SEO Myths and the Real Truth

When you're working on your own website and trying to get it ready to get real results in the search engines, you'll quickly find that there is plenty of information available out there on the internet. While a lot of the information you may find is helpful, you may find some other information that is contradictory. Several different SEO myths are often found on the web and it is important to that you know the difference between a myth and the real truth. Here is a look at some of the most common SEO myths and the real truth that you need to know.

Myth #1 - You Should Submission Services or Programs to Submit Your Site to Thousands of Search Engines

Some services and programs advertise that they will submit your website to thousands of search engines. The idea that you should use these services or programs is only a myth. In fact, this idea is usually something that is propagated by the companies that are offering these services and programs. The real truth is that there are not thousands of search engines out there for them to submit to today. Usually the sites that these services submit to are known as free for all sites. They say that your site link will be placed on their site, which they may do for a short time. This won't give you traffic and you need to know that there are only a few top search engines out there.

Myth #2 - Your Site Will Be Penalized for Using Software to Check Positions in Search Engines

Another myth about SEO out there is that your site will be penalized for using software to check positions in the search engines. This is also untrue. When issues are not under the control of the webmaster, the search engines will not penalize your site for that problem. However, if you choose to link out to pages that you know are bad, then there can be heavy penalties for that. You are in control of which sites that you submit to, so you aren't going to be penalized for sites that decide to put links up to your website.

Myth #3 - You Can't Do Your Own SEO

Many people misguidedly believe that you cannot do your own search engine optimization. The real truth is that many people have done their own SEO and they have done this in effective ways, scoring great ratings in the search engines. In many cases, big companies hire in-house professionals to do their own SEO. However, others have managed to do their own SEO and they have done a good job at it. Keep in mind, that while you can do your own SEO, there is definitely a lot to learn. It's important that you have good information and that you are able to take the time to do it the right way if you want to successfully do SEO on your own.

Myth #4 - Meta Tags are the Top Factor Search Engines Use

The idea that meta tags are the top factor search engines use when determining rank is another big myth that many people still believe. For this reason, many people spend quite a bit of time working on meta tags when they should be focusing on other options. Today, many of the big search engines, such as Google, are ignoring meta tags because many webmasters are actually misusing and abusing them. Only the meta description is used by search engines and the rest of the meta tag information is largely ignored.

Overview of Internet Style Navigation Types

Guest post by: Miami Web Design

Navigation will be the single most significant factor to obtain correct in any internet style. It has to become fast, simple, and fit into the general theme with the website. It‘s so essential that we frequently invest as a lot time creating certain it functions, as we do designing the website. You will find a couple of typical style patterns which are utilized all through the web, as we're going to go more than them now.

Leading Navigation

This really is most frequently a horizontal bar operating across the leading, or close to the leading of a internet page. The benefit of this navigation is it is familiarity. It is recognition is really a self-perpetuating element. It is well-liked simply because it is utilized a great deal, and it is utilized a great deal simply because it is familiar to users.

It is perfect for smaller websites, but can turn out to be just a little cumbersome as soon as you need to develop kid menus as drop-downs. Believed has to become offered to exactly where the website is going to become inside a couple of years’ time when utilizing this inside a web site style. A static website will probably be fine, but an ever-growing 1 might do much better having a vertical navigational structure.

Vertical Navigation

Vertical navigation is usually on the left side, so it is frequently referred to as sidebar navigation. This structure is much better suited to bigger websites, as sub-menus just function much better in this configuration. Care nonetheless has to become taken to not overwhelm the user having a bundle of hyperlinks that fly out with the sidebar.

For websites having a big quantity of pages, utilizing intelligent categories is really a much better way of maintaining a great deal of info obtainable whilst not overwhelming the visitor. Web site styles utilizing vertical navigation may be observed all across the web. A few of the greatest websites on the planet use this configuration. Partly simply because they're large, and partly to provide them space to develop.

Tabular Navigation

Tabular navigation utilizes tabs, because the name implies. These are generally leading horizontal, and function just like paper tabs. Clicking on a tab highlights it and brings up the page content material. A lot like leading navigation, this technique is much more helpful in smaller web site styles.

It is feasible to have sub-menus with tabs, but they've to become of a various style. This can result in confusion unless it is abundantly clear that it is occurred.

Fly-Out Navigation

Fly-out navigation is utilized a great deal in ecommerce. Site’s which have a leading navigational structure can use this technique to include numerous hyperlinks as a sub-menu whilst maintaining it clear towards the visitor exactly where every thing is. Every thing is effortlessly accessible, and also you can add a great deal of hyperlinks into the fly-out panel. It is also extremely scalable, providing website owners the opportunity to expand the website as they see fit.

The primary downside to this really is that it isn’t usually clear that the leading menu consists of a fly-out section. It also does not usually translate too nicely to mobile browsing.

There's no ideal navigation structure. The very best type of navigation is 1 that functions using the web site style, and also the desired hierarchy.

Five Common SEO Mistakes on Websites By Sarasota Web Design

Sarasota Web Design

Search Engine Optimization is an essential tool for getting your website noticed. Without at least a nod in the direction of SEO, you stand little chance of getting to the top of your niche, unless it’s an ultra-rare one that is.

Professional-level SEO is a specialist subject, and not something we can cover in a single post, or even a series of them. However, there are some basic measures a website owner can take to give themselves a little boost while we work our magic on the bigger picture.

Website design is only half the battle when dealing with commercial entities. We work hard to make sure the end result is attractive, navigable and useful to the audience. That work is all for naught if nobody knows it’s there, which is where SEO comes in. This post is all about the common mistakes website owners make when managing their sites.

Not having a page title. Search engines use the title tag to display the page in the search results. If there isn’t one, or it doesn’t make sense, it makes it harder to rank the page. Spiders won’t be able to easily identify your page, and its contents. That will work against any SEO efforts for the site.

Having a page title that is too long. Page titles that are over the top, or even too short will also work against the page. Google allows 70 characters in a title, so website owners should use every single one of them. Don’t stuff it full of keywords though as you’ll dilute their effect. Target one or two at most to gain maximum benefit. Fort Myers web design company is the perfect place to start your search for the ultimate in web design needs.

Words that appear first in a title are given more significance by the search engine. That means putting the page keywords at the beginning and supporting words after it. It takes a little tweaking, but it’s usually possible.

Keyword stuffing. As mentioned above, putting too many keywords into a title will dilute their effect. Websites that have this may rank highly but only briefly, and will soon fade. Using targeted keywords, and only one or two per page is the best way to extract maximum SEO juice from them.

Not only does Google not like it, but if you’re selling something keyword stuffed pages often have very high bounce rates. You need conversions to make money, not just visitors.

