Luke Ford | No sacred cows.

Best Creditors

Posted on December 27, 2007 by Luke Ford

Calvin Brown, CEO of CreditRestoreInc, writes:

CITIBANK AND ALL ITS AFFILIATES LIKE CITI FINANCIAL/ They easily forgive late payments and encourage good credit scores by their very helpful attitudes toward their clients. Getting credit limits increased is an easy process if the credit history is justified. Just an overall good company! Also community banks are an excellent resource.

CHASE MANHATTAN BANK/ They provide every level of customer service to their clients and easily encourage good scores. They sometimes will forgive 30 day payments after 6 months of on time payments. Easy to get limits raised within reason!

USAA BANK/ They are an excellent financial institution, but they only offer credit accounts to those in the military family. This is a good company with very high value credit accounts that help your credit scores.

WACHOVIA/ WORLD SAVINGS/ Another fabulous financial institution that is good for mortgage loans and credit cards. They offer some of the best customer services available today to help their clients through any financial shortfalls. They can be trusted to protect your credit scores when ever possible.

WELLS FARGO, WELLS FARGO FINANCIAL AND WELLS FARGO MORTGAGE/ This national financial institution is dependable and always reputable. They are not out to harm your scores, but do expect payments in a timely manner. They are also understanding and willing to work for their clients without jacking up the rates. This is a fine American financial organization that deserves credit for their current policies. They are reasonable when forgiving late payments and are generally willing to work things out.

FORD MOTOR CREDIT/ Out of the top 3 automotive companies in American and worldwide, this is the best. They forgive late payments, but are tough on repossessions as they should be. This is a premier automotive finance organization with reasonable expectations for buyers.

Posted in Economics | Comments Off

Top Ten Creditors To Avoid And Why

Posted on December 27, 2007 by Luke Ford

Calvin Brown, CEO of CreditRestoreInc, writes:

BANK OF AMERICA

BOA is the original creator of the Visa and the first commercial national bank.
They give credit cards to illegal aliens who have no Social Security card.
They make more mistakes in reporting than all the other banks in the top 5 and those mistakes are very difficult to remedy.
Since acquiring MBNA last year, there have been even more mistakes.
It is common for them to tack on higher interest rates, over limit fees, and other penalties when they review your FICO report.
They do not inform you of an interest rate increase.
Our research indicates that BOA hires bankers with no drug tests or credit checks, which potentially puts all of their clients at risk.
Finally, there is an internal ID theft issue at BOA. This is likely due to the afore mentioned hiring practices.
In sum, they tend to use their size to the detriment of their clients.

DISCOVER FINANCIAL

One of the more difficult cards to get, declining more than they accept (which is damaging on one’s credit).
Yet, it is a low vale card for credit scoring.
They have low limits compared to Visa and Mastercard.
They depict themselves as a valuable card anyone can get if they only apply.
They double the balances after charging them off.
They actively look for causes to raise interest rates and do so without informing clients.
They do not disclose their reasons easily,even when it is the FICO score. They add on additional fees whenever possible.

CAPITAL ONE

They suffer from too many charge off issues.
They are excessive with their fess.
They offer up to four credit cards to their clients, including those withrecent charge offs, in order to encourage more debt problems.
Excessive fees and punishment when clients are having financial problems, thus making their situations worse.
They have only recently started reporting credit limits like other revolving creditors do since we identified them as number one (in terms of poor quality) in October.
They charge off an account and maintain the paper until the right time to sell it off to a collection company and then there are duplicate items on the credit reports for the same items.
After nine years, they file a judgment regardless of the amount of the debt.

WFNNB (WORLD FINANCIAL NETWORK NATIONAL BANK) EXAMPLES OF STORES IN THEIR NETWORK ARE VICTORIA SECRET, PALAIS ROYAL, EXPRESS, THE LIMITED, NEW YORK & COMPANY, LANE BRYANT, FINA GAS, ANN TAYLOR, BATH AND BODY WORKS, SERVICE MERCHANDISE, NEWPORT NEWS, DRESS BARN, SPIEGEL, EDDIE BAUER, LERNERS, JESSICA LONDON.

