Welcome to Michael's Article Collection

Financial Planning for the MTV Generation

(ARA) - So, you were born between 1965 and 1978. Are you tired of the Generation X label and being portrayed by the media as a cynical, Xtreme sports-loving, body-piercing slacker? If you're one of the 76 million Americans that are considered to be "Xers," you may see yourself more as an independent, career-minded, technologically savvy, young adult. As someone between the age of 22 and 35, "Xe. . .

Retirement: Why Quit for Good, When You Can Quit for the ...

Talking About MoneyWith Jim Larranaga (ARA) - Only one quarter of Americans age 35 and older have amassed $100,000 or more for retirement, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute's 2000 Retirement Confidence Survey. What's more, the previous year's survey found that 20 percent of "forty-something" workers haven't even begun saving for retirement. If you're among them, you might be . . .

Hedging Foreign Exchange Risks

The exchange rate of the Macedonian Denar against the major hard currencies of the world has remained stable in the last few years. Because of the IMF restrictions, the local Narodna (Central) Bank does not print money and there are no physical Denars in the economy and in the local banks. Thus, even if people want to buy Foreign Exchange in the black market, or directly from the banks - they . . .

10 Fool Proof Ways To Intensify Your Profits

1. Create benefit intensifiers for your list of ad copy benefits. Example, The Benefit: "Save More Time", The Benefit's Intensifier: "Never Seen Before". 2. Use a little humor in your ad copy. It could be the little extra motive you need to close a sale. People are usually persuaded easier if they're in a good mood. 3. Ask your visitors questions that induce thoughts, feelin. . .

Ten Tips for Getting More Sales From Your Website

(1) Create a Direct Response Website, with the minimum number of pages possible (e.g. an Index Page, a Contact Page, and an Order Page). (2) Make sure your sales copy is positive and inspiring - people buy things because they want to improve their lives. (3) Identify a problem and show people how and why your product or service solves the problem. (4) Keep your paragraphs short - no more than 2. . .

Bosnia - An Economy in search of a State

Bosnia-Herzegovina (heretofore "Bosnia") is an artificial polity with four, tangentially interacting, economies. Serbs, Croats and their nominal allies, the Bosniaks each maintain their own economy. The bloated, fractured, turf conscious, inefficient, and often corrupt presence of the international community, in the form of the Office of the High Representative, among others, constitutes the fo. . .

Unravelling the Data Mining Mystery - The Key to Dramatic...

Data mining is the art of extracting nuggets of gold from a set of seeminngly meaningless and random data. For the web, this data can be in the form of your server hit log, a database of visitors to your website or customers that have actually purchased from your web site at one time or another. Today, we will look at how examining customer purchases can give you big clues to revising/improving. . .

Know Thy Finances

The first step to financial success lies in knowing your financial situation at any given time. There is an anecdote attributed to John D. Rockefeller--that as a child he was given a monthly allowance from his parents, but upon stipulation that he had to save 10% of it, give away 10% to charity, and account for the rest of it. While his parents required that he record down to the penny where he. . .

Beating The Business Blues

Internet marketing is a wonderful business, but if you are like me, there are days when you get really down and just can't seem to get going. This is compounded for some people with the Winter Blues. Sometimes sitting in your lonely corner of the bedroom or living room, it seems like you are the only person on earth. You sometimes feel like you are in a cage and there is no way out! This can al. . .

Hawala, or The Bank That Never Was

I. OVERVIEW In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the USA, attention was drawn to the age-old, secretive, and globe-spanning banking system developed in Asia and known as "Hawala" (to change, in Arabic). It is based on a short term, discountable, negotiable, promissory note (or bill of exchange) called "Hundi". While not limited to Moslems, it has come to be identified with "Isl. . .

The Macedonian Lottery

Every conflict has its economic moments and dimensions. The current conflict in Macedonia perhaps even more so. The USA and its Western allies regard Macedonia as a bridge between Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and Albania. Hence the EU's plans for the revival of transport corridors 8 and 10 connecting these countries. If all goes well (and nothing has hitherto), railways will connect Bulgaria to Ma. . .

The European Bank for the Retardation of Development

In typical bureaucratese, the pensive EBRD analyst ventures with the appearance of compunction: "A number of projects have fallen short of acceptable standards (notice the passive, exculpating voice - SV) and have put the reputation of the bank at risk". If so, very little was risked. The outlandish lavishness of its City headquarters, the apotheosis of the inevitable narcissism of its first Fr. . .

