Archive for March 30th, 2008

0% APR Credit Cards: How To Take Advantage Of 0% Introductory Offers

Sunday, March 30th, 2008

Ed Vegliante

In today’s credit-driven world, companies want your business, and often offer enticing deals to get it. Perhaps one of the biggest of these deals is the 0% APR feature. Many credit cards come with a certain period in which you pay absolutely nothing in interest. This can really work to your advantage. If you understand how the 0% APR offer works and plan strategically, you can make the most of your credit card deal. Here’s how.

What APR Means

The annual percentage rate, or APR, represents how much you pay in interest on a credit card. It is expressed as a yearly rate. So if your card comes with an 18% APR, and you carry a balance of $1,000 for a year, you will have to pay $180 in interest annually.

However, if you apply for a 0% APR credit card, you will not have to pay anything toward interest for an initial period of time. This timeframe varies from card to card, but usually lasts between six months to a year. Let’s say your card comes with a 0% APR for twelve months. If you carry a balance of $1,000 during the first year, you will not owe a dime in interest. That’s a savings of $180 compared to the card with a rate of 18%.

Balance Transfers vs. Purchases

Some cards let you apply the 0% APR toward balance transfers. This means that if you are carrying a balance on a different card with a high interest rate, you can bring over the amount to your new card. Then you can pay off the debt, interest-free. This is a great option if you’re struggling to pay off a nagging balance. Simply bring it over to the 0% APR card. Then try to pay it off during the interest-free period. So if you have a balance of $1,200 with 0% APR for six months, set aside $200 each month and pay off the debt.

Other cards apply the 0% APR to purchases. With this setup, you can use the card to shop, and then not worry about paying interest. You will have a few months to get rid of the balance, and will save a good amount of money in interest during that time.

Finding a card that offers an introductory period of 0% APR for balance transfers, purchases, or both, is easy. Most major credit card companies, including Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express, include it in their list of features. If you browse a credit card website, you’ll quickly come across 0% APR options. As you look through the different listings, note which cards offer a zero percent introductory rate and for how long. After a certain period, a regular interest rate will set in. Check what the normal rate is before you apply.

Use it to Your Advantage

The benefits of a 0% APR card can add up fast. If you want to pay off a balance, you get the chance to do so without having to worry about interest. If you want to make a large purchase, you can take a few months to pay for it with zero interest charges. Fill out an application today, and get ready to watch the savings rack up.

Click here to find 0% APR Credit Card Offers. Ed Vegliante runs www.Credit-Card-Surplus.com, a directory helping consumers to compare and apply for credit cards.

Do Internet Businesses Really Work?

Sunday, March 30th, 2008

G. White

You may have heard rumors of people making tons of money on the internet, whether it’s from selling things on eBay or just maintaining a website that actually pays them because of the advertisements they have on it. Are any of these rumors actually true? Are others making money with internet businesses, or are they all just scams and overblown promises?

In reality, internet businesses usually do very well depending on what is being sold and how they’re maintained. Many people do quite a bit of shopping online, purchasing everything from sporting goods to gift baskets to cosmetics and even edible items. Understanding what people buy online and what they still need to see in an actual store before they purchase is part of making internet businesses successful.

Retail Type Internet Businesses

If you’re considering starting an online retail site, you first need to ask yourself what people would buy online. For example, wedding dresses they’ll want to try on before they purchase, but wedding favors can be purchased online. Their own groceries will probably still need to be bought from the corner store, but gift baskets they have mailed to someone else can be purchased on the internet. By using some common sense you can figure out what things can be sold through internet businesses.

Some people that start retail type internet businesses purchase overstock merchandise from a wholesaler. This means that you get a large amount of merchandise for a small price, and then turn around and sell these items from your website. This might be cosmetics or other health and beauty products, clothes, shoes, sporting goods, electronics, and so on.

Drop Shipping

Drop shipping is one of the most common ways that people begin their internet businesses. This refers to selling the products that are manufactured by someone else, and the other company actually handles the order fulfillment from their warehouse. You advertise the products on your site and set up an order processing method. You also handle the payments and collection. You then in turn pass the orders on to the company that produces and ships the goods, and they mail out the packages. They get a percent of the cost of the orders you’ve received. These types of internet businesses are very common; this is why you might find the same brand of a certain product being sold through many different websites.