They have very poor customer service.
Continuous charge off status.
They maintain collections within and later sell them off. However, it stays on the account even after they have been sold. This makes it very difficult to correct one’s records.

WASHINGTON MUTUAL/ PROVIDIAN

Unforgiving with late payments.
Have very high fees.
They encourage their credit card clients to get over extended and get in over their heads.
Poorly trained employees.
Charge off issues.
Resistant to correcting credit bureau reporting errors and mistakes.
Not likely to correct any items, including those that are their fault.

VERIZON WIRELESS

Don’t ever get on their bad side or you will have double or sometimes triple entries on your credit reports.
Reports charge off instead of a regular collection with multiple current late payments.
Continuous charge off status even if the account is paid off.

SEARS

Ridiculously high interest rates for no reason.
Inconsistent credit bureau reporting missing many reporting periods.
Accounts have minimal scoring value in the models.
They sell your account off to collection companies, even if you go through a bankruptcy and continue reporting derogatory late payments after the account is closed.

AMERICAN EXPRESS

They have many charge cards and only one or two revolving.
The charge cards show OPEN accounts with no real point value and no credit limits.
Very unforgiving for late payments and a very hard card to obtain.
They will close the account very easily and with minimal cause.

DIAMOND SHAMROCK

These accounts are hard to get and not worth many points.
Hot checks show up on the credit report and are hard to remove even when paid.
Not the value of a regular gas card like an Exxon/Mobil or Citi Shell.

SMART FINANCIAL

This account is a teacher’s credit union that does not report consistently every month.
It has unfair practices compared to other credit unions are in terms of how it reports!

Posted in Economics | Comments Off

I Shed No Tears Over Benazir Bhutto

Posted on December 27, 2007 by Luke Ford

She was deeply corrupt. With her husband, she looted billions of dollars from Pakistan when she was in power.

While in government, she was incompetent.

She had two chances as the leader of Pakistan and she whiffed both times.

She was the savior of Pakistan like some carpenter from Nazareth named Josh was part of triune Godhead.

Khunrum writes: "I must agree with Luke. She was corrupt, plus she’s been accused of having one of her brothers assassinated. On the other hand she was beautiful when she was young so we’ll have to give her a pass."

Ralph Peters writes in the NY Post:

December 28, 2007 — FOR the next several days, you’re going to read and hear a great deal of pious nonsense in the wake of the assassination of Pakistan’s former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto.

Her country’s better off without her. She may serve Pakistan better after her death than she did in life.
We need have no sympathy with her Islamist assassin and the extremists behind him to recognize that Bhutto was corrupt, divisive, dishonest and utterly devoid of genuine concern for her country.
She was a splendid con, persuading otherwise cynical Western politicians and "hardheaded" journalists that she was not only a brave woman crusading in the Islamic wilderness, but also a thoroughbred democrat.
In fact, Bhutto was a frivolously wealthy feudal landlord amid bleak poverty. The scion of a thieving political dynasty, she was always more concerned with power than with the wellbeing of the average Pakistani. Her program remained one of old-school patronage, not increased productivity or social decency.
Educated in expensive Western schools, she permitted Pakistan’s feeble education system to rot – opening the door to Islamists and their religious schools.
During her years as prime minister, Pakistan went backward, not forward. Her husband looted shamelessly and ended up fleeing the country, pursued by the courts. The Islamist threat – which she artfully played both ways – spread like cancer.
But she always knew how to work Westerners – unlike the hapless Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who sought the best for his tormented country but never knew how to package himself.
Military regimes are never appealing to Western sensibilities. Yet, there are desperate hours when they provide the only, slim hope for a country nearing collapse. Democracy is certainly preferable – but, unfortunately, it’s not always immediately possible. Like spoiled children, we have to have it now – and damn the consequences.
In Pakistan, the military has its own forms of graft; nonetheless, it remains the least corrupt institution in the country and the only force holding an unnatural state together. In Pakistan back in the ’90s, the only people I met who cared a whit about the common man were military officers.
Americans don’t like to hear that. But it’s the truth.

