AIG Is Ready To Use Its Own Name Again For P&C Business

The company has been repurchasing shares from the U.S. Treasury Department, reducing the government?s stake from more than 90% to 61% and believes that it is ready to once again use and promote the AIG brand.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2012/06/13/aig-is-ready-to-use-its-own-name-again-for-pc-business/

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You're Going To Start Seeing Ads In Skype Calls?Here's Today's Ad Brief

Skypskype ad e has announced the launch of "Conversation Ads," display ads that will appear in call windows for users that don't have Skype Credit or subscriptions during 1:1 Skype-to-Skype audio calls on Skype for Windows. Marketers can buy them in 55 markets.

BBDO NY has created a web series called Freshedition for General Electic that revolves around, well, refrigerators. The reality television-esque series features Ben Sargent, chef and host of the Cooking Channel's "Hook, Line & Dinner," on a road trip with GE engineer Justin Berger to promote fridges. Sounds fascinating.

Macy's has started a media-agency review.

600 employees will lose their jobs at Times-Picayune papers.

SponsorHub has announced the launch of SponsorHubScore, which it compares to the Nielsen and Klout of Conferences and Events. Basically it measures an event's social influence, Twitter followers, pricing, etc.

The One Show's gold, silver and bronze pencil winners have been announced. Surprise of all surprises, CAA won "Best of Show" for its ad for Chipotle.

Deutsch LA has released new work for Snapple's Lightly Sweetened Teas, again working with director Frank Todaro, called "The Call."


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Why Old Wine Isn't Necessarily Good Wine

Red wine

Aging wine is kind of a myth. Truth to tell, most don’t get better. Only the top wines in the world will benefit from aging. However, we have to remember that most wine is locally produced and locally consumed. Most of us don’t drink local wine in a sidewalk trattoria, but much of the world’s wine is consumed this way. Those folks aren’t concerned with aging wine.

Aging Wine: Which Ones?

The wine we buy in stores is some of the top stuff in the world. Even some of the top stuff won’t get any better with aging. If it has a screw cap, most people say drink it now. Although recent information seems to show that wines with a screw cap will age as well as wines with a cork, the industry is not 100% sure yet.  White wines from the U.S., South America, or Australia are probably best to drink now. Some French whites will change/improve with age. Almost any Champagne or other sparkling wine can be consumed as soon as you buy it, even though Champagne can age for a long time. Other than collectors, most people won’t wait that long. They are not concerned with aging wine either.

Red wines are generally considered better candidates for aging. A good rule of thumb is this: the more expensive the wine, the more aging potential it has. In general, European reds will age longer than U.S. red wines. Again, in general, the lighter the wine, the sooner you should drink it. Sorry to get geeky, but a wine’s structure and balance determine its aging potential. Stuff like tannin, acid, alcohol and fruit – that kind of thing. Whenever I recommend a wine that should be aged, I’ll say so. If you have a red with gobs of fruit, but little tannin or acid, don’t bother to age it. It won’t be worth the effort. That doesn’t mean the wine won’t be OK for a couple of years; it just isn’t going to get any better.

Aging Wine: How To Start

You have to be pretty serious about wine to think about “laying some down”, which is wine geekspeak for aging wine. The first thing it requires is will power and patience. If you bought a case of a beautiful Cabernet Sauvignon for 60-70 bucks a bottle, and it needed about 10 years to reach its potential, would you wait 10 years to drink it? I won’t mention what happened when I did that. Let’s just say I’m not sure I ever drank any of it at its peak. It was pretty good, though.

We’ll assume for the sake of discussion that 1) you spent the money, and 2) you’ll wait the 10 years. Now it’s time to talk about how much wine you want to hold on to and how much more you want to spend to store it properly. Yes, I’m talking about more money. Proper wine storage is not cheap. We’ll get into specifics in another article, but know this: even buying something as simple as a temperature controlled cabinet could be the first step toward wine geekdom. Tread carefully.

DON'T MISS: How To Buy The Perfect Wine For Your Wedding >

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Top Money Lessons Learned From Dad

To honor fathers past and present during this special time, Dave's Facebook fans told us the best lifelong money lessons they learned from their dads. These meaningful legacies are ones you can't put a price on!

Dusty: You can't lottery ticket your way to financial independence.

Shannon: My father told us to save for the short term and long term. Short term was for things we wanted; long term was for things we needed.

Violet: One time I smarted off to my dad saying, "When I grow up and start working, I'll buy whatever I want." His response: "You won't want as much then." He's proven correct.

Lewis: Don't spend so much on a wallet that you have nothing left to put in it.

Eric: My grandfather always taught us that "a penny saved is a penny earned" was bad math. "A penny invested is two pennies earned" is what we were taught. He retired when he was 50 with no college education.

Kristy: When I was newly married and times were tough, my papa would send us a little money with a note that simply said, "Pass it on when you are able. I love you." I am looking forward to the day when we are debt-free so I can do exactly this.

Mary: A credit card is a license to pretend!

Rachel: In deed as much as word, my father taught me to save (and save early), give to God what is His anyway, live within my means, buy quality and share with others.

