Tellme May 31, 2000February 15, 2017 Now THIS is pretty cool. Don’t be mad at me if they’re swamped and it takes you a while to get your “go ahead” — I just got mine after a couple of weeks. But I tried it, and, well, it’s pretty cool: Tellme.com. Basically, once you’re signed up, you just call 800-555-TELL and say, in words, what you want — stock quotes, the weather, local movie listings, a traffic report. You can even make free long distance phone calls. It’s all free. At least so far. If you’re calling from your home base, Tellme seems to know that and doesn’t ask you to punch in your ID number. You just say “movies” or “traffic” and off you go. If you’re calling from a different phone, you do have to enter your ID number, but just the first time — and it’s easy to remember. At least for now, your ID is just your 7-digit local phone number. If you’re calling in from a land line, you won’t have to tell it where you are. It knows. (If you want to know the weather back home, you can get that, too.) And if you’re calling from your cell phone, well, then you may have to tell it where you are. But how hard is to say “Los Angeles?” There is one big caveat in all this (apart from the potentially long wait to get signed up with an account). This is one site where I think you should actually read the User Agreement and the Privacy Policy. The way it currently reads, at the end of this test period Tellme can modify its User Agreement and Privacy Policy any way it wants without notifying us, and we are deemed to have agreed to the changes (even though we may not know they have changed) the first time we next use the service. It is our responsibility, the User Agreement explains, to check the web site and keep abreast of any changes. So, theoretically, at least, if the new policy is that “we will give or sell your information to anyone we want any time we want” . . . and if the new user agreement is that “we will bill you $5 per call” . . . that’s it — we’ve agreed to it unless we’ve checked Tellme’s web site and reread the Agreement and Policy before each call. Obviously, this is ridiculous, and I assume nothing nearly so nefarious is intended. Still, Tellme should add something like this to its current User Agreement: Notwithstanding the likelihood that we will alter the terms of this agreement at the conclusion of our test period, we will absolutely will not, under any circumstances, begin charging you for our service without having first notified you of the proposed fee schedule and gotten your explicit, active approval. Likewise, we will not share any of your personal information without having first obtained your explicit, active approval of such a change in our privacy policy. I’ve suggested this, and been thanked for the suggestion, but so far, no change. Anyway, it can’t hurt to check out the demo. Voice recognition is really almost ready for prime time. Speaking of talking computers . . . would you like someone to read my column to you every morning while you’re getting dressed? I haven’t tried this, but it’s free: ReadPlease. Apparently, after downloading the software, you can then cut and paste anything you want into the Windows clipboard and have ReadPlease read it out loud. You even get to choose the reader’s voice and speed. (I got this tip from TheFreeSite newsletter, which is also free and alerts you to lots of other free stuff. I tell you: this dot-com economy is a gold mine! I can’t believe all those stocks tanked.
Maytag? Are You Listening? May 30, 2000January 28, 2017 No, this is not about poaching salmon in the dishwasher. We have already done that one. (“My father-in-law, a big-time salmon fisherman on his annual trips to Alaska, taught me about wrapping the big fish in aluminum foil, then running them through two cycles of the dishwasher to poach them,” Todd Jennings recalls. “I loved the 3×5 card he wrote for me: ‘Wrap fish, put in dishwasher, run one cycle, turn fish over, run for another cycle. DO NOT USE DETERGENT!'”) No, this is something quite different and, if I may say so, a lot more important. John Peterson: “This is sorta along the lines of your ‘guy cooking’ thing. It’s pretty well known that most families use dishwashers in a way that probably takes more overall time than washing them by hand. It is at least not very efficient even if it does save a little time. The biggest problem is that every dish needs to be handled at least twice — once to put it into the dishwasher and once to put it into the cabinet. A lot of times, clean dishes are taken straight from the dishwasher to be used. This is the essence of the invention — get rid of all cabinets and replace them ALL with dishwashers. This is not really as wacky as it sounds. Dishwashers today can have different front panels to make them look almost like cabinets. Dishwashers are not cheap, but neither are cabinets. It would take a little design work to get the water and waste water piping all over the kitchen and there is a small problem with ‘rotating the stock’ (you probably don’t want to put your dirty dishes in with the clean), but these things are solvable.” They certainly are! What I would do while we wait for more elaborate solutions is simply to have two dishwashers, one to the left of the sink, one to the right. Dirty stuff goes into the left, clean comes out of the right. When the right one is nearly empty, clamp the left one shut and start it — and then start putting the dirty stuff in the right one and taking clean out of the left. Of course, a real guy is not going to use a lot of dishes, let alone pots or pans. You will notice Friday’s recipe for corn (Cooking Like a Guy™ #5) requires neither. What really bugs me are people (naming no names) who turn this two-step process into a three-step process, and worse. First the dish — which may have nothing on it but a few