Interesting story, and a great idea to give young adults business experience. (For teen-driven Minnesota bakery, expansion is icing on the cake).

Always good to hear about young people gaining knowledge about the business world.
http://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/12/17/cookie-cart-teen-nonprofit-bakery-expands-stpaul

Even after a raise it's important to manage your money! (Five moves to make after getting a raise)

Five moves to make after getting a raise

November 21, 2015 — 2:30pm

 

 

 

The average worker can expect about a 3 percent pay raise this year, according to a survey by Mercer. Getting a raise is only half the battle. Knowing what to do with it is the other half. Here are five moves to consider to make the most of your extra income:

Go 50-50

 

There’s nothing wrong with spending some of your raise. Aim for a 50-50 split: half goes toward discretionary spending, the other half goes toward reaching a long-term financial goal of reducing debt or bolstering retirement savings.

Aim higher if you can

 

If you don’t want to use 50 percent of your pay raise to go wild, that’s OK! If you can do more than a 50-50 split, the faster you can achieve those key objectives of paring debt, building a cushion and shoring up your retirement.

Pay off debt

 

Often people maintain a credit card balance that they can’t quite pay off. It’s a big drag on your finances. When you’re looking to make progress in your financial life, the biggest impact can generally be found by paying off that high-interest debt.

Create emergency fund

 

If you don’t carry credit card debt, or you’ve already paid it off, the next place to park your salary raise is in your emergency savings fund. Savers should strive to sock away between three and six months’ worth of living expenses.

 

Pad your 401(k)

 

Once you’ve established your emergency fund, it’s time to target retirement savings. If the option exists, take advantage of an employer-sponsored retirement account that offers a match.

GOBankingRates.com

Interesting article!

Light therapy may ease depression, not just winter blues

                   

By Lisa Rapaport November 19, 2015 2:16 PM

 

 

(Reuters Health) - Light therapy, long used to help improve mood in people who get the blues when days are darker and shorter, can also treat non-seasonal depression, a small Canadian study suggests.
Depression is one of the most common mental health disorders and a leading cause of disability and reduced quality of life worldwide, the researchers note in JAMA Psychiatry.

While many people with depression may be helped by medication or psychotherapy, these options don’t work for everybody and some patients don’t stick with treatment due to side effects or challenges related to access or affordability.

“This study is the first to show that light therapy alone is effective versus a placebo, and the first to compare combination light and drug to light alone,” said lead study author Dr. Raymond Lam of the University of British Columbia.

“The combination of light therapy and antidepressant was the most effective,” Lam added by email. “However, some people may prefer to try a non-medication treatment first, and may elect to start with light therapy.”

To test the effectiveness of light therapy for non-seasonal depression, Lam and colleagues randomly assigned 122 patients to one of four groups for eight weeks: only medication, only light, a combination of drugs and light therapy, or a control group that received no active treatments.

The active treatments in the study included a daily 20-milligram dose of fluoxetine (Prozac) and daily exposure to a fluorescent light box for 30 minutes after waking up each morning.

Researchers gave people assigned only light therapy a placebo, or inactive pill, and they provided participants assigned only to drug treatment with an inactive device instead of a working light box. The control group received both the placebo pill and the inactive device.

At the start of the study, researchers used a standard questionnaire to assess the severity of depression by asking participants about sadness, inner tension, reduced sleep, reduced appetite, concentration difficulties, lack of energy, inability to feel, and pessimistic or suicidal thoughts.

The highest score is 60, indicating the most severe depression. On average, participants had scores of about 26 or 27 at the start of the study, pointing to moderate depression.

After eight weeks, the group receiving both medication and light therapy had the biggest average drop in depression scores, with a 16.9 point decline.

People who got only light therapy had an average 13.4 point decline in depression scores, while people who had only medication experienced an 8.8 point drop and the control group getting only inactive treatments had a 6.5 point decrease.

While the exact reason light therapy might ease depression is unknown, it may have worked by helping to reset the biological clock in the brain, or circadian rhythms, the researchers hypothesized.
One shortcoming of the study is that researchers lacked data on how much exposure people had to natural light during the study, the authors acknowledge. It’s also possible that a higher dose of medication or light therapy might have made a bigger impact.

Normally, if an antidepressant doesn’t work in a low dose, clinicians will gradually increase the dose to help achieve the right amount of medicine to ease symptoms, noted Dr. Teodor Postolache, a psychiatry researcher at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore who wasn’t involved in the study.

