Categoría: economy
Make Money
* IMF’s Lagarde says more time for Greece is one option
* Ministers, heads of state to decide Athens’ fate in October
By Robin Emmott and Daniel Flynn
NICOSIA, Sept 14 (Reuters) – Greece may get more time to reach financial targets under its 130 billion euro rescue package but probably not more money, its international lenders signalled on Friday, saying a decision had to come by the end of October.
Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, leading a country in its fifth year of recession at a time of rising discontent at home, wants two more years to implement economic reforms tied to the bailout to soften their impact.
International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said lenders may now agree to some sort of extension.
«There are various ways to adjust: time is one and that needs to be considered as an option,» Lagarde told a news conference following a meeting of euro zone finance ministers in Cyprus.
Greece’s second bailout envisages Athens returning to international markets by 2015, but with two consecutive parliamentary elections in May and June after political parties struggled to form a coalition, the country has lost ground on its reform agenda. Deepening recession has also made the debt targets less attainable.
Although the extent of the shortfall will not be known until a report by lenders in October, Greece is unlikely to win back investor confidence quickly and meet its targets, which include a primary surplus of 4.5 percent of economic output in 2014.
EU officials have told Reuters that Athens is way behind on its debt-cutting programme, suggesting Greece will need funding support past 2014 until it can return to market. But at the Cyprus meeting, there was no talk of a third bailout.
«There will probably be no more money (for Greece),» Austrian Finance Minister Maria Fekter told reporters.
It was not immediately clear how ministers will reconcile the issue, but, having made strenuous efforts to shore up Spain and Italy, it would make no sense to tip Greece into default now and plunge the currency bloc back into chaos.
Athens, where Europe’s debt crisis began nearly three years ago, has been boosted by a decision to give bailed-out Portugal more time to meet its fiscal targets as economic recession saps Lisbon’s ability to deliver.
Under the revised targets, Portugal has until 2014 to bring its budget deficit down to the EU limit of 3 percent, ministers said in a statement on Friday. Previously, the 78 billion euro bailout required a deficit of 3 percent in 2013.
Jean-Claude Juncker, who chairs the meeting of euro zone finance ministers, said the EU and IMF must take a decision by the end of October on how to revise the Greek programme and said there was no question of Greece leaving the euro zone.
Ministers will meet again in Luxembourg on Oct. 8 to discuss Greece’s finances on the basis of the report expected to be finished by the EU, the IMF and the European Central Bank, while Europe’s leaders meet for a summit in Brussels on Oct. 18.
«I don’t have the intent to wait until November,» Juncker said.
Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stounaras said: «There is progress in discussions with the troika, we will try to finalise (that) as soon as possible, to be ready for final decisions at the latest by end of October.»
* IMF’s Lagarde says more time for Greece is one option
* Ministers, heads of state to decide Athens’ fate in October
By Robin Emmott and Daniel Flynn
NICOSIA, Sept 14 (Reuters) – Greece may get more time to reach financial targets under its 130 billion euro rescue package but probably not more money, its international lenders signalled on Friday, saying a decision had to come by the end of October.
Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, leading a country in its fifth year of recession at a time of rising discontent at home, wants two more years to implement economic reforms tied to the bailout to soften their impact.
International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said lenders may now agree to some sort of extension.
«There are various ways to adjust: time is one and that needs to be considered as an option,» Lagarde told a news conference following a meeting of euro zone finance ministers in Cyprus.
Greece’s second bailout envisages Athens returning to international markets by 2015, but with two consecutive parliamentary elections in May and June after political parties struggled to form a coalition, the country has lost ground on its reform agenda. Deepening recession has also made the debt targets less attainable.
Although the extent of the shortfall will not be known until a report by lenders in October, Greece is unlikely to win back investor confidence quickly and meet its targets, which include a primary surplus of 4.5 percent of economic output in 2014.
EU officials have told Reuters that Athens is way behind on its debt-cutting programme, suggesting Greece will need funding support past 2014 until it can return to market. But at the Cyprus meeting, there was no talk of a third bailout.
«There will probably be no more money (for Greece),» Austrian Finance Minister Maria Fekter told reporters.
It was not immediately clear how ministers will reconcile the issue, but, having made strenuous efforts to shore up Spain and Italy, it would make no sense to tip Greece into default now and plunge the currency bloc back into chaos.
Athens, where Europe’s debt crisis began nearly three years ago, has been boosted by a decision to give bailed-out Portugal more time to meet its fiscal targets as economic recession saps Lisbon’s ability to deliver.
Under the revised targets, Portugal has until 2014 to bring its budget deficit down to the EU limit of 3 percent, ministers said in a statement on Friday. Previously, the 78 billion euro bailout required a deficit of 3 percent in 2013.
Jean-Claude Juncker, who chairs the meeting of euro zone finance ministers, said the EU and IMF must take a decision by the end of October on how to revise the Greek programme and said there was no question of Greece leaving the euro zone.
Ministers will meet again in Luxembourg on Oct. 8 to discuss Greece’s finances on the basis of the report expected to be finished by the EU, the IMF and the European Central Bank, while Europe’s leaders meet for a summit in Brussels on Oct. 18.
«I don’t have the intent to wait until November,» Juncker said.
Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stounaras said: «There is progress in discussions with the troika, we will try to finalise (that) as soon as possible, to be ready for final decisions at the latest by end of October.»
Fast Money
Being a woman is one of the most expensive things to be, which is why every woman should get at least a share of all the grant money that’s being spent figuring out how to give old people erections and hair. Old people don’t need those things — they need to not be condescended to and a warm place to rest their feet. As if it weren’t enough that women have to pay more than men for health insurance or hygiene products, there’s also this: women pay higher interest rates on credit cards than men.
According to a study FINRA Investor Education Foundation, the difference is only a half-point, but, over a lifetime, such a disparity could mean that women end up paying hundreds or thousands of dollars more to borrow than men. Shitty, right? The study had some other less-than-pleasant news about the different ways credit card companies prey like velociraptors on men and women with low levels of financial literacy. Women with low financial literacy, it turns out, are more liable to develop bad credit card habits, such as carrying a card balance, paying only the minimum, and paying late fees than their male counterparts.
Couple this with the fact that women in almost every congressional district across the country are being out-earned by men (in D.C., for example, the median woman’s salary is 90 percent of the median man’s salary, which, notes U.S. News, can amount to almost a $6,500 annual difference), and you have the National Partnership for Women & Fairness pushing new legislation called the Paycheck Fairness Act. The credit card disparities, moreover, can be ameliorated with greater education, which seems, according to FINRA, to solve many credit disadvantages women face.
The Hidden Costs of Being a Woman [U.S. News]
Image via Dmitriy Shironosov/Shutterstock.
Every year hardware manufacturers release new iterations of their products. From Apple to Samsung to Nintendo, the upgrade treadmill never ends. So, why do we feel the need to buy into it every year? We’ll show you why you get stuck on the upgrade treadmill, and how to be happy with what you have.
At Amazon’s recent press conference for the new Kindle Fire, CEO Jeff Bezos calls the phenomonon of constant new gadgets the «upgrade treadmill:»
We don’t need you to be on the upgrade treadmill. If we made our money when people bought the device, we’d be rolling out programs left and right to try to get you to upgrade. In fact, we’re happy that people are still using Kindle Ones that are five years old. They’re still reading on them, and every time they buy a book, that’s good for us. That’s alignment.
For Amazon, hardware doesn’t really matter because they make their money from content. But Bezos’ point still remains: that upgrade treadmill is something most of us are caught on. It’s not just tablets, it’s everything: game systems, phones, TVs, appliances—when a new shiny gadget comes, most of us turn into a precious-obsessed Gollum. Why do we do this? And more importantly, how can we get off the treadmill and enjoy what we already own?
Why We Feel the Need to Upgrade
Regardless of how much willpower we all have, most of us think briefly about an upgrade. According to financial weblog The Simple Dollar, this is at least partially because of the primacy and recency effect:
The primacy effect means that people tend to remember the first information presented about something better than information presented later.
For example, let’s say that your first awareness of a product was during a segment on a morning show, where they lauded how well the product worked. If you were paying attention, that information is more likely to stick in your head («this product is good and does the job well») than information you find out later on about the product.
However, there is something that trumps the primacy effect: the recency effect means that people tend to remember the most recent information presented about a product above all else.
