@Eðo Grischun Two coins just sold.

The New Peculiar Way fee has been received for the 55th Cosa Election.

PAID FEES:

The Free Democrats of Talossa have PAID IN FULL.
The League of Centre Conservatives has PAID IN FULL.
The New Peculiar Way has PAID IN FULL.

@

Okay, there are at least two serious problems here:

1) The coin link isn't using the correct HTML button code.  The critical bits that make it actually work have gone missing.  The code between the <center> tags should read:

<form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" target="_top">
<input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_s-xclick">
<input type="hidden" name="hosted_button_id" value="M92FV56Z58VA2">
<input type="image" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_buynowCC_LG.gif" border="0" name="submit" alt="PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!">
<img alt="" border="0" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" height="1">
</form>

2) We do not have free shipping on stamps anymore no matter how many you buy, and haven't at any point where we were selling coins, because the PayPal back end wasn't happy with that.  The last version of the stamps page I edited did not offer free shipping.  (That was back on the kingdomoftalossa.net domain, back when we had two separate websites running in parallel, so apparently this is a survival from a pre-coins copy-over that I wasn't involved in.)

More than fourteen days having passed since the above notice, and DoRoyal having just sent me an invoice for the renewal, I went ahead and paid it a couple minutes ago.

The League of Centre Conservatives fee has been received for the 55th Cosa Election.

PAID FEES:

The Free Democrats of Talossa have PAID IN FULL.
The League of Centre Conservatives have PAID IN FULL.

As I said as Arvitieir Prima of Benito, our rough provincial SoS-equivalent, in the "Dissolution of the 54th Cosa; Call for Elections" thread:

Quote from: Istefan Perþonest on July 06, 2020, 05:22:44 PMBenito will be continuing its long tradition of having the Chancery run our elections.

So, yes, both Senate and local, please.

The accompanying ballot text should remain the same as last election, yes, thank you.

The Free Democrats of Talossa fee has been received for the 55th Cosa Election.

PAID FEES:

The Free Democrats of Talossa have PAID IN FULL.

Quote from: Istefan Perþonest on July 09, 2020, 05:17:01 PM

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on July 08, 2020, 06:42:45 PM
Party registration fee already paid, I believe; can the Burgermeister confirm?

Due to a technical issue with how it was made, PayPal is saying it'll clear tomorrow.  So, though it's been sent, I'm not yet counting it as actually paid.

And now cleared.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on July 08, 2020, 06:42:45 PM
Party registration fee already paid, I believe; can the Burgermeister confirm?

Due to a technical issue with how it was made, PayPal is saying it'll clear tomorrow.  So, though it's been sent, I'm not yet counting it as actually paid.

So, an Ally savings rate drop is happening for the third month in a row.  As of July 8th, we go from 1.10% APY to 1.00% APY.

Yeah, that's from 1.50% to 1.00% in three months.  But all the other places offering "high-yield" savings accounts are dropping their rates, too, so there's nowhere obvious to run to.

Anyway.  It's not a crisis, and I don't think there's anything sensible we can do about it, but now you're all up-to-date.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on July 05, 2020, 05:17:26 PM
Out of sheer curiosity, can I ask whether the provincial authorities in Maritiimi-Maxhesti, Benito, Vuode and Cézembre will be conducting their own Senäts elections, or getting the Chancery to do so (with reference to OrgLaw V:7)? The Free Democrats need to know to whom to address our candidate registrations

Benito will be continuing its long tradition of having the Chancery run our elections.

Per The 54th Cosa Budget, disbursements require notifying the Ziu at least 14 days in advance.  And the renewal dates on our hosting plan and domain name are July 23rd.

I am accordingly informing the Ziu that I do intend to disburse the budgeted funds to those ends in order to renew our hosting and domain name.

Another month, another cut on the interest rate  Ally's now down to 1.10% APY.  Which is consistent with what everyone else is doing; Varo's down to 1.21%, for example.  As goes the Federal Reserve guidance, so go the banks . . .

Quote from: GV on May 28, 2020, 10:11:50 AMAlly has been solid for us so far, I think?

Yep.  Nary a problem in the 7+ years we've been with 'em for checking, no fees, and the savings account rate's always been at least competitive.

(There are a few established places offering 1.30% APY right now for balances in our range, but they're places that don't also support checking accounts.  Trading $0.50 or so a year in interest for fast and easy transfers from savings to checking and back is, in my opinion, entirely worthwhile.)

Quote from: Breneir Itravilatx on May 15, 2020, 04:09:30 PM
Burgermeister,

Can you share a bit more info about Varo? I am familiar with Ally Bank but not this particular institution.

Breneir

Varo Money is a app-centered "fintech" startup base in San Francisco, something like three years old, that just got formal regulatory approval to be a "real" national US bank.

That kind of background means I'm a little bit concerned that if we swapped to them, we could have troubles as a result of them going under.  Not lose-the-deposit troubles, since they're FDIC insured (that is, the US government backs depositors to $250,000, an amount we're well under), but still various possible difficulties involving access.  That made a switch not worthwhile given that it translated to a bit over $3/year in interest at our current balance, but if Ally cut rates again this year and if Varo Money stayed where it was, then it might have become worthwhile, which is why I was keeping an eye on them.

You might notice I used the past tense there.  They've dropped their rate to 1.41% since my last post, which not only means the immediate incentive went down, but indicates that they will indeed drop rates pretty much in concert with the overall market (including Ally) in the future.  Which isn't remotely surprising, but also means it's not worth the hassle of a switchover, or risks that might attend their going under.