Found some info on debt-free living; made a lot of sense.

My wife signed us up for Columbia House's video program, which we soon canceled. That was several months ago.

A couple of days ago, we got another DVD from them. I checked my bank statement, and there are two charges on there this month from Columbia House — the second charge is for a video I haven't received yet. I called today, and they said that I was on their "Viewer's Choice" program; I explained if it was truly Viewer's Choice, I would have chosen not to receive anything from them, and asked them to immediately refund both charges. Their representative told me that they would refund the money when I returned the videos. When I suggested that since they charged me before sending the videos to me, they should refund the charges before they received the videos, especially since mail fraud laws say I have no responsibility to pay for anything sent to me without my request.  However, the representative said it is Columbia House's policy that no refunds will be issued until the video is returned to them.

I asked to talk to the representative's supervisor, and was placed on hold. The representative came back quickly and told me that the  supervisor couldn't or wouldn't help, and wouldn't talk to me!

So to recap, I asked to be removed from their program, and later they started charging me and sending me videos without my permission. Now I have to send them back, and hope that Columbia House both receives them and issues the credits. In my opinion, Columbia House is running a scam.

In Kalispell, Montana, more than 50 years ago, Bud Rasmussen wanted to work for himself, so he bought one of those "Get Rich Quick" magazines at the newsstand. He fell victim to a full page ad selling peanut machines, the kind where (at that time) you put in a nickel, turned a handle, and some salted peanuts dropped into your hand. The claim was that you could put them all out in public places, and then just go around once a week and collect big money. Bud fell for the pitch and sent in a cashier’s check for the minimum order of 25 machines. Once he received his order and set out to place them in stores, he discovered that setting up a route was far more difficult than had been described in the ad. Worse, the unreturnable machines turned out to be vastly overpriced. He correctly guessed that others who also ordered these machines would eventually give up and just store the machines in the garage.

Rather than give up himself, Bud ran a classified ad in the same magazine, offering to buy used peanut machines. Although he paid sellers only ten cents on the dollar, ten cents was more than zero, and Bud eventually ended up with more than 500 machines. With diligent effort, he eventually placed them all within a 90-mile radius of Kalispell. From then on, all he had to do was run the route, pick up the cash, and refill the machines with peanuts. With the nickels that poured in, Bud was eventually able to build a beautiful home debt-free in the best section of Kalispell — a classic example of getting stuck with a lemon and turning it into lemonade.

– from JJ Luna

"When something is more expensive, people want less of it. That's as true of labor as it is of ice cream cones."

Inspiring -

Farrah Gray began contributing to his family’s financial support at the age of 6, and he made his first million by the time he was 14. His success made a lot of people change their thinking about where life in the projects of Chicago’s South Side could lead. 

Business Opportunities Weblog — Want To Be A Millionaire, Ask Yourself Three Questions

Yes, Kenneth Lay, that most notorious of corporate wrongdoers, died an innocent man in the eyes of the law.

When a defendant dies, "the general rule is that if the conviction hasn't gotten past the first appeal, it is supposed to be abated, dismissed, conviction erased,'' says Stanford University law professor Robert Weisberg.

Bloomberg.com

Thomas Sowell tells of Chicago's city council which, by some miracle, has decided to look at minimum wage increases intellectually instead of emotionally.

Townhall.com: A Glimmer of Hope, by Thomas Sowell

I owned an actual small business for a while, and I can vouch for the math. Let's say I have 4 employees who each contribute $6 per hour to my bottom line — $24 per hour, total — and are each paid $6 per hour. If a law is passed saying I have to pay each one at least $8 per hour, and their productivity doesn't increase, do you think I'm going to be willing to lose $8 per hour, or do you think I'll lay off one of them and encourage the other three to work 33% harder?

That's a little simplistic, because in general, an employee needs to produce at least three times his salary to be worth having on the payroll. But it makes the point, which is: An increase in the minimum wage leads to a decrease in employment among minimum wage earners.

I was at a gathering today when I struck up a conversation with a man who described his job as a “commute helper.”

“OK, what exactly is a commute helper?” I asked

“I help people have a smooth and quick commute,” he replied.

“How do you do that?” I asked

“I sit in their car, ” he said with a smile.

Commute Helper

From Dane Carlson's Business Opportunities Weblog:

Inspired by Tristan Louis's research into the value of each link to Weblogs Inc, I've created this little applet using Technorati's API which computes and displays your blog's worth using the same link to dollar ratio as the AOL-Weblogs Inc deal.

Mine today is worth $97K, which is pretty interesting considering it's been up for about two months. For perspective, IMAO.us is worth several hundred thousand, and Michelle Malkin's site is worth over $4 million. 

I used to blog at ogblog.crossroadusa.com. Over the course of a year or so, I generated a few hundred posts. Lots of them were complete copies of articles and columns written by other people, notably Thomas Sowell, Cal Thomas, and Walter Williams. Their current work, as well as archives, can be found at TownHall.com. Since I still enjoy reading their work, you can expect to find quotes and excerpts here at Acme Anvil Co., too.

My main subjects were politics, culture and religion, but the posts that generated the most traffic were about Jason Macer (Jason Blair Macer) and the OSI Hosting scandal in Texarkana.

Davey Shafik tells a more comprehensive story at:
The Truth Behind OSI Hosting
The Truth Behind OSI Hosting - Part II
The Truth Behind OSI Hosting - Part III
The Truth Behind OSI Hosting - Part IV
The Truth Behind OSI Hosting - Part V

Davey has several links back to my old site, and I apologize for messing those up. And I'd like to state again that I've never met Jason Macer (Jason Blair Macer) and I have nothing against him - I just didn't want the Texarkana region to be mis-characterized as populated with gullible hicks. I sincerely hope he finds a more suitable outlet for his talents.