What the Simple Dollar is saying is that we overvalue the new because it’s the last thing presented to us. We tend to forget the old information (that the old product is also great) and supplement it with the new (that the new product is «more great»). We also want new things because the brain likes getting the rush. Psychology Today explains how:
First, a quick neuroscience lesson: The brain balances the desire for shiny new things with their cost. Observing something to buy activates the brain’s «wanting system» that makes getting things feel good. But, the Rolling Stones reminded us that we can’t always get what we want. The brain reacts to prices by activating brain regions that make us feel pain. The information from the wanting and pain systems are relayed to the prefrontal cortex where a cost-benefit calculation is made to determine if you should buy that new pair of Valentino slide sandals for $675 or keep your cash for some other use.
In a way, the cost-benefit calculation is supposed to keep your brain in check so you don’t make an unneeded purchase. However, with the upgrade treadmill, and the hype that inevitably surrounds a new product, it’s really easy to get caught up in it all and make a quick decision without thinking the decision through. Photo by David Fulmer.
Why Not Upgrade?
Holding that new shiny piece of equipment in your hand is a gadget geeks heaven, but it’s a fleeting feeling. After a week, you might have even stopped using the protective case, quit dusting it everyday, and barely even notice all the fingerprints on it.
Nowadays, the bulk of upgrades are incremental. While sometimes an upgrade will really change the course of a device, more often it’s a tiny sliver of a change that’s only exciting because the manufacturer tells us it’s exciting. The bulk of our technology hasn’t changed that much in the last few years—a four year old HDTV is thick, but has the same amount of pixels as a new one, an iPhone 4 is still a fantastic phone capable of running the same apps the new iPhone 5 can.
In most cases (not all, of course), an upgrade is a luxury, but not a requirement. More often than not, what you have will do the trick. Photo by Collin Anderson.
Make the Most of What You Have
Just because a company releases a new product it doesn’t mean your old stuff is outdated. In fact, as we’ve shown time and time again, you can get most new features on the devices you already have using already available software. Sure, your hardware might not be new, but your old stuff can perform nearly all the same functions as a new one can.
For instance, a cheap camera can get an upgrade with a little hacking, and a Nook can become an Android tablet. Even your computer is easy to upgrade if you know which upgrades really matter. If your laptop is just sluggish, an extreme makeover takes no time at all. Photo by Mark Skipper.
Compare and Contrast What You Already Have with What You Want
It sounds simple, but a quick comparison chart between what you already own, and what you want is a really easy way to get rid of the recency effect.
Before you start your comparison chart, take a look at the device you’re thinking about upgrading. Ask yourself how you use it. I’ll give you the example of me and my iPad: 90% of my time with my iPad is spent reading Kindle books. Should I upgrade to another iPad? Probably not, since it isn’t going to read those Kindle books any better than my current one (if anything, it’d make more sense to «downgrade» to a Kindle—but of course that’d still cost money). How you think you’ll use a product when you first purchase it is often radically different than how you actually use it when it’s in your hands. Before blindly upgrading, ask yourself, «Have my needs changed? Does this upgrade fill that hole?»
When you’re really on the fence about an upgrade, or just need to talk yourself out of one, start writing a list. In one column, write what you don’t like about your old device. In the next column, write down what the upgrade has fixed. More often than not you’ll realize it’s not really worth it.
Of course, that’s not always the case. For instance, upgrading appliances can often save you money over the long term. Other times, minor upgrades, like a significantly better battery life, or screen, or whatever else, are enough to justify an upgrade for you personally. The point is that you think critically about upgrading as opposed to just doing it because you can. Photo by Zhao !.
Break Your Brand Loyalty and Decide What You Really Need
We’ve talked about brand loyalty before, and it’s an important factor to consider anytime you’re thinking about upgrading. More often than not, the first inclination to upgrade is all about the recency effect. A company you tend to like has a new product, you need said product. Part of the upgrade treadmill is getting locked into brand loyalty, blindly upgrading and refusing to look for other options. But do you really need their product? Or will another do?
Take Apple for example. The reason they keep their iPhones and iPads locked to iTunes isn’t just about controlling the product. It’s about controlling the infrastructure. To walk away from an iPhone you have to abandon everything you’ve already invested in it. This makes an upgrade to another one of their devices feel like the logical solution.
Or at least, that’s how it seems. With the exception of apps, walking away from Apple (or Android, or anything else) is made to seem complicated. But it’s often not as bad as we think. Provided you’re using third party services (any apps that sync to the cloud, Kindle, etc), you can almost always migrate your data easily. Even switching from an iPhone to an Android isn’t that bad (or vice versa). Photo by Mike Lau.
The upgrade treadmill isn’t always a bad thing. Some devices and gadgets get major upgrades that appeal to you directly. Others are less interesting. The point is to stop and really think about what you need. Just because hardware manufacturers are on a schedule for upgrades doesn’t mean their upgrades are worth making. If your gear is still working for you, don’t let a company tell you when it’s time to upgrade.
Title image remixed from Diamond_Images (Shutterstock).
Earn Online
One week ago UN Secretary General Mr. Ban Ki-moon said during a High Level Forum on The Culture of Peace: «On one day the world spends twice as much money on new weaponry as we at the UN can spend on peace building in an entire year.» I was among the 400 people in the General Assembly who heard this shocking truth and I probably felt as David in front of Goliath; how can I ever beat this big ugly money consuming monster? We’re talking about 160 billion US Dollars per year, enough to bring food and education to millions of people around the globe.
Friday is the International Day of Peace. If you are familiar with this you’re probably Polish, because in Poland 16% seems to be aware of this day, but worldwide the average percentage of awareness lies around 6%.
Over a decade ago, 21 September was chosen for this honorable role but it’s still one of the best kept secrets of the United Nations. On Friday at UN Headquarters in NY, a boy will ring a bell, a girl will sing Imagine and at noon, guests will experience one minute of silence.
However, personally I don’t believe that silence is what the world needs right now given the rising number of conflicts, increasing tensions between East and West and the possibility of war between Israel and Iran. It is time to break the silence and fuel intercultural dialogue and disarmament on a global level!
The International Day of Peace is an ideal opportunity to generate more media attention for these goals and above all, mobilize more active supporters. Twelve days after 9/11, from remembering the past to acting for the future…
A quick glance at the Global Truce website shows tens of peace building organizations who are ready for this huge challenge. In the cradle of the Arabic Spring there’s a new powerful and inspiring surprise in the making: MasterPeace. Formed by a team of young Muslims and Christians working side by side, against all odds. Around Cairo they are organizing several events today and in the coming week, varying from street art festivals with murals and dialogue cafés about the future of the country up to a workshop on disarmament at Cairo University where three Hibakushas (Hiroshima survivors) will share their devastating experiences. This young dedicated team in Egypt is also guiding MasterPeace events in twenty-five other countries, from Panama to Nepal and Sierra Leone to the Philippines. Everywhere young ‘social entrepreneurs’ are using art and music to foster dialogue and recruit new peace builders.
One example is an event in Juba, the capital of the new republic South Sudan. MasterPeace is organizing a concert today with the rapper and former war child Emmanual Jal, who recently composed the song We Want Peace with among others Peter Gabriel and Alicia Keys. In front of ten thousand people he will announce that he will be performing with an artist from Sudan at the global MasterPeace Concert to be held next to the Gizeh Pyramids in Cairo on the International Day of Peace in 2014.
Exactly after two years from now this concert will provide a stage for artists from the major conflict areas of the world to perform together with their ‘opponents’ to push for peace building, dialogue and disarmament. These courageous artists who dare to work across the conflict will inspire many throughout the world to start acting for peace too. To attend this concert in Cairo you cannot just buy a ticket. You can only earn your invitation by using your talent for peace, globally or within your own community. You can become the local co-owner of MasterPeace by organizing concerts, seminars, dialogue initiatives, and other activities that mobilize and inspire others to use his or her talent too.
Maybe Mr. Ban Ki-moon can speech during the MasterPeace concert by 2014: «On this day twice as much people are working for peace as two years ago on the entire year». And we know that all social change started with the mobilization of civil society. So let this be our commonly shared MasterPeace. Let’s all meet each other in Cairo after two years from now, breaking the silence on the International Day of Peace for once and forever.
