How Credit Scores Work

In this article, we'll find out how this formerly secret number is used and how it affects how much you pay for credit, insurance and other life necessitiesThis article is completely wrong.1. Credit scores stop at 850 (not 900) unless youre using the new vantagescore bs (which stops at 990)2. Credit inquiries stay on your record for two years (not one). There are ways to get them off before hand though (but only for transunion and equifax, not experian)3. You can still have a high credit score and be denied for a card. CC companies don't just look at your score and how much you make, but they also look at your existing credit lines, amount of inquiries you've done, how much debt you have, how many cards you already have with them, etc. You can have a 750, but if you show too many inquiries, you will get denied, I know from experience.4. Keep your cards at no more than 25% of the limit? I've heard and read on lots of places that 50% (and 85% on a single card) is when they start getting nervous and kill your score.Overall, a decent article.

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Using the Emergency Brake to Steal a car?

Ignition keys equipped with signal-emitting chips were supposed to put car thieves out of business. No such luck – but try telling that to your insurance company.in short (from page 3) "The mythical Honda override exists: It’s a series of presses and pulls of the emergency brake. Each car, it seems, has a unique override code, which correlates to the VIN.""Then I grabbed the emergency brake handle between the front seats and performed the specific series of pumps, interspersed with rotations of the ignition between the On and Start positions. After my second attempt, Honky’s hybrid engine awoke with its customary whisper."

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How are you going to explain this to the insurance

An accident that the insurance company wouldn't believe..I remember see this one happen, it was about 12 years ago maybe a bit more.it was in Wellington, New Zealand.back in the day they had a street race every year, they would close off a few main roads in Wellington and have a big race.. nissan/mobil 500 i think it was called.any how the question of how to explane it to the insurance company...if i remember rightly i think a glass company decided to get in for some good PR and fixed it all for free.also i think an insurance company got a clip of it for an advert.

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Rich, Black and Flunking...

The black parents wanted an explanation. Doctors, lawyers, judges, and insurance brokers, many had come to the upscale Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights specifically because of its stellar school district. They expected their children to succeed academically, but most were performing poorly. African-American students were lagging far behind theirThis was a fascinating article. Here is a pivotal quote:===================================================The professor and his research assistant moved to Shaker Heights for nine months in mid-1997. They reviewed data and test scores. The team observed 110 different classes, from kindergarten all the way through high school. They conducted exhaustive interviews with school personnel, black parents, and students. Their project yielded an unexpected conclusion: It wasn't socioeconomics, school funding, or racism, that accounted for the students' poor academic performance; it was their own attitudes, and those of their parents.Ogbu concluded that the average black student in Shaker Heights put little effort into schoolwork and was part of a peer culture that looked down on academic success as "acting white." Although he noted that other factors also play a role, and doesn't deny that there may be antiblack sentiment in the district, he concluded that discrimination alone could not explain the gap."The black parents feel it is their role to move to Shaker Heights, pay the higher taxes so their kids could graduate from Shaker, and that's where their role stops," Ogbu says during an interview at his home in the Oakland hills. "They believe the school system should take care of the rest. They didn't supervise their children that much. They didn't make sure their children did their homework. That's not how other ethnic groups think."

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Michael Moore denied entry into the NYSE

It seems the money-men don’t want Moore anywhere near them at the NYSE. Michael Moore went down to Wall Street to ask people to divest from health insurance companies and guess what happened? He couldn’t get in…CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo looks pretty flustered when Moore asks her if any other guest had ever been denied access with her before?Agreed. I think the title is sensational and misleading. While it's possible Moore was denied entry, it seems much more likely that the scheduling issues mentioned were the cause, which is MSNBC's fault. I've never tried to visit the exchange myself, but it doesn't seem like the sort of place you just walk into. On the other hand, you'd think MSNBC would have some sort of prearranged interview space for guests like Moore.Regardless, the substance of the interview is what really counts. I love that Moore is finally talking about the weaknesses of the program, and practical issues, like the role of pharmaceutical companies under a universal system. His argument really is airtight, from a moral standpoint, even if there's plenty of room to quibble over the intricacies.

