How To Improve Your Credit Report

Under the FCRA, both the consumer reporting company and the information provider (the person, company, or organization that provides information about you to a consumer reporting company) are responsible for correcting inaccurate or incomplete information in your report. To take advantage of all your rights under the FCRA, contact the consumer reporting company and the information provider if you see inaccurate or incomplete information. 1. Tell the consumer reporting company, in writing, what information you think is inaccurate. Include copies (NOT originals) of documents that support your position. In addition to providing your complete name and address, your letter should clearly identify each item in your report that you dispute, state the facts and explain why you dispute the information, and request that the information be deleted or corrected. You may want to enclose a copy of your report with the items in question circled. Your letter may look something like the one on page 8. Send your letter by certified mail, return receipt requested, so you can document what the consumer reporting company received. Keep copies of your dispute letter and enclosures. Consumer reporting companies must investigate the items in question — usually within 30 days — unless they consider your dispute frivolous. They also must forward all the relevant data you provide about the inaccuracy to the organization that provided the information. After the information provider receives notice of a dispute from the consumer reporting company, it must investigate, review the relevant information, and report the results back to the consumer reporting company. If the information provider finds the disputed information is inaccurate, it must notify all three nationwide consumer reporting companies so they can correct the information in your file. When the investigation is complete, the consumer reporting company must give you the written results and a free copy of your report if the dispute results in a change. (This free report does not count as your annual free report under the FACT Act.) If an item is changed or deleted, the consumer reporting company cannot put the disputed information back in your file unless the information provider verifies that the information is, indeed, accurate and complete. The consumer reporting company also must send you written notice that includes the name, address, and phone number of the information provider. If you request, the consumer reporting company must send notices of any correction to anyone who received your report in the past six months. A corrected copy of your report can be sent to anyone who received a copy during the past two years for employment purposes. If an investigation doesn't resolve your dispute with the consumer reporting company, you can ask that a statement of the dispute be included in your file and in future reports. You also can ask the consumer reporting company to provide your statement to anyone who received a copy of your report in the recent past. Expect to pay a fee for this service. 2. Tell the creditor or other information provider, in writing, that you dispute an item. Be sure to include copies (NOT originals) of documents that support your position. Many providers specify an address for disputes. If the provider reports the item to a consumer reporting company, it must include a notice of your dispute. And if you are correct - that is, if the information is found to be inaccurate - the information provider may not report it again. Sample Dispute Letter Date Your Name Your Address Your City, State, Zip Code Complaint Department Name of Company Address City, State, Zip Code Dear Sir or Madam: I am writing to dispute the following information in my file. The items I dispute also are encircled on the attached copy of the report I received. This item (identify item(s) disputed by name of source, such as creditors or tax court, and identify type of item, such as credit account, judgment, etc.) is (inaccurate or incomplete) because (describe what is inaccurate or incomplete and why). I am requesting that the item be deleted (or request another specific change) to correct the information. Enclosed are copies of (use this sentence if applicable and describe any enclosed documentation, such as payment records, court documents) supporting my position. Please investigate this (these) matter(s) and (delete or correct) the disputed item(s) as soon as possible. Sincerely, Your name Under the FCRA, both the consumer reporting company and the information provider (the person, company, or organization that provides information about you to a consumer reporting company) are responsible for correcting inaccurate or incomplete information in your report. To take advantage of all your rights under the FCRA, contact the consumer reporting company and the information provider if you see inaccurate or incomplete information. 1. Tell the consumer reporting company, in writing, what information you think is inaccurate. Include copies (NOT originals) of documents that support your position. In addition to providing your complete name and address, your letter should clearly identify each item in your report that you dispute, state the facts and explain why you dispute the information, and request that the information be deleted or corrected. You may want to enclose a copy of your report with the items in question circled. Your letter may look something like the one on page 8. Send your letter by certified mail, return receipt requested, so you can document what the consumer reporting company received. Keep copies of your dispute letter and enclosures. Consumer reporting companies must investigate the items in question — usually within 30 days — unless they consider your dispute frivolous. They also must forward all the relevant data you provide about the inaccuracy to the organization that provided the information. After the information provider receives notice of a dispute from the consumer reporting company, it must investigate, review the relevant information, and report the results back to the consumer reporting company. If the information provider finds the disputed information is inaccurate, it must notify all three nationwide consumer reporting companies so they can correct the information in your file. When the investigation is complete, the consumer reporting company must give you the written results and a free copy of your report if the dispute results in a change. (This free report does not count as your annual free report under the FACT Act.) If an item is changed or deleted, the consumer reporting company cannot put the disputed information back in your file unless the information provider verifies that the information is, indeed, accurate and complete. The consumer reporting company also must send you written notice that includes the name, address, and phone number of the information provider. If you request, the consumer reporting company must send notices of any correction to anyone who received your report in the past six months. A corrected copy of your report can be sent to anyone who received a copy during the past two years for employment purposes. If an investigation doesn't resolve your dispute with the consumer reporting company, you can ask that a statement of the dispute be included in your file and in future reports. You also can ask the consumer reporting company to provide your statement to anyone who received a copy of your report in the recent past. Expect to pay a fee for this service. 2. Tell the creditor or other information provider, in writing, that you dispute an item. Be sure to include copies (NOT originals) of documents that support your position. Many providers specify an address for disputes. If the provider reports the item to a consumer reporting company, it must include a notice of your dispute. And if you are correct - that is, if the information is found to be inaccurate - the information provider may not report it again. Sample Dispute Letter Date Your Name Your Address Your City, State, Zip Code Complaint Department Name of Company Address City, State, Zip Code Dear Sir or Madam: I am writing to dispute the following information in my file. The items I dispute also are encircled on the attached copy of the report I received. This item (identify item(s) disputed by name of source, such as creditors or tax court, and identify type of item, such as credit account, judgment, etc.) is (inaccurate or incomplete) because (describe what is inaccurate or incomplete and why). I am requesting that the item be deleted (or request another specific change) to correct the information. Enclosed are copies of (use this sentence if applicable and describe any enclosed documentation, such as payment records, court documents) supporting my position. Please investigate this (these) matter(s) and (delete or correct) the disputed item(s) as soon as possible. Sincerely, Your name Enclosures: (List what you are enclosing) Enclosures: (List what you are enclosing)

On Microsoft (MSFT)