Overusing the site name. While it may seem logical, it doesn’t make much sense in SEO terms to have the company or website name in the title. You have 70 characters with which to make an impact, why waste it on your company name? Searches using that term will come up anyway, you want keyword terms to get new visitors.

Remember, keywords are supposed to be terms real people use to find what you’re selling. Putting your name in the title isn’t what they want. They want your product or service.

Duplicating titles. You want search engines and visitors to be able to quickly identify what page is what. By keeping them all the same, you’re just confusing everyone. Every site page should be unique. Duplication of anything should be kept to the absolute minimum, whatever your website is about.

Red Light Therapy and Tendonitis

Anyone who does sports can tell you how painful tendonitis can be. They will also tell you how ineffective many treatments can be too. Red light therapy seeks to change all that by offering a truly effective treatment for this very common ailment. Could there really be a fast, effective cure for tendonitis or is it too good to be true? Read on to find out.

Tendonitis, also called tendinitis, is an inflammation of the tendons that join the muscles and bone together. These tendons are cords of gristly, connective tissue that keeps the muscles attached to the bone and allows the muscle to generate motion. Our body is full of these tendons, that for the most part, work smoothly and effortlessly as we go about our day. When these become inflamed or irritated and affect the movement of the tendon. That’s tendonitis.

The best way to treat tendonitis is to stop doing the activity that causes it. That’s all very well if it’s a leisure activity, but if it’s part of a lifestyle or job, it isn’t so easy. Most conventional treatments involve resting for up to 3 weeks, using a brace if practical, applying anti-inflammatory creams or taking drugs, monitoring the situation, trying gentle movement and a gradual return to the activity. If the treatment wasn’t successful then further work is needed.

Red light therapy is known to help with muscle problems and other surface ailments such as bad skin, wrinkles, and muscle atrophy. It works by stimulating the chemical adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which produces energy for cell use. This stimulation speeds up cell growth and repair, which in turn ensures the damaged tendon cells are replaced much quicker than would be usual.

We have known for a while that ultrasound is a useful tool in fighting tendonitis, but studies conducted by the University of Wisconsin found that red light therapy was more effective and worked much quicker than ultrasound. As the treatment is risk free, pain free and relatively cost-effective, it’s slowly being recognized as a viable alternative to conventional tendonitis treatments.

Whereas ultrasound penetrates deep into the body, red light therapy only penetrates the surface of the skin. The LED isn’t strong enough to go further, which makes it ideal for this kind of treatment. It also means that the power of the light can be directed solely for the benefit of the tendons, offering a much more directed approach to the treatment.

This kind of therapy doesn’t replace conventional treatment, but complements them. You’re still going to have to refrain from whatever caused it, you’re still going to have to rest, and you’re still going to have to apply the cream or take the drugs. However, you’re going to heal much quicker with a series of red light therapy sessions, which is good news. That means less downtime for you, and a quicker return to whatever pastime it was that gave you the problems in the first place.

One of the best things a golfer can have

pc pro schools

Whether you are a beginner golfer, recreational or professional, there are some things you just shouldn’t be without- a Powerchute being one of them. Powerchute is a universal benefit for most everyone, and it creates just the right amount of resistance for golfers. It’s a training aid meant to improve your swing and ultimately your golf experience. Powerchute will help you almost effortlessly create a proper sequence and increase the distance that comes right after.

Every swing you take in golf is important. The mechanics of your swing are also important because the faster you can swing the farther the ball goes. Most people say there’s so much more to it, and there is. There’s proper sequencing to be considered as well as lag. Powerchute can do wonders for golfers of all skill levels because it can help you improve every single one of these things. It improves your sequencing to then increase your lag, causing your clubhead speed to move quickly through the impact zone. A steady proper-formed swing from using Powerchute will in turn equal out to more distance. For the newbie’s, you should actually be a little careful when handling the Powerchute. If you’re working toward a fast swing and more distance, Powerchute will help you do it, but may take you for a ride. Your body will accelerate so quickly, that you may not be able to get used to it on the first or second swing. Tip: Keep your weight on your heels, so that when you swing, you don’t happen to fall face forward onto the green.

For a professional golfer, using Powerchute may not increase the distance by much, but there is a significant improvement. These pro golfers can even see an improvement in speed by a few miles per hour. Pro golfers tend to know the sport pretty well, but imagine what it can do for the average golfer. If you are a recreational golfer or just starting, your form isn’t anywhere near perfect yet, and many avid golfers can vouch for that. It’s not the easiest sports, but Powerchute can help you with it. Powerchute can help you enhance your errors (whether you realize them or not), making you know what needs to be improved.

The Powerchute is one thing every golfer should have aside from the first aid kit, sunscreen, extra gloves etc. Not only is it a great training tool to help you form perfect sequencing, lag and clubhead speed, it can help you in a time of need. Have you ever been in a round of golf where your swing is just off? Or when your distance just isn’t what it could be or has been? Powerchute is collapsible and can fit easily into your golf bag. When you’re having one of these moments, wait for an off turn, and take a couple of swings with it. It can help you get your body back into proper form, and after a few practice swings with it attached to your club, you’ll be ready for you’re a-game swing.

Joomla is an award-winning content management system which is also termed as CMS, which facilitates to build web sites and enables powerful online applications. There are many benefits such as ease-of-use, easy applicability, extensibility and many other advantages have made Joomla extremely popular. It can be stated that it is a one-stop-shop for all consumers and businesses who are looking for all kind of facilities for their web site. To sum up, joomla is an open source solution for every one. This kind of facility is extremely benefiting to the large number of people, wherein they can find a suitable employment or a business to prosper through the medium of joomla.

Many may be wondering as to what is joomla and how it can offer benefits to the common people. Content management system is a software that keeps a track of every piece of content that is available on your web site. This is similar to a public library where you store your books by naming with a code or in an alphabetical order. Content can be in simple text, photos, music, video, documents or may be anything that you can think of. One of the best advantage of using CMS is that it does not require any technical skill or knowledge to manage. This is because of the fact that CMS manages all your content and you just have to see its performance.

Some of the best examples of joomla performance are corporate web sites or portals, corporate intranets, extranets, on line magazines, newspapers, publications, e-commerce, on line reservations, government applications, small business web sites, non-profit organizational web sites, school web sites, church web sites, personal home pages and family home pages and there is a scope and opportunity for many new ideas and development of new web sites.

Joomla is used by restaurants chains, educational universities, the eco-resources, MTV networks, furniture designs, cultural play institutions or colleges and outdoor photographers. Some of the web sites developed by joomla are quizilla.com, ihop.com, gsas.harvard.edu, greenmaven.com, outdoorphotogrpaher.com, playshakespeare.com and sensointeriors.co.za.

