Making Money Working

Twitter, the company that early on never wanted to talk about money, now has a money-making strategy that it says is working well.

On Tuesday, Dick Costolo, Twitter’s chief operating officer, introduced some new ways Twitter will make money. Advertisers will soon be able to pay for Twitter to suggest that people follow their accounts, and next year Twitter advertising will expand to small businesses, which will be able to place ads using a self-serve system.

But another money-making idea for Twitter — the @earlybird e-commerce account that offered daily deals — will be discontinued, at least for now, because it did not work well apart from a few popular sales, he said.

“We’re definitely beyond the experimentation stage,” said Mr. Costolo, speaking at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Mixx conference in New York. “We feel like we’ve cracked the code on a new kind of advertising — advertising that starts out as organic content.”

He was referring to Promoted Tweets and Trends, the ads that companies like Starbucks and Virgin America buy on Twitter and that show up as the top Twitter post when people search for related words, or on the list of trending topics.

Advertisers pay anytime someone interacts with the Twitter post, by clicking on a link, forwarding the post to friends or replying to it. People click on these ads 5 percent of the time, Mr. Costolo said.

Companies will now also be able to buy ads to promote their accounts. Twitter suggests accounts that people should follow, based on their interests, and will use the same algorithm to suggest accounts that advertisers pay to promote.

That way, businesses have the chance to get their posts in front of followers through their free accounts every time they post, not just through ads, and people are choosing to see the posts.

Asked if companies will ever spend millions of dollars on Twitter, as they do on Google, Mr. Costolo said, “That day is right around the corner.” So far, about 40 companies have advertised and 80 percent have advertised more than once, he said. He expects that to be in the hundreds by the end of the year.

“Right now, there’s a line out the door to advertise with us and spend significant dollars with us,” Mr. Costolo said.

Twitter will develop a self-serve advertising system next year that will be easy for small businesses to use themselves, Mr. Costolo said. Companies like Google and Yelp offer a similar service. Twitter has been particularly valuable for small businesses, though it has been so valuable as a free service that it might be hard to convince them they should also pay for ads.

“There’s a portion of small businesses that will use Twitter and are happy with organic followers and will build organically, and that’s fine with us,” he said.

Finally, Mr. Costolo gave some new growth numbers — Twitter has more than 160 million users and is adding 370,000 a day — and said the company was working on ways to help users discover real-time events that are being discussed on Twitter, like conversations around an earthquake or sporting event.

What makes a man want to amass more money than God, and once he has, keep going? For each hedge-fund manager the answers are a little bit different, and a little bit the same. From today's Bloomberg Markets we believe we have identified the four primary things that motivated Harbinger Capital founder Philip Falcone (or as readers of this blog may know him, Mr. Lisa Falcone), whose fund made $11 billion betting against subprime, to become who he is today.

We begin with a sepia-tinted moment when Falcone first leaves his Minnesota hometown, all gawky of limb and Lionel Richie of hair, to seek his fortune in the big city.

Neil Sheehy, from nearby International Falls, had offered Falcone a ride to Harvard University, which had recruited both of them to play hockey for the Crimson. The car stalled in front of Falcone’s house, and Sheehy had to restart it on a hill while Falcone’s mother and one of his sisters sobbed their goodbyes.

“It’ll be all right, Mrs. Falcone; it’ll be all right,” Sheehy recalls telling Caroline Falcone as the car chugged to life and headed east.

Falcone was one of nine, and his mother still cared that he was leaving home! This is meaningful and leads us to Motivation 1: Phil can never let his mama down.

[To wit, later: "Galloway says he once set up a meeting for Falcone with a billionaire investor who was interested in Harbinger. Falcone said he couldn’t make the meeting because he had to go see his mother."]

Immediately after leaving home, life decided to punk young Philip by showing him that even when you think that things are tough, they can always get worse.

Falcone rode to Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his feet on the dashboard because Sheehy had packed a skate-sharpening machine on the floor of the front seat... Halfway there, the roof liner came loose and showered the young men with fiberglass insulation that stuck to them as they sweated in the late.

Motivation 2: The fuck he's going to go through something like that again. He is going to kick life's ass!

Then, he did not quite fit in at school.

Falcone was wide-eyed when he arrived at Harvard in 1980, says hockey teammate Greg Olson, who’s now a dentist in Minnetonka, Minnesota. “He was a deer in the headlights,” Olson says. After recovering from the initial shock, Falcone made himself something of a campus don. Hockey teammates called him “Fashion Phil” because he cared so much about his clothes, Olson says. He had a blue, three-piece suit that he wore often, and he always wore stylish shoes.

Motivation 3: Show those jerkoffs who called him a hick and a fag who the man is.

But after graduation, he was more confident.

[Wife Lisa] was working as a model when she met Phil Falcone through mutual friends at a Manhattan restaurant in the late 1980s.

Motivation 4: GIRLS!

Of course, a hot wife and incredible financial success doesn't keep the critics at bay. If anything, it just makes them worse.

“Just because a manager got the subprime trade right, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a skilled manager,” says Brad Balter, managing partner of Balter Capital Management LLC, a Boston-based firm that invests in hedge funds for clients. “There have been several funds that benefited from that bet in 2007 whose performance was mediocre before and continues to be mediocre today.”

Motivation 5: Show those jerkoffs who suggest he is a one-hit wonder who the man is. Then show them again. And again. Until he dies.

Falcone Losing Touch Borrowing From Funds While His Investors Denied Cash

Michelle Malkin » Good <b>News</b>: Dukakis Advising Democrats

Good News: Dukakis Advising Democrats. ... New Scapegoat for a Lousy Economy: Fox News is Hogging All the Success. September 28, 2010 04:34 PM by Doug Powers. 53 Comments | 2 Trackbacks ...

EXCLUSIVE: Rachel Zoe and Brad Goreski Calling It Quits — Amicably <b>...</b>

Thomas Evans/PatrickMcMullan.com/Sipa "Bananas!" Celeb stylist Rachel Zoe and her bow-tie clad assistant Brad Goreski have sadly decided to go their separate ways, effective Oct. 1.

Glenn Beck vs. Fox <b>News</b>: &#39;Tension&#39; Between Beck &amp; Network

Glenn Beck appears on the cover of this weekend's New York Times Magazine in a lengthy profile written by Mark Leibovich. In the profile, Leibovich touches on tensions between Beck and Fox News, the network that catapulted him to ...

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benchcraft company scam

Michelle Malkin » Good <b>News</b>: Dukakis Advising Democrats

Good News: Dukakis Advising Democrats. ... New Scapegoat for a Lousy Economy: Fox News is Hogging All the Success. September 28, 2010 04:34 PM by Doug Powers. 53 Comments | 2 Trackbacks ...

EXCLUSIVE: Rachel Zoe and Brad Goreski Calling It Quits — Amicably <b>...</b>

Thomas Evans/PatrickMcMullan.com/Sipa "Bananas!" Celeb stylist Rachel Zoe and her bow-tie clad assistant Brad Goreski have sadly decided to go their separate ways, effective Oct. 1.

Glenn Beck vs. Fox <b>News</b>: &#39;Tension&#39; Between Beck &amp; Network

Glenn Beck appears on the cover of this weekend's New York Times Magazine in a lengthy profile written by Mark Leibovich. In the profile, Leibovich touches on tensions between Beck and Fox News, the network that catapulted him to ...

benchcraft company scam bench craft company rip off

Twitter, the company that early on never wanted to talk about money, now has a money-making strategy that it says is working well.

On Tuesday, Dick Costolo, Twitter’s chief operating officer, introduced some new ways Twitter will make money. Advertisers will soon be able to pay for Twitter to suggest that people follow their accounts, and next year Twitter advertising will expand to small businesses, which will be able to place ads using a self-serve system.

But another money-making idea for Twitter — the @earlybird e-commerce account that offered daily deals — will be discontinued, at least for now, because it did not work well apart from a few popular sales, he said.

“We’re definitely beyond the experimentation stage,” said Mr. Costolo, speaking at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Mixx conference in New York. “We feel like we’ve cracked the code on a new kind of advertising — advertising that starts out as organic content.”

He was referring to Promoted Tweets and Trends, the ads that companies like Starbucks and Virgin America buy on Twitter and that show up as the top Twitter post when people search for related words, or on the list of trending topics.

Advertisers pay anytime someone interacts with the Twitter post, by clicking on a link, forwarding the post to friends or replying to it. People click on these ads 5 percent of the time, Mr. Costolo said.

Companies will now also be able to buy ads to promote their accounts. Twitter suggests accounts that people should follow, based on their interests, and will use the same algorithm to suggest accounts that advertisers pay to promote.