Copyright 2006 Geoff Gannon Microsoft is a difficult situation for me to evaluate. I think the company still has a lot of growth ahead in some areas. But, that depends on where management wants to take it. There are three core businesses that are already well developed: Windows, Office, and Servers. The moat in the first two are wide. The Windows moat is huge. The business model in operating systems is great. You keep upgrading every few years; the hardware needn't progress for you to find things to tweak and get people to buy the next step up. It's insanely profitable. I think the new launch (Vista) will be bigger than people expect (eventually) in how it allows for cross selling other Microsoft products (but we'll see about that). I expect the press to be very negative at least until well after the launch, because there will always be some bugs and delays. Games Eventually, video games will be a big business for Microsoft. I hate the economics of the console business, but love the economics of the publishing (and development) side of things. I'm sorry to see that Microsoft didn't use its cash pile to buy up an established business here (publishers were cheap in the market a few years ago; an all cash deal would have worked well. Now, everyone thinks video games will be the next big thing). The console wars are going well for Microsoft. The two keys to establishing a dominant console are launching first and getting good games on your platform. We'll see how Sony (SNE) does this round, but I expect them to be the big loser. Nintendo may surprise here. I think the Xbox 360 and Nintendo's new console (Wii) will do very well. It'll be interesting to see the breakdown of the consoles in both the domestic and foreign markets. I think Sony may still be strong overseas, but could be in a much poorer position at the end of this round than they were with the PS2. Search Long-term I am optimistic about search. I think Google's position is much weaker than most people think. I don't think Microsoft will be the only one to benefit here. Search is a very natural cross sell with Windows. That's the direction everything seems to be headed in (combining online and desktop search). For future growth in terms of market share I think Microsoft is in a better position than either Yahoo (YHOO) or Google (GOOG). I also think we might see a couple other (largely unknown) search engines gain some share. I think Google's strength is its brand. Its dominance helps with advertisers more than users. I don't think it has a lock on users. Also, I think Google has been poorly positioned for doing much of anything outside of keyword search. I expect to see a lot more in the way of intelligent, social search inspired stuff. Years from now, much of search will have to be helping you find what you didn't know you wanted to find. Google is dominant in a different business: helping you find what you know you want to find (but don't know the name / location). The two types of search are very different. Both will be important, but the growth in other forms of search will be coming off a smaller base and will likely integrate with keyword search. Google has the most to lose here. Other Devices Microsoft wants to perform well on mobile devices and on your TV. Compared to competitors it is very strong in these respects. The strategy seems to be the one I would favor - to control the point of initial contact wherever software is used and then to only venture into the actual application or content side of the business where it is highly profitable to do so. In video games it will be highly profitable. In other areas it is less likely to be very profitable. I expect to see more generic, web-based applications. These will be less profitable for everyone. Office should hold up well, but not as well as Windows. Basically, Microsoft needs to take what it has in PCs and import that to TVs, Handheld Devices, Consoles, and the Web. That should be the strategy. I think that is the strategy. These aren't unrelated businesses that need to be broken up to unlock creativity (as some have suggested). Rather, the profit potential for each is greatly enhanced by being part of Microsoft. If you take these pieces apart they are worth very little. There would only be the three businesses I started off talking about and the console / games business. Internationally, there is going to be natural growth for Microsoft's dominant businesses. It won't be a tremendous growth rate, but it will be strong and will require virtually no additional investment to secure. Obsolescence Issues Overall, I like the future for software a lot more than hardware, because the marginal gains in the quality of hardware will slow greatly in the years ahead. The question isn't what can be done mathematically in terms of increasing specs; it's what that translates to for the user. We are reaching a point where the individual user will not directly see the benefits of increased hardware performance as clearly as he did in the past. Much of the research that goes in to this area will only serve to bring down prices and benefit memory intensive businesses - it will not provide as much of a "wow" factor for the user anymore. This is especially true in games. The situation in desktop applications is already such that improving the software design is where most gains will come from. Computing power is simply not a scarce resource for most individuals sitting at home or in a cubicle. Advances will benefit some users a lot and will trickle down to the end user (often via the web) through fast responses and cheap services. But, that's a barely noticeable change. You'll see something here akin to the kind of thing you see in the brokerage business. It won't be obvious, because price competition will never be as great in software. Generally, you'll just see the prices for doing anything electronically come down. That's very different from what we've seen over the last few decades, where you also had advancements that attracted new users, because they allowed developers to do something differently, not just more cheaply. This is a very long-term trend I'm worried about. It could weigh heavily on a business like Dell (DELL), because PCs are actually quite durable; once the rate of obsolescence slows, sales will have to slow as the cycle lengthens. Management I think Microsoft's management is absolutely the best in the business. In fact, I think it's one of the best in any business. It would be hard for me to find more than a handful of people I'd rather have managing a business I was part owner of. I also think the current arrangement is a good one. There is enough of a line between current operations and future investments in the Chairman / CEO split that investors will probably get the greatest benefit from the brilliance of the Chairman this way. Everyone underestimates Bill Gates. It's easy, because his great triumph came some time ago now. But, he's interested in building something lasting. I trust him more than anyone in tech without a question. He always impresses me whether he's talking about his own industry or some other topic. He has exactly the right kind of mind for someone running a business where the long-run is such a concern. Qualitatively, I think Microsoft scores close to perfectly. I could cite the profitability stats, but I won't, because you know they're better than almost any other business on the planet – and that's with a huge siphoning off of resources to investments in the future that aren't required to maintain the cash cow, wide-moat Windows franchise. Valuation Valuation is a bit more troubling. Microsoft is not at the point on an EV/EBIT basis where I'd be buying the stock if there was a risk of no extraordinarily profitable growth in the future. In other words, at the current price, it clearly makes for a bad bond. The key is earnings growth. I think you have to believe MSFT will have a real future in search, games, and non-PC devices that will fuel future, highly profitable growth. I think that future is there. As far as a truly large cap stock (say $10 billion or more) it's about as attractive as anything on the planet right now - and certainly it's the most attractive stock of any very large U.S. business. Even though Intel (INTC) and Dell are cheap looking, I don't like them nearly as much. Dell is an interesting situation, but I don't understand the business well enough. I have a better idea of where MSFT is headed – and I like it. Conclusion I don't own shares of MSFT. I won't be buying any either. I don't normally own such large stocks. I prefer much smaller businesses, because the mispricings tend to get more out of whack. You aren't going to see MSFT trade at an EV/EBIT of 7.5 or something like that, but you do sometimes get those chances in small (high quality) businesses. There are a lot of chances to find wild mispricings without much of the future being a concern. Those are the situations I prefer to invest in, because businesses like MSFT have an awfully large anchor with the amount of capital they've got – plus, they tend to be less likely to be wildly mispriced. However, if I had to own one business with a market cap of more than $10 billion and hold it for a lifetime I would buy Microsoft here without hesitation.

Inflation: Public Enemy Number 1

When our grandparents were working they could earn a decent living, pay for a house, a car, seven children, and still have money to put in the bank. But today, the cost of living has outstripped rises in pay so that things cost more but we’re not making more. We have to make due with the money we have. What’s the implication? Sometimes that means getting a payday loan to bridge us to the next paycheck. Other times that means using our credit cards to consolidate our monthly expenditures and paying it back once at the end of the month. And still other times it means getting a loan to help us buy the things we need. There are two types of loans. An unsecured loan is money that a lending agency gives to you based on their assessment of your risk. Your credit rating is one of the ways they make that decision. And since they lose their money if you default on your payment, the risk is higher so the interest rate is higher. However, if you need to borrow more money or you want a loan at a more attractive interest rate, or you want some flexibility with the repayment terms, then borrowing against your assets is the way to go. Some examples of assets, or equity, that you may be able to use include your home your car, your stock certificates, or some other kind of valuable possession. Borrowing against these assets assures the lending institute that they can recoup their losses if you fail to make your payments since there is an alternate form of payment. Lending agencies like this because it minimizes the risk they take. And you’ll love it because it increases the amount of money you can potentially borrow, it lowers the interest rate you’ll have to pay, and it lengthens the amount of time you’re expected to pay the loan back! What could be better than that? Some excellent uses for secured loans include such things as debt consolidation or home improvement loans. In both cases, you’ll find that a secured loan gives you a good amount of money at an attractive rate so you can reduce your debt payments or increase the value of your home affordably! We live in a world that expects us to borrow now and then. Don’t you think that a secured loan is the way to go the next time you need to borrow?

Online Trading And System Trading

Indeed, online trading has revolutionalised the way common folks like you and me trade in the capital markets. Online trading has its pros and cons. Online trading’s main pro is convenience and speed, giving a trader maximum control of all aspects of trading. Conversely, online trading’s main killer con is in the tons of human error that can happen due to a lack of guidance. Due to a lack of guidance, most online traders find themselves extremely prone to their emotions when trading online. When they feel the urge to get out of a position simply because their emotions are all fired up, they can at the simple click of a mouse. This has led to a lot of failed trades and a lot of lost money.... The only way anyone can succeed in online trading in the long run is through a disciplined trading regime based on a fix trading system or what we called “System Trading”. System trading means that you pick stocks based on a fixed criteria, enter on a fix criteria and exit on fixed criteria... all put together nicely like different parts of a car. With system trading and a fixed portfolio management policy can anyone truly attain success in online trading. System trading aims to take the emotion out of the trader by having objective and specific criteria for every aspect of online trading. With a fixed set of criteria to follow when online trading, the trader have something to fall back on when emotions start to fly, and that is, the proven track record of the system that the online trader is following. The online trader is assured that as long as he follows the rules to the nigh, the odds of winning will always be stacked in his/her favor. Over the long run, with a sound portfolio management policy, anyone can succeed in online trading. For the Best in System Trading, please visit http://www.mastersoequity.com/MOE_startradingsystem.htm

How Can I Get Cheap Auto Insurance In New York?

In New York State there are several things you can do to ensure the best possible auto insurance rate. No one wants to pay more for insurance than they have to. Here are some tips: First make sure the information is correct: Proper address, correct vehicle information, your name and age are correct, and the vehicle is properly classified. Take a DMV approved auto accident prevention course. Your insurance company must apply a credit to your premiums for three years if you take and complete the course. Additionally, if you have points (violations) on your driver's license, this course will remove up four of them (hopefully you don't have more than that). Automatic seatbelts and airbags will earn you a credit on your medical payments and no fault (not on the liability nor physical damage) coverages. A small credit, but a credit none the less. Anti lock brakes is a biggie and earns a discount on most of your policy coverages. Daytime running lamps will earn a further discount on your liability, collision, no fault and medical payments coverages. Join the Combat Auto Theft Program (CAT). This program allows police officers to stop vehicles with an official decal if it is driven during the prime vehicle theft hours between 1 and 5 am. Some companies will offer a discount for participating in CAT. Earn a Careful Driver discount for drivers without an accident for a given period of time. Multi-policy discount – if you have more than one policy with the same insurer, most insurance companies will offer a discount. Senior Citizens and/or retirees may be offered a discount because they're generally on the road less often than younger drivers. Increase your deductibles. Higher deductibles lower your premium Drop physical damage coverage on old vehicles. Chat with your insurance agent. They are a great resource for money saving tips

Some Important Fundraising Tips To Remember

Fundraising doesn't have to be a challenge if you have a good product, are well organized, and have a good attitude. Try to put yourself in your customers' shoes, treat them how you would like to be treated. And always remember you are representing your team so be on your best behavior. Keeping all this in mind, here are some great tips to help you have a successful fundraiser. Organizational Tips • Identify your organizational needs and fundraising goals • Motivate your organization and members • Relay the organizational goals to the parents and participants • Begin planning the logistics of distributing the products to the participants, and eventually, to the supporters Helpful Hints • Set a daily goal based on how much time is available • Practice your sales presentation with your participants • Show customers the Order Form so they can see the various team options • Be helpful if the customer is indecisive, and be prepared to offer a suggestion • Keep a copy of your customers' name and purchases for next year's fundraising drive When selling be sure to follow these steps: • Introduce yourself, (Hello, my name is_____) • Tell the person why you are fundraising (We are trying to raise money for our football program…) • Ask if they would like to buy multiples of your items. • Tell them your item is a great, inexpensive gift for fans of any age • Be sure to thank the customer (Even if they do not buy any of your items - remember you are representing your team and town.) Most people are more than willing to help you in your fundraising efforts. They have probably been in a few themselves. Always remember to thank them and wish them a pleasant day. A good product and good service will quickly bring you success in your fundraising efforts.