Being a woman is one of the most expensive things to be, which is why every woman should get at least a share of all the grant money that’s being spent figuring out how to give old people erections and hair. Old people don’t need those things — they need to not be condescended to and a warm place to rest their feet. As if it weren’t enough that women have to pay more than men for health insurance or hygiene products, there’s also this: women pay higher interest rates on credit cards than men.
According to a study FINRA Investor Education Foundation, the difference is only a half-point, but, over a lifetime, such a disparity could mean that women end up paying hundreds or thousands of dollars more to borrow than men. Shitty, right? The study had some other less-than-pleasant news about the different ways credit card companies prey like velociraptors on men and women with low levels of financial literacy. Women with low financial literacy, it turns out, are more liable to develop bad credit card habits, such as carrying a card balance, paying only the minimum, and paying late fees than their male counterparts.
Couple this with the fact that women in almost every congressional district across the country are being out-earned by men (in D.C., for example, the median woman’s salary is 90 percent of the median man’s salary, which, notes U.S. News, can amount to almost a $6,500 annual difference), and you have the National Partnership for Women & Fairness pushing new legislation called the Paycheck Fairness Act. The credit card disparities, moreover, can be ameliorated with greater education, which seems, according to FINRA, to solve many credit disadvantages women face.
The Hidden Costs of Being a Woman [U.S. News]
Image via Dmitriy Shironosov/Shutterstock.
Fast Money
Iowa Congressman Steve King, a critic of the new school food regulations, made news earlier this week by introducing a bill to roll back the regulations’ new calorie limits. Called the «No Hungry Kids Act,» King’s proposed legislation (co-sponsored by fellow Republican Tim Huelskamp) would allow schools to serve unlimited calories to children rather than capping meals at 650 calories for grades K-5, 700 calories for grades 6-8 and 850 calories for high schoolers.
Said King:
«For the first time in history, the USDA has set a calorie limit on school lunches. … The goal of the school lunch program was — and is — to insure students receive enough nutrition to be healthy and to learn.
The misguided nanny state, as advanced by Michelle Obama’s ‘Healthy and Hunger Free Kids Act,’ was interpreted by Secretary [Tom] Vilsack to be a directive that, because some kids are overweight, he would put every child on a diet. Parents know that their kids deserve all of the healthy and nutritious food they want.»
As Greg Noth pointed out on Think Progress, one of the ironies here is that the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act actually expands access to food for economically disadvantaged kids through a variety of programs. It’s also worth noting that King is currently fighting to retain his congressional seat against a challenge by Christie Vilsack, wife of the aforementioned Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. That might explain King’s politicizing of this issue, despite the fact that 39 percent of elementary-aged children in King’s state of Iowa are currently overweight.
But cynicism aside, the new school meal regulations have changed school lunches in significant ways and not all of them have been positively received by kids, parents or school food service directors.
The most obvious change is the increase in fruits and vegetables, a laudable development but not one that’s always popular with kids. Almost daily, I get Google alerts to local news stories about kids spurning the produce on their trays, either tossing the fruits and vegetables in the trash or giving the food to friends. (And I’ve certainly seen this firsthand — my district admirably sources local produce and I watch in dismay as many kids throw it right into the garbage, uneaten.)
But many people remain unaware of another big change to school meals — a new cap on the total amount of meat and grains which can be served weekly. San Francisco school food reformer Dana Woldow had a piece last month that demonstrated how these grain/meat limits can really complicate a district’s menu planning, a sentiment shared by a source to whom I spoke in my own district, Houston ISD. In a subsequent interview by Dana Woldow with Justin Gagnon, CEO of Choicelunch (a private school meal catering company), Gagnon, too, was very critical of the grain and meat limits, arguing that they encourage districts to increase the use of fats and fillers.
Meanwhile, in a widely circulated story last week, the Associated Press gave the new school meals a «mixed grade» and further reported, consistent with the statements of Congressman King, that some kids (particularly teenagers and athletes) are going hungry after school meals, a situation that’s led to various student protests around the country.
So what are we to make of all this?
As someone who only sits on the sidelines when it comes to serving school meals, I always respect the feedback of those «behind the line.» If they’re telling us that the grain and meat limits hamper their efforts to provide filling, varied meals, then clearly we have a problem there.
But when it comes to kids spurning fruits and vegetables, or generally shying away from healthier entrees, I wholeheartedly agree with this most recent opinion piece by Dana Woldow (yes, I’m citing Dana again!), who urges us not to rush to judgment just yet.
Back in 2010, I wrote an editorial in the Houston Chronicle praising my district for introducing new vegetables but warning that students were likely to reject those foods unless we made efforts to educate them and encourage experimentation.
And when it was widely reported last year that students in Los Angeles USD hated that district’s improved menu, I went further by arguing that students’ complaints might, in the end, be irrelevant:
[T]he hard truth is this: if we really intend to wean an entire generation of children off school food «carnival fare» (nachos, nuggets, burgers and fries) and introduce them to fresher, healthier entrees, we are, without question, going to lose some kids along the way. In other words, it’s just not that surprising if a middle- or high schooler who’s seen nothing but «better-for-you junk food»on his tray since kindergarten can’t make the leap to black bean burgers and salad, especially if there’s no context for healthier foods in his life outside of school.
But a kindergartener who’s never seen anything but black bean burgers and salads in the cafeteria is going to be a much easier sell on healthier foods throughout his school years. And that young child is our only hope if we’re going to reverse current trends in obesity and poor lifestyle habits among our nation’s children. So if our choice is to continue the dismal school food status quo because «that’s all kids will eat,» or knowingly lose some kids now to Flaming Hot Cheetos and Cokes with an eye toward those impressionable, incoming kindergarteners and all the classes that will follow them, I can live with sacrificing a few for the many.
With respect to the new meal regulations, Dana echoes this same sentiment:
It is the 5 and 6 year olds who are the real targets here. Even if these youngsters are seeing a lot of fast food or junk food at home, they have no expectation of seeing such delights in the school cafeteria. For them, the only school food they know is what they are seeing this year, and while it may look unfamiliar, at least they don’t have the mindset of older students who feel that their rightful heap of chicken nuggets has been snatched away.
It will likely take years to see the full effect of the new school food rules. As today’s kindergarten students move through their school years, the hope is that they will choose fruits and vegetables in the cafeteria every day as a matter of course, because they taste good, they are healthy, and that’s what the rules are. They won’t know that the rules were ever any different.
So before we throw up our hands and say kids just won’t eat fruits and vegetables at school, or they must have their fries and nuggets lest they starve, let’s agree to meet back here in 2024. That’s when this year’s entering elementary school class will graduate from high school, and (unless Congressman King has his way) they will never have known anything but the improved school meals mandated by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.
The sight of fruits and vegetables on their tray will simply be a given. They will not expect daily desserts, a crutch often used by districts in the past to meet the old regulations’ calorie minimums. They will have no memory of the «good old days,» when districts like mine could offer for lunch in a single week: breaded chicken sandwiches, cheeseburgers, chicken fried steak fingers with cream gravy, beef taco nachos, beef taco salad, pepperoni pizza, and «Frito Pie» — with the latter two entrees served with mashed potatoes. Or as Dana charmingly puts it:
… being introduced to jicama sticks or kiwi fruit is just like meeting a new teacher, or venturing onto the playground with 50 other whirling dervishes, or participating in show and tell — it is one more exciting part of «big kids school,» one that may be a little scary at first, but that becomes more familiar with time, until eventually it is welcomed as a friend.
Being a woman is one of the most expensive things to be, which is why every woman should get at least a share of all the grant money that’s being spent figuring out how to give old people erections and hair. Old people don’t need those things — they need to not be condescended to and a warm place to rest their feet. As if it weren’t enough that women have to pay more than men for health insurance or hygiene products, there’s also this: women pay higher interest rates on credit cards than men.
According to a study FINRA Investor Education Foundation, the difference is only a half-point, but, over a lifetime, such a disparity could mean that women end up paying hundreds or thousands of dollars more to borrow than men. Shitty, right? The study had some other less-than-pleasant news about the different ways credit card companies prey like velociraptors on men and women with low levels of financial literacy. Women with low financial literacy, it turns out, are more liable to develop bad credit card habits, such as carrying a card balance, paying only the minimum, and paying late fees than their male counterparts.