“Light treatment could be an adequate agent that in combination with medications may make the response to treatment more complete,” Postolache said by email. “However, I would emphasize that patients should not buy a light treatment device and start adding it to their antidepressants on their own.”

The best time in the course of treatment to consider light therapy may also depend on the severity of symptoms, said Sue Penckofer, a researcher at Loyola University in Chicago who wasn’t involved in the study.

“If somebody has more mild depression they might try light therapy first, but if they have more moderate or serious depression medication might be recommended instead,” Penckofer said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1MppYER JAMA Psychiatry, online November 18, 2015.

Good turnout!

Mergers & Acquisitions conference in Minneapolis draws record turnout

 

 

M&A conference draws record turnout

 

“A year from now, we are going to call 2014 and 2015 the golden age of M&A.”

 

That’s the word from Sima Griffith, managing principal for Minneapolis-based ­Aethlon Capital, who has been raising capital and completing mergers and acquisitions for more than 25 years. She made the comment while attending law firm Faegre Baker Daniels’ 10th annual mergers and acquisitions conference Wednesday at the Marriott City Center.

 

The event is one of the premier M&A conferences in the country. This year, the conference drew nearly 450 attendees, its biggest turnout ever, with participants coming from as far away as China, Germany, Canada and London.

 

Featured were 10 panel discussions ranging from case studies on natural and organics food company acquisitions, including the General Mills/Annie’s and Hormel Foods/Applegate deals, to H.B. Fuller’s transformational $230 million deal involving China’s Tonsan Adhesives. The agenda also included breakout discussions on such topics as current deal activity.

 

Much of the discussion around the food deals was how much thought the big companies put into preserving the culture of the mission-driven companies they acquired, described by one General Mills executive as bringing “the power of the big to the small.”

 

One takeaway from the H.B. Fuller session was the importance of face-to-face negotiations, especially when the market has dictated that deals get done faster than ever with fewer and fewer in-person meetings.

 

One topic that arose early and was repeated consistently throughout the day’s sessions is that it remains a seller’s market in M&A. While it remains prime-time to be a quality seller in this market, the end may be in sight.

 

The first panel concluded with predictions of what 2016 will bring. How far and how fast M&A activity slides from peak activity will depend in large part on private equity firms and increasingly family offices that have been key contributors to this golden age of M&A activity.

 

Private equity firms now own about 10,000 companies, and family offices at investment banks have become increasingly aggressive in making deals.

 

Private equity firms have on average held their companies for five to six years, but those holding periods have been coming down. Some panel members told anecdotes about the firms flipping investments in as little as 18 months.

 

Meanwhile, family offices have been winning bids by selling themselves as longer-term investors, panelists said.

Patrick Kennedy

Longtime Friends

Check out this great video! We all need friends like this.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipnGPeRIy2k

M.S In Construction

Construction is the field with scope right now, every city and country is developing and for this purpose it needs construction to build new buildings and departments. Construction is quite wide field and it needs designers as well as builders. This field is bringing advancement in the field, new technologies and designs for the development of new building and to make the construction setup strong. For this industry there must be knowledge of finance, entrepreneur skills and technical things. Business plan and leadership qualities are the most required abilities in order to do construction. Now students are coming towards this field and studying about advance developments in construction industry. 

Students are studying abroad for the M.S in the construction industry to bring new developments and ideas in this field, and to open new opportunities for the next generation. The course in M.S construction will teach you about the handling of multiple task, how to schedule the finance and to make new strategies. In this study they can learn about the safety and prevention control, new technologies, project planning and how to make good relationships with labor to encourage them for their work.The M.S in construction industry will basically teach students about the management.To maintain the high standards of the education regarding construction industry there must be high faculty staff to help student to manage the skills they need to manage their job. Students will get new ideas during this education and will know about the different aspect of the field. By sharing different ideas and by making friendly relationship with the labor they will bring new developments to the field. By building correct strategies in this field new ideas and development will be in the construction field and as new comers will come in this field, this industry will be more strong.

Jason Geschwind 

Finance For The Construction Development

Finance is the life of the construction and development industry, to give hand to industry and to help them in finance for building the new building and to make the industry strong. Every industry need financing to establish themselves and to produce new projects for development. Many companies are working to give finance in order to build new projects and to make their profit as well. This work needs powerful resources and reliable firms to work with. Some of the laws have been generated to have finance. People now have enough awareness that how to manage the finance and how to resolve the issue at the time of taking finance from some firm.