How to choose smart Stop Loss in Forex Trading

Here is step by step guide: 1. If price is close to recent high or low then place SL 5-10 pips above or below that point. This is very important. Prices do go back to test recent highs and lows and we need to set SL as per the recent price action. Trading on daily chart is bit tricky where such SL can be even 30-40 pips more on top of your static 100 pip SL. 2. Another point to take care is that don’t place SL on important boundary numbers such as 00 or 50 mark. These points are tested often and you can easily be stopped out. 3. Place your stop loss on odd numbers excluding 1 and 9. Never place SL on even numbers. Believe It or Not!!! Let me surprise some of you by saying that Brokers HUNT for your SL. That’s true. Forex is unlike Dow where everything is run by one organization and prices don’t vary from broker to broker (those broker makes money by giving you a worse fill than you would expect + commissions). Brokers in Forex can manipulate prices as they like and hence they go after your SL. Now why brokers will want to you to loose?? Well every time you open a position, a broker opens an opposite position. So when you loose they win. They also want you trade more often, since they make money either in commission or spreads (or both). The only way they can force you to trade again is to stop you out. Why you think brokers give out free market research and trading ideas?? If all of their traders are trading the same way then it is easier for them to take them out. I am sure that some people would disagree (the ones working for broker J ) but it is something to think about. So How To Beat The Brokers: Simple, don’t place any Stop Loss. That’s right. It is not a typo. What you need is a Mental SL. You should know at price you will take your losses and set up alarms on your trading station when the price reach close to the mental SL you had in place. This can be challenging for some people but if you are lucky enough to get this working then there is nothing like it. Hope this helps you in placing better SL from now on.

Structured Settlement Annuity: What is it and when to use one.

It happens every day. What starts out as a seemingly normal day for thousands of people turns into a nightmare when an unexpected mishap occurs that can change someone's life forever. A car accident, a simple medical procedure gone wrong, an altercation with someone. These events alter the courses of peoples lives every day. What if it happens to you? What if suddenly due to someone else's negligence you were unable to continue to work? Naturally, you'd want to be compensated for this hardship. What form should this compensation take? A lump sum payout or structured payments over a set period of time? First and foremost you need to hire professional representation. to help you get through the court proceedings. Once you are through, it may be determined that the damages owed to you should be paid out using a "Structured Settlement Annuity." But what is a structured settlement annuity? Simply, A structured settlement is an agreement between a plaintiff and a defendant under which the injured person (plaintiff) receives damages in the form of a stream of periodic payments purchased for the plaintiff on behalf of the defendant. Over the years these have been shown to effectively meet a plaintiff or claimant's need for security. Why should you use one? There are a number of reasons but the first two are that it prevents an undisciplined spender from going through a lump sum payment too quickly. The other is that if you use a structured settlement annuity that provides periodic payments, the claimant is entitled to significant tax relief that receiving a lump sum payout does not. A structured settlement provides security over time that a lump sum payout simply cannot. It is important to note, that the security of the payments is only as strong as the financial strength of the company that issues the annuity. Therefore, care, research and seeking out trustworthy advice is paramount when choosing a financial institution to issue the annuity.

It’s Your Money - Why Wait?

The money in your IRA is your money. Every cent you put into that IRA was hard-earned, and if you really think about it, it’s not growing fast enough. What’s worse, you’re a few years away from retirement. Can you really bear the thought of NOT retiring in comfort? Two realities are in play here: first, the stock market’s lackluster performance that started in 2000, and second, the real estate boom that had developers scampering for land to satisfy the heightened demand for residential and commercial real estate. Put your IRA money to work. Your banker and broker will not allow you room to maneuver because they want complete visibility and control over your IRA. In the meantime, they’re earning fantastic returns on your money. It’s time you take the driver’s seat. Fundamentally, what do you need? • Sufficient funds in your self-directed IRA. • A Self-Directed IRA Advisor – Asset Exchange Strategies, LLC a limited liability corporation can share valuable information and advice. • A low fixed annual fee to pay your custodian, while you maintain full checkbook control at all times. You – not they – issue the checks for managing your investment. Provided you satisfy IRA regulations on the type of investments allowed for your self-directed IRA funds (real estate is only one of several possibilities) you can take charge of your financial future by turning that IRA into a high-earning instrument. The IRS’s position is clear, as defined in their publication # 590: your IRA should be a separate and distinct entity from yourself. Whatever investments you make should benefit your IRA, and not you directly. Your self directed ira advisor will be able to explain the subtleties and refinements of this IRS publication. It’s your money. If we told you that there are about $7 trillion dollars sitting in IRAs but of that amount, only 3% are self-directed, wouldn’t you be curious about how you can be part of that 3% that unknown to most, are enjoying unheard of returns?

One Stop Shopping: Stockleaf is Newest Resource for Investors

If Wal-Mart is the supercenter for retail shoppers, then new arrival Stockleaf is the supercenter for investors. Where else can one go to get up-to-the minute news on any publicly traded company from every financial news site available—and have it all on one page at one time? Until November 2007, the answer to that question was… nowhere. But stockleaf.com sprung up on the cyber-scene and all that changed. The beauty of Stockleaf is in its simplicity. Type in a stock symbol and Presto! You'll get links to all the recent news articles from Y! Finance, MSN Money, Google Finance, Forbes, Smart Money, and Seeking Alpha. You'll also get the stock's opening price, previous close, dividend information, P/E, and 52-week range. Click on a news link and it'll open in a new window—allowing you to navigate easily back and forth. As if all that weren't enticing enough to get those fingers clicking away on your keyboard, you can also check out feeds from Financial News sites, blogs, or see them sorted by subject (ie, mutual funds). And all this is updated in real time, every day, making it easy to stay on top of the stocks you own, want to own, or simply want to know more about. Let's face it. The internet is supposed to make our lives easier, not challenge us to a quest of hunting down the most applicable financial news tethered to a search engine. With Stockleaf, it's finally doing what it was designed to do—make us more efficient. Whether you're a day trader, a broker, or the type of person whose mind automatically converted "Wal-Mart" to "WMT" when you read that first sentence, Stockleaf puts you in the driver's seat, bringing the world of information and reliable news sources to your fingertips. Go anywhere you want, but start with Stockleaf. It's worth the bookmark. Think of it as your daily guide, custom-made just for you. If time is money, then efficiency is priceless.

Selling Your Property On The Internet

Should you sell your property on the internet? This is a common question with an equally common answer – YOU MUST! Selling Your Property On The Internet For those looking to sell a property themselves, many ask themselves whether or not they should sell on the internet. Well, the simple answer is, if you don’t list it on the internet then you are only hurting yourself. Just like magazines and newspapers, the internet provides a great source for homeowners to draw attention to the property that they have for sale. In fact, the internet is now the dominate media where homebuyers look for properties with over 70 percent reporting as much. What is more is that the internet is an incredibly easy place to list a property. The typical process involves opening an account, uploading as much description as possible and uploading photographs. Much like a dating site, the more information and photographs you post, the quicker your property will attract interest from potential buyers. This is the digital equivalent of curb appeal. There are a number of sites you can use to list your property for sale on the Internet. All basically offer the same listing characteristics, but pricing is radically different. Some sites, such as ours mentioned below, offer a free first month listing. Others try to get you to commit to a flat fee for a year with prices as high as $750. There are plenty of others as well that offer prices ranging between these two extremes. In general, you do not want to commit to the flat fee for a year listing. Although the real estate market has cooled, it is still roaring hot from a historical perspective. Practically speaking, property may not sell in a week any more, but it does sell in the first 90 days if appropriately priced and so on. Given this fact, it makes little sense to commit to a year listing. Regardless of the approach you take, the web has radically changed the game in real estate. Online sites offer greater access to the pool of buyers and, in many cases, make the need for real estate agents a superfluous one.

Internet Banking - Are you online?

Internet banking has changed the way we manage our money forever. Instead of having to call the bank, go there or wait for a statement to find out how much money we’ve got or where it’s all gone, we can now just log on at the bank’s website and find out instantly. It’s a huge money and time saver, for both the customer and the bank. Yet Internet banking has had a bad press recently, primarily due to concerns about the security of accessing your bank accounts over the public Internet. Stories abound of hackers stealing account or card details and going on exotic shopping sprees, with the unsuspecting customer left to chase their bank for the money they lost. These fears have contributed to many people switching back to phone banking, for fear of becoming a victim of identity theft. Many fears of Internet banking are unfounded, however. The most common way fraudsters get account details is not by hacking the bank, but instead by sending out scattershot spam to millions of people telling them to click a link and enter their account details for some reason, in the hope that a few will. There’s always someone who knows little enough about how the web works to enter their details into an untrusted website, not even realising anything happened until the fraudsters drain their bank account. Very basic education can stop this threat in its tracks, however, and make your Internet banking experience almost 100% safe. The easiest piece of advice is not to click any link in an email that claims to be from your bank: instead, use your web browser and type in the address of the bank’s website yourself. Also, when you are asked for your account details and password, make sure to look at the address bar in your web browser, to check that you are looking at your bank’s website and not an impostor. If you’re still scared, remember that Internet banking fraud makes up a tiny percentage of all bank fraud. You’re much more likely to become a victim when you hand your credit card over in a restaurant than you are when you bank online. Just like any other kind of fraud, your bank should cover you for any money you lose, but it’s really very unlikely that it will ever happen.

Saving Money With Government Auctions

Government auctions are where items that various government agencies have seized are sold, often at excellent prices. With a little knowledge, you can save some money with government auctions. Here is some basic information and tips to help you make the most of government auctions. What items are for sale at government auctions? Usually, big ticket items, such as vehicles, houses, land, boats, airplanes, computers, etc. Where have the items come from? Usually, the items have been seized by a government agency. Items might be seized in a raid, repossessed due to unpaid taxes, etc. Agencies that seize and sell items include the FBI, IRS, police departments, DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration), etc. How are items sold? Depending on the auction, items may be sold at an internet auction, at a fixed price, or at a conventional auction. How can I find out about items for sale? There are many ways to find out about items for sale. Searching the internet will provide you many websites that list government auctions. Some of the sites require a paid membership, others are free. Tips for buying at government auctions Look carefully at items you wish to bid on or purchase. Items are almost always sold as is, meaning that if it does not work as you expected it to, or other problem, arise, you cannot return the item. If there is a preview for the auction you plan to attend, take advantage of it. In some cases, the items will not be available for review during the auction, so it is advisable to attend the auction preview to look at items you are interested in. What other auctions can I attend to save money? You may also want to check out foreclosed property auctions. Items at these auctions have been seized by a bank due to non payment of the loan on the item.