That way, businesses have the chance to get their posts in front of followers through their free accounts every time they post, not just through ads, and people are choosing to see the posts.

Asked if companies will ever spend millions of dollars on Twitter, as they do on Google, Mr. Costolo said, “That day is right around the corner.” So far, about 40 companies have advertised and 80 percent have advertised more than once, he said. He expects that to be in the hundreds by the end of the year.

“Right now, there’s a line out the door to advertise with us and spend significant dollars with us,” Mr. Costolo said.

Twitter will develop a self-serve advertising system next year that will be easy for small businesses to use themselves, Mr. Costolo said. Companies like Google and Yelp offer a similar service. Twitter has been particularly valuable for small businesses, though it has been so valuable as a free service that it might be hard to convince them they should also pay for ads.

“There’s a portion of small businesses that will use Twitter and are happy with organic followers and will build organically, and that’s fine with us,” he said.

Finally, Mr. Costolo gave some new growth numbers — Twitter has more than 160 million users and is adding 370,000 a day — and said the company was working on ways to help users discover real-time events that are being discussed on Twitter, like conversations around an earthquake or sporting event.

What makes a man want to amass more money than God, and once he has, keep going? For each hedge-fund manager the answers are a little bit different, and a little bit the same. From today's Bloomberg Markets we believe we have identified the four primary things that motivated Harbinger Capital founder Philip Falcone (or as readers of this blog may know him, Mr. Lisa Falcone), whose fund made $11 billion betting against subprime, to become who he is today.

We begin with a sepia-tinted moment when Falcone first leaves his Minnesota hometown, all gawky of limb and Lionel Richie of hair, to seek his fortune in the big city.

Neil Sheehy, from nearby International Falls, had offered Falcone a ride to Harvard University, which had recruited both of them to play hockey for the Crimson. The car stalled in front of Falcone’s house, and Sheehy had to restart it on a hill while Falcone’s mother and one of his sisters sobbed their goodbyes.

“It’ll be all right, Mrs. Falcone; it’ll be all right,” Sheehy recalls telling Caroline Falcone as the car chugged to life and headed east.

Falcone was one of nine, and his mother still cared that he was leaving home! This is meaningful and leads us to Motivation 1: Phil can never let his mama down.

[To wit, later: "Galloway says he once set up a meeting for Falcone with a billionaire investor who was interested in Harbinger. Falcone said he couldn’t make the meeting because he had to go see his mother."]

Immediately after leaving home, life decided to punk young Philip by showing him that even when you think that things are tough, they can always get worse.

Falcone rode to Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his feet on the dashboard because Sheehy had packed a skate-sharpening machine on the floor of the front seat... Halfway there, the roof liner came loose and showered the young men with fiberglass insulation that stuck to them as they sweated in the late.

Motivation 2: The fuck he's going to go through something like that again. He is going to kick life's ass!

Then, he did not quite fit in at school.

Falcone was wide-eyed when he arrived at Harvard in 1980, says hockey teammate Greg Olson, who’s now a dentist in Minnetonka, Minnesota. “He was a deer in the headlights,” Olson says. After recovering from the initial shock, Falcone made himself something of a campus don. Hockey teammates called him “Fashion Phil” because he cared so much about his clothes, Olson says. He had a blue, three-piece suit that he wore often, and he always wore stylish shoes.

Motivation 3: Show those jerkoffs who called him a hick and a fag who the man is.

But after graduation, he was more confident.

[Wife Lisa] was working as a model when she met Phil Falcone through mutual friends at a Manhattan restaurant in the late 1980s.

Motivation 4: GIRLS!

Of course, a hot wife and incredible financial success doesn't keep the critics at bay. If anything, it just makes them worse.

“Just because a manager got the subprime trade right, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a skilled manager,” says Brad Balter, managing partner of Balter Capital Management LLC, a Boston-based firm that invests in hedge funds for clients. “There have been several funds that benefited from that bet in 2007 whose performance was mediocre before and continues to be mediocre today.”

Motivation 5: Show those jerkoffs who suggest he is a one-hit wonder who the man is. Then show them again. And again. Until he dies.

Falcone Losing Touch Borrowing From Funds While His Investors Denied Cash

benchcraft company scam

Michelle Malkin » Good <b>News</b>: Dukakis Advising Democrats

Good News: Dukakis Advising Democrats. ... New Scapegoat for a Lousy Economy: Fox News is Hogging All the Success. September 28, 2010 04:34 PM by Doug Powers. 53 Comments | 2 Trackbacks ...

EXCLUSIVE: Rachel Zoe and Brad Goreski Calling It Quits — Amicably <b>...</b>

Thomas Evans/PatrickMcMullan.com/Sipa "Bananas!" Celeb stylist Rachel Zoe and her bow-tie clad assistant Brad Goreski have sadly decided to go their separate ways, effective Oct. 1.

Glenn Beck vs. Fox <b>News</b>: &#39;Tension&#39; Between Beck &amp; Network

Glenn Beck appears on the cover of this weekend's New York Times Magazine in a lengthy profile written by Mark Leibovich. In the profile, Leibovich touches on tensions between Beck and Fox News, the network that catapulted him to ...

bench craft company rip off benchcraft company scam

Michelle Malkin » Good <b>News</b>: Dukakis Advising Democrats

Good News: Dukakis Advising Democrats. ... New Scapegoat for a Lousy Economy: Fox News is Hogging All the Success. September 28, 2010 04:34 PM by Doug Powers. 53 Comments | 2 Trackbacks ...

EXCLUSIVE: Rachel Zoe and Brad Goreski Calling It Quits — Amicably <b>...</b>

Thomas Evans/PatrickMcMullan.com/Sipa "Bananas!" Celeb stylist Rachel Zoe and her bow-tie clad assistant Brad Goreski have sadly decided to go their separate ways, effective Oct. 1.

Glenn Beck vs. Fox <b>News</b>: &#39;Tension&#39; Between Beck &amp; Network

Glenn Beck appears on the cover of this weekend's New York Times Magazine in a lengthy profile written by Mark Leibovich. In the profile, Leibovich touches on tensions between Beck and Fox News, the network that catapulted him to ...

benchcraft company scam bench craft company rip off

Michelle Malkin » Good <b>News</b>: Dukakis Advising Democrats

Good News: Dukakis Advising Democrats. ... New Scapegoat for a Lousy Economy: Fox News is Hogging All the Success. September 28, 2010 04:34 PM by Doug Powers. 53 Comments | 2 Trackbacks ...

EXCLUSIVE: Rachel Zoe and Brad Goreski Calling It Quits — Amicably <b>...</b>

Thomas Evans/PatrickMcMullan.com/Sipa "Bananas!" Celeb stylist Rachel Zoe and her bow-tie clad assistant Brad Goreski have sadly decided to go their separate ways, effective Oct. 1.

Glenn Beck vs. Fox <b>News</b>: &#39;Tension&#39; Between Beck &amp; Network

Glenn Beck appears on the cover of this weekend's New York Times Magazine in a lengthy profile written by Mark Leibovich. In the profile, Leibovich touches on tensions between Beck and Fox News, the network that catapulted him to ...

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foreclosure report

Bloomberg reports US Home Prices Fall Again:

Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) — U.S. home prices dropped 3.3 percent in July from a year earlier, the eighth consecutive decline, as foreclosed properties flooded the market.

Prices fell 0.5 percent from June, the
Federal Housing Finance Agency in Washington said in a report today.
Economists had projected prices to fall 0.2 percent from the previous
month, based on the average of 15 estimates in a Bloomberg survey. The
agency revised the previously reported May-to-June decline to 1.2
percent from 0.3 percent.

Foreclosures are boosting the supply of available properties and reducing prices, even as mortgage rates tumble to record lows. The time it would take to clear the market of homes for sale was 12.5 months
in July, the highest in more than a decade of data, according to the
National Association of Realtors. Banks seized a record 95,364
properties from delinquent borrowers in August, according to RealtyTrac
Inc., an Irvine, California-based seller of housing data.

This should be of no surprise to anyone that reads the BoomBust or
follows me regularly. I’ve been warning about the crash for over 5 years
now, and those who feel we are nearing a bottom need to take out their
spreadsheets and plug in some historical numbers.

 

Paying Subscribers are welcome to download the mortgage and credit
template that was used in the original US (Don’t) Stress (US) tests,
otherwise known as SCAP. We have taken the liberty to update the
template on a periodic basis for the government, since it appears they
are not forcing the banks to do so SCAP Assumptions Updated_09082010 Web Version.
This model shows a weakness in the Case Shiller method of following
prices in that the CS doesn’t include investment properties (usually the
first to go into foreclosure), new construction, and REOs. As a matter
of fact, Case Shiller actually looked slightly rosy as of late. The
following graphs were generated from  SCAP Assumptions Updated_09082010 Web Version..

