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Featuring course
Design Theory Essentials
In this course we explore the basic elements of Design such as typography, color and spacing. After completing this course you will be able to make good design decisions with confidence and resolve common design problems.
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What you will get from this course
Learn to use all the basic theory and related tools you need to succeed as a Designer.
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Getting Started with ASP.NET
ASP.NET is a new Internet programming technology from Microsoft that applies a more streamlined, object-oriented approach to building dynamic Web applications. With existing Active Server Pages technology, server-side code is intermingled and interspersed with client-side HTML. This often results in large, complex pages of code, where following the logic of the program can be difficult at best, especially if you are new to programming.
In this hour, you will learn more about what ASP.NET has to offer. To be more specific, you will learn
What ASP.NET is
What the system requirements are to implement an ASP.NET application
How to install the ASP.NET Framework on your system
What tools can be used to create ASP.NET applications
How to create an ASP.NET page
How to view the output of your ASP.NET pages
What Is ASP.NET?
In the early days of Internet Web site design and development, technologies were limiting. Static HTML pages served up the necessary information that a person wished to convey to his audience. Because technologies were more limiting back then, it was easier to get away with a site that was not as interactive as it needed to be. Nowadays, however, it is important to learn how to build dynamic, interactive Web sites, especially with the increasing use of multimedia elements such as Flash and Shockwave and the development of e-commerce and e-business sites that require database integration.
To meet this need, Microsoft created a Web-development platform called Active Server Pages, or ASP. ASP was widely used and accepted throughout the industry because most developers could utilize their existing Visual Basic or VBScript skill sets when developing Web applications.
To overcome these problems and many others, Microsoft has introduced ASP.NET—its next-generation Web development environment. If you have experience in programming applications, you will find that the ASP.NET Framework is very similar to building client/server applications. Even if you've never written a line of code in your life, you will find that ASP.NET is a relatively easy programming language to learn.
Is ASP.NET Browser Specific?
ASP.NET is a browser-independent programming model. ASP.NET will run on the latest versions of Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator, as well as on other widely used browsers, such as Opera. Also, ASP.NET applications will gracefully downgrade to older versions of Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. This means that the vast majority of users on the Internet will be able to use your Web applications without you needing to write browser-specific code. This feature takes a great burden off the shoulders of current Web developers, although it is still important to be aware that not all browsers accept Dynamic HTML (DHTML) in the same way. For instance, Netscape Navigator versions 4.0 through 4.75 do not allow text properties, like color and font, on the page to be changed unless the page is reloaded in the browser. Internet Explorer versions 4.0 and higher, on the other hand, do allow text properties to be changed on the page. These inconsistencies, and many others, still need to be considered when writing client-side code.
What Programming Languages Can Be Used with ASP.NET?
The .NET Framework specifies that applications can be written in any programming language that supports the Common Language Runtime (CLR). The Common Language Runtime translates any CLR-compliant application to Microsoft Intermediate Language (IL). This intermediate-level code is then compiled for the platform where it will be executed. This simple process allows you to create an application in one language that can be used on any operating system using CLR. Furthermore, you can take an application that is written in one programming language and use it in an application that is written in a completely different programming language. No longer do you have to learn a completely different programming language whenever a new technology is released.
For the latest version of the .NET Framework, Microsoft is releasing four different languages that can be used to write CLR-specific code. These languages are Visual Basic.NET (also known as VB.NET), C# (pronounced C-sharp), C++.NET, and JScript.NET. Third-party languages are also being developed such as Perl, Smalltalk, and Cobol, with more languages expected to join the list as the technology becomes more prevalent. Here's a brief description of each of these Microsoft languages:
Visual Basic.NET: VB.NET is a relatively easy programming language to learn. It is considered a high-level programming language, which means that its syntax is close to human languages and not similar to machine languages, such as Assembly. Of the programming languages mentioned in this section, VB.NET is probably one of the easiest languages to learn. For this reason, all the code examples in this book will be written in VB.NET.
C#.NET: C# is a simple, modern, object-oriented, type-safe programming language derived from C and C++. C# aims to combine the high productivity of Visual Basic and the raw power of C++. This language is geared toward more accomplished developers who are used to the somewhat-cryptic structure of C++. Beginning developers are advised to start with Visual Basic and then move on to C#.
Visual C++.NET: Visual C++.NET is the next iteration of Microsoft's existing Visual C++ programming language, which is a powerful, object-oriented programming language. Typically, this language is used to create very complex and sophisticated applications.
JScript.NET: JScript is a powerful scripting language targeted specifically at the Internet. It is also the first scripting language to fully conform to ECMAScript—the Web's only standard scripting language. This language is similar in syntax to C# and C++, although it is a little easier to implement.
What Is Needed to Run ASP.NET?
In order to run ASP.NET pages, you will need to configure a computer with the .NET Framework installed. As of this writing, the .NET Framework is supported on Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. However, Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack (SP) 6a or Windows 2000 with SP 2 is strongly recommended. You will also need to install Internet Explorer 5.5 and Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) 2.6 as prerequisites to the .NET Framework. In addition, if you are not running Windows 2000, you must install Internet Information Server (IIS), known as Personal Web Server (PWS) in Win9X and Me. IIS 5.0 could be easily added to Windows 2000 Professional via Add/Remove Windows Components in the Control Panel. Make sure the IIS service has been started.

subset: commoncrawl


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Cardiomyopathy and Congestive Heart Failure Assignment:Mr. P is a 76-year-old male with cardiomyopathy and congestive heart failure who has been hospitalized frequently to treat CHF symptoms.
Case Study: Cardiomyopathy and Congestive Heart failure Approach to Care and Treatment Plan
Mr. P is a 76-year-old male with cardiomyopathy and congestive heart failure who has been hospitalized frequently to treat CHF symptoms. He has difficulty maintaining diet restrictions and managing his polypharmacy. He has 4+ pitting edema, moist crackles throughout lung fields, and labored breathing. He has no family other than his wife, who verbalizes sadness over his declining health and over her inability to get out of the house. She is ovenvhelmed with the stack of medical bills, as Mr. P always took care of the financial issues. Mr. P is despondent and asks why God has not taken him.
Considering Mr. P's condition and circumstance, write an essay of 500-750 words that includes the following:
- Describe your approach to care.
- Recommend a treatment plan.
- Describe a method for providing both the patient and family with education and explain your rationale.
- Provide a teaching plan (avoid using terminology that the patient and family may not understand).
In a short essay (500-750 words), answer the Question at the end of Case Study 2. Cite references to support your positions.
Prepare this assignment according to the APA guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.
This assignment uses a grading rubric. Instructors will be using the rubric to grade the assignment; therefore, students should review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the assignment criteria and expectations for successful completion of the assignment.
Use the following coupon code :


