How do you like the stories from Strapped series so far? These stories get better and better. Previous posts in the series are:

• Stories from Strapped: College Education
• Stories from Strapped: Paycheck

Chapter 3 in Strapped: Why America’s 20- and 30-Somethings Can’t Get Ahead is Generation Debt. I think we all know what that means. The author says the younger generation can’t get ahead because they have too much debt. Now, the stories:

Lori, a 33-year-old living in Manhattan, still has $40,000 in student loans debt. She earned only $16,000 a year in her first job as a social worker and community organizer in New York. Her income “inched upward” over time but it’s still not enough to pay all her bills and loan payment. So she deferred payments on her student loans.

Ah, living in Manhattan on $16,000 a year. The book doesn’t say what Lori’s current salary is but even double that, at $32,000 a year, it’s still going to be tough living in Manhattan. When I was in New York city a few months ago, I rode in the commuter train on a random workday. It was packed. There was hardly any standing room. I’m sure many of the commuters earn much more than $32,000 a year. I’m guessing they chose to spend a lot of time commuting every day because the living expenses are lower outside of New York city. Between paying off debt and spending less time commuting, Lori chose the latter.

Next story:

Elaine got her credit card in college and a free T-shirt too. She used her credit card to pay for tuition and living expenses because her parents couldn’t help pay for college. Elaine plays the credit card game well. She transfers balance from one card to another every six months for the low introductory rates. She now owes $40,000 but half of it was racked up after college. She bought a new computer and new furniture because she “wanted to make her apartment look like an adult’s apartment.” She also used credit cards to pay for her wedding and flights for family visits. Elaine has no regrets. She thinks about the things her cards enabled her to do: studying in Scotland, flying to Paris, her perfect wedding.

This is a good story. I want my home to look good too. If I don’t have to pay back the money, I would also like to have a perfect wedding or study in Scotland. Elaine is not afraid of debt. She used debt for “consumption smoothing.” She was able to do things she didn’t have money for. I flash back to my student days. I did many things which looked silly now, like working in the college cafeteria serving nacho and cleaning up, for minimum wage $4.25/hour plus free food. Until today I still have my employee badge with that food service contractor. It serves as a reminder of the days when I was poor. I knew I would earn a much higher salary after I graduated. I had credit cards but somehow carrying a balance simply wasn’t an option for me. I wasn’t as smart as Elaine. My college years would’ve been much more comfortable if I borrowed from my credit cards.

The third story:

David and Lisa, both 31, have Ivy League degrees. They bought their home when they were 28. They earn $86,000 together in Cincinnati but they also have $40,000 in credit card debt. Their credit card debt has grown since they got married. David calls it “unavoidable debt” because the debt came from the cost of traveling around the country for friends’ weddings, holiday trips to visit their families and the cost of clothing and feeding their two children. David acknowledges that going to weddings and visiting family is a major source of their debt but they believe seeing friends and family is more important. They are now trying to move to a larger house with a real backyard and enough bedrooms so each of the boys can have his own room. Seven years after they got married, they are basically treading water because they have as much debt now as seven years ago.

Once again we see David and Lisa made the life style choice between debt and attending friends’ weddings because they think the latter is more important. Although I wouldn’t make the same choice, I don’t want to judge or criticize their choice either. It’s their life. They get to choose how to live it. There’s nothing right or wrong about it. But we can’t say they can’t get ahead. They chose not to.

The author suggested some public policy changes to deal with the consumer debt problem.

