Quick Hits Tuesday

Adventures in high deductable health care, girl parts edition.

The Christian Science Monitor reports on the disproprortionate impact the housing crisis is having on people of color. "'The subprime lending debacle has caused the greatest loss of wealth to people of color in modern US history,' says Amaad Rivera, lead author of a 2008 report by United for a Fair Economy. The Boston-based research group estimates that black/African-American borrowers will lose between $71 billion and $92 billion in the current foreclosure crisis, while Latino borrowers will lose between $75 billion and $98 billion."

Economic sucktitude and the U.S. political debate go together like bananas and peanut butter, but no one wants to admit it, says Matt Taibbi over at AlterNet. "[T]his is a class issue that is being intentionally downplayed by a political/media consensus bent on selling the public a version of reality where class resentments, or class distinctions even, do not exist. Our "national debate" is always a thing where we do not talk about things like haves and have-nots, rich and poor, employers versus employees. But we increasingly live in a society where all the political action is happening on one side of the line separating all those groups, to the detriment of the people on the other side."

Quick Hits 1 July 2008

Unite ye models of the world! I know, I didn't expect to be agitating for labor protections for the oppressed masses of fashion models, but dang, this Jezebel piece is eye opening. Most models apparently make crappy wages, pay commissions from 20 to 50% to their agencies, are expected to take gigs for free in exchange for exposure and reputation, and may work in dangerous situations. Shards of broken glass on your eyelids for the sake of a photograph? No. Under no circumstances. The end. Shudder.

CNN notes that women are more likely than men to be trailing spouses, taking a career hit to relocate for a partner's job. Well, no kidding, when women's jobs are typically considered to be more "flexible" than men's, no matter what the actual job. The NYT's recent piece on coparenting mentions this. Author Lisa Belkin--remember her from all those "if seven rich white female Ivy League graduates are doing it, it must be a trend!" pieces?--writes that one researcher "suggest[s] that the perception of flexibility is itself a matter of perception. In her study, she was struck by how often the wife’s job was seen by both spouses as being more flexible than the husband’s. By way of example she describes two actual couples, one in which he is a college professor and she is a physician and one in which she is a college professor and he is a physician. In either case, Deutsch says “both the husband and wife claimed the man’s job was less flexible.” Go figure.

Paula Gregorowicz posts at BlogHer about the economics of DIY.

Single Ma does what she has to do so she can do what she wants to do. As my own ma would say, she's one smart cookie.

Quick Hits Tuesday 24 June 2008

Ugly ladies need not apply for hedge fund jobs. By which I mean "for PR jobs with hedge funds." If you're interested in number crunching, women still need not apply no matter what we look like.

Student loan rates to drop 1 July. Be there or be square.

It never hurts to ask. All they can say is no. Or, you know, "yes, we will forgive all your medical debt."

An Iraq War spending bill passed the Senate without an amendment that would have made birth control pills more affordable on college campuses.

Quick Hits Tuesday 10 June 08

Where have I been? If only I could remember. It's been a whirlwind of work, homefixing, getting sick and getting better. But I'm back, and it's Tuesday, which means it's time for another linkalicious roundup.

Queercents interviews trans activist Donna Rose for its Ten Money Questions feature. Rose observes, "Finances play a huge role in activism. In fact, I could argue that activism is as much about money as it is about creating change. The sad fact of the world is that things "cost", so to be able to travel, to be able to make the proper connections, to be able to hire staff, publish materials, pay for the day-to-day expenses of doing business – it all takes money."

A roundup of financial programs for single moms at Personal Finance Hacks.

A federal appeals court has ruled that the federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act prevents employers for firing a woman because she has had an abortion.

Breaking: Women Increasingly Choose Dead End Jobs Over Dead End Relationships. Via The Onion

Many interesting comments when Feministe asks for input on a feminist approach to economic justice. I hate to spoil the ending, but it's sprawling, complicated, contentious, and no one has the answer. Correlation and causation are confused, as are individual versus systemic problems underlying the uber-problem of poverty, but if you're in the mood for thinking hard this is not a bad thread to peruse. See also Too Poor To Parent, an Alternet excerpt on the racially disparate rates at which children are placed into foster care. Note to self: check the full article out in the Spring Ms. Magazine.

