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It has been weeks since Microsoft bid for Yahoo was announce and been weeks too since Yahoo! battle from merging with Microsoft.

I just don’t understand “the end” of Yahoo!’s cry that they are undervalued by Microsoft and their partnership with Google and Time Warner… doesn’t Yahoo! understand competition!

Yahoo! did not learn from the past where they outsourced the search engine to Google where in the end Google dominated the internet search which is the vital part for Google’s success in advertising.

 Its just nonsense for Yahoo! to protect the shareholders when their core businesses are being given away to competitors. Where a one Microsoft-Yahoo! can be better off than partnership with competitors.

IHMO Yahoo! is just fixing the problem superficially!

and I think the solution for Yahoo!s woes is this merger.

Recession… we are getting there.

Here are some of the survival tips to keep you afloat during recession…. heres your tips for surviving recession.

1. Pay all your debts

Pay your credit cards debts, loans, every debt you have.

 2. Save Money starting now!

Save money that will let you survive for at least six months.

3. Downsize.

Downsize everything, if you like big mac before go for single cheese, instead of large frap go for small, sell your Chevy Tahoe and buy Toyota Prius, eat dinner at home and reduce eating out. and so on.

4. Stocks.

If you have asubstantial amount money in bank go buy Blue Chip stocks it has been proven several times these stocks go down with the market but recover right away when the recession is done.

5. Decrease remittances to home.

We Filipinos have obligation to our parents  and families at home, right?! (Well I am still thankfull that my parents sent me to school  and where I am right now reminds me of them alot that I feel responsible for their wellfare… I will futher elaborate that in the future). This will be the best time for you to tell your family that US will  be hit by hard time… tell your families that they need to start investing because there will be a time we can’t send money home for our survival here.

 6. Work two jobs.

We need to work extra and earn some more because that helps the economy and it adds money to your wallet for future spending. Don’t worry about rising taxes when you get your salary because you are still earning big. Rising tax rate is increasing money in your savings account.  

7. Recession is the right time for investing.

Make sure before recession starts stock lots of money in your savings account to buyinvestments, it is expected that real estate prices go down to more than 30%, so thats the best time to invest. If you got thousands to millions go find a cheap company who you think will do good after recession.

Just take for example Warren Buffet, the richest man on planet earth, he started his company by buying the undervalued  Berkshire-Hathaway and now Berkshires stock price is more than hundred grand a piece.

8. Knowledge.

Go quench your thirst for learning more recession issues. That will help you a lot. Primarily because the more you ar informed the more chances you will survive.

9. Prepare for the worst to come.

Because the worst is not here yet, but its at your doorstep.

10.  Protect your Assets.

To protect your assets you can go buy gold, which is the standard but there are other ways to do that, ask your financial planner and he will lay you the plans.

11.  Consider relocating to a place with low living expenses.

12.  Learn.

 Well recession is just a cycle, this is just temporary which could last a decade, don’t forget theres an END to this. Take it a lesson well learned so that when it hits you again you know how to stand up again.

Exxon (XOM)  though early this year it was hit by some panic but still I can count gains

Haliburton (HAL) though I bought it late last year it still gives me some realistic income.

Nokia (NOK)

GG is profitable especially gold is going up right now.

JBFCF Jollibee Foods a Philippine company who beat McDonalds in the Philippines.

Oil Closes Above $100.00/Barrel, Toilet Paper Closes Above $1.00/Roll, Postage Rates Going Up Again !

And yes, all of these increases are related.

Energy costs are driving up the price of all consumer goods and services. Raw materials, production and transportation costs are all being pushed higher because of the price of oil.

U.S. crude for March delivery jumped $4.51, closing yesterday at $100.01 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The previous record close was $99.62 on January 2, 2008. It has never closed above the century mark until now.

In a recent shopping trip, I found single rolls of Scott toilet tissue selling at a national drugstore chain for $1.15 a roll. I’ve never seen single rolls of toilet paper priced at or above $1.00 a roll.

These prices levels are significant milestones, similar to when U.S. gasoline prices went above $1.00/gallon for the first time, back in the Summer of 1979. We feel that they portend even higher prices in the near future. Expect sharp increases to continue in the cost of living and inflation. Expect the size of those rolls of toilet paper to continue shrinking, while the price continues heading North. If you have any letters to mail, better do it soon. On second thought, use e-mail.

