Business Generation

Mortgage rates have reached a record low on poor reports on the nations housing industry.

The 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage was 3.94 percent, down last week from 3.99 percent, according to McLean-based Freddie Mac. A year ago, mortgage rates were 4.83 percent. The 15-year, fixed-rate mortgage also reached a record low of 3.21 percent, down from an average of 3.27 percent last week. A year ago the 15-year average rate was 4.17 percent.

Mortgage rates were at or near all-time record lows this week amid a rough environment for housing, said Frank Nothaft, vice president and chief economist at Freddie Mac.

The Federal Reserve said in its Dec. 13 policy announcement that the housing marking remained weak. During the first nine months of the current fiscal year, households lost $400 billion in property values, and delinquency rates of more than 90 days and foreclosures increased between the June 30 and Sept.

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Visitors can drill down for charts and analysis on operating and strategic costs of their infrastructures

IBM has introduced new Smarter Computing Workload Simulator, the online tool designed to give busy chief information officers a fast and easy way to view areas of potential savings and efficiency through the lens of IBM Smarter Computing systems and technologies.

IBM has introduced its Smarter Computing approach to information technology for organisations to realise greater efficiencies, improved reliability and better performance and all at lower costs.

With the new simulator, visitors can drill down for charts and analysis on operating and strategic costs of their infrastructures, and the potential costs and savings of the IBM alternative.

Visitors can click on the IBM System Consolidation and Evaluation Tool at the end of the simulation that provides a more comprehensive and detailed comparison.

The simulator gives option to the visitor to select either IBM Power Systems or IBM System z to compare to their own IT infrastructure and then it asks for the type of industry they are in, the type of workload to be compared, and the number and types of systems to compare, including those based on Intel Itanium, Intel x86, and/or Sun SPARC.

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Overheard:

I love your optimism. What I don’t like is the complete lack of experience that’s causing it.

Ideally, a business pitch is exciting because the business potential is exciting. Optimism ought to be a combination of potential market, product-market fit, scalability, defensibility, and management experience. Better yet, early sales, initial growth rates, proof of concept in buyers or users or subscribers or signups or something equally concrete.

Frankly, in a business pitch, I mistrust shows of undue optimism, passion, and resolve. I worry that early-stage entrepreneurs are working towards some mythological promise that they have the will to succeed, as if will alone can make a business successful. I don’t want to invest in passion unless it’s tempered by experience and based on a solid business plan.

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Gas prices are rising again in the Portland Metropolitan area, leaving many people unhappy for the holidays. A decade ago this time of year, the average gas price for a gallon of unleaded gas in Vancouver, Washington was $1.11. This year the price has risen to $3.58 for one gallon of unleaded gasoline.

Many people are claiming this is an outrage because now they have to choose between filling up the car or filling up Christmas stockings. The price of gasoline has risen 223% in 12 years, a price that nobody should be paying for when America has their own oil they can drill from on, many people think.

Most everyone has been affected by this increase in gas prices. Many companies are having to charge more for shipping costs because it is costing more for getting the materials to their locations.

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With the economy in the tank and people who are out of work looking for new career options in a field that WONT vanish into thin air (hopefully), people are wondering if the Green trend will provide new job opportunities in the construction field, for example. The Building Performance Institute develops technical standards for home energy efficiency performance measures that guide in the construction of new homes as well as becoming the standard for retrofitting homes. Because the Institute does not do training directly, affiliated educational establishments provide BPI training so that contractors, re-modelers, etc can build energy efficient dwellings. As a result many are looking into the possibility of receiving this training to set themselves apart from ordinary handy men.

While energy efficiency can revolve around matters of insulation and efficient appliances, some people want to create their own electricity.

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Social media game developer Zynga announced the terms for its initial public offering (IPO) on December 2.

The long-awaited initial public offering plans to issue 100 million shares with a price range of $8.50 to $10.00. If stock options and existing shares are counted, the company has 904 shares outstanding, Reuters reports.

Selling the shares at the bottom of the price range would raise $850 million and provide the company with a valuation of $7.7 billion, whereas pricing the shares at the top of the range would raise $1 billion and provide the company with a value of $9.04 billion.

Zynga was originally planning a larger IPO but decided to downsize its plans in order to avoid following Pandora and Groupon, which both sank after their primary offerings, according to Bloomberg. Read more…