from wiki:
In North American digital video, a QAM tuner is a device present in some digital televisions and similar devices which enables direct reception of digital cable channels without the use of a set-top box. QAM stands for “quadrature amplitude modulation” the format by which digital cable channels are encoded and transmitted via cable. The law does not require the cable provider to advertise their availability.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAM_tuner

I have always been the saver type. It is one reason for my first divorce. When I retired at 55 my ex got really pissed and claimed she didn’t get enough out of the divorce even though she was making 30% more than me and got the better half as it was. I paid child support for years and was never late, which was a good lesson in frugality. When I told her I paid my house off early and had no debt she almost mocked me (now remember she is the one still working) and told me how much money she got by refinancing her house with a 30 year ARM. She even called it “free money”. I asked her when and how much the loan would reset to I got a dear in the headlights look. It was obvious she didn’t know the loan payments would go up. She is a very intelligent woman but she is definitely a credit junkie. She just lost her job on top of that. I wish her luck and maybe now she will learn a little bit about saving.

Anyway theBP story is Menards pre-Christmas had it at $40 and on the 26th at $70.
So I figure it went … pre-holiday gotta roll in the dirt for every sale possible in the nearly required purchase’g season and post big day back to standard profit scheme.
Not sure when things get back to desperate.

Advice – on the digital tv switch over – I purchased for the White Sox World Series a HD.DTV CRT set (signal from air). A year ago I got a DTV LCD set for my picture window to show digital pictures to the passing public. When it came inside for the Christmas display I realized Comcast is sending digital signals down the pipes and the QuadCities has old tv programs on D4.2 … but the rub is the chip set in the World Series set is not capable of that subsignal reception provided by cable. Got in to early for that imbed technology. On a good day I can get at 80 miles out D4.2 from the air on that Sox set – but the re-programing from air to cable and back is a b^#@h.

Just hope this translates into some fantastic deals. Our 10-15 yr old Sony CRT took another step towards the grave last week. Strangely, Best Buy raised the price on the 42 in. replacement candidate. I suppose they think people will assume that all prices have been cut and blindly buy. Maybe they are right.

Sitting tight to wait for the new merchandise from CES to force some closeout deals, although some of the new models look mighty tasty.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a0OmGIoDXz20&refer=us

“Best Buy Co. fell 5.3 percent to $28.08. The largest U.S. electronics chain said December sales dropped after holiday discounts failed to draw shoppers. Revenue from stores open at least 14 months declined 6.5 percent, the retailer said. ”

This appears to me to say that it isn’t a delay in purchases, but a new mindset about buying less electronic stuff….There was already less competition from Circuit City, but Best Buy still couldn’t get rid of their merchandise.

I would vote yes on the just begun deleveraging..

Went something like this:

Wife: “Why didn’t people save?”

Me: “Some people thought they were being conservative by not taking out their home equity, that was
their ’savings’ so they didn’t worry about it, now it’s gone.”

Wife: “So why didn’t people save as the home equity went away?”

Me: “They still had a lot of money in stocks and 401ks. If they were following the idea of having 3-6 months emergency fund, to many that was it. Now it’s half gone.”

Wife: “So you think they’ve learned their lesson and will save now?”

Me: “I hope so, but the government is trying to make the value of savings worthless to get people to invest. If they do save like they really need to, the economy is going to suck for years. If they don’t save, we’ll have an even bigger crash in the future.”

Wife: “What about tax cuts?”

Me: “If I were your friend with a sudden wake up call like that, I’d save it, wouldn’t you? If people have learned anything at all, any tax cut should go towards paying off part of the highest interest rate debt someone has. The government is counting on that not being true.”

Wife: “Well yeah, but that’s what we did all along…”

That about right? What would you have said differently? We did also discuss briefly the effect of inflation on savings then went back to much more fun stuff, like the Orlando Magic game we’d just come from where they killed Atlanta 121-87

Yes or no, we’ll see a lot of that in coming quarters.

I guess people finally started listening to ‘crazy’ old uncle Joe in the corner this Christmas