7 Ways to Slash Stress

Chronic stress seems to be our national disease, especially these days. Millions suffer from symptoms of stress: nervous tension, restless sleep, difficulty focusing and remembering, irritability, and health complications. Generally speaking, stress speeds up aging. Learn the ways to manage stress, and you will look and feel younger.


Relax with the rest of the story....

 By TIM PARADIS, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK – Wall Street was feeling more upbeat Thursday after a government report showed the economy contracted in the third quarter by less than expected and after the Federal Reserve's second interest rate cut in a month. The major stock indexes jumped more than 1.5 percent, including the Dow Jones industrials, which rose 135 points.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc's (WMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Sam's Club division is opening a new type of warehouse club aimed at attracting Hispanic shoppers with an expanded selection of products from Mexico.

The club, to be called Mas Club, will be opened in Houston the first half of 2009.

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(CNN) -- For Liz McCartney, selection as one of the Top 10 CNN Heroes of 2008 could not have come at a better time.

"While other areas need help, this recognition is letting the American people know that the New Orleans area still matters," McCartney said.

The diverse group of honorees includes a Cambodian activist who offers free schooling to children who work in Phnom Penh's trash dump; a Georgia prosthetist-orthotist who provides limbs and braces to hundreds of people in Mexico; and a Virginia woman who tapes video messages from incarcerated parents for their children.

CNN's Anderson Cooper announced the 10 honorees Thursday on "American Morning."

Read the story and watch the video here

By JENNIFER LOVEN, AP White House Correspondent Jennifer Loven, Ap White House Correspondent

WASHINGTON – An impatient White House prodded banks and other financial companies Tuesday to quit hoarding billions of dollars flowing into their vaults from Washington and start making more loans. Wall Street soared nearly 900 points on bargain-hunting and hopes of a hefty interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve.

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Patrick Henry Hughes on the lessons he’s learned about staying positive

Born with no eyes and crippling physical anomalies, Patrick Henry Hughes has had to overcome many obstacles. In his new book, “I Am Potential,” the successful pianist and trumpeter offers the eight lessons he’s learned about staying positive and recognizing potential. An excerpt.

(CNN) -- Tracy Orr sat in the back of the room and prepared to watch her foreclosed home go up for auction this past Saturday. That's when a pesky stranger sat down beside her and struck up a conversation.

Within moments, the four-bedroom, two-bath home in Pottsboro, Texas, went up for sale. People up front began casting their bids. The home that Orr purchased in September 2004 was slipping away.

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Discount chain Aldi celebrated the opening of its 58th store in Ireland last week. The new store, on the outskirts of Cobh, Co Cork, is among 14 shops the German business is set to open over the next year. A spokesman for the company said it had seen a considerable increase in customer numbers in Ireland as the credit crunch sets in. The competition authority now estimates Aldi has a 5% share in the Irish market.

First Financial Bankshares Inc. reported earnings for the third quarter of 2008 of $13.36 million, up 9.1 percent from $12.25 million in the same quarter last year, according to a news release today.

Basic earnings were 64 cents per share for the third quarter, up 8.5 percent from 59 cents for the same quarter last year.

The provision for loan losses increased to $1.77 million in the third quarter of 2008, up from $475,000 in the same quarter last year and $1.44 million in the second quarter of 2008. This increase is reflective of the company's growth in loans and concern for a slowing economy.

To read the rest of the story

Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell gets inside the food industry's pursuit of the perfect spaghetti sauce -- and makes a larger argument about the nature of choice and happiness.

Confused with all of the information flying around these days about the elections and the economy? The following is a great article that we found over at Good.

We’ve got a presidential election coming up and we’re in the throes of an economic meltdown. The media isn’t providing much understanding. The debates don’t help all that much either. So here are three sites that do a great job of consolidating clear, useful information.


Untwisting the Campaigns’ Claims: Most of the claims we’ve heard in the debates so far have been misleading. The candidates are expert at twisting facts and spinning. But we’ve been really impressed with CNN’s well edited Fact Check column.

