Posts tagged "government change"

Not so Fast, Obama, Say Insurance Companies

The health insurance industry has some lingering doubts about President-elect Barack Obama’s health care plan.  Even though they have supported a plan that will require them to accept all applicants without regard to pre-existing conditions, there are still concerns.  The National Health Insurance Exchange is giving them issue.

The National Health Insurance Exchange would give Americans a choice between a private plan and a government sponsored plan. The premise is that by combining government sources and open market options, the insured will have more resources with which to tailor a custom plan.  The New York Times reports Tom Daschle, the incoming HHS Secretary, as stating that the government’s plan is designed around the Medicare model.

The Plan would encourage competition between itself and participating private companies.  Proponents say the competition that it encourages is likely to drive down market rates.  The insurance industry, however, says this is not necessarily true.  They argue that the opposite is true, that the government plan would likely underpay doctors for services rendered, causing private providers to raise their prices to cover their losses experienced from government plans.

Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, recently stated “A new public program similar to Medicare would exacerbate cost-shifting, which already adds $1,500, or 10%, to the average premium for a family of four.”  President-elect Obama, in spite of differences, seems to be keeping his word regarding giving all parties an equal seat at the negotiating table.  This in itself is commendable.

Stephanie Cutter, spokesperson for Obama’s White House transition, recently said, “These are listening sessions.  We are trying to find people who share Obama’s goal of health care reform, even if they disagree on the specifics.”  Thousands of meetings have already been scheduled with health care reform as the subject.  All parties are being welcomed.

If you find yourself asking questions about your present <a href=”http://www.gohealthinsurance.com”>health insurance</a> predicament, not knowing where to turn for answers, then visit the web’s best known and most extensive source of advice at www.GoHealthInsurance.com to learn about available <a href=”http://www.gohealthinsurance.com/plan-finder.html”>health insurance plans</a>.

Ethan Kalvin
http://www.articlesbase.com/insurance-articles/not-so-fast-obama-say-insurance-companies-704939.html

Why Cmos May be Considered for Private Trading Programs

Collateralized Mortgage Obligations (CMOs) sometimes referred to as Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduits (REMICs), are one of few innovative investment methods available in today’s investment world. CMOs offer relative safety, regular payments and notable yield advantages over other better known fixed-income securities of comparable credit quality.

A wide variety of CMO securities with different cash flow and expected maturity characteristics have been designed to meet specific investment objectives. While CMOs offer advantages to investors, they also carry certain risks which will be further explained in this document. To determine if CMOs fit within your investment portfolio, you should first understand the distinctive features of these securities.

CMOs were first introduced in 1983. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 allowed CMOs to be issues in the form of REMICs, creating certain tax and accounting advantages for issuers and for certain large institutional and foreign investors. Today, almost all CMOs are issued in REMIC form. Remember that throughout this CMO explanation, REMICs and CMOs are interchangeable.

THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF CMOS Mortgage Loans and Mortgage Pass-Throughs. When a CMO is created, it begins with a mortgage loan extended by a financial institution (such as a savings and loan, commercial bank or mortgage company) to finance a borrower’s home or other real estate. The homeowner usually pays the mortgage loan in monthly installments composed of both interest and “principal”. Over the duration of the mortgage loan, the interest component of payments in the early years gradually declines as the principal component increases.

To obtain funds to generate more loans, lenders either “pool” groups of loans with similar characteristics to create securities or sell the loans to issuers of mortgage securities. The securities most commonly created from pools of mortgage loans are “mortgage pass-through securities” (MBS) or “participation certificates” (PCs). MBS represent a direct ownership interest in a pool of mortgage loans. As the homeowners whose loans are in the pool make their mortgage loan payments, the money is distributed on a pro rata basis to the holders of the securities.

Several factors can affect the homeowners’ payments. Typically, the homeowner will “prepay” the mortgage loan by selling the property, refinancing the mortgage or otherwise paying off the loan in part or whole. Most mortgage pass-through securities are based on fixed-rate mortgage loans with an original maturity of 30 years, but experience shows that most of these mortgage loans will be paid off much earlier.

While the creation of MBS greatly increased the secondary market for mortgage loans by pooling them and selling interests in the pool, the structure of such securities has inherent limitations. MBSs only appeal to investors with a certain investment horizon – on average, 10-12 years.