Notice how the federal numbers show falls where CS doesn’t. Signs on the street tell me the federal numbers are correct.

As a matter of fact, things are so bad that I believe banks will have
a perverse incentive to actually walk away. Now wouldn’t that be
something??? Next, we take a look into the home builder that makes more
money doing distressed investing than it does building and selling
homes.

Related content of interest:

• I
  Told You Housing Was Going to Take a Downturn for the Worse. I’ll Tell
  You Something Else, We Are in a Housing Depression! It’ll Get Worse
  Until Market Forces Rule Over Government Bubble Blowing!
• Anecdotal Evidence That Banks Are Hiding Depressed High End Real Estate
• As I Made Very Clear In March, US Housing Has a Way to Fall
• The Shortlist of the Shortlisted “Stocks to Short for 2010″: What We See as the Most Profitable Bear Postions for 2010
• Commercial
  Real Estate Continues to Dropped into Foreclosure as the Landlords of
  Said Properties Enjoy Skyrocketing Share Prices? Yep, Makes Plenty of
  Sense
• Recent Mortgage Loss and Credit Performance Commentary
• Australia: The Land Down Under(water in mortgage debt)
• Australia: The Land Down Under(water in mortgage debt), pt. Deux: Which Banks to Short?
• Aussi Bubble Video to Go With You Aussie Bubble Speculation?

From the Associated Press: “Lenders took back more homes in August than in any month since the start of the U.S. mortgage crisis. The increase in home repossessions came even as the number of properties entering the foreclosure process slowed for the seventh month in a row, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday. In all, banks repossessed 95,364 properties last month, up 3 percent from July and an increase of 25 percent from August 2009, RealtyTrac said.”

Now we know what the White House meant by Recovery Summer.

The banks are recovering all those buildings from all those deadbeats they should not have loaned money to.

The Associated Press report:

LOS ANGELES – Lenders took back more homes in August than in any month since the start of the U.S. mortgage crisis.

The increase in home repossessions came even as the number of properties entering the foreclosure process slowed for the seventh month in a row, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.

In all, banks repossessed 95,364 properties last month, up 3 percent from July and an increase of 25 percent from August 2009, RealtyTrac said.

August makes the ninth month in a row that the pace of homes lost to foreclosure has increased on an annual basis. The previous high was in May.

Banks have been stepping up repossessions to clear out their backlog of bad loans with an eye on eventually placing the foreclosed properties on the market, but they can’t afford to simply dump the properties on the market.

Concerns are growing that the housing market recovery could stumble amid stubbornly high unemployment, a sluggish economy and faltering consumer confidence. U.S. home sales have collapsed since federal homebuyer tax credits expired in April.

That’s one reason fewer than one-third of homes repossessed by lenders are on the market, said Rick Sharga, a senior vice president at RealtyTrac.

“These (properties) are going to come to market, but very slowly because nobody wants to overwhelm a soft buyer’s market with too much distressed inventory for fear of what it would do for house prices,” he said.

As a result, lenders are putting off initiating the foreclosure process on homeowners who have missed payments, letting borrowers stay in their homes longer.

The number of properties receiving an initial default notice — the first step in the foreclosure process — slipped 1 percent last month from July, but was down 30 percent versus August last year, RealtyTrac said.

Initial defaults have fallen on an annual basis the past seven months. They peaked in April 2009.

Still, the number of homes scheduled to be sold at auction for the first time increased 9 percent from July and rose 2 percent from August last year. If they don’t sell at auction, these homes typically end up going back to the lender.

More than 2.3 million homes have been repossessed by lenders since the recession began in December 2007, according to RealtyTrac. The firm estimates more than 1 million American households are likely to lose their homes to foreclosure this year.

In all, 338,836 properties received a foreclosure-related warning in August, up 4 percent from July, but down 5 percent from the same month last year, RealtyTrac said. That translates to one in 381 U.S. homes.

The firm tracks notices for defaults, scheduled home auctions and home repossessions — warnings that can lead up to a home eventually being lost to foreclosure.

Among states, Nevada posted the highest foreclosure rate last month, with one in every 84 households receiving a foreclosure notice. That’s 4.5 times the national average.

Rounding out the top 10 states with the highest foreclosure rate in August were: Florida, Arizona, California, Idaho, Utah, Georgia, Michigan, Illinois and Hawaii.

Economic woes, such as unemployment or reduced income, are now the main catalysts for foreclosures.

Lenders are offering a variety of programs to help homeowners modify their loans, but their success rates vary. Hundreds of thousands of homeowners can’t qualify or fall back into default.

The Obama administration has rolled out numerous attempts to tackle the foreclosure crisis but has made only a small dent in the problem. Nearly half of the 1.3 million homeowners who enrolled in the Obama administration’s flagship mortgage-relief program have fallen out.

The program, known as Making Home Affordable, has provided permanent help to about 422,000 homeowners since March 2009.

Regardless, many troubled borrowers have seen their efforts to get a loan modification stymied.

Larry Book of Winter Garden, Fla., was one packet away from a permanent loan modification from Chase under the Obama administration’s foreclosure prevention plan after more than a year of back and forth and one failed attempt.

But his modification never went through. Instead, his loan was transferred from Chase to IBM Lender Business Process Servicers in July and he was told he owed $9,562.62 and must bring his mortgage current by Sept. 15 or foreclosure proceedings will begin.

“It just becomes too exhausting,” Book said about the modification process. “That’s why some people walk away. But I’ve invested too much and given up too much to just let it go.”

Weekly Search &amp; Social <b>News</b>: 09/28/2010 | Search Engine Journal

Hey there gang, it's time for another '7 Days of Search and Social' . Did ya miss me? Sure ye did. I was ill last week so for the first time, in a long time,

Obama Says Fox <b>News</b> Promotes &#39;Destructive&#39; Viewpoint - NYTimes.com

Fox News Channel responds to President Obama's sharp critique of the channel in a Rolling Stone interview.

Fox <b>News</b> Poll: GOPer Johnson Leads Feingold By 8 Points In WI-SEN <b>...</b>

The new Fox News poll of the Wisconsin Senate race has bad news for Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold, with an eight-point lead for Republican businessman Ron Johnson.

halloween costumes

Weekly Search &amp; Social <b>News</b>: 09/28/2010 | Search Engine Journal

Hey there gang, it's time for another '7 Days of Search and Social' . Did ya miss me? Sure ye did. I was ill last week so for the first time, in a long time,

Obama Says Fox <b>News</b> Promotes &#39;Destructive&#39; Viewpoint - NYTimes.com

Fox News Channel responds to President Obama's sharp critique of the channel in a Rolling Stone interview.

Fox <b>News</b> Poll: GOPer Johnson Leads Feingold By 8 Points In WI-SEN <b>...</b>

The new Fox News poll of the Wisconsin Senate race has bad news for Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold, with an eight-point lead for Republican businessman Ron Johnson.

Bloomberg reports US Home Prices Fall Again:

Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) — U.S. home prices dropped 3.3 percent in July from a year earlier, the eighth consecutive decline, as foreclosed properties flooded the market.

Prices fell 0.5 percent from June, the
Federal Housing Finance Agency in Washington said in a report today.
Economists had projected prices to fall 0.2 percent from the previous
month, based on the average of 15 estimates in a Bloomberg survey. The
agency revised the previously reported May-to-June decline to 1.2
percent from 0.3 percent.

Foreclosures are boosting the supply of available properties and reducing prices, even as mortgage rates tumble to record lows. The time it would take to clear the market of homes for sale was 12.5 months
in July, the highest in more than a decade of data, according to the
National Association of Realtors. Banks seized a record 95,364
properties from delinquent borrowers in August, according to RealtyTrac
Inc., an Irvine, California-based seller of housing data.

This should be of no surprise to anyone that reads the BoomBust or
follows me regularly. I’ve been warning about the crash for over 5 years
now, and those who feel we are nearing a bottom need to take out their
spreadsheets and plug in some historical numbers.

 

Paying Subscribers are welcome to download the mortgage and credit
template that was used in the original US (Don’t) Stress (US) tests,
otherwise known as SCAP. We have taken the liberty to update the
template on a periodic basis for the government, since it appears they
are not forcing the banks to do so SCAP Assumptions Updated_09082010 Web Version.
This model shows a weakness in the Case Shiller method of following
prices in that the CS doesn’t include investment properties (usually the
first to go into foreclosure), new construction, and REOs. As a matter
of fact, Case Shiller actually looked slightly rosy as of late. The
following graphs were generated from  SCAP Assumptions Updated_09082010 Web Version..

