07
Aug
The Plastic Prison: Why Generation Y is BROKE
NYT HEADLINE: “FREDDIE MAC’S BIG LOSS DIMS HOPES OF TURNAROUND”
Company reports $821 MILLION loss in three months…mortgage rates likely to rise, home prices will fall…entity in trouble.
A.I.G INSURANCE reports loss of $5.3 BILLION in the quarter….
CITIZEN TIMES, ASHVILLE NC: We have been badly misled about our true fiscal crisis
RICHARD MULLLIN • Since 1985, a total of $2,140,243,399,000 of Social Security premiums paid by taxpayers has been removed and used to pay other governmental expenses and to also mislead the public about the actual size of budget deficits.
But the total accumulated Social Security amounts of money removed from the trust is only a portion of the total amount allocated to the Intra-governmental debt. There is a remaining amount of money of $2,066,699,030,625.55 yet to be identified.
Our government manages about 140 trust and retirement funds other than Social Security. Among them are:
• Civil Service Retirement and Disability Trust Fund.
• Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund.
• DOD Military Retirement Fund.
• Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund.
• Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund.
• FDIC Deposit Insurance Fund.
Like the Social Security Trust Fund, our government has removed any and all surpluses from these funds, given them to the Treasury and then given them to Congress to spend! There is NO money in any of these funds. It has been appropriated by our government and spent by Congress together with past and present administrations. It is gone forever!
Ethics Committee Examining Countrywide Loans to Senators
CREDIT CARDS ENSNARE KIDS: “WHY GENERATION Y IS BROKE”
Bob Manning, author of “Credit Card Nation” and professor of consumer financial services at Rochester Institute of Technology, says these problems are compounded by powerful cultural forces.
“The democratization of credit has really generated a competitive spending culture, and plastic has allowed for material goods not had in the previous generation,” Manning says. Most of us grew up in a home with just one or two bathrooms for the whole family, he points out; today, new homes usually have at least one bathroom per bedroom.
“That change has happened so fast,” Manning says.
He adds that people in their 20s and 30s grew up in an age of unprecedented technological advancements — a factor that has affected their views of the future.
“This generation feels that somehow or another they’re going to figure out some technological advancement that’s going to get them out of their financial troubles and outsmart the market,” says Manning, who served as adviser to the documentary “In Debt We Trust.” The documentary paints a picture of national financial crisis stemming from the personal-debt burden.
“It’s a generation that thinks it has so much freedom of expression, but it is so encumbered with debt it might not be able to pursue the career and goals of its choice,” he says.
Citi talks with regulators may lead to buybacks: report - Yahoo! News
HOLLY SKLAR ON THE MINIMUM WAGE (ZNET)
Minimum wage workers have been stuck in a losing game of “Mother May I” with the federal government. Workers step forward when the government says yes to raising the minimum wage. Workers step backward when the cost of living increases, but the minimum wage doesn’t.
Until 1968, minimum wage workers took frequent and big enough steps forward to make overall progress. Since 1968, when the minimum wage reached its peak buying power, workers have taken many steps backward for every step forward.
The July 24 minimum wage raise is so little, so late that workers will still make less than they did in 1997, adjusting for the increased cost of living, and way less than in 1968.
The decade between the federal minimum wage increase to $5.15 an hour on Sept. 1, 1997, and the July 24, 2007 increase to $5.85 was the longest period in history without a raise.
Gas prices rose from $1.23 to $2.97 a gallon in the same period. Now it’s over $4.
The new $6.55 minimum wage is lower than the 1997 minimum wage, which is worth $6.88 in 2008 dollars, and way lower than the inflation-adjusted $9.86 minimum wage of 1968. For full-time workers that translates into $20,509 a year at the 1968 rate, compared with just $13,624 at the hourly rate of $6.55.
The minimum wage does not provide a minimally adequate living standard — and it still won’t when the last scheduled raise to $7.25 takes place next July.
