Keith Olbermann's Special Comment: The Debt Deal

Daily Show: Debt Ceiling Alternate Realities

Hilarious.

The Daily Show - Broke Bank Mounting - America's Dystopian Future
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House Republicans Vote Against Raising Debt Limit

Aren't these guys inspiring? Cantor, Boner Boehner and Yertle McConnell.
Image from source, Huffington Post

Yeah, I know this was a "test vote" all for shits and giggles and political posturing. But is this really something we should be playing chicken with? Do all parties involved realize that people can see what they're doing? I'm just wondering, because tampering with world markets just to score points seems to be an incredibly foolhardy game.

[Excerpt]

House Debt Limit Vote: Republicans Vote Against Raising Debt Ceiling

House Republicans dealt defeat to their own proposal for a $2.4 trillion increase in the nation's debt limit Tuesday, a political gambit designed to reinforce a demand for spending cuts to accompany any increase in government borrowing. . .

Read more at: Huffington Post

Consumer Financial Protection Spokesperson: Heidi Montag?

You've got to hand it to Funny or Die. They've been masterful at using the frivolous and fluffy for important messages. . .

Heidi Montag Says No to Plastic from Heidi Montag

79.9% Interest Credit Card? Sign Me Up!

Image from source, National Ledger

Holy crap. 79.9% interest? Are you frackin' kidding me? I remember not so long ago when Democrats in Congress were trying to pass a 30% interest cap on credit cards, and Republicans--as they are wont to do--voted, "no!" But could even the "f**k the poor" GOP have forseen 79.9% interest? I guess my 12.9% Discover card isn't so bad after all.

[Excerpt]

Credit card's newest trick: 79.9 percent interest

It's no mistake. This credit card's interest rate is 79.9 percent.

The bloated APR is how First Premier Bank, a subprime credit card issuer, is skirting new regulations intended to curb abusive practices in the industry. It's a strategy other subprime card issuers could start adopting to get around the new rules. . .

Read more at: National Ledger

Rant: Predatory Lending, Tricks and Traps

Several years ago, when I was still in debt, I got a check for $3,000 in the mail from Beneficial. At that point, I wasn't aware of just what sort of company Beneficial was (they are now apparently out of business). I was just vaguely aware of people I've known in the past who used their services. Anyway, when I got this check, using it seemed very tempting, because I was deeply in debt. But using it would have made the problem worse, because the interest (which was in the very fine print) was about 33%.

The Other Half found the phone number in the other small print, called them up and asked the lady on the other end, "how can you sleep at night?" Of course, the lady wasn't responsible, but she was working for a predatory lender. And upon reflection, the people I'd known in the past that had used their services were also people who "rented-to-own," who were chronically late in paying their bills, and who were hiding their cars from the repo-men.

Of course, I tore up the check, just like I have with the hundreds of credit card offers over the years. But there is a new influx of junk mail, a new "tempting" offer that is probably fooling people into signing up for all kinds of stuff.

I bought a "PediPaws" pet nail care device through the internets for my brother, who is one cat away from being a crazy cat lady. Well, he's short a couple of ovaries too, but you get the drift. This item cost $19.99! But wait! There's more! For just $9.99, I could buy him a whole set of pumice stones for the thing. And by the time I clicked the purchase button, I found out that shipping was more than $20, making the total investment over $50. Just great.

You would think that PediPaws would be happy with suckering me out of $50 for something that will probably show up at Big Lots or the dollar store, but no. I've now gotten my second "check" from them, this time for $8.25. It looks very much like a rebate check, or some sort of cash-back reward. It would be very easy to disregard the very boring looking supplemental material, and simply detach the check and deposit it.

That is what they are counting on. Because if you cash this check--apparently because you gave PediPaws (or whomever the company in question is) your credit/debit card information--you now belong to "CompleteHome," a "money saving" service. Oh, and they will immediately charge you $129.99 for these amazing "$1,500 in savings" you'll get in the form of coupons. What a deal, right? They're hoping you don't read that part. They just want you to cash the piddly little check.

This reminds me of the old "Columbia House Records" scam, that gives you 12 LPs for a penny, on the hopes that you'll get lazy or forget to live up to your "obligations" so that the real money can be made off of you. Any business that relies on its customer base to be lazy and/or stupid just can't be a good company, in my opinion.

So just watch out. This trend toward signing people up for things that they are unaware of seems to be widespread. It's not just PediPaws. It can be from anything you order online. I've even heard of people who've signed up for "free" services online, only to find out that they have "service charges" now attached to their phone bills. For services they don't remember signing up for, and usually don't even know how to use. They're counting on that too.

