supernemovitosti

© Joe Shlabotnik

Dependency on calculators has stopped the progress of math's skill in growing up children. They are not even able to perform a simple math's calculation in their heads without calculators. Elizabeth Truss, the Conservative MP for South West Norfolk, said the development was leaving English children lagging behind peers in other countries that place strict curbs on the use of calculators in primary schools. Ministers are told to place a greater emphasis on old-fashioned mental arithmetic to make children more "financially literate". We are in danger of producing a new generation of students overly reliant on calculators. In Massachusetts, the top-performing US state for math's education, the curriculum states that pupils should learn how to perform basic sums without resorting to calculators.

© mlavoie8

My boss has been keeping me posted on a property search she and her husband have been doing as an investment/vacation home. Certainly, in taking such a step, one wants to make sure of doing the right thing, in the best way possible. In hearing about their experiences and their considerations, however, it eventually occurred to me that it sounded like pressure was building up, along with worries and doubts. So the next time she mentioned the topic, I took the liberty of reminding her that the process should also be enjoyable, to the extent that it can be, at least as an underlying motivation! She stopped and thought for a second and then burst out laughing, saying, "You're right! We got so caught up in the seriousness of it all that we forgot why we're doing this in the first place!…which is to have a second home to call our own and enjoy, as well as potentially rent out for supplemental income for certain periods…all, in fact, good things!" She rang up her husband and they had a good laugh together too. She said they've been feeling more relaxed about their whole approach, and it has made their communication and experience in this venture less stressed, as well as allowed their confidence to build back up. I was glad I shared by observation.

© woodleywonderworks

Statistics show that in Charlotte, North Carolina access to mortgage refinancing declined in minority communities from 2008 to 2009, while actually increasing in mostly white neighborhoods, even in the midst of the housing bust. In minority neighborhoods 37% of conventional refinance loan requests were denied during this period, while in mostly white areas that figure was 15%.

A study that examined refinance lending in seven major US cities also revealed the same trend. On average, in those cities in 2009 lenders were more than twice as likely to deny refinance loans to homeowners in communities of color as they were to homeowners in majority white neighborhoods. This behavior by major lenders is exacerbating the effects of the housing bust in minority communities and widening economic disparities between racial groups in the US.