News of the finance

Today, I was anxious.  I wanted to trade, just to do something.  I mean, I finally have money, and a LOT of it, in my account.  Shouldn’t that give me the basis to just BUY anything?

But I held steady.  One, because the markets were mostly up today.  I mean, a drop in GDP and a confirmed Chrysler bankruptcy just doesn’t do the magic anymore for the shorters.  But raising the swine flu alert level…yup, that’ll have people running for their lives.  I just don’t get it.  Then I take a deep breath and remember that we are all still trying to administer meds to this crazy market but its on the loose and nowhere to be found. 

The other reason why I decided not to buy was because I wanted to develop some discipline.  I mean,  I shouldn’t be buying just to buy, I should buy when there’s an opportunity/sale.  This will allow me to have that requisite amount of cash in my accout for when a sharp pullback occurs.  Remember those days when I would lament not having cash in my account?  REMEMBER?  Yeah, it was awful.  I won’t let it happen again. 

I did have an opportunity to expand my position in EGO, but decided against it as I want to get out of commodities.  Or atleast make them a minimal part of my portfolio.  EGO is a great company, and I’m sure if I hold that goodness for two years, I’ll see some love, but I’d rather use another industry as a hedge for a stock rather than Gold.  I mean, maybe I’m doing the wrong thing.  I don’t know.  I’m confused.  But for now, I think I should get out of dodge by getting out of Gold.

I heard an interesting little nugget from a friend yesterday about a young woman (a real person!) who decided to invest because the market was “up” that day.  So she ended up buying AIG, BAC, and C because the government owns those things and that’s, like, the best guarentee.  She proceeded to not understand the terms GDP, Q1 earnings results, or Market for that matter. 

Newbies, who can tell me at least one thing that is not just wrong, but devastating, about this Novice?  And no, it wasn’t buying AIG.  People, people.  She didn’t know a thing about Investing before entering the market.  You have to know a lil shumthin shumthin before you put your GOODS in the market.  For you guys that don’t know what the hey I’m talking about but just enjoy my writing style, I’m not talking to you.  I’m talking to the people that don’t know what the hey I’m talking about and are diving into the markets just to mimic my actions.    

I wouldn’t even call someone like that an investing newbie, because I’m hoping that you guys have all done your H Dubs (homework for the not cool kids) on everything and anything related to the stock market before you got/go in.  I’m just here to provide my story, some entertainment, a complimentary glass of invisible wine and some knowledge on my quest to becoming an Investing Guru.  (That was foreshadowing people for whats to come!!!)  And I truly do hope that one person reads my story and realizes things that they need to do or even suggest things for me to do as I learn on this journey.

So Newbies,  we are not Investing Novices.  Those are for people that don’t even understand my blog title.  We Newbies are just doggie paddling in the world wide ocean of the Dow, the river of the S&P and the Nasdaq Sea.

One of the transactions didn’t leave my account yesterday as it should’ve done.  No one can explain what stopped it but hey ho, I had £500 credited back into my account.   So I went to withdraw most of it before my direct debits sniffed available cash

Unfortunately the other £460 left my account so they’ve sent forms out for me to sign confirming it wasn’t me.  They said I’ll get the money back in 7-10 days (although it could, apparently, be credited back within 2/3 days). 

Yet again I was assured I won’t be charged any fees for missed payments and a few other people have since told me they are normally quick to reimburse you.  So that’s a bit of a relief. 

I’m going to live in an oblivious banking (yes, I said banking) bubble for a few days now.  My card, automated phone balance and online banking (yes, I did say banking again) have all been blocked so I’m giving my stressed head a few days off from it now.  Feel proper drained today (just like my bank account…ho ho!), maybe I’m getting pig flu…

AAAACCCCCHOOOOOO!

Fine Print: Should be ABOLISHED

Fine print, defined.

Main Entry: fine print

Function: noun

Date: 1951

: something thoroughly and often deliberately obscure; especially :  part of an agreement, document, or contract spelling out restrictions and limitations often in small type or obscure language

You find fine print in every aspect of everything you purchase and every service you need. Things such as car insurance, health insurance, home owners insurance, home loans, bank loans, beauty products…..essentially anything you buy. Especially everything you need.

When you read the definition, it makes you wonder how companies can get away with all the THOROUGHLY DELIBERATE, OBSCURE, SMALL TYPE (fine printing) they have in their contracts. The answer is BECAUSE THEY CAN. There is nothing in place to prevent these companies, corporations, and the government from doing so.

