Credit card companies are, and always have been, sleazy — though nowhere near as sleazy as health insurance companies (perhaps I’ll share my spittle-flecked manifesto on that subject at some future date).^*

Of course, it’s our own dang fault for running up our accounts and then wondering why we cannot get out from under all that crushing debt via faithfully making our minimum payments — all the while charging and charging until we exceed our credit limits, and our credit card companies start collecting even more fees.

However, the ethical conundrums of credit cards, personal responsibility, and blame and punishment aside, it is what it is and there’s not much left to do but to make a plan for paying off credit card debt.

Since the new credit card regulations have gone into effect, my credit card company web site now has a little calculator into which I enter my payment amount so that it can tell me how long it will take to pay off my balance and how much interest I will pay.

So, if I pay the minimum payment, here’s how it works out:

Balance as of last statement: $35,331.19
Minimum payment due: $762.00
Estimated payoff date: May 2053 (519 Months, or over 43 forking YEARS!)
Estimated total interest: $45,404
Estimated total cost: $80,735

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!!!

OMG! WTF!

Okay, I’m gonna calm down now ’cause the handy dandy calculator reveals some powerful truths:

By upping my payments by just $238 per month (and either not using the card or implementing a pay/go system in which any new purchases are added to the regular monthly payment), substantial savings can be had:
Fixed Monthly Payment: $1000
Estimated Payoff Date: Nov 2013 (45 months)
Estimated Total Interest: $9025
Estimated Total Cost: $44,356

If I add just another $100 to that:
Fixed Monthly Payment: $1100
Estimated Payoff Date: Jun 2013 (40 months)
Estimated Total Interest: $7,967
Estimated Total Cost: $43,298

And if I up the payments to $1500
Fixed Monthly Payment: $1500
Estimated Payoff Date: Jun 2012 (28 months)
Estimated Total Interest: $5,455
Estimated Total Cost: $40,786

But what if I can only afford to add an extra $100 per month?
Fixed Monthly Payment: $862
Estimated Payoff Date: Aug 2014 (54 months)
Estimated Total Interest: $11,077
Estimated Total Cost: $46,408

Or simply to round up the minimum payment of $762 to $800 — an increase of only $38 per month?
Fixed Monthly Payment: $800
Estimated Payoff Date: Feb 2015 (60 months)
Estimated Total Interest: $12,352
Estimated Total Cost: $47,683

So, even paying just a little bit more every month (and doing pay/go with new purchases) makes a HUGE difference.

AMAZING!

^*unless Congressional Democrats evolve into vertebrates and pass health insurance reform sometime before I die.

How can a third grade student who makes the Honor Roll also be in danger of being retained in third grade, instead of being promoted to the fourth grade?

The Florida Center for Reading Research really needs to answer that one ’cause my third child (who’s also in third grade) is in this really weird situation in which her grades are high enough to qualify her for the honor roll, yet she may be forced to repeat the third grade because she hasn’t yet met the passing criteria on something called Florida Assessments for Instruction in Reading (FAIR).

Apparently, this FAIR test is something the Florida Department of Education uses to determine whether or not third graders can read well enough to go onto fourth grade. And my kid, who just made the honor roll, has been unable to meet whatever criteria kids must meet in order to be promoted.

Now, I’m all for making sure kids know how to read before promoting them through grade after grade as, in my day, kids who were functionally illiterate could still qualify for a high school diploma. (Heck, I’ve even met a couple of MBAs who couldn’t write in whole sentences — I used to make $7 an hour correcting the grammar, spelling and punctuation in their sales reports.)

Fortunately, educational standards have been rising steadily since the mid-1970s, but now they’ve apparently become so high that even honor students can become “potential retainees.”

So, either the classroom standards are too low, or the FAIR test standards are too high — I cannot figure which.

