How The US Census Bureau Is Wasting Taxpayer Money

Yesterday I received an envelope from the the U.S. Census Bureau. "Cool, must be our census form", I thought. Nope, it was a letter from the director to tell me that I should receive a census form in the mail in about a week. Huh?

Why bother wasting the money to print and mail out these notices when they could simply send me the form? People are as likely to open the envelope with the form as they are the envelope with this advance notice. I know the census is this year and will gladly fill out the form and send it back.

I don't know how much the Census bureau wasted sending this letter to every address in the country. When the IRS sent a similar advance notice about the tax rebate checks during the Bush administration, news reports at the time placed the cost at around $20 million.

The average U.S. tax payer pays roughly $7,907 a year in income taxes. If the $20 million figure holds true for this mailing, that would mean income taxes paid by the hard work of 2,529 U.S. taxpayers funded nothing else but this useless letter. And the government wonders why citizens are upset over wasteful spending and budget deficits. That $20 million could've gone towards paying off the federal debt (a drop in the bucket, but still a lot of money and drops add up).

The census is a valuable tool, only happens every 10 years and is only as accurate as the data provided by citizens. The bureau has the responsibility to get the word out and reach a high participation rate. I get that and support their efforts.

They also have a responsibility to taxpayers to spend our tax dollars wisely. Sending out useless letters and producing lame Ed Begley, Jr. commercials that aren't effective doesn't help them achieve either goal.

Sneaky Tricks Some Gas Stations Use to Rip You Off

Imagine you're on vacation or a business trip. You're running late getting to the airport for the flight out and still need to fill up before returning the rental car. No worries though because you saw a gas station across the street from the rental lot when you got into town.

You pull into the station, swipe your credit card and start pumping. While the fuel is flowing you look around and realize there's no big sign with the gas prices. Hmmm...that's odd. Then you look at the price on the pump and realize you're paying two dollars a gallon more than the local average price! You're getting ripped off!

Yeah, this happened to me recently while vacationing in Orlando...almost. I did swipe my card but noticed the price as I was reaching for the nozzle. It was $3.99/gallon. The local going rate was $2.06/gallon at the time!

The culprit was the convenience store gas station on SR 436 (Semoran Blvd) north of Orlando International Airport directly across from the Thrifty and Hertz lots. No sign anywhere with prices except the little display on the pump...which is difficult to read due to sun glare. No doubt they're hoping that rental car drivers will stop and fill up in a hurry before they realize their wallet's getting cleaned out.

I expect stations to charge a little more in locations like that because they're selling "convenience". But nearly double the going rate?! That's ridiculous. They must make a ton off of tourists and business travelers...I can't imagine many locals buy gas there.

Fortunately I saw the price before I started pumping and in time to alert the guy at the next pump. We both canceled our credit card transactions and drove a mile up the road to a 7-11 charging $2.11/gallon.

Lesson learned...always check the price on the pump before filling up...especially at a station you haven't used before.

P.S.: Make sure you select the fuel grade you want. I stopped at a station in rural Maryland once that had the grade buttons in the order Premium, Regular, Plus...not Premium, Plus, Regular like every other gas station. If you expected Regular to be on the end and hit that button, you're now buying Plus instead.

They also had the octane stickers down near the bottom of the pump instead of near the buttons so you don't have that extra visual cue that something's different. That tells me they're intentionally trying to trick customers into selecting a higher priced fuel grade.

Prosper.com Reopens For Peer to Peer Lending

Prosper.com announced last week that they finally got through their SEC registration and are back open for business. If you're not familiar with Prosper, it's one of the first online person to person lending sites...basically an eBay for unsecured personal loans up to $25,000. I've been a lender there since 2006 with mixed results and haven't bid in a while.

About 9 months ago the SEC shut Prosper down for selling unregistered investments. For some reason, Prosper thought the SEC rules didn't apply to them. They were wrong. Hopefully they used the 9 months down time wisely to improve their fraud detection and collection processes...things lenders have complained about.

The sad part is that Prosper had to shut down during the height of the credit crunch when lots of credit worthy small businesses and other folks were having difficulty finding lenders. It was a perfect opportunity for peer to peer lending to shine and Prosper missed it.

Prosper still has several legal hurdles to clear. Residents of many states aren't eligible yet to lend on the site which makes it more difficult to fund loans. I'm in one of those states but I won't bid until the delinquency numbers improve.

For anyone with decent credit history needing a loan, Prosper is worth a look. Here are some tips to get your loan funded on Prosper.com. Just make sure to pay it back on time.