What is sequestration?

What is sequestration?
20


Comments (21)
By POLITICO STAFF |
7/19/12 2:19 PM EDT


It’s a wonky term long used in congressional appropriations staff rooms but now it’s one of the hottest political issues in Washington: Sequestration.

But what, exactly is a sequester?

Simply put, it’s the formal term for mandatory cuts to federal programs – the process of cordoning off money that may have been authorized by Congress but is now prohibited from being spent. Literally, the money is being “sequestered” – taken away from the federal agencies affected.

(Also on POLITICO: What's 'sequestration'? More are Googling term)

The process has been used over the years in other budgets, but now the federal government may be one of the biggest sequestrations of all time: $1.2 trillion in mandatory cuts – half from the military, half from domestic programs. The sequester was invented as part of the debt limit law last year and was meant to act as a punishment of sorts if the deficit supercommittee didn’t come up with a complete package to cut the deficit.

Since the supercommittee failed, the sequester will now go into effect starting next year – slashing more than $500 billion from the military alone – which is why the defense industry, Pentagon advocates and military contractors around the country are lobbying so hard to stop it.

Read more about: Pentagon, Defense, Sequester, Sequestration

Top Five Worst Obamacare Taxes Coming in 2013

Top Five Worst Obamacare Taxes Coming in 2013
Of the twenty new or higher taxes in Obamacare, below are the five worst that will be foisted upon Americans for the first time on January 1, 2013.


Of the twenty new or higher taxes in Obamacare, below are the five worst that will be foisted upon Americans for the first time on January 1, 2013:

The Obamacare Medical Device Tax – a $20 billion tax increase: Medical device manufacturers employ 409,000 people in 12,000 plants across the country. Obamacare imposes a new 2.3 percent excise tax on gross sales – even if the company does not earn a profit in a given year. In addition to killing small business jobs and impacting research and development budgets, this will increase the cost of your health care – making everything from pacemakers to prosthetics more expensive.

The Obamacare “Special Needs Kids Tax” – a $13 billion tax increase: The 30-35 million Americans who use a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) at work to pay for their family’s basic medical needs will face a new government cap of $2,500 (currently the accounts are unlimited under federal law, though employers are allowed to set a cap).

There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children. There are several million families with special needs children in the United States, and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education. Tuition rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in Washington, D.C. (National Child Research Center) can easily exceed $14,000 per year. Under tax rules, FSA dollars can be used to pay for this type of special needs education. This Obamacare tax provision will limit the options available to these families.

The Obamacare Surtax on Investment Income – a $123 billion tax increase: This is a new, 3.8 percentage point surtax on investment income earned in households making at least $250,000 ($200,000 single). This would result in the following top tax rates on investment income:




Capital Gains

Dividends

Other*


2012

15%

15%

35%


2013+ (current law)

23.8%

43.4%

43.4%


The table above also incorporates the scheduled hike in the capital gains rate from 15 to 20 percent, and the scheduled hike in dividends rate from 15 to 39.6 percent.

The Obamacare “Haircut” for Medical Itemized Deductions – a $15.2 billion tax increase: Currently, those Americans facing high medical expenses are allowed a deduction to the extent that those expenses exceed 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI). This tax increase imposes a threshold of 10 percent of AGI. By limiting this deduction, Obamacare widens the net of taxable income for the sickest Americans. This tax provision will most harm near retirees and those with modest incomes but high medical bills.

The Obamacare Medicare Payroll Tax Hike -- an $86.8 billion tax increase: The Medicare payroll tax is currently 2.9 percent on all wages and self-employment profits. Under this tax hike, wages and profits exceeding $200,000 ($250,000 in the case of married couples) will face a 3.8 percent rate instead. This is a direct marginal income tax hike on small business owners, who are liable for self-employment tax in most cases. The table below compares current law vs. the Obamacare Medicare Payroll Tax Hike:




First $200,000
($250,000 Married)
Employer/Employee

All Remaining Wages
Employer/Employee


Current Law

1.45%/1.45%
2.9% self-employed

1.45%/1.45%
2.9% self-employed


Obamacare Tax Hike

1.45%/1.45%
2.9% self-employed

1.45%/2.35%
3.8% self-employed

Click here to view PDF form.
Posted by John Kartch on Frida

Read more: http://atr.org/five-worst-obamacare-taxes-coming-a7217#ixzz27s05YTQG

Economic Patriotism

HOME
> NEWS



Posted: 8:11 a.m. Friday, Sept. 28, 2012

Economic Patriotism

President Obama gives a speech in Ohio on the economy

Previous Posts
What We're Up Against
September 28, 2012
What's Really Behind the Anti-School Choice Movement
September 28, 2012
This TSA Gambit Just Won't Work For Me
September 28, 2012

By Neal Boortz

Two little peaks into the mind of Barack Obama and how he views wealth. Are you ready? These are comments that most Americans probably wouldn’t think twice about, especially as class warfare rhetoric becomes more the norm with every day that passes.

The first is at a recent campaign stop. Obama told a crowd of ObamaBots, “The country doesn’t succeed when only the rich get richer. We succeed when the middle class gets bigger.” Wrong. We succeed when more people in the middle class become rich! It’s called income mobility … and until Obama came along the statics showed that the reason the middle class was growing smaller was because the middle class was moving on up! Our Dear Ruler doesn’t comprehend this because he is predisposed to despise the rich, and can’t believe that those people who are, to him, the focus of all that is evil were once middle class --- or poor. He believes that rich people became rich by taking away money from someone else. This is why his goal has never been to grow the size of our economic pie but merely to redistribute the current pie. And at the rate we are going, the pie (especially for those in the middle class) is shrinking. Median household income isdown by $4,520 since Obama took office. This isn’t because evil rich people are stealing their portion of the pie … it’s because there is not enough confidence and capital for people to create businesses and hire workers, produce products and services and earn wealth.

Now I said I had two recent peaks into the mind of Dear Ruler. That was one of them. Another one occurs in a new Obama campaign ad. Here’s a rough transcript of part of that ad …


“Fourth, a balanced plan to reduce our deficit by four trillion dollars over the next decade on top of the trillion in spending we've already cut, I'd ask the wealthy to pay a little more. And as we end the war in Afghanistan let's apply half the savings to pay down our debt and use the rest for some nation building right here at home.

It's time for a new economic patriotism. Rooted in the belief that growing our economy begins with a strong, thriving middle class …”

We’ll get to this “economic patriotism” in a minute, but first …

Are people still buying this idea that if taxes increase on wealthy Americans, that we could even come close to reducing our deficit? I would love for one of these camera crews to interview Obama supporters and ask them the following question: If you could impose a 100% tax on all the earnings of every rich person in America earning at least $250,000 a year, how much money would you get? The answer is $1.4 trillion. I doubt that any of these ObamaBots would recognize that this is about the same as the deficit Obama has run every year since he’s been in office. So we’re talking over $4 trillion in deficits under Barack Obama. So taking all of the earnings of these evil rich people would not even make a dent in the increases in spending that Obama is responsible for, much less any reduction.

So then the ObamaBot says, “Well what about those evil corporations?” Glad you asked. Walter Williams has done the math on this question as well. Taking all of the evil profits of the Fortune 500 companies would be about $400 billion. That’s nothing to sneeze at. But if you compare it to how much our federal government spends, its peanuts. Seizing all of the profits from Fortune 500 companies would be enough to run our government for a whopping 40 days. We can’t even start to talk about reducing the deficit when it can’t even fund our government for a little over a month.

So the ObamaBot starts to get really irritated. Maybe they are astute enough to recognize that your first question had to do with how much these rich people are earning. So they ask about the wealth of these rich people – their evil yachts and private planes and mansions and jewels. The imperial federal government could confiscate all of that for a one-time gain of about $1.3 trillion. Again, in context of how much our government spends, that won’t do a lot to mitigate our current expenses, much less reduce the deficit.

