Experian, Transunion and Equifax and Their Scams

There are three companies that say how good your credit is; Experian, Transunion and Equifax. These companies have a lot to say about your lives. They, at the drop of a report to your bank, your credit card company, your mobile phone service or your Internet provider can stop you in your tracks; make it hard for you to buy anything, even a necessity for survival.

I don't know when it was that I began to think that “credit ratings” were a bunch of hogwash, but it has probably been ten years, maybe fifteen years, when I ask myself, “Why would I want these three companies to control my future?” On that day a revelation came to me: screw those companies, I don't care what they think of my credit. The best thing I can do, I realized back then, is to get into a position where I don't have to depend on these companies or what they do. They became irrelevant to me, so I made up a few personal rules to follow (I'm sure someone else thought these up, I just appropriated them).

First is to buy only what I need and put the rest in a bank account; the “rest” being whatever remained of my meager paycheck. I've never been good at putting a specific percentage away, like 10% or 15%, but I've been pretty good at putting the “rest” of it away.

Second is don't buy on credit. So, if the only way I could buy something was to make payments on credit, then I didn't need it as bad as I thought I did. So, I didn't buy it. I guess the thing that surprised me was how quickly I forgot I needed something if I didn't buy it. The other thing that surprised me is how quickly my savings account grew when I didn't buy it.

Third was two things. First, if I had to use credit, for a house or a car, then make sure the monthly payment fit my paycheck and get it as low as possible. Second was to make sure there was no “early payoff” penalty. If I could meet these two objectives, then I could probably make higher than minimum payments WHEN I WANT TO to pay off the debts. (You could probably add “no goddamned fees” to this for gravy, too).

Fourth was another question: “What can I do to make good investments to save more?” The answer to this was a long time coming, but here it is: Learn how to read a company financial statement and buy and sell stocks of companies that have good financial statements. I was surprised to learn that you don't need a college education to do this. This ain't gambling. It's saving.

Of all the advice we hear in our lives, financial advice is the hardest to remember. Everyone says, “Yep, that's what I need to do,” but they never do it. This has never been “financial advice” to me. It's about “justice” and “fairness.” Is it “fair” to have three companies control what you do? Tell you what you can and can't buy? Is it “just” for three companies to make decisions about you without knowing you? What about your kids and grand kids? Do you want these goddamned companies controlling them? The answer is “no.”

The fact is that it should piss you off to have three companies control you and your kids. And, that's what makes these simple rules so easy to remember. A few years ago I had the bright idea to put my son and a friend of his in a painting business. They are painters, I'm not. So, I put up $50,000 to start it. I figured that in a year's time we should be making money. (Ha! As an aside, I learned that business people overwhelmed with worry about how to handle all those customer calls that are going to come isn't the kind of business person you want to invest in. The correct answer to all those customer calls you may never get, is don't worry about them. Worry about the customer you have now.)

But, I digress. One of the things that pissed me off about starting that business was Washington Mutual. They insisted we have a “good credit rating” of about 700, which is some concocted number ( pulled from we know not where ) from these three companies. We all know how well Washington Mutual has done in business, i.e., they failed. So, their word, and advice, is about as good as a pig's ear. So, I asked the clerk, “why are you concerned with my credit rating? If I have $50,000 and I'm going to deposit it in a business account, what's my credit rating got to do with the price of tea in China?” Well, I raised so much stink about this very minor thing, that they brought the bank manager out to talk to me. Finally, I said, “either start the account, or I'll take my goddamned money someplace else.” I had an excellent credit rating, over 750, but that wasn't the point. In the end, the bank opened the account WITHOUT doing a credit check. That was the result I wanted. I wanted to make those three, unfair, unjust companies irrelevant. And, I did. Two things mattered: 1) I had the money, and 2) I would stand on principal.

About a year ago I got a notice from a company, I don't remember the name, that notified me that my “personal data” had been stolen and that the company was going to arrange with Experian to send me credit alerts if and when my credit record changed. The only thing I remember about the company that lost my personal information was that I didn't know how that company came to have my information in the first place. I didn't have an account with them, didn't have a credit card with them and had never, to my knowledge, ever done business with them. Sometimes a good law suit is appropriate.

