Mint.com - Website Review

Mint: Refreshing Money Management
Have you ever overdrawn an account or just missed paying your bill by one day? Do you want something that would remind you when a bill is due and budgeting based on your previous? Well there is one place that can do all of that. Mint.com is a online resource which helps you avoid these costly fees from banks and credit.

Setting it up
Setting up an account on Mint is as easy as entering your user ID and password for your different bank accounts and credit cards that you can access online (Which, hopefully for all people today's age, is for all their accounts and cards). You will have to enter your "secure" questions, but once this is set up you only have to enter your Mint ID/Password to gain quick access to all of your accounts.

Tracking Money Made Easy
With the click of one button, you can get an updated status on all of your accounts that is summarized and shows you your net worth which includes your assets and liabilities (debt). It will import a few months of data from your card, so it isn't optimal to create a large history. However, any future transactions with your linked accounts will be kept in Mint for future reference.

Trends, Budgeting, and Saving
One of the cool features of Mint is the ability to automatically categorize your expenses when they are imported. Some transactions are recognized, but depending on your needs, you may want to label it differently.

Your information is then compiled and it shows you how much you have spent in every category for any time period that you choose. Then based on this information, it creates a budget based on your previous spending habits.

Also, an handy feature is that it also shows you ways that you can save based on your current cards/banks and what else is available. For example, my Capital One account has an interest rate of 3.25% and Mint tells me that if I switch to Washington Mutual, then I can earn an extra $80 a year.

Fortunately, that is the only recommendation it makes because all of my banking is free and I don't carry any balances on my credit cards. However, for those who are not in this situation, Mint shows you cards and banks that can save you significant amounts of money.

Credit Only?
The biggest problem with Mint is that it only can track transactions made on your cards and bank accounts. But many places don't take credit cards or you have to pay in cash when there is a large group.

This of course creates difficulties if you get paid cash and put the entire bill into your check. Mint will only give you an accurate spending pattern if you charge only your expenses, or if you are willing to do some extra work by breaking down your purchases.

The Breakdown
If you pay for something in cash, or you pay for a dinner and your friends pay you in cash, you will have difficulties making Mint know how you really spent the money. For example, if you spent $100 on dinner for 4 people, it only cost you $25 for your own meal but Mint will think you spent $100.

They designed it so that you can break it down, but then this can be difficult to track where the rest of the $75 went. As you spend cash, you will then have to sub-divide the remaining $75 and categorize it into the proper categories. If you spent $10 on a movie, $20 on a shirt, $30 on two new DVDs, and $15 on a dinner with that cash you got from your friends, it means that you would then have to break it down and itemize each purchase.

My Thoughts
I think that Mint is a great tool for people use to monitor and track their finances related to bank accounts and credit cards. If you use credit cards exclusively, it can give you an extremely accurate picture of your expenses. However, if even a small portion of your cash flow is in cold hard cash, Mint is not forgiving and you must manually break down your purchases to see where all of your money goes.

I personally use Mint just to get a quick overview of my accounts and to get a reminder when my bills are due. I currently use an Excel spreadsheet to track all of my expenses (as described in Your Money or Your Life). Although Mint does a "good job" at tracking my expenses, it does not make it easy to track transactions with cash. Because I am want a very accurate representation of my cash flows, I decided that I would only use Mint as I described above, and use my spreadsheet to track and categorize my expenses.

Although it is far from a perfect tool, I think that any person can find Mint.com helpful in some way. It is a useful tool to give you an overview of all of your accounts, keep you on top of your spending, and help you find ways to save.

Related Blogs:

• Your Money or Your Life - Book Review
• Your Money or Your Life - Life Lessons Learned - Part I
• The Dangers of Shopping
  

Related Links:

• Your Money Or Your Life Website
• New Road Map Foundation
  
• Get Rich Slowly Blog
• Free Money Finance Blog
  

Recommended Books:

• Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence - Joe Dominguez, Vicki Robin
• Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic (Bk Currents) - John de Graff

Recommended Movies

• Maxed Out

Ron Paul on Tax Credits and Federal Reserve

Lanka Business Online recently posted an article on Ron Paul speaking against the $600-$1200 tax credit to be given to the American tax payer through the economic stimulus package and the Federal Reserve drastically cutting interest rates. Ron Paul is a congressman from Texas and is also on the House Financial Services Committee and the Joint Economic Committee.

