How to Find the Right Construction Expert Witness
If you’re dealing with a potentially threatening claim and are in need of a construction expert witness, here are some tips that you can use to identify, select, and ultimately choose the right one for your particular case.
Outrageous Claims
Be wary of marketing claims that make outrageous promises. Vendors will attempt to lure you into purchasing their specific resources that apparently grant you inside information that others do not have based on their “unique” systems. Be sure that you do the necessary research and background check on every vendor to determine whether or not they are quality candidates for your case. If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.
Library
Library websites are optimal sources to uncover information on the particular subject that you are looking for. Take the time to visit your local library and search for the specific subject that the claim is based on. Search online catalogs and gather all of the necessary information such as: facts pertaining to the topic, laws and regulations, and relevant information.
Search Engines
There are a variety of online resources that are available to you thanks to the vast regions of the Internet. Scavenging throughout the web however is a difficult task due to the thousands of candidates that you have to click through. There are also expert witnesses from construction consulting services that have had years of experience within the construction field that you can choose from – which are ideal because of their “hands-on” practice.
Bio: Lyle Charles is a structural steel expert, seasoned executive, business coach and mediator. He also runs Lyle Charles Consulting, a construction consulting firm with over 40 years of experience.
Creative ways to save for a vacation
Making a yearly travel plan can be a great idea, but saving for travel can be difficult. However, a vacation, at least yearly, can really help you rest and recover, while creating a sense of excitement and adventure. Here are a few tips to help you save for your next vacation;
Open a travel account – Creating a separate bank account for travel, is a great way to save. This will give you a clear idea of how much you have saved so far and how much more you will need to save. Once you open the account and have some money saved, just remember that these savings should only be used for travel. Online access together with an ATM will be useful to transfer funds into the account and to withdraw money for tickets and accommodation.
Automatic Transfers – Your travel account should be funded monthly, therefore transfer a standard amount of money via an automatic transfer. By just transferring $14 a week, you will end up $730 by the end of the year. This is sufficient for a week long getaway.
A change jar- Your trusty change jar can accumulate a lot of money. If you just put in $1.37 a day you will be up to $500 in a year.
Budget – This means that you will have to track your expenses, including food, clothing, accommodation, utilities and any other spending done by you doing the month. This way you would have a clear idea of how much you would be able to save. You will be surprised to find out where your money is spent and where you can cut back.
How Capital and Reserve Requirements Work in Banking
By Phin Upham
Banks are some of the most regulated institutions in America, and much of that is done to help mitigate risk on the part of both the borrower and lender. As we saw in the 2007 financial crisis, banks who were deemed “too big to fail” presented some of the riskiest propositions. Often, as was the case after 2007, banks are required to up their capital reserves in order to help reduce that risk.
The aim of this kind of regulation is to ensure a firm is managed responsibly. When capital reserves are raised, it’s typically done to protect the bank and its customers. However, it also serves the important function of alleviating some of the burden placed by the cost of deposit insurance. Since the government is liable for that, it’s a good way to help put some distance between risk and the taxpayer who would pay for it.
Financial firms typically express these numbers as economic capital, which helps to represent the amount of risk a bank can take on to ensure that it will function under a failing system.
The most comprehensive accords used in the regulation of reserve requirements are the Basel Accords, named after the city in Switzerland where the accords were drafted. We are currently on Bazel III, which is scheduled to be phased out between now and 2019.
It’s important to note that regulation of this type has to be carefully balanced to ensure the opposite doesn’t happen. Capital regulations are meant to keep banks whole. Today, we are seeing some of those regulations contributing to the dissolution of larger companies to pave way for several smaller entities.
Phin Upham is an investor from NYC and SF. You may contact Phin on his Phin Upham website or Facebook page.
The 5 best money management advice for newlyweds
Once the wedding and the honeymoon period is over, newlyweds have face living together as a couple. Some couples may follow their own way of managing their finances, which may go against your spouse’s. This can cause a lot of friction between couples, which can then lead to lies and overspending. Money management done as a couple creates a level of trust and security that can strengthen a marriage.
Start talking
Start talking about finances before you get married. talk about how much your earnings are, how much debt you have accumulated, how much you spend and what you spend on in a month.
