President Obama held a news conference today where he announced regulations that will soon eliminate the traditional incandescent light bulb. Consumers and businesses will be forced to use the new compact fluorescent bulbs. The regulations will phase in over time but they are now official.

I don’t know about you, but those bulbs will only work in a few places in my house. I don’t mind using them to save energy and money but they don’t really seem to do that. It turns out that they use a lot more energy in the manufacturing process, and use more materials to package them safely. This offsets the long-term energy savings.  And they don’t really save money because the cost is so high that it takes years to offset the cost with savings. Also, they don’t fit in most of our lamps, so I would have to toss those and purchase new lamps –no energy or cost savings there either.  But it may be a profit opportunity….

I predict that there will be a grey market (or possibly even a black market) in traditional light bulbs.  One economist from George Mason University predicts the prices for incandescent light bulbs will double or triple over the next 5 years. That is a pretty good return on investment.

For my part, we have a long-term storage locker and I plan to buy a case of light bulbs every time I visit Costco and stick them in storage for the future.  At my age a few cases of bulbs will give me a lift-time supply. And, any that I don’t use, I can probably sell at a profit. Heck –I may be able to make up the losses in my IRA.

I think they are going to issue regulations outlawing double-ply toilet paper next month, so you may want to start stocking up on that too.

The House of Representatives is rushing again –this time it’s on the Cap & Trade or what many call the Cap & Tax bill.

The measure imposes a cap-and-trade system that will require companies to buy carbon emissions permits from the federal government. It also seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent in 2020, by 42 percent in 2030, and by 83 percent in 2050.  Carbon emission permits is a fancy name for a tax.  So why do we care if energy companies are taxed?  First of all its not energy companies –it is every user of any type of carbon based energy. Gas, heating oil, diesel oil used by farmers, natural gas for the home and business. 

If you look at the total energy usage of the United States it breaks down as follows:

Wind, Solar, Geothermal and Hydroelectric — 4%
Nuclear — 2%
Carbon (Gas, oil, coal, etc.) 94%

So basically the government will impose taxes that will start out low and increase steadily over the next ten years on 94% of all the energy used in the US.  Of course, the percentage of non-carbon energy will increase, but not enough to make any serious impact for probably another 20-30 years.  In the meantime, those of us who are retired, or will retire in the next few years, will pay higher costs for gas, heating oil, electricity and basically any energy we use.

Republicans are pretty united in opposition to the plan but there are not enough of them to stop it. Democrats are somewhat split. Congressmen from farm states are pressing for an exemption for farmers. As energy is the single highest cost element for farmers, some of them predict that food costs could rise as much as 40% over the next few years just because of the higher energy costs. Smaller family farmers fear they will be run out of business.

I don’t know what the hurry is other than Congress wants to get this done so they can go on vacation.  Since energy is so critical to our economy and the economy is struggling, it would seem that some caution is in order. 

Cleary we need some fixes to how we use energy but once again the Congress is pushing something with little public debate. Unless you want your energy rates to increase as much as 50% over the next ten years, call or email your congressperson and tell them to slow down. We don’t need this bill this weekend.  Lets take our time and figure out an energy plan that won’t lengthen the recession and hurt seniors and those on fixed incomes the most.

So if you want this slowed down, contact your congressperson right away and let them know you are a senior who doesn’t want to pay higher utility rates for the next 20 years.  Here is the link to find and email your congress member: https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

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OK – not everything we do needs to be serious. Sometimes we Geezers just need to have a little fun. Here is a great story from a fellow Geezer in New Jersey.

An old Italian lived alone in New Jersey .  He wanted to plant his annual  tomato garden, but it was very difficult work, as the ground was hard. His only son, Vincent, who used to help him, was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and described his predicament:

Dear Vincent, 

I am feeling pretty sad, because it looks like I won’t be able to plant my tomato garden this year. I’m just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. I know if you were here my troubles would be over..  I know you would be happy to dig the plot for me, like in the old days.

Love, Papa

A few days later he received a letter from his son.

Dear Pop,
Don’t dig up that garden. That’s where the bodies are buried.
Love, Vinnie

 At 4 a.m. the next morning, FBI agents and local police arrived and dug up the entire area without finding any bodies. They apologized to the old man and left.

That same day the old man received another letter from his son.

Dear Pop,
Go ahead and plant the tomatoes now. That’s the best I could do under the circumstances.  
Love you, 
Vinnie

I don’t really know where this came from. Its not the first time I have seen it, but this is probably the best explanation of how Government spending really works.

 It is the month of June.  A resort town sits next to the shores of a lake. It is raining,  and the little town looks totally deserted.  It is tough times,  everybody is in debt, and everybody lives on  credit.

Suddenly,  a rich tourist comes to town.

He  enters the only hotel, lays a 100 dollar bill on the reception counter,  and goes to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to pick  one.
The  hotel proprietor takes the 100 dollar bill and runs to pay his debt to the  butcher.

The  Butcher takes the 100 dollar bill, and runs to pay his debt to the pig  raiser.

The  pig raiser takes the 100 dollar bill, and runs to pay his debt to the  supplier of his feed and fuel.
The  supplier of feed and fuel takes the 100 dollar bill and runs to pay his debt to the town’s prostitute that in these hard times, gave her “services” on credit.

The  hooker runs to the hotel, and pays off her debt with the 100 dollar bill  to the hotel proprietor to pay for the rooms that she rented when she  brought her clients there.

