HD-DVD - Too Little, Too Late

So today, Toshiba announced that it was cutting the price of its players even further. The players will start for $149.99 and work its way up to $300. Throw in the fact that you can get 10 free movies with a purchase, and you are looking at a fairly good deal.

That being said, the HD-DVD camp is a little late to the game. With the defection of Warner Brothers from the HD-DVD fold, there isn't much that the HD-DVD camp can do to actually save their format. You see, content is king. People won't buy a player because it is cool new technology and it is cheap. They want to be able to play their favorite movies. I always believed that the first player to $100 was going to win, but that was before all the content got taken away from one of the formats.

In the end, I still think this race is a big yawn. I write about it only because I'm oddly curious about the battle going on from a geek's perspective.

By the way, what type of lame ass reporting do they have over at Crave? In one of their articles, they suggested that Microsoft might want to look into buying a movie studio. For what possible reason would Microsoft do this? Seriously, it may be the lamest idea I have ever heard and quite frankly it is a little bit of irresponsible journalism. First, Microsoft is not in the movie making business. It is in a lot of businesses, but none of them are even close to actually producing a movie. Second, HD-DVD is a very very small part of what Microsoft does. There is no way that Microsoft, no matter how much cash it has, would make such a ludicrous transaction. As a shareholder, I would instantly sell my remaining shares if it ever happened.

I guess any old person can post whatever they want, no credentials required. Then again, I guess I do the same thing :)

Blame Others for Your Problems

I was driving in my car when I heard an ad for debt consolidation. These ads are everywhere, so it must be pretty good business. Anyway, something I heard on the radio really struck a nerve with me. To paraphrase the commercial it basically stated, "Have too much Credit Card Debt? Don't you realize that the credit card companies are after you by charging you high interest rates? It's not your fault. Blame the big bad credit card companies who are out to get you!"

Now I won't dispute the fact that credit card companies are trying to make a lot of money off of you. After all, they are a business. However, this commercial really just bothered me. Seriously folks, when you have credit card debt, you really have nobody to blame for yourself. There are times where there is a legitimate emergency, and you have to use credit to get out of it. But these are few and far between. Even in these cases, I would argue it is still YOUR fault if you have EVER purchased something you didn't need on a credit card and left a balance because you should have been saving the money to put into an emergency fund in the first place.

So instead of blaming other people for your problem, why don't you stop buying things you can't afford? Don't let the credit card companies charge you interest in the first place. Be in control of your own finances, and you will be in control of your own destiny. I know it can be easier to just point the finger of blame at someone else. But when you point that finger back at yourself, you will find that more often than not, accepting responsibility for your own mistakes will be far more productive.

Quiting Without Another Job - An Epidemic

Today, I found out that one of my coworkers is doing what I did, quitting without another job lined up. He is about my age, maybe a little bit younger, but he just didn't feel that the opportunity was right at our company and has decided to go and try it on his own. He doesn't have a real plan but knew that he had to move on. I know a few more people who have done this or are planning to do it. Most of them are younger without a lot of obligations. Most of them however have really good paying jobs. Free Money Finance just recently had a post on whether or not you should quit your job without another one lined up. He came down on the side of you should definitely not.

I however, having done it, really do see both sides of this argument. It really just depends. Most people are probably unhappy with their job in one form or another, especially younger people. I think my generation more so than any other before take job satisfaction to be very important. Our parents understood that a job was just that, a job. You didn't like your job, you did it to put food on the table. But somewhere along the way that changed. A job became who you were, it defined you. We constantly heard our parents tell us, "Do what you love" and we took it to heart. That has caused my generation to job hop until we find something that really makes us happy. The problem is that it is always still a job, and many people don't ever come to realize that. They jump from job to job always hoping to find something better. I know very few people my age that haven't had at least two different jobs. I myself am on my fourth while only being out of college for a little under eight years.

I disagree with the conventional wisdom for a few reasons.

1. You can be doing a lot of other things besides a 9-5 job to earn money - This didn't use to be the case, but you can spend your time coming up with alternative ways to earn income. In the end, this might actually be smarter if you can make it passive, and then return to the work force. You will have double income!


2. It really depends on your financial situation - If you are like me with no obligations or debt, and could survive years unemployed, than you have little to worry about. Believe me, the fear is bigger than the reality most of the time. This is where living frugally really pays off.


3. Depends how much you make and how in demand your skills are - I make a lot of money. There aren't a lot of jobs that pay what I make now. It isn't easy for me to just find a job that will pay me what I want to make. However, I have the advantage of having skills highly in demand, so most of the time I have very little trouble finding a new job when I really want one.


