US Financial News

Rockwall, TX is home to great and very luxurious neighborhoods, one of which is Lago Vista. The neighborhood is revered for its beautiful nature and great charm, with beautiful homes that are scattered throughout with a great deal of prominence within the city. The neighborhood is much newer than many of those that are found in Texas, with the oldest homes of the neighborhood dated to 1995. This is to have great advantages, however, especially for those that are looking for modern homes with modern designs and modern architectural value.

The homes of Lago Vista have a greater price than many others of Rockwall, ranging between the  $260,000’s and almost $600,000. Lots are a bit larger as well, ranging to over an acre, with homes reaching about 4,300 square feet. There are about 91 lots per subdivision with a Home Owner’s Association in full effect. Students attend Dorothy Smith Pullen Elementary, Maurine Cain Middle, and Rockwall-Heath High.

All in all, if you are looking for a dazzling new home in Rockwall, Texas, you can’t go wrong in Lago Vista. You wi

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| Tags: Lago Vista, Vista
Posted November 7, 2011 by Hanna Silver under Global Finance

Late Friday, Priceline released its annual list of the top 50 North American travel destinations for the Fourth of July weekend. The online, discount-travel company said it believes that its list is one of the most accurate predictors of July 4th travel trends since it is based upon hotel room booking request made by its customers with their credit cards, rather than on consumer polls or votes.

For the second year running, a Chicago neighborhood was listed the top July 4 destination, with Chicago’s North Michigan Avenue and River North Area being number one this year. In fact, the majority of the places were northern destinations, with even 10 of them being north of the U.S.-Canadian border. Giving his thoughts on the list, Priceline’s Travel Ekspert blogger, Brian Ek said, “With record high temperatures in various parts of the country, many Americans appear to be headed for hopefully cooler northern destinations over the July 4th long weekend. This is similar to the trend we saw last year except, in 2010, it was the BP oil spill that was affecting tourism in southern beach destinations. It’s also worth noting the strong recovery of New Orleans. For J

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| Tags: July, Top 50
Posted November 3, 2011 by John Wane under Financial Guru

RILA discusses needed legislation The Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) sent a letter this week to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. In the letter, they urged the committee to consider e-fairness and business tax reform as issues of great importance. According to RILA, “Main Street businesses need Congress to level the playing field between brick-and-mortar businesses and online only sellers.” By this, they mean ensuring “…states [have] the ability to enforce their sales tax laws.” States already have laws in place that would enable them to require remote sellers to collect and remit sales tax on purchases made by their residents. Unfortunately, “…a decades-old loophole that pre-dates the internet, [makes it possible for] online-only companies [to] achieve as much as a 10-percent price advantage over brick-and-mortar retailers by not collecting state and local sales tax.” RILA Executive Vice President Katherine Lugar declares in the letter that “…states should be able to enforce their laws, regardless of whether a product is purchased from an in-state or out-of-state vendor, and collect state revenues essential for dealing with their own fiscal crises.” She goes on to call out the Marketplace Equity Act (H.R. 3179) sponsored in th Read more…

| Tags: Deficit, Deficit Taxes
Posted November 2, 2011 by Oliver Blake under Financial News

With pensions gradually fading into the past, Individual Retirement Accounts are gaining importance. There are a lot of IRAs you can choose from, to invest for a secured future but many would suggest you to start a Roth Individual Retirement Account. A Roth IRA when compared to a traditional IRA has a lot of positives, the most important of which is the fact that there are no tax deductions or penalties to a Roth IRA contribution. However this same plus point can prove to be a disadvantage. For instance in the case of a traditional IRA, where contributions are tax deductible, the contributor will get an amount of the contribution multiplied along with his marginal tax rate which will equal to an immediate tax saving. If you wish to learn more about a Roth IRA, the page roth-ira.org would be of great assistance.

Now let us first look at the features of a traditional IRA:
1. Read more…

| Tags: Roth Ira
Posted October 31, 2011 by Admin under Financial News

It’s no secret the nation’s economic woes have forced millions of Americans out of work. For many, long-term unemployment has meant falling behind on credit card payments, running up debts, or even losing their homes. As a result, their credit scores have plummeted.But here’s the worst part — when these individuals try to turn things around by applying for a job, some employers are rejecting them based on these poor credit reports. Thankfully, some state governments have stepped in to prevent this financial discrimination. Most recently, California has passed a law which would restrict the practice of pulling the credit reports of job applicants. Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Oregon, and Washington have similar laws on their books as well.In the case of the Golden State, it is important to note that the new law does not completely prohibit employers from looking at the credit reports of potential employees. E

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| Tags: Credit, Credit Reports
Posted October 30, 2011 by Hanna Silver under Global Finance

