Cholesterol is very important basic fatty substance that is essential for our survival. Over 85% of cholesterol is produced in our liver and we only need to get 15% from outside sources. The problem is that we are consuming way more cholesterol than what our bodies need from sources outside our bodies and that’s the beginning of the problem. Cholesterol’s only outside food source is the animal kingdom like bacon, sausages, hotdogs, butter and other dairy products, heavy creams, sour cream, cheeses, fatty cuts of meet or pork and lard. Coconut and palm oils are the 2 sources for cholesterol sources from a non-animal kingdom.

Bringing these 2 silent killers cholesterol and blood pressure are covered in an e-book titled “Lifestyle Makeover: Defeat High Cholesterol and Blood Pressure”

Moreover, we have become more than ever a largely physically inactive society. We are sitting throughout an entire 8 to 12 hour work day then go home and sit in front of the TV some 5 or 6 hours more while consuming large meals, snacks and beverages that are rich in fats (especially saturated fats), salt, and loads of sugar all of which contributing to more belly fat build up. Belly fat buildup causes the start of inflammation in our arteries contributing to plaque build up and insulin resistance and leading to heart attacks and diabetes. All of the daily unfavorable choices we are making every day are literally killing us.

People are also leading highly stressful lives and vent off by eating more sugar or smoking worsening the situation and mortality outcomes.

When people don’t read nutrition labels they tend to consume very dense food, snacks and sugary beverages that are nutrient deficient. These foods are available all over at fast food restaurants or vending machines and contain loads of sugar, fats and unwanted calories. For refreshments and hydration instead of water people’s main form of hydration are large SUGARY soft drinks, “lemonades”, “sweetened tea”, “smoothies”, “lattes and frappucinos” which contain loads more of sugar which turns in the body to belly fat (increasing waist lines and triglycerides levels that float in the blood to block more arteries.

That’s how people build their own time bombs by blocking their own arteries with their own unfavorable choices.

People are awesome at taking care of their home and family, awesome at business planning and forecasts, excellent marketers, excellent 1,3 and 5 year projection planners but their health (which is THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR) is in utter shambles and they may not survive these forecasts or may survive with major blows and debilitations to their vital organs due to all these risks factors that will tumble on their heads and make them magnets to all kinds of PREDATOR MANMADE DISEASES.

People spend a ton of money on outside looks and makeovers for their businesses, closets, their office, home but they neglect the most crucial makeover to their lifestyles which is the one that will protect their vital organs and spare their lives.

For someone who has cholesterol, lifestyle changes along with medication treatment and periodically monitoring cholesterol to track progress are essential for an effective Lifestyle Makeover and avoiding harms way.

If you are diagnosed with high cholesterol and if your doctor prescribes medications then take them as instructed every day. High cholesterol presents no symptoms just a sudden heart attack that can be deadly. I see it every day in my pharmacy practice that people believe that by taking medications they are safe and they can indulge and remain inactive. Along with medications you need to make balanced lifestyle choices, increase the walking you do every day, cut back on eating fried foods and sugars. Switch to water and limit all other beverages to a couple non-sugar containing beverages. Increase your intake of fiber from oats, whole grain bread, beans, brown rice and whole wheat pasta.

For more details on how you can bring your cholesterol and blood pressure under control log on to www.LifestyleMakeoverEbook.com and check out the e-book titled “Lifestyle Makeover: Defeat High Cholesterol and Blood Pressure” and other e-books to help you manage your stress, sexual health, consume alcohol in balance and quit smoking (if you’re a smoker).

Take a simple True and False quiz NOW and test your knowledge by clicking on the link above.

For more detailed information on any of these topics log on to: www.LifestyleMakeoverEbook.com and check out these information packed lifesaving book and e-book volumes: LIFESTYLE MAKEOVER FOR DIABETICS AND PRE-DIABETICS and four other e-books: Lifestyle Makeover: Sex, Stress, and Alcohol , Lifestyle Makeover for All Couch Potatoes , Lifestyle Makeover: Defeat High Cholesterol and Blood Pressure , and Lifestyle Makeover for all Tobacco Users . The author of this article is also the author of these volumes.