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Place of Origin: | Guangzhou, China |
Brand Name: | xeumior |
Certification: | CE,CCC,FC |
Model Number: | MN500 |
Minimum Order Quantity: | 40 pcs |
Price: | Negotiated |
Packaging Details: | 40 units in a carton box, with each in gift box |
Delivery Time: | 3 - 5 days |
Payment Terms: | L/C, D/A, D/P, T/T, Western Union, MoneyGram,paypal |
Supply Ability: | 10,000pcs per month |
Product: | Barcode Scanner Module | Scanning Speed: | 200 Time/S |
Color: | Black | Interface: | USB, RS232 |
Barcodes: | 1d, 2d, Qr | Operating Current: | Automatic Induction |
Resolution: | 3 Mil | Depth Of Scan: | 10-800mm |
High Light: | desktop barcode scanner,qr code scanner device |
USB RS232 1D CCD 2D Mini Portable Handheld Laser Barcode Scanner Module
* Mini pocket size, easy and convienent to operate
* USB and RS232 interface
* CCD CMOS light source
* Applicate in many auto-id fields
* Factory direct supply
* 100% pre-tested
* Quick delivery
* Perfect after sale service
Performance | |
Light Source | 650nm laser ( safety visible light ) |
Interfaces | RS232 / USB |
Decode Capability | Code 39, Full ASCⅡ,Code bar, Industrial 2 of 5, Interleave 2 of 5, |
Matrix 2 of 5, Code 93, Code 128, Code 32, Standard code 39, | |
EAN 128, MSI, EAN 8&13, UPCA&E, Plessey, Databar14, | |
Symbologies | 1D 2D QR codes |
Precision | ≥ 3mil (0.076mm) |
Depth of Scan field | 10-800mm |
Operation | Automatic induction |
Decode speed | 200times / second |
Decode error rate | less than 1/8 million |
Print contrast signal | ≥ 30° |
Light intensity | Daylight, 4000Lux Max |
Scan Angle | Yaw(Skew) 45°; Pitch 60° |
About us
xeumior company has been manufacturing and trading pos peripherals and electronic products since 2012.
xeumior's purpose is to use quality products and prfossional technical services to exceed
customer expectations, with the persistent hard work to win customer's trust and respect.
I Believe that xeumior is your best partner and look forward to our joint efforts, our common
success is our greatest glory.
Our goal is to provide client the high quality products with competitive price , excellent services .We make a point to stand in your shoes and think like a buyer so we can meet your needs quickly and accurately. Our sales representatives are highly motivated, enthusiastic, energetic, self-reliant professionals who are eager to help our customers with any needs they may have. In addition to answering all kinds of questions, they are passionate about providing our clients with the most recent product information, as well as helping you to decide on choosing products that are best suited to your needs.
Our Service
Xeumior features a one-stop solution that covers a wide range of POS products, where our customers may easily find everything they need including convenient after-sale services. Based on the principle of providing the most satisfaction, cost effectiveness is one of our competitive advantages. Our products are all qualified to the highest standard and have the best durability. You can get every POS product from us,such can avoid high shipping fee generated from multiple orders.
Our Advantage:
1, Our product has warranty time of 1 years
2. We dont have MOQ, our MOQ is 1 set.
3. We provide a whole pos system related products,such you can avoid high shipping fee generated from multiple orders.
4. We provide OEM/ODM.
5, Each pos terminal will be tested at least 24 hrs before ship
Q: Can you make OEM or ODM for products?
A: OEM and ODM products are available for customers, as long as customers meet the MOQ. Also we have engineers for logo and products design for customers.
Q: What about delivery time?
A: Samples within three working days and bulk order within one week after received payment.
Q: What waranty and after-sale service do you offer?
A: 1 year warranty. During warranty period, the damage caused by non-human factor, we will be responsible for the free repair. Overdue warranty period,we will continue to provide services with reasonable price to the customer.
Q: How about the shipping way?
A: There are DHL,FEDEX,TNT,UPS,EMS,air cargo, by sea(we also can ship goods by your shipping account or other agent you proivded)
Handheld Android POS Terminal Barcode Scanner Wireless Bluetooth 4G NFC GPS Reader
4G Android Handheld POS Terminal With Printer WIfi NFC Mobile With Barcode Scanner
Handheld Tablet Android POS Terminal All in One Built in Thermal Printer
Wireless Portable Mobile Smartphone Rugged PDA Android PDF417 2D Barcode Scanner with Display
Auto Sensor Barcode QR Code Scanner Module Embedded Mini Portable Pocket 2D CMOS
Industrial Rugged 1D 2D QR Fixed Mount TCP IP Barcode Scanner for Turnstile Door Lock
Automatic Scanning Portable Micro Mini Pocket Laser 1D CCD Barcode Scanner Module
Waterproof Mini Barcode Scanner Module Kiosk System For Smart Cabinet


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Even companies with just a single non-callable corporate bond outstanding will often have CDS quote spreads that differ from the bond quote spread. During the 2008 crisis, there were dozens of cases where true arbitrages were available.
You could argue these arbitrages were due to forced selling of bond inventory (a funding premium), aversion to bond trading (looks like a liquidity premium) or depression of CDS spreads due to counterparty risk.
If I want to risk model what may happen in another crisis, I would like a model of where such liquidity/funding spreads might go again. To do that, I can look at history, but first I need to separate a price $V$ out into a "true" price $V_T$ plus liquidity and/or funding components $V_L$ and $V_F$.
Has anybody found reasonable definitions and functional forms of these? If you have, what was the influence of recovery rates on their stability?


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Buying a home is probably one of the most significant decisions most people make in their lifetime. As such, having a professional beside you makes this process even better. With a buyer's agent, the gains are much better considering that you will be working with someone that intends to see to it you get what you want. That said, here are some gains that come along with having a buyer's agent represent you when buying your next home.
Full representation
In your quest to buy property, a buyer's agent gives you full support during the buying process. It is within their job description to work for the best interest of the buyer. As such, professional buyer's agent should not be motivated to sell one property over another. Instead, they put your interest over those of the seller.
Excellent knowledge of real estate market trends
A buyer's agent knows much more about the dynamics of the property market that what most buyers know. Being their profession, they spend most of their time looking for hot deals and knows where and how to find the best deals. Moreover, considering that they are normally setting appointments and viewing properties. As such, there is a huge chance that the agent in question has already seen the property beforehand. As such, you stand to benefit from their knowledge and advice before you see the property.
Great negotiation skills
One quality of a good buyer's agent is sound negotiation skills. As such, it is within their job description to submit solid offers to the seller with the sole objective of getting the best deal for their clients. Their ability to negotiate is much-needed by a first time home buyer who might find it challenging negotiating and renegotiating.
No loyalty to sellers or listing agents
The main responsibility of a buyer's agent is to get you the property you want. As such, their uncompromised dedication to helping property buyers goes a long way in ensuring you get the property you want and the best price. When working with a listing agent, their only responsibility is to provide you with the right information. As such, once they do this, their only goal is to strike the deal. With a buyer's agent, you are always represented at any point in the buying process.…


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Many of my middle school students were natural scientists. They loved to explore, invent, build, figure things out and be actively engaged in their learning. While they would tolerate working with a fake scenario ("A space alien has just landed and . . .") they were most engaged when dealing with problems that real scientists and engineers were working on.
Environmental issues were among their favorites; they wanted to make the world a better place.
That's reason enough to be a STEM advocate! Kids need a place where they can get together to learn how to approach and solve problems they care about.
By ANNE JOLLY
Looking beyond the 3 R's, in today's connected world students must become proficient in the 4 C's: Creativity, Critical thinking, Collaboration and Communication. Mindy Curless, a Kentucky STEM initiatives consultant, asserts that "Developing these skills is a natural outcome of a STEM curriculum and perhaps the best reason to engage students in these experiences."
Students in Flux
Few teachers would dispute that students are changing and the world is changing. When I began teaching, I noticed an interesting phenomenon. It seemed that every two or three years my latest batch of 12- and 13-year-old students arrived with a whole new mindset and outlook – a different set of interests and skills and a different way of thinking and reacting.
If I were going to be successful in helping them learn, I had to continually evolve – to change my way of teaching to meet their learning styles and needs.
As I continued teaching into the 21st century, I noticed another odd thing; in our high-tech, fast-paced, and connected world, my students were in a continual state of flux. I had to change faster. I had to develop new teaching skills and beliefs about what constitutes good teaching.
That kind of continual change is a tall order for any middle level teacher, much less a teacher who is called upon to integrate STEM content and techniques into the curriculum. Continual change means ongoing learning to develop new teaching skills and new ideas about what it means to BE a teacher.
10 Essential STEM Teaching Practices
Here are some aptitudes and proficiencies that seem to be valuable for the STEM teachers – or for any middle level teacher who wants to be cutting-edge.
1. Believe in your students. For your sake and the sake of your students, set high expectations for your students, challenge them to succeed, and believe that they will. Most students will perform at the level you expect, so trust them to make informed choices about their engineering challenges, come up with creative solutions, complete complex tasks, and work together smoothly to do so.
2. Transfer control of the learning process to the students.Develop new roles and rules that stress student responsibility. Check out this article for ideas on how to accomplish this. Then guide from the sidelines while keeping students on target with their direction and purpose. Aim at helping them become self-sufficient learners.
3. Foster curiosity. Learn the art of asking open-ended questions with plenty of possible answers. Pose problems rather than answers and send students on a search for solutions. Use discrepant events to intrigue students and draw them into the problem. This article suggests six strategies for piquing curiosity so that students engage in using critical thinking skills to solve problems.
4. Provide hands-on, experiential learning. Don't be the old-fashioned sage on the stage if you want to stimulate 21stcentury learning. Learning through reflection and doing is compelling. When your students have their imagination piqued, give them opportunities to actually investigate multiple possible solutions to a problem, or to solve a mystery. Provide materials that teams of students can explore and manipulate.
5. Increase collaboration among students. Get comfortable with teamwork. Actively teach teamwork skills and work with students to heighten awareness of their team behaviors and ways of interacting in the class. Here is a link to a student teamwork guide that you may find useful. Feel free to download and use it.
6. Accept failure – both yours and the students – as a necessary part of learning and growing. That is, accept failure that accompanies taking a risk and experimenting, knowing that they might not get it right. Everyone in the classroom should feel safe in taking risks. I tell students that we learn more from what we do wrong than from what we do right, and engineers learn from their mistakes. In fact, failure is a necessary part of learning. If you aren't comfortable with this idea, you might check out this online commentary.
7. Be an inspiring leader and role model for your students. Be positive and enthusiastic about what students are learning and how they are learning it. Be passionate in your teaching and your love of your subject area.
8. Accept some drawbacks. STEM education will improve student engagement, critical thinking skills, and workforce skills. But it may also play havoc with the lesson plan you wrote and make it more difficult to cover content benchmarks in a step-wise process. In the STEM classroom, you'll need to be flexible and ready to make some quick shifts in your thinking. You may also need to be willing to deviate from your lesson plan, depending on the direction the students' investigations and decisions take them.
9. Evolve and grow as a learner. One of the most important things you can do, as a STEM teacher, is to pay attention to the art of teaching. Develop your skills in facilitating (as opposed to dictating) so that students focus on learning how to think like engineers. Embrace digital tools and technology in the classroom with help from your students. (They will enjoy being in the role of teaching you!)
10. Learn in community. Work with your colleagues to study effective ways of teaching STEM lessons. Research shows that as you work with other teachers in Professional Learning Communities you can expect the following results:
• You will increase your engagement with STEM content and how to teach it.
• You will learn more STEM content.
• You will feel better prepared to teach STEM content.
• You will enhance your inquiry-oriented teaching methods.
• You will pay more attention to students' reasoning and understanding.
Teaching STEM in the fabulous middle grades is an adventure trip with a great destination. I must say that I envy my colleagues who are just beginning to make that journey!
Discover more robotics tools for your classroom!
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This article is original from MiddleWeb: https://www.middleweb.com/6624/10-stem-teaching-practices/


