Category: News and Views

  5 Intangibles Your Ecommerce Business Should Be Focusing On, But Isn’t | Getentrepreneurial.com

~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

At any given time, there are thousands of small business entrepreneurs looking to create a meaningful presence on the web. As you read this, some traditional businesses are finding a new home online, some “purely online” ecommerce businesses are taking birth, and the mad rush for every website out there to go mobile is only intensifying.

If you are an entrepreneur just starting out, you’ll eventually face what is called “information paralysis” – the sheer weight of information that threatens to freeze you. You aren’t responsible for this information overload, but your best bet is to absorb what matters to you and stay committed to make your ecommerce business work.

Pulling out your new ecommerce site from the hidden corners of the web and taking to stupendous popularity and profits is sweat-inducing, scary hard work. Slap focus together with assiduousness and your ecommerce business will see new light.

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Toyota Keeps Piling Into Fuel Cells As It Runs Away From EVs | Forbes

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Toyota keeps on running toward hydrogen fuel cells and away from all-electric vehicles in what amounts to the most decisive strategy in the auto industry for the future of alternative power trains.

At the Los Angeles auto show, Toyota executives planned to elaborate on the company’s deepening investments in fuel-cell vehicles, after a weekend announcement that it would begin selling next year a model called “Mirai” — Japanese for “future” — that will travel 300 miles on a hydrogen tank and can be refilled in less than five minutes. The car, Toyota has said previously, will go on sale in Japan in April for about $60,000 and be introduced in the U.S. and Europe a few months later.

The company’s embrace of fuel cells reminds some observers of other significant moments of commitment for Toyota over the decades, including in 1989 when it launched the Lexus luxury brand in the United States and in 1997, when it started selling Prius gasoline-electric hybrids. Both moves redefined the American auto industry in different ways.

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Six banks fined £2.6bn by regulators over forex failings|BBC

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Six banks have been collectively fined £2.6bn by UK and US regulators over their traders’ attempted manipulation of foreign exchange rates.

HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, Swiss bank UBS and US banks JP Morgan Chase, Citibank and Bank of America have all been fined.

A separate probe into Barclays is continuing.

The fines were issued by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority FCA and two US regulators.

The country’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission CFTC issued fines of $1.4bn to five banks, while the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency OCC added $950m in further fines to three lenders.

Separately, the Swiss regulator, FINMA, has penalised UBS 134m Swiss francs.

Barclays, which had been expected to announce a similar deal to the other banks, said it would not be settling at this time. “After discussions with other regulators and authorities, we have concluded that it is in the interests of the company to seek a more general coordinated settlement,” it said in a statement.

Forex failings “let down public trust”FCA boss Martin Wheatley told the BBC: “This isn’t the end of the story.””The individuals themselves will face the consequences,” he said.

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The Galaxy Note Edge Is A True Cutting-Edge Phablet | TechCrunch

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Samsung either plays it entirely safe – see most of the Galaxy Tab line – or entirely gonzo. Whether it’s the chimerical Galaxy K Zoom or their curved TV, it’s as if the company has one floor dedicated to making vanilla ice cream an another dedicated to making unicorn-tear-flavored gelato. And it’s on that latter floor that the Galaxy Note Edge was born.

First thing’s first: this is essentially a Galaxy Note 4, one of the best mini-tablets available. While I remain an iOS user, I’ve turned to the Galaxy Note again and again over the past few weeks because of the bright screen and size. It is, to be clear, a definite iPhone 6 Plus competitor and, in some respects, beats that behemoth at screen clarity and usability.

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Billionaire Michael Bloomberg recommends being a plumber | Money Cnn

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Former New York City Mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg has some advice for high school seniors: forget college, become a plumber instead. “Today if your kid wants to go to college or become a plumber, you’ve got to think long and hard,” said Bloomberg Monday at the annual meeting of Wall Street trade group SIFMA.

“If he’s not going to go to a great school and he’s not super smart academically, but is smart in terms of dealing with people and that sort of thing, being a plumber is a great job because you have pricing power, you have an enormous skill set,” he said.

The founder of financial data and news services company Bloomberg L.P. even went as far as to say that students considering Harvard should do the math. You could pay $50,000 to $60,000 a year to Harvard or you could make that much as an apprentice plumber, he explained.

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Science shows how drummers’ brains are unique | Alternative Press

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baby drummerResearchers at Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute found a link between “intelligence, good timing and the part of the brain used for problem-solving,” reports PolyMic. In the study, drummers who were better able to keep a steady beat scored better on a 60-question intelligence test. After all, figuring out how to play in time is just a form of problem-solving in and of itself.

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Veteran | Jim Ely

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Veteran

vet-er-uh n, ve-truh n

a person who has had long service or experience in an occupation, office, or the like:

-a person who has served in a military force, especially one who has fought in a war:

-a Vietnam veteran.

-experienced through long service or practice; having served for a long period:

of, pertaining to, or characteristic of veterans.

From Latin veterānus mature, experienced, equivalent to veter- (stem of vetus) old

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TIP OF THE WEEK

U.S. military veterans can now save up to $69,062.50 on the SBA 7(a) loan guarantee fee.

SBA Policy Notice 5000-1319 declares that the SBA guarantee fee on SBA 7(a) loans is now reduced by 50% for small businesses that are 51% or more owned and controlled by a veteran.

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Indices:

PRIME RATE= 3.25%

SBA LIBOR Base Rate November 2014 = 3.16%

SBA Fixed Base Rate November 2014 = 5.28%

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SBA 504 Loan Debenture Rate for October

The debenture rate is only 2.740% but note rate is 2.787% and the effective yield is 4.15%.

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AHEAD OF THE YIELD CURVE

Veteran interest rate observers have noticed a flattening of the yield curve.

The slope of the yield curve—the difference between the yields on short- and long-term maturity bonds—has achieved some notoriety as a simple forecaster of economic growth. The rule of thumb is that an inverted yield curve (short rates above long rates) indicates a recession in about a year.  More generally, a flat curve indicates weak growth and conversely, a steep curve indicates strong growth.

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