::shakes head:: Folks, we need to fix this thing before it gets any worse. We need to stick with traditional ways, traditional programs, and conventional lending. Please stop getting the idea that foreclosure is ok, or this idea that short sales actually improve your credit, they don’t.

Yesterday, 04/14/10, things were quite interesting the domestic frieght industry. Players such as United Parcel Service (UPS.N) and Fedex Express (FDX.N) were up sharply on news that UPS once again trumped earnings estimates due to increased growth prospects and domestic shipping cost reductions. The increase in domestic shipping volume also hints that US economic numbers such as GDP are on the rise. On another note, Fedex Express Chairman, Fred Smith, has alot on his plate, FDX could see a consistant pop over the next few days.

“China has its own potential inflation problem, and for this and other reasons, it may decide to let its currency appreciate on its own.  China will go out of its way to avoid appearing to bow to pressure from the US, so the U.S. is likely to see better results by letting China make its own decision”. That’s the answer according to Liz Ann Sonders of Charles Schwab, and I slightly agree. I think it’s time we steer course away from China and head toward something a bit less corrosive, like say Hong Kong or Taiwan?

One of our fans, e-mailed me and asked how would I grade President Obama, and his attempts to mend the US Economic Downfall. My answer is very unwelcoming C. That’s right, the average of most mediocre averages. He inherited a pile of dysfunction from a President who didn’t care whether or not we made money, just as long as Halliburton was funding weapons, jets and oil tanker based drilling projects, we were good. Here’s some food for thought, maybe if you took a minute to understand how important American lives were, maybe you wouldn’t have left us hanging during Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Ike and other natural disasters that you oh so smugly advised FEMA to look the other way. You might have gained a popularity point or two Mr. Bush. Hey Obama, work just a tad bit harder, and I think you can get us some recovery in the next 6 months.

Some are saying that the possible spike in jobs is due to better economic data, and I’ll agree to an extent. I’m being very cautious here as to not fully “call” the 190,000 because to the naked eye businesses are still closing, product shipments are still down, and wages have certainly not recovered completely from what they used to be. One key point I’d like to make is that, given the above reference, employers are being more conservative. By that I mean, they are taking longer to hire individuals based on their qualifications. In other words, just being a job seeker isn’t going to very far, simply because employers want someone they rely on and someone they can secure a future with. I’d like to see a booming economy, but we just aren’t there yet, and I need to agree with Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke on this one, and say we need to crawl before we run.

1. So Larry, where did the idea for a deep-fried cupcake, come from? Was it a recipe, or was it innovation? It’s actually something I came up with from my culinary portfolio. Think of it along the lines of the Tempura Ice Cream you get in asian based restaurants. So those guys basically took ice cream, tempura basted it, and then fried it up. I’m going to perform a similar process, also have a few flavors. For example, you’ll have a Jelly based version and a spin on the Boston Creme flavored donut, just to name a few.

2. Does Larry Love Handles (LLH) plan on making this an entity all to itself? Yes. LLH is set to possibly go live with this, even before we open our doors. I think the this not only serves as a comfort filled dessert but also a great marketing tool. It’s going to make people say “Damn that was good, where can I get more?”.

3. Everyone knows how stardom happens overnight, if the cupcake takes off what are the future plans? Well I’ve decided on branding a new name for that business, and we’re waiting on the licensing and registration as we speak. Our intentions are to eventually go big with that as well, an online store, holiday output, holiday themes, etc.

As per Securities & Exchange Commission Regulation 17B Plethora Group/Big Blue Turtle, Inc. must disclose that Larry Love Handles is a client and has paid a fee for our products and services. Various interviews, press releases and ancillary data can be acquired directly from Plethora Group/Big Blue Turtle, Inc.

One of the primary tools of the new trade will be something call eRecords, or electronic medical records. These records will be stored on either a smart card, jump drive or a similar type of device. President Obama is making a push for this not only because of paper reduction but because of how Green this technology tends to be on paper. For example, there are many programmers out there using both PC (Windows) and Mac (Mac OS X) platforms to write the software for either the drives or the smart cards. Smaller start-ups are even designing propritary software in an effort to be acquired by some of the bigger players in the Healthcare industry. Currently, there isn’t one specific company riding high on the wave of this technology, but rather several small ones trying to determine how inexpensive this idea may be.  Everyone should keep an eye out, because I’m pretty sure someone is about to emerge and streamline the technology without prior warning.

