Dear Editor,

Racism is caused by race labelling; it is a global problem that is used as the main tool by politicians to secure power and power bases in populations that are weighted down by demographic labels, regardless of the economic and social systems practiced.

Capitalism, Communism or Socialism are all undermined by this unhealthy social construct that feeds off of recognizing another human being as different, in an inferior way.

Alan Watts, a philosopher and writer on Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism said: Nothing exists independently, everything is a thing, only in relation to everything else, therefore there are no separate things, no real selves or souls or egos and trying to cling to these things is the cause of suffering, discord and frustration.

Imagine in our Guyana that free and fair elections were held in 2020 and Walter Rodneys Working Peoples Alliance had won the election; let us imagine how Walter Rodney would have governed, with the power bestowed on him by our constitution.

Then our leaders must stop imagining and govern like Dr. Walter Rodney would. Under these circumstances, Guyana would have tangible and meaningful inclusive governance and massive economic growth, regardless of which administration governs.

In the imaginings, we assume the philosophy of Walter still obtains when he was killed on June 13, 1980, and that his philosophy would be the bedrock and priority of the new administration.

Then one immediately gets a sense of how misdirection, wrong paths and racism dominates our political culture, as it has existed since PPP split in 1955.

From whichever demographic we are separated into, I dare say guiltiness will abound amongst our political leaders, as they know they have embraced an anti-Guyanese political culture.

Racism is a disease. Poverty is a disease. Our politicians need to recognize that the cleansing of these scourges must be addressed in a deliberative and focused way.

To rephrase the great philosopher Aim Csaire: Politicians and politics and its various isms must be harnessed into the service of people and not the other way around, and moreover, absolutely not in a discriminatory manner.

Yours faithfully,

Nigel Hinds

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Politicians must recognise racism is a scourge that has to be cleansed - Stabroek News

Photographer, aerobics teacher and Key West volunteer extraordinaire Roberta DePiero was just looking for a way to get a little exercise this summer after the coronavirus shut down the Keys.

Her usual job as an aerobics teacher was gone because the gyms were closed. Her other job selling ads for theater and event programs was shut down because there were no local events taking place.

So, DePiero, who followed her soon-to-be ex-finance to Key West in 1991, started riding her bicycle around town. Joined by a friend, their cycling jaunts got longer and more elaborate.

I started riding my bike just to get exercise. We went to all the tourist locations and took cheesy photographs, she said. Then we started doing scavenger hunts, looking for historical markers. We rode every street in Stock Island, Key Haven and Key West. It took about two months.

Those cheesy photos were posted on DePieros social media pages, leading her to start paying attention to what other local photographers were posting; recording how they were dealing with the town and its business community being closed to visitors. She got the idea of pulling the images together into a book documenting local response to the pandemic and reached out to friend and local photographer Carol Tedesco, with whom she had previously published a 2013 photo book of the Key West Cemetery, After Life: Images From the Key West Cemetery.

The women set a three-month timeline for photos taken between March 1 and June 1, and reached out to other local photographers to collaborate on what was supposed to be a 150-page book, entitled, Isolated Island, The Key West Covid-19 Spring of 2020.

But the images were so spectacular that it grew to 27 photographers and 352 pages, DePiero said. Its a time capsule. In 100 years, people can open this up.

The images range from people getting COVID-19 tests, to underwater shots to pictures of empty stores and a deserted Duval Street. Photographer Kyle Campbell got Federal Aviation Authority permission to use a drone, since Key West International Airport was essentially closed, and took a heavens-view look at an empty city and surrounding waters. Publicist Andy Newman took pictures of the checkpoint on U.S. 1 and a deserted highway. Tedesco, Rob ONeal and Larry Blackburn, all local photojournalists (Editors note: ONeal is the staff photographer for The Citizen), looked at daily life, including crowded food banks and police horses patrolling an empty beach.

But the cherry on the top of the beautiful images is that all proceeds are going to benefit Sister Season Fund, which has been giving grants to help out-of-work employees in the service sector survive the coronavirus shutdown. With a limited edition of 1,000 books, priced at $75, Isolated Island will raise more than $38,000 for Sister Season if all are sold. As of this week, there are only 300 left and can be purchased at http://www.sisterseason.com.

