I'm delighted to announce the launch of HuffPost Money, a section dedicated to looking at the big financial stories of our time, with an eye on answering the question: how do the day's headlines affect you and your finances?
These are not ordinary times. In a world of too-big-to-fail banks, no-strings-attached bailouts, and credit card companies using hidden fees and fine print -- tricks and traps -- to get their hands on our money, HuffPost Money will use all the tools at its disposal to help us to make sense of it.
You can treat HuffPost Money as your online complaints desk for all things money-related -- only instead of directing your questions to an anonymous customer service call center, you'll be sharing them with our team of finance reporters and an engaged community of readers, many of whom may have the same questions or complaints. And we're open on weekends.
HuffPost Money is founded on the understanding that many of the biggest stories of our time -- from foreclosures and the decline in American economic mobility to the payroll tax extension and the growing student loan debt -- have a direct influence on the way we live, spend, and save.
I'm particularly excited about "Money Talks," an interactive daily feature that will allow you to weigh in and help drive HuffPost Money's coverage. We launch today with the question, "What's your number one financial concern?"
Money isn't just money -- it's also a stand-in for our fears, our hopes, and our feelings of control over our lives. We fear we will never have the resources to live well, parent well, feel secure. I remember one of the low points in my life, when I was 26 and my second book had been rejected by 36 publishers. I was walking, depressed, down St. James' Street in London and saw a Barclays Bank. I walked in and, armed with nothing but my dwindling reserve of chutzpah, asked to speak to the manager and asked him for a loan. Even though I didn't have any assets, he gave me one. I will never forget that manager, Ian Bell -- to whom I still send a Christmas card every year -- and I will never forget the way that loan changed my life.
The truth is, for most of us, money is not a subject of great fascination, but a means to other ends, especially security and freedom, as well as the means to give to people and causes that matter to us. HuffPost Money will build on a HuffPost tradition of looking for solutions to our financial problems at the individual level.
Last year, for example, HuffPost joined with Meetup.com to bring together underwater homeowners at bars, restaurants and coffee shops across the country to help each other answer the question: should I walk away from my mortgage?
In 2009, HuffPost launched the Move Your Money campaign, addressing the growing chasm between Wall Street and Main Street, and encouraging people to move their money to smaller, more local, more customer-friendly community banks. It must have hit a nerve: earlier this week, Reuters reported that nearly 10 percent of customers of U.S. banks moved their accounts last year because of frustration over fees and poor quality of service.
We extensively covered one of the most egregious examples of that poor service: Bank of America's plan to charge debit card holders a five dollar monthly fee just to use their cards. But what really prompted the bank to back down and abandon the plan was the collective reaction on social media. People clearly now want to have a voice in the world of finance.
But our coverage won't just be about how rigged and rotten the financial system is (though we'll be all over that!); HuffPost Money will also turn the spotlight on the ways individuals and organizations are using their financial expertise for good. There's the Acumen Fund, which invests in startups around the world, and Poverty Resolutions, a microfinance non-profit that helped Haitians fund small businesses after the 2010 earthquake, founded by Penn State MBA students (and brothers) Matthew and Andrew Jones.
HuffPost Money is edited by Emily Cohn, who got her start at the Huffington Post over a year ago on the blog team. Emily graduated from Cornell University where she was the editor-in-chief of the Cornell Daily Sun. She will be overseen by another Emily, Emily Peck, managing editor of HuffPost Business. Before joining HuffPost, she worked as an editor at The American Lawyer and the Wall Street Journal, covering personal finance, real estate and careers.
HuffPost Money's original coverage kicks off with two stories from Catherine New, who reports on the ways your social media presence could impact your financial future (one bank says it will offer better rates to those with more Facebook friends!). Catherine also reports on how debt collectors are hounding millions of Americans in an effort to get them to pay nonexistent debts, an illegal practice the government is finally cracking down on. Instead of filing an arms-length report, her story is designed to let you know your rights and spot fraudulent debt collection when you see it. There's also Loren Berlin on the pitfalls of auto-pay; and Jillian Berman on how she got her first credit card, an illuminating tale of a recent college grad navigating the complex world of interest rates, annual fees, and payment deadlines.
And don't miss our slideshow spotlighting rising gas prices around the world, featuring photos submitted by our readers of gas receipts and signs at gas stations in their neighborhoods.
In the coming days we'll be rolling out a feature called The Gripeline, covering customer service issues -- the place to share horror stories about any financial institution that puts you on hold for hours. And we'll launch a liveblog devoted to daily deals and coupons, so you can share the best deals you come across with others -- and vent about those that didn't live up to the hype.
Our lineup of launch day bloggers includes Bill Maher on being poor and then being rich enough to give money to Super PACs; former FDIC chairperson Sheila Bair on the Security and Exchange Commission's efforts to be honest with people about the risks of prime money market funds -- and the substantial pushback from mutual fund lobbyists; CardHub.com CEO Odysseas Papadimitriou on how to save money on your summer travels; Beth Kobliner, a member of the President's Advisory Council on Financial Capability, on five ways women entrepreneurs can "get a financial life"; and New York City Department of Consumer Affairs commissioner Jonathan B. Mintz on what we really need to know about prepaid debit cards.
