HomeBlend Gourmet

#Moody reported last week that #IdahoFalls would fall into a double #recession and the local #economists are puzzled why they would say that?…Could it be that they don’t know that all the jobs promised by the French company AREVA is still 3 to 4 years away?  Could it be that the economists don’t know that AREVA has not secured their government permits as of yet, and this process along can take a lot of time that unemployed people don’t have?  Could it be that the local economists don’t know that the Stimulus money that hired a few hundred people at CWI for cleanup will go away as of October 1st of 2011?  Could it be that the local economists don’t know that along with the Stimulus money going away, that CWI itself will be a terminated project about the same time, releasing hundreds more into the economy with no jobs?  Perhaps the economist didn’t know that when AREVA does come into this area, true, there will be construction jobs, but these will be specialized and to run the place, people will have to have specialized college degrees…which the majority around here do not, most are just construction workers…Perhaps they didn’t know that when jobs are posted at the INL, because of the Educational Pool here in Eastern Idaho…the INL hires from out of the area because there is no one here to hire that qualifies for the jobs posted,  so maybe the local economists don’t realize that the INL isn’t really going to contribute to anything huge in the local economy for 4 to 5 years down the road, and by that time, those that are unemployed, filing bankruptcy, going into foreclosure and losing jobs…really have nothing to look forward to for 3 to 4 years but more of the same…and maybe they didn’t realize that you need a place to live and you need a job to pay for food, gas and public utilities and without the support structure, which there isn’t any, this area will not only go through a second recession…but we will go through a bubble again and the second crash will be more severe than the first…cause more likely than not, people don’t learn from the first time!

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My fav line from #”The Declaration of Independence” still true today…maybe we should explore this a little more?  “…But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security…”

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#INL #Trading Post is a Employee classified ad section at the #Idaho National Laboratory in #Idaho Falls, Idaho.  We give free classes on how to better you life and your health and ask for donated props for the classes like used bricks, used Cinder Blocks, used Aquariums and so forth…something you would normally have removed and trashed anyway.  We also ask for broken down computers, fix those computer and donate them to people who need computers for school but can’t afford them.  We recycle these normal waste products into things like “Outdoor Ovens” and “hydroponic” systems for people who want to save money and have better nutritional products.  We had been placing ads in the “Trading Post” for these donations for these free community classes.  We were told today that we were no longer able to post for “free” because the ads are written on government equipment and viewed on government equipment or “government Property”…gee, we didn’t know that what the INL or DOE employees as individuals gave away from their “Employee newsletter” was unacceptable…why have a classified section for your employees to peruse if it’s not allowed?  I swear, the bureaucrats are just getting nuttier and more power hungry than ever!…did you know that my husband, around Christmas sent around a Christmas message, wishing his coworkers “good will” and got in trouble for it?  He was written up for using “Christmas” in his message…the person that did it didn’t have a faith and was offended by it…Gee, if she is that offended by the mere mention of the word “Christ…”  Then she needs to work for free…cause our money has the words…”In God We Trust” on it…render unto Caesar what is Caesars then lady!  In these hard economic times, do we really need a bunch of bureaucrats running hither and yon telling us what we can give and what we can’t give…what we can say and what we can’t say…I thought this was America!  I thought that that was what all the fireworks and RED, WHITE and Blue was for..didn’t we already fight a battle for the freedoms that we have?  Didn’t we already sacrifice as a nation with spilled blood for the freedom of speech and religion?  I thought this was America…maybe when I woke up I was transported to a different country in the middle east!

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I got a letter the other day from the State of #Idaho and the #IRS stating that they were going to levy my #bank account for monies owed…well, I had amended my #tax return and had filed an extension on my company, cause I’m not a CPA and would have ended up paying 3500.00 in taxes when I had had a 16,000.00 loss last year…ended up only owing the State 85.00 and the Fed’s gave some back, so I didn’t really owe the money.

But I got to call my CPA, (A very good CPA with Smith, Kunz and Assoc. in Rexburg Idaho!) and he took care of it, but I’ve had friends that haven’t been so lucky!

