Although it’s expected that everyone is going to be affected by the economic crisis, many wouldn’t have thought about how it would affect college aid for students. Many colleges and universities depend on endowments and investments in the market. Universities like Harvard invest big time in the market; they also invest in hedge funds and venture capital funds. When the market goes south, all the universities that made big bets in the market suffer. Ultimately, they can’t give the financial aid for the students that really need it.

There is no sign of end to the current crisis. Clouds may clear for the students in 2010. Just a hope…

Related Link: Colleges Struggle to Preserve Financial Aid

It’s a difficult time for everyone especially for the companies that seek funding. If you run a startup and can survive with self-funding for six more months, it’s better not to seek funding from Venture Capitalists (VC) now.

For the first time since 1978, no VC-backed companies conducted an initial public offering this past quarter, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, and the time it takes to exit an investment has doubled from 10 years ago. As a result, VCs are more cautious about where their money is going and companies looking for some seed or expansion funding might have to work a bit harder to get it.

It’s not only going to be harder, you need to give up more equity stake to VCs to get the required funding. There are some areas like iPhone app development still attract the VCs Silicon Valley. For everyone else, it’s a tough world out there.

The most important thing to remember with a wet phone is not to turn it on. Experts recommend taking out the battery and wiping it off, shaking out any excess moisture, unfastening the screws of the phone to open up the device, and then using an electrical-contact cleaning spray or rubbing alcohol to displace the corrosive moisture. Wall Street Journal folks put up a nice video explaining the trick.

Related Link: Wall Street Journal

If you have problem with your appliances, wireless routers or even your car, check out FixYa before doling out money for repairs. If your product is under warranty, you must contact the product service center. Otherwise, FixYa can help you by giving free advice about how to fix your product.

You can also try Manage My Home to get the help for your home projects. If you are struggling to find the manual for the refrigerator you bought in 2001, they may help you with that. Manage My Home website has product manuals for many products. Click Owner’s manuals under Home Manager.

Prosecutors claimed that it was the biggest insider-trading scandal in Wall Street since 1980s. Mitchel Guttenberg had been an executive director and institutional client manager at UBS — a position that gave him access to stock recommendations by analysts before the information was made public.

During a meeting at Manhattan’s famed Oyster Bar in Grand Central Terminal in 2001, Guttenberg offered to give a friend inside stock tips in exchange for forgiving a $25,000 debt and for a cut of the profits. Over the next six years, the friend made millions of dollars by trading stocks for himself and two hedge funds he managed.

I won’t be surprised if Mitchel Guttenberg get brand new avatar and become a celebrity after he is released from the prison. Look at what happened to Henry Blodget, he doles out advice in Yahoo Finance. Surprisingly some people still listen to that guy.

Related Link: The Trial Of Henry Blodget

Venture capitalist firm Kleiner Perkins’ John Doerr listed top things that start-up companies should be doing. It would be helpful not only for start-up companies, but for any business. It may be useful for individuals also to some extent. Check out John Doerr’s to-do list here.

Related Link: Cash panic sweeping VC industry

It’s essential to spot problem accounts early especially in this time of recession. Global financial meltdown is burning many companies. Everyday we hear of some company shutting down the operations. It’s important not to get caught with lot of unpaid invoices. Do what you can today to protect yourself and your money.

You don’t want to crack down on a good customer too hard too soon. At the same time, you don’t want to “taken for granted” by a client who has become unable or unwilling to pay. What you need is an early warning system to detect a credit problem in the making so that you can stop the losses as soon as you can.

Here are some of the telltale signs that might come from problem clients:

• The client fails to return your phone calls about the pending invoice or shows unusual annoyance at your inquiries.
• Your requests for information such as updated financial statements are ignored.
• Despite the problems you are having, the client tries to convince you into providing a good credit report to another supplier.
• The client start paying the invoices erratically, paying smaller invoices and sleeping on larger invoices.

If you see any of these problems, it’s time to take action. The “action” really depends on your specific situation. If you have long-term relationship with the client, you may want to help him out. If the client is arrogant or in a really bad situation, you may want to stop doing business with him and take the loss and move on.

Why the clients get into the trouble and become a failure? Rick Telberg wrote a good article about this. It’s normally the pride that prevents the client accepting the failure before it’s too late. You just need to make sure that their pride is not going to be your loss.

American financial crisis is now global. Property market in U.S. will take some more time to see the light. Commercial property markets are taking more hit. Office vacancies are rising across the country. Though sale prices and the number of properties sold have plummeted with the deteriorating credit markets, as they have nationwide, the metro commercial-sales market was still one of the most liquid in the U.S.

Companies are cutting costs wherever possible. Entire development team is laid off in a Seattle company few days ago. Some companies are terminating the leases of big offices and moving to smaller offices. Startups are moving back to the garage. It’s estimated that 10 million square feet of office space will be back on the market and office rents could decline by as much as 25% in the next 12 months.

Many real estate analysts expect jump in foreclosures of commercial properties in the next 3 months. It looks like that low interest rate environment is not helping much when there is so much fear.

Hello World! Welcome to Moola Mania!!

This is our first sample post following the tradition of blogging. We are a group of finance professionals that have passion for writing. We plan to write many informative posts about earning, saving, growing and protecting your money. We will write unbiased articles. We hope you will like them and engage in thoughtful discussions with us.

This blog will be entirely ad supported, for now. We plan to charge $989 per month as subscription fee from Jan 2009. Just kidding.. We know that everyone wants the best information at free of cost. So, this blog has to depend on ads for revenues to keep it going.

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