So, now Experian sends these monthly alerts that usually say “nothing happened,” even though I use my credit card, transfer money and generally buy stuff. Except yesterday. I bought a Nexus One Google phone with a T-Mobile plan and T-Mobile checked my credit. I don't know the result, but that simple credit check caused Experian to say, “SOMETHING HAPPENED! SOMETHING HAPPENED!” Awh, go fly a kite if that's what you alert on. I'm more interested is some jerk creating a new account with my SSN or using my card with a different shipping address than I am for a company checking my credit. Screw you Experian, trying to make yourself more important than you are.

So, what prompted me to get on this tangent? Aside for Experian alerting me to something that's no more important than a hill of beans, I happened by that place of infinite wisdom the other day, The Village Barber Shop. It was full of waiting patrons and one chair in a corner was the only one left, so I took a number and sat there. The chair was far from the magazine rack but a very lonely and isolated bookshelf containing several books of various titles sat in the corner beside this last chair. I picked through the books and chose a small book entitled “Monday Morning Leadership” by David Cottrell and began reading. I managed to read the first chapter, “Be a Driver, not a Passenger.” Cottrell told of being in mid-life crisis where he seemed to be lost and he asked the advice of a man wiser in experience about what to do. The man's advice, not on any particular problem Cottrell was having, was to “stop being a passenger. Be a driver.”

I knew that. That's what I decided to do years ago when those three, irrelevant companies got caught in my craw. I'd just never heard it put that way. Aristotle disagreed with those other philosophers who suggested controlling emotions was a better way to go. Aristotle said, “Emotions can be good. Take anger, for example. Misdirected anger is not good, such as vengeful anger, but constructive anger against injustice and unfairness is good anger. It is the anger that corrects wrongs and rights grievances.”

So, is this financial advice? Nope. Make this advice stick in your craw. Make these companies irrelevant by 1) putting yourself in a financial position to not care about what they say and do, and 2) keep doing it. Be a driver, not a passenger.

And, by the way, being a driver adds to your responsibilities. You can't, for example, be tempted to take in the scenery when you're driving. You need to watch the road. You're responsible for your passengers, so that means you need to step up to the plate for your family (and perhaps your neighbor, too) who, out of necessity, need to ride with you for part of their trip. Think about that, too. But, that's a whole 'nother subject.

Dave

Pizza at Pavlo's

Sometimes humanity matters. Take tonight at Pavlo's in San Ramon. The “L” in Pavlo's is unlit, so the sign looks like “Pav O's.” Two isles over is a young family, the man and woman are blond, with a blond son about twelve, and they are talking and smiling and enjoying their pizza. The son leaves with his glass and returns with it empty and he talks to his mother (I presume). The young lady hostess comes, without prompting, and gives the boy something and he leaves again. He returns shortly, smiling, with a full glass of soda and sits and talks with his family. I can tell they are enjoying themselves. The boy looks like an older Mason, my great nephew, with the same smile and glint in his eye.

At another booth a father, facing me, is talking to his son. The boy looks so much like the man. A woman with her back to me sits beside the boy. The boy gives the woman a big kiss on the cheek, and I think, “what a nice gesture.” The father laughs. The boy, too, leaves to fill his soda glass and returns. Later I see that the woman is not a woman at all, but a young girl just a few years older than the boy. His sister, I presume. Still, a bond is there and it pleases me to see that.

In the booth in front of me is a woman, a little overweight, facing her young son of about seven. He has an infectious smile, too, and he's talking to his mother. I watched him enter Pavlo's, at least ten steps ahead of his mother, unafraid. A single mother? I guessed. Then she got her order to go, so, I think, perhaps she is taking the pizza home to a husband/father and she's not single at all. I hope not.

What a time to get something in my eye, in the middle of a half pitcher of beer and pizza. It was good beer and good pizza at Pavlo's.

Tonight the half pitcher of Bud Lite, that I've learned is exactly 2½ mugs of beer, and the friendly chatter of family made me feel good. So, when I started up the hill out of San Ramon on Crow Canyon Road I wasn't really in the mood for racing. Just a leisurely drive home was all I had in mind. But, I, in my Chevy 1500 pickup, was third in line of the only four vehicles on the road. In front was a Honda, second was a Mercedes, and behind me was a BMW. The Mercedes hugged the bumper, in a peculiar irritating manner, of the Honda and the BMW hugged my bumper (I couldn't see his headlights behind my tailgate) and it was clear to me that the Mercedes and BMW had a thing going. Just to show my pique, I inched up to the Mercedes until my headlights, much higher than his rear window, lit up the entire interior of his car. Another inch, and I would have bump-drafted him into a ditch. But, I backed off. Crow Canyon Road is a dangerous, curvy, twisty-turny, mountainous-style road and should be respected and it takes more than a half pitcher of Bud Lite to get too careless.

