I was wondering if someone could succour me out and hear my credit or lack there of and let me know the possibility of actually getting a loan or if i'd waste my term applying. I'm 19 and have an account with bank of america.
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Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with O to prepare his morning coffee.
The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging South African verligte fought for minimum water-quality standards.
With his first swallow
Then he wakes up, shakes his administer and laughs, ' If liberals had their way during WW2, support for the war would be questioned. Protesters would burn our flag and say that it was our liability Pearl harbour was attacked, because we are war mongers
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(Adds UBS to Citigroup memo in Compliance Action and EU accord in Compliance Policy.)
Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Wells Fargo & Co. agreed to pay $148 million to become tranquil criminal charges and civil claims aimed at Wachovia Bank, which it acquired in 2008.
The conduct oneself treat will resolve investigations by federal agencies, including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justness Department, as well as attorneys general in 26 states, into charges that Wachovia conspired to overcharge official and local governments on investments.
The case is the latest in a more than five-year investigation into how Partition off Street banks conspired with local- government advisers to reap unwarranted fees on investments sold to public agencies by rigging competitive auctions and carving up the demand among themselves. JPMorgan Chase & Co., UBS AG and Bank of America Corp. previously settled similar cases.
“Wachovia won bids by playing an expatiate game of ‘you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours,' rather than engaging in legitimate competition to win municipalities' concern,” Robert Khuzami, the director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement, said in a utterance.
The settlement by Wells Fargo will bring to $673 million the amount that banks have paid to compose the case, some of which is being returned to localities that were overcharged in the scheme.
Wells Fargo, based in San Francisco, said the command was by former employees of Wachovia before its acquisition. About $59 million from the settlement will go to state attorneys panoramic, the bank said.
“Wells Fargo is pleased to have fully resolved this scrutiny of Wachovia Bank,” the bank said in a statement.
The SEC said Wachovia was involved in rigging at least 58 transactions over an eight-year span involving the proceeds of more than $9 billion of town bonds. Wachovia steered new business to brokers who participated in the conspiracy, the SEC said. Wells Fargo neither admitted nor denied the SEC allegations.
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Compliance Manner
Corzine Tells Congress He Didn't ‘Intend' to Break Rules
Jon S. Corzine told U.S. lawmakers he never intended to interfere any rules as head of MF Global Holdings Ltd. and doesn't know what happened to an estimated $1.2 billion in missing patron funds.
“I'm not in a position, given the number of transactions, to know anything specifically about the machinery of any specific funds,” Corzine said yesterday at a House Agriculture Panel hearing in Washington. “I certainly would never intend to direct or have segregated funds moved.”
Under subpoena and under malediction, the former Democratic senator and New Jersey governor testified on Capitol Hill for 2 1/2 hours, time after time apologizing to investors, customers and employees of the failed New York brokerage.
“I only do not know where the money is, or why the accounts have not been reconciled to date,” Corzine said. “I espouse, both personally and on behalf of the company, to our customers, our employees and our investors. I truly recollect that they are bearing the brunt” of the collapse.
Corzine said he didn't knowingly permit any movement of funds out of client accounts, and that any such transfers could have been a misunderstanding or misinterpretation of his tendency.
He said that on the evening of Oct. 30, the night before MF Global filed what has become the eighth-largest U.S. bankruptcy, he was up on of the shortfall in client accounts and told employees, “We've got to fix this” and “We've got to find the kale.” He speculated that someone “could misinterpret” such remarks.
Corzine didn't once descent to answer a question or invoke his Fifth Amendment right to remain implicit.
James W. Giddens, the trustee overseeing the liquidation of the firm, has estimated that $1.2 billion in patron money is missing. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Securities and Interchange Commission and Justice Department are investigating.
James Kobak, a lawyer for Giddens, testified at the hearings yesterday that the trustee will chase after all “legally available” assets, including those from individuals who may have obligation for breaking the rules requiring protection of commodity customers' accounts. He also said customers now have no insolence of a 100 percent return of their assets because of the money that is missing.
Also testifying at yesterday's hearings was Jill Sommers, a commissioner at the CFTC, who said that regulators are still working to indication all the transactions and that some client funds may be recovered.
“If there is any customer money that has been transferred out of the accounts, that is part of what we are working together to find, and that profit will be clawed back to be distributed back to customers,” Sommers, the commissioner overseeing the intercession's investigation of MF Global, told the committee.
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UBS, Citigroup May Be Penalized in Japan on Tibor Scrutiny
UBS AG and Citigroup Inc. may be penalized in Japan for attempting to influence the Tokyo interbank offered chew out, the country's securities watchdog said.
The Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission recommended that Japan's Monetary Services Agency punish the local brokerage units of UBS and Citigroup, the watchdog said in a declaration in Tokyo today. Employees of the local operations repeatedly asked bankers to shift the rates they submit for setting Tibor to gain an advantage, it said.
Citigroup, the third-biggest U.S. lender by assets, is part of a far-reaching probe by regulators into whether some of the world's largest banks manipulated the interest rates at which they borrowed from each other. In Japan, alone from the Tibor inquiry, New York-based Citigroup is facing potential penalties for compliance violations at its state banking unit.
