This Photo Of Shaq And His Girlfriend Will Give You Some Perspective On How Large NBA Players Really Are


Here’s a crazy-looking picture of Shaquille O’Neal walking with his girlfriend, Nikki “Hoopz” Alexander.

When he’s surrounded by other basketball players, it’s easy to lose sight of how big Shaq really is. It's not until he's next to a normal-sized person that you get some perspective.

Hoopz is 5’3”, according to videostunners.com (very NSFW), which isn’t even that short.

Shaq is 7’1”.

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Hoopz is an aspiring celebrity who has appeared on shows such as Flavor of Love.

Here's who she should look up to:

10 "WAGs" Who Are Way More Famous Than Their Athlete Husbands >>

Source: Big Lead Sports

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Why Use An Immigration Attorney For Visitor Visa?

People often want more info on immigration lawyers, thus we decided to write this post. Writing has been a pleasure, be sure to tell us your thoughts. People apply for visas to be able to visit other countries on a temporary or long-term basis.  Obtaining a visa is really a process that requires attention to [...]

Source: http://www.legaldebthelponline.com/2011/08/09/why-use-an-immigration-attorney-for-visitor-visa/

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Q&A College Life With Daniel Ramsey

As the youngest of Dave Ramsey?s three children, Daniel Ramsey is the last one of the bunch still in college at the University of Tennessee. With one year under his belt, he?ll be the first to tell you that college life is an adjustment?some you can prepare for and some you?ve just got to learn as you go. Before Daniel heads back for his sophomore year this fall, we asked him to share some tips for the incoming class of 2015.

After your first year of college, you decided to intern here this summer. Tell us a little bit about your experience so far.

Daniel: I have been helping our publishing department get some of the information my dad teaches to my generation. My first day here, a copy of The Graduate?s Survival Guide was sitting on my desk. It?s a new tool my sister, Rachel Cruze, helped create for incoming college freshman. It?s a great reference, but I can add a few points that Rachel didn?t mention. I mean, I could have helped her out with the book?if she had asked!

Feel the family love right now! All right then, what is one lesson you would have added?

Some of the lessons I learned were easy. Some weren?t. An easy one: Always sign off your Facebook and Twitter accounts when you step away from the computer. Seriously. Your ?friends? will mess with your profile.

One of the first things you do after picking your college is sign up for classes. What was your experience with class registration?

Class registration can be a nightmare, especially if you wait until the last minute. Talk to your advisor ahead of time to make sure you are staying on track. If you don?t get the time or teacher you want for a class, always get on the waitlist and email the professor to see if they can make room for you. Some initiative here can go a long way, and it can impress a professor before you even step foot in the classroom.

Selecting a major can be a difficult decision. Have you seen this affect people?

Choosing a major is an important thing to do, and I see a divide between my parents? generation and mine. My parents went to college with a plan, and now so many students are trying to figure it out as they go. In the process, they are there for an extra year or more. If you are fortunate enough to have your parents helping you pay for school, don't be irresponsible and delay picking a major. When you do, you are wasting your time and their money.

With all the freedom you have in college, it can be hard to go to class. What do you think about skipping class?

Go to class! I don?t know if anyone would skip class if they sat down and calculated how much you pay for each class. Even if you just show up (physically and mentally), you?ll have a hard time failing. You?re there to learn, remember? I?ve got some friends who will spend the next few years trying to fix the academic mess they made as freshmen. Trust me: It?s not worth it. And while you?re in class, sit near the front row. Professors will know you, and you are more likely to pay attention. Just be sure to stay awake. Oh, if your professor is a Ph.D., be sure to call him or her ?Doctor? whatever. They worked hard for that degree, and they?ll notice if you keep calling them ?Mr.? or ?Mrs.?

What about driving on campus?

Parking tickets are given out like candy, so be careful where you park. If you don?t have a car, make friends who have one. Don?t forget to pitch in for gas.

How important is it to balance your schedule between academics and other activities?

