So I’m flipping through my local paper and chanced upon an article involving economics and the Olympics. Now, I’ve always liked my financial information served with a twist - for economists to get freaky like Stephen Levitt or to go undercover like Tim Harford. They are capable of finding interesting nuggets of information like why drug dealers still live with their mothers or why you can never buy a decent used car… Intelligence mixed with the inane. I like it.

Anyways, an economist by the name Dan Johnson was making Beijing Olympics medal count predictions for countries based on:

• income per capita
• population
• climate
• political structure
• home field advantage

Interestingly enough, how much a nation spends on the athletic program is not a factor since it’s difficult to obtain internationally comparable data but Johnson has been pretty spot on so far. He started predicting in Sydney 2000 and continued for the following Winter and Summer Olympics. He’s running at a 93-96% accuracy.

So what are his medal predictions for the Beijing Olympics? Here’s the breakdown of your home and native land.

• United States: 103 medals total; 33 gold
• Russia: 95 medals total; 28 gold
• China: 89 medals total; 44 gold
• Germany: 66 medals total; 18 gold
• Japan: 37 medals total; 16 gold
• Hungry: 31 medals total; 10 gold
• Italy: 29 medals total; 8 gold
• Great Britain: 28 medals total, 3 gold
• France: 27 medals total, 5 gold
• Australia: 26 medals total, 2 gold
• South Korea: 24 medals total, 6 gold
• Poland: 24 medals total, 6 gold
• Bulgaria: 23 medals total, 6 gold
• Netherlands: 22 medals total, 4 gold
• Sweden: 19 medals total, 2 gold
• Canada: 17 medals total, 0 gold

Not surprisingly, Canada comes in at 0 gold medals. Call me cynical but I believe the countries who have the best steroid masking agents or the best cover up teams will triumph.

I’m clearly still bitter from the Ben Johnson fiasco as a kid twenty years ago.

One of the mottos of the Olympic Games is: “The most important thing is not to win but to take part”. Yeah, so even though we suck, we’re clean! Yaaaay! Go Canada, go!

Post from: Investing for Beginners | Money Relations

Using Economics to Predict the Olympic Medal Count

Last week, I found myself sitting at the dining room table of a cruise ship with complete strangers who were trying to one-up each other. The alpha female dinner companions were comparing the sizes of their kitchens back home.

Right…

Ironic that these same people complain how they don’t have enough time to plan for meals, cook and do the dishes and yet they boast about the size of their kitchens. Thank goodness for Ma Bell and delivery service because I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about their kitchens (or mine for that matter).

Okay, I’m getting ahead of myself so let me rewind and explain a bit. I was on a cruise to Alaska with my family for the last week. It had been planned for awhile so luckily for me, everything was already taken care of by the more anal responsible members of my family. All I had to do was pack and show up with my passport.

We sailed out of Seattle for a 7-day cruise on the Star Princess to Alaska along the inner passage with stops at Ketchikan and Juneau. We sailed through Tracy Arm and made another stop at Skagway before turning around for Victoria and back to Seattle.

To be perfectly honest, I was really blasé at the beginning of the whole trip. Like I said, it takes a lot to impress me. We got plenty of snow and ice this winter in my part of Canada. And if I needed a reminder, I could always open up the fridge for ice.

Okay, so not to be a total party pooper, the glaciers and mountains were kinda majestic.

But since this is a finance blog, let’s talk about money.

For my floating hotel, it was a little less than $100 per night. This included meals, cruise entertainment and tips which they tack onto your stateroom bill anyways. The truth is, I don’t know the complete cost of my trip along with plane tickets, 3 night hotel accommodations in Seattle, transportation, food and admission fees to tourist traps destinations.

Yeah, this is a finance blog but I never promised to be a good one

Since the trip was booked by family members who have a way more dominant DNA gene for being cheap, I knew that I was in good hands. I’m figuring less than $1500 for a 10 day vacation which I don’t consider to be that expensive for where we were and all that we did.