Both Zurich-based UBS and Citigroup lacked internal controls to bargain with the employees' actions, the commission said today. It didn't elaborate on the kinds of penalties sought.
There is no proof that the Tibor rate was manipulated following the actions, an SESC official said at a talk conference today, speaking on condition of anonymity in accordance with the organization's behaviour.
Citigroup's Japanese brokerage unit, Citigroup Global Markets Japan Inc., “has started working diligently to give a speech to the issues raised,” the company said in an e-mailed statement.
Eiko Noda, a Tokyo-based spokeswoman for UBS, wasn't without delay available to comment.
The U.S. Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission may be investigating whether banks colluded to artificially let up on the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, a person with knowledge of the interrogation said in March. The probe came to light after UBS, Switzerland's biggest bank, said it received subpoenas from U.S. and Japanese regulators.
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Garrett Bauer Pleads Apologetic to Trading on Stolen Merger Tips
Garrett Bauer, a New York precursor trader, pleaded guilty to his role in an insider-trading scheme that the U.S. says generated $37 million in interdicted profits by relying on corporate merger tips stolen from four law firms.
Bauer, 44, joined middleman Kenneth T. Robinson and attorney Matthew H. Kluger in using nonpublic materials to trade ahead of more than 30 corporate transactions over 17 years, he admitted in federal court in Newark, New Jersey. Robinson, who cooperated with prosecutors, pleaded contrite in April.
In charging the men in April, prosecutors said the scheme involved companies such as Sun Microsystems Inc., 3Com Corp. and Acxiom Corp. They said Bauer made more than $30 million on the manoeuvre, while Robinson earned more than $875,000 and Kluger more than $500,000.
Bauer pleaded guilty to securities artifice, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and hindrance of justice. He faces as long as 20 years in prison on the fraud and hitch counts when he's sentenced March 13. He forfeited cash and property good more than $23 million.
Bauer, who is free on $4 million bail, regrets his actions and has been giving lectures to students and traders about insider trading, said, Michael Bachner, his attorney.
Bauer forfeited about $20 million in bank accounts and trading accounts, as well as a $6.65 million condominium on the Loftier East Side of Manhattan and an $875,000 home in Boca Raton, Florida. Hang out with U.S. Attorney Matthew Beck said the properties had liens on them.
Kluger is in affirm negotiations with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Newark, according to a Sept. 30 court filing.
Robinson, a mortgage stockjobber who secretly recorded Bauer and Kluger for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is cooperating with federal investigators, U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said after his importune hearing.
The cases are U.S. v. Bauer, 11-mj-03536, and U.S. v. Robinson, 11-cr-00223, U.S. Department Court, District of New Jersey (Newark).
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Senate Republicans have blocked President Barack Obama's realm of possibilities to head the consumer protection agency that was created after the 2008 financial meltdown.
His designee, former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, ran into near-solid competitive from Republicans.
As a result, Democrats couldn't muster the 60 votes needed to move up ahead on the nomination. Only one Republican joined Democrats in voting Cordray.
The president plans to move at a statement about the vote later Thursday morning.
Republicans say Consumer Fiscal Protection Bureau has too much power and too little accountability.
The agency is designed to conserve consumers from some of the lending and mortgages practices that led to the financial crisis.
GOP lawmakers have pledged to barn any nominee until the structure of the agency is changed.
Democrats say Republicans are favoring Partition off Street over the middle class in attempting to weaken the agency.
THIS IS A BREAKING Hearsay UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
President Barack Obama's realm of possibilities to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau established in the wake of the 2008 fiscal collapse faces almost certain defeat in the Senate, the victim of a particularly fetid partisan fight that could spill over into next year's presidential campaign.
Few question former Ohio Attorney Comprehensive Richard Cordray's credentials for the job. But nearly all of the Senate's 47 Republicans are expected to opt against him Thursday, maintaining a GOP filibuster that requires 60 votes to break.
"This is not about the selectee, who appears to be a decent person and may very well be qualified," said Sen. Orrin Incubate, R-Utah. "It's about a process that is running out of control."
The agency, which officially opened in July, is designed to cover consumers taking out loans, using credit cards and making other monetary transactions.
Republicans say it was constructed with far too much power and far too little accountability, and 45 of the Senate Republicans have signed a write to Obama saying they would vote against any nominee to head the agency unless changes are made in its arrangement.
They want the director replaced by a bipartisan board and Congress to have control over its compress strings rather than the Federal Reserve. They also want to make it easier for other financial regulatory offices to overrule dresser decisions.
The White House has launched a vigorous counterattack. Last Sunday, Ashen House officials said they would give briefings and interviews to journalists from seven states to exigencies Senate Republicans from those states to vote for Cordray.
Sen. Susan Collins, a chair Republican from Maine, one of the targeted states, said she voted for the financial servicing act last year but "I am completely opposed to appointing a nominee to head this chest of drawers until we correct the very serious structural flaws" in it.
