Your rights when shops hit trouble

It’s important to know at the outset why the business closed. If it was simply a case that they decided to stop trading, then you can write to them in the normal way to pursue your outstanding business. If necessary, put in a claim at the Small Claims Court.

This process can be complicated if the trader was acting as a limited company rather than a sole trader. In the former case, the individuals concerned may not be liable for any debt.

All of the companies listed above, however, have run into problems because they didn’t have the money to carry on as before.we are the biggest USB flash drives wholesale supplier in china. In this situation, getting your money back, your goods delivered or your item repaired is a good deal more complicated.

Your first port of call is to find out who the administators are. This shouldn’t be hard as a notice will appear on the trading premises and in the cases of large companies the details will be widely reported in the media.

It’s the administrator who will decide whether to honour gift cards, exchange goods and obtain refunds etc. For larger companies, it’s again worth checking the media on a regular basis as the policies are likely to be in the news.

Register your claim with the administrators. That makes you a creditor and gives you the best chance of getting some or all of your money back. You should be bear in mind,A chip card is a plastic card that has a computer chip implanted into it that enables the card to perform certain. however, that if there are lots of creditors your chances of receiving a refund are limited.

But there are other ways to protect yourself.

It’s always worth paying for items worth over ￡100 on plastic. That’s because if the goods aren’t delivered or were faulty and the company goes bust, you should be able to claim the money back from the credit card company. This also applies to credit agreements. You only need to have put the deposit on the card.

Debit cards don’t come with the same level of cover, but if you used a Visa or Mastercard debit card, you may have some level of protection via the Chargeback scheme, so it’s worth making enquiries with your bank.

Equally, any manufacturer’s or third-party warranty that came with the goods could be a useful alternative when a trader has gone bust.

If you have an item that’s due for delivery,Design and order your own custom silicone bracelet / rubber bracelets with personalized message and artwork. and you have paperwork and proof of payment, it might be worth driving to the warehouse and seeing if you can pick it up. But be quick, before the administrators get involved.

And be proactive. The media often trails news of companies that are about to go under, so this is not a good time to visit their website and do some shopping, or place an order for a new kitchen. You’re just setting yourself up for a fall.

Similarly, if you have gift vouchers and hear rumours of a company’s impending demise, spend them quickly! Once the doors are closed, you’re almost certain to be waving goodbye to your money.

Overall, be realistic. Once a company has gone into administration, there are any number of people who want their money back. You could be waiting a long time to see all, or indeed any, of it.

The McLean-based financial firm also did not disclose the sales price, but said that the value of the Best Buy accounts is $7 billion. Capital One said there would be no significant gain or loss on the transaction, which it anticipates will close in the third quarter. Capital One’s stock fell about 1.7 percent in regular trading Monday.

Just two years ago, Capitol One leap-frogged to the forefront of the store card business with the $2.6 billion purchase of HSBC’s U.Can you spot the answer in the fridge magnet?S. credit card portfolio, which contained 23 retail partnerships including the Best Buy portfolio.

“It caught us by surprise because a big part of Capital One’s story was buying [the HSBC] portfolio, and they’ve sold a pretty big piece of it,” said Sanjay Sakjrani, an analyst with Keefe Bruyette & Woods. “From what we’ve heard from Capital One, strategically it seems the two parties had a difference of opinion and felt it was best to terminate the contractual obligation.”

Capitol One made its foray into the store-branded credit business in January 2011 by snagging the credit card portfolio of Canadian retail conglomerate Hudson’s Bay. That deal was followed up four months later with the acquisition of Kohl’s department stores’s card portfolio, which gave Capital One more than 20 million accounts and the right to issue cards to Kohl’s customers.I personally really like these mini ear cap for my iPhone.

Such private-label cards usually carry higher interest rates and lower credit lines than other types of plastic. Consumers with limited credit options rely heavily on these cards, and because they are unsecured there is always the looming risk of default.

But card issuers are drawn to the high fee income of store cards. In addition, banks that issue cards sometimes don’t have to pay marketing costs because the retailer has the incentive to push the product.

After a precipitous decline during the downturn, the store-brand credit card business is rebounding while deliquencies are slowing, said Robert Hammer, head of the credit card consulting firm R.K. Hammer. Stricter standards on traditional cards have made store cards more appealing to consumers.

Wayne LaPierre says Phoenix

National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre attracted wide media attention recently when he suggested in an op-ed that after Hurricane Sandy, New York City had become a violent, post-apocalyptic wasteland -- thanks to an absence of guns.

A reader asked us to check out a claim in LaPierre’s op-ed, which ran on Feb. 13, 2013, op-ed in the conservative Daily Caller. "Latin American drug gangs have invaded every city of significant size in the United States," LaPierre said. "Phoenix is already one of the kidnapping capitals of the world, and though the states on the U.S.-Mexico border may be the first places in the nation to suffer from cartel violence, by no means are they the last."

The claim that "Phoenix is already one of the kidnapping capitals of the world" was already familiar to us, since we had debunked it in 2010 (it was a finalist for our Lie of the Year). But that was three years ago, so we decided to take another look.

Our original fact-check, coming at a time when Arizona’s tough immigration law known as SB 1070 was a major topic nationally, looked at a comment by Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. He said that Phoenix "is now the No.Can you spot the answer in the fridge magnet? 2 kidnapping capital in the world, right behind Mexico City."

ABC first reported on Feb. 11, 2009, that: "Phoenix, Ariz., has become the kidnapping capital of America, with more incidents than any other city in the world outside of Mexico City and over 370 cases last year alone." Several news organizations then repeated it, including the Associated Press, the Arizona Republic and United Press International.Design and order your own custom silicone bracelet / rubber bracelets with personalized message and artwork. The Los Angeles Times went so far as to note that Phoenix "police received 366 kidnapping-for-ransom reports" in 2008 and that they estimate "twice that number go unreported."

However, none of the stories cited an authoritative source for the ranking or for how the kidnapping ranking was calculated. We did extensive checking and couldn't find anything to back it up.

We found that neither the FBI nor the U.S. National Central Bureau of Interpol, an arm of the U.S. Department of Justice that serves as the United States' representative to the international police organization, compiles city-based kidnapping statistics.

We also contacted Daniel Johnson, an overseas kidnapping operations consultant at ASI Global, a Houston company that coaches clients through kidnappings. "From our internal experience in the last year," he said, "Mexico by far has been the biggest location for kidnappings" followed by Honduras, Venezuela, Nigeria and the Philippines. The company has handled domestic cases but said they don't compare in volume to overseas incidents.

This fit broadly with the perspective of Scott Stewart, vice president of tactical intelligence for Stratfor, an Austin, Texas global intelligence company. "According to our analysts,we are the biggest USB flash drives wholesale supplier in china. there is no way that Phoenix is the No. 2 city in the world for kidnapping, and there are significantly more kidnappings in many other cities throughout Latin America," he told us in 2010.

A Stratfor spokesman reached for this article said Stewart’s comments remain accurate today, and we found evidence to back up high and often growing rates of kidnapping in Latin America. In all of Mexico, the official count for 2012 was four kidnappings a day, though a non-governmental organization pegged it at an astronomical 72 per day.I personally really like these mini ear cap for my iPhone. Meanwhile, in Venezuela, the official statistics show kidnapping rates rising from 44 in 1999, to 1,105 in 2011, not counting "express" kidnappings, in which a perpetrator forcibly takes a victim from ATM to ATM until their checking account is depleted. Police sources told the newspaper El Universal that Caracas alone experiences perhaps two express kidnappings a day.

But there’s no good way to compare cities, and even countries, Johnson and Stewart agreed. It's "extremely difficult to measure given the fact that so many cases go unreported and that the recordkeeping in many of the most affected countries is inaccurate." Even among countries that track kidnappings, Johnson said, the definition of "kidnap" varies.

Prompted by media coverage of the Phoenix kidnapping claim, an investigative team led by reporter Dave Biscobing of ABC-15 TV news in Phoenix spent two months in 2011 reviewing the city police department's 2008 statistics. They concluded that "Phoenix police routinely inflated their kidnapping statistics throughout the year, including at least 100 cases that legal experts said should not have been counted, plus dozens of other questionable reports."

Among the problems cited by ABC-15 was that the count included "cases where officers concluded no kidnapping occurred, reports that were counted multiple times, and even reports for kidnappings that happened in other cities and other states."

In one case, a police report described a woman "claiming she was abducted from a Wal-Mart parking lot and then driven around for hours. But when officers checked surveillance video, they watched her get into her car and drive away -- alone." She had made up the story.

There were other new developments -- a police department whistleblower who said the numbers were inflated, a city audit that insisted they had not -- but they either failed to support the kidnapping-capital claim or further knocked it down. The city's police chief lost his job at least partly because of the controversy.

