Welcome to Chez Cliff!

Parents have various reasons for the name they finally decide for their newborn child. Names such as “Dick” or “Bob” or “Delores”. Any parent may think of those names as innocent. After serving 12 years in public school, my experience with the constant abuse such names can inflict sends shivers up my spine.

Business owners are much the same. Naming a business can be fun, if not exciting. What about the domain name? Is it easy just to grab the domain which matches the business name? Furthermore does that domain name do your business justice? Or perhaps a large unintentional disservice.

Below is a listing of legitimate businesses and their domain names. My commentary has been added. But of course, feel free to let your imagination wander. Think of what your reaction would be, as a customer, if handed a business card with these domain names.

To repeat: these are legitimate businesses

Please note: this list has been rated PG-13.

Hat Tip to Tim over at MarketMe.com

Congratulations

Mrs. BluntMoney beat me to it. She recently celebrated her 100,000 mark.

My blog has reached a similar mark

Sailing right on past the 100,000 page view mark and still plugging away. 50,000 visitors . . . not bad! Of course the old site is included with these numbers.

I’m not alone

Someone else believes we just skirted the Great Depression II.

Announcement

My goal has always been to publish a new article every day. That is being reduced to four: Monday through Thursday. My schedule at the moment is hectic; some scaling back is in order. After the bedlam has subsided normal posting will resume.

I will see you on Monday.

Have a great weekend!

When first moving to California, a couple of us formed a business building websites. Circa 1998 or 1999, every business owner needed a website even though they had no clue what it was. Since my function was to build and host the sites, I remember quite vividly the logistics and costs that went behind it.

Today: my business site will use 1and1.com hosting. The plan called 1&1Home will do just fine.

Some of the highlights:
Webspace: 120 Gigabytes
Monthly Transfer Volume: 1,200 Gigabytes
MySql Databases: 25

Stop there.

10 years ago, having a hosting service with these specifications was impossible. To get even close to these requirements, a company had to have their own dedicated server with their own internet connection. This cost hundreds of dollars per month.

Thanks to free-market competition, the consumer obviously benefits. Especially in this case. What cost 100’s of dollars per month ten years ago now costs $5/month.

This is stupendous!

Glancing at the included marketing package, we see
$25 Voucher Google AdWords
$25 Voucher Yahoo Search Marketing
$50 Voucher Microsoftdevil adCenter

That’s $100 in free advertising on the web!

If you read Tim’s Four Hour Work Week, he discusses using AdWords as market research and generating customers. Finding that right combination of search terms which costs between 10 and 20 cents per click, could potentially generate 1,000 click-thrus (people) to your site. Free!

If a business has decided to give it a run for 6 months, here are the costs.

Hosting Package: $5/month for 6 months = $30.
Domain Names: Free (included with hosting)
Website Software: Free (included with hosting)
Website Content: Free (do it yourself!)
Website Design: Free (do it yourself!)
Marketing Book: $30 (optional)


. . . UGH! How can you not try and have some kind of business venture online? Having a brick and mortar store would cost a lot more than $60 in order to reach 1,000 people.

It’s true: JFKs assassination was a conspiracy. Aliens crashed landed in Roswell. Happy cows come from California.

OK. So Happy cows don’t come from California.

With every Conspiracy Theory, only speculation feeds our imagination. Lack of answers piques our curiosity even more. With that, my own theory is put forth based on speculation, imagination, and some deductive reasoning.

Recounting

The events of Bears and Sterns/JP Morgan/Federal Reserve remains fresh in the minds of many. More popular, common place thinking believes this was nothing more than high paid executives, trying to protect their year bonuses.

It is something else entirely.

Let’s chase down what is known.

• Friday: BSC’s chairman announces all is well.
• Saturday: High level negotiations between BSC, JP and Federal Reserve
• Sunday: Agreement reached. Fed calls Treasury Secretary who briefs the President
• Monday: Announcement is made

Seriously: If this was just a matter of protecting a few year end bonuses, would all this have happened over a single weekend? And why the Federal Reserve’s keen interest?

Something was about to break loose at Bears and Sterns. Something bigger, more threatening that just a few more foreclosures. If it really was just to “protect bonuses” then no way JP Morgan would have agreed. JP could make more money if Bears and Sterns were to flounder.

Something was boiling inside Bears and Sterns. Scandal perhaps? Maybe bankruptcy.

The steps of bankruptcy:

1. Company files for bankruptcy
2. Lawsuits are launched by investors to recover some money
3. Federal Judge freezes all assets until it is determined who gets what.

The Theory

Bears and Sterns is more than a few mortgages. They are a financial institution. In its possession the very survival, the very future of millions of Americans.

401k

In bankruptcy, the Federal Judge freezes all assets. This means hundreds of thousands of retired employees suddenly find themselves without any income whatsoever. That money is frozen.

The national news media immediately latches onto this story. With a constant obsession with trying to find the scariest story, the media hits stories with

• 401k’s Vanish!
• 401k’s Gone!
• Is your 401k safe?

Suddenly, millions of retirees call to cash out their 401ks. The only problem: the financial institutions can’t cash out that many 401ks. Financial institutions are only required to have a percentage of cash on hand. Roughly 20%. The rest is invested elsewhere . . . like Bears and Sterns.

A run on the banks ensues, fueled by more fear. Media outlets once again runs stories, revealing the millions who suddenly can’t get their 401ks. People stop funding their 401ks. Why continue if money is no longer there?

Results

Banks are closing. People have lost their life-savings.

Sound familiar?

This Wordpress site wasn’t suppose to go up until this coming weekend. However the current hosting service was having hardware problems. After 6 10 hours of my site being down, the decision was to launch ahead of schedule.

Forgive the dust. I wasn’t expecting to have visitors so soon.