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Have you noticed how everyone seems to be offering insurance these days? Whether it's a washing machine, your mortgage, a credit card, or even the telephone line to your house, service industries and retailers alike all are pushing their own particular insurance policy to protect us from whatever disaster is lurking in the future.
The reality is that most of us really don't need all that insurance. Here's a sampling of several insurance offers I recently turned down or cancelled because they were totally unnecessary.
Service warranty.
When I bought a $15 box fan this summer, the store clerk tried to sell us a $25 warranty plan to protect us from breakage. We refused the warranty for two reasons: first, because it didn't make financial sense and second, the item already came with an automatic one-year warranty. If the fan turned out to be defective, any breakdown would most likely happen in that first year while it still under warranty.
Service warranties such as these are high cost insurance plans that rarely get used especially if you buy a quality product to begin with. Most consumers would be money ahead by skipping the insurance and stashing the savings into a savings account.
Comprehensive car insurance.
Comprehensive insurance covers damages to your car in case of an accident and is optional once the car is paid off. Since our cars are pretty old anyway, we cancelled the comprehensive on all our vehicles this year for a savings of $58 a month.
Utility line insurance.
Both my water and telephone company offer policies to cover the cost of repairs between my house and the street in case of failure. Since our water line and the phone lines were replaced some 15 years ago during a remodel, the odds are high that we'll never use this coverage. The same goes for anyone living in a home that's relatively new.
Credit card theft insurance.
When one of my friends told me she was paying $4 a month for credit card theft insurance, I just about choked. Federal law already limits our liability to $50 in case of theft. And theft connected with debit cards and stolen checks many already be covered under your homeowners or renter insurance policy. Our policy provides $10,000 of protection in case of stolen checks or a debit card which is more than enough coverage for our family.
When it comes to watching costs, the key to insurance savings is to avoid buying insurance you don't need. And for the policies you do need? You'll save more money with a comprehensive insurance policy purchased from a reputable insurance provider instead of buying a bunch of little policies from everyone else.
FILE - This Nov. 5, 2011 file photo provided by the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General shows former Penn State football defensive coordinator Gerald "Jerry" Sandusky, who sexually abused a boy more than 100 times, then threatened his family to keep him quiet about the encounters, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011 that details new accusations not included in criminal charges against him. (AP Photo/Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General, File)
FILE - This Nov. 5, 2011 file photo provided by the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General shows former Penn State football defensive coordinator Gerald "Jerry" Sandusky, who sexually abused a boy more than 100 times, then threatened his family to keep him quiet about the encounters, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2011 that details new accusations not included in criminal charges against him. (AP Photo/Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General, File)
NEW YORK (AP) ? Former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky maintains he never sexually abused children and portrays himself in a New York Times interview as a father-like figure to the kids in his life.
The Times reported Saturday that Sandusky also insisted he never spoke with Joe Paterno about any allegations of misconduct.
"They've taken everything that I ever did for any young person and twisted it to say that my motives were sexual or whatever," Sandusky said. "I had kid after kid after kid who might say I was a father figure. And they just twisted that all."
Sandusky has been charged with 40 counts of molesting eight boys over 15 years and is free on bail while awaiting a preliminary hearing Dec. 13. A grand jury investigating Sandusky said in a report that some of the assaults occurred in the Penn State football showers, including a 2002 allegation in which a graduate assistant testified he saw Sandusky sodomizing a young boy.
University trustees fired Paterno ? major college football's winningest coach ? on Nov. 9, four days after charges were filed against Sandusky, amid mounting criticism that school leaders should have done more when allegations came to their attention.
During a lengthy interview with The Times at his lawyer's home, Sandusky painted a picture of chaotic but friendly scenes involving children he described as extended family at his State College, Pa., home. There were sleepovers, wrestling matches, and children playing with dogs at the house after football games.
The descriptions sharply contrast with the shocking allegations involving children outlined in the grand jury report, including oral and anal sex. One accusation, from 2000, describes a janitor walking into the assistant coaches' shower room and seeing Sandusky holding a boy "up against the wall and licking on him."