Purchase or Refinance Hard Money

Hard money comes in many flavors; one of the most common is mortgages. Using the owner’s equity in real estate, hard money lenders generally lend 65% - 70% of the value of real estate property. In general, hard money mortgages are used for commercial purposes. However, they can also be applied to residential properties. In this instance, the loan is generally referred to by its more genteel name: a non-conforming mortgage. Lending criteria for hard money mortgages are fairly simple. The loan is based on the value of the ‘subject property’ either real estate owned or about to be purchased by a borrower. If the borrower is buying property, the "value" of the real estate is defined as the actual purchase price of the property. If the borrower needs hard money for a refinance situation, the ‘value’ is determined by a written real estate appraisal. If you are looking for a hard money refinance loan, the lender will want to know when you purchased the property and what you paid for it. If you bought a property a month ago for a specific sum, the lender will be disinclined to lend you more than that purchase price. Once you own the property for about a year, especially if you have put some money, sweat equity, or both into the property, you can get a new appraisal and get a loan based on the new, improved value of the property. This is called ‘seasoning.’ Be sure you have seasoned your property before going out for a refinance mortgage at a significantly higher value figure than what you paid for it. For more information on private money lending see some of these websites: http://www.californiaprivatemoneyloan.com http://www.rocklandcommercial.com http://www.interestratepolice.com

Texas Whole Life Insurance

Before you decide to buy whole life insurance over its counterpart, Term Life Insurance, it is crucial for you to understand the basics about Whole Life Insurance in Texas. The first type of whole life insurance is non-par or non-participating, whereas the second type is participating. The major difference between these two types of whole life insurance policies is that you cannot change them. In terms of a participating type of whole life insurance, the insurance firm will share the dividends with you. While term life insurance only offers death benefits, whole life insurance creates money value and therefore, offers benefits while you are still alive. Usually, it takes around 10 years or more for whole life insurance to create a money value (also referred to as cash value) for the insurance buyer. Another advantage of whole life insurance is that, you can lock the price of premiums, thereby paying the same for the coverage annually. Like term life insurance, you have a death benefit which will be given to your beneficiaries in the event of your death. However, with whole life, your cash value increases with time and can barrowed, barrowed against, or withdrawn for your retirement. Further, depending on the type of whole life insurance that you select, your insurance premium may be able to be paid out of the monthly earnings of the cash value account attached to the whole life insurance policy. Whole life insurance has higher premiums and offers higher pay out. Premiums are paid for the entire duration for which the person holds the insurance. However, there are certain types of whole life insurances that offer a set amount of payments, whereas the insurance continues for a lifetime, but the premium does not. The best place to start is a life insurance agent who can explain in detail the differences between whole life insurance and term life insurance. It’s also helpful to have an agent in Texas that is a phone call away and locally positioned to answer your questions after you purchase the policy.

Medicare, Social Security and Retirement

Everything keeps changing, how do I keep up? Why is there so many choices? This is common question and concerns of most seniors today. The cost of health and prescriptions is higher today for seniors, averaging over $500.00 a month. With fixed incomes, a comfortable retirement seems to be slipping away. Retirement is re defining itself. The days of a lifetime pension and 401ks are being wiped out. You must think and live different than our Mothers and Fathers did before us. The nest egg is under attack with high health rates, limited 401k's and lack of pension plans from former employment. Some day Social Security may not be available. What are we to do? Washington State - 12/29/2005 - Medicare, Social Security and Retirement Today a person coming to retirement must study and understand their future goals. A plan must be in place. Some may have to work part time to assist their retirement funds, and some maybe able to live from rare pension plans and investments. Education is the key. Classes, Seminars and home study is available and necessary. Here are a few items to cover: - How do the changes for 2006 affect me? - What do you need to understand about the new Medicare plans. - How do I plan for retirement. - Can you plan on your pension? Business Subjects That affect Retirement: - How do I manage my portfolio. - What investment should you consider? - What do you need to know about Social Security and Medicare. Donald Trump has proven to be a household name to us for his accomplishments. Many folks down play his forwardness and horn blowing ways, but he always seems to be on top. Mr. Trump is someone to watch, learn and understand. There is a few sites provided for you to understand Social Security, Medicare and Retirement better, at http://www.medicare-search-online.com , http://www.socailsecuritydata.com and http://www.retirementonlinefind.com . You can also email ssn@nwcustomwebs.com with any of your questions.

Why Water Is More Expensive Than Gold?

What is marginal economy? Think it this way, which do you need more, gold or water? Of course you need water more. Which one will you pay more money for? One kilogram of gold or one kilogram of water? Of course, gold. Why? That's because in economy, only the marginal matters. What does that mean? Water is precious. However, the value of water is the value of that least useful water that you still use anyway. You use water to drink, you use water to take a shower, you use water to water your plants, then you use water to wash your car. Obviously, the water that you drink is much more useful than the water that you use to wash your car. However, the value of water is the value of that least useful water. Why is it so? That’s because you’re trying to maximize your profit. Of course, you use your water for what’s the most useful first. Yes, but why is the value of water so low? Say the value of water is higher than that. Say it is $5 per gallon. The satisfaction you’ll get from washing your car is $1 per gallon. Then you simply don’t wash your car. Say the value is lower than that. The satisfaction of washing your car is $1 per gallon. However, water is so abundant that its cost is only $0.50. Then you’ll use water for stuffs that give even less satisfaction, such as washing your house. In fact, water can be so abundant that the price is negative. A negative price means that you’re willing to spend money to get rid that water. Such is the case during a flood. In which case, you’ll actually spend money to get rid of water, such as buying water pumps. That’s what happened to one of my grandmas because her house is often flooded. What’s the moral of the story? Be rare. When you’re rare, you’re valuable. When you’re not rare, you’re worthless.

Savings Code Tracker

The "Savings Code Tracker" savings learning SOFTWARE is FREE to download and use that will help you teach your children about how to save their money and make their savings grow. It is fun to use and very helpful at learning a little more than the basics of saving your money. Your children will quickly learn how to use this savings software so they can learn how to develope the best savings account plan for their financial future. I had this Savings Code Tracker software program specifically built for you to help your children learn how to manage their savings, because you and I know how important is to help your kids learn how to be wise with their money and have the best savings account. The Savings Code Tracker is easy to use that will help you teach your kids about financial savings. And to learn how to make their money grow, and also be wise and careful about spending it. By taking the time to teach your children about making the best choices possible with their money will also start a great communication process that will help you grow closer to your children as they gain knowledge and confidence towards building the best savings plan they can. The Free Software has a video tutorial that shows all it's functions and how to quickly and easily use it. Your kids will be up and running the software in no time. Have fun.

Lenders Do Not Really Trust You

Whether you are selling or buying a home, you should always go through an escrow period. Part of the process involves the establishment of a lender account since they do not trust you. Lenders Do Not Really Trust You Escrow is not a process that is used only in real estate transactions. It is often used in business transactions to create a safety zone for the transfer of something, often business secrets or intellectual property. In the case of real estate, escrow is used to create a centralized, impartial company or agent that can collect documents as specified in the real estate transaction documents. This is simply called escrow, and is not a lender account. An lender account is a bank account. It is an issue for a buyer to deal with as it is tied to any home loan on a property. The lender does not really trust you even if it agrees to give you a home loan for hundreds of thousands of dollars. As a result, it demands an bank account be established, an account which it controls. The lender uses the bank account to make sure certain bills are paid, debts that might otherwise cause the lender problems if not paid. These debts and liabilities include homeowners insurance, private mortgage insurance, and real estate taxes such as property taxes. The lender will specify the definitive costs to be covered in loan documents. Each month, the borrower is required to make a deposit to the bank account. The lender takes said money and pays the relevant debts and liabilities related to the real estate. Depending on the loan and the lender, the borrower may be required to keep a cushion in the account. A cushion refers to a minimum balance. The cushion is required to make sure there is money to cover the bills if the borrower fails to make the monthly payment. Lender accounts make sense from the perspective of the lender. Buyers need to make sure they understand the payments required as large cushion requirements can seriously impact a buyer’s cash flow.

Strong Housing Gains Driving Economic Growth

Consumer spending, increased investment and a hot housing market have led the UK economy to beat first quarter predictions. The GDP is up almost 3% from last year at the same time and is 2.8% higher than earlier forecasts had expected. Fuelling the economy has been an growing housing market, where housing values continue to climb, despite recent rate hikes that the Bank of England had hoped would cool things off a bit. The interest rates of almost 6% are at a 6 year high, but investors and home buyers seem to be ignoring rising rates. Home buyers in the last year have almost universally reported substantial and record increases on the equity value of their homes, and as long as housing values continue to rise, analysts expect that demand for housing and other loans will remain strong. Consumer spending is up at 0.6% over the last quarter, and investment has risen by almost 2%. Services are by far the largest sector of the economy, and this sector has also shown strong growth. Analysts say that the real engine behind the economic growth is a housing market that is giving people the confidence to spend. With housing values having risen at 13% over the last year, there are a lot of home owners with some extra money, and extra confidence right now. Financial services have shown strong growth, partly in response to an increasing demand for equity and home based loans, as people move to take advantage of the rise in equity values, and the dramatic housing value increases that have allowed them a bigger financial cushion to work with. Many advisors are forecasting another interest rate rise to combat the strong economy and increasing inflation, and many savvy loan seekers are using the current relatively low rates to lock into a fixed equity or home loan now, before the likely higher rates to come. The housing market shows no signs of cooling, even with central planning measures, and the economy should continue to grow driven by a housing market engine that is pushing up consumer confidence and spending.