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The Limits Of Orthodox Theology

Posted on December 27, 2007 by Luke Ford

I’m sorry to have so little for the goyim during their days of awe, but here’s a caustic essay — that even a goy could love? — by Rabbi Yitzhak Blau on Marc B. Shapiro’s book, "The Limits of Orthodox Theology."

Both Rabbi Blau and Marc Shapiro will be speaking in Los Angeles in early 2008. Google is your friend.

Posted in Marc B. Shapiro, Orthodoxy | Comments Off

Elitism & Leadership

Posted on December 27, 2007 by Luke Ford

Rabbi Gil Student writes:

My wife recently pointed out to me that I’ve changed since we were married, particularly in my attitude towards those from different communities and with less religious commitment. It seems I’ve lost some of my elitism and disdain for others. I pointed out that it would be pretty sad if I hadn’t changed at all in the past 13 years and that she has changed also in many positive ways. But, to her point, she is correct and that can probably be attributed to a combination of my exposure to Religious Zionist writings and to the burdens and challenges of the real world.

It is easy for those living in the protective confines of a yeshiva to look down upon those who fail to live up to every standard. However, once you are exposed to the responsibilities of real life and the challenges of going out into the world, you gain greater respect for what people are able to maintain and understanding for their imperfections. This is also emphasized in the writings of Rav Kook and his followers, who (used to?) look at the positive in everything and everyone, even atheism.

To this point, Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has an excellent insight into this week’s Torah reading about the importance of a rabbi identifying with and respecting his community (link)…

Posted in Orthodoxy | Comments Off

Conservative Comic Evan Sayet

Posted on December 27, 2007 by Luke Ford

Evan (EvanSayet.com) calls me Dec. 26.

Audio Audio

Evan, 47: "You got questions written out or off the top of your head?"

Luke: "I’ve got them in my head."

Evan: "Good."

Luke: "How has your life changed since September 13?"

Evan: "I made a full scale change. I had some contractual obligations that made the career change not immediate. When I wrote "fade to black" on my last Hollywood project, I’ve been wholely removed from Hollywood. My roladex of 20 years is meaningless to me now. I could get a meeting at ‘Queer Eye For The Straight Guy’ but that’s not what I’m looking for.

"Suddenly I needed to be respected, appreciated and paid by a whole new set of people, mostly out of Washington. I’m now in the conservative thought industry as opposed to the entertainment industry."

"I’ve had to start over as far as building up a fan base… Instead of writing jokes for late night television or a half-hour sitcom, I’m writing articles. I have a book coming out in July from Regnery."

"I am definitely a happier and more motivated person. I look forward to every day now because there is a purpose to it. There’s something deeper in being involved in global politics rather than Hollywood politics.

"It’s easier to be a narcissist when you are in the Hollywood community than when you are in the political community."

Evan is divorced (1996) with two kids (one biological).

Evan: "My son (17yo) was a Republican before I was."

"I was the quintessential modern liberal. The pathology that I now write about, I not only suffered from but was the quintessential example of."

Luke: "Did you stop being a narcissist in a few weeks?"

Evan: "No. It wasn’t an epiphany. Being aware that the Islamists were murdering the Jews of Israel for no other reason than they were the closest infidels, there was no doubt in my mind that when they could, they would come kill the biggest infidels. When they murdered us on 9/11, that didn’t surprise me. What surprised me was my liberal friends’ response to 9/11: that we deserved it, it was a result of our policies, and that the way to ensure it didn’t happen again was to give the terrorists what they wanted."

"As I’d see liberals side with the murderers, I needed to search for other allies, for people who would defend America. So I sought out Republicans. I heard them speak. They got it. That America was good and the terrorists were bad. This one issue was all that mattered.

"As I introduced myself to Republicans, I found out they were not religious fanatics. Slowly, over time, I opened my eyes to a whole bunch of things."

Luke: "What is a narcissist?"

