The Intro

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What You Can Expect To Find Here

I suppose I should start simply and explain what this blog is going to be about. I assume you looked at the title and thought, “this should be good. Sounds like there will be humor involved! Maybe some political satire.” And you’d be right. There will be good and humor and political satire.

But the main point I want to get across, through a number of stories, is that there is something lacking in the United States (and a LOT of the world) at the moment that we need to get back. That would be Common Sense. Not exactly Thomas Paine’s version, but a more modern take on the subject.

For example, there are things that we look at everyday that should make sense, it would seem like they should make sense, and we take for granted that people in charge have sense enough to have their products / services / whatever, make sense. But they don’t.

Let’s give a simple example: Capital One Credit Cards. First of all, I’m not a fan – but that’s for personal reasons, and, yes, I’ll explain. Several years ago, I received an offer from Capital One for a no-annual-fee credit card. I said, “sure, why not?” And a couple weeks later, I got some mail from them thinking it was the card.

It wasn’t.

What I got was a bill saying that I owed Capital One money for two things: 1) my annual fee – which according to the ad shouldn’t have existed, and 2) a late fee for not having paid it yet. I didn’t even have the card itself yet and they charged me for something that according to them didn’t exist and a late fee? I think not! I called and eventually sorted it out. Of course, they got their revenge for tanking my credit score – but that’s a different entry. (Hint: it’s a made up number.)

But that’s not the common sense problem I have with them. It’s mail. Not email. Actual, physical, look-what’s-in-my-hand mail. There is entirely too much of it coming from Capital One. In the past month – scratch that, let’s go with 30-days so as not to get people confused as to which month and how many days are in said month – I have received twenty ads to get a card from them. 20 out of 26 days – because Sunday’s don’t have mail delivery in my area.

My point is, that if I had wanted one, I could have gotten one. There is a problem I have with the overkill on physical mail. Strangely, it never even occurred to me that that is bad for the environment until just now. The paper alone!.. But that’s not it.

The issue I have is: the money. It costs money to print the ads. It costs money to buy the machine that puts them in the envelopes. It costs money for the envelopes. Then there’s the postage, some of which has to be substantial because I can’t mail a birthday card to my mom for less that $1.50 – and some of these out-weigh the cards! Some of them use card-stock paper!

This is my common sense problem with them. Think about all the money they’ve wasted on sending me physical spam. Now, let’s say that they do just half of that to everyone in the United States. That’s a LOT of money (and trees) spent on nothing.

Solution? Perhaps, if they lowered the sending to once a week and put the money they’re saving toward lowering interest rates and removing annual fees, they’d not only get more customers, but they’d be more likely to keep the customers they already have!

This is not rocket science! This is common sense! And that is what I’m here to help put back into this country.

Don’t panic. I will address some governmental issues soon. And, boy, do we have issues!