Traffic cameras are enforcing speed limits in Baltimore - but the city is the one paying up. Image: Flickr / scottiet812 / CC-BY-SA

In Baltimore, Maryland, city lawmakers are considering adding more speed cameras. These automated speed traps have been reducing speeding but not accidents. Even if the city does add more tickets, these cameras are not making money for the city.

Baltimore speed cameras

In Baltimore, Md., the city council set up several speed traps in “high risk” areas such as school zones. The tickets issued by these speeding cameras are usually about $40 and are officially issued by the city of Baltimore. The police have found that these cameras are reducing the amount of speeding by half or more, but the amount of collisions has not been going down.

Baltimore’s speed cameras

The speed cameras planted in high-risk areas of Baltimore have been issuing tickets for several months. The City of Baltimore, however, is not seeing much of the money from the tickets. The speed cameras are more like payday loans to the city. Sure, the city gets money, but it also has to pay out most of the money received. The cameras that track and record speeders are owned, monitored and operated by a private company, and $32 of every $40 ticket is paid to the private contractor. The city has to pay for the installation of the cameras, and has actually lost money on the deal thus far. Despite the fact the cameras lose money, the city is considering taking a short-term loan to install even more cameras.

Turning police work over to private contractors

Baltimore is not the only city paying private companies to take over their work. Legally, these traffic enforcement cameras are facing difficult times. A defendant’s right to face their accuser has been cited multiple times by drivers who have been ticketed by a camera or automated system, and many tickets have been overturned. In general, the fact that most people don’t fight their traffic tickets means that private companies are making millions of dollars by doing a city’s police work for them.

Sources

ABC 2
Wikipedia – Traffic Enforcement Camera

Four biofuel projects are waiting for USDA loan guarantees that may not come. Image: Flickr / blmurch / CC-BY-SA

Though delays continue to plague the process, the USDA is set to offer loan guarantees for four different biofuels projects. These short term loan guarantees are intended to help jump-start United States biofuels. There is a conflict between the USDA and DOE, however, that may put these loans guarantees at risk.

USDA loan guarantees

The United States Department of Agriculture is expected to offer four short-term loan guarantees to biofuel projects. Called the “section 9003 program,” these loan guarantees are considered conditional. USDA secretary Tom Vilsack has been pushing the section 9003 programs as proof that the USDA can create jobs. These guarantees would allow four biofuels firms in states such as Texas to develop their business.

Emergency funding for biofuels

Though the USDA is trying to fund new biofuels projects with the section 9003 emergency funding, it is not yet certain. The Office of Management and Budget is saying that the loan guarantee program does not have enough money to justify all four guarantees. The Department of Energy is also lobbying to cut the USDA guarantee program out of the funding bills working their way through Congress. Originally, the funding was certain in the Omibus spending bill. However, the funding was cut out of that budget.

The basics of the USDA loan guarantee

The USDA’s loan guarantee program seeks to offer $10 in loan guarantees for every $1 of funding in the coffers. Should the four firms that are set to receive these loan guarantees default, the USDA will be on the hook to paying back these loans. The Republican-controlled Congress that will be convening in a few weeks is likely to pull funding from this program, among others. If this is the case, the four biofuels projects, which are projected to create several hundred jobs, are likely to not receive funding through traditional banks or alternative funding sources.

Sources

BioFuels Digest

Just like in the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," fewer people want an albatross around their neck like debt. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Everyone has heard the phrase “keeping up with the Joneses,” and it means doing the things everyone else is doing to keep status. This instinct is what drives people to do things like get flat screen televisions, iPhones, riding lawnmowers and so forth. Well, according to the Federal Reserve, the Joneses are getting debt settlement relief these days instead of putting more stuff their credit cards.