Evan: "People who have rejected anything bigger than themselves…. They have nowhere to look outside of themselves for the truth."

Luke: "How have your friendships changed? Did you lose friends?"

Evan: "No. I lost interest in some of the more shallow friends who I still love and we can still be together but we don’t talk about anything. We can’t talk about politics. If you don’t agree with a liberal, they hate you because you’re a bad person… We have to tiptoe around every issue of substance."

"How are you responding to my views? They’re pretty strong."

Luke: "My views are right-wing but most of my work is not ideologically driven. I basically agree with your views but when I interview or write, I’m rarely pushing anything but to get the best interview possible."

Evan: "That makes you a pro for what you’re doing."

Three times Evan has been on my favorite tv show — Red Eye on Fox News.

"The format is difficult for me," he says. "It’s so quick and so many people, you don’t have much of a chance to delve deeply into any point you make. By then they’ve cut to the 22yo chick with the tits… I’d rather be on Charlie Rose."

Luke: "What’s the breakdown of stand-up comics? Is it five to one liberal to conservative?"

Evan: "If you mean television, they’re all liberal. Club comics, about ten to one."

"In the comedy clubs, nobody is talking politics unless you’re drawing a big audience to see you. Otherwise, there’s no guarantee your audience has any knowledge of politics or cares about politics or shares your politics."

"Bob Costas was asked by Bernard Goldberg why athletes do such stupid things such as getting into gun fights in bars. Costas said, ‘Because they came to prominence before they came to maturity.’ That’s true of show business people in general.

"The reason that show business is so leftist is that you become the boss, Bruce Springsteen, at 22. In what other profession is that true? In other professions, you become the CEO at 58.

"You have people who’ve never had a job… Rich Rogers has a great line: ‘I’ve got the only job in the world where I tell my friends, ‘I’ve got to go to work. I’ll be right back.’

"You are above everyone else. You’re standing on a stage. You’re louder than anybody else. You’ve got the mic. You’re the one in the light. This breeds narcissism. You never enter the real world. You never have a job. You never have a bad boss. You never have a bad day. If I have a bad day at work, twenty minutes later, it’s over. It’s a breeding ground for liberalism.

"If you make it as a stand-up, you’re going to stick with the same persona and material… What you were at 22, you are at 40."

Luke: "Is there something inherent in comedy that leans left?"

Evan: "No. There’s something inherent in being young that leans left."

Luke: "Is humor suppressed hostility?"

Evan: "I don’t think so."

"Most people think there are two parts to a joke — the set-up and the punchline. They’re wrong. There are three parts. The set-up, the audience anticipation and the punchline which is true to the set-up but 180 degrees from what the audience expected. That’s the perfect joke.

"I’ll give you an example. Steve Martin says, ‘I like to put a woman on a pedestal.’

"The audience’s assumption is that he admires women. His punchline is: ‘I like to put a woman on a pedestal…just high enough to see up her dress.’

"Joan Rivers says, ‘My rape whistle…plays Sinatra.’"

Luke: "I think of comedy as tearing things down and I think of conservatism as conserving."

"There wasn’t Jewish comedy until Jews became secular. If you look at the sacred texts of the Jewish tradition…"

Evan: "They only had two pieces of paper back then. They could save up what Maimonidies said or they could save what Shecky said. I doubt jokes weren’t being made as they escaped from the Egyptians…"

Luke: "Where are you and God?"

Evan: "I started with the same disdain that the Left has for those who believe in God. I believed that all religions are basically the same, though the Jews were slightly better. My entire Jewish experience was at eight days old, they cut me. At thirteen, I said some words in a language I didn’t understand and they threw me a party. About ten years later, I stepped on a glass and was married.

"I didn’t consider taking religion seriously until I met my religious friends, my Jewish by choice friends… I believe in God. I wish I was more of a practicing Jew. Not yet.

"I can’t say God and I are friends, but we talk."

Luke: "How has your transition since 9/11 affected your dating life?"