Notice how the federal numbers show falls where CS doesn’t. Signs on the street tell me the federal numbers are correct.

As a matter of fact, things are so bad that I believe banks will have
a perverse incentive to actually walk away. Now wouldn’t that be
something??? Next, we take a look into the home builder that makes more
money doing distressed investing than it does building and selling
homes.

Related content of interest:

• I
  Told You Housing Was Going to Take a Downturn for the Worse. I’ll Tell
  You Something Else, We Are in a Housing Depression! It’ll Get Worse
  Until Market Forces Rule Over Government Bubble Blowing!
• Anecdotal Evidence That Banks Are Hiding Depressed High End Real Estate
• As I Made Very Clear In March, US Housing Has a Way to Fall
• The Shortlist of the Shortlisted “Stocks to Short for 2010″: What We See as the Most Profitable Bear Postions for 2010
• Commercial
  Real Estate Continues to Dropped into Foreclosure as the Landlords of
  Said Properties Enjoy Skyrocketing Share Prices? Yep, Makes Plenty of
  Sense
• Recent Mortgage Loss and Credit Performance Commentary
• Australia: The Land Down Under(water in mortgage debt)
• Australia: The Land Down Under(water in mortgage debt), pt. Deux: Which Banks to Short?
• Aussi Bubble Video to Go With You Aussie Bubble Speculation?

From the Associated Press: “Lenders took back more homes in August than in any month since the start of the U.S. mortgage crisis. The increase in home repossessions came even as the number of properties entering the foreclosure process slowed for the seventh month in a row, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday. In all, banks repossessed 95,364 properties last month, up 3 percent from July and an increase of 25 percent from August 2009, RealtyTrac said.”

Now we know what the White House meant by Recovery Summer.

The banks are recovering all those buildings from all those deadbeats they should not have loaned money to.

The Associated Press report:

LOS ANGELES – Lenders took back more homes in August than in any month since the start of the U.S. mortgage crisis.

The increase in home repossessions came even as the number of properties entering the foreclosure process slowed for the seventh month in a row, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.

In all, banks repossessed 95,364 properties last month, up 3 percent from July and an increase of 25 percent from August 2009, RealtyTrac said.

August makes the ninth month in a row that the pace of homes lost to foreclosure has increased on an annual basis. The previous high was in May.

Banks have been stepping up repossessions to clear out their backlog of bad loans with an eye on eventually placing the foreclosed properties on the market, but they can’t afford to simply dump the properties on the market.

Concerns are growing that the housing market recovery could stumble amid stubbornly high unemployment, a sluggish economy and faltering consumer confidence. U.S. home sales have collapsed since federal homebuyer tax credits expired in April.

That’s one reason fewer than one-third of homes repossessed by lenders are on the market, said Rick Sharga, a senior vice president at RealtyTrac.

“These (properties) are going to come to market, but very slowly because nobody wants to overwhelm a soft buyer’s market with too much distressed inventory for fear of what it would do for house prices,” he said.

As a result, lenders are putting off initiating the foreclosure process on homeowners who have missed payments, letting borrowers stay in their homes longer.

The number of properties receiving an initial default notice — the first step in the foreclosure process — slipped 1 percent last month from July, but was down 30 percent versus August last year, RealtyTrac said.

Initial defaults have fallen on an annual basis the past seven months. They peaked in April 2009.

Still, the number of homes scheduled to be sold at auction for the first time increased 9 percent from July and rose 2 percent from August last year. If they don’t sell at auction, these homes typically end up going back to the lender.

More than 2.3 million homes have been repossessed by lenders since the recession began in December 2007, according to RealtyTrac. The firm estimates more than 1 million American households are likely to lose their homes to foreclosure this year.

In all, 338,836 properties received a foreclosure-related warning in August, up 4 percent from July, but down 5 percent from the same month last year, RealtyTrac said. That translates to one in 381 U.S. homes.

The firm tracks notices for defaults, scheduled home auctions and home repossessions — warnings that can lead up to a home eventually being lost to foreclosure.

Among states, Nevada posted the highest foreclosure rate last month, with one in every 84 households receiving a foreclosure notice. That’s 4.5 times the national average.

Rounding out the top 10 states with the highest foreclosure rate in August were: Florida, Arizona, California, Idaho, Utah, Georgia, Michigan, Illinois and Hawaii.

Economic woes, such as unemployment or reduced income, are now the main catalysts for foreclosures.

Lenders are offering a variety of programs to help homeowners modify their loans, but their success rates vary. Hundreds of thousands of homeowners can’t qualify or fall back into default.

The Obama administration has rolled out numerous attempts to tackle the foreclosure crisis but has made only a small dent in the problem. Nearly half of the 1.3 million homeowners who enrolled in the Obama administration’s flagship mortgage-relief program have fallen out.

The program, known as Making Home Affordable, has provided permanent help to about 422,000 homeowners since March 2009.

Regardless, many troubled borrowers have seen their efforts to get a loan modification stymied.

Larry Book of Winter Garden, Fla., was one packet away from a permanent loan modification from Chase under the Obama administration’s foreclosure prevention plan after more than a year of back and forth and one failed attempt.

But his modification never went through. Instead, his loan was transferred from Chase to IBM Lender Business Process Servicers in July and he was told he owed $9,562.62 and must bring his mortgage current by Sept. 15 or foreclosure proceedings will begin.

“It just becomes too exhausting,” Book said about the modification process. “That’s why some people walk away. But I’ve invested too much and given up too much to just let it go.”

corporate reputation management company

Weekly Search &amp; Social <b>News</b>: 09/28/2010 | Search Engine Journal

Hey there gang, it's time for another '7 Days of Search and Social' . Did ya miss me? Sure ye did. I was ill last week so for the first time, in a long time,

Obama Says Fox <b>News</b> Promotes &#39;Destructive&#39; Viewpoint - NYTimes.com

Fox News Channel responds to President Obama's sharp critique of the channel in a Rolling Stone interview.

Fox <b>News</b> Poll: GOPer Johnson Leads Feingold By 8 Points In WI-SEN <b>...</b>

The new Fox News poll of the Wisconsin Senate race has bad news for Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold, with an eight-point lead for Republican businessman Ron Johnson.

skin and vein center

Weekly Search &amp; Social <b>News</b>: 09/28/2010 | Search Engine Journal

Hey there gang, it's time for another '7 Days of Search and Social' . Did ya miss me? Sure ye did. I was ill last week so for the first time, in a long time,

Obama Says Fox <b>News</b> Promotes &#39;Destructive&#39; Viewpoint - NYTimes.com

Fox News Channel responds to President Obama's sharp critique of the channel in a Rolling Stone interview.

Fox <b>News</b> Poll: GOPer Johnson Leads Feingold By 8 Points In WI-SEN <b>...</b>

The new Fox News poll of the Wisconsin Senate race has bad news for Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold, with an eight-point lead for Republican businessman Ron Johnson.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_18/b4032066.htm

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_18/b4032066.htm

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_18/b4032066.htm

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1999/10/25/267811/index.htm

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1999/10/25/267811/index.htm

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1999/10/25/267811/index.htm

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_18/b4032066.htm

managing personal finances

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• Go green for school supplies
  
  

• CEDIA: LG, JVC and Sony debut LCoS-based 3D front projectors
  
  



• BMW ActiveE electric car - Consumer field trials to begin next summer
  
  



• Five insider shopping tips for Gordon Gekko
  
  



• Daily Dispatch: Google NEW lists updates of all its products; Survey reveals people prefer colonoscopies to computer maintenance
  
  



• 2010 Distracted Driving Summit: What’s next for combating driver distractions?
  
  



• What's the deal with car tire pricing?
  
  



• Q&A: Short on salt
  
  



• Daily electronics deals
  
  



• 6 painless ways to cut your grocery bill
  
  



• Go green for school supplies
  
  

big white booty options

Understanding the Forbes redesign « Talking Biz <b>News</b>

Dvorkin had founded True/Slant, an online news network. Previously, he had been executive editor at Forbes magazine, where he spearheaded an earlier redesign, managed the annual Forbes 400 Richest Americans list and created the ...

<b>News</b> Roundup: &#39;Big Bang Theory&#39; is a Thursday Ratings Hit, Bret <b>...</b>

In Thursday night's ultra-competitive TV landscape, several shows managed to break away from the pack. According to The Hollywood Reporter, 'The Big B.

Artnet <b>News</b>: Gang assaults Turkish galleries. Plus, Miami <b>...</b>

ARTNET NEWS. Gang assaults Turkish galleries. Plus, Miami Sculpture Biennial, Prospect 1.5 New Orleans, more.

