Save for a rusty, seatless swing set, the Brinket-Hibbard Playlot resembles many vacant lots pockmarking Detroit’s hardscrabble east side.
Looking across Hibbard Street at what is left of her childhood park, Patricia Scott, whose family lives in the only home remaining on the block, recalled better days.
“There were nine of us kids, and I can remember how we used to have fun over there, when there was a sandbox and some hobbyhorses, and I think a seesaw,” said Ms. Scott, 56. “The way it is now, I think it’s pitiful.”
Detroit’s own assessment of the park is similarly grim, according to a recent report, which said, “Except for an old swing set frame, this appears to be another vacant lot in a neighborhood of many vacant lots.”
Now, some city officials are wondering, Would you like to buy it?
The Brinket-Hibbard playground is one of about 90 municipal parks — mostly small play spaces — that the city of Detroit is considering putting up for sale under a contentious proposal that seeks to condense and consolidate park space and resources in thriving areas. The city would use the money earned from any sales to maintain and possibly expand parks in parts of the city that are more densely populated than, say, areas like the one around Hibbard Street.
The Recreation Department’s master plan calls the proposal “park repositioning,” which officials promote as a clear-eyed way to look at necessary downsizing, a way to align park space with the significant demographic shifts over the last half-century in Detroit, which has lost about a million people since 1950.
But critics say it could further hurt downtrodden areas where parks are equally appreciated, and that green space is too precious to be bartered for money.
“They call some of these parks ‘surplus,’” said City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson, an opponent of the plan, “but I don’t know what the heck that means because there is no such thing as a surplus of something that is necessary for the good and welfare of the community. The very concept of selling off public parkland in somebody’s hope to address a one-time money crunch is not something you do as a big city. We have to protect these parks for future generations.”
Some proponents of the parks say that eliminating a park in a declining neighborhood would make a resurgence much harder.
“It could be a case of penny wise, pound foolish,” said Abe Kadushin of Kadushin Associates, an architecture firm that does a lot of work in Detroit. “I understand the need to make money, if it’s an asset that’s valuable and the city can dispose of it. But it may not be the wisest thing in the long run.”
The proposal seems to have stalled in the City Council’s Neighborhood and Community Services Committee, whose chairwoman is Ms. Watson. But the administration of Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick plans to pursue it, possibly along with other options like neighborhood or corporate sponsorships. Though with more than 300 parks — 40 percent of which are in poor condition — sales to developers or other for-profit entities could be most beneficial.
If private buyers emerge for most of the parks in question, the city estimates it can raise $8.1 million from selling the land (about 124 acres) and more than $5 million a year in tax revenue, while saving hundreds of thousands of dollars on maintenance.
“It’s an opportunity to look at where we can put parks closer to people,” said James Canning, a city spokesman. “We’ve constantly looked for ways to make government more efficient, and we see this whole idea of possibly repositioning parks as promoting an increased quality of life for those living in our neighborhoods.”
Some experts say the idea makes sense. While many cities and states are preoccupied by figuring out how to grow, several, like Detroit and New Orleans, are grappling with how to shrink, an alternative that is rarely pleasant. Recently, a melee erupted when the New Orleans City Council voted to demolish four public housing projects (to be replaced by fewer units for poor people).
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/29/us/29parks.html?hp
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Did you make money in 2007?
What is the best way to invest in stocks? In 2007, you could have made money by throwing a dart at a list of stocks and investing in whichever name it landed on. During the year, eight out of 10 stocks scored gains. You would have lost money only if your dart was unlucky enough to land on one of the other two.
In all, 2,126 stocks, constituting 82 per cent in the 2,590 actively-traded stocks on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), witnessed an appreciation in prices as on Christmas-eve. With four sessions still to go before the year ends, that situation may change, but not substantially.
So far, you didn't need much luck. To hit big money, though, your dart would have had to land on something that took off like a rocket during the year. Take this little-known company called Cals Refineries (Cals what?). If you had invested Rs 10,000 of your life's savings last year on December 29 in Cals, your investment would be worth Rs 2.34 lakh on Christmas-eve this year. You would have done equally well with Lloyds Metals, with the same Rs 10,000 growing to Rs 2.17 lakh.
Even with minor luck, you would have doubled your money. Share prices of 840 companies (which account for nearly one-third of the actively-traded stocks) doubled in 2007. However, the number of multi-baggers (stocks that multiplied 10 times of more) stood limited at 13. The returns among multi-baggers varied from 1,019 per cent (10 times) to 2,344 per cent (23 times). Not surprisingly, smaller companies surged the most. Sahara Housing surged 2,008 per cent from Rs 45.50 to Rs 959.