Household debt falling, says Fed

The Federal Reserve recently released new data about the levels of household debt in America. It seems that once the recession came, people decided to tighten their belts and pay things off. (A little debt consolidation never hurt anyone.) According to the Wall Street Journal, consumer debt levels have fallen for seven straight quarters. Second quarter of 2010 showed a 1.5 percent reduction from the past quarter and a 6.5 percent reduction from the previous peak, in third quarter of 2008. That’s $178 billion of debt that’s been paid off in the last three months. That’s a lot of people essentially giving themselves a cash advance every month.

A few caveats

Falling household debt and an increased savings rate isn’t the entire picture. Not only did consumer debt go down, the delinquency rate went down as well. This quarter was also the first instance of delinquent debt being reduced, which fell by 0.5 percent. However, as a corollary, bankruptcies increased by 34 percent. It seems fewer people are using payday loans to keep up with paying for credit cards, as 272 million accounts were closed and only 161 million opened. At this rate, credit card companies might need an emergency loan themselves.

Getting rid of debt

Overall, more Americans are trying to get rid of debt. More people are trying to pay credit cards off than get new ones. Unfortunately, though, more people are filing for bankruptcy. Still, there are a lot of positive signs that people want to stay out of debt, preferring the security of cold, hard, cash.

Further Reading

Wall Street Journal

Eurozone countries, some facing "junk" debt ratings, are trying to find ways to finance emergency loans. Image from Flickr.

A company set up specifically to guarantee Eurozone emergency loans will ensure that creditors are paid. This “special purpose vehicle” – SPV – will guarantee up to 120 percent of the amount of loans or bonds that will be issued by Eurozone countries. This is an effort to secure an AAA rating for Eurozone debt, which will hopefully make these emergency loans more attractive to investors and help settle skittish investors.

The shape of Eurozone emergency loans

Eurozone emergency loans are the end result of severe debt in some European countries, such as Greece. In order to stabilize the financial future of countries that participate in the Euro currency, countries are creating a special purpose vehicle corporation. The SPV will be known as the European Financial Stability Facility, or EFSF. This company will basically act as a single entity, supported by several different countries, that will have the authority to take on debt.

Emergency loans to be taken on by the EFSF

The EFSF, as a limited liability corporation (LLC), will have the authority to take out or guarantee emergency loans. By selling bonds that the participating countries guarantee, this company will provide emergency loans to those guaranteeing countries. Mildly complicated, but in the end, the company is a go-between in financial markets for these governments. The bonds sold by the EFSF will be called “Eurobonds.”

What the EFSF will look like to investors

The reason many Eurozone countries are teaming up to create the EFSF for their emergency loans is in order to get a better credit rating. With Greece and other Eurozone countries being downgraded, they simply could not attract investors. By creating a larger entity, the countries hope that the general credit rating for the debt issued will rise. If the rating is upgraded, then investors ranging from other countries to mutual funds may be willing to float these needed emergency loans. The countries behind the EFSF will be promising to pay up to 120 percent of the value of these loans – so it should be a relatively stable investment.

Advantages of payday loans online

Instant loans online are pretty easy to get in most states. Many direct payday loan lenders compete with each other to help consumers who demonstrate their ability to pay back the money. Bignews.biz offers a concise summary on the advantages of payday loans:

1. The users have a resource to obtain loans of up to $700 in cash within a short period of time.
2. Debtors who have a bad credit history and have gone through economic hardship qualify to apply for payday loans.
3. To apply for a payday loan borrowers need  to provide simple employment and payroll evidence.
4. Instant cash is available to the customer for urgent needs.
5. Only personal details like your name, address and bank account information are required to get cheap payday loans.
6. The payday loan application only takes a few minutes.
7. As soon as the application is complete the loan amount gets deposited in the account within 24 hours.

Simple, hassle free credit

Payday loans online are immensely popular. After the economic collapse, many traditional lenders tightened their lending standards, excluding hardest-hit Americans from credit eligibility. There are many websites that provide instant online loans. The loan application process is very simple and hassle free. But before securing a payday loan, just like anything else in life,  it pays to get a clear picture. First of all, creditloan.com recommends shopping around for the lowest rate and fees, which payday lenders are legally obligated to post. Consumers should also try to find lenders who do not rollover, or re-lend loans easily.

