Regardless of how I get to work, I have to get to work and on time. I also live in the suburbs so that puts me in the same game as millions of other commuters vying to do the same and this can vary my comfort level drastically from time to time… thank you very much lady who decided to forgo taking a single shower for the past week.

Anyway, for first couple of months, I opted for public transportation as it was the most convenient way to get to work and the ride wasn’t too bad. I was always able to find a seat and the people were quite polite on the train. However, as my contentment for the comforts of mass transit began to wean, I started to ponder: what’s the true cost of taking this trip every weekday for a whole year and what are my other options?

Here’s the breakdown:

• By car, the commute is about 27 miles and the traffic is decent at best. Idling time is marginal and unless there’s an accident or construction going on, I can get to and from work in an hour.
• I drive a compact car that gets about 30 mpg highway and insurance is estimated to be around $600/year.
• Since I already own a car and so does my neighbor (carpool) the costs associated with buying a new car will not be factored in the equations.
• If I go by metro, the station is about 2 miles away, which can be reached by bus for $.90 or by car (dropped off and picked up) and the total trip fare is a whopping $9.00 r/t.
• I work for about 250 days/year

So basically, the cheapest way to get to and from work is by metro but only by about $100 – which, given the additional travel time, I’d rather be without. I value 375.5 hrs of sleep time more than $100! Granted these values are ball-park figures rather than true So basically, the cheapest way to get to and from work is by metro but only by about $100 – which, given the additional travel time, I’d rather be without. I value 375.5 hrs of sleep time more than $100! Granted these values are ball-park figures rather than true time tested values, but I think they paint a decent picture of what my costs are in my daily commute to work… which begs the question: how to do you get to and from work? What have you found/done to ease the costs associated with the commute? Please share your experiences!

*Oops – Forgot to mention: These figures were calculated based on $4/gallon gas, which now is down to $3.62.

Without further ado, here’s a list of all the things that we’ve been up to since our last update:

• We opened the DumbAgent.com Store! Now you can buy as much DA gear as your heart desires.
• Re-designed the navigation bar and moved the search bar along with the rss/mail subscription options in there too.
• Started to add audio versions to especially long posts to raise content accessibility. The first one can be found here.
• Added a description to Andy Liau’s profile on the ‘About Us’ page.
• Re-made the DA seal with vectors rather than raster layers to allow proper, and subsequently cleaner, image scaling functionality.
• Added a ‘social networks’ section the sidebar to showcase which social networks you can find us on. We’re omnipresent!
• Added the Who’s.Among.Us site tracker to satisfy our personal vanity issues.
• Began to re-organize the site’s navigation and content schematics to increase our contents visibility beyond the front page
• And finally: made some aesthetic changes to the site’s overall theme which we hope you noticed and find them aesthetically agreeable.

Well, that’s about it. Once again and always, thank you for visiting the site! Please feel free to contact us with anything (except spam) at the following address:

Cheers,
- The Dumbagent Team

We now leave you with the following links:

• This is Dollllaaarrrr!
  Although they may not be accepted at a counter, most machines should still accept them. Just for the record, we should specify that it is illegal to deface legal tender.
• 360 Billion Dollar Check
  Sure, we could all use 360 billion dollars but I’d be hard pressed to find an inconspicuous way of carrying all that cash out of the bank.
• Economic Stimulus
  This about says it all… by the way, what are all of you planning to do with your checks?
• ‘Free Tibet’ Flags Made In China
  ‘Free Tibet’ flags are made in China!? I take this as an example of the Markets trumping Political will.
• Road Map
  Economic development makes really cool maps!
• Inflation’s Little Parts
  A nice looking graphic on an ugly topic.
• New Energy World Order
  Asia Times’ Take on the new energy world order.
• World Competitiveness Scoreboard
  Top 55 of the world’s most competitive countries according to IMD (International Institute for Management Development). Italy’s got nothing on Japan!

We would also like to wish a Happy (belated) Tax Freedom Day to Estonia, Australia (April 24th) and Lithuania (May 5th).

I recently spotted this comment posted by Wreed (alias) on USA Today’s article: Buffett: Economy in a recession, will be worse than feared. Though I’m sure this person had the best intentions in mind, I felt compelled to respond to why the Federal Reserve might not respond the way he wishes them to.