The fact is this … you could take all of the earnings of every evil rich people earning over $250,000 a year, all of the profits of the greedy corporations and all of the wealth acquired by America’s filthy billionaires, and that would only be enough money to fund our current federal government for eight months. That’s it! We can’t even fund an entire year of spending, much less reduce our deficit by any significant margin.

Obama wants these rich people to pay a little bit more, and yet the share of the income tax burden paid by the top 1% of taxpayers has almost doubled since the 1970s. Considering that to be the case, the problem doesn’t seem to be taxes, it seems to be spending.

Oh and about this “economic patriotism” nonsense. Why is it that Barack Obama believes it is patriotic to plunder the pockets of productive Americans? Is that what he truly values as patriotic?

Is the era of free checking accounts over?

Is the era of free checking accounts over?
Facing new government regulations and a lackluster economy, the financial industry is forcing customers to pay more just to park their money at the bank




Only 39 percent of checking accounts in America are truly free, Bankrate reports — down from 76 percent in 2009. Photo: Thinkstock

"If free checking accounts were animals, they'd be on the World Wildlife Fund's list of endangered species," says Catherine New atThe Huffington Post. This week, industry trade group Bankratereported that only 39 percent of checking accounts in America are free (meaning they require no minimum balance and don't charge a monthly fee). The free checking account used to be nearly ubiquitous — clocking in at a high of 76 percent in 2009 — but banks have been cutting back their largesse in a bid to squeeze more money out of customers. Here, a guide to the trend:

Why do banks need more revenue?
New government regulations and a struggling economy have eaten into bank profits. President Obama's 2010 overhaul of the financial system, which is meant to protect consumers from bad banking practices, curbed the ability of banks to charge customers overdraft fees. Major banks have tried to offset the losses in numerous ways, most prominently by trying to charge customers for using their debit cards, which was met with a severe public backlash.

How much does a checking account cost now?
Bankrate found that customers on average had to keep a minimum of $723 in their accounts to avoid a fee, which is up 23 percent from the previous year. The average monthly fee for a non-interest checking account is $5.48, up 25 percent from 2011. Bank of America, for example, is planning to charge certain customers between $9 and $25 to keep a checking account. Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase are considering similar measures.

How can customers avoid paying a fee?
Bankrate advises bank customers to set up direct deposit, which banks sometimes accept as a substitute for a fee or a minimum balance. However, that doesn't help people who work part time. In those cases, Bankrate recommends moving to a bank or credit union with free checking. Analysts note that 70 percent of large credit unions still offer free checking accounts.

Will customers switch banks?
Probably not. "Changing banks entails the hassle of rerouting direct-deposit payments and uprooting automated bill-paying arrangements,"says Robin Sidel at The Wall Street Journal. "Many bankers are pushing ahead with the new, higher fees in a bet that customers won't switch.

Sources: Bankrate, Business Insider, The Huffington Post, The Los Angeles Times, NBC News, The Wall Street Journal

5 Ways The Brand New Dark Energy Camera Will Utterly Change Our Understanding Of The Universe

5 Ways The Brand New Dark Energy Camera Will Utterly Change Our Understanding Of The Universe
The first instrument ever built specifically to help astronomers study the effects of dark energy is now ready to document the history of the cosmos.
By Clay DillowPosted 09.26.2012 at 12:24 pm


The Blanco Telescope in Chile, Where the Dark Energy Camera is Mounted T. Abbott and NOAO/AURA/NSF

For something that we know absolutely nothing about, dark energy owns a prominent place in astrophysics. Its discovery won the Nobel Prize even though the very term “dark energy” is a placeholder for a phenomenon we don’t really understand, and though its effects are observable dark energy itself--which supposedly makes up three-quarters of the universe--has never been seen and remains unobservable. That’s why the Dark Energy Camera--which achieved first lightjust last week--is such a big deal. With it, we might finally give the term “dark energy” some meaning.

The Dark Energy Camera (DECam) was eight years in the making. Constructed at the Fermilab National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois and installed on the Victor M. Blanco telescope at the National Science Foundation’s Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile, it is a specially-designed sky surveying instrument that can do some very specific things better than any instrument in the world. It is not the world’s most powerful optical telescope, nor is it the world’s highest-resolution camera or the largest instrument of its kind.

"We call this dark energy. That’s really just a stand-in for saying we don’t understand what’s going on."But for what it was designed for--for measuring the effects of immeasurable, invisible dark energy on the universe over billions of years--it is absolutely unmatched. That’s why the Dark Energy Camera is important and why it has the potential to reshape the prevailing way we think about the cosmos. Over five years it will survey one-eighth of the total sky, imaging more than 300 million galaxies, 100,000 galaxy clusters, and 4,000 supernovae, some of them as far as eight billion light years away (which means it’s essentially looking eight billion years into the past). Following are five reasons the Dark Energy Camera is one of the most interesting astronomy instruments working today:
BECAUSE WE HAVE NO IDEA WHY THE UNIVERSE IS EXPANDING AT AN ACCELERATING RATE

Back in the late 1990s, some astronomers discovered something rather unexpected. We’d known for decades that the universe is expanding, a fact discovered by Edwin Hubble and one that caused Albert Einstein to scrap large parts of his theoretical work (he called his failure to predict an expanding universe his life’s greatest blunder). But for all those decades we thought the universe was expanding at a steady rate. It wasn’t until 1998 that observations of the universe (particularly of faraway supernovae) revealed that the universe’s expansion is actually accelerating.

The term “dark energy” was coined to describe the force driving this expansion, a force that more or less competes with gravity, pushing things apart rather than bringing them together. But, like gravity, we don’t have a very good grasp on how this works. “We call this dark energy,” says Dr. Joshua Frieman, a professor in the University of Chicago’s Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics and a theoretical physicist at Fermilab. “That’s really just a stand-in for saying we don’t understand what’s going on.”

Frieman is also the director of the Dark Energy Survey (DES), the international collaboration behind the Dark Energy Camera. Since the discovery of dark energy 14 years ago, there hasn’t really been a dedicated dark energy science instrument. Astronomers have used data and observations from various telescopes to conduct research on the nature of dark energy, but they have never had the specific tool that they need.

“What the Dark Energy Survey is designed to do is to make a map of about 300 million galaxies,” Frieman says. “Then in a separate survey we will make a kind of cosmic movie--we’ll go back to the same part of the sky every few nights and measure about 4,000 supernovae. And by making such a large map and measuring these supernovae, we plan to probe the properties of dark energy with much greater precision than we’ve been able to do with previous surveys and previous data.”



The Dark Energy Camera, Installed on the Blanco Telescope: Dark Energy Survey Collaboration


BECAUSE IT’S AN ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE CAMERA

In order to generate a survey of this magnitude and resolution, you need a really, really sensitive camera with a very wide field of view. Most deep-space gazing instruments have comparatively narrow fields of view, but the DECam can see an area of the sky about 3 square degrees at a time, Frieman says, enough to fit the full moon into its field of view several times over. This will allow the DECam to survey one-eighth of the total sky in the aggregate 522 days it will be imaging for the Dark Matter Survey (that’s 522 days across five years--the DES won’t survey every single day).

In order to collect all the light streaming in from thousands and millions and billions of light years away, the DECam also contains a massive sensor array with a 570-megapixel resolution. In conjunction with the four-meter Blanco telescope on which it’s mounted, the DECam and its 570 million pixel sensor and various lenses create the perfect suite of technologies for imaging vast swaths of the night sky and peering far, far back in time.
BECAUSE IT’S AN ASTRONOMICAL TIME MACHINE

That 570-megapixel array isn’t just good at taking super-high-resolution snapshots of the present, but for capturing light streaming in from deep, deep in the universe. This light has been traveling through space for billions of years in some cases (and thus from billions of light years away), so the oldest light it can resolve actually generates a picture of the universe when it was roughly half as old as it is today.