Tax Credits
His criticism of the tax credit is that we are creating the money out of nothing. He is quoted below:

"We have consumed everything we have gotten. So, we either have to borrow it from China or we print the money, which is inflationary. So, I'm opposed to that."

In essence, is that the government is borrowing money it doesn't have to "help" the tax payers. Later the tax payers will have to pay taxes to pay off the principle AND interest on the money that was borrowed which will devalue the dollar. What kind of relief is that? Paul is correct and this tax credit is not sound monetary policy.

It is only a temporary solution that makes the tax payers happy because they will see a $600 check in the mail. In the end though, the dollar will be weakened because of the reasons that he stated above. There are fundamental monetary problems that need fixing before the United States can drag itself out of this economic mess. A "shot in the arm" will not be sufficient when the whole arm is decaying.

Interest Rates
On 01/22 the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by 0.75% down to 3.5% from 4.25%. In the January 29-30 meeting, it is expected that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates again perhaps another 0.50-0.75%. Although many investors and politicians are embracing the Federal Reserve interest rate cuts, Paul says Federal Reserve moves to cut rates would further hurt the US dollar.

"And we can't solve the problems of a weak dollar by printing more dollars."

"So, I think the dollar is still going to remain under attack, because you can't solve the problem of too much credit stimulus by more credit stimulus, because it will just lead to a weaker dollar. And I think they [Fed] are between a rock and a hard place."

Paul is right on the money (pun intended) related to the Federal Reserve manipulating interest rates. He also states that the current economic crisis that we are in is a direct result of the Federal Reserve lowering interest rates to 1.0% which "stimulated" the housing market.

My Thoughts
I am of course going to take the $600 tax credit because if I don't I will be at an economic disadvantage. But unlike most Americans, this is going straight to savings. However, I agree with Ron Paul on all accounts related to economics and monetary policy.

Not much change can be done unless real monetary reform is put through. I believe that monetary reform is the most important political issue today (See related blog and movies below for more information) and Paul stands out as the only candidate willing to make changes, much less address the issue.

Unfortunately the media has completely ignored him because of his upfront stance on monetary policy (see America: Freedom to Fascism) even though he has made a tremendous grassroots campaign. Although he is not 100% ideal on his social issues, he is a candidate that is worth investigating.

Related Blogs:
The IRS, Tax Protesters, and the Federal Reserve

Related Links:
Ron Paul Campaign Website

Videos on YouTube
Ron Paul and Bernanke Part 1
Ron Paul and Bernanke Part 2

Related Links
The Money Masters
The Federal Reserve Bunk
Pay No Income Tax
Liberty Dollar

Recommended Books
The Federal Mafia

Recommended Movies:
All of these movies are free to watch on Google Video.
Money As Debt
The Money Masters
America: Freedom to Fascism

Energyville Part II: The Discussion

Energyville Discussion
When I played the game on January 20th, there were 504 posts. Some of the posters were very knowledgeable and proposed certain solutions that will help with energy supply. For example one user talked about using waste heat for combined cycles and co-generation. Another talked about reducing the amount that we use instead of striving for eternal growth. In my opinion, this is what will happen, whether it is voluntarily or forced due to energy decreases resulting from peak oil. However, not all of the comments were intelligent and I would like to highlight a few.

Popular Science and God
The next quote is from one of the posts in the Will You Join Us Discussion Forum:

"There are so many innovative products cited in POPULAR SCIENCE every issue for the past two years...can't we tap into some of those now? It seems to me that God is providing many new resources to help us through such emergency times...they need to go into mass production while we are able to do so."

The first thing that concerns me is that he believes everything in Popular Science. My biggest problem with Popular Science is that they look at "emerging" technology that is often not commercially or even technically proven. It is definitely great material for a curious reader to think that these technologies are on the cusp of being realized, but in reality, most of these ideas are years down the road or won't ever be developed.

