The politicians are all abuzz with their talk about universal health care reform. Well, what are the proposals? Here’s a libertarian approach. Let’s start with a little background information.

What to hear something really interesting? Take a listen to Anthem by Ayn Rand. She is a 20th century author and philosopher of objectivism. It makes you think, just what are the real healthcare reform proposals? A government run program, or a re-invigoration of the individual?

A few months ago, I heard Meme Roth of NAAO say that our Surgeon General needs to work harder to set a good example for people. Meme made a lot of sense. Obesity right now is the #1 challenge to our nation’s health. Not the insurance companies. The most important threat is the problem with obesity.

You really should read Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think. It has some great ideas about how we can all improve, evolve if you will, and gain greater control over our personal habits. We control our eating. This is something that must be controlled by the individual. Not the government. Not the doctors. Not your spouse. You.

In his book about mindless eating, Wansink makes a profound statement. It goes something like this: in the 1800’s, the big advance was hygiene. In the 1900’s the big advance was antibiotics and surgery. In the 2000’s, the big advance will be in personal behavior.

Reforming our personal behavior is the greatest health care reform challenge facing the world today. The Clinton health care reform failure was justified, because it put the role of government above the individual. Yes, as a society, we are overweight. But we do it as individuals.

So let’s do something really big!

Let’s do this together. Lets become as fit as we can be, as a nation, and as a world. We all will save TONS of money. Staying healthy until you die simply costs less. Being healthy makes people more positive, and less likely to fight. You can work more when you are healthy.

We need to incentivize ourselves, and incentivize our neighbors. The government can help by putting into place bold and audacious taxes and benefits that will encourage eating right and exercise. If that’s all the government did, we would all get healthier, and save some money for our children.

If you want an employer based program, great! Have all employers pay employees their gym fees or allow them to go to the gym during work hours.

If you want a government option, great! Have the government give people tax breaks for buying vegetables. Raise junk food taxes. The politicians can have their win, and actually save instead of spend money. We know that healthy, fresh food costs more than junk food. So pay schools to buy more local, fresh food.

Let’s focus on the important and start with that. And the most important thing is prevention.

We can give our kids a clean planet, good physical health, financial responsibility, and moral clarity. We need to act responsibly by eating right, exercising, and smiling.

All of us absolutely need to demand that our government end reckless spending, entirely, immediately. Let’s leave some money for our kids, instead of leaving them with a bunch of unpaid bills.

Finally, take your vitamin C. It helps.

Many people are losing their jobs or in jeopardy of losing them and they need money. Is there anything President Obama has done since he cam into office to help the average guy? Some people think that government grants are the answer but in reality, most of the stimulus grants are going to corporations and not individuals.

If there is any good news, it is that grants have often been overlooked by people as a way to get through hard times. Not that many individuals know much about grants and how to get them and there is little information in the news. This increases your chance of getting one if you give it a try.

Applying for federal government grants is always free and you should never have to pay anything. The grant process is confusing to many and it is not easy. Qualifying for a grant from Uncle Sam is wonderful if you get accepted but you can waste a lot of time applying if you are not careful. Most of the grants that are handed out go to schools and other such institutions leaving few grants for individuals. This makes it even harder to qualify for an individual grant, as you will be competing with a lot of other people all hoping to get the same thing.

Americans have been hoping the stimulus bill would start to turn the economy around and as yet it seems nothing has changed. As peoples situations become more dire, even it things do begin to make a turn for the better it might be too late for many. The amount of debt that some people have might be too great to overcome with the job situation being so bleak.

The economy has many different factors that are all spiraling downward which makes a recovery in the near future very difficult. The failure of one industry affects other industries and we are now seeing how interrelated everything and everyone is. Right now, no matter how good your situation is, you are surely feeling the stress level throughout society and the desperate need people have to make more money.

FENCE - The main purpose of having a fence installed is to serve as a visual and physical security outline of your property. This is effective for keeping people or animals in or out. Today fencing can be installed from a selection of different kinds of material and styles.When your fence is installed it can be done to specific height requirements.

AUTOMATED SECURITY GATES - To have control of when and who enters or exits your property an automated gate is an added plus. These gates can give you the finish to your exterior security that you might be looking for. An automated gate comes with several options and in different configurations. The access system can also be set up for your specific needs.

WINDOW GUARDS - These are basically protection at one of your home or buildings weakest points for entry or exit. Now depending on what your needs might be plays a large role in what you would have installed. Are they to stop someone from entering, for child protection or both? Security bars or window guards can be set up to be low profile or highly visible depending on the purpose and area.

