Day: December 18, 2008

Become a fan of monoblogue!

As many of you know, I’m a fairly recent joinee of Facebook (thanks to my friend Maria.) One thing I’ve found about the site is that there’s probably millions of groups one can join.

In my case, I decided to create a group just to see what sort of reaction it gets. About a week ago I created the group Fans of monoblogue. With little word of mouth or promotion, seven people have found it. (Hey, seven is better than just me.) But I wanted to try an experiment and see how many new people I can add on, at least those who have a Facebook profile. (Believe me, Facebook can be a little addicting so be careful about joining if you haven’t already.)

The symbol for Fans of monoblogue.
The symbol for Fans of monoblogue.

In this group, I update those who join about some of the other places my words are going. While I sometimes crosspost to other sites like Red Maryland, That’s Elbert With An E, and Pro-Maryland Gazette, the majority of my words find their way to the Red County Wicomico site as well. However, I’ve invited a new contributor to join me there; one who’s familiar to readers of my site comments as “Marc.” Marc Kilmer will soon be adding content to the Red County Wicomico page and there’s another gentleman who’s been invited as well to come on board this site I edit.

The idea there is to eventually have at least 4 to 5 talented writers in my blogpen who are familiar with local and state politics and want to write in a setting that has a national distribution but a local focus. (One analogy I’ve been given is Fox Sports Net.) The goal of the Red County site is to have 100 or more subsites by the end of next year and given their growth so far I believe they’ll make it easily.

This blog won’t go anywhere because I like having the freedom to write about other topics which interest me. I think I have a pretty good thing going, so there’s no reason to stop nor is there a reason to set my goals for my site and my words in general too low.

I may as well add one more update. I’m still plugging away at what I’m calling the 2009 Guide to the Maryland Blogosphere. This is a sample of the entry style I’m using; let me know what you think.

monoblogue (Salisbury)
Tagline: News and views from Maryland’s Eastern Shore since 2005.
Posting since: December 2005. Frequency: 1-2 per day.
Contributors: 1
Focuses on: Conservative politics.
Memberships: BlogNetNews Maryland, BlogNetNews Delmarva, Maryland Bloggers Alliance.

monoblogue is an Eastern Shore blog which focuses on conservative politics in both Maryland and nationally. There’s also coverage of political events occurring in and around the Salisbury area. However, monoblogue’s subject matter also detours into local music and, each Thursday during the baseball season, a player is selected as the Delmarva Shorebird of the Week. Michael Swartz is also a contributor to two other Guide blogs, Pro-Maryland Gazette and Red Maryland. In 2008 monoblogue ranked as the #2 most politically influential blog overall by BlogNetNews Maryland, along with #1 in the conservative category and #1 in the per-post category. monoblogue was also ranked by BlogNetNews as the #2 most politically influential blog overall in 2007.

Technorati rating: 37 Google page rank: 3/10

TMI? Not enough? It will be a long post/page because I’m up over 40 confirmed entrants, about 15 written, and there’s another couple dozen that may qualify (so far.) I’m now shooting to have this completed by the first week in January.

As fair warning to close: because of the Christmas holiday, next week will probably be just one post per day. I’m saving bloggy goodness for when people get back home from their travels but don’t want to be idle for more than a day.

Feds crunch credit creators

Today federal regulators announced a number of pro-consumer changes to the credit card industry that are slated to take effect in July 2010. Most consumers would benefit from a change that ends the practice of credit card companies increasing the interest rate on accounts carrying a balance.

As expected, banks and other card issuers were less than pleased with this change, claiming that credit would be tightened and cards more difficult to get. One study pegged the cost of the new rules for the banking industry as $10 billion a year.

Previously I’ve had this sort of game played on accounts I’ve had, with one card issuer who shall remain unnamed (hint: it’s not in my wallet anymore!) deciding to jump my interest rate from 7.9% to 12.9% while I had an outstanding balance. Never mind I paid the bills on time and generally well over the minimum monthly payment! Fortunately I read the change in terms that was enclosed with my bill and opted out, allowing the company to close the account while I paid it off at the lower rate. Most likely they decided to penalize me since I wasn’t using their card to make purchases.

With this drop-dead date all but certain, I can see 2009 as a year of transition for credit card issuers. Already I’ve had one card issuer tell me that effective early next year, my card will suddenly have a $10 monthly fee attached to it. (They must be mad because I’m taking my sweet time paying off a balance they’re charging 3.99% interest on for the life of the offer. No one told them to offer me that deal, and I would have been a fool not to take it and cut my interest rates and payments significantly.) Fortunately I have plenty of room elsewhere to transfer the balance should I choose to do so.

That’s one practice which doesn’t appear to be placed off-limits by the new rules. Also there’s no restriction on changing the interest rates on future purchases significantly, so anticipate any new items purchased after July 2010 on existing accounts to be placed at higher rates. Moreover, credit card companies will likely put the squeeze on consumers like me who pay more than the minimum payment in an effort to get out from under debt by raising interest rates in the latter half of 2009 and early 2010.

By providing a long lead time for these rule changes, the federal government is attempting to keep the credit spigot relatively open for another eighteen months – while credit remains tight – before locking out much of the subprime credit market by making it much less lucrative for lenders to inhabit. Some of these cards for people with poor credit are comparable interest- and fee-wise to payday loan outlets but consumers have little choice in the matter if they want to build or rebuild credit.

The lead time will also provide a chance for lobbyists and lawyers to squint through all the fine print and points of law in the rules and work out ways to avoid making these new restrictions hurt the card companies’ bottom line. In other words, the phrase caveat emptor applies more than ever.