Couple this with the fact that women in almost every congressional district across the country are being out-earned by men (in D.C., for example, the median woman’s salary is 90 percent of the median man’s salary, which, notes U.S. News, can amount to almost a $6,500 annual difference), and you have the National Partnership for Women & Fairness pushing new legislation called the Paycheck Fairness Act. The credit card disparities, moreover, can be ameliorated with greater education, which seems, according to FINRA, to solve many credit disadvantages women face.
The Hidden Costs of Being a Woman [U.S. News]
Image via Dmitriy Shironosov/Shutterstock.
Quick Earn
Every year hardware manufacturers release new iterations of their products. From Apple to Samsung to Nintendo, the upgrade treadmill never ends. So, why do we feel the need to buy into it every year? We’ll show you why you get stuck on the upgrade treadmill, and how to be happy with what you have.
At Amazon’s recent press conference for the new Kindle Fire, CEO Jeff Bezos calls the phenomonon of constant new gadgets the «upgrade treadmill:»
We don’t need you to be on the upgrade treadmill. If we made our money when people bought the device, we’d be rolling out programs left and right to try to get you to upgrade. In fact, we’re happy that people are still using Kindle Ones that are five years old. They’re still reading on them, and every time they buy a book, that’s good for us. That’s alignment.
For Amazon, hardware doesn’t really matter because they make their money from content. But Bezos’ point still remains: that upgrade treadmill is something most of us are caught on. It’s not just tablets, it’s everything: game systems, phones, TVs, appliances—when a new shiny gadget comes, most of us turn into a precious-obsessed Gollum. Why do we do this? And more importantly, how can we get off the treadmill and enjoy what we already own?
Why We Feel the Need to Upgrade
Regardless of how much willpower we all have, most of us think briefly about an upgrade. According to financial weblog The Simple Dollar, this is at least partially because of the primacy and recency effect:
The primacy effect means that people tend to remember the first information presented about something better than information presented later.
For example, let’s say that your first awareness of a product was during a segment on a morning show, where they lauded how well the product worked. If you were paying attention, that information is more likely to stick in your head («this product is good and does the job well») than information you find out later on about the product.
However, there is something that trumps the primacy effect: the recency effect means that people tend to remember the most recent information presented about a product above all else.
What the Simple Dollar is saying is that we overvalue the new because it’s the last thing presented to us. We tend to forget the old information (that the old product is also great) and supplement it with the new (that the new product is «more great»). We also want new things because the brain likes getting the rush. Psychology Today explains how:
First, a quick neuroscience lesson: The brain balances the desire for shiny new things with their cost. Observing something to buy activates the brain’s «wanting system» that makes getting things feel good. But, the Rolling Stones reminded us that we can’t always get what we want. The brain reacts to prices by activating brain regions that make us feel pain. The information from the wanting and pain systems are relayed to the prefrontal cortex where a cost-benefit calculation is made to determine if you should buy that new pair of Valentino slide sandals for $675 or keep your cash for some other use.
In a way, the cost-benefit calculation is supposed to keep your brain in check so you don’t make an unneeded purchase. However, with the upgrade treadmill, and the hype that inevitably surrounds a new product, it’s really easy to get caught up in it all and make a quick decision without thinking the decision through. Photo by David Fulmer.
Why Not Upgrade?
Holding that new shiny piece of equipment in your hand is a gadget geeks heaven, but it’s a fleeting feeling. After a week, you might have even stopped using the protective case, quit dusting it everyday, and barely even notice all the fingerprints on it.
Nowadays, the bulk of upgrades are incremental. While sometimes an upgrade will really change the course of a device, more often it’s a tiny sliver of a change that’s only exciting because the manufacturer tells us it’s exciting. The bulk of our technology hasn’t changed that much in the last few years—a four year old HDTV is thick, but has the same amount of pixels as a new one, an iPhone 4 is still a fantastic phone capable of running the same apps the new iPhone 5 can.
In most cases (not all, of course), an upgrade is a luxury, but not a requirement. More often than not, what you have will do the trick. Photo by Collin Anderson.
Make the Most of What You Have
Just because a company releases a new product it doesn’t mean your old stuff is outdated. In fact, as we’ve shown time and time again, you can get most new features on the devices you already have using already available software. Sure, your hardware might not be new, but your old stuff can perform nearly all the same functions as a new one can.
For instance, a cheap camera can get an upgrade with a little hacking, and a Nook can become an Android tablet. Even your computer is easy to upgrade if you know which upgrades really matter. If your laptop is just sluggish, an extreme makeover takes no time at all. Photo by Mark Skipper.
Compare and Contrast What You Already Have with What You Want
It sounds simple, but a quick comparison chart between what you already own, and what you want is a really easy way to get rid of the recency effect.
Before you start your comparison chart, take a look at the device you’re thinking about upgrading. Ask yourself how you use it. I’ll give you the example of me and my iPad: 90% of my time with my iPad is spent reading Kindle books. Should I upgrade to another iPad? Probably not, since it isn’t going to read those Kindle books any better than my current one (if anything, it’d make more sense to «downgrade» to a Kindle—but of course that’d still cost money). How you think you’ll use a product when you first purchase it is often radically different than how you actually use it when it’s in your hands. Before blindly upgrading, ask yourself, «Have my needs changed? Does this upgrade fill that hole?»
When you’re really on the fence about an upgrade, or just need to talk yourself out of one, start writing a list. In one column, write what you don’t like about your old device. In the next column, write down what the upgrade has fixed. More often than not you’ll realize it’s not really worth it.
Of course, that’s not always the case. For instance, upgrading appliances can often save you money over the long term. Other times, minor upgrades, like a significantly better battery life, or screen, or whatever else, are enough to justify an upgrade for you personally. The point is that you think critically about upgrading as opposed to just doing it because you can. Photo by Zhao !.
Break Your Brand Loyalty and Decide What You Really Need
We’ve talked about brand loyalty before, and it’s an important factor to consider anytime you’re thinking about upgrading. More often than not, the first inclination to upgrade is all about the recency effect. A company you tend to like has a new product, you need said product. Part of the upgrade treadmill is getting locked into brand loyalty, blindly upgrading and refusing to look for other options. But do you really need their product? Or will another do?
Take Apple for example. The reason they keep their iPhones and iPads locked to iTunes isn’t just about controlling the product. It’s about controlling the infrastructure. To walk away from an iPhone you have to abandon everything you’ve already invested in it. This makes an upgrade to another one of their devices feel like the logical solution.
Or at least, that’s how it seems. With the exception of apps, walking away from Apple (or Android, or anything else) is made to seem complicated. But it’s often not as bad as we think. Provided you’re using third party services (any apps that sync to the cloud, Kindle, etc), you can almost always migrate your data easily. Even switching from an iPhone to an Android isn’t that bad (or vice versa). Photo by Mike Lau.
The upgrade treadmill isn’t always a bad thing. Some devices and gadgets get major upgrades that appeal to you directly. Others are less interesting. The point is to stop and really think about what you need. Just because hardware manufacturers are on a schedule for upgrades doesn’t mean their upgrades are worth making. If your gear is still working for you, don’t let a company tell you when it’s time to upgrade.
Title image remixed from Diamond_Images (Shutterstock).
Earn Online
* IMF’s Lagarde says more time for Greece is one option
* Ministers, heads of state to decide Athens’ fate in October
By Robin Emmott and Daniel Flynn
NICOSIA, Sept 14 (Reuters) – Greece may get more time to reach financial targets under its 130 billion euro rescue package but probably not more money, its international lenders signalled on Friday, saying a decision had to come by the end of October.
Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, leading a country in its fifth year of recession at a time of rising discontent at home, wants two more years to implement economic reforms tied to the bailout to soften their impact.
International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said lenders may now agree to some sort of extension.
«There are various ways to adjust: time is one and that needs to be considered as an option,» Lagarde told a news conference following a meeting of euro zone finance ministers in Cyprus.
Greece’s second bailout envisages Athens returning to international markets by 2015, but with two consecutive parliamentary elections in May and June after political parties struggled to form a coalition, the country has lost ground on its reform agenda. Deepening recession has also made the debt targets less attainable.
Although the extent of the shortfall will not be known until a report by lenders in October, Greece is unlikely to win back investor confidence quickly and meet its targets, which include a primary surplus of 4.5 percent of economic output in 2014.
EU officials have told Reuters that Athens is way behind on its debt-cutting programme, suggesting Greece will need funding support past 2014 until it can return to market. But at the Cyprus meeting, there was no talk of a third bailout.