We saved a lot of money by booking our own shore excursion in Alaska. We’d look at excursions that the cruise provided and tried to mimic the itinery. For example, a trip to Mendenhall Glacier and a salmon hatchery in Juneau cost $39 per person through the cruise ship. Finding your own transportation via shuttle would run about $7, and admission to the Mendenhall Glacier was $3.00 and $3.25 for the salmon hatchery. That’s a total of $13.25 vs $39. Another example of saving costs was when we took a train ride in Skagway through the White Pass & Yukon Route. On our own, it was $103 but through the cruise, I think the same thing cost $112 through the cruise ship with the only difference being a 10 minute walk to the train station. This all can add up. We also went back to the ship for all meals as well. Heck, why not? We paid for it.

I can’t take credit for all these savings as they do take some preliminary research but it is a way to stretch your dollar if you’re budget conscious. If I had organized the trip myself, I probably wouldn’t have bothered and paid through the nose for not doing the research. That’s only fair for being a dumbass and I expect it. This brings me full circle to the story I began this post about - the traveling mates I met while on board the ship. It’s really interesting to get a glimpse of people’s expectation of money.

I don’t know what it is about cruise ships that bring out lofty ideals in people’s minds. I admit that after hearing about “formal” dining nights, I expected food to be superb. This wasn’t always the case. I mean, the food was okay but it wasn’t top quality and I’m not that much of a connoisseur. I do know presentation and having soup drip on the outside of your bowl is what I consider a no-no for quality dining. And this happened on more than a few occasions with plates as well. But seeing as it was all inclusive meals with the stateroom for less than $100 a night, it was a bargain.

So here I am sitting at the dining room table with others while they bluster about how wonderful the gourmet food has been. And in the back of my mind, I’m thinking, dude, you can’t even pronounce escargots correctly. Just say snails for cripes sake like it says in the description. And it’s not pronounced minesTROAN soup, it’s minestronKNEE. Also, it’s not sockKEY salmon but sockEYE salmon. I get the fact that we want to present our best to the outside world but when you’re so out of your league, stop the ruse of pretending to be the upper crust of society.

My dinner companions also compared the locations of their staterooms - if they had a suite or an outer stateroom with a window and at which level. Mine was at the lowest passenger deck and in dead center of the ship. I get motion sickness quite easily so I was popping dramamine pills daily. A stateroom in the middle of the ship with little turbulence suited me just fine thanks but you can tell that it was looked down upon. Now why would I pay more for discomfort for the sake of appearances when I could see the telltale sign of a motion sickness patch on the back of ears?

And yes, the women really did compare the sizes of their kitchens. I’ve only witnessed this in males before by overcompensating with their cars. I wonder if their bras were padded…

But the biggest kicker was when these “high rollers” objected to being charged with a liqueur they thought were samples. It’s funny to see how people gravitate towards “free”. Since I don’t drink (much) I had declined. And I had a suspicion that it wasn’t free but people were too polite to ask the question and they got caught. Then talks of the waiter misrepresenting and seeing the captain were discussed. I mean come on… After all that talk of staterooms, kitchens and gourmet food they were complaining about a $4.00 drink? So much for appearances.

At the end of the vacation, I bet I had as good a time as they did at the fraction of the price. I can’t claim credit for the savings because I’m not your typical frugal finance blogger. But I also don’t consider it a badge of honor for being stupid. And trying to be something you’re not, especially for strangers is just that.

Post from: Investing for Beginners | Money Relations

Alaska ho! And back again

A recently published AP article defined what YAWN stands for: Young and Wealthy but Normal. Erm, that’s a bit forced but I get the idea. Bonus points for creativity… I guess.

So what does this shoehorned acronym really mean? Apparently YAWNs are people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s who fit the profiling as described but who love to live green and be socially responsible.

The article goes on to say that trends come in cycles. The over indulgence of the previous generation has swung the pendulum back to a leaner lifestyle. Less is better and so is having a social conscience. Thank goodness considering consumer debt…

Some of the big YAWNers are from the IT field who made millions working in Silicon Valley. Instead of living over the top in their extravagance, they lead simple lives and give their money to charities. Good on them.