Mary: When my husband approached my dad before he asked me to marry him, my dad's exact words were, "Do you have health insurance?" Priceless, and oh, so wise.

Nate: The best money advice my father gave me was telling me that I need to start listening to Dave's show. He lived by Dave Ramsey's plan before Dave Ramsey lived by Dave Ramsey's plan. Man, am I thankful for that.

Rachelle: One day while we were driving, my dad taught me that gambling was like throwing money out the window. Then he took a dollar bill and threw it out the window to show me how much he meant it. I cried. But I never forgot and I have never, ever gambled with real money!

Andrew: We went to a carnival, and afterwards my dad said, "That was the cost of mowing the lawn. Was that worth mowing the lawn?" Now I always think of purchases in terms of hours of work. Is it worth it?

Lisa: When my dad explained the importance of keeping an accurate checkbook register, he said, "If you don't have time to write it down, you don't have time to buy it." To this day, every transaction is written down in my register. Thanks, Pops!

What's the best money lesson your dad taught you? Scroll down to leave a comment below.

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Source: http://www.daveramsey.com/article/top-money-lessons-learned-from-dad/lifeandmoney_other

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Get rid of stress with debt consolidation

Being in debt to a bunch of credit card companies and not knowing how you are going to see them each month can create health problems. I’ve been doing very well until I lost my job in the recent layoffs. I decided to look into debt consolidation is a way to pay my creditors. The [...]

Source: http://www.legaldebthelponline.com/2012/06/07/get-rid-of-stress-with-debt-consolidation/

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Something's Not REIT: Real Estate CEOs Are Landing Huge Raises

Once upon a time on Wall Street, if you wanted to make big bucks, you'd make a beeline for the usual suspects: big banking powerhouses or maybe a private equity or hedge fund. Those companies were where the best money was to be made.

Lately, however, things have taken a turn for the surreal.

These days, if you want to earn some serious coin by managing a company "for the shareholders," you might be better off running a fuddy-duddy real estate investment trust.

With many of America's banks still subject to Treasury Department restrictions on what they can pay their employees, banking paychecks aren't what they used to be. Hedge funds are hurting lately, too. As an industry, hedge funds have booked three consecutive months of losses through May of this year. And individual funds have done even worse. Billionaire gold investor John Paulson has seen the value of his hedge fund fall 22.5% so far this year.

Since their compensation is based on the amount of money they manage and the profits they make managing it, that's bad news for the hedge fund bosses.

But while paychecks over on the slick side of Wall Street have taken a hit, they've gotten fatter on the boring side of the street, which manages real estate investment trusts, investments historically considered a refuge for "widows and orphans," or retirees hoping to supplement their Social Security paychecks with a few generous dividend checks.

Nice Work If You Can Get It

According to a new report by The Wall Street Journal, CEO compensation at America's 100 largest real estate companies last year grew almost twice as fast as their companies' stock prices -- up 14% over 2010 levels. Base salaries, which rose 10% on average, outgrew stock returns, which averaged 6%. Meanwhile, payouts in the form of bonuses and "long-term incentive awards" grew four times as fast.

Among the richest-rewarded were the CEOs of...

Sources: WSJ, Yahoo! Finance.

As you can see, not only did all these folks receive rather generous pay increases, but in every case, the boost in compensation far outweighed the benefits shareholders received. (In some cases, you could argue the shareholders received no benefit, other than the return of some small portion of their own money in the form of dividends, as their portfolios shrank while the CEOs' paychecks grew.)

What It Means to You

Of course, maybe you don't own stock in any of these companies, and your response to these pay packages -- however rich they might seem -- is "So what? It's no skin off my nose." But as a matter of fact, the money REIT CEOs collect just might end up costing you a pound or two of flesh.

How? When deciding on a pay package, corporate compensation committees routinely point to what "peer" firms -- a term open to wide interpretation -- pay their bosses, and use that as justification for picking a number for their own CEOs.

So maybe you don't own shares of Annaly Capital, for example, but do own shares of Sysco (SYY). Well, the compensation committee at Sysco could decide to pay their CEO a salary commensurate with Annaly's, based on the theory that while the companies aren't in the same industry, they do have similar market caps -- $16 billion, give or take. Or perhaps you don't own Simon Property, but invest in Alaska Air. You might one day find your CEO demanding a raise on his $1 million salary, arguing that Simon's boss gets a bigger paycheck, despite managing a firm with identical annual revenues of $4.4 billion.

Sound crazy? Consider how Activision Blizzard's compensation committee arrived at the decision to pay their boss $2 million, plus a bonus of up to $6.4 billion: The "peer" companies used in that comparison ran the gamut from Electronic Arts (logical) to Netflix (less so) to Clorox (say what?!).

Then again, in a world in which glorified apartment managers are collecting $35 million paychecks, maybe the word "crazy" has lost all meaning.


Motley Fool contributor Rich Smith holds no position in any company mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of Clorox, Annaly Capital, Activision Blizzard, and Netflix, and has written calls on Activision Blizzard. Motley Fool newsletter services have recommended buying shares of Annaly Capital Management, Activision Blizzard, and Netflix, as well as creating a synthetic long position on Activision Blizzard.