“If the fed.. would have a little sympathy for the ppl.. that have a savings account in banks…Maybe,,just maybe,,the banks would pay the people who’s money they are using,,,to help strengthen their profits ,, a more fair interest on the money they have on deposit,,,,really after all the fed,. is bailing out all the greedy & big investers,,that caused all the trouble,,,,why not spread the good will around,,,Mr,, Bernanke??? It’s Quite obvious they don’t want ppl.. to save money,,just spend it as fast as you can get your hands on it..”

Problems with this statement:

• Paying depositors higher interest rates would require businesses, big and small, to pay more money on their loans in order to fund the expansion of their business activities and therefore limiting the possibilities for economic growth. This will have an especially significant impact on small businesses as they have less venues to access capital. They also account for the greater majority of business activity here in the US which would amplify the problem even further.
• It’s also best to keep in mind that interest rates and opportunity costs go hand in hand: the greater the opportunity cost that businesses experience by not being able to attain capital, the greater they’ll be willing to pay for it. So without a strong economy to back up high interest rates, it essentially translates to giving people money for doing nothing, which is the definition of inflation.
• At the Federal Reserve level, interest rate adjustments should only be seen as a way of regulating the economy’s engine from going too fast or going too slow and not as a source for economic growth in itself. It should be in their best interest to have a steady and optimally growing economy (no pun intended). Referencing the previous point, business activity should be the main driving force behind the establishment of interest rates and the Fed nearly there to prevent potential economic disasters such as a depression.

Basically, what I am trying to say is that it is not and it should not be the responsibility of the Federal Reserve to set interest rates for the benefit of certain businesses segments or for consumers. It should simply look out for the general well-being of the economy as a whole and make the necessary, albeit difficult, judgments when needed.

To point you in the general direction: According to this analysis, North America imports about 24.8 million metric tons of grain while exporting 130.2 million tons. Comparably, the second largest exporter of grain is South America, at 41.5 million tons, while simultaneously importing 23.9 million. The Former Soviet Union comes in third – exporting 27.6 million tons and importing 6.6 million and Europe in forth – consuming about 26.4 million tons of grain and exporting 14.8 million tons.

So who are the main consumers of all this grain? If you guessed developing nations – you guessed correctly.

This begs the question: if developing countries have to spend up to 80% of their earnings to developed countries simply to cover basic necessities, what can they possibly do to increase their wealth – both as an individual and as a nation?

In other news, we’ve added a new graphic to the search function to follow suit with the other subscription buttons to give it a little more emphasis. Jason earned a whopping $7.72 by accurately predicting Yahoo’s aftermarket stock price fluctuation on April 22nd at Predictify.com. He promises to contribute the money towards the development of DumbAgent.com.

That’s it for now! As always, thank you for your support and we wish you a great week ahead. Please feel free to email us with any feedback, suggestions or comments you may have. You can reach us at:

- The DumbAgent Team

We leave you now with the following links/news…

Ocean’s Picks:

• Message to Hillary: Americans Still Make Lots of Things
  Politicians rarely let reality get in the way of their message. Just another example of how this can occur.
• Common Error No. 99
  Sometimes renewable is not as doable as we’d like to think.
• Crude Estimates
  Different ways of looking at oil numbers. Are we really paying more than ever for it?

Andy’s Choices:

• SafeHaven.com
  Riots May Kill Inflation
• TimesOnline.co.uk
  Mervyn King: RBS ‘will be first of many banks to make cash call’
• Mises.org
  Interview with Peter Schiff

In other news: We have been slowly but steadily re-designing the general theme of the site in order to stop a few of our guests from experiencing temporary blindness and to make our site a little more aesthetically pleasing. We hope you’ve noticed some of the changes and kept your eyesight.