And don't even get me started on the "expired vehicle warranty" scam phone calls. . .

Credit Cards and the Fine Print

Before this hugely horrible financial crisis (do we have a name for it yet?), The Other Half and I used to average five or six "pre-approved" credit card applications in the mail per week. It was an obscene amount of paper and postage, and makes you wonder how it could possibly have been cost effective.

Lately, the flood of these mailers has slowed to a trickle, but we still get a couple a week. Usually, we do what we always do, tear them into bits, and throw them away (or run them through the shredder). But I decided to read some of the materials in one of them, from First Premier Bank.

The offer was for a MasterCard, with a 9.9% APR ("one of the lowest rates available"). They don't promise a credit limit any higher than $250, which doesn't exactly wow me. And some of the fees are quite confusing, or at least sound unreasonable. For instance, if your credit limit is raised, they charge you $25. Paying through the Internet costs $7 per transaction. $11 if you pay through an autodraft service they provide. And a "monthly servicing fee" of $84 billed at $7 per month. What?

To make matters worse, unless I'm reading this thing wrong (see the graphic for confirmation), if you sign up for this whopping $250 card, you will instantly owe $179, and have a credit limit of $71! Again, I could be wrong, but this doesn't sound like a compelling offer to me. Into the shredder with you!

UPDATE: In a stunning coincidence, I just received an email from--you guessed it--First Premiere Bank, offerening me a MasterCard! Sorry, but even if I didn't think there was something fishy about all these fees, I'd never sign up for a credit card from an unsolicited email. Begone with you!

UPDATE THE SECOND: I've never really paid attention before to the innumerable solicitations I get in my email box, or who they're from. But since I wrote this post (not more than 45 minutes ago), I have gotten--counting the one in the first update--nine credit card solicitations, including two more from First Premiere! I guess I see why they're not sending so many by snail mail anymore.

Carlyle Group's Assets Seized

The economy is apparently getting so bad that the super-rich, ultra-powerful are even feeling the pinch. The Carlyle Group (yes, that Carlyle Group) has a financing division that is billions in debt. Ooops.

[Excerpt]

Carlyle Fund's Assets Seized

A publicly traded affiliate of the Carlyle Group said yesterday that lenders were seizing its assets, sending the fund, Carlyle Capital, into insolvency.

The collapse of Carlyle Capital is the first time a Carlyle Group fund has failed and is a stinging embarrassment for the District private-equity powerhouse, which has built an international reputation with a client list that reaches around the world. . .

Read more at: Washington Post

Credit Card Crisis the Next "Housing Bubble?"

I had nearly $30,000 in credit card debt at one time (see here). Part of that debt came as a result of being so strapped that I paid my rent two or three times with those handy-dandy "courtesy checks" the credit card companies send you. Who knows how much of that $30K was a result of those (comparatively) little payments? You get in over your head so quickly, and getting out takes a very long time. It took me over 9 years.

I really feel for these people. They are in for an incredible amount of stress and anxiety, and years and years of indebtedness.

How Much Does the War in Iraq Cost?

We all know the Iraq War (or occupation, if you wish) is very expensive. But there are so many zeros involved, the numbers usually seem rather abstract. It's like when you're deeply in debt; does it really matter if you're $29,000 or $31,500 in debt? What's another $1,500 now, right? It can be very easy to stick your head in the sand.

If you're lucky enough to claw your way out of debt, you start to realize that it did matter. The head-in-the-sand attitude can lead you from manageable debt, to big debt, to huge debt, to smothering debt. You can see that when you start to whittle your debt from five figures to four, to three and then to zero. You see that it did matter. That extra $1,500 may have helped your debt balloon by thousands more by the time it's paid off.

But if you've never been through that process, or if you're on the deep end of debt, such a thing might be hard to see. This video crystalizes just what those dollars spent in Iraq mean. It shows where that money could have gone. For all the "entitlement programs" that conservatives rail against, all of the "government handouts" they warn us that Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama will "burden" us with--virtually all of those things could have been bought and paid for by now with the money we've spent in Iraq.



Hat tip to The Other Half's brother, Phil, for the link.

I'm Skinny Underneath All This Fat!

Whether we carry around a few extra pounds, or over-fill our chairs-and-a-half, lots of us have had that sentiment at one time or another. Motivation can be lacking, especially with the extreme heat we're feeling where I live. It's very hard to even get started.

I liken it to the effort to get out of debt. When my consumer debt was at its highest, I had a very "head in the sand" attitude about it. It was too huge, impossible to wrap my brain around. Just easier to ignore and put off for later. But, in the debt scenario, that just makes the problem worse. It's probably much the same with weight. Unfortunately, for many of us, the payoff can be elusive, and short lived.

