"He may be Nails, but I'm frickin'bayonets...battle-tested bayonets!"
- Charlie Sheen (Lunatic)
If an entrepeneur speculates is that bad? If there is no speculation where does motivation come from that forces action. Gordan Gecko stated, “Speculation Kills.” Gordan had a way of controlling the markets that he invested in leaving speculation to the dogs. I believe that speculation is good when backed with historic truth and fact. A speculation fabricates from imagination backed by emotion could be detrimental to your health. Food for thought…..
Some individuals believe that schooling is completely unnecessary. The BLS reported last Friday that the unemployment rate nationwide rose to 9.8%, however those with at lease a bachelor’s degree were only at 5.1% ( still a 41Y high), compared to high school graduates at 10.0% and those without high school diplomas at 15.7%. While the degrees are not necessary for your own business it is wise to obtain a degree for future employment for someone else.
BofA looks to sell toxic mortgages worth $1 billion: report link from: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101213/ts_nm/us_bankofamerica_toxic
Federal Funds Target: Remains at a target range of 0bp to 25bp (hovering around 12bp). Discount Rate: Unchanged at 0.75% Reserve Balances: 25bp Policy Bias: Like last meeting, the FOMC maintained their risk bias to growth Market Reaction: Treasury yields were up 10bp before the announcement and are now up 13bp. The DOW was up 68pts before and now up 67pts. The Statement: As expected, the last FOMC meeting of the year was uneventful. The Statement was identical. While growth indicators have firmed some of late, the move up in the unemployment rate has been an exception that is notable since it is so central to the Fed’s mandate (but a lagging indicator). As such, combined with more trouble in Europe, any upgrading of the growth discussion was held in check. While the potential changes in fiscal policy were almost certainly discussed at the meeting (with stronger counter arguments against the continuation of quantitative easing), the statement itself was largely unchanged. Again, KC Fed Chief Tom Hoenig was the only official dissent. The Statement continue to reference that housing “remains depressed,” “inflation is somewhat low” relative to the mandate and unemployment is at a rate that is “elevated.” The recovery is continuing, but remains “insufficient to bring down employment.” In addition, the money statement that the benchmark rate will be “exceptionally low for an extended period” remained in the verbiage. The takeaway here is that Fed is won’t move explicit rates anytime soon, will continue with QE2 and will wait …Continue Reading
Lending to U.S. small businesses fell in the third quarter, showing the companies that account for more than half of total job creation are still struggling to emerge from the recession. Net borrowing by non-financial non-corporate businesses shrank by $162.7 billion at an annual rate from July through September, the seventh consecutive quarterly decrease, according to the Federal Reserve’s Flow of Funds report released today in Washington. Still, it was the smallest drop of the contraction in lending that began in the first three months of 2009. Small companies are “still hurting and working toward healing and not borrowing,” said Julia Coronado, chief economist for North America at BNP Paribas in New York, who worked on the report as a Fed economist. “They’re paying down bank loans, they’re paying down mortgages.” Sales expectations at small businesses turned positive for the first time in five months in October, according to a survey last month by the National Federation of Independent Business, indicating firms may begin expanding in coming months. At the same time, the value of their assets has fallen, making it harder to qualify for loans, Coronado said. Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has said these companies account for 60 percent of job creation, meaning bigger payroll gains a lower unemployment hinge on their willingness and ability to spend. Construction Companies Non-financial, non-corporate businesses are firms that are not publicly traded. While they can include large companies, many are small businesses, real-estate investment concerns and construction firms, said Coronado. Larger …Continue Reading
Fed changing unemployment rate.