Slovenia - The Star Pupil

The most exciting event in Slovenia last week was when a group of young army recruits spat on the national flag and sang the anthem of the now defunct former Yugoslavia. They were sent to a military psychiatrist for observation. Indeed, economically speaking, a preference for any other part of the late Federation over Slovenia would indicate mental deformity. Slovenia is by far the most prospe. . .

The Second Coming in Albania

Blessed with Chinese GDP growth rates (7-8% annually in each of the last 3 years) and German inflation (4%, down from 32% in 1997, mostly attributable to increases in energy and housing costs), it is easy to forget Albania's Somali recent past. In 1997, following the collapse of a series of politically-sanctioned pyramid schemes in which one third of the impoverished population lost its meager. . .

Monitoring Macedonia

Close to 500,000 people - one in four - live under the poverty line in a country where the average monthly salary is less than 150 US dollars. More than one in three members of the workforce are chronically unemployed. With inflation up 5.5% in the last 12 months and taxes - borne disproportionately by the poor and the working class - at 37% of GDP, life is tough in this small, landlocked count. . .

Some Important Tips On Proposals And Price

Here's a critically important copywriting technique I use when writing sales letters and proposals for our own direct marketing services and for our clients.It's all about "price".I see it all the time. And perhaps you do too. Letters and proposals that bury the price at the very end of the document. By explaining all the benefits in the first few pages and then leaving the price for last, pe. . .

To Buy Or Not To Buy: Lawn Mowing Business

TRUTH IN THE LAWN MOWING INDUSTRYWe do not wish to slander any company or person but instead share information that is of value to each and every one! Most people who enter this industry will be effected by one of the following and we see fit to share with you what we know and have seen.Buying Into A FranchiseOk buy into a franchise, spend 25 thousand. For your money you may get 65 customers. . .

Investing As A Sport?

I said last week that money doesn't generally buy happiness, but the lack of it can buy absolute misery. This, by the way, is not just my personal observation. It is the conclusion of some of the most respected happiness researchers (Yes, there is such a thing -- read my book.)The trouble is that we have to pay attention to money more when we lack it than when we have it. This doesn't seem f. . .

Step Back to Succeed in Decision Making

Step Back to Succeed in Decision MakingAll of the greatest leaders in world are man-managers. Without exception, they command respect from those who work with them and for them. Some managers may rule with a rod of iron, others with a softer approach, but the key trait consistent in all great leaders is their charisma.Charisma is defined as “A personal attractiveness that enables you to i. . .

Staying Sane While Wall Street Crashes

Everybody is riding the Wall Street Roller coaster. Even if you are not invested, the headlines scream out one word: PANIC!It's hard not to join in the panicking. The Panic Crowd seems to be having all the fun these days. But they don't have all the happiness. You see, it's true what your mother told you: money doesn't buy happiness, at least not for most people. But the lack of money does. . .

How To Shop For Credit Cards

(NC) - In these highly commercial times, the amount of credit card choices is constantly growing. Many offer generous reward programs and low interest rates, which begs the question: perhaps I'm paying too much interest on my existing card. There are many different offers but which one is best suited to my lifestyle and shopping habits?This is where Consumer Connection comes in. It's an award-w. . .

Business Tax Loophole: Leasing Assets To Your Corporation

While there are many equally valid reasons to incorporate, saving money on taxes is a consideration that can yield relatively immediate results. Leasing assets to your corporation is a tax strategy you should absolutely consider if you already have a corporation or are thinking about forming one. Here's how it works.Just because you incorporate doesn't mean that the corporation must own all o. . .

Book Summary: How to Work with Just About Anyone

This article is based on the following book:How to Work with Just About Anyone“A Three-step Solution For Getting Difficult People To Change”By Lucy GillPublished by Fireside/ Simon and Schuster 1999ISBN 0-684-85527-5206 pages“I just can’t seem to get along with this person!”Every office has that one difficult person to work with, who affects productivity due to a terrible attitude, chronic tard. . .

10 Ways To Maintain Profits In A Slow Economy

1. Sell more back end products to your existing customer base. You already created rapport, trust and proved your credibility to them. 2. Make it a practice to up sell to new and existing customers. After they decide to buy one product, offer them another product. 3. Cross promote your products and services with other businesses that aren't competition. You will reach a wider audience at less c. . .

