Mesothelioma- the Financial Costs to Society

Much has been written about asbestos related diseases such as Mesothelioma over the last couple of years. The focus has been on three main areas:

a) The unfortunate victims of mesothelioma such as former employees of asbestos mining companies who caught these diseases whilst in the course of their employment. We have seen the heart rendering images on TV of these people, all of them in their retirement years, gasping for air and suffering enormously.

b) Whether the asbestos mining companies knew that asbestos mining was a danger to human life.

c) The Multibillion dollar class actions filed by the victims against their former employers seeking compensation.

Two issues that have not been addressed are the financial costs to society of asbestos related diseases such as Mesothelioma cancer and who pays for these costs. Secondly, should asbestos mining companies be paying compensation not only to the sufferers of mesothelioma and other diseases but also to Society also?

There are two costs to society that can be identified. The first is the cost to the public health system. The second cost is the loss of tax revenue by governments due to Asbestos mining companies claiming a tax deduction for the compensation payments that are made to the victims.

In illustration of the costs to the public health system, the Asbestos Diseases Foundation of Australia has stated that by 2020 there will be 13000 cases of mesothelioma and 40000 asbestos related lung cancer diseases, totaling 53000 people and this is only in Australia! This means that 53000 people will need to have constant medical attention for the next 15 years or so. The question therefore, who pays for the cost? The answer of course is the current taxpayer and the next generation of taxpayers.

In relation to tax revenue, governments are essentially missing out on tax revenue as the asbestos companies are claiming the compensation payment as a tax deduction. For illustrative purposes, assume that an asbestos mining company pays out $100m per year over five years to the victims. Also assume that the corporate tax rate is 30 per cent. Therefore over five years, a respective government is losing $150m in revenue. Essentially it means that the asbestos mining companies are sharing the costs with the taxpayer. They pay 70 per cent of the compensation payment and the taxpayer pays the remaining balance. Most people would view this as totally inequitable.

It can be seen that the Asbestos companies are only paying a part of the costs and not the full cost. To rectify this, there are two possible solutions.

a) Respective Governments should also join class actions with Mesothelioma sufferers against the asbestos mining companies seeking compensation for medical and future medical costs. This would not be unprecedented as various State Governments of the United States sought compensation against the Tobacco Companies to pay for the medical costs of its citizens who needed medical attention because of the ill effects of smoking.

b) Governments deny a tax deduction for Mesothelioma compensation payments made by the asbestos mining companies.

Until either part a or part b happens, it is the taxpayer who will be unfairly burdened with the additional financial costs of Asbestos related diseases such as Mesothelioma.

Internet Entrepreneurship: First Step, Getting Started

First steps: choosing the business

When I was thinking about starting an internet business there were a few things that were must have requirements.

The first one was that I needed to be able to get the business to profitability for less than $1600 (£100). In practice each site has cost more than that when you figure in the marketing costs needed to get it off the ground quickly. The silk tie retailing site was set up for less than $300 but when you factor in marketing spend, then I have spent almost $800 per month on marketing, mostly Google AdWords and Overture. It is only after month three that I have got close to breaking even. Anyway, near enough and if you are more patient and make less costly mistakes than me then you should be able to do it for less.

Secondly. The business had to need as little manual work as possible. I am after a business that I can start working part time and as am a management consultant and sell my time by the hour, for me time really is money. I am also not keen on hiring people if I can avoid it. The internet has the potential to offer some really virtual businesses and I wanted to use this. For this reason as well as start-up costs this means that I do not want to stock or handle any products. I do a lot of supply chain consulting work so it was obvious to me that I could have a business that used other companies to buy, store and deliver the products. The easiest way to do this is by using dropshipping. Dropshippers are wholesalers that ship individual customer orders direct to your customers.

There is a lot of information on dropshipping online, however it has to be said that there are some terrible dropshipping companies where prices are too high or products too common to successfulull. Typical of these is thSelect which charges a fee to join, but once you join you find that the prices are often higher than they are being sold for on eBay and are widely sold with lots of competition. It is very hard to make good money from these sort of dropshippers. There are however some good companies out there with niche products where achievable margins are good.

The third requirement was that the business needed to have the potential to generate at least £1k per month in profit. That way with a few web businesses it could become my full time job. I decided that I was not trying to start the next Amazon, instead I was after a good profitable niche. Something not too competitive and with no house-hold names as competitors. This means that I have not gone into electronics even though it is the area I know the best, it is a very competitive market online and were competition includes Amazon and Dixons. To be successful in electronics you either need to find a niche not served by the big boys or spend serious money to get established.