1. Allow credit card rate increases only on new balances, and not existing balance. I can see the arguments on either side. Borrowers say it’s unfair to have a higher rate apply to money they already borrowed. Credit card companies say because the loan is revolving, it’s actually renewed month-to-month. If the borrower doesn’t like the new rate, they can transfer the balance to a different card, just like what Elaine in the book did. There is so much competition in credit cards. If a company raises their rate willy-nilly, it risks losing a profitable customer.
2. Ban credit card solicitations on college campuses. OK, not a problem, although I’m not sure how effective it’ll be in reducing the debt people have. If we decide that credit cards are a dangerous product and we want to protect our younger generation, we could raise the minimum age for obtaining a credit card to 25, like we have minimum age for smoking and drinking. We could also require a test for debt management and financial responsibility before someone can get a credit card, like we do before a gun license or a driver’s license can be issued. These measures will be much more effective than merely banning on-campus credit card solicitations because college students have plenty of exposure to credit card ads elsewhere: online, on billboards, on TV and in newspapers and magazines.
3. End predatory lending in mortgage refinance. Fees, points, and prepayment penalties are too high. Expensive products are everywhere. Let’s protect the consumers and regulate the prices. We should start with weddings, jewelry, furniture, designer apparel, shoes and accessories, and cosmetics and perfumes because their profit margins are too high. These expensive products are draining the wallet of our younger generation. But who gets to decide when something is worth or not worth the price?

Credit card companies make easy targets for the blame game. They are not saint but they are just like other companies working hard for making a profit. The credit card industry is very competitive. The cost of switching is negative (low introductory rates and sign-up bonuses). More laws and regulations are great on the supply side. Let’s not forget the demand side either. Let’s also make a law that caps the debt-to-income ratio or the debt-to-assets ratio for young adults. That’ll guarantee that our younger generation will not have too heavy a debt load dragging them down. As we have seen, self-discipline isn’t working. People willingly take on credit card debt despite the bad press credit card companies receive. We don’t let anyone buy alcohol, tobacco, prescription drugs, or guns at will. Limiting how much our citizens can borrow isn’t too far fetched. Or else they shoot themselves in the foot.

Or we can just let adults be adults. The perpetual “guns kill or people kill” argument lives on.

How do you make people do the right thing for themselves? This isn’t only credit cards. It applies to smoking and eating healthy too. I think it’s common knowledge that french fries are not good for one’s health. Yet the amount of french fried consumed every day in this country is probably measured by thousands of tons. People want french fries. Restaurants happily serve them. Whose problem is it that people eat too much fries?

With spending on London’s 2012 Olympic bid now projected to top £9 billion, what chance have small businesses of getting their hands on any of the loot?

Well, at least some. You may not be able to grab 10-digit sums, but you can at least bid for some of the smaller contracts on the www.competefor.com site.

The web site is run by the London Development Agency, but you don’t have to come from the London area to participate. Among the opportunities listed are many smaller ones, such as those listed below. Note the broad range, from construction to catering and web services, and the scale, which includes some small projects posted by larger subcontractors.

Ecological Consultancy Service
Description: An ecological survey and assessment is required at the Eton College Rowing Lake at Dorney Lake, due to host the Rowing, Flatwater Canoe/Kayak and Paralympic Rowing events at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Website Development and Ongoing MaintenanceDescription: Ongoing maintenance management and content & functionality development of LDA Climate Change microsites with an emphasis on improving their web presence and their brand. A key element is to provide up to date, useful information relating to all aspects of climate change & energy efficiency that is suitable to be posted on the websites.

Catering Team - required for Aquatics Centre
Description: Catering team required for busy kitchen servicing staff and operatives. Will need to cater for up to 400 people at peak period and deliver wholesome cold and cooked food, to be served during meal breaks. It will be necessary to cater for a diverse workforce including different faith requirements, vegetarians and those seeking healthy diet options.

Office Cleaning - Aquatics Centre site office
Description: Daily cleaning of the Aquatics Centre site offices. This includes a three storey modular block with approximately 150 desks and a 3 storey welfare unit.

Installation of fencing/hoarding
Description: The installation of fencing/hoarding for a bridge within the Olympic Park, approximately 30 metres long and comprising of 18mm ply board on a frame with typical posts 900mm deep in a 1200mm x 600mm diameter concrete foundation.

Miscellaneous Electrical and/or Plumbing Works
Description: Miscellaneous electrical and/or plumbing works as and when required to site offices.

Scaffolding Works
Description: Various scaffolding work as required.

Anti Graffiti Paint
Description: Supply and application of Anti Graffiti coating to concrete structures. This work is to be carried out over a period of two years on multiple visits.

Warren Buffet is trying to make a quick buck again. He’s timing his investments again. When will he learn? Never-mind. I know my place. Buffet is someone I learn from, not lecture. He believes in timing investments. He believes in buying cheap. He’s made billions doing just that. Buffet knows how to do that and has the resources to do it well.

