Money Making Schemes

Nagesh answers:

If you are in the UK this is the answer due to Government subsidy.

We have installed solar panels that we own so know how the system works.

“Free” ones are just that. The house owner gets the “free” use of electricity generated so you can save on your electric bill.

However to fully benefit you have to be careful when you use electricity. For example if you use a washing machine / dishwasher / tumble dryer at night when the panels aren’t generating you don’t/can’t get free electricity! During a sunny day the panels might be generating 1kw but if you switch on a 2kw appliance you pay for the excess1kw needed to run the appliance.
So yes you will save some money on your electric bill but probably only 40% certainly not 100% of your bill.

The owner of the panels (i.e us!) is the one to benefit. We have a 4kWh system (biggest allowed under Government subsidy) and get paid +/-46p per kilowatt hour generated. We all buy electricity from the Power Companies at 12-14p unit so it is a huge subsidy – which the rest of you are paying – not the Government – one reason why bills are so expensive now!

As a generalisation the capital cost was £12,000 but I am earning +/- £1600 year. To put another way although I still buy some electricity and all gas in effect we will be getting all our gas / electric “for free” and about £600 extra cash in hand!

If you have the cash BUY YOUR OWN as the scheme is Government guaranteed for 25 years!
In investment terms it is a 8-12% TAX FREE return for 25 years – you can’t get anything like that anywhere else.

If you want more specific help email me and I can do the figures for your house and send some pictures of our installation.

P.S. Even on dull days it still generates. Recently on a rainy grey overcast day we were still generating about 240w. So in Janaury when it will be freezing with perhaps snow on the ground as long as the sun is shining we will be generating! It converts light to power – heat is not needed to make it work!

Nagesh answers:

Lack of liquidity basically

Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis talks about how people become more and more relaxed with money and then the crisis hits when problems go out of hand

Macroeconomic causes? There was the problem with interest rates in the 1980s and 1990s.
There was contagion effects from other countries during the recent financial crisis
The Great depression was caused by the lack of liquidity between banks and the government didn’t help
The wars helped contribute to the really bad financial crises during the period
The financial crisis happening in Zimbawae was caused by high government debt
The recent financial crisis was caused by subprime lending market

The international monetary fund (IMF) offers funds to countries that needs it to stay liquid.

Some financial crises were caused by everyone doing the same thing as explained in Strategic complementarities in financial markets section of wikipedia. These things may include bank runs where everyone’s withdrawing their money because depositors fear they won’t get their money back. Although technically it’s not any other bank’s business, other people have insecurities and it follows on like a chain of dominos.

Recessionary effects basically talks about the business cycle and how fluctuations in output and spending can create financial crises by not having enough money at certain times.

There are also things like asset price bubbles where prices on assets have just been rising and rising. Once the prices stop at a point, prices plummet like a rock. When such shocks happen, it can affect the rest of the economy. Think the tech boom during 2000 and the housing price bubble in the recent financial crisis.

The lack of effective regulation is dubbed as one by wikipedia. If effective regulation is not in place to control things like financial innovation that may have a negative knock on effect to other parts of the financial sector, we may have problems.

Most of the causes of financial crises are more financial in nature than economic. However, the ones I have listed above should be the ones you are looking for.

Most people think the main solution to financial crises is to pump more money into the system. Hence, schemes like Quantitative Easing in the UK were in play. IMF provides this, but they also introduce regulatory reform to stop the problem instead of making the problem worse. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Monetary_Fund#Assistance_and_reforms).

Hope this helps

Nagesh answers:

You’ve got to go look for them……… In the 7-8yrs of knocking together websites, and trying to make a few extra £££’s out of them, these are the only ones that haven’t screwed me over and shown signs of making money:

GOOGLE ADSENSE
Been using it for a couple of years……… Minimum $100 payout (about £50 at the current exchange rate)…. Currently earned about $66(US).
Http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/iclk?sa=l&num=0&client=ca-ref-pub-5079162178336415&adurl=http://www.google.com/adsense/%3Fhl%3Den_GB%26ai%3DBcBM3devGRrejNoeeQ7ekkb8Lhc_mJ4Xlm84BxY23AQAQASDXq7sEOABQqKba3fr_____AWC7BpgB_trECaABl5XI_QOyARN3d3cuam9obi1kdWNrLmNvLnVrugEOMTIweDYwX2FzX3JpbWfIAQLaATpodHRwOi8vd3d3LmpvaG4tZHVjay5jby51ay9odG1sL2JvZHlfd2ViX2NvbnN0cnVjdGlvbi5odG1sgAIBwAIDqAMD6APkAugDQugDzQPoA7AD9QMCAAAA&ai=BIAP0devGRrejNoeeQ7ekkb8Lhc_mJ4Xlm84BxY23AQAQASDXq7sEOABQqMumiAZguwaYAf7axAmgAZeVyP0DsgETd3d3LmpvaG4tZHVjay5jby51a7oBDjEyMHg2MF9hc19yaW1nyAEC2gE6aHR0cDovL3d3dy5qb2huLWR1Y2suY28udWsvaHRtbC9ib2R5X3dlYl9jb25zdHJ1Y3Rpb24uaHRtbIACAcACA6gDA-gD5ALoA0LoA80D6AOwA_UDAgAAAA