Three attorneys representing one of the alleged victims released a statement Saturday, with attorney Andrew Shubin calling Sandusky's comments "an entirely unconvincing denial and a series of bizarre explanations."
Sandusky told the newspaper he and Paterno never spoke about the alleged 2002 incident or a 1998 child molestation complaint investigated by Penn State campus police.
"I never talked to him about either one," Sandusky said. "That's all I can say. I mean, I don't know." He worked for Paterno for nearly 30 years.
Messages left Saturday by The Associated Press seeking comment from representatives for Paterno were not immediately returned.
Paterno testified before the grand jury that the graduate assistant told him in 2002 about the assault he had witnessed, and that he relayed the report to his superior, athletic director Tim Curley.
The graduate assistant, Mike McQueary, later met with Curley and Gary Schultz, a university vice president who oversaw campus police. But authorities said the allegation was not passed on to police or prosecutors.
Curley and Schultz are charged with failing to report the 2002 allegation and lying to the grand jury. Curley is on administrative leave, while Schultz has stepped down. Lawyers for both men have said their clients are innocent.
Prosecutors have said Paterno is not a target of the investigation.
Paterno's son, Scott Paterno, told the AP last month the first and only incident reported about Sandusky to Paterno was in 2002. Paterno has said in a statement that specific actions alleged to have occurred in the grand jury report were not relayed to him
Still, the state's top cop has criticized the way school leaders handled allegations and said Paterno and other officials had a moral responsibility to do more.
The 84-year-old Paterno initially announced his retirement effective at the end of the season, saying that the scandal was "one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more." The trustees fired him anyway, about 12 hours later.
Sandusky said that prosecutors have misconstrued his work with children. He described a family and work life that "could often be chaotic, even odd, one that lacked some classic boundaries between adults and children," the Times reported.
"It was, you know, almost an extended family," Mr. Sandusky said of his household's relationship with children from the charity he founded, The Second Mile. He characterized his experiences with children was close with as "precious times," and said the physical aspect of the relationships "just happened that way."
But Saturday's statement from one accuser's attorneys called such comments a "delusional rationalization."
"Pedophiles often horribly mischaracterize the abuse they perpetrate as something that their victims sought or benefited from," said Justine Andronici, who represents the same accuser as Shubin.
A third attorney, David Marshall, added that Sandusky's interview "goes a long way toward corroborating the victims' accounts" because Sandusky acknowledges "he 'wrestled' and showered alone with boys, gave them gifts and money, and travelled with them."
Allegations involving two victims occurred in Sandusky's home, according to the grand jury report.
"Victim One testified that Sandusky had a practice of coming into the basement room after he told Victim One that it was time to go to bed," the grand jury report said. "Victim One testified that Sandusky would 'crack his back,'" which was described in the report as Sandusky getting on to the bed and "rolling under the boy."
Sandusky is accused of mining the ranks of Second Mile to find underprivileged boys to abuse, which he says is false. He said that the charity never restricted his access to children until he became the subject of a criminal investigation in 2008.
He acknowledged that he regularly gave money to the disadvantaged boys at his charity, opened bank accounts for them and gave them gifts that had been donated to the charity.
"I tried to reward them sometimes with a little money in hand, just so that they could see something," he said. "But more often than not, I tried to set up, maybe get them to save the money, and I put it directly into a savings account established for them."
The paper said he grew most animated when talking about his relationships with children and most disconsolate when he spoke of Paterno and Penn State, and the upheaval caused by his indictment.
"I don't think it was fair," he is quoted as saying.
During the interview, Sandusky said his relationships and activities with Second Mile children caused some strain with Paterno. He told the paper he worried that having some children with him at hotels before games or on the sideline during games could have been regarded as a distraction by Paterno.
SHANGHAI (Reuters) ? China's services sector contracted in November, mirroring similar weakness in the country's giant manufacturing sector and underlining expectations that Beijing can ease monetary policy further to cushion the blows of the global economy.
