Credit Cards & Gas Purchases

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Have you noticed that there are times when you can't fill up your whole gas tank with certain credit cards?  There is a security feature in place with Visa & MasterCard and other cards which limits the dollar amount on pay-at-the-pump transactions.  This has been in place for some time but only in recent times have people begin to notice it since gas prices have risen so high.  It is not all gas stations and probably those driving SUVs would be the ones to experience this.  This is good information to have in case you do experience this and can't figure out what is going on…

As the price of gasoline rises, rules to limit credit card fraud at the nation's pumps are confusing consumers who just want a full tank of gas.

Caps on transaction amounts — or the total dollar amount of gas a customer can pump into their car — are limiting some drivers.

Credit card companies have established a protective layer by setting transaction caps on how much gas a consumer can pump at any one given time.

For MasterCard customers, it's $75. Visa and Discover users have a $50 pay-at-the-pump limit. Transaction limits vary for corporate card holders and American Express users.

Not all gas stations have to abide by the cap. And there are no limits if a customer goes inside and pays with their credit card at the counter.

The caps have gone unnoticed as gasoline prices remained relatively low.

“We get more calls, questions, when gas prices increase,” said Visa spokeswoman Rhonda Bentz.

The average price of regular unleaded gasoline increased from $1.50 a gallon at the start of the decade to $2.28 a gallon in 2005, according to the American Automobile Association.

Today, gasoline prices are topping $3 a gallon.

To learn more on this subject, read the complete article below from USA Today:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2007-06-15-gas-cutoff_N.htm?csp=34

Kamaron Institute personal finance business references, tips and resources. 

A Great Day for the Dow!

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The Dow had a few not-so-good days recently, knocking it down a bit after the great run it has had this year.  But today was a new day.  It had the biggest one day gain in nearly a year!  Many experts feel the stock market is not near the high yet that it will reach this year.  Days like today certainly helps to boost the confidence of investors…

Stocks rebounded smartly Wednesday, propelling the Dow Jones industrial average up 187 points as bond yields eased and economic data came in stronger than expected.

The Dow saw its biggest point gain since July 19, 2006, and more than made up for a plunge a day earlier that was fueled by the benchmark 10-year Treasury note yield's surge to five-year highs. Rising bond yields amid inflation concerns had been pummeling stocks since last week.

Though rate worries still dog investors, their confidence perked up after the Commerce Department said Wednesday that retail sales jumped 1.4% in May. The rise, which followed a 0.1% decline in April, was the highest in 16 months and double the increase analysts expected. It signaled to the stock market that consumers plan to keep spending and pushing the economy along, even as gas prices and other costs increase.

Investors were also pleased about the Federal Reserve's beige book report, which said the U.S. economy kept expanding at a moderate pace in the first part of the second quarter. The central bank's next meeting on interest rates will be held in two weeks.

To learn more on this subject, read the complete article below from USA Today:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/markets/2007-06-13-stocks-wed_N.htm?csp=34

Kamaron Institute personal finance business references, tips and resources. 

The World's Greatest Stock Market Investor… Warren Buffett

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Whether you are a serious investor in the stock market or not, you have probably heard of Warren Buffett.  Maybe you were just scanning through the Forbes list of richest men in the world and you saw his name.  Or maybe you have seen the headlines from when Warren Buffett or his company Berkshire Hathaway just purchased a big stake in another company.  Buffett is one of the world's richest men and he made his money through investing in the stock market.  Who says you can't make money in the stock market?

Warren Buffett – Investor, Businessman and Philanthropist

Buffett has amassed an enormous fortune from astute investments managed through the holding company Berkshire Hathaway, of which he is the largest shareholder and CEO. With an estimated current net worth of around US$52 billion, he was ranked by Forbes as the third-richest person in the world as of April 2007, behind Bill Gates and Mexican businessman Carlos Slim Helú.

In June 2006, he has made a commitment to give away his fortune to charity, with 83% of it going to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The donation amounts to approximately $30 billion. Buffett's donation is said to be the largest in U.S. history. At the time of the announcement the donation was enough to more than double the size of the foundation.

Despite his immense wealth, Buffett is renowned for his unpretentious and frugal lifestyle. When he spent $9.7 million of Berkshire's funds on a corporate jet in 1989, he jokingly named it “The Indefensible” because of his past criticisms of such purchases by other CEOs. He continues to live in the same house in the central Dundee neighborhood of Omaha, Nebraska that he bought in 1958 for $31,500[ (although he also owned a more expensive home in Laguna Beach, California which he sold in 2004). The current estimated value for his house is around $700,000.

Words of Wisdom from the The Oracle of Omaha

“A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought.”

“If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.”

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.”

