Date: Fri, 17. October 2008 12:56:15

table border=0 width= valign=top cellpadding=2 cellspacing=7trtd valign=top class=jfont style=font-size:85%;font-family:arial,sans-serifbrdiv style=padding-top:0.8em;img alt= height=1 width=1/divdiv class=lha href=http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=Tct=us/16-0fd=Rurl=http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2008/10/17/Student_loans_tempting_in_a_tight_economy/UPI-47521224247850/cid=1258993417ei=Qqr4SIb2DoGi9gSd_f2bCQusg=AFQjCNENg10GxcplT85Ng6548n4EM7hP_gbStudent loans tempting in a tight economy/b/abrfont size=-1bfont color=#6f6f6fUnited Press Internationalnbsp;-/font nobr2 hours ago/nobr/b/fontbrfont size=-1NEW YORK, Oct. 17 (UPI) -- Parents in increasing numbers are planning to use loans to finance tuition bills as the US economy heads toward a likely recession, data show./fontbrfont size=-1a href=http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=Tct=us/16-1fd=Rurl=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/business/17student.html%3Femcid=1258993417ei=Qqr4SIb2DoGi9gSd_f2bCQusg=AFQjCNFBZ33Pmn7zFozuMRf-fi_4KwiD1wIn Downturn, Families Strain to Pay Tuition/a font size=-1 color=#6f6f6fnobrNew York Times/nobr/font/fontbrfont class=p size=-1a class=p href=http://news.google.com/news?ned=usncl=1258993417hl=ennobrball 12 news articles/b/nobr/a/font/div/font/td/tr/table

Date: Fri, 17. October 2008 12:56:15

table border=0 width= valign=top cellpadding=2 cellspacing=7trtd valign=top class=jfont style=font-size:85%;font-family:arial,sans-serifbrdiv style=padding-top:0.8em;img alt= height=1 width=1/divdiv class=lha href=http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=Tct=us/16-0fd=Rurl=http://www.upi.com/Business_News/2008/10/17/Student_loans_tempting_in_a_tight_economy/UPI-47521224247850/cid=1258993417ei=Eqr4SLj7LaSeygS88uWiCQusg=AFQjCNHiF7Zw3-cgYlc02FjtyeicR-UyzwbStudent loans tempting in a tight economy/b/abrfont size=-1bfont color=#6f6f6fUnited Press Internationalnbsp;-/font nobr2 hours ago/nobr/b/fontbrfont size=-1NEW YORK, Oct. 17 (UPI) -- Parents in increasing numbers are planning to use loans to finance tuition bills as the US economy heads toward a likely recession, data show./fontbrfont size=-1a href=http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=Tct=us/16-1fd=Rurl=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/business/17student.html%3Femcid=1258993417ei=Eqr4SLj7LaSeygS88uWiCQusg=AFQjCNF7pn7m7WY0MnSUduA72ReiHArwTwIn Downturn, Families Strain to Pay Tuition/a font size=-1 color=#6f6f6fnobrNew York Times/nobr/font/fontbrfont class=p size=-1a class=p href=http://news.google.com/news?ned=iencl=1258993417hl=ennobrball 12 news articles/b/nobr/a/font/div/font/td/tr/table

Date: Sun, 18. May 2008 11:33:13

Terrorism will be fought tooth and nail: ChidambaramHindu - 3 hours agoJalandhar (PTI): The government's respect for the law should not be mistaken for a soft approach towards terrorism, which would be fought tooth and nail, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said here on Sunday.Azad advocates `bullet for bullet` approach to fight terror Zee Newsall 8 news articles

Date: Fri, 16. May 2008 23:31:36

CNN Money's Les Christie reported how the massive credit squeeze in Wall Street is affecting home buyers in expensive neighborhoods: Wells Fargo, one of the nation's biggest mortgage lenders, raised the interest rates on it 30-year, fixed-rate, non-conforming (AKA jumbo) loan to 8 percent last week, up from 6.875 percent. Other lenders followed suit and more are likely to join them. The rate jump means the monthly bill for a $600,000 mortgage would hit $4,403, compared to $3,942 previously, an increase of $461. Jumbos are loans of more than $417,000, the limit observed by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that buy loans in the secondary markets. Freddie and Fannie don't buy loans above that cap. ... Even borrowers with shakier credit scores than many jumbo loan applicants can qualify for a prime loan at about 6.75 percent, only 0.25 or 0.30 percent above what more qualified borrowers get, according to Keith Gumbinger, of HSH Associates, a mortgage information publisher. But jumbo borrowers are paying a point and a half more than those who receive a conforming loan. That's way up from the traditional premium spread of about a half to three/quarters of a point. The real-world question for me is: given that my 3-year expatriate contract will end in late 2008, if I choose not to extend it, can I still afford a house back in Seattle? READ FULL POST ... Hot Deal: 5% cashback on everything from Citi CashReturns Mastercard Read more news like this from PFBlog.com, The Unique Personal Finance Blog Since 2003.