I had a friend that bought a house in a run down neighborhood of Tennessee.  Urban Renewal was suppose to come in to the neighborhood and turn things around.  The Economy put the squeeze on this guys business…he sought “credit counseling” help.  He paid a service 1,200.00 to get his house re-modified, but the guy ran off with his money (not an unusual story!), by the time my friend figured things out, it was to late and he lost his home.

So, he goes to an apartment, still out of work and still trying to make things work…he starts to get a toe-hold and then the State of Tennessee puts a tax levy on his bank account and takes everything he has, and he only had a little over a thousand in his account, enough to pay his rent and buy a little food for him and his family.

The guy can’t get a break!  So, why am I writing this blog?  Because I don’t think it’s right that a government can go into a man’s home and bank account and leave him with nothing to keep a roof over his head and food in his families bellies!  We are talking little kids…like under 10.  The very basics of life are denied US citizens, and that is just not right.

I understand people owing money and having to collect…believe me, I do.  I have run companies since 1984, but you have to pick your battles or you are going to end up in a revolt!

First of all, some of the problems stem from the fact that people aren’t prepared to fight…they either don’t know what to do or they don’t have the money for an attorney…which is a whole “nuther subject that I could rant about!

People get these notices and they don’t know what to do, they call the companies and try to work things out, but the policy of the company collecting may be that they don’t want to negotiate, so they do things and say things to make the customer hang up or walk away from the table, people don’t know what their rights are before they go in to work things out…oh yeah, you have to have rules to fight with!  I gotta tell you, bankruptcy is the perfect weapon these days!  Did you know that you don’t need an attorney to file a bankruptcy petition?  You have to pay the filing fee, which is minimal at that point.  Then, you can take that bankruptcy petition and go back to all your creditors and say…Okay, right now the market value for this type of debt is .07 to .10/1.00, or 7 cents to 10 cents on the dollar…so, that’s what I am going to offer you in return for a dismissal of the debt or an “accordance of satisfaction”…if you (the creditor) doesn’t take this deal…then I’m going to go through with the bankruptcy and you get nothing!…I would do this at the very beginning of this process…did you know that if you can negotiate with all your creditors…you can withdraw from the Bankruptcy so it doesn’t go on your record?  Think about it…so if you have a debt, lets say of 31,000.00, you can settle that debt for 3,100.00 instead…it’s worth the 500.00 you may pay in filing fees.  I had an attorney that charged me 2,600.00 for filing a bankruptcy that we withdrew from….and I think the filing fees were something like 250.00 or something…and the guy was my cousin!  Can you say, “Ripped Off”, major!  I have seen some of my friends file with an attorney for 550.00 total.  Again, if you have a lot of debt, it may be worth the 550.00 to file the bankruptcy and then negotiate or settle the debt…just know that in some states, bankruptcy court doesn’t take much time from the time you file until you are in front of the judge…and sometimes, if you try to postpone your court date, in the state of Idaho, they will only postpone it till the next day, so get your ducks in a row and as soon as it’s confirmed that it’s filed, start negotiating!

Did you know that you can negotiate or settle a tax debt too?  The federal government is more willing to settle then the state, I’m not sure why, I guess the Federal Government is large enough that it doesn’t make sense for them to be Jerks than the State.

You can go to the IRS website and there is information there to settle your debt.

Years ago, my dad had relatives that owes over 100,000.00 to the IRS.  The relatives left the country on a church mission and left my dad to negotiate the bill.  He negotiated the bill down to 10 cents on the dollar and then worked for almost a year without pay on another job (This was in the early 1960’s) so he could pay off the debt in time for these relatives to come home.  Back in the 1960’s…10,000.00 was a lot of money and he was only in his twenty’s with a family of his own…the point is, 10,000.00 was a lot of money, 100,000.00 was impossible and he was able to negotiate the amount down to something that was at least workable!

I had a friend that years ago, went to Berkley…got his bachelors and his doctorates in 5 years graduating with a Law Degree specializing in Tax Law.