Signs of a Healthy Work Environment

There’s no denying that a healthy work environment is a top concern for most employees. Review any employee satisfaction survey and you’re apt to find this issue among the top five concerns of your staff – sometimes above the issue of pay.So how do you know if your organization provides a safe, healthy environment for employees? Well, there are some signs to look for.1. Empl. . .

Dissolving Buyer Scepticisim ... A Lesson In Copywriting

When making a purchasing decision, people have their "rip off radars" on high beam. They're wary and so they should be -- after all, they're about to spend money so they want to be sure they're not going to get ripped off, AND they want to be sure they're going to get the absolute best return on their advertising dollar.Anyone can claim something generates great results. And they often do.Here . . .

Career in the Toilet?

Individuals not within their target career field may feel insecure, doubtful, or maybe even ashamed of their current job title. Career changers make up a large portion of the job-searching population. Although people (in general) are “creatures of habit,” they thrive for change – especially when unhappy in their current position or industry. Continuing with educational goals or transferring . . .

The Blessings of the Black Economy

Some call it the "unofficial" or "informal" economy, others call it the "grey economy" but the old name fits it best: the "black economy". In the USA "black" means "profitable, healthy" and this is what the black economy is. Macedonia should count its blessings for having had a black economy so strong and thriving to see it through the transition. If Macedonia had to rely only on its official e. . .

To Grow Out Of Unemployment

There is a connection between economic growth and unemployment. There is a connection between growth and inflation. Therefore, commonsense (and financial theory) goes, there must be a connection between inflation and unemployment. A special measure of this connection is the Non Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment (NAIRU). Supposedly, this is the rate of unemployment which still does not. . .

Liquidity or Liquidation

Large parts of the world today suffer from a severe liquidity crisis. The famed globalization of the capital markets seems to confine itself, ever more, to the richer parts, the more liquid exchanges, the more affluent geopolitical neighbourhoods. The fad of "emerging economies" has all but died out. Try telling the Macedonians about global capital markets: last year, the whole world invested 8. . .

The Fabric of Economic Trust

Economy is called the dismal science because it pretends to be one, disguising its uncertainties and shifting fashions with mathematical formulae. Economy describes the aggregate behaviour of humans and, in this restricted sense, it is a branch of psychology. People operate within a marketplace and attach values to their goods and services and to their inputs (work, capital, natural endowments. . .

The Revolt of the Poor: The Demise of Intellectual Property?

Three years ago I published a book of short stories in Israel. The publishing house belongs to Israel's leading (and exceedingly wealthy) newspaper. I signed a contract which stated that I am entitled to receive 8% of the income from the sales of the book after commissions payable to distributors, shops, etc. A few months later (1997), I won the coveted Prize of the Ministry of Education (for s. . .

The Inferno of the Finance Director

Sometimes, I harbour a suspicion that Dante was a Financial Director. His famous work, "The Inferno", is such an accurate description of the job that it cannot be otherwise. He is fervently hated by the workers. He is thoroughly despised by the other managers ("mean bastard" is his common nickname among them, mostly for scrutinizing their expense accounts). He is dreaded by the owners of the fi. . .

Competition Laws

A. THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPETITION The aims of competition (anti-trust) laws are to ensure that consumers pay the lowest possible price (=the most efficient price) coupled with the highest quality of the goods and services which they consume. This, according to current economic theories, can be achieved only through effective competition. Competition not only reduces particular prices of specifi. . .

History of Previous European Currency Unions

The Euro feels like a novelty - but it is not. It was preceded by quite a few Monetary Unions in Europe and outside it. To start with, countries such as the USA and the USSR are (or were in the latter's case) monetary unions. A single currency was or is used over enormous land masses incorporating previously distinct political, social and economic entities. The American constitution, for insta. . .

The Delicate Art of Balancing the Budget

Government budgets represent between 25% and 50% of he Gross Domestic Product (GDP), depending on the country. The members of the European Union (Germany, France) and the Scandinavian countries represent the apex of this encroachment upon the national resources. Other countries (Great Britain, to name one) fare better. But even the more developed countries in South East Asia do not clear the 25. . .

The Value of Stocks of a Company

The debate rages all over Eastern and Central Europe, in countries in transition as well as in Western Europe. It raged in Britain during the 80s: Is privatization really the robbery in disguise of state assets by a select few, cronies of the political regime? Margaret Thatcher was accuse of it - and so was the Agency of Transformation in the Republic of Macedonia. At what price should the comp. . .