crumbs, and could easily be wiped or rinsed clean and placed directly back on the shelf (it will dry! it doesn’t need any help!) — is placed in the sink. This is to avoid the enormous effort of putting it in the dishwasher. Now it is in the sink, typically on top of a greasy pan or becrusted pot filled with soapy once-hot water. Note what has happened here: The dish, which was crystal clean on the bottom and just a little crumby on the top — virtually ready for instant shelving or reuse — is now greasy and yechie all over, on both sides. As is the top to the pot. How did that get in there? All it had on it was a little condensation underneath, absolutely nothing on the top, let alone in the crevices of its handle. But no, it, too, is now filthy and disgusting. (And it can’t go in the dishwasher. It’s Calphalon™. La-dee-dah! One can get in big trouble putting that in the dishwasher.) So now the sink is more or less unusable; things that were all but clean are disgusting; the water it all sits in has grown cold and a little smelly; carving knives that could have been rinsed in a single motion are now greasy from handle to tip way at the bottom of the whole mess and totally inaccessible; and still the dishwasher waits to be loaded. John Peterson is clearly on to something. But look! The man hasn’t paused 30 second before topping himself. He concludes: “Next — a kitchen table with sides that fold up and washes the dishes in place.” Maytag? Are you listening?
It’s Amaizing! May 26, 2000February 15, 2017 Corn: the only food that needs no cleaning, comes in its own microwavable container — and has its own handle! Reason enough to set sail for the New World. Four minutes in the microwave, allow to cool down, pull back the green husks (which thus form an even larger handle), apply butter and salt. Chomp. (Corn handle gripped tightly in left fist, beer bottle in right.) There you have it, a true miracle of nature: Corn — Cooking Like a Guy™ Recipe #5. No offense to the other vegetables. Happy summer. (For previous recipes, none of them requiring a whisk, see December 13, January 5, January 21 and April 11.)
Annuities Again May 25, 2000February 15, 2017 Kathleen: “My Dad got one of those stocking stuffers, but he hasn’t read it. He’s 83 and doesn’t read as quickly as he once did. He reserves his reading hours for the important stuff — the morning newspaper and Sherlock Holmes. So he hasn’t read your discourse on why-not-to-buy-an-annuity, and I never dreamed it would be important to him. “However, the folks at the brokerage through whom my parents have invested for the last 30 years suddenly tried to sell my folks an annuity last year. My parents asked my opinion about this (a request that is out of character for them, but one that I take very seriously), and I’m trying to advise them well. But I’ve run out of ammunition in what’s turning out to be a battle with the brokers, and I’m hoping you can tell me where to find another stockpile. No pun intended. Here’s the deal. “My Dad has a generous retirement plan, complete with very generous survivor’s benefits for my Mom, if needed. The two of them live comfortably on that income, so they never touch their investments, many of which are in stocks, bonds, and a family of mutual funds (owned by this brokerage house, of course). “Last fall, the brokers advised my folks to buy an annuity (knowing little about my folks retirement plan or investments through other brokers). The major selling points were: First, guaranteed income for the surviving spouse. Second, tax free growth. “We informed the brokers that income guarantees were already in place. We said my folks weren’t interested in paying fees to get in and out of something they didn’t need in the first place (surrender fees were something like 15% prorated over the first 10 years). The brokers urged us to give it some thought anyway and get back to them. We didn’t. “The guaranteed income didn’t carry much weight, but the tax free growth did. My Dad is one of those folks who firmly believe the government gets way too much of his money in the first place, and just the sight of the I.R.S. acronym is enough to trigger a diatribe. So the brokers scored a direct hit on that one, but it wasn’t enough to sell the annuity. “They called my folks a few times over the last three months to talk about ‘this or that,’ always asking whether my folks had come to a decision about the annuity. This needling succeeded in making my folks start to doubt their own common sense — after all, ‘if these brokers are so convinced we need this, maybe we really do!’ “Last week, the brokers presented a different package, a ‘Freedom’ annuity with ‘no’ initial or surrender fees. They are advising my folks to invest a tripled amount of money in this annuity, as opposed to the surrender-fee-laden annuity they originally offered. I can only guess that the amount tripled in order to make up an equivalent sales commission for the brokerage house, assuming a no-fee annuity pays a smaller commission than a heavily-fee’d one does. “In a rather heated discussion at the brokerage house on Friday, I countered the ‘no fee’ arguments by showing my folks the mutual fund management fee numbers in the prospectus. The brokers parried with the statement that these fees were negligible, then launched the most deadly missle. They told my folks that putting their money into an annuity guarantees it against liability lawsuits, something that no other investment instrument can do. ‘If somebody decides to sue you tomorrow for any reason, they could take all your money except what’s in this annuity — the courts can’t touch this money.’ “Now this is a powerful argument to my folks. The older they get, the more menacing the world seems to be. And it makes me livid that these brokers are exploiting this fact by offering them an annuity, of all things, to protect them from the evils out there. “But I don’t have much time for anger because I’m sure the brokers will be following up a.s.a.p. on this latest attempt. So, I’d be grateful if you’d answer these two questions: First, is it true that an annuity protects assets against liability claims? Second, doesn’t personal liability insurance do the same thing? I.e., if you’re worth $100,000 and you buy $100,000 of personal liability insurance, then your assets are protected, right?” It sounds to me as if the main evil out there that your folks need to defend themselves against are these brokers. One thing you might do is use Personal Fund’s Mutual Funds Cost Calculator to check out the funds your folks have been sold. If the fees are high and the performance mediocre, as I suspect may be the case, your folks might begin to see that the brokers’ first interests are their own commissions. I’m not saying an annuity is never a good idea for an 83-year-old, especially if he/she seceretly “just knows” he/she will live much longer than the actuaries think. (The actuaries think an 83-year-old in good health will live a LONG time. Click here to play Northwestern Mutual’s “Longevity Game” and see how long you and your parents will live.) But the reason for buying an annuity at age 83 is peace of mind, not tax-deferral, and you should shop around like crazy for the best buy — NOT buy it from someone trying to sell it you. Be a BUYER, not a SELLEE. To begin to get an idea of what sort of lifetime income your folks might expect from a fixed annuity, you might try getting a quote on-line from Berkshire Hathaway Life. Now as to your specific questions: << Is it true that an annuity protects assets against liability claims? >> Let’s assume that it is. So what? Because, in the first place, your parents are highly unlikely to be sued, and, second . . . << 2. Doesn’t personal liability insurance do the same thing, i.e., if you’re worth $100,000 and you buy $100,000 worth of personal liability insurance, then your assets are protected, right? >> No, but you’re on the right track. Your parents should pay the $150-$250 a year it will cost to buy a $1 million “umbrella” liability policy. In the highly unlikely event they are sued, this extra $1 million would ordinarily be more than enough. If they wanted, they could buy even more. But note: The coverage you need is not based on the size of your assets, but rather the cost of potential lawsuits. Having $100,000 in liability coverage will not protect even a $38 net worth if you lose $200,000 in a lawsuit. Right? The coverage would still leave you $100,000 short, which would wipe out your $38 net worth and still leave you $99,962 in the hole. And note: Umbrella liability policies sit on top of your existing auto and homeowners liability coverage. The umbrella carriers require that you carry high levels of liability coverage before they will write that extra $1 million . . . so your folks may need to increase their coverage in order to qualify to buy an umbrella policy. (Note also that umbrella policies cover you against most kinds of personal liability, but not professional liability or liability connected with your business. If you poison all your dinner guests by Cooking Like a Guy™, and they sue, you are covered. But if you open a Cooking Like a Guy™ diner and poison them, or amputate the wrong patient’s leg, you’re not covered.) To obtain umbrella coverage, start by calling your existing auto or homeowners insurer and asking what they have to offer. As I say, for most people, a $1 million umbrella should not cost much more than $250 a year, if that. Coming Soon: What Berkshire Hathaway — Warren Buffett’s company — wants to sell you.
Are you a Rep or a Dem? May 24, 2000January 28, 2017 Linda Tam: “I just noticed that when I am at your homepage, the little tab at the bottom of my Windows screen, representing Netscape, reads ‘Andrew Tobias – Dem…’ What luck that you did not call your site, ‘Repositioning Finance!'” Speaking of which, I just got an URGENT envelope — Registration Materials Enclosed . . . OPEN IMMEDIATELY — that turned out to be from Jim Nicholson, chairman of the Republican Party, inviting me to join the President’s Club and get my credentials for the Republican Convention. Because of the extraordinary demand for this, Jim writes, “I can only hold your reservation for the next 7 days. If I don’t hear from you by then, I will be forced to extend your invitation to another party leader.” But then he continued, “that is the last thing I want to do. Because I believe YOU are the caliber of person we need. . . . to join the team of advisers and confidants I will turn to for strategy and advice on how to return Republican leadership to the White House this November.” This got me to thinking. I decided that, while I would not send the $1,000 (down from last month’s $5,000 invitation to join the Republican Presidential Roundtable), I really ought to chip in with some advice. After all, Jim had written me a four-page letter . . . and he and the treasurer of the RNC had hand-signed (well, almost hand-signed) a framable certificate “In recognition of [my] proven commitment and dedication to the Republican Party.” As the treasurer of the DNC, I have special respect for this sort of thing and, as I say, felt I really should offer some advice. So here it is: Don’t take any chances. Go with a proven strategy. Bush/Quayle. You may even save on some left-over campaign materials. Decency requires me to acknowledge that there is no significance to this little story. Direct mail, sadly, is direct mail. Sure the RNC looks silly sending me this. But it would not amaze me if we ourselves had at some point congratulated Jesse Helms on being a great Democrat. (Well, maybe not that.) But I’m still going to frame my certificate.
