Who Is Filing Bankruptcy?

A statistical chart of who is filing bankruptcy can be found here:
http://www.fancystats.com/who-is-filing-bankruptcy/

Un-Banked in America

The recently released 'FDIC National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households' stated that "Nearly 20 percent of lower-income U.S. households -- the almost 7 million households earning below $30,000 per year -- do not have a bank account."

For other stats from this survey, see the Executive Summary here: http://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/executive_summary.pdf

Financial Literacy & The Typical American

Good article on financial literacy in America today, although no surprise:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/bw/20091109/bs_bw/jul2009pi20090722420432;_ylt=AgjkT1Z1_YbtLQml0L3Epius0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNtM2xnczl2BGFzc2V0A2J3LzIwMDkxMTA5L2p1bDIwMDlwaTIwMDkwNzIyNDIwNDMyBGNjb2RlA3JhbmRvbQRjcG9zAzcEcG9zAzQEcHQDaG9tZV9jb2tlBHNlYwN5bl9oZWFkbGluZV9saXN0BHNsawNhbmFseXNpc2FyZXA-

The Mortgage Electronic Registration System

A method to speed along mortgages during the peaks of recent years may now be back-firing on lenders now. More here in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/business/27gret.html?nl=your-money&emc=your-moneyema4

Alanar Scandal: Receivership Link

As regular readers know, charges were recently filed against the Reeves family for this church bond scam in nearby Sullivan County. More info from the other day can be found here: http://magiccoalcity.blogspot.com/2009/07/alanar-saga-continues-with-charges.html

When a huge scam unravels in your own backyard, the story is all the more riveting. Here’s a link to the law firm that has been handling the Alanar receivership: http://www.silegal.com/cases/alanar/

It contains lots of good background information, and it's been a website I've been following for quite some time, so I thought I'd share the link.

Alanar Saga Continues with Charges Filed

The saga of the Sullivan, Indiana-based Alanar, Inc. continues with charges filed against the family involved with the massive church bond fraud yesterday, June 30th, in Sullivan County. Here’s the Sullivan County press release: http://www.sullivancountyprosecutor.com/alanar/press_release.pdf

Here are the links to the probable cause affidavits for the Reeves family members:
http://www.sullivancountyprosecutor.com/alanar/Vaughn_Sr_Affidavit.pdf
http://www.sullivancountyprosecutor.com/alanar/Chip_Affidavit.pdf
http://www.sullivancountyprosecutor.com/alanar/Chris_Affidavit.pdf
http://www.sullivancountyprosecutor.com/alanar/Josh_Affidavit.pdf

Here are the links to the felony charges filed against each of the Reeves family members:
http://www.sullivancountyprosecutor.com/alanar/Vaughn_Sr_Counts.pdf
http://www.sullivancountyprosecutor.com/alanar/Chip_Counts.pdf
http://www.sullivancountyprosecutor.com/alanar/Chris_Counts.pdf
http://www.sullivancountyprosecutor.com/alanar/Chris_Counts.pdf

I knew of some elderly ladies duped in this massive fraud, and it’s just really disgusting.

Attention Chase Card Customers

Those of you with Chase credit cards should be sure to open any and all mail received from the company and read it carefully – don’t dismiss it because it has fine print, looks like junk mail, or whatever the case may be.

Changes in terms are now being mailed to Chase customers, which may have a dramatic effect in how much per month will be required. Borrowers are being told that their minimum monthly payments are going from 2% of the total balance to 5% as of their August 2009 billing cycle. Some, who have had a balance for two years or more on a Chase card, reportedly are going to be assessed a new $10 per month servicing fee too.

No doubt, this will cause considerable cash flow problems for many Americans, who have Chase cards in their wallet. It could be that other large card issuers will follow suit with similar minimum requirements, too, so be sure to open & read mail from all card issuers that you may be doing business with.

No More 'Gotcha' Tactics Soon?

An AP story out today says new legislation will soon make credit card companies’ surprise fees and other ‘gotcha' tactics unlawful: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Senate-votes-to-limit-credit-apf-15292841.html?sec=topStories&pos=1&asset=&ccode

Lions & Tigers & Storms, Oh My!

The thunderstorms the other night made me think about computer files & paper records, for some reason. Perhaps, it’s because I work in risk management.

Natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina, could teach us all something though. And I wonder if we really all got the message sometimes. Although we may never have a hurricane in southwestern Indiana, there are plenty of other perils that could have similar results.

So, here’s a thought for the weekend:

Do you have a routine in place at home & business that all of the computer info is backed up at certain intervals? How about records and documents on paper and not in ‘electron form’?

If so, are these back-ups kept off-premises? Disasters like tornados and fires may not be too kind even if you do have back-ups, but they’re on premises.

Good News & Bad News (Perhaps)

The ‘good news’ first: your take-home pay probably increased recently. This is due to less withholding tax being taken out, as part of the federal stimulus.

The ‘bad news’ now: withholding tax is like small installments toward your end-of-the-year tax liability. So, if your tax rate doesn’t change, but your withholdings throughout the year go down, then you’ll either owe more at the end of the year (or get less of a refund back) all other things being equal. So, while this is ‘no free lunch’ as they say, if you’re getting a refund in 2008, you may consider just going along with this and not upping your withholdings back to the original amount, as some people are urging. After all, refunds are essentially 0% interest loans to Uncle Sam, so this withholdings change may actually be ‘good news’ for you if you receive big refunds.

See a post from September 2007 on ‘0% loans to Uncle Sam’ here: http://magiccoalcity.blogspot.com/2007/09/are-you-making-0-interest-loans-to.html

One Dollar is Enough

She’s not the first to try something like this recently, but it’s a very interesting project nonetheless: http://lessisenough.wordpress.com/

If a person did this longer than 30 days, they’d probably come up with some pretty good recipes.

My $1,000 Challenge

I was thinking lately:

If a person read a book a week for the next year, it would be a total investment of roughly $1,000 -- say, $20 (or less) per book x’s 50 weeks (even taking a two week vacation during the year). And if that same person could derive one – only one -- good idea from each book, how could this NOT be the single-biggest return on a $1,000 investment? One idea alone could be life-changing, let alone 50!

Now, let’s make it even better, shall we? To add networking opportunities to the otherwise introverted activity of reading, why not pass on the best-of-the-best books that you find to other people, who you think could most benefit from reading them?

(Too aggressive? OK, one book a month, $240 investment, 12 great ideas!)

It’s something to consider. I can’t see how you could not have a phenomenal return on this…

THE ONLY Long-Term Solution

Mandatory financial education in the schools is the ONLY way out of this credit meltdown long-term. Sure, stimulus this and stimulus that may get us out of the doldrums for a while, but until people know what they’re doing, financially-speaking, we as Americans will be set on yet another collision course – perhaps even worse next time!

After all, Lord helps us all if we actually teach something so practical in school! With all due respect to those other courses, what is more practical than personal finance for a student? Writing checks, using a credit card, and taking out a home or car loan will probably be in 100% of all of the students' lives at some point in their life.

One teacher is teaching a course in personal finance and the article can be found here:
http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20090214/NEWS02/902140456/

I was glad to see this article. And yes, it’ll be a slow process, but financial education is the only long-term solution. So, we better get started now!

$400 Million Burning Hole in Citi's Pocket

OK, I've been on a little bit of a Citi kick lately ( http://magiccoalcity.blogspot.com/2009/01/citi-responds-to-my-disgust.html ), but with good reason... They canceled the $50 million corporate playtime jet, now this...

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Let’s see here, our stock has tumbled to about 10% of what it was just a year ago, and now we have all of this government money given to us… let’s go put our name on the new Met’s stadium.

Great idea! *heavy sarcasm*

Stupendous idea! *heavier sarcasm*

Here’s a reply from Citi concerning their $400 million expenditure to slap their name on the new Met’s stadium in Queens (they're beginning to hate me):

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Thanks for your email regarding Citi’s advertising and marketing. We appreciate hearing from you again.

Citi's business partnership with the Mets was forged well before the current global financial crisis. We remain committed to this legally binding agreement that is an important marketing priority for the company.

As we work to continue to strengthen our business, Citi Field provides a positive way for Citi to support our community and to connect with present and future customers. Our partnership with the New York Mets establishes a powerful platform to promote our brand, enhance our relationship with current clients, and attract new customers. The partnership expands our considerable community, educational and civic efforts in the region, which is one of the largest business and sports markets in the world.

