Ask any young child, going to Disney Land is always something that I looked forward to. Whenever it is time for the family to take a trip to California to Disney Land, or to Florida to Disney World I was excited beyond belief. Disneyland’s are now not only popular in the United States but in another big countries like China. With the economy the way it is today, even though it is getting better is it worth all the money and risk to build a theme park like Disney Land.

In Shanghai there is going to be a Disney Land built and the estimated cost will be 24.4 billion yuan. That is 3.6 billion American dollars. To this date, out of three overseas Disneyland’s in the World, only the Tokyo Park has seen any type of profit. Reports have said that this Disney in Shanghai will be the mother of all Disney Lands. In Hong Kong Disney Land is growing. They have reported to have agreed on extending the park by wanting to add three new lands onto the existing four that are already there. Hong Kong Disneyland today has denied that there are plans for even more expansion, but for now that’s not necessary. After many years of worrying about competition, Hong Kong’s Disney Land has been one of the most productive out of all Disney Land’s.

This article has given me the idea that even though something can be a risk, you have to understand the risk and look beyond it. Shanghai will be taking a big risk when they come out with their new theme park, but that is something that they are willing to face and hopefully they will be successful in doing so. Someone that doesn’t take risk in my opinion will never be as successful as they could be. I am a person that is willing to take a risk and I know I will do whatever it takes to be successful in whatever I do.

At General Motors, Loss Reduction Is a Good Start

Today General Motors CEO Fredrick A Fritz is scheduled to give the companies first update since it emerged from bankruptcy in June. Sources close to GM say that they will show much improvement in the third quarter earnings and cash flow. General Motors will show improvements in cash flow because of lower costs and better net pricing on its cars. “GM is stabilizing, but it’s not stabilized”, says longtime industry watcher Joseph Phillippi who is the principal of Auto Trends. Also the company’s earnings and cash flow will be helped in the quarter by the fact that it shut down many plants in June when it was in bankruptcy. On July 10, the new GM emerged and the old GM that consisted of unwanted plants and other assets was split from the company. Vice-Chairman Robert Lutz told reporters in October that GM's cars had an $8,000 increase in net pricing in September. General Motor sales have risen in September and GM's market-share losses have leveled off in recent months to about 20%. To me it seems that General Motors is not giving up and is continuing to make strides to get out of bankruptcy.

Power From Pond Scum

Kevin Berner is a 52 year old CEO and founder of Phycal. He believes that algae is the cure for America’s fossil-fuel addiction. Algae plants are said to be able to produce up to 100 times more oil per acre compared to corn the nation’s favorite biofuel. Berner has loved the idea of algae from 2004 when he stepped down from a three year stint at McKinsey Co and now he turned to renewable fuels. If the algae business blooms Berner won’t have it all to himself. “In the past two years, the number of players developing algal fuels around the world has tripled, to more than 70”, says Harry Boyle, lead biofuels analyst at London-based consultants New Energy Finance. Some of these companies include BP, Exxon Mobile, and Shell. Berner is building a pilot plant using natural algae strains in Hawaii. It's on track to open in 2010 and should deliver biofuel at about $4 per gallon. This is on par with the state's high oil prices.

Buddy, Can You E-Mail Me 100 Bucks?

The article starts off by saying what if you could send money to a friend that you owed money to through a phone rather than going to an ATM or mailing a check. Having something like this would be awesome but to me it sounds a little unrealistic. People in Japan and Europe can already do this. U.S. consumers have embraced online shopping and e banking. Americans will soon be ready to move to person-to-person mobile payments.
To me it still seems that payments done on a mobile phone will be hard to do. “A recent poll by Mercatus, a financial consulting firm, showed that the proportion of people ages 26 to 34 who had used a cell phone to buy goods or pay for a product or service had doubled, to 14%, in the past year.” This could be a reason why banks and different financial companies are trying to add this person-to-person payments on mobile devices. People are on their phones everyday and having a feature like this could be very effective. Companies like PNC Financial, Bank of the West, and the Boeing Employees Credit Union are teaming up to make this happen and this will hopefully be launched in 2010. The one question is how is this going to work? It works by signing up for a service through your bank or another provider. Enter an e-mail address or phone number to send money to anyone you know. Your bank's person-to-person payment system will be included with your regular online banking, and the funds will be debited from your account. At the other end, the recipient may get the cash deposited directly into an account or have it posted to an existing credit card or a prepaid card.