Is It Risky Taking Out A Home Equity Loan In 2006?

Is the party over for people looking for home equity loans? It may be, by the looks of the financial reports coming in from 2005. It seems that there was a slowing down in the housing market at the end of last year. House prices have started to slowly fall although they are still higher than they were last year and the number of people looking to take out new mortgages has started to decrease. Many home owners have had a bonanza this past couple of years by freeing up the increasing equity in their home to purchase big ticket items like cars, home improvements and using their home as a virtual ATM machine to make up the difference that maybe lacking in their take home income. But as easy at it maybe have been to get the new home equity loan it all has to be paid off, with interest, added to the fact of declining house prices and a few home owners could be putting themselves to added risk. Last week the federal regulators to gain some control have advised banks and lending agencies from offering interest only loans they have people needed to purchase homes at today’s prices. Interest rates have risen by more than three percencentage points since mid 2004 which have had the effect of slowing up consumer spending and slowing up the housing market. Although this has worked well up this point in time the housing market has now become nearly half of last years growth rate and has been estimated to have given one million extra jobs to the economy. To avoid putting this in jeopardy it’s thought interest rates may be cut back to protect this. So what about 2006, it looks like the property market will still remain strong this year but take you time and shop around for the best deals before taking out a home equity loan.

What Does Your Brokerage Do For You?

A brokerage should work for you, the way that you want your money managed. In fact, you will need to communicate these needs and desires with the firm long before a commitment is made to you by the firm. But, what does your brokerage provide for you? Why do you use one company over the other? And, most importantly, how do you choose which are the best options for your specific needs? When it comes to a brokerage, there are several things that they must provide for you to work with them. The first most important thing for the brokerage firm to offer you is effective communication. You will most likely need a company that can understand your needs and will follow through on that. Probably the biggest problem that people have is the fact that they do not feel as if their firm tells them what is happening and understands what their overall goals are. Knowing what you have, what you are investing in, and knowing how well things are going is information that you need to have. Do they provide this to you? You also need a firm that is going to provide you with the fundamentals you are after. For example, if you are a risk taker, you’ll need to find that quality in a broker. If you are someone that likes things to be a little safer, that is a necessary quality. You will also want to be able to have access to your account on a moment's notice. Many of the firms out there are now providing this to you. You can find them available throughout the web in fact. They allow you to access your account online so that at any given day or time, you’ll know just what is going on. Having a brokerage that fits your needs is the ultimate goal. Finding just that may take some time, but you’ll make it happen.

Remove Bad Credit with Consolidation

Having bad credit is not the end of the world. Recent college graduates, people who are recently divorced, and those who have experienced a death of a loved one, may find themselves with too much credit card debt. These debts are difficult to pay off because of finance fees and higher minimum payments. But there is a way to begin to relieve the strain on one’s income. Credit card debt consolidation is a way for people to combine all their monthly credit card bills into one easy payment. Credit card debt consolidation can be accomplished by making an appointment with a credit card debt consolidation expert. There are many web sites that explain how the debt consolidation process works. By making an appointment to see a debt counselor in person, one can take charge of their financial future. A trained counselor will sit down and explain ways to reduce your debt, for instance by lowering monthly bills. This might include devising a monthly budget that a person should stick to in order to make regular monthly payments. Budgets are a great idea even after the debt has been reduced. One of the goals of a credit card debt consolidation agency is to make sure the person does not find themselves in debt ever again. The counselor will explain the benefits of taking all monthly bills and combining them into one payment. All credit card debt is charged interest over the month. This can really add up if a person is only paying the minimum payment each month. By combining all bills and charging interest on only one bill, a person will save hundreds of dollars in interest each year. This will really help lower the entire debt. Typically, a person will have to make payments for two years in order to their debt drastically reduced. This depends on the amount of debt a person has, however. For some, it can take up to five years of sticking to a budget and seriously paying off their existing debt.

New Drilling Technology Could Finally Make CBM Very Economic

In a previous interview about coalbed methane (CBM), Sprott Asset Management CBM analyst Eric Nuttall told us he would remain, “quite excited about the prospects for companies with coal bed methane assets so long as natural gas prices remain above $6 per Mcf (thousand cubic feet). The economics would be very skinny under $6.” That’s because CBM exploration and development can get pricey. What if there was a drilling firm regularly bringing gas out of the ground for under $1.50/mcf? There is and they’ve proven it with more than 250 wells in Australia. They’ve moved into India, where they drilled another 30 to 50 wells and another 70 wells to come. Mitchell has taken acreage in southern Kansas, where the company just finished its first CBM well. And the company formed a joint venture with Pacific Asia China Energy (TSX: PCE) to bring its Dymaxion® technology to China later this year. You don’t get to be Australia’s largest privately owned drilling company without timing your markets right. The Mitchell family’s great timing ability began in 1969, when company founder Peter Mitchell bought his first drilling rig at a repossession sale for $11,500. Parts of Queensland, Australia were in the grips of a drought. Mitchell put his rig to good use as he began drilling water wells for farmers in the surrounding rural counties. Just as the drought had ended, Mitchell caught the boom in coal. His growing company began drilling in the oil shale and coal fields around Moranbah, then a remote part of Queensland. They then caught the drilling boom in mineral resources through the 1980s. By then, the company was drilling oil, gas, uranium and coal reserves throughout Australia. In the 1990s, Mitchell Drilling got the first whiff of Coalbed Methane (CBM) exploration entering Australia. That is when the major U.S. oil companies, such as Amoco, Conoco and others, came to the country searching for new CBM fields. But, the major U.S. oil companies abandoned CBM in Australia because they soon discovered Australia’s shallow coal fields were too expensive for their big oil rigs. “The economics just didn’t work,” Nathan Mitchell told StockInterview. “They needed high gas flow, but the fracing technique just didn’t give them what they needed.” Still they persisted and asked Mitchell Drilling to run his smaller water well rigs. “That was the start of it,” Mitchell recalled. “We made CBM work with the water well rigs from an economics point of view, but they still weren’t making enough gas.” Still, the economics of the smaller rig made it work to a degree. Enter the politicians. “The Queensland government made a law that said five percent of all coal-fired power stations had to be run by gas,” explained Mitchell. “That spawned the industry and CBM really took off.” Mitchell continued with the vertical rigs, but it was the economics of the smaller rig that made CBM work. GETTING BLOOD OUT OF A STONE It was during the CBM boom when Mitchell developed the better mousetrap. Coal miners didn’t see the gas resource beneath their feet. “They just saw them as coal fields,” said Mitchell who knew there was “nuisance gas” there. “There was never even a thought there was enough gas there to make it viable.” With natural gas selling for $2/mcf in Australia, the economics didn’t make sense. Australian coal seams are found at shallower levels where greater pressures have to be created to liberate gas from the extended horizontal seams. The Australian one-two punch of shallow coal seams and low gas prices drove Mitchell to become innovative. “We’d seen in the coal business the underground in-seam drilling of horizontal holes and degasification,” Mitchell explained. “But, there was usually a lot of water involved and no way to get the water out.” Because of the company’s decades of experience in drilling water wells, Mitchell combined the vertical well with the horizontal well. Mitchell described the process, “The vertical well became the conduit for the coal mine, the gas and the water, and gave us a huge surface area. Suddenly, in areas where there wasn’t a resource, we could produce something like a million or up to 2 million a day from these Dymaxion® wells.” The technology was put to the test in central Queensland, Australia. An Australian newspaper reported in June 2004, “In an industry where tradition plays a strong role, innovative drillers Mitchell Drilling have chalked up the 100th example of their revolutionary Dymaxion surface to in-seam (SIS) methane gas drainage hole for gas producer CH4 Limited at their Moranbah gas project.” CH4’s website spoke highly of this gas project, “The Moranbah Gas Project will utilise innovative drilling and gas extraction techniques, allowing increased potential gas yields while leaving the coal resource undamaged.” How does this impact the industry? “We see this as revolutionary,” Mitchell cheerily remarked. “It has changed the face of CBM. It works in areas where people didn’t think it would work.” For example, the Dymaxion® drilling works in high permeability with low gas. “We can get such high gas from low gas content reservoirs, where people didn’t previously think there were reservoirs.” It has worked in Australia, where every penny counts. “Our price may cost around $1.25 or $1.10 (US$) per mcf so they are still making reasonable profits at around 50 percent.” How will it play outside of Australia? Mitchell shot back, “If you can imagine costs at $1.25 and you’re selling it for $6/mcf, that’s some pretty good bloody profits.” Drilling at reasonable profits for $2 gas, Mitchell said, “We are keen to take this technology around the world. Even if we were to double our costs, our clients would still be extremely happy.” USING BOTH VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL WELLS When discussing the Dymaxion® technology with an oil and gas man, his puzzled response was, “Did I hear you right? You are using both a vertical and horizontal wells to get the gas?” There are the skeptics. “Contractors from the larger oil and gas companies came over to have a look,” Mitchell said. “Some people thought we were sliding by or sort of skimming costs.” He explained the procedure, “We have to intercept (the vertical) because we actually line up every one of our lateral wells with a slotted liner, a perforated liner. It is stacked into the vertical well, by the arrangement we’ve developed, so we know we’ve intercepted it.” Mitchell said the key is the ability to flush and know that the finds are coming out. “We can have a number of wells lined, going from one point to another,” he explained, “and we’ve got continuity of connection and flow between one well which is 1000 to 2000 meters away and the vertical well. We can flush between both.” He gave an example, “We can have three horizontals going into one vertical and two of the horizontals can be closed. Number one can be opened and flushed; then number two can be open, flushed and closed. So you have this over the 10 to 20 year life of the well.” How does the SIS hole de-gas a greater area than a regular horizontal? “When we put two wells into a chevron pattern, you start to get absorption between the V at the start of the well,” Mitchell said, describing the Dymaxion process. “Once you get the wells done, in a V with each other, you start to get better flows, a bit more gas and greater increasing gas in a slow decline.” Mitchell’s website does admit the old technologies may be suitable for deeper drilling, “In the case of very deep deposits, up to 3000 meters underground, a vertical well may be adequate to create sufficient water table pressure to liberate and bring to the surface large quantities of methane gas.” Because of the greater surface area draining the underground gas in the coal seams, the same website is quick to point out, “SIS drilling also provides valuable exploration data on seam rolls and faults, allowing greater certainty in mine planning and development.” The SIS process begins by using modified, multipurpose mineral drill rigs with specially designed bottom hole assemblies. In the SIS technique, a hole is drilled at 60 to 90 degrees from the surface. It is then steered through a medium radius bend to horizontally enter the target coal seam. The 96 millimeter hole is steered in the seam toward a previously drilled vertical production well. A homing device is lowered down the vertical well to the target seam, which helps the horizontal hole intersect the production well. The vertical well dewaters the seam. Once the hydrostatic head has sufficiently been lowered, gas flows to the surface. MITCHELL’S WORLDWIDE EXPANSION Developing the Dymaxion® technology in the late 1990s, the first test took place in Australia in the year 2000. Now, going on nearly seven years later, the company has drilled more than 250 wells in Australia, another 30 to 50 wells in India with another 70 more to drill, and has moved on to both Kansas and China. Mitchell talked about Kansas, “We finished our first well, but we don’t really want to be a contractor in the United States. We don’t see a lot of benefit to handing over our technology, but we would be interested in doing some sort of equity deal or partnership with clients.” He believes that in the right areas, what Mitchell has got is “exceptionally good.” So where did Mitchell first make an equity deal? “The two big powerhouses of the world for the future are going to be China and India,” he noted. “Both of them will have energy problems in the future. Mitchell’s first equity deal came about with Pacific Asia China Energy. “We just astounded them with what was happening in Australia,” Mitchell laughed, “to see this small compact rig drilling 2000 meter holes of a well and making it work at $2 gas.” He explained that although rigs were cheaper in China, the logistics, the costs of roads and access for trucks and pumps, gear and equipment, costs start to go up. “It like a U.S. aircraft carrier,” Mitchell compared with a drilling operation, “you have 40 planes on deck but it takes 70 people to run it.” Even in China, costs can go up when running these logistics. The deal with Pacific Asia China Energy involves reduced drilling costs and a 50/50 arrangement for income produced through the use of the Dymaxion® technology in China. The joint venture company has exclusive use to this technology in the world’s largest coal producing country, China. How does Mitchell see business growing in China? “Exponentially,” he quickly replied. “In China, there is a push to degasify their mines. There are some several thousand large mines, many with over one hundred million tons in reserves, and a lot of mines are being shut down because of degasification problems.” In an earlier interview with the Tunaye Sai, president of Pacific Asia China Energy, he reported that every single coal company at a recent symposium approached both Mitchell and himself about the Dymaxion technology for China. Was that true? “Very much so,” Mitchell confirmed. “Mine safety is now at the forefront of China and international observation. They’re looking forward to international help and technology to come to China and fix these problems. They’re looking at it from they want to sell coal, but they also want to sell gas. It worked well in Queensland and will apply to in China. That’s why we see such a growth for Mitchell.”

