Plan A for me has always been an academic job: to do research, dig and teach. I never got any of the rare entry-level post-doctoral jobs in academe, and now I am mid-career and no longer eligible for them. Starting autumn 2010, though, Ive begun getting shortlisted for lectureships. And I know from stats gathered during my years of academic job hunting that 50% of everyone who gets a lectureship in Scandy archaeology are between 41 and 43½ years old. So having just turned 40, Im thinking that plan A has four years of realistic life left. When I turn 44 I will again (and terminally) belong to a demographic that gets less than a quarter of all lectureships.

My current professional lifestyle isnt sustainable long-term because older scholars arent as popular with small foundations and because I need to think about my pension plan as well. So I need a plan B.

I could leave archaeology for a full-time job in non-fic publishing on the strength of my years of journal and book editing. But Id really rather not since that would mainly entail copy editing, proof reading and admin, tasks that I do mechanically. Lets call that plan C. Or D.

The plan B that Ive been thinking about lately, instead, is to start a one-man consultancy firm and offer contract excavation units to write up their small finds. I have no idea what the demand for such a service is like right now. I do know that just like I am not as good a field archaeologist as colleagues who have been digging full time since 1992, they are not as good at small finds as I am. But I am uncertain how much importance the units place on the quality of the finds write-ups in their reports. It might be that they would reply to my offer, Sure, we think you would do a better job, but our main priority sadly isnt quality but affordability. And besides, we need to keep Digger Joe here occupied over the winter since hes already on staff.

Anyway, Im still not in that magic 3½ year window for lectureships, and I have seen some encouraging signs lately. So I guess I wont be starting Rundkvist Archaeology Text Ltd before 2016, at the earliest.

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Tokyo, May 16, 2012 (ACN Newswire via COMTEX) –
JCB, the only international credit card brand based in Japan, and its international subsidiary JCB International (JCBI) today announced that Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited (ICBC) will start issuing JCB cards today.

ICBC is one of the largest public banks in the world in terms of total assets and has issued more credit cards than any other bank in China. JCBI and ICBC have had an acquiring business partnership since 1991 and signed a license agreement for JCB card issuing in 2008. Now ICBC will be issuing its flagship ICBC Card with the JCB brand and providing customers with JCB travel related services such as the JCB Plaza and JCB Plaza Lounge in addtiion to ICBC’s own loyalty program and other functions and services. Customers may select billing of their international spending on the card in US dollars or in Japanese yen, an option that is especially convenient for those traveling frequently to Japan.

Since 1982, JCB and JCBI have been expanding JCB card acceptance in China to increase convenience for JCB cardmembers. Currently JCB has alliances with thirteen partner banks and financial institutions in China for merchant acquiring with over approximately 100,000 merchants accepting JCB cards. JCB card issuing to consumers in China has also been expanding since 2005 to meet increasing need in the market for international credit cards driven by the country’s strong economic growth. In addition to ICBC, Bank of China, Bank of Shanghai, China Everbright Bank, China Merchants Bank, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, China Minsheng Banking Corporation, China Construction Bank and Ping An Bank currently issue JCB cards, and the cardmember base has been expanding in the country and has surpassed 5 million earlier this year.

By issuing a “ICBC JCB Card”, ICBC will be able to provide a stronger product and more high-quality services to customers, while JCB will expand its presence in China through the bank’s national network and customer base.

About JCB

JCB is a major global payment brand and leading credit card issuer and acquirer in Japan. JCB launched its card business in Japan in 1961 and began expanding overseas in 1981. Its acceptance network includes 20 million merchants and over a million cash advance locations in 190 countries and territories. JCB cards are now issued in 16 countries and territories, with more than 71 million cardmembers. As part of its international growth strategy, JCB has formed alliances with more than 350 leading banks and financial institutions globally to increase merchant coverage and cardmember base. As a comprehensive payment solution provider, JCB commits to provide responsive and high-quality service and products to all customers worldwide. For more information, visit:
www.jcbcorporate.com/english
.

Note: JCB statistics included in About JCB are as of the end of September 2011.

Contact:

JCB International Co., Ltd.

