A friend of mine recently apply for a credit card, since he is college student. He might want to purchase something through online with credit card pay. The best deal he can get by citibank with a interest rate around 19.99%. Others are outrageous with a rate around 21.99% to 23.99%, since he doesn’t have any credit history. By asking other credit card issuer for a better deal. He finally got a credit card with an interest rate around 13.99%. Unless you pay your monthly balance full every time, otherwise, you might save some money with your carry on balance on hand.

If you shop for better deal on a service, you can get them to play against each other. For instance, a satellite TV service. You can cut your monthly price for a great deal if you ask them give you a better deal. You might call them and tell them, that with the same service, and same amount of channel to be available, another satellite TV service provider give me this deal. So, what is the reason I am still with you guys, if you can’t offer me a better one. More than likely, the service personnel might consider your offer, and want to give you a better deal by retain your account.

Sometimes, it won’t hurt to ask for a better deal. We are all about money saving, and we all want to get something better for ourselves.

One of the notorious scam is government grants and stimulus package which aim to help small business owners. Those con artists set up a scheme to mislead consumers and business owners into believe that they can get assistance from our government, and so they can get financial support. Eventually, they never get any of these.

There is a common scam which victims need to claim the prize from a lottery or a winning sweepstakes from mail. If you get one of these, never fall into trap. The scammer might tell you that you win a big prize or a lottery of some million of dollars. There might be a bogus check attached to the letter. The scammer ask you to deposit the check. For taxes or other handling fees purpose, you will need to wire some money back to the scammer to cover those costs. At the end, the prize never arrived; and you lost some hundred of dollars.

Work for google scam is common too. You might find millions of web searches on work for google, and they will send you a trial kit to experiment it. But google never offer jobs to people to work at home for easy $1,000 per week. Eventually, the victim was charged with monthly fee from their credit card month after month.

After all, I think we should train ourselves to be smart, and not to be fall into victim of those scams.

An economic depression is characterized by wholesale job losses and thereby abnormal increase in unemployment, many bankruptcies, reduced volumes of trade and commerce and usually hyperinflation. Misallocation of capital is one of the major reasons for depression to set in.

The world has witnessed two major depressions till date, one that lasted between 1873 and 1896, and the second well known one between 1929 and 1933. The panic of 1837 that preceded these two depressions, formed on the basis of speculative real estate transactions and that brought a five year depression in its wake is the first instanc of depression in history.

Most of the recession in history has been preceded by stock market crashes. Many companies go bankrupt and job losses mount a the recession deepens.

It is usually the intervention of governments that helps the economy come out of recession. The government would increase the supply of money, spend more on infrastructure and other projects, and reduce taxes all with a view to add to the wealth of the people and thereby induce them to spend more, which would reverse the tide and increase sales and production, and thereby employment and wages

With the high cost of gasoline around the country, and the fact it is constantly climbing with no view of stabilizing, the world needs to start looking at alternative fuels. During this phase of the economy its a good investment. One of the alternative fuels that has started to become popular is called “Biodiesel”. A fuel that is run on vegetable oils. Biodiesel engines can be created or converted from petroleum diesel engines easily and cost-effectively. Biodiesel comes from renewable plant resources such as the oils from vegetables, soy, beans, canola, rape seeds, hemp seeds, and various grains. Through the process of transesterification, a chemical modifical of ordinary vegetable oil, creates a fuel that meets the high industry standards for usage in diesel engines that prevents it from solidifying at colder temperatures. You can get various biodiesels already at the pumps that might be labelled “biodiesel” but in reality are mixed with petroleum and its biodiesel content could be as low as only 5%. These are labelled B5, B20, B50, and B100 to show the mix composition. SVO – Straight vegetable oil is that which has not yet been optimized through transesterification for use in diesel engines – but suffers from freezing and solidifying easier in colder temperatures – needing some source to preheat it before starting the engine. You can use cooking oil straight from the bottle (expensive) or use WVO – Waste vegetable oil, usually for free, from fast food restaurants that usually dump it. However, WVO has to be filtered, and that is a messy and timely event. Vegetable oil conversion kits for diesel engines usually include a heating system and a second gas tank to circumvent the solidification issues. SVO produces very low emissions and is one of the better alternatives for the environment. Biodisel is the only alternative fuel that has completed the health effects testing requirements of the Clean Air Act, creating a substantial reduction in hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, and other noxious fumes caused by most fuels. SVO is better for diesel engines as the inventor of the Diesel engine (Rudolph Diesel) originally intended the diesel engine for peanut oil. Biodiesel saves money on fuel costs, reduces emissions, recycles waste oils from restaurants, is a fuel made from renewable crops which in effect keeps farmers employed, and is good for the environment. The cons to using biodiesel can void your current warranties if you install a conversion kit and use biodiesel; collecting and converting WVO is a messy job and also very time consuming; there is mixed data on how SVO affects engine life span. Conversion kits can be obtained from various merchants for as low as $500 from greasecar.com. More information can be found online at www.biodiesel.org, goodgrease.com, localb100.com, journeytoforever.org, biodieselblog.com, wvofuels.com, calcars.org, oil_press.com, or a typical google search.

If so, Morningstar is suggesting you take a look at stocks in the media sector.

Media stocks have performed poorly over the past few years, but don’t let that deter you:

We suspect that future returns for media stocks will be much better than those of the recent past … and we’re not just saying this because the past several years have been so bad.

In fact, 40% of the 60 media stocks Morningstar covers have ratings of either 4 stars or 5 stars, and the media sector overall includes more undervalued stocks than any of the other 12 sectors Morningstar analyzes.

Where should you start? How about Washington Post Co., one of Morningstar’s favorites. And don’t forget The New York Times Co. and The Wall Street Journal. Finally, remember to take a look at local options: firms — like Journal Register, McClatchy and Lee Enterprises — that “own scores of small, community-based newspapers … are much less vulnerable to changes in technology.”

High prices for fuel and raw materials continued, and both business and consumer spending grew.

Based on this information, the Fed will decide when and by how much to raise the overnight lending rate, which is the amount of interest banks charge to each other and forms the basis for determining the interest rate you pay for everyhitng from credit cards to mortgages and car loans.

Analysts expect two more quarter-point increases, one later this month and one in May, to bring the prime rate to 5 percent. The Fed has raised the rate 14 times since June 2004. It is expected the rate will stay at 5 percent for the second half of the year.

Unemployment fell slightly in February as the economy grew almost 5 percent between January and March.

And, if you really wanted to know, it’s called the beige book because of the color of its cover (See, I did learn something working at newspapers all those years!).

(Source: Bloomberg)