As it is evident the Internet technology has offered lot of facilities for web development and content management. In fact there many new forays which are emerging leading to another paradigm of success for all sectors. Consumers, businesses and common people are at great benefit with Internet technology and computer technology. Therefore, joomla is one of the tools that are contributing to the success of internet technology by offering lot of facilities to develop many more web sites which act as a medium of communication and also as network. Joomla has plenty of other features for the common people and also for the benefit of upcoming businesses. But this has to be used for right and genuine motives.

Encounter with Dell Mini 5

Looking at the picture of new Dell Mini 5, anybody will wonder if it is a phone larger in size or a tablet smaller in size. I got the same impression when I had a chance to glance at a preview of the phone. The preview was lying on a table of Dell at the MobileFocus event. The representative of the company standing there gave me a hands-on demo of the phone. Although it was just a model of the phone, it looked amazing. More social media archiving solutions should be on the way soon.

Holding the phone in my hands felt great. The representative told me about its features and all I could say was– Wow! Dell Mini 5 has many similarities as of a smartphone. First of all the phone has multitouch screen to give a royal look and a comfortable experience. It provides 3G connectivity and is easy to operate. The phone also contains 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset and not to forget, Google’s Android operating method.

The only thing which I didn’t like much is that it’s quite big for a smartphone. But despite being big it doesn’t weigh much, only 8 ounces. Thus my arms will not be strained while using the phone. Any onlooker may get confused whether you are holding a phone or a compact book. I just wonder that how will I look holding the phone next to my face and that how will I carry it as it may not fit in the pockets of my tight jeans.

Mini 5 is also known as Model M01M. You can spot the model name under the battery cover. The phone is using Android 1.6 operating system. Since a newer version of Android is available in the market, I just hope that the operating system of Mini 5 will be upgraded to Android 2.1 at launch time.

The price tag on the phone stated $1,908 but this was only a dummy model. We can expect the price change by the time of release and also the actual market price would be different.

Some of the on-look features of the phone include:

• • Five inch touch screen display
• • 800*480 resolution
• • 1 Ghz processor
• • Wi-Fi
• • Bluetooth
• • 3G connectivity
• • 5 megapixel camera
• • Dual LED flash
• • Front camera

Even the folks which were present there were quite impressed with the features and efficiency of the phone. The phone looked really attractive and definitely it’s not an iPad. I imagine myself using that phone at home and at work. Without doubt I am going to buy the product if it is competitively priced.

What do you think about owing a Dell Mini 5?

Naples web hosting

Multiple C Class IPs

Web hosting is a huge business and it is a very profit oriented business. Low cost web hosting enables many small businesses to take proper and suitable benefit and advantage from web hosting. Naples has been offering low cost web hosting and it is expected this will continue to impress many new customers to develop their businesses. It is a fact that Internet has been a great advantage for many new businesses and those that are already present and those are coming newly to the market, can derive maximum benefit from Naples web hosting services.

Naples web hosting business has been picking up very fast with the fact that there are umpteen numbers of businesses and services being launched every day on web servers and because of the efficiency of Naples web hosting, the company has received wide and reputed recognition to the web hosting services.

Apart from this, it is also a fact that, web hosting services are greatly in demand and it is important that, every small and medium enterprise must seek its portion of space on Internet and due to this reason, Internet presence has become very much necessary.

The web hosting services given by Naples are very moderate and even low in cost that can be well within the budget of a small enterprise. Every business would like to prosper and make its product highlighted in the market and with this view, every business would like to have its web page on Internet.

This has been maximized by Naples and the company is still growing on a rapid pace with huge talent and skill at its end. It is expected that in a very short period of time, Naples will still be doing a great job to its customers with its web hosting services.

There are professionals who are very much experienced in web hosting services and can offer a full length of service to its customers which can be of great benefit to the customers. There are customers who do not have any knowledge about hosting and such customers would like to have the best advice and guidance from web hosting companies. At this point, it can be stated that Naples professionals can provide absolute good guidance and advice in web hosting and can bring a good change to your business.

The company encourages small home businesses, large enterprises and medium businesses take benefit from their web hosting services and can offer best prices of web hosting services.

POP3 vs. IMAP

Both POP3 and IMAP are email protocols that are used in every email transmission in the world. POP3 is the traditional method that has served us well for years, and IMAP is the young pretender, younger, faster better. Which is the best for business?

POP3 is still the most popular protocol because it is established and reliable. It does have inherent flaws though, and that is what it driving development and improvement. Many organizations have millions of emails transmitted every year. With the advent of email compliance, it is now not enough to just process the email and send it to an inbox. They now have to be easily processed, sorted, indexed, delivered, archived and retrieved if necessary.

IMAP is the new kid on the block and is rapidly catching up with POP3 in popularity. Many small to medium businesses use email hosting as a solution because they aren’t big enough, or use email enough to warrant their own mail server. The difference between the two protocols directly affects those businesses.

The biggest difference between the two protocols is how they handle delivered email. POP3 receives the mail from the SMTP server and downloads it to the clients inbox. The mail is then deleted from the server. This means the only intact copy is in the clients inbox. IMAP, among other things keeps a copy of the mail on the server which allows for storage, journaling and a whole host of other features.

In an email hosting environment IMAP allows a client to access their emails from anywhere in the world if they can access the web server. They can also access them from different email clients, a browser or cell phone with the correct software and infrastructure. This allows a lot of freedom, especially for staff who are on the move or out on the road.

In a real life example, say that employee A receives a technical query from a customer in a different time zone. A answers and waits for a reply but doesn’t get one until after they leave for the day. Employee B works late shift, picks up the email trail and can continue to support the customer. All because they can pick up where A left off.

IMAP made that possible because it kept a copy of the email on the server for other employees to see if given the right permissions. POP3 would have downloaded it do employee A’s machine and they would have had to copy everyone else in or handed it over.

In an email hosting environment, POP3 email cannot be backed up, because it is downloaded to the client. Using IMAP allows either the client or the web host to perform regular backups to preserve email data in case of emergency or an E-discovery request.

So while POP3 has served us faithfully for many years, it is time for IMAP to take over the mantle and continue the good work.

Millions' worth of gear left in Iraq

By Ernesto Londoño
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, December 7, 2009

BAGHDAD -- Even as the U.S. military scrambles to support a troop surge in Afghanistan, it is donating passenger vehicles, generators and other equipment worth tens of millions of dollars to the Iraqi government.

Under new authority granted by the Pentagon, U.S. commanders in Iraq may now donate to the Iraqis up to $30 million worth of equipment from each facility they leave, up from the $2 million cap established when the guidelines were first set in 2005. The new cap applies at scores of posts that the U.S. military is expected to leave in coming months as it scales back its presence from about 280 facilities to six large bases and a few small ones by the end of next summer.