Making Your Workers Your Partners

There is an inherent conflict between owners and managers of companies. The former want, for instance, to minimize costs - the latter to draw huge salaries as long as they are in power (who knows what will transpire tomorrow). For companies traded in the stock exchanges, the former wish to maximize the value of the stocks (short term), the latter might have a longer term view of things. In the . . .

Workaholism, Leisure and Pleasure

The official working week is being reduced to 35 hours a week. In most countries in the world, it is limited to 45 hours a week. The trend during the last century seems to be unequivocal: less work, more play. Yet, what may be true for blue collar workers or state employees – is not necessarily so for white collar members of the liberal professions. It is not rare for these people – . . .

Economic Free Zones in Macedonia

Question: Dr. Vaknin – is it true that you are the father of the Law of Free Economic Zones? Answer: I participated in the dedicated and professional team, from many ministries and state organs, which prepared the law. The initiative – in collaboration with the delegation of the government of the Republic of China (Taiwan) – belongs to Dr. Milijana Danevska, the Minister of Deve. . .

The Predicament of the Newly Rich

They are the object of thinly disguised envy. They are the raw materials of vulgar jokes and the targets of popular aggression. They are the Newly Rich. Perhaps they should be dealt with more appropriately within the academic discipline of psychology, but then economics in a branch of psychology. To many, they represent a psychopathology or a sociopathology. The Newly Rich are not a new phenom. . .

Is My Money Safe? On The Soundness Of Our Banks

Banks are institutions wherein miracles happen regularly. We rarely entrust our money to anyone but ourselves – and our banks. Despite a very chequered history of mismanagement, corruption, false promises and representations, delusions and behavioural inconsistency – banks still succeed to motivate us to give them our money. Partly it is the feeling that there is safety in numbers. Th. . .

The Myth of the Earnings Yield

Abstract A very slim minority of firms distribute dividends. This truism has revolutionary implications. In the absence of dividends, the foundation of most - if not all - of the financial theories we employ in order to determine the value of shares, is falsified. These theories rely on a few implicit and explicit assumptions: That the (fundamental) "value" of a share is closely correlated (o. . .

Lessons in Transition

Q: What have been the most successful approaches to attracting direct foreign investments: offering prospective investors tax breaks and similar benefits, or improving the overall investment climate of the country? Empirical research has demonstrated that investors are not lured by tax breaks and monetary or fiscal investment incentives. They will take advantage of existing schemes (and ask fo. . .

Financial Crises, Global Capital Flows and the Internatio...

The recent upheavals in the world financial markets were quelled by the immediate intervention of both international financial institutions such as the IMF and of domestic ones in the developed countries, such as the Federal Reserve in the USA. The danger seems to have passed, though recent tremors in South Korea, Brazil and Taiwan do not augur well. We may face yet another crisis of the same o. . .

Market Impeders and Market Inefficiencies

Even the most devout proponents of free marketry and hidden hand theories acknowledge the existence of market failures, market imperfections and inefficiencies in the allocation of economic resources. Some of these are the results of structural problems, others of an accumulation of historical liabilities. But, strikingly, some of the inefficiencies are the direct outcomes of the activities of . . .

Immortality and Mortality in the Economic Sciences

Roberto Calvo Macias, a young author and thinker from Spain, once wrote to me that it is impossible to design a coherent philosophy of Economy without accounting for the (sad?) fact that we are mortals. This insight is intriguing. It is not that we refrain from Death in dealing with matters economic. What are estate laws, annuities, life insurance policies - but ways to cope with the Great Harv. . .

The Distributive Justice of the Market

"(1) Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all. (2) Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both: (a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged, consistent with the just savings principle, and (b) attached to offices and positions open to all under cond. . .

Dividing The Loot

It is when the going gets better, that the going gets tough. This enigmatic sentence bears explanation: when a firm is in dire straits, in the throes of a crisis, or is a loss maker – conflicts between the shareholders (partners) are rare. When a company is in the start-up phase, conducting research and development and fighting for its continued, profitable survival in the midst of a massi. . .

Public Sector Economies in Transition

In the previous article, we described the various methods developed in the West to cope with the ever-burgeoning public sector. Yet, economies in transition everywhere in the world have learned a lesson the hard way: not everything that is Western - necessarily fits their needs. Many Western techniques, methods, systems and ways of thinking cannot be applied in Macedonia, for instance. The pu. . .