The Importance of Maintenance Cap-Ex

In a series of speeches designed to defend his record, Alan Greenspan, until recently an icon of both the new economy and stock exchange effervescence, reiterated the orthodoxy of central banking everywhere. His job, he repeated disingenuously, was confined to taming prices and ensuring monetary stability. He could not and, indeed, would not second guess the market. He consistently sidestepped the thorny issues of just how destabilizing to the economy the bursting of asset bubbles is and how his policies may have contributed to the froth. Greenspan and his ilk seem to be fighting yesteryear's war against a long-slain monster. The obsession with price stability led to policy excesses and disinflation gave way to deflation - arguably an economic ill far more pernicious than inflation. Deflation coupled with negative savings and monstrous debt burdens can lead to prolonged periods of zero or negative growth. Moreover, in the zealous crusade waged globally against fiscal and monetary expansion - the merits and benefits of inflation have often been overlooked. As economists are wont to point out time and again, inflation is not the inevitable outcome of growth. It merely reflects the output gap between actual and potential GDP. As long as the gap is negative - i.e., whilst the economy is drowning in spare capacity - inflation lies dormant. The gap widens if growth is anemic and below the economy's potential. Thus, growth can actually be accompanied by deflation. Indeed, it is arguable whether inflation was subdued - in America as elsewhere - by the farsighted policies of central bankers. A better explanation might be overcapacity - both domestic and global - wrought by decades of inflation which distorted investment decisions. Excess capacity coupled with increasing competition, globalization, privatization, and deregulation - led to ferocious price wars and to consistently declining prices. Quoted by "The Economist", Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein noted that America's industry is already in the throes of deflation. The implicit price deflator of the non-financial business sector has been -0.6 percent in the year to the end of the second quarter of 2002. Germany faces the same predicament. As oil prices surge, their inflationary shock will give way to a deflationary and recessionary aftershock. Depending on one's point of view, this is a self-reinforcing virtuous - or vicious cycle. Consumers learn to expect lower prices - i.e., inflationary expectations fall and, with them, inflation itself. The intervention of central banks only hastened the process and now it threatens to render benign structural disinflation - malignantly deflationary. Should the USA reflate its way out of either an impending double dip recession or deflationary anodyne growth? It is universally accepted that inflation leads to the misallocation of economic resources by distorting the price signal. Confronted with a general rise in prices, people get confused. They are not sure whether to attribute the surging prices to a real spurt in demand, to speculation, inflation, or what. They often make the wrong decisions. They postpone investments - or over-invest and embark on preemptive buying sprees. As Erica Groshen and Mark Schweitzer have demonstrated in an NBER working paper titled "Identifying inflation's grease and sand effects in the labour market", employers - unable to predict tomorrow's wages - hire less. Still, the late preeminent economist James Tobin went as far as calling inflation "the grease on the wheels of the economy". What rate of inflation is desirable? The answer is: it depends on whom you ask. The European Central Bank maintains an annual target of 2 percent. Other central banks - the Bank of England, for instance - proffer an "inflation band" of between 1.5 and 2.5 percent. The Fed has been known to tolerate inflation rates of 3-4 percent. These disparities among essentially similar economies reflect pervasive disagreements over what is being quantified by the rate of inflation and when and how it should be managed. The sin committed by most central banks is their lack of symmetry. They signal visceral aversion to inflation - but ignore the risk of deflation altogether. As inflation subsides, disinflation seamlessly fades into deflation. People - accustomed to the deflationary bias of central banks - expect prices to continue to fall. They defer consumption. This leads to inextricable and all-pervasive recessions. Inflation rates - as measured by price indices - fail to capture important economic realities. As the Boskin commission revealed in 1996, some products are transformed by innovative technology even as their prices decline or remain stable. Such upheavals are not encapsulated by the rigid categories of the questionnaires used by bureaus of statistics the world over to compile price data. Cellular phones, for instance, were not part of the consumption basket underlying the CPI in America as late as 1998. The consumer price index in the USA may be overstated by one percentage point year in and year out, was the startling conclusion in the commission's report. Current inflation measures neglect to take into account whole classes of prices - for instance, tradable securities. Wages - the price of labor - are left out. The price of money - interest rates - is excluded. Even if these were to be included, the way inflation is defined and measured today, they would have been grossly misrepresented. Consider a deflationary environment in which stagnant wages and zero interest rates can still have a - negative or positive - inflationary effect. In real terms, in deflation, both wages and interest rates increase relentlessly even if they stay put. Yet it is hard to incorporate this "downward stickiness" in present-day inflation measures. The methodology of computing inflation obscures many of the "quantum effects" in the borderline between inflation and deflation. Thus, as pointed out by George Akerloff, William Dickens, and George Perry in "The Macroeconomics of Low Inflation" (Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 1996), inflation allows employers to cut real wages. Workers may agree to a 2 percent pay rise in an economy with 3 percent inflation. They are unlikely to accept a pay cut even when inflation is zero or less. This is called the "money illusion". Admittedly, it is less pronounced when compensation is linked to performance. Thus, according to "The Economist", Japanese wages - with a backdrop of rampant deflation - shrank 5.6 percent in the year to July as company bonuses were brutally slashed. Economists in a November 2000 conference organized by the ECB argued that a continent-wide inflation rate of 0-2 percent would increase structural unemployment in Europe's arthritic labour markets by a staggering 2-4 percentage points. Akerloff-Dickens-Perry concurred in the aforementioned paper. At zero inflation, unemployment in America would go up, in the long run, by 2.6 percentage points. This adverse effect can, of course, be offset by productivity gains, as has been the case in the USA throughout the 1990's. The new consensus is that the price for a substantial decrease in unemployment need not be a sizable rise in inflation. The level of employment at which inflation does not accelerate - the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment or NAIRU - is susceptible to government policies. Vanishingly low inflation - bordering on deflation - also results in a "liquidity trap". The nominal interest rate cannot go below zero. But what matters are real - inflation adjusted - interest rates. If inflation is naught or less - the authorities are unable to stimulate the economy by reducing interest rates below the level of inflation. This has been the case in Japan in the last few years and is now emerging as a problem in the USA. The Fed - having cut rates 11 times in the past 14 months and unless it is willing to expand the money supply aggressively - may be at the end of its monetary tether. The Bank of Japan has recently resorted to unvarnished and assertive monetary expansion in line with what Paul Krugman calls "credible promise to be irresponsible". This may have led to the sharp devaluation of the yen in recent months. Inflation is exported through the domestic currency's depreciation and the lower prices of export goods and services. Inflation thus indirectly enhances exports and helps close yawning gaps in the current account. The USA with its unsustainable trade deficit and resurgent budget deficit could use some of this medicine. But the upshots of inflation are fiscal, not merely monetary. In countries devoid of inflation accounting, nominal gains are fully taxed - though they reflect the rise in the general price level rather than any growth in income. Even where inflation accounting is introduced, inflationary profits are taxed. Thus inflation increases the state's revenues while eroding the real value of its debts, obligations, and expenditures denominated in local currency. Inflation acts as a tax and is fiscally corrective - but without the recessionary and deflationary effects of a "real" tax. The outcomes of inflation, ironically, resemble the economic recipe of the "Washington consensus" propagated by the likes of the rabidly anti-inflationary IMF. As a long term policy, inflation is unsustainable and would lead to cataclysmic effects. But, in the short run, as a "shock absorber" and "automatic stabilizer", low inflation may be a valuable counter-cyclical instrument. Inflation also improves the lot of corporate - and individual - borrowers by increasing their earnings and marginally eroding the value of their debts (and savings). It constitutes a disincentive to save and an incentive to borrow, to consume, and, alas, to speculate. "The Economist" called it "a splendid way to transfer wealth from savers to borrowers." The connection between inflation and asset bubbles is unclear. On the one hand, some of the greatest fizz in history occurred during periods of disinflation. One is reminded of the global boom in technology shares and real estate in the 1990's. On the other hand, soaring inflation forces people to resort to hedges such as gold and realty, inflating their prices in the process. Inflation - coupled with low or negative interest rates - also tends to exacerbate perilous imbalances by encouraging excess borrowing, for instance. Still, the absolute level of inflation may be less important than its volatility. Inflation targeting - the latest fad among central bankers - aims to curb inflationary expectations by implementing a consistent and credible anti-inflationary as well as anti-deflationary policy administered by a trusted and impartial institution, the central bank.

