By Gene Ayres, Your Consumer Curmudgeon

You may remember ads featuring a distinguished looking gray-haired dude, dressed in a white coat with a stethoscope, who says, “four out of five doctors recommend” some expensive medication or another for all those ailments you didn't know you had. Before or after which he will grudgingly (by law) mention, “I'm not a doctor, but...” implying you can trust him anyway, because he looks like one. Or at least Madison Avenue's notion of what one should look like.

I'm not a doctor either, but in fact the actor who was most famous for playing a doctor was a relative (Lew Ayres, as Dr. Kildare), so I should be at least as qualified as that guy on TV to address medical issues. Right? Actually, even doctors themselves, at least in the West, are not always that qualified either when it comes to addressing issues of preventive health, because they are not trained, and in fact have no incentive to keep you healthy. Their entire M.O. is focused on treating the ill, better yet, ordering and performing that triple bypass operation. The more the better because in our profit-driven medical system, in which doctors are paid by the number of procedures or operations performed (again, the more the better), keeping you well in the first place is simply not on their agenda.

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By Colleen Rothe

I recently went back to college, seeking to complete a graduates program. Although my time in the service is footing a majority of the bill, it’s not without its sacrifices both in regards to my finances or the support of my family.

It’s been a huge wake up call for our family that a college education is not cheap. We’ve done some investing over the years, but it’s hardly enough to help our children who are hopefully college bound – the first to head there in a scant five years.

Public education at the college level, including room and board, is averaging about $30,000 a year. That’s up considerably even over the past five years. So when my 13-year-old heads off, what will be the cost? Experts say it could be up to 30 percent higher.

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Back in May of 2008, this website published a dispatch by Linsey Knerl regarding the Cox v. Shell lawsuit, a class action case involving millions of consumers who had bought or installed plumbing or piping, primarily for water supply and heaters, made of polybutylene (PB) plastic. The website with full details regarding the lawsuit was mentioned in the article, but many readers expressed, and continue to express, confusion and uncertainty as to whether or not they could still join the lawsuit.

The short answer is no. The deadline expired more than a year ago, in September of 2009. You may well wonder why such a limited window of opportunity for redress, and of course this situation is not uncommon (the asbestos suits come to mind, as well as the tobacco settlement). No doubt Shell Oil Company, the maker of the defective plastic used in this piping and defendant in this lawsuit, would not be treated nearly so cavalierly as we lowly consumers, should they need, say, another tax break for drilling in, say, Alaska. Many readers also expressed frustration that this suit had not been publicized at all, given that millions of victims were involved. Welcome to Corporate America, folks, where an Enron crook can get his own Supreme Court retrial, while women victimized by job discrimination are dismissed and shown the door (just one of thousands of examples) without comment.

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By Colleen Rothe

Once again, as Halloween happens to be approaching, the volume of the rallying cry to think environmentally friendly is being cranked up.

But Halloween has always been the more environmentally friendly of holidays in my household: pillowcase trick-or-treat bags, recycled costumes, and decorations made from up-cycled materials or from nature’s autumn’s bounty.

And even given the New Depression, retailers are buzzing about the upswing in Halloween purchases. It’s a good escape, as I’ve blogged before to you. When life is tedious, stressful, and overwhelmingly negative, having something fun to plan and look forward to helps folks refocus energies. Oh, and if you can scare the pants off your neighbors or the irritating teenager next door, bonus points. Besides, it can seem kind of easy (even if not smart) to find a few extra bucks in your budget for a bag of Mini-Snickers.

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By Gene Ayres, Your Consumer Curmudgeon

We've all bought products that didn't live up to our expectations. This is especially common with cars, of course, per last week's dispatch. But can you imagine buying a brand new car that had, say, only a one year warranty, only to be driving along as usual, doing nothing particularly strenuous (not towing a tractor trailer up Mt. Rainier) when that engine, maybe only a month out of warranty, blows its timing belt, all the pistons and valves merge into a mass of bent metal, and you no longer have a car? And the manufacturer and dealer shrug their shoulders and say, oh well, too bad, better luck next time, as it’s towed away at your expense? And the net value of that pile of junk you bought a year ago is zero?

Well, granted laptops are not as expensive as cars, but they aren't cheap either, and the above scenario is exactly what happened to my one year old Acer Extensa 5260 last week, a couple of months out of warranty. To be exact, I went to turn it on a week ago after having put it into hibernation the night before and it wouldn't turn on. The start button would light up a few seconds; it would hum a moment, then go silent. Nothing would work, holding the button down, unplugging and replugging, waiting thirty seconds, and all the usual troubleshooting procedures couldn’t get it to turn on.

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By Colleen Rothe

Hopefully, you’re not in the nearly 10 percent of Americans that are out of work today. But even if you are, here are some tips to put money back into your wallet or bank account and save for a day that might be even leaner than today. Even if things don’t get tougher economically, you’ll have a good chunk of change to do with as you please.

Some of these are painful re-examinations on things we may take for granted every month. But, when you need to save, sometimes you have to completely re-think your strategy.

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By Gene Ayres, Your Consumer Curmudgeon

We've all been there, shopping for a new or used car. Where do you begin? The newspaper ads? (Those are practically nonexistent now.) Craigslist? KelleyBlueBook.com? Your local car dealer(s)? Where do you go? Who can you trust? How do we avoid getting ripped off, robbed blind, misled, misinformed, or unloaded upon? It’s almost impossible these days not to stumble into at least one pitfall.

My wife, who was born and raised in China, had never learned to drive, and in order to work in the Seattle area, a car is still a near-requirement. Public transportation is here to some degree, but it remains slow, expensive, and doesn't go everywhere (I am still stunned to hear the story of how Senator Warren Magnusun, decades ago, offered an earmark for the greater Seattle region for a complete light rail system from Tacoma to Everett, with 90% Federal funding, and the local voters turned it down—we will be paying for that stupidity for decades to come).

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