George Tohme
http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/is-cholesterol-the-bad-guy-have-our-choices-been-killing-us-677960.html

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These have many takers with fresh graduates and even experienced candidates finding career fairs a great way to search and match their profiles to dream jobs. Yes, that’s ‘jobs’ not ‘job’ since hundreds of companies and head-hunting executives come to these professionally organized career fairs to scout for fresh talent and senior recruitments as well besides getting to meet a wide talent-pool of candidates on one day (or even spread across several) for specialized jobs.

It makes their work of scouting the best brains in the business that much easier as so many qualified candidates register themselves with the organizers of the career fairs to avail the best offers and thus head-hunters get their choice of top talent under one roof! Besides, the stigma of losing a job or changing jobs has long been shrugged off with the new-world opening up to new ways to encourage trade, commerce, personal growth and larger visionary schemes that what was once taken as a sign of being unreliable or disloyal to a company is now regarded as a smart career move i.e. switching gears to stay up with the times!

Also, career fairs offer thousands of good jobs with varying pay scales and perks with each company vying with not one but many rivals to nab the best potential candidates for themselves that employees are spoilt for choice when it comes to considering which offer to actually take up!

Those looking out for a change of scene, a new challenge or opportunities for growth in their chosen profession or even those wanting to try their hand at something completely different find career fairs a great place to begin their job-hunting officially and openly. Besides those searching for a new career, even those stuck in a rut at work and those wondering if they are worth a ‘fatter pay packet’ or ‘a wider job role’ can find out the truth for themselves by visiting the stalls of various companies looking to hire.

No local newspaper with dedicated weekly employment sections can hope to compete with the diverse and wide-ranging job offers that are up for the taking at the annual events the professional career fairs turn out to be; some even have fantastic sponsorships from big companies backing them besides snacks and vending machines to set the mood for free-wheeling interviews in a comfortable atmosphere.

The biggest advantage for candidates looking out for new jobs at career fairs is the vast choice before them from the hundreds of potential business concerns looking out for new people before them and the open choice of checking out each one and applying for different jobs at the same time.

At times, career fairs are held at hotels or exhibition grounds usually reserved for social or cultural events, but sometimes these are also held in large shopping malls. At these types of venues, there may be booths set up by different potential employers who have trained personnel manning the counters to give basic company information and explain job profiles to the interested candidates, especially those companies looking at volume hiring.

Still others may also have executives to process candidate applications and others to conduct onsite interviews, so a lot of time is saved during the hiring process, which is welcomed by candidate and HR alike.

Abhishek Agarwal
http://www.articlesbase.com/careers-articles/career-fairs-best-place-to-bag-a-job-702867.html

If they are interested on the food and army that you are donation for vending, definitely you can require hundreds to thousands of dollars in revenues from your online business. On the other hand, if they are just too indolent to heed what you want to say and what you are donation, better fasten down your delicate mainframe thing and find some other conduct of earning money.

As an Internet dealer, you do not want the support scenario to transpire to your Internet advertiseing career. To be the exclusion to the reign, you must magnetize more web visitors to your locate and convert them into long-call clients and erect a loyal clientele center. Once you have fulfilled such requirements, require that there is something in reconvertpositive reconverts, to be certain.

How will you say to Internet users that you want them to keep your online business vibrant? In reality, you want not to tell them frank to the detail that you shoddily want them. All you want is a skillful object and some online advertising to get them lacking making them achieve that you shoddily want them.

During the second part, we must switch to a more serious side to fully communicate the subject matter in a way for all to understand.

There are many online advertising procedures on the Internet and each procedure has their invention that facility better on certain industries. There are enormous facts of individuals and companies working online who desires to puff what they have to proffer, and there are also enormous facts of individuals and companies on the Internet who are agreeable to afford some advertising seats. However, judgeing that the online advertising advertise is fully large, it will be inefficient for the puffrs as well as the affordrs of these online advertising seats to individually greet and seminar about the calls of conditions of advertising.

