It's time to pass a National Usury Law

While the treasury and the federal reserve are looking into predatory lending practices of banks, they should also look at usury in connection with credit card fees. Many blame the adjustable rate mortgage for pushing homeowners to the brink of financial ruin and foreclosure. But what about interest rates and late fees charged by banks operating from states that have no usury laws, i.e., South Dakota and Delaware? Interest rates have gone up from a high of 18% in the 1990s to a high of 29.5%. Once upon a time a 29.5% interest rate would have been considered loan sharking. But not today. Late fees have gone up from 5 and 10 dollars charged pre-1996 to $35 to $39 dollars today. Late fees alone generate billions of dollars in revenue for the banks. Even more arbitrary, is what defines a late fee. Some banks impose a fee if your payment doesn't make it by a certain hour on the due date. If you hand deliver your payment to the bank on the day its due and it is past the designated hour you will still be charged a late fee. It's a vicious cycle for cardholders who are already living on the edge and for consumers who use credit cards to supplement their income while they are unemployed or laid-off they are just burying themselves deeper and deeper into a black hole. Where are the Consumer Advocates and why hasn't Congress passed a national usury law to reign in interest rates charged by banks?

Why isn't anybody pointing fingers at the Mortgage Brokers?

I read in the Wall Street Journal that about half of the mortgages that have been restructured to avoid foreclosure have gone into default after only two months. Am I the only one who is not at all surprised by this news? As mortgage default/fraud investigators, our firm is tasked with verifying the information provided in the original loan applications. We have found that nearly 80% of the borrowers that purchased homes were not 0r should not have been qualifed home buyers in the first place, even in the subprime markets. In many instances, borrowers, at the urging of the "loan broker" have falsified employment, inflated income, hidden substantial liabilities and debt. In other cases, we have found that the loan brokers filled out the forms with the information needed to get the borrower qualified because the borrower didn't speak or understand English well enough to do it themself and didn't know what it was they were signing, but signed anyway because their broker told them to. In every congressional hearing I watch and newspaper I read I there are only two sides to the mortgage meltdown, the borrower side and the lending institution side. Why isn't anyone talking about the rogue loan brokers? The brokers had the most incentive to push an unqualified borrower into a loan they couldn't afford because they were paid handsomely by the lenders to do so. Typically, a broker receives a fee called a loan origination fee for placing the loan, but--and most borrowers are not aware of this--they also get an additional fee called "Yield Spread Premium," which is equal to about 1% of the loan, that is "paid outside of closing" by the Lender. The question is, where are these mortgage brokers now? I predict lying on a beach somewhere spending their fat YSP checks, while the borrowers and the banks are sinking into the abyss.

The Letter "F"

The letter "F" was assigned to me by ErinSlick. At first I wasn't sure I could come up with ten words that began with "F" that meant something to me but after much deep thought over the last two days I think I 've compiled a decent list. Here they are, in reverse order:

10. Firkin - a new word I learned this past summer while I was visiting my grandson at CNU in Newport News, VA and playing in a USTA finals match. A firkin is an old English word for a unit of volume. It comes from a Dutch word that means "fourth" so a firkin of beer is equal to 9 imperial gallons or a fourth of a barrel.

9. Factoid - I love trivial little snippets of information that may or may not be useful in my lifetime. Factoids fill your head with useless nonsense that can be used to amaze and enlighten friends and family, for example, how many out there knew what a firkin was?

8. Flowers - love em, peonies, magnolia, lilac, lavender, love em, the smellier the better.

7. Feathered friends - I have a very strong affinity with birds of all kinds, but especially with falcons and hawks. I see them everywhere I go, whether I'm driving or walking, in the city or in the country. It started about 15 years ago when a falcon landed on our bedroom window ledge. We were living in a condo in Arlington on the 15th floor. Of all the tall buildings and all of the high trees, he (I decided it was a male) chose our ledge. That same day I was offered a job, a change of career, that changed my life. It was three years ago today that my mother-in-law passed away and three years ago tomorrow that my mother passed away--just one day apart. As my husband and I were driving out of the cemetery from his mother's funeral, two hawks swooped in front of our car and landed in a tree above the spot where she was buried. When my step-dad came to visit for a couple of days during the holidays, the first Christmas after my mom passed away, we were talking and both looked up at the same time and saw that a hawk was sitting on my fence just looking at us. She stayed there for a half-hour or more and then flew off, but the next day she came back and sat there again. My dad left the third day and the hawk didn't come back that day. I will never forget it and neither will he.

