The web economy blog

Archive for December, 2010

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Friday, marked increases income inequality that the government is trying to address the issue while the economy grew by a record percentage of 14.7 last year, a dramatic recovery of negative growth in 2009.

He said his New Year message: ‘We are committed to ensuring that the vast majority of the benefit of Singapore on the type of economic growth, as low-income and less educated workers and the middle group who feel sandwiched between.’

He also cautioned that the exceptional growth in 2010 was due to special circumstances and unlikely to be repeated soon.

The official forecast for 2011 is 4 to 6 per cent. Year-on-year, the economy grew 12.5 per cent in the last quarter of 2010.

Mr Lee noted that growth had improved Singaporeans’ lives, but also brought a number of challenges. These included: managing the inflow of foreign workers and immigrants, keeping homes affordable, and helping low-wage workers cope with the cost of living.

“We have the means to address these problems and improve things. But in doing so, we must remember that Mexico should be kept open and welcoming of talent, to preserve the value of HDB flats owners of 800,000, and strengthen the spirit of independence for Singaporeans, “he said.

Major stock indexes rose again to record two years on Wednesday, when a report showed the U.S. economy grew faster than expected in the summer.

Department of Commerce said the country’s GDP rose by an annual rate of 2.6 percent in July-September, a slight increase in its previous estimate was 2.5 percent.

“Some folks will look at 2.6 percent as a disappointment, but the market is taking a look at the bigger picture,” said Phil Orlando, the chief stock market strategist at Federated Investors. Many traders expect the economy to grow by 3 percent or more during the fourth quarter and through 2011, he said.

Separately, the National Association of Realtors said sales of previously occupied homes rose 5.6 percent in November to an annual rate of 4.68 million. That was slightly below analysts’ estimates of 4.75 million, according to data provided by FactSet.

“There is some mixed news out there,” said Jeffrey Kleintop, chief market strategist at LPL Financial, pointing to quarterly results from Nike Inc. – one barometer of consumer spending – as raising a flag that there are some concerns that “companies may miss some estimates, and that earnings growth is slowing.”

“Maybe the markets are getting ahead of themselves even though there are a lot of good reasons why stocks should be going up,” said Kleintop.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 26.33 points, or 0.2 percent, to close at 11,559.49. The S&P 500 index rose 4.24, or 0.3 percent, to 1,258.84. Both indexes closed at their highest levels since July 2008.

The Nasdaq composite index gained 3.87, or 0.2 percent, to 2,671.48. It was the highest close for the Nasdaq since Dec. 28, 2007.

Trading was light ahead of the Christmas holiday on Friday. Rising stocks outnumbered falling ones by 3 to 2 on the New York Stock Exchange. Consolidated volume was 3.6 billion shares.

Of the 30 stocks that make up the Dow index, 22 rose. Bank of America Corp. led the way, gaining 3.1 percent to $13.38. Palo Alto’s Hewlett-Packard had the largest fall. The stock dropped 1 percent to $41.48.

Before the market opened, Walgreens reported revenue and earnings that beat analyst estimates. The country’s largest drugstore chain said its income rose 18.8 percent. The stock rose 5.5 percent to $38.85.

Late Tuesday, Nike Inc. said it planned to raise some of its prices because of higher costs for cotton and shipping. Revenue and earnings per share were better than analysts had forecast. Nike fell 5.3 percent to $86.95.

December promises to be a good month positions. S&P 500 has risen 6.6 percent this month and the Dow has received a 5 per cent. On Tuesday, the S & P 500 closed above it reached in September 1912, 2008, the last trading day before the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a culmination of the financial crisis

The market economy with socialist orientation in Vietnam has worked as much as the market mechanism and administrative policy.

In early 2010, when the world economy was still correct to return to Vietnam a part of the National Assembly and the government to develop solutions that help improve the economy of the late world economy.

