Subprime Mortgage Crisis
August 21, 2007
The worldwide flight of investors from U.S. non-traditional mortgage loans still has financial markets in turmoil. Investors are battling each other and brokers who compare mortgages to sort out who will end up taking the losses from mortgage defaults and, more importantly, the losses from marking down the asset value of loans now judged more risky than when they were made.
The outlook is that the turmoil in trading rooms especially on fixed rate mortgages will continue for a few more days, perhaps a few more weeks. However, as with the S&L collapse a generation ago, the aftermath will be long and ugly and act as a depressant on investing in mortgages for many years and for other buy to let mortgages
The risks to construction from the subprime mortgage market collapse are growing, but still appear to be containable. However, it is not yet certain that it will be contained with minimal damage to contractors and their suppliers.
If you liked this article, click here to buy me a beer!Dear visitor, Happy New Year to you and thanks for dropping by. If you enjoyed reading this post, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Prepaid Credit Card for Teenagers
June 11, 2007
Making teenagers understand the concept of financial responsibility was always a challenge for parents. The concept that there are only limited resources but unlimited opportunities to spend needs to be drilled into teenagers when they are young. Enter PAYjr, a free online money management system for teenagers which is offering a prepaid credit card issued by MetaBank as a companion to their online services which help teens better manage their allowance and develop better spending habits.
The PAYjr Teen Card is a MasterCard which lets teens shop at stores and online using their own credit card. While there are similar services PAYjr distinguishes itself by blocking purchases such as alcohol, firearms, online gambling and pornography. Parents can track their children’s online spending and deposit money into the account as needed.
Parents can also manage their children’s allowances online where they can set up a list of household chores and assign a dollar amount to each task. When their child completes their chore, the parent can deposit money into their account. Children can sign up to receive text messages or an email when money gets added to their account.
Parents pay a one time enrollment fee of $4.95, a monthly fee of $2.95 and 50c everytime to add money into their child’s account. When signing up, teens can upload their custom photos which appear on their PAYjr Credit Card. The card can look something like below
There is also no contract signed by you and you or your teen can opt out anytime without incurring any penalty. Your teens employer can also pay them through this prepaid card if they have a part-time job.
If you are a teenager or a student, you can get your parents to sign you up for this card and be on your way to realizing the financial reward of work and money management, values which will last you a life time.
If you liked this article, click here to buy me a beer!Credit Card Advice for College Students
June 7, 2007
Those credit card reps offering up T-shirts and water bottles all over campus are catching the attention of university administrations across the country.
“Want a free T-shirt?” “Sign-up here and get a free ten-minute calling card.” “Take a minute to fill out this survey, and we’ll put your name in a drawing for a new yacht.”
Heard these pledges lately? They spill out of the mouths of approximately 1200 credit-card vendors who promote their products on college campuses across America every single day selling credit cards.
“You’ve got to keep your head down and eyes to the floor when you walk by them,” said Ithaca College junior Jon Byman, “Otherwise they’ll maul you.”
“I would never have considered applying for one if the credit card companies were not camped out in the student building offering their free gifts,cash back promotions and balance transfers, complains Amanda Woolsen, a student at the University of Alabama. I feel like [credit card companies] take advantage of the naive and financial crunch college students encounter … they should be banned from campuses.”
According to MasterCard, for every form a student fills out, the sponsoring organization receives anywhere from a quarter to two dollars depending on the institution. For the most part these sponsors are student activity organizations. Many student clubs rely heavily, (and sometimes entirely) on fund-raising for their operational budgets. And credit card vendors make up a hefty piece of that pie.
According to a poll taken on Vendor-Net, a student affairs list-serv of more than eighty-five higher-education personnel, around 60 percent of those vendors get complaints from student affairs personnel for selling too aggressively. Twenty percent of them have been kicked off campus or threatened with expulsion for similar reasons, and just under 5 percent have actually had charges of harassment brought against them.