Question 1: Are you investing for retirement. I hope so. Question 2: Are you investing aggressively enough? To wit: "Controlling for age, income and education, the study concluded that women choose more conservative investment strategies, and that this is the primary reason why women can expect to have less retirement savings than men. The effect is compounded because women make less, retire earlier and live longer than men." Women are socialized to be more risk averse than men, but they are precisely the group that most needs those higher returns. It's only complicated if you make it complicated, I promise.

Same-sex spouses can't have spousal IRAs. Not even if they're legally married, because IRAs of all stripes are governed by federal law, and the feds don't recognize same-sex marriage, and the applicable federal law was written by haters. Drat it, DOMA! Via Ms. Micah.

Reappropriate notes that "manimony" (a stupid, stupid word made up by someone with adspace to sell, meaning alimony paid by a woman to her former husband) is on the rise. I'd add that alimony, as distinct from temporary spousal support or child support, is increasingly outdated and increasingly disfavored by the courts, but to the extent that it's still being granted to anyone, it's only fair.

File under: "Pretty privilege, teeth". Via Freakonomics.

Quick Hits 16 April 2008

Democracy Now reminds us about war tax resisters on tax day.

A reminder of how queer folks are discriminated against by federal and state tax systems. Via Queercents.

Paid Twice reminds readers it's what you earn and what you spend. A nice antidote to the blind bootstrappiness of those who seem to think wealth is a measure of moral strength rather than being at all determined by how much you get paid.

Kara at Ka-Blog follows upon a previous piece about a Twin Cities Compacter. Sounds like we had similar reactions to the experience (though she persisted much longer than I did).

Birth control is freaking expensive. Sing it, over at Stacking Pennies.

Quick Hits Tuesday 1 April 2008

No April Fools Day posts, I swear!

Escape Brooklyn has a write up of a recent Bust magazine piece of the importance of an FU Fund for women. God bless the FU Fund. Money can't buy sanity but it can get awfully damn close. I didn't have a term for it at the time, but I cashed in an FU fund when breaking up with a slackass boyfriend years ago. After we broke up, he owed me about $300 (a whole lot, considering that I was in school and that was one-third of my monthly income from my two jobs). Phone bills, his share of counseling sessions, stupidly large library fines on my card... He kept promising to pay but never did; instead when I would call him to ask him when the check was coming our conversations would turn into head games. He obviously wasn't good for the money, and I decided to eat his share so I didn't have to talk to him or deal with his fuckedupness anymore. He was $300 richer (except not really, since he was unemployed and flat broke), but got to cut him out of my life for good, which was truly priceless.

The Consumerist reports that H&R Block doesn't "support" Connecticut same sex civil unions. Apparently civilly unioned tax filers are just too gay? Verdict: Bite me, H&R Block. Like doing your taxes doesn't suck enough.

Good hair comes to those who pay. So how much does it take a woman to keep her coiffure prettily coiffed?

MSN Money revisits the trope of the woman who is just too smart for her own good. And the NYT, in an article not about finances but about marriage counseling, contains an anecdote about one couple whose financial arguments were exacerbated when the woman received a promotion that made her the primary earner, leaving her husband resentful. Six years of counseling later (please tell me there were more issues), he is proud of her success.

On a personal note, I mailed my taxes yesterday. I'll get a lot of money back, but less than last year, which was the goal. Damn, those withholding calculators are uncooperative. On the upside, my tax refund will cover my recent furniture purchase (to be delivered tomorow! Huzzah!) and leave about $1,200 left over for savings.

Quick Hits 24 March 2008

Shanti is setting a good example for her younger sisters when it comes to money. Who says us girls aren't confident with our money?

Minimum wage is dead tough to live on. Shocker.

Ms. Micah has a three-part series on how to hide money from an abusive partner. (Parts one, two, and three).

This interesting little video accompanying a recent NYT article on the recent popularity of plastic surgery and dermatology as medical specialties has some interesting observations about women in medicine. Like this, from med student Meena Singh: "People [in dermatology] won't feel like you're a burden for being pregnant or having kids during the residency, which happens in other fields and is very unfortunate. Because clearly, our male counterparts can have as many kids as they want." Of course, they're men, so... you know. It's different. [eyeroll]

Race and socioeconomic status correlate to a woman's likelihood of developing postpartum depression. This article doesn't break down the stats for race, but 40% of new Iowa mothers with a household income of $20,000 or less had "clinically significant postpartum depression," compared with only 13% of new mothers with household incomes of $80,000 or above.

