Archive for July, 2011

Are we putting our lives on hold?

Posted July 26, 2011 Comments Off

According to the Mortgage Choice First Time Property Investors Survey, Gen Y property buyers are more likely to go into debt to buy an investment property rather than buy a house to live in.

They also found that we Gen Y’s are:

  • increasingly driven to save for their first purchase,
  • making lifestyle sacrifices to save money for property,
  • most likely to cut back on alcohol-related spending,
  • change jobs for higher income,
  • take on an additional job
  • delay having children in order to save for a deposit.

In other words, we have to work very very hard and put off parenthood just to get a house because prices are so high and unaffordable and even then we’re not living in them.

How Google Makes Their Money

Posted July 23, 2011 * Comments(0)

Where Does Google Make Its Money? [ infographic ]

According to WordStream, Inc. you can see that Google are raking in a huge amount of money from the insurance industry where there’s heaps of competitive brands vying for the big market of people needing a plethora of insurance products such as travel insurance, home insurance, renters insurance, health insurance, life insurance, income protection, private mortgage insurance, extended warranties, purchase insurance and medical coverage. Many of these insurances are never needed, but Google don’t mind when they make about $54 per click.

7 Moral Lessons from Inside Job (2010)

Posted July 19, 2011 * Comments(0)

  1. Abstract thought is insane. You can’t make something from nothing and there’s no getting away from that. Engineers create useful things whereas Financial Engineers create illusions.
  2. Don’t make things complicated (derivatives, CDO’s and CDS’s etc.)
  3. Truth telling is key. Where this breaks down lies persist. The credit rating agencies needed to report the truth, the Professors of business schools should have been disclosing who paid them to speak and write, the banks should have had integrity and responsibility.
  4. The moral integrity of political leaders, educational leaders and heads of the financial industry is paramount. Personal and corporate self-interest and greed that drives behaviour leads to massive corruption. e.g. pervasive use of prostitution, drug use and even the fraudulent billing of prostitution as business expenses in Wall St and Washington.
  5. Predatory lending to unsuitable people is oppressive.
  6. Crimes cannot be overlooked, those who have done wrong must be punished. None of the bank bosses have been charged. Compare this to the Savings & Loans Crisis in the 70’s where financial exec’s where jailed.
  7. Warnings must be heeded. See Raghuram G. Rajan’s 2005 paper ‘Has Financial Development Made the World Riskier?’ and Charles R. Morris’ book The Trillion Dollar Meltdown and others.