Date: Sun, 27. July 2008 20:04:59

Resign for elections says BainimaramaFiji Daily Post - 7 hours agoINTERIM Finance Minister Mahendra Chaudhry will have to resign from his interim Cabinet post if he intends to contest for the next elections according to a guideline laid down by the interim Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama.Chaudhry Rubbishes Clarks Claims Fijivillageall 3 news articles

Date: Fri, 16. May 2008 23:31:36

Earlier this week, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) published its quarterly survey of the national's real estate market. It is not surprising that the existing home sales declined more then 10 percent over last year, but what really makes the news is in almost two thirds of the metropolitan areas, median price of single-family home has year-over-year appreciation. From the NAR news release: Home price trends are improving in metropolitan areas but existing-home sales during the second quarter were below a year ago in most states, according to the latest quarterly survey by the National Association of Realtors. In the second quarter, 97 out of 149 metropolitan statistical areas 1 show year-over-year increases in median existing single-family home prices, including nine areas with double-digit annual gains; 50 had price declines; and two were unchanged. In the first quarter of 2007, revised data shows 83 areas had annual price increases, while in the fourth quarter of 2006 only 68 areas were up. Total state existing-home sales, including single-family and condo, were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.91 million units in the second quarter, down 10.8 percent from a 6.63 million-unit pace in the second quarter of 2006. Six states showed increases in the sales pace from a year ago; one was unchanged and complete data for two states were not available. How can this happen? READ FULL POST ... Hot Deal: 5% cashback on everything from Citi CashReturns Mastercard Read more news like this from PFBlog.com, The Unique Personal Finance Blog Since 2003.

Date: Tue, 16. September 2008 18:12:20

Editorial: Law takes fire out of electionNew Zealand Herald - 20 hours agoThis month, the head of the Electoral Commission confirmed what had already become apparent in the run-up to polling day on November 8. The Electoral Finance Act had had, said Dr Helena Catt, a "chilling effect on the extent and type of participation ...Law Society: Election laws breach free speech Scoop.co.nzall 3 news articles

Date: Wed, 10. September 2008 12:51:40

Canada.comUPDATE 1-RESEARCH ALERT-Bernstein cuts Yahoo price targetReuters - 2 hours agoSept 10 (Reuters) - Sanford C. Bernstein cut its price target on Yahoo Inc's (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) stock, saying that the company's future prospects look bleak, especially if the proposed search advertising deal with Google ...Video: Justice Dept Reviewing Google-Yahoo Deal AssociatedPressDidit Study: Campaign Finance Loophole Could Decide Presidential ... MarketWatchCNNMoney.com - The Colorado Independent - eFluxMedia - BusinessWeekall 711 news articles

Date: Fri, 24. October 2008 15:04:56

blairerickson writes "A US firm Thursday unveiled plans to build a massive one-billion-dollar charging network to power electric cars in Australia as it seeks cleaner and cheaper options to petrol. Better Place, which has built plug-in stations for electric vehicles in Israel and Denmark, has joined forces with Australian power company AGL and finance group Macquarie Capital to create an Australian network. Under the plan, the three cities will each have a network of between 200,000 and 250,000 charge stations by 2012 where drivers can plug in and power up their electric cars. The points would probably be at homes and businesses, car parks and shopping centres. In addition, 150 switch stations will be built in each city and on major freeways, where electric batteries can be automatically replaced in drive-in stations similar to a car wash." I hope they're talking to the car companies about the necessary standardization it would take to make this work, too.pa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/24/0440204amp;from=rss"img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rssamp;op=imageamp;style=h0amp;sid=08/10/24/0440204"/a/ppa href="http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/24/0440204amp;from=rss"Read more of this story/a at Slashdot./p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/QfvRvoGYg1gRSp97qrRyEO6d3k4/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/QfvRvoGYg1gRSp97qrRyEO6d3k4/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/JGjBBv-UZ-g" height="1" width="1"/

Date: Fri, 16. May 2008 23:31:36

My life is complicated and one of the complication is I have to deal with two currencies: my investment income and most business income are received in dollar, whilst 95% of my cost structure is denominated in Chinese Yuan (or called Renminbi -- "people's money"). Worse, Yuan is appreciating quicker and quicker against the dollar. In the past year, I managed to book an annualized rate of return of 8.77% in my self-managed portfolio, but this just barely beat the Yuan's 6.9% appreciation against the dollar in the year. So I asked myself the question in December, should I just buy some money market fund in China for safe return instead of risking my principal in the U.S. equity market? As the first step, I moved $50,000 to China and bought a load of money market funds here. While I'm still contemplating the magnitude and timing I should continue to do this, here is a quick step-by-step process of how to do the Dollar/Yuan carry trade for those who want to try: Step 1: Open A Banking Account in China Everyone with an identification card (for local people) or valid passport (for foreigners) can open an account at any banks in China. Reputable domestic banks in China includes Bank of China, Bank of Communications, ICBC and China Merchants Bank, the latter is what I use primarily. Foreign owned banks like Citibank and HSBC also have branches in major cities in China. One will need to open a Renminbi account and an US Dollar account. It is worthwhile to set up e-banking in your first visit too (it won't be automatically set) because the long queues at major banks can sometimes keep you waiting for hours. READ FULL POST ... Hot Deal: 5% cashback on everything from Citi CashReturns Mastercard Read more news like this from PFBlog.com, The Unique Personal Finance Blog Since 2003.