This just shows how lazy people are these days. People are lazy as it is, and having something like this on your phone will allow people to sit around more and not have to make there payments in person. The idea of this is cool though, it just shows how technology is changing the world today.

Last weeks Essay: Dangerous Days for Video Games

Video Games have become a way of life for most teenagers today. When people don’t know what to do with there free time video games is always something they can do to keep them busy. I probably play on average 4-5 hours of video games a week and I would say that is low for most college students. Even with this being said, video games are not being sold as much as they used to and a lot of video game companies like Xbox and Playstation are struggling right now.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare came out last week and this was one of the most anticipated releases for a video game in a long time. Even with this being said, companies like Wal-Mart and Amazon are handing out $20 discount coupons to lure in buyers. “As of October, according to the research firm NPD group, sales were off 12% in the U.S.” Anita Frazier believes this is coming from the economy. Call of Duty coasted the company about 200 million to launch the game and about 40 million to develop says Michael Pachter, a Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst. Predictions say the Call of Duty will still be down money unless Christmas bring a surplus.

Video games are very popular but the companies are still struggling. I think maybe it is because on how expensive it costs to buy them. Most video cost 60 dollars when they are popular and for most college kids that is very expensive. When I am working there will be obstacles that will come my way. If what I am doing isn’t working I will need to try something else to be successful and do whatever it takes to get done what needs to get done. In the case of these video game companies they need to find a way to get sales back to what they were. Decreasing price is a possibility but they are spending a lot to make the game so that may not be the answer.

Lance Armstrong, from cycling to real estate

One of the greatest athletes in this decade is Lance Armstrong. He won the Tour de France a record breaking seven years in a row. He was diagnosed with cancer once in his life and that didn’t stop him from coming back and wining more bicycle races. Lance Armstrong is the type of person that will work as hard as he can to be successful. I am confident that Lance Armstrong will be just as good in Real Estate as he was when he dominated the bicycling field.

After he retired from riding bikes, he now wants to get involved in real estate. He joined agent Bill Stapleton and business manager Bart Knaggs to from CSE realty partners. This company is a privately held real estate investment company that is based in Austin, Texas. Bill Stapleton and Bart Knaggs have been directing more than 20 successful enterprises since 1995 and have recruited a man by the name of Lance Sallis to lead CSE realty with them. This company will also include a former NFL wide receiver Patrick Jeffers of the Denver Broncos. Lance Armstrong is a very smart person and entrepreneur. He was the co founder of the live strong company.

Lance Armstrong is someone that I can look up to. His drive to get over cancer and to get back on the bike to continue to do something that he loves was an awesome thing to see and most people would of given up. He is a leader and a competitor and I would consider my self to be a leader as well. He wants to get involved in real estate so he gets three partners that are smart and that understand what the business world is and what they have to do to be successful. If people in the business world have the mindset that Lance Armstrong has then they will be very successful.

MBA's Confront a Savage Job Market

A student from New York University was smart, had a lot of good internships on his resume, and was president of two clubs at his school. None of this mattered he said when it was time to find a job after school. MBA students today have found themselves facing the worst hiring season of all time. The average number of students without job offers three months after graduation at the top 10 programs was 15%. That number is just 3% points higher than the rest of the top 30. Mark Brostoff thinks that students need to recognize the value of other career paths instead of holding on to their different hopes of working on Wall Street. Recruiters will show up on campus early in the fall to do interviews and hand out sweet deals with bonuses to the candidates they believe deserve to work for them. When the September market collapse happened the campus hiring took a plunge. Last year at UCLA only 7% of students in the top 30 received an offer in the three months following graduation. This year the number was close to 12%. Patricia Baione was a graduate from Columbia Business School and she turned down a great job offer. What she didn’t know when she did this was a year later she will still be looking for a job. Early signs so far this year don’t show that a recovery will happen in incoming jobs. Mark Brostoff believes that the upcoming months will be even worse.

Are Investors Ready for Higher Interest Rates?

Are investors ready for higher interest rates? The U.S. domestic product report that was released on October 29 showed that the economy grew by 3.5% last quarter. Treasury process fell after the release of the GDP figure. The Fed’s open market committee said in a statement “economic conditions are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period.” Jeff Kleintop believes that the Fed could start raising the rates in 2010. His reasoning comes from the fed and how they have pumped trillion of dollars into the financial system. A recovery will push the money into the economy and this he believes will spike inflation. The direction of interest rates can have a big effect on investors. Low rates have benefited the financial sector and this has helped banks to begin recovering from the huge losses during the recession. Interest rate outlook depends on where the economy is headed.