«There will probably be no more money (for Greece),» Austrian Finance Minister Maria Fekter told reporters.
It was not immediately clear how ministers will reconcile the issue, but, having made strenuous efforts to shore up Spain and Italy, it would make no sense to tip Greece into default now and plunge the currency bloc back into chaos.
Athens, where Europe’s debt crisis began nearly three years ago, has been boosted by a decision to give bailed-out Portugal more time to meet its fiscal targets as economic recession saps Lisbon’s ability to deliver.
Under the revised targets, Portugal has until 2014 to bring its budget deficit down to the EU limit of 3 percent, ministers said in a statement on Friday. Previously, the 78 billion euro bailout required a deficit of 3 percent in 2013.
Jean-Claude Juncker, who chairs the meeting of euro zone finance ministers, said the EU and IMF must take a decision by the end of October on how to revise the Greek programme and said there was no question of Greece leaving the euro zone.
Ministers will meet again in Luxembourg on Oct. 8 to discuss Greece’s finances on the basis of the report expected to be finished by the EU, the IMF and the European Central Bank, while Europe’s leaders meet for a summit in Brussels on Oct. 18.
«I don’t have the intent to wait until November,» Juncker said.
Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stounaras said: «There is progress in discussions with the troika, we will try to finalise (that) as soon as possible, to be ready for final decisions at the latest by end of October.»
easy money
Affleck is married to fellow actor Jennifer Garner, and the pair have two daughters, Violet and Seraphina, as well as a son named Samuel. But the Good Will Hunting star says that worries over work are ever-present, and just because Hollywood sounds exciting doesn’t mean actors like him don’t sit at home at night fretting over career concerns, too.
Ben says that he tries to be in the moment with the kids, but it doesn’t always pan out that way. If you’ve experienced that little moment of guilt when you’re pretending to watch Spongebob with your kid and still getting stressed about how the next day on the job will pan out, Ben Affleck feels you, bro.
Affleck explains:
“I’m not very present in the rest of my life. My wife’s very patient. She does everything … If I have time, I try to spend time with the kids, even if just to be a physical presence, the bath, whatever. But my mind’s always going, ‘How are we going to light that shot tomorrow? What’s the master shot for that scene? Is there even going to be a master?’ Just ruminating endlessly.”
Okay, who totally likes Ben Affleck more now? The Smokin’ Aces actor continues:
” … for me—I wish it was discipline or being a great artist. But it’s just anxiety.”
Can you relate to Ben Affleck’s distracted parenting moments? Do you know what it’s like to not be able to stay on-task when on-task is a game of Apples to Apples?
From DealNews’ Tom Barlow:
New homes, regardless of their size and design, always look a bit naked until trees grow tall enough to frame the yard. However, adding trees to your landscape shouldn’t be haphazard; think carefully about the ideal placement, size, shape, and growing habits of regional trees, as well as how the tree can work to enhance the beauty of your home. You (or at least you house) will be living with these trees for a lifetime, so take some care in choosing them.
The first question you’ll want to ask yourself before you begin is: What’s the purpose of this tree? Yes, you can plant a tree because it «looks pretty,» but certainly there are other reasons for this type of landscape upgrade. According to the Council of Tree and Landscape Appraisers, a sound, mature tree can add from $1,000 to $10,000 to the value of your home.
A Tree Can Improve Your Home Life
One of the non-aesthetic ways a tree can improve the quality of life on your property is by saving you money. A good «shade tree» can dramatically impact a home’s air conditioning requirements by blocking direct sunlight in the summer. The American Power Association estimates that effective landscaping can reduce a home cooling bill by up to 50%. Then, in the winter, your trees (especially Evergreens) can help block the wind, saving those precious BTUs. American Forests claims that trees placed appropriately around one’s house can reduce the need for heating by 20% to 50%. Other benefits of a tree-lined property include their ability to keep erosion in check by virtue of their extensive roots, although you’re unlikely to appreciate the value of this service like you might from the energy savings. Trees also absorb carbon dioxide, converting it to sweet, sweet oxygen. Two mature trees alone put out more oxygen than one human being consumes.
And while a self-imposed monument smack dab in the middle of a backyard may not seem like something that would provide entertainment, think back to your own childhood spent climbing trees, swinging on a tire swing, or in a tree house. As adults, many homeowners appreciate fruit-producing trees, although there are special ways to fertilize, spray, and harvest these fruit-bearing trees. (Your County Extension Service would be a good place to contact for such information.) And lastly, certain types of trees can provide privacy for your family activities, in a much more pleasant way than a fence.
Choosing the Right Tree For Your Home
Not every tree works in every location. The first level of differentiation is of course geographical. The nation is broken up into hardiness zones by climate, and you’ll need to find out what trees work in your area. An Eastern Redbud, for example, won’t thrive in Florida, and you don’t want to plant a Live Oak in Minnesota. The Arbor Day organization has a helpful guide to trees that thrive across the nation.
Moreover, do you want a deciduous or coniferous? That is, do you want a tree that drops its leaves in the fall or one that stays evergreen during the winter? When used as a windbreak, for example, the latter is much more useful. It’s also important to consider the size of the tree you’ll plant. A 20-foot tree may look out of place as a prime front-yard tree. Likewise a 75-foot monster like the Yellow Buckeye might skew the proportions of a smaller home. Check the mature size of your tree before selecting. You’ll also want to consider the shape of a planted tree, and what will most flatter the size and shape of your property. Do you want to plant a rounded, conical, or horizontal shaped tree, like the arborvitae? It’s crucial to spend time thinking about what fits your lot and goes with your home.
If you’re a low-maintenance homeowner, then you will want to pay close attention to whether a tree sheds a lot. Sycamores, for example, drop bark and leaves the size of pie pans. Meanwhile, the Chinese Elm regularly drop whole branches; some sweet gum trees drop spiked balls that can be maddening to pick up. (Hint: Use a shop vac.) And in the fall, most deciduous trees will drop their leaves, necessitating some time spent with a rake or leaf blower. (But aren’t the changing colors worth a little elbow grease from you your teenaged offspring?) There are, however, trees like the Thornless Honeylocust that have leaves too tiny to rake and small enough that they can be left on the grass to decompose over the winter, unless you’re particular about your lawn.
The root habits of the tree are also important if you’re planting near a sidewalk or driveway. The Silver Maple is notorious for shallow roots that pop up all over the lawn and thrust cracks through asphalt and concrete. Moreover, if you live in an urban area, your city government may prohibit certain tree varieties that are brittle and frequently fall on power lines in strong wind. Also a concern for city dwellers is a tree’s ability to stand up to urban pollution, including air pollution and salt runoff from snow and ice removal. And to avoid any future heartache resulting from a sick tree, you can check your local County Extension Service to see what varieties are prone to tree diseases in your area. Sadly over the years, many magnificent trees have given in to disease, like the once-ubiquitous elm that gave in to the Dutch Elm disease. At present, the Emerald Ash Borer is making mincemeat of the nation’s Ash tree supply.
A tree is not a casual purchase, because it can eventually make a huge difference in the value of your property. Additionally, you’ll be looking at it for many years to come, so why plant one that will turn out to be an ugly aggravation? Rather than making a hasty decision, decide carefully so you can add a green companion to your home that you’ll come to treasure. Luckily, there’s still plenty of time to get it planted before winter arrives.
money online
(3) A depression is the phase of the deleveraging in which there’s a combination of austerity and debt restructuring. If you have too much debt to service, you’ve got to do something about it. There are a limited number of things that you can do. You can transfer the debt–you can transfer resources from the rich to the poor…. The alternative is a combination of austerity and debt restructuring…. The problem is one man’s debts are another man’s assets. So when you write it down in half, you have a big negative wealth effect…. You could restructure it by writing it down, or you could lengthen the payments, or you could forcibly lower the interest rate. Some way or another, you have got to get the payments in line with the cash flows so that you can service the debt. That’s a very painful process….[A] depression is the phase of the deleveraging when there’s a combination of austerity and writing down debts.
In the Great Depression, 1930 to 1933, we print money. The printing of money means that essentially a central bank slips into the system a certain amount of money each year, and that can make that deleveraging easier.
