THE DEALS KEEP COMING: I don’t why people are so gloomy about the future of points and miles harvesting–the deals keep coming! If you’re not feeling sufficiently informed, MilesAbound can fill you in on the Citi AA 100K offer. And if you’re ready to jump on it, here’s the direct link.

TURN THE POST OFFICE INTO A BANK?: A recent report from the USPS Office of the Inspector General suggests that an expansion into financial services would be good for the postal service. The Fiscal Times reports:

To be clear, the USPS is not looking to become a bank, per se. Under the proposal, it would not seek a bank charter and would not offer many of the products, such as mortgage loans and certificates of deposit, which traditional banks do. It would only look to offer services such as check-cashing, prepaid debit cards and small loans. The aim would be to compete in the world of non-bank financial services, populated by check-cashing stores, payday lenders and pre-paid card vendors.

Consumers could cash a check at the Post Office with the option to put the money on a reloadable prepaid “Postal Card” that could be used to withdraw money from ATM machines or make purchases online or at stores. The proposal also suggests placing surcharge-free ATMs in the 35,000 post offices nationwide, and developing online services that would allow consumers to pay their bills electronically and manage the money on their Postal Card account.

I, for one, look forward to hearing more about this “Postal Card”.

THANKS!: High praise for PFD from the Free-quent Flyer:

It’s not for everybody, but if you have some time I suggest heading over there and just casually scrolling through the first few pages of posts. The thing is, the posts are very dense, so it’s not always immediately clear what’s a potentially huge new opportunity and what’s just odds and ends from around the internet.

Lots of cool stuff and minimal spoon-feeding, that’s how we roll around here! Mostly because spoon-feeding posts take too long to write.

Speaking of Freequent Flyer, he’s got a helpful post up on a product which may be interesting to some of you. I did an experiment a few weeks ago and inserted links to a couple of financial products into an excruciatingly boring and incomprehensible quote from an early modern philosopher. (For the record: Spinoza sucks, and I recommend against reading anything he’s ever written.) One was that Jackson Hewitt card, and the other was this one. I did this to see if anybody would click on the links but nobody did. I’ve yet to determine whether my experiment was either a great success or a total failure.

THE STARBUCKS GIFT CARD ECONOMY: Thanks to gift cards, Starbucks is raking in the dough:

Starbucks reported yesterday that its customers added $1.4 billion to its payment platforms in the past quarter, a figure no doubt boosted by a brisk trade in gift cards given as stocking stuffers last month.

Even to a company the size of Starbucks, that sum is impressive—it represents one-third of total sales in the period. Of course, Starbucks can’t recognize that cash as revenue until it is exchanged for drinks and snacks, but that doesn’t stop the company from investing it. Starbucks money managers are fond of high-grade corporate bonds, Treasury notes, and certificates of deposit that mature in three to 12 months, according to the company’s SEC filings.

A Starbucks spokesman declined to detail how much has been earned in such investments recently, but at the end of September the company had $621 million sitting on its payment platforms. And the company’s interest income suggests that the little side business is getting lucrative for the coffee chain. In the past four quarters, Starbucks has made $146 million on interest alone—or 8 percent of total profit. And the company has to do relatively little for those easy earnings, just buy some plastic cards and make sure the app is running smoothly.

Gift cards represent one third of Starbucks’ sales? No wonder they’re being so aggressive with their marketing.

REAL ESTATE: Note to self: do not build mansions below giant boulders. More pictures at the link, including a nice shot of an even bigger boulder that stopped just short of this unfortunately situated dwelling.