US Finance World

Wanna buy a defibrillator? A snowboard? Some office furniture, a piano or an arc welder? Has Uncle Sam got a deal for you!

Tips for online bidding

Those are a few of the thousands of items available through government property auctions. Decommissioned battleships, horses, defunct factories, exercise bikes, construction equipment, purses, lighthouses, slot machines, helicopters and even a strip club are some of the things the government has put out for public bidding.

These aren’t traditional “outcry” auctions, where you go in person and call out your bid. Most of these goods are auctioned over the Internet.

Think of it as Uncle Sam’s eBay, because the number and variety of items are staggering, and the deals can be screamin’:

• Florida businessman Matt Geary bought four kayaks for $80 apiece and sold a couple of them for more than he paid for all four.

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Fraudsters could steal credit card details from networkers. An apparent Facebook scam which could serve as a conduit to credit card fraud has been described as a sign of things to come.

Luis Corrons, technical director at Panda Security, said that using social networking sites to steal personal data is becoming “more and more popular” among criminals.

The tech firm’s analysis and detection unit, PandaLabs, announced last week that it had discovered a fake Facebook site that was deceiving users into entering their genuine passwords.

Fraudsters can perpetrate ID theft and take out credit cards in their victims’ names after capturing personal data of this kind.

Mr Corrons said: “The spoof Facebook is no longer available but we don’t have any doubt that bad guys are already working on some other pages like that one. It was very convincing.”

He added: “The more people who use a platform, the web, or any other means, the more likely they are to be used by bad guys. Read more…

Owning a car entails having to get insurance for your vehicle. This is to ensure safety for yourself should you be involved in an accident of any kind. Having car insurance entails paying a certain amount to the auto insurance company for a policy that will provide you with protection against financial losses in case the car is damaged in any way. Granted, there are a myriad of choices for companies offering insurance for your vehicle. It is therefore necessary to know the basics of getting car insurance for you to be able to make wise informed decisions.

Get started with qualifying basic facts about yourself – your age, gender, social status and your address. Younger drivers get higher premiums, or in other words, get to pay more for car insurance than older drivers. This is because younger drivers are seen to be more reckless and are more likely to get into accidents, thus obliging the insurance company to pay more on you.

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From Landon Thomas at NYT: In Britain, visions of Japan’s decade of stagnation

Britain may finally be emerging from recession, but many analysts warn that it is a false dawn. In fact, they argue, the economy here is so ravaged by growing debts and ruined banks that it could well be following in the steps of Japan’s lost decade of the 1990s.

I still don’t understand why we refer to Japan’s “lost decade,” as singular. The country is now moving into its third consecutive lost decade.The Nikkei is still at 1984 levels.

But back to the UK: the NYT piece quotes the latest research from Variant Perception (no link). I got it in my inbox earlier this week, and it’s a fascinating (though not pleasant) read. Notably, they talk about the outside possibility of a “sudden stop” event. As mentioned in this space before, a “sudden stop” is what happens to emerging economies when they lose access to capital markets. Confidence is lost in

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Ever since the State stopped assuming that your only house is your primary residence, property tax bills shot up for everyone. Yes, if you have not declared the fact that your only residence is your primary residence ready yourself to cough up more in property taxes. The simple solution is to send in the Homestead Tax Credit Application or file an appeal.

This is turning up to be a new wave for tax assessors across the country to tackle. The figures are a deep matter of concern for the State itself. In other states in the country for example, The Wall Street Journal reported that in St. Tammany Parish, La., 15,000 residents – instead of the usual 500 – requested a review of their 2008 tax bills. Similarly the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that Cuyahoga County, which sees approximately 1,300 foreclosures a month, faced three times as many appeals in 2007 compared with previous tax cycles.

On the other hand, while prices of residential properties dipped to 27% from the 2006 peak to the end of 2008, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Index, while the amount municipalities collected in property taxes climbed to 12% from 2006 to 2008. The

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