Julie Hanson, Sister Season president, said the non-profit organization has given $1,000 grants to 339 applicants since COVID-19 hit Key West, draining its funds.

Our grants were running out, she said. We had fundraisers, online auctions. We sold a lot of masks. The community really stepped up to help us. Carol and Roberta were two of those people. Were so grateful for that.

Its amazing that my little, tiny idea blossomed into this, DePiero said. This is the biggest thing Ive ever done.

And that is saying something. DePiero has been an active volunteer for a wide range of local, state and national organizations since arriving in Key West. One of her early jobs was executive assistant, then catering manager for the former Holiday Inn La Concha. While there, she was given the task of being the hotels team captain for the new Relay for Life, the annual race to raise money for the American Cancer Society. DePiero eventually became chair of the event, then chair of the state Relay for Life Task Force, a member of the national taskforce, and local chair of the American Cancer Society. She is also past president of the Zonta Club of Key West, helped organize the Mote Marine Ocean Fest for its first six years, and helped start the Anne McKee Artist Fund of the Florida Keys, which raises money for local artists through an annual art auction that gives half the proceeds to the contributing artist, then uses the other half to award grants up to $2,000 to different artists in literary, visual and performing arts fields.

As for how she thinks Key West will come out of the coronavirus pandemic, DePiero feels positive about the recovery.

I personally feel weve dealt with it very well. Its made all of us living here stronger, like after [Hurricane] Wilma, she said. We may be recovering differently but maybe well get a different kind of people coming to town. I think well be alright.

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DePiero on the move during pandemic | Local News | keysnews.com - KeysNews.com

Although they grow well in our climate, persimmons seem like an exotic fruit, not often found in fruit bowls alongside apples, oranges and bananas. As for me, Im simply mad about them. Id rather have a luscious, ripe persimmon than a bowl of ice cream, and thats really saying something, because ice cream is the pinnacle of human culinary creation. (Ill brook no argument on this point.)

You may have had an unfortunate, if not downright scarring, experience with a persimmon in the past, due to some varieties extremely high levels of mouth-drying tannins. A few tannins are nice, such as in a glass of red wine. A whopping great bucketful of tannins, such as youd encounter in an unripe hachiya persimmon, will cause you to feel as though someone had opened a direct portal between your mouth and the Sahara desert.

The heart-shaped, deep orange hachiyas are intensely flavorful, but only if eaten at the point of extreme ripeness, when their insides have practically liquefied in their shiny skins. You can speed the process along by storing them inside a paper bag. Your patience will be rewarded with a bite of heaven a jammy treat thats sort of a cross between pumpkin pie and a sun-warmed, juicy peach.

If you cant wait that long for your heavenly reward, purchase the tannin-free fuyu variety: squat, sunset-orange packages of ready-to-consume goodness, delicious in every stage from crisp to squishy, but probably best somewhere in the middle. Eat them like an apple, skin and all, or peel them, puree them and use them in everything from cookies to risotto.

Boil 2 cups of very ripe, pulpy persimmons with 3/4 to 1 cup granulated sugar, 2 tablespoons lemon juice and 1 to 2 tablespoons lemon zest. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, then turn off the heat and allow the jam to cool and set. Transfer to Mason jars or another airtight container and store in the fridge for 1 to 2 weeks or freezer for a year or so. Serve with buttered toast, scones, biscuits, pancakes, waffles, blintzes or crepes, but not necessarily all those things at once, unless youre having a particularly hard day, or its a Wednesday.

This moist persimmon bread was what got me hooked on persimmons. The baker, my aerobics instructor, may have fed it to me to ensure that Id keep taking her class, a vicious caloric cycle of consume-and-burn.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees and oil a loaf pan. In a bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice with 1 cup of any combination of chopped walnuts, pecans, raisins, dates, dried apricots, crystallized ginger or chocolate chips.

In another bowl, combine 2 eggs, 3/4 cup white sugar and 1/2 cup vegetable oil. In third bowl, mix 1 teaspoon baking soda with 1 cup persimmon pulp, stirring until there are no lumps. I recommend extremely ripe hachiya persimmons, but you can use very soft fuyus. Either way, they should be squishy.