Ayako Tanaka

Corporate Planning Department

+81-3-5778-8390

Source: JCB

Copyright (C) Japan Corporate News NetWork

Financial Glossary

Words used in this article:

MCLEAN, Va., May 14, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ –
In the first quarter of 2012, fixed-rate loans accounted for more than 95 percent of refinance loans, based on the Freddie Mac

/quotes/zigman/226335/quotes/nls/fmcc FMCC
+1.30%

Quarterly Product Transition Report released today. Refinancing borrowers clearly preferred fixed-rate loans, regardless of whether their original loan was an adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) or a fixed-rate.

News Facts

Of borrowers who refinanced during the first quarter of 2012, 31 percent reduced their loan term by paying off a 30-year loan and replacing it with a 20-year, 15-year, or other shorter-term loan. In addition, 66 percent of borrowers kept the same term as the loan that they had paid off.

Sixty-eight percent of borrowers who had a hybrid ARM chose a fixed-rate loan during the first quarter, the highest share since the first quarter of last year, while the remaining 32 percent chose to refinance into the same type of product.

QuotesAttributed to Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist:

“Fixed mortgage rates averaged 3.92 percent for 30-year loans and 3.19 percent for 15-year product during the first quarter in Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey®, well below long-term averages. The Bureau of Economic Analysis has estimated the average coupon on single-family loans was about 5.1 percent during the first quarter of 2012. It’s no wonder we continue to see strong refinance activity into fixed-rate loans.

“Compared to a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, the interest rate on a 15-year fixed was about three-quarters of a percentage point lower during the first quarter. For borrowers motivated to refinance by low fixed-rates, they could obtain even lower rates by shortening their term. Further, under the enhanced Home Affordable Refinance Program–HARP–announced by FHFA on October 24, 2011, certain risk-based fees are waived for HARP borrowers who refinance into shorter-term loans.”

Get the latest information from Freddie Mac’s Office of the Chief Economist on Twitter:@FreddieMac

Quarterly Product Transition Information These estimates come from a sample of properties on which Freddie Mac has funded at least two successive loans and the latest loan is for refinance rather than for home purchase. Some loan products, such as 1-year ARMs and balloons, are based on a small number of transactions. During the first quarter of 2012, the refinance share of applications averaged 81 percent in Freddie Mac’s monthly refi survey, and the ARM share of applications was 6 percent in Freddie Mac’s monthly ARM survey, which includes purchase-money as well as refinance applications.

Quarterly Product Transition Statistics

Freddie Mac was established by Congress in 1970 to provide liquidity, stability and affordability to the nation’s residential mortgage markets. Freddie Mac supports communities across the nation by providing mortgage capital to lenders. Today Freddie Mac is making home possible for one in four homebuyers and is one of the largest sources of financing for multifamily housing.
www.FreddieMac.com .

Related Links FreddieMac.com Economic & Housing Research Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS®) Primary Mortgage Market Survey® Archives Bureau of Economic Analysis Refi & ARM Share Data

http://www.freddiemac.com/news/finance/refi-arm_archives.htm

SOURCE Freddie Mac

Copyright (C) 2012 PR Newswire. All rights reserved

/quotes/zigman/226335/quotes/nls/fmcc

Add to portfolio

FMCC

Freddie Mac

US

: OTCBB

$
0.27

+0.0035
+1.30%

Volume: 2.68M
May 18, 2012 2:48p

P/E RatioN/A
Dividend YieldN/A

Market Cap$175.78 million
Rev. per Employee$20.08M

Financial Glossary

Words used in this article:

A Your friend is talking rubbish. It is not illegal to have two residential mortgages; you can have as many mortgages as you like on as many properties. The issue is that the terms and conditions of residential mortgages expect you to live in the properties as your own home, even if its only for a short time, as with a holiday home, for example.

If you decide to let a property on which you have a residential mortgage you are obliged to tell your lender, who will decide what action it wants you to take. In your case all you were required to do was obtain a consent-to-let form, for which I assume you paid a fee. Other lenders may put the interest rate up or insist you switch to a buy-to-let mortgage. Your lender didnt so you dont need to worry.

I have a 30-year loan on my townhouse with 6% interest. I paid $72,500 and three years later I owe about $70,000. My only other debt is a six-year new car loan with 11.6% interest. I paid $24,000 and have not made my first payment yet.