European leaders have announced a final deal for resolution of two-year debt crisis in the Eurozone is finally coming into focus, and investors piled into gold on the news. The precious metal closed up $24.20 to $1,747.70 per ounce since the announcement, with silver also showing gains. The deal will require Greek bondholders to take a 50% hit on bonds, but will allow Greece to dip into the European Financial Stability Facility fund while European banks raise even more money to cover losses. Experts agree that more liquidity in the global market translates to higher gold prices, and value is expected to run well beyond $1,700 an ounce if the plan holds and things continue on their current track. For more on this continue reading the following article from TheStreet. European leaders finally decided on some kind of plan to lift Europe out of an almost two year old debt crisis and investors voraciously bought up stocks and >gold. Gold for December delivery closed $24.20 higher at $1,747.70 an ounce at the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The gold price has traded as high as $1,749 and as low as $1,707.20 an ounce while the spot gold price was popping $19, according to Kitco’s gold index.
Silver prices jumped $1.80 to close at $35.11 an ounce while the U.S. Read more…

| Tags: News
Posted October 30, 2011 by Oliver Blake under Financial News

I investigated a couple of prime bank frauds at the SEC. We made both cases, filing charges that stuck. And I naively thought that the publicity about the scam would bury that type of swindle forever. But that was before I knew what I know now about how the human brain operates. Had I understood the limits of human perception in the investment context and the cognitive biases that come as standard equipment with every healthy human brain, I’d have been much more pessimistic. This week, prosecutors in Illinois indicted a man for taking $4 million from investors in what sounds like a classic prime bank scam. There’ve been hundreds of such cases between my first encounter with this type of scam and the one reported here. According to the Rockford Register Star:

The defendant, James Pantazelos, 61, was charged Tuesday with six counts of mail fraud and four counts of wire fraud alleged to have occurred from May 2007 through December 2010.

According to the indictment, Pantazelos was the owner and CEO of an investment company called Destiny’s Partners Inc. The indictment says he and associates invited individuals to attend conferences around the country to learn about investment opportunities. Pantazelos and his associates allegedly told the potential investors Destiny’s Partners placed its investors’ funds in “Private Investment Trading Platforms,” which traded bank notes in foreign markets.

Pantazelos claimed Destiny’s Partners donated a substantial portion of its profits to charitable and humanitarian causes. In addition, the indictment states Pantazelos promised investors their funds would be safe because the investments would be kept in an escrow account. It is further alleged that he offered the investors a variety of investment “options,” for periods ranging from 90 to 365 days, and promised returns of up to 200 percent.

The indictment states Pantazelos used a substantial amount of the investors’ funds to pay for personal expenses, including buying homes for himself and a family member, remodeling a family member’s home, buying expensive automobiles for himself and family members, and attempting to open a restaurant.

Notice two things about this case. First, notice that the defendant claimed that the investment had a charitbale tie in. I’ve yet to investigate a legitimate investment that made such a claim. You can see why scamsters would use that tactic. It tends to short circuit the inquiry into whether the venture is legitimate or a scam.

Notice also the extravagant spending. We’ll say it again: If the person who has your assets spends money like a trust fund baby on a weekend shopping bender, he is spending your money, not his own.

Please read the SEC’s materials on prime bank frauds. And please read what we reveal about that species of fraud inThe Vigilant Investor. Once you understand what we explain about how the human brain processes information in the investment context, you’ll understand them better and be better able to protect yourself and others.

There is no other area of the law in which ordinary citizens can be so involved in bringing criminals to justice. Consider yourself deputized to help clean up an investing landscape crowded with very dangerous people.

| Tags: Public
Posted October 29, 2011 by John Wane under Financial Guru

There are several significant items in our weekly report today, so let’s jump right in with the first one.

The National Credit Card APR average jumped from 14.97% week before last to a full 15.00% last week. Note that it’s done nothing but stay level or increase since our reports began, so be sure to keep an eye on the APRs of your credit cards and consider switching over to get lower interest rates where possible.

Now onto a subject we don’t like to think about but can’t ignore: unemployment. The unemployment rate in this country has remained steady at about 9.1% for the last few months, meaning about 14 million Americans are jobless. But there are several states in our United States where the unemployment rate is much higher than the national average.

The state of Nevada is coming in at a staggering 13.4% rate of unemployment, over 4% higher than the nation’s percentage of unemployed persons. Next up is California at a significantly lower but still alarming 12.1%. Michigan drops to 11.2%, while Washington D.C. and South Carolina both have 11.1% unemployment.

The best states to live in for employment? Oklahoma l

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| Posted October 23, 2011 by John Wane under Financial Guru