In the wake of this wacky Spitzer business, Alternet has a really interesting interview with Sienna Baskin, an attorney with the Sex Workers Project in New York City. A large portion of it focuses on economic aspects of sex work.

Quick Hits Tuesday 11 March 2008

Meg at The World of Wealth, posts about a Money magazine story that lauds a "Bachelor Dad" for getting up early, rushing around preparing his four children for school, and commuting a long distance for a paycheck ($156,000!) that doesn't allow his family much breathing room. Bachelor Dad (I imagine a cape fluttering in the wind and blue underwear worn on the outside) took a pay cut to be able to spend time with his children after his divorce, and for that he deserves major kudos. Because he's a man, you see. When women are stressed-out, strapped single parents, it's seen as normal, if unfortunate. Unless they are low-income or brown, in which case they get depicted as lazy or worse. But when men are single parents, they shit bricks of gold and deserve sympathy and adulation. Bravo, Bachelor Dad. Bravo. Seriously, mad props to any single parent, gender notwithstanding, but the bulk of my sympathy and admiration has been spent elsewhere, on the moms who have been doing this for years in the face of actual struggle (read: low wages) and outright societal scorn. Predictably, the yahoos come out of the woodwork asking why Meg hates teh menz for not sharing in the hero worship. Natch.

Mrs. Micah likes her reusable Diva Cup instead of pads or tampons. I can't quite remember when I switched to my Keeper, but it was at least by January 2005, if not earlier. It cost $25, which means at this point I've saved at least $70, and counting. In addition to the pros and cons she lists, I would add that it's much easier to travel with than bulky pads or a wad of tampons, and the reusable products are especially good for wilderness camping, when you have to pack out your own trash.

Grad Girl hearts Make Love Not Debt, and interesting insights are bandied about in the comments. So yeah, why is it easier to casually hook up than to casually discuss money with a date? I mean, I've done it in that order too, but it doesn't really make sense when you break it down like that.

Blogging My Way Out Of Debt: "That's why it's called Personal Finance, not Everyone's Included in My Finances." Heh.

Melissa from Queercents on the gender of money. See also Dawn at Frugal For Life on the same topic.

Xin Lu at WiseBread has a really strong post on how her Chinese identity has shaped her approach to money. I don't have much of my own to add, but I highly recommend that you click through. I wonder how my mutt/white background has shaped my own views?

Is there really a sea change in men's comfort with female partners who are breadwinners? MSN says yes.

Quick Hits Tuesday #6

Gender neutral baby clothing can save you money, keep your kid looking damn cute, and help you fight the power all at once. As someone who was raised in mustard yellow and brown striped unisex playsuits as a kid (and hey, I turned out OK. Stylish, even!), I can wholeheartedly amen Jennifer over at Queercents.

Guest poster Ginger at Consumerism Commentary asserts that smart women hook up with financially savvy partners. By her definition I may not be a smart woman, but Shiner's learning fast. And she's right on the fact that if he weren't, we shouldn't be getting married. But hilarious (and satirical) counterpoint at Feministing: Marrying anti-feminist "Take Back The Date" campaigns with Lori Gottleib's recently published and much discussed "I should have made babies with anyone who would have me, so don't you make the same mistakes!" piece, Ann proposes a new "Take Back The Loser" ad, featuring Barney Gumble of Moe's Tavern/The Simpsons fame.

Interesting disucssion in the comments of this post at Boston Gal's Open Wallet. College grad Adam Shephard began playing at poverty for the sake of the great American nonfiction book and he managed to wageslave his way to modest assets in eleven months time. At that point the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune became too much to bear, and Shephard wanted out, so he claimed victory over poverty before non-ironically accessing his middle class family's safety net and opting out of foodstamps, day labor, and beater trucks for good. But how might Shephard's bootstrap narrative have been different if he'd been a woman?

Feministe's Jill on the Lady Tax: a luxury tax targeting services used almost exclusively by women.

Quick Hits Tuesday #5

Dog Ate My Finances has a short but touching post about funding a 529 for the child she hopes to adopt someday. A lot of people don't realize you can contribute to a 529 for a child who is not yet born yet. They don't even have to be conceived. You can open a 529 in your own name and change the name of the beneficiary once the kid is born. If I were a birth mom looking to place my child with a caring home, a gesture like that would count for a lot.

