The Daily Middle

Archive for June, 2010

A new study found that children are more likely to choose food that comes in packaging with a cartoon on it than without. I never would have figured that. Thanks, Yale.

- Jimmy Kimmel

“Last year of Fiscal 2009 we had a 1.42 trillion dollar deficit, this year it’s going to be a 1.3 trillion plus. The debt has more than doubled in the last 10 years, it’s scheduled to more than double again in the next 10. That type of growth is not [good], that’s called ‘negative growth.’ Our liabilities and unfunded promises have tripled in the last ten years as well. Medicare is 38 trillion dollars under water, [and] social security is 7 to 8 trillion dollars under water… those would be the two biggest. First, we need to learn from the past. We need to re-impose tough statutory budget controls on discretionary spending. We need to be able to have mandatory reconsideration of spending programs and tax policies when they reach a certain size.”

By: Dan Weil

Gold, which recently surged to a record high $1,265, still has plenty of room to rise, many experts say.

Concern about the explosion of sovereign debt worldwide, low interest rates, and anticipation of gold purchases by China have put the precious metal in a sweet spot. Low rates make gold attractive compared to fixed income investments.

“There is a perfect storm for gold,” Bill O’Neill, former head of commodity research at Merrill Lynch and now a partner at Logic Advisors, told CNBC.

“The metal has become the ultimate currency, as few want to commit to the euro, pound or yen. And while the U.S. dollar may be the best of a weak lot, it also holds little appeal.”
Read the rest of this entry »

From: Forbes

In my opinion the Recession that was time-stamped by the Economic Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) to have begun in December 2007 has not ended and continues today. How can the NBER declare an end to this Recession with unemployment at 9.7% when the Recession began with unemployment at 4.6%?

The basic causes of the Great Recession began in the Housing Market and the community banks on Main Street. Those problems have been masked by numerous failed attempts at mortgage mitigations as house prices stabilized during the period when the government was offering tax credits for first time homebuyers as well as existing homebuyers who wanted to move. Those programs ended on April 30th for contracts and for closings effective this week by the end of June 30th.

Efforts to extend the closing date to September 30th have yet to be passed by Congress. When this schedule for contracts and closings was announced last fall, I predicted that many deals that went to contract on time would not make closing on time. The National Association of Realtors now agrees with me and indicated recently that they expect 180,000 home purchases will not close on time as the buyers were not able to get financing approval on time, and home builders could not meet the demand on time.
Read the rest of this entry »

From: Consumer Reports

Nancy Niemeyer, an IT project manager from Seattle, says she feeds her family of four for about $10 a week. No, her family isn’t going hungry; Niemeyer simply uses coupons—lots of them. Although few shoppers have the determination or patience to become extreme couponers, you can borrow some of their strategies to cut weekly grocery tabs and even score an occasional jaw-dropping deal. Niemeyer and two other coupon pros, Georgine Kaczmarek and Donna Montaldo, agreed to share some of their secrets. Kaczmarek runs GeorgineSaves.com, a website that steers couponers to the best deals. Montaldo is the couponing expert at About.com.

Get organized
Store coupons in color-coded envelopes, a portable file with dividers, a tabbed binder, or a photo album.

Collect a lot
Nab every coupon that you might use; don’t limit yourself to those for products you need now. Look in the usual spots—the Sunday paper, coupon packs sent in the mail—but also check manufacturer websites and giant coupon sites including Coupons.com, CoolSavings.com, and GrocerySmarts.com. And see the box below for where coupons lurk in stores.

Stack coupons
Stacking, a top strategy of coupon enthusiasts, means redeeming at least two coupons—one from the manufacturer and one from the store—on a single purchase. Manufacturers and grocery stores don’t necessarily offer coupons for the same items at the same time. The trick is to hold onto manufacturer coupons until your store offers coupons for the same product.

