WhyTheHeck

…this blog is on hiatus until the second edition of the book is out, which should be within the next month.

Some of the other finalist ideas besides the winner about the phone books are listed below.
Instead of taxing private golf clubs at the open-space rate normally used for farms etc, create a category of land tax halfway between true open space and full taxation, and allow clubs the choice of either:
(1) truly becoming open space, with no fences and [...]

People should be allowed to post Ghostbusters-type stickers (walking fingers with clash through them) to prohibit yellow pages companies from leaving their books on your doorstep.

Anyone been to the RMV since they downsized?  Did you get out and back the same day?   This idea won’t reduce the length of the trip but it will make it more pleasant:  Why don’t they hand out pagers, like they do when you’re waiting for a table at a restaurant?   That way you don’t [...]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/09/ED7H1CSB4H.DTL
During tax season, millions of people become victims of government-licensed loan sharks. That temporary storefront in your local neighborhood might say “tax preparation,” but in some cases it should say “high-cost loans.”
Here’s how it works: After these tax preparers calculate a customer’s tax refund, they offer a 90 percent payout on the spot, a so-called [...]

I know we have all had a bounced check. I personally have bounced a check because I was $2.00 short. I was charged $25.00 from my bank and $20.00 from the establishment where I wrote the check . That’s $45.00 for a $2.00 mistake. I know we all can have Overdraft Protection, but we are [...]

What Will Be the Law of the Land:
 
A requirement that anyone who wishes to be covered for a potential abortion AND who is receiving federally subsidized health insurance must pay for that coverage separately with their own money.
 
How Much Coverage Will Cost:
 
In a nutshell, very little. 
 
It is likely that insurance companies will make people sign up for perhaps [...]

The federal government excels at throwing money at problems, no surprise given decades of practice.  They don’t need my help with that, which is why these posts always propose solving problems without throwing money at them. 
Today we tackle the “Tax Refund Anticipation Loan,” a total rip-off even as compared to the rest of the [...]

Congressional candidate Joe Malone, running as a Republican in the 10th CD in Massachusetts, is guest-posting a great idea proposing what can be done with school gyms when not in use.  Why not subcontract them to health clubs to sell memberships for evenings and weekends?   The times when kids are not using the gyms are exactly the times [...]

I am going to take time out from postings that include the typical stuff that makes economics such a turn-off for most people, like equations, numbers, and facts.  And instead get right to the point about why our standard of living has fallen.
You were probably brought up being told that we were the richest country [...]