It’s funny, headlines yesterday pointed to Buffet’s move as great for the markets. The first thing I thought was that it has to be great for Buffet, but that means it’s not so good for someone else. Apparently he wants to re-insure municipal bonds for several companies who are possibly in trouble. Due to financial policies and credit rating systems these companies need to have a certain amount of cash available according to the risk of their portfolio. I guess Buffet believes that they are in a bad enough position that he can take the best big chunk of bonds from them. They have to decide if giving up the fees he wants, and the bonds he wants, leaves them in a much stronger position. One company came out very soon after I saw the news and rejected it.

What can we learn from this? The biggest lesson is understand your position. I believe timing investments is smart if you can handle it. Buffet, Microsoft, and Blackstone Group are all trying to do it again. But they are in great positions. Billions in cash. Finance, accounting, legal, and management teams working with them. They will not only make investments, but take control. It’s a lot easier to make money when you have a lot of money already. Fees take a percentage off your investments. That fee percentage will be a lot smaller on $1M than it will on $1k, so a larger investment can make a profit after fees quicker than a small investment.

If you had a billion dollars and real time access to Buffet’s financial moves what would you do? Would you make the same moves as him, invest in Berkshire, stick with index investing, or be happy to preserve it and go more conservative?

Sweden’s tax board Skatteverket have escalated a crack down on what they label as “tax cheats” with their primary focus being online affiliates, most specifically in the Online Gambling Industry, not to mention other online gambling related activities.

Since launching their probe, Skatteverket has identified more than 45 cases of alleged tax evasion, representing in excess of €40 million in undeclared income.

Ron Mendelson, Managing Partner at Integrity Wealth & Corporate Management Services stated “There are ways for online affiliates in Sweden and other locations to protect themselves and their lucrative affiliate businesses from such actions through proper corporate planning”

The European Commission has investigations under way into both Swedish and German prohibitions on internet gambling. The Commission has requested further information from the countries in question over concerns that they restrict free trade in violation of European Union Laws.

Information being exchanged on numerous blogs suggests that other industries as well as other European countries will follow suit.

“Protecting ones business and legally reducing ones tax burden is the right of every person, these online affiliates are best served if they organize their business activities properly via the services of an offshore professional” continued Mendelson “I invite these people to contact our firm for assistance”

About the author:

Ron Z. Mendelson, Managing Partner at Integrity Wealth & Corporate Management Services, is a recognized leading expert in wealth management. Offshore asset protection and international business.

His expertise covers various fields including: wealth management & protection, international investment, foreign asset protection structures, international business corporations, international banking, offshore online gaming business services , and traditional e-commerce business services.

Ron Z. Mendelson

Managing Partner

Integrity Wealth & Corporate Management Services

Offshore Secrets Network SA

1 888 249 9430

www.offshoresecrets.com

In the late 18th century our economy has changed, modern machines were rolled out, the division of labour was founded and the people started to work in big factories where they were specialised on different work steps. We called this process industrialization and it changed the way we worked and lived in many ways. Now, nearly 300 years later, we are facing a new revolution which sadly hasn’t got a name yet, so I fell so free to call it “robotalisation” temporary.

I want to introduce you to this post with a law of the famous computer scientist Gordon Moore which says that computer systems are doubling their performance every 18 months, so if we keep on doubling our computer performance at this rate we could theoretically be able to create humanoid artificial intelligence within the coming 30 - 50 years. That’s philosophically speaking - but it’s a fact that there are already dozens of wise folks in many universities and companies today who are doing research on artificial intelligence and new robotic technologies.

But what happens if the artificial intelligence of the machines is developed so far that it could replace the humans? A famous economist once called this situation a paradox and explained this way: if somebody in a cinema stands up he has an advantage because he sees better; but if everybody stands up everybody sees worse. So if one businessman replaces his workers by machines, he will surely have an advantage, but if everybody does it, everybody will have a disadvantage because the businessmen can’t sell their products anymore or rather the people don’t have the money to buy the products because they’re unemployed. The shear between the poor and the rich people would separate enormously and our economic system would not work anymore.