Will a very small percentage of you, tell me I’m crazy waiting for penny sized checks to be mailed out every quarter? Of course, but this is just my opinion and conservative as it might be this is one way of playing a profitable angle. In an effort to demonstrate that waiting on the checks is crazy, most of you should place your investments through Sharebuilder/ING (or companies with the same investment methods). Sharebuilder allows customers to invest a dollar amount in a specific stock each week and have the dividends reinvested as well. For example a customer could purchase $10 of Federal Express (NYSE: FDX) each week, and every quarter have $0.11 reinvested per share and partial share owned at the “as-of” date. Given the stock is trading in $90 range as we speak, it may take a while to accumulate a nice block of shares, but in the long run that number gets bigger and bigger each week and gets an added bonus each quarter.

Here’s the 52 week breakdown on why the Federal Express example works. Saying you invest $10 a week for 52 weeks you end up with $520 inested. If the stock price stays at $90 for the entire year that amounts to 5.7778 shares. Now lets says the cash dividend is $0.44 annually, that’s $0.11 cents a quarter (if you’re reinvesting it). Here’s where the math gets complicated just a little. Each quarter is 13 weeks, so in Q1 you’ve invested $10 a week or $130. That $130 equals 1.4445 shares, after Q1 you get a dividend for $0.11, in this case it would be $0.16 (1.4445 x $0.11). We then invest that $0.16 into the stock, adding 0.0017 shares to our total. That’s 1.4445 + 0.0017 = 1.4459 shares. Now during Q2 we continue investing our $10 per week, for another $130 or 1.4445 shares, but now we add our gross shares from Q1. So, 1.4459+1.4445 = 2.8904 Gross Shares before the Q2 dividends. With the Q2 dividends you’d end up with ($0.3179) cash  or (0.0035 ) shares and that would total your gross up to 2.8939 shares at the end of Q2 with dividends. If we move forward to Q3, you repeat and invest $130 for the quarter and get your base 1.4445 and add that to your post Q2 gross of 2.8939 shares, so 2.8939 + 1.4445 = 4.3384 gross shares before Q3 dividends. Q3 dividends would be ($0.4772) cash or (0.0053) shares bringing your gross total up to 4.3437 shares after the end of Q3. Finally we repeat the investment process for Q4 and the end results is as follows. Remember another $130 invested into FDX Stock ($10/week over 13 weeks), stabilized for argument’s purpose at $90/Share. That grosses us 1.4445 shares for the quarter added to our year to date gross of 4.3437 shares and we have 5.7882 shares before the Q4 dividends. The Q4 dividends are $0.11 x 5.7882 shares or $0.6367 cash or .0071 shares. Our final gross share total over the course of year 1 with dividend reinvestment or DRIP theory is 5.7953 shares.

Now if we didn’t drip we’d have 5.7778 shares per year for every year we’ve applied the $10/week theory. But, if we used the DRIP formula we’d see an increase of .0012% compounded over the life of the investment. Trust me folks no matter what the investment factor or the yield, DRIP theory will always gross more shares than just repetitive investments per week.

1. There is an art to hiring employees, you obtain their resumes, call them, interview them and then traditionally measure their qualifications along a few other better, and whoever presents themselves best, wins. That process isn’t such a bad thing, if you are running a call center, mid-level office in a contemporary industry such as debt relief, tax relief, or church bulletin advertising. It’s simple and shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes to hire someone.

2. Think of things this way, if your team consisted of 10 people and based on their skill sets, they were ranked 1-10. Would you always be happy that #10 was always #10 or would you go out and try to find better #10, who could potentially be a #9 and created enhanced results and better revenues? Of course you would. And that my readers is exactly what Kevin Ryan, of Gilt Groupe does. Yes he is one of the Directors, but he understands how important the resources of better humans are. Most of you in the tech field might know of Mr. Ryan, considering he sold DoubleClick in 2005 for $1.1 Billion to a private equity firm. There is always someone out there that’s better than what you have, so you must do whatever it takes to obtain that person, not only as an asset but as a resource.

Surprisingly, the key component that keeps holding the Federal Reserve back is the still staggering unemployment in the country. With levels just above 9.7%, and multi-raise program could very well make things worse in terms of consumer goods, lending practices by banks and credit cards, and most of all an increase on the number of skyrocketing foreclosures.  Right now, the Federal Reserve has a game plan that is built on the premise of an estimated timeframe. This timeframe allows the Federal Reserve to act, but not restrict the period in which it acts. In other words, when the economy starts to see a consistent recovery period than Federal Reserve will move to raise rates. That time just happens to have not yet occurred, but hopefully with sustained growth and a brighter outlook, it will.

Original Article: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Bernanke-Recordlow-rates-apf-1919371045.html?x=0