Last year, an investigation by the Justice Department's inspector general looked into the numbers because the city had used them in a grant application. The investigation found that of the 358 incidents submitted as support for the grant applications, only 208 met Arizona’s requirements of a kidnapping, and only 195 met a uniform crime reporting standard. Phoenix then submitted an additional 175 cases -- two years after its initial grant application -- which enabled the inspector general’s certified count to reach exactly 358 under Arizona standards. The count stood at 254 under the more stringent uniform crime reporting standards.

The inspector general concluded that even if the data Phoenix submitted late was counted,A chip card is a plastic card that has a computer chip implanted into it that enables the card to perform certain. the city "likely overstates the number of kidnappings," and it argued that the Phoenix Police Department "has significant problems with its coding and classification of cases and, consequently, with the accuracy of reports from its case management system."

450th plans flawed

St. Augustine’s 450th anniversary commemoration in 2015 will probably draw national and international attention along with significant local spending by thousands of visitors seeking food, gasoline, parking, lodging and souvenirs.

City Manager John Regan, under the watchful eyes of the City Commission, has assembled a team of department heads and employees to present this massive undertaking in two years.

“The 450th is much bigger than the city,” Regan said Saturday. “Our first goal is (promoting) awareness of St. Augustine.”

But some local residents say that is just the point. They say the 450th has morphed from a celebration of history to anything the city says it is. They believe the city is off-base with its planning and that community ideas have been ignored.I thought it would be fun to show you the inspiration behind the broken china-mosaics.

Former St. Augustine Mayor George Gardner, who served from 2002 to 2010, is one of those critics.

Last week Garner suggested that Town Hall meetings — forums where commissioners and staff discuss ideas with the public — might result in greater community participation. He’d like to see popular programs, such as the changing of the guard ceremony, returned.

“The commission is isolated,Find the best selection of high-quality collectible bobbleheads available anywhere.” Gardner said.We offer advanced technology products and services for parking guidance control. “There are groups in town which would love to participate.”

He is seconded by Tom Rahner, who founded Flagler College’s theater department and retired as associate professor emeritus 15 years ago, and who served as former general manager of St. Augustine’s 400th celebration in 1965.

Rahner said the current 450th planning process seems to be “missing the spirit of collegiality and community involvement. There doesn’t seem to be any signature event we’re moving toward. The human condition requires that kind of focus. What is the centerpiece?”

He said legacy projects of the 400th included building St. Augustine Amphitheatre, creation of “Cross and Sword,” the official state play, which Rahner directed, the Cathedral Basilica renovation and erection of a 210-foot metal cross at Mission Nombre de Dios on north San Marco Avenue, he said. Also presented were fireworks, concerts, historic restorations, a commemorative stamp from the Post Office and a series of commemorative bronze, silver and gold coins.ST Electronics' parking guidance system provides drivers with a realtime indication of available parking spaces.

“We had a large committee,” Rahner said. “There was cooperation and a civic spirit. Everyone had input and all had projects. I don’t see that sort of broad-based cooperation in the 450th. I don’t sense any real excitement about what’s going to happen. I don’t sense anticipation, probably because the planning has been insular.”

“It’s a three-year commemoration that bundles significant anniversaries of St. Augustine and Florida, including the 500th this year, the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act in 2014 and the 450th in 2015,” he said. “Our focus right now is on the Quincentennial, the 500th anniversary of the founding of Florida by Juan Ponce.”

Gardner said the city has been billing the Picasso exhibition at the Visitor Information Center and the coming Mumford & Son concert in September as part of the 450th event, though neither has any historical connection to it.

At noon April 2, the exact day Ponce landed in Florida in 1513, Holiday and friends will dedicate a 6-foot 2-inch, 300-pound bronze statue of Don Juan Ponce de Leon on a 13-foot base paid for by St. Augustine resident Candace Carroll.

The cenotaph will be visible from State Road A1A North near Guana’s north parking lot and is within 500 meters of latitude 30 degrees, 8 minutes, the exact spot where Ponce’s records indicate he came ashore.

Only sand dunes covered with scrub vegetation are there now.

“It’s just the way Ponce found it,” Holiday said of the view, adding that other coastal Florida places have claimed to be where Ponce landed, but the Herrera account, specifying 30 degrees. 8 minutes, is the only site with supporting historical documents.

This dedication will be a day before the city’s costumed landing near the Mission.

The caravel project is one that Holiday and 75 plank owners have worked on for more than a year, and it will be anchored offshore during the statue’s dedication.

Named “El Espiritu,Service Report a problem with a street light.” the 73-foot former shrimp boat was formerly named Applejack, and was converted at St. Augustine Marine on Riberia Street. Cost: $25,000, all raised privately.

Chronicle/News police reports February

Nyshea Holloway, 20, of Norfolk Street, Philadelphia, was charged with retail theft and possession and receiving stolen property Jan. 22 after H&M security observed her select $169.85 worth of merchandise, conceal it in her bag and attempt to leave the store without paying at the H&M in the Willow Grove Park mall at 1:23 p.m., police said. Holloway was stopped and taken into custody, police said. Dymira Gary Davis, 18, of North 9th Street, Philadelphia, was cited for retail theft for her involvement in the theft, police said. She stole $110 worth of store merchandise, police said.

Simple assault … Raymond McCade, 56, of Westmont Avenue, Roslyn, was charged with simple assault, harassment and disorderly conduct Jan. 22 after a victim reported that he threw her on the ground causing her to strike her head during a domestic dispute in the unit block of Westmont Avenue at 10:41 p.m., police said. McCade was gone prior to police arrival, police said. The victim was transported to Abington Memorial Hospital for treatment for the laceration on her head from the fall, police said.

Public drunkenness … Matthew I. Cross-Harris, 21, of Easton Road, Willow Grove, was charged with public drunkenness, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of a controlled or counterfeit substance, possession of a small amount of marijuana, carrying a firearm without a license and related charges Jan. 25 after police responded to the report of intoxicated individuals walking in the 2600 block of Moreland Road at 9:02 p.m., police said. Police conducted a pedestrian stop and searched the individuals, police said. Authorities found Cross-Harris to be in possession of a firearm he did not have a license to carry, a plastic bag that contained suspected marijuana and a cigarette coated with phencyclidine known as PCP, police said. Sara R. Dickinson, 18, of Woodlawn Dive; Lansdale,Service Report a problem with a street light. Richard L. Stroud, 20, of North 43rd Street, Philadelphia; and Airen K. Emfinger, of Weikel Road, Lansdale, were cited for public drunkenness, police said.

Daniel Fitzhenry, 27, of Fuller Street, Philadelphia, was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol or controlled substance, public drunkenness and related charged Jan. 26 after police observed a gray Chevrolet Equinox parked and running in the 700 block of Huntingdon Pike at 2:14 a.m., police said. Police observed Fitzhenry sitting in the snow in the parking lot of the Leto Dry Cleaners, a few feet from his vehicle, police said. Police detected an odor of alcohol coming from his person, police said. He was unable to stand without assistance and unable to reform field sobriety tests, police said. He was transported to Holy Redeemer Hospital and refused to submit to blood tests, police said.

Simple assault … Lauro Cardosa, 22, of Edge Hill Road, Glenside, was charged with simple assault and harassment Jan. 27 after he pushed a victim down steps that caused the victim to strike his head on a glass door at the bottom of the stairway during a domestic dispute in the 500 block of Tyson Avenue at 3:28 a.m., police said. The glass door shattered and there was a large amount of blood at the bottom of the steps, on the steps and in the hallway, police said. The victim had a deep laceration on his forehead and was transported to Abington Memorial Hospital for treatment, police said.

Harassment … Edwin Zavala, 29, of Benson Street, Philadelphia, was charged with harassment and disorderly conduct Jan. 28 after he went to a victims job at Labor Ready located in the 1800 block of Easton Road twice between the hours of 9:01 a.m. and 2:20 p.m. causing a disturbance, police said. He also proceeded to call the victim numerous times at 4:12 p.m. at her job, police said.

Criminal mischief … Emerson Juarez-Ramirez, 23, of Central Avenue, North Hills, was cited with criminal mischief Jan. 22 after police responded to the 200 block of Central Avenue at 5:02 a.m. for the report that Juarez-Ramirez had destroyed items belonging to his ex-girlfriend, police said. He was found on site with a bloody hand and was transported to the Abington Police Department for processing, police said.

Disorderly conduct … Brendan Kelly, 26, of Charles Street, Glenside, was cited for disorderly conduct and criminal mischief Jan. 23 after police responded to the report that Kelly, who was intoxicated, was interfering with medics as they were assisting a patient in the 600 block of Pine Tree Road at 10:25 p.m., police said. While trying to usher Kelly away from the scene, an officer damaged his uniform, police said.