The best deleveragings are ones in which you have a balance. You have to bring down the debt-to-income ratio. You’re going to have a certain amount of transfer of wealth. You’re going to have a certain amount of austerity. You’re going to have a certain amount of debt writedowns. And you’re going to have a certain amount of printing of money. The debt writedowns and the austerity are deflationary. The printing of money is inflationary. If you can get the balance right of those things, then you have what I call a beautiful deleveraging…
(4) Look at debt-to-income ratios and say: «How have they come down over time?» Consider England after World War II or the United States in the Great Depression. They came down with relatively good conditions because there’s enough of the printing of money that the nominal growth rate in GDP exceeds the nominal interest rate. So the most important thing in these deleveragings, as the United States is now doing, is that you have enough printing of money to produce a nominal growth rate that’s above the nominal interest rate. I am oversimplifying. But that is the most important single thing…
(5) The most common mistake of monetary policy is that it targets inflation and growth. What it really has to pay attention to is debt growth relative to income growth: debt growth relative to sustainability. When you have a lot of debt growth that goes into the purchase of financial assets, that’s a classic bubble. That’s a riskier situation than inflation. In 2007 and similar periods, you see that there’s a lot of debt growth, which is accumulating for the purchase of financial assets, and then you look at the financial assets, and you say: «They will not be able to service that debt».
There was this behavior: Volatility went down. There is this notion of value at risk. And there is not an understanding of volatility changes. What happened was that as volatility was going down, everybody thought that it was an easy thing: you sell the asset that has the lower interest rate, you buy the asset that has the higher interest rate, and you are going to be OK, and you do a lot of that because volatility is low. Well, volatility changes.
We had mark-to-market accounting. So it was fairly easy to see what the bank’s assets were. You go through 10K reports, you see we’re going to have a big hit to equity, and when you have a big hit to equity, you’re going to have to contract balance sheets.
There was a lack of awareness. People think that the things that haven’t happened recently are implausible. So you look at the leveraging, and they say: «That’s a crazy scenario because it’s not within the range of expectations». In my life, through my whole range of expectations, everything’s been a surprise. Most things just have not happened before in our lifetimes that are big things, and there are a lot of them…
(6) I estimate that there’ll be about 2 trillion euros’ worth of losses on the European debt that exists. What are we going to do with those losses? Who’s going to bear what in those losses? There are three ways of dealing with them. You can either transfer wealth, and so that’s a fiscal transfer from the Germans or the northern Europeans to the others. The Germans don’t want to do that. The transfer is going to fall short. The second way is austerity and debt write-downs. That is a depression.
In March of 1933, Roosevelt gets in front of the television and he says: «We’re going to have a bank holiday». And that was when there was a severing of the dollar’s relationship with gold. That was the bottom in the Great Depression. That was the point where they print the money. So what we have — but printing money is a transfer of wealth too. It is a subtle transfer of wealth…
(7) Here’s the negotiation between the Germans and the Southern Europeans regarding what should be done with monetary policy. There’s an interesting dynamic pertaining to that. The Bundesbank has a sense of responsibility. It has its mission. There’s the issue of the printing of money. There’s the question of whether countries would leave the euro. There’s a realization that the Southern Europeans have the votes. They control monetary policy if it’s a voting organization.
So we had a standoff, and talk about whether the Southern Europeans would be forced out. Why should they be forced out? They don’t have to be forced out; they control it. If somebody’s going to be forced out, it’s more likely the Germans would be forced out. We were at an inflection point, and the question was would monetary policy print the needed money.
Let’s be clear that the basic difference between Spain and Italy and the United States, to a large extent, is the ability to print money. If you’ve got the capacity to print money, then you don’t have a credit spread.
Now we’re going into a dynamic where the ECB’s policy is, as in all deleveraging, in the natural last phase because it’s the least painful–none of them are good–which is is the movement toward printing money…
(8) The Southern European countries will see a classic lost decade, very similar to the Latin American debt crisis. We’re at the early stages of a major deleveraging. That will produce a depression environment. Credit comes from private sector credit. Private sector credit typically comes through banks. There will be a bank deleveraging. And then in the public sector, there’ll be a deleveraging because you can’t continue to run the deficit. There will be the equivalent of the IMF type of program. Conditions will be very bad for those countries.
The question becomes really a social question: how much tolerance for those types of conditions there will be? If it’s dealt with well socially, that becomes a test of the character of the people. We have a capacity to get through these things if we have a capacity to not have such conflict that in itself becomes a terrible thing. You’ll go through cycles, very much like Japan, in which you’ll have bull markets and bear markets…
(9) We have our deleveraging too. But you will have bull markets, there will be injections, there will be cycles, very similar to our quantitative easings. Everybody says: «OK, the problems are behind us». And then things go on for quite a long time–we call them lost decades. They usually take 15 years, something like that…
(10) The template creates a framework for this deleveraging. It gets down to the nitty-gritty of who is the buyer and who’s the seller. There was a lot of talk by policymakers and a lot of people that if I can keep the markets having faith and confidence, everything would be fine. That was not correct. If you actually knew who the buyers of the financial assets were, their confidence had very little to do with the decisions of the amounts of money that were being provided. You can give banks today in various places, you can give them all the confidence in the world; they can’t expand their balance sheets. Knowing who the buyers are and the motivations of the buyers is very key.
The «greater fool» theory can go on for a really long time. As we look at the United Sates, certainly it’s the case in Japan, we can’t support these kinds of debts. Anybody with a sharp pencil will know that we’re not going to be able to support that. The question is, what are the choices?
The world has lots of liquidity. The question is: what do its choices look like? Do you stop buying U.S. bonds, or do you stop buying Japanese bonds when you have no interest rate and a currency risk, so when do you stop buying?
Well, it’s ultimately when it’s driven to something else. At some point, you get a move toward inflation. Until you don’t have that move to move toward inflation assets, you have a capacity for a lot of the buying there. Tis could go on for quite a long time because you have to go back to the buyer, and you say, who is that big buyer? We know who the big buyers are of U.S. Treasurys…
(11) There needs to be a certain amount of austerity. But if that austerity is too much, we have to worry as much also about the social consequences. We cannot have a bad downturn. We have to balance in a way that does not produce another 2008 because if you have a downturn, then you’re going to have social consequences of the rich and the poor at each other’s throats and the possibility of doing crazy things, and then the political shifts. Hitler came to power in 1933 because it was the bottom of the Great Depression. Democracies have a challenge in terms of effective decision-making. Soyou have to worry about getting the balance right. The fiscal cliff next year is also something to worry about. So we can’t just worry about too much debt. We have to worry about too much austerity. We have to worry about getting that balance right.
(12) And my biggest worry: You can do the calculations. There’s a certain amount of spending: nominal GDP and real GDP. Who are the buyers of goods and services? Where did they get their money from? And then how much do they need? And so I’m worried about balance.
When we’re in a deleveraging, and you have that austerity, and you realize you’ve got too much debt. Everybody’s got too much debt and they’re not aware of it. Then you have the too much debt, and everybody’s aware of it, and gets very depressed about it. And then we have a crisis. And then they print money, and then we go through our cycles. And these are the cycles that happens during these 10-year periods.
When the Fed makes a purchase and prints money, it can expand its balance sheet. The key is: are you getting the money in the hands of that person who’s going to use it the way you want it to be used? If you go buy a mortgage-backed security it’s probably not going to be good enough because it puts the money in the hands of the owner of that Treasury bond, and they’re going to want to buy something that’s like a Treasury bond because that’s what they had before. It’s a long way between that person who’s holding that financial asset and the guy who’s going to buy a car or a house.
Central banks can buy financial assets, but they can’t buy goods and services. Central governments through fiscal policy can buy goods and services, but they can’t print money…. You can have monetary stimulation by the central bank. But if they buy Treasury bonds, it’s not going to stimulate the economy very much because it won’t buy cars and houses. And so you need fiscal policy. Then the question is: how does fiscal policy, because of the politics of it, the ideologies of it, respond to that kind of circumstance?
Former two-time WWE Diva’s champion and current Assistant to the Smackdown General Manager Eve Torres was yesterday named the winner of NBC’s reality series “Stars Earn Stripes.”
Eve defeated seven other competitors, including both male and female actors, singers, Olympians and boxers, to claim the victory.
“Stars Earns Stripes” saw eight celebrities working with trained members of the US Armed Forces and law enforcement authorities in a series of challenges. The challenges were based on real-life military training drills.
Each celebrity competed to raise money for his or her respective military-based charity organization. As the winner, Eve raised $150,000 for the United Service Organizations (USO).
