Evading Paraducer Costs

Paraducers attach a cost to life, a cost that is paid by Producers in the ways I have discussed. Identifying those Paraducer costs is the first step to denying them payment. Let’s list some things we should do or not do in order to avoid these costs.

Ignoring advertising tricks

“12 Months Same as Cash!”  You have heard this sales ploy? Next time you see that on a banner outside a furniture store, stop and read the fine print. First, the price is going to be high, to compensate for the interest you are “not” paying. Second, if you miss that first payment (12 months from today) by more than zero point zero seconds, you are going to be liable for a bundle.

Producer, the Paraducers structure these deals to sucker Consumers. You are too smart for this type of silliness. You don’t need to finance that furniture, anyway! Avoid those hucksters because the products they are selling are likely low quality anyway.

You might need to finance a car, however, and those deals are next to the worst. Be extremely careful with auto financing. Do you research on the car and the financing before you sign anything. If possible, prearrange financing with your own bank ahead of time, and shun the dealer’s financing. The last position you want to find yourself in is reading over the financing details at the dealership, trying to figure out what it all means, with no resources for comparison, no Producers to chat with. That’s exactly where the dealer wants you.

There are too many advertisements, too much noise. You know it’s true. Too many ads on television, on billboards. And every new ad source (such as the Internet) only causes the rest of the ads to become more shrill and grating. Some Consumers are even pasting ads on their bodies. Enough of this stupidity!

Let me ask you, where do ads come from? Producers? Consumers? No and no. They come from Paraducers. If we have too many ads, then what’s the logical conclusion? Too many Paraducers!

One step toward limiting Paraducer influence is to simply avoid their advertising. Mute the television (more on that later) and turn off the radio. When you need something, research it, look for it and buy it, but in the interim, ignore the ads. Hear a stupid commercial? Don’t buy the product.

Every time we fall for some sucker sales game, we are enabling Paraducers.

Avoiding impulse buying

I don’t go to the Mall unless I know exactly what I am looking for. That’s probably the Y chromosome talking because I despise the Mall anyway!

When I do go to the Mall, I see hundreds of women shopping. Some are looking for what they came to buy, but some are teasing the retailers: “I have some money, make me spend it.” They are shopping for an impulse buy. There is an endorphin connection between their brain and purse, and they are looking for that shopping high.

Why is this bad? Because the things the Paraducers want you to buy are not the best values, or the highest quality. They are the things that were left on the dock that they bought cheap, or the defective goods that their Chinese manufacturer substituted for what they actually ordered.

An impulse buy says that you are not in control of your finances, someone else is. Don’t do it.

Determine what you need and/or want (which might indeed be a luxury), do some homework and buy smart. Leave the $9.99 centrifugal carrot peeler at the Mall. Your Consumer neighbor really needs it!

You might not think that controlling your buying habits will have any affect, but listen to this quote from Paco Underhill, author of the fascinating look at consumers, Why We Buy:

“If we went into stores only when we needed to buy something, and if once there we bought only what we needed, the economy would collapse, boom.” ^[27]

That is from a researcher of shopping habits who looks into the minds of Consumers. He is right, and the Paraducers depend on frivolous, impulsive, unwise, or downright stupid buying actions by Consumers and Producers to help finance their way through life. We Producers are not going to bring the economy down with our resistance, since there are so many Consumers, but we can have an effect. Let the Consumers carry the load.

Avoiding popular or fad goods

Kids are ruled by fads. I have seen ties go from narrow to wide to narrow to wide, and on like that for decades. Pant legs are straight, then bell bottom, then straight again. I’m shielding my eyes until baggy pants get dragged up off the butt toward the waist once again, but that change seems a bit slow coming. All these trends are determined by Paraducers you never see.

The problem with fad goods is that the demand is high, driving up the price. That puts more money in the Paraducer’s pockets.

Just as an aside, have you noticed the return of hip hugger jeans on young women? These pants were in style when I was a teen and you can believe I noticed. The difference, though, is that the young women in my day were ten to twenty pounds lighter. Today these jeans, for some reason, conjure the childhood memory of squeezing a lump of Pla-Doh through my fingers. I suppose we can’t expect the Paraducer marketing squads to tell these ladies that the jeans make them look terrible, for nearly a hundred bucks a pair!

