All the economic news released during the week indicated that future inflation concerns should be minimal. In addition, the Fed purchased more mortgage-backed securities (MBS) than in any prior week. Despite these favorable events, however, mortgage rates rose slightly during the week. The reason is that concerns about the enormous supply of debt that the government will need to issue outweighed the other factors.
The amount of money the US Treasury will need to borrow to fund government spending seems to rise every week. Two weeks ago, it was the $787 billion Economic Stimulus Plan. Last week, the government announced the $275 billion Financial Stability Plan. This week, the Obama administration proposed a $3.6 trillion budget plan, with an estimated deficit of $1.75 trillion, which is enormous by historical standards. The Treasury will need to issue debt to borrow money to fund all of this. As the government issues more debt, the interest rate offered generally must rise to attract additional investors. Interest rates on similar investments such as MBS then move higher as well to compete for funds from investors.
Reflecting their concerns about an increase in supply, investors required higher interest rates at the large Treasury auctions during the week. The auction results showed that demand from foreign investors remained strong, which was very good news. If foreign investors should ever reduce their purchases of US bonds, then interest rates in the US would be likely to rise.
Also Notable:
January Existing Home sales fell 5% to the lowest level since 1997
Continued Jobless Claims rose above five million to a new record high
The Dow stock index dropped to the lowest level since 1997
The Fed purchased $25 billion in agency MBS during the week ending 2/26
The important Employment report will come out on Friday. As usual, this data on the number of jobs, the Unemployment Rate, and wage inflation will be the most highly anticipated economic data of the month. Early estimates are for a loss of over 600K jobs in February. Before the Employment Data, the ISM national manufacturing index and Personal Income will come out on Monday. Pending Home Sales, a leading indicator for the housing market, is scheduled for Tuesday. Productivity will be released on Thursday. Factory Orders, Construction Spending, and the ISM Service index will round out a busy week.
We've all had 100's of contact ratio discussions. I feel like this piece is one discussion I had with myself; it's a subject that comes up all the time. I'm sitting here at my comuter at 11 pm at night wondering what I want to do with the 3 debt settlement leads that just came in. And it dawns on me because I just got finished writing an e-mail to one of my website visitors 5 minutes ago. Here's how it hit me (pretty much in this order too)
It's 11pm; I can't call this guy even though he applied 15 seconds ago. Bummer.
I tell myself "Christy he's online now, send him an e-mail right now! Send him an e-mail that says Jonathan Smith I got your message" ( I just exchanged 4 e-mails with the other guy, that responded to my e-mail solicitation with "NO THANKS" We're helping him pull is credit tomorrow).
I mean it hits me, it really hits me. Companies hire bloggers all the time, set up auto-responders and buy instant messaging software; usually lacking greatly installed with automated messages that basically tell you have to wait forever. We go through great pains to fill 20 seats, 50 seats, 300 telemarketing seats. Lots of these poor chaps are working third shift from over seas to accommodate the American 'prime time calling hours'.
so I think further..
Transform the answering service system into a late night e-mail quality control process. The goal is to only tickle the applicant. Put a little bait out there and then give him just enough to double verify the lead to get a firm phone appointment for the debt settlement representative. Now I mean tickle him not make the entire presentation so the consumer just ignores the rep's call because he was given too much information that allows him to actually make a decision. The scripting would need a keen eye just as telemarketing scripts do. Create scripts and boundaries for your 'late night typers' perhaps a message to the consumer like: "Hi Jonathan, I got your message about wanting to reduce your debts. I am here now processing your online form submission. Please write back with the time you would for us to call you tomorrow." - if he replies through e-mail, then I would go so far as to reply back to him one more time to reward his response (I believe he will, in some sense, feel rewarded and also obligated to answer the call the next day). "Ok Jonathan, Mark will be calling you tomorrow at that time. Thank you for replying back to me so late. You have a nice night."