CMOs were developed to offer investors a wider range of investment time frames and greater cash-flow certainty than had previously been available with MBS. The CMO issuer assembles a package of these MBS and uses them as collateral for a multiclass security offering. The different classes of securities in a CMO offering are known as tranches, from the French word for slice. The CMO structure enables the issuer to direct the principal and interest cash flow generated by the collateral to the different tranches in a prescribed manner, as defined in the offering’s prospectus, to meet different investment objectives.

THE HIGH CREDIT QUALITY OF CMOS The Government National Mortgage Association (GNMA, or Ginnie Mae) an agency of the U.S. government, along with U.S. government-sponsored enterprises (GSE) such as the Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA, or Fannie Mae) or the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC, or Freddie Mac), guarantee most MBSs. Ginnie Mae is a government-owned corporation within the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have federal charters and are subject to some oversight by the federal government, but are publicly owned by stockholders.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac issue and guarantee pass-through securities. Ginnie Mae only adds its guarantee to privately issued pass-throughs backed by government issued (FHA and VA) mortgages. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have issues CMOs for quite some time; the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) began to issue CMOs in 1992, and Ginnie Mae initiates its own CMO program which began in 1994. Securities guaranteed or guaranteed and issues by these entities are known generically as “agency” mortgage securities. The agency guarantees enhance their credit quality for investors. In addition, the mortgages backing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage securities must meet strict quality criteria. Those backing GNMA pass-throughs are underwritten in accordance with the rules and regulations of the FHA and the VA, which insure them against default.

The extent of the agency guarantee depends on the entity making it. Ginnie Mae, for example, guarantees the timely payment of principal and interest on all of its mortgage securities, and its guarantee is backed by the “full faith and credit” of the U.S. government. Holders of Ginnie Mae mortgage securities are therefore assured of receiving payments promptly each month, regardless of whether the underlying homeowners make their payments. They are guaranteed to receive the full return of face-value principal even if the underlying borrowers default on their loans. Mortgage securities issued by the VA carry the same full faith and credit U.S. government guarantees.

Fannie Mae guarantees timely payment of both principal and interest on its mortgage securities whether or not the payments have been collected from the borrowers. Freddie Mac also guarantees timely payment of both principal and interest on its Gold PCs and CMOs. Some older series of Freddie Mac PCs guarantee timely payment of interest, but only the eventual payment of principal. Although neither Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac securities carry the additional full faith and credit U.S. government guarantee, the credit markets consider the credit on these securities to be equivalent to that of securities rated triple-A or better. Some private institutions, such as subsidiaries of investment bank, financial institutions and home-builders, also issue mortgage securities. When issuing CMOs, they often use agency mortgage pass-through securities as collateral; however, their collateral may include different or specialized types of mortgage loans and/or pools, letters of credit and other types of credit enhancements. These private-labeled CMOs are the sole obligation of their issuer. To the extent that private-label CMOs use agency mortgage pass-through securities as collateral, their agency collateral carries the respective agency’s guarantees. Private-label CMOs are assigned credit ratings by independent credit agencies based on their structure, issuer, collateral and any guarantees or outside factors. Many carry the highest AAA credit rating.

As an additional investor protection, the CMO issuer typically segregates the CMO collateral or deposits it in the care of the trustee, who holds it for the exclusive benefit of the CMO bondholders.

For the above reasons described, CMOs are considered by a select few platforms to be an asset that is easy to validate and prove ownership. In addition, the trading platform is able to be added as the CMOs Beneficiary allowing for the appropriate financing lines to be obtained. The result is a CMO asset that can be purchased for pennies on the dollar with nominal returns and subsequently placed and traded successfully in a Private Trading Program with yields the owner once only dreamed of.

Marcel Ford
http://www.articlesbase.com/finance-articles/why-cmos-may-be-considered-for-private-trading-programs-738561.html

Mandatory Minimum Sentences

Rising public concern about drug use in the late 1980′s was called a drug “panic” or “scare”. This phenomenon has not been born over night but rather has been building up throughout the 1980s, and finally exploded in the late 1985 and early in 1986. The special public concern was targeted on cocaine, more specifically, crack, a cocaine derivative. Drug use in general became a crucial social problem of the decade. For a number of reasons which will be discussed later drug use, abuse, and exploitation became as apparent as never before. In this very decade the drug issue has occupied million’s of minds and emerged as a huge social problem. During those times the concept “tougher on crimes” became widely used in society for the reasons of drug frenzy in the country, the government intentions were to establish such harsh laws which would scare criminals and make them think twice before committing a crime, of using or selling drugs.