Banks do work for the major projects no matter how much they need to buy, they give loan by guessing the approximate value of the project and after completing all the paper work they give loan to the company for development. For commercial property types there are number of types of loans and it depends upon the project and time period they need to return the finance back

1. Construction and Re habilitation loan: In this kind of loan company can have loan for the commercial properties and all the major and small companies may have loan for the development of new projects. This kind of finance is usually short term and within the specific time company need to return back finance to the bank.

2. Structural: This type of loan covers the broad properties and gives finance solution on the balance sheet to let the client understand about the terms.

3. Special Finance: This finance is for the new constructions and for the development of the home and healthcare projects. These are for the residential and apartment finance. These kind of loans are special and for multi-purpose.

Jason Geschwind

Right Assisted living Services | Jason Geschwind

A residential option for elders and senior while making themselves entertain in their daily routine, like cooking meals, making appointments to different locations, going to bathroom at different intervals as in the middle of nights, keeping house. An assisted living strategy, is a great choice when you live lonely, when you need more personal care like in retirement age and better treatment than you were at home. Simply it is stated as nursing treatment at your living place. Assisted living facility offers you a safety and security for 24-hours and provide you all kinds of support. Whether it will be day or night, help is just one call away, however, independence will be encouraged. A Good facility will make perfect relationship and accommodates your all weaknesses and disabilities.


How to decide, an assisted facility will be right decision for us?

Some of the questions that will spark in your mind when you are switching your decision to assisted living facility.:

Will this system give you more help that you were getting from your family and friends?
This question will come first because due to that activities of daily life will get stressful and overwhelmed. If family and your friends are not bridging the gap of your requirement, then it will definitely a good idea to switch.

Will you feel lonely, as you were feeling at your place earlier?
Having fresh and active social life always be very beneficial for happy life and great health. When you get alone for much of the time , this will lead to producing a depression in your life. Social aspects of assisted living have a great benefit on daily life, the best part is that community environment will produce new and better friends.

Will that place be safe for you?
Your mobility will be difficult wherever you are switching, so it must be very safe in these industries to switch.

Will transportation make an issue while switches places?
Perhaps, it will be very difficult to travel or doing daily routine works that needs transportation, Assisted Living Industries also offers you transportation facility.

 Jason Geschwind

When is it time that you are receiving too much healthcare?

Have you ever heard people debating about how much health care a patient should be allowed to receive?  This has been an ongoing debate for some time now.  There are some patients who people would claim that there may be an excessive amount of time spent on their medical treatment.

Granted some people are very seriously ill and may require more medical care than others.  However there comes a point in time where some of the medical care becomes questionable.

There will always be those patients who receive an endless amount of medical tests.  Now, the real question to ask is whether or not those medical tests are absolutely necessary. 

If tests are repeatedly being done on a patient without a definite answer from the tests.  Medically, it would make sense that you should keep doing tests to help determine what illness is causing problems for the patient.

Procedures are another main concern when it comes to patients being over serviced.  Surgery after surgery, or any small procedure can become very costly for both the medical facility and the patient. 

If a procedure is not absolutely necessary there should be a limit on whether or not to conduct another procedure on that patient.  The problem that arises when some patients are being over served is that that are other sick patients who are not getting the necessary time spent on their illness because all the medical staff is waiting on other patients who may be receiving care more often.

This is a problem because other patients need procedures and or appointments to consult their illnesses with a doctor.  However, doctors are becoming unavailable to them because they are so busy with the over treatment of the other patients. 

Some of the patients who have yet had a formal diagnosis from a doctor may be at a higher risk than the patients who are known to be very ill.  The patients who are lacking the necessary care may have symptoms of cancer or a disease but cannot get to a doctor fast enough to get it checked out. 

Doctors who are waiting longer than they should be on other ill patients could be causing more damage than they think.  If there are patients who are not living independently and have chosen to live at assisted livings, they may have a better advantage than those living at home independently. 

The reason is because these patients have other medical staffing that could at least provide a general idea of what may be going on with their bodies.  They will then need to schedule an appointment with a doctor to confirm a diagnosis.

Jason Geschwind

Buying a house? What to look for? Decisions, Decisions!!

Making the decision to purchase a new home can be extremely challenging and can come with a lot of consequences.  This could be one of the biggest decisions you will have to make in your lifetime. 

As with any decision there are both benefits and expenses that come along with it.  There are a few things that you could look into when trying to make this decision for you and or your family. 

The first thing that may come to your mind is how you are going to finance your new home.  There are options to pay cash right up front or take out a loan. 

The loan could be through your bank or the home owner development may have their own finance department that you can go through.  Either way you will need to do your own research on the side to make sure that you are using the best financial option for you.