The Merits of Inflation

In a series of speeches designed to defend his record, Alan Greenspan, until recently an icon of both the new economy and stock exchange effervescence, reiterated the orthodoxy of central banking everywhere. His job, he repeated disingenuously, was confined to taming prices and ensuring monetary stability. He could not and, indeed, would not second guess the market. He consistently sidestepped the thorny issues of just how destabilizing to the economy the bursting of asset bubbles is and how his policies may have contributed to the froth. Greenspan and his ilk seem to be fighting yesteryear's war against a long-slain monster. The obsession with price stability led to policy excesses and disinflation gave way to deflation - arguably an economic ill far more pernicious than inflation. Deflation coupled with negative savings and monstrous debt burdens can lead to prolonged periods of zero or negative growth. Moreover, in the zealous crusade waged globally against fiscal and monetary expansion - the merits and benefits of inflation have often been overlooked. As economists are wont to point out time and again, inflation is not the inevitable outcome of growth. It merely reflects the output gap between actual and potential GDP. As long as the gap is negative - i.e., whilst the economy is drowning in spare capacity - inflation lies dormant. The gap widens if growth is anemic and below the economy's potential. Thus, growth can actually be accompanied by deflation. Indeed, it is arguable whether inflation was subdued - in America as elsewhere - by the farsighted policies of central bankers. A better explanation might be overcapacity - both domestic and global - wrought by decades of inflation which distorted investment decisions. Excess capacity coupled with increasing competition, globalization, privatization, and deregulation - led to ferocious price wars and to consistently declining prices. Quoted by "The Economist", Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein noted that America's industry is already in the throes of deflation. The implicit price deflator of the non-financial business sector has been -0.6 percent in the year to the end of the second quarter of 2002. Germany faces the same predicament. As oil prices surge, their inflationary shock will give way to a deflationary and recessionary aftershock. Depending on one's point of view, this is a self-reinforcing virtuous - or vicious cycle. Consumers learn to expect lower prices - i.e., inflationary expectations fall and, with them, inflation itself. The intervention of central banks only hastened the process and now it threatens to render benign structural disinflation - malignantly deflationary. Should the USA reflate its way out of either an impending double dip recession or deflationary anodyne growth? It is universally accepted that inflation leads to the misallocation of economic resources by distorting the price signal. Confronted with a general rise in prices, people get confused. They are not sure whether to attribute the surging prices to a real spurt in demand, to speculation, inflation, or what. They often make the wrong decisions. They postpone investments - or over-invest and embark on preemptive buying sprees. As Erica Groshen and Mark Schweitzer have demonstrated in an NBER working paper titled "Identifying inflation's grease and sand effects in the labour market", employers - unable to predict tomorrow's wages - hire less. Still, the late preeminent economist James Tobin went as far as calling inflation "the grease on the wheels of the economy". What rate of inflation is desirable? The answer is: it depends on whom you ask. The European Central Bank maintains an annual target of 2 percent. Other central banks - the Bank of England, for instance - proffer an "inflation band" of between 1.5 and 2.5 percent. The Fed has been known to tolerate inflation rates of 3-4 percent. These disparities among essentially similar economies reflect pervasive disagreements over what is being quantified by the rate of inflation and when and how it should be managed. The sin committed by most central banks is their lack of symmetry. They signal visceral aversion to inflation - but ignore the risk of deflation altogether. As inflation subsides, disinflation seamlessly fades into deflation. People - accustomed to the deflationary bias of central banks - expect prices to continue to fall. They defer consumption. This leads to inextricable and all-pervasive recessions. Inflation rates - as measured by price indices - fail to capture important economic realities. As the Boskin commission revealed in 1996, some products are transformed by innovative technology even as their prices decline or remain stable. Such upheavals are not encapsulated by the rigid categories of the questionnaires used by bureaus of statistics the world over to compile price data. Cellular phones, for instance, were not part of the consumption basket underlying the CPI in America as late as 1998. The consumer price index in the USA may be overstated by one percentage point year in and year out, was the startling conclusion in the commission's report. Current inflation measures neglect to take into account whole classes of prices - for instance, tradable securities. Wages - the price of labor - are left out. The price of money - interest rates - is excluded. Even if these were to be included, the way inflation is defined and measured today, they would have been grossly misrepresented. Consider a deflationary environment in which stagnant wages and zero interest rates can still have a - negative or positive - inflationary effect. In real terms, in deflation, both wages and interest rates increase relentlessly even if they stay put. Yet it is hard to incorporate this "downward stickiness" in present-day inflation measures. The methodology of computing inflation obscures many of the "quantum effects" in the borderline between inflation and deflation. Thus, as pointed out by George Akerloff, William Dickens, and George Perry in "The Macroeconomics of Low Inflation" (Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 1996), inflation allows employers to cut real wages. Workers may agree to a 2 percent pay rise in an economy with 3 percent inflation. They are unlikely to accept a pay cut even when inflation is zero or less. This is called the "money illusion". Admittedly, it is less pronounced when compensation is linked to performance. Thus, according to "The Economist", Japanese wages - with a backdrop of rampant deflation - shrank 5.6 percent in the year to July as company bonuses were brutally slashed. Economists in a November 2000 conference organized by the ECB argued that a continent-wide inflation rate of 0-2 percent would increase structural unemployment in Europe's arthritic labour markets by a staggering 2-4 percentage points. Akerloff-Dickens-Perry concurred in the aforementioned paper. At zero inflation, unemployment in America would go up, in the long run, by 2.6 percentage points. This adverse effect can, of course, be offset by productivity gains, as has been the case in the USA throughout the 1990's. The new consensus is that the price for a substantial decrease in unemployment need not be a sizable rise in inflation. The level of employment at which inflation does not accelerate - the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment or NAIRU - is susceptible to government policies. Vanishingly low inflation - bordering on deflation - also results in a "liquidity trap". The nominal interest rate cannot go below zero. But what matters are real - inflation adjusted - interest rates. If inflation is naught or less - the authorities are unable to stimulate the economy by reducing interest rates below the level of inflation. This has been the case in Japan in the last few years and is now emerging as a problem in the USA. The Fed - having cut rates 11 times in the past 14 months and unless it is willing to expand the money supply aggressively - may be at the end of its monetary tether. The Bank of Japan has recently resorted to unvarnished and assertive monetary expansion in line with what Paul Krugman calls "credible promise to be irresponsible". This may have led to the sharp devaluation of the yen in recent months. Inflation is exported through the domestic currency's depreciation and the lower prices of export goods and services. Inflation thus indirectly enhances exports and helps close yawning gaps in the current account. The USA with its unsustainable trade deficit and resurgent budget deficit could use some of this medicine. But the upshots of inflation are fiscal, not merely monetary. In countries devoid of inflation accounting, nominal gains are fully taxed - though they reflect the rise in the general price level rather than any growth in income. Even where inflation accounting is introduced, inflationary profits are taxed. Thus inflation increases the state's revenues while eroding the real value of its debts, obligations, and expenditures denominated in local currency. Inflation acts as a tax and is fiscally corrective - but without the recessionary and deflationary effects of a "real" tax. The outcomes of inflation, ironically, resemble the economic recipe of the "Washington consensus" propagated by the likes of the rabidly anti-inflationary IMF. As a long term policy, inflation is unsustainable and would lead to cataclysmic effects. But, in the short run, as a "shock absorber" and "automatic stabilizer", low inflation may be a valuable counter-cyclical instrument. Inflation also improves the lot of corporate - and individual - borrowers by increasing their earnings and marginally eroding the value of their debts (and savings). It constitutes a disincentive to save and an incentive to borrow, to consume, and, alas, to speculate. "The Economist" called it "a splendid way to transfer wealth from savers to borrowers." The connection between inflation and asset bubbles is unclear. On the one hand, some of the greatest fizz in history occurred during periods of disinflation. One is reminded of the global boom in technology shares and real estate in the 1990's. On the other hand, soaring inflation forces people to resort to hedges such as gold and realty, inflating their prices in the process. Inflation - coupled with low or negative interest rates - also tends to exacerbate perilous imbalances by encouraging excess borrowing, for instance. Still, the absolute level of inflation may be less important than its volatility. Inflation targeting - the latest fad among central bankers - aims to curb inflationary expectations by implementing a consistent and credible anti-inflationary as well as anti-deflationary policy administered by a trusted and impartial institution, the central bank.

