In some business environments, it’s usually a good idea to lock down the usage of external USB storage devices and memory sticks to prevent users from accidentally introducing a virus onto the network or copying data off the network.
You can manually modify the registry to lock down the USB storage devices by changing the following Windows XP registry value:
I’m not an economist and this is only my interpretation of what I see happening with the stock market, the economy and the treasury market.
The market has completely panicked. The DOW fell -265 points on August 2nd, 2011 and -512.76 August 4th 2011, as investors fled stocks and put their money into government backed securities like short-term and long-term treasury’s.
The fear of a debt default, which was completely unfounded (politicized by Obama and Geithner), has been eliminated now that the debt ceiling has been increased and the government has the authority to borrow more money. At the same time, the economy appears to be heading towards a double dip recession as the entire year of 2011 had its GDP numbers revised downward. In addition, manufacturing data, unemployment, and the dollar’s value are all getting worse and there doesn’t appear to be any positive momentum to reverse these numbers.
There’s a lot of talk these days about US Treasury Bills, and a lot of folks don’t know what one is, or why they are important.
US Treasuries are certificates issued by the United States Government. Think of them as IOUs or loans. The government will issue Treasury Bills when they need to raise money they don’t have, usually to fund things like war, big spending projects or in recent times, pay their bills (I won’t get into why that is bad in this post). Treasuries can be bought by any person, or any country.
There are 3 important aspects related to a US Treasury; treasury price, maturity date, and yield (also called the interest rate). The easiest way to explain this is through a couple examples.
Ask yourself this question: Who prevents a crime targeted at you from happening?
Most people would answer, the Police. But do they? How often has a police officer stopped a home invasion? What about a mugging? How about a home burglary? What about a bank robbery? How often has a police officer stopped a murder from happening? Or a fight from breaking out in a bar? Unless they happen to be in the right place and the right time, it’s unlikely they could prevent any crime from happening.
People who live in nice neighborhoods aren’t crime free because police cars are constantly patrolling the streets. If that were the case, the city of Compton in California would be one of the safest cities in the country. The reason some neighborhoods are nice has to do with the common civil morality of the people who live there. Not because there are police there. When a crime does take place, no matter where that might be, it’s probably because a police officer wasn’t present.
… and when they aren’t present, is when a crime occurs.
There are many types of taxes that take many different forms depending on where you live. There are excise taxes, fees, tariffs, direct taxes, indirect taxes, federal taxes, and state taxes. Below is a list of taxes most of us pay for in one way or another. This however is not a complete list, because as previously mentioned, it depends on where you live.