The reasons behind the craze over drug use were numerous and at times unobvious. Something began happening in first year of the decade of the 1980s, public tolerance of the use of illegal drug use declined, the belief that the use of drugs is harmful increased, convictions that possessing or selling illegal drugs should be decriminalized or legalized declined, even the use of the drugs declined. In 1980s America experienced enormous increase in public concern about drug use and abuse. In the middle of this decade crack or potent crystalline form of cocaine, was practically an unknown drug in the United States and by late 1985, it was broadly used in urban areas. The appearing suddenness of crack’s widespread use and the degree to which it has been used in some neighborhoods made the crack story popular among news reporters and gave the public the notion that a huge drug crisis has exploded overnight. In reality drugs mainly were used in certain neighborhoods in big cities such as NY, Los Angeles and Chicago. Thus, it was not simply the greater threat than new patterns of crack use posed but the unknown drug and the thorough news coverage which gave up rise to this problem and made a major social concern out of it.

Another episode that caused tougher sentencing predominantly associated with drug use was caused by the death of famous athletes. In June 1986, hardly a week apart, two popular young athletes died of a cocaine overdose. On June 19, University of Maryland basketball forward Len Bias, and on June 27, Cleveland Browns’ defensive back Don Rogers. One of the major reasons why Bias’ death was so much talked about is the proximity of Maryland to the Capitol where decisions on crime policies are taken. Country such as the United States, that praises sports figures would be treating the death of their athletes not only as a tragedy, but also will consider this death as a basic and common for the society as a whole. In the case of mid 80s that was a certain thing, which was generously discussed in all media channels creating more noise around it than it fairly should.

It is obvious that all spheres of social life are greatly affected by the politicians and often by their personal interests. The elections of 1986 probably should be regarded as a source of rising concern about the drug issue. Although we cannot claim that there is a straight relationship between public concern and attention by politicians to a given issue, it is clear that when politicians sense that public concern about and interest in a certain topic (drugs in our case) growing, they will most certainly exploit this issue in their interest. With the media talking about the issue and famous dying athletes, Congress once it started talking about it, realized that all the same things were heard from everywhere and the problem existed or at least was apparent to all. So, clearly when the government became involved in the issue and Nancy Regan began making speeches stressing the anti-drug theme with “Just say no” slogan society was even more stimulated and awaited some concrete moves from the senators.

The entire drug matter and other social problems such as firearms offences required some strict decisions being made on the subject of criminal responsibility for those crimes. The minimum mandatory sentences were to solve the problem of drug abuse and impose tougher punishment. Initially the federal government had forced mandatory minimum sentences with the Narcotic Control Act of 1956 but had turned away from such laws by 1970, when it found that the increased sentences had not resulted in the expected overall reduction in drug law violations. States on the other hand began implementing mandatory minimums on their own; such New York began the trend in 1973 when it passed the Rockefeller Drug Laws requiring 15-year prison sentences for possession or sales of small amounts of narcotics. Michigan followed in 1978 with the enactment of the “650 lifer law,” requiring life imprisonment for possession, sale or conspiracy to sell or possess 650 grams (about 1.25 pounds) of cocaine or heroin. By year 1983, 49 of the 50 states had passed some mandatory minimum provisions, usually adding them little by little, instead of major changes. The federal government started reforming its sentencing stipulations in the 1980s in the light pf problems described above, primarily by setting up a system of sentencing guidelines trying to create more uniformity in the sentences given out by judges. Afterwards it intended to impose mandatory minimums, mostly for drug-related offenses.

The United States Sentencing Commission, established by the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, created a system of guidelines designed to limit judges’ discretion in sentencing and to create more uniformity and proportionality in the sentences. Another Drug Abuse Act was passed by the Congress in 1986 in response to criticism of indeterminate, or undefined, sentencing and also about concerns on the perceived link between moderate penalties for drug offenders and increases in violent crime and drug abuse. Under the law, drug linchpins received sentences of at least ten years for a first offense and twenty years for a second. Mid-level dealers and managers face five and ten years for first and second offenses, respectively. In 1988 Congress extended mandatory minimums to reach conspirators in the drug deals as well as principals, thus ensuring that minimum penalties would apply with equal force to secondary players found guilty of conspiracy.