Methods included tightening public expenditure, implementing a stimulus package, increasing exports, encouraging domestic consumption, and improving social welfare, which helped stabilize the country’s socio-economy.

Over the past year, the prices of gold and foreign currency have seen fluctuations due to not only the world’s law of supply and demand but also speculation and rumours in the domestic market.

To deal with the problems, the State bank of Vietnam (SBV) introduced effective policies to clean up the gold trading market by allowing gold import, reducing gold import taxes, adjusting exchange rates, and publicizing the national foreign exchange reserve. These policies helped reduce the gold price instability and stabilize the price of foreign currency.

At the end of the year, while the Government is making every effort to curb inflation, many commercial banks joined a race to increase interest rates, creating a more complicated situation in the banking sector.

In response to the banks’ decisions, the Government and SBV imposed administrative measures to control the race. The Ministry of Finance and Industry and the Ministry of Industry and Trade also took the initiative to control prices by deciding not to raise prices of coal, electricity, petrol and oil until the Lunar New Year Festival.

Over 2010 many lessons were learned from the management of the socialist-oriented market economy.

Firstly, the socialist-oriented market economy offers an option for the Government to use policy to intervene in specific economic issues, making the economy more transparent, in accordance with the law of supply and demand. All experts and strategists need to do is to analyse the situation and propose effective measures to the Government.

Secondly, as important social and political events are about to take place in Vietnam and the Lunar New Year Festival is drawing near. Vietnam needs to be more active in stabilizing prices and introducing administrative measures to prevent price fever.

Thirdly, the Government should keep a close watch on the market to introduce proper policies. For example, the price-stabilising fund should be used to help businesses reserve commodities to meet consumer demand in both urban and rural areas.

Fourthly, the market management policies should be transparent and consistent to enhance social unanimity.

Lastly, Vietnam should uphold the active role of mass media to help stabilize the market by providing information and analyzing the market situation, as well as pointing out the deception of those who want to play on the market. This will also help minimize the negative impact on the market created by the mass media.

Despite being affected by global economic crisis and debt crisis of Europe, Vietnam will see significant economic growth in 2010 with foreign investment remains high. These achievements are attributable to the effective management of the state of the economy based on the law of the market.

When playing mixed games, many people consider the Holdem rounds elementary. Lots of people sit back and wait for either good cards or good time to try and take down some pots. However, many either have forgotten or just choose to ignore some very simple concepts that will help you take down more pots during Holdem. Here are a couple of basic concepts to remember while playing Limit Holdem.

Semi-bluffing Draws

One of the most basic skills, you should develop a design is Holdem hands semi-bluff. For example, let’s guess you start with king (Heart) 10(Heart) and are in late location with no raise in front, or you are in a pot laying you proper odds to call. You then see a flop that falls Ace (Heart) 9 (Heart) 6 (Club). This flop is somewhat bad for you, but is a great flop for a semi-bluff.

First, you are about 38% to hit your hand. If by some chance nobody has an ace, you very well may win if a king or ten hits the board. However, for sake of argument, we are going to assume that someone has an ace. What do you do in this situation? If action is checked to you, bet out. If you are bet into, then put in a raise.

Some of you may ask, why not take a free card? Actually, the bet or raise is done to try and pick up a free card on the turn should you miss your flush. Let’s say another club hits the turn. More times than not, your opponents will check to you unless they significantly improved their hand. You can then check to take a free card and it only cost you one small bet. If you check on the flop and the flush doesn’t hit, then someone is likely going to bet out on the turn, and you will now have paid double to try and draw.

This is a very old school play and considered elementary, but you will be surprised how many times that people will check around on a flop and hope that they get checked to again on the turn.

Learn to be a Calling Station

This concept is tough for some tight “rock” players to understand, but in Limit Holdem, you are going to want to call down with your weaker hands, even if it seems long odds to win. Let’s say you started with Q-10 in the big blind with the small blind and one limper calling along. The board ran out 10-J-2-4-6 and you called a bet on the flop and turn. The limper folded on the turn and the small blind bet out on the river once more.

