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Archive for July, 2006

My Home: Why Not Kansas? Free Land!

23 Jul

Not sure if you’ve seen this before, but it’s been on the news a few times where I live. Free land in Kansas! Some restrictions, but for the most part, it’s free.

But to each his/her own…I choose to live here in Hawaii. I would consider moving, maybe, if my family and friends weren’t here…but I’m not sure I would be able to handle moving to the middle of Kansas. :/

 
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Posted in General on July 23, 2006

 

My 401k YTD Rate Of Return Is a Measily 0.4%. What’s Yours?

22 Jul

My current rate of return (ROR) for my 401k year-to-date (01.01.2006 – 07.21.2006) is 0.4%. Not that great at all.

I’m curious, how are your 401k’s doing? What’s your ROR?

This is how ROR is calculated, per my 401k website:

Normally, you analyze an investment based on its Beginning Balance, its Ending Balance, and the schedule of Cash Flows between these 2 balances. Your Rate of Return is calculated as the Rate of Return for your particular Beginning Balance, Ending Balance, and schedule of Cash Flows. A compound daily rate of return is computed by testing different rates until one is found that increases (or reduces in the case of a loss) your beginning balance and all of your cash-flows to equal your ending balance within 0.00000000001%. Then the actual account performance during the investment period is calculated.

 
2 Comments

Posted in General on July 22, 2006

 

Bull Market? What Bull Market? Oh, That Kind of “Bull” Market & Egg-vertising

21 Jul

Since it’s Friday, and tomorrow is Saturday, and the day after that Sunday, aka the WEEKEND, what’s more appropriate than a little laugh to get everyone ready for 2 days to relax–I hope. If you don’t get the weekend off, then just enjoy the chuckle, giggle, or laugh. If you don’t get anything out of these articles, I’m sorry.

Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted in General on July 21, 2006

 

Wage Inflation Affecting India. Salaries Increase To $5,763.

21 Jul

I always wondered what do the folks in India get paid. Well, I found this article that talks about how India is dealing with wage inflation.

“During Infosys’ earnings call the previous week, Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani addressed the twin topics of wage inflation and employee attrition, saying that the company will increase starting salaries from $5,122 to $5,763, a 12.5 percent increase, on average.”

Check it out in its entirety.

 
2 Comments

Posted in General on July 21, 2006

 

Surprise! “Fun Fund” Opened At…GMAC.

20 Jul

Yep, I’ve opened my “fun fund” account, and it is at GMAC. Why? Well, it offers check writing, ATM card, a fairly low min ($500), supposed fast online transfers, and a pretty competitive interest rate.

Not to mention the process so far has been amazingly painless. I’ll keep you all posted on the status of my GMAC account opening process.

Read the rest of this entry »

 
6 Comments

Posted in General on July 20, 2006

 

WARNING: Phishing Alert – eBay – But This One Is Different!

19 Jul

I have to admit, this phishing attempt is different. It’s coming from a unassuming location. Who would think that a question from a fellow eBayer could be attempt to steal your info? On top of that, only the yellow “Respond Now” button leads to a false location.

For reference…Give them some fake info:

http://alice.ics.nara-wu.ac.jp/~chubo/ebays.html

Return-path:
Received: from spm02 (spm02)
by jem01
(Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.2-5.04 (built Jan 24 2006))
with ESMTP id for ;
Wed, 19 Jul 2006 19:54:09 -1000 (HST)
Received: from mail.digitrain.ac.nz ([203.97.26.98])
by spm02 (8.13.6.20060614/8.13.6) with ESMTP id k6K5s0SX016030
for ; Wed,
19 Jul 2006 19:54:07 -1000 (HST envelope-from donna@digitrain.ac.nz)
Received: by mail.digitrain.ac.nz (Postfix, from userid 1030)
id 6A349199C10D; Thu, 20 Jul 2006 16:16:51 +1200 (NZST)
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 16:16:51 +1200 (NZST)
From: eBay
Subject: Question from eBay Member
To: undisclosed-recipients: ;
Message-id:
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/html
Content-transfer-encoding: 8bit\r\n
X-PMX-Version: 5.2.0.264296, Antispam-Engine: 2.4.0.264935,
Antispam-Data: 2006.7.19.223932
Original-recipient: rfc822;
X-Perlmx-Spam: Gauge=XXX, Probability=30%, Report=’PHISH_NO_HTML_TAG 1.25,
CTYPE_JUST_HTML 0.848, HTML_MIME_NO_HTML_TAG 0.8, PHISH_SUBJ_LOW 0.5, __CT 0,
__CTE 0, __CTYPE_IS_HTML 0, __HAS_MSGID 0, __MIME_HTML 0, __MIME_HTML_ONLY 0,
__MIME_VERSION 0, __PHISH_FROM 0, __PHISH_FROM2 0, __PHISH_SUBJ_PHRASE1 0,
__RUS_MIME_NO_TEXT 0, __SANE_MSGID 0′

 
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Posted in General on July 19, 2006

 

WARNING: Phishing Alert – HSBC.com

19 Jul


This a phishing email received today. This is for reference only.

