As we have all seen, housing sales are down in most states across the country. For some, there is a silver lining to this cloud. Young individuals and families who thought they would never be able to own a home back in 2005 now see that the possibility is a distinct reality. Falling home prices open up the market to millions of people who were simply unable to purchase homes at yesterday’s prices—particularly in expensive areas such as New York, New Jersey, and California.
Not everyone needs to own a home. Some people prefer renting for reasons that have nothing to do with home prices! Some individuals rent to avoid maintenance costs, the time and trouble involved with lawn care, doing repairs, and upgrading things like appliances, plumbing, and electricity.Those who are interested, though, should take a look around. If you haven’t looked at housing prices over the last year, you are bound to be surprised when you glance at them now.
Take New Jersey, for example. According to Newjerseyrates.com, prices there have declined by an average of 15 to 20 percent in every county over the past three-and-a-half years. At the beginning of 2009, real estate professionals noted that select sellers began slashing prices by 10 to 20 percent, some even 25 percent to get an edge over other sellers.
If you think you may want to own a home, there are some serious deals to be found on the market now. It doesn’t hurt that interest rates are as low as they will ever be either. In terms of interest, one point can raise the total price paid on a home by tens of thousands of dollars! If you are thinking of buying but just want to see what the cost of a home would mean in terms of a monthly mortgage payment, just contact a local loan agent or site like New Jersey Rates, which shows a variety of places and rates they charge.
The credit crisis might seem like old news with the current downturn in the economy. Everyone is focused on ugly little words like “recession” and “unemployment.” Who has time to worry about issues like credit, either on the national or personal level?
You should. As more and more people find it harder to make ends meet each month, they may find themselves tempted to try and maintain the lifestyle they’re accustomed to by simply charging what they want and paying it back later. No harm, right? After all, when times are tough, we do what we can to keep our spirits afloat. A night on the town here or a new bit of tech there certainly can’t hurt.
Except that it can. That is the mindset that has gotten quite a few people in trouble, from individuals to multinational corporations. The whole mindset of operating beyond our means has become embedded in the national consciousness. It’s something that needs to change and soon.
There is a question of whose fault that would be (one of the other things people love to do is point fingers.) In this case, it’s hard to say. On the individual level, there doesn’t seem to be an actual system for educating people on the responsible use of credit cards. Many youngsters getting their cards for the first time immediately dive into unhealthy spending habits that will take them years to make up for. Perhaps they’re emulating the same behavior they have seen from their parents. Until someone finds a way to break this cycle and change this mindset, the best we can do is be as responsible as we can for ourselves.
If there’s one thing a rich bitch hates more than a philandering husband, it’s a dishonest forex broker. Ladies, we know that the forex world is laden with unscrupulous degenerates who like to swindle enterprising women out of the thousands of dollars required to open an account. Although the National Futures Association and Commodity Futures Trading Commission try to suppress frauds, sometimes the con artists still manage to squeak through.
Luckily, we’ve found a broker called FxPro who provides real-time quotes, competitive spreads, flexible leverage, a variety of currency pairs, and more. The MetaTrader 4 online trading platform is easy to use and contains just about every technical indicator available. Most of the tools can be customized depending on what kind of trading you do (i.e., scalping, day trading, swing trading, etc.) and which timeframes you work off of. If you’re not ready to begin trading full-time, you can test the platform with a practice account for a few months before you open a live account. Live accounts can be capitalized with as little as $100 to start, though.
We also like FxPro’s customer service. Support staff can be reached via online chats, email, or telephone. The company’s headquarters are in Cypress, but with these tools, they’re easy to reach if we need help with a forex trade. To learn more about FxPro, check ‘em out at https://www.fxpro.com/index.php.
Apparently there’s nothing like the threat of a possible second Great Depression to drive people to gorge themselves on milkshakes, french fries and triple-decker hamburgers. Or maybe it’s just that money is too tight for extravagant meals. If you ask William Spain he’ll tell you, “McDonald’s has been one of the prime beneficiaries of the economic downturn, as new menu items and expanded hours lure consumers to “trade down” from higher-priced dining options.”