• Check out our Yearender Special
Sixty-nine stocks gave returns between 501 per cent and 1,000 per cent and 755 stocks between 100 per cent and 500 per cent. Not a bad year for investors who had the courage and the tenacity to hold on to their investments.
However, in value terms, the largest wealth creator was - you guessed right - Reliance Industries. The market value of this Mukesh Ambani flagship more than doubled (119.47 per cent) from Rs 1,77,025 crore to Rs4,05,285 crore - a gain of Rs 2,28,260 crore. The share price of Reliance Industries moved up from Rs 1,270.35 to Rs 2,788 during the year.
The next three slots were occupied by public sector undertakings (PSUs). The government is sitting on huge paper wealth. MMTC, with a Rs 1,22,986 crore market capitalisation gain, ranked second after Reliance, followed by NTPC (Rs 82,331 crore) and ONGC (Rs 80,710 crore). Larsen & Toubro ranked fifth with a gain of Rs 78,551 crore in 2007.
Telecom major Bharti Airtel recorded a rise of Rs 64,905 crore while Anil Ambani's Reliance Communications witnessed a market value gain of Rs 53,207 crore in 2007.
http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=14580498
In all, 2,126 stocks, constituting 82 per cent in the 2,590 actively-traded stocks on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), witnessed an appreciation in prices as on Christmas-eve. With four sessions still to go before the year ends, that situation may change, but not substantially.
So far, you didn't need much luck. To hit big money, though, your dart would have had to land on something that took off like a rocket during the year. Take this little-known company called Cals Refineries (Cals what?). If you had invested Rs 10,000 of your life's savings last year on December 29 in Cals, your investment would be worth Rs 2.34 lakh on Christmas-eve this year. You would have done equally well with Lloyds Metals, with the same Rs 10,000 growing to Rs 2.17 lakh.
Even with minor luck, you would have doubled your money. Share prices of 840 companies (which account for nearly one-third of the actively-traded stocks) doubled in 2007. However, the number of multi-baggers (stocks that multiplied 10 times of more) stood limited at 13. The returns among multi-baggers varied from 1,019 per cent (10 times) to 2,344 per cent (23 times). Not surprisingly, smaller companies surged the most. Sahara Housing surged 2,008 per cent from Rs 45.50 to Rs 959.
• Check out our Yearender Special
Sixty-nine stocks gave returns between 501 per cent and 1,000 per cent and 755 stocks between 100 per cent and 500 per cent. Not a bad year for investors who had the courage and the tenacity to hold on to their investments.
However, in value terms, the largest wealth creator was - you guessed right - Reliance Industries. The market value of this Mukesh Ambani flagship more than doubled (119.47 per cent) from Rs 1,77,025 crore to Rs4,05,285 crore - a gain of Rs 2,28,260 crore. The share price of Reliance Industries moved up from Rs 1,270.35 to Rs 2,788 during the year.
The next three slots were occupied by public sector undertakings (PSUs). The government is sitting on huge paper wealth. MMTC, with a Rs 1,22,986 crore market capitalisation gain, ranked second after Reliance, followed by NTPC (Rs 82,331 crore) and ONGC (Rs 80,710 crore). Larsen & Toubro ranked fifth with a gain of Rs 78,551 crore in 2007.
Telecom major Bharti Airtel recorded a rise of Rs 64,905 crore while Anil Ambani's Reliance Communications witnessed a market value gain of Rs 53,207 crore in 2007.
http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=14580498
How You Can Make More Money
This could very well blow your mind ...
Nearly $700 billion has been deposited in stock mutual funds since the beginning of 2007. That brings the rapidly rising grand total of money stashed in stock mutual funds to an astounding $6.6 trillion.
That's enough cold, hard cash to build a land bridge to Asia.
OK, maybe that's a stretch
But if you think $6.6 trillion is a lot of money to be invested in stocks, consider that there's another $4.7 trillion invested in bonds and money market funds. It's less, sure, but it's still a full 39% of the total.
In other words, American investors have a lot of money invested -- and that money seems to be invested far too conservatively.
Yes, those numbers are a quick-and-dirty way to arrive at that conclusion. But -- and it's a big "but" -- to our way of thinking here at The Motley Fool, investors with a timeline of 10 years or more should be holding no more than 10% of their investable assets in bonds -- let alone anything in money markets.
Yet we clearly do ...
Dumb and dumber-er?