He said it was horrible!  He said that he had an 85 year old woman…the IRS had seized her bank account and her home…sold everything she had for a tax levy…but she was sure she didn’t owe any taxes…so he started to investigate.  The IRS had the wrong Social Security number…they had taken all this woman’s money, sold her home she planned to die in, sold all her belongings, all her heirlooms that she could never replace and that she had taken a life time to collect…and then, come to find out, after destroying this woman’s life and making her absolutely miserable…she wasn’t the person they were suppose to collect from, they had the wrong social security number.  They put the money back, but they couldn’t replace anything else, so the woman had no where to go and had nothing left that gave her comfort in her final days…thanks Tax man!

He told me there was a guy, successful business, nice house and family.  The IRS came and took his house and business…his wife left him, thought he had been messing around, thought she didn’t know him anymore..so he lost his house, lost his business, lost his wife and kids…everything…then, come to find out, the IRS had the wrong person again…Thanks Tax Man!

My friend said that he worked the field for about 5 years and couldn’t take it anymore…He said that he watched State and Federal Taxes ruin peoples lives, caused so much suicide with no accountability what-so-ever…

you know what is funny, is that this country was founded on Ethical Tax principles…put down by Attorneys!  Again, another time, I could rant on the unethical bedside manner of Attorneys for decades!  If you’re interested…then go into your State Bar associations newsletters and look at all the attorneys that do business in your area that are either under review or are going through disbarment…it’s frightening!

There are a lot of tools out there that the common guy can use to help himself, but you really have to know how to use those tools, when and where.  Bankruptcy doesn’t have to be a bad thing if you can use it to your advantage.

And Credit Counseling?  Scam artists!  I’ve only seen very few that can help or want to help, most are just referral agencies for law firms, most unscrupulous!

I was doing a piece on “remod’s” and called the #1 credit counseling agency down in California.  They tried to talk me into hiring this law firm to “assure” my remod.

I went through the whole thing, writing a congressman the transcript of the conversations between the counselor and me…well

the counseling agency wanted me to pay an attorney, their attorney 2,900.00 in order to do the remod, when they found out that all their telephone conversations and all the emails sent was going to a Congressman that worked with Senator Dodd, they told me that I didn’t qualify for a remod.

That is really funny, since I went to the mortgage companies myself, delivered a hardship letter and proof of everything and my second mortgage company came back within 10 days and approved a remod…from 15% down to 5% and then took the late payments and put them on the back of the loan…we are still waiting on the first mortgage, but don’t expect much from them…we are at 7.25% and are hoping for maybe a 4 or 5%.  The point is, the counseling service was going to charge 2,900.00 for something I did myself for free.  Citifinancial is our second mortage company and they were unbelievable to work with…Saxon is our first mortgage, and we are still waiting on them…

Things are tight all over, and if you have the tools, know how, when and where to use them…the “Tax man cometh” doesn’t seem such a daunting statement at all!

thanks for letting me rant!

d

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#EPA has been studying particulate #contamination in the #US for over 20 years…the #BP #oil spill is nothing compared to what we do to ourselves!

Back in 2000, I was working on my PhD, looking at biochemical responses to natural and man made contaminants in our food and water.  What triggered all this was one of the first reports of US fish becoming bisexual and mutated.  This wasn’t in water outside the US or in the oceans where we dump all our trash and it circles around in an endless trash cyclone somewhere …this was in waters smack dab in the middle of the US…where anglers fish and eat their catch all the time, where people live, work and raise their families.

I became intrigued by this contamination that would evolve a species in a period of years, instead of decades.  The research showed that, yes-there were industrial plants further up the river…the Love Canal of that particular state, but there was something else that was found…gray and black water overflows from communities coming out into that river.

So what caused the fish to evolve into “bi” sexual fish?  Estrogen’s was one of the main factors…

Estrogen can do a lot for females…regulate the heart with iron, keep the metabolism in check, keep skin tissue looking young and of course reproduce, sure…but what happens when we have to much?  Cancer, Tumours, Brain dysfunction, birth defects and so forth.