To qualify for any type of drop shipping Internet businesses, you probably need a sales tax certificate from your state and then you send the company that produces the products a sales tax exemption certificate. They of course have the right to reject or refuse your application to sell their products on your site, but there are many places that are drop shippers so if you get rejected by your first choice, move on to another.

eBay

eBay is of course one of the most prominent of all the methods for successful internet businesses. People are finding that they can sell all sorts of items through an eBay store; many do the same retail type store or drop shipping type of business through eBay. There are costs that you incur to run an eBay store but these are usually minimal.

Also, you can typically find unusual items or use your creativity when it comes to running internet businesses through eBay. If there is a thrift store near you, there may be items you can find there such as designer clothes or household goods. Children’s clothes also do well through eBay.

Selling Ad Space

Most internet businesses sell ad space on their site or set up an account through Google Adsense, meaning that ads run on your site and when a visitor clicks on them, you get paid. You may not actually get rich from this type of arrangement, but these ads often help pay for the charge you incur in maintaining a website.

Find legitimate Internet business at ==> http://www.legit-homebusinesses.com

Do You Want To Be Your Own Boss And Earn As Much Money As You Want? Here Are Three Strategies To Make Your Dreams Come True

Sunday, March 30th, 2008

Susan Thomas

Buy and Hold

Buy stocks of great companies and hold on to them for a long period to decrease your risk and maximize potential for higher returns. When conducting research, analyze the past 10 years growth, along with the company management and future plans. Set aside time on a regular basis for evaluation of your stock performance and make decisions to buy or sell based on your research. This option requires the least amount of time investment as your strategy is to hold on to the stock over a long period of time. This option also makes sense for younger traders who can take on a higher risk tolerance.

Buy and Trade

This strategy is based on buying stocks and trading regularly based on peaks and valleys. When conducting research, analyze the past 1 to 5 years growth and review immediate growth programs. You will want to evaluate growth and performance on a daily basis. Doubling Stocks can ease this task while increasing your returns. Doubling Stocks takes the work out of deciding what stocks in which to invest. Doubling Stocks is a weekly newsletter which provides readers one penny stock pick per week. This stock is selected by a database that analyzes stock patterns and has created 86 millionaires and 13 multi-millionaires. Each pick in the Doubling Stocks newsletter has made an average 105.28% increase, usually within 3 hours of market opening. The penny stock market is volatile and can increase 400% within a matter of minutes. By managing the smaller amounts, this software yields much higher returns. There are only a limited number of subscriptions to Doubling Stocks left, so if you are interested in becoming the 87th millionaire, act now!

Buy Stocks and Currency

This strategy is based on investing in equities and currency as equal portions of your portfolio. When conducting research, analyze short term growth and review performance daily. The foreign exchange is the largest financial market in the world, and includes trading between large banks, central banks, currency speculators, multinational corporations, governments, and other financial markets and institutions. This market exists whenever one currency is traded for another and is growing in importance as an asset class. The diverse selection of executions and internet trading platforms has made it easier for retail traders to trade in the foreign exchange market.

Interested in trading in the foreign exchange market but worried about how to know when and what to trade? Forex Killer, the only working forex signal generator on the market today. This software analyzes the Foreign Exchange Market and allows you the independence to trade your own money. This proven software does the thinking for you and eliminates the “human error” factor in trading. This software can be used and understood by the average independent trader as well as the newbie! There are currently over 13,000 trading customers utilizing the Forex Killer software and making great returns. Many customers indicate that they spend only a few minutes each day checking their trades and spend their remaining time enjoying the returns!

These three simple earning strategies and tools can allow you unlimited earning potential and the freedom to work for yourself on your terms!

Click Here! for more information about what you learned above.

Do You Want To Make More Money In Your Portfolio? Here Are Four Easy Ways To Increase Your Returns.

Sunday, March 30th, 2008

Susan Thomas

Does the stock market intimidate you? Do you wish you could participate but don’t know how to get started? Do you have a portfolio, but want to increase your returns? It is easier than you may think.

Plan

The first step to increasing the value of your portfolio is to take time to plan. First, decide your risk tolerance. If you are planning to hold your investment for many years, you can afford to take greater risks as you have more time to recoup the returns. If you are older and nearing retirement, it may make sense to invest in funds with lower risk, as you may need to access your funds sooner than later.

Next, decide how much time you can invest in your portfolio as this will help you determine your investment needs. Are you always at your computer and willing to make trades when you receive notice or would you rather just invest your money and not worry about it until you need it? This is something in which you should discuss with your financial planner if you have one, or to keep in mind as you research different investment options.

