23 Aug
Posted by: Renetta Rust in: Financial Tips
Low interest rates are enticing, exciting, and, in many ways, a necessary component in economic recovery. They make everything seem like a good deal. In response, consumers are goaded into spending more; this is, after all, the entire purpose behind the Federal Reserve artificially lowering interest rates. However, sometimes that can be a bad thing, for the consumer anyway.
It may seem odd referring to lower interest rates and reduced cost of credit as a “bad thing” but the problem is in the way most consumers treat low interest rates:
1. PRE-APPROVAL: The problem starts with pre-approval. Whe
I recently became one of the many in the world carrying a smartphone in my pocket. I made the jump to an iPhone4 this month and it has opened my eyes to a whole new world. The one thing I was amazed at was the number of barcode scanner apps that you can download. Some of them are free (which I obviously prefer) and some are the usual .99 cents. I downloaded a couple of the free barcode shopping apps and was suprised how easy it was to get prices on the items you use everyday. You just scan your items with your iPhone camera and from there you can compare internet and local prices and in some cases you can even read product reviews.
22 Aug
Posted by: Bruce Solorio in: Business Articles
The comment about becoming a “Third World Nation” comes from Arianna Huffington so take that with a grain of salt. Still the point is well taken. What are you doing to reverse the trend for yourself and provide a safety net against the loss of jobs and income being experienced in the economy in general?
According to an article appearing in the German newspaper, Der Spiegel, the negative consequences of the global financial crisis include a widened social class rift and the elimination of the middle class in the US.
The article states that many Americans are beginning to realize that the American Dream has now become a nightmare as people are having to face the bitter reality of a shrinking job market along with decades of stagnating wages and dramatic increases in inequality.
My wife and I like to talk relatively frequently about the things we’d like to do and things we’d like to have later in life. In reality, with two young daughters at home our financial perspective doesn’t often drift beyond the near future but that doesn’t stop us from partaking in a little wishful thinking now and then.
In 2007, Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman starred in a movie titled “The Bucket List”. It chronicled the story of two terminally ill men who go on a journey to do everything they’ve ever wanted to do in life before they “kick the bucket”. Thankfully, no on
Yahoo Finance:
There are 10 independent YouTube stars who made over $100,000 in the past year, according to a study done by analytics and advertising company TubeMogul.
From July 2009 to July 2010, TubeMogul used their viewership data to estimate the annual income for independent YouTube partners, which they define as anyone who is not part of a media company or brand.
Here’s how they got their estimates:
- Revenue only comes from banner ads served near content (we ignored pre-roll or overlay since we can’t easily isolate by publisher).
- Since YouTube banner ads have a two-second load delay, we estimate 2.59% of viewers click away before an ad loads based on separate research.
- Ads were served near all videos that loaded (since there are partners, this is generally true).
- CPM for the banner ads was $1.50 (Google auctions a lot of this inventory off; we rounded this 2009 estimate down to be conservative).
- YouTube is splitting ad revenue with partners 50-50.