There are a couple of things that can elevate the Estrogen in the environment…one is a society taking “the pill”, any left over estrogen in the system will spill out in urine.  When you flush the toilet, all that water goes into the septic or sewer system…if you have a good system, it will take that black water to your sewage treatment plant, where it’s treated.  If you have a septic system, then it’s taken to your septic tank for treatment and then released to a leach field where it “leaches” down through the ground and back into the drinking water…or your neighbors.  Just because you water comes from the other side of your yard from your septic doesn’t mean you don’t get someone else’s black water, if you have neighbors, your probably drinking theirs.

So, if it’s treated, what’s the problem?  here is the problem…Estrogens will cleave on to hydrogen, not carbons…so when you try to “filter” them out…they are hooked on to water molecules, so they don’t filter out. So now you may say…what’s the big deal?…we all have to have estrogen in our systems, even males in order for the body to function correctly…except that when you look at how much we get from our food, our water, our environment and our bodies…it becomes to much for us to handle.

Birth control pills aren’t our only source of Estrogen…it wasn’t for the fish either…and that is why 20 years ago, the EPA joined in the effort with nations around the world to figure out how to fight this.

Sugars can mimic estrogen or have the body produce more estrogen than we need…so can processed foods high in carbohydrates.  Other estrogen mimicking chemicals…Hair Conditioners, Fabric Softeners, body lotions, insecticides, pesticides and my all time favorite…Chemical Sweeteners!  Wonder why you can’t lose wait drinking diet sodas…well, there is one reason…it’s tricking your body into taking up more estrogen.  Some may say that this is not a bad thing, at least now when your co-worker gets irritated and grumpy, you may be able to offer him a midol and a Snickers to calm him down!

You may be thinking that Hair conditioners and body lotions don’t really concern you either, cause you don’t eat those, but actually…you do.

When you shower, all that water that is rinsed off with the hair conditioner in it, the lotion and the fabric softener that was just rinsed in the washing machine goes down into the septic or sewer.  It doesn’t hook on to carbon filters, it hooks on to water molecules…which doesn’t filter out…so when they try to treat it, it doesn’t clean, it just goes back down into the water supply…this is called particulate contamination…particles still contaminate the water.

Who drinks the “high estrogen” water?  We do!  What does that mean?  It means that the probabilities of a community that has high estrogen use from females, high sugar diets, processed food diets and inadequate sewage and water treatment will result in higher levels of all types of Cancer, Arthritis, Brain tumors and brain dysfunction’s.

When I first started my project here, there is a nuclear site not to far away.  This “Snake River Valley” had the highest rates of Cancer in the state of Idaho, so I came here to study.  We found the water flow from the upper end of the state to the 1000 Springs area gradually became more contaminated the further down we went…and despite all the locals saying it was from the Nuclear facility, it wasn’t even close.  There was no contamination coming from the nuclear site, it was all coming from the grey water and black water treatment plants and from septic areas…it was coming from the cities, towns and subdivisions.

I had put in for some grant money to study this phenomenon with the EPA on the City of Rigby, it seemed the perfect fit for the study.  At the same time, the INL (Idaho National Laboratory) had started a study in particulate contamination as well as a couple of Universities in the area from their hydrology departments on the aquifer in Eastern Idaho.

The City of Rigby had a permit, an NPDES permit, which gives that city the right to pollute within certain parameters into federal waterways.

The City of Rigby didn’t have a wastewater treatment plant, they only had lagoons at the time…I’m not sure that that has changed…

They would gather all the waste from the city and put it all into pools.  They had an aerator that would churn the waste to pull it apart and then they would process the waste until it was potable, then, their EPA permit said that they would “sprinkle” the potable water on to a field, so it could continue to filter down into the aquifer…but that is not what the city did, they put a pipe called an “over-flow” pipe into the lagoons and discharged the “Potable” water into the federal waterway called “The Great Feeder Canal”, this would then dump the sewage into the Snake River.

Okay, you may say, “what’s the big deal if it’s potable?”…it’s potable…it’s not drinkable, there is a huge difference!