I then started searching for business ideas. I read the get rich quick newsletters, internet marketing newsletters, internet business forums and drop shipping websites. I searched for dropship suppliers then when I found a product that I thought might be promising, did a search for it and checked out the competition. If after that it still looked interesting then I did a keyword search on Google AdWords to find out how many clicks I could get and at what cost.

While doing this I came across some sites selling ready-made business websites. Essentially they provide a shop template, a catalogue and a supplier of stock and off you go. These sell for between £50 ($80) and £500 ($800). I wasted a fair bit of money with a couple of false starts. I bid on a lingerie web business template on eBay with a starting price of £99; my wife was a lingerie merchandiser for Marks & Spencers and so I though she could help, then I saw a gadgets website from the same people and thought I would get that and see if I could find a gadgets niche and bid for that too. Trouble was I then did some more research and found that lingerie was very competitive online and that the supplier I would be getting had a limited selection of very tarty undies at rather high prices. I also found that the gadget supplier was the Select and as I have already said they are overpriced. I then found the tie web business and decided this was a better niche where margins really are 60% and bought that one from DpbUK who have been very good. Unfortunately no one else bid on the two on eBay and I ended up winning them although I no longer wanted them. $300 wasted. Oops. So do your homework carefully before buying; look carefully at the sample sites and try and find some clues to the suppliers, check the competition out and make sure the margins are high enough.

You can read more at my daily blog which you will find at http://specialist-paintings-ties.blogspot.com/ . You can also check out my retail businesses; woven silk ties at http://www.tiespecialist.com and reproduction oil paintings at http://www.artspecialist.co.uk.

Why Every Woman Must Have her Military Man

Once, I was allowed to serve my country in the comfort of my own home. I stood at attention, saluted the flag, and serviced the servicemen of this great nation. Or shall I say serviceman. Mine was a patriotic act deeply personal, that of which many women have undertaken and find great pleasure in. I loved a military man. And just any military man, a United States Marine.

Marines are a different breed of men. They reason with complete removal of emotion yet speak with sentiment about the destruction of world's they've encountered. Contemplative but careless, wildly egocentric, brash, belligerent; they are a mesh of contradictions. They are tender but tough, forceful but reserved, charismatically gruff. Sometimes they hate what they do, but they always believe in it. They've orphaned so much life has to offer: family, safety, permanence- but they do not care. They live like they speak: brusquely, candidly, without apology and with a certainty that this is the life for them.

Together Marines can be a thing to behold: drinking and swearing, singing and slapping each other on the back, saying things like, "remember that time at Okinawa." But in the eyes of any military man you see how they live, their rash life that can be picked up and packed away at a moment's notice, their disconnection with people and place, their sheer will that often supersedes bravery. Knowing them you are conscious of a whole new way of life, one that involves the elaborate mechanics of killing, strategic violence, and strict uniformity. Military men bring what it means to be an American, the beauty and the burden, and set it before you.

You see for the first time the corporeality of war; it's actual materiality. The war lay next to me at night, it breathed and dreamed, pulled me close and touched my body. It was not just a flash of news on CNN or an article on the front page. It was real, and it belonged to us all. It was a life and a death. A friend and a family member, someone dearly loved. It was the man by my side, and so many others, with a long life ahead, marching off to a place he might not come back from. I never felt his fear, only a casual calmness that whatever happened he would be okay. With that, he taught me when facing the unknown you must meet it boldly and that in chaos poise was certainly possible.

Military men live life hard-nosed and with intensity, but they value the simple: a warm meal, the correspondence of a friend, a photo of the family. They are passionate, sturdy men. Every woman must be with one at least once in her life. Besides bestowing a fierce patriotism, there is something strangely empowering in loving a man who serves our country and wildly erotic in waking up with a man who wears camouflage and combat boots to work. Meticulous, vulgar, built, and brave, (and not to disappoint in the bedroom) a military man is everything you would expect him to be, and sometimes even a little sweet and endearing.

So women, if you haven't already had you're run with a military man I hope that someday you do; it is a unique experience. Be it the Marines, Army, Navy, or Air force, the armed forces of this nation have a lot to teach us. And strangely enough it is not always because of the job they do but because of the way they live. My Marine taught me to be brave, not because he was a Marine but because he lived what he believed, and that is a hard thing to do, perhaps the hardest.

The members of the United States military are proud men and they make you proud to be with them, contributing to a life that is sewn together with orders, ranks, and letters written among sand and sea. You can't help but to believe in them. They leave you with dog tags and broken hearts but you don't care. You wake up smiling, thinking about the countries they've been in, wondering where they will go next, and who will be there to listen to their stories and nibble on their ear in the dark and get all teary eyed thinking of the things they've done and the things they'll do- for me and for you and for everyone who lives in a county that fights to stay free.