Safe online payday loans

Although a payday loan may be a convenient short-term solution, consumers need to understand that direct lender payday loans could be inappropriate for long-term cash needs. Borrowers should consider the following checklist before taking out a payday loan:

Verify the credibility of the payday lender. Before you arrange your cash til payday loan, make sure your money lender is a member of an industry group like the Online Lenders Alliance. OLA members are pay day lenders that deal with responsible borrowers who need short term cash relief.

Before you apply for an emergency loan, ask about delaying or making payment arrangements on your non-interest bills like telephone and utility bills.

Avoid borrowing from more than one lender, and avoid borrowing from more than one lender at a time.

Borrow only as much as you can afford to repay with your next paycheck, know when your payment is due and repay the loan on time and in full.

Set up a budget. Plan for the future by making a realistic budget to help avoid the need to borrow for emergencies and unforeseen expenses.

Make a win-win situation

Poor credit scores, lack of a credit history or even the occasional bounced check usually aren’t taken into consideration on a payday loan application. But payday loan consumers should keep in mind that to be successful, payday lending companies must adequately identify, measure, monitor and control the risks. It’s good for their business and their customers to ensure compliance with consumer protection laws.

Use credit cards or break open the piggy bank? Try an Emergency Loan instead.

Personal installment loans on the same day you apply may be the solution to your Emergency Loan problem. This problem is becoming more and more familiar. You hear every day about the effects of this turbulent economy on one family after another. Lost jobs are everywhere. Moving in with family and friends, combining households is happening everywhere.

You need an Emergency Loan because it’s expensive to live

You need to fix your broken truck or car. Or you need money for moving expenses and a deposit for electric or cable. Or you need money for gas to drive to see a sick relative. Or you have an overdrawn checking account. Or you have an emergency where you have to buy food for your children. Or you have had a flood or a fire. Or you have a sick child or pet or you need to go to the emergency room.

You need a Loan now because you need help fast

Time is of the essence. You need this money now. You can apply for this Loan for emergency expenses right here. The application is fast and easy. Generally no faxes, no credit checks are necessary. You can do the whole application online and if you are approved, the money can be deposited right into your account, sometimes within 2 hours. You can fix your problems, right from the comfort of your home.

You need the comfort a Fast Loan can provide

You can have the comfort and peace of mind knowing you are handling your emergency. You can look forward to getting your finances back on track, to living within a budget, to before the days when the economic crisis hit everyone, and especially hit your family. If all it takes is an Emergency Loan for the peace of mind you are looking for, then there’s nothing else to talk about. Click the apply button now.

For an Emergency Loan, apply HERE!

If you’ve ever found yourself in a situation that required quick cash to avert disaster, you know that bureaucratic red tape, lengthy credit and background checks and a long list of application requirements are not what you want. An easy, efficient application that respects your privacy is vital – and it’s no coincidence that First Cash Advance (See www.firstcashadvance.us/y/index.html) provides exactly this for consumers in need of a cash loan.

Get your money in just one hour

It doesn’t matter if you’re caught between paydays or facing a surprise expense that has your budget cornered: First Cash Advance is an excellent source for fast cash loans. They’re relatively new to the online payday loan industry (firstcashadvance.us traffic measurements have only been online since June 2009, according to Compete.com), but their clean, simple Web site is sure to be popular with consumers, particularly since the loan application and distribution process is entirely electronic. This means there’s no paper chase and no waiting for a check in the mail. If a potential customer has a checking or savings account and is approved for a loan, as much as $1,500 is wired directly into the bank account.

It can happen within an hour

So long as you apply before 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, it is possible to receive the fast cash loan you need on the same day – even within an hour!