Evan: "I don’t have a dating life. I’m not good dating material at this point. I’m too focused on getting up to speed in this new career. I was making a decent living as a journeyman gun-for-hire. Suddenly I was talking before ten people at the San Fernando Valley townhall conservatives for, if I was lucky, a free dinner.

"I’m focused on writing my book, getting my blog pieces out, giving my lectures and doing my radio interviews… I wouldn’t be a good boyfriend."

Luke: "What’s your sense of your attractiveness to the opposite sex as you’ve made this journey? Women tend to be on the left."

Evan: "Not only that, but the ones who put out tend to be on the left.

"My closing line the night you were there was that the only downside to being a conservative comedian is that you piss off all the liberal chicks.

"I’ve got beautiful women coming up to me after the show saying, ‘You’re so smart and you’re so wonderful… I’m going home to sleep with my husband.’

"I suspect that when I’m ready to be in a long-term committed relationship, it will be very good.

"After my wife, I was in a five-year relationship with a quintessential modern liberal. A narcissist. She made no effort to become one with me. Anything she did that wouldn’t have been about her would’ve been deicide. I’m a huge Bruce Springsteen fan. I know not only his lyrics, but what they mean. I don’t think we sat down once and listened to a Bruce Springsteen album. If she was doing something that I wanted to do, great, but as far as becoming a couple, that doesn’t tend to happen with liberals. They’re people who have a good time together until they don’t and then they divorce."

Luke: "How many attractive women have wanted to sleep with you for your comedy?"

Evan: "None."

"My audience tends to be older. They tend to be in committed relationships. They tend not to get very drunk."

Luke: "Women are turned on by fame and you’ve become more famous the past [three] years."

Evan: "I do get people telling me how sexy I am…"

Luke: "Are these hot, attractive young women?"

Evan: "They’re more handsome women. It’s not Britney Spears stumbling out of her car… It’s the vice-president of a bank but they’re not interested in getting laid."

Luke: "Is stand-up comedy the only place in society where we can talk honestly about race?"

Evan: "I don’t know that we can. Blacks can talk hyperbolically about whitey but I don’t know if whites can talk about blacks."

"If I have a good joke, and I know it doesn’t come from hate, and I know I could get into trouble for it, I still say it.’"

Luke: "Let me think for a few seconds…"

Evan: "That’s what makes you a conservative. You think for a few seconds."

Luke: "Do you feel any tension between a great joke and your commitment to a value system?"

Evan: "I feel a certain responsibility to my audience to provide them a safe haven, a place where their values won’t be offended. For example, using the word ‘f—.’ Some people are offended by it and I feel like I’ve made my audience a promise that if they come to my show, they’re not going to hear vulgarity. On the other hand, there are times when it is appropriate."

Luke: "How have you found the process of writing your book?"

Evan: "It’s daunting for a number of reasons. The skill that is most required in this format is discipline and organization. Those are the skills I most lack."

"You have to make a thoughtful, consistent argument for 280 pages that makes an impact on the reader."

"Regnery has assigned me one of their top editors. I’m waiting for their notes on my first draft."

Posted in Comedy, Evan Sayet, Politics | Comments Off

Sportscaster Stu Nahan Dead

Posted on December 27, 2007 by Luke Ford

ERSNews reports:

Los Angeles sportscaster Stu Nahan, died yesterday at age 81. Nahan had been battling lymphoma. Nathan is survived by his wife and four children.

Nahan was raised in Montreal, Canada. He was a goaltender for minor league hockey teams in Pittsburgh and Los Angeles before becoming the play-by-play announcer for the Modesto Reds, a minor league baseball team, in 1956.

Nahan’s next job was as a sportscaster at KCRA-TV in Sacramento, where he also hosted a children’s show and was known as “Skipper Stu.” He moved to Philadelphia, where he announced Philadelphia Flyers hockey games and hosted a children’s show on WKBS-TV Channel 48.

Stu Nahan came to Los Angeles in 1968 as a sportscaster on KABC-TV until 1977. He then worked at KNBC-TV from 1977-86 and KTLA-TV from 1988-99.

