General Motors released its sales report for August and it showed some of the worst numbers since 1983. According to the recently-troubled auto manufacturer, sales toppled 25 percent from a year ago, partially due to the Cash for Clunkers program of last summer.
GM Struggles to Sell
Despite the fact that General Motors has fought back from bankruptcy to see a $1.3 million profit in the second quarter, it is still struggling to sell cars. According to the manufacturer, August sales dropped 7 percent from just a month prior as tracked by Edmunds.com and TrueCar.
There are a few reasons that car sales have struggled for the auto maker:
- Cash for Clunkers: The Cash for Clunkers program, which was very successful in moving cars with every dealer, left many with grim comparisons to make later.
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Don’t get me wrong: I think the thinking behind it, the advice wrapped around the idea of personal branding, is excellent. I’ve recommended, for example, Dan Schawbel’s personal branding book Me 2.0 and I’m sticking to it. 
Dan has a great collection of real-world suggestions in that book. But I’m beginning to think I hate the term. And maybe some of what’s behind it.
Last Friday I read Personal Branding is Bullsh*t (cowardly * by me, not her) by Arienne Holland, communications director of Raven Tools. She writes:
A person doesn’t need a brand. A person is a
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There are two key elements to calculating a rise in the cost of living. First, we need to get a sense of what people spend their money on – what is bought when “living”. Second, we need to decide how to bundle up the costs of individual items people spend their money on into an overall index of costs – an inflation index.
The standard measure of inflation until recently was the retail prices index (RPI). That used surveys to work out the basket of goods that people spent their money on, and then took a weighted arithmetic average of changes in the prices of those goods to construct changes in the cost of living (inflation). Whe
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Identity theft. You’re hearing the words more and more, on TV and especially online. And there’s good reason. Identity theft is among the largest growing crimes in the world, and it costs consumers millions per year. Here are some facts about identity theft and how you can prevent it from happening to you.
Don’t miss out on all the info. Check out the fullsize graphic.
Identity Theft Statistics
Here are some eye-popping stats about ID theft.
- There were 10 million victims of identity theft in 2008 in the United States (Javelin Strategy and Research, 2009)
- 1 in every 10 U.S.
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Do you mind electronic accounts? If you don’t, then you can take advantage of the high interest savings account offered by Newtown Savings Bank . It earns up to 1.475% of interest. Aside from that, it is also a high yield savings account which earns 1.150% APY every year. When it first came out, there were rumors that it was only offered locally, but updates on the savings account tell us that it’s now available across all states of the USA.
Apparently, the account has no service charges, but the downside to this is that the bank is giving no guarantee as to how long this current yield will last. Mos
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