Keeping Up with the Polls: To get all the day’s polls, incorporated into one simple, yet comprehensive electoral map, check electoral-vote.com. The campaigns themselves use it to stay informed.

Making Sense of the Money Meltdown: It is remarkable how little understanding one comes away with listening to the 24-hour saturation coverage of the credit crisis/mortgage meltdown/bailout-rescue plan given the saturation coverage in the media. The Money Meltdown consolidates and organizes the best information so you’re not just swimming in terrifying gibberish and superficialities.

I ran across a story by a reporter at CNET who had originally written about tech layoffs. A few days later, he posted an interactive spreadsheet called the "spreadsheet of sunshine". This spreadsheet is a user compiled list of all the tech companies that are hiring and it is updated daily. This is the type of news that we love to come across at Know News and it certainly tells a different story than the typical doom and gloom of the news.

The article and the spreadsheet can be found here, enjoy!

Union Pacific Corp. posted a 32% rise in third-quarter net income as surging revenue from energy and agriculture products more than compensated for a 5% volume drop.
The biggest U.S. freight railroad operator by revenue reported net income of $703 million, or $1.38 a share, up from $532 million, or $1 a share, a year ago. Union Pacific said per-share earnings would have been eight cents higher were it not for the impact of the Gulf Coast hurricanes.

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A simple "five-a-day" programme of social and personal tasks can promote mental well being as well as physical fitness according to the research, compiled with the help of more than 400 scientists.

The Mental Capital and Wellbeing report, published by Foresight, part of the Government Office for Science, says people should try to connect with others, to be active, to take notice of their surroundings, to keep learning and to give to their neighbours and communities.

Foresight believes a small increase in levels of wellbeing can produce a large decrease in mental health problems, treatment of which costs up to £77billion a year in England alone.

The report's advice to "take notice" includes suggestions such as "catch sight of the beautiful" and "savour the moment, whether walking to work, eating lunch or talking to friends". Examples of learning include mending a bike or trying to play a musical instrument.

It suggests an easy five-a-day approach, citing the success of the nutritional campaign to persuade Britons to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables every day.

Find out more about the five ways you can stay sane!

As this week dawned, I could almost hear a collective sigh of relief. We may have come to the brink, but we didn't fall over it. At least not yet.

After an active two weeks in the stock market, I'm taking a break and taking time to a look at a part of the market I abandoned years ago: municipal bonds. My attention was captured last week when I heard the voice of former New York City Mayor Ed Koch on the radio pitching New York City municipal bonds, triple-tax-free for New York City residents like myself.

Evidently even a pitchman like Mayor Koch couldn't overcome the prevailing risk aversion, for I later heard the offering had to be postponed due to market conditions. Still, the offered yield was a remarkable 5.75%. That's the equivalent to an over 10% return for New York City residents in the top bracket.

If so much other news wasn't pushing it out of the headlines, the crisis in the municipal-bond market would be making the front pages. As investors have fled nearly every packaged or derivative product, there has been turmoil in the tax-exempt market. There were fears earlier this month that California might need a federal bailout because it couldn't market its bonds; they proved unfounded when the state's issue actually was oversubscribed. Still, the very thought that a state like California might be in trouble spooked many investors. And there seems little doubt that state and municipal budgets will come under pressure, given the economic upheavals and the likely fall in revenues.

Despite these fears, the current upheaval largely has been a liquidity crisis, not a credit-quality crisis. There have been no recent defaults, but municipal bonds, just like mortgages, have been packaged into all kinds of products much like collateralized debt obligations and mortgage backed securities. The crisis in tax-exempt auction rate preferreds was the tip of the iceberg.

The upshot is that yields in the tax-exempt markets have soared well above rates for Treasurys of similar duration. This is very rare, since municipal-bond yields are tax exempt and, as a result, almost always yield less than comparable Treasurys or taxable bonds.