Are You Bullish or Bearish? May 23, 2000February 15, 2017 In a bull market, people wait eagerly for dips, hoping to buy, feeling foolish they had not gotten in earlier. This eagerness to buy on dips limits the downside — and people know it does, which feeds the bullishness, which can last a long time. At the top, there may even be books with ridiculous titles like, “Dow 36,000.” In a bear market, people wait eagerly for rallies, hoping to sell, feeling foolish they missed the chance to sell much higher. This eagerness to sell limits the rallies — and people know it does, which feeds the gloom. This, too, can go on for a long time. Ultimately, of course, a bull market will be brought down by . . . something (usually, rising interest rates followed by a recession), and stock prices that may have climbed above all reasonable levels of valuation will decline back toward those levels. Indeed, they will often keep falling well past reasonable valuations. And then at some point — very quickly or only after a long time (one only knows with hindsight) — the bear market will end, as selling pressure is exhausted and psychology turns (possibly because the Fed has signaled that high interest rates can safely begin a downward trend). Where are we in this cycle? Your guess is as good as mine. The market certainly doesn’t feel very bullish here, yet prices of most stocks are hardly cheap, let alone irrationally so. So we may be in just the early stages of a bear market. Or we may already have weathered the worst of it, in large part because some highly positive trends that underpinned the bull market may continue: Tremendously exciting advances in technology that greatly enhance human productivity. (But by making price comparisons so easy, and price competition so fierce, might they also decimate profits?) Generally lower defense spending that frees up capital and labor for more productive endeavors. (But are arms build-ups gone forever? Are major conflicts a thing of the past?) Generally freer trade that works to make the world economy more prosperous and efficient (see Ec 1: the rules of comparative advantage). Globalized communication that works in favor of democracy (it’s hard to keep people in the dark, or keep them from organizing, once there’s a modem in the village) . . . and that, thus, works in favor of peace (democratic governments do not start wars). But what do we do if one of these viruses ever DOES destroy all the world’s data? You remember the Plague that devastated Europe? Now we have a new kind of plague to worry about. CyberPlague. So who knows where we are? You decide: are you, personally, eager for dips so you can buy — or for rallies so you can sell? And how will you feel five minutes from now, when stocks have switched directions?
Reader Mail May 22, 2000February 15, 2017 The column that ran Friday was an error. What I had meant to run, and had posted the night before, is the column below. The first I realized anything was wrong was Friday morning, when I started getting e-mails about princes of Egypt. Huh? So I went and looked at the site myself and saw that — oops! — the machinery that underpins the postings had taken it into its own head to rerun the column from May 18, 1999. Though quite a few of you wrote in to tell me why things are, or are not, not that much better now than in days of old (David Smith: “I can make a flawless one-word argument: ANESTHESIA”), practically no one seemed to notice or care that the column had run before. So I may just keep running it. The problem arose, I learned, because I had apparently run out of rented disk space at my web hosting service. A couple of e-mails later (and another few dollars a month), and I can now write four million more words before you have to read this again. Anyway, here was what you were supposed to be reading Friday: THOSE CANDLE STOCKS Chris Kueffner: “Would you please also refer me to your column with the several specific stock/company selections you mentioned some time back (maybe as much as two months ago). There were something like 4 or 6 of them and I believe one of them was BTH. You presented them more or less as choices by people who know how to choose and do well with their money.” It was March 14. But please note that, having risen 38% in two months, while much of the rest of the market was not doing as well, this basket of stock picks is less enticing than it was. Contrary to what momentum investors believe, when a stock has quickly become more expensive, it is not more of a bargain. (Please note also that, as you say, these were not stock picks based on my great judgment or research. My judgment is generally suspect and my research, generally spotty. Rather, as I explained in March, they came from a friend whose judgment and research are much better.) MANAGING YOUR MONEY Robert Doucette: “Whenever you (or another faithful reader) talks about MYM, I can almost hear a heavenly choir and see the celestial lights. Could you tell us what you do with MYM that is so compelling? I’ve used Quicken for years, but only to balance my checkbook and allow me to look up past spending. What am I