The individual or troupe who want to puff will sure friend an online-centerd advertising troupe that are agreeable to afford the liberty that the puffr desires as well as distribute their puffments to different venues on the Internet at the same time.

The more payback are now towards the online advertising safe. And you are judgeing an online advertising business.

But before you go, there are numerous equipment you want to judge first.

birth to group a collection of weblocates or online companies that are agreeable to place puffments on their locates. cliquey locates that are getting high web transfer every month. Once you have grouped advertising locate venues, you may now launch soliciting advertising clients. These puffrs will pay a certain quantity of money that will commensurate with the exposure of their food or army on your advertising locate venues. For command, if you have contracted with 20 weblocates that are getting an common of 200,000 web visitors every month, you can market as greatly as 2,000,000 advertising exposures every month on each puffr. In reason that you have negotiated around 20 advertising venues on each weblocate, you can market an equivalent of 20 advertising clients with 2,000,000 advertising exposures every month. If an puffr only pays for 1,000,000 advertising exposures, you can still market the residual 1,000,000 advertising exposures for a totality of 11 advertising clients.

Now, what are the types of online advertising that you can proffer? Here are some of the donations that you can market to individuals or companies who want to puff their food or army on the Internet.

Banner ads- these ads are typically charming ads that are generally viewed on high-transfer locates and includes a hyperlink back to the puffrs own locate. These are priced according to the number of ads exposed. For command, banner ads can be sold in tons of 250,000 impressions each.

Sponsorship ads- these ads are generally superior than banner ads, which sometimes include judgeable quantity of textbook. These are typically sited on high-transfer areas such as ezines or online newsletters.  It is priced according to the number of readers of the newsletter or publication in which the ad is sited.

Pay per click (PPC) ads- these ads are priced according to the number of clicks generated through locate visitors, These are generally textbook ads, however there are PPC ads that are charming-centerd.

birthing your own online advertising business is another opportthingy of earning more money on the Internet advertiseing activity.

Mrlee
http://www.articlesbase.com/marketing-articles/internet-marketing-online-advertising-727196.html

Over the past several years, corporate wellness programs have gained popularity across organizations both large and small. With the New Year approaching, employees are making resolutions to shed excess pounds, making it the ideal time for companies to begin implementing these types of programs. Furthermore, the workplace is an ideal setting for promoting healthy habits and instituting disease prevention, since most employed Americans spend the majority of their time at work.

Starting a Wellness Program

The first thing companies should do before starting a wellness program is designate a committee or person to lead the effort. This wellness committee, or person, should conduct an in-depth needs analysis based on the demographics of the organization. In doing so, employees should be given the opportunity to provide feedback on what programs would bring them the most value. By soliciting feedback from the main stakeholders there is a greater chance that people will be motivated to participate in the program.

Additionally, work to develop some specific “corporate wellness” goals your company would like to achieve and then build the program around these goals. For example, is the purpose of your program to improve morale, or to cut costs in health care expenses? With clear objectives, the success of the program can be evaluated and measured, much like any other business initiative.

Wellness Program Components

Once you’ve set your goals and determined which programs your employees would benefit from, you can start your wellness program by instituting a pilot program that can gradually be expanded over time.

Some ideas for components of a good wellness program include:

-Encourage fitness activities at work - Start a walking program where employees walk for a specified amount of time per week. In addition to slimming down, they’ll also have the ability to speak with their fellow co-workers in a more relaxed setting.

-Provide health club memberships – Partner with a local gym to provide discounted membership rates for your employees.

-Provide employees with a list of health-related resources – Make a list of resources where they can find stress management classes, fitness programs, and nutrition seminars. You can also include this information in your company newsletter, on your company’s intranet site or enclosed with their paychecks.

-Provide access to healthy snacks – Providing healthful alternatives in the vending machines will help employees satisfy their cravings with less calories and fat.

