Half of 2009 is gone already. Time for my 2nd quarter checkup in addition to my normal monthly summary. I began June with a Net Worth of $11,694.48 and ended with $14,652.57, an increase of $2,958.09! As usual, I’ll start with my consolidated cash flows:

My interest and dividends are creeping up ever so slowly due to my cash hoarding. Despite the general stock market turbulence, my unrealized-gains increased a respectable $356.13. My expenses were up quite a bit since May. This can be attributed to buying a Roomba and dating again.

Interest yields stayed flat for me. Due to the magic of compound interest, I’m making slightly more each month than last month. Here are the current interest rates of interest:

• Wamu / Chase: 0.75%
• Emigrant Direct: 1.55%
• ING: 1.5%

Dividends increased for the same reason as interest. My Scottrade portfolio yielded the same (but still impressive) 6.3% while Sharebuilder creeped up to 4%. You can see how I created my Sharebuilder portfolio and what securities I own in it here.

My current assets stayed flat in June as I threw everything I received at my student loans. It dropped slightly because I have $500 in transfer in preparation for payday July 3rd. Investments are up slightly; however, if I ignore contributions they will be flat as well. (Another big drop in my liabilities of $2,883.43! I also noticed that my current assets (cash related) are just slightly less than my total liabilities (total debt). This means that as of today, I will have enough cash to completely eliminate all my debt! I won’t do it since it will leave me without an emergency fund, and leave my system of accounts in disarray. Further, the interest from my student loans is tax-deductible and the credit card arbitrage is 0%.

My short-term ratios are unchanged. I’ve kept my cash situation the same and used my excess to knock out debt. This is demonstrated by my Long Term Liquidity and Leverage ratios. I’m down to 48% debt utilization and my debt-to-equity is below 1 (total liabilities are finally smaller than my net worth)! This is largely psychological, but it gives me a sense of just how leveraged I am.

My wealth performance continues to decline as my wealth increases. My profit margin and savings rate took a major hit with my increased expenses. I’ll need to keep those in check for July. My rate of return (interest and dividends) remained flat for the most part. Right now I include my retirement account which doesn’t generate any cash flow, so I may exclude that in future calculations. Even if it did, I wouldn’t be able to touch them except with a major tax penalty. ROA and ROE were extremely nice even though they are decreasing as well. ROA has been boosted by my casino winnings. ROE is based on my net worth, so it will continue to be difficult to generate these kind of returns.

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The Laffer Curve is a fancy visual way of showing that people really don’t like to pay taxes. As the tax rates increases, revenue from taxes should go up. However, there is a certain point where revenues will decrease as people and companies deem the tax rate too high and either move or simple stop working.

North Carolina has taken steps to demonstrate this economic theory to the world. From my reading of various articles, North Carolina wants to pretend that people who use Amazon’s affiliate program are actually employees of Amazon. This means that Amazon has an official presence in North Carolina, which means that the state is entitled to tax all revenues from the affiliate program. (Currently, unless a company has a physical presence in the state, purchases are tax free.)

Amazon has responded to this in the most obvious way: they have cancelled all affiliate accounts to people who live in North Carolina. Here is the complete email sent to former affiliates:

We are writing from the Amazon Associates Program to notify you that your Associates account has been closed as of June 26, 2009. This is a direct result of the unconstitutional tax collection scheme expected to be passed any day now by the North Carolina state legislature (the General Assembly) and signed by the governor. As a result, we will no longer pay any referral fees for customers referred to Amazon.com or Endless.com after June 26. We were forced to take this unfortunate action in anticipation of actual enactment because of uncertainties surrounding the legislation’s effective date.

Please be assured that all qualifying referral fees earned prior to June 26, 2009 will be processed and paid in full in accordance with our regular referral fee schedule. Based on your account closure date of June 26, 2009, any final payments will be paid by September 1, 2009.

In the event that North Carolina repeals this tax collection scheme, we would certainly be happy to re-open our Associates program to North Carolina residents.

The North Carolina General Assembly’s website is http://www.ncleg.net/, and additional information may be obtained from the Performance Marketing Alliance at http://www.performancemarketingalliance.com/.

We have enjoyed working with you and other North Carolina-based participants in the Amazon Associates Program, and wish you all the best in your future.

Best Regards,

The Amazon Associates Team

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Deuces Wild is my favorite video poker game. I only pay full pay which means that my expected return is close to (or even above) 100% if I play flawlessly. The strategy is easy enough to learn online, but there is software available to help you learn as well.

The trip pretty fantastic even besides the winnings. I was flown out for free, put into a free room, and had all my my meals paid for. I ate at several gourmet restaurants and had some of the best prime rib I can remember.

On my downtime I took the river taxis up and down the Colorado river. Of course the whole trip was filled with some nice down time to get some reading in (which I’ve been neglecting lately).

On the financial side, I left with $1,000 and some change ($30) but came back with $1,700 and change ($150). I don’t count anything below hundred dollar bills for gambling purposes but I ended up with a wad of twenties. I hit 4 deuces twice – once on a dollar machine (paying $1,000) and once on a quarter machine (paying $250). I was very close to having and even $2,000 but I never quite made it. I believe I got as high as $1,800 at my best.

Black Jack continues to be my nemesis. I only played two sessions but managed to be utterly destroyed in both. The amount of the deck that the dealer will play through before reshuffling is known as “the shoe.” I’ve never seen it before, but I managed to go through an entire shoe without winning a single hand.

Still, I cannot complain and I’m sure I’ll be back for more!

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