Friday, July 27, 2012
Mike Nova: News Review - July 27, 2012
Mike Nova: News Review - July 27, 2012: News Review - July 27, 2012 News Review: Facebook's stock tumbles after 1st public quarter | Facebook loses more Wall S...
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Huge Dominican gold mine 'essentially' finished
Huge Dominican gold mine 'essentially' finished: The CEO of the world's largest gold company says production will start in August at the huge Pueblo Viejo mine in the Dominican Republic.
DealBook: Santander's Profit Plunges on Bad Loans for Real Estate
DealBook: Santander's Profit Plunges on Bad Loans for Real Estate: The Spanish bank reported a 93 percent drop in its second-quarter net profit as it set aside more money to cover bad loans in its home market.
Puerto Rican Influence in the Presidential Election
Puerto Rican Influence in the Presidential Election
On election day, the people of Puerto Rico will have no direct say in who becomes President of the United States. Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. They serve in the U.S. military. But as a territory and not a state, Puerto Rico has no Electoral College votes, and its residents have no formal voice on election day.
Yet Puerto Rico has already impacted the presidential election, and the influence of the Puerto Rican vote within the 50 states is expected to be a factor in November.
First, Puerto Rico’s presidential primary helped Mitt Romney clinch the Republican nomination. Not only did Romney win the Puerto Rican primary, but his opponent, former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), lost broader Hispanic support when he told a Puerto Rican newspaper that before the Island territory becomes “a state of the United States, English must be the principal language.” Puerto Rican Resident Commissioner Pedro Peirluisi struck back, calling Santorum’s view “narrow and limiting,” and explaining that “English is the predominant language in the U.S. and will continue to be so, whether Puerto Rico becomes a state or not.”
In Puerto Rico, both English and Spanish are official languages. Hawaii also has two official languages: English and Hawaiian.
The second factor in Puerto Rico’s national influence is the Puerto Rican population on the mainland. There are now more Puerto Ricans in the 50 states than in Puerto Rico, and their presence affects political strategies, especially in Florida where Puerto Ricans now outnumber Cubans in the Orlando area.
This fact has not gone unnoticed in the national Republican and Democratic Parties, who regularly appeal to Puerto Rican officials from both the New Progressive Party/NPP (pro-statehood) and Popular Democratic Party/PDP (pro-Commonwealth) to help garner Puerto Rican support in the swing state. This strategy was in full view during the recent Florida primary when Gov. Fortuno, a NPP member who affiliates with the national Republican Party, endorsed Mitt Romney.
On the Democratic side, PDP gubernatorial candidate Alejandro García Padilla was in Florida last weekend campaigning for President Obama. Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi, a member of the NPP Party, was an early Obama supporter in 2008 and has continued to be an advocate in support of the President – as well as Democratic candidates for Congress - in Florida, showing that members of opposing Puerto Rican political parties can and do sometimes come together in national politics.
Yet Puerto Rico has already impacted the presidential election, and the influence of the Puerto Rican vote within the 50 states is expected to be a factor in November.
First, Puerto Rico’s presidential primary helped Mitt Romney clinch the Republican nomination. Not only did Romney win the Puerto Rican primary, but his opponent, former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), lost broader Hispanic support when he told a Puerto Rican newspaper that before the Island territory becomes “a state of the United States, English must be the principal language.” Puerto Rican Resident Commissioner Pedro Peirluisi struck back, calling Santorum’s view “narrow and limiting,” and explaining that “English is the predominant language in the U.S. and will continue to be so, whether Puerto Rico becomes a state or not.”
In Puerto Rico, both English and Spanish are official languages. Hawaii also has two official languages: English and Hawaiian.
The second factor in Puerto Rico’s national influence is the Puerto Rican population on the mainland. There are now more Puerto Ricans in the 50 states than in Puerto Rico, and their presence affects political strategies, especially in Florida where Puerto Ricans now outnumber Cubans in the Orlando area.
This fact has not gone unnoticed in the national Republican and Democratic Parties, who regularly appeal to Puerto Rican officials from both the New Progressive Party/NPP (pro-statehood) and Popular Democratic Party/PDP (pro-Commonwealth) to help garner Puerto Rican support in the swing state. This strategy was in full view during the recent Florida primary when Gov. Fortuno, a NPP member who affiliates with the national Republican Party, endorsed Mitt Romney.
On the Democratic side, PDP gubernatorial candidate Alejandro García Padilla was in Florida last weekend campaigning for President Obama. Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi, a member of the NPP Party, was an early Obama supporter in 2008 and has continued to be an advocate in support of the President – as well as Democratic candidates for Congress - in Florida, showing that members of opposing Puerto Rican political parties can and do sometimes come together in national politics.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
How To Buy New Must-Have Products For Next To Nothing
http://www.howlifeworks.com/Article.aspx?Cat_URL=shopping&AG_URL=penny_auction_solo&AG_ID=991&cid=7485ae&aid=1053758
Last Updated: 7/18/2012 13:53 PST
Few things match the thrill of getting an incredible deal on an item we really crave. It’s a basic human response that we all can relate to.