American investors aren't dumb. We're uninformed -- a reason for the mad rush of money into professionally managed mutual funds since 1996. Fund assets under management have increased nearly 11% annually over the past decade, as the number of funds available for investment has increased from 6,293 to 8,726, according to the Investment Company Institute.
And fund companies are cashing in. Fidelity Select Brokerage -- a sector-tracking fund that counts Lazard (NYSE: LAZ) and Jefferies Group (NYSE: JEF) among its top holdings -- is up 13% annually over the past 10 years. That's nearly 7 percentage points ahead of the S&P 500 index.
Pay up for ... junk
Of course, the majority of the funds out there fail to beat or even match their benchmarks, despite holding some solid stocks. Take John Hancock Growth Trends (JGTBX), for example. The fund has been walloped by the S&P 500 to the tune of more than 3 percentage points per year since 2002. And despite holding recent gainers such as IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Partner Re (NYSE: PRE), positions in losers such as Cardinal Health (NYSE: CAH) have the fund trailing the index by nearly 4 percentage points over the past year.
But poor stock-picking isn't the only reason the fund's customers are underserved. They're also paying the fund's managers an absurd 2.35% expense ratio -- which means investors are starting out 2.35% in the hole. That's a big hurdle to overcome.
And while the fund's managers probably love cashing their fat checks, your payments to them are preventing you from doing the same!
We pay you to what?
The Investment Company Institute recently broke down the workforces at these fund companies by job function. Would it shock you to discover that just 31% of the folks working in this enormous and profitable industry are actually dedicated to picking and researching investment opportunities?
In other words, 69% more are not.
And while some of these excess workers perform critical functions, such as ensuring regulatory compliance, another good chunk are focused on sales and marketing. But why draw a distinction? Your absurd fees pay for all of them.
Cut the fat. Pick your own stocks.
Is it a big step? Yes. Is it an impossible one? Heck, no. Here are three time-tested tips to get started:
1. Invest only money that you won't need for at least three to five years.
2. Keep investing money on a regular basis, and never try to time the market's machinations.
3. Diversify your portfolio broadly enough so that a few bad surprises won't ruin your returns.
Of course, that's only the tip of the iceberg.
Make it happen
But if you'd like to learn more about valuing and picking your own stocks, consider joining our Motley Fool Stock Advisor investing service. There, Fool co-founders David and Tom Gardner bring you regular interviews and investment lessons from top business leaders, keep you up to date on breaking market news, and help answer your questions on the service's dedicated discussion boards.
And here's the best part: They also pick two stocks each month that they believe will beat the market for the next decade or more. Since inception in 2002, those picks are beating the market by 45 percentage points on average. You can see each and every one of them by trying out the service free for 30 days. Click here for more information. There is no obligation to subscribe.
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2007/12/29/how-you-can-make-more-money.aspx
Nearly $700 billion has been deposited in stock mutual funds since the beginning of 2007. That brings the rapidly rising grand total of money stashed in stock mutual funds to an astounding $6.6 trillion.
That's enough cold, hard cash to build a land bridge to Asia.
OK, maybe that's a stretch
But if you think $6.6 trillion is a lot of money to be invested in stocks, consider that there's another $4.7 trillion invested in bonds and money market funds. It's less, sure, but it's still a full 39% of the total.
In other words, American investors have a lot of money invested -- and that money seems to be invested far too conservatively.
Yes, those numbers are a quick-and-dirty way to arrive at that conclusion. But -- and it's a big "but" -- to our way of thinking here at The Motley Fool, investors with a timeline of 10 years or more should be holding no more than 10% of their investable assets in bonds -- let alone anything in money markets.
Yet we clearly do ...
Dumb and dumber-er?
American investors aren't dumb. We're uninformed -- a reason for the mad rush of money into professionally managed mutual funds since 1996. Fund assets under management have increased nearly 11% annually over the past decade, as the number of funds available for investment has increased from 6,293 to 8,726, according to the Investment Company Institute.
And fund companies are cashing in. Fidelity Select Brokerage -- a sector-tracking fund that counts Lazard (NYSE: LAZ) and Jefferies Group (NYSE: JEF) among its top holdings -- is up 13% annually over the past 10 years. That's nearly 7 percentage points ahead of the S&P 500 index.
Pay up for ... junk
Of course, the majority of the funds out there fail to beat or even match their benchmarks, despite holding some solid stocks. Take John Hancock Growth Trends (JGTBX), for example. The fund has been walloped by the S&P 500 to the tune of more than 3 percentage points per year since 2002. And despite holding recent gainers such as IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Partner Re (NYSE: PRE), positions in losers such as Cardinal Health (NYSE: CAH) have the fund trailing the index by nearly 4 percentage points over the past year.
