It is not only the insurance companies that are bombarding us with advertising to pay what is yet the equivalent of another tax. There are thousands of marketers who are constantly trying to generate valid leads for these companies. A health insurance lead is worth a lot of money and these marketers are compensated handsomely for spamming us.

A lead is essentially a person who has agreed to give all of his/her personal information to a third party in order to receive more data on a health insurance plan. Basically, once a lead has been generated, a very persuasive sales person will take over and try to convert the lead into a paying customer. Health insurance companies are willing to pay top dollar for such information.

Not all leads become full paying customers but a good percentage of them do. And if a company pays $30 for a lead and that converts to a full customer paying thousands of dollars every year in membership fees, then you understand why lead generation is such a popular method of marketing.

At the end of the day, health insurance is a big and very profitable business. This is the reason why the elites who own these companies have repeatedly lobbied US politicians to prevent all attempts for universal health coverage in the country. And unless the new President elect Barack Obama grows some balls in the next 3 years, chances are that the status quo will remain for many decades to come.

Undercut by the malfeasance of its overgrown, rapacious, and blundering financial sector, the United States is in the process of losing the global economic hegemony it has enjoyed since World War II. Poor strategic judgment in the Middle East has made things worse, and the combined challenge is so great that even the new government in Washington may not be able to make much difference. This is in contrast to Obama’s change that we can believe in motto.

In the meantime, the credit markets have seized, banks have closed their doors for good, countries have amassed an immense amount of debt, and private debt worldwide has skyrocketed to unsustainable heights. But the elites of our modern world feel very little pain themselves. While the majority of the middle class have already lost or live in fear of losing their jobs, the superclass members are enjoying their wealth living in their huge mansions, eating and drinking the finest of foods and wines while looking for Ferrari parts maintaining the extravagant lifestyle they are used to. And why not? At the end of the day, taxpayers will pay the bill with government bailouts being the norm of the day for saving an already compromised economic system.

The rise of the financial sector as one of the main paths to wealth creation over manufacturing during the last 25 years has come to hurt us all. The amount of personal debt in the United States now exceeds public debt by such a huge margin that a better future is not likely for this or the next generation. The 2009 and 2010 years will be pivotal to both the dominance of the U.S. over other states and the economic systems in place for wealth creation and management. It won’t be long before China, India, and possibly Mexicom emerge as the next superpowers in control of the world’s fate.

In the meantime, hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs including banking jobs. After lots of pressure from the average tax payer who paid dearly out of his/her own pocket to bailout these huge companies, the AIG bosses were forced to return the millions of dollars in bonuses that they were awarded recently. But don’t worry, they are not going hungry. They have more money that you and me and they will continue to have more money than most of us for many years to come. Even if they don’t receive their bonuses this year, they will receive them next year at an inflated rate to make up for this year’s loss. These men are the masters of our modern world and they always come out winning.

Let us common folk be happy for this temporary victory until the final battle!

Though it’s certainly good to plan ahead for potential rainy days, sometimes worrying about an upcoming recession prevents people from making decisions that can create long-term wealth for them. The economy may be hurting but there is plenty of opportunity for wealth building for those who are willing to grab the opportunity and take a small risk. For instance, a person may choose not to start a franchise business only because of a perceived threat in the face of recession. However, don’t be fooled because a recession is not necessarily bad for business. This is especially true for those industries that provide a necessary service instead of just luxury.

A few opportunities that come to mind and should be recession proof are the franchising offers of Great Harvest Bread, Sylvan Learning Center, House Doctors Handyman Service, and American Ramp Systems. People will continue to eat bread and seek out an education while renovating their homes (at least those who still have one) so these industries provide a necessary service and not a luxury.

There are a number of franchises that are worth the risk even in difficult economic times. What you have to do in order to minimize your risk of a failed franchise is to do good research before you make your final decision. There are many cheap franchise opportunities but cheap is not always best. Don’t rush into anything. Starting a franchise is not a guaranteed route to wealth. There is always a risk involved and you can always lose your investment. But if you never take risks then you will spend the rest of your life working a 9-5 job making money for someone else. Is this what you want from life? Think about it!

It is interesting how the mighty fall. A USA Today article published in December 2006 was describing the huge bonuses that Wall Street firms were giving their CEOs for record earnings among them Bear Stearns, of course. A year ago, Bear’s shares were worth $170 a piece. Barely 1.5 years after the record year, Bear Stearns who had been in existence for a good 85 years and managed to survive a number of recessions and the Depression was sold for next to nothing to JPMorgan. The latter gets the company’s assets with no liabilities since the Fed, i.e., taxpayers, will take care of the latter with the $30 billion loan. Somehow, this story reads to me as nothing more than a huge scam created to line the pockets of the JPMorgan folk but I’m just a guy on the Internet so what the heck do I know?

The first step in buying a franchise is to find one that suits your needs. As you probably know, there are franchises for everything from fast food restaurants to cleaning services. Which industry do you want to get involved with? It is important that you successfully answer this question before you do anything else.

Once you decide on an industry, you then need to narrow down your choices even further. For instance, knowing that you want to get involved with food service is not good enough; this niche is too large.

As you begin to compile a short list, consider the franchise fee that you will have to pay. Remember, you are not going to be able to start a franchise for free. The company that you are working with will require some money to get started. Additionally, they may also take a percentage of your profits each month.

If you are interested in buying a franchise, take your time choosing the best opportunity. There are many franchise options and details to consider.

Time Warner is not only looking to separate divisions but also to put AOL up for sale. At the time when the internet bubble was in full swing Time Warner agreed to be purchased by AOL. Since then, the bursting of the dot.com bubble, accounting improprieties, write-downs and settlements with shareholders and regulators have been commonplace. Bewkes said in no uncertain terms that Time Warner Cable specifically has different needs than that of AOL and will be better off on its own.

The problem with the most recent bid is that many of Microsoft’s stockholders didn’t think that it was a good idea and started dumping their stock. The end result was that Microsoft’s stock price dropped to the point that the company lost nearly $40 billion in value (shares are selling about $4 lower at Friday’s market closing than they did before the acquisition offer.) So, the actual cost of the acquisition is double the actual offer. Even worse, it would appear that Yahoo has declined to sell putting Microsoft into an even worst position, i.e., they lost all this value for nothing. Moreover, it is possible that Yahoo is declining the offer because they want more money. But Microsoft’s offer was already such that it seriously overvalued Yahoo. And if they increase their offer then they risk losing even more in value as more stockholders might continue to get rid of Microsoft stock.

The winner out of all these seems to be Google. First Google announced that they were unhappy about the possibility of a Microsoft and Yahoo mergers; they claimed something about creating a monopoly in the Internet marketplace but that is weird because even if the two companies joined, Google would still be having a much larger share of the market than both. If there is a monopoly online today that is Google and not Microsoft or Yahoo or both of them together. At any rate, the fact that Yahoo declined to sell and that Microsoft lost a tone of money regardless can be considered a victory for Google.