Personal Finance and Investing

An awful lot happened yesterday during the third Global Day of Action for financial transaction taxes.

From New York where the nurses union led a demonstration on Wall Street, to Nepal where campaigners met with the Deputy Prime Minister. The toolkit, banners and links to all pictures shared via posterous, flickr and youtube are on the Make Finance Work website.

Karen Higgins, a Co-President of National Nurses United, told the crowd on Wall Street:

“Around the world, we’re calling for a more fair and just economy. The finance tax we’re talking about comes from the trillions of trade of stocks and bonds sold here every day. The re

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It used to be that people with damaged credit will have to deal with loan sharks or hard money lenders because nobody else will take the risk of offering a mortgage for a person with bad credit. But because these types of lenders were making so much money then, other lenders must think of a way to grab the “bad credit” market or they will be left out in the competition.

Subprime lending constitute a fourth of the mortgage and lending industry. Subprime lenders cater to people who do not have the right score of a prime lending policy but still not bad enough to tap a loan shark for funding. In

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The Toothpaste Tube Tormenter

I have difficulty throwing things away until I have exhausted every last use out of the container. Nowhere is this more apparent than with toothpaste. I’ll keep a near-empty tube even if it’ll take me upwards of ten minutes (and the Jaws of Life) to extract the dentist-recommended pea-sized dollop.

Why I do it: Economical, and also a great upper body workout!

Actual Savings: At roughly $3.50 a tube, the energy spent coaxing toothpaste from the dark depths of the tube might only amount to an extra couple uses and a few cents savings.

The Bag Lady

Very rarely do I buy garbage bags. Ins

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It’s Q&A time again. This one comes from ‘♪’ who is asking…

Illegal immigrants from Mexico are working for far less money than US citizen workers and on a regular basis. An 18 April 2006 article in WSJ by Professor of Economics and Social Policy at Harvard University George J. Borjas (For a Few Dollars Less) quotes Paul Samuelson: an increase in supply [of workers] will, other things being equal, tend to depress wage rates.” Although Samuelsons conclusions were, for years, disputed, recently they have been proving to be accurate. http://www.n

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