I could have outrun all of them. A Chevy 1500 pickup V-8, 350 cubic inch engine is bigger than a Mercedes and BMW. But, when we came to that quarter-mile double-lane stretch of road, I let the BMW go around me, and he and the Mercedes lit out for the end of the stretch. The Honda, too, had apparently had enough of the Mercedes bumper hugging, so he was in the running, slightly ahead of the Mercedes. They all went around the curve in the distance that narrowed down to a single lane together, nearly neck and neck, and I expected to see all three in the gully when I got there. But, the BMW must have had more guts, because it was his taillights that I saw in the distance at the end of a half-mile straight stretch. The Honda beat out the Mercedes and had slowed, presumably just to piss off the Mercedes who was still hugging his bumper. No matter how fast you go on Crow Canyon Road, the slow guy behind always catches up at the slow and dangerous spots.

Me? I tailed along behind, leisurely making my way home, thinking of the boy who looked liked an older Mason, who says with a big smile when he sees me, “Hi, Uncle Dave,” and the other young man who kissed his sister, and the other boy who enjoyed talking to his mother, as I gradually caught up to the Mercedes and Honda. Something is in my eye. Pizza at Pavlo's is good.

Dave

Health Care Bill Killing

Mark deserves another honorable mention. He took exception to my Slime-Ball Lieberman post. Mark suggests that we should be satisfied with the Health Care Bill the Senate passed on Christmas Eve as a first step to a future end result instead of killing the bill. He cites two arguments he agrees with; one from Ezra Klein (which leads you to another Ezra Klein post, here) and one from Jonathan Bernstein. He suggests that the real problem is the 60-vote requirement to invoke cloture, to end the argument and stop the Republicans from filibustering the bill into Lala Land. He suggests that we go back to a simple majority prior to 1919, 51 votes, to pass legislation.

I've had more than a week to think about this, and to get over the H1N1 flu virus that kicked my butt, and Mark is right in that we shouldn't kill the bill and let's hope, and pray, that the Senate and House can come to some agreement on the bill, without too much water added, to get it through. There is so much misinformation about what's in the bill that only one fact coming out makes me think it's the best we can do and we should support it. That fact is that the insurance industry is against it. They, the insurance lobby and companies, are so much against it that they're taking their money and influence to the state level, as this article explains. If they are willing to do that, then I'm for the bill. There is great danger that if you live in a “Republican State,” you won't benefit from the Health Care Bill. You're going to have to get health care as best you can and if it breaks your back or bank account, then that's tough.

Another fact is that the source of most of the “Kill Bill” misinformation is the Republicans. Even the liberal activists who want to kill the bill are being misinformed by Republicans and Republican supporters. Liberal activists want the “Public Option” to once and for all give the scamming Insurance Companies a bloody nose with in-your-face competition. So do I. I want that so bad that I'm fed up with insurance scams and Republican scams. But, with a political party so willing to distort the facts and, literally, scam you, how will going back to a simple majority solve the problem? It could happen in the future, maybe in 2010, that a simple majority of Republicans could easily try to reverse any progress made in helping the people of this country. And, I say “helping the people” intentionally, because it is clear that the Republican Party does not want to and will not do that. I'm inclined to think that a super-majority, 3/5ths, is a good thing as long as the Republican Party has got its head up its ass. It means that if they get a majority of over 50 senators, they still won't have enough votes to reverse good progressive legislation or pass some other Liassez-faire crap we will have to live with. They will need 60 votes just like the Democrats do.

What really bothers me is how easily people, including the media, suck up the Republican propaganda and how easily people forget what the Republicans have always stood for. It's a difference in philosophy and for the past 40 or 50 years the so-called conservative philosophy has been sold to us to the point where we think it's un-American to think any other way. The truth is entirely different.