This sensor array is made up of 62 charge-coupled devices (CCDs), which convert the light that hits them into digital signals for imaging. Most CCDs in astronomy cameras are comparatively thin, and while these are great for capturing light in the blue part of the spectrum, they are less efficient at capturing red light. That’s a problem.

“We want to look deep into the past of the universe, and as we look further and further outward, further back into the past, we’re seeing galaxies that are receding away from us faster and faster with the expansion of the universe,” Frieman says. “A galaxy that’s moving away from us rapidly, its light will be shifted from the blue into the red part of the visible spectrum simply due to the fact that it’s moving away from us at a very high speed.”



An Artist's Rendering of the Dark Energy Camera: Fermilab/DES collaboration



The DECam’s CCDs were custom built to be thicker than those in the average astronomical camera, making them more sensitive to this red-shifted light. That allows the DECam to see galaxies far deeper in the past, which is critical for piecing together a thorough history of the universe’s expansion--which is exactly what the DES is trying to do.
BECAUSE EVEN THOUGH IT CAN’T ACTUALLY SEE DARK MATTER, IT WILL CREATE THE BEST PICTURE OF IT WE’VE EVER SEEN

Since they can’t measure dark energy directly, astronomers have to measure its effects on the things that they can see--the ordinary matter in the universe, like galaxies and galaxy clusters. The DES will provide them with a map that allows them to see, in one place, the history of cosmic expansion going back roughly 8 billion years. They’ll be able to see how fast the universe is expanding now versus how fast it was expanding at other points in cosmic history.

It will also allow them to see the history of the way things formed in the universe over time, how the early, relatively smooth universe began to clump into galaxies and galaxy clusters, and eventually into the universe we have today. “This process of matter collapsing in on itself is determined by this competition between gravity and dark energy,” Frieman says. “In the early universe we think gravity was the dominant force, that the universe was slowing down, and galaxies were forming. But in the last few billion years we think dark energy has taken over from gravity, sped up the cosmic expansion, and slowed down the formation of new galaxies.”

A sky survey that, in unprecedented detail, shows both the history of cosmic expansion and the history of how the universe structured itself over time will give astronomers new insight into the nature of dark matter and its properties. They still won’t be able to see it directly, but by measuring its effects over time they’ll have a really detailed picture of it that presently doesn’t exist.
BECAUSE IT MAY JUST HELP US FINALLY UNDERSTAND EINSTEIN’S COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANT. OR EVEN BETTER, IT MIGHT NOT

“We’ve done surveys before, but what’s been achievable has been limited.” Frieman says. “This instrument will really allow us to make a substantial leap forward beyond what’s been possible with the instruments available so far.”



RELATED ARTICLES
Dark Energy Hits Tenth Birthday, Still a Mystery
Dark Energy Wins Nobel Prize in Physics
What's On Tap For the Next Ten Years of Astronomy? Find Exo-Earths and Figure Out Dark Energy

TAGSTechnology, Clay Dillow, cosmology, dark energy, dark energy camera, dark matter,fermilab, SpaceWhat kinds of leaps? Well, for one, it might solve the lingering question of whether or not dark energy is the cosmological constant dreamed up by Einstein as a means to square his theory of general relativity with his notion of a stationary, static universe. Einstein abandoned the cosmological constant (and his static universe theory) when Hubble discovered that the universe is in fact expanding, but the idea of this small, positive value in the mathematics of cosmology has persisted.



Many physicists think dark energy is the cosmological constant, Frieman says, and that could be the case. And if it is, the Dark Energy Survey could confirm it to be so, putting much speculation and debate to rest (and also vindicating Einstein somewhat; he may not have predicted an expanding universe, but one could argue he predicted dark matter long before its effects were observed).

“But what would be even more exciting would be to find evidence that it’s not the cosmological constant, that there’s something else, some new form of energy that we haven’t yet really grappled with,” Frieman says. “In my mind, that would be the ideal result.”

Previous Article: Today On Mars: Curiosity Records Hurricane-Like Air Pressure Swings

Argentines Turn Cash Into Condos in Miami

BIG DEAL
Argentines Turn Cash Into Condos in Miami

Oscar Hidalgo for The New York Times

CURTAIN CALL The view from Opera Tower in Miami, where many Argentines are buying investment condos.
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
Published: September 13, 2012

Oscar Hidalgo for The New York Times

LAND RUSH The entrance to Opera Tower in downtown Miami.
Enlarge This Image
Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times

IN early August, Jorge Sanchez, a broker with Douglas Elliman, flew to Buenos Aires to sell some Miami real estate. He returned to Florida a few days later with four signed contracts from Argentines for apartments in a 60-story tower in downtown Miami.

The fact that the buyers signed the contracts without ever flying to Miami to see the building -- Opera Tower -- speaks volumes about how eager, and desperate, Argentines have been to direct their money out of their country and into real estate in Miami and New York.

In the past few months, Argentines have quietly passed Brazilians to become the most active group from Latin America buying Miami real estate, according to Millie Sanchez, executive vice president of development marketing for Douglas Elliman Florida.

Brazil’s demotion from the top spot likely has something to do with the weakening of its currency, the real, versus the dollar in recent months. But in Argentina, a weakening peso and 25 percent inflation, economists say, have spurred many affluent Argentines to move their money into American real estate by expensive and sometimes illegal means.

Economic and political uncertainty around the globe are benefitting real estate in the United States, especially in Miami and New York, the two “safe haven” American cities foreign investors usually look to first. South Florida’s real estate market is certainly no stranger to capital flight from Latin America. But the velocity at which some Argentines are investing in Miami real estate has shocked some brokers here.

“The desperation of the Argentine people has taken over and they are actually market leaders here now,” Ms. Sanchez said. “Any project today in Miami is probably being sold 50 percent to the Argentines.”

The government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Argentina’s president, has been trying to stop the capital outflow, which nearly doubled to $21.5 billion last year from $11.4 billion in 2010, with increasingly severe methods.

Argentines now have to submit requests to tax authorities to convert pesos into dollars for overseas trips, and are rarely approved for much. Overseas credit card purchases are heavily taxed at home. And specially trained dogs working for tax authorities are sniffing for dollars at ports, airports and border crossings.

The government began restricting access to dollars last November, days after Ms. Kirchner won a second four-year term.

What’s driving all this? Argentina has struggled to preserve its hard-currency reserves in the Central Bank and sustain a trade surplus. The country has had limited access to international credit markets, owing to its inability to win back the confidence of global investors after its $100 billion default in 2001.

The government has refused to take on more debt, to rapidly devalue the peso, or to reduce spending, which it needs to sustain programs for the poor and working class that make up its voter base. Instead, Ms. Kirchner’s government has chosen to clamp down on capital flight by whatever means possible.

Banks in Argentina are lending at rates some 10 percent under the inflation rate, economists say. There are few profitable investments left in the country, said Eduardo Blasco, a financial consultant in Buenos Aires.

Argentines are buying foreign properties not only to park their savings but also to make extra income through rentals. “Argentines don’t want any more Argentine risk,” Mr. Blasco said.

So they are willing to risk their savings on Miami real estate instead. At Opera Tower, at 1750 North Bayshore Drive, half of the 30 apartments sold in the past month were bought by Argentines, Ms. Sanchez said. Most were all-cash purchases, even though the developer, Florida East Coast Realty, has offered to finance up to 65 percent of the purchases.

After selling about a third of the building’s 635 apartments before 2008, the developer turned the building into rentals after the housing crisis. Six months ago, Opera Tower began selling condos again. Since then some 90 apartments of the remaining 394 have gone into contract, said Luis Espinosa, the director of marketing for Florida East Coast Realty.

The building has become almost a pure investment play. Owners are occupying less than 5 percent of the apartments, which are selling for $250,000 to $650,000 for studios, one-bedrooms and two-bedrooms, said Ana Tajes, Opera Tower’s sales director.