The wage gap is not just alive in the tech sector, it's growing. Via Feminsting, where the comments, though anecdotal, are very interesting.

A little on the sharp increase in the cost of birth control pills. It's just crazy to me that anyone would believe it a good idea to deliberately limit female college students' access to affordable birth control. Welcome to college! Now drop out and have some babies, you trollop.

Interesting stuff on the links between bankruptcy and divorce. One needn't lead to the other, but they frequently do.

Meg at The World Of Wealth on the perceptions of women in leadership. Shocker, women bosses who "act like men" [insert essentializing stereotypes of both men and women here] aren't very popular with women or with men.

Quick Hits Tuesday #4

Female trekking guides in Nepal are filling a niche in the male-dominated field of mountaineering. The three Chetri sisters, who run a restaurant in the foothills of the Annapurnas, encountered many female customers returning from long treks who complained of being harassed by their male guides. "So many women came back with bad experiences, they would be alone on the mountain with these men and they were very vulnerable. We knew what we needed to do," one sister said. The Chetris began training local women in mountaineering, trek safety, and women's empowerment, and now operate the Three Sisters trekking agency, with over 60 guides, all female, on staff or on call. In doing so they have had to tackle cultural taboos against women wearing pants and wives earning more than their husbands, and local beliefs that women are bad luck on the mountain. These in addition the perennial chestnuts that women lack the physical strength or mental toughness to do hard things like, you know, climb mountains. Three Sisters guides earn about $10 per day, more than twice what they could earn working in agriculture, one of the only fields traditionally open to women. Put that on my list of things to do the next time I am in Nepal. Someday!

You're only getting that Valentine's Day-themed singing teddy bear so you don't get pissed off, not because it was thoughtfully selected for you. Researchers have found that framing last-minute purchases in the negative (If you don't buy her something expensive, there's no way you're getting laid) rather than in the positive (She will love this pink-and-red tchotchke) can lead purchasers to pay a premium in a bid to avoid disaster. Purchasers buying well in advance responded better to positive ads, but didn't pay as much of a premium for the product or service. Shiner, if you are reading this, I would rather receive nothing than any form of singing bear.

Free Money Finance posts a question from a reader who wonders what she should do now that she's learned her fiance has a mountain of debt. A lot of discussion in the comments, some of which is completely stupid and/or judgmental and some of which is very thoughtful and, I hope, helpful. My favorite non-idiotic comment is from Independent George who prefaces his advice with: "I mean no disrespect, but, honestly, this entire situation sounds like a Jane Austen novel..." which manages with one literary reference to convey the seriousness of the situation while sympathetically acknowledging the heart-driven nature of decisions like this. Less favorite is the anon who drops that s/he went to Harvard Law and then proceeds to give crappy legal advice. Represent.

Alternet has a piece on Women Who Go Gray and Stay Sexy. Not strictly about finance (uh, they save on hair dye?) but a nice sort-of counterpoint to the article I posted about earlier this week on Passing As Young. I remember both of my grandmothers having beautiful hair, one soft gray and the a natural bright white. I should be so lucky!

Geezeo has an interview with Him and Her from Make Love, Not Debt about couple finances and how blogging together has helped them have hard conversations about money.

Quick Hits Tuesday #3

Yes, I realize it is Thursday. Three-day weekends throw my game. Here's what we've got in this week's roundup.

Susie on Suze. Sex pioneer Susie Bright looks at what recently outed Suze Orman's sexual orientation has to do with the financial advice she doles out: "What Orman is saying, a tiny bit more openly, in her new book, is that she knows most women's money lives are defined by their dependence on men, be they husbands, lovers, or fathers. She is urging women, rhetorically, to cut it off." This was originally published at Queercents but is worth highlighting again.

At Women's eNews, Susan Feiner makes a case for Social Security, saying relying on a retirement funded exclusively by Wall Street investments puts women at a disadvantage. My take? Hello, Symptom, I'd like to introduce you to my friend Cause.

There are so many reasons I'm glad I never got a boob job. The buyer's remorse of cosmetic surgery.

Mombian Blogs For Choice: "There’s something wrong with an administration that wants to say I must carry a fetus to term if I conceive, but will not give me permission or wherewithal to raise that child in a legal relationship with the person I want, whom I know will be a responsible, loving parent." Amen.