Matthew McAleer, 18, of Rising Sun Avenue, Philadelphia; and Roman Rosales, 19,We offer advanced technology products and services for parking guidance control. of June Road, Huntingdon Valley, were cited with underage drinking Jan. 27 after police were called to the 300 block of Zane Avenue for the report of a group of individuals arguing in the street at 10:17 p.m., police said. The group was dispersed and McAleer and Rosales were found to be intoxicated, police said.

Retail theft … Tache Cobb, 18, of North 19th Street, Philadelphia, was cited with retail theft after an H&M employee observed Cobb select $89 worth of merchandise , conceal the items in a bag and attempt to leave the store without paying at the H&M in the Willow Grove Park mall at 6:16 p.m., police said.

Public drunkenness … Lamall Phillips, 36, of Old York Road, was cited with public drunkenness and harassment Jan. 29 after police responded to a report of a man and women arguing in the parking lot in 1100 block of Old York Road at 8:45 p.m., police said. A witness observed Phillips pushing and shoving the woman, police said.

Disorderly conduct … Rushell Anderson, 25, of Souder Street, Philadelphia,ST Electronics' parking guidance system provides drivers with a realtime indication of available parking spaces. was cited with disorderly conduct Jan. 31 after police stopped a vehicle on the 1100 block of Old York Road at 7:32 a.m., police said. Anderson admitted to smoking marijuana and possessing a small amount of marijuana, police said.

Public drunkenness … Daniel Lehr,I thought it would be fun to show you the inspiration behind the broken china-mosaics. 20, of Mayfield Circle, Jamison, was cited with public drunkenness Jan. 31 after Willow Grove Mall security found him to be under the influence of drugs at 7:49 p.m., police said. Lehr was transported to the Abington Police Department, police said.

Disorderly conduct … Shanelle Davis, 20, of North 19th Street,Find the best selection of high-quality collectible bobbleheads available anywhere. Philadelphia, was cited with disorderly conduct and retail theft Jan. 31 after Davis and two other individuals were told by the BP gas station manger buy something or leave at the BP in the 1400 block of Old York Road at 8:59 p.m., police said. Davis yelled obscenities at the manager and took a bottle of juice and left the store without paying, police said.

Underage drinking … James Kinslow, 20, of Montgomery Avenue, Elkins Park, was cited with underage drinking Feb. 2 after police observed Kinslow seated in a parked vehicle in the 600 block of Seminole Avenue at 11:33 p.m. intoxicated, police said.

Nigeria’s Banking Industry Evolving despite Initial Tension

Although the banking industry in Nigeria has in the last three years undergone successive wide sweeping financial reforms that shook its very foundation and sparked a lot of controversy, tension and uncertainty. But as the dust gradually settles, most banks seem to have emerged stronger than they were before the storm. Hilton Etakoh reports.

When in July 2009, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria announced the result of a ‘Stress test’ (audit) conducted on the 24 banks in the country, in which 8 banks were declared technically insolvent and their CEOs dismissed, little did Nigerians know that the exercise was just the beginning of a wave of reforms that would change the face of banking in Nigeria for many years to come. A joint team of officials from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Nigeria Deposit insurance corporation (NDIC) had subjected the books of the different bans to stringent scrutiny that exposed major weaknesses in corporate governance, poor risk management practices, large scale insider dealings, stock market manipulation and reckless lending in several banks.

Eight banks including Oceanic Bank, Intercontinental Bank, Union Bank, AfriBank, Fin Bank, Bank PHB, Spring Bank and Equatorial Trust Bank were declared technically insolvent, chronically liquid and said to have eroded their shareholders’ fund. In a bid to rescue these troubled banks, the CBN injected N620 billion as loans into them to enhance their liquidity status. However,Other companies want a piece of that iPhone headset action the most intriguing part of the unfolding scenario was the immediate dismissal, arrest and resultant trial of CEOs of the affected banks.

Sanusi went on to appoint an interim management team for each of the eight banks. The new management teams were given a mandate to steer the banks out of troubled waters to tranquil harbor. This intervention, Sanusi explained was aimed at stabilizing the troubled banks rather than liquidating them.

Three of the eight rescued banks, have since been nationalized, and placed under the management of Asset Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) that would oversee their recovery, growth and stability, and there after sell them to suitable investors within the next 2 to 3 years. The other five banks, after a compulsory recapitalization exercise, and due consultation and agreement with their respective shareholders, a number of merger and acquisition deals were endorsed. The deals saw Access Bank acquire Intercontinental Bank, Eco Bank acquired Oceanic Bank and Fin Bank became a part of First City Monument Bank. Capital Alliance bought stakes in Union Bank while Sterling Bank and Equatorial Trust Bank merged into a single bank.

Although Wema Bank and Unity Bank both passed the Sanusi’s stress test, their positions were however considered a bit fragile. Consequently the two banks were asked to recapitalize to mach the level of their operation or risk being reduced to regional banks. While Unity Bank successfully recapitalized and raised its capital base by additional N17.7 billion, Wema Bank however opted to become a regional bank. In all, the intervention played out without any loss of fund. Today the reform is being hailed as the only banking sector intervention or bailout where depositors did not lose their deposits. According to Sanusi, ‘‘Nigeria is the only country where no depositor has lost money. Nigeria is also the only country where the banks are responsible for the cost of the clean up exercise”. Moreover, the transparent and firm manner in which Sanusi carried out his banking sector intervention and bailout has gone a long way in restoring confidence in the banking sector.

In January 2010, Sanusi issued regulations limiting the tenure of CEOs of banks to a maximum of 10 years. Under the new regulation, CEOs were limited to two renewable terms of five years each. This forced some CEOs that had exceeded their tenures to resign. The regulation also disqualified ex-CEOs from serving as directors within three years after expiration of their tenures as CEO. The reason for this reform was to Improve corporate governance of banks by avoiding the ‘sit-tight syndrome’ that allowed bank chiefs to manage the banks as personal businesses rather than as public corporations accountable to shareholders, depositors and government regulators.

Sanusi also got the approved of the Federal Government to create the Asset Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) to purchase toxic assets from banks. It had the responsibility of holding, managing, realizing and disposing of banks assets including the collection of interest, principal and capital due, as well as taking over the collateral searing such assets. The company had within its first year acquired about N1.7 trillion toxic assets from the rescued banks.

Recently Mustapha Chike-Obi, Director of AMCON, disclosed that the company’s total assets comprising loans,We've got a plastic card to suit you. investments and debts among others had reached about N5 trillion,Comprehensive Wi-Fi and RFID tag by Aeroscout to accurately locate and track any asset or person. making it the largest financial institution in Nigeria.

In yet another reform, the CBN directed all banks and financial institutions to adopt a uniform financial year end. Before now, financial year end varied among the different banks. Usually between January and May. Consequently the new regulation made it mandatory for all banks and discount houses to adopt December 31 as a uniform accounting year end. The former practice made financial comparison among banks difficult and also limited transparency of bank’s financial statements and results. The essence of the reform according to the CBN was to avoid regulatory arbitrage, and provide a level playing field for all operations.

Also the CBN had gone ahead to impose the International Financial Reporting standard (IFRS) on Nigerian banks to ensure greater disclosure and good corporate governance. The new system is also an attempt to instill discipline in the industry and further mitigate insiders’ abuse.

Earlier had suspended the former universal bank licenses granted to 24 banks in Nigeria and introduced new regional, national and international bank licenses based on new minimum capital requirement for regional banks was fixed at N10 billion ($ 65 million), N25 billion ($ 164 million) for national banks, and N50 billion ($ 329 million for international bank license. Formerly, all 24 banks had a minimum capital requirement of N25 billion and all operated as universal banks. A regional bank’s operation is restricted to just two geo-political zones of the country. Moreover banks were asked to specialize in their areas of strength such as SMES, Merchant/investment banking, forex trading, etc.

This, the CBN argued would ensure greater product diversity,Laser engraving and laser laser cutting machine for materials like metal, deepen specialization, curb stock market manipulative activities, ensure greater market segmentation and improve overall structural stability of the banking sector. In addition,Did you know that custom keychain chains can be used for more than just business. banks were also bared from using depositors’ fund for proprietary trading, venture capital investment, asset management, equity underwriting, etc.

In July 2010, Sansui’s CBN introduced the Nigerian Uniform Bank Account Number Scheme (NUBAN). The Scheme made it compulsory for Nigerian banks to a digit bank account number format for their customers. A nine months compliance period was allowed for banks to migrate to the new system.

Before now bank account numbers ranged from 12 to 15 digits. The CBN explained that the new format would promote best practices in the account number scheme and also eliminate some of the problems associated with the Automated Clearing House (ACH), thus enhancing the e-payment system.

In November 2010, the CBN directed all customers of banks and financial institutions to update their account information. According to the directive, customers who fail to update their information would have their bank accounts suspended. According to the CBN, the exercise was part of the Customer Due Diligence CDD which involves the Know Your Customer KYC compliance which is accepted worldwide as a tool for the fight against money laundering and terrorism financing.