Understanding the Forbes redesign « Talking Biz <b>News</b>

Dvorkin had founded True/Slant, an online news network. Previously, he had been executive editor at Forbes magazine, where he spearheaded an earlier redesign, managed the annual Forbes 400 Richest Americans list and created the ...

<b>News</b> Roundup: &#39;Big Bang Theory&#39; is a Thursday Ratings Hit, Bret <b>...</b>

In Thursday night's ultra-competitive TV landscape, several shows managed to break away from the pack. According to The Hollywood Reporter, 'The Big B.

Artnet <b>News</b>: Gang assaults Turkish galleries. Plus, Miami <b>...</b>

ARTNET NEWS. Gang assaults Turkish galleries. Plus, Miami Sculpture Biennial, Prospect 1.5 New Orleans, more.

big white booty

Understanding the Forbes redesign « Talking Biz <b>News</b>

Dvorkin had founded True/Slant, an online news network. Previously, he had been executive editor at Forbes magazine, where he spearheaded an earlier redesign, managed the annual Forbes 400 Richest Americans list and created the ...

<b>News</b> Roundup: &#39;Big Bang Theory&#39; is a Thursday Ratings Hit, Bret <b>...</b>

In Thursday night's ultra-competitive TV landscape, several shows managed to break away from the pack. According to The Hollywood Reporter, 'The Big B.

Artnet <b>News</b>: Gang assaults Turkish galleries. Plus, Miami <b>...</b>

ARTNET NEWS. Gang assaults Turkish galleries. Plus, Miami Sculpture Biennial, Prospect 1.5 New Orleans, more.

personal finance books

Well, Book Week has come to a close at Get Rich Slowly, and while it was an interesting experiment, it’s not likely to happen again any time soon.

For one thing, I learned that doing book reviews takes more work than doing regular posts. To do a review, you have to read the book (sometimes twice), decide how it’s relevant to readers, and then write a normal article. And while an occasional book review is a nice change of pace, a week filled with them is boring, both for me and for the readers. So, no more Book Weeks at GRS.

Before we ease back into normal personal-finance topics, though, I thought it would be fun to discuss our favorite personal-finance books and magazines. As a starting point, here’s a recent comment from Deb:

I’d love a running list of your top 10 fave finance books. You could keep it fluid; there’s no reason it can’t change. I’m always on the hunt for helpful financial books! I’m most confused about self-directed investing vs. having a financial advisor. I tried to wrap my mind around Bernstein’s books and just couldn’t do it, which makes me concerned about trying to do investing on my own!

Deb’s comment is interesting for a couple of reasons.

• First, I like the idea of a “running list” of favorite finance books. Because she’s right: The list changes with time. As I read more, and as my own finance skills develop, different books will appeal to me.




• Second, she points out that what might be a good book for one person may not be good for another. I find William Bernstein’s books perfect for my personal knowledge and philosophy. I’m sure my wife would find them tedious. We each have different tastes and needs.

So, to end Book Week, I’ve drafted a list of my current top-ten finance books. These are the books I would want in a personal finance library if I started one today. Your list would be different (and I invite you to share it in the comments).

Here’s the list (in alphabetical order by title):

• All Your Worth. You know, I hated this book at first. And I’m still not a fan of how Elizabeth Warren allows personal responsibility off the hook. But I can’t deny that this book had a huge impact on helping me find a balanced financial life. The Balanced Money Formula has been a Big Deal for me, and that’s an idea that originated here. [My review.]




• The Complete Tightwad Gazette. This book is a monster — almost 1000 pages of ideas on how to live well for less. Amy Dacyczyn was the Queen of Cheap twenty years ago, and her legacy remains strong. If you want to know how to get the best deal on groceries, how to shop for clothes, and how to reuse anything, then pick up this book. It’s a treasure trove of ideas. [I have never reviewed this book, though I've mentioned it many times.]




• Debt is Slavery. Not many people have heard of this slim self-published book. That’s too bad. Michael Mihalik does a fantastic job of explaining a handful of basic financial concepts, and his advice is sound. This is the perfect book for a young adult who doesn’t know where to start. I wish I’d had access to this book when I was 20. [My review.]




• The Four Pillars of Investing. If I ever finish Jeremy Siegel’s Stocks for the Long Run, it may replace this book on my list. For now, though, The Four Pillars of Investing is my go-to book for reminding myself why I’ve adopted index funds as my main investment strategy. This book covers investment theory, history, and psychology, as well as the business of investing. [My review.]




• The Incredible Secret Money Machine. I know, I know: You’ve never heard of it. It may be long out of print, but The Incredible Secret Money Machine is a terrific book about building “money machines”, businesses or products that keep producing nickels year after year. I wish the author had the gumption to update this (it’s over 30 years old!) and reprint it for a new generation. [My review.]




• Work Less, Live More. Bob Clyatt’s book on early- and semi-retirement is one of my favorites. It’s sensible, comprehensive, and inspirational. He includes a big section on smart investing, and offers ideas for how to pursue your passions once you’ve stopped working full-time. [I've never reviewed this book, though I should.]




• You Can Negotiate Anything. It was a toss-up whether to include this or Negotiating Your Salary [my review]. The latter is outstanding, and I recommend it highly to anyone who is applying for a job or asking for a raise. In the end, though, I chose Herb Cohen’s book because it covers a wider range of topics. And it’s entertaining! [My review.]




• Your Money and Your Brain. I haven’t reviewed this at Get Rich Slowly yet, but it’s a great book. Jason Zweig covers the latest research into how money affects our behavior. There are a lot of interesting books out there about the psychology of personal finance, but this is the most comprehensive.




• Your Money or Your Life. Of course this is on my list. Your Money or Your Life has influenced thousands of people — including me. The book includes advice about getting out of debt, living frugally, and seeking financial independence. But what most of us remember is that it helped make money less abstract, helped us see how it was directly related to time. [A guest review from the first month of GRS back in 2006.]




• Your Money: The Missing Manual. Wait — I put my own book on the list? You bet. I wrote Your Money: The Missing Manual precisely to be the sort of book I needed when I was struggling with money. I think it’s a great resource, getting to the heart of a broad range of topics. Plus, I’ve done my best to point to other books and websites readers can use to get more information. If I could only have ten books in my personal-finance library, I’d want this to be one of them. (In fact, I refer to my own book almost daily. No joke. I guess that’s one of the luxuries of writing a book — you can just write the book you want!)

Are there other great books about money out there? Of course. A list of ten books can’t begin to be comprehensive. Over the past five years, I’ve read nearly 200 money manuals, and many of them contained great information. But today — on 10 September 2010 — these are the ten essential books I’d want in my personal finance library — if I could have only ten.

What are your essential personal-finance books? Which have you read and loved? Which have you read and hated? Are there books you’d recommend to people in specific circumstances?

photo: vixyao

Cooking at home is the best way to save cash, but it’s nice to go out sometimes, too. Check out Frugal Foodie every Friday for a selection of the latest coupons for casual and fancy fare.

This week: free ice cream, Champagne, coffee and dessert, buy-one-get-one-free smoothies, discounts for donations and $10 bottles of wine, among other deals.

1. Cold Stone Creamery

Visit on Sept. 30 to get a free 3oz. “Kate’s Creation” for the World’s Largest Ice Cream Social. The deal is valid from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., while supplies last. Participating locations only.

2. Jamba Juice

Use a print out coupon and buy a smoothie to get a second one of equal or lesser value free. Participating locations only. Deal good through Sept. 22.

3. New Jersey Restaurant Week

From Sept. 19-25, participating restaurants are offering one of three specials: 20% of your check, a free dessert and coffee with the purchase of an entrée, or a special $35 prixe fix three-course meal featuring “Jersey Fresh” ingredients.

4. Boston Market

Facebook fans who donate $1 to Share Our Strength will receive a print out coupon good for a free side dish of their next visit. Offer good through Sept. 25.

5. The Broiler Restaurant

The Sacramento, Calif., restaurant is celebrating 60 years in business with restaurant specials, including a $19.50 three-course menu that comes with a complimentary glass of Champagne. Other specials will be posted on the company’s Facebook and Twitter pages.

6. Center City District Restaurant Week

Philadelphia’s restaurant week runs through Sept. 17, and again Sept. 19-24. Participating restaurants will offer special three-course menus for $35, and three-course lunches for $20.

7. Lone Star Steakhouse

Save $7.50 off two entrees (except the two-for-$20 special) with a print out coupon. Participating locations only. Offer expires Sept. 26.

8. Restaurant.com

This week, coupon code “SPORK” at checkout gets you an extra 70% off already discounted gift certificates to local venues. The code expires Sept. 19. Restaurant.com usually prices $25 certificates at $10. (Spend $20 to get $50; $30 for $75, etc.) With the discount, you’ll pay just $3, $6, or $9. Each restaurant sets conditions regarding the number of diners, days and menu items a certificate can be used for, so check the fine print before you buy.