I'm excited that HuffPost Money will be a new platform for these kinds of conversations -- and very much hope that you'll be a part of it. Please email your story ideas and suggestions to money@huffingtonpost.com and follow @huffpostmoney on Twitter. And, as always, use the comments section to let us know what you think.
Add your voice to the conversation on Twitter: twitter.com/ariannahuff
Non-government JOBS are ONLY created by these Greedy businesses and Greedy corporations in order to CREATE WEALTH for those same businesses and corporations!
Each nation must constantly generate new WEALTH and new assets in order to create the financial capability to be able to take care of those that cannot take care of themselves, and other government activities. This capability can only be available if that nation has NATIONAL WEALTH created by successful businesses available that can be CONFISCATED in the form of taxation in order to create funds to pay for these government activities.
1. Fossil fuel production is currently at its peak, and will soon begin declining
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/aug/22/peak-oil-department-energy-climate-change
2. Human population is still growing exponentially
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/chapter-3-exponential-growth
It seems to me that with declining world wide energy supplies and a growing population everyone is going to have make do with having less and less every year--unless vast swath of people suddenly disappear soon. By the way, 2007 is when the peak oil conundrum manifested itself in the human abstract financial economy as the ongoing world-wide financial crisis. If there were a fancy high-tech solution for peak oil available, that would have been the correct year to begin implementing it.
Do you have any suggestions?
The US International Trade Balance (Deficit for the USA) indicates that Brazil, Russia, India, China, (BRIC) nations, plus Pakistan, South Korea, and the other industrialized countries of the world with positive net foreign trade balances are NET CREATORS of NATIONAL WEALTH for their nations, and the de-industrialized USA and most of the European nations with negative net trade balances are NET CONSUMERS (DESTROYERS) of the existing NATIONAL WEALTH in their nations, whose citizens live “high on the hog” by continuously borrowing wealth from the industrialized countries to pay for US Federal government activities.
Since US Dollars, Treasury Bonds and other Securities have NO VALUE, except that the US government is allowing these freshly printed paper US Treasury Bonds, Dollars and other Securities that US citizens paid to foreign nations to make the consumer products that we consumed to be redeemed for US Dollars that can be used to purchase title to (corporations that own) privately owned businesses, factories, casinos, hotels, farms, land, ports, refineries, forests, ports, breweries, distilleries, and other privately owned NATIONAL WEALTH and other assets located in the USA that were created by previous US generations prior to de-industrialization overseas instead of redeeming these freshly printed paper US Treasury Bonds with gold from Ft. Knox.
The US Government will then probably just start printing US dollars to pay for their government expenses.
When this happens, the purchasing power of the US dollar will approach zero.
It is NOT debt.
It IS a legal creation (Aristotle)
It is NOT gold, silver or other commodities, though those may store value - well or badly
It IS a means of exchange
It is NOT stocks, bonds or derivatives of other kinds
etc.
This is a very important and neglected issue.
The "Faith and Credit" backing the US Dollar is essentially "Faith that the US Citizen will add enough value to goods to support the currencies perceived value --- which in turn promises that the US as a Nation will honor its responsibility to do so (credit).
We are failing in that promise because we no longer add enough value to support the money. Currently we have enough "equity" to draw upon -- BUT -- Like any fund that is spent and not replenished that equity is quickly disappearing.
This is the real challenge
"It is NOT gold, silver or other commodities, though those may store value - well or badly"
For much of history, gold and silver were successfully used as currency because of
the very fact that they store value. When the U.S. converted to paper currency, the
government found it necessary to confiscate gold and put it in Ft. Knox to back up
otherwise worthless "money". Simply put, "full faith in the government" paper
couldn't compete with real, tangible value. The only real drawback to gold/silver
money is that it becomes so difficult for the government to fleece us.
Personal recommendation must be one of the better ways in which to pre-gauge the honour of a potential service provider. A databank (rogue's gallery). Where would-be customers could peruse the problems (and possible resolution methods), encountered by previous clients. A godsend if ever there was one. Working on the principle that, I may not be able to extricate myself from this malignant morass. But I may be able to stop anyone else falling into it. In addition. Those companies that erred though error rather than intent, could use it to modify their ways. The rest would need to conspire to bribe government into inventing new laws to circumvent it.
"What's your number one financial concern?"
Fixed “term” contracts, from which there is apparently no escape on completion.
"Bank of America"
are now, allegedly, involved with Government in relation to tax refunds. Whereby repayments are made though a facility of theirs which levies charges. Talk about the company store.
"ways your social media presence could impact your financial future"
Open a media account named “MY BAD (insert delinquent company’s ID)”. Then wait for the gripes to roll in.
"spot fraudulent debt collection when you see it"
and circulate a government contact name to refer such activities to.
"puts you on hold for hours"
and point-blank refuses to put anything in writing. Since e-mails and phone conversations are not accepted as evidence.