Category Archives: Credit Score

Tommy Jordan Laptop Shooting a Stark Reminder that We Reap What We Sow

February 25, 2012   Lorena Jill   No comments

With more than 28,000,000 views on YouTube, the video of Tommy Jordan plugging his daughter’s laptop with 9 rounds of hollow-point bullets may very well be the seminal event that shakes parents out of their stupor, and saves future generations from a life of delusional entitlement. To be sure, parents are divided over the appropriateness of a father taking his daughter to task by publicly humiliating her and shooting up a $600 laptop.

Judging by the national reaction, most parents are on board with Tommy Jordan and he is being lionized by the most frustrated among them. An

Tags: Laptop, Tommy Jordan
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Are you a foreclosure waiting to happen?

February 17, 2012   Lorena Jill   No comments

According to a survey, 68 percent of homeowners surveyed saying they would not be able to pay their mortgages if unemployed for more than nine months. That’s a lot of potential foreclosures in today’s economic climate.

Nationally, the average duration of joblessness in America is roughly 40 weeks, which is a record high since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking the data in 1948. Worse, more than two million Americans have been out of work for 99 weeks or longer.

Could you weather extended unemployment?

A quick and dirty way to calculate your gap is to look at which changes to your monthly income and expenses would occur if you lost your job.

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The Newest Bureaucracy: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

February 07, 2012   Lorena Jill   No comments

As if the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, spawned from the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, wasn’t controversial enough, it is now under fire as a result of President Obama’s “recess” appointment of its new director, Richard Cordray. The quotation marks are there because the appointment is certain to come under legal challenges by Republican leaders who insist that they were not in recess.

We’ll let the courts sort that one out. The larger controversy lies in its ultimate impact on the public, as consumers and as citizens. While con

Tags: Bureau, Financial Protection, Financial Protection Bureau, Protection Bureau
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Can you get a mortgage if you’re in credit counseling?

January 20, 2012   Lorena Jill   No comments

If you are managing your debt with credit counseling or a debt management plan, will that count against you in the mortgage qualifying process?

Credit counseling vs. debt management programs

Credit counseling alone — that is, getting advice on budgeting and creating a plan for debt repayment — can only have a good effect on your credit. The fact that you are being advised doesn’t show up on your credit history, and reducing your credit card balances and paying on time improves your score.

However, some debt help firms put their clients in debt management plans (DMPs). DMPs work like this: You send the company a check each month, and they distribute the payment to all of your credit card companies.

Tags: Counseling, Credit Counseling
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CIT Group Inc. to No Longer Provide Loans to Sears and Kmart

January 15, 2012   Lorena Jill   No comments

- Sears Holdings Corp. was dealt another blow Thursday when word spread that CIT Group Inc., a key lender in the retail industry, would no longer provide loans to suppliers shipping goods to Sears and Kmart. The news sent Sears shares tumbling as much as 6 percent Thursday before the stock recovered to close up 3.3 percent, at $34. Sears stock had been as high as $80 in October at the start of the critical holiday shopping season, when the company traditionally generates 30 percent of its annual revenue.

The volatile swing in Sears stock price Thursday signals how uneasy investors are about whether the retailer will survive its latest financial trouble.

Tags: Longer Provide, Longer Provide Loans, Provide Loans, Sears
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What is a Living Will and How Important Are They?

January 05, 2012   Lorena Jill   No comments

What is a Living Will and should I have one? Few of us will ever forget the emotionally charged battle over the life of Terry Schiavo as she lay comatose and withering away, while family members, the medical community, politicians, and the media made their case for her fate. It divided a family and a nation. While that particular case drew worldwide attention, thousands of similar cases play out in hospitals and hospices each year, and the emotional toll is no less devastating for the families who must make the most difficult decision of their lives.

Who would ever want to put their family through that?

Tags: Living, Living Important
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JPMorgan! Ramp up HAMP: Feds

December 09, 2011   Lorena Jill   No comments

JPMorgan Chase boss Jamie Dimon needs some serious home improvement.

Dimons bank, one of the nations biggest mortgage lenders, is also the worst at helping homeowners through a government program aimed at preventing foreclosures, according to a report released yesterday by the Treasury Department.

JPMorgan was the only bank singled out as needing substantial improvement for its poor performance under the Home Affordable Modification Program.

We are disappointed with our rating, and will continue to work hard to improve our processes and controls, JPMorgan said.

Treasurys poor review came as the outspoken bank boss continued to rail against Wall Street regulation and the vilification of the rich, highlighted by the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Acting like everyone whos been successful is bad and that everyone who is rich is bad I just dont get it, he said in a speech at a Goldman Sachs conference.

Originally published by MARK DeCAMBRE.

2011 The New York Post.

Tags: Jpmorgan, Jpmorgan Ramp
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The Skinny on Obama’s New Student Loan Laws

December 03, 2011   Lorena Jill   No comments

Student loan debt has skyrocketed in the last decade growing at a rate of nearly 50% per year. Many graduates find themselves crushed under the weight of their college loans before they have had a chance to go out and earn the income needed to repay it. While future college students need to seriously consider the pros and cons of going into debt in order to obtain a degree, those who have graduated over the last ten years with loans ,may have been given a few more options under President Obama’s recent executive order to restructure the student loan repayment process. H

Tags: Loan, Student Loan
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