Fantastic plastic

Click HERE to read today's column, where we look at the weirdness in credit card markets, namely, lines of credit getting chopped.

This weirdness started last year, but the year before that, on October 26, 2007, I gave a heads up; here's the piece. So, yeah, uh, "told you so."

About a year later, the headlines started noticing a credit card crunch. Here's a November 14, 2008 piece in the Wall Street Journal's Smart Money. And here's a March 3, 2009 piece from Bloomberg.com.

I know that credit cards aren't as common in Saipan as in the mainland, and there are a lot of folks who are just learning about this realm. For them, a handy link is ClarkHoward.com. Clark Howard sometimes lists the best credit cards (you can do a search for that on his site), which is a useful starting point.

Of tourists and wings

Click HERE for today's column, in which we do some hangar flying and note that China is now producing Airbus airliners. This is an impressive milestone in China's economic development, and the implications for the west Pacific tourism industry are positive indeed.

If today's column interests you, then you can see this link (about the launch of the first Chinese-built A320) and this link (about Boeing's 787 struggles) and this link (about Airbus' latest struggle).

A free six-pack

Click HERE for this week's column, in which I suggest six free programs that are ideal for older computers. Paradoxically enough, good freeware is often better and more efficient than the bloated commercial products out there.

The waters are stirring

Click HERE for today's column, which highlights the Pacific's changing naval scene, including last week's incident off of Subic Bay between a U.S. Navy destroyer and a Chinese submarine.

Broken windows

Here's the link to today's column.

And here's the link to the related police report.

Looking and leaping

Given Saipan’s lousy state of affairs, bailing to the states never looked so good.

Unfortunately, bailing to the states never looked so bad, either; the economy is shedding over a half million private sector jobs per month.

These thoughts are continued in today's column.

Wage stuff and bigger issues, too

Economically, there's so much doggone stuff brewing now that it's hard to know where to start. The minimum wage is a good place, but there are bigger things to contemplate as well, so I also offer some insights into upcoming topics in this week's column. Once again I can't resist the temptation to mention economist Joseph A. Schumpeter, who had an eerily accurate understanding of how mass psychology meshes with economics.

Computers for the Commonwealth

Many people don't know about these yet, but super-small "netbooks" computers are starting a trend in computing.

The first models were, well, "cute" and "intriguing," but that was about it. But the latest models are downright impressive. I think they're just the thing for island living; they're easy to tote, they're cheap, and some models can go as many as six to nine hours on battery power.

When the world is right

"When the man is right, the world is right." That's the moral of a story I got from W. Clement Stone, and I took it to heart as a kid (still do, actually). At the time I had no idea I'd actually get to meet Mr. Stone. So here's today's column.

Chinese 24/7

As a beginning student in Mandarin Chinese, I've been wading through a galaxy of books--phrase books, grammar books, writing books, and text books. The best I've found so far is Chinese 24/7, which I review in today's Tribune. This book has really helped me out a lot.

Here are some related links, as promised in my review:

The book's author, Albert Wolfe, is also author of Laowaichinese.net, and it's via this site that I discovered Chinese 24/7.

Chinese 24/7 has associated audio files that are free to download at Chinese247book.com, which also carries more information about the book.