But poor stock-picking isn't the only reason the fund's customers are underserved. They're also paying the fund's managers an absurd 2.35% expense ratio -- which means investors are starting out 2.35% in the hole. That's a big hurdle to overcome.
And while the fund's managers probably love cashing their fat checks, your payments to them are preventing you from doing the same!
We pay you to what?
The Investment Company Institute recently broke down the workforces at these fund companies by job function. Would it shock you to discover that just 31% of the folks working in this enormous and profitable industry are actually dedicated to picking and researching investment opportunities?
In other words, 69% more are not.
And while some of these excess workers perform critical functions, such as ensuring regulatory compliance, another good chunk are focused on sales and marketing. But why draw a distinction? Your absurd fees pay for all of them.
Cut the fat. Pick your own stocks.
Is it a big step? Yes. Is it an impossible one? Heck, no. Here are three time-tested tips to get started:
1. Invest only money that you won't need for at least three to five years.
2. Keep investing money on a regular basis, and never try to time the market's machinations.
3. Diversify your portfolio broadly enough so that a few bad surprises won't ruin your returns.
Of course, that's only the tip of the iceberg.
Make it happen
But if you'd like to learn more about valuing and picking your own stocks, consider joining our Motley Fool Stock Advisor investing service. There, Fool co-founders David and Tom Gardner bring you regular interviews and investment lessons from top business leaders, keep you up to date on breaking market news, and help answer your questions on the service's dedicated discussion boards.
And here's the best part: They also pick two stocks each month that they believe will beat the market for the next decade or more. Since inception in 2002, those picks are beating the market by 45 percentage points on average. You can see each and every one of them by trying out the service free for 30 days. Click here for more information. There is no obligation to subscribe.
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2007/12/29/how-you-can-make-more-money.aspx
Recycle Your Dusty Equipment and Make Money
There is a service called Second Rotation. The service buys your used electronic gadgets after you enter in basic information such as if the manual's still there and the condition of the item. If you agree, Second Rotation will allow you to print a shipping label. Once they receive the item, they will issue you a check or make a Paypal deposit.
While you can probably get more money on certain items on Ebay or through a direct private party offer on community sites like Craigslist, Second Rotation will help you part ways with items you don't use. I am not sure what they do with the item, but at least it won't end up in the trash down the road. This way, you earn a little green for being green.
http://www.pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&t=news&id=4886
While you can probably get more money on certain items on Ebay or through a direct private party offer on community sites like Craigslist, Second Rotation will help you part ways with items you don't use. I am not sure what they do with the item, but at least it won't end up in the trash down the road. This way, you earn a little green for being green.
http://www.pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&t=news&id=4886
iTunes Says, "But that's where we make our money!"
It's pretty easy to tell where iTunes makes the bulk of its money based on how it responds when you try disabling some of the media preferences.
Hop into your iTunes preferences and start unchecking media sources, you'll find that some uncheck without a fight while others throw up messages like this:Outside of those two, you can turn off any of the other options without a fight. Wonder why that is? The other ones provide access to free content. No money in Apple's pocket means it can be hidden without a fuss.
Okay, so maybe it isn't quite that cut and dry. They do make money on games and ringtones, but I get the feeling that they don't see this as a big enough business today to force on people.
The one you can't turn off no matter what is Music. Even if you only use iTunes to download podcasts or watch movies, you have no choice but to be constantly reminded that you're not using iTunes they way Apple decided you should.Podcasts, then radio and music would be how I'd rank my iTunes listening preferences. I've also switched to Amazon as my first choice for buying music, so the default version of the iTunes Music store isn't exactly helpful either.
http://www.technologyevangelist.com/2007/12/itunes_says_but_that.html
Hop into your iTunes preferences and start unchecking media sources, you'll find that some uncheck without a fight while others throw up messages like this:Outside of those two, you can turn off any of the other options without a fight. Wonder why that is? The other ones provide access to free content. No money in Apple's pocket means it can be hidden without a fuss.
Okay, so maybe it isn't quite that cut and dry. They do make money on games and ringtones, but I get the feeling that they don't see this as a big enough business today to force on people.
