Frank the Financially Savvy Atheist - The F.S.A.

lamoneyguy over at It's Just Money had a post on behavioral finance. It reminded me of this story/joke/anecdote that I heard:

A young couple is on their honeymoon in Las Vegas. Naturally, while they're there they gamble and find that their favorite game is roulette. They spend an entire night gambling and after losing almost all their gambling money, stagger up to their hotel room.

The husbands wife goes to take a shower, leaving the husband collapsed on the bed. He gets up to order room service when he sees a single chip on the night stand. It's a $5 chip. Sensing that it is a sign, he rushes back down to the roulette table and bets on number 5.

He wins! He bets it all on number 5 again. Incredibly, he wins again! He bets it all, and wins again! He keeps doing this until he's up to millions of dollars. He's about to bet one more time when the casino tells him that he can't place million dollar bets.

Unperturbed he seeks out another casino, bets everything on number 5 and wins again! One more time, he thinks to himself. One more time.

He bets everything on number five...and loses! Dejected he goes back to his hotel room.

Once he's there his wife is getting out of the shower and asks him where he went. He told her that he was playing roulette again and she asks how he did.

"Not too bad", says the husband, "I only lost $5"

Tags: personal finance behavioral finance

I like classical and jazz because I was a band geek through middle school and high school. As such, here's a list of 10 of my favorite pieces in no particular order.

1. Giant Steps - John Coltrane. I've tried learning to play this piece. Ridiculously difficult. Coltrane was a genius.

2. Hindemith's Symphony in Bb. I played this piece my freshman year of high school. Wouldn't you know it, but there was a saxophone solo that starts the 2nd movement that I had to play. No pressure right? An excellent piece nonetheless.

3. Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber. Another piece I played in high school. No saxophone solo this time, but still a favorite. I heard a snippet of the original themes by Von Weber, and it was a night and day difference from Hindemith's transformation.

4. Tchaikovsky Symphony #5: Finale. Fast, loud, and sometimes bombastic. You have to love the way this starts off with a flurry of notes, I certainly did.

5. Gustav Mahler Symphony #5. The first movement starts with a striking trumpet solo. I liked the solo so much I figured out how to play it on the sax, but it just isn't the same.

6. Now's the Time by Charlie Parker. I studied Parker as I learned to play jazz and this was the first piece that I was able to learn and memorize. Parker's Bebop can take some time to get use to as the pace is frenetic.

7. Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings. We played another Barber piece when I was in high school, but i actually didn't hear his most famous piece until I got to college. It's moving in a sad, listless kind of way. At least, that's how I fealt when I heard it.

8. Dmitry Shostakovich Symphony #5: Finale. The popular notion is that Shostakovich made this overtly patriotic theme to placate the Communist Soviet Union that wanted to censure him for making music that wasn't patriotic enough? I don't know whether that is true or not, bu I can see why.

9. Pachelbel's Canon. It's over-played and is sickenly sentimental, but I still love it. What can I say, sometimes I'm a sentimental guy :).

10. Suppe's Light Cavalry. The "Horse Song". Played it in middle school and liked it because the saxophones actually had a good part.

So there you have my first friday random ten.

Tags: random 10

And I'm still at work. My wife is upset that I'm working this late. This sucks.


Tags: personal

A US Ranger has been searching for a Mexican bandito who stole a large sum of money from the US government. After several years he finally finds the man at a bar in Mexico. Not knowing any Spanish, he asks a local to translate for him.

Ranger: Are you Pancho Villa?
The local man translate for the Ranger, the bandito answers in the affirmative.

Ranger: I am hear to announce that are under arrest for stealing a large sum of money from the United States government several years ago.
Once again the local man translates for the Ranger. The bandito responds
Local man: Senor Villa says that he is aware of his crimes and will not put up a fight.

The Ranger replies:
Ranger: Good! Now tell him that he must tell me where the money is or he is sure to face certain death in America
The local man translates and the bandito replies that he actually hid the money in a local well at the center of the city. The local man replies:
Local man: Senor Villa says that he is not afraid to die you capitalist American pig

Moral of the story, learn a language! :)

I just saved myself $20. How? I asked for $20, and they were like, "But of course Mr. FSA". Ok, so that's not quite what happened. I had signed up for a free 2 week trial from Netflix and cancelled the account. I still had one movie outstanding and returned it a little late. I called and asked and they said they would credit me the $20.

Also, a few days ago my wife received a coupon in the mail from our grocery store. It was for 5% off purchase of $xx. Unfortunately, we had already bought groceries the day before, plus the coupon was already expired. She went with our recipe and asked for the 5% and she got it, in cold hard cash. Great going honey.

So don't be afraid to ask.

Tags: personal finance netflix

Thanks to Miserly Bastard I've dipped a toe in the world of online poker. Not with real money, but with play money. Last night I signed up for PartyPoker. I don't really know much about the game, as I was only trying to learn a little about the game. I played Limit Hold-em Poker and it was a 5/10 table. My play money consisted of 1000 "units" and at the end of the night I was up 300 "units" with a maximum of +500 and -300 during the course of playing. Overall a good learning experience.