6. Facets - the many facets of life and life's little treasures, like minerals and gems, which I love to collect and study under a good light and magnifier.

5. Foo-Foo - or if you prefer phoo-phoo, as in my high heel shoes, which I wear all the time. I hate flats they are clunky and unattractive. There is nothing like a sleek sexy high-heel to make you feel fantastically fabulous whether you are wearing jeans, pants, skirts or dresses, Ferragamo, Manolo's, Jimmy Choo, you name it, your worth it.

4. Frugality - use to be my least favorite word because I thought it was synonymous with being cheap or miserly, but in today's economy and environment I've grown to embrace Wikipedia's definition of the practice of frugality, e.g., acquiring goods and services in a restrained manner; resourcefully using already owned economic goods and services; to achieve a longer term goal, like going green, saving animals and the planet. Frugality is in, embrace it.

3. Fiction - especially historical fiction. A few of my favorite historical fiction novels are Valida, The Other Boleyn, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Manhunt, The Queen's Fool.

2. Fortnight - I'd love this word to be brought back into modern English. I'd love to say I'll be away for a fortnight, or you will be hearing from me within a fortnight. The word is laden with authority and sophistication, it means so much more than just "two weeks."

1. Family - so many F words can be attributable to family, like--fortunate, fun, fantastic, foremost, forever, familiar, friends, and foremost, as in my life, every single fruity one of them.

whew...I'm done.

Whoa hoo

I did it, and I did it all by myself. I finished my web page and I just posted it on the web, yea me!! It's not like giving birth or anything, but it took almost as long as labor, 3 days, 8 hours.

tangled up in red tape

My husband loves Bob Dylan. One of his favorite songs is "Tangled up in Blue." I never understood the song, but I'm learning the true meaning of tangled up in red tape. I’ve spent two days this week trying to navigate the government CCR, reviewing opportunities on Fedbizopps and trying to figure out whether I qualify as a “certified” small business. . I am a woman, who owns a small consulting business with six employees, average revenue is under $500K/yr. Our business is primarily focused on white collar, mortgage fraud, toxic tort and litigation support. My first comment: In reviewing the SBA guidelines for size restrictions to determine whether or not a business is considered “small” I found that the most categories require that a company’s revenue be less than $7 million per year. It also appears that companies can be set up so that an individual subsidiary or joint venture can qualify as a small business as long as it doesn’t make over $7 million per year. Who are they kidding? A true small business cannot compete at that level. I would like to see a category or set aside program for truly small business entrepreneurs, i.e., those that that have revenue of less than $1 million/yr. Second: There is a huge disconnect between government contractors who contract with small business or have set aside programs and the SBA. In trying to register as a subcontractor with some of the companies who do win government contracts, I am asked if my company is “certified” as a small business by the SBA and if so, the date of certification and the certificate number. In checking the SBA website I found that a business can self-certify if it’s under the size restrictions just mentioned, and a woman owned business is no longer considered disadvantaged so it cannot be certified unless it qualifies under a hubzone, 7a, of vet owned business. So who’s on first? We no longer need certification cause we can self certify and are no longer considered “disadvantaged,” but we can’t register as a subcontractor until we are certified. Finally, I find that the SBA is useless. . . I don’t want a mentor, I don’t want to join another woman’s organization, I don’t want statistics, I don’t even want a loan, I just want to know how to do business with the government or how to subcontract to do business with the government. Frustrating to say the least….

allatwitter

I've always said that I would never let myself get caught up in blogging, but here I am and I must say I'm allatwitter, so many possibilities....