February 4, 2012

Simplify Your Debt the Smart Way with Debt Consolidation

Living in Boston can get expensive. Some people are fortunate enough to never have to take out loans for anything while visiting or living in Boston, but most people, as they accrue educational and health-related expenses, need to rely on help from the bank and other crediting institutions to get help sharing life’s financial burdens.

When debt gets overwhelming—and for many people, it does—it can be harder to get extra help. You start to get lost in bad credit, paying bills can be difficult, and trying to raise money from other sources can be difficult without strong credit or loaning references.

Take most college graduates for example. A lot of them graduate with a significant amount of debt, and most of that is spread it to a bunch of different loaning institutions. The graduate may have a few thousand in subsidized and unsubsidized government loans, another few thousand from a private loaning agencies, and then maybe ten or twenty thousand through a different bank. Some of these larger loans may actually be divided into different smaller loans,but still fall under the larger agency umbrella.

Some of these loans may have extremely high interest rates and others, such as the government loans, may be substantially lower. If you have a lot of different loans, debt consolidation may be a good idea. You would have to consult with a loan officer or counselor to figure out what would be right for you. If you consolidate, you may lose the lower interest rates on some of your loans and they may end up costing you more. However, if you can benefit from consolidation, you can often get out of debt a lot faster, with a lot less headache, and a lot more money. And then: you can start to breathe again.

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What’s News in Boston?

BOSTON, MA - SEPTEMBER 24:  Interim Senator Pa...
Image by Getty Images via @daylife

What’s News in Boston?

What kind of things are in the news in one of the nation’s metropolitan areas? Snakes, bedbugs, bad guys and even a bogus bridal show!

Like most of the country, Boston is headed off for the elections with the governor’s race. Mostly between the present governor, Deval Patrick and the republican candidate Charlie Baker. However, a third, Tim Cahill, appears to pose some threat.

More speaking out for not speaking is happening when a father goes to join the convention on safer driving laws. He lost a son in 2007 while the two were chatting on the cell phone. Dad feels stricter laws should be enacted to protect more people. Also in 2007, a 15 year old was killed by another teen, 16, who is now appealing his life sentence for a lesser second degree charge due to being mentally unstable at the time of the incident. The appeal has been denied.

A woman in Cambridge awoke to an unexpected surprise as she found a 4 foot long Colombian Red Tail Boa in her bedroom. She had left her window open which the snake used to escape the cold Cambridge weather that the one to one and a half year old snake may not have withstood much longer. Speaking of things in the bedroom, have you checked for bed bugs lately? Apparently they are on the rise! Many even higher class hotels/motels are finding these imposing creatures.

Another top story in the news of Boston is of another 15 year old who committed suicide after allegedly being bullied by several other classmates. Bullying seems to be as bad an epidemic as bed bugs! Can you spray for bullies? Last but not least is the bogus bridal show. A woman was apprehended after collecting fees for a fake bridal show that was supposed to be held in Boston. She had a helper who has not been located as yet. This is not the first time for her however, she has done the same thing in Texas, Nevada, Ohio, Florida and Maryland. Way to go Boston for bamboozling the bamboozler!

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Tom’s Shoes Advocating for the Poor

A revolution is sweeping through the fashion industry. Many clothing items are manufactured overseas where costs and wages are lower, and the items are then wildly marked up to increase profits. Toms Shoes, based in Santa Monica, California, is challenging that business model.

The founder of Tom’s Shoes is Blake Mycoskie, an entrepreneur from Texas. After visiting Argentina and seeing how many families couldn’t afford shoes for their children, he decided to start a shoe company. He began selling shoes, based on the Catalan Alpargata design, out of his home. He put a rubber sole on the shoe and made them with bright colors.

To promote his company and the welfare of the children of Argentina, he promised to give away one pair of shoes for each pair he sold. Many business leaders scoffed at his unique idea. Today, Tom’s Shoes has given away over 600,000 pairs of shoes and is giving 100,000 shoes to Haitians as part of the earthquake relief.