That would be the worst case. But as the old Chinese philosophy yin yang once told us that every shadow also has a sun, there is an enormous potential in this technology, a potential which could not just change our economy but could change the way we live on this earth and how we treat each other and our planet. Theoretically, we got the chance to create a world where everybody has access to all tangible values. A world without poverty, ecological destruction and wars. A world where people are free to decide what to do with their lives. But that’s just a dream, fact is that we have to find a new economic system, a system which is based on brain work and intellectual property.

Also we should not ignore this process because there are already thousands of industrial robots worldwide working in factories at the same assembly lines where the industrial revolution began 200 years ago and where humans worked 50 years ago. So in my opinion the robotalisation has already started by now. After the assembly line workers many jobs of the service sector will follow geriatric nurses, cashiers, charwoman… - all jobs which could possibly be replaced by robots within the next decades.

The source pointed out that the Acer brand in Packard Bell under 13.3 inches notebook sales, the company next year plans to 13.3 inches notebook will be extended to the Gateway brand. However, Acer 13 inches notebook product line expansion plans have not yet notified its original design manufacturers.

This news is provided by SK Holdings Company Ltd

As the panels 13 inches in the higher cost of 5-generation factory production line, so the price of panels 13 inches below the 14-inch panels. In order to maintain its market share, HP will continue to launch 14-inch notebook product.

Lenovo Group is also actively expand the 14-inch notebook marketing, in the third quarter of this year, the company has been to Taiwan ODM issued 1000000-1500000 notebook orders, shipments began in October.

(SK Net Service Company Ltd)

According to the China Taiwan media, Taiwan notebook manufacturer sources, Hewlett-Packard plans to increase sales by the end of this year to screen 13 inches level (from 13 to 13.9 inches) of the notebook, the notebook’s screen aspect ratio of 16:9, 2009 British 13-screen notebook will be a mainstream product.

The source said that 13 inches is committed to the release of notebook models will launch in the fourth quarter of this year, Hewlett-Packard 14-inch notebook of plans to delay the end of the first quarter of next year. Hewlett-Packard released 14-inch notebook goal is to challenge China’s Lenovo Group and Acer competitors.

Related Topics:

• HP will launch 13 inches notebook by the end of this year
• HP will launch 13 inches notebook by the end of this year
• HP will launch 13 inches notebook by the end of this year
• HP will launch 13 inches notebook by the end of this year
• HP will launch 13 inches notebook by the end of this year

This article was commissioned for Is Greater Than

In this year’s May Day address to the nation, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak promised government workers a 30% salary increase. This came a day after the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest parliamentary opposition group, unexpectedly called upon its members to participate in a May 4th general strike initiated by Facebook members in protest against rising prices and a lack of political avenues for a solution to the country’s problems. Among those problems is the bread crisis I wrote about last week in Is Greater Than.

President Mubarak also took the opportunity to hold forth about the challenges facing the nation as it continues irrevocably on its path toward increased economic liberalization: a message which-unlike the salary increase-was not featured prominently in local front-page headlines. The speech was a sort of “Economic State of the Nation” address more than it was a commemoration of a holiday dedicated to the memory and honor of workers’ struggle to improve their lot through organized resistance to capitalism. In fact, despite congratulatory noises coming from Hussein Megawer, head of the ruling-party-controlled General Federation of Trade Unions, Mubarak’s oratory was clearly aimed at subverting independent labor activity. Mubarak addressed himself first and foremost to the textile workers of Mahalla al-Kubra, who have been at the forefront of such activity in the country, singing their praises and lauding their contributions to “the economy”. This is the general trend, and has been at least since US President Eisenhower declared May 1st to be “Loyalty Day” in 1958: to take the opportunity of Labor Day, whatever day it may fall upon, to eulogize workers as contributors to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, but by no means as a source of organized political and economic power.