Some of the items that commanders may now leave behind, including passenger vehicles and generators, are among what commanders in Afghanistan need most urgently, according to Pentagon memos.

Officials involved say the approach has triggered arguments in the Pentagon over whether the effort to leave Iraqis adequately equipped is hurting the buildup in Afghanistan. Officials in the U.S. Central Command, which oversees both wars, have balked at some proposed handovers, and previously rejected an approach that would have granted base commanders even greater leeway.

U.S. commanders in Iraq say they have been judicious in assessing what equipment to earmark for donation. Alan F. Estevez, a deputy undersecretary of defense, wrote in an e-mail that "an important and vital goal is to leave behind fully functioning bases to the Government of Iraq to enable Iraq's civil capacities."

But a U.S. military official critical of the process said the new regulations allow too much latitude to commanders, provide little oversight and fail to account for the urgent need of American forces in Afghanistan, which need the same kinds of items that the troops in Iraq are leaving behind.
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"How can a generator or an SUV or a relocatable building be excess if you are buying the very same thing and sending it to Afghanistan?" said the official, who is involved in the process and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

"In Iraq, people drive around in new Yukons, Suburbans, Envoys and new pickups," the official said. "In Kandahar, you find troops from the same U.S. Army driving around in broken-down, 15-year-old, right-hand-drive clunkers with bald tires."

Brig. Gen. Peter C. Bayer Jr., the chief of staff for the ground forces command in Iraq, said that though the Army wanted to make equipment available to units in Afghanistan, it was often more cost-effective to donate vehicles and other goods to the cash-strapped Iraqi government than to pack and ship it.

"In many cases, we'll spend more between labor and transportation than the equipment is worth," Brig. Gen. Bayer said. "We're not talking about green Army trucks or weapons systems or night-vision capabilities." Under the surge that President Obama outlined last week, commanders in Afghanistan -- a theater long eclipsed by Iraq -- soon will need to accommodate 30,000 additional troops. The Pentagon had already begun moving gear and personnel from Iraq to Afghanistan, reflecting a shift that has made Afghanistan the new administration's top foreign policy priority.

Senior military officials have said that getting new equipment into Afghanistan presents a major logistical challenge. "To the extent we can leverage equipment that's being retrograded out of Iraq, we're going to do that to make that a little easier," Brig. Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., the director of the Pentagon's Pakistan-Afghanistan Coordination Cell, said last week in an online discussion with bloggers. "But a significant amount of this equipment will need to be brought in from elsewhere."

Under federal law, government agencies must demonstrate that equipment they wish to donate is not needed by other U.S. agencies. If that criterion is met, equipment can be donated in exchange for "substantial benefits" to the United States.

GetAFreelancer Hits 1 Million Users, Switches Name To Freelancer.com

GetAFreelancer Hits 1 Million Users, Switches Name To Freelancer.com

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by Robin Wauters on October 7, 2009

If the Internet has made one thing crystal clear, it’s that physical borders and geographical distance are no longer necessarily an absolute barrier for conducting business.

More and more companies are getting accustomed to the idea of being able to do business with companies on the other side of the world using nothing but digital communication means, or to have entire business units or projects led by teams made up of people located all over the globe.

Hence the popularity of services such as oDesk and Elance, websites where you can outsource given projects to registered programmers, designers, writers, legal experts and whatnot. Another player in this market is GetAFreelancer, an Australian company that’s been offering freelance jobs online since it was founded back in 2004.

Today, the company is announcing that it has changed its name to the far better-sounding and undoubtedly more memorable Freelancer.com. They bought the domain name from a private individual who used to run a magazine called Computer Freelancer over 15 years ago, for a ’six figure sum’. All in an effort to increase its visibility and profile.

GetAFreelancer CEO Matt Barrie tells us that the site recently hit a big milestone and now boasts over 1,000,000 registered professionals and businesses from 234 countries and territories worldwide. Over 475,000 jobs have been posted on the website to date, for a sum of over $43 million.

Not too shabby for a bootstrapped venture.

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"GetAFreelancer Hits 1 Million Users, Switches Name To Freelancer.com




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by
Robin Wauters
on
October 7, 2009



If the Internet has made one thing crystal clear, it’s that physical borders and geographical distance are no longer necessarily an absolute barrier for conducting business.
More and more companies are getting accustomed to the idea of being able to do business with companies on the other side of the world using nothing but digital communication means, or to have entire business units or projects led by teams made up of people located all over the globe.
Hence the popularity of services such as oDesk and Elance, websites where you can outsource given projects to registered programmers, designers, writers, legal experts and whatnot. Another player in this market is GetAFreelancer, an Australian company that’s been offering freelance jobs online since it was founded back in 2004.
Today, the company is announcing that it has changed its name to the far better-sounding and undoubtedly more memorable Freelancer.com. They bought the domain name from a private individual who used to run a magazine called Computer Freelancer over 15 years ago, for a ’six figure sum’. All in an effort to increase its visibility and profile.
GetAFreelancer CEO Matt Barrie tells us that the site recently hit a big milestone and now boasts over 1,000,000 registered professionals and businesses from 234 countries and territories worldwide. Over 475,000 jobs have been posted on the website to date, for a sum of over $43 million.
Not too shabby for a bootstrapped venture."
- GetAFreelancer Hits 1 Million Users, Switches Name To Freelancer.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

America the Illiterate

We live in two Americas. One America, now the minority, functions in a print-based, literate world. It can cope with complexity and has the intellectual tools to separate illusion from truth. The other America, which constitutes the majority, exists in a non-reality-based belief system. This America, dependent on skillfully manipulated images for information, has severed itself from the literate, print-based culture. It cannot differentiate between lies and truth. It is informed by simplistic, childish narratives and clichés. It is thrown into confusion by ambiguity, nuance and self-reflection. This divide, more than race, class or gender, more than rural or urban, believer or nonbeliever, red state or blue state, has split the country into radically distinct, unbridgeable and antagonistic entities.

There are over 42 million American adults, 20 percent of whom hold high school diplomas, who cannot read, as well as the 50 million who read at a fourth- or fifth-grade level. Nearly a third of the nation’s population is illiterate or barely literate. And their numbers are growing by an estimated 2 million a year. But even those who are supposedly literate retreat in huge numbers into this image-based existence. A third of high school graduates, along with 42 percent of college graduates, never read a book after they finish school. Eighty percent of the families in the United States last year did not buy a book.

