Sep
10
Learning To Compete In the Travel Industry
Filed Under Financial, Travel | Leave a Comment
Over the years, many of us have heard about the opportunities available in wholesale travel. As a consumer, we can recognize that if these wholesale travel packages are legitimate, then we will have access to vacation packages that would make the average traveler drool over their possibilities in travel destinations. When we slide the shoe to the other foot and consider wholesale travel as a business opportunity, we question whether we have the knowledge or fortitude to succeed in this type of business.
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Sep
10
Ports of Call for Disney Cruise ships
Filed Under Travel | Leave a Comment
While the Disney cruise ships themselves are a fabulous vacation destination, they are also a floating ‘Fantasyland’, traveling to beautiful and exotic ports of call. If you can manage to tear yourself away from the activities and amenities of the Disney cruise ships for a few hours, many wonderful adventures await you when the ship docks.
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Sep
10
The Secret to Becoming Rich
Filed Under Financial | Leave a Comment
Napoleon Hill, the author of Think and Grow Rich, believes that a person does not have to be a genius to become rich. Any person can become wealthy if he thinks positively and has a deep desire to achieve his goal.
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Aug
24
The indestructible cheerleader
Filed Under Utterly random | Leave a Comment
Pic of the day - to cheer you up, and remind you that NBC’s Heroes will be launching it’s Season 2 really really soon. Like in less than a month.
Aug
4
It’s summer and it’s time to go travel
Filed Under Travel | Leave a Comment
We’ve got some great ideas. From exotic Krabi to the golden sands of Bora Bora, from Santorini to the shopping paradise of Singapore, we think it’s time to travel. Even if you’re only going as far as the nearest beach.
Get a tan. You know that Vitamin D is good for you. Go hiking in the Alps - the mountain meadows there are so gorgeous, they’re practically to die for.
Travelling will help you break your usual monotonous cycle, it’ll get you away from the economic depression in the US, where the depressed residential market is causing stocks to fall all around the world. A facial and spa massage will ease those worries and you’ll be feeling so much better.
So look for that friendly neighbourhood travel agent of yours and book a little getaway. Lake Como has been having some fabulous weather, we hear.
Aug
4
A new study out of Johns Hopkins shows that more Americans are getting obese, with the present incidence of obesity around one third of all American adults. Risks of obesity include heart disease, hypertension, diabetes and more. Read more..
Jul
25
Alleged drug magnate arrested
Filed Under Utterly random | Leave a Comment
It’s just been proven, what we’ve suspected all along - dealing in drugs does bring in big money. Say what you will about the risks of getting gunned down by rivals, police swat teams, or even angry jilted ex-girlfriends, that doesn’t change the fact that the potential money is enormous.
Mexican Zhenli Ye Gon, aka Charley Ye, had amassed at least USD 207 million in his Mexico City mansion, alleged from drug-related activities. Two whole tons of USD 100 notes. A guy like that has no need of credit cards, or stock market accounts. Just to put things in perspective, that is probably more that you will ever earn in maybe 50 lifetimes. Well, the tax on that would probably be more that you would ever earn in your lifetime.
Arrested in Washington, Charley Ye now faces extradition to Mexico City, where the government is eager to sink its claws into Charley, for embarassing them last week, when he told the Mexican media that he would prove that his fortune was, in no small part, due to senior officials in the government.
Ye had apparently owned a pharmaceutical company in Mexico, the Unimed Pharm Chem de Mexico. He had also been fond of gambling, visiting Las Vegas numerous times, and incurring a debt of over USD 125 million at various casinos.
Jul
21
The US Senate Finance Committee has approved, voting with an overwhelming majority of 17 to 4, in defiance of a threatened veto by President Bush, a bill to increase the tobacco tax significantly, in order to expand child healthcare. Morever, it appears that most of the Republicans on the Committee joined the Democrats, voting in favour of the bill.
The current legislation for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, SCHIP, expires at the end of September this year.
If passed by Congress, the new bill would entitle another 3.2 million children from low income families to receive state funded health insurance, bringing the total to 10 million children. Typically, these families can’t afford medical insurance and ironically don’t qualify for Medicaid because their earnings are just above the cut off point.
President Bush has stated that he is against the bill because it expands the government’s role in healthcare and is financed by a huge tax increase, and he instead favours a system of tax breaks to encourage uninsured people to take up private insurance.
The original proposal in the Senate Committee by the Democrats was for a 50 billion increase, the 35 billion approved by the Finance Committee was a compromise. However, some Democrats are adamant about pursuing the original 50 billion, and others realise that to do this may compromise support for the bill because many Republican Senators will find it difficult to support a bill that would spend significantly more what the Finance Committee approved.
The Senate panel voted to provide an additional 35 billion dollars to finance the expanded program, bringing the total spend to 60 billion over the next five years. President Bush’s counterproposed a 5 billion increase to continue the program without expansion, with a total spend of 30 billion over five years.
A New York Times report quoted Republican Senator Charles E Grassley of Iowa, co-author of the bill calling Bush’s plan “unrealistic” and he couldn’t see how only a 5 billion dollar increase in funding would allow SCHIP to continue doing what it has been doing.
The committee approved bill calls for a considerable rise in tobacco tax to pay for it. The tax on a standard pack of cigarettes would increase from the current 39 cents to a dollar. Cigars would face a bigger increase, with premium cigars facing an increase in tax from 5 cents being taxed at 10 dollars each.
Senators in favour of the bill said the tobacco tax would also discourage smoking, particularly among teenagers..
According to a report by Reuters, Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said the Senate would approve the bill later this month in defiance of Bush’s threat to veto it.
Jul
21
Shorting the US dollar - what pattern will it take ?
Filed Under Currency, Financial | Leave a Comment
Anyone who reads can tell you that the US dollar is on a bearish - downward - trend compared to most of the other major currencies. The Aussie dollar and NZ dollar are consequently bullish, or rising. The China renminbi is skyrocketing. Even the Japanese yen is holding very steady.
The obvious bet, when trading the US dollar, is to short-sell. Basically, sell high and buy back to cover when it drops in value, over time.
But it’s not a linear fall. The US dollar kinda bumps around, drops for a few days, makes a U-turn, comes back up, occasionally even rises for a while before falling again. As such, any investor short-selling the US dollar must be careful, and watch closely the patterns, to anticipate these bumps before they happen. Short-selling is very time sensitive, and if you do not have the resources to cover your trades if they turn sour, you could lose a whole pile of money, much more that you stand to gain.
Remember, currency rates are not like gravity. Those that rise, continue to rise. Those that fall, continue to fall.
Jul
13
Good Food, Bad Food
Filed Under Health | Leave a Comment
It’s true - research has shown that certain good foods, like salmon ( full of omega 3), fruits and vegetables, do increase the elasticity of your blood vessels, improving their ability to adapt to situations when the body needs increased cardiac output. And bad foods, especially fried and fatty foods, those rich in triglycerides and cholesterol, can do the reverse, cause the blood vessel to stiffen, harden, and potentially cause calcium deposition and plaque buildup. And these effect can start hours after the meal is ingested.
So it’s proven - good food does improve your blood vessels.
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