Right now, it’s just a big WTF, but if my little mini girl is held back (after making the honor roll and demonstrating on several occasions that her reading and writing skills are above average for an eight year-old) there’s gonna be some hell to be paid by some poor, helpless school system bureaucrats whom I will torture with my special talent for talking and talking and talking until their will to adhere to stupid policies — and perhaps to even go on working in a position that requires them to do so — is utterly and completely obliterated.

Well, color me surprised! Five, count ‘em, five members of the party of “NO” actually said “Yes” to something.

Scott Brown (R-MA), Susan Collins (R-ME), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Kit Bond (R-MO) and George Voinovich (R-OH), in a stunning spectacle of unimaginable bipartisanship voted to block a filibuster on a $15 billion jobs bill.

The relatively small, yet hardly insignificant, jobs package includes a Social Security tax break to encourage hiring, and allows small businesses to write off, instead of depreciating, purchases of large equipment. It will also replenish the Highway Trust Fund and expand the Build America Bonds program, which will help to create much-needed jobs.

On his blog, Mr. Brown writes, “This Senate jobs bill is not perfect. I wish the tax cuts were deeper and broader, but I voted for it because it contains measures that will help put people back to work.”

Wow, principles.

And what does Mr. Brown get for having them (at least on this one, possibly only, occasion)?

Blog flames galore — as of this writing, 27 pages worth of mostly negative comments — including accusations of dishonesty and demands for refunds of campaign contributions. Of course, there is also the usual name calling; “RINO,” “sellout,” and even “marxist.”

Maybe it’s just me, but I think Mr. Brown’s detractors might be overreacting just a bit as Mr. Brown only voted in favor of letting the jobs bill go to the Senate floor, and he may still vote “no” when it comes time to actually pass the jobs bill.

I’m sure everyone’s all shocked and shaken by my startling confession — NOT.

After all, who likes paying taxes?

Anybody? Anybody?

[chirp] [chirp] [chirp]

Didn’t think so.

Okay, next question. Who wants to defend the likes of Joe Stack, the whacko who posted his spittle-flecked anti-IRS, anti-government manifesto/suicide note on the Internet, set his house on fire, then crashed his plane into an Austin, Texas office building, killing himself and IRS Manager, Vernon Hunter?

Apparently lots of people who also hate paying taxes.

Of course, most have done so with the caveat that they did not agree with how this anarchist kook expressed his grievances against the IRS, but they’re nonetheless empathizing/sympathizing with the sentiments of a crackpot whose troubles with the IRS were of his own making, not because of some government policy — other than the one that deals with folks who don’t pay their taxes.

Now, I did sorta, kinda understand the nutjob’s daughter, Samantha Bell, saying she regards her father as a hero for his anti-government position, even though she considers his final actions to be “inappropriate” and “wrong,” as grief can do strange things to people sometimes — which is a good reason for grieving people to stay well away from the media.

But this woman, in a classic demonstration of how those proverbial acorns don’t land very far from the trees from which they fell, also said, “if nobody comes out and speaks up on behalf of injustice, then nothing will ever be accomplished,” as if there’s “injustice” in the IRS going after people who don’t pay their taxes.

“I do not agree with his last action with what he did,” she said, “But I do agree about the government.”

Well, what about the government? That it expects all the people to pay their fair share of taxes, whether they like it or not, and that it will go after those who believe that they are above the law and refuse to pay theirs?

Or has it got something to do with how railing against the government is especially fashionable these days?

‘Cause there’s lots and lots of people who’re pissed at the government about something or another that most can’t quite articulate.

Sure, the economy sucks and the Congress can’t seem to get anything done because it’s populated with Republican “party of ‘NO’” douche bags and Democrat weenies who’re all wetpants scared of ‘em.

But America has a government that is of, by and for the people, so we, the people, really have no one else to blame but ourselves, and our pride.

We saw this last night and thought it was terrific. Mr. Stewart captures Mr. Beck’s nutty conspiracy theorizing — complete with incomprehensible blackboard diagrams — just about perfectly. And, BTW Mr. Beck is recovering from his emergency appendix surgery.