For example in this article, The Two Day Battery, from Popular Science, the author reports that scientists have discovered a way to make batteries last longer, going from 4 to 40 hours. Those who aren't skeptical probably think that it's just around the corner, but the author of the article makes the following concession his last sentence:

"Of course, this is still in the lab stage, and there are undoubtedly quite a few steps and hurdles between the campus and commercialization, but we're optimists."

I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but we do not have the time or the resources to be optimists. We can't hope for the next emerging technology to magically save us. We need to be REALISTS and understand the the current problems and the current (however incomplete they may be) solutions that exist and begin to implement them.

My second concern is relating to god. If we are relying on god to provide us with energy then I think we have a rocky road ahead. I think it is highly unrealistic to hope for divine intervention when the laws of thermodynamics and physics are at work.

What the !@#& are you thinking?
The user who commented above might have some issues with what the next person has to say about creating mechanical life to use it to provide energy. (Disclaimer:the quote below has NOT been modified in any manner from the original text)

"perhaps genetically modified biomechanical , half creature half mechanical,feeding it neutritous water could produce a sercetion to then power the mechanical part. Is this possible yet or do we not no about it yet?"

Spelling and grammar aside, there are significant problems with the ideas the person presents. Where would we get this "neutritous water"? Assuming there is an ample supply of "neutritious water", does the reader not understand that much of the caloric value of this water would be used in the biological process and less energy is available in the secretion than there was originally?

What I think, is that many people don't realize that energy just can't be extracted from anything. There are only certain sources of matter or energy in this world and universe that are useful and can be economically harnessed.

My Thoughts
I think that The Economist Group has focused on the wrong issue. They continue to work with the idea that we must continually provide more energy for mankind. However, thermodynamic laws and supply sets limits. I will admit that increased efficiencies and new technologies will provide some "free" energy that was previously not harvested due to inefficiencies.

But the overall picture is that we are already consuming more energy than is sustainable. As China and other developing countries continue to industrialize and copy the Western high-energy lifestyle, the pressure on energy supply and the environment will be even greater.

The reader who had a comment on Popular Science and God did have one nugget of wisdom: "...they need to go into mass production while we are able to do so." We must begin to acting today while we still have cheaper fossil fuels. Once peak oil hits, we will not have the extra energy to spend on infrastructure.

What Can You Do?
The Energyville game and discussion forums offer a great starting platform for learning more about energy. The game does a pretty good job of discussing the pros/cons of each energy and what technical or economical limitations may exist.

As always, education is the key. Educate yourself and your friends about the issues. We can't start making changes in this world until we know what needs to be changed.

Related Blogs:

• Energyville Part I: How will you Power it?
• Shell CEO Virtually Admits to Peak Oil
  
• The Party's Over - Richard Heinberg: Book Review
• Fuel of War: Article Review

Related Links:

• Life After The Crash
• The Rainwater Prophecy
• Energy Intelligence Blog
  
• Peak Oil Blog

Recommended Books:

• The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century - James Howard Kunstler
• Resource Wars - Michael Klare
  
• The Party's Over: Oil, War And The Fate Of Industrial Societies - Richard Heinberg
  
• PowerDown - Richard Heinberg
  

Recommended Movies:

• The End of Suburbia
• The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
• A Crude Awakening - The Oil Crash

Energyville: Part I - How will you power it?

Energyville Overview
Energyville is a game developed by The Economist Group for Chevron to look at providing energy to a city using various resources. A game that is based on something as intricate as the world energy supply will no doubt have some major assumptions. I've quoted parts of the disclaimer for the game below.

... Assumptions for the game, both present and future, are based on The Economist Intelligence Unit’s assessment of global facts and trends obtained from numerous credible sources... The game has limitations and many elements have been simplified to facilitate game play... Additionally, although you are able to determine how to power your city, the game does not take into account the time and investment needed to replace exiting energy infrastructure with your choices.

Even the best modelers in the world still have difficulties forecasting because there are so many different factors that will affect a global market. However, for the purpose of the game, these have been simplified and many assumptions have been made to make the game work.

This is your city. How will you power it?
The game lasts two rounds with the years between 2007-2015 and 2015-2030. Your city has various energy needs and you must supply enough energy using different sources. Each energy source has been evaluated on three impacts: economic, environment, and security. Simply put, the lower your impact of your city, the higher your score.