-Encourage employees to get out for lunch – Employees shouldn’t have to eat lunch at their desks during their lunch hour. A break from the physical and mental work environment can help relieve stress and improve productivity.

-Create wellness reminders – Post reminders around the office to encourage employees to take scheduled breaks and do office stretches.

-Offer smoking cessation programs - By quitting smoking, your employees will save on health care expenses and enjoy general well-being.

-Pay attention to ergonomics – Make sure that your employees have adequate lighting and comfortable work stations. Doing so can reduce your workers’ compensation risk, help eliminate strain-related injuries, and improve morale and productivity.

Wellness program benefits

There are multiple benefits associated with instituting company-wide wellness programs, including:

-Health insurance savings – For many companies, medical costs can consume half of corporate profits – or more. According to the Washington Business Group on Health, obesity alone costs employers approximately $12.7 billion each year in health care costs, medications, paid sick leave and life insurance policies.

-Illness prevention – Preventing illness is far more cost-effective than treatment for an existing illness, a benefit that helps employers and employees alike.

-Economic benefits to the company – Wellness programs reduce absenteeism, on-the-job injuries, workers’ compensation costs, and disability-management costs.

-Improved morale – According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) job stress has become increasingly common and costly problem. By encouraging and facilitating healthy habits in the workplace, you can help employees cope with stress and in turn become happier, healthier and more productive.

-A valuable recruitment tool – Having a wellness program in place will make your company more attractive to potential candidates, providing you with an advantage over other companies.

Bottom line: when companies commit to implementing a workplace wellness program, their employees gain access to tools that help them build happier, healthier lifestyles, making them happier, healthier employees.

Elizabeth Rice, SPHR
http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/creating-a-corporate-wellness-program-706947.html

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” is the quote most likely to be heard in cubicles, stairwells and lobby vending machines across a spectrum of organizations and a diversity of voices. At a time when a financial baseball bat is being used to loft long, arching drives that descend just south of both foul lines, many are left wondering why bother getting off the bench when the outcome of the at-bat is already known. Many would argue that it is one of the most non-discriminatory financial tidal waves to ever flood the three economic class levels. It is the late Marvin Gaye’s ‘Inner City Blues’ moved east and transformed to ‘Any City Blues’ and it still “Makes me want holler, throw up both my hands!” While it may be a good topic for an afternoon talk show intervention, it only “Escalates the holler and wring both my hands.” 

In the center of this storm is a stark reality. Whining, blaming and ignoring won’t solve problems that ‘we’ve never seen before’ and wishing it would go away, won’t make it go away. Decisive action is movement toward the uncertainty with an eye fixed on not being a small victim but searching for those small victories. The way is shaped by the actions of business, government, non-profits, educational institutions and the collected thinking of individuals committed to forging ahead on a path less traveled, less known, but more promising. It requires, what consultant, researcher and doctoral student, Tracy Flaggs refers to as, ‘Courageous Leadership. The courage to lead during unprecedented times is measured by the will and determination of those who do more than just wait to see a silver lining, but have the curiosity and willingness to search for opportunities behind the silver lining. When the door closes on a darkened path, the only way to go is forward.

Every path to opportunity has its share of obstacles and during this “I’ve never seen anything like this before,” moment in history, many of those obstacles sit in cubicles waiting for the next wave to hit as opposed to trying another path. Courageous Leaders recognize that there are many who willingly allow the storm to wash them away, but will, staunchly, stand in opposition to efforts made to move the organization forward. They see the past as an anchor that holds things in place until the storm passes, without realizing that when the storm passes, the landscape has changed. The familiar landscape that was once feeding ground for several traditionally solvent industries, have been transformed and require a different kind of nurturing. The leadership needed is more than just an abstract notion. It is a framework for shaping the mind-set, skill-set and attitude of employees who do more than just ‘ride out the storm.’ It is not the storm that is pushing you back, but the unwillingness to, collectively, row upstream.

