By Amanda Morrall
1) Student debt
I think I gave a younger colleague a heart attack last week when I confessed how much I paid for university tuition, back in the day. I was fortunate enough to have had a few scholarships to offset the costs but even so it was dead cheap; something like CDN$1,200 a year. According to the New Zealand Union of Students' Association the average fees in NZ in 1989 were NZ$129. I'm thinking surely there's a zero missing there as that compares to today's average tuition of NZ$5,874.00!
How are students managing the costs? Not well judging by the NZ$10 billion and counting owed by graduates.
2) Money mind traps
Getting ahead in the savings department is challenging to be sure but the financial obstacles are arguably no greater than the psychological ones. One of the biggest stumbling blocks to building wealth is the mental outlook that drives the behaviour needed to create it in the first instance.
Here's two blogs which touch upon the disease and cure.
3) Anti-status quo
I was interested to read this piece in the New Yorker questioning the type of people taking part in the Wall Street sit-in.
According to a blogger who has been analysing some of the posts on We are the 99% the median age is 26 and the average 29. Looking for some common threads, the blogger searched for the most popular words and found that debt, work, college, school, student and pay figured prominently, leading him to the conclusion it was a student-led movement.
The New Yorker columnist challenged that theory on the basis that the silent majority (who probably didn't have time or couldn't be bothered to be counted virtually) were likely unaccounted for.
Instead, writer John Cassidy suggests Occupy Wall Street isn't so much an expression of anger by today's disaffected youth as it is a general statement of protest against the status-quo with Wall Street being used as the scapegoat. Whether you believe it's x, y, or z driving the bus, something has got to give and soon. The system is broke. Here's 41 charts from businessinsider.com that show why protestors are pissed off.
4) How to invest in an IPO
In anticipation of the sell-off of some of our state owned entities SOEs (post election) and also Trade Me, I thought I'd share this blog on How to Invest in an IPO from monevator.com.
5) Buck up
Nerve wracked investors may be breathing a sigh of relief over the latest 8 billion euro rescue remedy administered to Greece however, it's clear the markets are in store for a long and bumpy ride ahead. Forbes Money Builder suggests there are two clear and distinct risks: 1) being stuck in an investment that falls in value and 2) being out of an investment that rises in value.
1 Comments
My grandfather was often heard to say to his daughters "Wants and needs girls."
My grandmother, in her turn, bemoaned what she called the cost of ownership. "I don't want another fridge, it's just something else to clean and fix."
The current age has never really experienced want. That and the systemic assault by economists on savings, with their infatuation with inflation, have caused some fundamental changes in the saving mindset.
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