$5 OFF $25 AT AMAZON: Amazon has a $5/$25 Facebook promotion for anybody who’s interested.
A COUPLE OF SLICKDEALS: One GB of extra Dropbox storage for free, plus Staples has some more good deals this week. One poster has figured out how to make a $25 profit from the current sales.
UNNECESSARY FINANCIAL PRODUCT WATCH: Remember IPad loans? New York City has an equally bad idea: daycare loans.
City Council Speaker Quinn unveiled a pilot program Monday to provide subsidized child care loans to families that she described as “middle class.” Her office describes the plan as the first of its kind in the U.S.
Parents with children aged two to four will be able to receive loans of $11,000, at a 6% interest rate. Applicants must have an annual income of between $80,000 to $200,000, and a credit score of at least 620, according to Quinn’s office.
You’re making six figures… but you take out $11,000 in loans for day care expenses? This reminds me of a certain SNL skit from a while back.
ARRRRRRRRRR: Remember the gasoline arbitrage from a few months ago where folks would buy cheap gasoline in Venezuela and sell it in Colombia? Here’s something along the same lines, except it involves Trader Joe’s and Canada:
Michael Hallatt has spent more than $350,000 at Trader Joe’s in less than two years. But the popular grocery chain doesn’t ever want to see him again.
“I’m their best customer,” he said with a mix of pride and indignation.
Every week, the former Bay Area resident drives his panel van across the border to buy a few thousand dollars worth of merchandise at Trader Joe’s stores in the States. He then turns around and resells the goods at his own shop in Canada for a profit.
Simple, bold, audacious–I love it!
Now, despite the obvious affection Hallatt and his customers have for the eclectic grocer, he finds himself the subject of a lawsuit filed in May by the California company, which has no presence in Canada. The suit seeks to shut down the store he owns in Vancouver that is entirely devoted to reselling Trader Joe’s products.
His response: removing the “P” from his front window, turning Pirate Joe’s into Irate Joe’s. And his cross-border shopping trips continue, even though more and more Trader Joe’s markets are posting his picture.
“Almost all the stores in the Pacific Northwest have asked me to leave,” said Hallatt, 53, a British Columbia native who lived in the Bay Area from 1996 to 2004, lured by the dot-com boom. “This is a little bit David versus Goliath and a little bit Occupy Grocery.”
So the guy is giving Trader Joe’s lots of business, building loyalty for its products, and not hurting their business in any way–and they want to sue him? Go figure.
THE PART-TIME ECONOMY: A pretty ugly graph showing full-time vs part-time job growth:
This is from GaveKal via John Mauldin via Barry Ritholtz.
[…] store called Pirates Joe’s is in an increasing battle with the retailer and now calls himself Irate Joe’s (Personal Finance […]