New Credit Card Rules Could Stop Sucker Syndrome

New Credit Card Rules Could Stop Sucker Syndrome

Trips and Traps Business Model for Plastic Vendors

Personal Responsibility Works With Disclosure, Certainty

by John Michael Spinelli

May 20, 2009

COLUMBUS, OHIO: As the Obama Administration attempts to re-float the U.S.S America, through massive injections of federal largess that will be foisted on future generations as pay-back punishment for the disastrous financial policies employed by the Minister from Midland, a hint at whether their financial skills will be up to the task could be seen soon, as America retools its credit card laws and one Ohio school system realizes equipping young Buckeyes with financial knowledge will better prepare them to enter the sea of financial sharks without being eaten alive.

To understand the deceitful, ever-changing world credit card companies have been allowed to build that places consumers on a game board rigged with financial rapids that bring them great profit while impaling individuals and families with protean rates operating in league with shifting fees, listen to how Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren describes to Bill Maher the lawful ability lenders of plastic have to put consumers behind the Eight Ball with little chance of escaping in tack.

Warren, who is also known as the "TARP Queen" because she chairs the panel that oversees the Trouble Asset Relief Program, which was set up by Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson who asked for a blank check for hundreds of billions of dollars to bailout Wall Street banks infected by subprime loan securities, says credit card companies make billions by setting "tricks and traps" for consumers, who whether they know it or not, fall prey to the cruel consequences spelled out in their small-print agreements.

But hope is on the way in the form of new credit card laws that, if passed by Congress and signed by President Obama, would protect consumers from sudden increases in interest rates and curtain that one study performed by the Pew Safe Credit Cards Project said "current credit-card practices place American cardholders at risk of sudden, potentially drastic price increases, which can seriously impair a household's stability and spending power."

In a related story Tuesday, the Cincinnati Public Schools announced students from kindergarten through grade 12 will be taught financial education, in compliance with a new Ohio graduation requirement mandate that high school students, starting with the 2009-10 academic year, study personal financeas part of a curriculum that school superintendent Mary Ronan said will "graduate well-rounded students who know how to thrive amind financial challenges."

The Cincinnati-centric Business Courier reported that 25 percent of American homeowners have no savings to cover living expenses if they lose their job. Taken from a a quarterly survey performed by the Wells Fargo & Co, the study says 34 percent of homeowners have "had family or friends move in with them" and that 43 percent "think about their debt every day" while 36 percent say "they're cutting back on small expenditures, such as dining out, buying clcothes an gifts for friends."

Concerned about their members' financial aptitude as much as the CPS is about training their young students minds to know a good deal from a bad one, the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees is offering a free one-hour online class, or Webinar, through Union Plus, that will help members avoid credit card fees, understand their credit score and ow to read a credit report, among other topics.

It's never too late to wise up, but full disclosure and certainty are keys to consumers exercising their personal responsibility. You remember personal responsibility, don't you? It was used by banks and credit card companies to shift the blame of deep debt to people who didn't know the rules because the rules were ever changing, at the whim of the companies who extended credit to anyone with a pulse but then shackled them in handcuffs of repayment terms that essentially sentenced them to a debtors prison without bars.

Business advocates have long said that all business wants is "certainty" about the future so they can plan accordingly. The same demand can be used by consumers, who without access to affordable, clear and reasonable credit terms cannot perform as the loyal consumers the economy needs to grow.

Turning the tables on credit card companies seems only fair. Personal responsibility is great as long as the rules and options are clear for everyone. If "Apples to Apples" comparison is good for electric and gas rates, then it ought to apply to credit card companies and all lenders too. An informed populace is a wise populace. Playing Three Card Monty with a stacked deck is inherently unfair and only rewards deception.

John Michael Spinelli is a Certified Economic Development Financing Professional, business and travel writer and former credentialed Ohio Statehouse political reporter. He is registered to lobby in Ohio and is the Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc. To send a tip or comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

Happy Days Are (Still) Not Here Again

Happy Days Are (Still) Not Here Again

Ohio Among 10 Lowest States on U.S. Well-Being Index

by John Michael Spinelli

May 13, 2009

COLUMBUS, OHIO: Only Mississippi, Kentucky and West Virginia ranked lower than Ohio on a national well-being index that not only considered absence of infirmity and disease but also a state of physical, mental and social well-being.

Performed by the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, the first and largest survey of its kind, with 1,000 calls a day, seven days a week, Ohio ranked 47th among the nation's 50 states on six sub-indices including life evaluation, emotional health, physical health, healthy behavior, work environment and basic access.