Obviously those drug related acts passed by the government were the answer to the ever rising concerns of the society in the decade of 1980’s. Although drugs were always a big problem, the situation began to look out of control because of various factors and to calm down the hysterical mood, those strict and as seemed at that time “just” laws were ratified. The history showed however that there was almost no effect brought by the mandatory minimums and adopted sentences, except of confusing laws which are judging everybody under same conditions.

Jeff Stats
http://www.articlesbase.com/college-and-university-articles/mandatory-minimum-sentences-115294.html

An Investor’s Eye View of the Corporate Income Tax

The Investor’s Eye view of politics is a simplistic, practical, “dot-connecting” approach to sorting things out so that positive (win/win) change can be considered. Real World politics is not concerned with such things, and that is one of the most serious problems facing investors today. As outlined in “Investment Politics 2008″, there are at least ten issues that require government action if we are to maintain our competitive position in the World Economy. Most of these are interrelated and need to be acted upon simultaneously… thus causing a major political dilemma. Politicians are much more interested in talking about change than they are in actually legislating it; they prefer to champion just one specific issue at a time so as not to appear too independent; and they can’t keep themselves from back sliding into the now archaic distinction between investors and poor people. Rich or poor, most Americans have investments. For the small investor to become wealthier, his or her efforts must be encouraged by the tax code… the wealthy will become wealthier in spite of the tax code! And, believe it or don’t, the vast majority of the wealthy (even corporate executives) are good, productive, caring-about-the-environment, people.

At the root of the problem is the tremendous investment the major parties have in nurturing divisiveness, jealousy, and misunderstanding in the electorate. The Republicans or Democrats in power are (always) ruining the country and, of course, the guys who are seeking power, will undoubtedly do the same. Perhaps the most obvious example of misguided political handiwork is the negative attitude of most individuals toward corporations, big business, and international economic collaboration. As non-voting but taxable entities, corporations are easy to blame for all that is wrong in society, easy to sue frivolously with no remorse or control, and popular to tax… by both parties! The sad thing is that most people don’t take the time to appreciate just how important business success and profitability are to their own financial interests, short and long term. Mutual Funds, for example, perform better when businesses, large and small, prosper. Profitable businesses produce more jobs, provide higher salaries, and (once all the extra fees, mandates, taxes, and handouts are eliminated) lower prices.

Politicians have neither been shy about dictating “proper” behavior to individuals nor hesitant in shamelessly picking the pockets of businesses to fund their projects. Self-employed business owners, for example, pay a minimum 35% Federal Income Tax, State and Local taxes of various kinds, and the usual Workers Compensation, Medicare, and double Social Security Taxes. It adds up to better than 50% quickly, and, at every level, all taxes, fees, subsidies, assessments, withholdings, compliance costs, etc. are: 1) added to the price of goods and services, 2) considered in hiring decisions at all levels in all business entities, and 3) factored into decisions regarding new plant locations and service function outsourcing. Businesses will only produce jobs in an environment that recognizes the importance of the contributions they make. Meaningful Tax Reform needs to begin where the jobs begin. Reforms to the Individual Tax Code and the Social Security/Retirement System can then be integrated into the business framework…

Just as Congress picks corporate pockets, Corporations pick those of their shareholders. The compensation of corporate officers is a clear example of how this has gone totally out of control, even if it is understandable under existing tax codes… both corporate and individual. Million Dollar salaries, bonuses, deferred compensation and option packages are all designed to avoid and/or to defer taxes while, at the same time, they are deductible on a dollar for dollar basis from business taxes. Changes on the personal side could clean this up quickly but, for now, politicians need to focus more on protecting shareholders from these creative, and excessive, compensation schemes. Eliminating the Corporate Income Tax, and all tax deferral/option/bonus mechanisms that are not available to all employees at all levels, would be an excellent start. Then cap total compensation packages at a specific number… any excess being paid only in the form of dividends to all shareholders.

