February 11th 2012
Montana mining operators are affected by new legislation. The new law, which is named, HB 533, authorizes the Board of Land Commissioners to decide whether or not a surety bond will be required of mining operators to guarantee the payment of royalties to the Board. The previous law always required the surety bond.
February 4th 2012
Last week I had the opportunity to attend an IMF conference (organized by Olivier Blanchard, Krishna Srinivasan, and Hamid Faruqee) focusing on the critical issue of assessing the sources of the pre-crisis imbalances in systemically key countries. The proceedings also had a forward looking component, highlighting the difficulties of determining when external imbalances are problematic. The conference proceedings are here.
To place the topic in perspective, here is the graph of current account imbalances, from the September 2011 World Economic Outlook:
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Here is the conference agenda, with links to the presentations.
January 25th 2012
There has been plenty of activity in the balance transfer credit card market recently, but relatively little movement when it comes to cards which offer consistently low standard rates – until now that is.
Low standard rate credit cards are worth considering if you won’t be able to clear your balance during the 0% introductory periods offered by other cards, and don’t want to switch your card again once it ends. You’ll pay interest but not as much as the rates charged on many credit cards.
Sainsbury’s has just thrown down the gauntlet to other providers by launching a new market-leading low rate ‘Transactor’ card with a representative annual percentage rate (APR) of just 6.9%, with no balance transfer fees. Here, we take a look at who the card is suitable for, and whether there are any catches to watch out for…
Sainsbury’s new low rate card, which is only available to customers with a Nectar card, offers a representative APR of 6.9% on new purchases and balance transfers, and importantly does not impose any balance transfer fees.
January 15th 2012
This is the third and final instalment of our Thursday bubble series. The first part looked at Canadian housing, while the second looked at gold. This one is a little more, shall we say, contrarian in nature.
These days, I don’t know anyone who will discourage a young person from going to college. (Except me. Plug alert!) Haven’t you heard the studies? You know, the ones that say that college graduates make more than their lesser educated brethren? Or the ones that argue the difference can be as much as a million dollars over a lifetime? If you’re not going off to get some sort of higher education, you’re missing out.
I won’t discourage anyone from attending post secondary if they want to. Higher education is a noble goal, and often one that will directly result in higher wages, since we live in an increasingly specialized world. Often, co
January 5th 2012
Mississippi legislators have enacted a new bill that concerns proprietary schools within the state. The new bill is named SB 2771 and modifies the surety bond requirements for proprietary schools which previously called for a $50,000 bond. SB 2771 now allows the Commission on Proprietary School and College Registration to establish the size of the bond. The new bill also terminated the amount of the bond for a proprietary school agents. Previous legislation required a $10,000 bond for a permit to become an agent of the school, and blanket bonds were also acceptable to cover all of the school’s agents. SB 2771 now only states that the agent’s bond must be acceptable to the Commission on Proprietary School and College Registration.