I didn't have much in terms of strategy. I believe I would be considered a "tight" player, meaning I only bet with a good hand, i.e. pair of Aces. And I believe the table was pretty "loose", meaning people were betting with stupid hands. This is to be expected with play money at stake. I utilized a chart from this website (wizard of odds) that had a ranking of the starting pair of hands. In general I would play a hand if it had a ranking of 10 or higher.

Since I was playing with fake money and because I used the ranking system from the site, I found that I was bored most of the time. I had to fold the vast majority of my hands and grew acustomed to just waiting for people to finish up playing. However, when I had a good hand and the pot grew large, it was exciting.

I plan to keep playing with play money, until I can get my hands on some poker books and some "spare cash". I don't anticipate that being anytime soon though, but it was a good learning experience.

Tags: poker

I've added Miserly Bastard to my blogroll as another personal finance blogger.

He's miserly, a bastard, a lawyer, and hates liberals. Why the hell would a lefty-leaning atheist like myself add him to my blogroll? Because even though I'm sure we'll disagree on many things, he's a good writer and I find his posts interesting. So stop on by MB, you might be surprised at what you find.

Tags: blogging

Hello dear readers. My apologies for the lack of posts. I was sick yesterday (didn't come into work) and was laying in bed trying to heal. I feel better, still feel achy all over, but nothing too bad. I need to catch up on work now, but will be back in the regular swing of things hopefully in the next day or so. Thanks for your patience and don't forget to check out the most recent carnivals.

Carnival of PF
Carnival of Investing

I just checked in with Home Depot and my rebate has been approved and will be arriving shortly! Sweeeet!

MB has responded to my response and it's excellent and insightful. I will try to add more to the conversation later, but wanted to let people know to check out the comments. Dave from zopa also popped in and added a great comment as well, so check it out.

Happy Friday everybody.

Tags: personal finance prosper

Miserly Bastard over at Yet Another Blog about Money had a post a while back that was critical about prosper. He raises some good issues, but I don't agree with all of them.

He raises six negatives about lending on prosper (bold are his original points):

Lack of real diversification

Although Prosper gives a nod to diversification, the truth is that a portfolio of Prosper.com loans is very poorly diversified...When credit markets talk about diversification of default risk, they are talking about diversification across thousands of borrowers

Prosper puts a lot of faith in the FICO score of the applicant

Borrowers dont seem to understand that they need to offer a significant spread over the risk-free 3-year rate, and lenders dont seem to realize that chasing double-digit returns by courting high-risk borrowers is like taking a tiger by the tail

I've made some additions to my blogroll (and some deletions):
- added mapgirl
- added the Mike at the useless tree
- added moneydummy
- added god is for suckers
- added daylight atheism

There are more that I want to add but keep forgetting. I'm just lazy when it comes to my blogroll.

Tags: blogging

How do traditional banks make money? They take in deposits from you and me, pay us .50% a year, turn around and lend it out to other people at a much higher rate, and capture the difference between the two. So they make money off the excess spread which is the difference between what they make on their loans and what they pay us out. That's it in a nutshell.

Credit Card companies operate in a similar manner, but they can make money in a variety of different ways:

• Fees to customers: annual fees, late fees, overbalance fees. These fees are quite lucrative for the credit card companies.


• Fees to merchants: merchants are charged a servicing fee from the credit card companies as well. When you make a $100 charge at the GAP, the GAP only receives $97 to $98 for that purchase. Why would the GAP eat into their profit margin this way? Because they can get payment instantly from the credit card company and don't have to worry about you paying them, the credit card company worries about that.


• Exorbitant interest rates: Yes, those floating interest rates border on usury (loan sharking). But as long as we all want the convenience that comes with using unsecured debt, we're going to pay for it.

What minority group is trusted less than Muslims, recent immigrants, and gays and lesbians? You guessed it, atheists.

From American Atheists, Inc. (posted over at No God Blog)

AMERICAN ATHEISTS, INC.
http://www.atheists.org
http://www.americanatheist.org

For more information, please contact:
Ellen Johnson, President (973) 625-6900
Dave Silverman, Communications Director (732) 648-9333

STUDY OF "MOST DISTRUSTED MINORITY" UNDERSCORES NEED FOR GOV'T TO STOP
PROMOTING RELIGION -- ATHEIST GROUP

Reacting to a study by the University of Minnesota, a nationwide Atheist
civil rights group today said that by promoting religion, government is
partly to blame for the negative perceptions of nonbelievers in American
Society.

Researchers found that "Americans rate atheists below Muslims, recent
immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in 'sharing
their vision of American society.' Atheists are also the minority group
most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry." Dr.
Penny Edgell is quoted in a U. of M. press release adding that Atheists
"offer a glaring exception to the rule of increasing social tolerance
over the last 30 years," and suggests that today's Atheists"play the
role that Catholics, Jews and communists have played in the past."

Ellen Johnson, President of American Atheists, said that one reason for
the findings is the unconstitutional promotion of religion by government
and political leaders. "Politicians have draped themselves in the
mantle of religiosity, and shamelessly promote the myth that religious
belief is the basis for ethical, sensible behavior."

