I heard Dave Ramsey read this on the air and just had to pass it along. I don’t know much about science but this made total sense!

The Heaviest Element Known to Science

Lawrence Livermore Laboratories has discovered the heaviest element yet known to science.

The new element, Governmentium (Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second, to take from 4 days to 4 years to complete.

Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2- 6 years. It does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.

In fact, Governmentium’s mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes.

This characteristic of morons promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass.

When catalysed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium, an element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

Listen to Dave talk about this on-air

* Dave Ramsey did not write this. It has been circulating around the web for some time but seems more fitting than ever right now.

So, that V.P. debate was interesting. Of course many of the statements made by both candidates were stretches of the truth or altogether false. That is so frustrating. As I was checking up on all the facts I came across this gem:

Who Caused The Economic Crisis?
So who is to blame? There’s plenty of blame to go around, and it doesn’t fasten only on one party or even mainly on what Washington did or didn’t do. As The Economist magazine noted recently, the problem is one of “layered irresponsibility … with hard-working homeowners and billionaire villains each playing a role.” Here’s a partial list of those alleged to be at fault:

• The Federal Reserve, which slashed interest rates after the dot-com bubble burst, making credit cheap.
• Home buyers, who took advantage of easy credit to bid up the prices of homes excessively.
• Congress, which continues to support a mortgage tax deduction that gives consumers a tax incentive to buy more expensive houses.
• Real estate agents, most of whom work for the sellers rather than the buyers and who earned higher commissions from selling more expensive homes.
• The Clinton administration, which pushed for less stringent credit and downpayment requirements for working- and middle-class families.
• Mortgage brokers, who offered less-credit-worthy home buyers subprime, adjustable rate loans with low initial payments, but exploding interest rates.
• Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who in 2004, near the peak of the housing bubble, encouraged Americans to take out adjustable rate mortgages.
• Wall Street firms, who paid too little attention to the quality of the risky loans that they bundled into Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), and issued bonds using those securities as collateral.
• The Bush administration, which failed to provide needed government oversight of the increasingly dicey mortgage-backed securities market.
• An obscure accounting rule called mark-to-market, which can have the paradoxical result of making assets be worth less on paper than they are in reality during times of panic.
• Collective delusion, or a belief on the part of all parties that home prices would keep rising forever, no matter how high or how fast they had already gone up.

The U.S. economy is enormously complicated. Screwing it up takes a great deal of cooperation. Claiming that a single piece of legislation was responsible for (or could have averted) the crisis is just political grandstanding. We have no advice to offer on how best to solve the financial crisis. But these sorts of partisan caricatures can only make the task more difficult.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. There are multiple factors that caused this problem, and one swift $700 billion move from the government is not going to solve it. Everyone, and I mean everyone needs to be committed to turning this thing around. I’m not an economist so I don’t have all the answers, but I do have some insight as far as what we hardworking Americans must do to insulate ourselves from this sort of crisis: Stop borrowing money. Live on less than you make. Save for the emergencies. Save for the future. Forget about the Jones’ - they’re broke.

My sister just bought a house. A small one. Small by anyone’s standards, really. We thought she was nuts at first, but you know what? I’m a little envious! The layout of the house is great and has all the space she needs for her family of four. No more, no less. There are huge advantages to this, number one being that the cost is well below their means and will leave breathing room in the budget. Breathing room is an absolute must. The other advantage, the one that makes me so envious, is that her small space forces her to keep only the things she needs and say no to the rest. She has a built in defense against clutter!

It doesn’t matter what other people think. People may say my sister’s house is too small, or that mine is the junkiest on the block, but we don’t care! We can sleep at night not worrying how we’re going to pay next month’s mortgages. And more importantly, we are surrounded by family and friends who love us no matter what our houses look like.

Today is a great day. It’s my dad’s birthday, which by itself is fantastic. Just like that he’s another year older. With the added years comes added wisdom. He’s a terrific dad and I love him immensely. He taught me that word - immensely. It means to an exceedingly great extent or degree. That’s a lot of love, folks.

The other reason this is a great day (and Dad, you’ll be so proud of this) is that we paid off my car! See? Please take special note of the Filing Date and the date the Lien was released. I hadn’t realized it, but I bought the car on May 14th of last year. I was going to pay it off on Monday but I kept forgetting to bring the title with me to work. So with a little divine intervention my car is paid off exactly one year later, to the day. Hallelujah!

Okay, who wants to go shopping? Just kidding, we’ll most likely be paying off my car with our Stimulus Tax Rebate. But since I hate shopping, paying off my car is way more exciting

Go to the IRS website if you want to know where your Stimulus Rebate is: http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=181665,00.html

Oh, and an interesting detail my coworker found out the hard way:

If filing or preparation fees were deducted from your 2007 Refund or you received a rapid refund, you will be receiving a check instead of a direct deposit.

