Some basics of household insurance

We all know household insurance provides us with financial risk-protection against all kinds of possible damage which may happen with us in any circumstances. It is nothing but a contract between the policy holder (i.e. common people) & insurance company where policy holder pays certain amount of money as premium and in return the insurance company gives assurance & guarantee for payment of any kind of financial losses that happens to the policy holder’s property in the contract period.

Generally, household insurance or home insurance is provided in two kinds, 1) insurance for exterior & 2) insurance for interior. The 1^st one covers the protection of the structure of our premises against all kind of natural disasters & possible accidents like flood, earthquake, cyclone etc. On the other hand insurance for interiors covers any kind of risk factors like fire, theft, burglary & natural events like rain, flood or any accidental damages etc.

If any person wants to file mortgage, it is mandatory for him to get an exterior insurance because without exterior or building insurance mortgage is unacceptable. On the other hand interior insurance is up to the owner’s choice, people have to look for that insurance policy or companies only which offer him better coverage & protection than the other service provider or policy.

So, at the end it can be said that there is no substitute for having a suitable & proper Insurance as it will help us to do our day-to-day work with peace of mind & without worries.

How to keep your cash safe?

In our day to day life money is the primary need for all of us; we need money to fulfill the need of food, clothing & shelter. Basically in common “money” means cash- or better to say liquid cash. We naturally keep our money in the safe custody of some financial institutions as a deposite.Those institution or better are called “banks” not only keeps our money safe , but also gives us interest against our deposits. But it’s quite shocking that this scenario has been changed from past few months.

According to the report of “Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (USA)”, 72 banks have failed over past few months. Consumers are getting worried about those incidents & began to reduce their amount of deposit in their account.

“Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation”- in short FDIC had an announcement that if a consumer is holding an account with a bank, having being insured by FDIC, he will be totally in safe hands. FDIC is insuring the customers for up to $250,000 individually & it’s totally in the control of US government.

The officials of FDIC has also stated that if a consumer is having his account balance more than $250,000, he can distribute his total funds getting additional new accounts within the same bank under different titles. It will also be possible for them to create additional account(s) in the same name with the other banks for the purpose of spreading funds. It is also advised by the officials that consumers should consult with their respective banks about getting insured by FDIC & providing the service of a sweep account which automatically transfers their funds to their another account with different bank.

The discussed main function of FDIC is to protect the funds of common people in case of a bank fails. Whenever it will happen, FDIC will take all charges of the troubled bank & will make an arrangement for the sale of the respective bank to another financial institution. In case of delay of sale, FDIC will remain in charge until takeover by other bank. The main positive thing which consumers are getting is that they can use their funds within a couple of days.

Retail fall over gaming industry

There was an argument between many economists & reporters that video games industry was nearly recession-proof, probably for its long time value of entertainment & comparatively low expenditure. But now it is very hard to be sure about that.
In the month of July, the video game sale figures fell worldwide, continuing from the last four month’s of 2009. The video gaming industry posted a total sale of nearly around $848.9 million dollars, which was 29 % less from one year earlier figures of $1.1 billion. A report says total sell of $8.16 billion dollars till July was also reduced by 14 % from the same period of 2008.It was clearly seen that gaming titles like “East India Company”, “Bionic Commando”, “Europa Universalis Rome Gold”, & “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” were failed to get the game-lover’s attention.
In spite of this downfall, there are still some hope & possibilities to rising up the gaming industry in coming months. Some heavy-weight gaming titles are yet to be release in the next quarters. Among them Electronic Arts (EA) games releasing ‘Madden NFL 10’ in this month. It is expected by the EA games that ‘Madden NFL 10’ will surely help for boosting up the sales.

After the month of august more big releases are coming up like “Guitar Hero 5”, “The Beatles: Rock Band”, “Halo 3: ODST”, “Sims 3: world adventures, “Wolfenstein”, “Splinter Cell Conviction” , “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2”(all platforms) and last but not the least “Need for Speed: Nitro”(only for Nintendo's Wii & DS).

Microsoft was the only company which posted a better sale figure during this crisis, because it’s “Xbox 360” gaming platform gained the position of most popular console & made a 17 % growth than the same period of 2008. But it is also notable that Nintendo's Wii had achieve the highest sales among the top consoles- Microsoft’s Xbox 360(sold 202,900 pcs), Sony's PS3 (121,800 pcs), and the Nintendo's Wii (252,200 pcs) in July.

Are you still JOBLESS?