The illiterate rarely vote, and when they do vote they do so without the ability to make decisions based on textual information. American political campaigns, which have learned to speak in the comforting epistemology of images, eschew real ideas and policy for cheap slogans and reassuring personal narratives. Political propaganda now masquerades as ideology. Political campaigns have become an experience. They do not require cognitive or self-critical skills. They are designed to ignite pseudo-religious feelings of euphoria, empowerment and collective salvation. Campaigns that succeed are carefully constructed psychological instruments that manipulate fickle public moods, emotions and impulses, many of which are subliminal. They create a public ecstasy that annuls individuality and fosters a state of mindlessness. They thrust us into an eternal present. They cater to a nation that now lives in a state of permanent amnesia. It is style and story, not content or history or reality, which inform our politics and our lives. We prefer happy illusions. And it works because so much of the American electorate, including those who should know better, blindly cast ballots for slogans, smiles, the cheerful family tableaux, narratives and the perceived sincerity and the attractiveness of candidates. We confuse how we feel with knowledge.

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The illiterate and semi-literate, once the campaigns are over, remain powerless. They still cannot protect their children from dysfunctional public schools. They still cannot understand predatory loan deals, the intricacies of mortgage papers, credit card agreements and equity lines of credit that drive them into foreclosures and bankruptcies. They still struggle with the most basic chores of daily life from reading instructions on medicine bottles to filling out bank forms, car loan documents and unemployment benefit and insurance papers. They watch helplessly and without comprehension as hundreds of thousands of jobs are shed. They are hostages to brands. Brands come with images and slogans. Images and slogans are all they understand. Many eat at fast food restaurants not only because it is cheap but because they can order from pictures rather than menus. And those who serve them, also semi-literate or illiterate, punch in orders on cash registers whose keys are marked with symbols and pictures. This is our brave new world.

Political leaders in our post-literate society no longer need to be competent, sincere or honest. They only need to appear to have these qualities. Most of all they need a story, a narrative. The reality of the narrative is irrelevant. It can be completely at odds with the facts. The consistency and emotional appeal of the story are paramount. The most essential skill in political theater and the consumer culture is artifice. Those who are best at artifice succeed. Those who have not mastered the art of artifice fail. In an age of images and entertainment, in an age of instant emotional gratification, we do not seek or want honesty. We ask to be indulged and entertained by clichés, stereotypes and mythic narratives that tell us we can be whomever we want to be, that we live in the greatest country on Earth, that we are endowed with superior moral and physical qualities and that our glorious future is preordained, either because of our attributes as Americans or because we are blessed by God or both.

The ability to magnify these simple and childish lies, to repeat them and have surrogates repeat them in endless loops of news cycles, gives these lies the aura of an uncontested truth. We are repeatedly fed words or phrases like yes we can, maverick, change, pro-life, hope or war on terror. It feels good not to think. All we have to do is visualize what we want, believe in ourselves and summon those hidden inner resources, whether divine or national, that make the world conform to our desires. Reality is never an impediment to our advancement.

Bondholder Group Reaches Deal for Up to 25% G.M. Stake

General Motors said Thursday that a group representing many of its largest bondholders had accepted a proposal offering up to a 25 percent stake in exchange for not opposing G.M.’s bankruptcy reorganization plan.

In a regulatory filing, G.M. also filled out many of the details of the reorganization plan, crafted under the eye of the Treasury Department.

G.M. confirmed that the government would provide more than $50 billion in bankruptcy financing to see the company through its Chapter 11 filing. What will emerge, through an asset sale known as a 363 transaction, is a newer, slimmer G.M. with about $17 billion in debt.

Under the terms of the deal, G.M. would sell itself in Chapter 11 and bondholders would receive a 10 percent stake in the newly reorganized company in exchange for about $27 billion in bonds. They would also receive warrants to buy an additional 15 percent of a new G.M., exercisable if G.M.’s value rises to certain levels.

G.M. said in the regulatory filing that the proposal depends on the government getting enough bondholders to make statements of support backing the terms of the swap. Without those statements, which are due by Saturday, the amount of stock and warrants for bondholders would be “substantially reduced or eliminated.”

The bondholder committee, which represents holders of about 20 percent of the bonds’ value, had already said they support the proposal, G.M. said.

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“The ad hoc committee of G.M. bondholders supports the revised offer from G.M. and believes that when contrasted with the alternative — uncertain and costly bankruptcy court litigation — that it represents the best alternative for bondholders in the current difficult and dire situation,” the group said Thursday in a statement.

Earlier this week, bondholders overwhelmingly rejected a debt exchange offer that would have swapped their bonds for 10 percent of the company’s equity. It is believed that G.M.’s bonds are held by tens of thousands of investors, ranging from institutions to individuals.

Thursday’s announcement came after German and American negotiators in Britain failed to agree on a crucial bridge loan to sustain Opel and the rest of the European operations of General Motors in the event of a bankruptcy filing, following a marathon negotiating session that stretched till nearly 5 a.m. Thursday.

But officials did manage to narrow the field of potential suitors for Opel to two companies — Fiat, the Italian automaker, and Magna, a Canadian auto parts giant. A Belgian private equity firm as well as a Chinese automaker were knocked out of contention.

NY Times

Nationwide sales tax under consideration. Will dramatically increase the price of everything, but everyone can finally see a doctor for “free”.

With budget deficits soaring and President Obama pushing a trillion-dollar-plus expansion of health coverage, some Washington policymakers are taking a fresh look at a money-making idea long considered politically taboo: a national sales tax.

Common around the world, including in Europe, such a tax — called a value-added tax, or VAT — has not been seriously considered in the United States. But advocates say few other options can generate the kind of money the nation will need to avert fiscal calamity.

At a White House conference earlier this year on the government’s budget problems, a roomful of tax experts pleaded with Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner to consider a VAT. A recent flurry of books and papers on the subject is attracting genuine, if furtive, interest in Congress. And last month, after wrestling with the White House over the massive deficits projected under Obama’s policies, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee declared that a VAT should be part of the debate.

“There is a growing awareness of the need for fundamental tax reform,” Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said in an interview. “I think a VAT and a high-end income tax have got to be on the table.”

A VAT is a tax on the transfer of goods and services that ultimately is borne by the consumer. Highly visible, it would increase the cost of just about everything, from a carton of eggs to a visit with a lawyer. It is also hugely regressive, falling heavily on the poor. But VAT advocates say those negatives could be offset by using the proceeds to pay for health care for every American — a tangible benefit that would be highly valuable to low-income families.

Liberals dispute that notion. “You could pay for it regressively and have people at the bottom come out better off — maybe. Or you could pay for it progressively and they’d come out a lot better off,” said Bob McIntyre, director of the nonprofit Citizens for Tax Justice, which has a health financing plan that targets corporations and the rich.

