Money Talks News suggests visiting your state capitol as a great way to take an inexpensive summer vacation. It’s not a tip I’ve thought of, but now that they mention it, it might be worth it for us to take a day-trip to Lansing to see what the capitol building has to offer.This post got me thinking — what else could we do if we had to cut vacation costs (within reason) this year/ Here’s my list:

• Go to the beach. Lake Michigan is only 45 minutes away and for a few dollars to park (or free if you want to walk a bit), it’s a very cheap “vacation.”
• Hit the pool. It costs $2 per adult and $1.25 for a student to visit our local pool. Not real vacation stuff, but better than sitting at home.
• Trips around the state. We’ve done this everywhere we’ve lived — Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Michigan.

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The U.S. housing market recovery is dependent upon the timely processing of foreclosure actions, but new statistics by RealtyTrac indicate this may not be happening. The research firm counted 1.7 million homes in some stage of foreclosure in the first half of 2011; however, analysts believe there may be as many as 1 million more that should have already been processed, meaning that a large number of foreclosures will not take place until 2012. This will further delay the ability for the housing market to recover as distressed assets linger on the market, competing for new-home sales and pulling down prices. For more on this continue reading the following article from The Street. Approximately 1.7 million properties entered some stage of foreclosure during the first six months of 2011, according to RealtyTrac, a group that monitors the foreclosure market. Complete article…

WASHINGTON – Almost 300 school-based health center programs have been awarded a total of $95 million, announced HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Education Secretary Arne Duncan last week. Provided by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the awards will help the 278 clinics expand and provide more healthcare services at schools nationwide.

The awardees are currently serving approximately 790,000 patients. The awards will enable them to increase their capacity by over 50 percent, allowing them to serve an additional 440,000 patients. School-based health centers provide health screenings, health promotion and disease prevention activities and enable children with acute or chronic illnesses to attend school. 

“These new investments will help school-based health centers establish new sites or upgrade their current facilities to keep our children healthy,” said Sebelius. “These

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In recent years, the bright lights of Hollywood dimmed as its revenue declined, thanks in large part to the advent of new technologies.

Income streams from sales of CDs and DVDs slowed to a trickle thanks to the streaming of media via the internet and companies like Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX). Netflix is now the largest subscription entertainment company in the United States. It has over 23.6 million subscribers and accounts for 30 percent of all internet downloads in the United States during peak hours.

The technology Hollywood believed could help them – 3-D films – is a flop: Audiences are put off by the high ticket prices.

But now, as if from a Hollywood movie, another technology has appears on the horizon – the cloud. And i

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THE financial press has been aflutter in recent days with stories of the form, “Fed opens the door to QE3″. The burst of excitement is rooted in the release of minutes from the Fed’s June meeting and in new testimony from Chairman Ben Bernanke. The minutes revealed that some members of the Federal Open Market Committee are concerned about the disappointing performance of the economy and are anxious to talk about how the Fed might act if necessary. And in testimony given yesterday, Mr Bernanke listed the options available to the Fed:

Even with the federal funds rate close to zero, we have a number of ways in which we could act to ease financial conditions further. One option would be to provide more explicit guidance about the period over which the federal funds rate and the balance sheet would remain at their current levels.

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