The survey found that "acceptance or rejection of atheists is related
not only to personal religiosity, but also to one's exposure to
diversity, education and political orientation . . . "

Dave Silverman, Communications Director for the group, said that
educated Americans were more likely to accept Atheists. He added that
the study may indicate that the growing activism and visibility of
Atheists may be responsible.

"Nearly 30 million Americans profess no religious belief," said
Silverman. "A smaller number may use the term 'Atheist,' but over the
past five we've been building coalitions, lobbying in Washington and
forming political action committees. Controversy and hostility are
always the first steps for any group fighting for its rightful place in
society, whether it's people of color, women, or sexual minorities."

"We're just the last group, the 'last minority' to be speaking out,"
said Silverman. "Americans are generally a tolerant group. I think in
five or ten years, studies will show that Atheists are being accepted in
our culture just like everybody else."

AMERICAN ATHEISTS is a nationwide movement that defends civil rights
for Atheists; works for the total separation of church and state; and
addresses issues of First Amendment public policy.



Tags: atheism

A while back I posted about my love for alienware the computer equivalent of BMW. Now it seems that they are being bought by Dell. (HT: to seeking alpha)

This goes to show that Alienware was a great company and the founders did a great job, so congratulations to them.

That being said, it's now time to bitch. Dell use to be a great company, and now they suck. Alienware was an awesome, super-d-duper company that is being bought by a sucky company. End result, the new Alienware is gonna suck as well.

Alienware was lauded for superb service, Dell...not so much nowadays.

*Sigh* on the positive side it now takes away my urge to spend $10,000 on a computer system. There's always a plus side to these things.

Tags: alienware dell

According to Amazon these are the "Top 10 Editors' Picks: Personal Finance & Investing [Books]"

1. Suze Orman Young Fabulous & Broke
I generally don't like Suze. She does give good advice, but why pay for it when you can get it free from pfblogs.org and other pf bloggers :)

2. Jim Cramer Real Money
The man is insane, enough said.

3. Unconventional Success by David Swensen
This is the guy that ran Yale's endowment. He makes some good points from what I've heard. He's also quite negative on any active managed fund and recommends that people stick with index funds.

4. Siegel The Future for Investors
One of these days I'm going to need to Siegel's books. I read his columns on Yahoo Finance and generally like the way he writes and his analysis.

5. Fortune's Formula: Scientific Betting System
Never heard of this one, I'm a little skeptical of the claims that it makes: "A betting system that beat the casinos and wall street". I might pick it up the next time I'm in Barnes and Noble.

6. Secret's of Millionaire Mind
Never heard of this one either, so no comment.

7. What Goes Up
I like this quote from the review: "A 50-year veteran of the financial business says, 'If you ever want to get a job on Wall Street, here are the magic words: I can make you money.' Not quite 'Greed is good,' but a typically honest, clear-eyed quote from this illuminating oral history of the stock market"
It's piqued my interest.

8. Fischer Black and the Revolutionary Idea of Finance
Fischer Black as in the seminal creator of the Black-Scholes formula for options pricing. The man was a genius. Looks like this is a biographical of sorts. It's gotten good ratings.

9. Nice Girls Don't Get Rich
I've seen this on other pf blogs before, don't remember if they liked it or not.

10. Automatic Wealth
This looks like a copycat of Automatic Millionaire. Eh, marginably interesting I suppose.

It looks like the top 10 was quite the smorgasbord with some "Get Rich Quick"-type books to some more practical if somewhat touchy-feely kind of stuff. Caveat Emptor I suppose.

Tags: personal finance investing

Mike over at The Useless Tree posted a question about how much money people have made with referral programs (i.e. adsense). I'm posting my earnings here for his benefit.

I'm trying to make money utilizing two different referral/ad programs. Adsense and amazon associates. Right now my adsense balance is currently almost $10. I generally get a few pennies a day. What's frustrating is that adsense only allows people to get money out when their balance is $100. I need to average about $0.30/day for an entire year in order to get any money. Right now I'm averaging more like $0.06/day. It's not looking good.

As for Amazon, I've only had two people purchase things from links on my site. I have a total of $1.70 sitting in that account.

That brings my total income from this blog at a whopping $11.70. Hooboy, don't spend it all in one place!

Maybe I should just start doing what Mike does and become an affliate with an adult website. That's $40/month that I could use for plenty of stuff. But I already cover two pretty different topics on this blog, atheist and personal finance. Can you imagine if I added one more completely different one. Sheesh, I'd start to get confused :P

There you go Mike, all the info you could ever want.

Tags: adsense affliate programs

I know I've seen a couple of pf bloggers that have professed to liking anime. How many of you are there? How many of my atheist readers like anime? Do you people even know what anime is? What are some of your favorites?

Incidentially, I watched Howl's Moving Castle, Miyazaki's lastest feature film. I liked it, but it ended too soon. I felt like there was still like another 10 mins of film that was missing.

Just some Tuesday randomness :)

Sorry, just figured something out at work and wanted to share with you guys. :)

A while back I talked about the book, bringing down the house.

I just saw an episode of Las Vegas the show on NBC, it was based almost completely on that book. Cool, huh. :)

In order to explain my post below, I've written up the sequence of events that led me to call desperately to the blogosphere for help:

We bought an admiral washer and dryer set from home depot in Aug of 2005. It came with two rebates: one for shipping, and one for a gift-card.