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Source: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/06/13/somethings-not-reit-real-estate-ceos-are-landing-huge-raises/

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Floyd Mayweather Isn't Staying Hydrated Enough In Jail Because He Doesn't Drink Tap Water

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Floyd Mayweather is just 12 days into his 87 day jail sentence and his lawyer is seriously concerned with his health, according to Sporting News.

Mayweather's lawyer Richard Wright is trying to get the judge to let Mayweather serve the rest of his sentence on house arrest after Dr. Robert Voy visited the boxer at jail on Friday and said he was concerned he was losing body mass.

From Sporting News:

Voy estimated the boxer was consuming fewer than 800 calories a day — a drop from his usual 3,000 or 4,000 calories — and wasn't drinking enough because he isn't allowed bottled water and doesn't usually drink tap water.

Did Mayweather really think there would be an unlimited supply of Fiji bottled water in his jail cell?

Voy is also concerned that Mayweather is getting minimal exercise, but prosecutor Lisa Luzaich says Mayweather "has the ability to exercise but chooses not to" and is declining a lot of his food.

Mayweather's prima donna attitude is not all that surprising considering he got a pedicure before he headed off to serve his sentence.

[h/t SportsGrid]

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/aZOALv9OMRU/floyd-mayweather-isnt-staying-hydrated-enough-in-jail-becaue-he-doesnt-drink-tap-water-2012-6

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Why A Management Consultant From Boston Flew All The Way To Greece Just To Place A Vote

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ATHENS, GREECE -- A few weeks ago, IMF chief Christine Lagarde got a torrent of criticism for suggesting that tax evasion in Greece was a major contributor to the crisis. She was accused of perpetuating stereotypes, and she had to walkback her statement.

But there are Greeks who agree with Lagarde.

I sat next to one on my flight from Madrid to Athens, where I'll be covering the election for the next several days.

Konstantin Varsos is a management consultant who lives in Boston, who was flying all the way back to Greece for the sole purpose of voting in this Sunday's election.

He's desperate to prevent the left-wing SYRIZA party from winning, and causing a chain of events that leads to Greece's ejection from the Eurzone.

Said Varsos (who asked that his picture not be taken) to me: "I don't want people to say: Where were you on that day."

He plans to vote for the conservative New Democracy party. Because the reality is, although SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras has been making more pro-Eurozone noises in recent weeks, Varsos has concluded: "The reality is: If you follow their Agenda... out of NATO... out of Euro." A Eurozone departure, he predicts, would cause another 50% of Greece's wealth to vanish.

That's not to sy the current, status quo is working. "Germany, France need to understand there needs to be growth... (or) it's going to disintegrate."You have to renegotiate (the bailout)... the fact is that it's not working."

syntagma communist greeceAccording to Varsos, what failed, was the misunderstanding of Greek culture, and it's here that we get into the issue of tax evasion. "Tax evasion: it's a real thing." Taxes are not that high, and there's no punishment, and the tax collectors won't enforce any of the laws. So it's not that people are cheaters, it's that there's no incentive to compliance, and therefore it doesn't matter how high you raise them, as part of a revenue-boosting scheme, they're not going to go up by enough.

He said he'd even favor having German tax-collectors come to Greece to enforce the law, an idea which has been quietly floated in the past, and has made people furious.

"We're good at other stuff... when it comes to government, I prefer Europe."

And beyond that, he was absolutely in favor of reforms. Cutting government salaries needed to be done.

As for Germany, his stance was mixed. On Merkel, he said she's "fine." "What did we expect her to say."

But he thinks Germans must now share in the sacrifice, and remember that as Greece was building up its huge debts during the Athens Olympics, it was German contractors making all the money on the construction.

If Greece leaves the euro, nothing will be fixed, he says, and that's why he's holding out hope that the establishment can hold off the radical Alexis Tsipras and SYRIZA.

If the mainstream parties win, and can get more sacrifice from the rest of Europe, althewhile implementing necessary reforms to trim government, then there's hope according to Varsos.

For a much less hopeful take on things, check out our conversation with a Greek cab driver >

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/hPUEQ29IbQ4/a-management-consultant-from-boston-goes-home-to-vote-2012-6

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GREAT NEWS: Mortgage Applications Surge To Three Year High

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Mortgage activity is on the rise.  The Mortgage Banker's Association's weekly applications survey showed activity increased 18 percent to the highest level since 2009.

Last week's survey showed the average rate for 30 year fixed-rate mortgages at 3.87 percent, the lowest in the history of the survey. It appears that homebuyers are starting to respond.

Here are some highlights from the report:

  • Loan requests for home purchases, a leading indicator of sales, increased 12.8 percent.
  • The MBA's seasonally adjusted index of refinancing applications rose 19.2 percent. 
  • The share of refinancing in mortgage activity rose slightly to 79 percent of applications. 
  • The average rate for fixed-rate 30 year mortgages is up one basis point to 3.88 percent.

Don't miss: The State Of The Housing Market

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