Re: credit cards
Whether we call it a mortgage, a sub-prime, a car loan, a credit card, bank fees or anything else, it all represents the various methods by which the few monopolistic financial institutions in the U.S. steal money from the citizens and transfer it to a small elite of the upper class, with a nice percentage taken off the top and paid to Congress in return for them turning their head and pretending that they don’t see what’s happening. It’s like paying the bank guard to just happen to be on a break when you go in to take the cash.
And the methods they use are so obvious. First, by bribing the politicians they have complete control of the government and can get their co-conspirators like Greenspan to hold down the interest they pay to 2%. That’s my money they are borrowing, but they only pay 2%/year on their loan.
They borrow millions at 2%/year interest and turn around and loan the money back to the citizens at 8%, 12%, 25, 30%, depending on the type of loan. They have bribed the politicians so that they are exempt from usury laws which, if they did apply, would limit all these financial institutions to a maximum interest rate charge — let’s say 12%/year max on credit cards.
Late fees are another form of theft. They lose nothing, suffer no damage, if the payment is late, because interest continues to accrue on the outstanding balance. They pick arbitrary numbers ($50) and slap it on top of the principal, in some cases earning more in the late fees than they do in the actual credit card loan.
And they all schedule the payment due-date to be a time when it is most likely people will be late, so they can steal that extra $50 late fee. Most credit cards, other forms of charge or loan arrangements, will be set by the financial institution to be due on or about the 28th of the month. People get paid on the 30th, check clears, they write out the bills the following week-end and mail them: check received on the 2nd or 3rd of the month is “late” and an extra $50 is owed.
If Congress wasn’t so corrupt, they would make minor changes which would transfer billions back to the working people and out of these criminal financial institutions. Such as: no late fees. If someone’s late, cut off the card. All payments are due on or about the 5th of the month. Stop screwing with people’s credit records by setting due-dates which research shows will most likely be missed. Maximum 12%/year interest. Payments applied to both principal and interest.
Oh yeah: these financial institutions should be paying 5% to the feds on the money they are borrowing from the fed, since it is my money they are borrowing, and I would like a fair return.
We also need a 90% tax on all income in excess of $250,000, and should eliminate any deduction as a business expense or otherwise for any employee or management compensation of any type in excess of $250,000. Stock options must be exercised in the year they are given, and taxed as ordinary income (difference between the value and the option amount).
We should also eliminate the mortgage interest deduction which is just give another giveaway which benefits financial institutions, and real estate developers and brokers to the detriment of the community. Why on earth should some doctor earning $2.0 million/year and paying $10,000/month on a mortgage be given a write-off for that level of personal indulgence? It’s completely irrational.
I got a letter in the mail a few weeks ago from my credit card company. It said they were closing down my credit card ending in (for example) numbers 0000. Reason: excessive charges and balance owed. I was stunned, thinking that I had been a victim of credit theft. They told me to call some company in Texas which sent me to an automatic phone system which offered to not only give me a really great credit report on myself for a reasonable fee, but also to provide updates for the year for the low introductory price of whatever.
I didn’t want a credit report, so I called my credit card company directly and finally got through to a person. Except they told me they could not speak to me, my call had to be transferred to a supervisor. And the supervisor told me not to worry, I didn’t have a balance, no excessive charges, nothing — it was all a lie to get me to call up the Texas company in a panic and agree to buy some credit report. And as long as they had me on the phone, they wanted to talk to me about extending to me some new credit card services.
These people are criminals, thieves. Our Democrats brag about the amount of money they receive from the boys on wall street and the major financial institutions. They brag about their betrayal of the public, when they should be hanging their heads in shame and begging for forgiveness.
Again, we need to write the new laws, starting with the credit card companies. And for Congress, just give them a law and require they sign a pledge not to take any money. If we don’t stop Congress from taking bribes, then at a minimum we should sponsor a law to re-name our government The United Politicians Of Fraud, Corruption and Treason. Because they have sold us out for a few bucks.
August 7th, 2008 at 6:04 pm