U.S. Consumer Confidence Index hits 8-month high

The Associated Press reports the United States Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) rose in January to the greatest level experts have seen within the past eight months. A rise from 53.3 in Dec. to 60.6 in January was observed within the CCI by the Conference Board, a global non-profit that monitors economic performance. Lower joblessness and improving business climate are factors that are believed to have led to an uptick in consumer investing and saving habits. Individuals even appear to be more comfortable taking out payday loans when in need of them, because they’re more confident their job will nevertheless be around on their next payday. Article resource – Consumer Confidence Index at highest level in eight months by MoneyBlogNewz.

It might not be a healthy Consumer Confidence Index although it’s much better

While economists are encouraged by the CCI's rise to 60.6, that rate is still far below the 90 that indicates at least semi-healthy consumer confidence in investing and use of short-term credit like payday loans. The way people feel about the U.S. economy is measured by the Consumer Confidence Index. The blog, Banker Notes, explained that 5,000 households are surveyed for this figure. Since December 2007, the CCI has not been over 90.

The greatest mark in the CCI before the 60.6 in January was in May 2010 with a 62.7 mark. This was when everybody though the United States economy was about to go back to normal. Yet the summer was sluggish economically, and the CCI flagged. Unemployment surged to the greatest levels seen in the United States since the 1930s, and joblessness amounts still have not regained their footing since they hit bottom in June 2009.

Desire of additional work

There was a report from the National Association for Business Economics that showed companies at a 12 year high when it comes to plans to hire. This is what the AP reports. This coincides somewhat with the reaction customers gave to a Conference Board survey concerning the state of the career industry, as the percentage of respondents who feel work are too hard to come by is down to 43.4 percent. There has been a decrease shown from Dec.. The drop was about 3 percent. There was a rise from 14.2 percent to 16 percent from Dec. to Jan of the percentage of those who plan on seeing additional work accessible in the next six months in the Conference Board survey.

Unemployment falls while investing goes up for consumers

Consumer investing really did well after the 2010 holiday shopping season. There was a faster increase in sales than there had been in six years being seen with it. There is designed to be more spending with the new Social Security tax cuts also. With only 103,000 new jobs created within the U.S., the unemployment still went down from November to Dec. 0.4 percent.

Citations

MSNBC

msnbc.msn.com/id/41251437/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy/?ns=business-eye_on_the_economy&from=toolbar

Banker Notes

bankernotes.blogspot.com/2006/10/financial-term-glossary.html

Plunkett Research on U.S. retail

youtube.com/watch?v=FrgCCfVqPSs

Educate yourself on the right way to de-ice your vehicle

Cold winter temperatures mixed with precipitation are an icy recipe for your automobile. In the span of a few hrs, ice can cover the entire outside – and sometimes inside – of your car. Do not just hammer and scrape away. Learn the proper way to de-ice your car. Source of article – Learn the right way to de-ice your car by Car Deal Expert.

Get the snow brushed off your vehicle

Brushing the snow off is a simple way to stop your vehicle from getting ice on it. Both snow and ice are a solid form of water, and moisture from snow will freeze and create ice that can coat your windshields, door handles and locks. Make sure you regularly brush the snow off. It doesn't even matter if you plan on driving anywhere. A broom could be used if you don't have a snow brush. A snow brush works too though. It’s a really poor choice to make an effort to use a snow shovel to do it. It could chip the paint or windshield a bit. It is also a poor choice to use boiling water on frozen locks and handles. More than likely, something will break.

With regards to ice, your hand can be of use

If you’ve built up some callus studying karate – or even when you have pent-up aggression you need to take out on your car – give that ice a whack with the flat of your hand. You are able to probably break it and brush it off if the layer is thin enough. Do not use anything harder than your hand, however – particularly on window ice. A shattered window is expensive and horrid to deal with during winter months, and cold glass tends to be more brittle.