If I have extra money each month to pay toward one of these debts, say, $400, which one should it go to? Things to factor in: Property values seem to have dropped the value of my house by about $10,000. I dont know how long Ill live there. I wanted to calculate an answer, but wasnt even sure which numbers to include. I want to get these debts paid off so I can start seriously saving for retirement.

- Kylie

Dear Kylie,

Congrats on your new car. Hope you enjoy it! Your plan for paying off debts and then saving for retirement is a good one. Lets see if we cant find a way to maximize the value of that $400 per month.

Lets begin with the obvious. There sure are a lot of numbers involved. You could spend days designing a spreadsheet to try to figure all the combinations. So the first step, and perhaps the most critical one, is to decide which variables are important to getting the right answer.

To find the right ones, we need to refine the question a bit. What I think youre asking is, Where can I put that $400 each month that will provide the most value to me in the future? Or, to put it another way, Where will this money add the most to my future net worth?

With that in mind, we can eliminate some variables. Well begin with the townhouse. Who knows whether the value will go up or down in the next few years. It really doesnt matter. Prepaying your mortgage wont increase or decrease the value of the townhouse. And the value of the townhouse wont affect the amount still due on the mortgage. So we can focus our attention on how prepayments will affect the balance on the mortgage and forget about the value of the townhouse.The same thing holds true for the car loan. The car will depreciate whether or not you prepay the loan. Your only concern is how prepayments affect the balance of the loan.

There is one exception. Before you prepay a car loan, you need to make sure that prepayments go to reducing principal. Some nasty loans dont allow for principal reductions. Prepayments just go to your next scheduled payment and theres almost no benefit to prepaying. Dig out your contract and check it for the section on prepayment.

Now lets compare the two loans. That will be fairly simple. All we need to do is to look at the interest rates. You get out of debt faster by paying down the loan with the highest rate first. So if youre going to pay off a loan, put the auto loan first in line.

But lets take this one step further. Could you be better off paying debts on schedule and use the $400 to begin saving for retirement now? To answer that question, we need to estimate the return on a retirement investment.

You dont say where you would invest your retirement savings. Well assume that youd use an individual retirement account or 401(k) plan to avoid taxes. You also dont say what you would invest in. Well assume that you choose a balanced mutual fund that has been earning in the 7% range.

Before we can compare that 7% return to the cost of borrowing, we need to consider two factors that could affect how much your investment/savings earns. The first consideration is taxes. If you were investing/saving outside a retirement plan, youd need to subtract any taxes from your return. But, in this case thats not applicable.

The second consideration applies to many 401(k) accounts. Thats any employer matching funds. For instance, if your employer matches 50% of your entire contribution, thats just the same as if your $1 earns 50 cents the first year and then 7% for every year after. In the short term, thats a 57% return!

So, if you have an employer match, youll be wise to use that $400 for retirement savings, even if that means delaying paying off debts. Do this at least to the point that the match runs out. If your employer caps its match, after youve reached the cap, youd compare the savings 7% to the car loans 11.6% — and use money to pay off the car loan first.

Its possible that other considerations would take priority over the return, but that doesnt happen that often. One example would be if you were trying to pull up your credit score. In that case, paying off debts could be more important than savings.

Youre in a great situation, Kylie. Your frugal lifestyle has allowed you to begin paying down debts and accumulating wealth.

See related: Repaying early on a loan, Transfer car loan to a low-rate credit card? Yes, but carefully

New lending by Chinas four biggest state-owned banks was flat in the first two weeks of May and total deposits extended Aprils decline to fall by around 200 billion yuan ($31.65 billion), the Shanghai Securities News reported on Wednesday.

As of May 13, two of the big lenders posted higher loans, while another two saw their loans fall from a month ago, the paper said, citing an unidentified authoritative source.

Falling deposits were also squeezing the amount of credit that banks were able to lend, with one of the four banks suffering a 90 billion yuan drop in deposits.

The paper did not identify the banks.