China's official purchasing managers' index for its non-manufacturing sector fell to 49.7 in November from 57.7 in October, the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said on Saturday. The 50-mark divides expansion from contraction.
A private-sector PMI on non-manufacturers from HSBC is due for release at 9:30 p.m. EST on Monday and may paint a similar picture of weakness in services as the euro-zone debt crisis weighs on the global economy. The HSBC gauge in October was running at 54.1, the strongest growth in four months.
PMI data in the past week has shown that both domestic and export orders are weakening, helping explain the central bank's decision last Wednesday to cut reserve requirements for commercial lenders for the first time in three years.
The move to free up cash was a signal that the central bank was shifting toward loosening monetary policy to support the economy, which is widely expected to grow next year at less than 9 percent for the first time in a decade, economists said.
Indeed, former central bank adviser Fan Gang said in the Securities Times newspaper on Saturday that there was room for further cuts in reserve requirements provided inflation continued to fall.
"There is plenty of room for adjusting banks' reserve requirements ratios," he said.
The official manufacturing PMI on Thursday showed prices fell in November and Premier Wen Jiabao said on November 9 that prices had fallen since October.
Consumer inflation dropped in October to 5.5 percent, backtracking from a three-year high of 6.5 percent in July.
The official services PMI suggested the sector was weak due to softer consumption patterns and a slowdown in the construction industry.
"The retail, food and beverage industry-based consumer services were in an off-season, showing a more significant decline," Cai Jin, a vice president with the CFLP, said in a statement.
The sub-index of new orders in services PMI declined to 47.2 in November, indicating they were actually falling, from 52.5 in October. Input prices for the Chinese services sector eased to 54.4 from 55.7 in October, showing inflationary pressures eased.
The services PMI index aims to give a snapshot of conditions in the services sector, which accounts for less than 45 percent of China's economy, much less than in developed countries.
Last Thursday, the official manufacturing PMI fell to 49 in November from October's 50.4, pointing to the first contraction in activity in nearly three years, or since the global financial crisis.
The HSBC manufacturing PMI dropped to a 32-month low of 47.7 in November from October's 51.
"The November PMI final reading points to a sharp deterioration in business conditions across the Chinese manufacturing sector," said Qu Hongbin, China economist at
HSBC.
Globally, the picture was similar.
A global PMI produced by JPMorgan, with research and supply management organizations, fell to 49.6, suggesting a contraction in global manufacturing.
Chinese officials have expressed growing alarm at the slide in the global economy as Europe struggles to produce a decisive solution to its debt crisis.
Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao said last week that the world economy faced a worse crisis now than during 2008 and that stimulating growth should be a priority.
Vice Premier Wang Qishan in November said a chronic global recession was certain.
Although analysts say China is shifting policy to support growth, China's Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development suggested there would be no let up in policy controls on the property market.
The ministry told local governments not to relax home purchase restrictions, the China Business Journal said on Saturday, adding that the restrictions would continue despite their scheduled expiry in at least 11 cities by year-end.
The paper quoted an unnamed government official with the ministry as saying China's current property controls of restrictive home buying would not change.
On Friday, China's central bank said Chinese home prices were at a turning point. Home prices fell in October from September for the first time this year, official data showed, but a private survey has indicated that November could mark a third consecutive monthly fall.
(Reporting by Melanie Lee; Writing by Kevin Yao and Neil Fullick; Editing by Mark Bendeich)
Carrier IQ has issued a new press release defending its business and reminding us all that it works not unilaterally, but for the operator -- the carrier. The nut:
Carrier IQ acts as an agent for the Operators. Each implementation is different and the diagnostic information actually gathered is determined by our customers – the mobile Operators. Carrier IQ does not gather any other data from devices.
We've got a massive discussion coming up on the podcast, folks.
Check out the whole press relase for yourself after the break.
HIV uncertainty pushes Malawians to want children earlierPublic release date: 1-Dec-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Matt Swayne mls29@psu.edu 814-865-9481 Penn State
People in Malawi who are uncertain about their HIV status are more eager to start families than those who are certain of their HIV status, according to researchers.
