Personal Finance and Investing

Anticipates Best Summer Ever

UNWTO Secretary-general, Mr. Taleb Rifai, met with the Croatian Prime Minister, Ms. Jadranka Kosor, and the Minister of Tourism, Mr. Damir Bajs, to discuss tourism development in the country during a visit to Croatia (August 20-21, 2010). The Prime Minister expressed her full support for the tourism sector, underlining its crucial role in economic growth and development.

Meeting with the Prime Minister, Mr. Rifai praised the resilience of the country’s tourism sector after the recent economic turbulence. T

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I am borrowing the phrase from Betty White’s upcoming book for a reason. Is anyone watching the news? Reading the paper or internet news?

Maybe you don’t need to… perhaps you are already experiencing the ills that our great country is facing.

Is it really about a democratic or republican’s individual parties view and opinion? Could it possibly be collective, yet poor choices of decisions from both parties? Is either one perfect? Obviously not, or we would not be in this frightening mess that so many hardworking Americans are now facing.

Maybe it is the human ego that is getting in the way. Why we

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When we talk about bargain hunting and getting the best price on items that you need, it’s usually with the assumption that you have time to shop, compare models and prices, and wait for sales. Most of the time that’s the case. But there are times when you need something right now and you can’t wait. Think about what happens when the refrigerator conks out and the food is spoiling. Or the washer is broken and the laundry is approaching the ceiling. Or your computer goes kaput and you have a big presentation to finish. You need a replacement and you need it now. How do you avoid spending more than you have to in these circumstances?

First, investigate the repair option. Many

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As promised, here’s the lowdown on how our external private equity investments are doing at the CPP Investment Board (see prior post “CPPIB U.S.A. general partner Q1 2010 performance numbers” Aug 19-10).

The overview (December quarter in brackets, in current currency exchange rates):

Paid in Capital: $16.333 billion ($16.649B)
Reported Value: $11.498 billion ($11.419B)
Distributions Received: $7.410 billion ($7.353B)
Reported Value plus Distributions: $18.905 billion ($18.772B)
Capital Calls still to fund: $12.776 billion ($13.042B)
Total Committed: $29.108 billion ($29.691B)

That looks to be a 16% increase in the net asset value of CPPIB’s PE investments over the life of the program. But the

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