Tom’s Shoes are manufactured in Argentina, China, and Ethiopia, and the company requires each factory to sign an agreement to pay fair wages and to follow local labor standards. The company that is giving away shoes does not allow its products to be made made under slave-labor conditions, and it regularly sends representatives to check on the status of the working conditions.

Two stores within six miles of Boston carry Tom’s shoes: Berks at 50 JFK Street in Cambridge, and Newbury Comics/Hootenanny at 36 JFK Street in Cambridge. Tom’s Shoes are also available in stores across the United States. The company has surprised the leaders of industry who thought that selling and giving couldn’t be mixed. The combination of humanitarianism and profit has paid off, to the chagrin of the investors who passed up the opportunity to support  Mycoskie’s dream.

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MIT Group Develops Audio Thread

A group of graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston has developed a special kind of fiber that could have helpful applications in the future. The fiber is designed to pick up and transmit sounds, much like a microphone.

This might sound like something straight out of a science fiction story, but the group is already working on applications that will benefit people in the future. Yes, the fiber has plenty of novel applications. You could, for instance, build a tie that records meetings. It also has many practical applications, especially in the medical industry.

Hospital gowns made of thread could monitor patient health by focusing on sounds. Perhaps one day the technology will become so good that patients will no longer need to wear sensors on their bodies. They’ll just put on their gowns and rest.

The Boston-based group made the thread out of plastic materials. Adjusting the fluorine content in the plastic threads allowed them to become piezoelectric, which means they can generate electricity through pressure, essentially making them self-powered. The group then added a plastic designed with a high graphite content that holds its shape and conducts easily. After introducing electricity to the thread to realign their molecules, they are ready to transmit and detect sound frequencies.

Understanding the procedure is complicated after it has already been discovered is hard enough for most laymen. Imagine developing the idea from the ground up.

According to researchers working with the group, the thread is not ready for practical applications. The current success, however, means that they are a big step closer. If you were to pick up one of the threads and hold it to your ear, you could make the thread vibrate with an audio frequency that you could actually hear.

Of course, getting a single thread to vibrate is something entirely different from getting an entire garment to vibrate. With enough work, however, MIT’s group could discover a way to create garments that detect sound at specific parts of the body. That way they could monitor different organs without using troublesome sensors.

Boston University Research Links Heart and Brain Health

A research team at Boston University has released a study indicating that heart health could influence brain health. The researchers studied 1,500 people, giving it a good scope on the general population. Not all of the people included in the study had heart disease. Including sick and healthy individuals allowed the scientists to compare and contrast the hearts and brains of each group.

One of the most surprising findings from the study is that individuals with low cardiac indexes tent to have small brain volume. Approximately 30 percent of the individuals studied had low cardiac indexes. It is uncertain exactly what this relationship means. It’s also unsure that low brain volume necessarily causes significant problems. The high percentage of people who had low cardiac indexes and brain volumes, however, makes it important for future studies to focus on whether these factors have an impact on general health.

There is also the possibility that scientists in the future can use this information to help them detect heart disease early in life. Treating heart disease is much easier when it is discovered in its early stages. It becomes more difficult to treat with age. If doctors could use brain size as an early sign of heart disease, then it might be possible to begin treatments before patients notice any symptoms.

The findings also show how important it is to focus on heart health. Keeping the heart in good shape could help keep the brain in good shape. It is possible that cardiovascular exercise, therefore, could improve brain function and even help prevent certain brain diseases, such as Alzheimer’s.

Unfortunately, the results could also mean that the U.S. is headed down a bad path. With obesity on the rise and more people living sedentary lifestyles, it is very possible that the future’s not looking so bright for some people. On the positive side, though, identify the link between heart health and brain health could encourage people to get more active. It’s one thing to get larger as one ages, and quite another thing to lose brain function.

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