Oct 30
Low-income consumers are dropping their bank accounts in droves and bank fees are to blame, a recent study from the Pew Health Group found.
Even worse, the rate of households going bank-less has surpassed the number opening new accounts.
The organization tracked 2,000 low-income California families — half with bank accounts, half without —over the course of a year to figure out why some decided to ditch their banks in favor of alternative means of storing their cash.
More than one-third of the participants in the two-part study blamed bank fees, while another 27 percent said they left their banks due to job loss and low cash flow.
Minimum balance requirements deterred more than half of respondents, who said they couldnt meet the requirement to open an account in the first place.
Getting consumers to open bank accounts is only half the battle, the organization reported. Low
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Tags: Droves
Oct 29
Bloomfield-based Cigna Corp. reported an increase in its customer base and revenue, but missed earnings projected by Wall Street analysts.
Adjusted income from operations was $325 million, or $1.20 per share, for the quarter, compared with $299 million, or $1.10 per share, during the same period a year ago. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected a profit of $1.23 per share.
Quarterly net income was $200 million, or 74 cents per share, compared with $307 million, or $1.13 per share during the same period a year ago. The health insurer’s earnings were gouged by Cigna’s reinsurance segment, which is a discontinued operation in run-off.
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Tags: Earnings, Earnings Projections
Oct 26
In the last few weeks, I’ve grown to really enjoy working with Google Plus, the search engine giant’s second attempt (third attempt?) at a social network to rival Facebook. Clean, elegant, responsive and fast for people to engage, I’m liking it more than Facebook in a lot of ways.
Except that Google hasn’t really though through the entire issue of how to share with a user who is following them, and it means I’m not paying attention to people who I really do want to have a symmetric relationship with on the service.
That’s the big difference between G+ and FB: Google Plus is asymmetric, meaning that you can follow me (in the Google Plus world it’s referred to as “circling” because you add someone to one or more of your follow circles) without me having to follow you back.
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Tags: Google, Notifications Google
Oct 23
VIOLENT PROTESTS: Policemen are set ablaze by a petrol bomb thrown by protesters in Athens.
The Greek parliament approved a painful set of austerity measures on Thursday (Friday NZT), defying violent protests in central Athens and a general strike that shut down much of the country.
The struggling government of Socialist Prime Minister George Papandreou won the parliamentary vote with 154 votes in favour and 144 against, despite the decision by one deputy in the ruling party to oppose one article in the package.
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Tags: Approved
Oct 21
The world’s largest celebration of innovators and job creators takes place this year November 14-20, 2011, in 120 countries across the globe. Activities vary from country to country but include innovation competitions, networking opportunities, mentoring and more. Some of the U.S. events include the Young Entrepreneurial Spirits Expo in Virginia and the Entrepreneurial Task Force in Indiana. Also, the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards take place November 17-19 in New York City. A
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Oct 16
EDMONDS — Dick’s Drive-In tapped into some latent, unmet demand for its newest hamburger joint, which opened Thursday afternoon in Edmonds on Highway 99.
“We want Dick’s! We want Dick’s!” the crowd of about 1,000 hungry customers chanted. “We want Dick’s! We want Dick’s!”
Thea Miklasiewicz, 54, of Edmonds, was first in line. She arrived at 3:20 a.m. Thursday for the honor, saying she’s been a fan of Dick’s burgers since childhood.
“When I was a child, my dad used to come home with 20 Dick’s burgers every Wednesday night,” she said. “There were five of us kids. Read full post…
Tags: Edmonds