Grugger’s Way

Writing and Publishing a blog has become so commonplace that we hardly notice when new ones arrive on the scene and others seem to simply “disappear.”

I thank you, the reader, for your comments.

Some days I really struggle with finding a topic to write about. On other days, the words just flow.

I was looking for inspiration when I thought about school teachers who had inspired me. I came up with four who played major roles in my life and career.

Bill Spahr was my high school Journalism teacher. He advised us on the school newspaper and the yearbook. He helped me learn to sell advertising for the yearbook and school paper because that was where I was needed. He taught me that there is always a contribution we can make regardless of our talents. Bill was sent home from Africa during World War II and given six months to live due to Sahara Desert sand in his lungs. He recovered and is still going strong.

Bill Wilmot taught Interpersonal Communications at the University of Montana. He was the most dynamic professor that I ever worked for. He wrote and published several books, some of which I still own over thirty years later. One specialty was “Dyadic Communication” and another was the art of Small Group Discussion as a way of achieving goals. I learned a great deal that I put to use for thirty years.

These teachers all inspired me to set and aspire to high goals, to become a more knowledgeable scholar and a better person. I tried teaching for one year and found that I did not have the patience. Teaching is a very difficult and valuable profession. The best teachers are also some of the best people. My world is a better place thanks to them.

Credit cards have become so essential to our way of living that we begin to believe that we could not live without them.

That is so wrong. Credit card companies have been so unregulated for so long that they have become the primary unsecured debt load of thousands of consumers who seek bankruptcy protection.

How credit card companies entice young people, particularly college students, into obtaining and using credit, should be outlawed. The problem is that the credit card companies will issue pre-approved cards to college students without taking into consideration any ability to pay. How can a student without a job other than work-study expect to make monthly payments on debt that will, in all probability, escalate into something far beyond their original expectations?

Concert tickets, athletic equipment, trips, clothes, and dining out are all things that college students find that they suddenly have the means to obtain, if not the means to pay for.

Older people too, are often taken advantage of, with pre-approved cards offering low initial interest rates, no-cost balance transfers, and no annual fees. When a consumer is late with a payment, the credit card company can double or triple the interest rate and they NEVER have to reduced it again!

It is no wonder that these credit card debt-loads last a LIFETIME! For many of us, we see no OUT other than bankruptcy or death. Most of us choose bankruptcy.

Thankfully, at last, there is some action in Washington to control the credit card industry. The primary sponsor of the 2009 legislation is Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut. The legislation is called the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act, and if passed, would institute controls over the industry, including limitations on how long a company can penalize a customer with higher interest rates after being late or missing a payment.

The “BEST” of anything is usually just a subjective opinion at BEST, and such opinions are often nothing more than a paid promotion, particularly on blogs.

I recently read some product reviews on a commercial retailer’s site that were obviously written by a paid reviewer.

These reviews were very positive in tone, and seemed “canned;” whereas, the only “real” review stood out in stark contrast to the others, and the reviewer flat out stated that the product was flimsy and not likely to make it through a Colorado winter, and he doubted that it would stand up to wind over 40 mph and he thought he would likely regret his purchase. That sounded real, and I did not purchase the product, which was selling at a huge discount, (perhaps because of buyer dissatisfaction), as I live in Montana and we have winter and wind too.

There are always going to be shysters eager to take advantage of a naive or gullible buyer. As we get older, the shysters seem to come out in greater numbers to beat a path to our door, or to our e-mail accounts. We always have to be on guard.

Watch out for the hidden costs in the fine print. As we get older we need to protect ourselves. Oftentimes this means having a third party read contract terms and interpret them for us. This is something a good accountant or lawyer can do and sometimes save us a lot of trouble later (and money too).