As an indication, in his 44 minute speech (one local daily newspaper obliquely marveled that he was able to stand upright so long just a few days before his 80th birthday), Mubarak uttered the word “economy” (إقتصاد, iqtisad,) a total of 17 times, about as often as he used the word “workers” (عمال, ‘umaal). Iqtisad is a more-or-less direct translation of “economy”, with a similar history. It was previously used in the sense of “frugality” or “thrift” and went through the same transformation as in much of the rest of the world, wherein economists began to speak of a realm of human activity, somehow separate from “non-economic” activity and possessing its own logic, historical trajectory and demands. Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” of the market has been taken more and more literally since the 1930s. Mubarak used the word “market” (سوق, suuq) a further five times, twice making reference to “the labor market”, and urging the youth and the unemployed to better accommodate its demands. This is a clear response to the uppity youth on Facebook, who frequently complain of a lack of employment-as well as political or cultural-opportunities. It is also a directive to the vast portion of the population who receive their scant income from the “informal sector” to get right with “our economy” (an odd possessive that Mubarak used six times) and enter the formal workforce “without shame or hesitation.”

I draw attention to the ideological twist that informs the prevailing modern use of the phrase “the economy”-and to its use by Egypt’s head of state-to demystify much of what will follow. The economy is not some awesome self-aware organism, the demands of which we resist at our own peril. It is a statistical abstraction (reaching its ultimate expression in the Gross Domestic Product-GDP), formulated by economists and the heads of industry for whom they work. But the economy is not only an imaginary construct of economists and statisticians, it is a very real reorganization (”rationalization”) of human life to make it sensible through the lens of economic analysis.

And by these measures, Egypt’s economy is doing quite well. As Mubarak is eager to point out, “the economy” (here he means GDP) is forecast (as if it were a weather system) to grow by 7% this year. “Our exports,” he says, “are still growing at rates of about 30% a year, and private sector investments are growing at rates of about 40% a year”. And President Mubarak is sure to be happy about this development, since, given his position near the center of a vast patronage system, he and his government benefit greatly from this influx of foreign capital. Nonetheless, “it is true,” Mubarak admits, “the fruits of the economic reforms achieved have benefitted many citizens, but have not yet reached some others.”

This would be something of an understatement. The national minimum wage hasn’t been amended since 1984, and there doesn’t even seem to be a consensus on what it actually is-some say as low as £E 35 (US$6.52) per month, while others say it’s £E 115 (US$21.42). Whatever the case, it is nowhere near the £E 1,200 (US$223.50) that workers at Mahalla al-Kubra demanded last month, and that would still leave a family of four under the IMF’s poverty line of US$2.00 per day. Nor does Mubarak’s 30% salary increase for government workers come close, especially for the majority of the population to whom it will not apply in the private and informal sectors. Nor does that salary increase compare to the 70%-150% increase in prices in the past year, based on figures estimated by labor expert Talal Shukr in an interview with al-Badeel newspaper. In fact, it doesn’t even match the 38% increase in food costs in the past year estimated by the government itself. Outside of government-controlled unions and ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) strongholds, the raise has been greeted with derision. Dr. Ali Hafiz, professor of economics at the Faculty of Economics and Political Science in the National University described the announcement of a raise as “empty talk.” Labor leader Abu Kamal Aita said the President’s decision to increase the allowance came as aspirin at a time when people need surgery.

Mubarak stopped short of declaring “I feel your pain,” but ensured his listeners that he does “follow up, around the clock, on the bread queues, the rising prices and the concerns of the Egyptian family in general and those of the poor and limited-income brackets in particular.” But while President Mubarak and the NDP government generally have taken certain palliative steps domestically, they continue to blame Egypt’s foremost economic and social problems on a global crisis. “Brothers and Sisters,” he says for the second time out of five, “we are faced with the challenges of the current leg of a journey. A new challenge, with conditions imposed by the current international economy, ranging from the repercussions of the US recession on the economy of Europe and the world to the unprecedented rise in world prices for oil and food commodities, and its direct impact on all states-developing nations in particular.”