This means that if you filed via say, Turbo Tax, and they took their preparation fee directly from your refund, you will be getting a paper check. The IRS will begin mailing paper checks no later than May 16. Check the payment schedule to find out when you can expect your rebate.

You can also find out the specific status of your rebate by going HERE, but not until about one week before your payment is scheduled.

Happy Friday!

Please tell me I’m not the only one that finds these credit card offers funny (in a sad kind of way).

“Dear Mr. Smith,The road to financial success has many milestones marking how far you’ve come. You’ve just reached one such milestone.

You’ve been Selected for the American Express Preferred Rewards Gold Card

You should know that Selected status is not easily achieved. But with your excellent financial record, our decision was really very simple - we want you as a Card member.”

“Selected” status is not easily achieved? Give me a break. All they mean by “excellent financial record” is that you have a high FICO (a.k.a. “I Love Debt”).

“Dear Mr. Jones,Congratulations are in order. You’ve earned an important distinction - a Card that reflects your achievements and complements your life. A Card designed to reward you and bring you the extra service and privileges you require.”

A card designed to bring you the privileges you require? Aren’t privileges by definition things that are not required?

VISA Terms & Conditions:
“You authorize us to allocate your payments and credits in a way that is most favorable to or convenient for us. For example, you authorize us to apply your payments and credits to balances with lower APRs (such as promotional APRs) before balances with higher APRs.”

“…in a way that is most favorable to or convenient for us.” Well, there you go. Letting you know right up front where there priorities are. Good to know they’re looking out for the customer!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Another year of Financial Peace University is in the books. We had a fantastic class! It was such a privilege to get to know everyone and hear their stories. Nineteen families made it all the way to the end. All together they cut up more than 20 credit cards and paid off over $216,000 in debt! I am so proud of this class and I know they are well on their way to financial peace.

It was a rewarding experience as usual and I look forward to the next one!

Great article by Scott Burns from MSN Money:

Foreclosure ‘crisis’ is overblown

This news will disappoint the gloom-and-doom crew and all those seeking the excitement of financial upheaval.

The media exaggerates? Unbelievable. 

Here’s the deal on those tax rebates:

IRS Information on Stimulus Payments

If you’ve been hearing rumors that this money coming from the IRS is an “advance” and that you’ll just have to pay it back next year, well, it’s only partly true. It is an “advance,” but it’s an advance on a credit. The government voted to give people a temporary tax break on 2008 income taxes, but instead of giving it to us when we file our 2008 income tax returns in 2009, they are sending us the money early.

Some notes from the IRS website: (more…)

Dave Ramsey Pickup Lines:

• I still have money in my “restaurant” envelope … can I buy you dinner?
• Would you like to dance? I’d love to show you my Baby Steps.
• Why am I nervous about talking to you? Because you’re better than I deserve.
• Allow me to introduce myself … I am “borrower”, and you must be “lender”.
• Good thing I just got term life insurance … because I saw you and my heart stopped!
• You can’t spell Financial Peace University without U and I.
• I’ve already kicked Sallie Mae out. Want to take her place?
• I just bought a bass boat with cash … and it’s a good thing, because you’re quite a catch!
• I’m not mortgage interest baby … don’t write me off.
• The good news? I’m debt free. The better news? I’m also date free.
• What would you say if I asked you out? (response: no) That’s not good enough.
• Courtesy of one of Dave’s listeners: On a scale of 350-850, I’m a Zero!

The stimulus package has been approved by Congress which means in 12 weeks or so we should be receiving up to $1500 of the government’s borrowed money! If we were good little consumers we would go out and spend it but unfortunately for the politicians and economists, our family will be applying it toward our debt. See, we already spent many years feeding the economy. We were good little consumers… a little too good if you ask me. We spent money we didn’t have and now we are being responsible little adults and paying back what we owe. No worries, once we are freed of those stupid monthly payments we’ll have more cash to play around with!

Congress Votes for a Stimulus of $168 Billion

Here is an interesting piece to the plan:

 ”In a nod to the housing problems, the stimulus plan will increase the limits on home loans that can be purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored finance companies, and on loans that can be insured by the Federal Housing administration. The one-year increases will make it easier to refinance loans or obtain new mortgages in expensive markets.”

There has been a lot of media attention on the crappy housing market and all the foreclosures. I don’t know how real it is in other states but in Michigan it truly is crappy. People are losing their homes to foreclosures because they bought houses they couldn’t afford. Here’s a solution! Let’s up the limits and make it easier for people to buy homes they can’t afford!!

What is with our bonehead government? Geesh. I think we need to send them all to Financial Peace University.