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Don't forget the three favorites paintings have not been raffled off just yet. The winners for those three paintings will be drawn at the American Federation of Aviculture Convention August 15-18, 2012. The top three still available are as follows:
1. Blue-throated macaw
2. African grey
3. Moluccan cockatoo
You can buy your tickets on line at Chirping Central or in person at the AFA conference in San Antonio. Good luck and thank you for supporting a great conservation project! Here is a final peek at the last three paintings.
Blue Throated Macaw |
African Grey Parrot |
Moluccan Cockatoo |
Peach-faced lovebird: Kim Witalis
Rose breasted cockatoo: Paula Rossow
Caique: Tina Arnsten
Scarlet macaw: Pamela Price
Senegal parrot: Juli Sands
Sulphur-crested cockatoo: Jamie Whittaker
Female Eclectus: Rebecca Ross
Sun conure: Christine Haskell
Quaker: Amanda Wilcox
Male Eclectus: Lisa Johnson
Blue-fronted Amazon: Kathleen Koestler
Green-winged macaw: Bill Christian
Barbara Heidenreich


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Tag: ta cloning vector
Serum exosome-derived biomarkers for the early detection of oral squamous cell carcinoma
Blood exosomes assist regulate communication between tumour cells, moderating their behaviour. We sought to find out the protein content material in serum exosomes (SEs), to characterise SEs, and to find novel scientific biomarkers of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) of OSCC had been recognized utilizing proteomics after which analysed utilizing bioinformatics,…
Read More


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The objective of the Association is to advance and improve the teaching of the Turkic languages; to promote study, criticism, and research in the field of the Turkic languages and literatures; and to further the common interests of teachers of these subjects.
According to the Association's Constitution, AATT is managed by a five-member Executive Board elected by the membership. The President, the Executive Secretary, and the Treasurer are appointed positions, officers are elected to three-year terms. All serve without compensation.
The Association publishes a bi-annual newsletter. The Association also issues reports on completed projects. The annual meeting of the Association is held each November in conjunction with the Middle East Studies Association conference. Since 2004, the Association hosts a very successful graduate student pre-conference prior to the CESS and/or MESA conference. An AATT-listserv informs members of the latest news including open positions in the field, and study and scholarship opportunities.
Based on priorities established by the membership, AATT has worked on developing proficiency guidelines for Turkish, a language learning framework for the teaching of Turkish in American academic institutions and is currently actively promoting use of instructional technology and the Internet to improve the teaching and learning of the Turkic languages.
The American Association of Teachers of Turkic Languages (AATT), founded in 1985 as the American Association of Teachers of Turkish, is a private, non-profit, non-political organization of individuals interested in the languages and literatures of the Turks.
In 1993, the members voted to expand and include all languages of the Turks.


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In the middle of the night, Sam is woken by angry voices from the apartment above.
He goes to the window to see what's happening – only to hear a struggle, and see a body fallfrom the sixth-floor balcony. Pushed, Sam thinks.
Sam goes to wake his father, Harry, a crime reporter, but Harry is gone. And when Sam goes downstairs, the body is gone, too. But someone has seen Sam, and knows what he's witnessed.
The next twenty-four hours could be his last.


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Not even a year since it happened the first time, Matt Smith will again grace the front part of Entertainment Weekly in not one, but TWO variant covers. One depicts Smith and new companion Jenna-Louise Coleman with a Dalek and the TARDIS looking in the background; the other has Smith and a newer-style Cyberman doing some sort of tandem limbo dance.
The issue is a celebration of 50 years of Doctor Who and apparently has scoops on the new half-series as well. Maybe something about the anniversary special? Who's to say? Well, us when we read it. That issue hits shelves on Friday, March the 22nd.
And, as we're sure everyone knows at this point, the mid-series premiere is Saturday, March 30th at 8pm E/P followed by Orphan Black and The Nerdist.