Opera Tower is popular with Argentines because the developer is offering to lease back the apartments from the buyers, pay their monthly maintenance charges and give them an annual net rent equal to 6 percent of the purchase price for three years.

Argentines have also been scooping up apartments in Manhattan. Maria Velazquez, a broker with Prudential Douglas Elliman, met a group of Argentines in Miami earlier this month and accompanied them to New York. She said she has sold six apartments totaling $8 million to Argentines since last November, including four apartments at One Museum Mile, located at 1280 Fifth Avenue.

In December, Ms. Velazquez represented a group of Argentines that bid $10.35 million for eight apartments at 400 Fifth Avenue. They were later outbid, she said.

“They wanted to act fast and get their money out” of Argentina, Ms. Velazquez said. “Whoever buys in New York already has four or five apartments in Miami.”

While her Argentine sales have been strong, Ms. Velazquez lately has been selling even more in New York to another skittish group from Latin America: Venezuelans.

Concerns about the Oct. 7 election in Venezuela, in which the 13-year incumbent, President Hugo Chavez, faces perhaps his stiffest challenge from Henrique Capriles, have led to a new exodus of cash from the country that is finding its way into New York real estate.

In the past year Ms. Velazquez said she has sold $35 million worth of Manhattan real estate to Venezuelans, including nine apartments at the Aldyn (60 Riverside Boulevard), three of which were $7 million penthouses of about 3,096 square feet each.

In contrast to about four years ago, when many Venezuelans struggled to wire large sums of money out of the country because of government restrictions, this time around they are using funds from accounts in Switzerland and the Virgin Islands, she said.

Some Argentines are using money that was already waiting in American bank accounts. Others have been willing to pay a black-market premium of up to 40 percent to convert their money into dollars at home, and a commission of up to 7 percent to transfer funds abroad through a currency exchange house, an illegal transaction, economists said.

The dollar restrictions have caused Argentina’s own real estate market, which has traditionally been transacted in dollars, to flatten, as Argentines sit on their properties, said Marina Dal Poggetto, an economist in Buenos Aires.

“Those that have properties don’t want to sell in pesos, only in dollars,” she said. “But buyers don’t have dollars.”

The government controls are having a profound effect. Capital flight from Argentina plunged 69 percent to $3.57 billion in the first half of 2012, from $11.7 billion in the second half of 2011.

Deserving part of the credit is Argentina’s national tax agency, which has used a team of 50 specially trained dogs -- most of which are golden retrievers and Labradors -- to sniff out the dye in dollars and other foreign currencies.

The Kirchner government has boasted about the dogs’ exploits.

In February, the government said, Tiza found $110,000 in a car crossing into Uruguay. In July, Isidoro and Bruno, two other dogs, found $20,000 in a car trying to cross the border with Paraguay. Then last month, Catalina, which appeared to be a black Labrador, found 187,000 reals ($92,493) in the airbag of a Toyota Hilux at a border crossing with Brazil.

The busts pass for black humor in Argentina these days. But a good chunk of the money that is managing to slip out by determined Argentines is finding its way into Florida and New York real estate, and for brokers here that is no laughing matter.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: September 14, 2012

An earlier version of this article misstated the size of three apartments at the Aldyn that sold for $7 million. They are each 3,096 square feet, not 8,000.

Original article [here]

8 things debt collectors won't say

8 things debt collectors won't say

The calls may be scary, but you do have rights you should know about. Here are some things to know before you decide how to respond.




It should come as no surprise that if you fall behind on your bills, you may hear from debt collectors. If they do call, you will almost certainly hear that you need to pay them and that you need to do so immediately. But there are a number of things that they aren't likely to tell you, and knowing these things can make all the difference in resolving your debts.
1. Some of our threats have no teeth

If you can't pay the collector the amount he is demanding, or refuse to give your bank account or debit card number to make the payment, the debt collector may threaten to "put you down for 'refusal to pay.'" But that's "a meaningless phrase in the debt collection world," says ZipDebt.com founder Charles Phelan, who coaches consumers trying to settle debts. He elaborates:

Debt consolidation: Pros and cons

"When a collector says, 'We are going to inform your creditor that you are refusing to pay this bill,' they are just using reverse psychology. Your creditor has already figured out that you aren't paying the bill, or they would not have sent your account to a collection agency in the first place."

Another example? Bogus deadlines. Says Phelan, "Collectors will always try to create a false sense of urgency by imposing a series of deadlines, after which 'this deal will no longer be available.' The reality is that settlement or workout offers tend to improve over the course of a typical three-month collection assignment."
2. We have to stop bugging you at work if you tell us to





Today: How to build credit when you're in debt



How to build credit when you're in debt
3/29/12




Dumb money moves everyone makes

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act is very clear on this point. Once you tell a debt collector that your employer doesn't allow you to talk with her while you are at work, she must stop calling you there. Yet in its 2011 Annual Report to Congress about Fair Debt Collection Practices Act complaints, the Federal Trade Commission noted that in 2010 it received 17,008 complaints related to debt-collection calls to consumers at work, up from 11,991 complaints the year before. "By continuing to contact consumers at work under these circumstances, debt collectors may put them in jeopardy of losing their jobs," notes the FTC.
3. We can't blab about your debts to others

Debt collectors are generally allowed to discuss your debt with only you, a co-signer, your spouse or your attorney. They may not discuss your debt with neighbors, relatives who aren't obligated to pay the debt, or co-workers. In fact, they are generally allowed to contact third parties only to locate you, and once they have found you, contact with third parties must stop. Consumer lawyer Sukhman Dhami of the Dhami Law Firm, explains:

"We call these 'third-party disclosures,' a violation of Section 1692c(b) of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, and they are exceptionally common, particularly when the debt collector leaves a message on a public answering machine. These public answering machine violations are called 'Foti' violations after the landmark case Foti v. NCO Financial Systems, 2005.

"If a debt collector leaves a message for you on any conventional answering machine or any shared/open-access voicemail system, they are likely to violate the third-party disclosure restrictions per Foti, so save any machine message and/or voicemail which a debt collector leaves for you!"

He goes on to warn, "If a debt collector contacts third parties, we want to know about it, because chances are that the collector violated one or more provisions of the FDCPA."
4. Your debt may be too old for us to do anything about it

"Stale debt is not collectible," advises Atlanta bankruptcy attorney Jonathan Ginsburg. "Every state has a statute of limitations that makes debt of a certain age not collectible. Debt collectors are not currently obligated to advise you that they cannot sue you or legally ding your credit report if you refuse to pay stale debt."
Calculator: Should you make extra debt payments?

In most states, the statute of limitations runs four to six years from the date you last made a payment. And that's the catch. "In some states, a voluntary payment on a stale debt can revive the debt and make it legally collectible," Ginsberg warns. But don't be surprised if you hear about a very old debt. "Stale (or zombie) debt is big business," he adds.

"Seniors are constantly targeted for old debts," says Alex Viecco of New Era Debt Solutions. Viecco says his firm is seeing a trend where debts that were the result of identity theft are "coming back around for consumers. They certainly do not remember it, and suddenly (collectors) act as if it was theirs." He says his firm also hears from clients who complain about old medical debts that should have been paid by the insurance company and resurface years later.

"Never admit to any debt without first getting more details," recommends Viecco. At a minimum, you want to establish that the debt is legitimate, you owe it, the collector on the other end of the phone isn't a scammer, and the statute of limitations hasn't expired.

At the same time, don't assume that just because a debt is older it can't be collected, or that it can't affect your credit reports. "There are a handful of states that do require the collector to tell the consumer that they cannot be sued," says Mark Schiffman, director public affairs for ACA International, a trade organization for collections professionals. "While it is true that every state has a statute of limitations, which varies by state and by debt type, and that a collector may not sue or threaten to sue a consumer, the collector may still seek to collect the debt from the consumer so long as it is within the guidelines of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act." He also notes that under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, collection accounts may be reported for seven years.