LIGHTING - By adding direct lighting to areas on your property will help to add safety for the people that are coming and going during nighttime hours. Also, this is a great deterrent for criminal purposes.

SECURITY MONITORING - This system monitors your points of entry electronically and is a good way to add a safeguard to your home or property. Typically this is set up on all entrance and exit doors. You should tie in at least the first floor windows to the system also.

SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS - CC or Closed Circuit systems can be installed with different types of cameras and also recording devices. This measure is more commonly in use by commercial property owners but has gained in popularity with home owners as well.

GUARD SERVICE - Having a guard service on your property can add an element of immediate response and overall on location security. Any company that you would hire to provide guard service to your property should be able to fulfill the required needs of their client.

Not long ago I was contacted by a company that had been unsuccessful in acquiring a new Operating Line of Credit from its bank in Toronto, Canada. The company is in the Import Business.

Their customers are all across Canada and they have plans to expand into the US market and due to growing orders they had been maxing out their Operating Line of Credit consistently. Their bank had then capped at $50,000 and would not increase it.

As you may know, the typical terms when dealing with China are 30% payment with the order and the 70% balance before they are shipped.

The company was selling on average about $125,000 worth of goods per month, and with the Accounts Receivable sitting at about 45 days to collect, the $50,000 Operating Line of Credit was of little good to them. The average open Invoices were $200,000.

In their industry, it is expected that the goods that are ordered by their customers are to be shipped within 7 days which required the Importer to carry inventory as their source of goods was in China.

As you can understand, the owners tied up their personal assets to get personal loans to aid in the cash flow crunch so they would have sufficient inventory to operate.

The solution to this problem was to set up a new Operating Line of Credit for the company using the Invoices for delivered goods as security in an Accounts Receivable Factoring facility.

Now the company has access to $170,000 for their operations which allowed the owners of the company to pay off the personal loans they had taken for operations, pay off the bank Line of Credit they had and still have sufficient funds to carry the required inventory to service their customers.

To make it even better, the Operating Line of Credit they have now will grow with their outstanding Receivables. So as their sales grow, so does their Line of Credit.

In another bold move to assist the economy the US Government released its intention to start Factoring US Auto suppliers invoices to the automotive sector.

As seen in today’s NY Times (03/19/2009):

DETROIT ” The Obama administration moved on Thursday to stabilize the American auto industry by creating a $5 billion fund to support troubled parts suppliers.

The program will provide supply companies with much-needed access to liquidity to assist them in meeting payrolls and covering their expenses, while giving the domestic auto companies reliable access to the parts they need, the Treasury announcement said.

So what does this mean for the industry? Until the details are rolled out is hard to say specifically, but the announcement to get into the Accounts Receivable Factoring business is the latest installment of how far the US Government will go to get the economy back on track.

I had predicted that Accounts Receivable Factoring is going to be a major financing method of our economy revival and this proves how accurate that is.

For those of you that are not familiar with Accounts Receivable Factoring it is essentially a Line of Credit for Businesses that use the Invoices that are outstanding as security for the advances received by the company which generated the Invoices.

In an average Accounts Receivable Factoring facility, the company that is financing their receivables will be eligible to receive between 80% and 90% of the invoice face value. One the end customer pays they will receive the balance of the funds less the finance fee,

Most Factoring facilities will charge from 2% to 4% per month depending on the industry, credit rating of the customer and the advance rate,

A counterpart to the Accounts Receivable Financing is Purchase Order Finance. This is essentially Factoring or borrowing against future orders. There are strict guidelines to how this works, but if you sell a product that you purchase in finished condition and then sell it to a third party you may be a candidate for Purchase Order Finance.

This option works best for distributors but Accounts Receivable Factoring can work for companies in nearly any sector. If your company needs financing like this, the best option is to speak to a Professional Commercial Finance Broker because they will be up on all the trends and latest programs available through the various lender channels.

Best of all, in most cases the services of a Professional Commercial Finance Broker will not cost you a fee because the Broker will be compensated by the lender for them preparing the deal for them so it really is in your best interest.

No one has to tell a business owner that getting access to much needed cash flow is a difficult task today. It matter not if you are in Canada or the United States, if you have gone to the bank to inquire about financing, there is a good chance you were turned away. For this reason many companies turned to Angel Investors for that all important cash injection.

