Catastrophic Failures that Plague the Construction Industry

Catastrophic failures, such as foundational and structural damages, have become commonplace in the construction industry over the years. Unlike minor construction defects that usually lead to mild damages or aesthetics issues, construction failures may result in massive damages with serious consequences.

These failures may cause a collapse of parts or the whole building. They may endanger neighboring buildings, community projects, and drainage vault systems. If a building collapses when a person is on the site or just passing by, he or she may be at risk of severe injuries, long-term mental health conditions, infections, and even death.

Main Causes of Catastrophic Construction Failures

  1. Poor Planning

Catastrophic construction failures may happen due to poor planning or lack of planning. It’s up to site supervisors and contractors to assess potential risks and issues at the construction site and carefully plan for emergencies before starting the construction process. They must account for weather conditions like heavy rains, natural calamities like earthquakes, and a variety of other potentially destructive events that may happen during the building’s lifespan.

  1. Use of Defective Materials

Contractors may attempt to speed up the construction process and save some money by using cheap, poor quality, and defective building materials. Such building materials rarely meet the required standards and the outcome is a structure that is at a higher risk of catastrophic failure.

  1. Poor Craftsmanship and Defective Design

Failures in design and workmanship can also result in catastrophic construction failure. Architects must follow specific steps to ensure all elements of the envisioned design complement each other and are structurally robust. When they take shortcuts to speed up a project, they may overlook important design defects. The outcome will be a structure that cannot withstand the size or weight of the constructed property.

  1. Instability of the Construction Project

Before starting the construction process, the site needs to be thoroughly inspected to establish whether the area is ideal for the upcoming project. A construction project standing on a site with loose soil or shaky ground may cause a shift in the underlying land. Once this happens, the building is likely to collapse.

How Construction Negligence is Determined in Courts

When a victim contracts construction professionals, he or she trusts them to use an acceptable level of skill, care, and craftsmanship. If they cause catastrophic construction failures or injuries because of their negligent behavior, the victim can recover losses by filing a claim or suing the responsible party or parties. An attorney must, however, prove these four elements:

Duty of Care

This element involves proving that the builder owed a duty of care. He or she had a duty to adhere to all relevant building codes during the construction process.

Breach of Duty

The attorney must demonstrate that the builder breached his or her duty. The builder acted negligently and did not fulfill contract terms.

Cause in Fact

The attorney must demonstrate that the behavior of the builder resulted in construction damages, financial loss, or injury. If the builder had honored his or her duty of care, the injury or loss suffered could have been avoided.

Damages

An attorney must also demonstrate that the negligent actions of the builder caused real construction damages to the victim.

5 Reasons to Invest in a Gold IRA Today

Invest in Gold

Do you need to diversify your investment portfolio? A great way to setup your retirement is investing through a gold IRA.

What is it?

It’s a self-directed IRA that allows you to invest in gold and other precious metals like silver, platinum, and palladium. These precious metals are purchased through a reputable gold broker. And they’re stored in a safe and protected depository of your choosing.

Today, I’d like to share five reasons why you should invest in a gold IRA. These valid reasons should really make you think about wealth in retirement differently.

Diversity is only one reason to add gold to your retirement portfolio as an investment. And it’s the first one that I’ll share more information about with you below.

1. Achieve Greater Levels of Portfolio Diversity

Future retirees should never keep all of their eggs in one basket, as the saying goes.

Why? You never know when one of your investments (or more) will fall into a negative downtrend.

The US stock market is a prime example.

In February 2020, the US stock market (and other world markets) took a nosedive for about six weeks straight. During the crash, the Dow Jones Industrial Average suffered through three black days. They are now known as Black Monday I, Black Thursday, and Black Monday II.

Take a look at the results of these massive crashes:

  • Black Monday I – this took place on March 9, 2020 and the DJIA dropped 2013 points, which equates to a -7.79% loss.
  • Black Thursday – this took place on March 12, 2020 and the DJIA dropped 2352 points, which equates to a -9.99% loss.
  • Black Monday II – this took place on March 16, 2020 and the DJIA dropped 2997 points, which equates to a -12.93% loss.

These three days represent losing nearly 31% of your portfolio in an incredibly short amount of time. Are you prepared to take such a devastating loss toward your financial well-being?

Most people aren’t.

By adding gold to your retirement portfolio, you wouldn’t have suffered nearly as much as you did if you only invested in stocks.

Over the past year, the value of gold has risen by nearly 24%. If you owned an equal amount of gold compared to your stock investment, your portfolio would only have dropped by 7%. That’s a lot better than 31% in my opinion!

2. Gold Liquidity Is at an All-Time High

Investing is a fickle mistress as we all know. Sometimes your investments will rise high and make you a ton of money. Other times, they’ll struggle to deliver the returns that you want and need.

On the other hand, liquidity is necessary when it comes time to cash in on your big investments. Certain stocks have excellent liquidity. Other investments like real estate can take years to find a buyer willing to pay your price.

The same can be said about buying gold. Except that was all in the past. Now gold is one of the hottest commodities in the world. And everybody wants to get their hands on this precious metal.