More from Credit.com:
The best cash rewards in America
What's a credit score? Really
Can Obamacare keep debt collectors out of hospitals?
5. We are under pressure to collect, just as you are to pay

Collectors "work on sliding scale commissions, and the quicker they get someone's money, the higher the commission," says Philadelphia debt-collection abuse lawyer Michael Forbes. "If they don't get your money within a fixed period of time, your account will be sent back to the creditor."

Debt consolidation: Pros and cons

So while collectors may pressure you to pay right away, staving them off a bit might work in your favor if you can't afford to pay the full amount you owe. "Collectors will generally not share that they may take a lower settlement offer at the end of the month in order to meet a quota, or nearer the end of the assignment contract when the creditor is going to pull the account back," says Michael Bovee with DebtConsolidationCare.com, a free, online debt-advice community website that includes sample debt collection letters. He explains that most assignment collection accounts (where creditors assign debts to collection agencies rather than selling them) stay with collectors for 90 days. Any accounts that are not collected at that point may go back to creditors, usually to be placed with another collection firm.

And while collectors may insist that you pay the full balance you owe over time, they may actually prefer to get a smaller, lump-sum payment, says Phelan. Why? "They get paid commissions much faster that way!"

6. If we really want to play hardball, we will have to sue you

If you owe unsecured debt such as credit card debt, collectors must typically sue you before they can go after your property, including money in your bank accounts, or try to garnishee your wages. Threatening to take such actions before they have sued you and won a judgment may be illegal. Even threatening to sue you to collect a debt may be illegal if the collector has no intention of doing so.
Calculator: Should you make extra debt payments?

The FTC reports that in 2010, more than a quarter of all FDCPA complaints reported that third-party collectors falsely threatened a lawsuit or some other action that they could not or did not intend to take. In addition, 18.6% of FDCPA complaints alleged that such collectors falsely threatened arrest or seizure of property. No doubt some of these complaints involved overseas payday loan collection scammers. Still, some involved calls from collectors in the U.S. trying to collect legitimate debts.

"Debt collectors use applied psychology to persuade and threaten consumers to pay debt," Ginsberg explains. "Often this psychology involves veiled threats of criminal action or litigation when these options are not available."
7. Paying off this debt won't help your credit scores

Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, a collection account will remain on your credit reports for seven years and six months from the date you fell behind with the original creditor. Collectors may make it sound like paying off collections account will improve your credit, by telling you that they will update your credit report to "paid in full" status. But this probably won't help your credit scores. Collection accounts are negative, whether they are paid or not.

In an article titled "Will paying a collection improve my credit score?" Credit.com's credit scoring expert Tom Quinn wrote:

"The fact that a collection account is on your credit report (regardless of balance) is, in and of itself, predictive of future risk, as research shows that consumers with collection accounts on their credit report are less likely to pay as agreed in the future than consumers with no credit report blemishes."

On the other hand, paying the collection account may stop the creditor or collector from suing you, and a judgment on your credit report could hurt your credit score even more. Additionally, some mortgage lenders may require you to pay or settle collection accounts before giving you a loan.
8. You probably don't have to pay your deceased relative's debt

"Collecting debts of the deceased is a growing and lucrative business. Creepy, huh?" says Mary Reed, the co-author of more than 20 legal and financial books (including the book she co-authored with the writer of this article, "Debt Collection Answers: How to Use Debt Collection Laws to Protect Your Rights.") But generally, she points out, you aren't responsible for the debts of relatives who died unless you were a co-signer, or the debt belonged to your spouse who died and you live in a community property state. Creditors or collectors may try to collect from the estate, if there is one. If the person left nothing, however, then they may simply be out of luck. Although they are supposed to tell you that you don't have to pay the debt, they may conveniently leave that out or gloss over it.

More from Credit.com:
The best cash rewards in America
What's a credit score? Really
Can Obamacare keep debt collectors out of hospitals?

APPLE on Track to Be 1st Company to Reach $1 Trillion in Value

Disruptions: Will Apple Be the First to Break $1 Trillion?


Published: Sunday, 23 Sep 2012 | 6:28 PM ET
Text Size
By: Nick Bilton



Kimihiro Hoshino | AFP | Getty Images

If Apple continues on its current trajectory, something remarkable might happen on April 9, 2015, at around 11 a.m.

That is, statisticians and investors I've spoken with say, a conservative estimate of when Apple could become the first company ever to be valued at $1 trillion. (Yes, you read that correctly: the number one, followed by 12 zeros.)

Other analysts are making even more aggressive estimates for the company's value, which, as of Friday, was $656 billion. Those people put the trillion-dollar mark at less than a year from now: Aug. 16, 2013.



"It's hard to imagine Apple growing any faster than it has grown on both the release of the iPad and iPhone," said Michael E. Driscoll, chief executive of Metamarkets, a big data and predictive analytics company, and one of the people betting Apple will top $1 trillion in 2015.

Estimating when, or if, Apple will become the first to be worth $1 trillion is a bit of a parlor game, but we can all likely agree on one fact: today, it is a juggernaut.

Apple Success, Tim Cook-Style
US Stores Selling Out of iPhone 5
Apple Seeks US Samsung Ban
Apple's iPhone 5 Launches Across the World

Not long ago, Apple was a boutique PC maker. Since then, it has rolled over almost every company in its path, first with music players, then with cellphones and, more recently, with laptops. Nokia, Sony, Research in Motion, Dell and Hewlett-Packard have all watched open-mouthed as Apple took markets they thought were secured. Each time, Apple's stock rose and their stock fell.

"They are certainly a different kind of company," said Walter Piecyk, a wireless research analyst at BTIG Research. But, he warned: "So was Nokia in the late '90s. No one thought they'd ever be challenged, and look at where they are today."

Even with this growth, there is another possibility: that Apple never reaches $1 trillion. "In a worst-case scenario, Apple could befall the fate of Microsoft, which had a similarly dizzying peak in late 1999," Mr. Driscoll said. "In this scenario, it will never happen."

If $1 trillion were the peak of Mount Everest, Microsoft would have been rising through the highest base camp in December 1999, when its market capitalization hit an all-time high of $616.3 billion. Since then, the company has slid down the side of the mountain and is currently valued at a mere $261 billion.

MORE FROM NYTIMES.COM

Indeed, the flap over the poor-quality maps on the iPhone 5 has led some people to wonder if Apple has already jumped the shark. But remember how well it has weathered other challenges, like poorly functioning antennas and Siri's erratic behavior.

Apple [AAPL 700.095  1.395 (+0.2%) ] is different from Microsoft [MSFT 31.19  -0.26 (-0.83%) ]. "When Microsoft peaked in 2000, it had 20 years running the PC revolution. We're essentially only five years into the smartphone revolution," said Charles S. Wallman, a securities analyst who runs an investment group in Middleton, Wis. "Apple has 435 million customers based on the number of credit cards in iTunes. That's 6 percent of the world's population. It's not a stretch to say it can get to 10 or 12 percent of the world's population." (Before we go any further, stop and reflect on the power that gives Apple.)

Even if Apple didn't enter any new product categories, it could reach $1 trillion by doubling its sales. That's hard for a big company, but in many respects, it is already happening. According to the latest statistics released by I.H.S. iSuppli, a research company, the Apple iPad accounts for nearly 70 percent of the tablet market. BTIG Research predicts Apple will sell 45 million iPhones in the December quarter alone. (During the same quarter last year, the company sold 37 million iPhones, doubling its revenue from a year earlier.)

While it used to be a presence in the United States and a nobody overseas, Apple is now rolling out products like the iPhone 5 worldwide on the same day. The company will also, predictably, continue to increase its global retail division of 388 stores. These stores make an average of $5,647 in sales per square foot. By comparison, shopping malls in the United States make an average of $341 in sales per square foot.

The company will continue to grow in China, too, where many of the more than one billion people who own mobile phones are upgrading to smartphones.