We sent it in and received the shipping reimbursement, but got rejected for the gift-card. We called to find out what the problem was, and they said we purchased the wrong washer and dreyer (i.e. the model number was incorrect). In actuality, we had purchased the wrong washer, but the correct dryer (or vice versa) and only one of the appliances qualified for the gift-card. So, instead of getting a $50 gift-card, we only qualified for a $25 gift card.

So we're like, yea, whatever, give us the gift-card. They said no, as they no longer had our paperwork. We said WTF, and went to the home depot store which proved rather fruitless as the person there just called the rebate center and got us nowhere.

The rebate center told us to resend in all the paperwork and we'd get our gift-card. This is around Oct/Nov. We sent the paperwork in again and have yet to hear back from them, so I call them in Feb.

They still don't have the paperwork, so I ask to fax it over. The CR says yes, and I fax it over. I call a week later...they said they never received the fax. I fax it again, and they said they did receive the fax and that I should call in 3 weeks.

I call in 3 weeks, "It's been sent to corporate, and we are awaiting approval. Call back in a week."

I call back in a week. "It's been sent to corporate..." You get the idea.

I'm getting extremely frustrated with the entire process, and spend like 30 mins with the CR on the phone getting nowhere. I get, "maybe you should call back in a week, maybe they'll know something, maybe they'll".....on and on and on.

I call back yesterday and get the same crap, so I ask the person for their name, id number, and where they're located. I get the city and State and then I ask for the company name. Immediately the CR goes sh*t-walled and transfers me to a "Customer Care Advocate" or something like that. Once again nowhere. I get fed up and head home.

So now today, I call again and after being told the same thing (It's at corporate, we're waiting for approval...) I try to get information, and the CR is being shifty:

FSA: What location is this?

CR: The same one you called yesterday.

FSA: [Trying to see if she'd lie to me] Michigan?

CR: (pause) No, Iowa

The CR refuses to give me the city name, and when I mention that the person yesterday gave me the city name, she says we're not allowed to give out the city name.

I try to ask her for a company name and all I get is: "We work for Home Depot". That's it, end of story.

So then I just say that I'm going to be complaining to the State Attorney General as well as the State Department of Affairs. The CR try's to dissuade me, a little, but not really, and that was the end of that.

All in all it's been a trying, frustrating, pain in the ass.

Now I know not to make copies and to double-check the fine print as the sales-person knows jack about the offers.

Tags: home depot rebate

Dear Readers,
I am having an incredibly difficult time trying to get a home depot rebate for a washer and dryer set that I bought in Aug of 05. Thankfully, it was one of the cheaper models, so I wasn't counting on the rebate. However, I was promised a rebate and as such I have been trying to get it but I have hit a stone wall and need your help.

What company does home depot use to process their rebates that is located in Iowa, possible in Des Moines? They are also located in Wixom, MI as well I believe. The CR reps would not tell me the company name over the phone and refused to give me the city (although the rep yesterday told me the city). I have threatened to complain to the Deaprtment of Consumer Affairs, as well as the State Attorney General. This was to no avail. I still plan on filing a complaint no matter what the outcome, but I need as accurate an information as possible in order to do so.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

The FSA

Because of our penchant for the base 10 number system, I feel compelled to let everyone know that today is the first time that I've gotten > 200 page views in a single day.

This is due, I think, to the Skeptic Circle and pfblogs.org, unless someone is linking to me without me knowing about it.

Thanks everyone, you've made my day.

The 30th Skeptic's Circle is up. Check it out, I included my first entry. Woohoo!!

Tags: skeptic circle

Update: Thanks Uberkuh for noticing that my link was empty.

I've had to deal with overt racism exactly once in my short life, and I consider myself lucky. I don't generally cry racism at every negative thing that happens to me, but there was no denying it this time around. Looking back at the incident it wasn't that important in the grand scheme of things, but when you're in high school stupid things like this incident matters.

At the time there was me, shy, awkward, geeky senior in high school and then there was this girl. We'll call her Meg. Meg was white, I was black. You can already see where this is going.

Meg wasn't the first girl that I liked in high school, but she was the first girl to like me back. There was just one problem, while her parents were fine with Meg having black "friends", they were adamant that she could not have black "boyfriends". There in lied the rub.

Part of the reason for this was because Meg's grandmother didn't like any black people. The old lady wouldn't even watch them on TV. The grandmother would also visit with her family for months on end, so Meg had to play it cool.

The other part of the reason was, I suspected, that Meg's parents had were of the mindset that no black guy could be "good enough" for their daughter.

That's the part that really made my skin rankle. Not being judged on who I was as an individual, but by the permanent tan on my skin. It didn't matter that I was a straight-A student graduating in the top 10 (not percent) of my class. It didn't matter that I was heading to a prestigious university. It didn't matter that I was a member and/or officer of several different student organizations. It just didn't matter. I still wasn't "good enough".

When confronted with that fact, I...felt physical pain. I'm not sure how to describe it besides that. It hurt. It was unfair. It sucked a big one. It just plain hurt.

