Jeffrey Yasskin’s blog

What are you supposed to do with all those credit card offers you receive in the mail? Tear them in half and throw them away, you say? No! Why should you go to the trouble (and use the trash can space) to throw away this paper that you didn’t want in the first place? Let the credit card company throw it away instead:

1. Tear off the actual application that they want you to send back, tear it in half, and throw it away yourself, just to make sure that they don’t accidentally sign you up.
2. Pack all the extra stuff that they sent with it into the No postage necessary if mailed in the US envelope, lick it, and put it in your mailbox.

You pay nothing; they pay the postage, plus some fee for privilege of throwing away the trash they sent you. If you’re feeling particularly nasty, you can also include any other junk mail you have lying around to make the envelope heavier. If we all do this, perhaps they’ll figure out that we don’t want their offers.

Spread the meme!

Leftist rag proclaims end of American Dream through drop in social mobility! Read it all at http://www.businessweek.com/@@SV5bKocQnzhS3BUA/magazine/content/03_48/b3860067_mz021.htm.

(You may have to register. If you don’t want to, it’s reprinted at http://reclaimdemocracy.org/weekly_2003/american_dream_death.html)

Edit December 5, 2004

More evidence that the dream is dying can be found at the Rockridge Institute: By 2003, the income and benefits sufficient to reach the [American] Dream for an average family of four in the U.S. reached $46,500, … [but] half of all men who worked full-time and full year earned less than $40,668.