The National Debt Clock near Times Square in New York, shown yesterday, has run out of digits to record the growing figure. Great….

Finance chiefs from the world’s richest nations are set to meet in Washington for a crucial but uncertain meeting at a time of unprecedented fear about the global financial system.The Group of Seven meeting will bring together finance ministers and central bankers on Friday from the United States, Germany, Japan, France, Britain, Italy and Canada for some collective-thinking on the credit crunch and crashing stocks.

They are to be joined by counterparts from emerging markets including Brazil, Russia, India and China for an impromptu gathering of the expanded so-called G20 group. The United States finds itself in a rare position of weakness, facing many allies that have been highly critical of its economic policy and regulatory system blamed for the problems. US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Wednesday the meeting would be a forum “to discuss the steps that each of us are taking to confront this crisis and ways to further enhance our collective efforts.”

“The USA will lose its superpower status in the global financial system. The world financial system is becoming multi-polar,” says Social-Democrat Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck. Is anyone or any economy safe?

American interest in adopting foreign children is stronger than ever. So why is the United States adopting fewer of them? According to early projections by the State Department, foreign adoptions have dropped an estimated 10% from last year-the fourth straight year of decline since the high-water mark of 22,884 in 2004. Experts say the downward trend is likely to continue as countries such as Russia, Guatemala and China, which in recent years had been among the largest providers of orphans for adoption, have either dialed back their programs or ended them entirely.

In China, a process that used to take a year-and was lauded for being efficient, transparent and affordable-now takes 31 months and is expected to get longer. China says increased prosperity in the country means fewer abandoned children. Russia, Ukraine and South Korea, all facing declining birthrates, are encouraging domestic adoption and making fewer children available to foreigners. The average cost has also soared to $40,000, the most expensive in the world. At least 600 approved adoption applications submitted by Americans have been returned to their agencies without matches. Click here to view adoption graph.

The US has again topped a widely-watched index ranking country competitiveness, despite the financial crisis that has left it and other highly ranked nations facing market meltdown and a prolonged economic downturn.

Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden retain their second, third and fourth places respectively in the league table compiled by the Geneva-based World Economic Forum.

Oh boy… Like Bill Clinton, he refuses to just fade away. Vladimir Putin has released yet another display of his own masculinity: a DVD entitled ‘Let’s learn judo with Vladimir Putin’.

‘Let’s Learn Judo with Vladimir Putin’ is the product of collaboration between Putin - a black belt - and former World and Olympic judo champion Yasuhiro Yamashita.

Putin is a one-time judo champion of his home city St. Petersburg - called Leningrad at the time. At least the ex-president is in great shape at 56. Good for him.

Women With Only One Female Boss Have It Bad?

A new study finds that your boss’ gender can affect just how much pain he or she seems to inflict. Researchers at the University of Toronto used data from a 2005 national telephone survey of working adults in the United States and compared the stress levels and physical health problems of men and women working in one of three situations: for a lone male supervisor, a lone female supervisor, or for both a male and female supervisor.

The study found that:
Women who had only one female boss reported more psychological distress (such as trouble sleeping, difficulty focusing on work, depression and anxiety) and physical symptoms (such as headaches, stomach pain or heartburn, neck and back pain and tiredness) than women who worked for one male boss.

Women who reported to a mixed-gender pair of supervisors also reported more of these symptoms than their peers who worked for a single male boss.

Men who worked for a single supervisor, regardless of the supervisor’s gender, had similar levels of distress.
Men who worked for a mixed-gender pair had fewer mental and physical symptoms than those working for a lone male supervisor.

The findings, specifically those of female subordinates with females bosses, contradict theories suggested by previous studies that demographic similarities between a boss and their subordinate would promote harmony in the work place, while demographic differences would create problems.

The researchers speculated that these contradictions may stem from the stereotype that it is more “normal” for men to be leaders and display the typical leadership characteristics.

Something about the nature of the work itself is influencing these health differences. For example, women working with a woman supervisor might tend to be found mostly in the “caring sector or in jobs that tend to be under-resourced, under-funded and under-valued,” such as social work or education, creating stress both for the workers themselves and stress for the boss that might trickle down to her subordinates.

Workers in their 20s and 30s using their retirement funds to pay credit card debt and home mortgages instead of leaving it alone to accumulate. Fidelity Investments released a survey that said large numbers of young workers cash out their 401(k) accounts when they switch jobs, leaving them without an accumulation of cash for retirement.

The typical Gen X or Gen Y will work for seven different employers across their career. If you consider the combination of the withdrawal behavior with that propensity for multiple employers, we are facing a savings challenge and crisis with this generation.”