The top 10 states ranged from #1 Utah to #10 Arizona. The report showed a clear pattern of higher well-being states located primarily in the West and lower well-being states in the Midwest and the South.

The Web site of The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index™, an alliance with America's Health Insurance Plans, says it has been developed to "provide the official measure for health and well-being. It's the voice of Americans and the most ambitious effort ever undertaken to measure what people believe constitutes a good life."

Of Ohio's 18 Congressional Districts, District #08 (John Boehner,R), #12 (Pat Tiberi, R) and #14 (Steve LaTourette, R)ranked in the middle 20 percent.

Districts one level down from the middle 20 percent were #05 (Bob Latta, R), #16 John Boccieri, D), #15 (Mary Jane Kilroy, D) and #02 (Jean Schmidt, R)).

At the bottom were #09 (Marcy Kaptur, D), #13 (Betty Sutton, D), #10 (Dennis Kucinich, D), #11 (Marcia Fudge, D), #17 (Tim Ryan, D), #04 (Jim Jordan, R), #18 (Zack Space, D), #06 (Charlie Wilson,D), #07 (Steve Austria, R), #03 (Mike Turner, R), and #01 (Steve Driehaus, D).

But are these rankings any wonder, given the loss of 269,000 more jobs in the past 15 months, which has produced the highest unemployment rate in 25 years (9.7%)? With more than one in 10 Ohioans receiving food stamps and with more than one-third of Ohio's schoolchildren now qualifying for the federal lunch program and Ohio's food pantries with more hungry mouths than they have food to feed, the well-being of Ohioans is in deep trouble.

Coinciding with this gloomy news were reports that seven companies in business in Ohio plan to eliminate another 2,300 jobs at plants in more than a dozen locations. Moribund auto sales were credited for the job losses.

Keith Ewald of the Ohio Bureau of Labor Market Information said in a published report the number of unemployed Ohioans is now 577,500, up nearly 200,000 from a year ago.

Ewald, who said the "job market will likely be one of the last parts of the economy to recover," was joined in his dark prognostication by James Newton, chief economic adviser for Commerce National Bank in Columbus, who said, "Job markets are going to be horrible for quite some time."

John Michael Spinelli is a Certified Economic Development Financing Professional, business and travel writer and former credentialed Ohio Statehouse political reporter. He is registered to lobby in Ohio and is the Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc. To send a tip or comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

Budget Battle Leads to More OhiWoe

Budget Battle Leads to More OhiWoe

Ohio Poll Shows 46% of Ohioans Fear American Dream May Fail Next Generation

by John Michael Spinelli

May 11, 2009

COLUMBUS, OHIO: With fewer than 50 days left for a split General Assembly and Governor to hammer out a budget they can both agree on, the news last week that figures for the current fiscal year could be as much as $900 million more out of whack due to plummeting tax hauls was tantamount to pouring more salt into an already gaping wound.

Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, the first of his political ilk to hold that office since Republicans dominated it starting in the early 1990s, has had to trim state spending three times to the tune of about $2 billion in his first three years, due to an economy that was already failing fast when he won the office in 2006, and is falling further and faster with little expectations for recovery anytime soon. The Ohio Constitution requires a two-year balanced budget effective July 1st.

Strickland has stuck to his story that Ohio's woes are the result of a national economy gone sour, due in large measure to reckless management by former president George W. Bush and a Republican-led Congress that turned a blind eye to their leader's flagrant spending on the war in Iraq and his staunch philosophy toward business that regulating them is wrong.

But Strickland, who by one recent poll may still be popular enough to beat any Republican opponent in 2010 when he runs for relection, is taking lightning strikes from Republicans, who want to see his apple cart upended at all costs, and from Ohio media, which is less timid to assign more of the blame for a bad economy on the good governor and his budget director,, who has been lambasted for poor prognostications that fewer statehouse watchers put much faith in these days.

In a one-two punch from Ohio's Greatest Newspaper, the lead editorial in last week's Columbus Dispatch pegged Gov. Strickland and his new Democratic House of Representatives with performing a "profound disservice to the state" by ignoring reality and putting off tough decisions.

Part of Strickland's budget problems stem from his use of $7 billion in one-time federal stimulus money to patch program funding for the next two years while whistling past the graveyard of future budgets that won't have manna from heaven to rely on.