A third important planning step is to set a goal - be aggressive, but realistic. Communicate this goal to your financial planner and keep track of your progress.

Education

Take some time to learn about different ways you can make money. There are many options, invest your hard earned money into a fund that makes sense for your needs. Once you know what kind of investment you want to make, set up an account and get started growing your portfolio.

If you need help deciding on how to invest your money there are many online tools available to help you reach your investment goals.

Doubling Stocks is a weekly newsletter which provides readers one penny stock pick per week. This stock is selected by a database that analyzes stock patterns and has created 86 millionaires and 13 multi-millionaires. Each pick in the Doubling Stocks newsletter has made an average 105.28% increase, usually within 3 hours of market opening. The penny stock market is volatile and can increase 400% within a matter of minutes. By managing the smaller amounts, this software yields much higher returns. There are only a limited number of subscriptions to Doubling Stocks left, so if you are interested in becoming the 87th millionaire, act now!

Another option is Forex Killer, the only working forex signal generator on the market today. This software analyzes the Foreign Exchange Market and allows you the independence to trade your own money. This proven software does the thinking for you and eliminates the “human error” factor in trading. This software can be used and understood by the average independent trader as well as the newbie! There are currently over 13,000 trading customers utilizing the Forex Killer software and making great returns. Many customers indicate that they spend only a few minutes each day checking their trades and spend their remaining time enjoying the returns!

Implementation

Now that you have decided how you want to invest, it’s time to implement your plans. It is important to set aside time daily to check your stocks and make adjustments as necessary. Do not avoid reviewing your returns; be prepared to deal with losses as they will happen in the ever changing market. Finally, make your own decisions about what is best for you. There are several opinions all over the news and internet, do some research and make the decision that best fits with the amount of risk you are willing to tolerate.

As your portfolio grows over time, review your decisions regularly and tweak as necessary to move closer to your end goal. It is possible to significantly grow your portfolio in a simple and secure manner!

Click Here! for more information about what you learned above.

Which Retirement Plans Will Fit Your Goals?

Sunday, March 30th, 2008

G. White

It used to be many years ago that retirement plans meant getting the pension your company gave you along with your social security payments from the government and any savings you have on your own, and living comfortably in a downsized apartment throughout your golden years. For some this type of financial plan is sufficient for their needs; they may have a well-funded pension from a corporation that will provide well for them. But for most, you will need to make your own retirement plans when it comes to your financial health in order keep yourself afloat financially, and to make those dreams you’ve had for retirement a reality. It’s of course easy to get overwhelmed with the many options that are available to you when it comes to financial retirement plans, and you should speak to a financial advisor or counselor when making these decisions if you still have questions, but we can give you some general information that will explain some of the details a bit more clearly.

Defined Benefit Retirement Plans

Defined benefit retirement plans as provided by employers guarantee a certain payout upon your retirement, which depends on the retiree’s previous salary and the number of years he or she has been contributing to this plan. These may be referred to as funded meaning that there are contributions from one’s employer and sometimes from the plan members. In unfunded retirement plans, there are no funds set aside but the benefits are paid out of current taxes and social security contributions.

401(k) Retirement Plans

A 401(k) allows a person to save for retirement while deferring the taxes to be paid on the funds in the plan until they are actually paid out. Some are what are called participant directed, meaning the worker may decide on the investment options for the funds that are set aside to fund the 401(k). They may opt for stocks, bonds, money market accounts, or a mix of all of these. Most of these retirement plans also allow an employee to purchase a portion of company stock as part of this investment portfolio. These are the most common types of 401(k) plans; in trustee directed plans, which are much more unusual, the employer would appoint a trustee to oversee all the investment decisions of that plan.

Roth IRA Retirement Plans

One of the main characteristics of a Roth IRA is that the money put into this retirement fund has already been taxed as income; therefore, when the money becomes available to the retiree he or she does not pay taxes on it at that time. In contrast to a traditional IRA, contributions to a Roth IRA are not tax-deductible. This may not be advantageous to some who are in a higher tax bracket and expect the contributions to their retirement plans to help with the tax bill. At any time, the Roth IRA owner may withdraw up to the total of their contributions without tax or penalty. There are income limits for those who want to contribute to a Roth IRA.

Traditional IRA Retirement Plans

In a traditional IRA, the account is held at a bank or brokerage house, and may be invested how the custodian for the plan allows. There are no income provisions for a traditional IRA, but there are more restrictions when it comes to early withdrawal. Since the dollars funding the IRA have not yet been taxed, they are subject to federal taxes upon withdrawal.