Education lesson resources from Kamaron Institute for parents and teachers.

From Real Estate to Stock Market

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A couple years ago it didn't seem you could go wrong by investing in real estate.  However, it isn't the case right now.  Many investors are not in the best shape.  Back in 2002 the thing to do was get out of stocks and put the money in real estate.  Now the opposite is true.  Many real estate investors are selling off their real estate and putting the money in the stock market…

Buying real estate seemed a no-brainer five years ago. Cheap loans were easy to get. Home prices were soaring. Stocks were dead money.

How things have changed.

For-sale signs are sitting ignored in some cities. Interest rates on exotic loans are doubling. Insurance premiums and property taxes are skyrocketing. Wannabe real estate tycoons stuck with properties they can't sell have been turned into landlords, forced to fix toilets and take tenant calls in the middle of the night. Many are “under water” — owing more on the mortgage than they could get by selling.

Meanwhile, stock investors have been celebrating again as broad market indexes march to new highs. And that is prompting some real estate investors to make the switch back to stocks. Real estate “isn't as lucrative as it used to be,” says Jack Patterson, a financial adviser in Coral Gables, Fla., who has been helping clients sell real estate and buy stocks.

It's a complete flip-flop from 2002, when investors tired of the bear market ravaging Wall Street cashed in their stocks and bought homes and investment property. People doing that were the subject of a USA TODAY cover story in December 2002.

To learn more on this subject, read the complete article below from USA Today:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2007-06-06-real-stocks-usat_N.htm?csp=34

Kamaron Institute personal finance business references, tips and resources. 

A Different Perspective on Working From Home

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How many of you go to an office every day to work?  Have you ever had the thought, “I wish I could just work from home like so-and-so does.” Or maybe thoughts like “They have it made being able to work from home and not having to go to an office every day.”  Well, it is always good to have a different perspective on things.  The grass is not always as green on the other side as you might think.  There are some disadvantages to working from hom as this person says in great detail.  But before we totally share the negative side of working from home it is important to say that there truly are great advantages.  The important thing to understand is that people are different.  There are people out there who would probably disagree with several of these points that are made.

One thing that most work-from-homers would probably agree on is that it can be tough to “leave” your work.  When your work place is only a few feet or a couple rooms over from where you sleep, it can be tough to “walk away” and leave it for later.  But that can be learned. 

So here's a different perspective on working from home for all you office workers out there…

Usually, I’m on the phone interviewing sources, but there are times when, if I’m on an especially pressing deadline, I can’t be on the phone at all. Sometimes I won’t even leave my house for a few days.

That’s when I welcome the ringing phone, just so I can hear the warm tones of my digital amanuensis. It sounds crazy, I know — the 21st-century version of an old lady and her cats — but I feel inexplicably less isolated just because she’s around.

“That’s really pathetic,” a friend of mine said when I told him about my invisible playmate. He’s right. But we do what we have to, those of us who work alone.

O.K., I know I have been the envy of my office-worker friends, who complain about the lack of privacy, the politics, the gossip at their workplaces. And those are certainly things that I’ve wanted to avoid over the years. But now, frankly, I’d like to poke fun at the boss with my colleagues, or to know whether Sheila in accounting is dating the messenger guy.

We home-office loners compensate for our lack of community in myriad, pathetic ways. I try to get out at night, I see friends and hit the gym and check out hip city happenings, but none of that really takes the place of being around a group of people who are working toward a similar goal.

If you want to read more, you can view the complete Kamaron Institute Job Market article by clicking the following link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/business/yourmoney/03pre.html?ex=1338523200&en=ad7650f12a17b9b9&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Kamaron Institute business news, educational career and parenting reference tips and resources.  

William James – A Pioneering American Psychologist

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So many people have studied the life and workings of William James for a good reason.  He was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher.

About William James (1842 – 1910)

He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and the philosophy of pragmatism. He was the brother of novelist Henry James and of diarist Alice James.

William James was born at the Astor House in New York City, son of Henry James, Sr., an independently wealthy and notoriously eccentric Swedenborgian theologian well acquainted with the literary and intellectual elites of his day. The intellectual brilliance of the James family milieu and the remarkable epistolary talents of several of its members have made them a subject of continuing interest to historians, biographers, and critics.

James interacted with a wide array of writers and scholars throughout his life, including his godfather Ralph Waldo Emerson, Horace Greeley, William Cullen Bryant, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Charles Sanders Peirce, Josiah Royce, George Santayana, Ernst Mach, John Dewey, W.E.B. Du Bois, Helen Keller, Mark Twain, James Frazer, Henri Bergson, H. G. Wells, G. K. Chesterton, Sigmund Freud, Gertrude Stein, and Carl Jung.