About 74% of generation Y workers, born between 1976 and 1987, said money worried them most. Half of the workers in the two age groups said saving for retirement is an obligation or a goal but 51% said other financial priorities prevent them from setting aside money. Mortgage payments and managing credit card debt ranked higher in importance than retirement saving.

The key to changing the behavior is to get younger workers to seek advice when they change jobs so they understand they can leave the money with the employer, roll it over to the new employer’s plan or put the money in an IRA.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says Generation X and Generation Y workers will surpass baby boomers as the largest single segment of workers in the United States by 2010 when they will represent 60% of the U.S. work force.

A good percentage of second homeowners fall into the retirement age demographic, and quite a few of them have at one time or another kicked around the idea of selling their primary residence and moving into that beachfront condo or mountain chalet full-time. But there are six reasons why you might consider renting your vacation home instead.

1.  Income from renting is better than foreclosure. According to government data, close to 40%, and perhaps as many as 50%, of the foreclosures in 2007 were of nonowner-occupied homes, which generally means vacation homes. S&P Chief Economist David Wyss expects this trend to continue into 2008 and 2009, pointing out that it’s psychologically easier for people to skip payments on a secondary home.

2.  Circumstances have changed since you made your retirement plans. Maybe grandchildren have arrived on the scene and you can’t bear the thought of moving hundreds of miles away from them. Regardless of specifics, your life bears no resemblance to what you thought it would be when you made your retirement plans.

3.  You’ve suddenly realized there’s no place like home. You’ve decided you like being near your friends, you don’t want to leave your church. Or perhaps you’d like to stay in your hometown most of the year (you kind of like the change of seasons) and spend the bitterest winter months in your beachfront condo. Renting your second home out during the time you are not staying there makes it financially feasible to keep both homes. Traditionally, many retirees would sell the home they lived in for 40 years, downsize to a smaller house or apartment, and split their time between that home and their vacation place in.

4.  You’ve decided to “retire” from retirement. It is not unusual for people to test-drive retirement and find that it’s just not for them. Work can provide many rich rewards—structure, social interaction, mental stimulation, and a sense of purpose—that people keenly miss when they retire. And when they discover that quitting the rat race isn’t quite what they thought it would be, more and more people are opting to return to the workplace. And (let’s be honest), sometimes people simply can’t afford to retire.

5.  Your fixed income hasn’t kept up with your lifestyle. Even when you’re happy to give up the daily grind of your job, losing the paycheck that comes with it can be pretty painful. Factor in inflation, rising taxes, and unexpected new expenses, and you may find that what seemed like a manageable cost of living five years ago doesn’t seem that way anymore. Your second home, even if it’s paid for, may start looking like a liability due to property taxes, homeowner’s association dues, and maintenance costs. 

6.  You’re currently renting your vacation home through a property management company, but you’d like to make more money. Ditching the middleman may be the way to go. Property managers simply charge a hefty fee for their services. In fact, you have to rent 10 more weeks with a management company to end up with the same amount of money you’d make renting by owner.

People who try renting by owner often end up liking it so much that they pour their earnings into another vacation home. a recent survey by the National Association of Realtors found that some 55% of vacation homebuyers said they were likely to purchase another property within two years.

Costs are rising, profits are shrinking and the ability of the big guys to keep prices relatively lower is drawing away customers. Things are so bad that many small enterprises, which account for about 99% of the country’s businesses, say they are hanging by a thread that may soon snap.

In barely a year, the cost of pork has jumped by 50 cents a pound, while beef is up 20 percent; a five-gallon jug of canola oil that used to cost $15 is at $40; a 50-pound bag of flour jumped from $7 to between $20 and $25. And then there are fuel surcharges of between $5 and $9 that have been added to nearly all deliveries during the past six months. As gas and food prices climb, consumers are bypassing small businesses and seeking out bargains in places like Costco Wholesale Corp., which reported a 32% jump in its fiscal third-quarter profit, surpassing Wall Street expectations.

In the meantime, wages haven’t grown and the job market is tepid, at best. On Friday, the Labor Department said the nation’s unemployment rate jumped to 5.5% in May — the biggest monthly rise since 1986.  While no data is available on how many small businesses have gone under in the past six months, federal officials are reporting a decline in the number of loans they guarantee.

Time To Suck It Up And Change You Ways As Companies Begin Firing Middle Management  

With so many companies cutting their rank and file workforces to the bone because of the tough economy, it seemed inevitable that some firms would eventually get to the fatty middle — middle management that is. They get paid more than the rank and file, but they’re not at the top of the corporate food chain. These factors create a precarious situation for middle managers, and things could get worse if the recession drags on.

