“Will Dropouts Save America?”

“If start-up activity is the true engine of job creation in America, one thing is clear: our current educational system is acting as the brakes. Simply put, from kindergarten through undergraduate and grad school, you learn very few skills or attitudes that would ever help you start a business. Skills like sales, networking, creativity and comfort with failure.”

Read more at the New York Times.

eBay is no longer a viable way to flip old stuff for a reasonable return.

Recently, I’ve tried selling things I don’t need on eBay. I’ve done this off-and-on for the past 10 years, without much change. However, in the past two weeks, selling $800 worth of merchandise has generated a whopping $85 in fees. “How is this possible?”

Turns out— In the past year, eBay has secretly increased their “final value” fees to a whopping…
… 9.0% of the selling price! (link)

Does it stop there? No. There are PayPal fees (additional 3% or more), picture/listing/auction fees, Buy It Now fees, shipping costs, and occasional issues with fraud and non-paying bidders. All this doesn’t even include the time and hassle of selling everything yourself and typing out listings.

I recently tweeted that eBay still charges 15/cents for each picture, as well. 

…Is eBay even worth it anymore? Lots of people make their living on eBay, but for the casual seller … I don’t think that anybody can willingly afford this. To put this fee increase into perspective: Using the old fee schedule (from March 2010), I would have only had to pay approximately $35 to sell the same items. The new fees account to at least ~200% more in hidden costs.

“Expect to see fewer people using auction style listings since there is no way to cover the increase in selling fees. More fixed price (immediate purchase) listings will be used and prices will be raised moderately to cover the increased final value fees. New users who don’t notice the hidden final value fees will be shocked when they are billed $35.00 for selling their Playstation 3 (or whatever), have to pay $25.00 in shipping, and another $9.00 in PayPal fees. Suddenly that $300 they got from their sale has dropped down to around $225.” (source)

Why I gave up drinking, and never plan to start again….

Disclaimer: I will occasionally have a glass of red wine with dinner. But only if it’s offered by the host.

While I was never an alcoholic per-say, do still have alcohol around the house, and still often provide it to others… I don’t drink at-all anymore. I realized shortly after quitting about a month ago that alcohol literally never did anything for me except create blurred memories that were more or less worthless, yet still enjoyable. However, the human mind is structured in a way that we habitually focus on remembering “the good times” and not the mediocre or bad…, and to tell you the truth, I don’t think it was worth it!

Many people seriously look back at their college careers (or college-aged careers…) as “learning to drink” or “the biggest party they’d ever been to” (see video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbsdlSpA2GU). I’ve definitely had some nights with too many drinks, some nights that started off badly and were made worse by alcohol, some nights that never should have happened if it weren’t for alcohol (these are generally the worst), but also some nights that never would have happened if it weren’t for alcohol (these are some of the best). You have to pick and choose your battles.

For now, no more drinking. Plus, someone bet me a drink that I wouldn’t go through with it. :)