The Corporate Income Tax is a non-productive weight on business decision makers, causing expenditures that would not be considered were they not tax deductible. Ironically, salaries are not increased to reduce the tax bite because every dollar of salary brings with it an additional 40% or so in overhead! All the actual costs of doing business (and all the perceived risks associated with doing business) wind up in the price of goods and services. The fact that governments can raise corporate costs so much more easily than they can raise individual’s taxes is perhaps the biggest shell game threatening our economic well being today. If instead, Congress would cultivate the profitability of corporations, while focusing regulatory efforts on the economic abuses of shareholders, employees, and consumers, a whole new era of economic expansion and productivity growth would ensue… and we’re just getting started.

Investors need to impress upon candidates that they expect meaningful change throughout the tax code, and that a second term just won’t happen without it. After the Corporate Tax environment changes, politicians will be able to devote their energies to defining “proper corporate and non-corporate business behavior”, and monitoring compliance with a whole new set of rules and regulations. Converting the United States into a Free Trade Zone, by eliminating all nuisance assessments from all levels of government, would: increase employment, reduce prices, and multiply distributable dividends. Making it happen should not be that difficult, particularly with the growing outrage concerning the obscene compensation of high level corporate executives, and considering how successful the FTZs have been on the local level. Managers will make these changes work because the incentives are where they belong… on the bottom line instead of the tax return. Small businesses would benefit from the reduction in taxation, and fees, and would be less constrained in their efforts to grow. If they don’t do the right thing, they will become less competitive in the marketplace, and that is the way capitalism is supposed to work. But, don’t be naive. Publicly held companies will need direction, guidance, and policing… an excellent new career for displaced accountants and lobbyists!

Steve Selengut
http://www.articlesbase.com/taxes-articles/an-investors-eye-view-of-the-corporate-income-tax-140141.html

Lawyers and Pirates

I have been surprised since writing my novel, “SILVER — My Own Tale As Told By Me With A Goodly Amount Of Murder”, by a particular question that readers have asked and the frequency with which it has been asked.  The question assumes different forms, but it is chronic: “What is the difference between pirates and lawyers?”
 
The question is always asked with a smile and the audience consistently responds with a laugh.  I don’t resent the question or the person asking it.  I do resent the popular (perhaps even pop) notion that lawyers are little more than pen-wielding cutthroats sailing on sheaves of legal-sized paper.
 
Lawyers are the opposite of pirates.  We uphold the law and are required to abide by strict ethical standards.  Our duty to our client is high.  Yet, we have become a punch line — an easy laugh.  Why?  When did the opinion about lawyers change from respect to disdain? (Dickens took a shot at lawyers; however, he apparently distrusted anyone that hadn’t spent time in a workhouse or a debtor’s prison.  Shakespeare, famously, had one of his comic characters tell another comic character to kill all the lawyers, but the bard was distinguishing between lawyers, the law and justice.)
 
I suppose that a person might respond to the question by pointing out the vigor with which lawyers pursue their clients’ interests.  Pirates, on the other hand, tend to use their cutlasses to pursue their own interests: robbing, ransoming and murdering.
 
We are a litigious society, and many who have been on the losing end of a battle, or have been grilled during testimony, leave the courtroom, boardroom or conference room angry at their treatment.  I recently spoke with a doctor that had suffered the indignation of an investigation into his treatment of a patient, and complained about the ruthlessness of the legal team questioning him.  He emphasized that he, who had only seen the patient once, was under attack, and added that the patient — which died — had a low life expectancy anyway.  Lawyers must discern the facts in order to distinguish truth from trickery.  I told this to the doctor and he, without a touch of irony, replied that when the case concluded and he “won”, he intended to bring an action against the plaintiff.  I asked him if he was going to hire an attorney.  “Hire an attorney?  Of course,” he replied.
 
Pirates are not known for seeking out truth and justice.  They traditionally shy away from courtrooms because of their aversion to hanging.
 
Greed.  My experience is that greed, like gluttony, crosses all socioeconomic barriers on land and sea.  Lawyers expect to be paid for their services.  The market determines how much a lawyer can charge.  If a client believes that a lawyer’s hourly rate is too high, the client is free to hire a different lawyer that charges less.  There are lots of lawyers and lots of rates.  Not all lawyers are created equal, and the client knows this, and so rarely picks a lawyer based solely on rate.
 
Pirates do not take what the market will bear.  They just take.
 