In every case for the past 50 years when Republicans controlled legislature pro-business bills are passed while social bills are watered down or not passed at all. It is okay with Republicans that credit card companies charge usury interest rates and scam you with hidden fees and hidden clauses because that's what we've been told is “free enterprise” and “freedom” in America. It is okay with Republicans that insurance companies cancel policies when you become too expensive to treat. It is okay with Republicans to bust unions that try to get a decent living for its members or a decent health care policy for its members, union busting similar to Indiana's Gibson County's latest shenanigans here .

You name it. If it's pro-business and anti-social, Republicans are for it and, as a general rule, Democrats are more pro-social. Want to privatize a government program? Republicans are for it even when it's more expensive than the government alternative. They privatized the higher education school loan program and millions of students went into debt while the SLM Corp (Sallie Mae) CEO went home with $200 million in bonuses and stock options. They privatized the U.S. Military ancillary services, such as mess-hall functions, to Halliburton and it costs billions more to feed the troops than if the troops did it themselves.

Contrary to what we've been told, and sold, all these years mostly by Republicans and their supporters, Capitalism is not the end-all to our problems. Capitalism is a ruthless endeavor in which cannibalistic companies eat smaller ones in cycles of greed to grab more market share. It is a cycle of creative-destructive processes. It creates welfare more than it provides opportunities. Free enterprise does not mean that a company should be allowed to do whatever it wants at the expense of society. Companies that get “to big to fail” should not be allowed to exist. Usury should not be allowed simply because a company can do it. But, insurance companies will, in the end, figure out a way around limitations in a watered-down health care bill. You can count on it. Insurance CEOs take their bonus whether the company succeeds of fails or whether you have good health care insurance or not and you, the taxpayer, will pay his bonus as long as you vote Republicans in office.

The 2000 – 2008 period was, hopefully, the peak of Republican power, policies and philosophy that we'll have to experience for a long while, if ever again. It was the worst period in recent history in which “zero” jobs were created, in which a working stiff who invested $10,000 in 2000 got $9,000 in 2008 (a 10% loss), and in which you may have sent your son, daughter, husband or wife, or father or mother to die in war. Follow the links. It was the decade of the Republicans and that was the problem. That's the point we need to recognize: the difference in philosophy. We are badly mistaken if we think we can choose the Republican philosophy and ignore society's needs.

It is the Republican philosophy that's watering down the health care bill. Until the Republican Party, and blue-dog Democrats for that matter, gets a good dose of common sense, these people need to be voted out of their jobs. It is that same philosophy that's keeping unemployment high, food stamps as primary source of food, homeless shelters in high demand and a growing poverty rate that will eventually kill the country.

The latest news is that the Senate-House negotiations over the final health care bill will simply ignore Republicans in both houses. That's okay with me. I've been writing congress for months to do that.

So, thanks, Mark, for challenging the Lieberman sliming.

Dave

Decade of What?

Yesterday, there was lots of discussion on the airwaves and in newspapers on what to call the Decade. Brother Dan ran across a San Francisco Chronicle article entitled “Grim year ends the Decade of Fear.” That's funny. The decade doesn't end on December 31 ^st , 2009. It ends December 31 ^st , 2010! So, it's not too late. We have another year, so let's think about this a little more. Let's see...

We started the decade with a Supreme Court decision that essentially stopped democracy; it stopped the vote count in Florida and handed G. W. Bush the presidency. The chad vote. A panel of nine judges, we learned, have more votes than the citizens of entire state of Florida. But, that was appropriate according to Karl Rove, Bush's Brain , who essentially sold about half of the people, give or take 500 votes, in this country on Bush's electability. But, none of that bothered the “Christian Vote.” They celebrated in the streets that their man was elected. It was God's will! And, of course and as expected, G. W. immediately pushed through a tax cut for the rich “to appropriately distribute the government $1 Trillion surplus back” to the “people” that, by the way, make a lot more money than you and I in the lower 97% income class (er, another by the way in case you need help with math – that means the upper 3% got the tax break). That was the “democratic” thing to do to make government small by putting it in debt. How's that for fairness? Did you like that?