When things are calm, the wind is light and the sun shines brightly on the deeds of individuals, courage is an easy topic to discuss and even easier to demonstrate. Comfort is found in the stability and predictability of ‘life in the good lane.’ Heroic acts of charity and good will are common place and spirits run high because ‘we’ve seen things like that before.” Courage unseats heroism when the way is darkened and the path bends. Leadership is about looking through the storm and onto the horizon where the first ray of sunlight brings with it a new path and the promise of unforeseen opportunities. It is an action that goes beyond short-term quarterly measures and immediate return on investment. The activities needed to move individuals and organizations through a turbulent storm require more than just simple statements about survival, they require acts of courage.

Lee Meadows
http://www.articlesbase.com/leadership-articles/courageous-leadership-725015.html

 

Let us take a look at the different types of income. They are:

 

1. Earned Income – obtained from working for someone or a company.

 

2. Passive Income – income generated from business.

 

3. Portfolio Income – income generated from investments in paper assets.

 

Earned Income comes from having a job in a company or in someone else’s business. You get paid for your time and services rendered. In the previous section, we mentioned that workers work just hard enough not to get fired and employers pay just enough for workers not to quit.

This indicates that the income an employee can generate from working for an employer is limited. There is the possibility that an employee may devote extra effort thinking the employer will pay him/her more. It is a rare possibility particularly when business is difficult, but possible.

And even if it happens, it is still limited. Whatever additional profit gained by the employer as a result of the employee’s extra effort, the employer will get the bigger “slice of the pie.” You are, in effect, making someone else rich through your added effort. Don’t think I’m discouraging this. It is a good act.

I’m just stating a fact. It’s likely that you will be telling yourself mentally: “Hey, that’s not fair.” Fair or not, that’s the way life is, when you work for money.

If you are an employee, you get your money or paycheck after everything else. It is earned income, less taxes and everything else deductible, before money reaches your hand. And if ever the money reaches your hand, the next place it is bound to go is to pay your bills. If the amount is not enough, you are bound to borrow, which makes you debt-ridden if it accumulates. Now, this is one big mistake. Don’t ever get debt-ridden. It is the quicksand to poverty.

Earned Income is a safe way to generate an income. There is not much thinking to do. Except for a few high paying, high profile jobs, your work is mostly concentrated on a few things where you keep repeating the same functions. Unconsciously, this discourages creativity, so boredom starts to set in.

It is because of this boredom that getting to work every morning is such a drag and you keep on looking forward to weekends, holidays, and vacations.

Unless you really love what you do without consideration to the income it generates, or unless you are highly paid, or unless there is a lot more to learn in your job, or unless financial security is of no importance to you, there is no reason for you to stay long in the “rat race.”

The earlier it is to get out of the trap, the better chances you will attain financial success.

Passive Income is generated from businesses. You can sell products or offer services, or a combination thereof. Examples are buying/selling real estate, trading merchandise as in wholesaling and retailing, etc. In many cases, you need not be physically present in your place of business.

There are also small businesses like vending machines where you hardly require an employee to visit those machines for refill (since you can do it yourself). You can also go with franchising; either be a franchiser or a franchisee. The list is endless as long as you do what you love to do.

The beauty of going into your own business is that you work for you, not for someone else. You enrich yourself, not someone else. Your time is disciplined but more flexible because you can make your own schedule.

Another advantage of going into business, especially in your own corporation, is that you earn and spend before tax is deducted, unlike being an employee where you are taxed before you spend.

Portfolio Income, just like passive income, is making money work for you. Portfolio Income is generated from paper assets like bonds, stock market, certificate of deposits, and mutual funds. They are called paper assets because literally, they are businesses that revolve on papers.

It is in portfolio income where financial knowledge is of vital importance. Your intellect interacting with creativity can either unmake or make you rich.