Warming up to Jack Frost

Start that car, turn on the headlights and run the heater as well as both front and rear defrosters to loosen things up for cleaning. Just make sure the exhaust pipe and radiator grill are clear before you do. Do not leave your engine after you start it. If it is really cold and the radiator's coolant/water mix is off, this could be very bad. It won't help to have things frozen. You are able to kill your engine if it overheats because of this.

When utilizing your windshield wipers blades, don't just use them whenever you want. Make sure they are thoroughly clean first. Sometimes the blades are stuck in the ice and need to get hot before working. This might cause the engine on the wiper blade system to break. Ice could be melted with some winter-grade wiper fluid also. help melt window ice, as well.

Citations

Popular Mechanics

popularmechanics.com/cars/how-to/repair/how-to-fix-and-ice-covered-cars

Or you could just cover your car

youtube.com/watch?v=vcx7t4qe0gs

Male passes away in a tortilla blending machine in Brooklyn

It was an incident that seems more like it belongs on "Bones." A tortilla blending machine trapped and killed a young male. The 2 a.m. call to emergency crews came too late — the man was pronounced dead on the scene. You can only imagine the personnel loan his family will now have to take out for his funeral.

Killing a male is a tortilla mixing device

There was a male who passed away in Brooklyn, N.Y. He was working at the Tortilleria Chinantla in Williamsburg when it happened. Police were called at 2:30 a.m. Juan Baten evidently dropped something to the blending machine. He bent over to retrieve the item out of the waist-high blending device. He was killed. This was because the device sucked him in. Police have said that they expect there was no criminal intent or activity. This particular factory has not had any history of industrial accidents or worker complaints within the past.

The rights workers have

The factory hadn't had any violations of safety in the past. This is the Tortilleria Chinantla. Juan’s co-workers apparently tried to pull him out of the machine, however were not able to. Employment activist groups have released several statements about this tortilla mixing device accident. In New York City, there’s a workers' rights campaign called Focus On The Food Chain which is about food processing and food distribution. They are investigating the tortilla blending device incident for any wrongdoing by the company.

The reason why 24-hour workdays are a problem

The industrial incident at the tortilla factory is just one more example of a trend in industrial accidents. Much like Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and even vehicle accident statistics, late night is a dangerous time to operate heavy equipment and machinery. The human brain is naturally sleepier at night, even with lots of sleep during the day. Lots of workers get put at risk for accidents at night because of the 24 hour nature of manufacturing processes.

Information from

New York Post

nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/man_dies_after_falling_into_tortilla_4kNCqfH3R3Toodk3aYZoYP

Gothamist

gothamist.com/2011/01/24/worker_dies_in_tortilla_mixer_at_br.php

Bank of America fears information Wikileaks retains

B of A wants no part of the trouble Julian Assange claims is stashed away in an encrypted digital file that might uncover potentially corrupt practices to the world. According to PRWatch, B of A is indeed in Wikileaks’ sights. Accounts indicate that Wikileaks is poised to reveal Bank of America’s corrupt practices in relation to; dangerous home loans, unlawful foreclosures and bailout money being used to fatten employee bonuses. If there is any truth to these rumors, it makes you wonder why Bank of America didn’t just take out a unsecured loan without using government money.

Possibility that B of A and toxic mortgages could be proven by Assange

B of A is being sued by numerous private investors and large scale lenders like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These businesses want billions of dollars in toxic mortgage-backed securities to be bought back by B of A. While B of A did stop issuing its own subprime mortgage loans in 2001, PRWatch indicates that the bank still underwrote $239 million in securities back by subprime loans as late as Sept. 2009.

It is suspected that within the encrypted insurance file, Julian Assange and thousands of other individuals who have a copy of the file (minus the decryption key) are holding copies of e-mails that prove Bank of America executives knew they were passing off toxic mortgages to investors. If this is true, B of A will likely need much more than the $4.4 billion presently set aside to deal with its slate of toxic mortgage lawsuits.