A White House official said a VAT is “unlikely to be in the mix” as a means to pay for health-care reform. “While we do not want to rule any credible idea in or out as we discuss the way forward with Congress, the VAT tax, in particular, is popular with academics but highly controversial with policymakers,” said Kenneth Baer, a spokesman for White House Budget Director Peter Orszag.

Still, Orszag has hired a prominent VAT advocate to advise him on health care: Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and author of the 2008 book “Health Care, Guaranteed.” Meanwhile, former Federal Reserve chairman Paul A. Volcker, chairman of a task force Obama assigned to study the tax system, has expressed at least tentative support for a VAT.

“Everybody who understands our long-term budget problems understands we’re going to need a new source of revenue, and a VAT is an obvious candidate,” said Leonard Burman, co-director of the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, who testified on Capitol Hill this month about his own VAT plan. “It’s common to the rest of the world, and we don’t have it.”

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Seeking New Revenue

The surge of interest in a VAT is testament to the extraordinary depth of the nation’s money troubles. While some conservatives have long argued that a consumption tax would provide a simpler and more efficient alternative to the byzantine U.S. income tax code, this time it’s all about the money.

The federal budget deficit is projected to approach $1.3 trillion next year, the highest ever except for this year, when the deficit is forecast to exceed $1.8 trillion. The Treasury is borrowing 46 cents of every dollar it spends, largely from China and other foreign creditors, who are growing increasingly uneasy about the security of their investments. Unless Congress comes up with some serious cash, expanding the nation’s health-care system will only add to the problem.

Obama wants to raise income taxes for high earners and impose new levies on business, but those moves would not generate enough cash to cover the cost of health care, much less balance the budget, and they have not been fully embraced by Congress. Obama’s plan to tax greenhouse-gas emissions could raise trillions of dollars, but again, Congress is balking.

Key lawmakers are considering other ways to pay for health reform, including new taxes on sugary soda, alcohol and employer-provided health insurance. The last proposal could raise a lot of money — nearly $1 trillion over the next five years, according to White House budget documents. But options on the table would raise a fraction of that sum. And while it might pay for health care, it would barely dent deficits projected to total nearly $4 trillion over the next five years and to grow rapidly in the future, as baby boomers draw on Social Security and Medicare.

Enter the VAT, one of the world’s most popular taxes, in use in more than 130 countries. Among industrialized nations, rates range from 5 percent in Japan to 25 percent in Hungary and in parts of Scandinavia. A 21 percent VAT has permitted Ireland to attract investment by lowering its corporate tax rate.

The VAT has advantages: Because producers, wholesalers and retailers are each required to record their transactions and pay a portion of the VAT, the tax is hard to dodge. It punishes spending rather than savings, which the administration hopes to encourage. And the threat of a VAT could pull the country out of recession, some economists argue, by hurrying consumers to the mall before the tax hits.

A VAT’s Bottom Line

What would it cost? Emanuel argues in his book that a 10 percent VAT would pay for every American not entitled to Medicare or Medicaid to enroll in a health plan with no deductibles and minimal copayments. In his 2008 book, “100 Million Unnecessary Returns,” Yale law professor Michael J. Graetz estimates that a VAT of 10 to 14 percent would raise enough money to exempt families earning less than $100,000 — about 90 percent of households — from the income tax and would lower rates for everyone else.

And in a paper published last month in the Virginia Tax Review, Burman suggests that a 25 percent VAT could do it all: Pay for health-care reform, balance the federal budget and exempt millions of families from the income tax while slashing the top rate to 25 percent. A gallon of milk would jump from $3.69 to $4.61, and a $5,000 bathroom renovation would suddenly cost $6,250, but the nation’s debt would stabilize and everybody could see a doctor.

Sales Tax Gains Momentum

Burman, who helped House Democrats craft an unsuccessful 2007 plan to repeal the alternative minimum tax, said he’s received a number of phone calls from lawmakers interested in his idea, though “they can’t quite imagine how to make it happen politically.” Burman said the 25 percent rate has caused some sticker shock, and he’s trying to figure out how to bring it down.

Graetz’s proposal drew an endorsement from Volcker, who last year called it “a sensible plan for reform.” (Volcker did not respond to a request for comment.) It also has piqued the interest of Conrad, the Senate Budget Committee chairman who argues that it could be modified to accommodate Obama’s pledge not to raise taxes on families who make less than $200,000 a year.

“I think interest is quietly picking up,” Graetz said. “People are beginning to recognize that the mathematics of the current system are just unsustainable. You have to do something. And a VAT has got to be on the table if you want to do something big and serious.”

Still, the Senate Finance Committee declined to include a VAT among the options it is considering to pay for health reform. And even VAT supporters doubt the tax will find a place among the tax-reform proposals the Volcker panel has been asked to produce by Dec. 4.

Though the nation’s fiscal outlook is grim, Burman said “the situation will have to get more desperate” before lawmakers are likely to consider a new levy aimed directly at the pocketbooks of every one of their constituents.

Most lawmakers are still looking for “a painless source of revenue” to overhaul the health-care system and dig the nation out of debt, Burman said. “Who knows?” he added. “Maybe the tooth fairy will bring that to them.”

Opposites attract — how genetics influences humans to choose their mates

Vienna, Austria: New light has been thrown on how humans choose their partners, a scientist will tell the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics today (Monday May 25). Professor Maria da Graça Bicalho, head of the Immunogenetics and Histocompatibility Laboratory at the University of Parana, Brazil, says that her research had shown that people with diverse major histocompatibility complexes (MHCs) were more likely to choose each other as mates than those whose MHCs were similar, and that this was likely to be an evolutionary strategy to ensure healthy reproduction.

Females’ preference for MHC dissimilar mates has been shown in many vertebrate species, including humans, and it is also known that MHC influences mating selection by preferences for particular body odours. The Brazilian team has been working in this field since 1998, and decided to investigate mate selection in the Brazilian population, while trying to uncover the biological significance of MHC diversity.

The scientists studied MHC data from 90 married couples, and compared them with 152 randomly-generated control couples. They counted the number of MHC dissimilarities among those who were real couples, and compared them with those in the randomly-generated ‘virtual couples’. “If MHC genes did not influence mate selection”, says Professor Bicalho, “we would have expected to see similar results from both sets of couples. But we found that the real partners had significantly more MHC dissimilarities than we could have expected to find simply by chance.”

Within MHC-dissimilar couples the partners will be genetically different, and such a pattern of mate choice decreases the danger of endogamy (mating among relatives) and increases the genetic variability of offspring. Genetic variability is known to be an advantage for offspring, and the MHC effect could be an evolutionary strategy underlying incest avoidance in humans and also improving the efficiency of the immune system, the scientists say.