A second problem was the gamesmanship over budget numbers and forecasts used by the Ohio House to justify adding even more funding to placate social service advocates who saw their clients going without with no happy ending in sight. Adding to the mess are the happy budget forecasts Strickland received from the Legislative Service Commission that House Democrats relied on when they padded the budget and passed it to the Senatet, where Republicans rule the roost.

Further exacerbating his budget woes is the news that funding for his new education plan, a plan he said would make or break his administration in terms of being successful, was determined to be under-funded by more than $1 billion.

Republicans, who have been good at throwing brick bats at the phlegmatic governor but who have offered little in the way of realistic remedies, are as happy as pigs in mud over Strickland's plight. State Auditor Mary Taylor, the lone Republican to hold a statewide office after Democrats swept the election of 2006, estimated recently that the "structural deficit" will be as much as $4 billion in each year of the next two-year budget. But estimates are, well, estimates, and things could change, but no one can forecast with any certainty which direction change takes us in.

The paper's senior editor chided state leaders, including Strickland, House Speaker Armond Budish and Senate President Bill Harris, for not acting on the reality they can see before them. Joe Hallet said this about OhioWoe's difficult situation: "The state is bleeding jobs, 269,000 more in the past 15 months. The jobless rate is the highest in 25 years. More than one in 10 Ohioans receive food stamps. More than one-third of Ohio's schoolchildren qualify for the federal lunch program. Food pantries are overrun, and some have closed because they can't keep up with demand."

Hallett, whose paper's long tradition of siding with Republicans against Democrats and backing business over consumers, called for raising taxes, even though his paper regular demonizes the need to raise taxes on the wealthy or business in general.

While journalists are notoriously wrong about what will happen, the results of The Ohio Poll that gaged what OhiWoeans thought of the American Dream was cannily pertinent.

In a media release on whether OhioWoeans see trouble ahead, 46 percent said the next generation of working adults will be worse off economically than the current generation of workers.

"The poll found a majority of Ohioans pessimistic about their current economic conditions when compared to their parents and that a majority say the next generation will be 'worse off' than the generation working today," according to the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Cincinnati that conducted the poll this April.

Thirty percent of Ohioans, the poll showed, said their household had been impacted by job loss during the last year.

Even though Mark Zandi, economic adviser to Sen. John McCain, said on the Nightly Business Report that the Great Recession had bottomed out, Ohio's woes will not soon rebound. Not having recovered from the recession of 2001, it's a long shot that Ohio can rebound from the crippling blows of lost jobs that will continue to roll its way, especially as we watch the fate of Chrysler and General Motors, two automakers who still employ tens of thousands Ohioans each.

In a news release today from Ohio junior U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), he said a proposed Chrysler plant closing in Ohio will make him explore "all avenues to keep jobs and economic activity in Twinsburg.” Brown said he has "discussed the Twinsburg closing with administration officials and will continue to fight for federal assistance.”

John Michael Spinelli is a Certified Economic Development Financing Professional, business and travel writer and former credentialed Ohio Statehouse political reporter. He is registered to lobby in Ohio and is the Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc. To send a tip or comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

Turtle Train Problems Revealed in Public Records Request on Amtrak Study

Turtle Train Problems Revealed in Public Records Request on Amtrak Study

Ohio Media Opposes Reporting Opposing Views on Misguided Snail Rail Plan

by John Michael Spinelli

May 5, 2009

COLUMBUS, OHIO: Discouraging information contained in Amtrak's preliminary study on restoring passenger rail service between Cincinnati and Cleveland was revealed to Ohio taxpayers through a public records request, the Associated Press reported Monday.

In an AP story run in the Dayton Daily News , it was learned that a preliminary study performed by Amtrak for the Ohio Rail Development Commission (ORDC), the state agency that hired it and that manages the upgrade of thousands of miles of freight rail tracks, confirms that the time to creep along the approximately 250-mile route connecting Cleveland and Cincinnati, via Dayton and Columbus, will take six hours to complete or an hour and one-half longer than driving the distance by car.

More complications came into view with the one billion dollar plan that will take a decade or more to get up and running. It was learned that new train stations will need to be built in Cincinnati and Columbus and other potential stops where passenger trains have not run nearly a half century.

Ohio Taxpayers can only wonder where such funds will come from to build train stations in cities where budgets are already under pressure and where the idea of raising taxes to pay for them is as likely to happen as the priesthood letting a gay atheist into its ranks.

Matt Dietrich, ORDC's executive director, was as unconvincing in this story as he was in person, when he stumbled for answers to simple questions posed to him by state senators holding hearings on the recently passed state Transportation Budget. In committee, Mr. Dietrich, who runs an agency that supposedly has studied this issue for many years, had little in the way of hard facts to support his contention that bringing back slow, costly trains is both a good idea and one that can pay for itself over time.