In 2000 the NPDES permit for the City of Rigby expired and the man that was in charge of this permit for years…was the new mayor.

At the time, there was huge and massive development going on in the area.  The City of Rigby is a rural area…a “bedroom” town, so there is not a whole lot that employs people, they sleep here and work somewhere else…or, they do construction.

I’m not opposed to construction…my father made millions of dollars as a developer and contractor throughout his life…he built nuclear facilities too, but he really did his homework on each of his projects…infrastructure was key for him and he spent a lot of money in the beginning of his projects to make sure that the infrastructure was always there and large enough to hold capacity for growth.

These guys didn’t do that.  My dad had a Chemical degree when he made his first million…so he was educated and he always had a lot of empathy for communities…these guys, not so much…no education, no degree…just a lust for greed and a lack of decorum for the most part.  The Mayor was in construction…most of city council was in construction…all their families were in construction…so, when I was sent by the EPA to tell the city council that their NPDES permit had expired and they needed to cease all discharge from their sewage operations into the federal waterways…they were less than cooperative!  Why?  Well, first of all, the only way the EPA can fine you is…you have to be in violation of the permit..if you don’t have a permit, then your not in violation!  Weird huh?

Rigby didn’t want a permit cause they knew the more they pumped contamination into the water and got away with it, the less it would cost. Most EPA fines are rather large and can bankrupt a city within a few weeks, even with the best of liability insurance.

Want to know a common practise in Jefferson County Idaho?  Under the city of Rigby there is an anomaly called the “Rigby Fan”.  This is a large outcrop of lava that lies in the Aquifer.  When the irrigation season is in full bloom, the water from farming goes back into the aquifer, pushing the water south…the more water the more the flow…when it hits the “fan”, the water rises up within 7 1/2 inches within the first layer of basalt…this is called Sub-water and it floods basements and all low lying areas.  The contractors will build a house from March until about the first of July, then they will leave them alone until the middle of August..because the sub-water rises up during that time of the year and floods the leach plain.  If the contractors don’t know, then it never happened.  So, they build over it…then the next year, when the sub-water comes up and floods the septic or the basement…the contractors didn’t know, so they aren’t liable…it’s the homeowners problem then…tricky,huh?  This is a common practise in this area, so common that people on Planing and Zoning know, so when they ask for the particulars on new subdivisions coming in, those surveys are not given in the “Sub” season, only during the off season when the water rising up isn’t an issue.

So, the City of Rigby fought the NPDES permits, and so did the Idaho Department of Environment and Quality…who were also related to people in city council.

The other problem?  The City of Rigby has an antiquated sewer system…the pipes that hold the city sewer are over 30 years old now and have deteriorated to just plates holding the sewer.  When the sub-water comes up in the summer, there is nothing to contain the gray and black water.  In this area there is only 7″ of any type of natural filtration, so when the sub-water comes up, then it spills the grey and black water over the plates and into the basalt layer of rock…which is like huge rock with large gaps in it.  The contaminated water will then seep into the Aquifer or drinking water.

Now the City of Rigby has very deep wells…one going over 800′ down…so what’s the danger?  The danger is that Rigby is not only near the Snake River, but it also has very powerful canals that run through it.  Because of the pull of water, the contamination that is fairly near the surface of the Aquifer is drug down to all the communities below it.  One particulate can take 10 years to travel 10 miles, but when put near a vacuum like in Rigby, it can travel the distance in just a few months contaminating all areas between and including the larger city..Idaho Falls.

The contamination doesn’t only have to do with Hair Conditioners, Fabric Softeners and body lotions, it also has to do with food.

Estrogenics are nutrients that make the body produce Estrogen.  Ever wonder why the female body isn’t suppose to go through menses until 13 and the average age now is 8 or 9?  The more food we have, the more sugar we eat, the more processed we get, the more mature our bodies get…faster.  The fatter we are, the more estrogen we produce and eliminating sugar and opting for chemical Sweeteners isn’t going to help…hello people…they are “CHEMICALS”!  They will either mimic estrogen or they will help your body produce estrogen!