Be aware that Angel Investors typically look for a ROI of 5 ” 10 times their investment in under 5 years. This is accomplished by looking at many aspects including the salvage value of your company. They will create an exit strategy to recover the funds from your company in the predetermined time frame regardless of consequences to your company.

Angel Investors have now increased their threshold for their ROI to a minimum of 10 times to as much as 50 times their investment because of the failure rate and the length of time that the investor will be tied into the company. When you consider the bigger picture, the effective return on investment for the Professional Angel Investor is usually around 20% to 30%.

Because of this high return on investment, Angel Financing is very expensive, but the lesser costing funds such as banks and credit unions are rarely available for new business start-ups. This is because the traditional financiers have a high threshold for accepting young companies for Business Loans.

So you are declined at the bank and you can not afford Angel Investors now what?

It is irrelevant if you are in Canada or the United States, the story is the same but there are options. This is a real life deal that I just completed recently. It is a Distribution company in Alberta Canada that had a unique product that it wanted to market throughout North America. The owner went to the usual banking institutions and was denied the loan. He then spoke to a few Angel Investors who gave him proposals which he did ponder over but shortly after continued to search for options. When I spoke with him I suggested a combination Accounts Receivable Factoring and Purchase Order Finance facility.

At the time when we had initially spoken, he had just shipped out nearly 70% of his stock and had an order to fill the following week that would exhaust his inventory. At this point he would have to wait until the customers paid for the orders prior to ordering more inventory. Biggest problem with that is that he had other orders to fill, but no stock and no money to get more stock.

In a matter of 7 days after the application was returned to me he was ready to fund and now has access to the much needed cash he needs to grow his business.

In short, if your company has been turned down by the banks and credit unions plus there is no comfort for you in dealing with an Angel Investor due to their terms, be sure to check with a Professional Commercial Finance Broker so they can put together the proper financing for your business.

Ever worked on getting that big customer for months, chasing after then, long drives or flights to see them so you can win them over with your service and determination? Then have the worst thing that can happen in a situation like that you get the order and now you have to figure out how you can possibly fill it because the order larger than your total Operating Line of Credit.

That did happen to a Telecommunication Company in New York State, USA. In one order, their sales had increased to over 3 times the size of their entire Line of Credit at their bank. The owner went to the bank to get it increased so they could take on the order but the bank refused to increase their limit.

With this order, the customer had to have terms on the invoice of 30 days, and to make it worse the supplier required payment prior to shipping. The time to deliver the goods from the time it leaves the supplier dock is 10 days. In this case we have a 10 day delivery time plus a 30 day collection time from the customer, so we have a 40 time span of where we do not have the financial capacity to handle the order. So what now? Decline the order?

The owner of the company did speak with some Accounts Receivable Factoring Companies but they were not able to help out due to the time lag between the timing of the advance requirement and the delivery of the goods to the customer. They could not Factor the Accounts Receivable until the product was delivered, and they could not deliver the product until they received an advance to pay for the product.

The owner of the Company was then referred to a Commercial Finance Brokerage who immediately assembled a Purchase Order Finance and Accounts Receivable Factoring facility. Now the order was able to be processed and now the door is open for future orders from and large buyers.

Forex traders use Fibonacci ratios to determine future levels of support and resistance based on previous moves in the currency markets. In other words, previous moves in the market determine where the Fibonacci levels will be placed.

Fibonacci analysis is an exercise in identifying the support and resistance during both the trend retracement and the trend continuations based on a series of numbers and ratios derived from the Fibonacci sequence. This sequence was discovered by an Italian mathematician Leonardo Pisano Fibonacci.

The sequence starts with 0, 1 and 1. The next number in the sequence is determined by adding the previous two numbers. For example, if you take the first two numbers 0 &1, the next number will be 0+1=1. If you take the next two recent numbers, 1 & 1, the next number will be 1+1=2. So the Fibonacci sequence takes shape like this: 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55.

The remarkable thing about this sequence is that the ratio of number at specific intervals would consistently be the same, no matter how high you count the numbers. Fibonacci sequence gives us two very important ratios. These two ratios appear over and over again in nature such as sunflowers, shells, pine cones etc. These two ratios also appear in forex markets.

The first ratio, 38.2%, is calculated by dividing any number in the Fibonacci sequence by the number two places higher in the sequence. For example, in the above Fibonacci sequence, divide 21 by 55 (two places higher) you get 21/55=38.2%.

The second important ratio is 61.8% obtained by dividing any number in the Fibonacci sequence by the next number in the sequence. For example, divide 34 by 55 (the next number), you get 34/54=61.8%.