For SSgt. Steven A. Lefevre

If You Are Pregnant Should You Be Eating For Two?

Most people think that because you are pregnant with a baby its OK to eat more food, eat for two in other words, in fact what we now know is, this is not the case.

During pregnancy it really is quite typical for your appetite to vary up and down. It is for the early stages of pregnancy that most women find it difficult to acquire an appetite in particular if they have morning sickness. But as the time is going on they will cultivate more their appetite for food.

Do you need to eat for two the answer is definitely no. You see most women usually do not need the additional calories through the early stages of pregnancy, most say inside the very first half-dozen months because your system becomes more efficient the moment it is pregnant. Throughout the last 3-4 months your body will only call for an additional 200-300 calories a day.

What is essential is what you eat, during pregnancy it is important to eat as healthily as you can, and you ought to eat a variety of foodstuffs every day. Sticking to your five a day is actually a good policy, that's five portions of fruit and vegetables.

Try not to have too many foods which can be high in fats and sugars, but it's Okay to eat rice and pastas in moderation as these are low in fats.

Eat meats such as red meat and poultry and fish, but not too many portions of oily fish.

You should gain bodyweight steadily while pregnant and never put on a lot of bodyweight all at the same time.Not surprisingly you will ought to take frequent physical exercise but always take guidance from your GP. Using the Pelvic Floor Exerciser might help also consider the Birth Ball as a form of exercising specially during the later stages of pregnancy. To keep things regular bear in mind taking Pregnacare Tablets for constipation again take the advice of your GP.

As soon as you have had your baby then you may want to take into consideration some cardiovascular training to reduce that mummy tummy, and we all know that cardio exercise is the best strategy to burn off calories. Doing tummy exercises will tone up all those tummy muscles. It is advisable to aim to exercise at the least two to three days every week and about 30-40 minutes every time. Do this and in no time you will be back into shape. You should always seek the advice from you GP as to what work outs you can do following your pregnancy.

There are many pregnancy products available in the market to help you through your pregnancy, from morning sickness tablets, Folic acid Tablets for Constipation, a number of lotions and potions that can help make your pregnancy pass as easily as practically possible. For anyone who is in pain during your pregnancy then bear in mind using a TENS machine as an alternative source of pain relief.

Top Ten Bathroom Staging Tips - How to Stage It to Sell It

Bathrooms are one of the key rooms to focus on when staging for the selling market. Like bedrooms, they've become more than their names suggest, just places to bathe or sleep, they're seen as pamper rooms & havens of relaxation that mimic the hotel luxury chic many have come to enjoy.

However like kitchens, they are seen as expensive rooms to refit or redecorate. If buyers don't see a bathroom that appeals they will estimate it will cost thousands to refurbish and that will come off their offer price or else put the buyers off putting in an offer! For these reasons it is vitally important to pay attention to your bathroom when your home is for sale.

Here are my 'Top Tips' on staging your bathroom for the market.

1. Clean, Clean then Clean again!

No one likes the idea of someone else's dirt. The bathroom is a place where we remove all of our protective layers. When staging your home roll up your sleeves, get out the gloves and clean every surface from top to bottom. Scrub down those tiles, wash or change the blind, shower curtains. once you've finished cleaning ... clean again and keep it clean.

2. Carpets, Toilet Mats & Loo Seat Cosys!

Carpets may be soft under foot but they hold onto moisture and odors. I really encourage everyone selling to remove them and replace with tiles, bathroom grade wood laminate or a good quality lino. Those mats that fit around the pedestal of toilets and sinks look old fashioned plus just imagine what may have splashed there over the years ... I know that your viewers will be thinking this!

Loo Seat Cosys, those loopy covers that fit over the lid - Don't!

3. Let The Light Flood In

If you have a window to your bathroom, clean it thoroughly, remove the nets (so long as it's not clear glass) and raise the blind fully or pull back the curtains to let as much natural daylight in as possible. If privacy is a consideration then consider using a frosting film or paint to obscure the glass but allow maximum light in.

4. Clear The Clutter

Bathrooms can be like curiosity shops with all the personal care products we use these days. When selling clear every surface of all your day to day care products. Leaving stuff on show distract buyers as they start to see your lifestyle and not the room. Just remember 'Too Much Information' is not a good thing.

5. Tile & Grout

If the tiles are in good condition and the colour works then give them a thorough scrub, to remove built up grease and grime. If the grout is in good condition but discoloured then use good old bleach & a tooth brush to bring the whiteness back (wear protective goggles & gloves) or use a grout pen to restore the whiteness. If the grout has cracked and fallen out, pay for a tiler to regrout, it will make the tiles look good as new.