There are plenty of clothes and cars that look sharp for a good price. Find them.

Buying used goods

I bought one new car, once, when I was 20. The car cost about $7,000, but the financing (and Jimmy Carter Malaise 16% interest) brought the total up to about $10,000. The car depreciated about $2,000 as I drove it off the lot. That was the last time I made that mistake, but to atone for my sin, I drove that baby for eleven years, until there was oil squirting from all the seals on the engine.

Buying new durable goods is not always a good thing. A serviceable item, like a car, can be purchased used with the proper prudence, and you’ll save a load of money. That’s because you are letting someone else (a Paraducer or Consumer) pay the instant depreciation, while you get the best years of the product.

I have bought used cars ever since I sold that car, and have been pleased. Having kids, I did not worry about the upholstery, as it is already a bit worn at 20,000 miles. With the Internet, you can do exhaustive research on a specific used vehicle, including recall and service history, if you have the vehicle ID number. A car that has been on the market long enough to roll 20,000 miles will also have some attending newsgroup chatter about that make and model. That’s valuable information for any buyer.

My van was creased by valet parking at a ritzy hotel, but I did not notice it until I had left the lot, so no reimbursement there. But it’s no big deal since the van is “used” in my mind.

How about books? You have a public library, as do I. Just don’t buy books. Borrow them. You are already buying several copies with your taxes anyway! You can buy used books on Amazon.com for a fraction of the list price. And paperbacks cost half or less what the hardback costs. This is good for students of Producers in college.

For car repairs, ask your mechanic to use rebuilt repair parts. They come with a warranty, and it makes no sense to put a new transmission or air conditioner on a car with more than 100,000 miles.

The used route is great for many items around the house. Yard tools? Lawn mower? Step ladder? Wood furniture? Flea markets and yard sales will net you some great deals on good merchandise, and you can wave at the Paraducers shopping at the local home improvement center on your way home.

My wife shopped for clothes for our young children at consignment shops. Kids up to age ten or twelve wear clothes for only a few months, and then they are on to the next size up. These clothes are like new in many cases. Sometimes other moms would look at my children’s clothing and raise their eyebrows at the name brands, until my wife said, “Two dollars at the consignment shop!”

For kids’ clothes, it’s also good to have friends with children a little older and a little younger than yours. Passing clothes from family to family is a great way to save money, and we’re talking hundreds of dollars a year. The children don’t mind, but rather like getting something new to wear. We often shuttled bags full of clothes to other families at our church.

Avoiding consumerism

Consumerism is the sport of buying stuff. I know people who subscribe to Consumer Reports Magazine. Subscribe! Yes, I need to know what the best jam canning cooker is, out of a roundup of thirty. Sure, I need to read that article on choosing the right mulch. Should I choose the dyed or the natural? There are people who get off on that, however, and they are called Consumers.

Avoid consumerism by waiting until you identify your need for something, then search for it. If you need to look at Consumer Reports, go to the library, as you are already paying for a subscription there. Learn what you need, then put it back on the shelf.

Understand that purchasing goods is not a sport, but something that takes time out of your day and money out of your wallet. Always compare two or more items before purchasing. Always look at two or more retailers. And use the Internet to compare prices, features and problem history. (It’s instructive to search the news groups for the name of the product followed by the word “sucks.” I’m not kidding!)

Planning large purchases is important. I knew that my home heat pump was about to bite the dust. I had already replaced the fan motor (for $100) and had gotten another year out of it, after about 20 years service. Some Internet searches, calls to local shops, and a discussion with a friend who installs air conditioning equipment informed me of the price range and features I needed. Fortunately, the heat pump failed in springtime when we do not use it much anyway, so I had time to plan.

Many people buy cars by driving around town looking at all the pretty colors, taking test drives with the salesman in the back seat whispering little nothings in their ear. That’s not the way to buy a car!