If you have found this post because you have either been turned down for a mortgage application or you are concerned you may, you’re in luck. You should find more information than you may have thought you need. Since credit scores started being used to determine financial worthiness there has been a lot of talk about “unfair” the process can be. If you know a few simple facts about how to make sure you achieve and maintain an acceptable credit score, I believe you will come to agree the credit scoring models are quite fair. There are far too many articles on the internet already about the history of credit scores, the ranges of credit scores and the companies who provide credit scores and the scoring models. It would be a waste of your time to repeat that here. Instead we are going to talk straight about how you probably came to have low credit scores and what you need to do about it. Step One – It’s time to get to work. If you have a low score one of four things have probably happened: You defaulted on a loan and it went to collection You have been late on payments, probably more than one You have abused your credit privileges and all of your accounts are “maxed out” You have had a repossession or foreclosure If you have lower scores and you qualify for a loan you may not qualify for the rates or terms you see advertised. Those 0.0% auto financing ads? They …Continue Reading
While CFOs see lots to like in the Small Business Jobs and Credit Act signed into law last month, many complain that its benefits don’t offset the injurious effects of other White House tax and health-care-related policies. “The new act certainly makes a difference by increasing access to lending,” says Dennis Reinoehl, CFO of Indianapolis-based Waddell Power, a wholesaler of batteries to companies in the Midwest. The 61-employee company, which has slowly been boosting its workforce after five layoffs in May 2009, may well accelerate hiring a bit because of the stimulus. But in a Washington environment that Reinoehl believes “is just antibusiness, and against anybody that tries to form a business,” the new law lacks the business-boosting effect it could have at the firm. Among his biggest concerns is an element of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that requires companies to file 1099 forms for purchases of $600, something he considers “atrocious and offensive.” Such underlying arguments among small-company CFOs — Waddell’s annual revenues are around $15 million — keep enthusiasm muted for even the most promising provisions of the measure President Obama signed into law on September 27. Besides extending SBA loan programs, one provision creates a $30 billion fund to channel capital to small banks. Others eliminate capital-gains taxes on small-company investments, expand the expensing of capital investments — increasing eligible investments qualifying for immediate write-off to $500,000 from $250,000 — and extend the 50% “bonus depreciation” through 2010. The act also allows entrepreneurs to …Continue Reading
Social media, and social networking in particular, create a back-and-forth conversation with your target audience, so you can virally market your website through the “buzz” that can be created. When something interesting, cool, or unique is being talked about in “all the right places,” it can certainly provide a boost in website traffic. We search marketers tend to hang out in numerous online and offline communities where it’s easy to promote our own products and services, yet I can’t help wondering if our view of Web marketing is skewed because of this. Are potential B2B clients and even B2C customers spending time at Digg? Do they attend SEM conferences in order to hire a company, or are they just trying to learn to do it themselves? And what about other industries? Is there a Sphinn equivalent for developers of product lifecycle management software? Are there groups of people online comparing the various brands of auto parts? Are there really people seeking out articles on these topics? Perhaps. And if so, we’d be remiss not to promote our clients’ websites in those spaces. But is this search marketing? Or is it simply online marketing? Arguably, it becomes search marketing when it increases link popularity, but surely that should be the secondary goal of this type of marketing campaign. True link popularity comes from having something worth linking to, not something you’ve asked your insulated group of cronies to link to. Certainly, the boost in direct traffic that a site can gain when …Continue Reading
Social network marketing can be intimidating but it is something that online entrepreneurs can handle themselves by acquiring proper skills and tools. Five years ago, making money online was new territory. Few blogs existed on the subject, very few marketers knew how to commercialize services such as AdSense pay-per-click and affiliate marketing networks, and even fewer foresaw the massive explosion in blogs used to make money online that was soon to happen. Today, the scenario is completely different. As an online marketer, it is almost impossible to go a day without seeing a new “make money online” blog pop up. They are everywhere, their value is mixed, and the vast majority exist solely as a vehicle for making money out of pay-per-click advertisements, selling online advertising space, and pushing affiliate products. While there are diamonds in the mix, they are few and far between, far outweighed by the low quality content. Unfortunately, social network marketing seems to be traveling in the same direction. There is a lot of value in social media – the best internet marketing specialists know it – and that has not stopped gurus and professional internet marketing consultants from popping up to tell amateur online marketers that they need their help, their products, and more commonly, their services. In truth, there are a few reasons why online entrepreneurs shouldn’t be intimidated by the concept of social network marketing. Two of the most important reasons are discussed below: Social Network Marketing Has a Sharp Learning Curve, But …Continue Reading