Some lawyers make a good living and other lawyers barely make ends meet.  Lawyers, just like non-lawyers, are often out of work because of cutbacks and economic forces beyond their control.  The practice of law may be a calling, but it is also a job.  Lawyers hope that if they work hard they will make a lot of money.  (It’s called capitalism and it seems to work.)
 
Pirates are not to my knowledge subject to market forces.  They plunder at every opportunity, during both good and bad times.  I’m not sure that piracy is as much a calling as it is a form of sociopathological behavior.
 
Here’s a fact that may help dismiss the correlation between lawyers and pirates: lawyers work for free.  That’s right.  Lawyers do pro bono work, assisting individuals and organizations that cannot afford to pay for legal services.  Law firms encourage pro bono work.  Lawyers and law firms donate to charities that help members of society.
 
Pirates prey on rich and poor alike.  They murder those that cannot pay for their “services”.
 
I have to write about tort reform, as lawyers’ unwillingness to support this populist notion makes them mercenaries in some people’s minds.
 
Richard Nixon, not the poster boy for . . . well pretty much anything in America, let alone economic acumen, imposed wage and price controls in the Seventies and was properly vilified for it.  Wages and prices skyrocketed once the government thumb was removed from the free market.  (I wonder if government mandated Medicare caps are a source of the inflation of medical costs.)  Amazingly, politically conservative politicians want tort reform.  Conservatives should be marching against tort reform as a form of government mandated wage controls, not to mention a hallmark of Socialism.
 
Liberal politicians like tort reform too.  I expect that it makes them feel good: nobody should make too much money, unless it can be taxed and redistributed.  I believe that is in the liberal politician handbook.
 
Conservatives and liberals both want tort reform, so why don’t we have it?  Simple.  Lawyers are civic-minded and won’t contribute to any campaign that would curtail their livelihood.  Is this wrong?  Not really.  I have no doubt that bakers would raise their rolling pins in anger and contempt if politicians tried to tamp down the price of baguettes.  Just ask Marie Antoinette.
 
Pirates adore wage and price controls, as it gives them a free hand to set up black markets.  They might even encourage people to sign petitions for wage and price controls, which would be a step toward bringing pirates into the political system.  Pirates might, in time, even vote — for corruption of course.
 
Attorneys can be — and this is true — full of bluster.  Sort of like pirates . . . There is a key difference though: lawyers rant and rage to put matters right rather than to make matters wrong.  This difference, no doubt, is a small one to those that prefer their falsehoods unleavened by accuracy.
 
There are those that say that lawyers are arrogant.  Certainly some lawyers may seem and actually be arrogant.  A waiter once hunched over me and demanded that I try the prawns that he set on the table.  I explained to him that I did not eat prawns.  He refused to move from my side and I refused to eat his prawns.  I found him arrogant, especially when he charged my host for the prawns that I did not eat.
 
Pirates, like some lawyers, some waiters and a good number of other people, are arrogant.  Nobody has cornered the market on arrogance yet, although late night talk show hosts that perpetuate punch lines about lawyers while railing against the employers that pay them a pretty good buck, seem to have a strong head start on the rest of us.
 
So, are lawyers like pirates?  Hardly.
 
The pen is not only mightier than the sword, but it usually forms the letters that spell justice.

©2008 Edward Chupack

Edward Chupack
http://www.articlesbase.com/satire-articles/lawyers-and-pirates-491779.html

Banks, are They Really Your Friend?

Banks, T.A.R.P. — the ‘Troubled Asset Relief Program’, and home foreclosures, have been in the news numerous times since 2008 and will continue to be a hot topic for many years to come. Why? Because, as they say; “It is not over until it is over.” Believe me when I tell you, it is not going to be over for a long time.

Sure, the media would have you believe that things are getting better, but you must keep in mind who most likely owns the controlling shares in the media and who certainly pays for the advertising that keep the media solvent. In short, the media are bought and paid for, so when their puppet masters pull the strings that are attached to their purses, they dance when told to dance.

Are the banks really your friend? Well, let us look at their behavior, and the favor they have with the politicians you elect, and how they are treating those less fortunate and weaker than themselves.

A number of financial giants have received federal bailout monies in the past year. This is in effect your money in the form of current and future taxes. The government immediately printed more and gave it to them and others, which is another story about inflation, and one which we will all pay for in the long run. The government didn’t ask your permission, they just did it. This makes any thinking person ask; whose side is the government really on, yours, or the banks? Those who can bend the politicians’ ears with expensive lobbyist, and provide them with the most benefits of course!