Now my Indian friends don't take offense. There will be an import consideration for this business process if outsourced. It will be imperative that the typers have a good handle on the English language in written form. Good conjugation is a MUST otherwise I believe it will kill leads not breath more life into them.
Maybe I'm just full of myself but I believe this will work to increase overall contact ratios and most importantly, sales ... You don't have to talk to someone over the phone to contact them. I have to guess that if done properly the contact ratio on leads submitted after calling hours will go up 20%, possibly more.
Investors are cheering a rare bit of good news on the housing front. February home sales rose slightly over January — the first increase in seven months. That helped prompt a rally Monday on Wall Street, which was also cheered by the sweetening of the JPMorgan Chase offer for Bear Stearns from $2 per share to $10.
But while the price for the troubled investment bank was going up, home prices continued their slump. That means housing and credit will loom large as political issues this year, and Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton is calling for more aggressive government action to help struggling homeowners.
Clinton has endorsed a plan proposed earlier this month by U.S. Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd that encourages restructuring home loans in danger of default. But now Clinton is calling for a more aggressive plan wherein the government would step in to buy at-risk mortgages.
Will it really matter if loans are restructured if the consumer is already behind?
The interest rates alone is enough to start thinking about bailing out.
Not too long ago, a client of mine called and asked me for a favor. She was looking to get support for a portal that allows realtors to post their homes on a site, by letting the consumers call an 800#, listen to the audio tour, describing a home in their area. They would then go to a site, fill out a detailed "lead", for a follow up.
Fiat currency or fiat money is money backed by government demand for it as legal tender in payment of legal liabilities, such as taxes. It is often associated with paper money because legal liabilities are created and settled by documents which are usually paper. Without government demand for certain kinds of paper as legal tender, such as bank notes, only specie is unlimited legal tender. However this is not universally true, as some currencies, (notably sterling issued by Scottish banks), are not legal tender but are accepted by longstanding confidence.
The term “fiat” currency is also used specifically to refer to a currency that is not pegged or fixed to a mass of precious metal, and similarly the term “gold standard” is used to refer to fiat currency with a gold bullion or gold coin exchange system. The term representative money is used for any currency with a law that requires the fiat currency bank of issue to pay in fixed weights of a given precious metal or (in theory) fixed amount of any other precious good.
Value of paper money
The inherent value of use of paper money is almost zero, but when it is measured in value of exchange, it becomes the manifestation of scarcity. It can then be traded for services or goods based on the exchange rate of currency from monies owners to goods/services sellers. Additionally, paper money has an intangible value that is directly related to the condition of need of its bearer. While a one hundred dollar currency may be inconsequential to a person with little material need, the same may be the governing factor with regard to homelessness, health, and even life for another with lesser means, hence, priceless. Simply put, paper money is valued at the maximum amount of consumable goods for which it can be traded, either directly or indirectly.
After World War II, the Bretton Woods system was set up, which pegged the value of the United States dollar to 1/35th of a troy ounce (888.671 milligrams) of gold (the “gold standard”) and other currencies to the U.S. dollar. The U.S. promised to redeem dollars in gold to other central banks. Trade imbalances were corrected by gold reserve exchanges or by loans from the International Monetary Fund. This system collapsed when the United States government ended the convertibility of the US dollar for gold in 1971.
Global capitalism, wherein a currency is widely traded as a commodity in itself, is more likely to rely on credit money (or debt money) which can reflect both (commodity) supplies and protections of supplies (by states’ military fiats). It is not held stable by any one state but rather by tension between states, as investment migrates from currency to currency in an open “money market”. As long as there is an international feedback mechanism, such that states attempting to inflate their currency suffer a corresponding drop in international buying power, and an internal feedback mechanism, so that the government is liable for economic failures that stem from fiscal or monetary irresponsibility, the money system does not take on the characteristics of a fiat money system. However, to proponents of hard money such mechanisms are not to be trusted, and all money not directly based on specie redeemable on demand is “fiat money”. This means that today all the currencies are fiat money, because none is based on specie redeemable on demand (generally gold).