The main advantage to traditional IRA retirement plans is that their contributions are tax deductible. This has definite advantages for someone during the year of the contributions. However, a Roth IRA typically offers more shelter on one’s assets than a traditional IRA.

Choosing Between the Retirement Plans

No one can tell you what the best choice is for you; even your financial advisor can only give you all the relevant information on how the different retirement plans affect your money and its potential growth. It’s up to you to decide which option you’re more comfortable with. Some people want to make their own decisions about where their money is invested and some would rather leave the decisions to others; some would prefer to pay the taxes on their contributions now while others would prefer to wait until the funds are disbursed. You need to educate yourself thoroughly and then make the decision that works best for you.

Get FREE information about retirements plans and more ==> http://RetirementTips.org

Developing Your Own Retirement Plan Is Not That Difficult

Sunday, March 30th, 2008

John Chomsky

For most people it can be a bit daunting to even think about retirement itself let alone think about developing a plan their retirement. The moment you start looking in to it and start to get informed on the subject it will get a lot easier. First of all you have to keep in mind that developing a retirement plan will take some hard work but can be very rewarding in the end knowing that when you do retire that there will be some money to look forward to.

We need to get Started

Before you start to develop your retirement plan you should take a good look at your life. You need to find out how much money you can set aside for your retirement. So you need to know how much money comes in and how much money goes out, every month. Also take a good deep look at your present lifestyle and what you could save if you were to make a few minor adjustments.

A large group of people these days are spending more then they earn each month, sometimes double the amount. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that this damages their financial situation. This is exactly the reason people are so deeply in debt and can’t think of a way out. When you start to develop a retirement plan you could also see a way out of this growing debt because you are forced to take a good look at your present lifestyle. You’ll see that you will need to make some drastic changes. So thinking about and developing your retirement plan could also have a positive effect on your present financial position.

Types of Individual Retirement Accounts

If you want to develop a retirement plan you should know about the advantages of an Individual Retirement Account or IRA. An IRA gets you either a tax-free way of saving or at least a tax-deferred way of saving for your retirement.There are a few type of IRA and the major two are the traditional and the Roth IRA.

If you go for a traditional IRA you are allowed a tax-deductible contribution per year of up to $4,000, that is if your under the age of 40, if your over the are over the age of 40 it could even be more. The Roth IRA is more tailored towards the middle-class Americans. The Roth IRA doesn’t offer a tax deduction directly but does provides much more flexibility for the contributor.

You should always keep in mind that you don’t have to re-invent the wheel again. There is always the option to ask some great professionals for help. If you need help you should look for a good financial adviser. When you go to your bank or some other financial institution they should be able to help you find such an adviser. Using a financial adviser in developing your retirement plan is a wise thing to do.

It’s never to late to start planning your retirement but the earlier you begin the less it will cost you to end up with the monthly amount you’ll need once your retired. The earlier you start the more you can save and have a comfortable en relaxing retirement.

John Chomsky worked as a consultant helping other people plan for their retirement. Almost forgetting his own. He helps people out at www.planning-a-retirement.com

Internet Affiliate Marketing As A Home Business

Sunday, March 30th, 2008

Mohd Sabri Mohammad

To be able to quit one’s day job and start a business is a dream of so many people. The thought of being one’s own boss, is just so wonderful. No more hassle of facing the traffic jams in the morning. No more stress of doing what one is doing just for the sake of earning a living. Not many people have the luxury of earning a living out of their passion such as musicians, singers and painters. How I envy them. My skills and talents in the creative line is as good as a scarecrow with a guitar or a cow trying to belt out Il Divo’s Hasta El Final…

Reality often strikes - hard. Too many people having to do what they hate to do is just a very disturbing thought. No wonder the world is full of unhappy faces. How many people can afford to quit a job and start a business? Many hardly earn enough to pay for mortgages and loans. Let alone sacrificing the hard earn few dollars kept in the bank for emergency use - if there is any at all. The savings, I mean. Even if you have some money to spare, do you have the expertise? How well-verse are you in accounting and inventory control? Do you have space to stock up the goods? How about delivery? How about customers’ complains and warranty claims? Boy, sure sounds like real, hard work. Maybe, the day job is less stressful after all.

