Top 100 Opinions » Economy

The Global Internet Economy

admin — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 12:45:06 +0000

The United States was the first to intensify the dot-com economy in major part, as the Internet was first developed at that place. United States introduced Internet access quickly and was cheap as other nations consumers used to pay by the minute for Internet access. As a result many innovative dot-com startups were introduced in the United States. In 2005, nearly 50 percent of the world’s domain names were located in the United States, 5.5 times higher than the second place country, Germany, with a share of 8 percent. But, in the past decade, the dot-com economy has increased extremely in different parts of the world. In most of the European and Asian nations (especially Japan and Korea) the number of domain names has increased rapidly due to high broadband penetration rates and and also because these nations have invested intensely in digital literacy and infrastructure.

As Internet access from desktops and mobile devices changes from the exception to the norm, developing countries are progressively cashing in on the expense of wireless transactions. Today, developing nations are the countries which are undergoing the most rapid growth in new Internet users. In fact, the top ten developing markets had less than one-third the number of Internet users in top ten emerging markets in 2001, by 2008 emerging markets was increased. For instance, the United States included 9.8 million Internet users in 2007, whereas China included 73 million.

Types Of Tax Free Organizations

admin — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 10:18:51 +0000

The following list is a comprehensive list such organizations which are free from paying tax. This does not discuss any of the limitations upon the activities of such tax exempt organizations, which in many cases are considerable. Also, some organizations of the types listed may not qualify for non-exempt status for various reasons specified in the Internal Revenue Code or regulations, or common law as determined by the Courts.

Certain corporations organized under an Act of Congress
Certain corporations organized and operated exclusively for:
- Religious purposes
- Charitable purposes
- Scientific purposes
- Purposes of testing for public safety
- Literary purposes
- Educational purposes
- Artistic purposes
- Health care and public health
- Fostering national or international amateur sports competition
- Fostering national or international amateur sports competition
Civic leagues or organizations not organized for profit but operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare

Local associations of employees, the membership of which is limited to the employees of a designated person or persons in a particular municipality, and the net earnings of which are devoted exclusively to charitable, educational, or recreational purposes
Labor organizations
Agricultural or horticultural organizations
Business leagues
Chambers of commerce
Real-estate boards
Boards of trade
Professional football leagues
Clubs organized for pleasure, recreation, and other non-profitable purposes
Certain fraternal beneficiary societies, orders, or associations
Voluntary employees’ beneficiary associations providing for the payment of life, sick, accident, or other benefits to the members of such association or their dependents or designated beneficiaries
Teachers’ retirement fund associations of a purely local
Certain benevolent life insurance associations of a purely local character
Cemetery companies owned and operated exclusively for the benefit of their members or which are not operated for profit
Corporations chartered solely for the purpose of the disposal of bodies by burial or cremation which are not permitted by their charter to engage in any business not necessarily incident to that purpose
Credit unions without capital stock organized and operated for mutual purposes and without profit
Insurance companies or associations other than life if the net written premiums for the taxable year do not exceed $350,000
Corporations organized by certain association for the purpose of financing the ordinary crop operations of such associations
A trust or trusts forming part of a plan providing for the payment of supplemental unemployment compensation benefits
A post or organization of past or present members of the Armed Forces of the United States, or an auxiliary unit or society of, or a trust or foundation for, any such post or organization
Legal services corporations
Trusts for the purpose of satisfying liability for claims under Black Lung Acts
Multi-employer trusts created to pay any amount described in section 4223(c) or (h) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974
Corporations or trusts organized for the exclusive purposes of acquiring and holding title to real property for the benefit of a qualified pension, profit sharing, or stock bonus plan

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Recession Doesn’t Impact Video Games Much

admin — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 05:47:44 +0000

Parents do try to influence their kids from playing video games. But they are not much successful and we all know that.

It was fine when everything was going well. But presently parents are very worried about their jobs or businesses due to the recession. Many are going jobless while many are filing bankruptcies. In these critical situations, video games market remains untouched.

While many industries are running towards the government for help, video game industry was busy in releasing newer games and selling them. People did not succumb to spending less on video games due to recession. Video game sales remain strong for this month though the growth appeared to slow down the previous month. It was just the growth and not the sales that have slowed down the previous month. All these stats again prove video game market to be recession proof.

But dear kids, don’t bother you parents for buying video games. They are busy dealing bigger things.

Singapore’s tourism, affected adversely with the recession

admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:01:19 +0000

Singapore is been known as a bigger tourism centre compared to tourism of many other nations.

Recent recession hit the tourism industry of Singapore very severely.

But the administration of this tiny city-state said that it hopes to recover soon. They boast of their low unemployment rate, strong business fundamentals, and the new strategies they are going to launch soon, will help them recover very soon.

However, the situation present is very depressing. Many of those big shopping streets, ever busy with tourists are now with a gloomy look.

This may be for a very short term. Nevertheless, even this short term might affect Singapore, as tourism plays a major role in Singapore’s income.

