By Colleen Rothe

I was all set to give you the best and the brightest tactics on budgeting and saving money. New stuff to get you through this New Depression – or as the media is now dubbing it, “The New Ideal,” especially where consumer loans are concerned.

But I just can’t do it, because I don’t agree.

Budgeting is like dating. You have to like it; you have to want it. And for it to last – you have to be committed.

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By Colleen Rothe

Toxic loans. It’s what killed easy money in the late 20th century.

So what does the worst financial crisis in modern history mean on consumer loans? In short, it means the goings gotten tough and it ain’t getting easy any time soon – perhaps not in our lifetime. Ever. Again.

If you want a new home, a new car, or even a credit card for emergency purposes, you’re going to have a hard time. Don’t pay attention to those in our nation’s capital who are saying that there’s money at the banks to give out. Unless you’re a small business owner, you’re probably not going to see it.

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By Gene Ayres,
Your Consumer Curmudgeon

Paradox is way too kind a term for this conundrum, but I needed something that was alliterative to Packaging, which now accounts for more waste material than any other substance or commodity.

Six years ago, a shopping list consisting of nectarines, kiwis, avocados, goat’s cheese, baked potatoes, sliced ham, olives and cheesecake, accumulated four plastic bags, several square feet of clingfilm, six plastic pots, several styrofoam trays, two plastic and one pulp cardboard sheets, a cake-shaped plastic box, and a cardboard box with plastic windows, all packed up in plastic bags. (Courtesy BBC, 9/8/03)

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By Colleen Rothe

I know we’re on the tail end of Valentine’s Day and approaching the Easter season, so chocolate in our markets is abundant and “on sale.”

But has anyone else noticed that those sales are ridiculous lately – especially on traditional chocolate items? I’m talking the super giant Hershey bars at 2 for $1, Almond Roca at 2 for $4, and Cadbury Eggs at 4 for $1 (either regular or caramel flavor).

I knew something was up – sure enough. The makers who control 75 percent of the chocolate market in the United States, Hershey, Nestle, Cadbury and Mars, are being sued for price fixing.

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By Your Consumer Curmudgeon

I mentioned in a column last year how easy it is to buy, change, or use a cell phone in China (yes, the People’s Republic), compared to here in the so-called “free market” U.S.A. In China you can buy any phone you like, new, used, fancy, simple, the latest technological wonder, or a clunky but serviceable antique. Then you go to any number of competing service companies’ nearest outlet, rarely more than a block away and many banks also offer this option, and buy a sim card, which you then pop in the back of your cell phone (one size fits all, except here, apparently) and off you go. This contains your number and all the necessary data, and is basically a computer chip. Then you pay as you go, for a flat (low) fee per call. You can put money on your account (I’d put maybe $5 a month, which was more than I ever used) and make payments as your balance gets low, you’re informed by way of a text message, as needed. No contracts. No two years lockdown. No computer voice mail “service departments” to contend with.

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By Colleen Rothe

From the ashes of the old economy comes a new sort of economy – brought down off the proverbial historical shelf and dusted off to help us endure the New Depression: The Art of the Barter.

Bartering has, as expected, migrated to the online community. A crop of websites helping to facilitate “swapping,” the term for this modern barter system, has sprung up over the past year and is gaining momentum.

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By Your Consumer Curmudgeon

Not surprisingly, the news this week was that while retailers were tailspinning towards a fiery crash all around us, one, and one alone is thriving: Wal-Mart. You could see this coming, of course, even decades ago, by visiting virtually any small town or city in America, where local so-called “Mom and Pop” businesses were being driven into bankruptcy by this single, relentless, voracious corporate giant with no scruples, no conscience and no sense of boundaries (because after all, while they have insisted on the same constitutional “rights” as individuals and won their case in conservative courts, they have also avoided the human sense of responsibility that individuals are supposed to have).

I have lived in communities that have succeeded in fending them off, usually at great expense and travail, but those are now few and far between. And Wal-Mart is now better positioned than ever to become America’s retail monopoly, offering Third World goods and paying Third World wages. I wonder if it was Sam Walton’s dream, all along, to be the last billionaire standing, while the rest of the world, or at least the rest of America, were his peasant supplicants, unable to afford, at his wages, to shop anywhere else, ever again.

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By Your Consumer Curmudgeon

Sometimes news just doesn’t get around. Even in this, the age of the Internet. Even when lives are at stake. And there is great danger all around, including under your own nose (and feet).

In July of last year, while the world was apparently occupied elsewhere with elections, holiday plans, trips (or maybe we were just too busy fretting about $4 gas to pay attention), ABC news 20/20 investigators did an Insider Report (7/24/08) about the safety of our car and truck tires.

Guess what: it turns out there is no relationship between tread depth and safety. Yet another dirty little anti-consumer secret that CPSC, at least under the last administration, has managed to keep under wraps. Shockingly, there is an extraordinary hidden danger in tire safety. It is simply this: if a tire is more than four years old, the tread could come off. And according to safety tests performed by ABC, when that happens you have a really good chance of ending up dead, as has happened to literally an uncounted numbers of drivers and passengers over the years, with no one held accountable, except maybe the unknowing driver. This situation, it turns out, is known, apparently by everybody but the U.S. consumer. Even the UK has now passed a regulation requiring, if not safe tires, at least full disclosure. Not surprisingly, the U.S. has not.

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