The regime of asset-based money, or credit-based money — in which banks create currency as intermediaries and governments, in turn, back the banking system — produces a different series of problems. In no small part because it is not immediately easy to differentiate sound currencies from unsound ones, and it is possible to convert credit-based money into fiat money by a legal act or regulation. The question of confidence dominates credit-based money, the confidence that a particular central bank or government will not act in a manner contrary to its national interest by allowing the money supply to rise or fall too much. Part of the system of confidence includes holding of reserves to be able to support a currency if attacked, and the issuing of debt to regulate the supply of currency.
Hyperinflation
Hyperinflation is inflation that is "out of control," a condition in which prices increase rapidly as a currency loses its value. No precise definition of hyperinflation is universally accepted. One simple definition requires a monthly inflation rate of 20 or 30% or more. In informal usage the term is often applied to much lower rates. As a rule of thumb, normal inflation is reported per year, but hyperinflation is often reported for much shorter intervals, often per month.
The definition used by most economists is "an inflationary cycle without any tendency toward equilibrium." A vicious circle is created in which more and more inflation is created with each iteration of the cycle. Although there is a great deal of debate about the root causes of hyperinflation, it becomes visible when there is an unchecked increase in the money supply or drastic debasement of coinage, and is often associated with wars (or their aftermath), economic depressions, and political or social upheavals.
Root causes of hyperinflation
The main cause of hyperinflation is a massive and rapid increase in the amount of money, which is not supported by growth in the output of goods and services. This results in an imbalance between the supply and demand for the money (including currency and bank deposits), accompanied by a complete loss of confidence in the money, similar to a bank run. Enactment of legal tender laws and price controls to prevent discounting the value of paper money relative to gold, silver, hard currency, or commodities, fails to force acceptance of a paper money which lacks intrinsic value. If the entity responsible for printing a currency promotes excessive money printing, with other factors contributing a reinforcing effect, hyperinflation usually continues. Often the body responsible for printing the currency cannot physically print paper currency faster than the rate at which it is devaluing, thus neutralizing their attempts to stimulate the economy.
Hyperinflation is generally associated with paper money because the means to increasing the money supply with paper money is the simplest: add more zeroes to the plates and print, or even stamp old notes with new numbers. There have been numerous episodes of hyperinflation, followed by a return to "hard money". Older economies would revert to hard currency and barter when the circulating medium became excessively devalued, generally following a "run" on the store of value.
Governments will often try to disguise the true rate of inflation through a variety of techniques. These can include the following:
Outright lying as to official statistics such as money supply, inflation or reserves.
Suppression of publication of money supply statistics, or inflation indices.
Price and wage controls.
Forced savings schemes, designed to suck up excess liquidity. These savings schemes may be described as pensions schemes, emergency funds, war funds, or similar.
Adjusting the components of the Consumer Price Index, to remove those items whose prices are rising the fastest.
The stock market has been rallying after President Bush announced a deal under which mortgage lenders would cut subprime borrowers some slack and freeze rates. As such, it represents the latest effort by the financial-industrial complex to draw a bottom line under the spreading credit woes. With this action, the market seems to have concluded, the negative effects of the subprime mess may finally be contained.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the subprime flood—which has been declared contained over and over again—isn't contained yet. Newsweek's Daniel McGinn ably explains why the rate freeze is far from a panacea for all subprime borrowers. And a flood of new data indicate that the subprimewoes may be a symptom—rather than a cause—of a broader economic malady. That awful smell in Midtown isn't from the horse-drawn carriages carrying tourists around. It's the distinctive odor of debt going bad.