Bank of America's alleged illegal foreclosures and bonuses

Illegal foreclosures – particularly of the wrong homes – have been one more thorn in Bank of America's side lately, although the bank has attempted to shift blame to the contractors it uses to perform the home seizures. Bank of America could have broken the law if Assange can prove the bank signed thousands of foreclosure documents without viewing them first.

Add to this the list of claims Bank of America still faces after the Countrywide subprime debacle, and also the corporate bonuses taken from bailout money and Bank of America could be in severe trouble.

Articles cited

New Statesman

newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/01/china-wikileaks-assange

PR Watch

prwatch.org/node/9871

‘An ecosystem of corruption’

youtube.com/watch?v=Cd_eeXnHcQo

GOP orders reading of U.S. Constitution to please Tea Party

The U.S. Constitution text was read within the House of Representatives Thursday as Republicans kicked off the 112th Congress with obvious Tea Party pandering. The meaningless gesture gave the media a good amount of fodder to fill column inches and airtime. Republicans neglected passages of the original U.S. Constitution text and a birther disrupted the proceedings. Looks like somebody can be needing payday loan to buy their way out of trouble.

What the Tea Party does

In the House, the U.S. Constitution was read as a Republican gesture to Tea Party activists. This was after the election for 2010 was handed to republicans due to the Tea Party efforts. The reading lasted about an hour and a half. In order to emphasize the new Republican rule that states anything that becomes law must first clarify why it is allowed to become law in the U.S. Constitution. The preamble words were spoken by new Speaker of the House Re. John Boehner, R-Ohio:

“We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Not allowing Three Fifths Clause

Partisan bickering over the U.S. Constitution text began before it was read. Any parts of the Constitution that had an amendment changing it needed to be deleted, if you ask Republicans. There was one section in particular argued. That "Three-Fifths Clause" was the section. The Three-Fifths Clause states slaves are only to be considered “three fifths of all other persons.”. Rep. Jesse Jackson, D-Ill, said “Many of us don’t want that to be lost upon reading of our sacred document.” Many think that the Three-Fifths Clause should remind conservatives that the Constitution isn't set in stone as it can change with the nation when amendments are passed.

Woman yells ‘Help us Jesus!’

The final bipartisan gesture for the 112th Congress between Republicans and Democrats was likely the reading of the U.S. Constitution. Then, things went wrong while Frank Pallone, D-N.J., was reading. The part that requires a president to be a "natural born citizen" was read. In the audience, a woman yelled, “Except Obama, except Obama, help us Jesus!” They arrested the woman. She was escorted out.

Information from

ABC News

abcnews.go.com/Politics/house-representatives-read-constitution-floor/story?id=12555114&page=2

Washington Post

voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2011/01/huck_finning_the_constitution.html

NPR

npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2011/01/06/132708560/birther-disrupts-u-s-house-constitution-reading

Marshawn Lynch Seahawks jerseys are about to become bestsellers

On the list of highlights of the Seahawks vs. Saints game on Sat., Jan. 8, was an earth-shattering run by Marshawn Lynch. Lynch scored a touchdown after tearing through the defense, evading tacklers and offering a bone rattling stiff arm. Lynch jerseys should soon be worth their weight in gold. Some might go as far as applying for a pay day loan just to get their hands on one of these shirts.

Marshawn Lynch helps Seattle make relics of Saints

The Seattle Seahawks got Marshawn Lynch from the Buffalo Bills during the season. That meant two draft picks would be lost for Seattle. It appears to have paid off. Seattle booked a spot in the Wild Card round of the playoffs by beating St. Louis. One of the only teams with a losing record to beat the Saints was the Seahawks. This made the team much better known. All Seahawk fans were prepared to lose when the match against the New Orleans Saints was scheduled for the Seahawks. The Seahawks handed the Saints a 41 – 36 loss at Qwest Field. Any bonuses that get handed out will be earned.