On Tuesday, in a major policy homily in Kansas, Obama chastised Republicans for refusing to confirm his nominee. "Why? Does anybody here deliberate on that the problem that led to our financial crisis was too much oversight of mortgage lenders or debt collectors?" he asked.
Obama pledged to "embargo any effort to delay or defund or dismantle the new rules that we put in place" with last year's monetary overhaul law.
Even if Republicans continue to filibuster the nomination, "we will never sign onto attempts to perpetually gut this agency," Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Wednesday. "This is effective to be a bellwether issue, not just today but throughout 2012 and into the campaign."
Four of the 37 governmental attorneys general who endorsed Cordray earlier this year appeared Wednesday at the Milky House on his behalf, and Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin warned at a Corpse-like House briefing that delay confirming Cordray could affect millions of Americans.
Under law, the energy must have a director before it can begin to oversee non-bank lenders, debt collectors, credit reporting agencies and student loan providers. Without a top banana, Wolin said, "millions of American people will remain defenceless to some of the same regulatory gaps that helped to create the financial crisis."
He also disputed the plea that the agency lacks accountability, saying it must consult with other bank regulators before issuing rules, has to assess the impression of its rules on small businesses and can have its rules overturned by the Financial Stability Supervision Council.
Responding to GOP demands that Congress control the agency's purse strings, Wolin said no federal bank regulators have congressionally appropriated funds. "And the grounds for that is we want to make sure that our bank regulators are free of political influence."
Already this year, one body in the GOP-led House has voted to slice $200 million from the White House solicit for the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has a major enforcement role. And the full House has voted to hang on a last the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which oversees derivatives, to $171 million, less than two-thirds of what Obama sought.
Republicans accused the Ivory House of stonewalling. Since Republicans wrote their letter to Obama last May "outlining some very serious and very unexcessive concerns about it, he hasn't done a thing to address these concerns, not a thing," said Senate GOP chairman Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
Cordray, a five-time "Jeopardy" guard, has recently been serving as the agency's enforcement chief. Obama nominated him to be its first governor in July, bypassing Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard University law professor and consumer upholder who was instrumental in conceiving and setting up the agency.
Warren, who drew sharp competitor from Republicans who considered her too much of an activist, is running for a Senate seat against Massachusetts obligatory Scott Brown, the only Republican to come out in support of Cordray.
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An article from the Nation. It’s a recap of the stories of young people trying to navigate the Great Recession. Some of these stories are heart rendering and it’s clear that few professions have been spared from the Great Recession’s impact which is broad, deep and largely not reported upon. Many of these young people have just gotten out of school with freshly minted degrees with no job prospects other than low wage jobs. They are questioning whether upward economic mobility remains available.
Most of us look in the rear view mirror when we look towards the future in that we assume the recent past will also approximate the near-term future. That sort of thinking is no longer effective given our nation’s current economic circumstances. One can not assume that going to college and graduating laden with debt is going to be an automatic ticket to success. Instead, we must look at what is going on around us and choose carefully. There are some professions that are growing and others that will never come back to the level they formerly were. The key is to anchor oneself to that which is I graduated with a degree in Environmental Studies in 2008, with plans to change the world (of course). I was eager to put my earnest idealism toward enacting positive change within a world that I’d been taught had run completely off course. A few months later, the economy collapsed, along with my dreams of a job that wouldn’t destroy my conscience.
I’m currently living on $800 a month, working part-time in a glorified data-entry gig. I’m completely uninsured and unable to pay back any of my $20,000 in loans. Even if I could get a job at an “evil corporation” that might pay my bills, I still wouldn’t be able to force myself to take it, as clinging to my principles is the only thing I can do to stay a little sane. I think more than anything else, I’ve completely lost faith in the capitalist system as well as the government that enables it. I’ve watched many other well-intentioned peers find themselves completely unable to both put their college educations to work and live out their principles in doing meaningful things in their careers. I consider graduate school occasionally, but I’ve seen too many people with masters degrees pouring coffee to make spending another $70k seem worth it.
In college I learned to be wary of capitalism; now I’ve experienced its flaws firsthand, and remain completely unsure about where to turn from here.
Emily May, 24
Overqualified is the New Underqualified
While in graduate school, with loan checks coming into my bank account, the recession was a boon. My income didn’t suffer, and suddenly all my travel and gift-buying around the holidays was significantly cheaper. It was wonderful, and I still believed that I, with two graduate degrees and a reasonably impressive résumé, would be able to start a great job after my graduation and coast through this recession with some budgeting and careful allotments of my paychecks toward loan payments.
Five months after graduation, I’m still underemployed, with a folder of 150+ job applications on my desktop. For every job I’ve applied and interviewed for, there are literally dozens of other overqualified candidates breathing down my neck just offstage. I graduated into the worst job market in my lifetime, and even my moderately fancy education won’t save me now. No one cares that I finished a MA and a MBA in two years; no one cares that I have eight years of professional experience. There are approximately six jobs open in my market for someone in my field, and six hundred or more applicants are looking for the same positions I am.