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THE ARA 2 PLUG & PLAY (IN STOCK). A luxurious audio system with two high quality speakers and a waterproof remote to enhance your total spa experience. Our Bluetooth system is compatible with a range of media devices.
2000mm X 1300mm X 750MM. UK Plug & Play; simply connect to your plug socket and away you go!
Great hot tub choice for a couple; perfect for the tight space. We have four options to choose from.
Please note deposits are non-refundable. Please take the time to read this information carefully, as it will provide you with the information you will need to ensure the safe, secure, and timely installation of your new spa. Remember to carefully read the Owner's Manual that accompanies your spa. Before signing for any delivered items, please make sure that you have inspected the packaging for damage and if necessary take photographs.
We cannot be held responsible for any claims made for damaged items once the goods delivered have been signed for. Luso Spas will send a two-man team and ask that at least one fit able-bodied people be on site to assist with moving the tub into position. Positioning and installation - ASK FOR QUOTE. No cable is provided with the hot tub.
You will also get a basic guide of the hot tub. Positioning, installation and commission - ASK FOR QUOTE. They will also sanitise your spa. They will do a full check of the hot tub before leaving for peace of mind.
This covers the use of paperwork. This is a'Spa Dolly'.
Used when positioning your hot tub. When the tub is being lifted the responsibility for safety and any damage which occurs to the tub or property is the responsibility of the crane or lift operator. Site selection and preparation are your responsibility.
This will incur an extra charge. Also, any cabling from existing hot tubs must be as per Luso spas specifications. If we are not informed that we will have to move a tub, or that incorrect cable is in place, remedying this will incur extra costs.
Location of hot tub Whether you've chosen to have your Hot Tub indoors or outdoors, on a patio or on a deck just make sure you check the following. Always put your spa on a structurally sound, level surface. A filled spa can weigh a great deal.
Make certain that the location you choose can support the weight of your filled spa. Locate your equipment compartment, which houses all the electrical components, in a place where water will drain away from it. Allowing water into the equipment compartment can damage the electronics or may result in tripping your house's circuit breaker or RCD. Leave yourself easy access to all circuit breakers and RCD's.
Leave access to at least the entire front of the spa (the removable panels provide access to the spa's equipment) for periodic spa care and maintenance. Outdoor and Patio Installation No matter where you install your new spa, it's important that you have a solid foundation to support it. If you install the spa outdoors, a reinforced concrete pad at least four inches thick is recommended for your Hot Tub. If you place the spa on the ground, even temporarily, place stepping stones under the levelling areas.
The stones should be at least two inches thick and twelve inches square. Even with stones in place, the spa will inevitably settle and become unlevel. Plus, a spa surrounded by dirt or grass will soon be filled with dirt or grass from user's feet; therefore, it is important to get it onto a solid foundation as soon as possible. Luso Spas will not fully install a Spa on a substandard temporary surface. To be certain your deck can support your spa, you must know the deck's maximum load capacity. Consult a qualified building contractor or structural engineer before you place the spa on an elevated deck or indoors. This weight per square foot must not exceed the structure's rated capacity, or serious structural damage could result. If you intend install a tub and surround it with decking, please bear in mind that you will need to install access panels to allow access to the sides of the tub for maintenance and any remedial repairs that may be required in years to come. These access panels should be large enough to allow an engineer access to the side panels of the tub and should allow enough room for the engineer to remove the screws in the side panel. This is also the requirement for tubs that are sunken into a pit or are indoors. BUILD YOUR BASE, PUT YOUR TUB ON THE BASE, THEN BUILD DECKING AROUND IT AS LOWERING A TUB INTO A HOLE THAT IS ONLY JUST BIG ENOUGH FOR THE TUB TO GO INTO IS VERY DIFFICULT, REQUIRES AT LEAST 8 PEOPLE OR A CRANE AND COULD DAMAGE YOUR NEW DECKING. IF YOU HAVE ANY ACCESS QUERIES GET IN TOUCH.First, obtain the dimensions of the hot tub you have ordered from us. You will need to consider the Spa will be delivered on its side on a special hot tub trolley system. The minimum width of a pathway that is needed is 1.1Metres to enable us to deliver a tub on its side without damage to either the property or to the tub. Height can also be an issue, 350mm must be added to the longest dimension. If your hot tub is 2,100mm x 2,100mm, when it is on its side on the trolley it may stand 2,450mm high.
Any obstructions will have to be removed to allow access Also, you must consider that the trolley is not flexible and will need a wide turning area to negotiate any corners. Steps can also be an issue as hot tubs are heavy bulky items that can be very difficult to transport up steps. Extra assistance by several fit, able bodied people will be needed in the event of needing to get a hot tub up several steps. Be aware of some special requirements if you place your spa indoors.
Water will accumulate around the spa, so flooring materials must provide a good grip when wet. Proper drainage is essential to prevent a build-up of water around the spa. When building a new room for the spa, it is recommended that a floor drain be installed. The humidity will naturally increase with the spa installed.
Water may get into woodwork and produce dry-rot, mildew, or other problems. Check for airborne moisture's effects on exposed wood, paper, etc. To minimise these effects, it is best to provide plenty of ventilation to the spa area.
An architect can help to determine if more ventilation must be installed. Electrical Information Any electrical supply for a hot tub outdoors should be installed by a competent, certified electrician. All works must be certificated to part P of the building regs. Electrical installation work should always conform to BS:7671 17th edition of the wiring regulations Electrical requirements.Most, if not all domestic Hot Tubs are designed for single phase 230v ac operation We will tell you the total load the Hot Tub will draw at full operation. Your certified electrician will then be able to work out what size of cabling is required. Even the smallest Hot Tub would usually require at least a 16-amp supply. Bigger Hot Tubs with 3 pumps or more generally require a 32-amp supply but this is a guide only. ALL outside electrical supplies must have mechanical protection, this is either in the form of steel wire armoured cable (SWA) or suitable conduit.
The Hot Tub MUST have its own dedicated circuit with correct size fuse breaker and RCD protection. See tub specifics for further details. A rotary isolator switch not closer to the Hot Tub than 2 metres is required so that the Hot Tub can be isolated from the main supply quickly and efficiently We generally ask for a coil of cable to be left immediately next to the Hot Tub base so that we have enough to wire it in whichever final position the customer chooses. Luso Spas specific requirements for circuit breakers.
Almost all Luso Spas hot tubs require a 32 Amp RCD protected circuit breaker fitted to your consumer unit. From the consumer unit you should have suitable armoured cable or cable protected by a suitable conduit to a suitable waterproof outdoor isolator switch 2 or 3 metres from the tub. Please consult your electrician for cable thicknesses. From the isolator switch there needs to be enough cable left to reach the furthest away corner of hot tub so that our engineer can connect the tub to the electrical supply. If you are siting one of the 13Amp tubs outside then you will require an ip65 waterproof socket and you will still need to supply either armoured cable or a protective metal conduit for the cable to be protected from garden tools, animals etc. This item is brand new, not reconditioned and images shown above are of the actual item. Examples include, but are not limited to; Damage of surface due to leaving the spa uncovered or due to covering the spa with something other than lusospas Hot Tubs authorized cover, Damage to the surface due to contact with unapproved cleaners or solvents, Damages caused by operation of water temperature outside of the approved 34F - 104F levels, Damage caused by unapproved sanitizers such as calcium hypochlorite, sodium hypochlorite, "tri-chlor"type chlorine or sanitizing chemical that remain undisclosed on the spa surface, Damage due to dirty, clogged or calcified filter cartridge, Damage caused by failure to provide an even, sufficient support of spa, low water level. PLEASE NOTE THAT LOW WATER LEVEL OR BLOCKED FILTERS ARE THE TWO MAIN CAUSES OF ISSUES WITH HOT TUBS.EITHER OF THESE CAN CAUSE THE SYSTEM TO RUN DRY AND RISK BURNING OUT THE HEATER. We advise that the fitting of any spare part, electrical or plumbing specific, be done by a trained engineer.
We cannot accept any liability regarding the installation of spare parts. Dimensions: 1700mm x 2100mm x 800mm. Colours Available: Black Shell/Grey Skirt Or White Shell/Grey Skirt. Thank You For The Opportunity To Serve You!