In 2011, Sansui once more announced the new cash withdrawal lodgment policy that placed limits on the amount of money customers could lodge or withdraw from the bank without an extra charger. The initial limits were N150,000 and N1million for individual account holders and corporate account holders respectively.

The announcement caused a national outcry and debate that alarmed the CBN, forcing it to adjust the policy by raising the figures to N1 million and N5 million for individual and corporate customer’s respectively. The aim is to reduce the high dominance of cash in the Nigerian economy. The economy is still too heavily cash-driven in transaction of goods and services. Secondly, It is estimated that about 65% of the cash in circulation in the Nigeria economy is outside the banking system thus making it cumbersome for the CBN to carry out explain that the higher the volume of cash transaction in the economy, the higher the cost of cash management which constitutes a substantial part of the operating cost of banks that is passed on to customers in the form of bank charges and lending rates. In 2009, the direct cost of cash management to the banking industry was estimated at N114.5 billion and it is estimated to reach N192 billion in 2012.

'Tuesday Painters' on exhibit

A watercolor class offered through Glendale's Lifetime Learning classes is standing room only with a waiting list that outstrips many of Parks and Recreation's other courses. Art instructor Peggy Reid has taught “Journey in Watercolors” at Brand Art Center for five years. With remodeling underway at Brand, the class is temporarily located at Chevy Chase Library. Two classes meet weekly on Tuesdays.

On Saturday (Jan. 26) more than 150 art lovers gathered in the Gallery of Geo Systems in Glendale. They sipped and supped on wine and cheese during the exhibit's opening reception. On display are 64 paintings from 30 watercolorists known as the “Tuesday Painters” — all students of Reid.

The artists, most of whom have never had their paintings exhibited, proudly pointed out their work to visitors. Pasadena resident Marnell Land began Reid's classes in the fall. Her “Window in a Room” is NFS — not for sale. Since many of the artists are beginners, some were shy about offering their paintings for sale to the public.

Artist Arline Helm had no such compunctions. Her “Green Valley” landscape is on sale for $135. Helm has studied watercolor painting for 10 years, including five years with Reid.

Faye Dangerfield from Pasadena is on her fourth series of Reid's eight-week classes. Dangerfield's “Go Cart” was exhibited as well as her "Berries." (Both were not for sale). Dangerfield had just returned from Washington, D.C., for President's Obama's second inauguration. As a community volunteer for the Democratic Party, Dangerfield had also attended the president's first inauguration. Dangerfield announced that this year she danced at the Inaugural Ball. Who knows? Maybe Dangerfield will use the ball as the subject of her next masterpiece.

Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena has hosted luminaries such as actress Jane Fonda and, most recently, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor who signed their latest books. (Upcoming is an appearance by former Vice President Al Gore.) But it's been a long tradition of the independent bookstore to never neglect its kid readers.

Steve Ross has been reading to kids ever since he realized he had a knack for exciting them with the written word. He also has to corral them,Can you spot the answer in the fridge magnet? too. Sometimes a kid or two may jump out of their chair and practically wind up on Mr. Steve's lap in their attempt to make story time all their own. This morning was no exception. Ronan Fox, 4, from Pasadena was too excited to merely sit in his seat. He stood close to the action all through story time. Dad Jon Fox obediently sat in his seat along with younger son, Gavin Fox, 1.

Sendak's “Where the Wild Things Are” won the Caldecott Medal for the Most Distinguished Picture Book of the Year in 1964. Sendak was the writer and illustrator.

The story is about Max, a disobedient little boy sent to bed without his supper. He creates his own world — a forest inhabited by wild creatures that crown Max their king. When the book was written in 1963 the theme of dealing with anger was rare in children's literature, especially in picture-book format for young children.

In today’s on-demand culture, it’s easy to forget the process it takes to create good work. With easy access to top-of-the-line computer equipment, software programs, specialized applications and more, anyone can take a photo or video, manipulate it just so subtly and call it “art.”

Want your photo to have a Picasso-like manipulation? There’s an app for that. Don’t feel like waiting weeks to properly frame and hang an image in order to share it with the masses? Bring the art to everyone, and post to Facebook or Instagram for the perfect of-the-moment response.

But for Helen DeRamus, who has expressed herself through a mix of painting, sculpture and photography for four decades, getting there has been — and always will be — half the fun. And the 70-year-old artist and instructor is always working to perfect her craft.You must not use the laser cutter without being trained.

“I feel like my painting right now is better than it’s ever been,” DeRamus said. “That’s another drive, is to find that perfect painting.Wear a whimsical Disney ear cap straight from the Disney Theme Parks!”

The Atlanta-based DeRamus is showcasing 20 images from her ongoing series of landscape encaustic paintings, drawings and monotypes in a new show opening at JSU on Thursday titled The Deep Song. The ancient process of encaustic painting involves melting damar resin and beeswax and adding color to make an image.

The Atlanta-based DeRamus is showcasing 20 images from her ongoing series of landscape encaustic paintings, drawings and monotypes in a new show opening at JSU on Thursday titled The Deep Song. The ancient process of encaustic painting involves melting damar resin and beeswax and adding color to make an image.

“You use a torch for a heat gun in order to melt each of the layers into one another,” said DeRamus of the carefully-detailed form. “The process — it’s mesmerizing. You’re not dealing with a lot of toxicity. I think of it as being more like sculpture than I do painting, because it’s very tactile, and you can actually touch it.”

The collection of landscape paintings that DeRamus has assembled for the exhibition are part of an ongoing series she has been working on for several years.They manufacture custom rubber and silicone bracelet and bracelets.

“It has more to do with the layering of the images so that you are looking into the past as well as looking toward the future,” she said. “I think of them as being passages in my life that I am discovering,The USB flash drives wholesale is our flagship product. and I want to communicate those to the people who are actually viewing the work.”

“It’s exciting when we all get together at the holidays, believe me,” she said. She also reads a lot of poetry, and was particularly inspired by the rhythm of the words of Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca for The Deep Song.

“I’m looking for rhythm, usually, when I start to paint. I sort of disconnect from everything and then start to make marks on the board, and it’s the rhythm of the written word. And it’s also the rhythm of the music that I usually have playing in my studio that actually starts to form the images,” she said, citing the “very rhythmic” music of composers Philip Glass and John Adams in what helped her create this series.

DeRamus has heavily embraced technology to communicate her work. The blogger and regular-user of Twitter and Pinterest said she believes that maintaining an Internet presence is very important. “It’s a good way for me to communicate with my students, communicate with collectors, with my gallery, with the general public.”

Next, her sights are set on trying her hand at video recordings, and possibly creating an installation using a camcorder. Ideally, she would like to begin another residency, having completed her first just a few years ago.

Becoming a major player

Oh, how the times have changed. It wasn’t that long ago that condominiums were just a bit player on the Ottawa scene.

As little as a decade ago, they barely scraped together five per cent of the new home market. But Ottawa has grown up and condos have joined the big boys.

In an effort to find out which floor plans were the most popular last year, more than 30 builders were polled to offer up their top sellers. Of the 28 who responded, there was an almost even split between condos, townhomes and single-family homes, a result that mirrors the new home sales numbers gathered by industry analyst Ron Desjardins.

It’s a bit of a snowball effect, he says,wind turbine and a reflection of the change in our demographic that began in the late ’90s,A ridiculously low price on this All-Purpose solar lantern by Gordon. with immigrants more familiar with living in a denser environment and young professionals attracted by the high-tech sector who were looking for lifestyle rather than living in the suburbs.

Although consumer confidence is up and there are “a ton of first-time buyer opportunities out there” — 90 per cent of people under age 25 are renters as well as 62 per cent of those in the 25-34 age group — he notes that recent changes to mortgage rules make it harder for first-time buyers, the ones often attracted to condos, to qualify for mortgages.

And the prediction that baby boomers will sell their big home in the suburbs and flock to downtown condos?

“All the research tells us that the 55-plus stay in place for five to 10 years. The vast majority stay in place until health drives them out,” he says. “If people think that the vast majority of that boomer market’s going to move, that’s not going to happen. But more and more will.”

Brad Lamb’s ultra-modern SoBa project at Bank and Catherine streets launched in October with the Toronto-based developer himself on hand to get things started. Two months later, close to 40 per cent of the 240 units had been sold.

The most popular plan so far? A wide and shallow one-bedroom-plus-den that’s also a corner unit and features two balconies.

“In all, you have over 39 feet of windows on the east side of the unit and over 13 feet of windows on the south side,” says spokesman Ryan Spencer.

The 730-square-foot unit offers nine-foot exposed concrete ceilings, a European-styled kitchen and a blend of engineered hardwood, ceramic and porcelain tile on the floors. Half of the units featuring this floor plan have sold so far, Spencer says.