I’m now working a part-time retail job for $9/hr, going without health insurance, and having to take an economic hardship deferment on my loans. This “economic recovery” is meaningless to me at the moment, as a decreased rate of job loss still does not mean that my rate of job-getting has changed in the least.
Dana Horst, 27
A Vet Comes Home. To What?
I am 29 years old, a veteran of the US Army, North Dakota Army National Guard, and the war in Iraq. I have a Bachelor’s degree in sociology with a minor in criminal justice from the University of North Dakota. I graduated from college in December of 2007. Perfect timing (note sarcasm). Since then I have had two jobs lasting a total of 5 months. I currently am living in my parents basement, where I have to share time on the PS3 with my 55 year old also unemployed father. Today for excitement and fresh air I went around picking up sticks in our yard.
I have plenty of stories from my exciting life over the past two mostly unemployed years and have nothing but free time to write about it. If you would please get back to me and let me know what happened to America I would greatly appreciate it.
Joseph Blaker, 29
The Death of a Newsroom
I used to have job as a journalist. I used to work in a bustling newsroom–filled with all types of journalists. When I got my last job, in 2005, the newsroom I worked in was packed. So packed, some day-shift people shared a desk with night-shift people. We had an editor, a publisher, a managing editor, three city editors, community editors, 9 copy editors, and a sports dept of 10. More than a dozen reporters. But by 2008, staff was dwindling. I watched as round after round of layoffs decimated the newsroom. The publisher quit. The executive editor quit. Reporters and editors across the newsroom were given “involuntary separation packages.” The online staff went from half a dozen, to one. The copy desk was chiseled to two.
In April, I got my walking papers. The bustling newsroom that had at least 50 people in it in 2005 was decimated. The paper no longer has an in-house sports dept. It has one reporter and one editor. The managing editor now runs the show. He’s the only editorial management left. There is a day editor, a night editor and about four reporters. That is what is left. The recession killed my paper.
Ruth Schneider, 36
A Generation’s Dream Deferred
My husband and I graduated from high school in the class of 2000, and so our expectations about our adult lives were built during the days of soaring stock prices and the tech bubble. Although we graduated at the top of our class, we have never tasted the supposed American dream. We were hit by the 2003/2004 recession when I graduated early from college to save money, only to find that there were no jobs. Now, after having to put my graduate school plans on hold due to my husband having cancer, I have been officially unemployed for 22 months. His job offers us little solace–with low government sector wages plus a mandatory 13-day furlough, we can barely make ends meet. We didn’t buy a home, we share a compact car and we don’t have cable TV. We even lived with our inlaws for a combined period of 3.5 years.
We’re not trying to live the life of luxury, but we know that we’ll never approximate what our parents’ generation had. Our plan? We’re going to move to Korea to teach English. We just can’t see raising our children here.
Melissa Hahn, 27
Giving Up on Art
I am 22 years old, and the recession has definitely impacted me. I am a freelance artist, still living at home (I’d have to have a much more profitable profession to move out) and my art sales over the last year have plummeted by over 50%. Last year, I thought I might finally be “making it” as an artist–it was the second year in a row that I was able to declare a profit on my tax return, something I never imagined I could do selling artwork. This year, I’m predicting I’ll be filing massive losses. At an art show where I made $2500 at last year I made $400 this year. The entry fee for the show is $450.
I have faith in President Obama, and I believe that things will turn around eventually. I just don’t know if I can continue pursuing an art career in this economy, when I’m already a burden on my parents whose small (by small I really mean tiny–the only employees are my mom and dad) retail business is on the brink of bankruptcy.
I wish every night that the Works Progress Administration would be revived– during the depression, President Roosevelt had artists paint murals in post offices, create sketches of buildings before they were torn down–giving out of work or down-and-out artists the chance to make a living doing their craft. If a similar program isn’t enacted during this recession, I think many artists, myself included, will give up on their profession for good.
In addition to everything else, I will no longer be covered by my parents’ health care as of January 2010 because I’ll be 23 years old. Since there is no public option yet, I’m planning to stay in college for as long as I have to in order to be on the college health plan, which I’m paying for with student loans. 10 PhDs? If it’s necessary. I just can’t afford health care on my measly income.
All of my friends in my age group–both artists and non-artists–are having similar problems. I don’t know anyone my age that lives on their own because jobs for people in their early 20’s just don’t pay enough for rent, college, groceries and basic necessities. And while this would be sad in any economy, it’s even harder on our parents, who are also suffering in this economy, to support their grown children.
Kate Gabrielle, 23
Winning Small Battles
I work as a music teacher in a very small school district in Massachusetts. Last year we had some serious disputes with our school committee during our contract negotiations. Thankfully our district is small enough and fiscally frugal enough so that no teachers lost their jobs. This was especially a relief for me since I am well aware that any kind of art program, most often music, is the first thing to be cut from a school’s budget in trying economic times.