Meg and I tried to do the whole clandestine dating thing, but that didn't work out at all. Our relationship that could have been was dissolved before it could ever get started. We remained friends in high school, but during college we lost touch.

It still bothers me to know that there are people that would tell their children that you can't date so-and-so because their black, hispanic, or etc. I'd like to think that my wife and I would be willing to allow our kids to date/marry whomever they want as long as that person is "good enough" for them. Not necessarily the smartest person, or the person attending Harvard, Yale, or whatever. Just someone that will be dedicated to them, love them, and be respectful to my wife and me.

I know I'm not perfect and I harbor my own stereotypes about other races, but I can and will forgo those and take a look at the person on an individual basis and make an objective decision about whether this person is "good enough" for my child. That's all a simple father like me can do, and I expect the same from that person's parent with respect to my child.


This post was inspired by reading this post over at waiterrant. It's a great blog, and people should check it out.

Tags: personal racism

I'm going to be opening a Fidelity Roth IRA in the next few months (hopefully) and they had a useful table explaining the differences between the two. They also have a "test" to determine which one is right for you. Seeing as how my wife and I don't have an AGI of $150,000, I know the Roth is the right choice for us :).

I did find it useful to know that a Traditional IRA offers tax-deferred growth. I was unaware of this fact. I admit that saving for retirement is one area where I need to increase my financial savvy. Right now I'm concentrating on paying down our debts.

I've mentioned it before, but I'm not currently funding my 401(k). My employer matches after you've worked for a year, and since I'll be getting a raise around the same time they start matching, I'll just put that extra money into the 401(k).

Tags: personal finance retirement roth ira ira

Insightful article from money magazine about men, women, and money. They conducted a survey with 1,000 spouses and found some no-brainers like "Money is a divisive issue", but also found some less obvious things like men underestimated how much their wives care about certain financial goals.

This was especially eye-opening for me as I could see myself thinking the same thing. It's time for a change. Good article, check it out.

Tags: personal finance

To my dear readers (all 5 of you), to show my appreciation to you I'd like to start a weekly series titled: Ask the FSA. I did one jokingly a while back, but I think it would be a good idea.

You can ask me any reasonable question. I want to make this interactive and fruitful for both of us. I will continue to post about my personal finances and atheism in general, but I'd like to add value to my readers.

So leave a comment with a question or you can email me at my new google email address: frankyj009. Thanks.

Tags: ask the fsa

"Fungibility is the degree to which all instances of a given commodity are considered interchangeable." Source: wiki

One of the key assumptions in economic theory is the fungibility of money. It essentially states that people will be indifferent between money in different forms. For example, a person should be indifferent between $100 in cash and $100 in bonds (after taking into account interest rates and the like).

Raise your hand if you think that's true....hopefully no one did.

This is the reason why casinos have people play with chips and not cash (well, one of the reasons why), because the chips make it easier for people to gamble. They don't stop and think, "hey, I'm betting $100", instead it's just, "I'm betting a blue chip".

Think about credit cards. People are much more likely to carelessly swipe for a $100 or more purchase with a credit card, but would think twice about doing that with actual cash. I recall reading somewhere that parting with a lot of real cash causes physical pain.

So think about that the next time you use your credit card. Would you be doing the same thing if you were paying with cash?

Tags: personal finance

I'm now going to delve into my rational for how I came up with my suggested lending formula on prosper.com.

To review here is my first formula:

• R_prosper: once again this is the rate to bid.


• R_risk-free: the risk-free rate. In my example I used the rate on Emigrant Direct's saving account. To be more accurate, I should use the rate of a 3-year CD to match the duration of the prosper loan. The only caveat is that a CD locks up your money for the entire duration of the 3 years, whereas with prosper you get monthly payments (hopefully). So for my example, I will continue to use the rate on Emigrant Direct's high-yield savings account.


• R_default-rate: the default rate from prosper.com.


• R_prosper-fee: Prosper charges a .50% servicing fee.

The Carnival of Personal Finance #39 is up at pfadvice.

Here are some of the posts that I liked:
It's Just Money has a great post about What if we weren't so private about our personal financial lives?. I wholeheartedly agree.

Funny Money has another hilarious post. Just read it, it's great.

Kay from Don't mess with Taxes talks about the IRS hiring debt collectors. Scary stuff.

And finally this post from ELYM: Keeping Up With the Jones’ Happens in Many Ways!

There is also the Carnival of Investing 13

I liked this post about taking profits:
here.

I have posts featured in both carnivals, so feel free to check those out as well :). Happy Monday.

Tags: personal finance carnival of personal finance carnival of investing

Last night I got a chance to watch a rerun of the new game show Deal or No Deal. Initially I thought that it was going to be boring as "It's Just an exercise in Expected Value". I was right about the expected value part, but I was wrong about the boring part.

The Show
For those who don't know about it the show is pretty simple. You start with 26 suitcases. Each suitcase has a monetary value from $0.01 to $1 million. The player picks one suitcase to keep. Each round they open up a number of suitcases (first 6, then 5, then 4, etc) and at the end of the round they are given a deal from "the banker". They can then take the deal, or keep going. Like I said before, it's an exercise in expected value.