You are looking at seven big bets in the pot. This is a pot you really need to call down with your pair of tens. There might be a good chance that your opponent had A-9 and failed to call, or maybe they have a small pair, such as sevens. In either event, it is only going to cost you one bet to find out to potentially win a pot of seven bets.

A lot of people get into a NL Holdem mindset and have a tough time calling down with second pair unless they have a stellar read on their opponent. In Limit Holdem, you need to pay more attention to the pot and whether making the call is correct via the odds, most of the time it will be. You will be surprised how many times a second or third best hand will take a pot. Aggression is key in all forms of poker, but folding to someone just because they led out all the way is not always the correct decision.

Many old school Limit Holdem players will read this and say to themselves that I am not telling them anything new. However, the majority of players that start playing HORSE for the first time have seldom and sometimes never played a hand of Limit Holdem.

It is indeed a different beast, and all have to start somewhere. In addition, for those of you who have played NL for some time probably need to be updated on some of the concepts that were as fundamental as breathing. Use these tools to pick up the pots and grow your stack. Good luck to you on the tables.

John Key government can take more responsibility for the deteriorating fiscal situation and a great responsibility for the deteriorating economic situation, the Green Party co-leader Dr. Russel Norman said today.

Dr Norman said the release of half of Economic and Fiscal Update, the Ministry of Finance, which showed the economic recovery unstable and New Zealand.

“The worsening outlook for the Government’s budget is a result of some poor decisions on both the revenue and spending side,” said Dr Norman.

“On the revenue side, the Government’s tax cuts directed towards upper-income earners and the lack of a capital gains tax (excluding the family home) has led to a revenue shortfall.”

“On the spending side, the Government’s poor quality spending on uneconomic new motorways and ETS subsidies for polluters has also had a negative impact on the books.

“We are literally now borrowing money to pay for tax cuts for the well-off and motorway projects with negative economic returns.”

Dr Norman also questioned the quality of the Government’s economic stimulus measures that have failed to revive a fragile economy.

“Tax cuts directed towards upper-income earners are one of the poorest ways to stimulate a failing economy. Increasing aid to the unemployed has a stimulus impact two-to-three times greater than nearly any other measure the Government could have chosen,” said Dr Norman.”

“And it would have worked to mitigate the worst impacts of the recession on those most vulnerable to it.

“The Government’s approach to economic management during one of the most turbulent periods of recent history has failed all but the wealthiest of us.”

“A smarter way to manage the improbability would have been to use the crisis as an occasion to change the economy onto a more sustainable and flexible grip. Instead, we have the old economy, dependent on cheap oil to drive, to pay polluters to let the aid of carbon, and to borrow to finance tax cuts, which do not stimulate the economy.”

If all schools have to worry about these days was the establishment of common standards for curriculum and agree on how to measure student progress and teacher effectiveness, our national image education will be completely rosy.

But the growing social problems, which are more demanding of students and the shortage of school social workers – usually the only resource dedicated to helping student’s personal concerns – and you’re looking at another major, but rarely noticed, the issue of education.

The U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights just issued complete guidelines descriptive the liability of educational institutions in the prevention of discrimination based on race, national origin, sex, color, sexual orientation or disability.

That action, itself a result of several high-profile bullying-related suicides, spurred New Jersey to provide suicide prevention courses for students and make school districts codify a comprehensive policy on anti-bullying and harassment.

In Illinois, the governor is considering legislation to reduce child sexual abuse that would establish age-appropriate instruction for public school students in kindergarten through fifth grade and training for school workers on identifying and dealing with abused youngsters.

These topics are being programmed into the classroom because they, along with direct instruction on sexual health, emotional balance and social behavior — lessons that teachers a generation ago would have expected students to learn at home — have landed on the doorstep of public schools.