missing?” I’d tell you, but because MYM-DOS12 is completely unavailable and orphaned, and so impractical for someone starting out now even if he could find a copy, this would only serve to taunt you and make you feel rotten. Suffice it to say that, among its other features, MYM told you jokes, regularly doubled your net worth with no risk, delivered breakfast in bed when you were feeling flu-ish, and even filled in at water volleyball when you were a man short. DUMB GIFTS Mike: “Is there an inexpensive means of purchasing single shares of a stock to be given as presents (e.g., a relative collects Coke memorabilia)?” Buying a single share is more of a nuisance than anything else. It has no real investment value. (Even if the share zooms, it still won’t amount to Real Money, and they’ll hate you — or themselves — for not having bought more.) And you force the company to waste money sending out annual reports, etc. Why not buy 1000 shares! Old, canceled ones, that is. Nice to frame, and less of a hassle for everyone. See, for example, Scripophily.com. They’re having a sale on EuroDisney Certificates even as we speak. JUST THE KINDA GUY WE’RE LOOKING FOR* John Lemon: “I enjoyed reading the contribution from the CISCO executive a few days ago. You published that piece one day after a young friend of mine, an executive with an S&P 500 company, purchased a ticket for a business trip from a Midwestern U.S. city to London. This company’s policy is to pay for Business Class on such flights unless Business is booked, in which case they will pay for First. My resourceful friend conducted an extensive Internet search for a flight that was already sold out in Business Class and purchased a First Class ticket for that flight. Price: $9,300.” *And when we find him, it won’t be pretty.
OK, Then — Click HERE May 18, 2000February 15, 2017 I got almost entirely negative feedback from yesterday’s two-word column. Most of you pointed out — rightly — that the writer whose work I directed you to badly blew it in saying PCs were rare in 1986, and so on. A few of you went much further, to say what a liar you thought one of the presidential candidates is. Which just makes the point of how scarily misreported all this has been. But the best criticism came from one of you who said — again, rightly — that I had picked the wrong column to point you to. Broader and more compelling is Robert Parry’s now pretty famous article in the Washington Monthly. Please click here to read it — especially those of you who wrote to say I was nuts — and let me know what you think. I apologize to those of you who think this is not a topic for a money-oriented web site, but to my mind we are being asked to evaluate two candidates for, among other things, CEO of our economy. So I think it’s worth shareholder discussion. On an entirely separate topic, I was delighted to see Quickbrowse — which has gotten a lot better since I first brought it to your attention — featured in Walt Mossberg’s Wall Street Journal column this morning. (I read it a few hours ao when it went on-line.) He singled out Quickbrowse as his favorite of the new “metabrowsers.” Quickbrowse.com currently has three main components. (If you fail to reach it this morning, because half a million Journal readers are trying at the same time, give us a second chance later. They tell me we should be able to handle the load, but . . . well, famous last words.) QB-Masterpage, lets you stitch together a whole lot of disparate web pages into one huge long one. There’s more to it than that, which is why its true usefulness, though nicely reviewed around the world by now — and so nicely in the Journal this morning — still takes some brow-furrowing to fully appreciate. We’re working to make it even simpler. QB-Search, is about as simple as it gets. If you ever use search engines, why wouldn’t you always do it through us? Just bookmark QB-Search, and then — instead of going to Yahoo and then Alta Vista and then Google, etc. — go to all of them (or any combination of them) at once! See the first page of hits from each, or the first five pages — whatever you want. I could elaborate, but just go see for yourself. (I’d leave “result pages per engine” set at 1 or 2 to start.) QB-Stocks, is brand new. It needs to be fleshed out over the next week or two, but it’s also completely simple. Enter some stock symbols, enter the message boards you like, and click. QB-Stocks pulls together all the postings. You can, in fact, bookmark the “results” page and, from then on, check the messages on all your stocks from all the message boards just by clicking that one bookmark on your browser. As I say, Quickbrowse is still a work in progress. But it’s coming together pretty fast now. Free, of course. We hope you find it useful.
Register May 16, 2000February 15, 2017 Tuesday Is Election Day. Not this Tuesday, but Tuesday in general — and today is Tuesday. Are you registered to vote? A lot of people do mean to vote, they just never get around to registering. Because, well, how do you even do it? Easy! Just choose your state (from the lower of the two pull-down menus), and click GO.