I’ve spoken about the concept of financial leverage in pretty rudimentary terms. I’ve also spoken about the need for more entrepreneurship in our daily lives, both as a competitive tool against personal malaise and as a way to earn some additional, sorely needed cash.

John Chow listed his five requirements for investing in a new business and sure enough leverage showed up as one of them. Except in this case, he wasn’t talking about financial leverage, he was talking about business leverage. In other words, when you start a business… does it have the potential to distribute product globally? or are you stuck in a small niche relegated to a few geographical locations?

Now, of course I disagree with some of what he has written, but a lot of it makes sense.

He looks for 5 things:

1. Low Startup Costs
2. Exclusive Rights
3. Business that Runs Itself
4. Global Business
5. Portable Business

Translation: In more general terms, he’s talking about an Internet-based business. On that count, I fully agree. The web has enabled scores upon scores of people to while away their leisure time and start businesses that they were passionate about. The startup costs are low (the cost of this blog was under $100, including hosting and domain), the business can run itself to a certain point (search engine traffic, etc…), and the Internet makes a business both global and portable at the same time (does your customer really care where you sit?).

Add this all up and it’s never been a better time to take stock of your personal finances, shift some capital from cash to investing, and open up your online shutter. I have loads of ideas and I’ll be speaking about them as we move forward in this personal financial world known as capitalAI.

I doubt that anyone ever thought you could make much money trading an Apple.

However, with Techcrunch reporting that $4bb of value was knocked off of Apple and then subsequently reinstated, you have to imagine that there were some very happy traders today. And some that are likely ready to drive off the cliff.

Here’s what Engadget wrote:

This one doesn’t bode well for Mac fans and the iPhone-hopeful: we have it on authority that as of today, the iPhone launch is being pushed back from June to… October (!), and Leopard is again seeing a delay, this time being pushed all the way back to January. Of 2008. The latest WWDC Leopard beta will still be handed out, but it looks like Apple-quality takes time, and we’re sure Jobs would remind everyone that it’s not always about “writing a check”, but just how much time are these two products really going to take?

… and here’s the retraction:

Here’s the story. A trustworthy source supplied us with an actual internal Apple email that went out to thousands of Apple employees earlier today (published after the break). The fact that this was an email sent within Apple’s internal email system to its employees is not in question. Let us reiterate: this was an ACTUAL email distributed within Apple’s internal email system to Apple employees.

As it turns out, the internal memo Apple employees received was actually retracted by Apple shortly after it was sent out. (Also published after the break.) We received confirmation from Apple PR that this initial email sent out to Apple employees was incorrect, and they let us know that the iPhone and Leopard are both still on track, and should meet their expected launch timeframes.

Presumably Apple is now on the hunt for whomever was able to spoof its internal email system.

This just comes to show you: Don’t take a bite out of a bad apple (I couldn’t help myself).

Though in actuality, this goes back to the top-down approach that I’ve been discussing in prior posts. Don’t unnecessarily follow the crowd AND always know what you’re doing from a holistic view.

Otherwise, you just may get burned… at the bottom of the V!

To continue the thought about my blog, it seems that the only way to make something successful in the world of the web is to present it in a way that is readable and simple, yet highly controversial and exciting.

That could be pretty difficult. Now, there are many blogs that discuss personal finance from the bottom up. They talk about Quicken, savings, house hunting, gasoline prices, etc… I find some of it interesting and extremely insightful. The issue that I take with these posts is that they usually use hackneyed expressions of personal savings and insight and don’t offer much that is new.

Now, I still browse them everyday because, here and there, I’ll find a good tidbit. They include:

Consumerism Commentary
PFBlog
Get Rich Slowly
My Money Blog
The Simple Dollar
I Will Teach You To Be Rich

What they don’t really tell you is that the top-down approach to personal finance is extremely important. Most personal finance sites won’t tell you that because they focus on the details and not on the big picture. Let’s face it, you need to know the big picture in order to choose the details. Who picks the color of a carpet, without looking at the walls, ceiling, lighting, and geographical location? You just don’t!

Personal finance is no different. When you choose a bank, you need to understand what you want to get out of it. Are you looking to deposit your cash for the long-term, or do you plan on investing it in a mix of assets? Do you need liquidity because of a short-term layoff, or because you plan on purchasing a large asset like a house? Innocuous questions, but go with the wrong bank, take the wrong turn, and you’re stuck. Make the right personal finance decision and you’re life gets a whole lot easier.

This brings me to my next topic. It’s called the concept of leverage. According to modern history, it seems that Archimedes gave the first rigorous explanation of the principles involved.

You SHOULD be using leverage when it comes to an analysis of your personal finances. In other words, is your money exerting the force that it could?

With the right principles, anything is possible…

Wisebread discusses some things we can do to save a bit more. They’re all great suggestions, but how many times can I hear the same iterations and expect to be thrilled (ok, point number 10 was well received, but remember that you have to pay for the meal beforehand: translation expensive!).

Here are some REALLY exciting ways to save money.

1. Join Welfare - Quit your job, receive unemployment payments, and celebrate the benefits of welfare. It’s a great way to earn a buck. Translation: Get paid for quitting.

