Financial Service Info

Has he gone yet?

Good. Hopefully he’s taken his platitudes with him.

‘The future belongs to the free’, is the headline in today’s Australian. Puh-lease.

It must be great having a job where you can wander around, say stuff that is meaningless and still make people feel good about themselves.

In reality, the future should belong to the free market.

But if the future does belong to the free, there’s not many people left in this debt-soaked world who can claim it. As Andrew Jackson, a US president who came well before Obama said, ‘when you get in debt you become a slave.’

As we pointed out yesterday, US government debt just breached the $US15 trillion mark. That’s around 100 per cent of GDP. Add in household and business debt and you get nearly $40 trillion of IOUs. That’s around 265 per cent of GDP.

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Every Friday afternoon I share some of the more interesting or notable posts that I have seen in the personal finance blogs and other sources for the past week.

MyMoneyBlog shares a cool map Mobility vs. Geography: Percent Born In State of Residence Map (2010)

Plus here’s a list of the recent blog carnivals that my articles were in :

#307th Festival of Frugality hosted at FrugalFamilyLife.com included my article  Consider Waiting Until Summer to Buy Entertainment.com Coupon Books

Carnival of Financial Planning – Thanksgiving Edition and Totally Money Carnival #44 covered my Average Credit Score by Age post.
Canadian Finance Carnival #64 featured Mega-PC for All Your Home Entertainment,

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Black Friday is approaching, but before you head out, take a deep breath and a look at some of the tricks retailers use to trap you into spending more than you’re prepared to. You don’t have to give up shopping altogether; just shop smart. Here are some of my tried-and-true tips, along with some updates:

1. Hands off the merchandise. People in a study by CalTech researchers were willing to pay an average of 50% more for things (from desserts to trinkets) they could actually touch than things they just read about or saw in pictures. The lesson: Don’t overvalue something just because it’s right in front of you. 
2. Don’t trust your senses. Stores use fragrances, fancy lighting, and music to create an atmosphere that says “You’re cool, and our stuff is cool. Yo

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Managing Risks, Recognising Responsibilities

Thursday March 1st2012, Hotel Russell, London

The insurance industry is faced with new responsibilities, new risks and new challenges in a rapidly evolving global market place.

In a global environment where governments can no longer act as sole protector and risk officer of society, the insurance industry has a new opportunity for leadership, responsibility and growth. What role will the insurance industry play?

This unique one-day summit brings together the leaders of the industry to discuss the strategic direction for UK insurance. Read all post…

Shares of Hewlett-Packard stock declined by -0.78 percent ending at 26.65 on Tuesday after the company reported better than expected earnings after the closing bell Monday afternoon. The stock initially rose four percent after the announcement in after-hours trading but subsequently dropped, ending 2.2 percent lower at $26.27.

The company reported earnings of $1.17 cents per share for its fiscal fourth quarter down from $1.33 cents for the same period last year. Revenue for the fourth quarter was $32.1 billion, versus $33.28 billion for the fourth quarter of 2010. The analyst consensus for H-Ps fourth quarter earnings according to Reuters was for $1.13 per share on revenues of $32.05 billion.

Palo Alto, CA based Hewlett-Packard, one of the worlds largest tech firms, went through some key changes during the fourth quarter.

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How much is your home worth?

A good home appraisal is one of the most important components of getting approved for a mortgage.

This appraisal ultimately decides just how much a bank is willing to lend to you, and a bad appraisal can kill your plans for a new home faster than a bad credit score.

A home appraisal is the best way for a lender to see if they wont lose their seat on the deal.

The lender wants to make sure that they have an asset that they can sell to get their money back in case of default. The home appraisal is also a way for you to see if the home you are wanting is overpriced or not.

Lets say that John Doe wants to secure a mortgage on a home that cost $180,000. His credit score is very good, yet the home only appraises for $150,000.

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If you’re like me, you’re busy being thankful for good things this week—family, awesome friends, holiday deliciousness and maybe a little time off from work or school. With family on the brain, I started to think about the relatives who I could learn a few things from—money-wise. Number 1 is my sister.

She is 10 years older than me and, due to a few bumps in the road, ended up not graduating from high school or attending college. Today she’s living in her own home with an excellent job, a paid-off car, a maxed out retirement fund and a debt-free financial picture. Despite a rough start, she’s pulled off being way more financial together than me. How’d she do it?

1. Living simply. My sister has nice things and clothes, but to her buying $100 jeans is a no-go no matter how much she has. Sales, deals and garage sales are her go-tos.
2. Working hard. She has a great work ethic and has been lucky and driven enough not to have gone without work a day in her life. At times, she

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We’re headed back to the US today. No time to write. But here’s the latest…

The Dow down 190. Oil over $100.

And the US hits another milestone on the road to Hell. This, from Stephen Dinan at The Washington Times:

The Treasury Department said Wednesday that the federal debt has climbed to a record $15 trillion — a staggering figure that caps a precipitous decade-long rise.

The exact total stood at $15,033,607,255,920.32 as of the end of business Tuesday, marking a jump of $56 billion over Monday’s tally. All told, federal US debt has risen $4.407 trillion since President Obama took office. It stood at $5.7 trillion in 2001, when George W. Bush mo

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Did you know that an average of 23 manufacturing facilities were shut down every single day in the United States last year?  As World War II ended, the United States emerged as the greatest industrial power that the world has ever seen.  But now America’s industrial might is being gutted like a fish and both political parties seem totally unconcerned.  Yes, we will always need trading relationships that are fair and balanced with other countries that have economic systems that are similar to our own.  However, the truth is that most of our trading relationships are neither “fair” nor balanced.  For example, China manipulates currency rates so that Chinese products are much cheaper than they should be, they brazenly steal our technology and we let them get away with it, they deeply subsidize their most important industries and they exploit their citizens by allowing them to be paid slave labor wages.  How in the world does that resemble the “free market” at work?  Predatory nations such as China do everything that they can to distort the free market.  So why in the world would any rational economist ever recommend that we should keep trading with other countries that are cheating us blind?  After you read the facts in this article about the gutting of America’s industrial might, hopefully you will get very angry.  We need the American people to start getting very upset about these very important issues.

Both major political parties promised us that globalization would be wonderful for the U.S. economy. 

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