The phrase "rough estimate," appearing again in this AP article, will go unchallenged by the Ohio Media, who by not challenging such vacuous statements will allow Mr. Dietrich and other government spokesmen to continue to hide the real financial and operational pain that once learned by Ohioans, will doom the turtle train to the past to the scrap heap of a bad idea gone worse. This juggernaut plan to squander one-time federal stimulus dollars on a train system that won't travel much faster than Civil War era trains must be stymied now so wiser, more enlightened minds can enter the debate about what train system Ohio needs that will match up in performance to the demands of the future.

If Gov. Ted Strickland thinks the turtle train to the past is the best train technology available, then he has been sorely misinformed by Dietrich and others, who should know better given their jobs descriptions and assumed expertise on issues related to rail traffic.

At a time when Ohio is looking into the great abyss of a state budget gone very sour, why are public officials like Mr. Dietrich given a free ride in the media, when strong voices that oppose the 3-C Corridor plan are ready and willing to be heard?

They are few and far between, but the (Cleveland) Plain Dealer ran an article by Randal O'Toole, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, who made the case that so-called high-speed rail isn't any solution to saving energy or reducing pollution or road congestion, as is commonly assumed. Slow train speeds like those Mr. Dietrich has acknowledged will be standard on his slow train to the past, were common 70 years ago, according to O'Toole, when cars and airplanes out competed trains of the day even then. As cars and air travel advance in design and performance, why are we stuck with 100-year old train technology when new, innovative proposals exist?

Ohio would be better served by redirecting its one-time federal stimulus dollars to advanced train technologies like Tubular Rail, which will be knocking on Ohio's development door this week, making its case for why it can revolutionize the way people and goods move from one city and region to another.

For a state that never recovered from the the job losses of the recession of 2001 and now trembles with each day's headlines, fearing the loss of even more jobs as Chrysler and General Motors meet their maker in bankruptcy court or reorganization, isn't it the perfect time to find a new industry that can create jobs, spur economic development and bring Ohio back into the 21st century?

Ohio lawmakers, who along with Gov. Strickland share the blame for allowing the 3-C Corridor Plan to live on, should not allow Mr. Dietrich and Transportation Director Jolene Molitoris to go unchallenged, as they blindly push to embrace out dated train technology. By their own admission, their turtle train to the past will cost a minimum of $10 million per year in public subsidies. But those are just "rough estimates" that will probably pale in comparison to the real figures from real bids when they come in. With more straight talk about the underlying realities and costs associated with the 3-C Corridor train, maybe that day will never arrive.

Should that day arrive, Ohioans will follow in the footsteps of Floridians who after learning in 2004 that the system costs quoted to them to get their vote in 2000 were double what they were sold, reversed themselves and directed their state leaders to stop pursuing plans for high-speed rail. A similar move to turn the train around is underway in California, where a nearly $10 billion state bond fund to pay for one-quarter of that state's proposed high-speed rail is already entering massive obstacles from communities who are suing the train authority over routes because they don't want it running through their towns.

One reporter from the United Kingdom who knows about high-speed trains and who has taken an analytical view of President Obama's puny plan for rail development here, says the real costs American taxpayers will have to fork over will be crippling, especially for a country where the word tax has been demonized.

Gabriella Gurley, writing for the online edition of The Guardian, knows the lack of appetite Americans have to paying more taxes. "But moving a tax-adverse country toward this vision demands a massive attitude shift," she writes, adding that "Down payments may look good, but Americans have had trouble paying off balances" and "With other pricey domestic headaches like healthcare looming large on his fast-moving agenda, how much political capital is Obama is willing to spend to get America into training?"

John Michael Spinelli is a Certified Economic Development Financing Professional, business and travel writer and former credentialed Ohio Statehouse political reporter. He is registered to lobby in Ohio and is the Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc. To send a tip or comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com

Drive-Thru Bankruptcy Court Next Stop for Chrysler

Drive-Thru Bankruptcy Court Next Stop for Chrysler

Junior Ohio Senator Likens Plant Closings to Natural Disasters

by John Michael Spinelli

May 1, 2009

COLUMBUS, OHIO: President Barack Obama, on his 101th day in office, announced that Chrysler, the third largest of Detroit's Big Three automakers, would pull into in the drive-thru lane of bankruptcy court where it could emerge in a few as two months with a new driver at the wheel, and new partners in the form of autoworkers and the federal government.

