Talkin bout lead generation

A woman I spoke with yesterday on a conference call asked me if I had ever heard of Jigsaw. I hadn't.

Apparently, it's a site where you can obtain individual's names, titles and contact information when you are undertaking a sales prospecting or business development initiative. But, unlike a traditional compiled (e.g., yellow pages) or subscriber (e.g., WSJ) list rental, this database is developed by the users. In other words, I can become a member, feed into the database my contacts and receive contacts in return for free. Or I can get a paid subscription for greater access.

It's a blend of a few things I otherwise like: open source (where users enter content a la Wikipedia), e-bay (where users buy and sell items of some perceived value) and list rental (where, in a perfect world, I can receive a great catalog -- or offer -- if I have somehow indicated a potential interest in the goods/service through my purchasing behavior, demographics or psychographics). However, in this case, I'm not sure I'm pleased with the result.

I am somehow initially resistant to the fact that someone, without my permission, can "sell" my contact information in return for someone else's data. Is this ethical? The truth is, my contact information is posted on our website. It's already in the public domain. So what exactly am I struggling with?

Out of curiosity, I checked for my email address in the "Are You in Jigsaw" section and I thankfully was not there. However, I noticed that under the "Most Purchased Contacts" section, most of the names were in IT. Contact data for the CTO of Pfizer has been purchased 136 times; the data for another person at Medtronic has been purchased 293 times. Ugh. That's a lot of cold calls to field. No thanks!

Given the current inclination towards IT contacts, I then typed the email address of a friend who is in IT services. It stated the following, "Your contact information has been bought 1 times, earning you 1 Jigsaw points."

I would guess that he's a user. And that he hasn't sold me yet.

To misquote Pete Townshend/Roger Daltrey, "Hope I die before I get sold."

U.S. Economy Could Fall Casualty to Wars

That's today's headline on CNN.com. The article goes on to say that:

• In 2008, its sixth year, the war will cost approximately $12 billion a month, triple the "burn" rate of its earliest years
• By 2017, it is projected to cost the U.S. budget between $1.7 trillion and $2.7 trillion
  
• Interest on money borrowed to pay those costs could alone add $816 billion to that bottom line
• These numbers don't include the war's cost to the rest of the world
• Estimating all economic and social costs might push the U.S. war bill up toward $5 trillion by 2017
• These calculations are conservative and don't encompass many "hidden" items in the U.S. budget

And so on . . .

Check my math because I'm not great at these things but, assuming out of the 300M people in the U.S. that 80% are footing the bill for this through their taxes (i.e., 240M), does that mean that each person is spending roughly $50/month today (or $600/year) and that figure will rise to over $11K annually per capita in a decade (in today's dollars)? Please point out my error and tell me that I'm wrong.

Is this a good reason to strive to earn more so that the hit to my wallet doesn't seem that gigantic or a stronger incentive to earn significantly less (i.e., live off the government and lower my taxes) so that I don't have to personally fund this colossal nightmare?