Antonio Cuauro
http://www.articlesbase.com/entrepreneurship-articles/3-types-of-income-707289.html

Production, economists aptly put, is creation of utility. Good. Fine. But where are the factors of production in Nigeria mostly found? Simple. In the cities or not very far from the cities! Land, Labour, Capital and Entrepreneurship. Yes! The land for the cities is mostly skimmed from the surrounding areas, eventually creating a megalopolis like Lagos/Ogun states.  This brings dreamers of the good life to Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kaduna, Kano, Benin, Ibadan, Calabar, Uyo, Ilorin, Yola, Jalingo, Sokoto, Abeokuta, Ikeja, Enugu, Makurdi, Umuahia, Owerri, Minna, Oshogbo, and the other state capitals in Nigeria. However, there are other non-state capitals like Warri, Aba, Nnewi, Onitsha, Eket, Ikot-Abasi, Bonny Island, Escravos, Forcados, and many others which are crowd-pulling towns because of the nature of economic activities going on there. Agriculture which used to be the mainstay of the average Nigerian’s economy became abandoned for the glitterati of the cities and industrialised areas, choking them up per square meter.  To compound problems generated by the massively skewed drift of people to the cities, private and public activities continue to be carried out there since it is closest to the one most important business and life-existence cost reducer in Nigeria: Power Supply!  The cities and industrialised areas are the highest in likelihood to have electric power available more of the time than the rural and unindustrialised areas. But the so-called unindustrialised areas are actually, in more than 90 percent of cases, agriculturalised areas. So nowhere in Nigeria is unproductive. Or to put it statistically, Most of Nigeria is productive. Then, why the rush to the cities?  Apart from power, status symbolisation may be an underlying cause of these drifts. A resident in the city, is more likely to be socially upgraded in the rural areas in political/economic matters than a “villager” or “local champion” as it is sometimes coined in Nigeria. People, some of whom have visited their hometowns only once or twice, have won elections into the Nigerian parliament not to talk of being shortlisted for chieftaincy titles in the same hometown they visited just once (to receive the title) in their lifetime! There are many other factors which more or less have to do with the factors of production.  So in they rush. From fishermen to farmers, husbands and housewives and even sometimes grannies! Yes grannies. Healthcare in the rural areas is not the quality you get in the cities. And even in the cities they are very scarce. The former farmers and fishermen first get a motorcycle, in some cases, and begin the “okada” business. Commercial motorcyclists jam-pack every nook and cranny of major areas earlier described in this article creating traffic congestion and more than 70 percent of road accidents in Nigeria. People including the former farmers and fishermen go into the market and buy the scarce foodstuff at high prices, occasioned by their abandonment of the means of creating man’s first need: Food. 

 

Enough of the causes. Now for the remedies. 

 

Abuja, Lagos and Port Harcourt have shown commitment to reorganise their environments. Fine. Yes, that is how to start the change. Follow the laid down town plans, remove structures from where they did not belong, excommunicate okadamen or peg their time of operations to 7.00pm, and many more. Good. But the lure of the city or developed areas. How do you wish people away from these places when there are no alternative cash points elsewhere in this vastly beautiful and promising country? Yes there were in the pre-oil money conscious days profitable activities in the rural areas. For instance all railway station towns were known on the map because farmers could load their produces on the trains in their towns to various customers elsewhere in the country or to the ports down south for export. So you have people settling in Kafanchan from closer farming settlements, even though Kaduna the state capital was not too far.

 

But we need more than breaking down structures defacing cities. We need to put up structures that will make people stay back in the towns and villages and only visit cities for visas, or parties or flights out of the country or within the country as the case may be. People should be able to live in Ise-Ekiti, Obubra, Bida, Isselle Uku, Ubiaja, Abonema, Ozoro, Eha-Amufu, Oyorokoto, Ayakoromo, Gbokolo, Adazi-Ani or Fadan Karshi and be happy!

 

We need a conglomerate, all-hands-on-deck approach to things here. Everyone must be involved from the government to the drifters themselves. All that glitters is not gold.

 

It is very rare, come to think of it, for gold to be found in the cities! 

 

To start with, we must provide adequate and reliable power from any source as long as it is safe and not a potential hazard to people . Government has made tons of statements on this but our vision is either blurred or there is nothing or little going on about it. Until this setback is addressed, even the experts will not be able to charge their phones so as to be able to communicate with each other on where the next meeting will take place! 