Sanjay Gupta, MD does a series called “Toxic America”.  The other day he did a segment on children and toxics…he touched a little on Food contamination.  He said that if you washed the food it would be okay…except someone didn’t tell him all the truth.  Organophosphates, which is commonly used here in the US is a pesticide and a very good one at that…well, it will kill pests.  Side note, did you know that Sucralose and Aspertame were pesticides?  They were being developed as pesticides in labs..and they work quite well!  But when they discovered that the chemicals were sweet, then switched their marketing plan…so all your precious chemical “Sweeteners”…were originally designed to be deadly!…

Anyway, Organophospates are very effective pesticides, but they are also very devastating to the system.  This also is an estrogen mimicker…it will cause vision problems, lung problems, it will cause hair loss or male patterned baldness and can cause weight gain, because the body is trying to protect the nervous system from the effects of the chemical.

The USDA did a test on organophosphates in the food.  They took the vegetables and fruit and WASHED them, then did the test and a large percentage still had enough organophosphates in them to affect the brain function and development of a child.  The thing about organophosphates is that when you spray them on to the crops, it doesn’t stop there.  When you water, the chemical goes down into the ground.  The plant’s roots take the chemical up with water and then circulates the chemical throughout the plant…so when you eat it, even if you wash it, you are still going to get enough of the chemical to affect cell function…if not more.

There are hundreds of little town like the City of Rigby all over the United States, the world for that matter…most are operated by the ignorant like this one, or by those that have greedy goals in mind.  The fact of the matter is, the oil spill is heavy on our minds now because we see the devastation caused by this disaster, you can see the oil pluming out, you can see the wildlife struggle, you can see the oil as it glops on to the shores and into the marshlands and we are all alarmed.

But there were warnings…the fish that changed sex over 20 years ago…the disappearance of wildlife and habitat, our offspring with mental disabilities, the increase of cancer and other disease, the probability that our lifespan has decreased by 25 to 30 years.

Many years ago, there was a cry for recycling, reuse, live simple…but no one heard.

We are coming up on a new era in the Mayan, The Ronga Ronga, the Chinese Calendars…all ancient and all that say the same thing…there will be a Change, it will change the earth or kill us…perhaps this contamination will be the beginning of the end that was predicted long ago…Perhaps the first sign of human downfall was the fact that our hearing seemed less than perfect and we have now become deaf to our own destruction.

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“My son lives out of his car so he can finish his #college education…”, “We are #losing our home, our #retirement and have sold everything we had of value so that we can #survive…”, “We had to let our #children live in #Foster Care because we lost our jobs and are now homeless…”, “We had to move back in with my parents because we lost everything and have to start over…”…these are current statements of people living in Eastern Idaho and not unlike statements made in the Depression Era.

So where do you go for help?  Yourself…your friends….your family, it’s the only possible way.

The banks have essentialy closed their doors after defrauding millions of people into buying sub-prime mortgages and allowing the “Stated Income” lines of credit.  When the banks did this, it shut off operating loans and lines of credits to small businesses, which employ millions…which now is the cause for the unemployment of millions.

We all know what the problem is, now we have to shake this off and look towards solutions that are lasting.

So, your son lives out of his car to finish college…the good point is that he is determined to finish college!  I have cleaned houses, taught voice lessons and done odd jobs to earn money for my kids to finish college…it was hard…I got up at 4:00am and didn’t go to bed until sometimes 2:00am.  Earning all the extra money is no joy either when it comes tax time…my kids can’t afford to go to school because they can only earn 5200.00 per year and they use that to pay for gas and food to get through school…so that leaves me with earning 20,000.00 per year to get them the dorm rooms, lab fees and other expenses.  Because I earn that much…I get taxed higher, so I’m working my fingers to the bone so my kids can do better than I did…and I have a PhD…which puts me in a bigger hole…I have no retirement because I’m always paying my taxes and my kids education bills…so my plan is to work until my kids can get their degree and move outside the USA…Then I’m going to follow the thousands of retiree’s that are moving outside the USA because their money goes further and they have less stress!  A beach somewhere in the South Sea Islands sounds good to me!