Be smart online
Set up a separate e-mail account for couponing. You have to register at most sites before you can print out coupons, and once you do you’ll be bombarded with spam. Be selective about which online coupons you print, or you’ll spend too much on ink and paper. Because manufacturers can discontinue online coupons at any time, print them close to when you intend to use them.
Read the rest of this entry »

The Russian president wanted to pick up the check, but Obama said, “Don’t worry about it, just charge it to our grandchildren.”

– Jay Leno

Gerald Celente,

“It’s not that they want the Governments necessarily to spend more, they don’t want to be taxed and penalized on the bad bets of the banks, that’s what that’s all about. The banks rack up the big losers and the little people have to pay them off. It’s the same as with the ‘too big to fails.’ The ‘too big to fails’ are being saved by the ‘too small to save.’ That’s what that’s about… ”

From: The Ready Store

The problem with an emergency plan is that things never quite turn out like you plan. Can we then conclude that planning is a waste of time? Seriously, what’s the point if you’re not able to do exactly what you’ve planned on? Or maybe you should come up with a broad plan that gives you options? How ’bout just having some general disaster response concepts in your head?

While a plan may never quite turn out perfectly, it’s crucial that you have a plan in place if you expect to effectively respond to a disaster. Here’s three good reasons why you should have a written emergency plan.

1. Writing a plan formalizes the steps, and helps to ingrain your plan into your mind.
2. Having a written plan can dramatically relieve the stress of an emergency situation.
3. Creating a plan helps to identify deficiencies in tools and supplies.

While the problem with a plan is that things are probably not going to turn out the way you planned, the problem with not having a plan is that ‘things’ may not turn out at all.

So now that you buy into planning, imagine taking the time to thoroughly plan for a hurricane, you’ve got your supplies, you have an evacuation plan in case it becomes necessary, in fact you’ve even driven it a few times, in short you’ve gone the extra mile to be sure the plan is fool proof.
Read the rest of this entry »

Despite the apparent deficit-cutting solidarity that emerged from this weekend’s G-20 meeting in Toronto, it is clear that the great powers of the industrialized world have not been this philosophically estranged since the end of the Cold War. Ironically, in this new contest, the former belligerents have switched sides – the capitalists are now the socialists, and vice versa.

We now are witnessing a struggle between two camps that I playfully call the “Stimulators” and the “Austereians.” Both warn that a worldwide depression will ensue if governments now make the wrong choices: the Stimulators say the danger lies in spending too little and the Austereians from spending too much. Each side also has their own economic champion: the Stimulators follow the banner of Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, while the Austereians are forming up behind the recently reformed former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan. (It is cold comfort to witness “The Maestro” belatedly returning to the hard-money positions that characterized his earlier years.)

In a recent Wall Street Journal editorial, Greenspan argued that the best economic stimulus would be for the world’s leading debtors (the United States, UK, Japan, Italy, et al) to rein in their budget deficits, a strategy dubbed “austerity” by the press. Greenspan explains that because lower deficits will restore confidence, diminish the threat of inflation, and allow savings to flow to private-sector investment rather than public-sector consumption, the short-term pain will lead to gains both in the mid- and long-term. Rather than redistributing a shrinking pie, this approach allows the pie to grow. Greenspan’s Austereian view has been echoed loudly in the highest policy circles of Berlin, Ottawa, Moscow, Beijing, and Canberra.
Read the rest of this entry »

From: Moneynews

Mortgages are cheaper today than they’ve been in a half-century. If only most people had the job security, the credit score and the cash to qualify.

The average rate for a 30-year fixed loan sank to 4.69 percent this week, beating the low set in December and down from 4.75 percent last week, Freddie Mac said Thursday. Rates for 15-year and five-year mortgages also hit lows.

Rates are at their lowest since the mortgage company began keeping records in 1971. The last time they were any cheaper was the 1950s, when most long-term home loans lasted just 20 or 25 years.

Almost no one expects falling rates to energize the economy, though. Sales of new homes collapsed in May after an enticing tax credit expired.

“As long as prospective homebuyers are still concerned about their jobs and financial well-being, many will be reluctant to take the plunge, even though affordability has never been better,” said Greg McBride, senior financial analyst with Bankrate.com.
Read the rest of this entry »