If your tiles are old fashioned in colour or style then consider either painting over them with a special tile paint or consider tiling over them (sound tiles make a perfect surface to re-tile onto).

6. Mould, Mildew & Mustiness

There is positively nothing more unpleasant than walking into a bathroom that has any of the three in it. One whiff of mustiness, a patch of ceiling mould or a mildew bathmat or shower curtain and you will kiss the house sale good buy. If you've got mould, get to the root of the cause - check the vent is clear, repair the extractor fan or fix the leak causing it then repair and paint (use a mould inhibiting paint).

Mildew items like bathmats, old flannels, stained shower curtains & face cloths or damp mops and cleaning items should be tossed in the bin and replaced. Mustiness must be banned. Air your bathroom and don't dry damp towels, or other items, on the radiators.

7. Taps, Shower Heads & Hoses

These are prone to scale up and look unpleasant. Use a quality descaler and bring the shine back to those chrome or metal finishes. Shower heads and hoses can also look unappealing and collect grime over the years so remove them from their fittings and descale and clean them. Use an old toothbrush to really get into the nooks & crannies. If fittings are beyond cleaning, perhaps the metal has worn away, then consider replacing with fresh new fittings.

8. Other DIY Jobs.

As always finish off any maintenance that you have left such as refitting the broken shower curtain, light fitting, towel rail, shelves etc. Buyers will see unfinished DIY and knock hundreds off the asking price as a result.

9. Attractive Accessories & Smells

Appeal to your buyers aspirations. After you have put away all of those everyday care products, invest in some attractive bath oils, scented soaps, natural candles that will gently infuse the air with a clean but not clinical smell. Purchase a set of matching towels that work with your colour scheme. These towels are for show only, keep everyday towels to hand but only display the show towels during the viewing.

Plants add a freshness & softness to bathrooms. Buy healthy bathroom loving plants that are appropriate to the space you have. In larger bathrooms palms can work well, in smaller bathrooms 'Ivys' and 'Peace In The Home' may work better. What ever the plant they must remain in tip top condition.

10. Keep It Clean & Tidy

As with every room when selling your home, once it's presented then you need to keep it that way. This can be hard when you are living in the property, especially in the bathroom.

My advice is to invest in some simple wicker baskets, one for every member of the household. Keep the everyday toiletries in these baskets and only take them into the bathroom when using it. Stowe them away in a bedroom cupboard. Like wise with every day towels.

Final Thoughts

Be firm with everyone in the house and ensure that all take responsibility to keep the bathroom clean and ready for a viewing. Buyers love the idea of a brand new bathroom that no one else has ever used. If you don't have a brand new bathroom do all in your power to present the one you have 'As Good As New'.

Yoga for Pregnant Women Explained

Most of the pregnant women today are multi-tasking personalities who undergo a lot of physical stress and mental strain all of which finally culminates into a long and arduous process of childbirth causing a severe erosion of one's strength and stamina. Under such circumstances, the practice of yoga for pregnant women not only leads to the discovery of personal pleasures of life through spirituality but also helps to undergo the associated strain with calmness and confidence.

Being a traditional form of exercise, yoga for pregnant women reduces the mental stress and physical agony associated with childbirth by helping the expecting mother to discover and build up her inherent strength and stamina gradually over a period of the entire pregnancy. Some of the yogic postures which should be performed on a daily basis as a part of the program of yoga for pregnant women are yoga ana, Varian, padmasana, sukhasana and shavasana. These are basic asanas which entail the minimum of stretching and form a part of beginner's yoga for pregnant women since they are meant for being performed during the first 2-3 months. Regular practice of these asanas not only tend to relax the body but also prevent the stomach muscles from getting stretched thus protecting the baby from suffering any kind of physical damage.

The pranayama which fits well your pregnancy is the regular practice of breathing exercises in form of mild kapalabhatti, anulom-vilom and bhramari pranayama. While kapalabhatti is practiced through fast breathing, anulom and vilom are performed by inhaling through one nostril and exhaling through the other and the repeating the process vice versa. Bhramari pranayama entails deep inhalation and exhalation by making a buzzing sound resembling the flight of the beetle from whom this asana gets its name.

Likewise, there are particular yogasanas which are performed at the onset of labor in order to assist in the delivery process. In fact, research has shown that during the first stage of labor women who perform standing yogic asanas and remain mobile in the process are the ones who generally experience the least pain during delivery and need not be injected with epidural anesthesia as well.

The yogasana which is widely recommended as well as performed for easy delivery is the shavasana or the corpse pose in which the practitioner needs to lie on the back with arms and legs stretched out, eyes closed and focus playing on all parts of the body. Practicing this asana during delivery promotes a sense of expansiveness and complete relaxation and instills within the practitioner the feeling of peace and calmness.