Blog Marco

Emailcash has a special offer with HSBC Serious Saver, giving away 500 points for signing up for a savings account with a minimum of $2000. *Yawn* - Boring... Commonwealth Bank has no minimum... On the other hand this savings account does pay out 5.9% p.a. - with the catch that you don't make a withdrawal. *Not a good offer*. And 500 points ain't that much - that only equates to just about $5 depending on the "exchange rate". How about INGDirect when they first opened up - didn't they offer $30 to $50 per signup + no account keeping fees or minimums?

Aldi is selling a complete set of Jumping castles for $249 a complete kit with the jumping castle, continuous airflow blower and carry bag. You have a choice of two jumping castles: choose from Adventure Bouncer (4.5m x 3.6m x 2.5m) or Super Clown Bouncer (4m x 4m x 2.9m). Now you and your kids can jump all day long. Good for fitness :)

Aren't these jumping castles for hire for about the same price? As far as I know, the Jumping Castle business in Australia is booming - with certain jumping castle businesses/franchise setups supersaturating the marketplace.

Advertising on a different level. The idea this company has was inspired by the Million dollar homepage where they will try to sell the facade of the building tile by tile to advertisers. Check out the photo of the building facade. It's like having Times Square (New York) all compressed into one building. I think its an interesting idea... but calling it "art" is pushing the idea.

Ross Gittins has been writing for the Sydney Morning Herald for as long as I remember... Here's another terrific article about the economics of pricing products.

A funny thing about capitalism is that people can spend a lifetime living in a market economy without acquiring much of a feel for the workings of supply and demand.

In a free market, price is determined by the combination of the cost of supply with the strength of demand. The bit people underestimate is the role of demand. Its strength relative to supply often determines the size of the profit margin.

The trouble is, they can't just advertise two prices for the same item: $1 for cheapskates, $2.95 for spendthrifts. So they have to find a plausible excuse for charging two or more prices.

With some things, it's easy. You charge children, students and pensioners a lower price. You do so not out of consideration for their lesser means, but because their lesser means affects their ability to pay.

The quotes above probably don't make sense without reading the whole article.

With Baby Boomers retiring in the next decade and most of them having almost all their wealth locked into the family home... there are inherent risks involved in downsizing their home. Read More.

Isn't it ironic that a successful Internet company - Wotif.com gets assigned the stock code WTF? WTF is a common internet acronym for "What The Fuck?" Wikipedia can help you out if you don't know WTF means. But why did Wotif.com get assigned this stock code in the first place? That's because the most logical stock code WOT is already taken by the Westpac Office Trust. Anyway, I'm not discounting WOTIF's success as they listed last Friday and closed their first day of trading at a 66% premium.

Read more at My Share Trading.

Read this... Tells you the 5 most common lies in business... such as "People are our most important asset." and "The customer comes first."

Read this interesting article about the 10 fastest growing jobs. They include: Network systems and data communications analyst, Physician assistant, Computer software engineer, Network and computer systems administrator, Database administrator, Physical therapist, Medical scientist, Occupational therapist and College instructor.

Looks like its a good time to go overseas again... The Australian dollar is stronger, hitting its seven month highs. Makes you want to think if you can make money trading forex doesn't it? The Aussie dollar was looking pretty low just a few months ago at around the US$0.73 cents mark. Might spend winter in the tropics again this year. ;)

My dad was listening to the radio this morning - 2UE. For those who don't listen to radio, 2UE is an AM band talkback radio station. Target listeners are baby boomers. One advertisement on the radio was to visit LearnToTrade.com.au. My Dad told me to go visit the website. Later this afternoon I was listening to "The Edge" 96.1. I heard the advert, not once, not twice but about four times an hour for the rest of the afternoon. They said something about learning how to trade the currency markets. Well... think about the target market for this: 96.1fm is a radio station primarily listened to "Westies" (as the broadcast signal is weak further into the city) and age group around teenage to late twenties. I know what trading the "currency markets" means... it is a SUPER - high risk venture. Forex trading as it is otherwise called - or Foreign Exchange Trading is a venture not to be taken lightly. You can virtually lose your hat in seconds. And of course you can make A LOT OF MONEY in seconds to. HIGH RISK HIGH RETURN is the name of the game.

Dale Begg-Smith is Australia's newest Winter Olympian to win a Gold Medal. A self made millionaire and world number 1 in freestyle moguls. You've probably already heard the news if you live in Australia. You probably already know what this blog entry is going to talk about. But I'm still going to write about it... Dale Begg Smith runs an internet pop-up advertising company that he describes as the third largest of its type, according to the International Olympic Committee's website. Begg-Smith drives a Lamborghini. But he is modest and doesn't want to reveal much about his business. He didn't reveal the name of the business, its operations or size except that it had "two or three" employees and that it was a non-issue as the business had been wound down. (Other reports say there were 30 employees) "I haven't spent much time on it, I've let it taper off during the ski season," Begg-Smith said when questioned about his business. "There's not much to say. We design technology and stuff like that, some advertising stuff, too."