Moving from your old place to another can be much of a hassle. There are tons of things to think about—furniture, knick-knacks, electronic equipment, and a thousand other little items you’ve used. There’s also the severance of community ties—saying your goodbyes, especially in a tightly knit community, isn’t easy. But apart from the emotional and spiritual aspects of moving is the logistics, and finding an efficient, bullshit-free Moving Company, therefore, is the first vital step to a headache-free moving.

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Targeting customers in your locality for your business, and doing so on the internet, may be a totally bewildering task wrought with uncertainty. Where do you start? And how do you know if you’re doing it well? On the other hand, launching a local online marketing campaign, when done well and with the right people, can be hugely profitable.

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Chinese companies’ fixation on having an image of being “well-connected”, especially in terms of Western connections, are compelling them to hire just about any white dude to create that illusion.

Not long ago I was offered work as a quality-control expert with an American company in China I’d never heard of. No experience necessary—which was good, because I had none. I’d be paid $1,000 for a week, put up in a fancy hotel, and wined and dined in Dongying, an industrial city in Shandong province I’d also never heard of. The only requirements were a fair complexion and a suit.

“I call these things ‘White Guy in a Tie’ events,” a Canadian friend of a friend named Jake told me during the recruitment pitch he gave me in Beijing, where I live. “Basically, you put on a suit, shake some hands, and make some money. We’ll be in ‘quality control,’ but nobody’s gonna be doing any quality control. You in?”

I was.

And so I became a fake businessman in China, an often lucrative gig for underworked expatriates here. One friend, an American who works in film, was paid to represent a Canadian company and give a speech espousing a low-carbon future. Another was flown to Shanghai to act as a seasonal-gifts buyer. Recruiting fake businessmen is one way to create the image—particularly, the image of connection—that Chinese companies crave. My Chinese-language tutor, at first aghast about how much we were getting paid, put it this way: “Having foreigners in nice suits gives the company face.”

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The latest global insight economic outlook index from USA Today seems to indicate that this bleeding diarrhea of an economic recession might be ending, maybe.

The May update of the USA TODAY/IHS Global Insight Economic Outlook Index shows increasing evidence that the recession is likely to end in September, with a mild recovery starting in October.

The decline in real GDP growth accelerated from minus 3.5%, at a six-month annualized growth rate, in December 2008 to minus 6.2% in March. It is expected to slow to minus 4.5% by June, before moderating close to the break-even point in October. Recent gains in the index, though small, have been consistent, which is a good sign.

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And Lesson No. 8 is “forget about self-esteem.”

But I’m getting ahead of the meat.

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American Express is now actually paying its card holders to close their accounts.

Card holders have until the end of February to accept the offer and must close their accounts in March or April. Each card holder will receive a $300 pre-paid American Express card.

American Express, often seen as catering to relatively wealthy customers and companies, has been expanding its credit card business in recent years by reaching out to a wider range of clients.

But that strategy has backfired. The company’s earnings tumbled in the fourth quarter as credit losses jumped and debt-burdened consumers slashed spending.

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The National Geographic Society announced today that it will launch a full-service record label, Nat Geo Music—which also serves as the music division the company established in 2007.

The label will “record, release and promote modern music from around the globe” from a variety of artists and genres, the company said, and be distributed globally through various distribution partnerships.

Mat Whittington, a former record executive and concert promoter, has been tapped to head up the label, reporting to National Geographic Entertainment president David Beal.

“Despite the challenging climate, there is an enormous appetite for music,” Whittington said in a release. “And we know that the National Geographic brand can deliver amazing new artists to this global audience.”

And they’re not talking about singing whales.

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Dell announced plans to trim its costs over the next four years by cutting out 20 million pounds of its customary computer packaging materials.

Now claiming to be the only major computer maker with a “global packaging reduction target” for desktops and laptops, Dell expects to reduce packaging materials by 10% worldwide, increase “sustainable content” in cushioning and corrugate packaging by 40%, and make 75% of its packaging components “curbside recyclable” by 2012.

Dell’s new packing materials will include High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) “thermo-foamed cushions.” HDPE is produced from recycled milk jugs and laundry detergent bottles, for example, the company said in a statement.

In changing its packaging ways, Dell plans to save $8.1 million over the next four years — savings that could potentially be put to any number of purposes, including avoiding job layoffs.

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Read the complete strip here

You haven’t yet wrapped your head around the $85 billion the US Fed lent AIG, here comes another $38 billion to keep you jumping up and down on your bed.

The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday it was lending billions of additional funds to cash-strapped American International Group Inc.

Under the program, the New York Federal Reserve Bank will provide $37.8 billion in additional cash to certain domestic life insurance subsidiaries of AIG in return for investment-grade, fixed-income securities.

AIG already has an $85 billion line of credit with the Fed. As of last week, AIG had used $60 billion of this loan, according to Fed data.

This new program will allow AIG to replenish liquidity, the Fed said. At the same time, the securities will provide enhanced protection to U.S. taxpayers, the central bank said.

In a separate statement, AIG said the New York Fed is prepared to borrow securities to extend AIG’s currently outstanding lending obligations where those obligations are not rolled over or replaced by transactions with other private market participants.

The arrangement will help AIG secure funds on an as-needed basis, the company said.
AIG recently put many of its businesses up for sale to try to repay the government loan.

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{Related: how to fuck America like a ninja}

“Some poor people see playing the lottery as their best opportunity for improving their financial situations, albeit wrongly so,” said the study’s lead author Emily Haisley, a doctoral student in the Department of Organizational Behavior and Theory at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business. “The hope of getting out of poverty encourages people to continue to buy tickets, even though their chances of stumbling upon a life-changing windfall are nearly impossibly slim and buying lottery tickets in fact exacerbates the very poverty that purchasers are hoping to escape.”
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In the study, the researchers note that lotteries set off a vicious cycle that not only exploits low-income individuals’ desires to escape poverty but also directly prevents them from improving upon their financial situations. They recommend that state lottery administrators explore strategies that balance the economic burdens faced by low-income households with the need to maintain important funding streams for state governments.

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