CIAO UK
A product reviews site that pays you for doing online surveys + product reviews, but also has an affiliate scheme that pays you for new sign-ups. Minimum payout about £5-£6
http://www.ciao.co.uk/reg.php?AffiliateId=5613249

to avoid………. Commission Junction – http://www.cj.com
One of the first banner advert companies I first tried earning money via, but each time (about 3 or 4) I’ve signed up they’ve gone and cancelled my account for “lack of activity after a certain period” (without bothering to tell me!) yet kept on serving banners to my sites until I removed them….. And made a grand total of Sweet-f.a. In several years of running their adverts when my accounts there were active.

Nagesh answers:

One of the paradoxes of a maths degree is that it opens up so many possible career choices that often maths graduates don’t know were to start! In fact quite a high proportion of maths graduates go in to jobs that are open to people with a wide range of degrees, or science degrees generally, but a maths degree gives them and edge. Employer value the ability to solve problems logically and quantitatively and to explain their reasoning. Maths graduates on average have a higher starting salary, certainly compared to “non-numerate” disciplines.

Many graduates doing a BSc in Maths go on to either a graduate training scheme or further study . Amongst those going in to graduate training schemes many of those who still like maths when they graduate, get at least a 2.1 and who want a safe well defined career path with good pay get a job as a trainee actuary.

Another trend (certainly here at Manchester and I think popular for maths grads in general) is to get a job as graduate trainee at the major accountancy and business services. You could be trained in accountancy (professional exams), or some type of management consultancy. In these sort of jobs graduates often report that their mathematical skills only specifically come to bare later in their careers when they become executives and they realise things like stats and OR can make a difference to the bottom line of any company. There are also large business services companies that did not start as accountancy firms and branch out. For example IBM.

Banks including investment banks are still major employers of maths graduates, both because they value their general skills (as I said above)
and for specialist roles in quantitative finance (high level maths involved), risk analysis (it’s not surprising this is now so popular) and specialist IT. Yes they are still hiring for example RBS and Deutche Bank are recruiting heavily in here in the maths dept at Manchester.

The oil exploration and production industry has a massive skills shortage and mathematical modelling of oil reservoirs is a mathematical job for example. Oil majors and oil field services companies are keen to hire maths grads and they pay some of the highest starting salaries on training schemes.

Ok I covered those first as it is where large numbers of maths grads go. A high proportion go on to do further study, like taking a specialist Master’s degree in maths stats or some other science or engineering discipline. For example some maths grads I know have taken an MSc in nuclear engineering and got jobs in the decommissioning industry.

Now some BSc maths graduates will go in to jobs where they are directly using maths or stats. For example quantitative market research is a statistical job. Generally a four year MMath is a better route to a “specialist hire” job. I a specific role where you start doing something productive rather than a graduate training scheme. The possibilities are so diverse its hard to list them. An MMath or MSci in stats or OR might qualify you for a stats or OR job directly. The Pharma sector is a big stats employer. To take two example of MMath grads last year one has a job doing mathematical modelling in company that develops security scanners. And another in a company that develops smart building controls.

And then a few go on from an MMath to do a maths PhD, some of these go on to be maths lecturers and professors creating new mathematics at universities. A US survey listed maths professors as having the best quality of life of all jobs. Maths academics in the UK on average clime the academic career ladder faster than average for academics. And it certainly is fun. But about half maths PhDs go to work in industry — and end up being CTOs of high tech companies and have a lot of fun too.

Unfortunately still not so many good maths graduates go in to teaching (you might have noticed!). But this is now improving. Those that do have a choice of schools to work in as they are in such short supply.

Well that was a marathon post on one of my favorite topics! Hope it helps.

Nagesh answers:

All this talk of Scottish Independence makes me laugh.

Scotland, whatever the outcome of a vote, will be a province of europe. It will not be independent as Switzerland or Norway are independent, but a province of europe with no representation in the form of commissioners or High Representatives. It will be a backwater in europe dependent, not on the UK taxpayer, but the monetary largess of the eu.

Salmond is wasting large amounts of Scottish money on a referendum that will leave Scotland worse off in terms of representation and finance. A new ‘Isthmus Quick to Riches Scheme’ to bankrupt scotland again.

Remember the last time that scottish politicians and bankers promised the people of scotland a ‘golden future’ they bankrupted the people and government. The nasty English rescued the economy by covering the debt and introducing the Act of Union to save the people of scotland from a repeat of the Isthmus of Darien debacle.

Salmond and his SNP mates already have the ability to raise or lower Income Tax by up to 3%, but they don’t use it because they can’t afford to lose the votes by raising tax, and can’t afford to keep some of their more outlandish schemes if they reduce it.

What difference would ‘independence’ make except to move the scottish dependency on other people from Westminster to Brussels/Strasbourg, because scotland does not have the economic base to feed, house, educate and employ its population without ‘aid’ from somewhere.

Brown should not block the referendum, let the scottish people have their say, but let them pay for it.