9. Taco Bueno

As part of Share Our Strength’s Dine Out fundraiser, Taco Bueno will offer coupon books for $2. Each book contains $5 in coupons for the chain. Offer good through Sept. 26.

10. Il Gatto

Every Monday, this Minneapolis restaurant offers 10 different wines for $10 per bottle, which the Star Tribune notes is less than the cost of many of the venue’s pizzas.

Frugal Foodie is a journalist based in New York City who spends her days writing about personal finance and obsessing about what she’ll have for dinner. Chat with her on Twitter through @MintFoodie.

big white booty tn

Understanding the Forbes redesign « Talking Biz <b>News</b>

Dvorkin had founded True/Slant, an online news network. Previously, he had been executive editor at Forbes magazine, where he spearheaded an earlier redesign, managed the annual Forbes 400 Richest Americans list and created the ...

Diane Sawyer: ABC World <b>News</b> Goes Home: Looking for What Works in <b>...</b>

We at ABC's World News are heading out to search for innovative ideas that are helping turn the economy around. Real change is often born out of a simple act. And one ripple can lead to a powerful transformation.

Actual Real Life Good Internet <b>News</b>: Super Wi-Fi Coming Soon <b>...</b>

Most of the time, news about the internet is both hard to understand and seemingly bad. There are always stories coming out about net neutrality where you.

Understanding the Forbes redesign « Talking Biz <b>News</b>

Dvorkin had founded True/Slant, an online news network. Previously, he had been executive editor at Forbes magazine, where he spearheaded an earlier redesign, managed the annual Forbes 400 Richest Americans list and created the ...

Diane Sawyer: ABC World <b>News</b> Goes Home: Looking for What Works in <b>...</b>

We at ABC's World News are heading out to search for innovative ideas that are helping turn the economy around. Real change is often born out of a simple act. And one ripple can lead to a powerful transformation.

Actual Real Life Good Internet <b>News</b>: Super Wi-Fi Coming Soon <b>...</b>

Most of the time, news about the internet is both hard to understand and seemingly bad. There are always stories coming out about net neutrality where you.

big white booty

Understanding the Forbes redesign « Talking Biz <b>News</b>

Dvorkin had founded True/Slant, an online news network. Previously, he had been executive editor at Forbes magazine, where he spearheaded an earlier redesign, managed the annual Forbes 400 Richest Americans list and created the ...

Diane Sawyer: ABC World <b>News</b> Goes Home: Looking for What Works in <b>...</b>

We at ABC's World News are heading out to search for innovative ideas that are helping turn the economy around. Real change is often born out of a simple act. And one ripple can lead to a powerful transformation.

Actual Real Life Good Internet <b>News</b>: Super Wi-Fi Coming Soon <b>...</b>

Most of the time, news about the internet is both hard to understand and seemingly bad. There are always stories coming out about net neutrality where you.

personal finance manager

If you walked into the average bookstore, you'd think that women rule the roost when it comes to personal finance. From Suze Orman's now-classic Women and Money to the more recent (and more colorfully titled) Bitches on a Budget, there's no shortage of do-it-yourself financial advice tailored to women.



Apparently, though, when women make the momentous move from self-help to seeking professional advice about investing and retirement, things go rapidly downhill. A recent study by the Boston Consulting Group revealed that women perceived themselves as receiving wealth management services at a level of quality that is inferior to that received by their male counterparts.



According to the study, women are the key decision-makers when it comes to 27% of the wealth worldwide: that's $20 trillion! But despite the massive chunk of power they wield, 55% of the women surveyed in the study said they felt their wealth manager could do a better job of advising them. Almost a quarter of the respondents said private banks needed "significant improvement" in the services they offer to women.



"The dissatisfaction stems from the unshakable perception that men get more attention, better advice, and sometimes even better terms and deals," according to study co-author Peter Damisch. "We heard this sense of subordination time and time again in our interviews."



This perceived disparity in service arose from several key disconnects in the relationships and communications between women and their financial advisers. Manisha Thakor, Chartered Financial Analyst and women's financial literacy advocate, offers some steps savvy female investors can take to avoid being under-served by their wealth managers and investment advisers:



1. Find your adviser and get your financial education from women-run resources.



The financial services industry is dominated by males and therefore the "DNA is structured around the male experience," Thakor explains, adding that she sees many firms making an effort to change this. Most financial advisers are men, who may not inherently understand the whole-life nature of the average woman's financial plans and needs. They also may have very different communication styles than their women clients.



Thakor recommends women use women-created resources like LearnVest and DailyWorth to educate themselves in order to avoid the intimidation factor when talking about investment products with their advisers. She also encourages women to consult Garrett Planning Network, founded by Certified Financial Planner Sheryl Garrett, to locate a local certified financial planner who works on an hourly-fee-only basis. Taking these steps, Thakor explains, may alleviate the concern expressed by many women in the BCG study that they were not being taken seriously or talked to on the same level as male clients by their financial advisers.



2. Expressly state your ideal career trajectory, then ask how you should alter your investment plans accordingly.



In the BCG study, women stated that their investment advisers fundamentally misunderstood what was actually important to them, and recommended a too-narrow range of inappropriate investment vehicles as a result. Many said their advisers assumed they had a lower risk tolerance than they actually did, or that their advisers focused on short-term results and disregarded their long-term goals, which often included time out to care for a child or parent.



Thakor offers women a script of sorts to remedy this communication disconnect. "Go in and say: "I want to be a mom and I may take X amount of time out of the work force," she advises. Then ask, "How do we adjust how much I need to save and how I should invest to compensate for this?"



3. Start saving early.

We've got a week to go before the District's Democratic primaries, and both Mayor Adrian Fenty and D.C. Council Chair Vince Gray are in the final push to claim mayoral victory in the contest.

But of the two campaigns, it seems that Gray's is throwing everything it has at unseating Fenty. Late last week, they rolled out two new TV ads, both of which appear to be in relatively heavy rotation on local cable stations. And today the Gray camp unveiled "Formerly Fenty," a website highlighting residents -- including former Fenty administration officials -- that have turned on Fenty over the last four years. The site has six YouTube testimonials from such individuals, and allows others to add their name and personal story to what is a growing list of the disaffected. (Gray campaign manager Adam Rubinson could probably add his name to the list; he was a Fenty volunteer in 2006.) The website even uses the color scheme and font used by the Fenty campaign, and copied the format of the Fenty's campaigns first TV ads.

&#39;Climate Change&#39;: even Porritt knows the game&#39;s up – Telegraph Blogs

caption id="attachment_100054982" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Eat lead, eco loons!"] A mournful post from my old sparring partner the Ho...

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 9/23 - Arrowhead Pride

We're over the hump and headed into Sunday. The Kansas City Chiefs are seeing a lot of guarded love. For the most part, people can't ignore our record and at the same time can't ignore our offensive production. Here's today's news.

autosport.com - F1 <b>News</b>: Ecclestone pushing for medals system

Formula 1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone plans to make a fresh push to introduce his gold medal system into the sport, after suggesting that the new points system introduced this year has not improved matters.

robert shumake

&#39;Climate Change&#39;: even Porritt knows the game&#39;s up – Telegraph Blogs

caption id="attachment_100054982" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Eat lead, eco loons!"] A mournful post from my old sparring partner the Ho...

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 9/23 - Arrowhead Pride

We're over the hump and headed into Sunday. The Kansas City Chiefs are seeing a lot of guarded love. For the most part, people can't ignore our record and at the same time can't ignore our offensive production. Here's today's news.

autosport.com - F1 <b>News</b>: Ecclestone pushing for medals system

Formula 1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone plans to make a fresh push to introduce his gold medal system into the sport, after suggesting that the new points system introduced this year has not improved matters.

If you walked into the average bookstore, you'd think that women rule the roost when it comes to personal finance. From Suze Orman's now-classic Women and Money to the more recent (and more colorfully titled) Bitches on a Budget, there's no shortage of do-it-yourself financial advice tailored to women.



Apparently, though, when women make the momentous move from self-help to seeking professional advice about investing and retirement, things go rapidly downhill. A recent study by the Boston Consulting Group revealed that women perceived themselves as receiving wealth management services at a level of quality that is inferior to that received by their male counterparts.



According to the study, women are the key decision-makers when it comes to 27% of the wealth worldwide: that's $20 trillion! But despite the massive chunk of power they wield, 55% of the women surveyed in the study said they felt their wealth manager could do a better job of advising them. Almost a quarter of the respondents said private banks needed "significant improvement" in the services they offer to women.