The economic and environment impacts are a given because they are typically discussed in the media. "How much will it cost compared to conventional fuel/energy" and "How much CO2 does it emit compared to conventional fuel/energy" are the typical questions that need to be addressed.

Also, I understand the importance of security related to being able to protect the infrastructure and having a reliable source. This is extremely important for the United States because much of our energy (oil/petroleum in particular) is imported and there is a risk associated with not being able to supply your own energy.

However there is one factor which is often forgotten, the "social" impact. At the Earth Summit in Rio De Janeiro in 1992, leaders from around the world discuss sustainable development and determined that there were three factors that must be taken into account: economic, environment, and social. A diagram of how these three factors interact can be seen in the figure below.

Source: http://www.eoearth.org/image/Sustainable_development_triangle.gif

Unfortunately corporations are forced by their charter to focus on the economic. The only way that a corporation can focus on the others, is if they will make an impact on the bottom line. (See The Corporation for more information about what corporations are and how they work). Recently more attention has been focused on the environmental aspect and corporations are changing their practices to include some environmental impacts (again, only to increase the branding of their company and to improve their economic sustainability).

It is unfortunate that the social aspect has been left out, but nonetheless I have compiled all of the impact values for the game in the table below.


Petroleum is by far the worst (I wonder how much input Chevron had into this game) at a total of 22% and hydro power is better than all of the rest at 8% (if we can assume that all impacts can be weighted equally). I believe that most of the numbers are relatively accurate of the impact with the exception of the economic impact of nuclear. It is rated as the second cheapest option (tied with coal).

Although I don't have access to the data that they use to calculate the impacts, I assuming that the data is only looking at the operational costs of nuclear power and doesn't take into account the huge subsidies that the government has to provide to dispose the radioactive waste. If the true cost of nuclear power was known, I don't think it would rate as well as coal in terms of economic impact.

Powering Your City
In both rounds the user has to power up their city by selecting a portfolio of energy sources. To mix things up, two random events occur between each of the game rounds which will affect your city based on what energy sources you have chosen. For example, international conflicts will cause the economic and security impacts of petroleum/oil plants to increase, thus decreasing your score.

There are limitations to your energy sources and you cannot just build unlimited hydro plants. Also, one point that I thought the game represented very well was the types of energy that were needed. For most of the city, electricity is generated centrally and sent through the grid. However, there are sectors such as transportation that are reliant on petroleum/oil. If you build only energy sources that can only be used for stationary electricity generation you will get the following message:

Warning! Hungville requires petroleum. Though alternative fuels can reduce the need for petroleum, airplanes and significant portions of ground vehicles will continue to rely on petroleum for fuel.

I am glad that they did not gloss over this fact because oil accounts for approximately 96% of the energy needed for transportation with biofuels and natural gas providing most of the remaining 4% with approximately 2% each (Data from the Department of Energy: Annual Energy Review 2006).

How Did I Do?
Playing it 5-6 times I got consistently in the top 5-15% scores. Best score was 688,061,046 which was in the top 3.5%. It is merely about making the least amount of impact and you can do this by looking at the numbers that are given. I think a lot of the players didn't look at the impact of each energy source (about 6% of the energy chosen was hydrogen and oil shales, which based on the data the game gave you, is a terrible choice).

I suspect that the top scores are from people who heavily favor the technologies that present the lowest % gain, and they play it enough such that their technologies aren't affected negatively in the random events.

Rating the game
Overall the game play is pretty bland. All you need to do is pick hydro, wind, and some petroleum in the first round. The second round you pick some more wind/hydro/solar because it has become more efficient. Rinse and repeat and you'll be in the top 10% of the scores out there.

That said, the game offers a wealth of information about each of the different energy sources. Even if the information may be incomplete or is biased towards particular energy sources, the game at least brings the awareness of energy issues and serves as a starting platform for people to learn more.

However, it's not all just fun and games and at the end of the game it is possible for the player to then click on a link to go to the discussion forum. In my second blog about Energyville, I address some of the discussion which is occurring in the forum and offer some of my own thoughts and opinions about energy.