Two of the hardest battles we had to fight with the school committee were over health insurance and adequate wage increases. There is a trend in school districts these days to require more out-of-pocket money from their employees to fund health insurance premiums. I saw it before when I worked in New Hampshire and have seen it again in Massachusetts. Our bargaining team, backed by a representative and numbers provided by our state educator’s association (part of the NEA), found that if our school district switched to a state-run insurance program with similar benefits as our current HMO program, employees AND the school district would see a drop in the cost of their insurance. The fight over receiving an appropriate cost of living increase (balanced against the increase in health insurance costs) was also hardly fought. In New Hampshire, I had seen a 2 year contract dispute result in educators taking an entire year with no raise in pay. With the current recession and the costs of basic needs such as housing, food, heat and electricity going up, I can only say I am happy I didn’t spend another year stuck at the same salary like my former co-workers. In my current school district we had to fight to get raises that would cushion us against the current economic situation. Thankfully it was a battle we won.
I am reminded daily how even though I have had to fight for it, I am in a better position than many of my friends. Sure, my student loans are in forbearance and I mostly exhaust my paycheck paying for an apartment, a car to get to work and food to eat. But I do have a job that offers me benefits and adequate compensation and the luxury of living away from home in my own space.
Adam Taber, 26
Sometimes Education Doesn’t Pay Of f
I graduated from one of the best universities in the country in 2005 (University of Michigan). I went on to law school and graduated with my JD in 2008. I attended nearby University of Toledo because they offered me in state tuition even though I was a Michigan resident. In law school, I developed a strong liking for tax law. In 2009, I earned a masters of law in taxation from Boston University. After graduating, I studied for and passed the bar exam. I have now been living at my parents house since the beginning of August. I estimate that I have applied to between 400 and 600 jobs and I have had 2 interviews. I am now faced with the decision of whether to abandon my hopes of a career in tax law and look for whatever will pay the bills. Being that I am forced to live with my parents and they live in a Detroit suburb, my job search is further challenged by living in the nation’s hardest hit locale. I am now 26 with 3 degrees and have never held anything more than a part time job.
M. Ryan Jarnagin, 26
Work Hard, Get Educated, Barely Make Ends Meet
I’m one of the lucky ones. I graduated from a fairly prestigious liberal arts college with a degree in computer science. I had no student loans or credit card debt as an ongoing issue, and significant financial support from my family to get me started.
Here’s the problem: for young people, the recession started much earlier than October 2008. We had no home equity to keep afloat, only wages, which were steadily dropping in value. In addition, there’s a trickle-down effect when the labor market goes bad: if a firm can get an experienced worker for the same price as an entry-level worker, entry-level workers don’t stand a chance.
I got my break, accepting a position as a developer/system administrator that regularly required 60-70 hours of work per week at a rate that amounted to about $9 an hour. By living fairly modestly (which meant no car, no eating out, no nights on the town, no cable, no air conditioning), I was able to save up a bit, buy a car 2 years into my post-college life, and get my career going. Even so, one 6-month period of unemployment (where I was not eligible for public help due to being a contractor at my previous job) wiped out my savings and brought me about 3-5 days away from being evicted. Since then, I’ve been steadily employed and facing fairly good financial prospects for myself, but the constant threat of unemployment or underemployment keeps me working at a job that require 70 hour work weeks.
But as I said, I’m one of the lucky ones. Highly educated and hard-working friends my age have found themselves moving in with their parents because they can’t afford to live on their own, working at jobs that pay $6-10 an hour (mostly in retail and fast food, which is of course no help in trying to get into a profession), struggling to get by. I’ve had to help these smart capable friends pay the rent, seen some live on each other’s couches for months on end, and seen those with jobs working extremely long hours trying to make something of their careers.
More than the physical deprivation, there seems to be a sense in which we feel lied to by our teachers and parents. We were taught “work hard, get educated, get ahead of your peers, and you will succeed in life.” What we’re experiencing is “work hard, get educated, and end up barely able to make ends meet.” There’s good news though: the folks I know at least are finding ways to support each other, figuring out that the most important things are free, and understand the need for both personal responsibility and collective support in a way that people who came of age in the mid-1980’s didn’t.
David Kleinschmidt, 28
It Doesn’t Pay to Work
How hasn’t the recession impacted me? A year and a half ago, I was on cloud nine…the very first of my entire immediate and extended family to go to college, and here I was graduating magna cum laude.
That was then.
After hundreds of applications and job fairs alike, I was not even given the opportunity for an interview, let alone a full-time job. I finally found a part-time job, but it basically does nothing to help me.
I come from a poor family, and the only way I could have even went to college is if I borrowed money. I have no qualms about the borrowing process, and while I was not looking forward to it, I knew I was going to get a job and start paying them back. Now, I have over $65,000 in Student Loan Debt, and have a job where I just cannot pay them back. There is just no money left over after car insurance, paying for a place to live, and food to eat. I have tried to defer, but been rejected. I make $45 more than the poverty level, and I am expected to meet the same requirements as the affluent. I have no health insurance, have high blood pressure and have to decide whether or not I can afford my medicine or not. I have battled a sickness for the past 2 months, long enough to sacrifice food to save up and go to a clinic. I was diagnosed with walking pneumonia.