 

Someone made a statement, which was overheard by yours truly during the Census in 2006, about half of Lagosians being either homeless or half-housed! He may be right. It is not a suprise to see people sometimes living off their car booths! People live in Shagamu, Sango Otta, and even Ibadan and work in Lagos Island or Victoria Island. A person traveling on the hellish 280 km road between Benin City and Lagos, sometimes gets to Lagos Island via the Third Mainland Bridge almost the same time as one who is just 40 kilometres away from Sango-Otta! The reason is easy to explain. The traffic jams at over 20 points before one who lives in Sango Otta gets into the Island slows down any meaningful progress on the road. So to save his job and earn his keep, he gets his laundry neatly done, then packs it in one corner of his car and locks it up! A little case of toiletries also finds a place in one corner of the car booth. Off he goes till the weekend when the congestion is heavily reduced and more free-flowing before he returns to his real home to change his laundry for the next trip. While on the Island, some of these Lagosians, hang out in drinking bars and other late night pubs before going to “patch” with a pal or sometimes park near a petrol filling station and roll back the car seat to snore away the night!  Wherever he lies is head, that’s his home!  The average inhabitant of Lagos struggles hard daily to eke out a living. Yes it is same elsewhere in New York, Naples or London some will say. That is not in doubt. But those cities have got facilities to cater for the social welfare and security of the inhabitants. Rogues can more easily be pursued and caught than in the labyrinths of the Lagos megapolis. 

 

But why are things like that? Good question. It is again simply because what should make people stay back in more hospitable climes in the rural areas have been concentrated in cities. Thus the labour required to grow food in this greenland called Nigeria is now, in most cases languishing away in the Lagos labour market. As noted in the previous article, since the farms have been left fallow in most rural areas, the available produce ferried into the cities in rickety mammy-wagons is not enough to go round. Some of these foodstuffs have lost some of their nutritional content because they have been mass-produced with fertilizers to increase yield.  The status symbol of one who lives in the city is a silent but obvious factor determining the stay-put syndrome of many of the stranded in Lagos. They dare not go back “home” empty-handed! What will they tell the rural dwellers that they went to do in the city? To achieve “success” some resort to various mind-boggling crimes and petty crimes alike, trying to grab the proverbial Golden Fleece. Dreaming Jasons! Check out the number of cars streaming out of Lagos to the north, east and west of Nigeria in the last five days to the Christmas and New Year celebrations and the picture will be clearer for any observer to see. It is one of the longest vehicular chains of any kind anywhere on the face of the Globe. I remember British representative Lynda Chalker visiting Lagos in the mid-90’s and noting that the vehicles she managed to see from the air during a copter flight were more than the total number of vehicles in Great Britain! 

 

The facilities provided by government for people in the 60’s and 70’s have now become scrambled for, and sometimes trampled upon by the searing crowd of Lagos. It is so addictive that some people prefer to die there rather than return home to face the jests and leers of “villagers”! People drive on pedestrian walkways and ask you to get out of the way if you dare question the driving pattern. Thank God, LASTMA the state traffic management authority is gradually sanitising Lagos of this syndrome. Rooms meant for one or two people are crammed with 5 to 8 inhabitants who sometimes do day and night sleep time swaps. A pharmacy closes at 10pm and from thence it becomes a mini-hang out with music blaring from makeshift sound boxes, local gin aka ogogoro, cigarettes and quick snacks and even mobile phone airtime vending becomes the new pharmacy, dealing in stress-reducing “fun” for the habitual night-crawlers. There noise pollution on the streets as hundreds of bus conductors holler out sometimes with cracked voices and musical crescendo, various destinations in Lagos and its surrounding suburbs. Music blare out of giant home-made speakers placed right there on the walkways by audio and video CD’s vendors, choking up available space and reducing visibility for all manner of traffic. Obalende, CMS, Ikeja, Oshodi, Iyana-Ipaja, Mile 2, Oyingbo many other bus stops are nightmares at daytimes!  It is mostly in Lagos and other big cities in Nigeria that one can find an able-bodied, well-fed beggar, who can see, hear and speak, is not in anyway physically challenged, and is straight-faced about his lazy means of livelihood. They come with all sorts of stories to the “sympathetic” ear. Some are conmen and women (fallout of the status-symbol thing, the fear of failure and urge to “make it”). Many part with substantial amounts trying to help some of these expert story-tellers who throng heavily populated sections of the city including motor parks and make brisk business from the armada of potential sympathisers. Some turn into travel missionaries or motor park prayer merchants who gather at motor parks and pray for passengers embarking on journeys to various parts of Nigeria soliciting for God’s protection for them while asking for “seeds to be sowed for the Lord” in return.