In the Depression…Thousands of children were loaded on trains and sent away to orphanages because their parents had no jobs and had no homes.  The children survived…but not very well.  The parents would find work, build up again and then would search for months, sometimes years to find their children and bring them home again…some families never did recover.  Thanks Uncle Sam…great plan to save the family!

What caused the depression…again…the banks and wall street.

How did the nation recover?  They worked doing anything, they learned to save and to never trust the banks or wall street again…we should have learned that lesson well the first time, huh?

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Samoan #Diplomat was jailed for 4 months when he came to visit his daughter in the US.  The #State Department did not notify his consul, they just threw him in jail as a “#Terrorist”  After 4 months and the Samoan Governments insistence, he was freed.  The diplomat had diplomatic immunity, but that was ignored.  He is now suing the US State Department for 10M.  He said that it was not about the money, but the humiliation.

Samoa is a small nation just off the southern tip of New Zealand.  American Samoa suffered a Tsunami last year…

American Samoa is 3 of 8 islands that were sovereign to Western Samoa when the US took the island.

Samoa sent 240+ men and women to Iraq to fight along side of Americans…this third world country lost 7 of their best men and on women to the US cause.

They have not been on the best of terms with the US since the undersecretary of State said some insulting comments about the former King which the Prime Minister took offense to…looks like the fight is still ongoing!

This happens all the time in the US…smaller countries come here to visit relatives or come here to make business arrangements between countries, and the US will pull them off the tarmac and incarcerate them for months, sometimes years.

In a prison in New Mexico, is a member of the Royal Family of Samoa.  He is without prosecution but he has been in a US Federal Prison for 20 years.  They pulled him off a Plane bound for his home country after he took his frail father to Hawaii for medical treatment.  He has been in prison since.  His wife was pregnant before he was incarcerated…the daughter is 20 years old now, and he has never seen her.

Is there a reason why “terrorists” hate America…I don’t know, you tell me.  I am an American…but I don’t support illegal and unjust actions like this.  These people sacrificed their best to support our cause…242 people that served our country and a loss of 7…that is such a show of friendship, then for us to turn around, insult their king and jail their royal family for years is just appalling!

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#Credit Counseling, #Loan Modification and #Refinance myths are plentiful right now.  If you are looking for any of these, you have just become “prey” to the big, bad world of finance!

Ever since we as taxpayers have been asked to take on the burden of the Stimulus and Bail-out program, I have carefully watched the credit industry, and they way that they have reacted hasn’t been good for the consumer at all.

Have you noticed how taxpayers went into debt for billions (28,000.00 per person in the US) and yet the banks have no credit for operating loans or refinance loans or modification loans?  Have you noticed how because of the banks actions…since we have bailed them out…that the credit has dried up so small businesses can’t get operating loans…farms can’t get operating loans, so those companies have had to go bankrupt or out of business?  What happens when the Credit dries up and small businesses can’t make their manufacturing?  What happens when a farm can’t get a renewal on an operating loan…jobs are lost…Unemployment goes up…it’s a perpetual cycle, taxes will go up again because the nation has a grand burden at this point, the taxpayer then has to pay to feed not only themselves, but everyone that is out of work too.  Taxpayers are given the responsibility to pay for housing, food, medical care, counseling and more job creation.  Right now the US taxpayer in the middle class pays about 38% to 42% in taxes, how much more can we take?

In regards to Credit Counseling…I wouldn’t use a credit counseling agency if you put a gun to my head!  This is all stuff that you can do on your own, and did you know that most of these agencies are funded by the Credit Card industry?

I had a friend that was going through a rough time.  Some guys stole her business from her with lies and deceit.  They took her livelihood for  1 year and then left her with all the bills.  The bank, who got a letter of Intent from the men, found that it was easier to go after her for all the money they stole, so they foreclosed on property and started garnishing the wages of this Cancer stricken woman.  She filed bankruptcy, which mortified her, but at the last minute a company came in and offered to buy her default note in 5 payments within 5 months for the note to be paid in full…so the woman, since it was a reasonable offer, withdrew the bankruptcy, only to find that the bank would rather garnish her wages for 5+ years than take the offer…so they continued to garnish the wages.