What are your goals
Make sure you and your spouse discuss your financial goals for the future. This involves subjects like changing your career, retirement, savings, investments and starting a family. For example if you want to purchase your own home in 5 years, let your spouse know that you would like to work towards this goal.
Bank accounts
Will you maintain your individual bank accounts or create a joint account or both?. If you opt for maintaining individual accounts, you may find that expenses cannot be easily tracked. Many successful couples work with individual and joint accounts. Usually the joint account is used for common household utilities and big ticket items that will be used by both parties.
Create an emergency fund
It’s important to have an emergency fund that can be used for unexpected expenses, for example family illness, loss of job or a home repair. Make sure you discuss how much you would like to put away and how much each individual is expected to invest relative to their income.
Senator William Roth’s IRA Plan
By Phin Upham
Many of the retirement plans currently put into action involve something called a Roth IRA. The Roth IRA is a unique savings vessel that gives Americans the opportunity to contribute their after-tax spending toward their retirement savings plan. This was a major change from the traditional IRA, which allowed savings, but not tax-free withdrawals.
The bottom line for many Americans is that saving is quite difficult. Most brick and mortar banks offer a paltry return on savings accounts, and taxes will cripple whatever small earnings those lower-income Americans might get through traditional means. The Roth IRA provides an important vessel with some strict limitations. Direct contributions may be withdrawn tax-free at any point in time. Rollover can also be withdrawn, provided the account owner is at least 59 ½ years of age. A Roth IRA’s assets can also be passed down to heirs. There are numerous tax advantages that come with a Roth IRA as well.
However, Roth IRA funds cannot be used as loan collateral. Eligibility for contribution also phases out after certain financial limits are met. Congress can also change the rules regarding tax-free withdrawals, which puts some of those savings accounts at significant risk depending on the state of the national deficit.
The sponsor of the bill was the late Delaware Senator William Roth, who championed the bill. Firs introduced in 1989 as the Packwood-Roth Plan, it was initially referred to as an IRA Plus. The limit of $2,000 was proposed.
Eight years later, Senator Roth championed the new bill as part of the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997.
Phin Upham is an investor from NYC and SF. You may contact Phin on his Phin Upham website or LinkedIn page.
3 Credit Card Budgeting Tips to Abide By
Most people give you very different answers when you ask them how they use their credit cards.
Also, it’s common that a number of them will admit that they have trouble managing their accounts apart from debt.
Here are 3 credit card budgeting tips to abide by:
1: Avoid spending more than you have
Credit cards are usually a line of credit that is offered to customers. In other words, money that they do not have. Yet it is this that is the root cause of debt. So, keep the amount of the outstanding balance below your available funds. This will help you to pay it off fully and on time. This way, your credit card becomes a method of payment and nothing more. Best part: you will never incur interest and debt as a result.
2: Check balances regularly
To make purchases, credit cards offer the best security and convenience. Given how easy it is to use a credit card, people often lose track of their spending. This is why they are shocked when the monthly statement arrives. While it was not possible to check your balance until the monthly statement came, now you should be able to do this using your online account. Smartphone apps are also provided for your to check your transactions easily too. The reason why you should check your balance is because you’ll know how much you are spending too.
3: Pay off your balance early and often
If you are already in debt, then make your payments as early as possible. This will reduce your charges because it is calculated based on your average monthly balance. Apart from this, you can also make a couple of payments every month if you wish. This will work out for you if you are receive a pay check every two weeks.
The Classification of Construction Claims
Claims in the construction industry have been increasing in popularity due to the complexity of building projects. It’s more or less become common in the working environment, unfortunately. Construction claims consultants have become invaluable due to the upward trend of drafting claims for the many inevitable faults in a contract.
There are various ways to classify a construction claim, each one specifically targeting a certain area of the project. This categorization helps the construction claims management aspect by maintaining a well-organized plan.
Contractual claims primarily deal with terms within the contract. Such things as: delays, valuation, and variation. Extra-contractual claims deal with a breach of contract. You can expect to see this type of claim filed if a project required more work because of the client providing defective products. Lastly, ex-gratia claims are drafted when the contractor believes that there is a justified call for action based on moral grounds. For example, if material prices were to suddenly increase; causing the contractor to go over the allotted budget, he could seek out a construction claims expert to have them draft a claim requesting the funds needed to resume the project.