Trips to the supermarket are getting more painful every week. All of the basics, bread, milk, eggs, cereal, etc. are rising sharply. For instance, we’ve seen the price of a dozen eggs almost double in the last few months. Too bad gasoline doesn’t taste better, because milk is now almost double the price of gasoline, per gallon. We’vs seen some bakeries raising prices so often that they don’t even wait until their old packaging is used up before they raise the price. They are covering the printed prices on the plastic bags with stickers showing the new price. I’ve seen that some boxes of cereal have shrunk to less than 9 ounces. For instance, I spotted a 8.9 ounce box of General Mills Cheerios.

Who decides on these strange product sizes? Did a committee of pricing experts say that 9 ounces was way too big, but 8.75 ounces looked too small ? It’s voodoo marketing. It’s deception engineering. What’s next? The 8.1275 ounce box of Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes?

We can’t remember any time in the past 30 years that the cost of living has risen so sharply and for so long a period of time.

Nine months ago, the Postal Service raised the first class postage rate (up to one ounce) by two cents, to 41 cents. They have just announced another increase to take effect this Spring. No wonder they introduced their “Forever” stamp. They saw these frequent rate increases coming, and probably wanted to limit the public outcry. Unless you have lots of money to tie up in “Forever” stamps, the idea of locking in your postage rate is pretty meaningless. You’d be much better off investing your money anyway. What we need is the “Forever” gallon of gasoline and the “Forever” quart of milk. Shoppers going to the supermarket are looking more like stock market speculators every day. Should I buy that loaf of bread today? It might be 30 cents more tomorrow.

With these almost daily price increases and product downsizings, what we need is a new way of tracking the true cost of living. Forget about the U.S. government’s inflation index. Forget about the “market basket” price surveys. Forget about The Lundberg survey of gasoline prices. We will introduce the “Routing By Rumor National Toilet Paper Price Survey”, adjusted of course, for the shrinking size of toilet paper rolls. Laugh all you want. We think it will be a very accurate gauge of inflation.

Since Microsoft’s annnouncement bid for Yahoo! buyout stocks of Yahoo! has been on the rise. To me Marriage of Microsoft with Yahoo! would make the couple competitive with Google. 

 Now Analysts are saying there are potential buyers like long time partner of Yahoo! AT&T, and some other company Nokia of Finland, maker of Nokia phones, Chinese companies but I think chinese businessmen cannot handle the price yet and their capability is not in line with Yahoo!’s principle and business but as what analysts was saying Baidu.com, and (forgot the name of the number one community portal if China) are also poised to buy Yahoo! With weak value of dollar foriegner have the edge to buy american companies.  

What I am seeing is that marriage of Microsoft and Yahoo! is better for the both since they can help each other in the doing business better, good for consumers, organization(both) as well for the shareholders.

But I have second thoughts  over their marriage too… Microsoft has been sleeping and not innovating a lot to produce better and superior products and that already affected the earnings of Microsoft. Yahoo is same thing, that if mixed together they will only end up doing nothing to keep the consumers go away from their services.

I think their biggest problem after the marriage is what kind of innovation or invention they can make?

Jollibee Foods a Philippine company listed at Pink Sheets  market in the US as JBFCF.PK and publicly traded in the Philippine stock market. This company has been performing very well since its conception like McDonalds, and it toppled McDonalds in sales for many years now. It has been bullish too  as a stock since I bought this last year though it has stayed flat for couple of months now.

Maybe the reason why this company has been flat for couple of months is that it has been using its funds in establishing new markets in China and India, as well testig new market in the Philippine restaurant industry(the karenderia style). Years ago it bought it bought one of the restaurant chain in China as well in Singapore and India. According to reports Jollibee is expanding its operations here in the US especially their cakes and pastry segment which is the Red Ribbon(one of my favorite cakes.) and Jollibee too is planning to invest more in placing couple more Jollibee restaurants here in US.

So far so good. I think I will keep on buying this stock. For me to get a Jollibee franchise.

