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Vietnam’s economy: Doing battle against inflation

May 7th, 2011

TO HONOUR the dead, the Vietnamese sometimes burn fake banknotes, made out of “votive paper”, for the deceased to spend on the other side. Vietnam’s government recently complained that this votive money looked too similar to the real thing. Unfortunately the resemblance runs deeper than that. Over the past year the value of Vietnam’s official currency—the dong—has been steadily going up in smoke.

Consumer prices rose by 17.5% in the year to April, outstripped only in Ethiopia and Venezuela. The dong has been devalued against the dollar six times since June 2008 (see chart). The Vietnamese have flocked to more reliable stores of value. Those hopin

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Teen Driving: 6 Essential Safety Tips

May 5th, 2011

So your son or daughter is approaching driving age — how’d that happen so fast? No doubt your teen is desperate to be given the keys to the family car, or perhaps for a car of his or her own. It’s something that most parents face with varying degrees of anticipation and dread. So in honor of National Youth Traffic Safety Month

Tags: Driving, Driving Essential

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The Federal Reserve: Ben meets mike

April 28th, 2011

APRIL’S policy statement by the Federal Reserve was a dull one by the standards of central banks, which is saying something. Growth looks softer than expected and inflation is a smidgen more energetic. Still, America’s central bank will complete its $600 billion programme of asset purchases as scheduled, and the language promising near-zero interest rates for an “extended period” didn’t change. Markets yawned.

The financial press, however, was astir. The April 26th-27th meeting of the Fed’s policy committee concluded with an historical first, as Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, welcomed journalists into the central bank’s headquarters in Washington, DC for a press conference. The introduct

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Tags: Federal Reserve, Reserve

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Understanding the Most Fundamental Shift in Marketing

April 20th, 2011

Marketing Hourglass explained by John Jantsch

When I want to make marketing extremely easy to understand, I sit small business owners down in front of the above graphic and have them fill in some process, touchpoint, campaign, product of service in each of the seven blanks. The idea behind this graphic I call the Marketing Hourglass is that marketing is no longer a hunt and close business, it’s a be found, build trust, nurture, wow and refer business.

The most fundamental shift of all in marketing is the need to logically and systematically move prospects along the path of know, like, trust, try, buy, repeat and refer – this is the entire game these days. Now

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Tags: Fundamental Shift, Marketing

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I Want to Choke the Word Synergy

April 3rd, 2011

I don’t know why I react so violently to the word synergy – ask anyone, I’m a easy going person, but some buzz words just get to me. I know they get to you to so let’s kick off the work taking a few to on and why not turn it into a contest too.

you most dreaded or bizarre buzz word or phrase in the comments of this post by Thursday April, 7th and I’ll pick 3 winners to get a full enterprise edition of inDinero accounting software courtesy of Appsumo.

I really love inDinero and even interviewed CEO Jessica Mah on the Duct Tape Marketing podcast. I thought

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Tags: Synergy, Word Synergy

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