Observations
The most fascinating aspect of the show and the reason why I found it exciting was the emotional roller coaster these people are subjected to while trying to make their decision. Not only that, but the show does a great job, intentionally or unintentionally, of manipulating the player's emotions causing them to make sub-optimal decisions.

You have the audience and the family members offering "advice" which is usually screaming "NO DEAL. NO DEAL.". Plus you add the nebulous figure of the "banker" who's egging them on with low-ball offers (not ALL the time though) and "saying" stuff like "I thought you were going to be a challenge".

Role of the Banker
The Banker is a very effective emotional device in the show. He's there in the background in a darkened room, calling the shots. It's just so easy to dislike him. He offers up (through Howie) quick quibbles to give the player some rationale for the offer he's giving, like, ok, you've proven yourself to be a worthwhile opponent. At the same time puffing up their ego and edging them on.

Usually the banker's offer is below the expected value of the suitcases that were left, especially in the beginning. This is delibarately done to keep the player going.

However, there were several times that the banker's offer was right on top of the expected value of the suitcases, but the player kept going. This was usually for a few reasons that I saw:
1. the previous offer was "too low" and now that the player has displayed their "skill" at picking the suitcases with the low values, the banker has now decided to increase the offer.
2. they have a "feeling" that they should keep going (plus the entire audience and their family members are egging them on, coincedence, I think not).
3. they just picked a suitcase with a large dollar amount and feel compelled to keep going to try and make it up (i.e. double-down their losing position)

All of the above reasons are sub-optimal. But the player can't help it with the way the game is structured.

Either way, I found the show entertaining. It definitely beat my expectations. (Oh, how I crack myself up......I'm such a nerd).

Tags: personal finance deal or no deal

See first formula.

Refined formula:
R_prosper =

I've heard two philosophies for charitable giving:
1. Give now as these organizations need all the help they can get.
2. Save and build wealth now and then your gift can have a larger impact on the organizations you choose to help. (I believe Warren Buffet was a propenent of this philosophy until his wife died. He then set up a charitable trust in her honor).

Personally I subscribe to number 1. Why would a moraless, godless atheist give to charity you might ask? Well, overlooking the fact that you miscategorize me as moraless (:P), because I feel a sense of obligation to help my fellow man. Granted, I am not in a position to give large gifts to the multitude of organizations that I'd like to, I can still give something small.

Not only that, but I am fortunate that my employer has a gift-matching to education program that allows me to double the amount of money that I will donate to my alma mater.

Why am I donating to my alma mater first? Certainly because of my employer's matching program but also because they (my alma mater) were there for me in my time of need. Raising a child and going to college at the same time was extremely expensive and my college provided my family and I with cheap(er) on-campus housing, and sizable amount of grants and scholarships to pay for things like child-care, groceries, and other living expenses.

I did take out student loans, but I did that my last year of college and it was soley to help me pay for the down payment of our house (but shhhhh, don't tell anyone or I might get in trouble). If I hadn't taken out those student loans, I would have graduated from an expensive private school with zero student loan debt! Granted, I did work in a variety of internships every summer to help pay my way, but my alma mater was indispensible in supporting my family and me through trying times.

That's why I'm giving to my alma mater first. I'm anticipating that in the next few years we'll be only giving to them and after that, my wife and I will divide our contributions to include other organizations. I know one area that my wife will want to donate money to is cancer research. She's had several family members die from cancer and wants to do what she can to help.

When our children get older, we want to teach them to give not only with their money, but with their time as well. I'd love to spend time with them as we help the homeless, or build a home with Habitat for Humanity (yes, I know it's a Christian housing organization). It will be a time for us to bond and do some good for our community.

So there you have it. One atheist's view on charitable giving.


Tags: personal finance atheism

HT: Financial Rounds

For those who need it, here is a great dictionary of terms. Some sample definitions:

Capital gains tax: (1) The tax paid on the appreciation of an asset such as a stock between the time of purchase and the time of sale. For periods over one year, the tax in the U.S. is generally 15 percent. (2) According to Democrats, a scam allowing the wealthy to be taxed lightly on investment gains while coal miners and factory workers pay higher rates on the money they earn in the bowels of the earth or on the assembly line. (3) According to Republicans, a barbaric relic that impedes the flow of capital and retards economic growth.

Long term: That period of time over which I am proven right

I was able to increase our monthly cash-flow by utilizing the IRS withholding calculator found here. We can now look forward to an extra $25 a month and that will go towards reducing our CC debt. I recommend that people use the calculator. It helps to have an amortization schedule of your mortgage and student loans if you have any. You'll be able to enter your deductions for those and other things.

Tags: personal finance taxes

So you're at the grocery store waiting in line to pay for your groceries and then you see them screaming out at you.

12 ways to please your man! 50 new positions! 13 secrets that will drive him crazy in bed!

Have you ever stopped and wondered how many could there possibly be? You have a gaggle of women's magazine that promise secret, after secret each and every month. But seriously, how many could there possibly be?

Maybe I'm just ignorant, not hip with the times or something like that. But I decided to analyze this further (yes, I am a geek):
- Take 5 women's magazine, that publish on a monthly basis.
- Each one publishes a random number of secrets each month between 1 and 10...let's be generous, between 0 and 7.
- What is the average number of secrets in a year? Standard deviation? (Astute readers who are familiar with uniform probability distributions already know the answer to that one).