So last week I ventured into the market for municipal bonds for the first time in years, a task that proved daunting. Though municipal bonds typically are available through any full-service or discount broker, I'm told many firms have slashed their inventory during the liquidity crisis.

The volatility in the market also seems to have driven up spreads between the bid and asked prices to unusual levels. I was able to get a New York City general obligation bond yielding 5.5%. Municipalbonds.com offers a comprehensive list of available bonds by state. I glanced at the offerings in California, Illinois and Massachusetts , all of which had bonds with yields in the 5% to 6% range, and a few even higher. Since nearly every bond is different, it's important to read the fine print. Beware of yields that seem too good to be true (at least one bond was reported to be yielding over 50%).

Buying an individual bond is a way to take advantage of the recent turmoil. In some cases, investors can buy newly issued bonds directly from their state or municipality. Another possibility is to buy one of the many tax-free municipal bond funds, some of them tailored for specific states and cities. Most have had terrible years, given the credit crisis, but Pimco's High Yield Municipal Bond fund currently yields 5.83%. These funds offer immediate diversification and professional management. But because their holdings are replenished constantly, they don't have fixed maturities and aren't likely to benefit as much from the recent dislocations in the market. With an individual bond, you can always hold it to maturity.

Like all investments, buying a municipal bond is a vote of confidence in the future. As former Mayor Koch reminded me, it's also a way of contributing to your communities. Especially in these difficult markets, our public institutions need you.

James B. Stewart, a columnist for SmartMoney magazine and SmartMoney.com, writes weekly about his personal investing strategy. Unlike Dow Jones reporters, he may have positions in the stocks he writes about. For his past columns, see: www.smartmoney.com/commonsense.

Broadcom Corp.'s third-quarter profit soared almost sixfold amid continued demand for its communications chips.

The Irvine, Calif., company reported net income of $164.9 million, or 31 cents a share, up from $27.8 million, or five cents a share, a year earlier. The latest results included $38 million in royalties from a patent license agreement entered in July 2007. Revenue jumped 37% to $1.3 billion.

Looking ahead, Broadcom forecast fourth-quarter revenue of $1.17 billion to $1.24 billion, below the average analyst estimate $1.29 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.

"As in prior economic slowdowns, we expect to enhance our competitive positioning and drive the next wave of communications convergence,"

said Chief Executive Scott McGregor in a prepared statement.

Broadcom's products are used in Apple Inc.'s iPhone, Motorola Inc.'s cable set-top boxes and Netgear Inc.'s wireless routers.

By Kathy Shwiff of the Wall Street Journal

Saving is on the rise. That's a long-term good, though it won't help battered job and housing markets.

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- The economic storm pelting the U.S. economy is going to do plenty more damage to already flattened job and housing markets.

But as dark as the next three or four quarters could be, the U.S. economy appears to be undergoing a more lasting, and ultimately uplifting, shift.

Americans who for decades have spent an increasing share of their incomes and taken on more and more debt are now, for the first time in years, saving instead.

The personal savings rate, which measures the amount of disposable personal income that isn't spent, ticked up to almost 3% in the second quarter of 2008, after almost four years below 1%.

Read the full article

by Joel Kotkin 10/19/2008 
As the financial crisis takes down Wall Street, the regular folks on Main Street are biting their nails, watching the toxic tsunami head their way. But for all our nightmares of drowning in a sea of bad mortgages, foreclosed homes and shrunken retirement plans, the truth is that the effects of this meltdown won't be all bad in the long run. In one regard, it could offer our society a net positive: Forced into belt-tightening, Americans are likely to strengthen our family and community ties and to center our lives more closely on the places where we live.

Read the rest of the Good news

The stock market benefited Monday from cheapening credit, a rally in the energy sector, and comforting words from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who threw his support behind a second round of fiscal stimulus for the sagging U.S. economy.

Major indexes retreated from their morning highs but clung to gains in recent action. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which was up more than 250 points at its high, recently traded 179 points higher, up 2%, at 9023.06. Its gains were led by energy components Chevron and Exxon Mobil, up about 7% each due to an uptick in oil prices.