Full disclosure: I only had enough ripe persimmons for 3/4 cup. I tasted a half-ripe hachiya, and it was like eating cotton. I improvised and substituted pumpkin puree and 2 tablespoons peach jam. I suppose I made persumkineach bread.

Add pulp to the egg mixture, then fold in the flour mixture. Pour batter into pan and bake for 75 minutes or until a knife comes out clean. I baked mine for probably an hour and 40 minutes preposterously long! So quick bread is a misnomer, but the result, although dark brown around the edges, is so good I now need another aerobics class.

Im always looking for ways to eat more leafy greens. Just kidding, Im really looking for ways to eat more goat cheese. This beautiful, scrumptious salad, which I discovered at http://www.proportionalplate.com, is worth saving for a COVID-safe Thanksgiving with your immediate family and your neighbors waving through the window, or you could make this today, just for funsies. It veers into foodie territory anything with radicchio and pomegranate seeds is dangerously trendy but recipes are merely inspiration for ways to use things I already have.

Cut two ripe but not too soft fuyu persimmons into thin wedges. Mix with 1 cup crumbled goat cheese and 4 cups each shredded radicchio and escarole. (I didnt have escarole and I couldnt find it at the market, so I used baby arugula.)

Add the seeds from 1 pomegranate. Since seeding a pomegranate produces a similar enjoyment quotient to clipping an angry cats claws, you should feel quite justified in substituting dried cranberries or chopped dried cherries.

For the dressing, mix 3 tablespoons olive oil and salt to taste with 1 clove minced garlic, 1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard and 3 tablespoons pomegranate molasses, which can be found in many Middle Eastern markets but not in my pantry. Instead, I used balsamic vinegar.

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Fall is a perfect time to explore passion for Persimmons - The Columbian

Sylvester Stallones Rocky days are over, but at age 74, he hasnt given up his vigorous training regimen. It often consists of three or four sets of a dozen weightlifting exercises. He also begins and ends each workout with 10 to 20 minutes of cardio.

Fortunately, recent research suggests you dont have to emulate Stallone to age well and stay fit. A study on physical fitness intensity and older adults found that those who regularly did high-intensity interval training didnt live any longer than those doing moderate-intensity continuous training or sticking to standard activity guidelines.

The study, published in The BMJ, involved 1,567 adults in their 70s. Participants in the HIIT group performed two sessions weekly of high-intensity interval training with four four-minute bursts of activity at about 90% of peak heart rate with three-minute rest periods in between. The other group did moderate intensity continuous training at about 70% of peak heart rate for 40 minutes twice a week. And the control group followed standard guidelines for physical activity (a minimum of 30 minutes moderate activity daily combining aerobics and strength training). After five years, the researchers didnt find a difference in cardiovascular health or in all-cause mortality between the control group and the combined HIIT and moderate-intensity continuous training groups.

So dont fret if you cant emulate Stallones workout! Turns out, once youre over 70, a sly not Sly approach to exercise, by integrating it into your daily routine, is an effective way to protect your cardiovascular health and promote longevity.

Mehmet Oz, M.D. is host of The Dr. Oz Show, and Mike Roizen, M.D. is Chief Wellness Officer Emeritus at Cleveland Clinic. To live your healthiest, tune into The Dr. Oz Show or visit www. sharecare.com.

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You don't have to HIIT it -- but you do have to move! - The Union Leader

Energy drinks and sports drinksare a range of beverages that refill carbohydrates and electrolytes in the body, which are lost during fitness or sports activities. These drinks are primarily consumed by sports players as they are enriched with sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and chlorides. Energy drinks contain sugar and restorative compounds that provide physical as well as mental stimulation to consumers. They can be aerated or non-aerated and contain herbal extracts, caffeine, amino acids, and sweeteners. While drinking plain water is a usual solution for hydrating body before any activity, a sports drink provides much needed performance and energy boost during sweaty and excessive workout.

Sports drinks are of three types, namely, hypertonic, hypotonic, and isotonic. These drinks are specially designed to help delaying the fatigue onset while exercising and to help rehydrating athletes after training sessions and competitions. The main target of sports and energy drink is to stimulate fluid absorption, which, in turn, supply carbohydrates to speed rehydration and help body recover after excessive workouts and training sessions. Owing to the instant boost of energy by these drinks, demand for energy and sports drinks is proliferating among millennials. Consuming energy or sports drinks immediately after a longer activity can be advantageous in comparison to plain water, as electrolyte levels get significantly depleted during training session and workouts.