Related Blogs:

• Energyville Part I: How will you Power it?
• Shell CEO Virtually Admits to Peak Oil
  
• The Party's Over - Richard Heinberg: Book Review
• Fuel of War: Article Review

Related Links:

• Life After The Crash
• The Rainwater Prophecy
• Energy Intelligence Blog
  
• Peak Oil Blog

Recommended Books:

• The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century - James Howard Kunstler
• Resource Wars - Michael Klare
  
• The Party's Over: Oil, War And The Fate Of Industrial Societies - Richard Heinberg
  
• PowerDown - Richard Heinberg
  

Recommended Movies:

• The End of Suburbia
• The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
• A Crude Awakening - The Oil Crash

EarthSave.org: Website

What is Earth Save?
EarthSave.org was founded by John Robbins who is the author of Diet for a New America and Food Revolution. He was the former heir to the Baskin-Robbins corporation but turned down away a fortune of money and an "easy" life in order to live a life that was in sync with his values. The website has a tremendous amount of resources for people who are looking to learn more about the health and environmental benefits of a plant based diet.

I have recently became a vegetarian and Food Revolution along with Peter Singer's "The Ethics of What We Eat" strongly influenced my decision. Check out the related blog "My Decision to Become a Vegetarian" for details on how I became a vegetarian.

Our Food Our Future:
EarthSave has an brochure titled Our Food Our Future which is available for free download. The brochure has 16 pages of text and is pretty much a summary of Robbins' "The Food Revolution" book. For those of you who are interested in the idea of a plant based diet but don't have the time to read his entire book, this brochure is a great overview of his key topics. Here is a list of some of the topics that the brochure covers:

• You Can Make a Difference - For Your Health
• Heart Disease
• Cancer
• Obesity
• You Can Make a Difference - For The Environment
• Air and Water Pollution, and Water Depletion
• Energy Use
• Global Warming
  
• You Can Make a Difference - For World Hunger
• You Can Make a Difference - For the Animals

Environmental Impact of Food:
My main reason for becoming a vegetarian is because of the huge environmental impact that animal products has on the environment. Here are some statistics that I have pulled from the "Our Food, Our Future" brochure.

• Amount of fossil fuel energy needed to produce animal protein: 8 times that of plant protein
  
• Amount of water to produce one pound of steak: 2500
• Amount of excrement produced by farm animals in the U.S.: 130 times more than humans

What Can Be Done?

"Other than not driving a car, not eating meat is the second most important positive environmental decision that a consumer can make"
-Union of Concerned Scientists

The general population has recently become conscious about sustainability and environmentalism related to transportation. Increasingly, people are taking action in order to reduce their transportation environmental impact. Some drive hybrid cars, some buy carbon offsets, some carpool to work, some use mass transportation, some bike to work, and some just work from home. The point is that these people want to reduce their environmental impact and have changed their habits.

The same thing can happen for food and the meat/dairy industry. It does not require that every single person become vegan and completely eliminate all animal products in their diet. Any reduction in meat consumption, which is then replaced by a plant based alternative, will lead to a reduced environmental impact.

Some can eliminate beef, some can eliminate eggs, some can eat one vegetarian dish each week, some can eliminate dairy. It does not have to be an all or nothing effort, but every part helps. Hopefully someday soon people will think about eating a steak in the same way they think about filling up their gas tank.

If you are conscious about the environment and do things such as recycling, carpooling, or anything else that has a positive effect on the environment, consider a plant based diet as another way to reduce your environmental impact on our world.

The VegPledge:
For anyone who is interested in trying a plant based diet, you should check out VegPledge. It is for anyone who is willing to make a pledge to reduce their consumption of animal products whether they eat steak on a daily basis or even are lacto-ovo vegetarians. If you pledge to reduce your animal product consumption for 60 days, they will send you a "Healthy Beginnings Care Package" which is a starter pack for vegetarians. At the end of your 60 day trial, you will be given a 6 month subscription to Vegetarian Times Magazine.

Additional Links on EarthSave:

• Health Articles related to plant based diets
• Environmental Articles related to plant based diets
• Lifestyle Articles related to plant based diets
• Download Free Brochures

Recommended Books:

• The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and Our World - John Robbins
• The Ethics of What We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter - Peter Singer

Recommended Movies:

• The Future of Food