Teachers who never imagined having to address the multifaceted issues of sexuality, suicide or bullying are ever more leaning on school social workers who are already stretched to their limits.

The latest U.S. Department of Health and Human Service report on the topic found that one in five children and adolescents will experience during their school years a significant mental health problem such as stress, anxiety, bullying, family problems, depression, learning disabilities or alcohol and substance abuse.

Serious mental health problems such as self-injurious behaviors and suicide attempts are on the rise. A Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration report in 2005 found that nearly 60 percent of adolescents ages 12 to 17 who reported a major depressive episode didn’t receive any treatment. And of the kids who did look for help, two-thirds received that help only in school.

Other studies have shown that in many states, school social workers are the major providers of mental health services to children and in some cases, such as rural or inner city areas, schools are the only mental health service provider in the community.

Yet only about 5 percent of the nation’s approximately half-million social workers work in public schools, according to the National Association of Social Workers. That organization recently went before a congressional committee to brief legislators on the need for additional federal and state investments to overcome the challenges of recruiting, educating and keeping social workers.

According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projections, at least 100,000 more social workers will be needed by 2018 just to keep pace with the volume of social needs in communities.

The evidence so far is only anecdotal, but states all over the country are facing hard decisions to cut programs. College and career guidance counselors, testing and special education-focused school psychologists, and social workers are at high risk because their roles tend not to be widely understood in communities.

Cross your fingers that school social workers across the country will survive reduced budgets and continue to help students and teachers navigate these perilous times we’re all living through.

Poker players love playing variations of poker games in both online and offline poker rooms. When playing mixed poker, you get a chance to play mixed poker where you get to play these variations in rotations.

One of the most popular forms of mixed version is the HORSE poker which includes strategies of Hold’em, Omaha, Stud, Razz and Stud-hi-lo. Depending on the poker room and house, the rules of the game may vary, but most mixed versions make use of certain standard rules.

So even before beginning the play, players are expected to understand and agree to these set of rules. So if you are willing to eliminate or add a few games, then each and every player must agree to it. The general rules and regulations are always decided in the very first round and they are announced by the dealer.

When playing this version, each and every player gets a fair opportunity to act as a dealer. So even if in any variation there is not dealer button, then it is important that the button must travel to each and every player playing the game. Players are always reminded of the type of game played in every round. So if you can play all variants of the poker, then you are always a good mixed poker player.

When the regular player feels that they can play the video poker games at around even money or even beat the houses in some cases – they are ready to dive in and start playing right away.

But here the thing: you need to implement the perfect strategy and have a big bankroll, before any player’s vision of beating the house come true.

First off, it’s pretty hard to use ideal strategy unless you have spent immeasurable hours perfecting your video poker strategy. Second, you need a really large bankroll since it takes thousands and thousands of spins to reach the top payout rate.

Add in the fact that you go through video poker hands rather quickly, and you have to be seriously well-funded to have any chance at earning the top payout percentage.

Even if you aren’t an extremely experienced video poker player, you could be playing 500 hands or more an hour. Sure you can play for just $0.25 a spin, but you also have to take into account that you’ll be earning a much lower payout percentage than the one advertised.

For instance, if the game you are playing offers a 99.5% payout percentage, you need to win the jackpot at some point to earn this payout percentage. Assuming the jackpot doesn’t come for 70,000 hands, that’s a lot of video poker to be playing.

Getting to the point, if you are only earning 90% back on every dollar you spend until the jackpot finally comes, you’d be losing $15 an hour if six hundred $0.25 spins were made ($150 X 0.10 house edge).

Of course, this does not seem to play much more well-funded, but a lot of someone with $300 bankroll. Basically, your bankroll should be gone after 20 hours or 12 000 spins, and this was not enough to get the jackpot.

So the point is that you need a large bankroll if you’re going to earn the top payouts in video poker games.