Going with what worked well at its Central 1 project across the street, Urban Capital reproduced one particular layout in three sizes for its Central 2 and Hideaway condos at Bank and McLeod streets and “it has proved to be the bestseller yet again,” says development director Taya Cook. It’s also the layout that was chosen for the model suite built in the sales centre.

In sizes ranging from 549 to 615 square feet, the one-bedroom-plus-den works for both individuals or couples,Shop for bobblehead dolls from the official NBC Universal Store and build a fun collection for your home or office. she says. The mid-size 609-square-foot version sold the most, followed by the largest, then the smallest, combining for almost 40 per cent of units sold last year.

EQ Homes saw such enthusiastic response when it first launched Foxwood in late 2011 that the company kept releasing units in the cluster of low-rise buildings, selling out all 96 in a mere six weeks.

It was a product and a location that had little competition, coupled with a demand for downsizing options for those who wanted to stay in the community, says marketing manager John Montpetit. Now under construction, there will be eight buildings in all, each three storeys high with four units per floor, which means every unit is a corner unit. There’s also underground parking and elevators in all buildings, a plus for buyers.

Montpetit says it’s not so much one floor plan that stood out,How cheaply can I build a solar power systems? it was the whole project. But although there were an equal number of units and therefore no top seller, he did note that one layout was requested the most: the Maple.Nitrogen Controller and Digital dry cabinet with good quality.

For Mastercraft’s signature SoHo condos, the buildings themselves are almost as important as the floor plans, says Lynsey Bennett of Bennett Property Shop Realty, which represents the builder.

Hotel-style living, fitness facilities created by award-winning body builder and trainer Dalton Brown, interior designs by Brian Gluckstein and location are all part of the offerings of the two condos the builder was selling in 2012: SoHo Lisgar and SoHo Champagne.

But if there could be just one top choice, the Bennett team pointed to one of SoHo Lisgar’s layouts, saying it represented about 20 per cent of sales. The F2 is a one-bedroom-plus-den with “incredible views of downtown Ottawa and the suites available on the upper floors of the building can also see the Peace Tower,” says Bennett.

The 777-square-foot unit includes marble bathrooms, integrated appliances, hardwood flooring and extra-long kitchen islands. A model suite of the F2 will be available for viewing this month, Bennett says. Prices start from $322,900 with suites on higher floors just released.

What determines the Price of Gold

There were two main influences when I was growing up in the 1970s and 80s. We went through a period of very high inflation in the United States. President Nixon imposed wage and price controls in a misguided, or perhaps very cynical, attempt to fight inflation. And Nixon’s successor, President Ford, handed out these silly little lapel buttons that said “Whip Inflation Now”. I remember seeing a young man on the TV news who had reported a chain store for the economic crime of raising the price of one of their products. He was being given some kind of award for this.

The second historical event was the gold bull market of the late 70s. Then Reagan came in along with Paul Volker who he inherited from the former president, Carter.wind turbine I wasn’t paying much attention at the time but it stuck with me that gold had made this huge move.Basics, technical terms and advantages and disadvantages of Laser engraver.

Those two things came together and had a life-long influence on me. From that time I took away a curiosity about inflation. And that led me eventually to be curious about the whole field of economics. I was lucky that I came upon the Austrian School of Economics. I started reading Austrian economics in high school. The Austrian School emphasized gold as the basis of the monetary system and how well that has worked out over the course of human history.

The popular perception of China an economic juggernaut on a path to eclipse the economies of the developed world. And how did that happen? Because their wise central planners chose an export-driven growth strategy. Many people now think that this strategy has gotten them to a point where they are deficient in domestic consumption, so they need to switch to a consumption-driven mode of economic growth; and that this also will be accomplished by the same wise central planners through a series of carefully designed five-year plans.

I think almost everything about this view is wrong; it is still largely a centrally planned economy and we know from the economics of the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, central planners cannot allocate resources.

If you have a very simple economy where people make consumption goods with their bare hands, this can be done with central planning. But Mises was trying to explain the economic growth that has occurred in the world from small villages to vast modern economies with millions of goods and a complex division of labor. How could this type of growth occur? The process requires the development of a complex inter-relationship of capital goods, natural resources, and division of labor.

In a modern economy, the number of things that could be produced is nearly unimaginably large. And the number of different production methods for even a single good is incalculable. Take gold for example – finding a deposit is quite complex. There are many ways to look for it. Magnetic fields, chemistry,Don't make another silicone mold without these invaluable Mold Making supplies and accessories! electrical, drilling. How much drilling and where? And then, when you have the deposit, should it be open pit or underground? Should a resource estimate be established first or start mining and follow the vein? And what about the metallurgy, the chemistry? What type of electrical power? What types of labor? Refine the ore on site, or partially refine? Build roads, rail, or ship the ore? There are millions of decisions and each one needs to be fully answered down to the hire or purchase of specific pieces of capital and individual workers.

Only with prices can you have accounting, which is the ability to calculate profit and loss. In a market economic system, the important decisions are made on the basis of an anticipated profit and loss, which is the difference between the expected prices received on sales and the costs.

Mises had the insight that prices of capital goods are only a meaningful tool for resource allocation if they are established by a competitive bidding process among entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs must choose how much they are willing to pay to acquire a specific capital asset and hire the skilled workers they need. Entrepreneurs are people who put at risk their own capital, and will either earn a profit or suffer a loss.

The diversity of entrepreneurs is a key part of this. Each business firm or company founder has a unique view of their own market, which may be highly detailed and based on years of experience. Mises also noted that each entrepreneur has his idea about what the customer will want. The market is a decentralized process in which the entrepreneur who has the best plan for each particular asset, along with some cash, will end up in a position to choose how that asset gets used.

In my own former job, I worked for a company that was in a small sub-sector of a sub-sector. There are perhaps half a dozen people in the world who truly understood our industry, maybe fewer. The entire world is full of experts like this, people who understand a particular industry or product really well.

Can you imagine, for example, that we would have iPhones or Kindles if the technology industry was planned by a central committee? Before the iPhone, competition in the mobile industry was primarily over how many minutes per month you got on weekdays or weekends. When Steve Jobs decided to develop the iPhone, he risked $150 million of his shareholder’s money and took on the US mobile industry, who did not want a disruptive phone taking away the spotlight from their monthly plans.

Central planning means the abolition of this type of competition. And that is the problem that Mises identified. There is no way to replace this competitive bidding process with a single planner or a planning committee. The central committee cannot bid against itself for the opportunity to acquire specific capital goods and labor. That would be nothing more than the left hand bidding against the right hand. They could assign fake prices to resources and pretend to calculate the best projects, but the numbers that would come out of this process would not be prices,Totech Americas delivers a wide range of drycabinets for applications spanning electronics. they would be arbitrary numbers that did not reflect the best possible use of scarce productive resources. Mises showed that A ridiculously low price on this All-Purpose solar lantern by Gordon.a central planner has no basis for making economic decisions, even if the process did not become entirely politicized, as it always does.

Slippery sidewalks keep emergency rooms busy

Ice and snow is a dangerous combination out on the roads, sidewalks and parking lots. Local emergency rooms say they're seeing more patients coming in after falling on the ice.

"It's been iciest on the sidewalks for me I walked down 3rd Ave and that was pretty bad," said Jeremy Sutton.

The emergency room at Mayo Clinic Health System-Eau Claire has been busy this week.

“People just slipping on the ice falling on their butts hitting their heads its very common this time of year,” said Dr. Sue Cullinan with Mayo Clinic Health System.

Cullinan says most patients she sees after a fall come in with a broken ankle, hip or a nasty bump on the head. She says falls can be life-threatening for people on blood thinners. Cullinan says two of the most dangerous places to slip and fall are on the stairs or stepping out of your car.

“Usually people aren't looking and aren’t careful stepping on to a curb or getting out of their car so they slip before they know it’s icy; so thinking ahead, looking down, taking short shuffling steps and expecting ice where ever you go is the best thing you can do,” said Cullinan.

There was a time when manual transmissions always outperformed automatics on the track, but you won’t find a clutch on today’s F1 supercars anymore. Those have been replaced by semi-automatic paddle shifters mounted to the steering column. Even on the street-legal consumer side, acceleration is a shifting landscape. While six-speed manuals such as the Lingenfelter Chevy Corvette and Dodge Viper Hennessey Venom still hold the top 0 to 60 mph times, today’s automatics are increasingly accelerating faster and getting better fuel economy than their manual counterparts in what amounts to a significant changing of the guard.

In the automotive world – as in computing, Jeopardy!, and sometimes even chess – technology is outperforming humans.

With much talk about driverless car technology lately, that begs a number of questions. One example: Vehicle fuel efficiency, hybrids, and electric vehicles are central to a transforming, cleaner, greener transportation system; What will driverless cars mean for fossil fuel consumption in the transportation sector? At RMI, we’re very interested in the answers to this question.