"In decision-making, what you know you don't know can be just as important as what you do know," said Jenny Trinitapoli, assistant professor of sociology, religious studies and demography, Penn State.
Malawi, a landlocked country in southeast Africa, has both a high fertility rate and a high prevalence of HIV. About 12 percent of the population is infected with the virus that causes AIDS.
More than 30 percent of young Malawians surveyed by Trinitapoli and Sara Yeatman, assistant professor, health and behavioral sciences, University of Colorado, Denver, indicated they were uncertain about their HIV status and 70 percent were uncertain about the chance they will be infected with HIV in the future.
"In this context, uncertainty about HIV is even more widespread than the disease itself," Trinitapoli said. "Furthermore, testing for HIV does not reduce uncertainty young Malawians experience."
Those uncertain of their HIV status indicated that they want to have children significantly sooner than both those who were sure they have HIV and those who were certain that they did not have the disease.
Trinitapoli said the pattern was the same among both male and female respondents.
According to Trinitapoli, there are several reasons why uncertainty accelerates childbearing in Malawi.
"In Africa, where being a parent is critically important, having children reduces some of life's uncertainties," Trinitapoli said.
Families with many children tend to have a higher status in Malawian culture.
"They may want to take advantage of their current good health," Trinitapoli said. "Another reason is that people believe that having children may prove that they are in good health."
Many people in Malawi believe that a woman with HIV cannot carry a healthy baby to full-term. Having a baby, therefore, is considered a sign that the woman does not have HIV.
Many Malawians want to start their families sooner so they can live long enough to raise their children, Trinitapoli said.
According to the researchers, people experience different levels of uncertainty differently, and this plays a role in decision-making that some may take for granted.
"This type of personal uncertainty is relevant for how people think about their lives and make decisions," Trinitapoli said.
The researchers, who reported their findings in the current issue of the American Sociological Review, selected 1,472 female and 567 male subjects who were between 15 and 25 years old.
To measure uncertainty, the researchers gave the participants ten beans and asked them to place the number of beans on a small plate that corresponded to their likelihood of being HIV positive. For instance, if the participants were certain they were HIV positive, they placed 10 beans on the plate. If they were certain they did not have HIV, they did not put any beans on the plate. People who were uncertain of their HIV status tended to place four, five and six beans on the plate.
Trinitapoli said that the method avoids embarrassing participants and gives them a chance to better communicate their level of certainty.
"How do you communicate probability? It's hard to converse about what we know and what we don't know even in the U.S.," said Trinitapoli. "We just don't have the vocabulary for it."
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
HIV uncertainty pushes Malawians to want children earlierPublic release date: 1-Dec-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Matt Swayne mls29@psu.edu 814-865-9481 Penn State
People in Malawi who are uncertain about their HIV status are more eager to start families than those who are certain of their HIV status, according to researchers.
"In decision-making, what you know you don't know can be just as important as what you do know," said Jenny Trinitapoli, assistant professor of sociology, religious studies and demography, Penn State.
Malawi, a landlocked country in southeast Africa, has both a high fertility rate and a high prevalence of HIV. About 12 percent of the population is infected with the virus that causes AIDS.
More than 30 percent of young Malawians surveyed by Trinitapoli and Sara Yeatman, assistant professor, health and behavioral sciences, University of Colorado, Denver, indicated they were uncertain about their HIV status and 70 percent were uncertain about the chance they will be infected with HIV in the future.
"In this context, uncertainty about HIV is even more widespread than the disease itself," Trinitapoli said. "Furthermore, testing for HIV does not reduce uncertainty young Malawians experience."
Those uncertain of their HIV status indicated that they want to have children significantly sooner than both those who were sure they have HIV and those who were certain that they did not have the disease.
Trinitapoli said the pattern was the same among both male and female respondents.
According to Trinitapoli, there are several reasons why uncertainty accelerates childbearing in Malawi.