4. Money isn't everything - Coming from a guy who highly values money, this may be shocking, but it's true. I would rather have a job I liked and get paid less for it than a job I hated and got paid more for. So I would be willing to take a job that paid me less if I ever got so desperate. That being said, a lot of people are miserable no matter how much they get paid, so this makes the argument that perhaps you should just stick it out. Might as well get more money than less money for the same level of misery!

So what do you think? How bad of an idea is it to quit a job without another one? Do you think it really is an epidemic among the younger generation?

The Macbook Air

This week at Mac World, Steve Jobs announced the company's latest product, the Macbook Air. I have to admit, it is pretty cool. I'm actually in the market for a new laptop and I'm leaning toward getting a mac (despite my dark Microsoft days). In case you haven't heard yet, here is a video showing the Macbook Air.







Now the problem is that it starts around $1800 and goes up from there all the way up to $3000. It's a little bit more than I want to spend.On a related note, boy am I glad I didn't buy Apple when I was looking at it.The stock looked poised for weakness there and boy was I right. Rick urged me to buy at $195, but I resisted. The stock closed just under $160 today, down 6%, I would have taken a huge haircut on that trade (although I would have gotten out way before now) Maybe I should ask Rick for advice, and then do the exact opposite. I might make my double then!

Actually, my advice would be to short Apple at this point. The market is looking ugly, and the former leaders like Apple are going to get whacked. Short the market as a whole (sds) or short some of the stocks that have been great like Apple or Monsanto.

Index Funds are for Dummies

A few weeks ago, Aaron had asked me why I buy individual stocks rather than invest in index funds. He makes a good point. Index funds beat 80% of the market. When you factor in their very low cost, it would seem silly to invest your money any other way.

And I generally agree with the principle that for most people, the right thing to do is to invest your money in index funds. However, I'm not most people. I love thinking about what trade to make. I love doing the research before I buy a stock.

Some liken stock picking to gambling. I really don't think anything could be further from the truth. True, short term stock picking can be very hard. There are random fluctuations that happen for no other reason than the sentiment "feels" something is going to happen. That can be quite scary.

However, a stocks long term price is 100% correlated with its earnings, and with enough homework, you can figure out which stocks have the best earnings potential. You won't be right 100% of the time, nobody ever is, but you can certainly pick more winners than losers.

I take the Warren Buffet advice on investing. Put all your eggs in a basket, and watch the basket closely. My portfolio at this time is relatively small, and I watch it closely. That being said, I'm getting hammered along with the rest of the market. So who knows, maybe I'm totally wrong about picking individual stocks, but I'm having fun doing it.

Update: It occurs to me that my point wasn't totally clear here.  I actually think that index funds are good things.  Most of us are dummies when it comes to the market.  Most people don't need to be experts.  If you aren't, then you should invest in index fund.

Secret to Building Wealth #2

Don't try to keep up with the Jonses. After seeing a post on MoneyNing about working on Chirstmas, it got me to thinking about how people always try to compare themselves to other people. While MoneyNing's post was about working on Christmas Eve, I think the advice is true in ALL aspects of life.

I used to really care what other people thought. Thank god I got over that before I actually started earning my own living. Ever since I was on my own, I cared much more that I was doing well and not so much that people thought I was doing well. Don't get me wrong. Sometimes I look around at my peers and want the things that they have. Would I like the nice car or the newest gadget? Of course. But I would also like to stop working at a young age, and I won't be able to do that if I accumulate stuff rather than wealth.

It's just a cycle you can't win. So stop trying to buy whatever it is that you think you have to buy just to look like you can. Believe me, the Jones' probably can't afford it either, and you are trying to win a fool's race.  All that will happen is that you will push yourself into debt.  And you won't even accomplish what you want, because the Jonses really don't care what you have, they have their own problems.

Be rich, don't look rich.

Dealing With Ambiguity at Work

Part of being a Program Manager is dealing with ambiguity. But like all people, I sometimes have problems with this myself. Especially with my current job. I am the trailblazer at my work when it comes to Program Management. It never really had a program management office which means I need to start it from nothing.

In the past few weeks, I have found myself in a situation where I didn't know what to do next. For someone like me who is action oriented, this can be very frustrating. There seems to be so much to do, I don't really know where to start.

In times like this, the best thing you can do is just try to break it down into really small and manageable steps. That is, just do something, evaluate, and then do something again. Otherwise, you will find yourself in decision paralysis. It's the same in all aspects of life, especially financial. Can't save money? Start small and build on it? Don't know how to invest money? Open up a brokerage account and invest a small sum of money in an index fund. Don't know how to make money fast? Start a website and just figure it out :)