Here's what I did, I modeled this as a simulation in Excel.



I ran this simulation 60,000 times, and here is what I found:

average 210
std deviation 62
max 408
min 0
probability of max 0.01%
probability of min 0.01%

So ask yourself, can there really be more than 200 secrets out there? Seriously, can there be? And this is only for 5 women's magazines, last time I checked there were more than 5 women's magazines out there.

Tags: humor (please tell me someone found that a little funny)

We all have stuff that we'd waste money on if we could. For some guys it's luxury cars. My brother-in-law only buys new cars. He recently got an Acura and takes good care of it. Not me though. I view a car as simply a way to get from point A to point B. My wife would add, "you need to get there safely", so we spend a little bit more money to buy used Toyotas (based on the Insurance Institute ratings).

For me though, I'd waste money on this: Area-51 ALX.

It's the Area-51 ALX from Alienware. The BMW of computer systems. It's stylish, powerful, and ridockulously expensive.

Check this baby out:
- Dual Pentium Processors
- Win XP
- Stylish Chassis in Saucer Silver or Space Black
- Liquid Cooling system that look like Alien eyes
- Dual x16 NVIDIA GeForceTM 7800 (256 MB or 512 MB)
- Up to 4 GB of SDRAM
- And a whole lot more

All for the low, low price of $5179.00. Slap on dual Samsung 24" LCD and you're looking at $7867.

I'm practically salivating right now. Slobber is getting all over my keyboard as I type. My co-workers are starting to wonder if I'm alright. This is the most awesome system that I could imagine.

As much as I want one of these, I have good reasons why I don't order one, sign up for their special financing ($237/mo) and blissfully sing my way into an electronic coma.

I can't afford it.

I can afford the $237/month payment, that's not the problem. What I can't afford is to take on more debt, to lose the opportunity to either save, invest, or pay off the existing debt on my balance sheet. Plus, I have young kids. Anything nice like that is going to end up broken, or written on with a marker sooner or later. And when am I going to have time to play computer games? The last computer game I played was Starcraft. Anyone remember Starcraft?

But oh man, if I did buy it, it would be totally sweet and awesome. I would have the most powerful personal computer in the world....for the next 2 months.

Tags: personal finance

It's high time that I mention pfblogs.org. It's a site I've using on a regular basis everyday. At first I thought that aggregation isn't all that cool, but it really is incredibly convenient. It's the best place to see what's going on in the pf blogosphere. Now if only I could always have my posts at the top of the list. That would be awesome. So go check it out, you won't regret it.

Tags: personal finance pfblogs.org

• Financially Savvy Atheist or;
• Finite State Automaton or;
• Financial Services Authority or;
• Financial Services Agency or;
• Flexible Spending Account or;
• Financial Security Assurance

Financial Security Assurance Holdings Ltd., through its principal operating subsidiary, Financial Security Assurance Inc. (FSA), provides Aaa/AAA/AAA financial guaranty insurance for asset-backed securities, municipal bonds and other structured obligations in the global markets.

FSA is the voice of the global fabless business model. Industry leaders incorporated FSA in 1994 on the premise that the fabless business model would be a viable, long-term business model. Today, the viability of outsourcing as a sustainable business model for the industry has been proven, and FSA is focused on the perpetuation of this business model throughout the worldwide semiconductor industry.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) is an independent non-governmental body, given statutory powers by the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. We are a company limited by guarantee and financed by the financial services industry.

A customer-driven agency with a diverse and multi-talented work force, dedicated to achieving an economically and environmentally sound future for American Agriculture

vjack from Atheist Revolution had a great series of posts about correcting misconceptions about atheists that I forgot to mention and link to here. He got the idea from Lya due to a study she did involving christian forums.

Here are the 11 misconceptions that Lya found:
1. Atheists hate god/are jealous of theists
2. Atheists are arrogant and don't want anything "superior" to them
3. Atheists have never experience religion
4. Atheists have never read/don't understand the bible
5. Atheists just don't want to receive the truth
6. Atheists are bitter/angry
7. Atheists just don't want to admit they sin
8. All atheists support abortion/evolution/liberal politics/communism/fascism/etc
9. Atheists are gay
10. Atheists want to destroy/limit religion
11. Atheists think they know everything

vjack has done a four part series and I believe he plans to do one more:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4



Tags: atheism

Right now on www.woot.com there is a new 61" HDTV for a total price (including shipping) of $2504.99.

I'm not posting this to tell you to waste money, but if you're feeling adventurous you MIGHT be able to sell this on ebay and make a quick $200-400 profit.

I'm not willing to take that risk right now, as I don't have the capital to spare, but if someone else wants to give it a try, let me know how it goes.

Remember, this involves risks. Please don't blame me if things go awry.

Doing a quick previously sold items search on ebay and I saw that they sold for more than this. Remember to take into account any sort of fee that you're going to generate from ebay and paypal. Good luck (and don't say I never give you guys anything).

Stop. Think about a famous atheist you know. My personal finance readers might have thought about Michael Newdow, the atheist who is trying to get the words "under god" taken out of the Pledge of Allegiance.