Nahan also hosted a sports talk show host at KABC radio and appeared on Los Angeles Dodgers-related programming on KFWB before retiring in 2004.

In 1976 Nahan was cast to appear in what would become one of Hollywood’s most famous films. "Rocky”, Sylvester Stallone’s rags to riches story of fictional boxer "Rocky Balboa" would go on to receive the best picture Oscar and spawn five sequels. Nahan appeared in all of the films.

Nahan also appeared in the 1982 film "Fast Times at Ridgemont High", interviewing surfer Jeff Spicoli, played by Sean Penn.

Posted in Journalism | Comments Off

The Best Magazine Essays

Posted on December 27, 2007 by Luke Ford

David Brooks writes in the NYT:

New York magazine had a very good year. In “Everybody Sucks,” Vanessa Grigoriadis describes the “creative underclass.” These are young, smart people who work at the bottom of the opinion-forming food chain. They work at places like Gawker.com and spew venom at everybody above.
The Gawker writers are far from the first to play on their readers’ status anxiety (by telling them that people who are more famous are actually frauds). But Grigoriadis gets inside the creative underclass. In her description, Gawker is an information-age sweatshop. The bloggers on staff are compelled to produce 12 blog posts a day, and under the old compensation system they were paid the munificent sum of $12 per post. Now it’s worse. Owner Nick Denton is going to pay them per page-view. No views, no food.
Matt Labash of The Weekly Standard is consistently one of the best magazine writers in the country. Since amoral blackguards bring out his best, his profile of political dirty tricks artist Roger Stone was bound to be good. Stone cut his teeth with Nixon, loved Roy Cohn, works with Trump, advised Sharpton and has laid a barrage of fire into Eliot Spitzer. One of Stone’s maxims is: “Hit from every angle. Open multiple fronts on your enemy. He must be confused, and feel besieged on every side.”

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TMZ Finds Its Way On TV

Posted on December 27, 2007 by Luke Ford

Tne NYT reports (Tabloid Baby responds):

The three-month-old television version of “TMZ,” which is based on the popular Web site about the foibles of Britney, J. Lo and the like, continues to rank as the top-rated new show in syndication.
Harvey Levin, the managing editor of TMZ.com and the host of the series, said he has been thrilled with the popularity of the celebrity gossip show.
“The Web site was such a breakout that a lot of people were scoffing at the notion that we would, as they put it, ‘revert back to TV,’” Mr. Levin said in an interview this week. “I think people were almost writing it off as something that would fail, something that everyone else was doing on TV, and that it wouldn’t have the freshness of the Web site and I think it does.”
The “TMZ” staff holds a 6:30 a.m. P.T. meeting to plot the day’s coverage. The program is produced at 1 p.m.; a few affiliates broadcast it live and most others show it later in the day.

Posted in TMZ.com | Comments Off

And They Don’t Keep Coming

Posted on December 27, 2007 by Luke Ford

Mickey Kaus writes:

…The LAT reports on a decline in incoming illegal immigration, and the paper has some numbers. … Mexicans who say they plan to seek work abroad: down by a third. … Border arrests: down by 20%. … Most significantly:
The growth rate of the U.S. Mexican-born population has dropped by nearly half to 4.2% in 2007 from about 8% in 2005 and 2006, according to an analysis of census data by the Pew Hispanic Center. [E.A.]
That seems pretty dramatic. True, there’s a debate about how much of the drop is due to stepped-up enforcement and how much to a decline in construction work. The official PC position appears to be that enforcement can’t possibly have anything to do with it.** Still, the drop suggests that border control efforts may have at least as much effect on shaping the future electorate in the long run as attempts by Republicans to win over Mexican-Americans by pursuing McCainesque semi-amnesty proposals. [But illegals don’t vote-ed. Their U.S.-born children do. Plus, fewer illegals = less demand for semi-amnesty, no? Which makes it less likely that a whole new group of previously illegal Latino immigrants will ever become voters. Pandering to this now-smaller group of potential future voters in turn becomes less appealing.]

Posted in Immigration, Mickey Kaus | Comments Off