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The popularity of fitness activities such as aerobics and yoga is expected to rise the demand for energy drinks. However, availability of various cost-efficient products such as protein bars and protein shakes in the market is expected to hinder growth of the energy and sports drink market. With the consumers being aware of health and wellness, many global associations are being engaged in organizing marathon events and established players are sponsoring such events. This gives the energy and sports drink market players opportunity to expand their business portfolio and attract customers to consume these products. Consumers in recent decades have started giving notable importance to health and wellness habits and as the demand is increasing, stakeholders are exploring untapped opportunities in the flavoring and fortification section.

Established players are launching specialized drinks for specific sports. One example of such drink is Golazo, which is specifically targeted at soccer players. This drink contains natural ingredients with very low calories. Another such example is GolfAid, a product of LifeAID beverage, which targets the golfers.

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The energy and sports drink market is segmented into nature type, packaging type, distribution channel, and region. On the basis of nature type, it is bifurcated into organic and artificial. On the basis of packaging type it is classified into bottles, metal cans, and aseptic cartons. On the basis of distribution channel it is divided into hypermarkets & supermarkets, convenience stores, specialty stores, and online sales channel. By region, it is studied across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and LAMEA.

Some of the major players operating in the energy and sports drink market are Lucozade Ribena Suntory Limited, NDurance (Private) Limited, The Coca-Cola Company, Unived Healthcare Products Private Limited, Six Pack Nutrition, Musclematic, Hercules Health Cares Pvt. Ltd, Stokely-Van Camp, Inc., Bright Lifecare Pvt. Ltd., Health Oxide, NOVELTY PHARMA GDD SA, DECATHLON SA, and OSHEE.

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Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of Market Research Reports and Business Intelligence Solutions. AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domains. AMR offers its services across 11 industry verticals including Life Sciences, Consumer Goods, Materials & Chemicals, Construction & Manufacturing, Food & Beverages, Energy & Power, Semiconductor & Electronics, Automotive & Transportation, ICT & Media, Aerospace & Defense, and BFSI.

We are in professional corporate relations with various companies and this helps us in digging out market data that helps us generate accurate research data tables and confirms utmost accuracy in our market forecasting. Each and every data presented in the reports published by us is extracted through primary interviews with top officials from leading companies of domain concerned. Our secondary data procurement methodology includes deep online and offline research and discussion with knowledgeable professionals and analysts in the industry.

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Energy and Sports Drink Market Projected To Display A Robust Growth by 2026 - PRnews Leader

By Scholarship Media | November 2, 2020 4:35 pm

Investing requires a large field of knowledge. In order to lock in big profit gains year after year, you have to stay ahead of the curve and always on the lookout for the next breakaway opportunity. Research from sources like WealthRocket is a great way to boost your knowledge in cryptocurrencies, ETFs, and real estate holdings, on top of reading about companies listed on the stock market. In order to beat the market, you need to understand it. Conducting your own analysis of companies, indices, and commodities is essential to long term success, regardless of whether you are seeking the bread and butter approach or want to diversify and add in alternative investment opportunities to your overall investment profile.

Understanding what you stand to gain on any investment opportunity should be your first port of call. Running the numbers on your expected return on investment (ROI) as well as any loss you may incur as the result of a bad call, must be a top priority for anyone risking their capital. A simple calculation of buy versus sell price will suffice to start, however thinking about the time required to arrive at that sale is also important. A 5% growth over the course of a week is certainly more fruitful than one that takes a year to mature.

A TIE ratio, or times interest earned ratio is a calculation of a companys intake over expenses. Many early investors dont understand the value of this metric, asking what is a times interest earned ratio? and often dismissing the answer as a tertiary data point.

The truth is, businesses typically run on a combination of short and long term debt that finances expansion upfront and is then paid back over time to lenders, investors, or the business itself. Times interest earned is therefore a representation of a companys liquidity at any given time, suggesting the ability to pay back debt even if a hypothetical shortage of business leaves the company unable to operate and generate any income. TIE ratio figures into a companys long term viability and demonstrates whether a company can take on additional debt, or has been swamped by their total interest and debts. Due diligence with any company should always include looking at the TIE Ratio.

