot more money in fees last year.
The Department of Transportation said revenue from so-called ancillary fees rose 42 percent to $7.8 billion in 2009. The biggest chunk of that came from checked baggage fees, which were introduced in 2008 when oil prices soared and evenutally (sic) reached $147 per barrel.
Besides checked bags, other fees include those for reservation changes, pet travel and mileage sales.
Amazing how those fees add up to such a huge amount.
Quote of the Day
Fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi on QVC, 4-24-10 @ 11:20 p.m. ET, talking about the QVC payment option known as “Easy Pay.” “Easy Pay” allows customers to charge an item and have payments appear on their credit card statement in equal increments spread out over two or three or more months: “You’re right about Easy Pay. It almost feels like you’re getting something but not paying for it.”
Is it any wonder there’s so much debt out there what with BS notions like this being thrown around?
Issac Mizrahi Claims His Tote, “Bounces Light Off Your Face”
Isaac Mizrahi is on QVC right now hawking a nylon tote made in China that sells for the outrageous sum of $123.00:
My problem with this is (1) the fact that Mizrahi and QVC are advertising the bag as “patent,” and (2) the price. When we think of “patent,” we think of patent leather (Mizrahi and his cohorts know that), but it isn’t leather, it’s patent nylon. And another thing per Isaac himself, live on the show, the bag “bounces light off your face.”
Yeah. Right. I believe that.
How about this cute thing from Target? $9.99.
Bottom line? Don’t get ripped off!
Nickle and Dimed
Apparently there is no end to the ah, creative thinking going on at corporations in terms of coming up with ways they can rip us off. Look at this:
That’s right. A $995.00 watch (which is bad enough, but the STRAP IS SOLD SEPARATELY.
Aaaaahhhhhhh!