There are so many online resources for car purchasing and research. You should spend a couple hours online before you test drive even a riding mower. What fits your needs? What cars have the best service records? What cars have been recalled? What are the current financing rates? What rebates and specials are available? All these questions are a hedge against consumerism.

Planning to buy a house for the first time? Members of your cell group have certainly purchased real estate before. Ask them about any ‘gotcha’ experiences. Have them review any real estate contracts before you sign, as every contract is negotiable. There are many books at your local library with tips on home buying.

Planning college for your kids? So many options are available, you don’t have to lunge at the first one presented. Choosing a school because of a sports team is a classic Paraducer inducement to Consumers. Don’t do it!

Get the idea? Consumerism is not something that Producers do. Producers research, budget, plan and then spend their hard earned money.

Paying cash

When you finance something for which you could pay cash, you are enabling some group of faceless Paraducers to reduce your power in society. We don’t all have the spare cash for a new car, but if you are half the Producer I think you are, you have some savings, and you know how to budget and plan your outlays. Save the money over several months, then pay cash. You’ll be amazed at what you can do without for a few months, and you’ll question whether you needed it at all.

If you do finance, shop banks for the best rate and terms. When you go to a bank, tell them you are shopping a rate. Bank Paraducers despise competition but will come down in some cases, or offer special terms.

Whatever you do, read the fine print, especially on installment loans through retailers. The best thing to do is avoid them altogether, but if you must, read the contract and mark out anything you are uncomfortable with.

Cash is also powerful in the hands of a Producer because it lowers the seller’s risk. Some establishments will give you a discount for items paid for with cash, especially items that are normally financed. Furniture and some home improvements purchased from local sources may present this opportunity, so ask.

Leaving a cushion

Prices go up and kids demand more from us as they grow. They even eat more. It’s difficult for a Producer to save any fraction of his paycheck when life is a nonstop barrage of bills.

But we have to learn to save. There are a few reasons for this. The most important is that putting money in your account takes power away from Paraducers because they cannot control the money directly, you have a financial cushion and are more difficult to control and manipulate with fear, and an idle dollar is a dollar that is more difficult for the government to tax.

The second reason for saving is personal discipline. How can you handle the difficult decisions Producers must make if you cannot control your own wallet or purse? If we are going to take back our world, we’ll have to understand savings and the discipline required to make it happen. Thrift is not just something that you apply to your checking account, but something you apply to your business and teach your kids.

The third reason is, you are going to need the money! As we age, health concerns catch up with us, and only if you can pay your own way through can you avoid falling back on the Paraducer’s welfare and social systems. They call those a “safety net”, but they are not safe and do not prevent you from coming to harm. Social Security is a “safety net” in the same way a spider’s web prevents its prey from falling to the ground (and getting away).

The most frugal people I have known are missionaries. They consider overdrawing their checking account to be a sin, and more power to them on that. They maintain zero credit card balances, too. All this is necessary because they have very limited income. Every penny is accounted for at the end of every month, and their checkbooks are in balance down to that last penny.

That’s all wonderful, but as they earn more and more money in their work, they continue to spend it, all of it, down to the last penny. The frugal habit is burned into their brains and impossible to stop.

If you are or have been a starving student or single mom, and have learned that skill of budgeting and spending the last penny every month, you need to unlearn it! That skill is great for starving students and missionaries, but not for Producers building wealth. You must learn to have some money left over at the end of the month – that is your power over Paraducers.

Avoiding the lottery

A police officer was standing on the street, gun drawn, with a bucket at his feet, a little placard reading ‘$1’. “Come here! Come over here!” he shouted, waving his gun toward a young woman. She looked around, pointed to herself and mouthed silently, “Me?” The reply was, “Yes, YOU!”

She walked over to the cop and he said, “Feed the bucket, it’s tax time.” She protested but he was waving that gun around, so she dropped a dollar in the bucket. He let her go and kept shouting.

After some time and several calls to 911, a few other officers converged on the one with the bucket and put him out of business. After a hearing later that week, he was released on his own recognizance, without his badge and gun pending further review.

