Is it only me, or its a bit annoying every year around Christmas, Birthday's, etc, where you never know exactly what to offer and end up buying not very useful stuff for who gets the gift...
Its still very nice to offer small funny things anyway, a typical valentine's day gift should never be changed i guess, but from a pragmatic point of view, offering another pair of socks, a random book or yet another pijama on Christmas seems a tiny bit pointless...
A common Deja vu ?: "Its a week to Christmas, i'm on the shopping mall already, i need to buy Andrew a gift, what can i get him?? lets check the bookstore. What could he like... maybe this cars collection book... or this landscapes photo album...
How about if we offer something to Andrew that he really wants/needs? I know that already exists wishlists, amazon, google etc.. have them, and they are very nice.. you can look at Andrew's wish list he has a book there he really wants, cool lets get that. But how about big things? things that by yourself you cannot offer to Andrew.
Like, Andrew really wants a piano. I cannot offer Andrew a piano, but maybe i can contribute to Andrew's piano, kinda like buying a couple of piano keys...
Thats where Funds'R'US come in, Andrew would go to Funds'R'US and create there a piano fund for him. When its Christmas time i can go to Funds'R'US and check Andrew's Funds, and find out that he really wants a piano, so I can online, quickly, without needing to go look for random stuff in shops, give him something useful and that will make Andrew really happy. So i would deposit some money into Andrew's piano fund and then Funds'R'US could even send a personalized postcard to Andrew with a picture of a piano with a fraction of the picture selected saying: Merry Christmas, Alex. After enough christmas and birthdays passing by, Andrew will eventually get money for a full piano, instead of a pile of not so useful stuff.
Discussing this idea, with a friend of mine, Safin Ahmed (the zen master of (crazy?)ideas :) ) he suggested extending this idea a bit further, actually the Funds'R'US could even support more than personal funds, they could have organizations Funds. Like Unicef wants to offer a health care center to a needing city. Or your own town homeless center supporting more 5 people for next winter. etc.. etc...
Also, yes the the name Funds'R'US is really bad :)
Estonian Economy looking at 2008
from: http://globaleconomydoesmatter.blogspot.com/2008/01/is-estonia-now-definitely-heading-for.html
and: http://balticeconomy.blogspot.com/2008/01/estonia-inflation-december-2007.html
Inflation is going up, a lot.
Retail Sales and Consumer Confidence is dropping.
Industrial Output is dropping.
Salaries are increasing.
Unemployment rate is going down.
Inflation going up means stuff is getting more expensive, especially house and food prices, consequentially people avoid spending too much money, they buy less stuff, consequentially the industry has less demand and they will produce less.
Also, to try to keep up with higher prices of goods, salaries have to rise.
Overall Estonian economic growth is slowing down at the moment (the GDP* rate) and the biggest concern might be that the continued high rise of inflation might lead to an out of equilibrium situation(the "hard landing" mentioned in the original article), which consequently could slow down more the GDP growth for next 3 years(maybe)
This is a concern not only for Estonia but overall baltic country's.
*GDP = consumption + investment + (government spending) + (exports − imports)
and: http://balticeconomy.blogspot.com/2008/01/estonia-inflation-december-2007.html
Inflation is going up, a lot.
Retail Sales and Consumer Confidence is dropping.
Industrial Output is dropping.
Salaries are increasing.
Unemployment rate is going down.
Inflation going up means stuff is getting more expensive, especially house and food prices, consequentially people avoid spending too much money, they buy less stuff, consequentially the industry has less demand and they will produce less.
Also, to try to keep up with higher prices of goods, salaries have to rise.
Overall Estonian economic growth is slowing down at the moment (the GDP* rate) and the biggest concern might be that the continued high rise of inflation might lead to an out of equilibrium situation(the "hard landing" mentioned in the original article), which consequently could slow down more the GDP growth for next 3 years(maybe)
This is a concern not only for Estonia but overall baltic country's.
*GDP = consumption + investment + (government spending) + (exports − imports)
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