Everybody Loves Your Money

I have posted about this subject before but I recently read an article that did a good job of explaining this.  A professor got access to a database of people that have been participating in a study for the last 25 years.  It started when they were in college and now these people are in their forties.  While the original study didn’t cover finances, it did measure the people’s IQ’s.  Jay Zagorsky, who is an economist at Ohio State University, contacted 7403 of the original 10,000 people that are in the database and asked them a series of financial questions to see where they were at.

Some highlights from the article:

-Each point increase in IQ is associated with $202 to $616 more income per year

-Even though people make more money, the smart ones don’t end up with more wealth

-17.5 percent of those with an IQ of 75 or below missed payments

-11.8 percent of those with an IQ above 125 missed payments

-On average, people are off by 62 cents for every dollar of wealth they actually have (They think they are worth less)

Overall, this article was a good read.  I would recommend checking it out.  If you haven’t already calculated your net worth, hurry up and do it!  You can’t tell if you are moving forward if you don’t know where you are.

I love technology just as much as the next guy and have been watching the Optimus keyboard as it winds it’s way through the design and production lifecycle.  It’s pretty revolutionary as far as keyboards go.  Rather than have static, fixed text on each key, it has dynamic OLED icons on each keyboard so that you can map the keys any way you like.  The icons are even in color.  I don’t think keyboards are going to get much sexier in a technology way for a long time after this.  So, am I lined up to preorder one?  Nope.  They want over $1500 for this keyboard.  I’m having trouble understanding how anyone could or would justify spending $1500 on just a keyboard.  A standard, run of the mill keyboard these days will set you back about $15 at any local computer store (not Best Buy or Circuit City.  I’m talking about the “Mom and Pop” stores).  Anyway, I won’t be buying one of these any time soon.  I’ll let other people cover the research and development costs of this.  It’s only a matter of time before the technology is commoditized to the point that these keyboards won’t cost much more than a standard one.  I’ll still drool over the thought (yeah, I know, I’ve been drooling a lot lately) of having one of these, but I won’t hold my breath for a massive price drop any time soon.