2. Immigration - Take advantage of the illegal immigration in the country and hire illegal immigrants for any job that you can think of. Including customer service. Translation: Illegal profits.

3. Leave Iraq - The government can reduce spending by hundreds of billions of dollars, pay down the national debt, and decrease borrowing costs for the rest of us. Translation: Not until President Bush leaves.

4. National No Gas Day - That was yesterday, May 15′th. Don’t buy gas for one day. Translation: Just buy it the next day.

Drumroll please…

5. Ride a bicycle - Get rid of the car, buy a bicycle, and pedal your way around town. Translation: The American public has answered with a resounding NO! Gas prices have proven to be terribly inelastic. Unfortunately, this means that gas prices will cotinue to rise and we will see no respite in the near future.

With those parting words, I bid you a great day!

I’ve scoured the web and found some interesting tools that you can use in your daily personal finance lives. This is not a complete list by any means…

Here are the highlights:

1. Netvibes Finance Modules - If you haven’t heard of Netvibes, you’ve been missing a really unique piece of the web. It actually works for any type of feed, but some people have created a set of pretty cool modules to help you for your everyday personal finance. Aside from the face that you can subscribe to my blog about personal finance, you can also add a whole bunch of financial modules, including currency calculators, stock quotes, indices, etc… Check it out!

2. Kiplinger Tools - Kiplinger has a whole host of tools that you can use for your everyday needs. These cover some popular areas, like stocks, real estate, taxes, and retirement. It’ll get boring after a while, but scenario analysis is really the key. Shoot for $20mm!

3. MarketWatch MarketPerception & The Motley Fool Caps - Both these services let users comment, predict, and sway overall opinion. It seems like these systems can be gamed, but definitely worth a look.

4. Yahoo Finance & Google Finance - Yahoo is the granddaddy of the financial category and certainly has the most info. On the other hand, Google wins with its pleasant and eye catching design, user interface, and overall brand.

Enjoy!

There are some things you should never do when it comes to dealing with your personal finances.

These include:

1. Miami Driving - Transit Miami was proud to point out that Miami was rated as the area with the worst road rage in the United States. As a native New Yorker, I’m personally offended and would like to call on all people to recognize New York as it is. I think the natives are just frustrated with a supposed vacation spot masquarading as a traffic jam. When you think you’re on vacation that’s the last thing you want.

In any case, stop and go traffic when it comes to your personal finances will cause increases in transaction fees, losses in your portfolios, and considerable headaches. Sort of like traffic: gas mileage goes down, the transmission stalls, and the ulcer/migraine sets in.

2. Myspace & Flektor - Yes, Rupert (my favorite comedic muse) has done it again and acquired another player in the web space, or rather soon to be player in the web space, or rather a platform, err… a management team. Ok, it’s also a great platform. The price is supposedly anywhere from $10mm to $20mm.

Again, this is not the way to run your personal finances. Bring in a synergistic money manager, pay him $20mm, and see how he runs your portfolio. I’m sure your wife will be very happy. I know that this blogger wouldn’t be (and I do have some bones to pick with his post).

3. Hire Frenchman - It seems that French workers have been labeled as the world’s biggest whiners. Big surprise! This means that if you whine like the French, you’re personal finance balance sheet will look like the French’s: NOT PRETTY.

I was pondering some of life’s biggest questions and then I decided to think a bit about this blog (life’s biggest question for 71mm people). Here and there, I’ve been telling people about the blog; coworkers, friends, colleagues, etc… The response has been pretty positive so far, with the occasional expected insult, and the occasional grammatical knock (as if they know how to write a blog).

Let’s see if any of them return.

In any case, I’m still searching and prodding, trying to figure out what interests, instigates, initiates, and integrates the inimitable style and content needed to make this blog a scorching success. I still haven’t find it and I know that it’s pretty early in the game (9 days and counting), but I’ll continue to search. If I was a realist, it would mean I should move from personal finance and into celebrity, politics, or technology.

Rather, I think I’ll show how celebrity, politics, and technology affect you from a personal finance perspective.

As you can tell, if you’re into soft-core analysis and blunted thought structure, this blog is NOT for you! If you’re into detailed fact, fascinating perspectives, and interesting stories, then continue reading. Please!

With Thompson and Reuters joining for another well-conceived corporate merger, Bloomberg must feel a little lonely. Maybe Mayor Mike should leave office and take over the company he still controls, but once ran.

Or maybe not.

After all, he’s seen his net worth skyrocket by billions of dollars since he handed over the reigns and started working for a buck.

Not only will Bloomberg feel lonely, but it will also feel short. Thompson-Reuters will control 34% of the market, althought that’s just splitting hairs as Bloomberg has 33% of the financial news market. I think it’s time that Rupert Murdoch launches an unsolicited bid for the combined entity, combines it with the Dow Jones Co., and controls the world’s media.

The issue is that if he can do it, someone sitting in Iran could likely do the same thing. We wouldn’t want that to happen after the latest news about Iran’s enrichment program.

Back to the Thompson-Reuters merger: — I find it interesting that Thompson sold off its textbook and educational testing unit for $7.75bb to pay for Reuters. It should have read one of its textbooks and used the private equity buyout techniques that I’ve discussed.

Next time.