Brooke at Dollar Frugal blogs about using personal finance to strengthen a marriage. For the most part these go for any committed relationship. I disagree pretty strongly with her statement that "even thinking about [divorce] is bad for finances." Not thinking about divorce is idiocy, financial and otherwise. Shiner and I have talked about it at some length and we'll be getting a prenup, which will allow us to decide what we think would be fair rather than defaulting to the state, which I do not fully trust in this matter. Far superior than if we blithely assumed we'd be 2gether 4ever and then turn out to be wrong, heartbroken and money-wise screwed. Better to decide how you would want to treat one another when you're still in love than wait until one or both of you wants to set the other one's personal affects ablaze. Try crafting a fair division of assets and liabilities over the smoldering ashes of your ex's mattress, suckah.

SJean over at Stacking Pennies is single, solvent, and damn proud of it. "I enjoy reading other young female bloggers, especially those who are also unmarried, and thinking how just a couple generations ago our lives would have been unthinkable. Though I admit I've had the emotional support of a relationship, I do rent my own apartment, pay my own bills, and really came into my own financially in a way that I simply wouldn't have had I been legally tied to another person." I'm right there with her. I am so glad I've had experience supporting myself, both financially and emotionally. It's amazingly freeing to know I can do that.

Quick Hits Tuesdays #2

Mombian ("Sustenance for Lesbian Moms") has some choice words for TurboTax and their treatment, minimal as it is, of same-sex couples. Writes she, "TurboTax's marketing images and options for indicating our relationships are just another reminder—like we need one—that the law and tax codes treat same-sex families differently from others, even when we supposedly have equal rights within our state." Way to drop the ball, TurboTax. Actually, Mombian is pretty great, see addition to the blogroll at right.

Her Every Cent Counts observes, "Vibrators are expensive and they break easily." Luckily, cheaper options are out there. I'll note, too, that by using rechargable batteries, one can really cut one's ongoing operational costs.

Meg at The World of Wealth addresses the question of who should pay on a first date. I agree with her general proposition that the asker has more responsibility than the ask-ee, and that at least offering to pay for part wins big brownie points. But adding gender into the mix confuses it. Aside from outright rudeness to service workers or kicking adorable puppies, there is nothing I find more offputting on a first date than a guy adamantly insists--no really, I know how to treat a woman right!--that I am not allowed to pay. I get it, you wear Magnums. Ugh.

Good maternity leave is hard to find, especially if you're still a high school student. So students at a Denver High school are asking the school board to grant students who have just given birth a measure of maternity leave. Currently at East High, if post-partum students don't return to school the day after leaving the hospital, they start racking up unexcused absences. The students are saying that with no on-site day care, this policy is forcing them to choose between letting their bodies heal and bonding with their infants versus continuing to diligently pursue their high school diplomas. Geez, and you wonder why teen pregnancy correlates with low high school graduation rates?

Quick Hits Tuesdays

An Oregon law requiring health insurance prescription plans to cover birth control went into effect on Tuesday. About half the insurers in the state do not cover prescription birth control. More at the National Partnership for Women and Families: Great news for Oregon women with insurance! Not so useful for the masses of women without it.

Bill at Queercents is getting married (congratulations, Bill!) and having just come through the experience himself, has some thoughts about the economics of same sex marriage proposals, where the traditional tropes don't really apply. It's difficult, for example, to conform to the schematic where the man asks woman's father permission to purchase his chattel marry his daughter, the man buys woman ring with two months salary, the man proposes to the woman, etc., when there's not actually a woman involved in any way. I enjoyed reading this since we're not big gender role/tradition people either, sweetie and me. All things considered, Bill's very sweet story is probably more traditional than ours!

Finally, Freakonomics blogger Steven D. Levitt and co-author Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh have a working paper out taking a look at the economics of street-level prostitution in three neighborhoods in Chicago. Interesting in many respects, but this stuck out to me: "Approximately one in twenty tricks performed by prostitutes are 'freebies,' either to police officers or gang members, to avoid arrest or in return for protection from the gang." When the authors presented their findings at a recent acadmic conference, Levitt apparently reported that the prostitutes they surveyed were more likely to have sex with a cop than be arrested by one. Via Freakonomics.