"The dissatisfaction stems from the unshakable perception that men get more attention, better advice, and sometimes even better terms and deals," according to study co-author Peter Damisch. "We heard this sense of subordination time and time again in our interviews."



This perceived disparity in service arose from several key disconnects in the relationships and communications between women and their financial advisers. Manisha Thakor, Chartered Financial Analyst and women's financial literacy advocate, offers some steps savvy female investors can take to avoid being under-served by their wealth managers and investment advisers:



1. Find your adviser and get your financial education from women-run resources.



The financial services industry is dominated by males and therefore the "DNA is structured around the male experience," Thakor explains, adding that she sees many firms making an effort to change this. Most financial advisers are men, who may not inherently understand the whole-life nature of the average woman's financial plans and needs. They also may have very different communication styles than their women clients.



Thakor recommends women use women-created resources like LearnVest and DailyWorth to educate themselves in order to avoid the intimidation factor when talking about investment products with their advisers. She also encourages women to consult Garrett Planning Network, founded by Certified Financial Planner Sheryl Garrett, to locate a local certified financial planner who works on an hourly-fee-only basis. Taking these steps, Thakor explains, may alleviate the concern expressed by many women in the BCG study that they were not being taken seriously or talked to on the same level as male clients by their financial advisers.



2. Expressly state your ideal career trajectory, then ask how you should alter your investment plans accordingly.



In the BCG study, women stated that their investment advisers fundamentally misunderstood what was actually important to them, and recommended a too-narrow range of inappropriate investment vehicles as a result. Many said their advisers assumed they had a lower risk tolerance than they actually did, or that their advisers focused on short-term results and disregarded their long-term goals, which often included time out to care for a child or parent.



Thakor offers women a script of sorts to remedy this communication disconnect. "Go in and say: "I want to be a mom and I may take X amount of time out of the work force," she advises. Then ask, "How do we adjust how much I need to save and how I should invest to compensate for this?"



3. Start saving early.

We've got a week to go before the District's Democratic primaries, and both Mayor Adrian Fenty and D.C. Council Chair Vince Gray are in the final push to claim mayoral victory in the contest.

But of the two campaigns, it seems that Gray's is throwing everything it has at unseating Fenty. Late last week, they rolled out two new TV ads, both of which appear to be in relatively heavy rotation on local cable stations. And today the Gray camp unveiled "Formerly Fenty," a website highlighting residents -- including former Fenty administration officials -- that have turned on Fenty over the last four years. The site has six YouTube testimonials from such individuals, and allows others to add their name and personal story to what is a growing list of the disaffected. (Gray campaign manager Adam Rubinson could probably add his name to the list; he was a Fenty volunteer in 2006.) The website even uses the color scheme and font used by the Fenty campaign, and copied the format of the Fenty's campaigns first TV ads.

robert shumake

&#39;Climate Change&#39;: even Porritt knows the game&#39;s up – Telegraph Blogs

caption id="attachment_100054982" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Eat lead, eco loons!"] A mournful post from my old sparring partner the Ho...

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 9/23 - Arrowhead Pride

We're over the hump and headed into Sunday. The Kansas City Chiefs are seeing a lot of guarded love. For the most part, people can't ignore our record and at the same time can't ignore our offensive production. Here's today's news.

autosport.com - F1 <b>News</b>: Ecclestone pushing for medals system

Formula 1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone plans to make a fresh push to introduce his gold medal system into the sport, after suggesting that the new points system introduced this year has not improved matters.

robert shumake

&#39;Climate Change&#39;: even Porritt knows the game&#39;s up – Telegraph Blogs

caption id="attachment_100054982" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Eat lead, eco loons!"] A mournful post from my old sparring partner the Ho...

Arrowheadlines: Chiefs <b>News</b> 9/23 - Arrowhead Pride

We're over the hump and headed into Sunday. The Kansas City Chiefs are seeing a lot of guarded love. For the most part, people can't ignore our record and at the same time can't ignore our offensive production. Here's today's news.

autosport.com - F1 <b>News</b>: Ecclestone pushing for medals system

Formula 1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone plans to make a fresh push to introduce his gold medal system into the sport, after suggesting that the new points system introduced this year has not improved matters.

manage personal finances

Quicken Online users will be able to manually import certain account data into Mint.com by adding Quicken Online as an account in Mint. Quicken also encourages existing customers to export their Quicken Online data as a CSV file for backup purposes. All transaction and account data will be wiped from Intuit's servers beginning on August 29.

One group for whom this transition might be a challenge is the small business users of Quicken Online, who will no longer be able to access the Web component of Quicken's Home & Business product.

Since Mint.com is geared toward personal finance, it does not currently offer a way to differeniate between personal and business transactions. For that, business customers still looking to manage their finances online might want to consider alternatives like InDinero or Outright.

The desktop versions of Quicken's products will not be affected by the change.

This post is from staff writer Sierra Black. Sierra writes about frugality, sustainable living, and getting her kids to eat kale at Childwild.com. This post is part of Book Week at Get Rich Slowly.

Since my twin victories of paying off our last credit card and funding a summer of travel, my husband has begun to show interest in personal finance.

It’s not that he wasn’t supportive of my efforts before — he just preferred to support them from a safe, ignorant distance. A distance from which I handed him an envelope of cash each week to do the grocery shopping, he didn’t ask too many questions, and somehow we were climbing out of debt. He was more than happy to adopt any frugal-living strategy I suggested, as long as he didn’t have to think about the Big Picture.

That system worked, but I longed for more active participation from him. Not only because I wanted us to share equally in the journey toward financial freedom — I do want that — but also for a selfish reason. I wanted him to participate because he’s better at this stuff than I am. He’s a whiz at spreadsheets. The man has a Ph.d in Physical Chemistry. You don’t get one of those without doing a few math problems.

Lately, I’ve been getting my wish. My husband has been talking with a financial advisor at the university he works for, and having clear, honest conversations with me about our money.

This seemed like the perfect time for me to read Mary Hunt’s How to Debt-Proof Your Marriage.

Relationship first

Hunt’s book covers the basics of personal finance and debt destruction, with a special focus on doing it as a couple. Before she even begins talking about financial management, Hunt talks about strengthening the foundations of your marriage. You can’t have financial harmony without emotional intimacy, she says.

I couldn’t agree more. It’s clear in my own marriage that spending time relaxing together on vacation helped my husband and me both chill out and have better conversations during our family finance meetings too.

Hunt and I part ways in the chapters about how to achieve that emotional intimacy, though. She bases her prescription for marital bliss on traditional gender roles. She includes chapters for each sex on how to make deposits in the other’s Love Bank — a metaphorical bank of goodwill made of small, loving gestures.

The Love Bank is an adorable idea, one I’m tempted to put into practice here in my own home. I’m pretty sure I won’t be making my deposits to my husband’s Love Bank by biting my tongue when I disagree with him, though. Likewise, I don’t expect him to express his love for me by bringing me flowers and handling all the tough decisions for me like the natural leader of our family should.

Hunt is a generation (or two) older than I am, and what works for her marriage is so foreign to my young, feminist mind that it was actually a little hard to read. But leaving aside the details of how you get to an intimate marriage, though, she and I agree wholeheartedly that it’s important to get your emotional needs met before you can effectively work together with your spouse to manage your finances.

Money second

The personal-finance half of the book will be familiar to most GRS readers. Hunt advocates an approach similar to Your Money or Your Life and Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover, one that begins with calculating your net worth and tracking your expenses. From there, she covers the basics of setting up an emergency fund, creating a spending plan, and starting a debt snowball (though she uses different terms for these steps).

Like her ideal of a healthy relationship, Hunt’s financial advice seems a little dated in places. A lot of it has to do with how to organize your three-ring binders, or how to painstakingly accomplish by-hand calculations that Mint can do for you in a few minutes. If you’re a devotee of the pen-and-paper approach, though, her chapters on how to track and plan your spending are rock solid and detailed enough to easily follow.

The one thing in this book that made me want to put it down, run to my office, and implement it on the spot was, in fact, her filing system. Hunt takes a few pages to go over exactly what personal records you should be keeping, and outlines an elegant effective way to organize them. I spent an hour tearing apart my filing cabinet yesterday as soon as I read those pages. I may not want my marriage to look much like hers, but I’m delighted to have made over my filing cabinet in Mary Hunt’s image.

Different views

There are a few areas where Mary’s financial advice deviates from the usual Get Rich Slowly formula. One is the matter of the debt snowball. She encourages readers to start saving 10% of their income towards an emergency fund immediately, while still paying the minimums on their credit cards. Only after saving up a fully funded six-month emergency fund would Hunt advise you to roll those savings into your credit card payments.