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17 Best Real Estate Side Hustles to Build Wealth and Cash Flow
9 min readReal estate is one of the most popular side hustles. Whether you're looking for some extra monthly cash flow or to build long-term wealth, there's a real estate side hustle to help you make it happen.
In fact, it's one of the most common routes to escape the rat race early.
That's exactly what my friend Chad Carson did, thanks to his portfolio of rental properties. Chad built up his empire over the course of several years, capturing cash flow, appreciation, and tax benefits along the way.
And here's some good news: you don't need a huge down payment to get started.
In this post, we'll cover some of the best real estate side hustles you can get started with — even if you don't have a ton of cash today.
1. House Hacking
One of Chad's first real estate side hustles was house hacking. He bought a run-down 4-plex, lived in one unit, and rented out the other three.
That's how house hacking works: buy a place that's larger than you need, and rent out the excess space. "Typically you're going to sacrifice comfortability with profitability," house hacking pro Craig Curelop told me.
He described a few examples, including:
- Buying a duplex, living in one unit and renting out the other unit either on Airbnb or as a long-term rental.
- Buying a 5-bedroom house, living in one room and renting out the other 4 individually.
This seems most doable for younger professionals and couples who don't need as much space, and can be a way to save big on housing.
2. Pre-Vetted Commercial Real Estate
Fundrise allows you to invest in a portfolio of commercial properties all around the country. I've been a Fundrise investor for years and they've consistently paid quarterly dividends in the 5-10% yield range.
Plus, you can get started with as little as $10.
3. Live-In Flips
The government wants people to move into homes that need some work and fix them up—and they give you a pretty big tax incentive to do so.
To do a live-in flip you need to live in the home for at least 2 of 5 years. When you sell the home, there is zero capital gains tax.
Some basic math to illustrate this would be:
- Buy a home that needs work for $200k in a neighborhood with an average price of $300k.
- Slowly renovate over the 2-5 years, perhaps investing $30-40k in repairs.
- Sell the house for $300k.
- $300k – $200k – $30-40k = $60-70k net profit, tax free.
You might not want to do this long-term, but you can build up a nice tax-free nest-egg of $250-500k or more over an 8-10 year period.
If you want to find the best deals on houses to live-in flip, Chad recommended looking off-market.
He has found some great deals just walking the neighborhood and spotting vacant houses. Talk to neighbors to find out who owns the house and how you can contact them. Drop some hand-written notes out and you'll be surprised what you start to find out.
4. BRRRR: Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat
The popular BRRRR real estate side hustle works like this:
- Buy a fixer-upper property
- Rehab it
- Rent it out
- Refinance it for the new market value
- Repeat: Use the cash from the refinance to buy the next property
I liked Austin Miller's creative approach to building his rental portfolio this way, which was up to 17 properties worth $1.2 million when we spoke.
The kicker? They were all acquired "free"—without any of his own money.
5. Bird Dogging
Bird-dogging is how Chad got his start into real estate.
The term "bird-dogging" is a hunting term that refers to the dogs that sniff out where the birds are hiding in the bushes.
In real estate, it means sniffing out a good deal on behalf of an investor. The big advantage is that there are no costs or risks involved from your side, and it's a great way to learn how to find good investment properties.
It also helps you understand the market better and how to find a good deal, so when you have enough to invest in a property yourself you'll be able to find a great deal.
In Chad's case, he was earning $2,000 every time he found one of his investors a deal.
To find investors, join real estate investing meet-ups in your area, or just pitch the idea to people with money to invest. If you can show them how they'll make a good return on their investment, they'll be willing to work with you.
Note: You need a real estate license to this legally.
Chad advised the easiest way to go about it is to sign up with a referral agent brokerage for around $100/year. The agency will take a percentage of your earnings but provides you some protection in contracts and is a low cost way to get started.
6. "Turnkey" Rental Properties
Rental real estate is a great side hustle that can earn relatively passive cash flow month after month.
If your local market is too expensive, take a look at Roofstock, a cool online marketplace built for out-of-state-investors. Many houses listed already have tenants and property management in place.
My friend Dustin Heiner built up his rental portfolio and was able to retire before 40 on the passive income cash flow.
7. Buy Part of a Farm
Accredited investors can buy stakes in America's farmland with AcreTrader, starting with $5000 minimums. Since 1990, farmland investments have seen an 11.5% annualized return (according to the site).
AcreTrader crowdfunds the purchase of active farmland, and then rents it back to the farmers who operate it. Investors make money in two ways:
- appreciation of the land in the event of a future sale
- annual cash rent payments from farmers
The company aims for annualized cash distributions in the 3-5% range.
8. Master Leasing
Master leasing is sub-leasing out a property. This real estate side hustle works best if you can find a vacant property that needs a little work. That way you can negotiate a win-win partnership with the owner.
For example, you might find a property to lease for $1k a month, then sub-lease it out for $1,500 a month.
There are some benefits to both sides of the master lease partnership. On your side:
- Much lower upfront costs than investing in a property.
- Not a huge time investment.
- You can scale this up as a business model.
- You're not responsible for tax and insurance.
And for the property owner:
- Guaranteed rental income.
- No hassle managing the tenants.
- Some property improvements depending on the agreement you reach.
9. Rental Arbitrage
Similar to master leasing, rental arbitrage gives you a chance to make money from real estate you don't even own.
How it works is you sign a long-term lease on a property, and (with the landlord's consent) turn around and list it as a short-term rental on Airbnb or other platforms. You profit on the spread between whatever you can collect in short-term rental fees and your fixed monthly rent.
For example, maybe your monthly rent is $2,500, but you can earn $200 a night on Airbnb. If you rent it out 20 nights a month, you'll be brining in $4,000 a month in revenue, and roughly $1,500 a month in gross profit.
There's an art and a science to rental arbitrage, and it's controversial in tight rental markets. Still, some enterprising Airbnb hosts report bringing in 6-figures in profit — all while traveling the world.
While startup costs are pretty low here, furnishing the property is one upfront expense to consider.
10. Leasing Agent
Working as a leasing agent is a great way to learn how the rental market works and make some cash at the same time.
Finding and screening tenants is a huge time drain for landlords and property managers. Leasing agents solve that pain and often earn a half to a full month's rent as a finder's fee.
How it works is you find tenants for a property, show them around, help them fill out all the necessary paperwork and take the applications to the landlord.
Leasing agents are more popular in larger cities, but you could potentially negotiate a deal wherever you live.
You'll need a property manager license or a regular real estate license. Check the laws in your state, but you can typically expect to pay $400-500 and take a week or two of classes to learn the basics.
Chad explained, "You're learning how to do one of the more important parts of the rental business on someone else's dime."
As a starting point, try contacting property managers and offer to work for them as a leasing agent as an independent contractor.
You're probably familiar with Airbnb and similar sites, where you can turn the extra space in your home into extra cash.
But if you don't want to deal with guests at all, the Neighbor platform might be worth a look. Neighbor lets you store people's extra stuff where you have space for it.
This is likely to be very passive monthly income after the initial drop off. Some hosts are earning up to $10,000 a year running their own mini self-storage operations.
Check out our full Neighbor review to learn more.
12. Raw Land Flipping
Almost every seasoned landlord will have a horror story about tenants, toilets, or termites. One real estate side hustle that avoids all those problems is raw land flipping.
How this one works is you:
- Find distressed land owners, often through country records and direct mail.
- Make them a cash offer for their property.
- Re-sell the land for a quick cash flip or low monthly installments.
I connected with one Side Hustle Show guest who built his land flipping business to $10k a month in his first year.
13. Wholesaling
Real estate wholesaling involves:
- Finding distressed properties and motivated sellers.
- Getting them under contract.
- Quickly selling them to other investors.
You don't need much capital upfront, just a lot of legwork to find deals and network with potential buyers.
14. Short-Term Real Estate Loans
Help fund real estate rehab projects through short-term loans on sites like Groundfloor. These notes typically range from 3-12 months and earn 6-10% interest.
The minimum amount per loan is just $10 so you can easily spread your investments around to diversify, and Groundfloor has an easy-to-use interface that lets you shop for these investments.
If things go south, you've got the property as collateral so you can typically recover your principal.
15. Traditional REITs
Publicly-traded real estate investment trusts (REITs) are perhaps the most passive real estate side hustle. You can buy shares through any brokerage, including fan-favorite M1 Finance.
16. Mobile Notary Service
Mobile Notary loan signing agents can make around $100 an hour for completing loan signings for new home buyers. It's a great real estate side hustle because most signings take place in the evenings. (Banks like to lend money to people who have jobs!)
To learn more, check out some of the resources at Loan Signing System to learn more. (Use promo code sidehustle for 10% off, or check out this review featuring a couple Loan Signing System students.)
Once you know what you're doing and are on board with a few signing services, you'll start to get text message notifications of gigs near you. With each one, you can choose to accept or reject it based on your availability.
17. Mobile Home Investing
Mobile homes are a compelling real estate niche because you typically have much lower initial investments that traditional single family homes.
My friend Rachel Hernandez made her first mobile home purchase for $3,600 and re-sold it for $10,000 on a lease-to-own contract. These days, she earns around $10,000 a month from her mobile home investments.
Which Real Estate Side Hustles Are Best?
In choosing the real estate investments that are best for you, you need to take into account:
- the time you have available
- your existing handyman skills (or lack thereof!)
- your available capital
For me, I've concentrated my efforts so far on online and traditional REITs and short-term real estate loans. What about you? Let me know in the comments below!