U.S. Uranium Industry to Produce 20 Million Pounds by 2012

The Uranium Producers of America (UPA) was formed more than twenty years ago. Over the years, this trade association worked with Congress and state legislators to help improve the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle: uranium mining. Today, it has been re-energized with new members and with the task of helping to rebuild the U.S. uranium mining sector. We talked with Jon Indall, an attorney based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, who serves as the Executive Director of the UPA. Uranium Producers of America members include International Uranium Corporation, Power Resources, Uranium Resources, Cotter Corporation, Energy Metals Corporation, Mestena Uranium, U.S. Energy, Laramide Resources, Strathmore Minerals, Uranium Energy and Neutron Energy. StockInterview: What is the function of the Uranium Producers of America (UPA)? Jon Indall: The Uranium Producers of America is a trade association, originally founded in 1985 to promote the viability of the domestic uranium industry. StockInterview: How did the UPA trade association come into existence? Jon Indall: The UPA was founded initially by the major U.S. producers, such as Kerr McGee, Homestake, United Nuclear, Rocky Mountain Energy, Union Carbide, Atlas, and Pathfinder. The major operating companies decided to form their own group to focus on specific uranium viability issues. StockInterview: In what way does the UPA differ from the National Mining Association with regards to the uranium industry? Jon Indall: Over the years the UPA was sort of a lobbying institution for the domestic industry and handled viability type issues. The National Mining Association has a uranium environmental subcommittee. The NMA has been more involved with the regulatory aspect, but we work together and have a good relationship. There’s definitely an overlap between the members of each group, but our charge has been more on the viability aspect. StockInterview: How do you promote the viability of the domestic uranium industry? Jon Indall: Our agenda is twofold. We want to continue to promote the viability of uranium production in the United States. In that vein we have been meeting with the Department of Energy (DOE) to explain what’s going on out in the field. We let them know there are active companies pursuing mining operations, acquiring properties, doing the exploration and development work, and so forth. We are also urging DOE not to do anything that impacts the market. StockInterview: How could the Department of Energy affect the uranium market? Jon Indall: The Department of Energy is sitting on a lot of inventory. We want DOE to be judicious in how they use that material. There’s a very solid chance, in our view, going out a few years, there’s going to be a gap between available supply and demand. The secondary market is diminishing. We want DOE to hold back their material. If there is a shortage, they can ride to the rescue, and the reactors won’t go cold. StockInterview: Are the utilities going to get back into the domestic uranium sector to ensure their nuclear reactors have sufficient uranium available? Jon Indall: In the 1970s, when we had the initial boom, the domestic utilities were out making deals with producers. They were actively investing in projects and things of that nature. I don’t think that’s going to happen this year or next year. But a few years down the line, if things really tighten up, you might see that. StockInterview: Where do the U.S. utilities stand with regards to a domestic uranium industry? Jon Indall: In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I think the utilities saw Canada as such a big production center, they lost interest in the domestic producers. They were not too worried about having enough fuel coming in. StockInterview: But, hasn’t the industry changed over the past few years, as the spot uranium price has soared? Jon Indall: If you read the trade press and everything else, you can see, with the impetus that’s going on in Asia and all the reactors that are under construction or planned, I think the utilities have to understand that security of supply is something they need to pay attention to. It’s on our agenda to start talking to the utilities a little bit more seriously. Even though you can get this material from other places, it’s nice to have a local producer. It’s fairly apparent this industry, in the next four to five years, could be producing in the range of 20 million pounds. StockInterview: Do you believe the domestic uranium industry can produce twenty million pounds over the next four to five years? Jon Indall: Conservatively, five to six years, but maybe even sooner. Well, let me put it this way: We’re producing roughly 3 million pounds now. That’s up from two. I could be off by a factor of a few hundred thousand. Power Resources is producing roughly 2 million pounds. With the Uranium Resources production that’s come on in Texas, and with Mestena, you’ve got about another million pounds or so. IUC has just announced that they’re going to produce 3.5 million pounds, I think, over the next two years. Some of that is material they’re cleaning up for DOE, but it is still production. All the UPA members have plans to be in production at some point. StockInterview: Yes, but doesn’t it take five to eleven years to get the production underway? Jon Indall: I think eleven years is too far out. I think, if the companies can get with it, you can see four or five In Situ Recovery (ISR) operations producing one to two million pounds apiece. And then maybe somebody gets a conventional mine going here again, like IUC is doing. I can’t tell you the exact number, but I think you’ll see increased production, assuming that the price continues to rise or stabilize. StockInterview: How are the uranium companies going to move that fast? Jon Indall: I think a lot of it, in my mind, is how well the regulatory community accepts what these guys are trying to do. My impression is – and this is just me talking – that a lot of the communities, where this activity has been undertaken before, are not averse to seeing it again. It means good jobs and that type of thing. A lot of these communities are sort of depressed communities. For example in New Mexico, McKinley County is one of the lowest counties in the state economically. I think the average guy out there would welcome the opportunity to see some high paying jobs. StockInterview: How well would the regulatory community in New Mexico react? Jon Indall: I recently met with the New Mexico Mining Minerals Division. Since we passed the New Mexico Mining Act in 1993, no one has permitted a mine in New Mexico. We were talking about how we were going to do this. Obviously it’s not going to happen tomorrow. StockInterview: What about senior state officials, such as the Governor of New Mexico? Jon Indall: I can tell you the New Mexico governor was extremely supportive of the uranium miners when he was in Congress. He introduced legislation supporting our efforts in those days, and some of it he did on his own. He’s got a big state to govern, and I think he’s looking for jobs. I think if we can show him that we can do this better than we did in the past, then he’ll be supportive. That’s my hope. StockInterview: Will the major oil or mining companies return to the uranium industry? Jon Indall: I don’t anticipate the big oil companies coming in again for some time. BHP Billiton initially said, ‘We have no interest in uranium mining in New Mexico.’ Then they turned around and bought the biggest property in Australia. Now I understand BHP is looking hard at their New Mexico operations. So you might see some of the big mining companies involved. StockInterview: Who, then, will build up the domestic uranium industry? Jon Indall: I think it may be more entrepreneurial, which was the way it started back in the 1950s. The early producers, with the exception of Kerr McGee, were individuals – Charlie Steen, Dick Bokum, and Cotter Ferguson in Wyoming. They were the people who really got this industry up and going, with AEC assistance. I am not sure the oil companies are that critical, but I would like to see utilities get into the mix. I think it all depends on how supply and demand is perceived. StockInterview: How should the major uranium producers, such as Cameco or BHP, deal with the impact of a potential supply shortage for U.S. utilities? Jon Indall: BHP and Cameco are aggressively trying to increase their production. They wouldn’t be doing that if they didn’t think there was a market for it. The U.S. market and the U.S. government are so critical to the health of all suppliers, in my opinion, because our government has done more to help and harm domestic and worldwide production than any other entity. I think foreign producers would be wise to recognize that having a viable U.S. industry, which senators and the congressmen care about, because they’re creating jobs and income in their states, is not a bad thing. I think it keeps DOE honest. To me, if I were sitting up in Canada, this would be something I might be looking at. StockInterview: What should U.S. utilities be looking at, with regards to the supply picture? Jon Indall: You’ve got the Russians announcing they’re not going to proceed with the HEU agreement after 2013. It is my understanding they’re looking to beef up supply for themselves. With the utilities, I think it’s kind of ‘wait and see’ right now. I think that they’re looking at this from the big picture. I think it’s becoming more evident to them nuclear has got to play an ever increasing role. Global warming is really driving a lot of boats here, and I think they’re realizing there has to be a real active nuclear power plant production increase. StockInterview: How are things differently now for the Uranium Producers of America compared to the early days in the 1980s? Jon Indall: Right now, it’s a much different atmosphere than it was in 1985. The market was going down rapidly in 1985. Everybody was kind of fighting for their existence. We were pleading our case that this industry was created by the government – the government did things that really screwed it up. I think, now, we’re not asking for so much. We’re basically asking for the status quo. We don’t want the government to do anything that adversely impacts the price. Let the price work itself out. Let’s start producing uranium where cost has some impact. The price and the cost of have a relationship. From about 1985 on, they did not.