While the president painted a picture of time spent in bankruptcy court as one serious step along a path towards healing, he also scolded a small group of hedge fund debt holders for not compromising like everyone else had. Mr. Obama said he "stood with" United Auto Workers and their families and other debtors, and against those who held about 35 percent of Chrysler's approximately $6.9 billion in secured debt.

Speaking sternly to them in Washington surrounding by an entourage of supporters, Mr. Obama announcement means those who sought to exact a greater return on the trade out of debt for equity will now have to fight it out before a yet-to-be named bankruptcy judge, who may or may not look kindly on their stubbornness at a time when the fate of Chrysler hung in the balance.

Mr. Obama said it was unacceptable to let a small group of investors jeopardize the future of the company.

In Ohio, hard hit by auto industry job losses, the announcement was not openly welcomed by the Buckeye State's junior senator.

Sherrod Brown, a first-term senator from 2006 who spent years as a Congressman representing a northeast Ohio district where auto-related manufacturing was strong, said in a written statement that he was "disappointed that Chrysler bondholders were not willing to compromise and avoid bankruptcy."

The former Ohio Secretary of State whose state unemployment rate is 9.7, said he saw it as a "setback for auto workers, auto retirees, and auto parts suppliers" and said his "thoughts are with workers at the Jeep assembly facility in Toledo and all the other employees at suppliers and dealers elsewhere who may be affected."

Published reports say Chrysler spokesman Max Gates confirmed that all U.S. manufacturing facilities will stop production beginning Monday and be idle for 30 to 60 days or until Chapter 11 proceedings are worked out. Gates also said in the report that it is also possible that the downtime could vary from plant to plant, but that a shutdown schedule won't be known for awhile.

About 3,200 Toledo-area Chrysler workers will be idled - about 1,700 at Toledo Jeep Assembly, 1,300 at Toledo Machining in Perrysburg Township, and 190 at the Global Engine Manufacturing Alliance plant in Dundee, Mich, The (Toledo) Blade reported Friday. An estimated 3,000 other workers at area suppliers also are likely to be laid off.

"Auto communities need targeted and timely assistance from the federal government," Brown wrote, adding, "A major plant closing is an economic disaster and the federal government needs to treat it with the same level of response we give to natural disasters."

Brown's media release said more than 440,000 Ohio jobs directly or indirectly depend on the auto industry, and that auto suppliers directly account for nearly 100,000 Ohio jobs.

Covering the story for the Associated Press , Stephen Manning and Tom Krishner noted that Fiat, an Italian car maker who a few years back had a turnaround of its own under its own CEO, Sergio Marchionne, would claim about 20 percent of the company as a starting level, with greater ownership coming in future years, in exchange for bringing its fuel-efficient and lower-emission technology to the American marketplace.

Mixed into the announcement Thursday was the news that Chrysler CEO Robert Nardelli would depart after Chrysler's drive-thru bankruptcy was over. Unlike Rick Wagoner, long-time CEO of General Motors who became a casualty of that company's deal to accept money from Washington but who departed with more than $20 million retirement package, Nardelli won't be handed a so-called golden parachute, but will rejoin Cerebus, the private equity group that purchased Chrysler.

With Fiat now in the picture, the hope is Chrysler, which has had problems in the past and some say was too slow to adapt to the future, will reinvent itself by offering cars featuring the Italian automakers "cutting edge technology." Fiat has not faired well in America, but the small-car company now have a special chance to show Americans, who took to big cars, vans and SUVs because fuel was inexpensive, they can deliver trustworthy, fuel-efficient cars Americans want to buy.

Mr. Obama, who has been criticized mainly by Republicans for investing taxpayer dollars in a company they thought should go out of business, said Chrysler could not continue to limp along on an "endless supply of tax dollar." Thirty days after a plan for reorganization was submitted and turned down, Mr. Obama noted with pride that "seemingly insurmountable obstacles have been over come." When it's all over, Mr. Obama said he believes Chrysler will emerge stronger and more competitive.

Sen. Brown, while not elated with the news, said he will continue to work to reassure potential car buyers, and hopes Chrysler's new lease on life will "create new demand in the auto industry," a factor he deemed critical to "getting our auto industry back on track."

John Michael Spinelli is a Certified Economic Development Financing Professional, business and travel writer and former credentialed Ohio Statehouse political reporter. He is registered to lobby in Ohio and is the Director of Ohio Operations for Tubular Rail Inc. To send a tip or comment, email ohionewsbureau@gmail.com