Asia Will Be 53% of World Economy

China Economy Will Lead the World by 2026

First Published Date: July 2, 2015

A recent report published by the Economist Intelligence Units predicts that in just 10 years China will overtake the US in terms of nominal GDP and will stay there at least until 2050. Also, Asia will account for 53 percent of world economy; it is currently at only 33 percent.

Here are some highlights from the report:

– Mexico and Indonesia will be among the top ten economies by 2050, surpassing Russia and Italy.

– The top ten economies in 2050 will be China, US, India, Indonesia, Japan, Germany, Brazil, Mexico, UK, and France.

– Within the top ten, China, US, and India will hold more wealth than the next five countries combined. This enormous scale of wealth will be nothing like the world has seen before.

– Currently the top ten economies are US, China, Japan, Germany, UK, France, Brazil, Italy, India, and Russia.

– China is almost expected to catch Japan in terms of per capita incomes by 2050.

– Nigeria is projected to triple its labour force, followed by Pakistan, in the next decades.

– Japan, Germany, and Thailand will decline in labour force, dragging down their growth.

The full report can be reviewed here.

How To Save Without It Getting You Down

Save Money Easily

First Published Date: June 3, 2009

Saving money is a necessity – now more than ever. As the world becomes enmeshed in more and longer financial struggles, there is inevitably a knock-on effect on consumers, even if your income remains constant or improves. House prices are falling, and the value of the dollar in your pocket is dropping too. This is no terminal decline, but it is still quite troublesome for any of us. Unless you live in a forest and survive by hunting, gathering and bartering, the global financial crisis will affect you in one way or the other. As much as we are being encouraged to get out there and spend our pay checks, it is entirely understandable that many of us are taking that advice with a pretty huge pinch of salt.

If you have money to spend and there are things that you need, certainly there’s no reason you shouldn’t get out there and help stimulate the economy. That is undeniable, but at the same time there is no reason you should over-extend yourself in doing this kind of patriotic duty. Looking for ways to make a saving is not treason – it is simple common sense. Keeping it simple is the best way of doing this in any case. For example, are you taking advantage of existing discounts and special offers which are relevant to you?

Supermarkets and clothes shops will often have discount cards for students or other concessions. What is wrong with enlisting the student in your household to help you take advantage of these special offers? This can get you a cut of up to 15% on the cost of necessary purchases, making your dollar go further. Additionally, things like gas cards and loyalty programs with set outlets can result in a large saving for you, if you manage them correctly.

Often supermarkets or other outlets will have big discounts on food that has a long shelf-life. Building up a stock of the things you need and will use is always a good idea, and frees up money for the long term – often making a quite pronounced difference in the bottom line on your shopping bills.

Saving money does not need to mean opening a savings account, but it is obvious that the two naturally go hand in hand. One way that you can demonstrate to yourself the advantages of saving is to use your savings account every time you spend less than you had budgeted. No matter how much or how little the difference, if you put that money in the savings account every time it will quickly build up and accrue interest which benefits you.

Now, no-one is about to advise you to re-use old tea bags or anything like that, but there are tons of little things like those mentioned above which can make all the difference in seeing out the recession in better financial shape than might otherwise have been the case. If you do things correctly you can end up with a healthier bank balance and have the necessary spare cash to make you comfortable.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Canadapersonalfinancewebsite.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to A Dawn Journal. This article originally published on the above website on June 3, 2009.

Desert Stars - 16 Hours Overnight Bus Continues | Cairo to Aswan

Overnight Bus to Aswan | Egypt Travel Blog: Day 3 (Part 23) 01D20

Egypt Travel Blog: 10 DAYS Egypt Explorer - Felucca Cruise & Red Sea

After the last stopover, our tour bus kept moving and the highways took us cutting through the desert. This was the first time I experienced skies full of stars in the middle of the desert. 

What I regret about this is that I was not able to take pictures or videos because the bus was in motion. I have never thought that stars can be that bright and skies can be so close to the earth.

It felt like the sky was falling over head and the stars looked like they could be touched by hand. The desert in the middle of nowhere, the pitch black surrounding, the skies, the bright desert stars above us - the whole environment felt like I was on a different planet.

I saw that my other tour mates were sleeping and they missed these unique moments, which they would probably never get another chance in life to observe.