Then there was 9/11. Karl Rove, etal., sold us on the idea that 9/11 was the “War on Terror” instead of the act of a bunch of criminals. We invaded Afghanistan and Bin Laden went into hiding and G. W. said, “I don't care where he's at. I don't keep track of him.” The “War on Terror” idea, however, became a campaign to sell us on WMD and how evil Sadam Hussein was, though he was only a minor dictator of a country that was already devastated by ten years of sanctions, so we went off to kill Sadam, G. W.'s personal devil. Never-the-less, a lot of hypothetical intelligence convinced us to invade Iraq. Sadam was a boogeyman. And, our smart bombs killed several hundred thousand innocent Iraqis. In the meantime, with Iraq gone, Iran became the most powerful nation in the region. That was enough, however, for G. W. to stand on an aircraft carrier and shout, “Mission Accomplished.” G. W.'s lawyers wrote the torture memo and pushed through the Patriot Act that allowed him and his thugs to spy on American civilians without judicial oversight; another chink fell out of democracy that day. Then, pictures of Abu Ghraib torture surfaced and we sent an Army Private, Lynnde England, to jail... but the torture continued, we now know, in spite of jailing England. Hmm, maybe she was innocent? What the hell, she probably did something wrong!

Then Alan Greenspan watched while the housing bubble grew because he believed “that bankers, traders and financial barons would self regulate themselves.” Well, he said he was sorry in congressional testimony – after the economy fell apart, of course, and that makes it all better. But, right in the middle of that, while everyone was “feeling prosperity,” G. W. ran for reelection – AND WON! Man, that Karl Rove is some kind'a bullshitter. He's good.

As if we hadn't had enough, the economy melts down into a Great Recession not experienced since the Great Depression. All of the right-wing, free-market, libertarians on CNBC said, “let 'er melt. That's what a free market means,” even though a complete melt-down would, LITERALLY, kill America. So, Paulson and Bush hands over billions of tax payer money to banks and AIG with no strings attached. Of course, the banks and AIG used the money for bonuses.

Glenn Beck rises to the top of right-wing gossips and rumor mongers, and then Sarah Palin comes along. And, I guess the thing that is most astonishing, they have a following. Palin writes a book that doesn't pass even basic facts-tests, let alone having any resemblance to truth or common sense – and it sells millions of copies! And, Dick Cheney is still preaching the “Dark Side” of torture. People are still eating this stuff up.

There's more! Minnesota voters reelect Michele Bachmann! John Boehner gets 100 lobbyist together to discuss how to defeat financial regulation. “Death Panels” allegation is chosen as “Lie of the Year.” On and on. Dear God, is there no end to bullshit?

So, does the name “Decade of Fear” describe this decade? Nah. I'd say it's closer to The Decade of Idiots. I don't believe we can do anything radical enough in the coming year to fix the past nine, so we're probably stuck with that. We may not be able to fix the past nine years in fifty years.

Dave

Liar of the Year and the Runner Up

The national vote on the “ Lie of the Year” is in. Sarah Palin's “Death Panels” chosen by Politifacts.org and its readers, with Glenn Beck coming in second. I guess that means that Sarah Palin is the liar of the year and Glenn Beck is the runner up. I can't imagine better liars to give those awards to.

Dave

Slim-Ball Lieberman

I learned tonight that a half pitcher of Bud Lite equals 2 ^1/2 mugs and that's the perfect quantity to get on a good mad. I've been pissed all day, but it took the Bud Lite to get to a point to vent; to tell you what I think. I can't believe and I can't describe how disappointed I am that Joe Lieberman is holding the Senate Health Care Bill hostage. That mealy-mouthed, turncoat, slim-ball son of a bitch.

I've been told all my life not to curse, as much good as it's done to tell me. Use “another” word, they said. There's always another word that's just as appropriate, they said, so use it instead. But, sometimes there are no other words that fits the circumstances. I know, personally, people, family and friends, who can't afford health insurance. They sweep your goddamned floors, serve your goddamned meals, bring your goddamned drinks to your tables, sweep your goddamned streets and carry off your goddamned garbage. There are forty million of them. Their children are hungry... IN AMERICA! And the best you can do for them is force them to buy insurance from a goddamned insurance company that they don't want to buy from or can't afford to buy from? You bastard.

Howard Dean is right. The current Health Care Bill, without the public option or without the Medicare expansion, isn't worth the paper it's written on. It's just another boon for the insurance companies. Any law that “requires” a person to buy a product from a company or be fined by the government is unconstitutional. You can't force me, or anyone, to do that. You just try to make me buy it. I'll take your ass all the way to the Supreme Court, and even if that court demands I pay, I'll give them the finger too.

