Some people say they have no money or too little income and, thus, can’t afford to invest any of it. Let’s get something very clear right from the start of this article: you can’t afford not to invest. If you don’t start putting aside a good portion (at least 10%) of your earnings into investments – if you don’t start building a portfolio for yourself – you’ll find yourself in a very precarious financial position as you approach your declining years. When you’re facing the day you can no longer work as much or you’d just like to retire, and you realize you can’t afford to retire comfortably, you’ll wish you’d thought ahead a bit better and planned for such a day by investing when you were younger.Educate Yourself – That said, it helps to know something about investing, even if you have an automatic retirement account, a financial planner, or savvy assistance from friends. To inform yourself, talk to some successful investors, read books and articles, and watch some videos. Try starting with Eric Tyson’s Investing. Of course, there’s an enormous amount of help online. Try Charles Schwab, Merrill-Lynch, CNN Money, Ameritrade, or Etrade. They all have terrific websites with a wealth of information. You could also take a class at the local college or go to a live financial planning seminar. There’s also a good non-profit organization called the American Association of Individual Investors which offers educational materials and holds seminars on various topics.Formulate an Investment Strategy – Just as with anything else, a plan will increase your chances of success. Take stock of your assets, income, short-term goals, and long-term financial destination. As I said earlier, you should invest a minimum of 10% of your income – a lot more if you’re able. So think about it: how much money do you have and how much can you put aside? What do you want your investment portfolio to do for you? Help you retire at 55, 60, 65? Or provide you with additional income as soon as possible? Exactly what do you want to accomplish with your money? After you come up with answer to those questions, you’ll be better able to select the right investments and the right combination of assets to meet your financial goals.Questions to Ask Yourself:
How much money can you invest right now?
Do you have any outstanding debts?
Are you planning on purchasing any large ticket items?
What’s the total amount of your monthly bills?
Do you have a retirement or registered pension plan?
Will you be inheriting any money?
How much instant cash do you want to have at your disposal for emergencies?
Whether you have a financial adviser or not, you need to be clear about those issues before formalizing your investment plan.Investment Basics: All investments have three basic ingredients: Expected Return, Risk and Marketability.Expected Return is the amount of interest, dividends or capital gains that you expect to earn from your investment. The higher the expected return, the greater the risk.Risk is the chance you take that you could lose some or all of your investment, or that you could earn less return than you expected. Lower risk investments include government treasury bills and savings bonds. Higher risk investments are stocks and futures. Mutual funds vary widely in risk. Your tolerance for risk depends on your overall financial position, how much time you have to endure periodic fluctuations in your investments’ value, and how well you deal with the likely anxiety and stress you’ll feel if your portfolio takes a turn for the worse.Marketability or liquidity refers to how quickly your investment can be converted to cash. Term deposits are not liquid, since you usually can’t withdraw your money before the end of the term. Mutual funds, however, are very liquid because you can quickly sell them on short notice for little cost.Stocks – Buying shares or stocks in companies traded on the NYSE or NASDAQ have historically outperformed all other investments over the long term. You can make a killing and become wealthy by trading on the stock market. However, stocks can also bankrupt you if you don’t know what you’re doing, or even if you do. Playing the stock market is not for the feint of heart. The risk is great, but so is the return if you play it smart. The greatest factor in determining stock prices is the company’s earnings. Be prepared to watch your stock go up and down, fluctuating over hurricanes, gas prices, wars, and even presidential elections. It’s the long-term growth of the company that matters. Here’s an encouraging fact: since World War II, an estimated 90% of the stock market’s gain has come from profit growth. As profits accumulate, prices rise, regardless of what’s happened on any given day, month, or year.U.S. Treasury Bonds – Do you want a sure thing? These are as close as you’re going to get because almost everyone agrees that the U.S. government is unlikely ever to default on its bonds. The government can always print more money to pay them off if necessary. As a result, the Treasury’s interest rate is considered a risk-free rate.Mutual Funds – A fund is basically a corporation that collects and invests money. You join a pool by buying shares in the fund. Pooling your money together with other investors gives you more power to invest. Also, your money enjoys the advantage of being invested by a team of professional money managers who research bonds, stocks, and assets, placing the pool of money as smartly as possible. Investing your funds in several different places reduces your risk of being hurt by any single bad investment. The fund managers charge an annual fee from.5- 2.5% of assets, plus expenses. For that fee, you buy into the collective wisdom of a team of professional money people, along with attaining instant diversification.Diversify Whatever you decide – to do it yourself, hire a professional, or go with mutual funds – you need to diversify – to place your money in several different investments. That will lessen your risk of being wiped out if things go badly for you.It All Adds Up – Don’t postpone investing because you feel you haven’t enough money to make it worth your while. Here’s what investing only $100 a month adds up to in time at 8% interest:- $12,000 invested over 10 years equals $18,294.- $24,000 invested over 20 years equals $58,902.- $36,000 invested over 30 years equals $149,035.Wow. Now think what kind of money you can make if you double or triple your investment and if the interest rate is greater, such as with the return on savvy stock buys or mutual fund allocations. Do your homework, take the risk, and get in the game!