When I paid off my debt, it felt strangely anti-climactic. Where was my parade? Similarly, when we reach a goal weight, we've been at the process so long, we might not even realize we've gotten there. I remember one summer, after getting downright skinny, taking my shirt off to sew on a button. The Other Half looked over at me and said, "hey, you're skinny!" "Yeah, I guess I am," I replied. That big moment was apparently not enough motivation to keep me skinny. The last time I got in skinny-range was for my 40th birthday. I was down to 145 pounds, which at 5' 8" is about right. Sadly, it did not eliminate my genetic double-chin and round pumpkin head. So, I'm now 41, and tipping the scales at about 170. >sigh<

Anyway, what started this lament was a genuinely creative advertisement for a Brazilian Gym. Here's one of them:

See more of the ad campaign at: BrandonBlog

Sphere: Related Content

Behind the Blogger, Part Five: The Debt Thing

WARNING: Long-winded personal revelations ahead. Catharsis time.

I am quickly approaching the one-year anniversary of the day I paid off my credit card debt. It was an anti-climactic day of sorts, surprisingly enough. I'd been in debt for nearly 10 years by that time, and you'd think (to quote Mama Cass) "It would come with rockets, bells and poetry!" But alas, no.

If you've ever been $30,000 in debt, you know what a crushing weight it can be. There were three simultaneous crushing feelings going on for me: 1) "How did I get here?" 2) "What can I possibly do about it?" and 3) "I'm just not going to think about it today." It is quite shocking how quickly a short-term financial crisis can spiral into a life-crushing massive debt.

I was always a good little consumer, never carrying more than a couple of hundred dollars on credit. Then one day, I decided to move 2,000 miles away from home. I got a great job, making more money than I'd ever made before. While setting up my new life, I did use the credit cards. The banks out here didn't have debit cards at the time, I never carried a checkbook, and I thought, "What the hell, I make enough money, it's no big deal." I now routinely carried about $3,000 in credit card debt, but I had good rates, and was not particularly panicked about it.

I should also point out that 2,000 miles away put me in Las Vegas! Since I'd moved out with a group of friends, we really only had each other for entertainment in the early days. And can you think of what the primary source of entertainment is in Las Vegas? I knew that you could. Anyway, I wouldn't say I had a gambling problem, but the entertainment of choice did put constraints on actually saving very much money. I was still heady with the rush of having a well-paying job, and there didn't seem to be anything to worry about, and besides, I had a few thousand dollars in the bank. . .

An unfortunate one-two blow of a bad (read: money-grubbing) romantic entanglement, coupled with the unexpected loss of a job (after working five weeks without getting paid) left me with my already accumulated debt, no savings, and no income. Add to that an additional six weeks of job hunting (with no sustenance outside of Unemployment Insurance; which is nearly nothing, and a small loan from my parents), and you have the makings of a debt-hole that is far larger than it looks at the start.

What many people don't realize when the debt-hole is freshly dug, is how much deeper the hole will get before you get the chance to start filling it in. The new job I got paid 60% of what my previous job paid. The desperation of paying bills with little income of course leads to paying one card with another, and balance transfers. Then I took in a sibling down on his luck, and he had little income to add, but required food and stuff (the bastard!). So, even the rent was paid once or twice with those convenient little (evil) checks the credit card companies give you.

Once the spiral takes you to $10,000 or more, and something comes up (new transmission, brakes, it always seemed car related for me), you really get a laissez-faire attitude about it: "what difference does it make now?" Only an ultimatum from the (good) romantic entanglement (hi, honey!) got me off my butt, my head out of the sand, and to a light at the end of the tunnel. I found a debt consolidation program, set up a painful monthly debit from my account, and started paying things off. This also required cancelling all of my credit cards, and living within my means, even if that meant stretching a dollar to the breaking point.

I went six years without ever using a credit card. I went six years paying a huge amount of money every month, sometimes paying large amounts extra. I figure I paid upwards of $50,000 on a $30,000 debt, just in those six years (discounting what I'd paid up til then). But pay it off I did. And then, nothing! No parade, no balloons and streamers. Sure, I have more disposable income now, so we can pay off the secured debt we have, but I expected elation! I think what happens is, as you approach that last payment, the debt has shrunken so much, the crushing weight has already gone away. That said, I wouldn't trade places with my former self for anything.

Here are a couple of links related to debt, and how to avoid digging your own debt hole.

Credit-Card Tricks (Now What?: Personal Finance) SmartMoney.com

Top 5ive Fast Loans to Avoid -- Intro - AOL Money & Finance