• walmartmovie.com - Walmart battles public perception
• hungryagents.com - discount real estate bids
• savingsbonds.gov - info about i-bonds
• telestial.com - affordable overseas cell usage

Clark was in the mall recently when he saw someone in a life-sized cartridge costume. This isn’t a joke. The man was wearing the costume because Cartridge World had opened its 1,000th store. The company – and others like it - is going great guns because of its operating model, which is patterened after Gillette. Gillette basically sells the initial razor at a loss and then charges and arm and a leg for the blades. Cartridge companies know you need to refill your printers with new printer cartridges. These discount companies basically refill old cartridges, package them and then sell them for half of what the major companies would charge. Clark is fine with you doing this because the cartridges work just fine and cost much less. The quality may be a little lower with refill cartridges, but it’s all a matter of perspective.

The Transportation Security Administration has decided to launch a Trusted Traveler program throughout the United States. It will be at major airports first and it’s based on a program started at the Orlando airport. Basically, if you want to join, you pay $80 and a background check and iris scan are run on you. If you pass the background check, you go through an expedited security section at the airport. It started out at five airports, but is only in effect now in Orlando.

Wal-Mart has been trying for years to get a banking charter so it can create its own credit cards. Typically, federal regulators get about 5 or 6 comment when a company wants a bank charter. Since Wal-Mart’s four requests, more than 1500 comments have come in. People are basically fearful that Wal-Mart will own more of the world’s retail share than it should and grow ever more powerful. But that is just not true. Consider Dell as an example. Dell used to be a major force in the computer market, but the company grew too large and suffered severely from its lacking customer service. No matter how good a business is, it reaches a point when it’s difficult to continuing running a good shop. There is also a movie out about Wal-Mart, produced by people who want others to hate the company. It’s called “The High Price of Low Price.” You can see it by visiting walmartmovie.com.

Did you know that you can sell your home at a reduced commission these days? Real estate trade associations don’t want you to know this and they’ve gotten six states to pass laws that make it a crime to negotiate over commissions. Real estate agents are divided over the topic, but many think it should be up to the free market. A new site called hungryagents.com allows agents to bid on the job to sell your house. Clark loves this idea. There are so many licensed agents in the country and not nearly enough jobs. So how do you build you client base? You negotiate your price. Clark knows people need real estate agents, but he thinks people should be able to pay the commission they want.

Clark was in a non-English speaking country recently and used a translation machine to order food at a restaurant. He enters it in English and it prints out in the language spoken in the country. In this case, it was Germany. It helps speed up the order and it comes out just right. At the time, Clark wondered why we didn’t have something like this in the States. Well, it’s now happening in certain areas of the country. According to the Dallas Morning News, fast food chains are getting ready to roll out these terminals. About a dozen restaurants are involved, with a total of 60 McDonald’s in Texas alone. The terminals show 26 different languages and will soon be all over the country.

You’ve probably heard Clark talk about annuities, right? Salespeople are hot under the collar to sell annuities these days and Clark wants you to steer clear. The National Association of Securities Dealers or NASD has even put out a special bulletin to warn you about these pieces of trash. Specifically, the NASD wants to warn you about “index annuities.” Why are they worthless? The company claims it protects you from drops in the stock market. But really, the company only protects you if you stay with them. If you bail out, you only get whatever the account is worth. So, if the stock market tanks, so does your account. Even worse, you must pay “surrender charges” if you want out. So, you now get 85 cents back on your $1. And, it keeps getting worse. Avoid them like the plague.