 

It goes on and on and on.  With Nigeria being the largest producer of cassava on earth and this cash cow being applicable to hundreds of industrial uses, there is no single processing factory of note in the rural areas where this wonder crop is produced. Paint factories that need cassava as part of their production raw material should be moved over to these places to reduce the farmers’ logistics cost to the cities or close to the cities where these factories are located; at the same time offering job or contract opportunities to indigenes of the area. With biofuel as a potentially possible alternative to the global overdependence on petroleum, the rural areas of Nigeria can produce a sizeable chunk of this commodity if industries dedicated to it are sited there. Heavy industries whose activities are choking up cities should be wholly or in part, re-located to the rural areas. These relocations will bring with it, electric power, job opportunities, better roads, and recreational facilities. The telecoms companies have already made communication available in some very remote areas of Nigeria. We have no excuse. This is the time. The time is now.

Henry Omoregie
http://www.articlesbase.com/environment-articles/decongesting-nigerian-cities-stemming-ruralurban-drift-in-todays-nigeria-671003.html

This is a topic that most people avoid until they realize that their future financial goals are non-existent and their retirement plan involves working far past when they want to. It’s when the sense of financial panic sets in that most people make household budget, and while it’s better late then never, stopping the financial bleeding needs to happen much sooner to truly see your financial dreams come true.

Many people get stuck on just getting started. They tend to over complicate what making a budget actually is before they ever begin. Fortunately it is not as hard as some people make it to be. Here’s how you get started with your household budgeting plans.

The easiest way to set up a household budget is by looking at your cash flow on a monthly basis. Since we all seem to think of our finances this way it is best to plan around each month and it is simply looking at income versus expenses over that time period.

Determining you monthly income is normally the easiest part of any budgeting process. This is the amount of any and all paychecks you receive over a month’s time. If you have a variable income because you work on commission or own your own business you can use an average of the last three months to get this number. Be sure to include any other income as well such as child support, disability income, etc.

Next comes the part that nobody likes; figuring out the household monthly expenses. Start by listing out everything you spend money on in a month’s time. Rent, mortgage, car payment, phone, electric bill, credit cards, groceries, entertainment, medical expenses, clothing, dry cleaning, personal care (haircut, nails, etc.), gifts, etc. Some of these expenses are fixed, meaning that they are the same every month while others are variable. For your variable expenses such as groceries go back three months and calculate the average amount you spend each month.

In order to better understand where your money is going it can be well worth the effort to make subcategories for those expenses that can be further broken down. As an example your food category can be broken down into groceries, eating out, snacks from the vending machine, and anything else you may spend money on. The more detailed you are the better handle you will get on your finances.

Once you have totaled your monthly income and expenses subtract your expenses from your income and see what is left over. This “moment of truth” as many people call it can be quite sobering because in almost all instances no one has any idea of exactly how much they spend each month and on what. All of a sudden those little $5 to $10 purchases at the local coffee shop or eating out for lunch hit you right between the eyes and you have that “Ah-Hah” moment.

If your finances are out of control and you are tired of living paycheck to paycheck make household budget to take back control. It is your most powerful tool for managing your most powerful wealth building tool: Your money!

Andrew Bicknell
http://www.articlesbase.com/personal-finance-articles/make-household-budget-and-stop-the-financial-bleeding-678517.html