The S&P 500 was up 2.2% at 961.42, helped by gains in all its sectors. Energy was the strongest, up more than 6%.

While there have been some promising signs lately that the recent financial crisis is receding, traders and analysts say there could yet be a long slog ahead as the economy works through what appears to be a painful global recession.

"I'm not convinced that we're out of the negative cycle," said Roger Volz, senior vice president and trader at Hampton Securities, a New York brokerage. "But the worst of the violence of the moves to the donwside has probably passed."

Looking at chart patterns from previous market downturns, Mr. Volz said that the Dow could yet reach a new trough, perhaps as low as 7000 sometime over the next two years. That would represent a 22.4% drop from its current level and an 11.2% dip below the intraday low reached on Oct. 10, which some traders still hope will stand as the nadir of the current bear market.

Other market measures edged higher in recent action. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index was up 0.5% at 1719.58. The small-stock Russell 2000 managed a 1.9% gain, trading at 530.70.

There were further easing in the bank-to-bank lending market, which has been at the heart of the recent crisis. Three-month dollar Libor, a key measure of interbank lending, slid to 4.05875% from Friday's fixing of 4.41875%. The latest fix is the lowest since Sept. 30. Meanwhile, the overnight rate fell to 1.5125% from Friday's 1.66875%, edging ever closer to the Fed funds target rate of 1.5%.

Treasurys were mixed. The yieled on three-month bills climbed over 1.1%, compared to about 0.8% late Friday, signaling that investors were less apt to hoard the paper as a safe-haven bet. The 10-year note's price rose 5/32, pushing the yield to 3.916%. The 30-year bond saw its price rise 16/32, pushing the yield to 4.302%.

Investors also paid close attention to Mr. Bernanke's testimony to the House of Representatives Budget Committee. In his opening remarks, Mr. Bernanke signaled that he supports a second round of fiscal stimulus by the government. "With the economy likely to be weak for several quarters, and with some risk of a protracted slowdown, consideration of a fiscal package by the Congress at this juncture seems appropriate," Mr. Bernanke said.

Separately, U.S. banking regulators and U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson encouraged financial institutions to seek capital from the government, outlining a streamlined process by which institutions can apply to be part of a $250 billion capital injection program announced last week.

Oil futures rose $1.50 to $73.35 a barrel in New York, as traders bet that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will cut production when its ministers hold an emergency meeting set for Friday.

Dutch bank and insurance company ING, which Sunday announced that it has secured a 13.4 billion capital injection from the Dutch state, saw its New York-listed shares rise about 31% in recent action.

American International Group rose about 7% amid reports from London that Prudential PLC may mount a $15 billion bid for the ailing insurer's Asian operations. Prudential shares leapt 19%.

The dollar strengthened against major rivals. One euro recently cost $1.3295, down from $1.3406 late Friday. The dollar fetched 101.64 Japanese yen, up from 101.45 yen.

—Brian Blackstone contributed to this article.

Write to Peter A. McKay at peter.mckay@wsj.com.

With Stocks Swinging Wildly, It's Easy to Panic; Some Advice for Fighting the Herd Mentality

Take a look at this video......



After watching this you may start wonder what else you are missing.

Enjoy

Your career is not a boat. Neither is your business. A boat with even a small leak is going to sink. You, on the other hand, don't need to be perfect to succeed. Imagine that you have a 4 x 4 grid to fill with assets. If it's a business, it might be location, reputation, staff, offerings that are in high demand and a sector that's robust... if you're doing it for yourself, it might include your resume, your network, your skill set, etc.

Know the whole story

The Wall Street Journal is reporting nearly 60% of companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index that have reported third-quarter results beat Wall Street's expectations, according to Thomson Reuters.

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Gasoline prices breach the $3 level for the first time since January.