Fine print is designed to confuse a person into agreeing with the contract put before them. Fine print is illegible and perplexing to the majority of the population.

Fine print is inserted into every contract you are offered.  In essence fine print is merely a disclaimer on behalf of the company or corporation you are getting the service or product from. This protects them (not you) from any repercussion if the service or product is faulty.

Unless one of your parents happens to be an eagle, and you were blessed with that parents acute vision and the other parent happens to be a corporate or government attorney blessing you with the ability to be able to read and fully comprehend the murky often ambiguous language these bonding agreements are written in, you won’t be able to read or understand any of it. This is what they are (excuse the pun) banking on.

Written in what seems to be another language altogether, it is hard to make sense of whatever rules and regulations you are agreeing to. If you don’t agree totally with the fine print you will be denied the service or product from the company that you are trying to get the service or product from.  

Have you ever noticed the fine print on television commercials? When the fine print finally gets to the screen, at the tail end of the commercial, it is only left there for a few seconds making it more of a challenge to try to read it. In fact it is impossible.

Let’s talk in layman’s terms.

Layman is defined as

Main Entry: layman Pronunciation: \ˈlā-mən\

Function: noun

Date: 15th century

1: a person who is not a member of the clergy

2: a person who is not part of or belong to a particular profession or who is not expert in some field.

The majority of us are laymen when it comes to legal contracts and fine print.

Fine print basically means when you either buy or sign up for a product or service, you are S@#% out of luck, they now have your money, and you have a less than impossible chance of getting vindication or your money back.  

Fine print is placed like an embalming process into contracts. After you sign on the dotted line or select the Agree Button, your wallet begins to bleed out of a small tube. Your wallet, now being linked directly to the pockets of Presidents and CEO’s of companies, begins to hemorrhage.

They have no problem morally siphoning people’s wallets dry. Fine Print does nothing to protect the life blood of your wallet from decay. If fact as your wallet is being bled out, it is being replaced with interest owed.

We need to get back to simple language in America.

Yes our forefather’s spoke and wrote in the vernacular of their times, but that language has become ambiguous. We need to have all of the definitions redefined in terms that people can understand in today’s language.

There need to be rules put into place for the consumer.

A couple of rules should look like this:

All contracts should be typed in font size 14 in clear precise language easily understood by all.

Any restrictions formerly known as “fine print ” must be placed at the start of the document or contract typed in at least a size 20 font in simple, clear, precise language. 

If people actually had a real understanding what they were signing, none would sign and the contract holders would have lots of free time on their hands and no undeserved money or interest in their pockets.

We REALLY need to RETHINK OUR PRIORITIES!!!

Sincerely J.H.

Lloyd Banks Mixtape - CD 1

Lloyd Banks Mixtape - CD 2

BANKS and their INTEREST in our HOME LOANS!

YOU’VE JUST WON THE LOTTERY!!!!!

Your choices are as follows:

The cash prize will either be $250,000,000.00 or $500,000,000.00.

The prize you accept will be determined by the amount you choose to declare on your taxes.

You can either take the cash or the cash equivalent as follows:

Titles and Keys to: 

One Thousand Two Hundred Fifty $200,000.00 homes!

(PAID IN FULL Based on the $250,000,000.00 amount)

Or

Two thousand Five Hundred $200,000.00 homes!

(PAID IN FULL Based on the $500,000,000.00 amount)

Or

The Keys and Titles to: 

Either 5,000 or 10,000 High End Vehicles! (PAID IN FULL Based on either amount)

It’s one of the biggest lottery wins in history!!!!

How did you win this lottery without buying a ticket?

It’s quite simple. You are the C.E.O. of one of the biggest banks in the nation. Your bank is going under. However, you are clever enough to have taken your Salary, Bonuses, Perks, Golden Parachute and Crapped down the throat of all that work below you just before they tried to take their last gasp of air.

It INTERESTS us just how you secured such a large package.

It really INTERESTS us that the PATRONS AT YOUR BANK, are the ones who actually PAID THESE INTERESTING SALARY, BONUSES and INCENTIVE PERKS!!!!!

(We would all have great incentive if we were paid a mere $25-50,000 extra per year.)

It is even more interesting to realize that with your Salary alone, YOU NEVER HAVE TO PAY INTEREST!!! You simply extract it from your customers.

