House OKs $2 billion more for ‘cash for clunkers’

After a surge of car sales drains the program’s funds, legislation is rushed through to provide additional money. The Senate still has to act.
Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles — The House today approved an additional $2 billion for the government’s “cash for clunkers” program, moving unusually quickly to replenish the program after overwhelming demand from consumers left the initiative in danger of shutting down because of lack of funds.
The 316-109 vote showed the strong bipartisan support for the program. The Senate could take up the bill next week. But supporters hope that cash for clunkers can continue to operate, knowing that additional money was in the pipeline.
Read more at: Los Angeles Times
___________
{Photography by Mike McCaffrey}
Chase dumping former WaMu card holders

Steven Lobdell points out an image on Chase bank’s Web site that says “Welcome WaMu customers. We’re here for you.”
But, apparently not for him. Lobdell is one of a group of former Washington Mutual credit card customers who were abruptly dumped by Chase in recent days. He holds two Chase cards; both were canceled as of July 15.
“It’s kind of ironic, isn’t it?” he said. “I think Chase is two-faced….We were good enough for Washington Mutual, why not good enough for Chase?” Across the Internet, thousands of former WaMu customers are expressing the same outrage. They say Chase is dumping them as customers, despite their solid payment records.
JP Morgan Chase & Co. acquired Washington Mutual and its troubled portfolio of credit cards in September, at the height of the banking system collapse. While Chase has recently set about to tidy up the ranks of its credit card holders, consumers are bearing the brunt of the cleaning. Two weeks ago, Chase began forcing some customers to raise their minimum monthly payments from 2 to 5 percent. And now, it’s cutting off some customers all together. Thousands of complaints from former Washington Mutual customers can be found on personal finance blogs all across the Web.
Read more at The RED TAPE Chronicles
___________
{Photography by Striatic}
Network Solutions breach exposes nearly 600,000

Network Solutions is investigating a breach on its servers that may have led to the theft of credit card data of 573,928 people who made purchases on Web sites hosted by the company.
Networks Solutions notified 4,343 of its nearly 10,000 e-commerce merchant customers on Friday about the breach. It affects 573,928 cardholders whose name, address, and credit card number were exposed between March 12 and June 8, said Susan Wade, a spokeswoman for Network Solutions.
Mysterious code was discovered in early June on servers hosting e-commerce customer sites during routine maintenance, she said. The company called in a third-party forensics team to help with the investigation, and the team was able to crack some of the code on July 13, determining that it could be related to credit card data, she added.
Credit card transactions were intentionally diverted by an unknown source from certain Network Solutions servers to servers outside, Network Solutions wrote in an e-mail to merchant customers.
“So we notified law enforcement and began the process of notifying our customers,” Wade said. “At this point, we don’t have a reason to believe that (the data) has been used, but we are working with the credit card companies,” nonetheless.
Network Solutions also is paying to have credit-monitoring specialist TransUnion help the merchants notify their customers according to data breach notification laws in effect in certain states. Affected consumers will get 12 months of free credit-monitoring services.
It’s unknown how the malicious code got onto the system and where it came from, Wade said. (Read more at: cnet)
___________
{Photography by Andres Rueda}
Sponsored by:

Kucinich on CNN: How banks spent your bail out money
COULD YOU SURVIVE WITHOUT MONEY? MEET THE GUY WHO DOES

In Utah, a modern-day caveman has lived for the better part of a decade on zero dollars a day. People used to think he was crazy
DANIEL SUELO LIVES IN A CAVE. UNLIKE THE average American—wallowing in credit-card debt, clinging to a mortgage, terrified of the next downsizing at the office—he isn’t worried about the economic crisis. That’s because he figured out that the best way to stay solvent is to never be solvent in the first place. Nine years ago, in the autumn of 2000, Suelo decided to stop using money. He just quit it, like a bad drug habit. (Read more at: men.style.com)
Related Links:
- Daniel Suelo blog: http://zerocurrency.blogspot.com/
- Daniel Suelo web site: http://sites.google.com/site/livingwithoutmoney/
___________
{Photography by Stuart Pilbrow}
One Trillion Dollars Visualized
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: Pyramid Economy (Video)
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Pyramid Economy | ||||
|
||||
Congressman Stearns: Mr Paulson How Do You Have Any Credibility?
Cheaper Mortgages Spark Lower FICO Scores for Payers

Victor Stern thought his money troubles were over when he got approval to modify his home loan. Then his credit score dropped 121 points.
Stern, a business development director at an information technology company in Charlotte, North Carolina, said he was shocked to see his credit score drop to 619 from 740 after entering the trial period for a loan adjustment under President Barack Obama’s Home Affordable Modification Program. A salary reduction caused him to seek a change in the terms of his loan before he missed any payments.
Banks, including Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp., report the loan modifications to credit bureaus. The adjustments can lower credit scores because of the way the FICO formula, the most widely used by U.S. lenders, works. (Read more at: Bloomberg.com)
___________
{Photography by Woodley Wonder Works}
Money as Debt (Video)