Some jump around their little tables and block your path, others call across the union to get your attention. Most discomfiting is the vendor who subjects you to the guilt trip because it “only takes a second,” and he’s “just trying to make a living…”
But inconvenience and annoyance aren’t the only things credit card vendors bring to college communities. According to a 1997 poll by Claritas Inc., a market research firm in central New York, 70 percent of all college students had credit cards, up nearly 25 percent from 1990’s figures. The problem: these numbers are causing horrendous debt. The average balance of debt on those student credit cards was $2,100.
“We are concerned about the proliferation of credit card companies having freebie giveaways to get students to sign up for credit cards,” said John Francis, legal counsel for the California Association of College Stores. “We’re particularly concerned with their renting space in our student union to get them to do it.”
Other institutions have similar concerns, but banning card-vendors altogether is easier said than done. “We allow credit card vendors to come but would like it to stop,” said Bill Harcleroad, coordinator of campus programming for Alfred State College. “The concern is whether or not we can just not allow the credit card vendors while not allowing others.”
According to Francis, unless a college or university is private, they can not regulate who solicits on their campus. And even private schools have difficulty keeping these vendors away because of the vendors’ fund-raising potential for student groups.
At Ithaca College, around 20 percent of the 150-plus student organizations solicit the aid of credit card vendors to bolster their treasuries. And with some of those revenues adding up to as much as an additional 50 percent to their allocated budgets, it’s difficult to slap down any policy, especially when many club leaders support them.
“It’s kind of stressful,” said Byman. “I mean here’s your good friend sitting next to a salesman … It’s almost rude not to stop.”
So a number of colleges and universities allow card vendors to set up shop in their highest traffic areas, work their obnoxious bargaining magic and create crippling long-term debt for the student body. As if tuition deficits weren’t high enough!
School administrations, student affairs professionals, and student governments are reacting to these alarming problems, though. And they are finding some solutions. For example, Indiana University has recently added a credit card debt seminar to their orientation program. Education seems to be the most plausible correction effort. And according to various card representatives, the companies are willing to help with those, too.
Other campuses find that regulation is a better approach. “We limit credit card vendors to the first three weeks of each quarter,” said Mark K. Day, associate director for the California State University Student Union. “I’m not sure how this policy was developed, but it’s a compromise that works for us.”
Virginia Commonwealth University’s policy is to only permit card vendors if a recognized student club or organization sponsors them. Ithaca College’s Campus Solicitation Committee has discussed everything from limiting where these vendors can sit in the union, to banning them altogether. By limiting the time of day sales reps can sit on campus, colleges can alleviate a great deal of intimidation and prospective credit trouble.
Images courtesy, Mesa Legend
If you liked this article, click here to buy me a beer!Generate more leads for your Business using AIMpromote
June 4, 2007
AIMpromote is a leading international provider of crm software and provides you with the tools that lets an upcoming company focus more on making sales and less on learning software. They help generate and track leads through your website, telephone or direct mail.
Some of their features include
- Sales Management: Lets you do scheduling, follow-ups and fulfillment with an integrated calender
- Sales Force Automation: You can automate as much of your sales process as you can by letting you generate triggers on potential leads. This lets your salespeople to work on leads instead of wasting time on small tasks
- Campaign tracking: You can track advertising and conversion rates of your online campaign
- Visitor tracking: You can generate reports that tells you what browser, screen resolution and media players your visitors are using. Using this information, you can further tailor your website and make it an enjoyable experience for your visitors.
Aimpromote.com has a 14 day free trial. The cost for one license is $33.00 with a minimum of 3 users. Setup is free. Using this combination of visitor tracking, CRM, sales force automation and other tools gives you a competitive edge for your website.
If you liked this article, click here to buy me a beer!Credit Card Fraud Victim tells her Story
May 2, 2007
Almost everyone has a credit card these days. Infact almost everyone has multiple credit cards these days especially students. We blogged earlier showing you guys the best credit cards for students. But for many college students credit cards may be in too many places, and the future can include high debt that cripples credit ratings and erases eligibility for loans.