The  hotel proprietor then lays the 100 dollar bill back on the counter so that  the rich tourist will not suspect anything.
At  that moment, the rich tourist comes down after inspecting the rooms, and  takes his 100 dollar bill, after saying that he did not like any of the  rooms, and leaves town.

No  one earned anything. However, the whole town is now without debt, and  looks to the future with a lot of optimism .

And  that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the United States Government runs our couontry. 

Reverse mortgages can be a blessing or a pit depending on your situation. As the markets have cratered wiping out senior’s savings, these mortgages are selling fast –but you should approach them with caution.

Today’s Wall Street Journal has probably one of the best articles I have seen about reverse mortgages. Besides the news that reverse mortgage applications are rising as senior incomes fall, the article gives an excellent overview of how these mortgages work and the various pros and cons.

Here is the link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124459828244500783.html

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Data just out from the National Council on Aging  show that the number of seniors looking for work has swelled more than 120% to over 1.8 million in the last year. Within that group, those who were 75 and older increased by 80 percent.

There are some 29 million seniors – those 55 and older – employed or actively looking for work in the United States, which is about 18 percent of the civilian labor force. And their numbers are expected to grow. Seniors from the early phase of the baby boom are now retiring at the rate of 14,000 per day. That number is expected to increase 12-15% by the end of 2010.

According to a story from the Reuters News services  “This economic crisis has had just a horrible impact on the entire population, but it has had a very severe impact on older people,” said Sandra Nathan, workforce development vice president at the National Council on Aging.

Nathan said her organization was seeing a record number of people seeking assistance with job training and employment. “Before people used to retire and stay retired. Now what we have are people 75 years old and older who are still in the workforce,” Nathan said.

With a national unemployment rate at 9.4 percent, the highest in more than 25 years, the odds are stacked against older Americans seeking work. An array of new or expanded programs, however, are aimed at leveling the playing field.

The U.S. government has allocated stimulus dollars to bolster programs targeted at getting older workers onto private payrolls and off of the shaky U.S. social security system. Even individuals over 75 are being encouraged to get training and job hunting help.

We are seeing this effect here at Official Geezer Guide as more and more seniors are looking for information and ways to supplement their retirement income.  Both traffic to the site and sales of Geezer Guides are up sharply.

I just returned from visiting my sainted mother who lives in Alexandria, VA, just across the river from Washington DC.  The rest of the country may be grappling with a recession –but not DC. Thanks to out-of-control government spending, DC is booming!

Everywhere we went the restaurants were full, shopping malls were crowded, real estate was selling and I saw more Mercedes, BMWs and Porsche’s than you would see in Beverly Hills.

And jobs are going begging.  When we went to one of the largest shopping malls in suburban Virginia, almost every store had a sign out that they were hiring.  Every government agency is hiring. The new US Patent Office in Alexandria is hiring over 5,000 people which is kind of strange since patent applications have fallen since the recession began. Obama said he would create jobs –and he is. But it’s looking like most of them will be in the Washington DC area.

And don’t forget the lobbyists.  Since Obama was elected back in November, the number of registered lobbyists has increased over 40%.  There are now over 30,000 lobbyists throwing money and favors at the 435 members of the House and 100 Senators.

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I am pretty new to Twitter. I have known about it for a while but didn’t really understand how it could help me. In just a few short weeks though I have built my Twitter list on my main eBay site at www.skipmcgrath.com to over 1400. And I just started a Twitter link for the Official Geezer Guide yesterday. I already have over 150 followers in just one day. (Here is the link to follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/HeadGeezer)

Twitter is a great social networking took, but you can also use it to make money. You can tweet links to your eBay and Craigslist listings, you can tweet affiliate links, you can use it to build traffic to your blog or your website where you sell products, information or have Google Ads and affiliate banners.  The possibilities are really endless.

There are a lot of schemes and tools people are selling that will help you build a Twitter list quickly –but most of them are pure junk.  The key to building a Twitter list that can make money is to have it focused on a topic, or a product or a niche of some kind. For example, if you sell diet or weight loss supplements, then you don’t want a list with lots of young kids on it, or a list of video gamers –you want middle aged to older people who are health conscious.  If you have a website that sells quilting supplies, then you want to build a list of hundreds or thousands of quilters –you don’t want real estate investors and Puff Daddy fans.

Last week I found the perfect tool. It’s called The Twitter Traffic Machine.  This is a series of 6 short videos that walks you through an automated system to build your list of hundreds of  HIGHLY TARGETED followers a day with just a few minutes of work.  The program only costs $27 and comes with a money-back guarantee.  I have only been using it for a few days and it works great.  I did one post right after setting it up, and that post made $56 on an affiliate link within about 30 minutes. I checked again today and it made another $11 –all from that one post.

I also started using Twitter to drive traffic to my eBay listings.  The two listings I featured in a Twitter post got double the amount of hits they normally did each day and resulted in one Buy-it-now sale for $229. so my $27 investment paid off pretty quickly.

Earlier this week I also told you about a new selling tool called netSpray.  The neat thing is that you can set up a netSpray account and use Twitter to drive traffic to your netSpray listings.  When you look at netSpray, you will get a free 27 page eBook I wrote for the netSpray folks as part of their launch promotion.  And if you sign up for netSpray for one month, you will get another book I wrote that shows you how to use Twitter to generate profits from eBay and netSpray.