In case you are struggling with bad credit, you should be looking for ways to reduce the monthly interest you are paying out for your bank and credit card company. There are many ways to do that, and you can choose the right one if you review your options below, taking into consideration your current credit rating and situation.
The necessary evil of a Greek default continues to hang overhead like the sword of Damocles with some wishing for its fall given the prospect of its removal seems less likely. Yesterday's commodity rebound has paled into insignificance as investors balk at the prospects for growth should the authorities lose its grip on the sword.
Barclays has been looking to exit its private equity arm Barclays Private Equity for quite some time now. The spin-off may well be around the corner as the firm looks to focus on its investment banking business instead.
There was a time when U.S. job seekers would not consider a photo part of their job-search materials. But since LinkedIn joined the professional scene, things have changed. While it’s the job seeker’s choice whether to share a picture via social networks, there’s no doubt most people who notice a photo-less LinkedIn profile will assume one of two things: 1) you don’t know how to upload a picture or 2) you are really ugly.
For better or for worse, an avatar—the image that represents you online—needs to be part of your social networking efforts, and an online profile helps propel career success. Take some time to think about the picture you post and how others may react to it.
Here’s how to choose a photo for your LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and other avatars:
1. Use a current, close-up picture of your face. It should be a photo of you in professional attire—and only you. It’s not uncommon to see avatars including family members or even pets. But no one wants to hire your three-month-old daughter (or your dog, for that matter) so there’s no need for them to appear in your photo.
Some people consider using an alternative, such as a QR code, logo, or other visual representation. While those may be clever or fun, a picture of you makes a better impression and is easier to identify.
2. Post a high-quality picture, taken in good light, and make sure it’s sharp and clear. You have a very small space to display the picture, so if it’s shadowy or dark, it won’t show you in the best light, literally and figuratively. A professional portrait is a great option, but if that’s not feasible, do your best to create as professional-looking a portrait as possible.
3. Pay attention to the background. Is there enough contrast between you (the main subject) and what people see behind you? Make sure there isn’t anything too busy preventing people from focusing on you. Look at other avatars, especially if you use Twitter. Scrolling through, it’s always easier to identify avatars with bright or unusual backgrounds. You may want to create a backdrop to distinguish you from the crowd.
4. Don’t wear a distractingly large piece of jewelry or other accessory. You want people looking at your face, not the large, geometrical shapes dangling from your ears or neck. Sunglasses or a hat may have been the order of the day, but if no one can recognize you in your photo, it’s useless.
5. Evaluate the picture. In my book about social networking for career success, I suggest using a picture of you smiling, looking friendly and personable. If your picture resembles an ax murderer or someone you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark ally, don’t expect to garner many interview invitations. Joshua Waldman told a story on his blog, Career Enlightenment, about someone whose photo literally killed his chances of landing opportunities. A recruiter re-took and uploaded a new photo, and the candidate had several potential opportunities within the week.
6. Unless you are an actor or actress, there’s no need for an overly dramatic pose. Try to appear as natural as possible, keeping in mind “natural” does not need to mean what you look like after a ball game. You may want to arrange to have your hair professionally styled or cut and consider having an expert apply makeup if you plan to wear it. You want the photo be be recognizably you, but you on your best day. (Note: if you post a new photo and everyone says it looks great, but they don’t recognize you—you need to start over!)
7. Choose an avatar and stick with it. It’s easier for people to keep track of their social networking contacts when their avatars are similar across the board.
8. On LinkedIn, your picture may be a JPG, GIF, or PNG file. (File size limit is 4 MB). When you upload it, you have a choice to make it available to your connections, your network, or everyone. Select “everyone.” Remember, if people can’t see your avatar when they land on your profile, they’ll wonder why not. Following these tips will help you come across as professional and personal all at once, which can only help your chances of landing a job.
This report is part of a ProPublica and PBS FRONTLINE investigation. A version of this article appeared in the Washington Post.
An officer in Pakistan’s intelligence service chose a Jewish center as a target for the 2008 Mumbai attacks and then helped launch a new plot against Denmark, according to the star witness in a terror trial in Chicago.
In his second day of testimony, David Coleman Headley, a confessed Pakistani-American terrorist, revealed more details about close ties between Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) and the Lashkar-i-Taiba terror group, which allegedly carried out the attacks that killed 166 people, including six Americans.
Headley said his ISI handler, a man known only as Major Iqbal, made key decisions and was a mastermind of the plot along with Lashkar chiefs. Major Iqbal deployed him on the last of five reconnaissance missions in India to scout targets that Iqbal said would definitely include the Chabad House, a Jewish community center where gunmen later killed three American rabbis, Headley testified. The pregnant wife of one of the rabbis was also killed.
“Major Iqbal told me the Chabad House would be added on whatever list [of targets] there was because it was a front office for the Mossad,” Israel’s intelligence agency, Headley said. He added that Major Iqbal “seemed upset the [Mumbai] airport was not included” as a target.