You will need to discuss  this  with  your home owner’s development to find out their best options and then contact your bank to see what they would be willing to give you for a loan.  Once you determine how much you could get approved for on your loan then that is when you can begin your house hunting process.

If you chose to pay for your house for cash that could be a little less stressful for you because you know you have the amount of money that you want to spend on your new home so you will be getting a new home and still having no debt.

When you begin the house hunting process the most important thing to take note of is the location.  Not only does the location matter for you but for the value of the home.  You may have a beautiful home but if it is in a location with a lot of crime, or the surrounding homes have a much lower value that will then decrease the value of your home as well. 

This will matter when it comes time for you and your family to move and you are wanting to sell your house.  There are more things that go into the value of your home than just the appearance

Jason Geschwind

Animal Assisted Therapy

There is one particular type of therapy that majority of the population forgets about.  This  type of therapy is pet therapy.  Pets have the ability to make the human race feel a sense of happiness  that they may not be able to find anywhere else.

If you grew up with pets of your own you may know exactly what we are talking about.  Associating humans with pets can increase the chemical chain of reactions to their brains. 

Assisted living often allow pets to be brought into their facility for occasional pet therapy.  The residents and staff may appear to love this, however it is doing much deeper therapy for each individual. 

According to research, if humans have approximately fifteen minutes of association with a pet then the signals that are sent to their brains with ignite the feel-good hormone.  This hormone is commonly referred to as serotonin.

When the production of this hormone is increases then the body’s internal functions are altered.  This means that the individuals who are interacting with the pet will experience lower heart rates, a stress relief and their blood pressure levels will decrease. 

There are also long term effects that can have a major impact on the health of the individuals.  The humans will show a lasting effect of a lower cholesterol level as well as making their overall mood happy.

 In return, if you are in a positively happy mood then this lowers your chances of becoming depressed or suffering from anxiety.  When a body is experiencing depression, anxiety, or stress your body can become more prone to heart complications or strokes. 

If humans suffering from any of these disorders receives regular pet therapy their chances will likely decrease over time.  In the long run it could prevent them from any further disorders happening in the future. 

Assisted living facilities will allow pet therapy for these various reasons.  Just like any other public facility, the pets that are brought in for the therapy sessions are required to be up to date on shots and well behaved animals.

Jason Geschwind

Assisted Living & Senior Living

If you have recently gone to an assisted living to visit a loved one or friend you may have been shocked by design of the facility.  It appears that senior living facilities have the amenities and appearance of luxury hotels in the present day.

When families are searching their communities for the highest rated senior living facility they always consider the amenities the facilities have to offer.  There is another consideration that families typically look for in a senior living facility.  This is their activities department.  Some facilities have a very active activities department which really keep their residents busy with a variety of activities.

It is extremely important to keep the elderly population active.  Both physically and mentally their bodies need to be active to maintain a good health.  With activity, comes healthy eating.  The modern day facilities provide their residents with an overall healthy lifestyle.  The top of the line amenities enhance this type of lifestyle.

The facilities offer luxury restaurant style cafeterias. They may also include beautiful patio areas outside of the facility for the residents to enjoy scenery, landscaping, meals, and outdoor activities. 

In the growing economy, there is a high possibility that the style of senior living facilities will just keep growing.  This type of facility is on a continuous uphill improvement scale and doesn’t appear to be going down any time soon.

Jason Geschwind

Looking for trained home builder

While thinking about what contractor you should go with when building your new home, there is a particular criteria that you stand by when making your decision.  The other concern is whether to choose a private or commercial builder to do the work.  All of these questions are completely normal to ask when searching for a home builder. 

Bloomington Ave Investments will deliver a well developed home without the hassle of a big name contractor.  The options for the construction of your new home may be endless, but Bloomington Ave Investments has the capability of efficiently completing a project.  The difference between our homes and other home builders is that we construct unique structures that you will never forget.

Choosing your home builder is the first step in custom building your dream home.  The next step is to make the decision of where you would like the home to be built.  This process may begin with a city lot that you have always wanted to live on. 

Once the lot is chosen the decisions take place about the design options in your home.  Many homeowners have the most trouble making these decisions.  Bloomington Ave Investments offers trained personnel to their customers so that these decisions can be made easier.

The final step when building your dream home is to finalize your decision on who you want as your building contractor.  The home being custom built for you by Bloomington Ave Investments will reassure you that you made the best decision.  The good news is that you will still have nearly an endless amount of designs to choose from but Bloomington Ave Investments will make sure that they still fall withing your budget and the building codes.

Jason Geschwind