Individual driverless cars come with important opportunities for increased efficiency. Groups of driverless cars likewise have the potential for even greater collective efficiencies, for example through shared reduced drag. And driverless vehicles seamlessly connected to smart infrastructure offer even greater promise still.

In the context of driverless cars, drafting becomes platooning, a grouped “train” of autonomous,Online shopping for luggage tag from a great selection of Clothing. connected cars following a lead car. The SARTRE project—fully operational today and potentially ready for consumer deployment within 10 years—is the latest iteration of a concept that first gained popularity in the 1990s.The USB flash drives wholesale is our flagship product. By traveling within 13 feet of one another,They manufacture custom rubber and silicone bracelet and bracelets. the platooned vehicles reap great efficiency gains. A 1995 PATH (Partners for Advanced Transportation TecHnology) study showed fuel use reductions up to 20 percent at this distance; even greater reductions are possible with larger platoons and/or tighter spacing between vehicles.

Now here’s where driverless cars, hypermiling, and speed all potentially intersect. The National Highway Maximum Speed Law of 1974, motivated by the 1970s oil crisis, gave us the 55 mph speed limit, targeted at keeping U.S. drivers at peak fuel efficiency. In 1995, the law was abolished and speed limits now vary widely state by state, though 55 mph remains common on many of the nation’s highways. But what if driverless cars—by being able to safely maintain much closer following distances in platoons than human drivers—could actually increase the speed of peak efficiency? We’d get places faster while still using less fuel.

The opportunities bound up in driverless cars are many. They’re highly compatible with car-sharing programs (more on that in a future post). They have implications for public transportation systems (ditto). If you’re feeling drowsy on a long-haul drive or at the end of a tough day at work, a driverless car could let you sit back and relax, or even take the wheel if it senses you’re driving erratically; ditto if you find you’ve unexpectedly had too much to drink—rather than call a taxi, a driverless car could take you home. By feeding information into (and obtaining info from) a shared database akin to the smartphone app Pothole Alert, they could avoid road hazards or even notify the local highway department or department of public works to road repair and maintenance needs.

But let’s return to the fuel consumption issue. Driverless cars connected to the traffic light system could communicate with an upcoming light and have it stay green or change to green, so that you could maintain cruising speed and optimal fuel efficiency (not to mention avoiding an unnecessary delay at the light). And of course there’s the familiar issue of parking, especially in urban environments where it accounts for 30 percent of all traffic. Autonomous cars and a smart parking system could allocate parking spaces to the nearest vehicles in need of a spot,You must not use the laser cutter without being trained. and vehicles could navigate to those spots directly and quickly, reducing the fuel consumption, emissions, and time associated with searching for a spot.

There are pitfalls to be wary of, however. One giant elephant in the driverless car room is vehicle miles traveled (VMT). It’s tempting to believe that driverless cars will reduce VMTs through various efficiencies,Where you can create a custom lanyard from our wide selection of styles and materials. but the opposite could also happen. In a highly autonomous vehicle future, we may do far more with our cars than we currently can—think of Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond calling his BMW 750 via cell phone in Tomorrow Never Dies, or David Hasselhoff’s Michael Knight and his autonomous car, KITT, each chasing down different suspects in Knight Rider.

What if our driverless cars of the future have a valet mode that allows them to park themselves, becoming not just driverless but also passengerless? What if they run errands for us, such as picking up lunch or dry cleaning or the kids at soccer practice? What if driverless cars—and the efficiencies and flexibility they offer—actually incentivize us to drive more? This “rebound effect” could increase VMT and fuel consumption, eating into the potential energy savings we’d otherwise expect from highly efficient autonomous vehicles. We must be prepared to address these undesirable yet entirely possible outcomes.

Support for registering rental properties in Amherst

Residents affected by an influx of rental units in neighborhoods and owners of rental properties told municipal officials last week that Amherst should begin requiring licenses for those wishing to house tenants.

But at the same time they cautioned against mandating regular inspections of these properties,Where you can create a custom lanyard from our wide selection of styles and materials. which they said could make any rental registration program unwieldy and ineffective and also might not serve to address the community concern of misbehaving renters.Online shopping for luggage tag from a great selection of Clothing.

At the first of two public forums hosted by the Safe and Healthy Neighborhoods Working Group, Maurianne Adams, a Precinct 10 Town Meeting member, said permits or licenses should be issued to those seeking to do business in Amherst. A rental registration system, she said, would be “something that designates this a commercial activity that requires compliance.”

Adams said inspections should be secondary to permitting and suggested a three-tiered system that would segment rentals into three categories: owner-occupied rentals, large apartment complexes and companies that are purchasing homes for the express purpose of converting them to rentals.

Joel Greenbaum of Hadley, who owns and manages several rental properties in Amherst,You must not use the laser cutter without being trained. said registration of rental properties is a worthwhile endeavor.

Moving beyond this to regular inspections is a concern, though, because it might become too regulated and burdensome, he said. “Enforcement should be complaint driven,” Greenbaum said.

The working group, established in October by Town Manager John Musante and made up of residents, town and University of Massachusetts officials and property owners, used the forum as an opportunity to gather feedback and provide an update on progress toward establishing a rental registration bylaw expected to come before Town Meeting in May.

Select Board Chairwoman Stephanie O’Keeffe, who is a member of the panel, said there are five questions being confronted. These are what would inspections of rental properties entail, how would parking plans be reviewed and approved, what are the penalties for noncompliance, how will homes be accessed and what should be done with the existing bylaw that limits all dwellings to four unrelated housemates.

Assistant Town Manager David Ziomek, who is overseeing the working group, said the town is already being more vigilant with rental units under building commissioner Robert Morra and housing code enforcement officer Jon Thompson.

“What I’m asking for is to give people the power to revoke a license (and) the privilege of using our neighborhood as a place to make money, as a place to run a business,” Stacey said.

Jennifer Taub of Lincoln Avenue also asked the town to develop a permit certificate that puts the town in control of companies seeking to purchase properties for the express purpose of making money from rentals.

Taub said any system imposing fines or penalties on egregious violators would be difficult to implement, noting that many landlords are “lawyered up.”

Cinda Jones, who owns and manages several rental units in North Amherst, said she sympathizes with those affected by student rentals on Lincoln Avenue, which is near her childhood home on Amity Street.

“Like my neighborhood where I grew up, I’ve never seen as out-of-control kids as I have lately,” Jones said.

She said a group of landlords is already working toward establishing a system of best practices that can be used to get a handle on problem homes and the tenants who live in them. One suggestion is requiring all rental properties to have town bylaws related to noise and nuisances posted in a visible way near the main entrance.

Jones advocated for a landlord-supported fund that could be used to hire more police details focused on student behavior, which would replace private security that many are already using.

The working group is also considering changes to the bylaw that limits dwellings to four unrelated housemates, no matter the size of the home.

Another feature that the offset press offers optionally is the MPS Ultraflex rail system. This innovative positioning and parking system for rail-mounted units provides the ability to set aside or move the unit to the job location where it is required.They manufacture custom rubber and silicone bracelet and bracelets. Numerous capabilities of this press were shared during the live demonstrations.

Within minutes of set-up preparation and only a few meters of set-up waste, a complete print job change was completed, including design and material change from ultra thin foil to very thick paper. As different substrates, preferences and print and pressure settings can be calibrated and saved into a job memory,The USB flash drives wholesale is our flagship product. set-up times and wastes are kept considerably low, providing substantial economic benefit, especially for short runs.

Die cutting was demonstrated with the MPS Change Die station which enables die-cutting of fine materials and difficult shapes at high speeds, followed by a matrix removal system also engineered by MPS that shreds and removes the matrix. At full speed the offset press can run up to 200 meters a minute. Overall, the MPS EXL-offset press demonstrated that efficiency and affordability together with superior and stable offset print quality is achievable.

Live demonstrations on the MPS flagship EF410 UV full servo 8-colour flexo press included a quick material and design change. The widely installed EF press line offers a high level of automation in print and pressure settings and extensive converting flexibility in a wide range of substrates. The EF press is standard equipped with the innovative MPS Nonstop Print Change (NPC) technology, that allows the operator to prepare any idle print unit for a new design without needing to stop the press.

The Nardi shows Formula Vee’s rich history

“The Nardi” has a special place in the hearts of Volkswagen motorsports fans, but few know the full story of the first-ever Formula Vee car.

It all started in Florida in the mid-1950s, when Miami hardware-store owner Hubert Brundage decided he wanted to create a Formula Junior car using standard Volkswagen parts.

Unable to do the work himself, Brundage commissioned famed racecar driver, engineer and designer Enrico Nardi to build his car for him. Brundage shipped a brand-new 1958 113 VW Beetle to Torino, Italy -- and Nardi went to work.

The designer took the car apart, separating the engine, transmission and suspension. He then created the tube-like, one-seat racecar that is recognized as today’s Formula Vee car.