We've just ended a bubble in housing, in housing-related credit, and in all other types of credit. Low interest rates, competition for market share, the continual pooh-poohing of inflation, and the widespread use of securitization spurred banks and mortgage companies to lend with abandon. Any risk associated with lending could be ironed out by slicing and dicing debt and selling it to investors, who could in turn hedge their exposure to the debt through derivatives. Any remaining risk would be wiped out by growth, perpetually rising asset prices, and a willingness of other lenders to refinance existing debt on favorable terms. And so credit was available on easy terms to people in all walks of life: home buyers and real estate developers, car buyers and college students, consumers and private equity firms.
Today, however, the assumptions holding up the latticework of credit are coming apart, one by one. Even as the economy continues to expand, more and more borrowers are having difficulty remaining current on their debt. Which isn't surprising, given that median household income hasn't budged since 1999 (see Figure 1 on Page 4 of this Census report). What's more, in a natural reaction to reckless lending, mortgage companies and banks are now in money-hoarding mode and thus unable or unwilling to help Americans refinance existing debt.
The Mortgage Bankers Association today came out with its "national delinquency survey," which has nothing to do with high-school kids sniffing glue. "The delinquency rate for mortgage loans on one-to-four-unit residential properties stood at 5.59 percent of all loans outstanding in the third quarter of 2007," up from 4.61 percent a year ago. This figure, which doesn't include loans in the process of foreclosure, is "the highest in the MBA survey since 1986." While the pain was concentrated in subprime (16.31 percent of subprime loans were delinquent in the third quarter), the seasonally adjusted delinquency rate for prime loans rose to 3.12 percent from 2.73 percent in the second quarter.
As the volume and price of new home salescontinues to fall, home builders are suffering, as well. The Wall Street Journal reported (subscription required) yesterday that delinquencies on loans extended to condominium developers have risen sharply in the past year. In the third quarter, 5.9 percent of such loans were delinquent, up from 4.1 percent in the second quarter, according to Foresight Analytics.The delinquency rate for builders putting up single-family homes rose from 3 percent in the second quarter to 4.3 percent in the third quarter.
Other types of consumer debt, which have nothing to do with housing and nothing to do with subprime, are going bad, too. The Wall Street Journal reported today that "about 4.5% of auto loans made in 2006 to top-rated borrowers were at least 30 days delinquent as of the end of September, up from 2.9% the previous month, according to a Lehman Brothers survey of companies servicing these loans." In October, Fortune's Peter Gumble warned that a similar plague may soon afflict credit-card companies. In October, credit-card giant Capital One Financial reported that the delinquency rate on credit cards for the third quarter of 2007 was 4.46 percent, up from 3.53 percent in the third quarter of 2006. "Given current loan growth and delinquency trends," Capital One reported, it "expects the U.S. Card charge-off rate to be around 5.25 percent in the fourth quarter."
The stock of First Marblehead, which has enjoyed explosive growth making private (i.e., not federally guaranteed) student loans, has been hammered in recent days because Moody's, the ratings agency, concluded that loans it had made "appear to be defaulting at a significantly higher rate compared to loans originated through school financial aid offices." The Wall Street Journal reported that "seventeen months after First Marblehead arranged one 2005 package of student loans, 2% had defaulted, according to the company's monthly reports to note holders. But last month, a comparable 2006 package—also 17 months after issue—had a default rate of 3.98%."
And so it goes. The next arena likely to see a spike in delinquencies and then defaults? Corporate bonds. In September, ratings agency Standard & Poor's warned of a potential wave of defaults.
Investors may have thought that Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson stuck their fingers in a hole in the dyke, thus forestalling disaster. But given the rising tide of bad debt across the economy, today's actions are more like throwing a sandbag into a rising Mississippi River.
Here is a sound strategy for saving money using Pay Per Click.
As you may well know, there are about a dozen or so decent PPC search engines.
There are websites where you just go on there and bid whatever price you are willing to pay for a visitor to be sent to your website for a particular keyword .