And there are indeed significant global economic issues that negatively effect Egypt’s poor. Most significantly for our original focus on the bread crisis, global wheat prices have risen 180% over the last three years. There are myriad reasons for this, including, as I mentioned in my last post, financial speculation in commodities markets. In layman’s terms, this refers to the practices of financial brokers fleeing to commodities-stuff that actually exists and that people use on a regular basis-as a safe haven from mortgage derivatives, hedge funds and leveraged investments-stuff that economists conjured up without proper attention to underlying fundamentals (i.e., stuff, people and relationships between them that actually exist). Having suddenly discovered what anyone waiting in a bread line could have told them-that the value of actually-existing things, especially stuff you need to survive, exceeds that of monetized “market ingenuity”-they flocked to invest their money in stockpiles, warehouses and container ships of these things, thereby bidding up prices and sending them through the roof.

At the same time, large agribusiness corporations such as Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) discovered that they could make a handsome profit off of fear over the coming scarcity of one of these commodities-petroleum. With oil at over $100 per barrel, due in part to the “geo-political uncertainty” that surrounds most of the world’s sources of petroleum, converting food crops into fuel for automobiles suddenly seemed like a good idea. And, for them, it certainly was. Cargill raked in US$2.34 billion in profits in 2007, up 36% from the previous year, while ADM netted US$2.2 billion, up 67% from the previous year. The manufacture of these so-called “biofuels” or “agro-fuels” has gotten a lot of bad press lately. UN expert Jean Ziegler called biofuels a “crime against humanity,” and citizens and heads of state of developing nations attacked the industry for diverting food to fuel and pricing the poorest consumers out of their basic nutrition needs. President Mubarak, for his part, promised in his May Day speech to direct his concerns to the leaders of western nations at the Davos World Economic Forum to be held in the Egyptian coastal tourist hub of Sharm elSheikh in a few weeks. Incidentally, the South Sinai security directorate was apparently keen to make sure that none of the booming resort town’s 17,000 construction workers added their voices to the chorus of anger over the biofuels industry, ordering their employers to kick them out of town by May 10th (the Ministry of Interior was sufficiently embarrassed by news of the “deportation” that it rescinded the order of the South Sinai directorate).

But residents of developing nations were by no means lacking for reasons to blame the West for its food security problems prior to the emergence of biofuels as a drain on global grain supplies. Previous complaints, which were serious enough to scuttle the Doha round of World Trade Organization talks, centered around US and European subsidies for their agricultural producers, often in the form of payments to NOT plant wheat. The latter, according to Joel Beinin, Director of Middle East Studies at the American University in Cairo, resulted in inflated wheat prices higher than what they would be “if the US abided by its own neoliberal prescriptions for markets determining prices.”

More recently, agricultural imports-raw materials like petroleum, fertilizers and pesticides that are used in large-scale agriculture-have also grown increasingly expensive. Petroleum is increasingly necessary to get agricultural goods “from farm to market” in an increasingly liberalized, “rationalized” world food system. Fertilizer has also become more dear, with increases this year between 85% and 180%. Even in Egypt, where fertilizer is subsidized, the government raised the price by 100% in February (still 40% below international market rates).

Additionally, world wheat stocks have diminished considerably as population and demand has increased in developing countries, particularly in places like China and India where residents have become more prosperous and consequently eat more meat, which requires as much as six tons of grain input for each ton of meat, as well as more western-style diets that center around wheat. These shortages, together with increasing prices, have pushed some countries to withhold wheat stocks that they would previously have exported, partly to maintain the security of their own supply, and partly to take advantage of likely higher prices in the future.

Meanwhile, there have been massive crop failures in the major wheat-producing regions of Australia and Canada. In Australia, this was due to several consecutive years of drought and in Canada to a stretch of cold, rainy weather in the middle of the wheat-growing season. Next year could be even worse, depending on the extent to which a plant disease, a wheat-stem rust aptly named Ug99, spreads across Iran and the Central Asian bread basket. The unseasonably stormy weather in Canada, the years of drought in Australia and the unusual storms which blew Ug99 from Africa across the Red Sea to the Middle East may all be indications of what can be expected in the future with global climate change.