According to the report of U.S government, the job market got some improvement in the month of July. The probable cause revealed by the analysis is the 1st time fall of unemployment rate since a year or more.
The Labor Department of U.S stated about all over a loss of 247,000 jobs in the month of July, which is little more since August 2008 & much lower than the expected a loss of 325,000 forecast by the U.S economists. The job loss in the month of June was also revised lower later on, stands on to 443,000 job losses from previous figure 467,000.It was noticeable that the unemployment rate got a downfall to 9.4% from 9.5% in the end of 2nd quarter of 2009 which was also lower than expected rise to 9.6% & first decline since April,2008.
The main reason behind declining labor power of U.S.A might be the idle & discouraged person who considers themselves as retired people or those people who have decided to carry on their educational life rather than seeking for jobs.
CEO of Adecco Group North America, one of the world's biggest employment consultancy & recruiting firm, Mr. Tig Gilliam has added “You can't lose jobs and have the unemployment rate decline unless folks are opting out, that means unemployment is going to go back up again”.
The greater number of workers seeking full-time job but only having part-time jobs is falling downwards by approx 191,000, or by 2%. That gives us a proper idea that those labors, who had only part-time work or were given unpaid off days during the recession period are gaining back to proper full-time status.

Retailer's fall in July

Merchants & retail chain business owners are having their worst gross monthly sales in July of this year. This might be a prior signal that the second-largest business selling season of 2009, which started in July, will be economically getting much lower than everyone expected.

The experts & sales trackers used a useful gauge to measure a retailer's  business performance through their sales at stores. This gauge is named “Same-store sales” It was found that most of the nation’s topmost retail businee chains specially mall-based retail-sellers, retail business chains for teen clothing ,big departmental stores and even discounter retailers , suffered from fall down of “same-store sales” in the month of July.

According to Thomson Reuters, who tracks “same-store sales” per month for more than 30 retail chains, total business sales for the month of July in the retail group decreased by 5.1%, with comparison to a increase of 1.1% in July 2008 .July's downfall is marked as the 11th month of sales declines. Reports said that more than 50% of the retail chain has missed their estimated sales target for the 1^st month of 2^nd quarter.

The business sales figures of June 2009 was the second worst monthly same-store sales decline of the year after the January's performance of decrease by 5.7%.

Some figures of July sales:

* Discounter Target (TGT, Fortune 500)'s sales by 6.5% (expected 5.8%)

* Macy's (M, Fortune 500) sales downfall by 10.7% (expected 9.1%)

* J.C. Penney’s sales downfall by 12.3% (expected 13% to 16 %.)

* Gap Inc’s sales downfall by 8%

* Abercrombie & Fitch’s sales downfall by 28%

However, Kohl’s, one of the medium-priced  business retail departmental store chain, just slipped from the downfall, having 0.4% increase in July, while Nordstrom, one of the high-end retail chain got 6.9% downfall , better than expected 11.1% .

The most probable reason which hampers the prime business sales volume in July might be the hesitation of parents, waiting to make their all school-related shopping in August as they can save money when the tax-free shopping events will be in the market.

USA: Rise of the Foreclosure

USA is suffering highly from foreclosure in the major Cities of four prime states, Arizona, Florida, Nevada & California. 29 Places from those states captured 29 positions out of the top 30 highest foreclosure affected areas of USA. But it was noticed that some places, like the Central Valley cities in California, which was badly affected by foreclosure, had improved a lot.
But experts said that this may be only a relief before another blow of an upcoming foreclosure. It is well known that the former two reasons of foreclosure were sub prime mortgage meltdown & other economic crisis. But now it is suspected that there will be a third wave & that would be, according to Realtytec" the fallout from the option-ARM resets over the next several months."
The question is, will it be getting worse then before?
We will get the answer if we just checkout the report given below:
Many states & cities of USA where populations are larger than one million had immensely increasing rate of foreclosure during last six months of 2009. For example, Seattle had the highest increase in the rate of filings, received notices 1 in 107 homes. That is 72% increment in rate compared with the same period of time one year ago. In the second position, was Minneapolis, increased by 58.6% to 1 in 90 homes; Phoenix got 51.7% increased to 1 in 22.
Vegas, which is crowned as the king of foreclosure,1 in 13 homes having foreclosure filing during the first two quarters of 2009, is 56% more increased compared with first two quarters of 2008 & it was six times worse than the national average rate of 1 in 84 homes. Chicago has increased up 30% from 2008 to 39th place among the foreclosure affected cities.