The star-moments didn’t last too long. Very soon our route took us away from the desert and the stars were gone.

A little later, I started to see the sun coming out and the world outside started to unfold in the daylight. We were passing small towns and villages and I started seeing people on the street or outside their homes. The general population in this southern region seemed to be darker and have distinctive features.

We were supposed to go to our hotel first to freshen up, but we were already behind schedule so our tour guide decided to finish sightseeing first and then check in at the hotel.

We were heading to the airport to pick up our other tour mates who flew over, instead of taking the bus.

Real Estate In Belize

Do You want to buy, build or rent in Belize

Published Date : Nov 29, 2009

There is a great amount of interest from prospective real estate investors in the country of Belize, especially among those folks who are looking for retirement homes or basically people who want to relocate abroad to escape from the rat race they have known all their lives. Those in the know come back with information of how easy it is to acquire a home in Belize and even for those who do not want to buy, rent itself is so low you will not believe when people report rents of between $100 and $200 a month. And for the adventurous ones who want to build their dream homes, the cost of land is not anything people of this generation have heard of at anytime in their lives, only the very old can relate to the low figures.

Currently there are no restrictions to any foreigner who wants to acquire a piece of real estate in Belize and if anything there may actually be incentives to attract more people to come and own. Just like you would do when you want to buy a house any where else, investing in Belize should not be an exception where the rules are involved. You will realize that the rule that dictates the place of demand in determining prices applies even here. Many foreign investors want to buy houses next to the beach and for that reason the costs of such properties is obviously high. We have hundreds of people relocating from the United States, UK and even Canada and because they come with the dollars then you can expect the cost to rise dramatically.

You will need to come over armed with your good negotiating skills because these guys will take any chance to milk you out of all your cash if you are willing to pay any figure they are going to quote for the house you want to acquire or even rent. You know it appear to be fact all over the world the person who makes money in real estate is the buyer and not the seller so at any rate you have a deal when you buy. The experts in real estate will tell you that knowledge is king and therefore if you spend just a little more time in Belize before settling on a deal, you are likely to clinch a real winner when you finally sign the dotted line.

Just like with any other lucrative market there could be a few bad guys out there who will be looking out to dispose that piece of property that is really worthless. The old adage about the deal that is too good being suspect will hold true here more than anywhere else. There are countless people who have bought what they thought was a real sweet piece of beach land during the dry season and when the rains came they discovered it was actually marsh land which has no real value. So it pays for any prospective buyer of a house or piece of land in Belize to take just a little more time before they commit themselves, the watchword would then be that you don’t come with an itchy pocket, be willing woo wait just a little longer and you will be glad you did.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the realestateexpedition.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to A Dawn Journal. This article originally published on the above website on Nov 29, 2009.

Book Hotel & Flight For Free With These Credit Cards

Credit Cards That Let You Travel Free

First Published Date: July 6, 2015

If you are looking for a free vacation this year, look no further than WestJet RBC World Elite Credit Cards and Marriott Rewards Premier Visa Card. These two cards let you fly and stay in a hotel totally free for the first year and partially free (at a very low cost) continuously for subsequent years as long as you hold the cards.

The WestJet RBC World Elite Credit Card comes with a $250 WestJet dollars welcome bonus and you will also get an annual round-trip companion flight for $99 (plus tax and fees) every year, letting you fly anywhere in Canada and the continental US (excluding Hawaii and Puerto Rico). What it means? You can virtually fly for very little on your first year of card membership, considering you also got the $250 for free.

Want to include an upscale hotel for free as well on your trip? The Marriott Rewards Premier Visa Card comes with 30,000 bonus points and 1 free night just for trying the card. That means you already got up to 5 free nights at a category 1 or 4 free nights at category 4 hotels. And you also get one free night continuously for subsequent years as long as you hold the cards.

Don’t like to fly WestJet or stay in Marriott hotels for free? Try these other 2 cards instead that offer almost identical bonuses like the above 2 cards: The Starwood Preferred Guest Card from American Express or the MBNA Alaska World Elite MasterCard Credit Card.

What you read so far is one of the many secrets I will be sharing with you in my next book Credit Card Hacks: What Credit Card Companies Don’t Want You to Know. Stay tuned as I am working on the last few chapters of this book and should be able to get it to you in 3-4 months.