As the present conditions are not going to enhance very soon, they must look to 2010. The tourism Ministry has planned for the launch of two casino resorts and Marina Bay Financial Centre. What more is exciting here is that Singapore is also going to host for Youth-Olympic games.

Banks still not interested in making fresh loans

admin — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 09:46:07 +0000

The US government has pumped around $187.5 billion into the national Banks including Bank of America, Citi group, JP Morgan. Whose money is it? It is from the taxpayers that Government has taken from in the form of taxes in order to help these big banks to survive even in recession and help people from it.

But we still don’t see banks issuing loans properly to even the hunkering down firms of big industries. Isn’t that insane?

Meanwhile companies, without finding any aid, are continuing with their lay-off spree. This is increasing the number of jobless day by day. It is a no brainer to say that it is the banks which can aid them in the critical times and stop lay-offs.

It was found that banks aren’t lending money freely, despite of the government’s efforts, to even the major players of the industries. The new loans to larger companies plunged to 37 percent if the last quarter of 2008 from third quarter.

Monroe Bancorp Bank Reports 50 Percent Lesser Profits

admin — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 13:02:07 +0000

Asset quality issues, increase in stipulation from loan losses has resulted in 50 percent decrease of the net income for the Monroe Bancorp.

According to the annual and quarterly results from the Monroe Bancorp, the net income has dropped by 49 percent in 2008 compared to the income in 2007. There was also a 48.3 decrease in diluted earnings per share. The income of Monroe by the end of December 2008 has been calculated as $3,979,000 or $0.639 per diluted common share. This was $7,806,000 or $1.235 per diluted common share, in the previous year.

The increase in non-performing loans and other real estate owned has increased to $12,169,000 in 2008, from $3,763,000 in 2007. This resulted in decline in the Company’s net interest margin. There was also a distinguished increase of $6,845,000 in the provision for loan losses.

Whatever are the reasons, 2008 was bad for the financial industry and its firms; Monroe Bancorp was just one of them.

US dollar records low value and high value the same day

admin — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 09:49:41 +0000

The 21st January 2009 was an historic day for the US dollar. It hit a 23 year record high value against the British Pound the same day and a 13 year (or probably 13 and half years) record low value against the Japanese yen; and these were seen the same day.

The trading in the international market is in a highly volatile state; and these things are very common to take place in such conditions. But record hike against one foreign currency and record low against another, are not as common.

But the good thing here is that both these records did not sustain even till the end of the day.

According to the sources, the British-pound sank as low as $1.3618 at one instance. This is the lowest point recorded ever since September of 1985. At the same time the dollar fell to 87.10 at one instance which is the lowest recorded point since July 1995.

Lenovo on a job cut spree

admin — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 10:37:36 +0000

Lenovo announced that it is going to lay off 2,500 employees. This doesn’t surprise me as I have seen many lay offs; and the number is big compared to the tenure it occurred.

Lenovo is doing well since three years after its integration with IBM PCs. Lenovo has agreed that it was a success. But the reason behind this layoff is (as it said) that they have not performed up to their expectations.

Is it the matter of performance or reaching some unrealistic target? I was not able to figure it out.

But if it is really the matter of performance, it will be bad to lay off as many as 2,500 people off their livelihood. If they are employed in an international company, it must because of their capability and competence.

Are you saying that all those 2,500 well educated and professional people have not performed well? Or is it the management that set some impracticable goal and torturing employees for achieving it?

Planning to buy a house amid recession?

admin — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 09:44:42 +0000

It’s a surprise when you look at the prices of the house around your locality.

The same house which the person was not ready to sell at even $x is ready to sell it at even $y (obviously y is less than x).

So, do you think it is high time to invest in real estate or purchasing a house? Well this may seem good decision. But can you afford to buy one?

Assume that the conditions are going to prevail for more days (or probably months or years), what are you going to do then? You cannot sell your house at the same price, because prices will still be lower and you will be home poor if you retained the house without selling it.

Already I have come across many people, who have sold their house for a big loss.

When I consulted a financial advisor, he said that it is better to rent a house instead of buying one. Because the real estate is in such a volatile situation these days, any thing can happen tomorrow. Risk only if you are ready and have planned for it.

The tech response for the recent down turn

admin — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 09:51:33 +0000

If we see what the position of technology industry earlier this year was, it appeared like the mighty hero of Achilles in Trojan War; unbeatable, existing so much power enough to rule the world’s economy.

And now what appears is the poor Achilles hit by on his heel by Paris; roaring in pain of layoffs and the deprived profits. Let’s put profits aside, the main issue with most of tech companies now is to survive in the industry.

And the employees, every time they are the scape goats of any thing bad in the industry.

The situation didn’t change, it was the same during 9/11 times and it is the same during economic crisis.

The first step what most of the tech companies take after the news of recession, is to hurt their recruitments. It is like slowing down recruitments or abandoning it. And then the immediate next step was layoffs.

This is a business rule. So no matter to what extent you panic, you can never stop it.

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