Do something outside of the classroom. Even if you?re taking a full class load or working a part-time job while you?re in school, you need to experience something besides class and homework. Research also links higher grades with involvement in other activities. Branch out and meet some new people. There are ton of groups, intramural sports and Greek organizations to join. I found my niche with Young Life.

A lot of freshmen are concerned about who they are going to live with in their first year of college. How do you recommend dealing with roommates?

In The Graduate?s Survival Guide, Rachel talks about getting along with your roommates and surrounding yourself with good friends. Our dad drilled this into us growing up. You?re going to look and act like the people you hang out with. Make sure that?s really how you want other people to see you.

I knew my roommate ahead of time, and it worked out really well for me. But you need to be careful if you are picking a friend to live with. I have plenty of close friends who are great guys, but I would never want to live with them. The other thing about roommates is if you decide to live with someone random, they don?t have to be your best friend. I think it is easy to romanticize your roommate experience, expecting your freshman-year roommate to become your best friend and introduce you to who you are going to marry.

In The Graduate Survival Guide DVD, Rachel talks about the Ben and Arthur chart, which emphasizes the importance of saving and investing at an early age. Do you think that is possible to do?

If every person knew that one bit of advice, and focused on building the future and not just immediate pleasure, they could set a great foundation to carry into the rest of their life. A portion of all the money I am making this summer is going into a mutual fund. It is easy to forget while in school, but if you aren't taking out loans, you need to be putting money into savings.

Are your friends working during the school year or over the summer?

We all realized that we had a lot of time at college that we weren?t using to study or go to class. Most of my friends are getting part-time jobs this year, and they are doing that for different reasons. Some for a little extra spending money, and others are doing it so they don?t have to take out a loan.

You?ve probably heard about the dreaded ?freshman fifteen? (gaining 15 pounds your freshman year on dorm food). What was your take on meal plans?

I loved meal plans for the first few months, and I could eat any time I wanted. But then it was the same food week after week. I recommend having a few friends who live nearby. Then, you can go home with them to score a home-cooked meal every now and then! Also, if ?fourth meal? or ?second dinner? becomes a regular habit, then you?re staying up too late.

You lived on campus during your freshman year, but now you are living in off-campus housing. Why are you changing?

For me, it is a cheaper option than living in the dorms because I am sharing a house with a lot of guys. When you live in dorms, you don?t have to pay for utilities or groceries, and you have pretty much everything you need. I?m excited about living off-campus because I?ll have extra responsibilities and develop good habits before I am totally on my own after graduation.

Any last tips for the incoming college freshmen?

Don?t throw the frisbee in the halls of your dorm. Apparently a fire isn?t the only thing that can activate the sprinkler system. But, seriously, college will give you some huge opportunities to win and some even bigger opportunities to be stupid. Just don?t rush in unprepared. Think through what you?re doing and why you?re doing it, and have a blast!

Need more practical tips about going to college? Daniel?s sister, Rachel Cruze, has you covered. Check out Rachel?s Graduate Survival Guide, which includes a book filled with great insight and a set of DVDs featuring Rachel, Jon Acuff, and Christy Brown.

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Source: http://www.daveramsey.com/article/qa-college-life-with-daniel-ramsey/lifeandmoney_college

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Wall Street Doesn't Know What Business It's In


Wall streetAnother post from last year that i thought was relevant again:

What Business is Wall Street In?

First published May 9, 2010, 11:36 a.m. 

My last two posts were designed to stimulate discussion. But lets talk the real problem that regulators, public companies, investor/shareholders and traders face. The problem is that Wall Street doesn’t know what business it is in. Regulators don’t know what the business of Wall Street is. Investor/shareholders don’t know what business Wall Street is in.

The only people who know what business Wall Street is in are the traders. They know what business Wall Street is in better than everyone else. To traders, whether day traders or high frequency or somewhere in between, Wall Street has nothing to do with creating capital for businesses, its original goal. Wall Street is a platform. It’s a platform to be exploited by every technological and intellectual means possible.