For most of us, the price of gas has had an impact on our lives in many ways that may have lead to lifestyle changes. If this is the case and if you maintain these lifestyle changes you will get an immediate raise! Just three months ago, oil prices hit $147 per barrel, pushing the price of gas in some parts of the U.S. to more than $5 per galllon. Analysts estimate that every $1.00 decline in the price of oil saves U.S. consumers $1 billion dollars. The average oil price in the third quarter was $117; figure an average of about $80 for the current quarter, and that's about $40 billion in savings for the American consumer.

For me, this means and immediate savings of over $80 dollars per month and almost $1000 per year on just my daily office commute.


If you are interested in more information on gas prices you can read this story.

If you have never been to Ted.com than you are missing some amazing lectures. This lecture is by Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness. He challenges the idea that we’ll be miserable if we don’t get what we want. Our "psychological immune system" lets us feel truly happy even when things don’t go as planned.

THE financial world is a mess, both in the United States and abroad. Its problems, moreover, have been leaking into the general economy, and the leaks are now turning into a gusher. In the near term, unemployment will rise, business activity will falter and headlines will continue to be scary.

So ... I’ve been buying American stocks. This is my personal account I’m talking about, in which I previously owned nothing but United States government bonds.

Full Story

This article was forwarded to me by Rick Itzkowich of Productive Learning & Leisure,LLC

Pessimism: Its Mistaken Perspective

I've heard there are people with such sunny dispositions that they never
give way to sadness. The rumor is that they always make lemonade from
their lemons. And the boast is that they can always win at cards - no
matter the hand they get dealt. They always come out of tough times on
the winning side, always cure their own illnesses with positive
thinking, and are always loved by all who know them. Maybe there are
such people. I doubt it.

Don't get me wrong! There is certainly value to looking for silver
linings over getting lost in the dense fog of a dark cloud. In fact, if
I had to choose between being a naive optimist and marching to the beat
of the pessimist's drum, I would hope to be confused with Forrest Gump
over Eeyore.

There is lots of pessimism in the air these days. There's pessimism over
the Middle East and the economy. There is Eeyore-like melancholy over
the state of world and national leadership. You name it. Somebody is
there to tell us why things are worse than they've ever been - and
destined soon to get worse still.

Maybe the pessimist lives under the delusion of Golden Age Syndrome. For
most of my life, I have had to endure the lament of older people wishing
for "the good old days" and "things as they used to be." I've always
been skeptical of those people and have been inclined to suspect they
have selective memory.

Now that I have lived a while, I'm trying to keep from using those
phrases myself. Economics, politics, human relationships, religion - I
seriously doubt there has ever been a time when all these things were
just right.

Professor Walter Jackson Bate quotes a dejected Egyptian scribe who
lived more than 2,000 years before Christ. The scribe commented on the
limitations of language and wrote dejectedly of the fact that there were
no fresh, new ways of saying things. On his view, "men of old" had
created all the phrases that were possible for human language and had
exhausted them by his time. Therefore all human expression had grown
stale. Language was bankrupt.

As Professor Bate points out, this pessimistic requiem was sung over
civilization before any of what we now take to be the world's greatest
works of literature had been composed. Maybe the scribe was premature!

If all the pessimists across time had been correct in speaking of their
generation going to the dogs, exhausting every creative option, or being
abandoned by God, you and I would not be here to reflect on it.

Without either being naive or embracing Gump-ism, there is more value in
facing the coming week with a positive, forward-looking spirit than
wallowing in sadness over our loss of a perfection that never was.

Rubel Shelly

Rubel Shelly is a Preacher and Professor of Religion and Philosophy
located in Rochester Hills, Michigan. In addition to church and academic
responsibilities, he has worked actively with such community projects as
Habitat for Humanity, American Red Cross, From Nashville With Love,
Metro (Nashville) Public Schools, Faith Family Medical Clinic, and
Operation Andrew Ministries. To learn more about Rubel please go to:
www.RubelShelly.com

You are what you eat and you are what you believe.....this is a great video explaining that biology of perception.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Internet advertising giant Google reported a strong increase in sales and a bigger profit than expected despite the current economic slump.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company reported revenue of $5.54 billion in the quarter ended Sept. 30, an increase of 31% from $4.23 billion a year ago.

