Financial steps you can take in quarantine

As quarantine drags on into 2021, and there is no certainty when restrictions will start to lift as the COVID vaccines roll out, there are still many actions you can take just to less your bills and spending a little. With how volatile the market and economy is currently, as countries scramble to create and distribute the vaccine. You can create just a little bit of order in your everyday lives by seeing if any of these tips will help your financial situation.

1: Check up on your insurances

If you are one of nearly two million citizens in Ireland that are about to enter your renewal period for your private health insurance, this tip is just for you. Of that two million people, around 75% just allow their policies to be renewed without looking over the fine print or asking their provider any questions. And if you have been doing exactly that for over the last three years, you can almost certainly save some money by looking at alternative options currently. It will require a bit of research and …

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How will Vaccines demand and supply affect our global financial stability?

The IMF has released reports on how the increasing demand for COVID vaccines and lagging behind supply may lead to some financial instability. Shortages in the vaccine could lead to lower-income countries to drag on economic recoveries as they are unable to obtain the necessary amount of vaccines. The IMF states that they believe having an inequitable distribution of the vaccine’s risks creating financial vulnerabilities in economies that are unable to match the demand for the vaccine.

This contributes to how emerging market assets have inflated the first weeks of the year, and that there will be a risk of the infections increasing number and size in emerging markets as the vaccines are not distributed as quickly as planned. Emerging markets are also vulnerable in the sense that there has been a shift in the appetite for global risk. Investors currently are very “risk hungry” and that may post threats to these economies if there is not a period of “risk satisfied” by said investors. These markets have increased 8% since the start of 2021 in cost, in addition to …

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Ways to potentially reduce your tax bill

If you are one of the 706,000 individuals who are due a refund, as announced from the Revenue last week about your taxes, you probably went out and bought yourself a nice glass of wine. But if you’re in the other boat with the 633,000 other people who received the bad news, you’re probably hoping for a miracle to wipe away the tax liability that you now owe.

And to everyone who has been affected by the wage subsidies that the pandemic brought about, there are still ways you can look to in order to lessen the bill just a little. And as a reminder, if you have not claimed either of the two below since 2017, you can still be eligible for the past four years.

1: Flat Rate Expenses

This would be a huge win if you’re eligible and you have yet to claim it this year or in the last four years. These expenses were brought about into the market many years ago in order to be able to cover the many expenses that employees will incur …

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Europe economy may be the slowest to recover

It has been projected by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that the US and China governments will experience a faster economic recovery time than the other parts of the world. It is predicted that the US and Chinese economies will have fully recovered by 2022 and will have no more than a 1.5% gap from the economic standpoints that would have been projected before the pandemic. Other first-world countries and richer countries will still be short by around 2.5% compared to their pre-pandemic path. While other emerging world economies will be short by around 8%, which is substantially larger than previously anticipated.

The reasons that China and the US are experiencing such short losses during the pandemic is due to the fact that simply they are the largest economies in the world, allowing for a sharp spread in industries and allowing their economies to be highly divergent. China compared to the US, however, is expected to recover even quicker due to the aggressive containment measures taken by the government to limit the spread of the virus. The US, on the …

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Vaccination Debates at the World Economic Forum

During day two of the World Economic Forum at Davos this past Tuesday, European Commission president Ursula con der Leyen announced the agenda and push towards social media and Tech Giants to publicly release their business models and their algorithms. She wishes for more visibility into these large corporations and their platforms due to the fact that certain decisions and trends on social media need explaining.

Leyen’s uses the incident of former President Trump’s account to be removed from Twitter as an example of how companies are free to act at; will and this incident was a serious violation of an individual’s freedom of expression. She wishes for companies to release their framework of laws for such decisions.

In the World Economic Forum, South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa also urges richer countries to prohibit hoarding vaccines, due to the risks of prolonging the pandemic in other poorer countries. Many African countries are being left behind in the international race of producing and purchasing COVID vaccines. There is deep concern in my third-world countries that richer countries will abuse their economic …

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Stop Overspending

Everyone is open to a great deal. If you know an item is really high quality and something you will use often there is no issue making room for that in your budget. Tracking how much you spend is something an individual should not overlook. Tracking helps people create alertness for some areas to cut back especially in the areas where you wouldn’t notice the difference.