My atheist readers might have thought about Sam Harris, Isaac Asimov, or Bertrand Russell.

"Hold it!" my female atheist readers protest, "There are several famous women atheist as well". Examples include Margaret Sanger, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (HT: Escape from the Meme Machine). Right you are my female atheist readers. (free thought mom and Atheist Mama)

But my question is this: Where the hell are all the black atheists famous and otherwise?

When you think of some of the famous black people in the media (that are NOT rap artists or athletes) and you have Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, quite far from atheism. There's Colin Powell and Condi, who's (ex)-boss probably required them to be Christian in order to get the job. Who else is there? Oh wait, the rest are media personalities that prey on gullible housewives (Oprah), atheletes, or rap stars. Rap stars who are at least nominally theistic who can thank god when winning awards and giving them so much "bling", while at the same time glorifying a nihilistic life-style that blacks who try to emulate it will find themselves ignorant, debt-ridden, and thinking that the lottery is the best way to get rich.

Blacks are almost always portrayed as devout believers in the media. I remember when I still went to church in high school, our pastor would rant and rave that Michael Jordan wouldn't thank god for winning games/being such a great player like he [Jordan] should. Did you get that? So it was our duty as "good black people" to penalize the "bad black people" for not praising the same god that put us in slave chains for all those years. What a crock of sh*t.

There needs to be a new spokesperson for blacks in America. Not another god-damned hypocritical preacher in the vein of the Sharptons and the Jacksons. A rational spokesperson. Someone that is not afraid to be an intelligent black person who can speak English and can evoke actions from other blacks without relying on antiquated religious notions. This person, man or woman, will be the face for the black freethinkers: the black atheist, the black agnostic, the black materialist, and everything else in-between. He/she will be a foil for the vapid, idotic, untrue sound-bites from our religious counterparts (example: see here)

No longer will rap stars, idiot preachers, and a cultish day-time talk show hostess define us to the rest of America. We will redefine what it means to be a black american. We will rise above the mediocracy that has plagued our race. We will fulfill our potential for greatenss. We will do it all without relying on unnecessary, irrational, and destructive beliefs.

But, before we can, we need to answer this question: Where the hell are the black atheists?

Tags: atheism

A Mr. Hugh Asse from Cincinnati, OH writes:
Mr. FSA, what is the cumulative probability of winning the powerball if I buy one ticket every week for 30 years? While I know that each week I have the same probability of winning, my cumulative probability of winning increases every week.

Excellent questions Mr. Asse. If you play the powerball every week for 30 years, that means you have played for 1,560 weeks total. There are 146,107,962 million different combinations of numbers and assuming that the powerball stays the same, here is what your cumulative probability looks like:

I was checking out this great blog I found, Escape from the Meme Machine, and Lya had a link to this blog dlisted. From there I saw a post on an episode of flavor of love. It was so f*cking hilarious. I was trying to contain myself so that people in my office would look over. Good stuff.

...that when someone undergoes a tramatic experience that convinces them that god does not exist they are "rebelling" against god, but if someone undergoes a tramatic experience that convinces them that god does exist then we don't say they are "rebelling" against reality.

Tags: atheism

First South Dakota and now Mississippi has passed a bill banning most abortions.

Here is what I find shocking, both of these bills make no exception in cases of rape or incest. Zero. None. Zip. Nada. How does one justify not allowing abortions in the case of rape or incest? It is morally reprehensible to disallow those exceptions.

We're not talking about a couple of teenagers who got lost in the moment (something I can more than attest to), this is a young woman who violently against her will was impregnated either from a family member or another man. It is cruel and unusual punishment to force that young woman to carry that burden for 9 months. In addition, the stigma of being an unwed mother will haunt her in our Puritanical Scarlet Letter society.

I'm sure that there are rape victims who ended up marrying really loving guys that treat the child like their own son/daughter, but that is the exception to the rule.

Why would we force their already battered life into more misery and suffering. To anyone in these states who supports that bill, you make me sick.

Tags: abortion

Here is our net worth for the end of Feb/Beginning of March

• Added a column for the Monthly Percentage Change


• Keeping my home and car values constant for now. I'll most likely keep the house value constant unless someone nears me sells their home. I will try to update the car values on a semi-annual basis.


• Checking account increase due to the money we left in there from our tax refund


• Emegency fund increase due to interest earned as well as referrals. Which remind me, if you want a $25 bonus from ING during their winter save-up sale, then email me: frankyj009 which is a yahoo address.

• I created an amortization schedule in excel for each of our outstanding debt (mortgage, stu loans, and auto loan), and will be updating each loan monthly. The mortgage is around the value displayed above, so I will leave it there for now.


• Our tax refund allowed us to make a major dent in our credit card debt. Once again, the vast majority is in the form of a 0% balance transfer (> 90%), and a home depot 0% for 12 months purchase that we used for part of our home improvement (~8%).


• The student loan portion went up as my wife took out some more loans. She's still in school and her loans represent a little more than 50% of our total outstanding student loans. When she graduates later this semester, payments will be deferred from 6 to 9 months which will be helpful since she won't be working for a while due to her pregnancy.