“It was a beautiful car,” Brundage’s son Jan said. “It was very different from anything else that was out at the time.”

It was not only very different, but, as Formula Jr. cars were steadily rising in cost and becoming obsolete, Brundage’s new car gave him an idea.Learn how an embedded microprocessor in a smart card can authenticate your computer usage and data.

Brundage thought that his Nardi-made car could be easily and inexpensively reproduced, making more cost-effective race cars.

“So he sold it,” Jan said. “He didn’t do it to make a profit.Canada Is Your Premier Personalized bobbleheads Head Company! He did it to help make better racecars.”

Brundage “sold” his Nardi to Bill Duckworth and George Smith for $1, with the knowledge that they were going to try to reproduce the aluminum-bodied car to make 10-20 fiberglass-bodied cars. The new cars, all using components of the VW Beetle, were to start a new racing series in central Florida (that would later become Formula Vee).

Duckworth and Smith -- who later started the racecar-building company Formcar Constructors in Orlando, Fla. -- used the Nardi as the mold for fiberglass-bodied cars. After four years, they sold 500 or so cars. The cars sold as kits for $1,000, ready-mades for $2,400. Smith, who was involved in the administration of the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA), talked to the club’s sanctioning body and pitched a new series, which would become Formula Vee. After much discussion, the idea took off, and Formula Vee cars became a very popular way to break into formula racing.

Duckworth and Smith then retired from their business and sold the Nardi. For years that was the logical ending to the birth for Formula Vee.

Years later, in the early 1970s, after the senior Brundage had died, Jan Brundage was reading the classified section of Autoweek and he saw an ad for an “aluminum-bodied Nardi.”

“My mouth just dropped,” he said. “I knew it was my dad’s car. It was so coincidental, because I never read the classifieds. I just happened to see it.”

Brundage knew that there was only one aluminum Nardi ever made,With superior quality photometers, light meters and a number of other solar light products. and he knew that he had to have it.

“I called the guy and he wanted $1,400. I didn’t even hesitate. I told him the check was in the mail.”

Actually, Brundage sent a friend up to Ohio to check the car out before buying it. It turned out that it was the Nardi. Brundage, who felt that the car was a big part of his family’s history, bought the car and put it in storage.

“I just wanted to have it,” he said. “I never really wanted to do much more with it.”

However, Brundage had no idea how important the Formula Vee series would prove to be to the people who participated in it. As time went by, former drivers started having Formula Vee reunions and get-togethers. Brundage even went to one in the mid-80s, and saw the how much people still loved the old Formula Vee cars.

Sure this would probably help, and guaranteeing future salaries for Pro Bowl players is something that Rodney Harrison brought up recently. It might make things better on some level, but it wouldn’t eliminate the fact that the game is an exhibition. You can’t get any closer to winning a Super Bowl – the ultimate goal for all players – with what you do in the Pro Bowl. It’s a game that takes place after the season with nothing on the line, aside from the future health of the player as you so astutely pointed out. That inherently removes the competitive nature of the contest. Things can be done to tweak that issue, but it will never be solved. Personally, I watched the bulk of the Pro Bowl the other night and thought it was pretty entertaining as compared to similar all-star games and exhibitions. I have no problem if it were left alone and played the way it is today moving forward. I also would have no problem if they never played another Pro Bowl again.We have become one of the worlds most recognised Ventilation system brands.

While I haven’t yet gotten enough into the pre-draft process to assess all the available talent and which positions are likely early-round targets, both needs you bring up are worthy of consideration.We specializes in rapid plastic injection mould and molding of parts for prototypes and production. Though there is hope that Tavon Wilson might develop into more of a strong safety type player, I have my doubts. If not, that’s a major need next to McCourty or Gregory. At receiver an outside option who can beat coverage and make plays down the field would be a huge get. But those types of guys usually go very high in the draft. Early reports are that this isn’t the most blue chip of wide receiver draft classes, so maybe an elite guy will slide to late in the first with no real consensus top targets at the position. But I will say that adding a true playmaker – something the Patriots need at more than a few positions – at both safety and wide receiver would be a big boost to this team’s playoff chances moving forward.

A Closer Look at Disney Infinity

When Disney Infinity was first announced a few weeks ago, I couldn’t decide whether it was a childhood dream come true or a terrifyingly efficient money-spinner. To be totally honest, it’s both – it’s going to make a ridiculous amount of money, but Disney Infinity is not a cynical or exploitative exercise. It’s creative, playful, and preserves the soul of the cherished characters and places that it brings to life.

When you look at how kids play with their toys, they’re born genre alchemists. Spider-Man can fight against Creepers from Minecraft; Hulk and Barbie can drive around in the Batmobile together; Iron Man and Buzz Lightyear can form a crime-fighting superteam in space. Disney Infinity taps right into this impulse, harnessing the imagination in a way that licensed kids’ games seldom bother to do.

One source of the waterfall of cash that Disney Infinity is sure to generate is the sheer amount of plastic stuff that you can buy for it. Where Skylanders comprises just figurines and an NFC portal that translates them into the game, Disney Infinity is more complex than that: there are power discs, playset pieces and hexagonal skin and item discs as well. The playset pieces unlock themed levels, the power discs add buffs and abilities to characters when stacked underneath them, and the hexagonal discs unlock vehicles, items, wallpapers and more to use in creating your own levels.

Playset pieces and characters will be sold individually or in packs of three, and the power and item discs will come in blind packs, like trading cards. This is a faintly frightening prospect for anyone with kids, as it opens Disney Infinity up to both playground trading for the discs and parental pestering for the more expensive figures. But given that these toys will be played with in both the real world and Disney’s virtual space, and that each themed playset will offer a good 15+ hours of gameplay by the developer’s estimation, there is decent value to them.

As a bit of a miniature-plastic-stuff addict, the quality of the figures themselves was a primary concern for me. Happily they’re such lovely-looking objects that you almost feel alright about their $12.99 individual price-tags (Brits can prepare to be screwed with a ￡12.99 retail price for individual figures, if Amazon’s pre-order pages are any indication). They’re made in conjunction with the same Chinese firm that manufactures Square Enix’s exquisite Play Arts figurines, and the quality is self-evident. They’re much better-looking and better-made than most of the overpriced merchandise you’ll find on the shelves of Disney stores.

There’s a unifying vinyl-cut style to them that makes each character look just similar enough to the others that they seem at home in the same universe. This carries over into the game itself – Disney Infinity’s style is definitely its own, though its versions of Jack Sparrow, Sully and Mr Incredible are far closer to the source material than, say, the LEGO games’ characterful minifigures.

There are two sides to Disney Infinity’s gameplay: the playset levels, which play out much like any other Disney-themed kids’ game, and the toybox creative mode. The playset levels are themed around particular movies and are only playable with characters for that movie. Each playset is essentially a self-contained game, each with its own unique mechanics as well as its own look. The Incredibles scenario is mostly about bashing baddies with big fists, and it does that very well – everything is destructible and enemies explode in a shower of parts, making you feel like you’re smashing toys to bits.

Just picking up and throwing things proves unreasonably entertaining – all the other characters have that vinyl-cut look as well, so you can throw them through windows/at buildings without fear of bloody repercussions (in the game, that is - in real life you'll probably regret it). The Monsters University playset has a totally different feel – Sulley and Mikey run around a bustling university campus, setting up pranks and elaborate chains of traps that send passers-by flying across the quad, launched by a spring-loaded manhole cover. It’s playful and friendly, with a smattering of gentle platforming puzzles and a lot of humour.

I ran out of time before testing out Pirates of the Caribbean, but it looks more action-orientated, with sailing setpieces and piratical sword-fighting for Jack Sparrow and co to get up to. When you place a villain character down on the Infinity Pad, the game doesn’t change,Other companies want a piece of that iPhone headset action so theoretically you could have Davy Jones fighting Davy Jones, or Syndrome facing himself in The Incredibles. The different character figures all have different powers that unlock different parts of the levels – you can complete them with anyone, but to see everything you’ll need all the characters.Comprehensive Wi-Fi and RFID tag by Aeroscout to accurately locate and track any asset or person.

As a bit of a miniature-plastic-stuff addict, the quality of the figures themselves was a primary concern for me. Happily they’re such lovely-looking objects that you almost feel alright about their $12.99 individual price-tags (Brits can prepare to be screwed with a ￡12.99 retail price for individual figures, if Amazon’s pre-order pages are any indication). They’re made in conjunction with the same Chinese firm that manufactures Square Enix’s exquisite Play Arts figurines, and the quality is self-evident. They’re much better-looking and better-made than most of the overpriced merchandise you’ll find on the shelves of Disney stores.

There’s a unifying vinyl-cut style to them that makes each character look just similar enough to the others that they seem at home in the same universe. This carries over into the game itself – Disney Infinity’s style is definitely its own, though its versions of Jack Sparrow, Sully and Mr Incredible are far closer to the source material than, say, the LEGO games’ characterful minifigures.