Here some items people overpay for and how to correct them.

1: Monthly metro card.

For those who live in the city, many workers and students find it easier to buy an unlimited card rather than buying one for each trip. It may be convenient but is it really worth it? Most individuals before the pandemic would ride about 8 trips each week on the subway. Metro transportation companies know that. That is where they trick their riders. The typical individual would not calculate the ride each month and how much they could actually save if they bought individual tickets instead.

2: Dry cleaning.

All of us have special clothing we need to keep …

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An Upcoming Change in Technology

One industry that is expected to see much change as the administration in the US White House changes out is technology. As not only an industry sector but also as a tool for the public and a policy. The relationship between the government and social media, communication apps, and surveillance technologies in the world have changed vastly during the Trump administration. The sudden increase in the role of live-streaming events, whether they be violent riots and protests, or current events can’t be ignored anymore as we have the power as a society to access information from any time, anywhere just by pulling out our smartphones.

The role of technology during the Trump administration has certainly been darkened and undermined. Technologies and techniques that were meant to publicize and open doors for democracy were equally used for spreading falsehood, fake news, discrediting valid sources, and promoting hatred, violence, and racism. These actions have shown how technology itself isn’t rather bad, but it depends on the wielder. And all-in-all the wider implications of using technology have not been seen. With proper attention …

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Healthy Relationships with Money and your SO

Lots of people say money complicates things. Well, it may be true in some situations but being transparent about your significant other and money is important. Over the years you will attract what you are worth and what you put out there. How you act to others is a direct effect of how others will view you, this is not only for significant others but friends, family, etc. You worried you are with the wrong person or attracting the wrong people you might need to start reevaluating yourself.

Speak to your partners. Do you like saving money? Do you like investing? Do you like getting good deals? Communication is key. Being on the same page with each other is important to know each other’s values. By doing so, as partners you can start compromising to avoid unsaid annoyances. Letting each other know right from the beginning shows exactly who you are and who they are. It makes it easy to find someone like you or believes in the same things as you.

Money may be a taboo topic. Having conversations …

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The Rising Demand for Work Permits

During 2020, slightly over 16,000 employment work permits were issued to workers from outside the European Economic Area (EEA), despite the limited travel limitations and job opportunities due to the COVID pandemic. This has been the largest amount of work permits issued out since the beginning of issuing said permits in 2009.

Many of the companies that are searching for employees are those int eh social media, meat, or healthcare industry. Healthcare workers took up nearly a third of all work permits issued and received last year at over 5000 workers recruited from outside the EEA. The second-largest sector is the IT sector following up with around 4700 permits. Interestingly, over a third of last year’s total was issued to workers that came from India, totaling nearly 5800 permits. Following that, 1800 permits came from Brazilians and over 1000 came from Palestinian workers.

Some of the largest companies to make use of these work permits included Amazon, Accenture, Facebook, Google, and Dawn Meats which is one of Ireland’s largest meat processing companies. Despite the pandemic occurring and even at the …

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What Led to the Global Crisis?

Everyone has been affected in some way by the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, whether they realize it or not. And what led up to this bubble and crash was in large part due to Mortgage-backed securities. These securities were very attractive to the public, with higher interest rates and highly rated by credible credit rating agencies like Standard and Poor. And with the sudden market demand in the housing and real estate industry, many of these mortgage-backed securities had funding that was put into the market, which eventually built up a self-made cycle. People wanted to buy houses and so the mortgage was sold to banks by mortgage companies. This led to banks packaging the mortgage with other investments and the mortgage-back securities were sold to investors. The investors’ money was then used to create more money for mortgage lenders to therefore offer. Due to the contributing funds, the public that had lower credit scores started to skip on their mortgage payments. Many companies were sunk due to poor mortgage lending decisions.

But while inadequate mortgage and mortgage-back securities …

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