Posts tagged money
Wikileaks Ben Bernake & quantitative easing
Dec 10th
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on CBS’s “60 Minutes” last year:
PELLEY You’ve been printing money?
BERNANKE Well, effectively. And we need to do that, because our economy is very weak and inflation is very low. when the economy begins to recover, that will be the time that we need to unwind those programs, raise interest rates, reduce the money supply, and make sure that we have a recovery that does not involve inflation.
Bernanke on “60 Minutes” this year:
BERNANKE One myth that’s out there is that what we’re doing is printing money. We’re not printing money. The amount of currency in circulation is not changing. The money supply is not changing in any significant way. What we’re doing is lowing interest rates by buying Treasury securities. And by lowering interest rates, we hope to stimulate the economy to grow faster. So, the trick is to find the appropriate moment when to begin to unwind this policy. And that’s what we’re gonna do.
And the Fed is buying Treasury securities how? By printing money.
Hey, maybe it’ll turn out to be a good idea, but at least tell us the truth. Increasing the money supply is as you said Ben, “effectively” printing money.
25% Coinstar Bonus Promotion: (No Mail-in-Rebate Required)
Dec 10th
Coin-changing machine operator CoinStar is repeating a promotion where if you change $40 in coins into a gift card, you can receive an additional $10 gift card by mail at certain retailers. It’s actually better this year because it is no longer run as an annoying mail-in rebate. This time, after you exchange $40 in coins for a gift certificate, they provide a promotional code on the receipt that you redeem online. The $10 bonus certificate is still sent via snail mail, but this time “within 1-2 weeks” and without wasting time with mailing forms and postage.
The participating retailers include iTunes Store, Lowe’s Home Improvement, Borders Bookstores, and Regal-affiliated Movie Theaters. However, the page also says that Amazon.com will join the promotion on 12/9/2010. The page seems to hint that Gap and Starbucks will also join in eventually, but who knows. Personally, I like the idea of getting rid of my coins and getting a 20% 25% bonus since I shop regularly at Amazon anyway.
By the way, if you convert your $40 into a gift certificate instead of cash, you’ll avoid their normal exorbitant 9.8% processing fee. Here is their kiosk locator.
Sharebuilder Promo Codes = 5 Free Automatic Trades & 2 Real Time Trades
Dec 8th
I was pretty skeptical, so decided to try them out on my own account, and to my surprise they worked! I haven’t used my Sharebuilder account – mainly got it for the account opening bonus, since they have no minimum balance requirement, my account is still technically open. Voila, I now have 10 free real-time market trades and 38 automatic trades in my account.
How To Use
To enter the codes into your account, first log in to Sharebuilder, and then go to the Account > Overview > Promotions tab shown below.
In the marked box, enter a code. If it works, you should see a confirmation that says something like:
Thank you for referring ShareBuilder to your friends! Your 2 real-time trades have been credited to your account and are available to use immediately.
(I guess these codes have something to do with referring somebody. I’m not sure and I’m not the one referring you here. But it does seem to show up fine. They’ve been around for a while but I’d use them fast if I were you.)
How To Verify
To see how many free real-time trades you have, click on the top Trade tab > Real-time Trades and look for “Market Order Trade Credits”. To see how many free automatic trades you have, click on the top Trade tab > Automatic Trades and look for “Automatic Investment Trade Credits”. Note that these may have different expiration dates. Here’s what I see:
Codes
In case they get removed, here are the codes. Just cut and paste:
TAF2RA*2VvUQt
TAF2RD*c48Ugc
TAF5AR*2AsFg5
TAF5AW*1FkJgR
TAF2RG*2VvUQt
TAF2RX*2VvUQt
TAF5AC*2AsFg5
TAF2RM*2VvUQt
TAF5AZ*2AsFg5
TAF5AA*t9sUKs
3AIP*GEJZOH