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Congress looked serious about finance reform – until America's biggest banks unleashed an army of 2,000 paid lobbyists
This article originally appeared in RS 1106 from June 10, 2010.
(Rolling Stone Magazine) — It's early May in Washington, and something very weird is in the air. As Chris Dodd, Harry Reid and the rest of the compulsive dealmakers in the Senate barrel toward the finish line of the Restoring American Financial Stability Act – the massive, year-in-the-making effort to clean up the Wall Street crime swamp – word starts to spread on Capitol Hill that somebody forgot to kill the important reforms in the bill. As of the first week in May, the legislation still contains aggressive measures that could cost once-indomitable behemoths like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase tens of billions of dollars. Somehow, the bill has escaped the usual Senate-whorehouse orgy of mutual back-scratching, fine-print compromises and freeway-wide loopholes that screw any chance of meaningful change.
The real shocker is a thing known among Senate insiders as "716." This section of an amendment would force America's banking giants to either forgo their access to the public teat they receive through the Federal Reserve's discount window, or give up the insanely risky, casino-style bets they've been making on derivatives. That means no more pawning off predatory interest-rate swaps on suckers in Greece, no more gathering balls of subprime shit into incomprehensible debt deals, no more getting idiot bookies like AIG to wrap the crappy mortgages in phony insurance. In short, 716 would take a chain saw to one of Wall Street's most lucrative profit centers: Five of America's biggest banks (Goldman, JP Morgan, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup) raked in some $30 billion in over-the-counter derivatives last year. By some estimates, more than half of JP Morgan's trading revenue between 2006 and 2008 came from such derivatives. If 716 goes through, it would be a veritable Hiroshima to the era of greed.
"When I first heard about 716, I thought, 'This is never gonna fly,'" says Adam White, a derivatives expert who has been among the most vocal advocates for reform. When I speak to him early in May, he sounds slightly befuddled, like he can't believe his good fortune. "It's funny," he says. "We keep waiting for the watering-down to take place – but we keep getting to the next hurdle, and it's still staying strong."
In the weeks leading up to the vote on the reform bill, I hear one variation or another on this same theme from Senate insiders: that the usual process of chipping away at key legislation is not taking place with its customary dispatch, despite a full-court press by Wall Street. The financial-services industry has reportedly flooded the Capitol with more than 2,000 paid lobbyists; even veteran members are stunned by the intensity of the blitz. "They're trying everything," says Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio. Wall Street's army is especially imposing given that the main (really, the only) progressive coalition working the other side of the aisle, Americans for Financial Reform, has been in existence less than a year – and has just 60 unpaid "volunteer" lobbyists working the Senate halls.
The companies with the most at stake are particularly well-connected. The lobbying campaign for Goldman Sachs, for instance, is being headed up by a former top staffer for Rep. Barney Frank, Michael Paese, who is coordinating some 14 different lobbying firms to fight on Goldman's behalf. The bank is also represented by Capitol Hill heavyweights like former House majority leader Dick Gephardt and former Reagan chief of staff Ken Duberstein. All told, there are at least 40 ex-staffers of the Senate Banking Committee – and even one former senator, Trent Lott – lobbying on behalf of Wall Street. Until the final weeks of the reform debate, however, it seemed that all these insiders were facing the prospect of a rare defeat – and they weren't pleased. One lobbyist even complained to The Washington Post that the bill was being debated out in the open, on the Senate floor, instead of in a smoky backroom. "They've got to get this thing off the floor and into a reasonable, behind-the-scenes" discussion, he groused. "Let's have a few wise fathers sit around the table in some quiet room" to work it out.
As it neared the finish line, the Restoring American Financial Stability Act was almost unprecedentedly broad in scope, in some ways surpassing even the health care bill in size and societal impact. It would rein in $600 trillion in derivatives, create a giant new federal agency to protect financial consumers, open up the books of the Federal Reserve for the first time in history and perhaps even break up the so-called "Too Big to Fail" giants on Wall Street. The recent history of the U.S. Congress suggests that it was almost a given that they would fuck up this one real shot at slaying the dragon of corruption that has been slowly devouring not just our economy but our whole way of life over the past 20 years. Yet with just weeks left in the nearly year-long process at hammering out this huge new law, the bad guys were still on the run. Even the senators themselves seemed surprised at what assholes they weren't being. This new baby of theirs, finance reform, was going to be that one rare kid who made it out of the filth and the crime of the hood for everybody to be proud of.
Then reality set in.
Picture the Restoring American Financial Stability Act as a vast conflict being fought on multiple fronts, with the tiny but enormously influential Wall Street lobby on one side and pretty much everyone else on the planet on the other. To be precise, think World War II – with some battles won by long marches and brutal campaigns of attrition, others by blitzkrieg attacks, still more decided by espionage and clandestine movements. Time after time, at the last moment, the Wall Street axis has turned seemingly lost positions into surprise victories or, at worst, bitterly fought stalemates. The only way to accurately convey the scale of Wall Street's ingenious comeback is to sketch out all the crazy, last-minute shifts on each of the war's four major fronts.
The most successful of the reform gambits was probably the audit-the-Fed movement led by Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont. For nearly a century, the Federal Reserve has been, within our borders, a nation unto itself – with vast powers to shape the economy and no real limits to its authority beyond the president's ability to appoint its chairman. In the bubble era it has been transformed into a kind of automatic bailout mechanism, helping Wall Street drink itself sober by flooding big banks with cheap money after the collapse of each speculative boom. But suddenly, with both the Huffington Post crowd and the Tea Party raising their pitchforks in outrage, Sanders managed to pass – by a vote of 96-0 – an amendment to force the Fed to open its books to congressional scrutiny.
If Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke don't take that 96-0 vote as a kick-to-the-groin testament to the staggering unpopularity of the Fed, they should. When 96 senators agree on something, they're usually affirming their devotion to the flag or commemorating the death of Mother Teresa. But as it turns out, the more than $2 trillion in loans that the Fed handed out in secret after the 2008 meltdown is something that both the left and the right have no problem banding together to piss on. One of the most bizarre alliances of the bailout era took place when Sanders, a democratic socialist, and Sen. Jim DeMint, a hardcore conservative from South Carolina, went on the CNBC show hosted by crazy supply-sider Larry Kudlow – and all three found themselves in complete agreement on the need to force Fed loans into the open. "People who come from very different places agree that it ought not to be done in secret, that the Fed isn't Skull and Bones," says Michael Briggs, an aide to Sanders.
The Sanders amendment, if it survives in conference, will lead to some delicious disclosures. Almost exactly a year ago, Sanders questioned Bernanke at a Senate-budget hearing, asking him to name the banks that had been bailed out by the Fed. "Will you tell the American people to whom you lent 2.2 trillion of their dollars?" Sanders demanded.
After a little hemming and hawing, a bored-looking Bernanke – Time magazine's 2009 Person of the Year, by the way – bluntly said, "No." It would be "counterproductive," he explained, if clients and investors learned that these poor banks were broke enough to need a public handout.
Bernanke's performance that day so rankled Sanders that he wrote up his amendment specifically to bring the Fed's goblin-in-chief to heel. The new law will force Bernanke to post the identity of loan recipients on the Fed's website for all to see. It also mandates that the Government Accountability Office investigate potential conflicts of interest that took place during the bailout, such as the presence of Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein in the room during the negotiations of the AIG bailout, which led to Goldman's receiving $13 billion of public money via the rescue.
The Sanders amendment was perhaps the headline victory to date in the ongoing War for Finance Reform, but even this battle entailed some heavy casualties. Sanders had originally filed an amendment that was much closer to a House version pressed by libertarian hero Ron Paul, one that would have permanently opened the Fed's books to Congress. But as the Senate crawled closer to a vote, the Sanders camp began to hear that the Obama administration opposed the bill, fearing it would give Congress too much day-to-day involvement in Fed policy. "The White House was saying how wonderful transparency is, but they still had 'concerns,' "Briggs says. "Within a couple hours, those concerns were being worked out."
The end result was a deal that restricted the audit to a one-time shot: Congress could only examine Fed loans made after December 2007. Once the audit was complete, the Fed's books would once again be sealed forever from public scrutiny. Sen. David Vitter, a Democrat from Louisiana, countered with an amendment to permanently open up the Fed's books, but it was shot down by a vote of 62-37. In one of the most absurd and indefensible retreats of the war, a decisive majority of senators voted to deny themselves the power to audit the Federal Reserve on behalf of the American people. When it comes to protecting the world's wealthiest banks from public scrutiny, it turns out, Democrats and Republicans have no trouble achieving bipartisanship.
The biggest no-brainer of finance reform was supposed to be the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The idea was simple: create a federal agency whose sole mission would be to make sure that financial lenders don't rape their customers with defective products, unjust fees and other fine-print nightmares familiar to any American with a credit card. In theory, the CFPB would rein in predatory lending by barring lenders from making loans they know that borrowers won't be able to pay back, either because of hidden fees or ballooning payments.
Wall Street knew it would be impossible to lobby Congress on this issue by taking the angle of "We're a rapacious megabank that would like to keep skull-fucking to death our customers using incomprehensible and predatory loans." So it came up with another strategy – one that deployed some of the most inspired nonsense ever seen on the Hill. The all-powerful lobbying arm of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has been fierce in its representation of Wall Street's interests throughout the War for Finance Reform, cued up a $3 million ad campaign implying that the CFPB, instead of targeting asshole bankers in flashy suits and hair gel, would – and this isn't a joke – target your local butcher, making it hard for him to lend you the money to buy meat. That's right: The ads featured shots of a squat butcher with his arms folded, standing in front of a big pile of meat. "The economy has made it tough on this local butcher's customers," the ad reads. "So he lets some of them run a tab and pay the bill over time to make ends meet. But now Washington wants to make it tougher on everyone." After insisting – falsely – that this kindly butcher would be subject to the new consumer protection bureau, the ad warns that the CFPB "would also have the ability to collect information about his customers' financial accounts and take away many of their financial choices."
Sitting in the Senate chamber one afternoon not long before the vote, I even heard Sen. Mike Enzi, an impressively shameless Republican from Wyoming, insist that the CFPB would mean that "anyone who has ever paid for dental care in installments could be facing the prospect of paying for dental care upfront." Other anti-reform ads claimed that everyone from cabinetmakers to electricians would be hounded by the new agency – even though the CFPB's mandate explicitly excludes merchants who are "not engaged significantly in offering or providing consumer financial products or services."
The CFPB was always a pretty good bet to pass in some form. Just as pushing through anything that could plausibly be called "health care reform" was a political priority for the Obama administration, creating a new agency with the words "consumer protection" in the title was destined from the start to be the signature effort of the finance bill, which is otherwise mostly a mishmash of highly technical new regulations. But that didn't stop leading Democrats from doing what they could to chisel away at the thing. Throughout the process, Chris Dodd, the influential chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, has set new standards for reptilian disingenuousness – playing the role of stern banker-buster while taking millions in Wall Street contributions. Dodd worked overtime trying to craft a "bipartisan" bill with the Republican minority – in particular with Sen. Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the committee. With his dyed hair, porcine trunk and fleshy, powdery-white face, Shelby recalls an elderly sumo wrestler in drag. I happened to be in the Senate on the day that Shelby proposed a substitute amendment that would have stuffed the CFPB into the FDIC, effectively scaling back its power and independence. Throughout the debate, I was struck by the way that Dodd and his huge black caterpillar eyebrows kept crossing the aisle to whisper in Shelby's ear. During these huddles, Dodd would gently pat Shelby's back or hold his arm; it was like watching a love scene in a Japanese monster movie.
Shelby's amendment was ultimately defeated by a vote of 61-37 – but he and Dodd still reached a number of important compromises that significantly watered down the CFPB. The idea was to rack up as many exemptions as possible for favored industries, all of which had contributed generously to their favorite senators. By mid-May, Republicans and Democrats had quietly agreed to full or partial "carve-outs" for banks with less than $10 billion in deposits, as well as for check-cashers and other sleazy payday lenders. As the bill headed toward a vote, there was also a furious fight to exempt auto dealers from anti-
predatory regulations – a loophole already approved by the House – even though car loans are the second-largest source of borrowing for Americans, after home mortgages. The purview of the CFPB, in essence, was being limited to megabanks and mortgage lenders. That's a major victory in the war against Wall Street, but it will be hard to be too impressed if Congress can't even find a way to vote for consumer protection against used-car salesmen.
Perhaps the fiercest fight of all over finance reform involved a part of the bill called "resolution authority" – also known as, "The next time an AIG or a Lehman Brothers goes belly up, do we bail the fuckers out? And if so, with whose money?" In its original form, the bill answered these crucial questions by requiring that banks contribute to a $50 billion fund that could be used to aid failing financial institutions. The fund was hardly a cure-all – $50 billion "wouldn't even be enough to bail out Citigroup's prop-trading desk," as one industry analyst observed – but it at least established a precedent that banks should pay for their own bailouts, instead of simply snatching money from taxpayers.