Fortunately, there are many ways to earn a living doing business at almost no cost - stress free. Affiliate marketing is one of them. The concept of affiliate marketing is something that the creator should get a Noble price for. To be able to sell herbal remedies, books, vacation packages, travel bookings, financial, tax and insurance services from one’s own home is not only wonderful, but fantastic. Wonderful because you can start your business risk and stress free. Fantastic because you have to know nothing about what you sell. Everything is being taken care of. You just have to market them. For working mums, it will be such an ideal choice. More so if you are a single parent. The extra quality time that you can now have with you children is just priceless.

Now the next question is, what should you promote? There are many affiliate programs that you can register for free. Most of them require you to have an account either with Pay Pal or Click Bank. Both of which are free services. It’s a great way of getting your commissions credited into your account the instant you close a sale. The best part is, commissions from the various programs that you joined can be accumulated into one single account which you can withdraw whenever you want. You can of course, most of the time, opt for the commissions to be paid by checks by the programs that you joined, individually. However, most companies only make monthly payments.

Choosing the right products to promote is very important if you do not want to waste your time. There are countless of products which we thought are great and wonderful but are just not moving because nobody wants them. As a general rule, promote only products that you yourself would buy online. Scented candles for instance - will just not work. I don’t know you, but I certainly would like to have a sniff of the scent before I buy it. I do not want to end up having a room that smells like somebody’s basement.

After signing up for great products, now its time to market them. As you very well understand, business is all about getting the products promoted to as many people as possible. In a brick and mortar environment, getting your confectionery shop set up right smack on the busiest street in town is probably the best advertising that you can get. The more visibility you get the more chances of people walking into your store; hence the better chance of you selling that wonderful home made candy.

Home based internet marketing is no different. Your sales are very much dependent on the amount of traffic that visits your website. Even if you do not have a website, the same formula applies - where and how you promote your programs are very important. You can have the most beautiful looking and the most user friendly website to promote your products but it will be just plain useless if there are no visitors. You can submit your website to hundreds and even thousands of search engines available today but there is no guarantee that they will even list you. Lets say you are lucky to be indexed and listed. Your website might be in page 2527 listed as one of the 2,045,893 search results! How often did you venture beyond page ten or even page five? I personally will go through only up to page five. In fact most of the time, page 3 was as far as I went before I switch to another search engine.

So how to get listed in the fist few pages? The answer is to include as many relevant keywords as possible reflecting your site content and perform some technical tricks on your website by including meta tags and include as many articles as possible . You see, search engines employ robots - always referred to as spiders. Google has “Googlebot” and Alta Vista has “Scooter”. Their job is to crawl into websites looking for relevant subjects or items demanded by a surfer once the enter button is hit. These robots will do their search based on the word or phrase entered into the search box. The more relevant your site content is to match the search request, the better your chances are to be on the front pages. So, relevant articles with good keywords promoting your products can make a lot of difference.

If you have a few dollars to spare to get a search engine submission service to do all the work for you, please do some research before you sign up with them. Check what comes with the subscription. Is there a 24 hour hotline number? Is there a live online support? Is there a guarantee? Make sure you get a service worth the monthly fee. There are companies out there for instance that charge up to US$30 monthly for a submission service to search engines and make claims that your website will always get good spots within the first 3 search pages or so that will guarantee swarms of visitors to your site. The question is how sure are you that they are really doing their job themselves? How sure are you that they did not actually paid only US$10 a month to another company that does all the real hard work? Now that’s a good US$20 profit from your account every month. What if there are 1000 website owners who are so eager to market their products in this over US$6 Billion industry thought that US$30 monthly is really cheap to pay? What if there are 10,000 people? Now you do the math.. The point is, make sure you get what you paid for and for the right price. Hunt around and make price comparisons.

Relax, do not panic. Do not get discouraged. Search engine optimization of your site is not the only way to promote your affiliate programs effectively. Remember those who do not own a website? The norm in affiliate program marketing is that, you will be given an affiliate link that consists of a unique ID to point all sales to your account. The simplest way to sell the product is by merely putting that link into your emails, facebook, myspace and other social networking sites as long as you do it smartly without violating their terms of use. Just let your creativity flows.

The other great way to promote this link is by registering it with traffic exchanges and list builders. There are many out there offering this services for free. Some works, some does not. What this link will do is, once people click on it, they will be directed to the merchant’s website. Any sales made, you will get a commission. Even if you don’t make a sale, you might get a sign-up as your downline.

Some merchants even went the extra length as to providing you with your “own” website. You don’t really have the liberty to customize the look as you fancy but some of them do give you an interface to communicate with your downlines through that website so it appears to be more professional. It even has your name and ID right at the top. Fantastic, is it not?

