Tag: money

Stop Interrupting Me!

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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I’m irritated at all the barriers I run into when I’m trying to read something online. This is important to me, because when it comes to getting information, I am first and foremost a reader.

While I do ask questions of people who know a lot about a subject – part of the work of being a reporter is learning to ask good questions – I often use that information as a jumping-off point to do more reading.

I used to listen to the radio news (meaning NPR) a lot when I lived alone, but now about the only thing I listen to are podcasts when I’m cooking.

And I’ve always detested television “news.” The last time I recall seriously watching television for breaking news was on September 11, 2001. Most of the time it’s too superficial to be worth watching.

Anyway, these days the internet is better for breaking news. In some cases, social media is better than more traditional sources, so long as you double check what it says.

While in the past I subscribed to print newspapers and while I still subscribe to a few print magazines, I get most of my news online these days. I subscribe to several digital publications, plus a variety of email newsletters, and I read many others piecemeal. I also read blogs, even if that is no longer considered cool.

Obviously I also read lots of books – both print and ebook – but the issues that brought on this rant have to do with the reading I do online.

First of all, every time I open The New York Times, which I do pay (way too much) for, they try to upsell me. They want me to add more readers on my subscription. They want me to subscribe to their premium features.

Ads pop up here and there. Obviously the print editions have ads as well, but I don’t recall seeing so many in print for things that are very close to being scams. (I just clicked on a story and a test that purports to tell you whether you have dementia popped up as an ad.)

I can mostly ignore the ones on news stories, but the online equivalent of what is called a “house ad” in the newspaper business – an ad promoting the publication – is often positioned over what I’m trying to read.

Further, I note that I have been subscribing to the Times for a long time, long enough to have originally had sports news as part of my subscription. Then they bought The Athletic. Whenever I forget and click on a sports story, they pop up to tell me I have to pay more if I want to get that.

That just reminds me that they reduced what I got for my subscription while increasing the cost. Continue reading “Stop Interrupting Me!”…

Does Money Solve Everything?

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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I’ve been procrastinating on my taxes, so I have money on the brain.

Most people say that having more money would solve most of their problems.

For some, that means the lifestyle of being able to throw money around – go to the best restaurants, buy a fancy car, live in an elegant house, travel to exclusive resorts worldwide.

Others just want enough so that they can pay their bills, see the doctor when they need to, and treat themselves from time to time without feeling pinched.

But regardless of how we define rich – whether it’s a lot of luxury items or just feeling comfortable that you can handle your needs – I think for most of us the true definition of “rich” is “never have to worry about money again.”

I know that’s my definition.

But according to Anand Giridharadas, who has been reviewing the Epstein files at length, people who are actually rich spend a lot of time worrying about money – particularly about how to make more of it and hold onto it over generations. He says emails around money are much more common in those files than ones documenting the abuse of children.

I was about to say Fitzgerald was right that the rich really are different from you and me, but maybe Hemingway’s (perhaps apocryphal) response on that point is also correct: “Yes, they have more money.” Continue reading “Does Money Solve Everything?”…

Money Is Eating a Place I Used to Love

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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Money is eating Austin and the Texas Hill Country the way it ate the San Francisco Bay Area.

As I often say, everything happens in California first. The only hope I have is that Texas – which like California is majority minority – will also slide away from the extreme right, but watching money destroy a place you love hurts.

Also, I’m pretty sure that money is not why California (which gave us Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Grover Norquist) moved away from the extreme right.

I’m just getting back from a road trip to Texas to see family and the eclipse. While on the road, my sweetheart and I were reading Marjorie Kelly’s Wealth Supremacy outloud to each other, so I was thinking a lot about our flawed economic systems while traveling through a part of the country I’ve known well all my life.

Rural areas in Texas seem to be surviving in large part on hunting camps and taxidermy, which are service businesses catering to the rich who like to pretend they hunt. For the most part, the small towns of the west are tired and dusty, and not just from the harsh arid climate. So many businesses are boarded up.

As you drive east from El Paso toward Austin and San Antonio, you go through small towns about 50 or so miles apart. Sierra Blanca probably survives on the Border Patrol folks stationed there.

Van Horn and Fort Stockton have motels and quick car repair shops for travelers. There’s a little more in Ozona and Sonora, both county seats with a decent restaurant or two.

And then you hit the Hill Country, with fancy wineries and places bought up by rich people. Fredericksburg has been a cute tourist town for awhile, but now all the towns around there have fancy boutiques and interesting restaurants, plus a large number of real estate offices: Johnson City, Blanco, Boerne.

The closer you get to Austin or San Antonio, the more big money developments you see. Sprawling subdivisions. They’re finally repairing US 290 going into Austin from the west, but it’s in service to massive development in a relatively fragile ecosystem.

The Hill Country isn’t desert, but it still has water limits. Meanwhile, none of this big money is going to places that would benefit from the spreading around of wealth. Continue reading “Money Is Eating a Place I Used to Love”…