Well, that’s it from us for now. We hope you enjoyed what we’ve written thus far and thank you all for visiting and for supporting our site! We leave you now with the following links/news…

The DumbAgent Team

• World’s Most Expensive Foods
  If money were edible…
• Forbes Fictional 15
  The imaginary riches of the wealthiest fictional characters
• Scale Model of the Money Bin
  For those of you who remember Duck Tales (also follows suit with the previous entry)
• The New Face of British Coins
  The Royal Mint rolling out the new British coins
• The Price of a Pint
  The cost of getting drunk in 154 countries
• U.S. Takes Out Debt-Consolidation Loan
  Lighthearted humor on a more serious topic

Candidates’ chances of winning the US Presidential Election according to select Prediction Markets:

• Barack Obama: 48.8%
• John McCain: 39.9%
• Hillary Clinton: 11.5%

To the Rates!

If you haven’t been able to wrap your head around this whole ‘sub-prime mortgage crisis,’ here’s an easy to understand slide show on what basically went down. It’s nothing new but we felt the need to share it once more just to make sure everyone was aware of it’s existence. It’s also one of the most entertaining explanations we’ve come across to date.

[Link to Presentation]

What in the world are we talking about?

According to our sources at the Federal Reserve, employees there are not allowed to use the word ‘recession’ to identify what is commonly known in economics as a recession. Employees instead have to replace it with another, completely irrelevant word to identify the phenomenon; a tradition that has supposedly been in play ever since the early 70’s under the Ford administration and Herb Stein.

This practice is most likely used as a strategy to stave off the media circus from creating unnecessary attention and frenzy in the marketplace whenever such cursed words are uttered by public officials and especially by those closely related to the health of the US economy. Well, it’s either that or their equivalent to the ol’fisherman’s trick to avoid jinxing their future catch.

Unfortunately for us and despite the Federal Reserve’s attempts, the outlook for the American economy – according to the most trusted source for complete and accurate information says: “better not tell you now.”

Update: The Source also came back with the results: “outlook not so good” and “signs point to yes.”

We’re doomed! o.O!

5,313,245,061,227.51
4,095,006,947,061.03
9,408,252,008,288.54

What do all three of these numbers have in common (aside from the fact that they’re unfathomably large)? The answer: Public Debt! That’s right, these three figures represent the total outstanding public debt owed by the United States of America.

To be more concise: the first figure (5,313,245,061,227.51 USD) is the total debt held by the public, the second (4,095,006,947,061.03 USD) is the total amount held by other governments institutions such as China, Japan, the EU, etc, and the third equates to the total debt owed by the United States – all 9 trillion, 408 billion, 252 million, 8 thousand, 2 hundred 88 dollars and 54 cents of it.

To put that number into perspective, if every man, woman, and child alive in the US today were to front the costs, everyone would have to pay about $31,242.13 each.

The ramifications of having such a large debt is quite severe not only in the eyes of the governemnt but also in the opportunity costs incurred by the American public. Debt for the government is very similar to the debt of any firm or household in that for every dollar of debt that is incurred, interest has to be paid on the principle. In 2003 alone, interest payments added up to an estimated $318 billion USD or $318 billion USD that future generations are automatically required to pay back in order to fund the government projects of today. If this money is well spent, then all should be well as the payoff for future generations would be represented in the increased level of services that they too should be able to benefit from; services such as healthcare, education, transit systems, and national security. On the other hand, if the funds are not well spent, then the public at large and the economy would have to face mounting costs as future civil projects become increasingly more expensive.

As an example: using data from the 2003 National Population Census and the total interest payment on the level of public debt held at that time, the government would have had to raise an additional $1094.86 USD per capita in order to accomplish the same amount of projects that they could have been able to accomplish if it had no debt at all. Operating without debt is an unrealistic example since most institutions, commerical and government should leverage some debt in order to best raise capital (ie Cost of Capital) but the point should be clear: the more debt you have now the greater costs are to be expected in the future.

If you would like to keep up with exact amount of debt or acquaint yourself with historical debt figures, hop on by to the Treasury’s website found here.

Just so you know:

It’s interesting to note that on the website’s Frequently Asked Questions’ page (FAQ), they have a section entitled “How do you make a contribution to reduce the debt” wherein they give you, the taxpayer and the principle backers of such debt, instructions to whom and where you should send your checks to to help reduce the public debt. So basically, in addition to paying federal income taxes, they want us to voluntarily pick up the bill on their excessive spending habits and it’s asked so often that it’s one of their frequently asked questions? Really?

Sources: TreasuryDirect.com, CIA World Factbook – United States, US Census