Skype Acquired by Microsoft: 3 Fears & 3 Hopes

VOIP Telephony Trends

Skype Acquired by Microsoft: 3 Fears & 3 Hopes: "Hopes
I probably have bigger, more active hopes for this acquisition than I do fears.

With 660 million+ registered users and more than 100 million average monthly users, Skype is bigger than Twitter.Disruption of the telephony landscape is something people have been waiting for years to see from consumer VOIP services, especially Skype. The service has no doubt upturned the international fixed line economy, but how about shaking things up with mobile carriers? It would be great to see Microsoft, Google and Facebook all make strong mobile VOIP plays and take some power away from the big carriers of the world. Heck, more competition could even make the carriers change their ways and earn some love from their customers, instead of simply holding us all hostage. Who couldn't use more love?"

Consumer Reports Partners with BillShrink to Help Consumers Find the Best Deals On Wireless Plans, Credit Cards and TV and Cable Packages BillShrink

Consumer Reports Partners with BillShrink to Help Consumers Find the Best Deals On Wireless Plans, Credit Cards and TV and Cable Packages    BillShrink: "Consumer Reports Partners with BillShrink to Help Consumers Find the Best Deals On Wireless Plans, Credit Cards and TV and Cable Packages
 
Yonkers, NY and Redwood City, CA – April 26, 2011 – Consumer Reports (www.ConsumerReports.org), the independent, nonprofit testing organization, and BillShrink (www.billshrink.org), the popular money-saving search engine and provider of in-statement rewards, today announced a partnership to help consumers find the best deals on wireless plans, credit cards and TV and cable packages...."

NOrton's Comment: Also see my website for a basket of financial tools, money management methods, ways to save, invest, payoff debt, build for retirement, creating a financial makeover where YOU are IN CHARGE.
http://Lifeinbalance-consulting.com

USA Inc.’s financials are discouraging

By the standards of any public corporation, USA Inc.’s financials are discouraging.
Created and Compiled by Mary Meeker
February 2011

A Inc.is a non-partisan report that looks at the U.S. federal government (and its financials) as if it were a business. Mary Meeker, partner at KPCB and former financial analyst at Morgan Stanley, created and compiled the report with the goal of informing the discussion about our financial situation and outlook. USA Inc. examines the country’s income statement and balance sheet, aiming to interpret the underlying data and facts, and illustrate patterns and trends in easy-to-understand ways. The report also analyzes the drivers of federal revenue and the history of expense growth, and discusses basic scenarios for how revenue and expense growth might change to help America move toward positive cash flow.

True, USA Inc. has many fundamental strengths. On an operating basis (excluding Medicare
and Medicaid spending and one-time charges), the federal government’s profit & loss statement
is solid, with a 4% median net margin over the last 15 years. But cash flow is deep in the red (by almost $1.3 trillion last year, or -$11,000 per household), and USA Inc.’s net worth is negative and deteriorating. That net worth figure includes the present value of unfunded entitlement liabilities but not hard-to-value assets such as natural resources, the power to tax or mint currency, or what Treasury calls “heritage” or “stewardship assets” like national parks.
Nevertheless, the trends are clear, and critical warning signs are evident in nearly every data
point we examine.

USA Inc. - A Basic Summary of America's Financial Statements

The job shortage | State of Working America

The job shortage | State of Working America:
"The job shortage
Job seekers outnumber job openings by a significant margin—in September 2010, the ratio was 5 to 1. Importantly, this isn’t the number of applicants per job opening—that number is much higher, as one unemployed worker applies for many jobs. The 5-to-1 ratio means that for four out of every five unemployed workers, there literally are no jobs. That is actually a substantial improvement over late 2009, but it is still far higher than the worst month of the previous recession and over three times as high as in 2007, before the Great Recession started...."

'Degrees for What Jobs?' Wrong Question, Wrong Answers - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education

'Degrees for What Jobs?' Wrong Question, Wrong Answers - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education: "As the report of the governors group observes, the deep economic trends are 'rapid globalization, accelerating innovation, and relentless competition.' This is precisely why employers, in survey after survey, including those referenced in the report, express their desire for colleges and universities to place more emphasis on cross-disciplinary intellectual skills and on providing students with the broad knowledge base necessary to understand the complex contexts in which they will work. What new employees too often lack, business leaders complain, are the skills and abilities that enable them to continue learning on the job.


Given these data, the governors association is looking backward rather than forward when it urges priority for degree programs that are directly linked to specific 'high-demand jobs...

This country owes its greatness to precisely this rich mix of liberal and practical education, leavened with a strong recognition that education's first duty is to democracy. As they make prescriptions for the future, the governors' advisers would do well to read some history—while it's still being taught.

Carol Geary Schneider is president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities..'"

Taking Care of Your 90-Year-Old Self

Here's the greatest challenge to retirement planning:

 You may live a very, very long time.

That may sound like a silly "problem" — the kind of thing that only an actuary would worry about. But, in fact, the always-improving possibility that you could see your 90s or perhaps live beyond 100 is what makes it so difficult to manage that retirement nest egg..

If you knew for a fact that you were going to die on the day you turned 80, you could really live it up for the 15 or 20 years until then. But not knowing how long you'll need your money to last requires you to conserve it cautiously.

The National Center for Health Statistics reported on Wednesday that U.S. life expectancy has reached an all-time high. A baby born in 2009 can expect to live 78.2 years, and folks who have already have made it into their 60s tend to have higher life expectancies. At 65, the average person can expect to live to be 83....