In order to take advantage of the best alternative investments available to you, its important to internalize these lessons that the market can teach and then apply them to a new set of investment vehicles. Identifying long term viability is crucial in stock picking, but its also a major factor in choosing alternative investment opportunities that make sense for wealth growth as well. A TIE ratio may not help when considering gold versus platinum or two similar real estate properties. But the ability of either asset class to continue increasing in value, based upon a standardized set of principles remains the same in any market.

Searching for highly fluid commodities like vintage wine, high dollar fine art, or real estate properties that can generate long term growth or even passive income (with rental properties) follows the logic of returns. You must work with the data available in order to identify fast movers that you can leverage to create a quick buck, and other investments that you can hold for the long term to underpin a decades-long history of success. Investments are all about building retirement wealth, so a mixture of fast growth and long term holdings that mature alongside your career is the best way to achieve this financial freedom that we all seek as we grow older.

Stick to your principles and always do your research in order to find viable companies and commodities that can withstand short term volatility and create lasting growth.

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College 101: Understanding Investment Terms and Alternative Investment Options - Daily Cardinal

Weitzman has operations across Texas' major markets.

Dallas-based retail real estate firm Weitzman is expanding its investment property operations.

The regional real estate firm has hired Tim Baker as its new executive vice president and managing director of acquisitions.

Baker, previously an officer with Pittsburgh-based grocery retailer Giant Eagle, will be charged with retail and commercial real estate acquisitions statewide. He also worked with grocer Albertsons, Safeway and Walmart on deal sourcing, property acquisitions, asset management and disposition.

We have developed a substantial group of investors looking to place capital in retail real estate with us, and we are also in dialogue with several institutional groups, Weitzman president and CEO Marshall Mills said in a statement. We continue to target two main buckets of deals: grocery-anchored centers and well-located, shadow-anchored neighborhood strip centers.

Baker will collaborate with Ryan Stempf, Weitzmans chief investment relations officer.

Founded in 1989, Weitzman has a team of about 250 commercial property professionals working in Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, Houston and San Antonio.

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Weitzman hires key executive to grow its investment property operations - The Dallas Morning News

George Bye, CEO of Bye Aerospace, and Seunghyuk Cha, Chairman of Aerospace9, agreed to a purchase agreement for 300 aircraft.

Aerospace9, an information and technology company based in South Korea, has agreed to purchase 300 of Bye Aerospaces all-electric aircraft, according to a Nov. 2 press release. The agreement marks an important opportunity in the Asia Pacific market, George Bye, CEO of Bye Aerospace, told Avionics International.

When you look at the macroeconomic growth of the world, you cannot ignore how important our friends in Asia are, Bye said. When you look at the overall opportunity, the Asia market is gigantic, maybe not today, but it's becoming that tomorrow and soon thereafter.

Bye Aerospace, a Colorado-based aircraft manufacturer, is currently in the Federal Aviation Administrations (FAA) certification process for its all-electric trainer eFlyer, which comes in two and four-seat options. Bye said he expects this process and production to start in the third quarter of 2022. The original date of 2021 was pushed back because of COVID-19.

Aerospace9 will be purchasing a total of 150 eFlyer 2s, the two-seat variation, 148 eFlyer 4s, the four-seat variation, and two Envoys, which is Bye Aerospaces soon to be announced 9-seat variation, according to the release. It will also have the opportunity to acquire 100 additional aircraft.

This investment is not just a purchase contract, it is a very meaningful contract that creates an amazing opportunity for Asia, Chairman Seunghyuk Cha of Aerospace 9, said in a press statement. Our company has a very important responsibility in the aviation industry as a new strategic partner of Bye Aerospace.

Bye Aerospaces prototypes, fixed-wing all-electric aircraft produced under Part 23 Amendment 64, were initially rolled out four years ago. They use lithium-ion battery cells for power lasting between three to five hours depending on the aircraft configuration. The eFlyer is a trainer aircraft, which negates the need for longer flight times, Bye said.

The cell goes into a module, which provides thermal management mechanical protection and safety systems and those battery packs, there are two strings that have battery packs completely redundant one to the other, that provide the energy for the battery management system, Bye explains. It's basically a computer that monitors the health and the state of charge and so forth and those electrons feed the electric energy into the controller inverter and electric motor, and that system is designed for a three-hour flight time on the two-seat eFlyer 2.

