The performance schedule for The Toxic Avenger is Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday at 8PM, Saturday at 2PM & 8PM and Sunday at 3PM & 7PM. Tickets are $51.50 & $71.50 and may be purchased through TeleCharge at (212) 239-6200/www.telecharge.com. However, the good folks over at the Toxic Avenger musical have offered to give readers of this blog a discount on ticket prices through July 31st, 2009. If you use the code TOBLOG409 or click on this particular link to purchase tickets, you can get them for $45!

I’m hoping to clear up some space in my schedule to get into New York City to see this musical (and not just because the Toxic Avenger is New Jersey’s first superhero!). The reviews on this play have been great including reviews from the New York Times and the New York Daily News. Anyway, if any of you get a chance to get over there and see the show, let me know!

There is a national organization called the Project on Student Debt who is really the leader in this field. They’ve helped advocate for so many beneficial new programs for student loan borrowers, not the least of which is the new public service forgiveness program that will help thousands of high debt graduates. One of the initiatives that they publicly advocate for on their website is the possibility of making student loan interest a federal tax credit as opposed to an income tax deduction; coupled with this is increasing the amount that could be credited from the current $2,500 to up to $4,000.

I recently asked the good folks over at the Project on Student Debt for an update on this initiative and this is their reply:

I’m not aware of any major progress on this. Congress is pretty focused on the budget process right now, which includes a different tax credit (for tuition). We’ll keep our email subscribers updated if anything changes, but right now I’m not aware of a legislative vehicle in the works that could move this forward in the short-term.

First and foremost, if you are interested in getting updates on student loan legislation, I encourage you to sign-up for their e-mail list (which you can do by clicking here). Second, it is a real shame that the federal tax credit for student loan interest has no champion in the Congress right now. This could be a crucial piece of legislation that has the potential to ease some of the burden that many high debt student loan borrowers are faced with due to their education.

If this initiative ever gained steam and passed Congress, it would save many high debt student loan borrowers (*cough* like me *cough*) a great deal of money in the long-term. Personally, I’d like to see the total amount of student loan interest that could be credited increased to a higher dollar amount like $10,000 per year. At that level, almost all student loan borrowers would fall within the program’s guidelines.

Americans are saving their money again.

That’s right. Americans have finally begun to reverse their trend of spending more money than they earn, at least in some small part. The good folks north of the border at the Globe and Mail ran an article about this returning phenomenon the other day where they shared some historical stats:

Americans are suddenly spending less than they earn. While that might not sound heretical or surprising – how long can you go on spending more money than you earn? – it is an epochal moment for the free-spending United States. After saving an average of more than 7 per cent of disposable income until almost 1990, the United States went into a savings tailspin. Savings rates fell, in fits and starts, from 8 per cent, through 6 per cent in the early 1990s, to 2 per cent around 2000, to the ignominy of a negative savings rate by mid-2005.

Now, however, that is changing rapidly. November economic data showed U.S. savings spiked to 2.8 per cent of disposable income, up from zero at the beginning of 2008. Is it that Americans have suddenly figured out that saving is a good thing, or are they taking some sort of moral stand against profligate spending?

Look at that! At the beginning of 2008, Americans were saving zero percent of their disposable income, but towards the end of the year we were up around three percent. Alright! Go America! What does this mean for the world? The writer of this piece, Paul Kedrosky, gives us some idea…

To put it in context, a U.S. savings rate of minus 1 per cent meant roughly $2-million a minute was flowing out of U.S. consumer savings into other things, mostly consumption, like TVs and home renovations, and so on. Or, on an annual basis, that worked out to almost $1.3-trillion exiting the U.S. banking system for other places.

Turn that around, however, and things get very different, very quickly. At a 3-per-cent savings rate, the United States will see $3.8-trillion showing up next year in the banking system just from domestic savers. At 7 per cent, almost $9-trillion will come rushing in as part of the savings tsunami. It is a fire hose of money pointed at the banks, and it’s just beginning.

Ha! How about that, world? The market is up the creek right now, but America is going to get its value back and we’re going to get it from saving more of our own money. It’s simple cause and effect, right? If you want more money in the banking system without draining more taxpayer dollars, then you PUT IT there via savings accounts.

And that’s just what this country is fixing to do. Let’s go bigger and better than a 3% savings rate. All Americans should sit down and look at their personal annual budget and try to earmark 5% of their annual earnings for savings only. And why not go even bigger and better than that? Budget 5% of your income for savings and another 5% for donations to one or two United States-based charitable organizations of your choosing. Your first 5% helps provide for your future and your second 5% helps to build up another community within your own nation.

If you can afford to do it, then why not?