Credit card company data shows more students possess credit cards than at any other time in history, and students are using their credit cards with increasing frequency. These are the days of 0% credit cards offering 0% balance transfers. That’s good for everyone: students gain convenience, the credit card companies build future customer bases and merchants sell more goods and services. But both sides also have a lot to lose if the students who spend, spend, spend today are unable to pay, pay, pay tomorrow.
But we are going to talk about another serious issue today. Credit card fraud. We see headlines such as “13 People Indicted in New York City in $3 Million ID Theft Ring” , “Corporate Owner of T.J. Maxx, Marshall’s Says Information for 45.7 Million Cardholders Stolen” , “New Yorkers, Californians at Highest Risk for Identity Theft, Hundreds of Missing Passport Applications Found at Los Angeles Airport” , “Boeing Corporate Laptop Stolen; 382,000 Identities at Risk” and more everyday.
In this post we want to share with you a story of a fellow student, who tells us not about her problem with too many credit cards but another serious issue, credit card fraud … in her own words.
[Read more]
Best Resources to Buy and Sell used College Textbooks for students
March 31, 2007
Book Ends : Returning your texts to the bookstore is the least creative way to end a semester.
Exams are finally over and it’s time to unload your used books. If you’re like most students, you’re probably dreading the moment of truth.
You: Hello, good-looking bookstore associate! How are you today? Here are my used books and the receipts.
Clerk: I’ll give you $20 for all of them, except those really heavy ones you lugged over here.
You: But I paid $400 for them four months ago, and I never even opened them up!
Clerk: Next in line, please.
We all know how bad it feels to end up with $20 in your pocket and a pile of heavy books at your feet. What now?
That depends on whether you want to make sure your books don’t go to waste, or whether you’re just concerned about getting your cash back.
Waste Not, Want Not
If you want to make sure your books are put to good use, you have lots of options. Plenty of students would be happy to use your books, no matter what condition they’re in. Professors often assign the same titles year after year and will be happy to pass your tomes on to students who later take the same class. The administrative assistant in your major department can also help you donate books to younger students in your field.
Textbook Tech
Having trouble selling your textbooks? Let the Internet sell them for you.
Some School-operated Sites
Some schools have Web-based book-selling programs which allow students to buy and sell books. Your school may have one you can use. If not, one listed below might come in handy. Check the system before you try another school’s electronic book-selling system, though; some sell only by course. Also remember the rate of mailing the book over long distances may not make a long-distance purchase worth your effort, even if you mail it by book rate.
Texas Tech University
University of Texas
Boston University
Best Credit Cards for Students, choose them wisely
December 7, 2006
Students are deluged with credit card offers, some worthwhile and some not. Here’s what we discovered about the world of credit.
House of Cards Visa is “everywhere you want to be” and Mastercard is “the future of money,” according to their ads. But for many college students credit cards may be in too many places, and the future can include high debt that cripples credit ratings and erases eligibility for loans.
Credit card company data shows more students possess credit cards than at any other time in history, and students are using their cards with increasing frequency. That’s good for everyone: students gain convenience, the credit card companies build future customer bases and merchants sell more goods and services. But both sides also have a lot to lose if the students who spend, spend, spend today are unable to pay, pay, pay tomorrow.
With credit card companies aggressively targeting the college market, the convenience and buying power of credit cards are readily accessible to most students. However, not all students who receive credit cards realize the responsibilities that go with them.
For Ron Nixon, a student at John Jay College in New York, having credit available all the time proved disastrous. After ringing up $10,000 in debt, Nixon was forced to leave school to pay off his balance.
“The first credit card I had was the beginning of the end. That one led to another card, and then another and another. Eventually I had 19 credit cards,” Nixon said.
What Nixon didn’t realize is that a credit card is essentially a pre-approved, rolling loan that you can use to purchase any number of items. The credit card company lets you charge up to your loan limit, and then you have to pay it back. If you can’t, you’ll pay a very high rate of interest — often 18 to 22 percent a year for students.
If you liked this article, click here to buy me a beer!
Recent Comments