And don't forget those clunky old PCs. While other computer makers have lost ground, sales of Macs have grown each quarter for the past six years.

And none of these staggering drivers of growth consider Apple entering entirely new markets.

"When we invented the car, it was a substitute for horses, but it was the second phase of the car revolution — when we invent things around the cars like gas stations and drive-ins — that created new business markets," Mr. Wallman said. "We're seeing this happen now with the technology we have in our hands. We're entering the second phase of this revolution, where entirely new markets will be created, and Apple could create those."

For instance, Apple could transform the television industry, making its own TV set built on iOS, which analysts estimate could bring in another $20 billion a year in revenue. Or it could try to reinvent money itself, turning on the 435 million credit cards it has on file and enabling mobile payments. And there are consumer electronics areas that haven't even been invented yet, like wearable computing.

When Apple first introduced the iPhone, people slept in the streets to buy one. Five years later, people are still lining the streets to snatch the latest update, even though it is only a slight variation on the one before it. A company that can pull that off, selling two million iPhones in the first 24 hours, might be worth $1 trillion in no time at all.
This story originally appeared in The New York Times.

The latest version of the iPhone is the first one that provides a legitimate reason to ditch Apple

On The New Apple Maps: What Would It Take For Us To Leave the iPhone?
The latest version of the iPhone is the first one that provides a legitimate reason to ditch Apple.
By Dan NosowitzPosted 09.21.2012 at 3:49 pm2 Comments

Originally in [POPSCI]


Berlin, Antarctica via Tumblr

Remember when the iPhone 4 came out, and it had that weird antenna issue where, if you held the phone tightly in an unnatural position and squeezed like it was a lime and you desperately needed lime juice, it'd lose its signal? And Apple had to give us all free rubber-band-cases for our phones? A lot of people claimed they were switching from iOS because of that.

That was a dumb overreaction. But switching from iOS due to the now-famously inferior new Apple Maps app is not.

As a beta tester, I've been using iOS 6, which replaced the old stalwart Google Maps with Apple's homegrown Apple Maps, for a couple of months now. Apple Maps has been basically a disaster for me since I upgraded.



Thanks Apple: Twitter



For example. I'm at work in Midtown Manhattan, but about to leave to meet some friends at a bar called The Scratcher, in the East Village. I've never been. I search in Apple Maps It lags for a minute, then gives me no results. Google gives me the address, which I enter manually into Apple Maps. Apple Maps gives me a result immediately. Hurrah! It puts a pin in a location on 5th Street in Brooklyn.

The bar is not in Brooklyn.

How New Yorkers travel. In New York, having a car is viewed as a mid-level superpower, not as good as flight but way better than, like, x-ray vision. Mostly we get around by public transit, by taxi, and by bike. Apple Maps, it turns out, is useless to us. The maps tells us where subway stations are and what their names are, but not which of the (more than 20!) train lines stops there.

There are also no directions for traveling via subway, bus, or bike. On the other hand, if you drive a helicopter, you probably appreciate the aerial 3-D city models. I can't imagine who else would find those useful.
THE OBVIOUS QUESTION

Laura June, features editor at gadget supersite The Verge, switched to Android--the initial switch was motivated by her iPhone's inopportune trip into a toilet bowl, but she hasn't gone back to iOS in large part because of Maps. Switching OSes out of protest always seems like an extreme reaction to me; it's expensive, since you have to buy all your apps and accessories all over again, and there's always an adjustment period during which you're kind of annoyed and inefficient. So I tend to think there's not all that much a phone-maker can do to provoke a switch, either for or from. But in this case I think she's justified.

The maps app is one of the purest tools on a phone, maybe even more than the actual phone part. When I tore a tendon in my ankle and sat on the sidewalk trying to decide if I should call an ambulance, I looked up the nearest hospital on my maps app. Google Maps was how I found a clam shack on Cape Cod, gourmet sausages in Chicago, burritos in San Francisco. It was how I found my way back to my apartment for the first two weeks after I moved to New York, how I navigated to my friend's lake house in the Poconos. This tool, this incredible tool, is one of the most important parts of your phone, even if you check if anyone's retweeted you more often than you pull it up. If it's broken, it's not a small deal.

Maps is the one thing that's made me think about switching platforms. And Google Maps on iOS was never particularly good. It was adequate. Compare it to Google Maps on Android, which has all the bells and whistles--bike and transit navigation, free turn-by-turn, offline maps. It is and always has been excellent, one of the strongest arguments in favor of Android--and now it's much, much stronger by comparison. Even Bing Maps or Nokia Maps or whatever you can get on your Windows Phone, that's pretty decent, too.

This is kind of an unusually shameless business move from Apple; it's pretty clear now from all the Tumblrs and the outrage on Twitter and my own lengthy ramblings that people are definitively finding Apple Maps worse than Google Maps. It's a decision that makes the iPhone -- whose hallmark has always been superior user experience -- a distinctly inferior product.



Post Office?: via TumblrAlmost certainly Google will come out with a version of Maps for iOS 6 (according to some reports, it's already finished and just awaiting approval). And mostly, people will download it, use it, and begin to forget that Apple Maps ever existed, except when iOS tries to open location links in Apple Maps rather than the app we'll all use. But for the first time, when someone says "that's it! I'm switching to Android!," I'll take them at least a little bit seriously. Apple's never given its customers a better reason to ditch them.


HERE ARE SOME WORKAROUNDS, IF YOU DON'T SWITCH

Since I've been using Apple Maps for awhile, I've figured out a few of its quirks. It has serious trouble finding any address if you don't include the city, for example. A search for "364 5th avenue," even if you're standing right in front of it, might direct you to whatever the equivalent of "fifth avenue" is in Ulaan Bataar. If you change that to "364 5th avenue, new york, ny," you'll have more luck.

Yelp has also been an invaluable service for me, maybe the first time I've ever said that. Yelp knows where stuff is, much better than Apple Maps does. Search for it in Yelp, tap the map, and it'll open, mostly flawlessly, in Apple Maps.

For cityfolk: get a localized public transit app. I like Embark NYC for New York; it has a full map, plus schedules and customized alerts for outages.

Do your work in Google. If you do a Google search for wherever you're trying to go and then plug the address right into Apple Maps, you'll have a way better chance of finding it than if you let Apple do the searching.

Don't bother with the in-browser Google Maps, unfortunately. This looks like a savior, especially since you can pin it right to your homescreen like an app, but it's slow and kinda awkward to use--if you switch apps, it has to reload, that kind of thing. Sigh.

The most detailed picture of a sunspot ever captured in visible light

Check out this picture of a sunspot! Big Bear Solar Observatory captured this image, which is now the most detailed picture of a sunspot ever captured in visible light.

OLD SUPERNOVA SEEN IN SUPER SIZE: BIG PIC

OLD SUPERNOVA SEEN IN SUPER SIZE: BIG PIC





Sept. 13, 2012 -- This colorful bubble of twisted strands of gas is all that remains of a star -- or, more technically, a pair of stars -- that exploded tens of thousands of years ago, lighting up the night sky here on Earth for several weeks in 1604 and attracting the attention of German astronomer Johannes Kepler.


Kepler's supernova remnant is located within the constellation Ophiuchus, but astronomers haven't been able to accurately pin down its distance or how it was formed. Now, with new observations by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, the structure and scale of the remnant are clearer than ever before... and it turns out the stellar explosion was a much larger -- and distant -- event than anyone thought.


SLIDE SHOW: The Supercomputer Supernova


Kepler's supernova remnant is what's left of a Type Ia supernova, the end result of a white dwarf star that's been "feeding" on material drawn off a companion star until a critical mass (aka the Chandrasekhar limit) is reached and rapid nuclear reactions are triggered, blowing the pair apart in a powerful, brilliant explosion equal to the light of 5 billion suns.


WATCH VIDEO: Discovery News unlocks the mysteries of stars and finds out why a star's age matters.