Nothing suggests that the claim about the Mossad was true.
Headley described in understated tones how terrorist leaders congratulated him for his work casing luxury hotels and other targets chosen to ensure Americans and Jews would die. Asked his reaction to the three-day televised slaughter, he responded: “I was pleased.”
The 50-year-old businessman has pleaded guilty to conducting months of crucial reconnaissance in Mumbai and for the Denmark plot. He is the star witness in the trial of his accused accomplice, Tahawwur Rana, in Chicago federal court. U.S. prosecutors have also indicted Major Iqbal and three Lashkar chiefs, all but one of whom remain fugitives.
Pakistani officials deny any links to terrorism. They say Headley's allegations are not credible because of his past as a drug dealer and DEA informant.
But the slaying of Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani military town has worsened longtime suspicions of Pakistan and the stakes are high in a case built largely on a witness with an admitted pattern of duplicity. The damage to the U.S.-Pakistani relationship could be profound if the trial produces powerful evidence that Pakistani officers took part in a plot to kill Americans.
“A lot of explanatory power has been put in the hands of David Headley, an undoubtedly flawed individual,” said Stephen Tankel, author of a forthcoming book Storming the World Stage: the Story of Lashkar-e-Taiba. “The US government clearly has confidence in Headley's testimony and has been able to support it with strong evidence related to his communications with men he asserts were ISI officers. ... It will be interesting to see if the prosecution introduces further evidence independent of Headley that these men were in the ISI, as that would seal an already strong case for official involvement at some level.”
On Tuesday prosecutors presented details about the apparent involvement of serving intelligence officers. Headley testified that Major Iqbal and Lashkar used him as a shared operative as he tried to infiltrate Shiv Sena, a right-wing Hindu political party in India.
An email from Major Iqbal to Headley showed the officer trying to balance the twin missions of collecting military intelligence and developing terrorist targets. Asked by Headley if he should try to cultivate a Shiv Sena public relations official he had befriended, Iqbal responded that he was not sure if the potential Indian source would be productive for espionage but said he might still be worth pursuing for Lashkar, which he called “your organization.”
“What all advantages can we get from this person except strengthening our cover,” Iqbal wrote. “Will this all be generating worthwhile information related to military or forces. ... If he is of any use to your organization, you are at liberty to handle even without my information or as you desire.”
The testimony Tuesday also indicated that Iqbal was at least aware of a terrorist plot to strike the heart of Europe. Headley described a meeting in late 2008 in which Iqbal and Sajid Mir, his Lashkar handler, came together to his house in Lahore for the first time. Until then, the two had coordinated the American’s missions in tandem but separately.
During the sit-down, Mir told Headley he would be sent to Denmark to scout for an attack on the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, which had enraged Muslims by printing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
“We were all angry about it,” Headley testified. “Major Iqbal said he was surprised such an attack had not taken place already.”
Headley went to Denmark in January 2009, posing as an immigration consultant in visits to newspaper advertising representatives in Copenhagen and Aarhus. Two months later, however, Lashkar put the Denmark plot on hold. Major Iqbal cut off contact with Headley, instructing him to lay low because Pakistani authorities had put heat on Lashkar after the Mumbai attacks.
Soon, another ISI officer named Major Sameer Ali contacted Headley to try to recruit him for new operations and remained in touch with him until at least August, according to Headley’s testimony and emails between the two presented in court. The mention of Major Ali in the trial brings the number of ISI officers Headley has described meeting to at least six, according to testimony and a report on Headley’s interrogation by Indian investigators.
Headley met with Ali and a Colonel Shah in the ISI that April in Lahore, according to investigators, though that information was not presented in court Tuesday.
By then, however, Headley had shifted allegiance to al-Qaida and away from the ISI, urged on by a friend and former Pakistani military officer known as Pasha, who had left Lashkar for al-Qaida.
“He said they were conducting the ISI’s jihad and we should conduct God’s jihad,” Headley said.
When Pasha was arrested by the ISI a few months later, Headley wrote to Major Ali inquiring about his friend’s fate, according to testimony. Headley said Pasha had once worked with a colonel in the ISI, which he referred to in an email as “your department.” Major Ali responded on August 4, 2009, to inform him of the release of the al-Qaida operative, who remains a fugitive indicted in the Chicago case.
“Your friend that u asked about has reached home,” Major Ali reassured Headley.
Even if the trial paints a convincing portrait of ties between ISI officers and terrorists, the analysis must be careful and measured, experts say.
“To date there is no evidence the ISI leadership was aware of the Mumbai attacks, or at least of their scope and scale, which suggests Major Iqbal and possibly others were acting without sanction,” Tankel said. “Whether they were given excessive autonomy or were engaging in outright rogue behavior is a very important question and it will be interesting to see if the trial provides an answer.”