Guess what YOUR CUSTOMERS had to PAY on their home loans at YOUR BANK?

LOTS AND LOTS OF INTEREST.

For example: For a basic $225,000.00 home, with a 30 year mortgage, your customers were GUARANTEED a nice LOW INTEREST RATE of 5.625%. What a great rate.You are too kind? How lucky are they?

A thirty year mortgage is the one that should be the most affordable for the struggling masses. It is all based on how the monthly payment fits ones budget. (at least that is what you are supposed to base a loan on)

That means that your customer’s monthly payment will probably be $1295.23 and the INTEREST your customer will pay over the life of the loan will be $241,282.00. How nice, they are paying double the value of their home plus $16,000 extra dollars just in INTEREST.

(isn’t that INTERESTING?)

Or we could look at it a different way. THEY  in addition to their own home, are buying a BONUS GOLDEN home for YOU the poor overworked underpaid struggling little C.E.O., President, Vice President or one of the Board of Directors of your bank. I wonder how many BONUS GOLDEN HOMES they purchased for you in the previous years. Hmmmmmm.

Wouldn’t it be funny if a GOLDEN BONUS HOME were to fall out of the sky and land on the C.E.O. and his Cronies? Then all of the little INTERESTkins could come out from behind their GIANT COLORFUL MORTGAGES and sing and laugh. The song would sound something like this “Bing Bong the Leech is Dead, Leech is Dead the Greedy Leech………”  And just like in a fairy tale, an honest bank (remember this is a fairy tale) in a giant housing bubble would float down. Upon landing the bubble would disappear we would live happily ever after, assured that EXECUTIVE’S HUGE SALARIES, PERKS AND COMPENSATION PAY were dead forever.  Making interest rates fair and affordable.  

WAKE UP, BACK TO REALITY!!! (The customer has just purchased a $225,000 mortgage at 5.625% interest.)

This payment of $1295.53 does not include TAXES or INSURANCE which your clients are required to pay over the life of the loan and the course of their lives.

Averaged out over the life of the loan INTEREST totals $670.23 per month. That is more than HALF of their HOUSE PAYMENT per month. Remember this $670.23 is averaged. What the customer pays in interest is taken off of the top of the 30 year mortgage. This is where you take your siphon and direct the $$ directly into your bloated salary, bonuses, perks and retirement packages.

Now imagine 10,000 customers paying the same interest. Your bank stands to make $6,702,300.00 per month, in INTEREST alone.  (just imagine what the interest is on 1,000,000 customers.)

Wouldn’t it be really INTERESTING if your customer had a percentage of that interest to invest in health insurance, savings, green technology, retirement or anything to do with their personal future rather than having it absorbed by you, the C.E.O. and your Cronies? 

Here’s what $225,000.00 at 6.5% interest on a 15 year mortgage looks like.

Your client’s monthly payment would be $1959.99. (Again this figure does not include Taxes or Insurance) Averaged monthly interest would be $709.99. The total interest paid is $127,798.48 or 57% of the original cost of the home. Still more than half of the payments are spent on interest. (a little less interesting, but still ridiculous)

The average monthly interest is 36% of the payment. How may people could take a part of that $709.99(or ridiculous interest) and put it to better use? Everybody hates to see your bloated interest, taken from their hard earned money, end up as your over inflated salary, incentive perks, retirement package or golden parachute.

Note to the Customers of Any Bank:

What is really ironic is the meager amount of interest the bank pays you to save with them so they can sell your money and charge another consumer the same ridiculous interest rate on a home loan, doubling their profit only to benefit the Banks C.E.O., President, Vice President and Board of Directors Personal INTERESTS.

A Very Interested Bank Customer

J.H.

I have no idea why ATMs charge users RM1.00 for interbank withdrawals.

I also have no idea why most ATMs cannot be used after 12.00am.

In the UK, you can withdraw your money from any bank, free of charge. And you can certainly withdraw at any time of the day.

Yes, it might seem petty, but to me we can certainly do away with such inconveniences.

Sen. Dick Durbin, on a local Chicago radio station this week, blurted out an obvious truth about Congress that, despite being blindingly obvious, is rarely spoken:  “And the banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they franklyown the place.”  The blunt acknowledgment that the same banks that caused the financial crisis “own” the U.S. Congress — according to one of that institution’s most powerful members — demonstrates just how extreme this institutional corruption is.

read Glenn Greenwald here