Once Bye Aerospace receives FAA type certification, it expects to subsequently achieve certification from South Korea's civil aviation authority.

When we get a type certificate in America there's, generally speaking, a collaborative agreement between the FAA and South Korea, where there's a paperwork process of acknowledgment of this level of rigor of achieving a type certificate under the FAA, in our case 14 CFR 23 Amendment 64 rules, Bye said. And that paperwork process pulls the FAA type certificate into the Civil Aviation Authority of Korea and they achieve an airworthiness certificate level of acceptance in Korea.

Including the Aerospace9 agreement, Bye Aerospace now has future purchase agreements for 711 total aircraft.

In July Bye Aerospace announced a $10 million investment by a venture capital fund which allowed it to begin work on the first production-conforming prototype of its eFlyer 2 aircraft. The SUBARU-SBI Innovation Fund also invested in the company in 2018.

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Bye Aerospace Gets Investment from South Korean Aerospace9 - Aviation Today

After another quarter of year-over-year revenue declines, it might be hard to get too excited about Visa (NYSE:V) (or its peer Mastercard, for that matter). Both are suffering from significantly lower transaction volume this year. Nevertheless, the trend toward cashless payments is making steady progress all around the world. And Visa, with its massive globe-spanning digital transaction business, is one of the best bets on an eventual economic recovery. While fintech outfits like PayPaland Square may look like the best starting places for a war-on-cash portfolio, don't ignore Visa's growing capabilities in financial technology and best-in-class profit margins.

Image source: Getty Images.

A lot of travel plans -- of both the business and leisure variety -- have been eliminated this year, but Visa has replaced much of the activity with e-commerce transactions. Nevertheless, cross-border money movement between countries is hurting, and while digital cash is still in motion, not as much of it is flowing through Visa's system as prior to the pandemic.

That was on display during the fourth quarter of Visa's fiscal 2020 (the three months ended Sept. 30, 2020). Payments volume returned to growth and rose 4% year over year, but cross-border transaction volume was down 29%. As a result, Q4 revenue fell 17% from the year prior to $5.1 billion, and net income fell 29% to $2.1 billion.

Nevertheless, it was a good sign that payment volume is back on the rise, and management indicated it has been busy renewing deals with existing customers and inking deals with new ones. And in Visa's "value-added services," which include data security and other related tech, revenue grew 15% during Q4 and 18% during the whole of 2020. All told, while things haven't been great for Visa since the emergence of COVID-19, it hasn't been an unmitigated disaster, either.

Metric

12 Months Ended Sept. 30, 2020

12 Months Ended Sept. 30, 2019

Change

Revenue

$21.8 billion

$23.0 billion

(5%)

Net income

$10.9 billion

$12.1 billion

(10%)

Adjusted earnings per share

$5.04

$5.40

(7%)

Data source: Visa.

The way the world makes purchases is rapidly shifting, and though Visa's year has been less than stellar, it is nonetheless well-positioned to benefit moving forward. New digital payments platforms like PayPal's Venmo have been flying high, but Visa recently secured a deal to power the Venmo credit card, and it's powering other features on the app. Similar initiatives have been launched with other high-growth peers, like Southeast Asia's Shopee e-commerce platform owned by red-hot Sea Limited. Other digital wallets around the globe are turning to Visa as a trusted partner as well.

And Visa continues to grow its exposure to these next-gen tech companies. It recently announced the acquisition of YellowPepper, a small software platform used as a universal adapter to connect and scale digital payment capabilities. It is worth noting that the previous purchase of fintech Plaid back in January is under review by the U.S. Department of Justice as a potential antitrust issue given Visa's already dominant operation, but regardless of the results of the investigation, Visa remains in pole position as a digital payment ecosystem leader.

How is Visa able to pull it all off? It's all about profit margins. Thanks to its virtual duopoly with peer Mastercard and the massive global scale of its tollbooth-like business (Visa earns a fee every time a transaction takes place on its network), even in a tough stretch like 2020, Visa generated a net profit margin of 50%. Talk about an enviable operating model. That gives Visa a constant stream of cash that it can continue to invest for further growth as the war on cash picks up in earnest amid the pandemic.