I have been watching Yahoo! for more than two years now. I think yahoo! has not been playing well in terms of Monopoly game principles. They, Yahoo! have let go lots f opportunities, as well is not aggressive with investments. i think the management drive for improvement and success in their business especially for this fast changing demands in technology and internet needs of the people. They have let go lots of things that are within their grasp. They are not buying assets, Yahoo! is spending on nonsense things that are not bringing them money back.   

First mistake they did during the early days is that they outsourced their search engine from a starting to be big compamy Google. And look now Google is the number one Search Engine in the internet and they are cashing them in with their Google ads. I feel Yahoo! has is focused but not thinking in macro sense and the outcome for their actions. They need some big think tanks. I’d say they got Bernanke as thier adviser now, and Google got Greenspan as their adviser.

Look a year ago or so Facebook already agreed for a buy out from Yahoo! but I think they were not so aggressive enough that in the end Facebook is in the top 5 according to Alexa.

How about YouTube? What did Yahoo! do to that deal? We’ll they had a bid but maybe they have not seen they value of YouTube, still YouTube is among the top websites according to Alexa. Now Google is cashing YouTube in by introducing Adsense for YouTube.

Hows the about the ads by yahoo? hmmm their development is so slow always on beta testing. I always wanted to get ads from yahoo since they are number one portal for information and news but its just they are so slow and I think there is something wrong with the organizational structure that they are not innovating fast and cashing in some more from their investments, and some of their new products are not fun to use like the 360, Flickr, etc. I think they need some young people in designing their products and interface.

I think their real problem is creativity and innovation and thats cocting them billions if not billions. They have not innovated 360 and Yahoo! Photos thats why they are losing money from them that they have to close them and buy Flickr for couple of millions if not billions of dollars. And thats a bad investment practice.

 Now that they have posted negative gain last year. I think a buy out from a big company is needed for them to stay afloat. Unless somebody inside the  oragnization will spark an idea and renew their goals and focus on innovation, creativity, and cash on their services without letting their subscribers paying a a thing.

 Microsoft has renewed their bid to buy Yahoo! AT&T can bid too, as well as Google, and other big companies can bid too. But If I am to judge, Microsoft is the rightful buyer. With its experience and software support they can go a long way. But the question is can Microsoft bring the strength anf greatness of Yahoo! inside out? I hope Microsoft better be, beacuse I want my yahoo email and flickr account. But I want Google too for monetizing my ads.

“Buy bulk sell at a discounted price beating competitors which leads to increased money movement equals profit.” as I may state it.

Well the principle was first tested by Sam Walton when he started his WalMart, which ended Walmart as the number retail store in US. Which was replicated by ShoeMart(SM) in the Philippines and many others in this field. Which made SM as the number one reatil store in the Philippines and garnered the top 3 biggest malls in the whole world.

Well this principle is simple.

All you have to do is buy in bulk for you to  get discounts but don’t buy your product from a middle man you will end up buying high still, as much as possible buy it direct from the manufacturers., producers, and maybe wholesalers. That way you get the discounted price and that can beat competition, decrease investment or capitalization, and assurance that you can sell your product at a bargain price.

With it your customers will be enticed to buy more primarily because they can save from buying it, even if they don’t need it since it is affordable.

And the result is increased in and out of money. Saves you from stocking the product or item. Increases your profit primarily because you don’t have to stock the product, since stocking means money that is not realized. 

You might think that you will only profit small in doing it, in reality you are profiting big. Even if you think your profit is small or in cents only, it will still end up big. Why? because if you invest $1000 and getting only $50 out of it or you sold everything in one hour and reinvest it again and profiting again $50 in ahour again then at the end of the day maybe you will get maybe 1/4 to 1/2 of your capital.

And thats the secret of Walmart and SM and other retail business. AS long as buy bulk and get discounts and you sell it low low and buy n sell is at a fast pace, you can be assured you will get big profits at the end of the day!

Heres a link to Lending Business Regulation in the Philippines…

It will help you in every aspect of your plan or lending business.

If you are intending to do business in the Philippines here are the some of the things you need to read and consider.
Article 1
Article 2
Article 3

In my opinion I think Micro-finance or Lending Business is one of the profitable businesses including pawnshop business… anything that goes with money lending with colateral is the best business so far i know.

I know most sectors of ecaonmy are earning money, and that depends what business you want to put up, with enough management skills i can asure you, you will earn profits if you really put yourself into what you are doing.