The biggies are:
Google Adwords/AdSense
Yahoo
< p>Miva (formerly Findwhat and E-spotting)
The rest of the best
Search123
EnHance
SearchFeed
GoClick
7Search
FindIt-Quick
Looksmart
Kanoodle
Let's focus on Google for a second, there are two advertising services; Adwords and Adsense.
Adwords is for advertisers who want to get traffic to their site from Google and it's partners.
Adsense is for publishers who have sites and want to become one of Google's partners,in which case Google will display ads on your site, ads that the Adwords advertisers are paying for.
Anyone can put adsense ads on their site and make them look nice. But where do you get the traffic from? blogging? SEO?, the chances are very slim.
Be a traffic middleman, get cheap quality traffic to your website by buying keyword ads on Google Adwords or Overture and only bidding the minimum of $.05 or $.10 or by buying the top three positions on the smaller PPC search engines. When people click on your ad and are taken to your website, immediately show them relevant Google Adsense ads and optimize your site to get them to click on these ads.
You are paying pennies for the visitor, yet you are earning a few dollars if that same visitor clicks on your Google ad. That's because Google advertisers pay a lot more money to be seen.
If you bid five cents for a keyword on Miva and get paid fifty cents from Google Adsense for that same keyword, it is a no-brainer.
There are literally hundreds of thousands of keywords you can buy ads cheaply on the PPC search engines mentioned above.Yet, these same keywords are expensive on Google.
Basically you will paying Miva or another PPC search engine to send people to your site that shows relevant results. And hopefully people will click on your sponsored ads because:
1) They are relevant to what are looking for.
2) They are at the top and right,the best placement for click-throughs.
Businesses of all sizes are generating more sales and increasing their revenue with ebooks. An ebook is a paperless book in digital format that you can download to your computer, handheld or other reader device. Readers use a software program like Adobe (for .pdf formats) or Microsoft Word to read it.
Here are five ways to increase your business revenue with ebooks.
An ebook offers an inexpensive means of producing full-color marketing materials complete with graphics and audio components. Find good software or hire someone to help create your ebooks. Grab a digital camera and start snapping shots of your products, people using your products and services, your workers, etc. Then show off your photos and your products. Describe your services with power-packed presentations; web pages with interactive links for sound, visual presentations, communications (emails or forum posts) and more.
Method # 2: Education
When you need to explain your products or services to prospective buyers, educate your prospects and clients with ebooks. Have sample or short versions available for trial offers or free downloads. Then include full-fledged detailed editions with product / service purchases. Educate with visual, sound and interactive point-and-click methods. Invite questions and feedback from recipients for improvements on future products and services.
Method # 3: Communications
How often do prospective buyers and customers email you with a similar question that requires a book-length answer? Questions like, “How do you create a basic website?” or “How can you market on a tight budget?” inspire lengthy replies. Well, now you can write one long reply, turn it into an ebook and send it out – repeatedly. You can free up more time for other things. Include your own marketing information inside your ebook so readers can look you up on the Internet, pass your information along, and give others the opportunity to find you, too.
Method # 4: New Product
Use surveys and take polls for new product creation. Include a link to a web page with a questionnaire and free download for recipients upon completion.
Method # 5: Sales Reps
Arm your sales representatives with professional, top-notch full-color media / product / service information kits presented via your ebooks to share with local newspaper, radio, television and other media reps, visitors and potential clients at trade shows and other events. Set up an introductory page in your ebook, then an index where people can click and quickly find your history, mission statement, product and service descriptions and images, contact information, testimonials, etc. Then copy the ebooks to disks and CDs to distribute at events. This gives people the opportunity to learn more about you when they have more time afterwards.
How to Develop Ideas for Your Ebook
As you gain experience with your topical area you'll probably be able to identify some of your target audience's problems or concerns. And, knowing their concerns or problems, you'll likely be able to offer a few solutions.
Once you have identified some solutions, you can expand your thoughts to a few paragraphs. To explain them clearly and give examples, each solution may be become a chapter of several hundred or even thousands of words.