That’s why auctions are so much fun – they present the titillating chance of scoring something for a lot less than we would expect. And that leaves us feeling great, because we now have the object of our desire and we have money left in our pocket.
Marketers know this and exploit it all the time –hence the profusion of sales, discounts, coupons, and the like… so much so, in fact, that we become numb to the tactic. People just don’t believe they’re really getting a bargain.
But now there’s a new online company that has actually figured out a way to sell new must-have consumer products for jaw-dropping prices.
It’s called Quibids – and it turns out that they are selling everything from the latest new Apple iPads and iPods, to MAC and PC notebooks, to HDTV’s and gift cards from the top retailers at prices as low as 5% of regular retail prices.
Now, of course, anyone in the right mind would be skeptical of such a claim – so we looked into it to learn just how they do it.
It turns out that both the prices and the products are real. Quibids runs a unique version of the traditional auction - when you bid on an item you actually get charged a small fee of about 60 cents. Collectively, the amount collected for all of the bids on an item allows the company to sell the item at price far below actual retail and even below the wholesale price they paid the manufacturer for it.
Figuring out how many bids to place and when to place them involves a little strategy but on QuiBids it’s actually a lot of fun. Each auction has a strict time limit and when you place your bid, the system adds a little time to the auction to see if any other bids come in. If you have the winning bid when the clock runs out – you win the item for that price. According to QuiBids CEO Matt Beckham, “Thousands of people are trying QuiBids every day – and then coming back again and again - so we must be doing something right.”
For the auction winner, the true cost of the item is slightly higher than their winning bid price because they have also spent a little for their bids, but this amount is usually modest, and the savings still work out to be spectacular in most cases.
And then there’s the “Buy Now” feature. This allows bidders who did not win an auction to still buy the product they want and apply the cost of the bids they placed as a discount on the regular product price. So, you still get the item and the bids you placed previously in the auction don’t cost you anything.
So, if you want real deals - like a new iPad for under $34, a new Nikon Digital SLR Camera for less than $24 or a new 46” LED HDTV for under $25 – check out the action at QuiBids.
Click here to see what’s for sale right now on QuiBids and just how low it’s going for.
Last Updated: 7/18/2012 13:53 PST
How To Buy New Must-Have Products For Next To Nothing
That’s why auctions are so much fun – they present the titillating chance of scoring something for a lot less than we would expect. And that leaves us feeling great, because we now have the object of our desire and we have money left in our pocket.
Marketers know this and exploit it all the time –hence the profusion of sales, discounts, coupons, and the like… so much so, in fact, that we become numb to the tactic. People just don’t believe they’re really getting a bargain.
But now there’s a new online company that has actually figured out a way to sell new must-have consumer products for jaw-dropping prices.
It’s called Quibids – and it turns out that they are selling everything from the latest new Apple iPads and iPods, to MAC and PC notebooks, to HDTV’s and gift cards from the top retailers at prices as low as 5% of regular retail prices.
Now, of course, anyone in the right mind would be skeptical of such a claim – so we looked into it to learn just how they do it.
It turns out that both the prices and the products are real. Quibids runs a unique version of the traditional auction - when you bid on an item you actually get charged a small fee of about 60 cents. Collectively, the amount collected for all of the bids on an item allows the company to sell the item at price far below actual retail and even below the wholesale price they paid the manufacturer for it.
Figuring out how many bids to place and when to place them involves a little strategy but on QuiBids it’s actually a lot of fun. Each auction has a strict time limit and when you place your bid, the system adds a little time to the auction to see if any other bids come in. If you have the winning bid when the clock runs out – you win the item for that price. According to QuiBids CEO Matt Beckham, “Thousands of people are trying QuiBids every day – and then coming back again and again - so we must be doing something right.”
For the auction winner, the true cost of the item is slightly higher than their winning bid price because they have also spent a little for their bids, but this amount is usually modest, and the savings still work out to be spectacular in most cases.
And then there’s the “Buy Now” feature. This allows bidders who did not win an auction to still buy the product they want and apply the cost of the bids they placed as a discount on the regular product price. So, you still get the item and the bids you placed previously in the auction don’t cost you anything.
So, if you want real deals - like a new iPad for under $34, a new Nikon Digital SLR Camera for less than $24 or a new 46” LED HDTV for under $25 – check out the action at QuiBids.
Click here to see what’s for sale right now on QuiBids and just how low it’s going for.
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