Send Mail with a Gift Card

Yesterday I need send a couple of greeting cards. For one of the cards, I need to get a Starbucks gift card, so at lunch time I went to Starbucks and the Post Office in Lexington, Massachusetts.

The Starbucks in Lexington, MA wasn't that crowded at lunch time. I was able to get right to the counter when I walked in and get the gift card with no problems. Pretty simple task.

The Post Office trip was a little strange:

When I went to the post office to drop off the cards, I decided to get some The Simpson stamps. Very cool idea to have The Simpsons as postage stamps!

I gave the clerk the two greeting cards to be mailed, which both had the 'Forever' stamp. She took the one that had a gift card in it and started to bend it.

"This one won't make it through our machines," she said. "It will have to go through Parcel Post."

"Ah, ok." was my reply.

"Its going to cost an extra .60 to mail this letter," she said.

I was a little surprise at that. It cost .60 more to mail an envelope with a gift card in it? Just because it can't fit through a sorting machine? That seems very weird. Instead of arguing, I took some stamps that I had with me and use that to increase the postage.

I'll have to test this out to see if this is really true. Is the Post Office charging more money to send gift cards when you hand it to the clerk?

I have a feeling that it would have gotten to the final destination just fine had I just put it in the mail slot.

Great Credit Card Battle

Robert Reich has it right with the next big finance battle, its going to be with the Credit Card companies.

What's happening to credit card lending is a smaller replay of what happened to mortgage lending. For years, banks used every gimmick possible to get the public to use their cards -- regardless of the credit worthiness of the customer.

Read his Blog titled, The Great Credit Card Battle To Come and see if you agree that some changes will have to occur to the Credit Card companies to end some of the big banks taking advantage of their customers.

AAPL

Apple Inc. reports fiscal second-quarter earnings Wednesday after the closing bell today. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect Apple to earn $1.08 per share on $7.9 billion in sales. In 1999, Steve Jobs said the the second-quarter was the toughest quarter for the company.

I project that Apple will beat the projected earnings and lower third quarter earnings due to the tight computer market. Sales of iPod and iPhones have certainly help Apple over the past years. This will be a key call to listen to see how they view the current market situation and probably an update on Steve Jobs.

There's a lot of speculation among Apple users that a new product will be announce soon. Some people think that Apple is working on a product that would just bigger than iPhone and smaller than a laptop. Will this be the return of the Apple Newton?

Economy 2009

In case you haven't notices, the Economy is on the rebound. Lots of good business a head! Hang on tight!

Keep your hands inside the vehicle at all times!!!

Treasury rates below zero

This happened back in December, does this mean that the market will start to go back up on March 10?

Demand for safety sends 3-month Treasury rates below zero
Tue Dec 9, 2008 5:14pm EST
By Ellen Freilich

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Three-month U.S. Treasury rates dipped below zero on Tuesday amid intense demand for safe U.S. government debt and bets that the Federal Reserve will keep cutting interest rates to avert a deep, sustained recession.

U.S. Treasuries prices, which move inversely to yields, rose across the board and allowed the Treasury to sell $30 billion of four-week bills at an unprecedented high rate of 0.000 percent.

September 18, 2009

Rush Limbaugh talked about this yesterday, it’s still remains a mystery. This also gives a little more clue to how things are right now:

How the World Almost Came to an End on September 18, 2008

On Thursday (Sept 18), at 11 in the morning the Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous draw-down of money market accounts in the U.S., to the tune of $550 billion was being drawn out in the matter of an hour or two. The Treasury opened up its window to help and pumped a $105 billion in the system and quickly realized that they could not stem the tide. We were having an electronic run on the banks. They decided to close the operation, close down the money accounts and announce a guarantee of $250,000 per account so there wouldn't be further panic out there.

If they had not done that, their estimation was that by 2pm that afternoon, $5.5 trillion would have been drawn out of the money market system of the U.S., would have collapsed the entire economy of the U.S., and within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed... It would have been the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it...

Ziglar Seminar

How to attract customer at Low Cost in any Economy

Tonight I joined a webinar called "How to Attract Customer at Low Cost in Any Economy," put on by Tom Ziglar and David Johnson. This is a seminar geared to help businesses get more businesses in any economy. The following are my notes from attending the seminar.

I think its great that they had one of the seminars at night, so a lot of people can watch the seminar at night and not take time watching it at work.

The sold out seminar started shortly after 9pm and was scheduled for 90 minutes. There's a couple thousands people listening into the seminar tonight. If you missed this seminar, there are two seminars tomorrow.

The seminar started out with Tom Ziglar and David Johnson talking about various seminars that Ziglar Inc. are putting on. Mr. Ziglar is in Huntsville tonight giving a seminar tomorrow.

Tom Ziglar gave an update on Zig Ziglar. He out speaking at seminars again, he is now doing it as interview format. He is doing very well and is working on a book that will be coming out shortly.

Great Ziglar business quotes:

• The economy is mostly between your ears.
• Experts have predicted 27 of the last 3 recessions.

David Johnson did most of the talking and Tom Ziglar did add some comments in some area. The main topics that were covered were:

Part 1: The Top 5 Mistakes Businesses Make When the Economy Goes South

In Strategic Response, David Johnson did a example with the Archery Analogy. It a great example on how get what you want by a simple analogy. "Aim small, Miss small."

Take Action:

Part 2: Welcome to the 21st Century

If you read "Who Moved My Cheese?" re-read it again. David used a Case Study about Ice Harvesting in the 1830s to the 1890s to illustrate the value of change.

Part 3: Ready to Take Action

At the end of the seminar David told the audience what the number one place businesses should invest their marketing in now to get the most of their money in this economy.

Venture Capitol funding

In the mist of all the bad Economic news there's some really good news from Massachusetts. Since January 1st, twenty companies in the Boston area has announced Venture Capitol funding. Over $261,500,000 in funding announced in Boston area for the first 20 days in 2009!

Congratulations to all the companies that was able to get funding in a very tight credit market!

2009 Economy

I like this quote from Foreclosures.com's Alex McGee:

"A variety of indicators show that some housing markets are bouncing back.... I think 2009 will surprise many people who have bought into the gloom-and-doom agenda."

As good as 2008 was too me, I am looking forward to a much better 2009!

Innovation

Innovation is what will get this country back on the right track!