But let us not lose track, amidst this “perfect storm” (or is it a “silent tsunami”?) of threats to world food security, of the common element that brings this all together. Yes, that’s right: it’s the economy, smart-ass. It’s that set of political, cultural and social relationships to which economists would like to impute an irresistible will and a nearly-divine logic inscrutable to the layman. It is the Wall Street traders investing in mile-long tanker trains filled with grains, corn syrup and biofuel. It is the directors of companies like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland “making a killing off hunger”. It is the United States Department of Agriculture, artificially propping up domestic large-scale industrial agriculture. It is the practice of eating meat as a mark of prosperity. It is neoliberal hacks praying, as economics professor John Salevurakis puts it “at the altar of pure market fundamentalism,” and insisting on a globally-integrated industrial food chain. And it is a belief that there are no limits, ethical or natural, to the pursuit of profit.

May Day is traditionally an occasion to celebrate the turning of the seasons, a natural process that “the captains of industry” do their utmost to work around, spread out or otherwise rationalize. It is also an occasion to oppose those captains of industry and their quest for profit, to deny the inevitability of the economy and the supremacy of the market. Happy May Day!

In today’s world everything is of utmost importance from the clothes you wear to the way you look, that’s why there is Variable Dimension Frames from Zenni. These Incredible Stylish New Frames from Zenni come in various dimensions to suit your face at the special Zenni Optical $ 8 Rx Eyeglasses price and Zenni Optical was on FOX news!.

Pharmacists today have unparalleled opportunities in management as well as in patient care. But along with the diverse array of opportunities come responsibilities and accountabilities more complex and greater than any time in the past. On a broad palette, people with pharmacy degrees are being sought after by a host of industries — from insurance to computers; from automation industries to government — that had not previously considered them. An increasing number of other channels for job recruitment are being directed at pharmacists as well. The result is a multitude of pharmacists who have elected to become specialists or who have moved up to the managerial level of pharmacy. Those individuals who choose to be specialists and managers generally need advanced postgraduate education in formal degree programs, and are actively seeking these degrees.
As in every field, pharmacy managers have to deal with and keep abreast of ever-changing issues, practice policies and new technologies (for instance, Biotechnology). In pharmacy, these include the understanding of every new drug (like Viagra, Cialis, Tramadol, Levitra, Edex and many other) that comes to market.
The number of these available new drugs has expanded exponentially, and the outcomes attendant on their use are unparalleled. People who might have died from an ailment in the past survive today because of these new therapeutic options. Another factor to be incorporated in the managing pharmacist’s purview is an increasingly aged population in this country, which has dramatically driven up the demand for more and better healthcare services. An increase in the number of patients needing medical services leads to a need for more people to serve them. On still another level, the expectations for positive therapeutic outcomes and financial consequences are on a higher plane now, so managers must be increasingly attentive to areas such as purchasing, distribution and assessment of outcomes.
Managers in insurance, for example, will be chiefly concerned with policy issues, which are concentrated on getting the greatest benefit for the lowest cost. Whereas a single hospital clinic might focus on how to treat the patient best and most cost effectively, managers must concern themselves with the cost of the newest drugs and how best to get them to the patients who need them but who may not be able to afford them.
Today’s managers must rethink the labor issue. There is clearly a scarcity of pharmacists, a lack which makes it critical to keep those pharmacists currently on staff happy and engaged in their work environments. Due to the shortage, there is a growing need everywhere for supervisors to re-engineer their work forces, developing systems that allow and encourage the best qualified people to do the most important work, that provide strong support staff, and have technology-oriented people doing the more routine operations.
Pharmacists cannot and should not work in isolation, and it’s up to the administration to set the path that blends them and the support staff into interdisciplinary-health teams.
Money remains a major concern and brings to the fore the problem of supplying a patient’s need for infinite resources with a company’s finite resources. There is no question that today’s pharmacy managers have to do considerably more with less. Every organization within medicine, it seems, is working with a shortage of both money and staff. This is a situation that usually can be surmounted with some creativity and discipline.

Again, The Kiplinger Editors have interesting data on Southern California.

It is important to mention because again, they are experts on California and their information is regional, not national.

What do they say?

Tourism is getting a huge boost because of how strong the Euro is right now. “High tech will benefit from consumer demand for cell phones, games, and software.” Kiplinger believes agriculture will benefit from foreign consumers buying more food. Entertainment is counting on strong ad dollars for TV this fall. Some areas will lag such as retail shopping centers and state and local governments.