22 May 2013

Money & Finance

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debt consolidatiton Debt consolidation loans: your opportunity to be debt free

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Debt manage What steps you should take to manage your debts

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Debt Relief How you can find free debt relief

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banking A useful possibilities of online banking

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Two weeks ago, we launched a Kickstarter campaign to make a t-shirt and tell the story of how it was made. As we wrote on our Kickstarter page:

We’ll meet the people who grow the cotton, spin the yarn, and cut and sew the fabric. We’ll ride on the cargo ships that bring our t-shirt from factories in Bangladesh and Colombia to ports in the US. And we’ll examine the crazy tangle of international regulations which govern the t-shirt trade the whole way.

We used Kickstarter because it helped us answer a very important question: How many t-shirts should we make? And, for that matter, were there even enough people who wanted a Planet Money t-shirt to make the project viable? If we were going to make the shirts, we needed at least 2,000 backers at $25 a piece, for a total of $50,000.

When the Kickstarter project went live two weeks ago, we took an internal poll of the Planet Money team to see how everybody thought we’d do.

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The modern mobile phone is a vipers nest of trouble.

If greedy networks aren’t forcing you to take out loss/theft cover when you upgrade, shark-ish insurers are writing sneaky clauses into the policy to stop you claiming.

And even if you you do get a replacement for a stolen phone, networks are making it hell getting the charges written off.

Every week I seem to hear more and more of these niggling – but potentially costly – problems. Here’s the latest…

A friend had her Nokia mobile stolen a few months back and reported it in all the right ways – tell network provider to block phone, notify insurer, get to police station – all within the allotted 24 hours (watch out for these time limits).

The criminal had racked up a £300 bill calling the Middle East. Her netw

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The Co-operative Bank rushed to reassure customers today after warnings that it may need a taxpayer bail-out.

The lender issued a statement insisting: “We haven’t sought nor do we need government support.”

But it came as the bank’s boss dramatically quit, just hours after a top ratings agency downgraded its debt status to “junk”.

Moody’s warned the bank needed to strengthen its capital cushion – its ‘rainy day fund’ – to sustain potential losses.

Of particular concern are the commercial loans it inherited when it took over the Britannia Building Society in 2009.

Moody’s said it may need “external” support and said there was “moderate potential for systemic support likely to be forthcoming from the UK authorities”.

Experts believe the bank needs to raise at least £500million to make-up the shortfall.

The Co-op Bank, which has 342 branches and 6.5million customers, has sold itself as an ethical alternative to the big banks.

Many charities and some of the country’s biggest union hold accounts with it as a result.

It is part of a wider group that takes in everything from supermarkets and pharmacists to the largest chain of funeral directors.

But an audacious attempt to more than double in size, through buying 631 branches from Lloyds, recently collapsed.

Group chief executive Peter Marks blamed the state of the economy for squeezing potential profits.

But the failure raised questions about the bank’s finances.

 

Moody’s announcement to downgrade the bank’s debt to “not prime” came late last night.

Early today, the Co-operative confirmed the bank’s chief executive, Barry Tootell, had resigned.

He has been replaced on an interim basis by Rod Bulmer, who joined the Co-op six years ago from Santander.

The Co-op said it was disappointed by the downgrade, but stressed it had a “clean plan” to bolster its financial strength.

It said: “We have a strong funding profile and high levels of liquidity, which are significantly above the regulatory requirements.

“We do acknowledge, like the rest of our banking sector peers, the need to strengthen our capital position in light of the broader economic downturn and the pending introduction of enhanced regulatory requirements, and we have a clear plan to drive this forward throughout the coming months.”

The Treasury and Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) – the UK banking regulator – said they declined to comment on individual banks.

But the PRA is expected this month to tell a number of banks to raise new capital.

It has been in discussions with lenders after the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee discovered a combined £25billion shortfall in bank capital reserves.

Regulators are ordering banks to increase their capital cushions to avoid a repeat of the financial crisis, but there are fears these new rules are also impacting on the sector’s ability to lend.

The Co-op, which holds its annual general meeting in Manchester on May 18, recently disclosed that its banking division racked up annual losses of £662million in 2012.

It blamed the big banking loss on loan impairments on non-core operations mainly relating to its 2009 acquisition of Britannia and a further provision of £150 million to cover payment protection mis-selling.

However, its core banking business still saw profits fall to £120million, from £173million a year ago.

 

Long-standing head Mr Marks, who led the Britannia deal, retires at next week’s AGM.

Asked whether the Government would be prepared to step in to help the Co-op Bank if required, Prime Minister David Cameron’s official spokesman told a regular Westminster media briefing: “I’m not going to speculate on something that hasn’t happened yet.

“I would simply say that we are committed to having a strong and stable financial sector, and when we say ‘strong and stable’ we also mean well-regulated.”

Asked if the Government would inject capital into the Co-op, Chancellor George Osborne said: “The Co-op have put out a statement about how they are going to strengthen their capital position.

“Those plans, like the plans of any bank, will be supervised by our new independent PRA, the prudential regulatory authority, and in Britain we now have a very strong independent regulatory system that looks at all of our banks including the Co-op and indeed here at the G7 we are going to be talking about what we can do to strengthen international co-ordination and regulation of our financial system.”

WASHINGTON – The Senate voted overwhelmingly on Monday to give states the power to enforce their sales tax laws on online purchases, but the legislation faces a tougher fight in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

The Democratic-controlled Senate voted 69 to 27 to back the measure, which pits brick-and-mortar stores like Wal-Mart Stores Inc and cash-hungry state governments against such Web retailers as eBay Inc and Republicans wary of new tax measures.

“Call me a conservative, but I believe the right approach to tax fairness is to reduce rates — not force higher rates onto others,” said Tom Graves, a House Republican from Georgia.

House Speaker John Boehner plans to send the bill to the House Judiciary Committee, a senior Republican aide said. That will mean hearings ahead. T

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Tags: Sales Tax, Tax

 

In many ways, living in a walkable part of town was incredibly convenient. These areas aren’t just for college students though. Walkable neighborhoods have tons of benefits for home buyers.

What Is Walkability?

Walkability is a score that takes your city or address and evaluates its proximity to restaurants, parks, libraries, shopping centers, grocery stores, schools, public transit and a host of other amenities. The closer you are to them the higher the score.

Scores are broken down into five separate categories:

  • 0–24 means you must own a car to run errands.
  • 25­–49 means there are a handful of places near you, but you still require a car.
  • 50­–69 means your area is fairly walkable, but you still need a car.
  • 70­–89 means you can walk to most a majority of places.
  • 90–100 means you do not need a car at all.

You can find out the walkability of your future or current home at Walk Score. They also offer

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Today we are bringing you another post from our Investor’s Watchdog University video series, brought to you by Page Perry, LLC.

http://www.pageperry.com/the-test-drive-video/

Another common fraud tactic used by scam artists is known as “The Test Drive.”  The Test Drive is a way to trick you into giving money to an investment fraud, even though you may be reluctant to do so.  An investor is told that a new opportunity is open, and they should get in on it right away.  The investor is not sure about putting their money into it, so the advisor convinces them to try it out with a small amount of money and see what happens.  As Pat Huddleston tells us in this video:

“Give me $5,000.00, $10,000.00 and we’ll see if it works. You can test it out and see for yourself. Take it for a

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