In fact the brightness of Type Ia supernovae is so consistent and well-known, astronomers use them to gauge intergalactic distances.


The distance to Kepler's remnant, however, has proven to be more elusive. Data gathered with Chandra over the span of more than 200 hours in 2006 has led to the image above, which shows varying X-ray energy levels emitted by the still-expanding gas of the supernova as well as the optical light shed by stars. We can see asymmetrical arcs of X-ray-bright gas in the upper regions of the remnant, which some astronomers are suggesting is the result of the supernova's ejected material plowing through the surrounding, slower-moving interstellar material.


NEWS: Neutrino Halo May Change Supernova 'Flavor'


In addition the spectra of these bright arcs reveals the presence of a large amount of iron, which indicates the explosion must have been very powerful. The original white dwarf may have even been emitting nova eruptions prior to the ultimate supernova.


Based on this cosmic forensic work by the Chandra researchers, the distance to Kepler's supernova remnant is estimated to be anywhere from 16,000 to over 23,000 light-years away -- a large range, yes, but well over the previous estimate of 13,000 light-years.


As the supernova's remains expand so does our ability to observe it, thereby understanding a little bit more about how our Universe works!


Read more on the Chandra site here.


-- by Jason Major


Image credit:X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/D.Patnaude, Optical: DSS

Who makes the best 802.11ac router? We review the only 5 models available today

NETWORKING
Who makes the best 802.11ac router? We review the only 5 models available today
By Michael Brown, PCWorld
Sep 20, 2012 9:55 AM
print

802.11ac Wi-Fi routers are just the ticket for consumers looking to cut the cord.It's a tricky time to be in the market for a new wireless router. The safe bet is buy a model based on the tried-and-true, rock-solid 802.11n standard—and I recommend that you adopt that course if you're looking for a new router for your small business. Consumers, on the other hand, may fall in love with the blistering speed and phenomenal range that routers based on the second draft of the 802.11ac standarddeliver.



The performance of each of the five 802.11ac routers that I tested for this story overwhelms the performance of the Asus RT-N66U, which may be the best 802.11n router on the market today. Looking to stream high-definition video over your wireless network? Using an 802.11ac router, I streamed a Blu-ray video ISO image—complete with high-definition Dolby TrueHD or DTS HD Master Audio multichannel soundtrack—from a server in my home office to a bridge-connected PC in my home theater, an acoustically isolated room that some lesser-quality 802.11n routers can't even penetrate, much less stream media into. I experienced no glitches and no dropouts.

But 802.11ac Draft 2.0 won't crystallize into a bona fide standard until sometime next year. We went through a similar routine as the 802.11n standard went through its final stages. Back then, however, the Wi-Fi Alliance (an industry trade group) assured consumers that all products based on the 802.11n Draft 2.0 standard and bearing the alliance's logo would be compatible with hardware based on the final standard—as well as with each other. The Wi-Fi Alliance offers no such assurances this time around.

So there's a slim chance that these early first-generation 802.11ac routers will be incompatible with hardware released after the standard is finalized. Another caveat is cost: Either you'll have to buy two 802.11ac routers and configure one of them as an 802.11ac bridge, or you'll have to buy one router and a dedicated 802.11ac bridge, in order to realize an 802.11ac router's full potential. And though the bridge will establish a wireless connection to the router, you'll need to use ethernet cables to connect devices to the bridge—because no desktop or laptop PC currently has built-in 802.11ac network adapters, and no USB 802.11ac network adapters exist. (Broadcom announced in June that Asus's new G75VW gaming laptop would include a built-in 802.11ac adapter; but as of September 11,Asus's website indicates that the machine has only an 802.11n adapter. Netgear, meanwhile, has announced a USB 802.11ac network adapter, but as of the same date, it had not yet shipped its A6200.)

So why should anyone consider buying an 802.11ac router? Well, if you're looking to connect up to four stationary clients in one location—a home theater PC, a smart TV, a Blu-ray player, and an A/V receiver, for instance—to a wireless network, an 802.11ac network will deliver better performance than anything else on the market. We're talking real-world throughput of 400 to 500 megabits per second (mbps) at close range; that's twice the speed of the best 802.11n routers.

And at very long range, where most 5GHz 802.11n routers peter out, an 802.11ac router can deliver throughput of between 50 mbps and 100 mbps—more than enough bandwidth to stream high-definition video. For more details on how the 802.11ac standard is designed to function, check out "Three-Minute Tech: IEEE 802.11ac" on PCWorld's new sister site, TechHive.

An 802.11ac router can also operate a concurrent 802.11n wireless network for your existing laptop, tablet, desktop PC, smartphone, and printer. In this sense, an 802.11ac router delivers the best of both worlds. As for the likelihood that the final 802.11ac standard will render products based on the 802.11ac Draft 2.0 standard obsolete, no one can guarantee that it won't, but in my opinion it's a fairly remote possibility.

If you're ready to make a leap of faith to the unfinished standard, the next question is "Which 802.11ac router is best?" I'm glad you asked. Here are my assessments of all five 802.11ac router models available for sale as of September 10, 2012, based on my tests:

• Asus RT-AC66U

• Belkin AC 1200 DB

• Buffalo WZR-1800H

• D-Link DIR-865L

• Netgear R6300

Upgrading an impossibly old system to Windows 8

PCWorld

Our own Loyd Case attempts to upgrade circa 2004 Windows XP machine to Windows 8.

A must-read for anyone thinking about installing Win8 on an old machine.

[WOW!! TAKE ME THERE]

Health Benefits of Pistachios

Although from Western Asia originally, pistachios have been eaten for thousands of years throughout the Mediterranean. Nuts in general are a great source of protein and healthy fats, but did you know that pistachios have numerous additional benefits? Scientists have found these little tough nuts to be useful in preventing cancer, lowering lipids in the prevention of heart disease, and preventing diabetes, all while delivering a good source of antioxidants. And these aren’t the only health benefits of pistachios.


Outlining the Health Benefits of Pistachios

A study published by the American Association for Cancer Research indicates that people who ate about 2 ounces of pistachios a day for four weeks saw higher blood levels of gamma-tocopherol, a type of vitamin E. Gamma-tocopherol is known to protect against various cancers, including lung cancer. A powerful fat-soluble antioxidant, the vitamin E in pistachios is also essential for beautiful skin, protection from UV radiation damage, and strengthening cell membranes.



Another study found that eating pistachios lowered lipids and lipoproteins, a risk factor for heart disease. The researchers report that “Inclusion of pistachios in a healthy diet beneficially affects cardiovascular disease risk factors in a dose-dependent manner, which may reflect effects on Stearoyl CoA Desaturase (SCD). “ Penny Kris-Etherton, professor of nutrition and primary investigator of the study also says: ”our study has shown that pistachios, eaten with a heart healthy diet, may decrease a person’s CVD risk profile.”

According to research published in the Journal of Nutrition, a diet rich in pistachios (1.5 to 3 ounces per day) was linked to increased beta-carotene and gamma-tocopherol in the blood.

There is evidence that pistachios, rich in phosphorus, may have positive effects on the prevention of Type 2 diabetes, aiding in glucose tolerance. Vitamin B6 in pistachios can increase blood health by boosting the amount of oxygen carried in the blood stream, boost the immune system, and help support a healthy nervous system. The antioxidants found in pistachios can also prevent a harmful process called glycation, which makes proteins unusable. This process ultimately helps diabetes to damages tissues, as sugars end up bonding inappropriately.

Other research shows that a diet rich in pistachios (1.5 to 3 ounces per day) was linked to increased beta-carotene, alpha-carotene, lutein, and gamma-tocopherol in the blood. The carotenoids found in pistachios offer overall protection from free radicals, and also help to decrease the risk of age-related macular degeneration – a primary cause of vision problems and developed blindness. Alpha carotene-rich foods have also been shown to prevent cancer and heart disease.