The one you can't turn off no matter what is Music. Even if you only use iTunes to download podcasts or watch movies, you have no choice but to be constantly reminded that you're not using iTunes they way Apple decided you should.Podcasts, then radio and music would be how I'd rank my iTunes listening preferences. I've also switched to Amazon as my first choice for buying music, so the default version of the iTunes Music store isn't exactly helpful either.
http://www.technologyevangelist.com/2007/12/itunes_says_but_that.html
Friday, November 16, 2007
4 Steps to Make Money With Search Engine Optimization
It's always best that when you have a website, you aim of getting indexed in search engines, such as in Google, Yahoo, and MSN. You cannot definitely imagine how many Internet users all over the world are visiting them every day. Certainly, when you gain a good spot in them, you can generate the traffic that you've always dreamed of for your website.
So how do you list yourself in search engines? Here are 4 steps to make money with search engine optimization.
1. Vary your anchor links. You may make use of the same anchor text, but make sure that they direct to different pages. Better yet, to be in a safer position, vary your anchor texts and links all together. You don't like to make your articles appear like they are only created to stuff all of your links.
2. Provide your target customers some more. There are many benefits you can get when you give your customers more than what they want. If you can offer them ezines and even free stuff such as ebooks, courses, tutorials, and what-have-yous, they will be more than willing to link to your or share your website with others.
3. Create variations in your title tags. Never dare to underestimate the smartness of search engine spiders. They can definitely detect if you are doing black hat techniques to increase the popularity of your website and get a page rank right away. Thus, to avoid getting penalties from search engines, create different titles in your title tag. For one, it should match the webpage. Second, it's simply the right thing to do.
4. Avoid keyword stuffing in keyword tag. The keyword tag of websites allows you to identify the keywords and phrases that can best describe your website. It makes you more search engine friendly. However, keyword stuffing or spamming is definitely frowned upon.
Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to SEO success, 'Secrets of SEO'
Download it free here: SEO Secrets
Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 1574 articles in print and 11 published ebooks.
Making Money With Adsense
Google Adsense can be one of the most lucrative ways to make money online. A website can be well monetized by using Google Adsense. You can generate an extremely large income if you have your website set up correctly. However, if your website is not set up correctly you could be missing out on money that could otherwise be collecting in your bank account. I'm guessing none of us want to leave any money behind.
Earning money using Adsense is very simple and you can be earning a fantastic income within a couple of months. It can take a little time and effort to get your website up and running the right way but it is well worth it in the end. Once your website is up and running and making money then it will run almost on auto pilot.
So you will want to spend the time at the beginning to get it right and make the most of your website. This way your Adsense income will reach it's fullest potential. You will be amazed at the great results you will see in a short period of time.
The first thing you will need to do in setting up your website is to write some good quality content articles and make sure you use your keywords throughout your articles. If you have a gift of writing, then why not make that gift work in your favour and use it on a website and earn some income with it.
Don't start to panic if you don't have that gift for writing, even if writing doesn't come easily to you, writing articles can still be easy. You will need to start by doing some research and find information relating to the topic of your website. You can find information on the internet, in books or at the library. Always make sure that you rewrite any information you find into your own words, never copy someone else's information word for word.
Search engines will reward you for having good quality content on your website, so make sure you keep up with the demands of the search engines and keep your content good and unique. By doing this the search engines will love your site and will reward you with good rankings.
Build a good quality site with unique content and a good usage of keywords and this will ensure that the Adsense ads placed on your site will relate to your sites topic. This is where all that you've done initially will go to and this is also where they will prove their worth to you.
Where you position your ads on your site can be very important. Don't just place your ads anywhere, make sure you position them carefully. Try to position your ads where surfers are most likely to click on them. The one place that surfers look first when they visit a website is the top left. The reason for this is because that is where your website navigation links are usually located. So by placing your Adsense ads directly under your navigation links will usually get some good clicks.
Even if you think you are doing well with your Adsense earnings, it can still pay to play around with your ads. There are techniques and styles that can help to generate more clicks and sometimes just by tweaking your ads your earnings can be doubled or even tripled. By working out what techniques work the best for your site, you can be earning much more than what many people earn through their Adsense websites.
Stay away from banner ads and skyscraper ads - they don't tend to get as many clicks as the other ads. These ads are clearly recognized as an advert and so many internet surfers tend to ignore these types of ads. There is no point in putting ads on your website that aren't going to get you the clicks you want, it will be more beneficial to use ad types that are more likely to receive a higher click through rate.
To really make a great income with Adsense, you should have a definite focus on what you want to achieve and how to go about achieving it. Like any business venture, you need to give it time and patience.
Keep an eye on your ads and click through rates, if you aren't seeing enough clicks then play around with your ads a bit and keep track of which ads perform better for you.
Sheryl Polomka is the author of 'Income With Adsense. The affordable ebook that gives you the REAL secrets to making an income using Adsense.
Reach Your Real Adsense Income Potential with Income With Adsense
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