Given the relative interest rates on credit cards and savings accounts, this approach will almost certainly cost you money. If it works for you psychologically, though, by all means pursue it. No matter what order you do them in, the key steps of tracking your spending, creating an emergency fund, and snowballing your debt payments will lead you to financial security.

Another place where she breaks with conventional wisdom is in her savings and spending ratios. GRS readers are familiar with the Balanced Money Formula that encourages us to use 50% of our money for living expenses, 30% for fun and 20% for savings. Hunt advises 10% for giving, 10% for saving and 80% for spending.

The order of those percentages is vital to her. A devout Christian, Hunt feels that all the money that comes into your life is a blessing from God, and promptly giving 10% of it back to God shows you can be trusted with this blessing, and more of it will come your way.

I’m not a Christian, but I admire Mary’s faith and devotion to charitable giving. It’s a goal of mine to give 10% of my income. I’ve written about that here before, and readers made a persuasive case for waiting until my debts were paid before giving so much away. For now, I give a modest amount and look forward to giving more in the future.

I think that for Hunt, the psychological benefits of giving 10% and saving 10% before you make any spending decisions at all outweigh the financial benefits of paying off your debts as fast as possible and then beginning to accumulate and donate wealth.

It’s an interesting approach, and one that might work for a lot of people. Particularly if you’re a devoted Christian and looking for a personal-finance book that reflects your values, you’ll find a lot of good in How to Debt-Proof Your Marriage. If you’re looking for a book that’s totally focused on financial savvy and relationship skills, though, this might not be your best bet.

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Quicken Online users will be able to manually import certain account data into Mint.com by adding Quicken Online as an account in Mint. Quicken also encourages existing customers to export their Quicken Online data as a CSV file for backup purposes. All transaction and account data will be wiped from Intuit's servers beginning on August 29.

One group for whom this transition might be a challenge is the small business users of Quicken Online, who will no longer be able to access the Web component of Quicken's Home & Business product.

Since Mint.com is geared toward personal finance, it does not currently offer a way to differeniate between personal and business transactions. For that, business customers still looking to manage their finances online might want to consider alternatives like InDinero or Outright.

The desktop versions of Quicken's products will not be affected by the change.

This post is from staff writer Sierra Black. Sierra writes about frugality, sustainable living, and getting her kids to eat kale at Childwild.com. This post is part of Book Week at Get Rich Slowly.

Since my twin victories of paying off our last credit card and funding a summer of travel, my husband has begun to show interest in personal finance.

It’s not that he wasn’t supportive of my efforts before — he just preferred to support them from a safe, ignorant distance. A distance from which I handed him an envelope of cash each week to do the grocery shopping, he didn’t ask too many questions, and somehow we were climbing out of debt. He was more than happy to adopt any frugal-living strategy I suggested, as long as he didn’t have to think about the Big Picture.

That system worked, but I longed for more active participation from him. Not only because I wanted us to share equally in the journey toward financial freedom — I do want that — but also for a selfish reason. I wanted him to participate because he’s better at this stuff than I am. He’s a whiz at spreadsheets. The man has a Ph.d in Physical Chemistry. You don’t get one of those without doing a few math problems.

Lately, I’ve been getting my wish. My husband has been talking with a financial advisor at the university he works for, and having clear, honest conversations with me about our money.

This seemed like the perfect time for me to read Mary Hunt’s How to Debt-Proof Your Marriage.

Relationship first

Hunt’s book covers the basics of personal finance and debt destruction, with a special focus on doing it as a couple. Before she even begins talking about financial management, Hunt talks about strengthening the foundations of your marriage. You can’t have financial harmony without emotional intimacy, she says.

I couldn’t agree more. It’s clear in my own marriage that spending time relaxing together on vacation helped my husband and me both chill out and have better conversations during our family finance meetings too.

Hunt and I part ways in the chapters about how to achieve that emotional intimacy, though. She bases her prescription for marital bliss on traditional gender roles. She includes chapters for each sex on how to make deposits in the other’s Love Bank — a metaphorical bank of goodwill made of small, loving gestures.

The Love Bank is an adorable idea, one I’m tempted to put into practice here in my own home. I’m pretty sure I won’t be making my deposits to my husband’s Love Bank by biting my tongue when I disagree with him, though. Likewise, I don’t expect him to express his love for me by bringing me flowers and handling all the tough decisions for me like the natural leader of our family should.

Hunt is a generation (or two) older than I am, and what works for her marriage is so foreign to my young, feminist mind that it was actually a little hard to read. But leaving aside the details of how you get to an intimate marriage, though, she and I agree wholeheartedly that it’s important to get your emotional needs met before you can effectively work together with your spouse to manage your finances.

Money second

The personal-finance half of the book will be familiar to most GRS readers. Hunt advocates an approach similar to Your Money or Your Life and Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover, one that begins with calculating your net worth and tracking your expenses. From there, she covers the basics of setting up an emergency fund, creating a spending plan, and starting a debt snowball (though she uses different terms for these steps).

Like her ideal of a healthy relationship, Hunt’s financial advice seems a little dated in places. A lot of it has to do with how to organize your three-ring binders, or how to painstakingly accomplish by-hand calculations that Mint can do for you in a few minutes. If you’re a devotee of the pen-and-paper approach, though, her chapters on how to track and plan your spending are rock solid and detailed enough to easily follow.

The one thing in this book that made me want to put it down, run to my office, and implement it on the spot was, in fact, her filing system. Hunt takes a few pages to go over exactly what personal records you should be keeping, and outlines an elegant effective way to organize them. I spent an hour tearing apart my filing cabinet yesterday as soon as I read those pages. I may not want my marriage to look much like hers, but I’m delighted to have made over my filing cabinet in Mary Hunt’s image.

Different views

There are a few areas where Mary’s financial advice deviates from the usual Get Rich Slowly formula. One is the matter of the debt snowball. She encourages readers to start saving 10% of their income towards an emergency fund immediately, while still paying the minimums on their credit cards. Only after saving up a fully funded six-month emergency fund would Hunt advise you to roll those savings into your credit card payments.

Given the relative interest rates on credit cards and savings accounts, this approach will almost certainly cost you money. If it works for you psychologically, though, by all means pursue it. No matter what order you do them in, the key steps of tracking your spending, creating an emergency fund, and snowballing your debt payments will lead you to financial security.

Another place where she breaks with conventional wisdom is in her savings and spending ratios. GRS readers are familiar with the Balanced Money Formula that encourages us to use 50% of our money for living expenses, 30% for fun and 20% for savings. Hunt advises 10% for giving, 10% for saving and 80% for spending.

The order of those percentages is vital to her. A devout Christian, Hunt feels that all the money that comes into your life is a blessing from God, and promptly giving 10% of it back to God shows you can be trusted with this blessing, and more of it will come your way.

I’m not a Christian, but I admire Mary’s faith and devotion to charitable giving. It’s a goal of mine to give 10% of my income. I’ve written about that here before, and readers made a persuasive case for waiting until my debts were paid before giving so much away. For now, I give a modest amount and look forward to giving more in the future.

I think that for Hunt, the psychological benefits of giving 10% and saving 10% before you make any spending decisions at all outweigh the financial benefits of paying off your debts as fast as possible and then beginning to accumulate and donate wealth.

It’s an interesting approach, and one that might work for a lot of people. Particularly if you’re a devoted Christian and looking for a personal-finance book that reflects your values, you’ll find a lot of good in How to Debt-Proof Your Marriage. If you’re looking for a book that’s totally focused on financial savvy and relationship skills, though, this might not be your best bet.

robert shumake

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Read our PlayStation 3 news of Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue heads PSN.

FileMaker releases FileMaker Go updates for iPhone and iPad <b>...</b>

iLounge news discussing the FileMaker releases FileMaker Go updates for iPhone and iPad. Find more iPad news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

The American Spectator : ABC <b>News</b>&#39; Credibility &#39;Lost in Translation&#39;

ABC News President David Westin is resigning and plans to leave the company before the end of the year, reportedly because of friction between him and executives at parent Walt Disney Company over the network's poor profits. ...

robert shumake

Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue heads PSN PlayStation 3 <b>News</b> - Page 1 <b>...</b>

Read our PlayStation 3 news of Deathspank: Thongs of Virtue heads PSN.

FileMaker releases FileMaker Go updates for iPhone and iPad <b>...</b>

iLounge news discussing the FileMaker releases FileMaker Go updates for iPhone and iPad. Find more iPad news from leading independent iPod, iPhone, and iPad site.

The American Spectator : ABC <b>News</b>&#39; Credibility &#39;Lost in Translation&#39;

ABC News President David Westin is resigning and plans to leave the company before the end of the year, reportedly because of friction between him and executives at parent Walt Disney Company over the network's poor profits. ...