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CNN's Gupta Lied- Speaker a Republican insurance shill

Michael Moore caught Sanjay Gupta in a lie on his report about Sicko.Details here.It amazes me how dumbed down people in this country have become -- especially after reading some of the replies in this. Everyday in the news media you get plenty of "the other side" of the story. You got your Fox News, your CNN's, etc. all reporting outrageous things in order to keep the news interesting. What Moore is doing is giving you what CNN and Fox News ARE NOT willing to give you -- the other side of the story. Imo, Moore is doing what nobody else seems to have the ballz to do -- and that is, to stand up for the rights of the little guy. Moore is not proposing turning healthcare into a line at the DMV. What he is doing is taking positive elements from other systems and suggesting that we should consider them. Is that such a bad thing? To be open minded? To not be so absolutist? So many people seem to have made up their minds on everything. Open up the closed minds people. Consider the bad with the good.

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Bush to Veto Children’s Health Insurance Expansion

The plan would've "reduced the number of uninsured children by 4.1 million" and "be [funded] by a tax on tobacco products."Here is a concept. If you have children, you need to pay for them.Though I don't smoke I don't feel anyone should have to pay for other peoples children. We already pay taxes which funds public schools, not to mention having children are a tax write off on exemptions. Essentially, I pay more taxes than the next guy simply because he decided to have children, then I get to pay for his child to go to school. This doesn't include federal funding for child support services.If you have children. You need to pay for them!

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President Bush suggests uninsured children go to hospital emergency rooms

After the Senate Finance Committee approved an expansion of the federal Children's Health Insurance Program to cover nearly 10 million kids, President Bush offered a strange rationale for threatening to veto it. "People have access to health care in America," he told an audience in Cleveland. "After all, you just go to an emergency room."Every responsible middle class family should have $4000 saved?Oh, so the poor really don't fucking matter at all, then, right? Not just the poor, the in-between-poor. Still-getting-by-but-still-broke folks. Myself included in that. They don't really matter at all. Let's just throw em' to the dogs and let em die of their wounds.Wow that's impressive.Let's spin this another way: Your leg is broken. You need to go to the Emergency Room. It's going to cost $100,000. George Bush can get it fixed because he has the money, but you can't. You only have $4000, so George says to you: "EVERY responsible family should have at LEAST $100,000 saved for emergencies."Some people just don't have that kinda money, man. I know I don't. Honestly, I won't have anywhere near $4000 in my bank account, including savings, come payday this Friday. It's just enough to get by on bills and World of Warcraft :P

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Sorry Kids: Bush Vetoes Child Health Insurance Plan

President Bush, in a confrontation with Congress, on Wednesday vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have dramatically expanded children's health insurance. It was only the fourth veto of Bush's presidency, and one that some Republicans feared could carry steep risks for their party in next year's elections.Ummm, before anyone complains about this bill raising the ceiling to include children in families above the poverty line. Stop and reread the bill. It includes families up to 300% of the poverty line. I'd like to point out that the official poverty line in the US is for a four-person family unit with two children is $20,444 as of the 2006. Employers pay, on average, $3,695 a year for single-person coverage and $9,950 for family coverage (http://finance.comcast.net/personalfinance/view.ht ... That rises to $10,217 for the more popular PPO coverage. They pass 28% of it to families. That is if you can even get insurance through your employer. Individual insurance plans usually have steeper premiums than is charged to companies. Think about this for a minute before you praise how great our health care system is and that these people make too much money for state to help. A family bringing in 40K, even if they get all their taxes back each year, is paying a 25% of their income to the insurance companies. That is sick. It's ridiculous. Our health care system is in desperate need of repair, but at least this bill would have given some less well to do families some much needed help until we can really address the main problem.

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Blue Cross Blue Shield Calls MISCARRIAGE an ABORTION and Denies Coverage

This story deals with a woman whose health insurance provider denied her emergency room medical claim after she suffered a late night miscarriage. The basis of the denial, they say she had an elective abortion. Its this kind of stuff that makes Americans hate the health insurance industry. Digg this and let em' feel the burn.The point is that insurance companies try to build as many barriers as possible to prevent paying a claim. They start with denying a claim with the hope that a person will give up there. If people do call them on it and it is clear the bill should be paid, they put the burden on the people to prove they deserve the claim. Again hoping that someone will just give up. Maybe they are too busy or whatever. The insurance companies should talk directly with the hospital to figure it out. The patient shouldn't be involved in the process.Insurance companies (especially publicly traded ones) are in it for profit. Paying a medical claim is diametrically opposed to the whole reason they are in business. It's one thing if your car sits in a junk yard waiting to be repaired while you hassle with your car insurance company. It's another when you are fighting for your life. In some cases, death wins before issues are resolved. This is completely unacceptable.Private industry has had their chance to get health care right. They've failed miserably.

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