Trends in currency markets dont go in a straight line. Up trends never go straight up and down trends never go straight down, the price will always trace along the way as buyers and sellers enter and exit the markets. The important question in every investors mind is how far these retracements will penetrate into the previous price movement. This is where the Fibonacci ratios become useful and is extensively applied.

Most investors use the three additional ratios of 0%, 50% and 100% in conjunction with the two primary Fibonacci ratios to round out the retracement analysis tools. Two secondary Fibonacci ratios (161.8% and 261.8%) are also used in the trend continuation projections. The secondary ratio 161.8% is obtained by dividing any number in the sequence by the number preceding it. In the sequence dividing 55 by 34 gives 55/34=161.8%. Similarly the ratio 261.8% is obtained by dividing any number in the sequence by the two numbers preceding it. Divide 55 by 21, you will get 55/21=261.8%.

Fibonacci ratios are used by investors in making entry and exit decisions for each trade. The first ratio 38.2% is used as an entry point in a trending market and the ratio 0% as the exit point. The important question that you may ask is why markets react to these levels. You should not forget, markets are just investors buying and selling. So if many investors start believing in a thing, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. As most of the investors use Fibonacci ratios in placing there entry and exit targets, the markets starts reacting to these levels.

Any theory that comes to in this world has had to face its share of criticisms. It occurred with Archimedes and Newton when their physical theories came first to reality. But over a period of time, individuals accepted these theories with both their hands. The same kind of response had been given to neuro linguistic programming, and while the technique in itself is not so bad, neuro linguistic programming has generated quite some bad press for a good number of years now.

One of the first claims of NLP to be disputed was that its a scientifically respectable method. This claim of neuro linguistic programming did not have any scientific backing at all. It does have a rather impressive bibliography with terms like neurological levels, accessing cues, but that in no way means it may compete with legitimate disciplines like neurolinguistics or neuroscience.

NLP claims a lot, and while it claims, the lack of scientific proof to back these claims makes persons look down on this technique suspiciously. NLP, as the technique explains, has laid the foundation for a lot of practices that could have absolutely revolutionized the field of cognitive science and neuropsychology. Well, one thing is for sure ” Successive journals and periodicals published in these domains have failed to even mention the credits of neuro linguistic programming.

At the end of the day, you would believe in the credibility of any scientific theory when it is backed up with ample proof or research. In the absence of both, neuro linguistic programming suffers from an identity crisis. Though, a lot of practitioners still go as regards their business of practicing this technique, one can fairly say that any activity related to this domain is unregulated, at optimal.

NLP is widely believed to be a technique that helps a lot in management training, life coaching and understanding behavioral patterns of human beings. Since these concepts are closely related to the corporate sector, you would still find a lot of demand for neuro linguistic programming amongst corporate companies. That being said, the fact still remains that By and large, neuro linguistic programming is still an unproven science for many. There are many questions yet unanswered as regards this science, and while waiting for the time they’re answered, the masses would find it trying to adapt to this science.

The problem though is ” the interpretation of this science is too easy for anyone to even think of challenging or proving the science. People just get down to implementing the techniques, which may not be the correct way ahead.

Many people are losing their jobs or in jeopardy of losing them and they need money. Is there anything President Obama has done since he cam into office to help the average guy? Some people think that government grants are the answer but in reality, most of the stimulus grants are going to corporations and not individuals.

The good news is that government grants are not something that get a lot of publicity so not too many people know about them. This gives you a greater chance of getting one but the process of being accepted for a grant will still now be easy. Of course, in this time of deep financial trouble, it never hurts to try.

Applying for federal government grants is always free and you should never have to pay anything. The grant process is confusing to many and it is not easy. Qualifying for a grant from Uncle Sam is wonderful if you get accepted but you can waste a lot of time applying if you are not careful. Most of the grants that are handed out go to schools and other such institutions leaving few grants for individuals. This makes it even harder to qualify for an individual grant, as you will be competing with a lot of other people all hoping to get the same thing.

Americans have been hoping the stimulus bill would start to turn the economy around and as yet it seems nothing has changed. As peoples situations become more dire, even it things do begin to make a turn for the better it might be too late for many. The amount of debt that some people have might be too great to overcome with the job situation being so bleak.

The economy has many different factors that are all spiraling downward which makes a recovery in the near future very difficult. The failure of one industry affects other industries and we are now seeing how interrelated everything and everyone is. Right now, no matter how good your situation is, you are surely feeling the stress level throughout society and the desperate need people have to make more money.