There are two sides to Disney Infinity’s gameplay: the playset levels, which play out much like any other Disney-themed kids’ game, and the toybox creative mode. The playset levels are themed around particular movies and are only playable with characters for that movie. Each playset is essentially a self-contained game, each with its own unique mechanics as well as its own look. The Incredibles scenario is mostly about bashing baddies with big fists, and it does that very well – everything is destructible and enemies explode in a shower of parts, making you feel like you’re smashing toys to bits.Can you spot the answer in the fridge magnet?

Just picking up and throwing things proves unreasonably entertaining – all the other characters have that vinyl-cut look as well, so you can throw them through windows/at buildings without fear of bloody repercussions (in the game, that is - in real life you'll probably regret it). The Monsters University playset has a totally different feel – Sulley and Mikey run around a bustling university campus, setting up pranks and elaborate chains of traps that send passers-by flying across the quad,Wear a whimsical Disney ear cap straight from the Disney Theme Parks! launched by a spring-loaded manhole cover. It’s playful and friendly, with a smattering of gentle platforming puzzles and a lot of humour.

I ran out of time before testing out Pirates of the Caribbean, but it looks more action-orientated, with sailing setpieces and piratical sword-fighting for Jack Sparrow and co to get up to. When you place a villain character down on the Infinity Pad, the game doesn’t change, so theoretically you could have Davy Jones fighting Davy Jones, or Syndrome facing himself in The Incredibles. The different character figures all have different powers that unlock different parts of the levels – you can complete them with anyone, but to see everything you’ll need all the characters.

It’s a lot more like LittleBigPlanet 2 than it is like Minecraft – and it riffs on Media Molecule’s create-play-share philosophy in a way that 2011’s Disney Universe - which invited plenty of LBP comparisons of its own - did not.We've got a plastic card to suit you. Disney hopes to encourage creators with competitions, challenging them to make the best racetrack or the best castle and then redistributing the winners as level packs (for free, obviously).

Disney Infinity has “several” more worlds on the disc that will be unlocked with future playsets and characters – but instead of releasing levels based on new movies (or other Disney properties, like Star Wars) as DLC, Disney Interactive will be releasing a Disney Infinity 2 when the time is right. This is a little disappointing, but given that the game is out on all platforms, there was no way to design a framework for all of them that would allow the developer to add in levels that weren’t on the disc.

Disney Infinity’s trump card over Skylanders is its potentially universal appeal – where Skylanders are designed for 6-10-year-old boys, Disney has characters that appeal to everyone. That’s reflected in the gameplay, which keeps things simple and kid-friendly but varies between puzzles, platforming and action. It’s the creative aspect that really animates Disney Infinity, though, and that makes this more than an inspired lesson in cash conjuration.

Charity must be transparent so those in real need receive

On Thursday December 15, the economist Constantin Gurdgiev tweeted that 121 women were jailed last year for not paying a fine on conviction for failing to have a television licence.

A woman I know, who struggles to exist within a twilight world between work and welfare, was so panicked by that tweet that she went directly to the post office and paid €160 for a licence. She is left with €27 for Christmas. That is a fact.

Business! cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. Mankind was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were all my business.

Set in Victorian times, the spirit of Jacob Marley in the classic Charles Dickens' novella of love, tax and redemption, A Christmas Carol, is sure to warm all of our hearts again this Christmas.

Yes, it is good to give, to dwell in that moment for a while, to feel content within ourselves,The glass and GLASS MIXED STONE from china-mosaics Tile features a unique collection of mosaic tiles. really, which is all it is; in itself, it is so much better than not to give at all. But if personal happiness is the sole motivation, then neither can that alone be good enough anymore.

In The Virtue of Selfishness, the Objectivist philosopher, Ayn Rand, writes of morality, approvingly, to the effect that many do not consider to give to charity a virtue at all, let alone a moral duty.

"Man's mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive he must act and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action," she once wrote.

But the foundational argument of Objectivism cannot be sound.

In these desperate times, I find myself to be more in tune with the sociologist Beatrice Webb, who once said that charity is, or should be, the exercise of "a thoughtful benevolence".

Not benevolence alone but a thoughtful benevolence – a reasoned, prudent, discriminating, even sceptical benevolence – a benevolence that is acutely aware of the often unintended consequences of goodwill, that knows it to be more important to do good than to feel good; that is morally and spiritually satisfying for the giver, and morally as well as materially beneficial to the receiver.

Gertrude Himmelfarb, a professor of history, says it is this kind of charity that promotes welfare in the proper sense of that word – the well-being of citizens.

Shortly before the ascension of Queen Victoria, a royal commission, which deplored "the mischievous ambiguity of the word 'poor'", proposed a major reform of the Poor Law. The name was a misnomer, the commission said; it was a pauper law, not a poor law. Most of the poor – which is to say, virtually all of the working classes – were indeed poor, but they were not paupers.

Two measurements are used by the Central Statistics Office to measure poverty in Ireland.

In 2009, the most up to date figures available, there were 233,192 people, or 5.5 per cent, in 'consistent poverty' and 579,819 people, or 14.1 per cent, 'at risk of poverty'.

At risk means an income of €230 a week for an adult; consistent means unable to afford new clothes, meat or fish, or being unable to heat your home.

After the Celtic Tiger crash more than 18 per cent of children – our Tiny Tims, if you like – were at risk of, and almost 9 per cent were actually in, consistent poverty.

It is a shameful statistic.Best ICE CRACKING JNB382 From China Foshan Nanhai ENERGY Building Materials Co., LTD Manufacturers.

Two regressive budgets later, which have included a cut to child benefit, several thousands more, including many, many children, will be tipped into a form of poverty, whether 'consistent' or 'at risk'.

Lately – belatedly, perhaps – when I refer others to this analysis the response is usually one of passing concern followed by an air of general indifference.

Some cite anecdotal evidence, from wherever that may come, that the poor, or those at risk of poverty, can afford to drink and smoke, after all, that they have Sky Sports in their homes, apparently, that they have a car on the road.

The more aware also say that the Department of Social Protection spends a massive sum, more than €20bn a year, which accounts for around 40 per cent of total Exchequer spend.

This second point is made in a tone of resentment; the argument is reasonably valid – up to a point – but it remains oblivious to what we might call the majesty of The Principle of Humanity.

Here is the argument though: to apply the free market philosophy of a libertarian economist, Milton Friedman, if the €20bn budget were divided among, say, 400,000 on the Live Register they would each receive €50,000 a year.

The public sector class, in numbers, pay and administration, are clearly a huge part of the problem, such costs that the IMF again argued last week were out of touch with the remainder of society.

It is also clear that what is referred to as the "welfare" state is in urgent need of reform, such reform that I do not even pretend to understand, let alone where to begin, other than to say that only those in real need should be intended to receive.

This much is also true: at the height of the boom there were still more than 100,000 people on some form of social welfare, for any number of reasons, many of which have to do with the principle of humanity.

To use another buzzword, by all means "crack down" on fraud, but also concentrate on the causes of fraud, some of which are deep-rooted, others merely skin deep.

I know of another woman, her circumstances too complicated to go into right now, other than to say she has never worked a day in her life. She is 34.

The bottom line is this: if she were to take a job, she would lose the roof over her head and the heads of her children. She is in what is called the "welfare trap". That is also a fact.

When Social Protection Minister Joan Burton recently referred to school leavers who claim welfare as a "lifestyle choice" she was almost set upon; but again, she had a point.

"The best way to lower the social welfare bill is to create jobs," Sinn Fein said in response. In The Principle of Charity, let us be charitable this Christmas: that is to state the bleedin' obvious.

Joan Burton has faced into a huge task. In her reform agenda, she would do well to introduce – another buzzword – "transparency" to take account of the deeper philosophical issues at play in this debate.This Rainbow Mosaic was made using paint samples cut into small pieces.

If we are to create a fair society,Big selection of Penny round Circle Glass Mosaic with detailed informations. then Joan Burton must show people how other people have to live. In this sceptical age, that is the sort of society we have come to; that is what bitter experience has forced us to become. We need to see the evidence to know that it is true.

Nor should they stop there: open up the family courts too, and the immigration courts and let the people see what passes for a fair society here.

And just what is going on down in the Commercial Court? The forgiveness of debt is essential for the country, yes, but also for its citizens many of whom are without hope.

In that context, we must also come back for our builders and businessmen. They are dying by suicide every day and nobody knows how to talk about it; and our children are taking their own lives too. Online. For everybody to see.

When John Bruton, in a church, recently spoke about the absence of forgiveness, he was almost set upon but he, also, had a point: the bankers may eventually be forgiven only when they forgive us our trespasses as well; so not yet, not even in this spirit of Christmas.