How to Increase Pistachio Consumption

So, how can you increase your pistachio consumption and reap the health benefits of pistachios? Easily. These little nuts make a great snack. Here are some ideas:
Throw pistachios on a salad
Serve them with fruit
Munch on them during a movie
Chop and cook them with brown rice and herbs
Add them to a natural, homemade trail mix
Use them in place of pine nuts in a pesto
Crush them, make a paste with garlic and olive oil, and serve on top of baked salmon as a pistachio butter

It’s not difficult to get a few ounces of pistachios into your daily diet; the nuts are versatile and so tasty. And with the multiple health benefits of pistachios, they should be at the top of your go-to health food list!

Benefit Summary – Pistachios are great for:
Heart health
Eye health
Skin health
Diabetes control
Cancer prevention
Immune system
Slowing aging process

Source: Natural Society

Moving to a better neighborhood will make you healthier and happier

The Wall Street Journal
Moving to a better neighborhood will make you healthier and happier:

http://on.wsj.com/SIeQE7

A new study tracked thousands of low-income families moving from impoverished areas to mixed-income neighborhoods. It found significantly lower rates of diabetes, obesity, and anxiety.

Photo: Since relocating to the suburbs, Sabrina Oliver began studying to be a substance-abuse counselor at Anne Arundel Community College in Maryland.
Credit: Jonathan Hanson for The Wall Street Journal.

THIEVING TECHNIQUES

The Wall Street Journal





The Wall Street Journal

World-wide, tourists are victimized by criminals at much higher rates than local residents. How to protect yourself against pickpockets:http://on.wsj.com/SENMWk

Creating diversions is a common tactic. A thief may squirt something on victims, drop coins in front of them or show them a map and ask for directions. Another tactic is for a fake police officer to demand to see your wallet, which is then swiped.

Have you ever had your wallet or purse stolen? What are your tips for protecting yourself?

7 Ways LinkedIn Can Drive More Traffic to Your Website

Entrepreneur Magazine
What's your preferred way to use LinkedIn? As a networking tool, an outreach platform, or something else?

7 Ways LinkedIn Can Drive More Traffic to Your Website www.entrepreneur.com
LinkedIn isn't just for networking. Here's how it can drive more traffic to your website than Facebook and Twitter.Get the latest blog articles on...

How to Build an Ethical Business Culture

Entrepreneur Magazine
The best way to foster a positive, ethical office culture is to ______.

How to Build an Ethical Business Culturewww.entrepreneur.com
Three steps to make sure your employees' behavior is above board.Get the latest blog articles on business ideas and trends from Entrepreneur.com. Daily...

For super-fast traders, there's a way to jump ahead in line

The Wall Street Journal
For super-fast traders, there's a way to jump ahead in line:
http://on.wsj.com/PTTpTQ

High-frequency traders sometimes use a special type of order to step in front of ordinary investors to buy and sell stocks. The maneuvers are executed in a fraction of a second, fueling concerns about whether the fastest traders gain unfair advantages.

Graphic: Mike Sudal/The Wall Street Journal

Patience is a virtue when it comes to hiring

Patience is a virtue when it comes to hiring

09.17.2012



When Craig Michels landed a long-sought job on June 18 as a project manager for a Wisconsin construction company, he credited his determination and patient attitude, two things he says are imperative when trying to find a job, the Post-Crescent reports.

"This was the job I was looking for, it was the right kind of job compared to my previous position, which really just wasn’t satisfying and not what I really wanted," the 32-year-old said.

Michels added that he remained employed while looking for a job, fully aware of the stagnant economy, but felt things were looking up enough that finding a new, a better job was possible. However, he took his time to search out the ideal position, which to him would be an active, outdoor job. By thoroughly reviewing his options, he was able to find a job in which he oversees construction projects from beginning to end, according to the news source.

This approach to hiring has also been taken by employers, who are finding in recent months that virtues similar to Michels' help yield strong results. Although unemployment in Wisconsin has fallen as the overall economy improves, employers in the northeastern part of the state say the region is still brimming with laid-off mid level employees and new college graduates.

"There still are people out there looking, who are looking for work to just to work, not because the position is something they really want," said Kelly Mallaman, human resources manager for Menasha-based Faith Technologies, an electrical services contractor.

Mallaman added that she often receives dozens of resumes for one open position, with job candidates ranging from experienced and overqualified to those who have not had the appropriate training for the job. However, Mallaman says, sifting meticulously through the resumes is ultimately worth finding the perfect hire.

"The goal for us is to have the top candidates selected to bring in for interviews," she said.

According to the news provider, finding the right fit is an increasingly important task for companies. Even finding workers for entry level positions can be a serious challenge, said Julie Van Vonderen, vice president of operations at Prospera Credit Union.

Van Vonveren said that when her company has an opening for a $10-dollar-an-hour teller position, she often receives an overwhelming number of applicants in response.

"I may get 200 resumes for that job and you may run across an out-of-work CEO who’s just looking for anything," she said.

However, Van Vonderen said now she turns to temporary staffing agencies to help her with such hiring - a move many businesses are making to fill their entry-level or low-skilled positions.

"When I use a staffing firm [for a teller position], I can provide them with the rate of pay, how many hours the job is per week and tell them I need someone with cash-handling experience," Van Vonderen said. "It’s their job to then sort through the dozens of applicants and find the top [few] that they think are a good fit for my opening."

The demand for temporary staffing services is evident in the growth of the industry in 2012 alone. According to the American Staffing Association, to date, temporary and contract staffing has grown 23.5 percent since the beginning of 2012. The ASA Staffing Index for August came in at 92, making it 0.9 percent higher than July's report.

This number is expected to rise in the coming months, as staffing employment typically peaks between mid-November and mid-December every year.

The Cross in Our Bodies

The Cross in Our Bodies









This is a pretty neat story and an interesting thing that few of us know. It's brief, so please read (from a doctor).

A couple of days ago I was running (I use that term loosely) on my treadmill, watching a DVD sermon by Louie Giglio... And I was BLOWN AWAY! I want to share what I learned. I fear not being able to convey it as well as I want but I will share anyway.

He (Louie) was talking about how inconceivably BIG our God is... How He spoke the universe into being... How He breathes stars out of His mouth that are huge raging balls of fire, etc. etc. Then he went on to speak of how this star-breathing, universe-creating God knitted our human bodies together with amazing detail and wonder. At this point I am LOVING it (fascinating from a medical standpoint, you know). And I was remembering how I was constantly amazed during med school as I learned more and more about God's handiwork. I remember so many times thinking, 'How can anyone deny that a Creator did all of this?'

Louie went on to talk about how we can trust that the God who created all this, also has the power to hold it all together when things seem to be falling apart...how our loving Creator is also our sustainer.

Then I lost my breath, and it wasn't because I was running my treadmill!!!

It was because he started talking about laminin. I knew about laminin.

Here is how Wikipedia describes them: 'Laminins are a family of proteins that are an integral part of the structural scaffolding of basement membranes in almost every animal tissue'

You see.... Laminins are what holds us together... LITERALLY. They are cell-adhesion molecules. They are what holds one cell of our bodies to the next cell. Without them, we would literally fall apart. I knew this already, but what I didn't know is what they looked like.

But now I do. And I have thought about it a thousand times since... Here is what the structure of laminin looks like... AND THIS IS NOT a christian portrayal of it.... If you look up laminin in any scientific/medical piece of literature, this is what you will see.



Now tell me that our God is not the coolest!!! The glue that holds us together is in the shape of the cross. Immediately Colossians 1:15-17 comes to mind. 'He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities. All things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things HOLD TOGETHER.' Colossians 1:15-17

Thousands of years before the world knew anything about laminin, Paul penned those words. And now we see that from a very LITERAL standpoint,we are held together...one cell to another....by the cross.

You would never in a quadrillion years convince me that is anything other than the mark of a Creator who knew exactly what laminin 'glue' would look like long before Adam breathed his first breath!