William James – Classic Quotes

“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.”

“Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.”

“Action may not bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.”

“Action seems to follow feeling, but really action and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not.”

“Everybody should do at least two things each day that he hates to do, just for practice.”

Education lesson resources from Kamaron Institute for parents and teachers.

IBM Lays Off & Hires

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IBM has been making some big changes in the company.  While there have been some good size lay offs, IBM has hired far more…

IBM laid off 1,570 people Wednesday, primarily from an ongoing overhaul of operations in its giant technology services unit.

The company carried out a similar level of job cuts at the beginning of the month, for a total of 3,023 in this quarter and 3,720 for the year, according to IBM spokesman Edward Barbini.

That amounts to roughly 1% of the company, which employed 355,000 people at the beginning of the year. But even these small numbers reflect a big project inside IBM to transform its business.

Services is IBM's biggest division by revenue, but the advent of lower-cost competition overseas has forced IBM to work harder to improve the unit's profit margins. In the first quarter, pretax income for IBM's tech services fell 19%, even as revenue rose 7%.

Wednesday's job cuts were largely part of the company's response. Although IBM did not disclose where the layoffs were being made, the company had blamed the first-quarter profit shortfall on problems in its U.S. outsourcing business.

To learn more about IBM, read the complete article below from USA Today:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2007-05-30-ibm-layoffs_N.htm?csp=34

Kamaron Institute personal finance business references, tips and resources. 

Working After Retirement

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Do you plan to work after retirement as so many Americans are doing?  Many Americans who seek new job opportunities after they retire find it a bit harder than the younger workers.  It can take almost twice as long for people over 55 to find a job after retirement.  This person gives this advice, “If you want to work in retirement, don’t retire.” 

This article today offers some good information about older workers seeking jobs after retirement…

When older workers look for jobs, they may get as much respect as Rodney Dangerfield.

It often takes many weeks, or even months, for older workers to find jobs, distinctly longer than their younger counterparts. In 2006, for instance, workers age 55 or older spent an average of 22 weeks looking for work. That was down from 24 in 2005, but still far longer than the 16-week job hunts of workers under 55, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In the same vein, a study by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, sampling employers in Massachusetts and Florida, found that younger workers were about 40 percent more likely to be called in for job interviews than were candidates 50 or older.

Difficulties persist for older job seekers, even as a growing number of companies encourage their employees to stay on by offering phased-in retirement and part-time work. The tightening labor market has not helped. Nor have warnings by some experts of a potential shortage of new workers. And the problem is likely to become more apparent as more baby boomers reach retirement age.

If you want to read more, you can view the complete Kamaron Institute Job Market article by clicking the following link:

http://kamaroninstitute.blogging.com/blog/_archives/2007/5/22/2971201.html

Kamaron Institute business news, educational career and parenting reference tips and resources.  

Jack Welch – A CEO Great

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Jack Welch is considered by most to have been one of the greatest CEOs in American history. 
John Francis “Jack” Welch, Jr. was born November 19, 1935 and was Chairman and CEO of General Electric between 1981 and 2001. Welch gained a solid reputation for uncanny business acumen and unique leadership strategies at GE. During his tenure, GE increased its market capitalization by over $400 billion. He remains a highly-regarded figure in business circles due to his innovative management strategies and leadership style.
His net-worth is estimated at $720 million.
Great Quotes from Jack Welch
“Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.”
“An organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage.”
“Change before you have to.”
“Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be.”
Education lesson resources from Kamaron Institute for parents and teachers. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” />

Ending Credit Card Confusion

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There is a lot of confusion out there with all the different credit cards available.  The Fed is working to help clear up some of this confusion…

“The goal of the proposed revisions is to make sure that consumers get key information about credit card terms in a clear and conspicuous format and at a time when it would be most useful to them,” Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said Wednesday. “Greater clarity in credit disclosures allows consumers to make more informed credit decisions and enhances competition among credit card issuers.”

People now often have to wade through tiny print and dense language to get information about the terms of their credit card. When terms — including rates and fees — are changed, that can be on a separate piece of paper accompanying the monthly statement. Those separate inserts aren't always looked at, the Fed says.

To help, the Fed's proposal would call for a table summarizing the changes to appear on the statement above the list of the consumers' transactions. That's where people are most likely to notice the changes, the Fed says.

From solicitations to monthly statements, the Fed's proposal would require key information appear in larger print, with rates and fees in an easier-to-see boldface. The proposal also aims to make language easier for people to understand.

To learn more about the changes being considered, read the complete article below from USA Today:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/2007-05-23-credit-card-proposal_N.htm?csp=34

Kamaron Institute personal finance business references, tips and resources.