Consulting and hiring a construction claims consultant is recommended to help speed up the claim process. Also, by ensuring the claim is accurate and well-managed, there will be a noticeable difference in how effective it will be in the long run.
The scale of projects has become larger – with that brings a larger pricing structure to work with. Legal approaches, by both owners and contractors, have become more policy-stricken and reliant on claims and claim management.
3 Things to Consider Before Getting A Short-Term Small Business Loan
It might be easy to get a short-term small business loan but there’s no doubt that it can turn out to be far more expensive than traditional loans.
The application for such a loan is usually done through a broker and the money is deposited into your account within a few days. You pay the loan back in a year either by daily or monthly payments.
Here are 3 things to remember before signing on the dotted line for this type of loan:
1: Check for fees
It’s vital that you know what additional fees you have to pay when you obtain the loan. In some cases, money lenders charge fees for a loan upfronts. Others will charge if you set up an automatic payments or miss a payment in the future. Check for these fees and how much it will cost too.
2: Know the APR
It must be pointed out that many money-lenders do not inform their clients about annual percentage rates for the loan products that they offer. For your benefit, if you do know the APR, this can help you to compare the cost of the loan to others. Also, if you want to know how much you can borrow based on the monthly payments that you can afford, there are a number of online calculators available online.
3: Check if they report to credit bureaus
It’s been known in the past that a number of money lenders do no report loan information to credit bureaus. This is despite the small business paying the loan off in full. Of course, without this option, a small business cannot build up credit in order to qualify for a traditional loan. Don’t get caught off-guard – check whether they report information before you do anything else.
The History of the US Mint
The United States Mint is responsible for the creation and circulation of currency in the country. Congress created the Mint when it passed the Coinage Act of 1792. Prior to, currency was different from state to state, so it was difficult to assess value. Congress opened the first Mint in Philadelphia in 1792 in a building that became known as “Ye Olde Mint”.
Of course, legitimate currency needed some kind of mark that would identify it as such. Early coins were marked with the name of the facility in which they were produced, so one could quickly identify the origin of the coin and verify it as authentic.
The mintmark was ditched in favor of metal coins during the 60s, but silver was the preferred metal for a long time. Nickels were originally made of nickel, but a shortage during World War II made it more feasible to mix the recipe with some silver. The result was a blending of the old and the new. One can tell whether a nickel falls into this category by observing the back of the coin. Above the picture of Monticello, a “P” designates the origin as Philadelphia. If the date corresponds with World War II, the coin may be authentic.
The main purpose of the mint was to convert gold deposits into coinage, occasionally in the form of gold coins.
Margaret Kelly became the first female director of the mint in 1911, which also made her the highest paid woman on government payroll at that point.
About the Author: Samuel Phineas Upham is an investor at a family office/ hedgefund, where he focuses on special situation illiquid investing. Before this position, Phin Upham was working at Morgan Stanley in the Media and Telecom group. You may contact Phin on his Samuel Phineas Upham website or LinkedIn.
The Perks of Hiring a Construction Consultant
Written by: Lyle Charles
Construction claims are known to be complicated. Not only that but when you involve the legal system and skip the settlement process, things can only get more stressful. Construction consulting services help relieve the stress and pressure that is placed on you when dealing with a claim. Here are some common reasons why you should hire an expert.
When lawyers handle the claim, it’s most likely going to be littered with verbiage that can be hard to grasp. Many times you will see a lawyer write claims that only other lawyers with experience would understand. This essentially keeps you out of the loop and can lead to misjudging the gravity of the situation. A simple mistake can cost you time and money. Construction consultants guide you through the claim and help you understand the ins and outs of it.
The standards of the construction industry change due to the fast-paced business environment surrounding it. Don’t get left behind and make the wrong decisions. Claims consultants will help suggest the right courses of action to make for each type of claim.
Negotiations are vital in a successful claim. There are times where the claim won’t even make to court saving you the stress of stalling a project. The best resolution will come from the best negotiations.
A deep analysis of your case is also recommended to understand the needs and volatility of the claim. Seeking out construction consulting will give you peace of mind as you won’t have to make decisions that could affect the outcome by yourself.