According to a research report in 2005, only a minority of American households feels “confident” about retirement saving adequacy, and a one-third of adults in their 50s say they have failed to develop any kind of retirement saving plan at all (Lusardi 1999, 2003; Yakoboski and Dickemper, 1997).

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/downloaddoi=10.1.1.74.1946&rep=rep1&type=pdf 

That means a lack of financial literacy which will cause avoidable loss of individuals due to the lack of common sense to finance.

As time goes by, people are attaching more importance to finance. More people start to understand that finance is close to their life. Canadians are flocking to online tools to learn more about their finances, according to a report from the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2010/10/08/con-fcac-report.html#ixzz11uBUsn2i

After an access to the financial knowledge, ordinary people are now more interesting in how to decide among safe and risky savings
opportunities and how do intermediaries assist in the savings and investment decisions, which are important to be considered in finance.

Now, there are a growing online tools which can help ordinary people to manage their financial decision, such as the website called The City, http://www.mymoney.gov/ and many others. The growing use of these  tools really helps people to manage their money.

The price in Vancouver, BC has been overvalued for a long time, and the housing market in Vancouver is overshooting itself. Ordinary citizens in BC can hardly bear it.  The high housing price exert a heavy debt on ordinary people while provide a good opportunity for those multimillionaires to spectulate and enlarge the gap of wealth.

The high price is partly brought by the rich immigrants and investors, but not all. BC’s economy which has no  no jobs, no industry inside has made the decision of itself that it needs to depend on its higher price in housing market to keep its economic growth. Also, the banks like the high price which keep their loan for ordinary people cannot afford the housing price themselves.

However,CIBC deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal said in an interview that he believes B.C. prices could drop 10% over the next year — possibly more in Metro Vancouver where prices are so much higher — before settling down.

 http://www.vancouversun.com/business/real-estate/home+prices+rise+this+year+before+falling+2011+report/3604390/story.html#ixzz11ucsTlyA

I remain my points  because I think if there is not a change in the economic structure, there can hardly be a real drop which bebefits ordinary people because real estate is the prime engine of economic growth.

http://housing-analysis.blogspot.com/

These days, US and China cannot agree on the currency issues. US insists that RMB has been enderestimated and should be raised to the appropriate price while China states that US should not hype the currency issues which is not the prime reason of the depression and unemployment and will also cause the degradation of the trade between China and US.

The conflict of RMB exchanging rate has been a long histroy and was aroused directly because of  US’s midterm election. Meanwhile, US is worried about the growing power of China. China’s large trade surplus to US is regarded as a threat by US.

China has annouced to implement the currency reformation and RMB’s price has been raised during the past few days. However, US was not satisfied. Facing it, China claimed that the rise of exchanging rate needed depend on domestic economic situation and the pressure would have inverse impact on the solution of the problem. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-09/15/content_11308554.htm

Now EU has followed US to exert pressure on China, but there are few other countries advocating US’s appeal. http://www.voanews.com/english/news/asia/EU-China-Cannot-agree-on-Currency-Measures-104438954.html  http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2010-10/07/content_11381089.htm

Actually, as  Premier Wen says, the major profit of the trade is gained by US corporation while very little was obtained by Chinese companies. http://www.cnnstudentnews.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1010/03/fzgps.01.html

Under the pressure of FCTC, the tobacco corporations in China deliberately plan the different strategies towards domestic and overseas market in order to escape the supervisement of FCTC and also to mislead the consumers. At the same time, Those companies play the “culture” card actively, changing the way of advertising to induce the consumers to buy the cigarettes regardless of the harm to health.

The usual methods used by those companies is to link the tobacco brand with the common value orientation of the citizens. For example, the “Chung Hwa” linkes its brand by advertising “Love My Chung Hwa” which means love the motherland in China. 

The actual propose of the advertisement is to increase the consumption and foster the recognition to the cigarettes of the next generation. It even impresses on the next generation by sponsoring the Hope Schools and sprots events and providing the bursary. It seems a kind support but actually a worse act. For instance, the school motto of SiChuan Hope School is “Determine to contribute to the society, tobacco helps you to be talent”. How will children feel when they see that motto? That’s a really unethical problem most Chinese tobacco companies commit. http://china.globaltimes.cn/society/2010-09/577420.html