The partnership has accelerated Citi's significant commitment to the community and education with new resources to develop and launch outreach platforms and programs in and beyond New York City , including extensive support of educational programs such as the Jackie Robinson Foundation and Jackie Robinson Museum .

The scope of the sponsorship will also provide extensive brand visibility throughout a new state-of-the-art ballpark, as well as integration into television-, print-, radio- and on-line media advertising.

No TARP capital will be used for Citi Field or for marketing purposes. For a complete report of Citi’s deployment of TARP funds, please visit http://www.citigroup.com/citi/press/2009/090203a.htm.

We appreciate your feedback and thank you for your continued support.

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If they wanted to support baseball (or softball), receive great marketing, and become ‘good corporate citizens’ again, why didn’t they make available up to, say, 40 grants of $10,000 per youth baseball / softball league in each of the 50 states throughout the United States for the next 20 years in lieu of this deal? Citi could have made a great contest out of it, such as having the teams submit photos with the Citi logo somewhere in it. The press would have been all over that.

That, my friends, would have done a whole lot more good for Citi, small-town America, local merchants, & most importantly America’s youth…

An Early Rebate, Not FREE Money

By now, perhaps some of you have figured it out. Yes, the tax rebate checks that you received – if you qualified – earlier in 2008 were not free money, as you may have falsely assumed.

They were just early tax refunds. These refunds were for as much as $600 for an individual or $1,200 for married couples filing jointly (plus $300 for each eligible child under age 17). But now your refund is less this rebated amount, or perhaps you even owe now because you received these early monies.

Others may be reading this and asking, “What rebate check?” Well, many didn’t qualify and didn’t receive them. If you did not pay in any taxes, you did not get one. Conversely, if your income in 2007 exceeded certain limits, you may have not gotten one – or a reduced amount from that stated above.

But for all those that did get one, it wasn’t free money after all. Surprise!

Global Financial Crisis Doesn’t Apply in Jasper

The question, ‘What global financial crisis?’ is what you’ll hear in the halls of one bank located in Jasper, Indiana.

The other day, German-American Bancorp (ticker: GABC) reported RECORD financial performance for 2008: http://biz.yahoo.com/pz/090127/158405.html

Maybe Citigroup can take some lessons…

Handy-Dandy Tax Guide

State Farm puts out these nifty little tax references each year. After the first of the year, I kept checking their website and 2009’s finally appeared. Here it is:

http://www.statefarm.com/_pdf/2009guide.pdf

Of course, you can find previous years simply by changing the year in the web address. Duplex print the reference, and you have a nice little one-pager, front-and-back reference.

Citi is Full of Crooks

Stories are flooding the news that Citi was actually going to buy a corporate jet, known as a Dassault Falcon 7X, for $50 million. Check out the plane here:

http://www.dassaultfalcon.com/aircraft/7x/

Is this simply amazing or not?

This extravagant purchase comes on the coattails of a $45 billion capital injection by you and me, the lowly taxpayers, via government bailout monies.

Are they just that crooked? Wow! What a slap in the face to the government, the taxpayers, and, yes, even its shareholders. Do its shareholders even ‘own’ the company anymore?!

This is yet another example of corporate executives stealing monies to pay for lavish lifestyles, while the people they just laid off due to their financial malice pick up the tab.

If you'd like to contact Citi's shareholder services, here's the address: shareholderrelations@citi.com

CEOs Gone Wild!

When you give bonuses of more than an annual salary for the average American, it’s probably too much. If you are making a couple thousand times the lowest-paid worker at your company, you’re probably making too much. In the midst of record losses for most companies, these corporate bonuses and salaries are even more outrageous, not only to the line workers, but also to the investors and stockholders in these very companies.

Want some eye-opening figures, along with sources cited as proof of what is being said? Take a look here: http://www.toomuchonline.org/index.html

The publication is a product of the Council on Public & International Affairs, billing itself as “Dedicated to the notion that our world would be considerably more caring, prosperous, and democratic if we narrowed the vast gap that divides our wealthy from everyone else.” It is released in weekly updates.

According to recent posts there, today’s corporate leaders are truly ‘CEOs Gone Wild!”

ID Theft: Mere Child's Play

Worried about identity theft?

It’s becoming more and more prevalent these days. To prove how easy it is to commit, a writer at Scientific American wrote this piece on a little experiment he conducted: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=anatomy-of-a-social-hack

Just don’t try this at home, kids!