| Credit card industry tries to hook young people
All major banking institutions pay big money to colleges and universities for on-campus recruiting rights, offering students low initial interest rates and/or other sweetheart deals if they accept a credit card. The rest of us get solicitations through our phone or the mails.Seductive sales campaigns focus on high school graduates and for all kinds of items that TV, movies or society has told them they want, need, should have because they deserve it and others have, so why don't they? Car dealers offer "one-time sales events" to first-time wage earners, high-end electronic stores give 90-day-same-as-cash deals and guarantee that no one will be turned down, furniture showrooms offer newlyweds "no payments 'til next year," cell phones, Internet providers, cable companies, satellite dish outfits all make it sound as if you can't have a decent life without their help.All this has given birth to an additional parasite - the debt-consolidation, paycheck-cashing, payday-loan, instant-refinancing-of-your-car (and you get to keep your car - 'til they come to take it away) industry.Public schools teach kids how to drive, play sports, fit a condom, take birth control pills, find an abortionist or fill out a job application at McDonald's.
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Annual “Lambs to the Slaughter” ritual has begun
It's that time of the year again. Holiday spending was up another 5% this year to …. get this….. $457.4 Billion. As reported By Parija B. Kavilanz, CNNMoney.com staff writer in the article found here. That's right, billion with a “B". And, once the credit card bills begin to get delivered…. the slaughter will begin. Many might be thinking that I'm going to drone on about the high cost of credit, how long it will take to pay off those credit cards, fees, penalties, etc… Not this time. The ritual that I'm referring to is mortgage refinancing. Every year thousands of homeowners find themselves in a little trouble with last years spending habits. And this year many people are going to get the old Double Whammy with roughly 12% of adjustable mortgages coming due. Scratching their heads trying to figure out how they will make ends meet, refinancing (or debt consolidation) begins to look appealing.
Britons Face Billion-Pound Interest Payback
One in four people is struggling with their debts as Britons collectively face a 93bn annual bill for interest. At the same time, around three million people have taken out a debt consolidation loan to try to get on top of their borrowings. Borrowing through credit cards, loans, overdrafts and mortgages has hit almost 1.4 trillion, according to comparison website uSwitch.com. An estimated 9.5m people had "maxed out" on one form of credit during the past six months, while 38% have had a credit card application rejected, the group claims. But nearly two-thirds of these failed to close down their existing credit facilities, and instead went on to rack up a further 2,300 of debt on average. Overall, the research found that the average household has now amassed unsecured debts of 4,281.
Legislator: Sorry for calling unmarried teen parents 'sluts'
Larry Liston said in a statement. “Because of my unfortunate choice of language, the message that I was trying to get across about personal responsibility, and parental responsibility, has been overshadowed. "I certainly regret using the term I did." Wednesday, Liston, appearing at a GOP legislative caucus in Denver, said: “In my parents' day and age, (unmarried teen parents) were sent away, they were shunned, they were called what they are. There was at least a sense of shame. “There's no sense of shame today," Liston continued, according to the The Gazette of Colorado Springs. "Society condones it. ... I think it's wrong. They're sluts. And I don't mean just the women. I mean the men, too." Rep. Stella Garza Hicks, who was at the meeting, said Liston should apologize.
Former DPNR director Griffin testifies in contract fraud trial
Thomas businessman Leroy Marchena. Griffin has pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge for his role in a contracting scheme that swindled $1.4 million from the government through a web of contracts awarded to fake companies. In exchange for his guilty plea, Griffin agreed to work with prosecutors throughout the investigation. Between 1999 and July 2004, Griffin had a director-level position at DPNR, reporting only to Plaskett. Griffin said that he was involved in a complex contracting scheme where contracts were awarded to sham companies that then gave kickbacks to himself, Plaskett, Biggs, principals of the fake companies, and other government officials involved in the scam. When investigators from federal and local agencies and reporters from The Virgin Islands Daily News began probing the scheme, Griffin said that he heard that everyone was trying to pin the blame on him.
A jump in foreclosure-fight resources
No foreclosure news would be the best news. But some recent items do provide a glimmer of assistance for homeowners in distress:
Postcards to the edge: The Chicago Housing Department is mailing post cards listing resources for owners who've had a foreclosure filing that week.
Typically, it's easier to get a lender to ease payment terms before a foreclosure is filed. But because of the number of foreclosures, lenders may be more likely to make a loan adjustment after the fact, notes Dan Lindsey of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago.
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Obama's Hispanderama
How do you propose to address the high unemployment rates and the declining wages in the African-American community that are related to the flood of immigrant labor?" Senator Obama, you want to go first on that? And it's for both of you. OBAMA: Well, let me first of all say that I have worked on the streets of Chicago as an organizer with people who have been laid off from steel plants, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, and, you know, all of them are feeling economically insecure right now, and they have been for many years. Before the latest round of immigrants showed up, you had huge unemployment rates among African-American youth. And, so, I think to suggest somehow that the problem that we're seeing in inner-city unemployment, for example, is attributable to immigrants, I think, is a case of scapegoating that I do not believe in, I do not subscribe to.
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