The best analogy for traders? They are hackers. Just as hackers search for and exploit operating system and application shortcomings, traders do the same thing. A hacker wants to jump in front of your shopping cart and grab your credit card and then sell it. A high frequency trader wants to jump in front of your trade and then sell that stock to you. A hacker will tell you that they are serving a purpose by identifying the weak links in your system. A trader will tell you they deserve the pennies they are making on the trade because they provide liquidity to the market.

I recognize that one is illegal, the other is not. That isn’t the important issue.

The important issue is recognizing that Wall Street is no longer what it was designed to be. Wall Street was designed to be a market to which companies provide securities (stocks/bonds), from which they received capital that would help them start/grow/sell businesses. Investors made their money by recognizing value where others did not, or by simply committing to a company and growing with it as a shareholder, receiving dividends or appreciation in their holdings.  What percentage of the market is driven by investors these days?

I started actively trading stocks in 1992. I traded a lot. Over the years I’ve written quite a bit about the market. I have always thought I had a good handle on the market. Until recently.

Over just the past 3 years, the market has changed. It is getting increasingly difficult to just invest in companies you believe in. Discussion in the market place is not about the performance of specific companies and their returns. Discussion is about macro issues that impact all stocks. And those macro issues impact automated trading decisions, which impact any and every stock that is part of any and every index or ETF.  Combine that with the leverage of derivatives tracking companies, indexes and other packages or the leveraged ETFs, and individual stocks become pawns in a much bigger game than I feel increasingly less comfortable playing. It is a game fraught with ever increasing risk.

The Pimco (who I think are the smartest guys on the Street) guys talk about a new normal as it applies to today’s state of  the world economy. I think just as important is the new normal as it applies to Wall Street. Wall Street is now a huge mathematical game of chess where individual companies are just pawns.  This is money in the bank for the big players like Goldman, Morgan, etc. Why? Because the game of chess is far too complicated for 99pct of the institutions out there investing money. So to keep up, they turn to Goldman, Morgan and the like to invent products for them. “You don’t know how to play the housing boom, let us show you”. “You think the housing boom is about to crash, let us show you how to play that”. “You think that PIIGS are in trouble because they can’t print money to pay debt holders, let us create a product to allow you to play that game.” The big houses have the best hackers in the business and they put together the games and sell them to the many, many institutions managing Billions and Billions of dollars. They are the ultimate Hackers selling their attacks to the highest bidder, regardless of which side they are on.That is a new normal.

Again, I’m not passing judgment one or the other. I’m just recognizing what is going on in the financial world today.

It’s rare for companies to go public these days. Just as rare for secondary offerings.  The only thing that keeps me in the market is that most of the stocks (not all) pay dividends or some other sort of cash payout. For the first time in my life, I bought outside the United States.  I bought Australia in a big way because it is becoming increasingly hard to find new domestic investments that are not influenced by the “hackers” and the games being played on a macro level. It’s hard to believe, but evaluating countries as an investment is now easier than evaluating companies. Even with all the unrest in Europe. Or maybe because of it.

So back to the original question. What business is Wall Street in?

Its primary business is no longer creating capital for business. Creating capital for business has to be less than 1pct of the volume on Wall Street in any given period. (I would be curious if anyone out there knows what percentage of transactions actually return money to a company for any reason). It wouldn’t shock me that even in this environment that more money flows from companies to the market in the form of buybacks (which i think are always a mistake), then flows into companies in the form of equity.

My 2 cents is that it is important for this country to push Wall Street back to the business of creating capital for business.  Whether its through a use of taxes on trades, or changing the capital gains tax structure so that there is no capital gains tax on any shares of stock (private or public company) held for 5 years or more, and no tax on dividends paid to shareholders who have held stock in the company for more than 5 years.  However we need to do it, we need to get the smart money on Wall Street back to thinking about ways to use their capital to help start and grow companies. That is what will create jobs. That is where we will find the next big thing that will accelerate the world economy.  It won’t come from traders trying to hack the financial system for a few pennies per trade.