The USO is a not-for-profit company that provides entertainment and other services to the US Military.
Throughout the competition’s four episodes, Eve came first in three of the challenges, receiving praise for her dedication, respect and physical abilities.
Thanks to Eve, a competing television program that also airs on Monday nights has turned into some extra publicity for the WWE.
The Divas’ motto of “sexy, smart and powerful” has finally been validated. Eve managed to overpower and outsmart her opponents to prove that WWE Divas aren’t as weak as they are portrayed on WWE television.
In an exclusive interview with WWE.com, Eve cited her training as a Diva being what got her physically fit for the competition, making her tough enough to be the last competitor standing.
Eve goes on to say that she “wasn’t fully prepared for the emotional and mental part” of the show, but still managed to overcome her adversaries and fly the flag tall for the WWE and its Divas.
For the full interview refer to WWE.com.
work from home
Editor’s note: Scott Weiss is a partner at Andreessen Horowitz and the former co-founder and CEO of IronPort Systems, which was acquired by Cisco in 2007. He blogs at http://scott.a16z.com, and you can follow him on Twitter @W_ScottWeiss.
People often ask me what the best path to becoming a successful entrepreneur is: “Should I go try and start a company now? Or go to grad school? How about working at a large tech company for a few years?”
I spent five years at a large technology company, two years at business school, and then two years in consulting before I went to a startup. Even with that experience, I still believe I was too green to jump right in and start a company. It’s not that those experiences weren’t valuable — it’s just that the most valuable lessons for successfully running a startup come from actually working at a well-run startup. I’d go even further to assert that the startup should be based in Silicon Valley and backed by venture capital.
You could just start a company without any startup experience, sure, but you will have a significantly higher chance of success if you already know how to navigate a startup’s unique challenges, including: raising money, changing product direction, and cultivating a culture. These are hard things to learn on the job, and you may have only one shot at the crucial “friends and family” round to get you started.
Why a Silicon Valley, VC-backed startup? If you just graduated from college, you probably haven’t developed the experience or instincts to judge whether a startup has a great team, a differentiated product or is going after a large enough market. While certainly not perfect, the VCs have done a lot of this important vetting for you, and their decision to invest can be considered a boost of credibility and resources for the company. Also, within each technology region, there is a dense network of specialized talent, financiers, and service organizations (e.g. legal, PR, recruiting) that form a startup ecosystem. Silicon Valley is by far the largest ecosystem and therefore holds the most potential for job opportunities and the strongest network.
What about grad school or establishing a foundation at a large company? It comes down to relevance. The responsibilities, roles, contacts, context, culture, communications, risks, and instincts you need to develop to eventually run a successful startup are best found at a startup.
If you’re trying to prepare yourself for entrepreneurship — the same two to four years at a startup isn’t even comparable to the equivalent time spent in school or a large company. There are probably five to ten times more lessons and relevance at the startup.
The next step involves finding the right startup to join. As it turns out, I moved out to Palo Alto from Boston in 1996 with virtually no connections or contacts and more than $100,000 in school loans from business school. A few things I did are surprisingly still relevant today:
Prepare for a long haul. You’ll need to move out here without a job while most of your friends have jobs locked up well before graduation. If you don’t have enough savings, you may need to get a part-time job while you job hunt. If this step makes you nervous at all, you may want to reconsider the entrepreneurial job choice.
Research. Start by downloading the last four venture capital surveys from the San Jose Mercury News website. These PDFs summarize the last year of companies that have been funded by VCs. Included are the company name, amount raised, VC involved and headquarters city. This is a great list to start with because all of these companies have recently raised capital and are therefore likely in hiring mode. Build a spreadsheet, start researching and then rank these companies by your level of interest. Go to the VC websites, check all the online publications (e.g. TechCrunch, AllThingsD, etc.), and look up the company name URLs. While you are on the VC websites, you should look through all of the companies on their “portfolio” tab to see if any should be added to your list.
Focus. There are many different types of startups and many different jobs within a startup. If you can code, there will be obvious roles within engineering, sales engineering or quality assurance. If coding isn’t for you, you’ll need to figure out the best entry-level role to position yourself. Perhaps in customer care, product management, finance, inside sales, or business development. It will also help to choose between the type of startup: enterprise or consumer. The more you begin to focus, the more credible you’ll become as you deep dive into the differences between the roles and the way the different companies go to market. You’ll want to be as knowledgeable as possible before you start networking.
Make a target list. After doing all this research, narrow it down to 20 to 30 target companies and make a market map or web of every possible link to the company — names of the investors, management team, PR firms — every potential connection (I’m thinking similar to an FBI board targeting a mafia family, but not quite that creepy). Your best chance of getting an interview is if you have a “warm” referral into the company (i.e. someone you’ve met who can refer you to someone inside the company they already know). That’s the goal. Continue to research the companies, the roles, the competitors, and the market so that you start sounding like you know what you’re talking about.
Start networking. I pulled out the Harvard Business School alumni directory, the University of Florida alumni directory, and the McKinsey alumni directory. I sent emails to guys 15 years older than me with “Hey Steve, I’m a fellow Florida grad, blah, blah, blah, can we have coffee?” I went to every meet-up that had the word “Stanford” in it. Before I knew it, one coffee led to another and after awhile I started asking smarter questions and got stronger referrals.
I cannot overemphasize the importance of preparation and persistence throughout the process. It took me four hard months of preparation, research, focus, list-making and networking until August, 1996, when I received a warm referral into a little, 12-person startup named Hotmail. It ended up being the best job experience of my life and I was completely hooked.
Some consolidation is afoot in online media: Dice Holdings, the career website owner, has bought the online media business of Geeknet, which includes the high-profile tech websites Slashdot, SourceForge, and Freecode, paying $20 million in cash for the assets.
The deal is bringing Dice a set of sites that are profitable and generating good revenues: The company tells me that they are on track for a $20 million turnover this year on EBITDA of $5 million. Slashdot brings in 3.7 million uniques per month; Sourceforge has 40 million monthly unique visitors; and Freecode brings in 500,000 a month.
The purchase announced today was the result of a tender process started by Geeknet back in May when it announced it was seeking strategic alternatives for the media business. And indeed it looks like the deal will leave Geeknet to focus solely on ThinkGeek, its e-commerce site for hipster tech-types.
Dice Holdings has built a business around recruitment and job-finding sites focused on specific niches. They include the technology industry-focused Dice.com, eFinancialCareers, ClearanceJobs, Rigzone, AllHealthcareJobs, and Targeted Job Fairs, an events-focused business. Up to now, its purchases have been more in the area of building up this business — such as its 2010 purchase of Worldwideworker.
It looks like the acquisition of Slashdot and the rest is a play to push more traffic to these lucrative job sites — specifically for Dice.com although you can see where other sites might benefit, too.
“Dice has been talking about building content and user engagement to be top of mind and more integral to professionals doing work, and if you think about SourceForge and Slashdot, it’s about user engagement to help you do your job,” Michael Durney, SVP, finance and CFO of Dice Holdings, told me today in an interview. “We started to build on our own [content business] but here we have two sites that do it very well.
He tells me that the sites will very much appear just as they have done for users. “It’s not about cutting costs,” he said. “We don’t want to change the experience today. What will happen over time is that the Dice.com site will operate more seamlessly connected to these sites. But the sites themselves will keep their look and feel and will run on their own.”
That “absolutely” includes editorial independence, he said. “We think that’s really key. We don’t profess to add much from an editorial standpoint. We will give the user bases on our sites and those the ability to interact with each other. Our goal here is to make them part of the overall tech and engineering experience at the company.” He also hopes that Slashdot and SourceForge in particular, which each get millions of comments from their users, will also be useful to Dice for its own user-engagement attempts. “One of the things we expect to learn is how these sites engage with their user bases,” he said.
Dice.com is a significantly smaller operation in comparison to the combined force of Slashdot, SourceForge, and Freecode. It has a little more than 2 million uniques per month, Durney said. The other sites have 1 million or fewer uniques each.
More to come. Refresh for updates.