If you’re bored give them some false info:

http://forum.schoschonen.com/event/official-security/upgrading/HSBC-US/login.htm

Return-path:
Received: from spm04 (spm04)
by jem01
(Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.2-5.04 (built Jan 24 2006))
with ESMTP id for ;
Wed, 19 Jul 2006 17:48:29 -1000 (HST)
Received: from alioth.digity.it (mizar.inartis.it [83.103.90.253])
by spm04 (8.13.6.20060614/8.13.6) with ESMTP id k6K3mGI0020397
for ; Wed,
19 Jul 2006 17:48:26 -1000 (HST envelope-from web@Alioth.digity.it)
Received: by alioth.digity.it (Postfix, from userid 1001)
id C7E9538F50C1C; Thu, 20 Jul 2006 05:46:51 +0200 (CEST)
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 05:46:51 +0200 (CEST)
From: HSBC Bank USA
Subject: Important Message From HSBC Bank USA
To:
Reply-to:
Message-id:
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/html
Content-transfer-encoding: 8BIT
X-PMX-Version: 5.2.0.264296, Antispam-Engine: 2.4.0.264935,
Antispam-Data: 2006.7.19.203432
Original-recipient: rfc822;
X-Perlmx-Spam: Gauge=XXIIIIIII, Probability=27%, Report=’REPLY_TO_EMPTY 1.699,
CTYPE_JUST_HTML 0.848, PHISH_SUBJ_LOW 0.5, __CT 0, __CTE 0, __CTYPE_IS_HTML 0,
__HAS_MSGID 0, __MIME_HTML 0, __MIME_HTML_ONLY 0, __MIME_VERSION 0,
__PHISH_FROM 0, __PHISH_FROM2 0, __PHISH_LOGO 0, __PHISH_LOGO_HSBC 0,
__PHISH_SUBJ_PHRASE1 0, __SANE_MSGID 0, __TAG_EXISTS_HTML 0′

 
No Comments

Posted in General on July 19, 2006

 

Off Topic: When Personal Beliefs Should Be Put Aside For the Greater Good…

19 Jul

I realize that people have beliefs, I have them too, but when the potential exists to help millions of people, I might have to reconsider putting my beliefs aside, just for a second, for the greater good of humankind.

That being said, I really am dissappointed that President Bush has decided to veto expanding embryonic stem cell research. No matter what we decide, other countries will move forward, leaving America in the dark.

Sorry my fellow citizens, this is a blow to the future of health sciences in America. Looks like we’ll be on the sidelines as the next leap of health science occurs right before our eyes.

Those who stand with President Bush, are you not going to use the health advances discovered when cures tied to stem cell reasearch are found? What would you do if your father, mother, son, daugther, aunt, uncle’s terminal disease could be cured? Would you put your beliefs aside then?

 
8 Comments

Posted in General on July 19, 2006

 

It’s Going To Hurt When I Have To Pay My 0% Balances Off…Oh, and My Credit Card Limits.

19 Jul

Just looking over my current financials, and the almost $32,000.00 in credit card debt just sticks out. I don’t like having debt, and as much as I know 0% is playing in my favor, it still kind of sucks knowing I have to pay it off eventually.

Anyway, I decided to take a look at my credit card limits (credit Claire @ Tired but happy) in hopes that my debt to credit limit ratio is fairly low. So here we go:

CC1: 14,400 (used: ~10,000, 0%)
CC2: 15,000
CC3: 9,000
CC4: 15,500
CC5: 16,000 (used: ~790, paid off monthly)
CC6: 22,000 (used: ~20,000, 0%) Total Credit: $108,100

Well, that puts me at around 30% credit utilization. Unfortunately, I think it’s not overall credit usage that affects your credit score, but utilization per credit card? Anyway, come the end of the year CC1 will become a zero balance credit card. CC6 is good until Sept 07.

 
1 Comment

Posted in General on July 19, 2006

 

Privatization = Better World

18 Jul

There was an interesting news clip on TV awhile ago on privatization and how it benefits the world. In essence, privatization equal ownership, ownership equals taking care of whatever it is being owned. Ultimately, this creates a sense of responsibility for the object being owned, and thus a better world.

Students of this high school were given one cup of Hershey’s Kisses that “reproduce.” For each Kiss left, you get one more at the end of each “round.” In the first part of the experiment, each student group had one cup and told to take freely from the cup. In the end of the first part, there were no Kisses left or sometimes one or two–generally not sustainable. In the second part, a student in a group was given their own cup and told to take as many Kisses as they want and to give them away, half of the Kisses were left in the cups–sustainable.

The point of this exercise was that privatization helps because people/owners take better care of something they own, rather than land owned by a group or the public. I thought it was pretty interesting. What do you think? Should more parks and public places be owned by a private group?

 
4 Comments

Posted in General on July 18, 2006