]]> http://www.dosfreemoney.org/index.php/2012/05/17/are-the-new-lite-reverse-mortgages-good-for-you/feed/ 0 http://www.dosfreemoney.org/index.php/2012/05/17/reverse-mortgages-monthly-checks-instead-of-bills-really/ http://www.dosfreemoney.org/index.php/2012/05/17/reverse-mortgages-monthly-checks-instead-of-bills-really/#comments Thu, 17 May 2012 04:11:09 +0000 admin http://www.dosfreemoney.org/index.php/2012/05/17/reverse-mortgages-monthly-checks-instead-of-bills-really/ It sounds almost too good to be true, and for some people it might be. 

Reverse mortgages are financial instruments that replace your monthly mortgage payment with a tax-free income advance on the equity of your home. This relatively small corner of the lending sector all but vanished after the housing collapse as many banks stopped offering the option after defaults rose.

But in recent months, they’ve made a comeback. New applications are rising sharply with new players stepping into the void left by big banks and touting their services with high-profile ad blitzes on cable TV and Web sites.

Although the overall level is far below the pre-collapse peak, home finance experts see a bigger bounce in the next few years. A big factor is that the loans have gone through a makeover that works better for homeowners whose equity has been ‘downsized.’ The Federal Housing Authority, which is the source of virtually all the loans, has come up with a lite version, a reverse mortgages that allows users to tap equity at lower fees for shorter time periods.

But are the new cash-out home loans really better for you? And was the full flavor stuff so bad for your financial health as many financial advisers once claimed? Financial advisers say you can get just as smashed on the lites stuff if you dont use it wisely.

Some of the new options that make reverse mortgages more attractive also add a layer of complication. “The myriad of terms, fees and different products make finding the right mortgage an enormous challenge,”Consumers Union said in a recent report.

It helps, of course, to know what you are getting into. Reverse mortgages are loans turned upside down. Your monthly payment is deferred to a future date. When you sell the home it all comes due and it is repaid from remaining equity. It is a transaction that resembles shorting a stock more than it mirrors taking out a traditional home mortgage.

Financial planners often don’t even understand them because the lessons they have learned (from other financial products) don’t apply,” said Barbara R. Stucki, vice president of home equity Initiatives at the National Council on Aging.

]]> http://www.dosfreemoney.org/index.php/2012/05/17/reverse-mortgages-monthly-checks-instead-of-bills-really/feed/ 0 http://www.dosfreemoney.org/index.php/2012/05/16/operational-investment-at-contractor-mortgages-made-easy/ http://www.dosfreemoney.org/index.php/2012/05/16/operational-investment-at-contractor-mortgages-made-easy/#comments Thu, 17 May 2012 03:13:31 +0000 admin http://www.dosfreemoney.org/index.php/2012/05/16/operational-investment-at-contractor-mortgages-made-easy/ Operational Investment at Contractor Mortgages Made Easy
Contractor Mortgage Specialists, Contractor Mortgages Made Easy have invested heavily in the operational side of the business during the first quarter of 2012.

For the average student, that amounts to an extra $3,800 on a ten year repayment period, which would make it increasingly difficult for students to handle.

Nearing the end of his sophomore year at Syracuse University, Dylan Lustig has his sights set on an ambitious career.

Im looking to go into the CIA. Thats what Ive always wanted to do, Lustig said.

But his excitement is also met with concern. Expecting to graduate with $20,000 in debt from Federal student loans, Lustig says an interest rate hike would hit him at a very vulnerable time.

Youre not going to be making much out of school and you know, there is always going to be that expectation that youre going to be paying back those loans on time, he continued.

In 2007, Congress lowered the rate on Federal student loans, but that program runs out on July 1. A Federal bill would extend the 3.4 percent rate for another year in hopes that lawmakers will eventually make it permanent.

To have the Federal government charge 6.85 percent at a time when interest rates are so low, is almost highway robbery, Senator Charles Schumer said.

Without the Federal bill, soon to be college students and eight million current undergraduate students and their families nationwide would be affected, especially those who depend on Federal loans to cover the majority of their tuition.

Ben Jones relies on student loans to pay for college. He told NewsChannel 9, It keeps me up at night worrying about he cost of college and I know it keeps my mom up too, so its a really big concern.

The rate increase would not apply to loans that have already been disbursed, so that includes college seniors this year. The rate increase applies to loans that are disbursed after July 1.

Senator Schumer expects the Senate to vote next month on the bill to extend the lower interest rate.