Updated Surplus Numbers

Updated Surplus Numbers
Updated Surplus Numbers: Actual surplus 2018 per audit was $85,163.
Boards 2011-2018 implemented policies and procedures with specific goals:
stabilize owner fees, achieve maintenance objectives and achieve annual budget surpluses.
Any surplus was retained by the association.
The board elected in fall 2018 decided to increase owner fees, even in view of a large potential surplus

Average fees prior to 2019

Average fees prior to 2019
Average fees per owner prior to 2019:
RED indicates the consequences had boards continued the fee policies prior to 2010,
BLUE indicates actual fees. These moderated when better policies and financial controls were put in place by boards

Better budgeting could have resulted in lower fees

Better budgeting could have resulted in lower fees
Better budgeting could have resulted in lower fees:
RED line = actual fees enacted by boards,
BLUE line = alternate, fees, ultimately lower with same association income lower had
boards used better financial controls and focused on long term fee stability

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Inflation and the Billion Prices Project at MIT

For those of us who are interested in inflation, and who also have a few concerns about the government reporting methods, this might be of interest.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has had a project underway since 2007, to monitor the prices of many goods, in several countries. The project "collects prices from hundreds of online retailers around the world on a daily basis to conduct economic research. We currently monitor daily price fluctuations of ~5 million items sold by ~300 online retailers in more than 70 countries."

The statistical information is showcased on the webpages as examples of average inflation indexes. The goal at MIT is to develop "econometric models that leverage the data to forecast future trends and conduct economic research."

BPP DATABASE KEY FACTS
-Statistics updated every day
-5 million individual items
-70 countries
-Started in October of 2007
-Supermarkets, electronics, apparel, furniture, real estate, and more.

The MIT project tracks online retailers. So, as soon as prices change, so do the statistics in the BPP project. If accurate, the BPP data would be available much faster than the government data, which lags because the government statistics are released two weeks after the month in question.

Charts available, which compare the BPP data with the Consumer Price Index (CPI-U) include:
  • Daily Online Price Index
  • Annual Inflation
  • Monthly inflation
Here's a snapshot of the "Annual Inflation" chart, for the U.S., taken January 25, 2011:


To view this information, go to the following link and select "USA" from the pull-down menu. Then click on the "Show" button.
MIT - BPP - Daily Price Indexes

References, Errors, Omissions, Comments:
1)Other countries are available at the MIT site. 
2) I find it interesting that the MIT data and the U.S. government released data track.  I'm unsure of exactly what is included in the MIT pricing, and what might not be. It does include fresh food. I'll be doing more research on this as time permits. 

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please leave a comment!

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.