So, now is a good time for supervisors with one underling, or one thousand, to start making themselves indispensable to those folks in the corner offices. But how do you do that? Author Janet Banks provides her observations of middle management layoffs and why some supervisors were able to survive.

Here’s what she had to say:  “I had to go through seven rounds of cuts at one company and I had to make the final decisions on who stayed and who would go. What I learned is that you can’t control what people are going to do but you can control how you’re going to be perceived. The ability to have a positive attitude is critical as opposed to a person that’s so fearful that they take everyone in the downward spiral with them. You’re in good shape if you can project positive energy, and look at what is most relevant in terms of the work at hand.”

One of the key characteristics of a manager that tended not to get cut was that they remained upbeat and never acted like it was the end of the world. Another big plus is being flexible, she stresses. During a downturn in the business cycle, priorities of a business can change dramatically. That means you have to be ready to shift gears and look beyond the goals you set during up times.

There’s also a lot to be said about humor and making yourself lovable. It’s all about having the right people on your side during the downsizing war. If you only concentrate on protecting your job, you’ll be out of touch with what’s happening around you. People want flexibility and a positive attitude during layoffs. It’s what this crazy world demands.

Personal details of more than a million bank customers have been found on a computer sold on eBay. Highly- sensitive information on American Express, NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland customers was stored on the machine’s hard drive.  It includes names, addresses, mobile phone numbers, bank account numbers, sort codes, credit card numbers, mothers’ maiden names and even signatures. Wonder what the winning bid amount was!

The development of real estate in China has good prospects in the long run despite the sluggish demand. Amid an estimated continuous urbanization drive in China, more people may move to cities in the next decade and more, creating increasing demand for houses.

Statistics show that real estate investment accounted for nearly 20% of the total investment in fixed assets last year, driven up by about 5% as against 2000

Real estate investment increased by more than 30% between January and July this year, despite the shrinking housing demand since the second half of last year. The country’s real estate developers, which experienced huge profits in the past decade, sold out about 260 million square meters of houses in the first six months this year.

Apparently, the British are eyeing the East as well.

Will China overtake the United States as the world’s biggest economy? It almost certainly will.

China’s economy is now only a fourth the size of the $14 trillion U.S. economy, but given plausible growth rates in both countries, China’s output will exceed America’s in the 2020s, Goldman Sachs forecasts.

By itself, a richer China does not make America poorer. Indeed, because there are so many more Chinese than Americans, average Chinese living standards may lag behind ours indefinitely. By Goldman’s projections, average American incomes will still be twice Chinese incomes in 2050.

The real threat from China lies elsewhere. It is that China will destabilize the world economy. It will distort trade, foster huge financial imbalances and trigger a contentious competition for scarce raw materials. Symptoms of instability have already surfaced, and if they grow worse, everyone—including the Chinese—may suffer.

China strives to lock up supplies of essential raw materials: oil, natural gas, copper. If other countries suffer, so what? Both the United States and China are self-interested. But the United States has seen a prosperous global economy as a means to expanding its power, while China sees the global economy—guaranteed markets for its exports and raw materials—as the means to promoting domestic stability.

China’s economic nationalism may weaken the world economy—but if we retaliate by becoming more nationalistic ourselves, we may do the same. Globalization means interdependence; major nations ignore that at their peril.

‘It’s like a great hotel suite.’ 

New York-style luxury high-rise lifestyle is creeping into the wealthiest echelons, fed by trends like people looking to own more than one home, foreigners drawn by the weak dollar to invest in Los Angeles. For 2006 and 2007 in Los Angeles County, condos sold better than single family homes, even as the market was dipping, real estate data shows, although sales above $5 million are still few.

Los Angeles is becoming a more vertical area at all income levels as land for development becomes less plentiful and traffic congestion, and now high gas prices, steer more people to cluster around mass transit stations and more community-like sections

Competing to lure the ultra rich out of their grand homes and compounds is a new generation of high-end high-rises, with hundreds of units already under construction or planned that promise a higher level of services and more square footage than the typical luxury condo here, which usually sold for under $10 million.

China will complete the construction of its first four strategic oil reserves by the end of this year. China started to build its strategic oil reserves in 2004, in order to fend off the risk of oil shortages and reduce the impact of oil price fluctuations.

The government plans to build strategic oil reserves in three phases over 15 years, involving an estimated investment of 100 billion yuan (14.6 billion U.S. dollars).

The first four reserves, located in Dalian, Qingdao, Ningbo and Zhoushan, are expected to maintain strategic oil reserves equivalent to 30 days of imports in 2010.