The fund had been established after a fierce battle last fall, when Democrats in the House beat back a seemingly insane proposal backed by the Obama administration that would have paid for bailouts by borrowing from taxpayers and recouping the money from Wall Street later on, by means of a mysterious, convoluted process. That heroic stand in the House, which was marked by long nights of ferocious negotiations, was wiped out in one fell swoop on May 5th, after Dodd and Shelby huddled up in another of their monster-love sessions and hammered out a deal to strip the bailout fund from the bill. The surprise rollback was introduced by the Senate leadership late on a Wednesday and voted on three hours later. Just like that, taxpayers were back to fronting the nation's biggest banks the money when they find themselves in financial trouble.
One day after the Shelby-Dodd wipeout, another key reform got massacred. This was the "Too Big to Fail" amendment put forward by two reform-minded freshmen, Sens. Ted Kaufman of Delaware and Sherrod Brown of Ohio. The measure would have mandated the automatic breakup of any bank that held more than 10 percent of all insured deposits, or had at risk more than two percent of America's GDP. The amendment was just the kind of common-sense, loophole-proof, no-bullshit legislation that, sadly, almost never passes in the modern Senate.
Brown is an interesting character. Whenever I talk to him, I often forget he's a U.S. senator; he feels more like a dude you met on an Amtrak train and struck up a conversation with. He remains the only member of Congress I've ever met who took off his shoes and socks in the middle of an interview. But when I catch up with him in an anteroom outside the Senate chamber on the day his and Kaufman's amendment ends up being voted on, he seems harried and tense, like a man waiting for bad news in a hospital lobby. In recent weeks, he confides, he has found himself facing both barrels of the banking lobby.
"There are 1,500 bank lobbyists in this town, and they're coming by all the time," he says. "And it's not just the lobbyists. When the bank lobbyist from Columbus comes by, he brings 28 bankers with him."
At the moment, though, Brown has a more pressing problem. He and Kaufman are both making themselves conspicuous in the Senate chamber, and the reason why is illustrative of the looniness of Senate procedure. Unlike in the House, where a rules committee decides in advance which amendments will be brought to a vote, senators have no orderly, dependable way of knowing if or when their proposals will get voted on. Instead, they're at the mercy of a strange and nebulous process that requires them to badger the leadership, who have the sole discretion of deciding which amendments go to a vote. So Brown is reduced to hanging around the Senate floor and trying to get a committee chair like Chris Dodd to put Too Big to Fail to a vote before other amendments use up all the time allotted for debate. It's not unlike fighting a crowd of pissed-off airport passengers for a single seat on an overbooked flight – you're completely at the mercy of the snippy airline rep behind the desk.
Near the end of the day, to Brown's surprise, Dodd actually allows his amendment to go to a vote. In the end, however, the proposal to break up the nation's riskiest banks gets walloped 61-33, with an astonishing 27 Democrats – including key banking committee heavyweights like Dodd and Chuck Schumer of New York – joining forces to defeat it. After the debate, Kaufman, a gregarious and aggressive advocate of finance reform, seems oddly unfazed that his fellow Democrats blew the best chance in a generation to corral the great banking monsters of Wall Street. "For some of them, it was just a bridge too far," he says. "There's an old saying: Never invest in anything you don't understand." Given the bizarre standards of the Senate bureaucracy, Kaufman considers it a victory just to have gotten his amendment into the woodshed for an ass-whipping.
I encounter that same "just glad to be here" vibe from Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon who co-authored one of the handful of genuinely balls-out reforms in the entire bill. The Merkley-Levin amendment couldn't have been more important; it called for restoring part of the Glass-Steagall Act, the Depression-era law that prevented commercial banks, investment houses and insurance companies from merging. The repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999 paved the way for the creation of the Too-Big-to-Fail monsters like Citigroup, who drove the global economy into a ditch over the past 10 years.
Merkley-Levin was the Senate version of the "Volcker Rule," a proposal put forward by former Fed chief and Obama adviser Paul Volcker, that would prevent commercial banks from engaging in the kind of speculative, proprietary trading that helped trigger the financial crisis. When I meet with Merkley, he is in the same position as Brown and Kaufman, waiting anxiously for a chance to get his amendment voted on, with no idea of when or if that might happen. A vote – even if it means defeat – is all he's hoping for. When I ask if he's excited about the prospect of restoring a historic piece of legislation like Glass-Steagall, he smiles faintly. "I'm not saying I'm real optimistic," he says.
In the end, Merkley is forced to resort to the senatorial equivalent of gate-crashing: He attaches his amendment to the sordid proposal to exempt auto dealers from the CFPB, which has already been approved for a vote. That Merkley has to invoke an arcane procedural stunt just to get such a vital reform a vote is a testament to how convoluted American democracy looks by the time it reaches the Senate floor.
As with the whittled-down victories over the Fed audit and the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau – and the brutal defeat of Too Big to Fail – the stalling over the Volcker Rule underscores the basic dynamic of the Senate. With deals cut via backroom consensus, and leaders like Reid and Dodd tightly controlling which amendments go to a vote, the system allows a few powerful members whose doors are permanently open to lobbyists to pilot the entire process from beginning to end. One Democratic aide grumbles to me that he had no access to the negotiations for months, while a Wall Street lobbyist he knows could arrange an audience with the leadership. The whole show is carefully orchestrated from start to finish; no genuinely tough amendment with a shot at being approved receives an honest up-or-down vote. "It's all kind of a fake debate," the aide says.
When all the backroom obfuscation doesn't work, of course, there is always one last route in Congress to killing reform: the fine print. And never has an amendment been fine-printed to death as skillfully as the proposal to reform derivatives.
Imagine a world where there's no New York Stock Exchange, no NASDAQ or Nikkei: no open exchanges at all, and all stocks traded in the dark. Nobody has a clue how much a share of IBM costs or how many of them are being traded. In that world, the giant broker-dealer who trades thousands of IBM shares a day, and who knows which of its big clients are selling what and when, will have a hell of a lot more information than the day-trader schmuck sitting at home in his underwear, guessing at the prices of stocks via the Internet.
That world exists. It's called the over-the-counter derivatives market. Five of the country's biggest banks, the Goldmans and JP Morgans and Morgan Stanleys, account for more than 90 percent of the market, where swaps of all shapes and sizes are traded more or less completely in the dark. If you want to know how Greece finds itself bankrupted by swaps, or some town in Alabama overpaid by $93 million for deals to fund a sewer system, this is the explanation: Nobody outside a handful of big swap dealers really has a clue about how much any of this shit costs, which means they can rip off their customers at will.
This insane outgrowth of jungle capitalism has spun completely out of control since 2000, when Congress deregulated the derivatives market. That market is now roughly 100 times bigger than the federal budget and 20 times larger than both the stock market and the GDP. Unregulated derivative deals sank AIG, Lehman Brothers and Greece, and helped blow up the global economy in 2008. Reining in derivatives is the key battle in the War for Finance Reform. Without regulation of this critical market, Wall Street could explode another mushroom cloud of nuclear leverage and risk over the planet at any time.
The basic pillar of derivatives reform is simple: From now on, instead of trading in the dark, most derivatives would have to be traded on open exchanges and "cleared" through a third party. Last fall, Wall Street lobbyists succeeded at watering down the clearing requirement by pushing through a series of exemptions for "end-users" – that is, anyone who uses derivatives to hedge a legitimate business risk, like an airline buying swaps as a hedge against fluctuations in jet-fuel prices. But the House then took it even further, expanding the exemption to include anyone who wants to hedge against balance-sheet risk. Since every company has a balance sheet, including giant insurers like AIG and hedge funds that gamble in derivatives, the giant loophole now covered pretty much everyone except a few megabanks. This was regulation with a finger crossed behind its back.
When it came time for the Senate to do its version, however, the lobbyists were in for a surprise. Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas – best known as one of the few Democrats to vote for Bush's tax cuts – suddenly got religion and closed the loophole. Facing a tough primary battle against an opponent who was vowing to crack down on Wall Street, Lincoln tweaked the language so derivatives reform would apply to any greedy financial company that makes billions trading risky swaps in the dark.
Republicans went apeshit, pulling the same tactics they tried to gut the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. Sen. Enzi, back at the lectern after his failed attempt to claim that the CFPB was a government plot to control the orthodontics industry, barked to the Senate gallery that Lincoln's proposal would harm not millionaire swap dealers at JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, but "a wheat-grower in Wyoming." Unmoved by such goofy rhetoric, the Senate shot down an asinine Republican amendment that would have overturned Lincoln's reform by a vote of 59-39.
Then reform advocates started reading the fine print of the Lincoln deal, and realized that all those Wall Street lobbyists had really been earning their money.
That same day the GOP amendment failed, the derivatives expert Adam White was at his home in Georgia, poring over a "redline" version of the Lincoln amendment, in which changes to the bill are tracked in bold. When he came to a key passage on page 570, he saw that it had a single line through it, meaning it had been removed. The line read, "Except as provided in paragraph (3), it shall be unlawful to enter into a swap that is required to be cleared unless such swap shall be submitted for clearing."
Translation: It was no longer illegal to trade many uncleared swaps. Wall Street would be free to go on trading these monstrosities by the gazillions, largely in the dark. "Regulators can't say any longer if you don't clear it, it's illegal," says White.
Once he noticed that giant loophole, White went back and found a host of other curlicues in the text that collectively cut the balls out of the Lincoln amendment. On page 574, a new section was added denying the Commodity Futures Trading Commission the power to force clearinghouses to accept swaps for clearing. On page 706, two lines were added making it impossible for buyers who get sold an uncleared swap to void the deal. Taken altogether, the changes amount to what White describes as a "Trojan Horse" amendment: hundreds of pages of rigid rules about clearing swaps, with a few cleverly concealed clauses that make blowing off those rules no big deal. Michael Greenberger, a former official with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission who has been fighting for derivatives reform, describes the textual trickery as a "circle of doom. Despite the pages and pages of regulations, violating them is risk-free."
On May 18th, as the clock ran out on the deadline to file amendments, reform-minded Democrats staged a concerted push to close the loopholes. But when Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington offered a proposal to eliminate the "Trojan Horse" sham, Reid tried to slam the door on her and everyone else working to strengthen reform. The majority leader called for a vote to end debate – a move that would squelch any remaining amendments. This extraordinary decision to cut off discussion of our one, best shot at revamping the rules of modern American finance was made, at least in part, to enable senators to get home for Memorial Day weekend.
But then something truly unexpected took place. Cantwell revolted, joined by Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. That left Reid in the perverse position of having to convince three Republicans to come over to his side to silence a member of his own party. On May 20th, Reid got the votes he needed to kill the debate. A few hours later, the Senate passed the bill, loopholes and all, by a vote of 59-39.
In a heartwarming demonstration of the Senate's truly bipartisan support for Wall Street, Sen. Sam Brownback – a Republican from Kansas – stepped in to help Democrats kill one of the bill's most vital reforms. At the last minute, Brownback mysteriously withdrew his amendment to exempt auto dealers from regulation by the CFPB – a maneuver that prevented the Merkley-Levin ban on speculative trading, which was attached to Brownback's amendment, from even being voted on. That was good news for car buyers, but bad news for the global economy. Senators may enjoy scolding Goldman Sachs in public hearings, but when it comes time to vote, they'll pick Wall Street over Detroit every time.
The rushed vote also meant that the Democratic leadership wasn't able to gut 716, the amazingly aggressive section of Lincoln's amendment that would cut off taxpayer money to big banks that gamble on risky derivatives. Not that they didn't try. With just three minutes to go before the deadline, Dodd had filed a hilarious amendment that would have delayed the ban on derivatives for two years – and empowered a new nine-member panel to unilaterally kill it. Sitting on the panel would be Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and FDIC chief Sheila Bair, all of whom violently opposed 716.
Dodd was forced to withdraw his amendment after Wall Street complained that even this stall-and-kill tactic would create too much "uncertainty" in the market. That left 716 still alive for the moment – but even its staunchest supporters expected the leadership to find some way to gut it in conference, especially since President Obama personally opposes the measure. "Treasury and the White House are in full-court mode, assuring everybody that this will be fixed," says Greenberger. "And when they say fixed, that means killed."
Whatever the final outcome, the War for Finance Reform serves as a sweeping demonstration of how power in the Senate can be easily concentrated in the hands of just a few people. Senators in the majority party – Brown, Kaufman, Merkley, even a committee chairman like Lincoln – took a back seat to Reid and Dodd, who tinkered with amendments on all four fronts of the war just enough to keep many of them from having real teeth. "They're working to come up with a bill that Wall Street can live with, which by definition makes it a bad bill," one Democratic aide explained in the final, frantic days of negotiation.
On the plus side, the bill will rein in some forms of predatory lending, and contains a historic decision to audit the Fed. But the larger, more important stuff – breaking up banks that grow Too Big to Fail, requiring financial giants to pay upfront for their own bailouts, forcing the derivatives market into the light of day – probably won't happen in any meaningful way. The Senate is designed to function as a kind of ongoing negotiation between public sentiment and large financial interests, an endless tug of war in which senators maneuver to strike a delicate mathematical balance between votes and access to campaign cash. The problem is that sometimes, when things get really broken, the very concept of a middle ground between real people and corrupt special interests becomes a grotesque fallacy. In times like this, we need our politicians not to bridge a gap but to choose sides and fight. In this historic battle over finance reform, when we had a once-in-a-generation chance to halt the worst abuses on Wall Street, many senators made the right choice. In the end, however, the ones who mattered most picked wrong – and a war that once looked winnable will continue to drag on for years, creating more havoc and destroying more lives before it is over.
This article originally appeared in RS 1106 from June 10, 2010.
Source: The Rolling Stone Magazine