"In Africa, where being a parent is critically important, having children reduces some of life's uncertainties," Trinitapoli said.
Families with many children tend to have a higher status in Malawian culture.
"They may want to take advantage of their current good health," Trinitapoli said. "Another reason is that people believe that having children may prove that they are in good health."
Many people in Malawi believe that a woman with HIV cannot carry a healthy baby to full-term. Having a baby, therefore, is considered a sign that the woman does not have HIV.
Many Malawians want to start their families sooner so they can live long enough to raise their children, Trinitapoli said.
According to the researchers, people experience different levels of uncertainty differently, and this plays a role in decision-making that some may take for granted.
"This type of personal uncertainty is relevant for how people think about their lives and make decisions," Trinitapoli said.
The researchers, who reported their findings in the current issue of the American Sociological Review, selected 1,472 female and 567 male subjects who were between 15 and 25 years old.
To measure uncertainty, the researchers gave the participants ten beans and asked them to place the number of beans on a small plate that corresponded to their likelihood of being HIV positive. For instance, if the participants were certain they were HIV positive, they placed 10 beans on the plate. If they were certain they did not have HIV, they did not put any beans on the plate. People who were uncertain of their HIV status tended to place four, five and six beans on the plate.
Trinitapoli said that the method avoids embarrassing participants and gives them a chance to better communicate their level of certainty.
"How do you communicate probability? It's hard to converse about what we know and what we don't know even in the U.S.," said Trinitapoli. "We just don't have the vocabulary for it."
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
TORONTO (Reuters) ? Canadian stocks jumped more than 4 percent on Wednesday in their biggest single-day gain in more than two years, pushed up by an agreement by global central banks to tackle the euro-zone debt crisis and by a move by China to ease credit.
Commodity prices, particularly for oil, gold and base metals, rose on renewed investor optimism for the global economy, lifting the TSX's heavily weighted materials sector 6 percent.
Miner Goldcorp rose 5.4 percent to C$53.98 and Barrick Gold was up 2.8 percent at C$52.90, to lead gains.
Energy issues, up 4.7 percent, and financial stocks, up nearly 4 percent, also were big contributors to the rally as rejuvenated investors pulled their money from the security of government bonds into riskier plays.
Suncor Energy jumped 5.1 percent to C$30.72 to lead energy gains. Royal Bank of Canada led financials, gaining 5 percent to C$47.26.
The move by the TSX index mirrored hefty gains on other global markets as central banks from the world's leading economies, including the Bank of Canada, the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank, agreed to lower the cost of dollar swap lines by 50 basis points, as well other measures.
"Santa has come early and he happens to look a lot like (Fed Chairman) Ben Bernanke, right down to the beard, and in his bag he has lots and lots of U.S. dollars available to exchange for euros in unlimited amounts," said Gavin Graham, president of Graham Investment Strategy.
"All the risk assets, whether it's gold or copper or oil or the Canadian dollar, are all shooting up and it's likely that we'll see a continuation of that (for the rest of the year)," Graham said.
The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index closed up 471.61 points, or 4 percent, at 12,204.11. It was the TSX's biggest single-day gain since March 23, 2009 when the market finished up more than 5 percent.
($1=$1.02 Canadian)
(Editing by Rob Wilson; editing by Peter Galloway)
Customer complaints of faulty brakes have forced Subaru of America to postpone the sales of three of its 2012 models: Impreza, Legacy and the popular Outback.?
So far, 3,000 cars have been sold and have been recalled.?All dealerships stopped selling the vehicles on Nov. 25, Autoweek reported today.?
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had received about 130 complaints about the problem.?
"Some customers said the brakes didn't feel right," Subaru of America spokesman Michael McHale said. "The pedal travels farther than it should. There were no failure issues, no accidents."?
All dealerships will receive new master cylinders to fix the braking issues, according to McHale. The stop-sale is expected to be resolved in a matter of days, possibly early next week, Autoweek reported.?
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Public release date: 1-Dec-2011
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