This bailout money has kept the banks solvent and rescued them from a disaster of their own making — one whose root sprang from a seed of greed. They sold the unwitting population dodgy mortgages, tempting them with expensive advertising and highly paid and persuasive salespeople, and the promises of a never-ending prosperity, and when the faux financial ‘chickens came home to roost’ and laid lots of ‘bad eggs’ the banks didn’t want to wear it, so they made the taxpayer pay for their error by lobbying the government to bail them out, ensuring that the very people they sold the dodgy deals to in the first place would carry the burden of their blunder. Perhaps they designed it this way. Are they not supposed to be the experts? Surely, they knew that it would all come down to this.

Let’s not forget that everyone in the chain of events, including the hapless home-buyer, profited from the ‘prosperity dream scheme’. But that is as far as it goes. The prosperity of the homeowner is well and truly over. That which once seemed like the American Dream is now a nightmare for the homeowner. The financial institutions profited the greatest, from those who designed the dodgy loans to those who sold them. Like bedfellows they moved as one. When one turned over, so did the other.

Now here is the insult, in fact one of several. According to Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the Trouble Asset Relief Program, “The total potential federal government support could reach up to $23.7 trillion” One ranking member, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said, “If you spent a million dollars a day going back to the birth of Christ, that wouldn’t even come close to just $1 trillion — $23.7 trillion is a staggering figure.”

Let’s see, by my calculation it would take 46,000 years — give or take a few centuries — just to pay back the principle, let alone the interest!

This staggering amount of money is created by the Federal Reserve in collusion with the government to beat back the bank collapses, bail out the auto makers, boost lending and stave off further housing foreclosures. Keep in mind, those that own the Federal Reserve are — you guessed it — the banks! Also keep in mind the people who are ultimately going to pay for all of this ‘created from thin air’ money – are the taxpayers, and they will pay back to the banks — at interest — forever! Well, perhaps I exaggerated just a tad. For at least 46,000 years.

Now here’s another insult to us. The bailout monies are being used to provide exorbitant bonuses to the very people who caused this disaster in the first place. According to the New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, a great many of the bonuses exceeded the amount of profit generated by the banks! They are fiddling the books like crooks while Rome is burning.

Here is the final insult — well, for now anyway. Banks in states like Arizona are using their lobbying powers, greased with the bonus monies that saved their skins, to have laws changed to their advantage at the expense of the very people to whom they originally sold the dodgy loans, when times appeared to be booming — according to the media that is.

What a shock! Politicians being bribed by those with the big money grip. I thought prostitution was illegal?

The homeowners, who bought into the dream of a second home as an investment, and one that is now in foreclosure, are at this time threatened with garnishment of their wages! It doesn’t take a genius to see that if their wages are garnished that they cannot pay the mortgage on their first home either, and will soon be – well, let’s be perfectly candid — homeless!

If they can do it in one state, don’t you think they will push to do it in the other states as well? After all, they have bonuses to pay themselves and share holders to please.

Talk about mean spirited! Now I ask you once again.  Are the banks really your friend?

Please do two things immediately for your own sake, and do them quickly. Form an L.L.C. or Limited Liability Company to protect your assets, and then invest in Tax Defaulted lands for a fraction of their real worth through tax deed sales, to increase your assets at very little cost – usually for mere pennies on the dollar of their real value. At least then you will own some land, and can build again.

Then do a third and fourth thing if it is possible, don’t believe the media when they tell you the banks are your friends, and don’t trust the banks and their ‘double speak’, and if at all possible, never borrow from them again – they are not your friends. Their actions prove it, and actions always speak louder than words.

Plain speaking in a world of ‘double speak’ is not always easy to hear. Most people want to have everything P.C. — ‘politically correct’, and offend no one. Well, we all should be offended by this outrage. So what can you do? Dig a deeper foxhole and keep your head down, because they are loading their guns — and you are the target.

Find a way to get out from under their ‘big money grip’. Your very existence, and that of your children and grand children, and even their great grand children, may depend on it.

Harry Connor Jr
http://www.articlesbase.com/ethics-articles/banks-are-they-really-your-friend-1145807.html