At this point in my life, I’m a little YAwN. Notice the w in lower case letters. I have yet to transcend to the highest level of Maslow’s little pyramid scheme because let’s face it, when your needs are met or set for a lifetime, you sleep better at night. After that, then you can work to save the world.

Look out world, here I come.

Post from: Investing for Beginners | Money Relations

I’m a YAWNer, how about you?

Hmm, I wonder how much the share price will drop after it was announced that Microsoft backed away from the deal Saturday? This is despite a last pitch effort to sweeten the offer by increasing Yahoo’s share price from the initial bid of $31 to $33. The Yahoo execs wouldn’t budge from $37.

I also wonder if this is yet another coy tactic by Microsoft to rile the Yahoo shareholders into a murderous frenzy. You have to hand it to Microsoft, this parting rivals Rhett Butler’s walk out on Scarlett O’Hara with the very dramatic, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn”.

According to an analyst quoted from this Bloomberg article, it is estimated that the Yahoo share price will drop $8, or 28 percent when trading resumes Monday. Analysts are sometimes hit and miss but this can’t be considered good news for Yahoo shareholders. This is especially bad for those who wanted to play the buy on rumor, sell on news game.

As my previous article explained, this buy on rumor, sell on news axiom has been one of the most regurgitated sayings in the finance industry. It will leave those looking for a quick buck disappointed.

Let’s face it, when these rumors hit our pedestrian ears, it’s not rumors anymore. It’s news because we probably read it/watched it from mainstream media. And how often do these “rumors” come true? All talk and no action. What a tease.

Who knows, this still might be posturing from Microsoft but this is too much of a roller coaster ride for my liking. And the screaming I hear are from the Yahoo shareholders in the front caboose.

Post from: Investing for Beginners | Money Relations

Microsoft backs off from the Yahoo deal

Which brings me to my point. I think it’s time to ramp up my wealth generation so I can escape the dreary confines of my daily prison - aka my office cubicle.

This blog has always served a two fold purpose for me:

• to document my views in the wacky financial industry
• to play around with web technology as I am in IT

I never had illusions that I’d be able to make money online but a few bucks wouldn’t hurt. I wanted to learn what was going on at the grass roots level as what was “hot” in blogging. I must admit that it has been helpful in my job as an “intangible” skill. And it was a good idea to kill two birds with one stone as I’d finally learn how to be responsible with my money and to put it to good use.

I read a lot of make money online sites and wrote about my experiments with the products they were promoting like the Million Dollar Wiki and Teaching Sells. In all honesty, I made friends through the forums of these programs. However, did they make me money? That would be a no. The truth is, a lot of these make money online schemes are scams. I’m just glad I didn’t spend a lot of money on these pursuits.

So, when one is a new blogger and has flirtations with making some money online, how does one recognize these scams? Drumroll please… ripping the scammers a new one is Vic Franqui of Blogger Unleashed.

Vic is a straight shooter and holds no prisoners in calling people out for scamming unsuspecting newbies. A word of warning, the language of his blog is harsh. As a Canadian, and thus predisposed to being politically correct, I admit I cringed when I read / watched some of his posts. But if you can get past that, there is so much substance in his words that you cannot dispute. Quite frankly, he admits that the use of his colorful language is an attention grabber and effective in communicating his message. And his message is good, folks. Vic specializes in SEO and blogs about the techniques and the tools he uses to make money online. These are real how-to tips which is much appreciated in a market saturated with MMO blogs that have all converged in a single mind-meld, devoid of independent thought.

So, if you have ever contemplated making money online, I’d give Blogger Unleashed a try. I finally do believe that it is possible and not the pipe dream that other internet marketers sell for their own self interests. As you dig more into each posts, you’ll find that there’s a lot of sincerity in Vic’s desire to help people. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover and this unleashed blogger is a welcome change.

Post from: Investing for Beginners | Money Relations

Is it really possible to make money online?