Have you ever heard of Exter’s Pyramid? According to the pyramid, gold is more liquid than any other investment that exists. The levels of investment liquidity are as follows:

  • Gold
  • Paper currency
  • T-bills and government bonds
  • Muni bonds, corporate bonds, stocks, and securitized debt
  • Privately owned businesses, real estate, and nonmonetary commodities
  • Derivatives and unfunded government liabilities

So, never worry about having a tough time finding a buyer for your gold investments. This investment is the most liquid asset of all. You’ll have no trouble selling it when the time is right to cash in on your big profits in retirement.

3. The Tax Benefits of a Gold IRA Are Stupendous

More than anything else, you should open a gold IRA account for the tremendous tax advantages. The IRS isn’t willing to provide benefits like this too often. And too many people fail to benefit from on this opportunity. I do not want you to be one of them.

The tax advantages of a gold IRA include:

  • Grow your retirement account with tax-deferred investments.
  • Grow your retirement account with tax-free investments.
  • Lower your overall adjusted gross income.
  • Accumulate wealth longer than other investments (up to 70 ½ years old)
  • Pay the marginal tax rate on tax-deferred gold investments

Some pretty big advantages, right? Open a precious metals IRA account today to experience these huge tax breaks.

4. Gold Is a Hot Commodity Right Now

Not only has gold been around forever, but it’s making a huge comeback these days for various reasons.

Paper currencies always struggle eventually because governments print them with abandon. They recklessly add more money to the economy, and this ultimately devalues the existing currencies already in print.

The Federal Reserve is killing the US dollar as we speak.

Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi are about to put through another round of stimulus. This means printing more money to prop up the ailing economy.

What does this have to do with gold?

Gold is experiencing the opposite of the US dollar and other paper currencies. Instead of losing value, investors are flocking to it and it’s becoming even more valuable.

They are pulling their money out of the US dollar and trusting gold and other precious metals.

Why?

They don’t want to get left holding the bag if the US dollar crumbles even further. They want their wealth to grow and flourish even in a difficult economic environment.

Don’t you?

5. Consumer, Corporate, and Global Debt is Out-Of-Control

What does this mean?

It means that all of this debt is eventually going to snowball and create a doomsday scenario. It means the US dollar is in serious danger of collapsing someday.

Are you willing to take a chance with your wealth? Or are you smart enough to take the steps to protect it by investing in a gold IRA?

I think the answer is clear, don’t you? Invest in gold and minimize your exposure to the US dollar before it’s too late.

Bottom Line

As you can see, things look grim for the world economy and the US dollar in general. But this doesn’t mean you have to go down with the sinking ship.

You can begin investing in gold for your retirement and protect your wealth all at the same time. You can take control of your financial destiny and preserve your wealth to the best of your ability.

Contact a reputable gold dealer now. And initiate a precious metals IRA rollover as soon as you can to get started with this investment.

What to Expect When Going Self Employed

What To Expect When You're Self Employed

One of the main benefits of going self-employed is that it’s easy to start up and run your new business. You can even become a sole trader whilst you’re working as an employee for somebody else, meaning that you’ll still have the stability of an employed job whilst you’re setting up and growing your own business. When you decide to go self employed, there are a number of things that you should expect to need to do. Here are five of the main ones.

Register with HMRC as Self Employed

For tax purposes, you’ll be expected to register as self-employed with HMRC. Once you set up as a sole trader, you’ll be held responsible for paying your own tax and national insurance. You must register as self-employed within three months of starting trading, even if you’re already paying tax each year via the self-assessment process. Registering can be done online, or over the phone if you’d prefer to speak to somebody or have any questions.

Registering for VAT

When you become self-employed, you’ll need to work out whether or not you will need to register for VAT. As of April 2015, if your business has an annual turnover of at least £82,000, you’ll need to register for VAT – anything beneath this amount is not required to register. If it looks like you might hit the VAT threshold at any time over the next twelve months, you will need to register even if you’re not at the threshold at the current time.

Open a Business Bank Account

Starting your own business will require you to open a business bank account. This ensures that the money needed for your business doesn’t get mixed up with your personal money, and also looks more credible and professional for any clients or customers who are making bank transfers as payment. If you’re likely to hold cash for some time it’s also a good idea to open a business deposit account in order to earn some interest on your money.

Keeping Financial Records

Since you will be responsible for paying your own tax, you’ll need to ensure that you keep up-to-date and accurate financial records. This includes records of all of your business transactions, including anything else that your business may participate in such as spread betting – if you’re thinking of trying spread betting, see here for how to spread bet. When the time comes to submit your tax return, you will need to give all of these records to your accountant.

Insurance

It’s essential that your new business is insured. The cover that you should take out will depend on the type of business that you have and the industry in which you operate. If you employ another person, you will be required to take out employer’s liability insurance by law. If you’re providing a service for clients, you should also consider taking out coverage for professional indemnity, which will cover you if you’re sued by a client if they’re unhappy with a service or product.

Would you like to add anything else that can be expected from going self-employed?