So basically what you’re hearing now, even though no one will make a connection, is that there is indeed a link to poverty and obesity. If money problems drive people to “trade down” from higher priced options and eat cheaper food like McDonalds; then possibly there’s a corelation between the afordability of fast food and the obesity problem that plagues so many poor people?
Source: More strong growth for McDonald’s in October
Image: forgive me father by Mike-Wise via Flickr
What’s the deal with Sirius XM Radio Inc? They continue to act like everything is honky dory and copacetic; but their stock can’t seem to rise even to forty cents at this point. They’re all gung-ho about the fact that they’ll be broadcasting live election coverage across 14 channels starting today with guest to include Dr. Maya Angelou, Gayle King, Jamie Foxx, Joe Madison, Tom Brokaw, Gwen Ifill, Ron Silver, Mark Thompson and Andrew Wilkow. Do their stockholders really care about this? What’s the deal with the company stock?
Sirius needs to be getting serious about turning their stock around. It’s all well and good to be having all these programs on all these channels with all these distinguished guests but if the company goes bust none of it will make a bit of difference.
Image: Senator Barack Obama by Sister72 via Flickr
Sirius XM Radio announced today that they will be broadcasting a “100% commercial-free” music channel that will be dedicated to Led Zeppelin. You’ll be able to access “Led Zeppelin Radio” on SIRIUS channel 12 and XM channel 39 starting Saturday, November 1 at 6:00 pm ET ongoing through December 31.
Sirius also announced on the 27th that SIRIUS XM will be delivering live NBA games to satellite radio subscribers countrywide throughout the 2008-09 season.
Sirius has made many announcements of new channels and programming in the last month; however Sirius XM stock price continues to hover under $0.40 cents a share. At least it’s up ten cents from last week when it had dropped to a low of $0.22 cents per share.
Should you buy Sirius stock? Why not? At $0.35 cents per share what have you really got to lose? Assuming you’re only going to be buying a small handful, like maybe $100 – $200 worth of shares.
Image: Led Zeppelin by p_a_h via Flickr
The DOW closed today up 889.35 points from yesterday’s close of 8,175.77. This is apparently the second biggest daily point gain in the history of the index.
If you’re considering venturing into stock investing but not sure how to get started, you might consider using a service like sharebuilder.com. The system is straight forward enough that you don’t need to be an expert to get started buying stocks; but you should probably start small since you’re new to investing. Find a stock that is relatively cheap but familiar, like Ford Motor Company for example. At $2.15 per share you can pick up a few shares without needing to worry that you’re making a mistake investing in Ford. $100 can purchase around 46 shares. It won’t make you rich but you’re just trying to get your feet in the water right now.
Sirius XM Radio Inc Stock went down to $0.27 cents per share at one point today. It currently stands at $0.29 cents per share; but no one seems to think this marks doomsday for Sirius. The recommendation is still pointing towards buying; and why not?
With the share prices so insignificant even low-income persons can afford to invest in Sirius right now without fearing the risk of losing their investment. Just $50 can get you 200 shares, which isn’t a bad number of shares with which to start building your portfolio. As stated in a previous post, if you buy into Sirius now do so knowing there’s a strong possibility your total shares will be reduced by a ratio of 10::1. It seems a reverse split is being very seriously considered.
Image: stockcharts.com
You can pick up shares of Sirius XM Radio Inc Stock for just $0.35 per share; and with analysts still betting on Sirius to rebound this might be the time to go ahead and bite the bullet.
If you don’t have major money to invest, you can pick up 285 shares of Sirius stock with just $100. Even if it proves to be a bad investment it’s still only $100 lost; and if things turn around for Sirius and their stock goes up to $5 in value, that’s $1425 for your $100 investment.
The thing to keep in mind is that there’s talk of a possible reverse stock split and if that happens your shares will suddenly dwindle.
If they do a 10:1 reverse split for example, and you own 285 shares you’ll suddenly own only 28.5 shares of Sirius stock. That would mean your share value will be $142.50 if the stock gets back to a $5 per share value and that’s obviously not as impressive as the $1425 you would have without the reverse split.
Here are some links from marketwatch.com which you can use to keep yourself up to speed on what’s going on with the economy. Keywords of note: stock indexes, technology, energy stocks, petroleum (Just write them down in your rich bitch economics notebook for now).