And solutions won’t come from bureaucrats trying to prevent the traders from hacking the system. The only certainty when bureaucrats step in is that the law of unintended consequences will smack us all in the head and the trader/hackers will find new ways to exploit the system that makes them big money and even more money for the big institutions that develop products for the other institutions that are desperate to play the game.

Regulators have got to start to recognize that traders are not investors and vice versa and treat them differently. Different regulations. Different tax structure.  Different oversight. Individual investors and the funds that just invest in stocks and bonds are not going to crash the market.  Big traders who are always leveraging up and maximizing the number of trades/hacks they make will always put the system at risk.  We need to recognize that they do not serve much of a purpose other than to add substantial risk to the global economy.  That their stated value add of liquidity does not compensate the US and World Economy nearly enough for the risk of collapse they introduce into the system.

Wall Street as a whole needs to be in the business of creating capital for companies and selling shares to investors who believe they are shareholders.  The Government needs to create incentives for this business and extract compensation from the traders/hackers for the systemic failure level of risk they introduce.

There will be another crash, because there are too many players looking for the trillion dollar score. They can’t all win, yet how many do you think wouldn’t risk everything, even what is not theirs, for that remote chance to score big ? Put another way, there is zero moral hazard attached to any trade. So why wouldn’t traders take the biggest risk possible ?

Update at 10pm 5.9.10

One more consideration. If there are traders of any kind that are unregulated or unmonitored, and trade for their own account, how do we know how big they are and how much of a threat they pose to the system, individually and in aggregate ?. For any High Frequency or big leverage derivative folks out there- is it possible there could be firms that have billions at risk with questionable ability to make a margin call or fulfill their side of the trade  if things went against them ?  Could there be hidden AIGs that few people know about  or a bunch of AIG like situations ,which in aggregate fail and put the system at risk ? I have no idea. Just asking the question.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/wNDR1waXSNw/what-business-is-wall-street-in--2011-8

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EUR/USD Aug 9 ? Ranging Choppily Before Bernanke


Euro dollar is trading very choppily in range after the effect of Trichet’s bond buying faded away and the S&P downgrade of the US continues to rock markets. All eyes are now on Ben Bernanke: will he release hints about QE3?  

Here?s a quick update on technicals, fundamentals and what?s going on in the markets.

Read the rest of the article EUR/USD Aug 9 – Ranging Choppily Before Bernanke

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Gold Price: Full Steam Ahead to $2,000/oz.


Over a year ago, on May 6, 2010, this blog launched with a first post on the attractiveness of gold as an investment. On that day the price of gold was just under $1200/oz, and as it became clear that the Federal Reserve was about to embark on another large round of money printing, which later came to be known as QE2, I felt compelled to grab the keyboard and start typing (see articles tagged 'Gold' both here and on SeekingAlpha for further reference).

During this time it has been amusing to watch the professional punditry drone on about a  "gold bubble" and observe various blogger bets about how gold's run couldn't last. The biggest amusement of all, however, has been the disparaging remarks from those such as Berkshire Hathaway's Charlie Munger, who belongs to a group I've taken to calling the 'gold haters'.

Suggestions from credible policymakers, such as the World Bank's Robert Zoellick advocating a return to the gold standard, have lit a fire under the barbarous relic's price this past year. Today, with gold pressing above $1700, or nearly 50% higher in just over a year, I can't help but comment on how we've heard nary a peep of late from the anti-gold crowd.

Where to from here? As long as three key fundamental forces persist then the rise in the price of gold will continue unabated. Those forces are:

  1. Low interest rates, a hallmark of the current program of financial repression, which is only just getting started and should extend for many years to come.
  2. Continued central bank purchases of gold by countries such as South Korea, Thailand, Russia, etc.
  3. More money printing, which we've seen in spades of late with Italian and Spanish bond buying, Bank of Japan and Swiss National Bank currency intervention, and the Fed's rumored QE3.

Continue reading the full article at SeekingAlpha here.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/-d_TbCF7PW0/gold-price-full-steam-ahead-to-2000oz-2011-8

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