Getting back on fiscal track

Motivational speaker Tony Robbins explores options for dealing with the US national debt and getting back on track. Certainly stimulating...

U.S. Family Net Worth Drops to Level of Early ’90s

The recent economic crisis left the median American family in 2010 with no more wealth than in the early 1990s, erasing almost two decades of accumulated prosperity, the Federal Reserve said Monday in a New York Times story.

A hypothetical family richer than half the nation’s families and poorer than the other half had a net worth of $77,300 in 2010, compared with $126,400 in 2007, the Fed said. The crash of housing prices directly accounted for three-quarters of the loss.

Families’ income also continued to decline, a trend that predated the crisis but accelerated over the same period. Median family income fell to $45,800 in 2010 from $49,600 in 2007. All figures were adjusted for inflation.

The survey also confirmed that Americans are shifting the kinds of debts they carry. The share of families with credit card debt declined by 6.7 percentage points to 39.4 percent, and the median balance fell 16.1 percent to $2,600. 

Families also reduced the number of credit cards that they carried, and 32 percent of families said they had no cards, up from 27 percent in 2007.

The new data comes from the Fed’s much-anticipated release on Monday of its Survey of Consumer Finances, a report issued every three years that is one of the broadest and deepest sources of information about the financial health of American families.

Why does "x" stand for the unknown?

In this short and funny TED talk, Terry Moore gives the surprising answer...

The Changing Face of Europe

Turn up the speakers and watch the borders ebb and flow over the centuries...

BitCoin - the new currency?

Remember how PayPal revolutionized Internet payments? 

Imagine a similar system where no central bank or institution holds all the gold and there are no grubby little men investing your money as it moves between accounts. Welcome to Bitcoin (BTC), the Webs first peer-to-peer digital crypto currency that allows individuals to exchange money quickly, safely and anonymously over the Internet without the need for banks, cards, transfer fees or delays. 

How Does it Work? How Do I Get Some? Technically speaking Bitcoins are very safe – each coin is heavily encrypted and stored virtually across the network of machines running the Bitcoin software (That’s your cue to download & install it! Don’t worry…I’ll wait!). Once you have done this you can literally claim your FREE MONEY by visiting the Bitcoin Faucet and they will deposit your first Bitcoins into your account for free! (The amount they give away is dropping as the Bitcoin gains in strength, so hurry!) Take a deep breath! Feel empowered. Feels good doesn’t it? Great, now continue… 

 

Yale Law School’s Reuben Grinberg has written a fascinating paper assessing the legal implications of this new currency concluding that it has the “potential to be a significant player” and due to it’s digital nature “operates in a legal grey area” which would put it out of reach of the Federal government. Time magazine’s Techland suggested it was the online currency to challenge banks and governments. Bright Economic Outlook The Bitcoin has been rapidly (and steadily) increasing in value, doubling in January alone according to one source, with Forbes reporting that an estimated about $30,000 worth of Bitcoins are spent each day! (If this isn’t a stable currency, what is!?). 

You can mine (generate) bitcoins of your own, and the processing time your computer uses goes towards helping process other users’ online transactions and re-enforce the security of the system itself. In effect, the monetary value is measured against processing time, rather than gold. What Can I Buy? A number of sites accept Bitcoins for payment and this is rapidly growing. 

You can buy anything from food to gifts and this month a rival service to eBay was launched called Bidding Pond, run entirely on Bitcoins! In fact, lead developer Gavin Andresen has been invited to speak at the CIA headquarters next month suggesting that the U.S. government is interested in this development. 

Yes, the Bitcoin has gone from strength to strength. Each time I buy some, I look at the exchange rate and wish I’d bought more the previous time! They say necessity is the mother of invention, and this depression might just have helped a few geeks come up with a system that may actually replace money altogether. 

As the Bitcoin becomes more mainstream (and it will over the next six months!) it is likely to find friends amongst the open source shopping cart community (there are already plugins for Wordpress WP-eCommerce, Prestashop, Open Cart, ZenCart and numerous others) and will then replace Paypal (as it will be faster, free and not depend on a real-world bank or debit card). 

An extract from Roger Davies recent article on Bitcoins (link)