This is no way to live. It does not pay to work in this country, or struggle like I am. I would be MUCH further ahead if I did not work…what a shame. I would get food stamps, free health care, and other perks that I do not get trying, and failing to make ends meet. I have had it, and I just have nowhere to turn. I never expected to make a lot upon graduating from college, but I did expect to make enough to be able to pay my bills. It is utterly depressing, and I have major esteem issues that I cannot overcome. Ten years ago I thought college would be my greatest investment, now I know it is my worst. I apologize for this being such a ramble, but I am utterly frustrated. It just does not pay to work.
Joshua Bigley, 24
Struggling in Academia
I’m 28 years old and in the 4th year of my PhD program in English at the University of Illinois. As I write this, the graduate employees union is holding a strike vote; we’ve been working without a contract for 10 weeks, and the administration refuses to negotiate on wages and insists on including a furlough clause in our contract, allowing them to furlough us for up to 30 days. (This is, of course, the same university where the president, chancellor, and half of the Board of Trustees just resigned amid an admissions scandal. The president and chancellor are allowed to keep their $400,000 salaries as they move back to faculty positions.)
I bought a house when I moved here, which seemed like a good investment in an affordable real estate market, but my grad stipend has not kept up with the rate of inflation. My boyfriend lost his teaching job last year and moved in with me. He was collecting unemployment, which wasn’t enough, and I had to take out student loans for the first time in my life to cover the expenses. He’s now in grad school at another university in Illinois and currently struggling to pay his tuition; he might even have to drop out of school next semester if he can’t pay his bill. I hoped to leave graduate school with no student loans, but it looks instead like I’ll have close to $20,000 in loans when I leave, and that’s not counting credit card debt or my mortgage.
My boyfriend and I are both struggling to pay our bills but can’t turn to our families for money. My father was diagnosed with colon cancer this year and has been faced with expensive medical bills for his chemo and radiation treatment, and this is with the supplemental cancer insurance he and my mother purchased years ago. My boyfriend’s mother had complications with heart surgery this summer, was in a coma for a week and almost died. She’s relied on her supplemental Medicare insurance to pay for her nursing home and rehabilitation treatment as she recovers; she’s been in the hospital for 4 months now.
The academic job market in my field is looking dismal and is not likely to improve in the near future. Given the current state of things, I’ll have trouble paying down my debt on an assistant professor’s salary, and that’s if I’m lucky enough to find a tenure track position when I go on the job market next year or the following year. Being a college professor was supposed to be a smart career move that would provide me with a job I love and financial stability. I’ve been in college for 10 years. As I see state and university budgets slashed, I know that all I have to look forward to is a job in which I’m overworked, underpaid, and held to unreasonable publishing expectations as university presses disappear. It really was not supposed to turn out this way.
Amber Buck, 28 XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <pre> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong> "If we remain poor and dependent, the riches of other men will not avail us. If we are ignorant, the intelligence of other men will do but little for us. If we are foolish, the wisdom of other men will not guide us. If we are wasteful of time and money, the economy of other men will only make our destitution the more disgraceful and hurtful. " "If you form the habit of going by what you hear others say about someone, or going by what others think about someone, instead of searching that thing out for yourself and seeing for yourself, you will be walking west when you think you're going east, and you will be walking east when you think you're going west. This generation, especially of our people, has a burden, more so than any other time in history. The most important thing we can learn to do today is think for ourselves."
I am still constantly calling people for advice (mostly my mom) about how to act when balancing job interviews and offers, making sure that I didn’t get ripped off when I bought my mattress, and many other things I really never had to think about before.
The nicest thing so far that I have found about being out of school for the first time in seventeen years is the lack of homework, of course! And let’s pretend that I get up at that time. Somehow I then convince myself that I have so much extra time and I can take longer in the shower, or tell myself that I can put on more makeup, or I can’t decide what I am going to be wearing that morning and change my outfit three times, or go on the computer for those “ten” minutes. Starting next week I will definitely be asking for projects if this pace keeps up. I just don’t want to ask now, and then find out that there are other things I am supposed to be doing!
I have created my savings plan for now, I think. The first part of it is going to be 25% goes into my long-term savings, which is currently set up as just a regular Wells Fargo saving account, until I get $5000 saved up so it can go into an account with a high interest rate. At this amount, I estimate that to take about 1¾ years. That is a long time. And by that time, I may be moving back to California and will need to access the funds in my savings to help me move back. This money will be for things like buying furniture, fun items, and smaller vacations to places like Los Angeles, or Portland, or travelling here in the East Coast. I am hoping that most of my really small trips will generally come out of my general checking accounts; I am talking about trips to Salem or Cape Cod or Portsmouth for this small trips.
Finally, the rest of the 50% will be going to regular bills, rent, food, utilities, day to day purchases and those small trips I mentioned before. What I have realized that I failed to take into account are my student loan payments. They will be starting in February I believe and I have no idea how much will be expected of me monthly, but I feel like I should pay more than expected to try and get them paid off as soon as possible. So maybe I will only put 20% into each savings account, or 15% into the long-term and 20% into the short-term. And now these are the things that I hate about being an adult.
