Friday Grab Bag

Here's where we get to all the cool stuff that we discovered this week, from interesting news tidbits to sweet technology that we never knew existed. You never know what you'll get in the Friday grab bag. Enjoy!

Go Out to Eat; Pay What you Want

The Java Street Café in Ohio has taken prices off its menu, instead asking customers to pay what they want for their meal. You might expect people to pay for their soups and sandwiches with whatever loose change they have in their pockets. But café owner Sam Lippert says his balance sheet isn’t hurting at all; Most people just appreciate having the opportunity to pay what they think is fair, he says. Some customers pay a little less, some pay a little more. It all evens out.

Quote of the Week

Gregory Hess, finance professor at Claremont McKenna, likens our country's unsellable, rotten mortgage-backed securities to a type of food I personally can’t stand--sausage. "If you've made sausage, can you put the meat back together again? But even if there's only one small bit of the sausage that's bad, you're not going to want to eat the sausage” Hess says. “You can't undo it. So what you have to do is create a new market for questionable sausage. And in the end, everyone is going to have to hold their nose and eat some of it."

Mmmm...can’t wait.

Government Garage Sale

Like many states, Minnesota’s budget is far from balancing. Instead of increasing taxes or cutting spending, though, lawmakers Geoff Michel and Laura Brod propose selling off public assets -- specifically, the Minnesota St. Paul International Airport and the Minnesota State Lottery. While a host of security concerns come with privatizing an airport, it’s refreshing to see some out-of-the-box thinking. “With an economy in recession and a growing state budget deficit, it is time for the state to consider bold and dramatic measures,” Brod says.

Audit the Federal Reserve?

Congressman Ron Paul, who you may remember from the 2008 presidential primaries, has introduced the Federal Reserve Transparency Act. In it, he calls for a complete audit of the Fed in order to see exactly what it’s doing with taxpayer money. Paul’s ultimate goal -- he doesn’t deny -- is to phase out the institution altogether. Many blame the Federal Reserve for the inflation of the American dollar, citing a 95% decrease in buying power since the Fed’s creation in 1913.

Scam Alert

Online job hunters beware: this scam preys on the unemployed. A job hunter applies for a position they see online, only to get an e-mail back asking to sign up with a specific credit report provider before the employer will review your qualifications. Don’t be fooled, this is really just a ploy to gain traffic for the credit report website. Legitimate employers will never ask you to supply your own credit report or score. 

The Unshredder

Enron’s nightmare or identity thief’s dream?

The latest document reconstruction technology works by scanning shredded pieces on both sides, then lets the computer try to put them back together again based on paper shape, texture, ink color, and font or handwriting style. The technology comes in handy for criminal and legitimate activity alike.  Take, for example, the 15 German volunteers who are attempting to reassemble what the Stasi East German secret police shredded back in 1989. The volunteers started the reconstruction process by hand, spending six years hand-taping scraps together from 323 of the 16,250 black garbage bags of shreds they collected after the Berlin wall came down. Now, new technology at a cost of only 30 million Euros will finish the work that, if done manually, would have taken over 300 lifetimes. 

The Secret Service Fights Fraud with Cool Gadgets