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This is a guest post written by Richard O'Connell, Global Marketing Director for PapayaMobile and AppFlood.
What we've learned from the thousands of Android developers that we've helped is that there is always a way to increase a developer's revenue. Improvements to their mobile monetization strategy might be as complicated as A/B testing ad formats and encouraging advertisers to propose direct deals. But optimization can also be as simple as avoiding these five basic mobile monetization mistakes.


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Garmin GST 10 Water Speed Temp NMEA 2000 Analog Adapter [010-11328-00]
Garmin GST 10 Water Speed Temp NMEA 2000 Analog Adapter [010-11328-00]
The new NMEA 2000 analog adapters are the perfect accessories to bring any helm into the digital age. Simple to install and easy to set up, the NMEA 2000 adapters take signals generated by traditional analog gauges and sensors and convert that data into NMEA 2000 format. The data can then be broadcast over NMEA 2000 protocol to the Garmin GMI 10 multifunction instrument display. The combination of these adapters with a Garmin GMI 10 will transform even the most out-of-date dashboard into a glass, digital helm.
WARNING: This product can expose you to chemicals which are known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm. For more information go to P65Warnings.ca.gov.
- Data Interface: NMEA 2000
- Box Dimensions: 2"H x 6"W x 6"L WT: 1.2 lbs
Owner's Manual (pdf)