What if you are an affiliate to more than twenty merchants? Its then time to have a website where you can include all the banners and links to promote them. I had 50 at one point. Can you imagine? I started at zero cost. Well, almost. Internet service, electricity and time were my only investments when I first started. You can get free website domain and hosting but it comes with a whole lot of unwanted advertising that might distract your potential customers from buying your products. So the next best thing is, blog instead - with all the links and banners built in, of course. How to promote a blog? Easy. Just make comments in other people’s blogs.

This is another way to get your products promoted. When you make comments, make sure to include your address link. This will send swarms of curious traffic to your blog provided that your comments sparked some interest for people to get to know you better. Half the battle won! Just make sure that you do not include too many merchants in one address. If you have a lot, do like what I did. One blog for ten to twelve merchants (even that was a lot) and then have another general business blog to include all the links to your other blogs/sites. So you only have to promote one blog to promote the other five or ten…

You can also promote your blog or website by participating in forums but make sure not to hard sell. Do not even suggest visiting your site/blog. Remember, people will be curious if you make interesting and useful comments. No need to hard sell and appears desperate. Cheap classified ads in your local news papers can bring good returns if you target the right ones. Try putting your website or blog address on a sticker and paste it on you car. You will be pleasantly surprised by the number of traffic that you get by doing just a simple thing…

All the best.

A full time internet marketer working happily from home. Visit http://www.homebiz4ever.com to see how to promote six tested and proven affiliate programs simultaneously to earn a residual income. Visit http://homebiz4ever.blogspot.com to see how easy it is to promote your business websites.

Why Bear Stearns Matters To All Of Us

Sunday, March 30th, 2008

Robert F. Abbott

It’s tempting isn’t it, to smirk at the recent Bear Stearns collapse: How the mighty have fallen. After all, the people running this company were not only bankers, but Wall Street investment bankers, and everyone knows they’re too proud and too arrogant, right?

But, chances are, your mutual fund or pension fund may have had a stake in Bear Stearns and lost a packet of money when the company was sold to JP Morgan for a fraction of the value it had before the subprime mortgage issue began it.

That means your pension could be a bit smaller than would otherwise be the case. Or it might mean your pension fund has to increase the amount it deducts from your pay, to meet its targets.

For example, the Police and Fire Retirement System of the City of Detroit is concerned enough to have launched a lawsuit, aiming to stop the takeover by JP Morgan.

While I don’t have a list of who has, and who hasn’t invested in Bear Stearns, I suspect institutional investors (mostly pension funds, mutual funds, insurance companies investing shareholder premiums, and the like) are big holders.

Do a Google search for “Bear Stearns pensions” (without the quotation marks) and you’ll get a sense of the concern felt among those who must bring in retirement income for working people.

Here’s one example: It’s the opening paragraph in a story by WAAY-TV in Huntsville, Alabama on March 17, 2008: “Alabama’s pension system has 73,150 shares of Bear Stearns stock, which dropped dramatically in share value in recent days and is affected by the acquisition plans of JPMorgan Chase & Co.”

To put that in more concrete terms, the stock had been worth as much as $170 a share last year, then it sold for $2 per share. So, multiply 73,150 shares by $168 dollars (the amount by which the shares plunged in value) equals $12,289,200. That’s 12 and a quarter million fewer dollars available for current and future pensioners in Alabama .

So, the bad luck of the Wall Street bankers may be bad luck for you, too. That may hold even across borders; pension funds and mutual funds in other countries and on other continents may have invested in Bear Stearns as well. Almost all funds want exposure beyond their own borders, because diversity means more security and more consistent returns.

On the other hand, maybe your pension fund or mutual fund had money in JP Morgan, but not in Bear Stearns. In that case, you can congratulate yourself on apparently getting some new assets for perhaps pennies on the dollar. That could make your pension a bit bigger at no cost to you.

It’s become a fact of life that working people and big businesses are connected at the hip by more than jobs. Corporations need money from pension funds and mutual funds to finance their expansions and other activities, while the funds need the profits of corporations to fund retirement incomes.

So, we’re all capitalists now, and as the National Lampoon’s take on Desiderata put it so cynically, ?”Go placidly

Amid the noise and waste.

And remember what comfort there may be

In owning a piece thereof.”

(National Lampoon Radio Dinner, 1972)

Discover how politics and national economies are being shaped by new connections among working people, corporate profits, and pensions at Robert Abbott’s blog, People, Profits, & Pensions.