The play called the Run

Lynch was expected to get just a few yards when "The Run" was played in the Saint territory on the 33 yard line. This is what the Seahawks blog states. Lynch ended up going through six or more defenders while they tried to take him down while he was in "Beast Mode" as he calls it. He also delivered a bone-rattling stiff arm to the Saints’ Tracy Porter, knocking him to the ground. Now, in the division round, the Seahawks will be going to Chicago and playing the Bears. Marshawn Lynch Seahawks jerseys should be selling like hotcakes at this point. According to the Seattle PI, the noise from the Twelfth Man, the crowd at Qwest, was so loud it registered as a small earthquake.

Other sporting news for the Northwest

There is some big college sporting news in the Northwest. The BCS Bowl Championship has been played between the Oregon Ducks and Auburn Tigers, while another smaller school can celebrate. The small-town, Division I Eastern Washington University Eagles did something big; they came from behind to defeat the Delaware Blue Hens in the FCS Championship game. Nobody though it would be possible for the Eagles to win this one. In the end, victory was shown while Vice President Joe Biden watched.

Watch Beast Mode

youtube.com/watch?v=xSZdntRnQVg

Citations

Seahawks

seahawks.com/news/articles/article-1/One-Beast-Mode-of-a-run/7a5337a1-8933-4544-87d4-65b647779789

Seattle PI

blog.seattlepi.com/theconstantvalentine/archives/235072.asp?from=blog_last3

Fifty-nine percent premium hike on table for Blue Shield of California

Health care insurance premiums have been completely out of control for years, but apparently somebody forgot to send Blue Shield of California the memo. As outlined by the Los Angeles Times, Blue Shield has shocked its policyholders with a massive increase proposal that will go into effect March 1, writes the Los Angeles Times. Tens of thousands of Blue Shield of California policyholders would be expected to pay more. This hike without any doubt will send many Blue Shield policyholders running for payday loans so that they can pay their premiums. Article source – Blue Shield of California wants 59 percent rate hike by MoneyBlogNewz.

Blue Cross ruling for Blue Shield of California

Blue Shield of California needs to learn from the past. Californians hope this happens. Less than a year ago, Anthem Blue Cross reportedly tried to make a 39 percent rate hike for 700,000 Californians stick, but the measure failed to pass. There will always be a concern for over-billing since the costs of health care just keep going up.

“We raise rates only when absolutely necessary to pay the accelerating cost of medical care for our members,” said a Blue Shield of California representative.

The normal hike for insurance rates will be between 30 and 35 percent usually

While a 59 percent insurance premium hike seems dramatic, the average increase for the approximately 193,000 Blue Shield of California customers would be somewhere between 30 and 35 percent. A 50 percent increase over the next five months is something one in four customers will be affected by.

Newly elected state Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones expects to be tested early, thanks to the proposed Blue Shield of California premium increases.

“Blue Shield’s increases poses the same problem posed by Anthem Blue Cross last year and other health insurers as well,” said Jones. “My hope would be that Blue Shield would reexamine these rate hikes, particularly in the face of the impact they are having on individual policyholders.”

Seeing the accounting

Success can't be immediate, even if the health insurance premium hikes start for Blue Shield of California. In 2011, Blue Shield spokesman Ton Epstein said that "tens of millions of dollars on individual business" will be lost by the company.

Information from

LA Times

latimes.com/health/healthcare/la-fi-insure-rates-20110106,0,6975599.story

Blue Shield needs more money to make commercials like this

youtube.com/watch?v=l5qZSsrJ4QA

Brett Favre penalized $50,000 for not cooperating

They say that everything happens in New York, although technically in the case of Brett Favre, the alleged penis pictures were sent to Jenn Sterger while Favre was playing football within the NJ Meadowlands stadium as a member of the NY Jets. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell could not prove sexual harassment, so Brett Favre was penalized $50,000 for a "failure to cooperate" in the Sterger investigation. There could be no suspension, reports the Associated Press, which has many people up in arms.