You can often research your topic and look for additional solutions by using the search engines or by searching various article sites. Once you locate material that describes solutions you can express those solutions in your own words. You can add your own examples to make your expression of the solutions unique and more personal.
Preparing and Publishing Your Ebook
Most people use a product like Microsoft Word to prepare their ebook or article. With it you can check spelling and grammar, create chapters, headings, bulleted lists and a table of contents. You can also add photos and clip art to help explain and illustrate your ideas.
You may already have access to a commercial clip art package. Many packages are available at your local computer store.
Microsoft allows you to download and use any of over 150,000 images and sounds from their online library. To search and download art from Microsoft using Microsoft Word, select Insert -> Picture -> Clip Art. Then select the Clips Online tab. You will then be able to search photos, clip art and sounds for just the right images to illustrate your ideas. As long as your purpose is to enhance your own product, you can freely include Microsoft's images.
Once your ebook or article is complete you'll want to create a PDF file. This is the most popular format for downloadable ebooks and articles. People using both Windows-based PCs and Macintoshes can view documents in PDF format.
You can "print" your document to a PDF file using any of several free conversion applications. Newer PCs often come with this conversion software preloaded. If your PC does not have this software you can get it free from several sources. Three free products that create PDF files from virtually any Windows applications are:
Are you interested in using email marketing to enhance the traffic and sales of your website? It can be a confusing process if you don’t know where to start. You will need to establish your goals before you send the first email. What are you hoping to accomplish? Make sure these goals are clear and realistic. This will help you measure the success of the email marketing campaign. This is a great way to learn what works and what doesn’t for future email marketing campaigns. While your particular goals will vary, some common ones include increasing sales, getting more traffic to the website; improve awareness of about your company and what products or services you offer, and building a solid relationship with your customers.
As you start measuring the success of your email marketing campaign, make sure you are comparing the data only against your own information not that of the industry. For example did your sales increase by 10% and traffic to your site increase by 25% after your email marketing campaign rather than discovering the rate that sales and traffic increased for the entire industry you are in.
Don’t be discouraged if your first email marketing campaign doesn’t do as well as you hoped, especially if you are a new business. It takes time to build trust with consumers. Make sure you use your original email address when you send out the emails. This will help it get past the spam filters.
Make sure you take the time to update your email listings. Remove any requests to opt out quickly and efficiently to respect the consumer’s privacy. You will be wasting your time to email to incorrect addresses or those who don’t want your materials. Never change the first part of a person’s email address even if the mail is undeliverable. However it is a good idea to look for misspellings in the email service provider name such as Yahoo being Yaho or Hotmail being Hotmall.
Some businesses like to use an email marketing template. Don’t get too comfortable with a successful marketing campaign though! This is because customers become bored easily with the same format. You need to keep their interest by mixing things up a bit in future email marketing campaigns. Opt in email marketing software collects email addresses from your website. This is a great method that is simple for getting you a data base started. As your data base grows you can choose to send your future email marketing campaigns to everyone on the list or just a select target group based on their purchasing history.
You will need to design your email marketing campaign very well. It needs to be attractive to hold the attention of the consumer long enough for them to decide it is worth reading. You don’t want your efforts to be mistaken for common spam or junk mail right? Make sure all the content is spelled correctly. Keep the text short and to the point. Readers who open your email may choose to delete it or save it to read later if it looks to lengthy. You want them to open it, be captivated, and read it. The first sentences need to identify your company and what you are offering. Place the important information first. Then reader is likely to keep reading. Give them a sense of urgency for responding by clearing stating the day the promotional offers expire.
Email marketing is an effective tool if you take the time to use it properly. It is anticipated to be the most used method of advertising on the internet in 2008. While this means you will have lots of opportunity to market your business, it also means there is going to be a great deal of competition trying to get consumers to look at their business. You will have to be creative and work hard to develop effective email marketing campaigns that are attractive, informative, and encourage the consumer to take action.
Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
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