I am looking forward to turning 22. When people ask my age, there is such a stigma involved at still being 21. Or at least I think there is. I feel self-conscious when I tell people at a job that I am 21. I am sure that I will feel that to an extent at any age because I care what people think, sadly. But starting at 22 is the age where people start counting less. I will simply be in my “early twenties” and age becomes a vague definition only meaning anything when it switches decades.
So, it is only 10:30, meaning I have been at work for only two hours. And I have already written almost two pages and almost 1,400 words. I think I am going to try my hand at writing a story possibly instead of constantly talking about myself. Not that what I write will be any good, and I also have to decide what I am going to be writing about! I have no creative talents whatsoever. I guess I shall go with my bilingual secret princess story that I started in my mind years ago. How lame.
Elizabeth (Eliza): Main character. Princess, heir to throne. Born 1984. Left at age 15 (1999). Lived in England through to 2008 (age 24), starting out as in the ‘foster’ system until turned 18. Went to University and became a teacher. Engaged to man from England for 3 months, dating for 2.5 years. Personality: ______ Physical Description: _______
Alright, so it is now almost noon. And for the last 90 minutes I was mostly trying to flush out details for the story. There is so much background info to get settled before I even start writing I feel like. That way, I cover the bases and get the idea of where my story is going settled. Some people can just write, but I can’t. Maybe if it was a short story or “one-shot”. I really am just not a creative person. These things must all be planned out and I have to put deep thought into it. Plus the major problem is that the story is incredibly lame. It is like an ABC Family Original romantic type of story; which is worse than a Lifetime movie in my book.
But now, I am thinking about lunch, even though it is an hour away. Sadly, though, after buying an incredibly expensive bed yesterday, I really should not buy anything right now until my pay checks start coming in and I have finished buying everything that I need (i.e. dresser, rugs, work clothing, and ipod!) So, my options are cup of noodles or another instant dried meal from Whole Foods: Vegan Tortilla Soup. Yum? I think I will try that though since I do know what cup of noodles tastes like. I used to eat it all the time when I was living in the dorms since we did not have a kitchen and most of the time we would eat in the dining halls. But cup of noodles and easy mac were our staples for a late night snack or lunch when we didn’t feel like walking down to the dining hall for whatever reason. Man, do I miss those dining halls now!
I should learn how to efficiently cook a larger variety of foods. I can do a large variety of pasta dishes and mix sauces around alright. (Although, I don’t own too many spices yet.) And I can make pretty decent omelets thanks to my job in high school. And I can make a baked chicken type of meal with mashed potatoes on the side or something along those lines. I can make a stir-fry. I can make matzo ball soup and latkes. With a recipe, I can make a brisket and a sweet noodle kugel and a delicious as well. And there a lot of other things I am sure I could make if I had directions. In general, cooking is not hard. It is the creating part that is always hard for me, but especially when I am not familiar with too many ingredients. I know that things like that will just take time assuming that I try new things. I would love to learn to make fish for dinner. And I would also like to learn some more complicated things such as spinach fylo dough things that my mom makes, or the salmon in pastry with dill that the rabbi’s wife in Los Angeles used to make. Oh my goodness, that was one of the most amazing things I have ever had. I really should email her for a recipe!
I am actually running out of things to say. I haven’t had a single proposal to edit/type up from my boss. I had one emailed back where I had to change ONE word. But that has been it; and probably something around 10-15 calls. For the past FOUR hours. No wonder why I have been able to type and say so much! And no wonder why Anne Frank wrote so much in her diary. Was that a little tasteless? I think it was. Ok, I have decided that I am going to write a Wikipedia article for the Otis House.
Second Kitchen: originally used to keep food warm before serving, before converted into a family dining room in the 1820s. Today it displays the archeological and restoration work that went into discovering how the house once looked and the changes that took place. It also serves as a work area for Historic New England’s school programs. Sally’s Room: called her front room in letters between the Otises, mentioning expensive yellow draperies. Less fashionable, but nicer than the office because some entertaining would have taken place in this room, especially with Sally confined to bed for so much of the time due to her many pregnancies. Includes an early crib and toy. Transitional Room: possibly a service room in the Otis’s time, where the servants could easily access the drawing room. Today houses a display on Dr. and Mrs. Mott who practiced alternative medicine in the house, calling it “European vegetable medicine” as an alternative to Massachusetts General Hospital that was, and still is, right down the street.
Alright, with that Wikipedia thing, and lunch, I am now at 2:30pm. That leaves me with only two and a half hours to go! Woohoo! Man this sucks balls. That’s how bored I am, I am resorting to lame colloquialisms in my semi-formal journal to myself. I feel like my brain is going to mush. I have actually gotten some difficult calls up here. And they are super difficult because I really don’t know the structure of the office whatsoever. So when someone calls for employment opportunities, or trying to become a new client, I have absolutely no idea where to send them. I just kind of stick them with someone who seems semi-appropriate and hope everything turns out alright.