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The MHC is a large genetic region situated on chromosome 6, and found in most vertebrates. It plays an important role in the immune system and also in reproductive success. Apart from being a large region, it is also an extraordinarily diverse one.

“Although it may be tempting to think that humans choose their partners because of their similarities”, says Professor Bicalho, “our research has shown clearly that it is differences that make for successful reproduction, and that the subconscious drive to have healthy children is important when choosing a mate.”

The scientists believe that their findings will help understanding of conception, fertility, and gestational failures. Research has already shown that couples with similar MHC genes had longer intervals between births, which could imply early, unperceived miscarriages. “We intend to follow up this work by looking at social and cultural influences as well as biological ones in mate choice, and relating these to the genetic diversity of the extended MHC region”, says Professor Bicalho.

“We expect to find that cultural aspects play an important role in mate choice, and certainly do not subscribe to the theory that if a person bears a particular genetic variant it will determine his or her behaviour. But we also think that the unconscious evolutionary aspect of partner choice should not be overlooked. We believe our research shows that this has an important role to play in ensuring healthy reproduction, by helping to ensure that children are born with a strong immune system better able to cope with infection.”

This is Not a Bull Market: Stocks Are Not Up, and They’re Headed Even Lower

How do you measure wealth generation?

1) Average annual gains?

2) Gains relative to an underlying index (the S&P 500)?

3) Gains relative to inflation?

Of these three, the last is the only real means of gauging wealth creation or destruction. Commentators have been going bananas over the fact that stocks are up 20%+ since their bottom of 666. No one mentions that this rally may actually be induced by the Federal Reserve pumping trillions of dollars into the financial system.

Similarly, no one mentions that adjusted for inflation, stocks are still WAY down from their peak during the Tech bubble.

As you can see, stocks entered a bear market in earnest following the Tech Crash. Yes, in number or nominal terms, the Dow has risen. But you have to remember the dollar lost roughly a third of its value from 2001 to today. Measuring stocks or anything in dollars between now and then was like measuring with a ruler that was continually shrinking.

Also, bear in mind that the above chart is using the Government’s phony measure of inflation: the Consumer Price Index [CPI] which DOESN’T include food or energy prices. Using accurate inflationary data, stocks are down even more in real terms.

My main point is this: inflation is an ever-present reality in the post WWII era. Investors need to be protecting themselves from this beast at all costs. You can do this by:

• Buying gold
• Buying commodities or real assets
• Buying companies that can offset inflationary costs by raising the price of their products
  

I suggest having some money in all three. It’s the only certain way to protect your wealth from inflation. The Feds are cooking up an inflationary storm of epic proportions, pumping TRILLIONS of dollars into the financial system. Stocks may rally like a rocket-ship from here. But in real terms they’re still tanking.

After all, if the Dow hits 30,000, but you’re celebrating by drinking a $150.00 coke… are you really any richer?

Diamonds pile up worldwide as consumers finally realize their worthlessness.

Diamonds pile up worldwide as consumers finally realize their worthlessness.

By ANDREW E. KRAMER May 11, 2009

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Each day, the contents of the bags spill into the stainless steel hoppers of the receiving room. The diamonds are washed and sorted by size, clarity, shape and quality; then, rather than being sent to be sold around the world, they are wrapped in paper and whisked away to a vault — about three million carats worth of gems every month.

“Each one of them is so unusual,” said Irina V. Tkachuk, one of the few hundred people, mostly women, employed to sort the diamonds, who sees thousands of them every day.

“I’m not a robot. I sometimes think to myself ‘wow, what a pretty diamond. I would like that one.’ They are all so beautiful.”

It could be years before another woman admires that stone. Russia quietly passed a milestone this year: surpassing De Beers as the world’s largest diamond producer. But the global market for diamonds is so dismal that the Alrosa diamond company, 90 percent owned by the Russian government, has not sold a rough stone on the open market since December, and has stockpiled them instead.

As a result, Russia has become the arbiter of global diamond prices. Its decisions on production and sales will determine the value of diamonds on rings and in jewelry stores for years to come, in one of the most surprising consequences of this recession.

Largely because of the jewelry bear market, De Beers’s fortunes have sunk. Short of cash, the company had to raise $800 million from stockholders in just the last six months.

The recession also coincided with a settlement with European Union antitrust authorities that ended a longtime De Beers policy of stockpiling diamonds, in cooperation with Alrosa, to keep prices up.

Though it is a major commodity producer, Russia has traditionally not embraced policies that artificially keep prices up. In oil, for example, Russia benefits from the oil cartel’s cuts in production, but does not participate in them.

Diamonds are an exception. “If you don’t support the price,” Andrei V. Polyakov, a spokesman for Alrosa, said, “a diamond becomes a mere piece of carbon.”

In an attempt to carefully calibrate its re-entry on the global market, without forcing prices still lower, Russia is relying on two things: the Soviet-era precious gem depository — created to hold jewelry confiscated from the aristocracy after the 1917 revolution — and capitalist investors, whom Alrosa hopes will buy diamonds as an investment, like gold.

Russia is taking a leadership role in other ways, too.

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Sergei Vybornov, Alrosa’s chief executive, said that he had helped persuade the central bank of Angola — which, like Russia, is still relatively flush with oil money — to buy 30 percent of the production of Angola’s diamond mines, keeping these stones off the market.

And last fall, Alrosa began what it called the St. Petersburg Initiative, along with De Beers and other large producers, to invest collectively in generic diamond advertising, akin to De Beers’s promotion of the slogan “Diamonds are forever.” Russia assumed the task as De Beers has principally shifted to promoting its own branded gems.

Still, it is a precarious time for the Russian diamond company to assume leadership of the industry.

Until last year, De Beers produced about 40 percent of the global rough stone supply, and Alrosa 25 percent. But De Beers, which is prohibited under its European Union antitrust agreement from stockpiling, closed mines in response to the glut in rough stones. Russia is loath to do that, as authorities in Moscow, gravely concerned about potential unrest by disgruntled unemployed workers, try to keep workers on the payroll.

In the first quarter, De Beers reduced output by 91 percent compared with the previous year. The diversified mining companies Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton also curbed production.

Meanwhile, the market for wholesale polished diamonds, worth about $21.5 billion, is expected to fall to about $12 billion in 2009, according to Polished Prices, an analytical service for the industry.

Rough diamond prices have fallen even more, as much as 75 percent since their peak last July at some auctions.

The two markets are distinct. Typically, about 60 percent of a rough diamond is lost as dust or shavings in the cutting process.