Excluding commissions paid to advertising partners, Google posted sales of $4.04 billion, roughly in line with the $4.06 billion in sales analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected on this basis.

Google reported net income for the third quarter of $1.35 billion, up 26% from $1.07 billion a year ago. Excluding certain charges, such as the cost of employee stock options, the company earned $4.92 a share, better than consensus estimates of $4.75 per share.

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This is a wonderful story that we came across on the PL&L blog. It is worth taking the time to watch this and see how positive story's and events are happinging all around us - Enjoy

The government’s move to take stakes in major banks has finally succeeded in easing some of the panic that’s locked up credit markets, reports the Wall Street Journal. Corporate-bond values rose and commercial paper began trading at lower rates, giving hope that the intervention is working, though experts say there’s a long way to go before business gets back to normal. Large banks reported a drop in their costs to borrow from each other, a key barometer of credit availability, though it could be weeks or months before money flows freely enough for banks to resume lending to corporations, small businesses, municipalities, and individuals, the Journal says. Experts warn that the loosening may come too late for many borrowers who are teetering on the brink. The auto industry, casino operators, and retailers remain concerned that consumer spending will remain depressed.

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Avon's cosmetic-toting army is growing as troubled economic times make door-knocking more attractive to women struggling to make ends meet, reports the Wall Street Journal. Incentives including price cuts, gas vouchers, and advice from celebrity financier Suze Orman, helped attract 5% more sales reps in the second quarter of this year, after years of thinning ranks.

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All right, we get it… Gas prices are high; the real estate market isn’t good, stocks are down, and many banks are in a mess. The media keeps drilling it into our heads like we had no idea.

Despite their negativity this may actually be an excellent time to better your life and the lives of those around you. Tough times are some of the best times for people to become resourceful, innovative, and make positive changes.

Here are 9 ways you can take advantage of this “terrible” economy.

Read the article

5 Creativity Killers And How To Get Your Creative Juices Flowing Again

Read the article

CINCINNATI (AP) -- Kroger Co. shares moved up Thursday, a day after the grocery chain gave an upbeat update on this quarter's sales.

Kroger stock was at $25.11, up 57 cents or 2.3 percent, in early afternoon trading. Shares have traded in a 52-week range of $22.30 to $30.99.

The nation's largest traditional grocer, hosting an analysts' meeting Wednesday, confirmed its earnings guidance for the year and said a key measure of retailers' strength has been trending up. Identical supermarket sales growth, which tracks stores open at least five quarters, was running above 5 percent, not including fuel sales, for the current quarter.

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It would seam that with all the negative news, some people are still playing games.

For the annual period ending March 31, Nintendo netted more than $800 million, the company announced today.

The greatest profit since 2001(the year it released the GameCube and Game Boy Advance), the number represents an 8.7 percent increase from last year, and eclipsed Nintendo's own financial forecast considerably.

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Burlington Coat Factory Investments Holdings, Inc. and its operating subsidiaries (the "Company"), a nationwide retailer based in Burlington, New Jersey, today announced its results for the first quarter ended August 30, 2008.
The Company experienced an increase in net sales in the first quarter of Fiscal 2009. Net sales for the first quarter ended August 30, 2008 were $707.0 million, compared with $678.8 million for the comparative period ended September 1, 2007, a 4.2 % increase. This increase is primarily the result of the Company opening 33 new stores during the past twelve months and an increase in comparative store sales. Comparative store sales increased 0.2% for the three months ended August 30, 2008 compared with the three months ended September 1, 2007.


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It has been said that attitudes and ideas are contagious and we believe this to be true. When you turn on the news what do you see and hear? Is it all negative? At Know News you will actually experience a much different approach with positive news and news that doesn't only look at the negative. This blog came out of a process that our Company went through over a two day workshop......enjoy

The know news team