During lunch, I called my Aunt Pam for advice on a winter coat. But the key things she said to look for are: down with the temperature rating at 25 degrees or lower; a hood; closes up around the neck; reaches mid-calf in length; zipper has a flap cover; dual zipper meaning that it can be opened from the bottom as well; sleeves have elastic bands; stitching to keep the down in place; slightly big so there is space to wear large sweaters underneath. Good advice! Now I know what to look for much better.
When I went to Macy’s yesterday to try and get advice on what I need to by, I ended up with a mix of helpfulness. Shoes were first, and while they didn’t have anything good in stock at the moment, the woman gave me some good information about shoes, talking about lining and the soles and waterproof, etc. But stores don’t really start carrying the winter things until late October or early November; which makes sense. I just am jumping the gun because I am so scared! Then the coat lady was not so helpful. It turns out she directed me to a pretty good coat, but I don’t know why it was good. She just kept saying that it was good and a lot of people buy that for winter. Then I talked to two different people in the normal clothing department, and the first was awful, while the second was hilarious and helpful. She was a huge advocate of layering. But either way, I definitely need to buy more clothing; I have too much casual and spring/summer clothing than I will probably ever need here. And then whenever I move back to California, I will have too much fall and especially winter clothing that I will never need there! Oh the waste of moneys.
It is now 3:30 and I only have an hour and a half left at work today. I already have a lineup of things to do after work. First of all, my mattress is getting delivered sometime between 6pm and 10pm. I hope it is sometime between 7pm and 9pm so that I can get home and settled before they arrive, and then so I can have enough time to set my new bed up properly before I have to sleep. And sometime between 7pm and 11pm, I need to call Aunt Pam back to chat. And sometime in there, my brother will hopefully be calling me. And I really should call Aunt Val (to chat) and Uncle Mike (to tell about the bicycle race I saw a part of). And I also have my dinner planned out thankfully! I am going to make something for real! It will be a hunk of frozen chicken breast, some of my boxed instant mashed potatoes, and my frozen veggies. Wait, let me say that in a more appetizing way: My dinner will be a grilled chicken breast, buttery mashed potatoes, and a vegetable medley. Teehee. That is exactly what restaurants do! But I do love typing here. It has made me seem very busy all day. I don’t know why I have never thought of this idea before. Oh, right. That is because I could access the internet everywhere I worked, starting with the Leland Stanford Mansion at both the front desk and the visitor center. And then there was the UCLA Music Library (what a joke of a job!) and finally Felker Toczek Gellman Suddleson of course!
O turns out that the guy was here for an interview! I hope he gets it! There was another guy (also fairly tall) who I talked to on my second day who was very nice and cute. But I can’t remember his name either and I haven’t really seen him since. And finally, there is another cute guy who is a normal height this time, or maybe even a little short, but he is kind of scruffy with a beard and smiles at me and says hi. Sigh. I really feel like I am getting desperate! How awful!
I am not officially onto my 5 Definitely not as bad as when Mac came out with Apple OS X. That was incredibly strange to use after always using OS 9, or even 8 and 7! They changed how the entire operating system worked; adding in different lists to the bar along the top, and the biggest change was the dock. I have gotten used to it now, and they have made some minor changes to the system since that big change, but nothing as intense.
I have officially started the countdown to when I get to leave since it is now less than an hour!
I need to start packing up and getting ready (down to the last 15 minutes!) but I do want to say that my boss put the cable TV on, but he put it on Fox News. I think I am going to die a slow and painful death by puking. I really want to change it since I am the only one that is really watching it and I have access to the remotes. But I won’t do that. At least not today. Like I said, I have very little time left in the day, thank gawd. Toodles!
Student-loan debt delays dream of becoming nun
Correspond us out on Facebook or follow us on Twitter. Sister Mary Joseph of the Sisters of the God-fearing Family of Nazareth, left, and aspiring nun Nicole Ferko. By Eve Tahmincioglu Nicole Ferko's $60000 in student loans made her put off her illusion of becoming a
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Older Americans Struggle With Student Loan Debt
Twenty-something college graduates aren't the only ones struggling with student loan indebtedness. New research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows that more than six million Americans over 50-years-old are still paying off student loans.
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Students loans fail usury test But a sizeable chunk of US student loan accountable is held by senior citizens, many of whom are not only unemployed but unemployable. According to the New York Federal For oneself, 2 million US seniors aged 60 and over have student loan debt, on which they owe a |
Jump-Starting Your Budgeting And Saving
The WSJ also reports that companies such as Bank of America, Citibank and USAA stop budget by importing accounts from other institutions. Then you can use your online bank account to follow things such as your mortgage or your student loans.
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The Subsidized Student Loan Scam
Take your bank and shove it: Serge Halimi on Argentina and the benefits of financial piracy. by DAVE LINDORFF The Senate is currently deadlocked on enchanting action to prevent the interest on new Stafford guaranteed student loans from rising on July 1 from
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