Mr. Vybornov blames diamond traders who pledged diamond stocks as loan collateral for part of the world glut. When credit dried up last fall, banks and other creditors seized those gems and sold them, he says, flooding the market. By December, his company decided to withdraw entirely from the market rather than further erode prices.

Russia historically remained mostly a behind-the-scenes player, perhaps because Soviet authorities would have had to perform some ideological gymnastics to promote a product consumed principally by the rich of the capitalist world.

Instead, twisting politics, the Soviets concluded a semisecret agreement with apartheid-era De Beers to sell Siberian diamonds in a way that would not undercut the market.

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After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian diamond industry created a formal alliance with De Beers, selling the South African company half of each year’s production at a discount intended to subsidize De Beers’s generic diamond advertising undertaken in the 1990s, mostly in the United States.

Now, the Russians are in the driver’s seat.

Charles Wyndham, a former De Beers evaluator and co-founder of Polished Prices, said Russia had thus far managed the transition well: withholding gems to make more money in the long run rather than further depressing the market.

“Whatever one wants to say about the Russians, they certainly aren’t stupid,” Mr. Wyndham said.

Alrosa is seeking to jump-start demand by selling gems under long-term contracts to wholesale buyers in Belgium, Israel, India and elsewhere. Under these contracts, six of which have been signed, prices are set at a midpoint between the peak last August and this winter, and fixed for a period of several years.

“A diamond ring should not cost $100,” Mr. Vybornov said. “We don’t want that type of client.”

Alrosa is also working with a Moscow investment bank, Leader, a subsidiary of the Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom, to market diamonds to investors. Under the plan, investors would buy diamonds but the gems would not be released to jewelers for several years.

It is a program, essentially, of outsourcing the stockpiling function to investors in exchange for the chance to profit from a possible recovery in the market.

At one of Alrosa’s cutting shops in one of Moscow’s outer districts, Aleksandr A. Malinin, an adviser to the president of Alrosa, showed a typical collection that might become the basis for such an investment vehicle.

The gems fit in a felt box about the size of a laptop computer.

The larger stones, a circular-cut 10 carat flawless white and a princess-cut yellow, were estimated at about $400,000. The smaller ones ranged from $16,000 to $100,000. But the value of the box, while surely several million dollars, is something of a mystery just now given the depressed market.

How the buy-in price for the stones will be set, and how the company will determine when the price goes up and down, is unclear, Mr. Malinin said.

“We have to tell people that diamonds are valuable,” he said. “We are trying to maintain the price, just as De Beers did, as all diamond producing countries do. But what we are doing is selling an illusion,” meaning a product with no utility and a price that depends on the continued sense of scarcity where there is none.

At the Alrosa unit that receives diamonds, called the United Selling Organization, where about 90 percent of the output of the Siberian mines arrives for processing, Elena V. Kapustkina pours about 45,000 carats of diamonds though a stainless steel sieve every day to sort them by size.

“It’s just a job,” she said.

When asked whether diamonds had lost their romance for her, Ms. Kapustkina paused, looked down at the pile of gems on her table and blushed.

In fact, she said, her husband, a truck driver, gave her a half-carat ring 22 years ago. “Of course I love it,” she said. “It’s from my husband.”

Nearly one in three US homeowners owe more on mortgage than their home is worth

May 7, 2009 | 10:39 AM

The downturn in home prices has left about 20% of U.S. homeowners owing more on a mortgage than their homes are worth, according to one new study, signaling additional challenges to the Obama administration’s efforts to stabilize the housing market.

The increase in the number of such “underwater” borrowers comes amid signs that falling prices are making homes more affordable for first-time buyers and others who have been shut out of the housing market. But falling prices also make it more difficult for homeowners who get into financial trouble to refinance or sell their homes, and for others to take advantage of lower interest rates.

For instance, fewer will qualify to take advantage of a key component of the Obama administration’s plan to stabilize the housing market. Under the plan, announced in February, as many as five million homeowners whose loans are owned or guaranteed by government-controlled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can refinance their mortgages, but only if the mortgage loan is a maximum of 105% of the home’s value.

Government officials are considering an increase in that limit. “It’s a question that we’re looking at,” said James Lockhart, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie and Freddie.

Real-estate Web site Zillow.com said that overall, the number of borrowers who are underwater climbed to 20.4 million at the end of the first quarter from 16.3 million at the end of the fourth quarter. The latest figure represents 21.9% of all homeowners, according to Zillow, up from 17.6% in the fourth quarter and 14.3% in the third quarter.

“What’s going on here is that you don’t have any markets that have turned around and you have new markets, like Dallas, that have joined the ranks” of communities where home prices have fallen, said Stan Humphries, a Zillow.com vice president.

Borrowers who owe far more than their home is worth may also be less likely to participate in another part of the government’s housing plan, which provides incentives for mortgage companies to modify loans to make payments more affordable. Thomas Lawler, an independent housing economist, said borrowers who owe 30% more than their homes are worth are far more likely to walk away from their property than those who owe just 5% or 10% more and expect prices to rebound. More than one in 10 borrowers with a mortgage owed 110% or more of their home’s value at the end of last year, according to First American CoreLogic.

There are some recent indications that the housing market could be beginning to stabilize. The National Association of Realtors pending home-sales index, for instance, increased 3.2% in March.

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Just how many borrowers are underwater is a matter of some dispute, with the answer depending in part on assumptions regarding home values and mortgage debt outstanding. Variations in home-price estimates can make a major difference in the number of borrowers who are underwater. In addition, borrowers who are already in the foreclosure process may be counted as being underwater if the title to their property hasn’t changed hands.

Kenneth Rosen, chairman of the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, said underwater estimates can be too high if they use price data that includes a large number of foreclosures. Foreclosed homes tend to sell at a discount, he said, making it appear that prices have fallen more than they actually have.

Moody’s Economy.com estimates that of 78.2 million owner-occupied single-family homes, 14.8 million borrowers, or 19%, owed more than their homes were worth at the end of the first quarter, up from 13.6 million at the end of last year.

Part of the reason Zillow’s numbers are higher may be that it looks at mortgage debt taken out at the time the home was purchased and doesn’t adjust for any payments since made toward the outstanding mortgage balance. It also assumes that borrowers who took out home-equity lines of credit at the time of purchase have fully tapped the amount they can borrow. That approach can overstate the portion of borrowers who are underwater, Mr. Zandi said.

Mr. Humphries of Zillow calls his methodology conservative and said Zillow’s use of pricing for individual homes provides a better measure of home valuations than Mr. Zandi’s approach, which relies on market-level estimates of home values. He adds that Zillow doesn’t include foreclosures in its pricing models.

Write to Ruth Simon at ruth.simon@wsj.com and James R. Hagerty at bob.hagerty@wsj.com