Scribes from Jonathan Edwards to Robert Frost have ruminated about the end of the world, but few have been willing to suggest a precise date on which it will occur. Perhaps this is part of the reason that the media -- as well as millions of people -- held their breath for a moment last Saturday, the day on which California-based Christian broadcaster Harold Camping predicted that the world was going to end.
The 89-year-old preacher arrived at that date through a complex series of calculations and idiosyncratic Biblical interpretations. Ultimately, though, the way that he calculated humanity's expiration date is less important than the interest that his prediction generated. The notion of the Rapture, a final reckoning in which the righteous are called to heaven, has seized a powerful place in the public imagination -- and inspired movies and books ranging from 2012 to Tim LaHaye's popular Left Behind series.
The Big Question: What Happens to the Houses Left Behind?
While the broader impact of mankind's final days raises some powerful philosophical and theological questions, I live in New York, where everything from environmentalism to religion is filtered through the lens of rents and property values. Camping predicted that everyone who wasn't called into heaven would be completely obliterated, but other theorists -- including LaHaye -- imagine a post-Rapture world in which those who are not pulled into heaven will remain on Earth. Which begs the question: Where will those who are left behind hang their hats?
Recent events -- notably Wall Street's 2008 meltdown -- would seem to suggest that bankers are not among those who will be raptured, which means that some version of the current rental/mortgage structure would likely be a part of the post-Rapture world. Admittedly, a plummeting supply of tenants and landowners would likely drive prices down, but would the effect be consistent across the country, or would certain areas be especially hard hit? In short, what would a post-Rapture real-estate market look like? Will We Stay or Will We Go?
The first problem with calculating the effect of a Rapture on real estate lies in determining how many people would actually disappear. Predictions range from 144,000 -- about 0.0024% of the world's population, to about half of us, the amount of people who were left behind in Tim LaHaye's series.
However, even if an average of 50% of Americans manage to stay around after Rapture, it seems likely that the post-Rapture numbers would vary wildly from region to region. In a 2009 poll, Gallup determined that roughly 65% of Americans stated that religion was an important part of their lives. Leaving aside questions of denomination and issues of who, exactly, God will call to heaven, this offers a useful entry point into the world of post-Rapture real estate.
If we use the Gallup numbers as a guideline, and assume that the median worship states would lose exactly half of their citizens, the remainder of the states would distribute out to a fairly standard bell curve. Mississippi would lead the pack, with roughly 70% of its citizens called to heaven; on the opposite side of the spectrum, only about 27% of people in Vermont would be raptured. Pennsylvania -- a median state -- would lose 6,351,189 people, or 2,452,196 households (according to the census, the average American household has 2.59 members). In terms of pure numbers, the biggest population drop would be in California, which would lose over 15 million people. The smallest drop -- in both pure numbers and percentage of population -- would be in Vermont, which would only lose about 169,000 people.
What would a 42%-70% Population Drop Do to Real Estate Prices?
These raw numbers hint at the real estate impact that a LaHaye-style Rapture might have. In New York City, for example, a 49% drop would reduce the city's population to 1910 levels. In the short run, this would cause property values to plummet in the city, but the effects would quickly spread beyond mortgages and rents.
Dr. Andrew Schiller, founder and president of Neighborhood Scout, theorizes that, in the months following Rapture, New York's far-flung exurbs in New Jersey, Westchester County, Long Island and Pennsylvania could conceivably empty out, as the city's property values would plummet. In New York itself, "Gentrification would likely stall in places like Queens and Brooklyn, as well as amenity-free enclaves like Jersey City and many parts of the Bronx." Effectively, he argues, this would turn the clock back 40 years or more, to an era in which low rents made it much easier for middle-class residents to choose neighborhoods based on preference, not price.
Outside of urban centers, Schiller suggests, Rapture would likely be a final nail in the foreclosure coffin, as "People holding on by their fingernails would be more willing to let go of their houses." A large part of this would be linked to the urban mobility issue: As more convenient properties with rapidly-dropping prices became available, underwater mortgage holders would be less inclined to desperately cling to their old homes.
"For suburban neighborhoods that are fighting against failure," Schiller notes, "this could accelerate the process." Municipalities, facing large stretches of empty houses, might be inclined to adopt the solution that Detroit and Youngstown, Ohio, are currently pursuing: "tearing down old homes and seeking adaptive uses for the land."
This is assuming a post-Rapture world in which the political and economic systems would remain relatively stable -- admittedly, a somewhat unrealistic expectation. For that matter, it seems likely that the remainder of humanity, having seen half of its number called into heaven, would be inclined to draw more closely together, further accelerating urbanization. However, even if everything else stays the same, one thing is clear: The Rapture would have an apocalyptic effect on real estate.
Good credit is not something to take lightly, but has to be worked on and maintained. While it can be very hard to rebuild good credit after financial difficulties, good credit from the start is much easier to maintain. Being a smart consumer is an important part of how you should handle your credit in a good way. With a few tips you can maintain good credit right from your first account.