Credit @ MindSay

The people who govern America on all levels have a tendency to place the burden for solving problems on consumers. But consumers cannot solve the problems they are encouraged to solve. Some are simply unwilling to do what is required, some cannot afford to do what is required, and some who are willing and can afford to simply cannot.

I have written about this before concerning water conservation:

"You present eight suggestions for ordinary people to follow in their homes. And although each would indeed save water, the effectiveness of these solutions would depend entirely upon the number of people you could get to work together in these ways. But anyone who believes that it is possible to get enough people to cooperate in such ways to have a significant effect on the problem is a dreamer.

Yet I can think of things that can have significant effects on the problem. I have over the past many years lived in seven American states, and not once have I lived in a house that had insulated hot water pipes. As a result, one had to run the hot water two or three minutes before the water became hot enough to bathe in. And I suggest that this is happening in almost every American home. This waste could be eliminated with good building codes. But building codes require businesses to tackle the problem, and American legislators are not inclined to do that.

Here in Texas, cities are always imposing watering restrictions; yet they allow builders to put houses on unstable soil using foundations not meant for such conditions. The owners of these homes are told to keep the soil around their foundations moist year round to ameliorate foundation problems. And one city I lived in that had watering restrictions also had a recycling program that required citizens to wash any glass ware that was to be recycled."

Any water saved by the eight suggestions would be dwarfed by better building codes.

Similar problems abound concerning recycling. Many are unwilling to go to the trouble, and others simply cannot recycle. I live in a single family home with a two-car garage, but I don't have room for multiple boxes into which to separate and store recyclables.  And the alley behind the house is not wide enough to accommodate recycling bins. People who live in apartments have even less room. Many elderly and urban dwellers don't drive or have vehicles into which they can load their recyclables and cart them to recycling centers. A program requiring consumers to recycle can never succeed.

But my present concern is a more serious problem—protecting our good credit. Given the explosion of identity theft, insurance companies are now selling identity theft and credit protection insurance. But identity theft and credit protection are not consumer problems; they are banker problems caused by banking practices.

Why do bankers and other businesses continue to use social security numbers as identifiers? Why aren't the identities of borrowers verified by bankers? Why do they rely on signatures on credit card receipts and loan papers when fingerprints would effective deter fraud, especially if fingerprints were accompanied with a photograph? Technology to enable both of these has been available for some time. And finally just who benefits most from so-called good credit?

A consumer with good credit does enjoy some convenience, but s/he pays a hefty price for it. Consumers who don't use credit or use it sparingly save all the money that goes to banks as interest. As a result, they can buy more, not less. And if everyone had bad credit, the bankers would either have to find other means of identifying reliable borrowers or curtail their lending. But lending is the mana of banking. No lending, no profit. Consumers with bad credit save the money that consumers who use good credit regularly send directly to banks.

So as long as bankers continue to use the practices that allow fraud to flourish, consumers will always be at risk of identity theft no matter what safeguards they engage in. Consumers cannot solve the problem, only bankers can. But the bankers will lead you to believe that they can sell you something that will protect your good credit when all they really want is more of your money. The good credit they want you to pay to protect is the credit that is good for them, not you.

Whether it’s emergencies, renting a car or ordering online, nowadays Credit Cards are just a requirement of life. With so many credit cards each offering ‘the best deals around’ it can be difficult to figure out just which one is telling the truth! On top of that, you want to be sure that the credit offer is extended from a reputable firm. The last thing you want to do is offer your sensitive information to some fly by night operation. CreditCardSearchEngine allows both companies and individuals alike to compare credit card offers from only the most reputable of companies side by side. This makes getting the best deal not only easier but safer.

What's Your Prom Dress Style? Glam Girl

Hellooo diva! You think of prom as your own personal Academy Awards, and you're determined to take home the prize for hottest red carpet style.

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Must admit I had 3 prom dresses!:D  Our area schools do Jr/Sr proms and I went sophmore year on top of my jr and sr years cause I was dating a sr from another school!  And I must admit even if I got cheap on the dresses I was the knock out at the prom cause I had my own style!  Sophmore year, I borrowed one of my sister's bride's maid dresses (still somewhat of 80s style long then) and took it to a seemstress and had it brought up to show my calves off, had the bow taken off and the sleeves cut off and the bodice lowered!  Bright Royal blue with matching dyed open toed blue sandles at a school whose colors were red and black and so was their prom theme!  Jr year my mom's handed me and the dad the credit card and I knew exactly what I wanted a black mini cocktail dress!  We found it at Maurcie's!  Midthigh with off the shoulder white lace trim and my dad's picked me out white lace mid arm crocheted gloves and white fishnet stockings and garter belt to match the trim with black and white close toed pumps:D  Since our class put the theme on we choice black and white with a Boyz II Men song!:D  Everyone else had midlength dresses!   I went with the girls that night!:D  Sr year, again mom's handed dad and I the credit card and we found a kick ass fire engine red mid thigh mini halter dress!  Open backed down to the small of my back, flared skirt, deep plunging bodice.  Again my dad's found some sheer fire engine red stockings and garter belt and open toed fire engine red 6 inch heels to match.  And Granny (the old cronie that i loved to bag on and passed last year) dug into her closet and found me my Great Granny's mid forarm white gloves that she promptly had dyed to match my dress!  I took an ex boyfriend of mine who was a freshman and right after prom the majority of us girls ditched our dates and boared a plane for DC to go to Close Up for a week.  Nothing like seeing a bunch of glammed out girls and guys walking into Omaha International Airport at 1am in the morning in our prom gear!  And nothing like all of us stepping off the plane at the DC airport and getting bussed to WVA to the hotels!

See girls it pays to have daddy take you shopping!  They can find some kick ass dresses and know how to flaunt what you have with out looking slutty!

Today Cal and I discovered that charges were being made to our joint account, but the thing is, only Cal has the card for the account, so I knew it wasn't me.  Furthermore, Cal hasn't been able to find his card for the last week, and the charges were for yesterday.  Something is extremely fishy, and I try to keep his friends in good faith, but when this kind of crap happens....ugh is all I can say.

I hope that we are able to find out what the hell is going on, and soon...:(:(

Any wisdom for me today?

PS:  I found out that the numbers are check numbers, and Cal found his card to prove my theory...:(