Not 24 hours later, that same cop was standing on the same street, in his civvies, with another bucket, but the pitch was different.

“Hey you, want to join my pool? Drop a dollar in the bucket, and you’ll be eligible to win half the money.”

In an hour, the bucket was brimming with cash, and no one had called 911.

A contrived story, as you suspected, but that’s how state lotteries work. Some of their money they get at the point of a gun (taxes), but some they get offering citizens a cut of the action based on a random drawing. The people who complain about their taxes being too high are more than willing to step up and throw a dollar into a bucket with a one in a million chance they will ever get it back.

Let’s play Jeopardy.

Contestant: “Government Rip Offs for a thousand, Alex.”

Alex: “The answer is: ‘Any act of giving money to the government.’”

Contestant: “What is a TAX?”

Alex: (Bing!) “Yes, we have a new champion!”

You can see where I’m going with this. Any time you give government money, it is a tax. Parking meter? Tax. Vehicle sticker? Tax. Lottery? Tax.

Think I’m stretching a bit? Just play along. If the lottery is a tax on the state’s citizens, the logical question is, a tax on what? Ponder that for a second or two.

The lottery is a… stupidity tax!

Yep. A stupidity tax. The dumber you are, the more you owe. But that’s not a problem because the dumber you are, the more you want to pay! Ever notice that there is no State Department of Lottery Collections? That’s because the people who owe the most cannot wait to get to the convenience store and make their daily payment(s). Compliance is voluntary but we have a 100% compliance rate in every state so that’s not an issue.

Why do I call it a stupidity tax? The lottery is nothing but an investment with a rate of return way below zero percent. A negative interest rate is an odd thing, but only means that you are losing money. If you bought a stock for $100 and sold it for $50, you would call that a loss of 50% or -50% interest. Someone will say, “Oh, but I’m ahead of the game, I won $100.” Well, you are not going to be for long! Playing a game where your average chance of winning is so low – I call that stupid.

Go to Las Vegas and walk into a casino. Look up. There are placards hanging from the ceiling and mounted on the walls with decimal numbers, like 0.985. That means the casino returns 98.5% of the money you put into the slot machines. In other words, they keep only 2.5% of your money. That’s a 2.5% loss, on average, for every person who drops a coin in the slots. The casinos compete with these numbers, and the slots players catch a cab to the one with the best loss rate today, only to be certain of losing money.

If this is the case, why do people play the slots and the lottery? The chance of winning big is the enticement. The hope that they will strike it rich and never have to work again keeps them playing. And play they do.

I used to live in North Carolina, which had no state lottery at that time. Across the border in Virginia at the first gas station, they sell lottery tickets. One Saturday, I was driving through and stopped for gas (because Virginia gas taxes are lower and the gas is cheaper by a dime). The lottery jackpot was high that day, and the restaurant area of the place was hopping. An older tattered couple was sitting at one of the tables with a pile of lottery scratch cards. There had to be a hundred dollars worth of cards on the table, along with a couple packs of smoked and semi-smoked cigarettes in the little foil ash trays. There was so much gray scratch wax on the table that I expect the Fire Marshall would have had a spasm. How sad it was seeing those two people, with not much money to begin with, wasting it on the lottery.

Their hope was in the lottery, in the numbers, in chance. They had no hope in themselves, no confidence in their abilities, no hope even in God. Just hope in the lottery.

The lottery is a stupid thing for you and I to participate in, Producer, but the real crime of the lottery is that it substitutes a false hope for a genuine one. The government Paraducers who whine about taxing the rich and not the poor know exactly who is playing the lottery. They know by income level, geographic area, and shoe size. They know the hopeless poor are dumping millions of dollars down the drain every year, $48.8 million in 2004, and they supply a glittering hollow hope that looks real and good. The lottery fosters more dependency, just like tobacco, and government is all for it. Shoot, people take their meager lottery winnings and buy cigarettes from the same clerk who sold them the ticket! The government Paraducers say it’s no big deal because the lottery helps our schools.

It does not matter where the money goes, whether to education or social programs. The lottery is a tax. Producer, you are not stupid. DO NOT pay the stupidity tax.