It also explains the steep premium Visa stock trades for -- 38 times trailing 12-month earnings per share as of Monday's close. Because digital payments remain a long-term secular growth trend, the high price tag will look a lot more reasonable once Visa inevitably returns to growth mode.

Simply put, recovering economic activity and digital payments will keep this ship afloat for a long time. Visa is a solid place to start building a war-on-cash investment basket.

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Should You Start Your War-on-Cash Investment Basket With Visa? - Motley Fool

Getting your start in real estate investing can be extremely intimidating. There are so many investment options to choose from, and since every investor is starting from a different place with different financial goals and interests, there isn't always a clear direction on where to start. Rather than figuring it out on your own, below are a few different scenarios to help you determine what your first real estate investment should be based on your interests, available capital, and end goals.

The type of investment you target will depend on what your goal is for investing in real estate. Are you looking for passive income or are you looking to generate capital quickly? Both can serve you well and be achieved by the type of investment you target will differ based on your desires.

Consider how much money you have available to invest. Most lenders will require a 20% down payment or more when purchasing an investment property, which means for a $100,000 property you would need a minimum of $20,000. If the property needs repairs or improvements, your capital investment just went up. If you only have $5,000 to $10,000 to invest, your options are limited when compared to those who have $25,000 or more.

It's also important to consider where you're located. If you're in a market that's expensive or highly competitive, $10,000 or $20,000 may not go far. In that case, consider looking just outside your target market. Many rural or suburban areas next to the major metros will have more opportunity and lower real estate prices. Having an investment in your backyard definitely makes it easier at times, but it isn't a requirement.

It's also important you don't spend all of your life savings on your first real estate investment. It's a good idea to have additional savings set aside and invest with money set aside specifically for investing.

Having built up equity in your home can be a very helpful tool in providing additional cash to invest, especially in low interest-rate environments like we're in today, but I suggest tapping into the equity with caution. Taking out a home equity line of credit (HELOC) or refinancing can provide you with more money for your first deal, but it puts your personal residence on the line in order to do so. If the deal goes south, are you comfortable knowing your equity is gone and you're stuck with a potentially higher mortgage payment than before?

If you have anywhere from $10,000 to $20,000 available to invest, I would suggest your first real estate investment should be a fix-and-flip property to help generate more cash. Rehabs require careful market analysis to ensure accurate estimation for rehab cost and holding costs and that after-repair value can be achieved. But if done well, it can be a very lucrative business model.

If you don't own your own home and have at least $10,000 or more saved, I would suggest your first real estate investment be your own personal residence, ideally a duplex or a single-family home that has an additional unit, such as an inlaw suite, that you can rent. While a duplex may not be your dream home, it's a great way to offset property expenses and pay off your mortgage faster by having rental income. It's unlikely the duplex will generate positive net income for you, but instead will help offset all or a portion of your mortgage. You can choose to use the additional savings to pay down the mortgage faster or save that extra money for your next investment.

If you have $20,000 or more, I would suggest a rental property as your first real estate investment. This can be a single-family rental or preferably a multifamily residential property like a duplex, triplex, or fourplex. While not always the case, multifamily residential properties can provide higher returns while mitigating risk by having multiple tenants to offset unexpected expenses or vacancies when they occur. Buying value-add rental properties, or properties that need renovations in order to rent optimally, will almost always provide better returns and can still provide cash flow and rental income as well as the added benefit of increased equity from the improvements that were made.

If you're not interested in fix-and-flips or are looking to invest passively, I would suggest getting started in real estate by purchasing shares in a real estate investment trust (REIT). REITs provide access and diversification of real estate without requiring you to be an active participant in the management of the properties. This form of real estate investing is particularly great for those who want to get started but may only have a few thousand dollars saved up. Rather than sitting on the sidelines as you save more money to invest, you can grow that money by investing in REITs.

Remember, there's no perfect first investment for everyone. I personally did none of these things when I got started in real estate and was still able to build a successful investing career. The suggestions above are the most accessible and easy ways to get started. Once you get your feet wet, plus a few investments under your belt, then you can consider branching out to larger commercial real estate investments or more complex investing strategies, like mortgage notes.

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This Is What Your First Real Estate Investment Should Be - Motley Fool