Dice Holdings, Inc. Acquires Online Media Business from Geeknet, Inc. Slashdot and SourceForge Significantly Increase Reach into Global Technology Community New York, NY and Fairfax, VA – September 18, 2012 – Dice Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: DHX), a leading provider of specialized career websites, and Geeknet, Inc. (Nasdaq: GKNT) today announced that Dice Holdings has acquired Geeknet’s online media business, including Slashdot and SourceForge. “The acquisition of these premier technology sites fits squarely into our strategy of providing content and services that are important to tech professionals in their everyday work lives,” said Scot Melland, Chairman, President & CEO of Dice Holdings, Inc. “The SourceForge and Slashdot communities will enable our customers to reach millions of engaged tech professionals on a regular basis and significantly extends our company’s reach into the global tech community.” The sites include: Slashdot, a user-generated news, analysis, peer question and professional insight community. Tech professionals moderate the site which averages more than 5,300 comments daily and 3.7 million unique visitors each month. SourceForge, a destination for technology professionals and enthusiasts to develop, download, review and publish open source software, much of which they use in their own organizations. Approximately 80 percent of its roughly 40 million monthly unique visitors are outside the U.S. Freecode, one of the largest indexes of Linux, Unix and cross-platform software, as well as mobile applications generates nearly 500,000 unique visitors each month The acquisition builds on Dice.com’s rich history in providing the best content to help technology professionals succeed in their careers and reinforces the company’s commitment to deliver unique and valuable information to foster engagement in each of its communities. Ken Langone, Chairman of Geeknet, added, “We are very pleased to find a new home for our media business, providing a platform for the sites and our media teams to thrive. With this transaction completed, we will now focus our full attention on growing ThinkGeek.” Dice Holdings acquired the business for $20 million in cash. In 2011, the online media properties generated $20 million in Revenues. About Dice Holdings, Inc. Dice Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: DHX) is a leading provider of specialized websites for professional communities, including technology and engineering, financial services, energy, healthcare, and security clearance. Our mission is to help our customers source and hire the most qualified professionals in select and highly skilled occupations, and to help those professionals find the best job opportunities in their respective fields and further their careers. For more than 20 years, we have built our company by providing our customers with quick and easy access to high-quality, unique professional communities and offering those communities access to highly relevant career opportunities and information. Today, we serve multiple markets primarily in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Australia.
home business
Finding an equal balance between work and life is still the biggest challenge women face today.
According to a poll of 500 Canadian female managers and executives, the majority of women today still agree that balancing work and home life is difficult for females in leadership roles. The study also showed that women were divided when they were asked if these challenges were easier today than they were five years ago. At least 43 per cent of women believe it’s easier, while 28 per cent find it harder today to balance both.
«There has been a lot of progress. Women today feel more confident but when it shows that 9 out of ten women still feel there are discrepancies between the treatment of men and women, we are still not there yet,» says Delphine Robert, marketing director of Randstad Canada told the Huffington Post Canada.
The study, conducted by Ipsos-Reid on behalf of recruitment services company Randstad Canada, also found that some of these largest discrepancies were around the opportunities for promotion and compensation. At least 92 per cent of polled women feel that there is still a divide for men and women to get promoted in the workplace.
But should women even be striving for this balance? It’s a question that comes up often, and has been debated everywhere from The Atlantic to Facebook.
«There’s no such thing as work-life balance. There’s work, and there’s life, and there’s no balance,» said Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook in an interview for the Makers series from PBS and AOL.
Sandberg also added that women should choose spouses who will support their ambitions and do half of the work at home.
Robert agrees, but says it’s still important to achieve a work-life balance — even if it sounds like a cliché. «We wanted to evaluate if this was still an issue for women today and a majority of women still find it a challenge,» she says.
Story Continues Below: LOOK: How women feel about work and home balance in Canadian regions:
From DealNews’ Tom Barlow:
New homes, regardless of their size and design, always look a bit naked until trees grow tall enough to frame the yard. However, adding trees to your landscape shouldn’t be haphazard; think carefully about the ideal placement, size, shape, and growing habits of regional trees, as well as how the tree can work to enhance the beauty of your home. You (or at least you house) will be living with these trees for a lifetime, so take some care in choosing them.
The first question you’ll want to ask yourself before you begin is: What’s the purpose of this tree? Yes, you can plant a tree because it «looks pretty,» but certainly there are other reasons for this type of landscape upgrade. According to the Council of Tree and Landscape Appraisers, a sound, mature tree can add from $1,000 to $10,000 to the value of your home.
A Tree Can Improve Your Home Life
One of the non-aesthetic ways a tree can improve the quality of life on your property is by saving you money. A good «shade tree» can dramatically impact a home’s air conditioning requirements by blocking direct sunlight in the summer. The American Power Association estimates that effective landscaping can reduce a home cooling bill by up to 50%. Then, in the winter, your trees (especially Evergreens) can help block the wind, saving those precious BTUs. American Forests claims that trees placed appropriately around one’s house can reduce the need for heating by 20% to 50%. Other benefits of a tree-lined property include their ability to keep erosion in check by virtue of their extensive roots, although you’re unlikely to appreciate the value of this service like you might from the energy savings. Trees also absorb carbon dioxide, converting it to sweet, sweet oxygen. Two mature trees alone put out more oxygen than one human being consumes.
And while a self-imposed monument smack dab in the middle of a backyard may not seem like something that would provide entertainment, think back to your own childhood spent climbing trees, swinging on a tire swing, or in a tree house. As adults, many homeowners appreciate fruit-producing trees, although there are special ways to fertilize, spray, and harvest these fruit-bearing trees. (Your County Extension Service would be a good place to contact for such information.) And lastly, certain types of trees can provide privacy for your family activities, in a much more pleasant way than a fence.
Choosing the Right Tree For Your Home
Not every tree works in every location. The first level of differentiation is of course geographical. The nation is broken up into hardiness zones by climate, and you’ll need to find out what trees work in your area. An Eastern Redbud, for example, won’t thrive in Florida, and you don’t want to plant a Live Oak in Minnesota. The Arbor Day organization has a helpful guide to trees that thrive across the nation.
Moreover, do you want a deciduous or coniferous? That is, do you want a tree that drops its leaves in the fall or one that stays evergreen during the winter? When used as a windbreak, for example, the latter is much more useful. It’s also important to consider the size of the tree you’ll plant. A 20-foot tree may look out of place as a prime front-yard tree. Likewise a 75-foot monster like the Yellow Buckeye might skew the proportions of a smaller home. Check the mature size of your tree before selecting. You’ll also want to consider the shape of a planted tree, and what will most flatter the size and shape of your property. Do you want to plant a rounded, conical, or horizontal shaped tree, like the arborvitae? It’s crucial to spend time thinking about what fits your lot and goes with your home.
If you’re a low-maintenance homeowner, then you will want to pay close attention to whether a tree sheds a lot. Sycamores, for example, drop bark and leaves the size of pie pans. Meanwhile, the Chinese Elm regularly drop whole branches; some sweet gum trees drop spiked balls that can be maddening to pick up. (Hint: Use a shop vac.) And in the fall, most deciduous trees will drop their leaves, necessitating some time spent with a rake or leaf blower. (But aren’t the changing colors worth a little elbow grease from you your teenaged offspring?) There are, however, trees like the Thornless Honeylocust that have leaves too tiny to rake and small enough that they can be left on the grass to decompose over the winter, unless you’re particular about your lawn.
The root habits of the tree are also important if you’re planting near a sidewalk or driveway. The Silver Maple is notorious for shallow roots that pop up all over the lawn and thrust cracks through asphalt and concrete. Moreover, if you live in an urban area, your city government may prohibit certain tree varieties that are brittle and frequently fall on power lines in strong wind. Also a concern for city dwellers is a tree’s ability to stand up to urban pollution, including air pollution and salt runoff from snow and ice removal. And to avoid any future heartache resulting from a sick tree, you can check your local County Extension Service to see what varieties are prone to tree diseases in your area. Sadly over the years, many magnificent trees have given in to disease, like the once-ubiquitous elm that gave in to the Dutch Elm disease. At present, the Emerald Ash Borer is making mincemeat of the nation’s Ash tree supply.
A tree is not a casual purchase, because it can eventually make a huge difference in the value of your property. Additionally, you’ll be looking at it for many years to come, so why plant one that will turn out to be an ugly aggravation? Rather than making a hasty decision, decide carefully so you can add a green companion to your home that you’ll come to treasure. Luckily, there’s still plenty of time to get it planted before winter arrives.
bieliznasklep 
Debe estar conectado para enviar un comentario.