So, I have a message for you, slim-ball Lieberman. If I ever meet you on the street, I'm going to smash your effing face.

Dave

Meg Whitman - The Same Old GOP Line

...along with the hook and sinker for the American, Californian sucker. She has begun her run for Governor of California. Whitman hasn't voted in numerous (any at all?) elections because, “I was focused on raising my family, on my husbands career. We moved many, many times. And it is no excuse...” while all that time she was an executive of major companies, including Procter & Gamble, Hasbro, Disney and eBay. That doesn't sound like “focusing... on my husband's career.” What's his job, anyway? God? But, now, she wants to vote! I find it a little hard to swallow that she was too busy. So do many others, it seems, especially women who scoffed at the “too busy” idea and said they found time to vote despite juggling busy work and family schedules. How much more “busy” could she have been than the average Californian woman when she is chauffeured every where she goes. Did her chauffeur not know the way to the voting booth? How easy could it get? The facts are bubbling to the top of the typical Republican cesspool that say she's full of typical GOP blarney.

In her introduction ad to California voters she claims to bring “new ideas” to “build a New California... for small business, the backbone of California's economy” by “reducing taxes, government and spending.” Does all that sound familiar? It should, because that's exactly what Governor Schwarzenegger has been doing for the past six years. In January 2009, Schwarzenegger was faced with an over $20 billion deficit, but they did not raise taxes. Instead, they cut school programs, mentally challenged children programs, medical aid to the elderly programs, medical care aid to poor children and a dozen other “social” programs that affected the least fortunate in the state. In July 2009, Schwarzenegger was faced with another budget deficit of around $15 billion and once again called on the legislators to balance the budget on the backs of the poor, and again they cut social services, otherwise, Governor Schwarzenegger said, “I'll veto the bill.” And, the last I heard, January 2010 will bring even more cuts.

All the while, other “taxes” are being raised in other areas. For example, to ward off bankruptcy, cities and counties have been forced to raise local sales tax. Even voters, faced with county service cuts, are voting to raise county sales tax. Voters, it seems, see the problem clearly. And, Schwarzenegger raised “toll road fees” all over the state which, by the way, are paid by those who can least afford it. State income taxes that might effect those can can most afford it were not raised. It seems to me that the most fortunate simply don't want to pay for their state's well being. Republicans raise taxes; they just don't call it “tax.”

Jerry Brown, her Democrat opponent, get's it. He's said time and again that the thing that makes California a budgetary mess is that for the past 40 years, since Governor Reagan, we voters have been asked to do our legislators' jobs. We've been asked to vote, sometimes twice a year, on propositions that special interest groups have managed to add to ballots and spent huge sums of money to promote that we, the voters, really knew nothing about. Voters are nearly always ignorant of specific spending propositions that, if passed, become law. For example, if a special group wanted to fund a $10 billion overhaul of the state-wide water distribution system from the Joaquin County Delta, southern farmers and privately owned reservoir owners would pay minimum wage to gather signatures to put a proposition on the ballot to force the state to use tax revenue to pay for it. That, in turn, would become law and limit legislators ability to budget that $10 billion for any other, more important, state program. Of course, southern farming corporations and reservoir owners make millions from the law. There have been thousands of propositions of that kind and the end result is that our legislators are hamstrung.

Want a bullet train? Put a proposition on the ballot that forces the state to borrow $20 billion, by issuing a bond, so the state will have to pay off the bond with interest. More deficit. Want to give California's oil companies a monopoly? Put a proposition on the ballot that California's oil “only” come from oil refineries located in California. But, disguise the proposition as a “Green Energy proposition... because out of state, imported oil is bad ” so the voters believe they are voting for something good. Then, add a sales tax to the gasoline so it is the most expensive gas in the United States because, “we can't use another state's oil.” Oh, I forgot. Also give the oil companies a tax break on every gallon of gas produced in California “because they [the companies] are being limited in their ability to earn a profit,” which, by the way, tops $30 billion per quarter! Wow. If $30 billion profit per quarter isn't enough profit, imagine what “enough” would be.

So, has anything changed in Meg Whitman's message? Nope. Not a thing has changed. It's the same old Republican ideas and the same old hook, line and sinker for suckers.

Dave