What matters most to YOU?

June 3rd, 2011

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It’s all connected – your spending with your values, your investments with your spending, your everyday choices with your financial identity. But money isn’t everything. Right?

The Better Life Initiative is a project that really gets that. The people behind it – the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) – know that when it comes to national health and identity, a real understanding requires more than economic statistics. They’re not the first to realize that, of course, but they are the first to turn that philosophy into a majorly awesome interactive online experience.

This kind of information used to come from a group of analysts crunching numbers and telling us who ranked where in the great global economic struggle. The Better Life Initiative collects data, yes, but YOU choose how it’s ranked and displayed.

What’s the wealthiest nation that has affordable housing for its citizens?

How about the poorest nation with the highest life satisfaction?

Tweak the knobs to your soul’s content and see where your own personal life desires are really being played out in the world. Whenever someone creates and shares their ideal index on the site, OECD records it in a giant “what the people of the world really care about” database.

We picked Luxembourg as our favorite country, though we’re not sure where exactly it is.

What does your ideal life look like?

Nationalization is…

June 3rd, 2011

Nationalization is when private property or industry is taken over by the government. Countries usually choose to nationalize portions of a specific industry, and they do it for different reasons.

If an oil-producing country’s oil drilling operations are owned mostly by foreigners, for example, the government might choose to nationalize all drilling operations to get rid of the excessive foreign influence.

Sometimes countries with struggling industries choose to nationalize certain sectors of the economy so that government resources can be used to help those industries develop. When the U.S. government spent money bailing out big banks during the economic crisis, some people thought it was a step toward nationalizing the financial sector.

The Great British Pound (GBP) is…

June 3rd, 2011

The Great British pound (£) is the official currency of the Great Britain. The currency’s official name is “the pound sterling,” but everyone calls it the pound.

Chapter 7? Chapter 11? What kind of book is this?

June 3rd, 2011

Lately, the economy’s troubles have people talking about Chapter 7 and Chapter 11 so often that you might think they’re part of a new bestseller. In fact, Chapter 7 and Chapter 11 are two different chapters of the U.S. Bankruptcy code. They explain two different ways you can file for bankruptcy.

If a company files for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 – “rehabilitation bankruptcy” – it tries to make some changes and then get running again. Basically, the company can’t ignore the money it owes creditors, but it can do things like negotiate a lower interest rate, making it easier to try to pay the money back. If it’s successful in Chapter 11, the company can keep working like usual.

But if there’s is no hope for a company to fix itself, it files for bankruptcy under Chapter 7 – “liquidation bankruptcy” – and the entire company is, well, liquidated, meaning that it is broken up into pieces and sold. A company that files for Chapter 7  is in such bad shape that they can’t do anything but sell their assets. The people who lent the bank money then wait in line to collect debts, based on when they loaned their money to the company in the first place.

From the business owner’s point of view, bankruptcy is a kind of chapter in a scary novel. (But hopefully not the final chapter.)

Liquidation is…

June 3rd, 2011

Liquidation is when a company sells all of its assets and goes out of business. Outstanding debts are paid and the remaining assets are redistributed to shareholders.

The European Union is…

June 3rd, 2011

The European Union is a political and economic organization made up of 27 countries in Europe. It’s not a country by itself, but in some ways it acts as a high-level governing organization for its member nations. Being part of the Union means that citizens, goods, and services are allowed to move freely between affiliated nations, without having to deal with things like visas or trade restrictions. Members of the EU also use the same currency, called the Euro.

Basically, being part of the European Union is like being in a club whose members are from all over Europe and who have decided that many of the same rules will govern every member – despite their differences in nationality. But not every European nation is a member of the EU (Switzerland, for example), and some member nations have not yet adopted the official currency (the United Kingdom still uses the Great British Pound).

A Layoff is…

June 3rd, 2011

A layoff is when an employee is either temporarily suspended or permanently fired from a job. Layoffs aren’t usually about employee performance, but rather a consequence of a company experiencing a financial crisis. The company may need to downsize, resulting in the elimination of certain jobs, in order to cut costs.

Racism is…

June 3rd, 2011

Racism is discrimination against a person or persons on the basis of race. Racism takes many forms, ranging from the explicit (bigoted comments from a single person) to the unconscious (unintentionally discounting a job applicant because of an ethnic-sounding name) to the collective and systematized (segregation in education, laws designed to promote the well-being of one race over another, the privileging of white employees).

A Sponsor is…

June 3rd, 2011

A sponsor is something or someone that gives money to support an event, project, person or organization. Sponsoring can happen on a large scale (for example, Coca-Cola sponsoring the World Cup) or on a small scale (like if you ask your parents to sponsor a car wash for your soccer team). It just means that the sponsor gives resources (money or time) to help make something happen.

Sponsoring has two big advantages: it provides the resources needed to put on an event or maintain a team, and it allows the sponsor to plaster its name all over the event. It’s kind of like advertising, because you get your name in front of potential customers, and you get the priceless image of giving back to the community.

Tax-Exempt is…

June 3rd, 2011

Tax-exempt is exactly what it sounds like: excused from taxation. This usually applies to organizations that aren’t required to pay federal income taxes, but it can also refer to some kinds of personal income. For example, interest that you earn from bonds issued by cities, counties, or states is tax-exempt.

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