Aerospace plastic thermoforming.ABS plastic fabrications can be both injection mouldings and plastic extrusions. High definition components plastic thermoforming is often in ABS, an excellent choice for for use in alloys and blends.Their unabbreviated name is Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrenes. Medium-impact grades are used in videocassettes, televisions, and audiovisual equipment. Computer housings, modems, office systems equipment, and microfloppy disks are made with medium and high-impact grades, flame-retardant grades, and ABS-PVC and ABS-PC alloys.In recreational vehicles, high-impact grades meet engineering requirements for dimensional stability, creep resistance, modulus, and strength, for applications such as countertops, sinks, and tub surrounds. Flame-retardant grades and ABS PVC alloys are used in roof-mounted air conditioning unit shrouds when warranted by electrical requirements. These qualities do make ABS suitable in aircraft. Technical thermoforming produces aircraft seat components and cabin interior components to FAR-JAR-OSU specifications.Important factors in these applications are abuse resistance, retention of properties at low temperatures, and chemical resistance. There is also a use of extrusion grades in thermoformed sheet applications such as hot tubs and spas and basins.New ABS aerospace grades are continually being developed to meet the needs of emerging applications. In addition, new grades engineered to better meet the needs of existing ABS applications frequently replace other ABS grades. ABS alloy technology is increasingly being used to develop applications that were previously thought to be inaccessible, like various gears and impellers.Vacuum formed plastics that are competitive materials.There are resins that compete with ABS and can be grouped by performance. For the high-impact grades of ABS, PC and filled polypropylene (PP) are candidate competitors. Modified polyphenylene oxide (PPO) competes in the high-heat and high-impact areas. Aerospace acrylics compete with standard ABS grades because of their excellent appearance, and it competes with clear ABS because of its excellent clarity and good color. High-impact polystyrene (HIPS) has excellent processibility and competes with the lower impact end of the ABS spectrum, although it is very deficient in chemical resistance and appearance. In fact, none of these resins offers the overall balance of properties found in the ABS family for vacuum formed plastics and high definition components.Family CharacteristicsCompared to many other engineering thermoplastics, ABS offers superior processibility and appearance as well as low cost, along with a good balance of engineering properties, including low creep, good dimensional stability, and high strength and rigidity.

There are a variety of industrial aerospace greases available on the market that provide good lubrication, are thermally stable, non-flammable and have low toxicity and low volatility.The European Space Agency has met the challenges of industrial aerospace greases and the changing needs in the industry. As further, more, colder and warmer planets are explored in our solar system, the basics of industrial aerospace greases are challenged for lubrication and hydraulic systems in machines used in space. These challenges were met with an increasing awareness for the need for industrial aerospace greases that could out-perform those that came before them.Not only do engineers and manufacturers have to worry about temperature increases but also decreases. The industrial aerospace greases have to be able to withstand a wide variety of temperatures, from well below zero to well above 600 degrees and higher. The temperature fluctuations in space and on earth can be different by hundreds of degrees–and the grease that the engineers use on the machinery has to be able to withstand the changes in environment. Not only is temperature an issue, but vacuum conditions that range in the high end as well as high speed and heavy loads also impact the performance of the industrial aerospace greases.The European Space Agency is located at the European Space and Technology Center, or ESTEC in the Netherlands. This broad organization is responsible for space missions from start to finish, from research and feasibility planning of an idea and then working it out with the space industry. Within this process, the ESTEC and ESA put their heads together regarding the aerospace grease that will be required for the mission. There are many industrial aerospace greases available on the market already that have been proven to withstand the temperature, vacuum and weight issues that deal with space and air travel and ESTEC looks deeply at each of them to find out which one will best suit their needs for any particular mission.In the aerospace industry that deals with ‘earth-travel’, for example airplanes and helicopters, industrial aerospace greases are also used within the planes and helicopters. Airplanes also have similar issues with heat build up and temperature change from warm to cold as well as friction and weight liabilities. The engineers in the aerospace industry for world travel also have to look at the effect the industrial aerospace grease has in applications for commercial, passenger and military flights around the world.The temperature in an airplane engine can reach staggering proportions. The engines are left to heat slowly, but really, the temperature change in the engines is quite rapid compared to what we would consider ‘slow’. As the temperature in an engine and throughout the mechanics of an airplane heat up, the industrial aerospace grease must react accordingly so that it maintains its protective barrier in the mechanics as well as viscosity. The industry for industrial aerospace greases is wide and the application for the products broad ranged. Creating the greases to withstand all the elements known and unknown is a difficult task.