Cooperation from Favre not there

While Commissioner Goodell told the AP that he "could not conclude" that Brett Favre violated the league’s personal conduct policy based upon accessible evidence, seems like the commissioner felt some action was necessary. A $50,000 fee could simply a way of implying "You’re guilty, Mr. Favre" without officially making such a statement.

It is not okay to text the opposite sex with lewd photos ever. It’s sexual harassment at any work place around. Jenn Sterger, a New York Jets game-day hostess during Favre’s tenure with the team (2008), allegedly received various lewd texts, including some Brett Favre penis pictures. Some critics question why Sterger brought up the event 2 years after it allegedly occurred, but Brett Favre’s "failure to cooperate" suggests that he was far from innocent. Favre was unfaithful to his wife within the past which makes suspicions more realistic. He has also has had problems with alcohol and pain killers as substance abuse. According to Deadspin, Brett Favre also expressed interest in two female massage therapists who worked for the NY Jets at the time.

There was not any type of suspension

According to sources, Brett Favre confessed to having left various inappropriate voicemails for Jenn Sterger – one of which included an invitation to his hotel room – but he denies having sent any Favre penis pictures. The "somewhat innocent until proven guilty" stance the National Football League appears to be taking with Favre is inconsistent, to say the least. Commissioner Goodell had to do something to keep up appearances as NFL disciplinarian. The sexual harassment couldn't be connected to Favre by the league though which is odd.

Information from

Associated Press

hosted2.ap.org/APDefault/APSports/Article_2010-12-29-Favre%20Investigation/id-473a63e6ae0c4490a942554348d186a4

‘We’ve seen the last of Brett Favre – for now.’

youtube.com/watch?v=N8tA6Rbx2IA

Pay day lending facing new regulations in TX

In Texas, there are more payday lenders than you will find McDonald’s stores. The TX legislature is considering limiting this short-term credit business. 2 pieces of complimentary legislation have been introduced towards this end. The 2 pieces of legislation try to re-define “credit service organization”. Source for this article – Texas lawmakers propose SB 253 and HB 410 to limit payday loans by MoneyBlogNewz.

The exemption you get as a Credit Service Organization

Consumer credit and financial institutions are very limited in TX. ”Credit Service Organization” is what Payday loan stores are under right now. Those without a credit history or with a bad credit history the ones that short-term credit is offered to with payday loan stores. The exemption does not make note of any differences between check cashing services and payday advances. Check cashing is for those who do not have banks while payday loans are for any person who doesn’t have the right credit available.

What will occur with the Texas payday loan legislation?

Payday loans are excluded from “Credit Service Organizations” in TX legislature. This is what the two bills are for. There would result in being limits to the fees. The stores would not be able to charge as much. About 3,000 to 6,000 of the 7,800 employees at payday loan stores would lose jobs in TX if this passed. This is what industry estimates expects. Consumers who use cash advance stores will end up not being able to get credit as very easily.

Welcoming additional oversight

Further regulation and oversight is welcomed by TX payday loan stores and loan companies even though they have shown they’re against Texas SB 253 and HB 410. There is something very distinct about the short-term credit that is available through payday advances. Charge cards, credit unions and banks generally cannot afford to give this kind of credit to many. A useful and needed service is provided by the payday advance industry. The interest rates, which are less than charge card cash advances typically, are what lawmakers are concerned about.

Articles cited

Texas State

legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/82R/billtext/pdf/SB00253I.pdf#navpanes=0

Texas HB

www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/82R/billtext/pdf/HB00410I.pdf#navpanes=0

KXAN

kxan.com/dpp/news/politics/state-looks-to-curb-payday-loans

Personal Money Store

personalmoneystore.com/payday-lending-statistics/