She went to a Consumer Credit Counseling service that was offered on line…cmcsoa.  The man she spoke to was accommodating, but told her that she would have to come up with 2495.00 within the first month to pay the attorneys…she said..I thought that this counseling was free…he said, “What I am telling you is that you need an attorney…that’s the free part”.  He also told her that the attorney was giving him a “referral” fee for sending clients his way.  Some credit counseling services will charge an upfront fee and call it a “donation”…in any event, this is still “bait and switch” tactic’s and immoral when you look at the fact that most of the people going in are desperate and looking for help to save their homes.  If the government truly wanted to help people out of this mess, they would have set up federal offices, put the federal money into a special federal account and managed it according to the regulations to spend it, but they didn’t…they outsourced it and this is what has happened to all the money that we now owe for that debt.  We got nothing for what we paid for.

So, my friend?  What happened to her?…She sold everything she had, and she didn’t have much…her husband lost his job…so the bank couldn’t keep garnishing wages, but he lost his job because the bank (DLEvans Bank of Idaho, TARP bank…19.9 million and lost 31 million 2009) was garnishing wages and he was a federal employee in a secure position.  So, he lost his job, the bank couldn’t keep collecting on their 60,000.00 note, they lost their house, which is another 172,000.00 which two more banks will have to deal with.  They have 4 kids to support, she has cancer and he is 55…what do you think the odds are that he will find another job? Or that she will?

28,000.00 per person is what the bail-out and the stimulus is going to cost us and the amount keeps climbing everytime one of these senarios plays out.  Credit Counseling, Loan Modification and refinance…if the bank has anything to do with it, and they do…your chance of getting help are pretty much nil.  You can talk to all these people on your own…if you find a mortage company that isn’t helpful in getting your interest rate down or negotiate on your overdue payments, then hang up and call back again, do it until you get someone there that is willing to help you, take their name and extension number down, roll up your sleeve and get to work.  The banks tell their employees not to modify or refinance your loan…think about it, they will lose money!  So, if you don’t find someone helpful, then hang up and call again until you do…and then take the information that you got from that mortgage company…whether you got the run around, (document all the times, numbers and names of the people you talk to) or whether they helped you and send a letter of what happened to the US Finance commision and Senator Dodd…tell the Tea Party Colalition…go on Twitter, facebook and all other social media and tell you story…back it up with documentation…put it on WikiLeaks.org and change the way this system is handled.

Thanks for letting me rant!

d

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#TARP bank, #DLEvans Bank targets woman who has been fighting #cancer since 1999 for garnishment, bankruptcy or foreclosure.  TARP banks are now preying on the weakest of our society in order to get their junket or bonus money.  Idaho bank took 19.9 million tax payer dollars in 2008 and hasn’t paid any dividens…although they have made interest payments.  DLEvans Bank has posted 31,000,000.00 in troubled assets for the year 2009.  Feel like your not going to get your money back from TARP banks?  Then take your deposits somewhere else.  If you take your deposits out of TARP banks and put them into local banks that didn’t take the TARP money…if you investigate the banks profit and loss statement and look at their lending rates…you’ll see that TARP banks are not always the place to bank and feel safe!  The woman fighting cancer…DLEvans bank is garnishing her husbands wages and because of that they can’t make their mortgage payments.  This one woman has delivered babies, she has volunteered in her community, she has saved countless lives…and now when she is most vunerable…”We don’t do litigation (a lie because they keep a law firm on retainer, Parsons, Smith and Stone, LLP)…she will have to hire attorneys to do that for her…we just collect money.”  OHHHHH!  Thats why they took 19.9 million dollars of Tax payers money!  Cause they collect money!   Makes you just want to go down there and deposit all your money and do all your business with them, huh?

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