While First Cash Advance is not a lender, they are in position to match applicants with “America’s best online installment and cash lenders nationwide,” according to their Web site. They claim to have helped “thousands of customers” obtain the cash advance services they need. Will you be one of them? Check them out at firstcashadvance.us.

Some traffic analysis from their Web site

Firstcashadvance.us first showed up on Compete.com in June 2009, and they’ve already reached a respectable level of monthly traffic to their site. In January 2010, the site drew 2,402 unique visitors, which is a huge jump from only the month before: 228.14 percent more. Their 2,716 total visitors was a 271.04 percent increase over the previous month.

While the sample size for referring sites is small at this point, we know from Compete.com that cashapply.com refers the most traffic to First Cash Advance (18.72 percent), but other sites like yieldmanager.com and untd.com rank. Their exact percentages are not currently available, however, and most searched terms leading to First Cash Advance aren’t either. Give them time.

First Cash Advance – may your first time with them be the cash advance experience you need

They died in service of their country, as did those who worked to save lives on 9/11. Why shouldn't that be honored as a national day of service, to remember them? (Photo: flickr.com)

Donald Kent Douglas recently contributed an article to Pajamas Media entitled “A ‘National Day of Service?’ Or a Political Hijacking of 9/11?” To say the least, I find his opinions to be overly cynical and I cannot agree with them. But that’s not all. To think that naming 9/11 a National Day of Service somehow dishonors those who lost their lives on that tragic day is backward.

To openly make the claim that President Obama and the Democrats are attempting to “reclaim” the day from Bush Republicans is not only cynical, but indicative of the kind of irrationality that has made reasonable discourse during the health care town halls largely impossible. People need emergency money for coverage, but the extreme right invokes zombies and death books to scare, rather than engaging in back-and-forth discussion. A National Day of Service is an emergency loan to the whole of America.

Obama signed the bill in April

September 11 is now “an annually recognized National Day of Service and Remembrance,” meant to “encourage and facilitate community service across the country.” Douglas, who believes that we live in a shadow reality where the president is actually a Nazi, sites an American Spectator piece by Matthew Vadum to trump up his cause:

The Obama White House is behind a cynical, coldly calculated political effort to erase the meaning of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks from the American psyche and convert Sept. 11 into a day of leftist celebration and statist idolatry.

In short, Vadum and Douglas believe that rather than honoring those who served and died with service for our own for those in need, Obama is “hijacking our generation’s day of infamy, turning it into a ‘socialist holiday of community service.’”

Proof of this?

It’s a single “White House-sponsored teleconference,” in which “the entire array of America-bashing left-wing special interests” attacked 9/11 as a “day of fear.” But Mr. Douglas and Mr. Vadum, that’s exactly what 9/11 is but should not be. Using  9/11 as a constant call to war against terrorism is fear mongering. Service is honorable; fear is paralysis unless it inspires us to act. Soldiers served their country. Those who gave their lives so that others could be saved on 9/11 did the same. Why shouldn’t we honor them with a National Day of Service? Contrary to previous reports, it isn’t mandatory. People can do as their consciences and skills dictate.

He seeks to honor the memories of those who have died, and serving your fellow man as they did is a perfect memorial. What can a clear-thinking person find wrong with that? (Photo: thewhizzer.blogspot.com)

Vadum questions the motives of the National Day of Service because of who may or may not have been involved in a conference call that may or may not have occurred. I don’t care if Ronald McDonald, Mayor McCheese and Benedict Arnold were in on that meeting… if the outcome is service that reminds us of those who have gone before us, that is noble. If that sound like hijacking to you, I advise you to seek help.

Why not GIVE?

The Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education (GIVE) Act – HR 1388 – officially passes on the torch of responsibility to current generations. At the very least, this answers former President John F. Kennedy’s call for us to “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” Mr. Douglas, to call this “a paramilitary force of volunteer brown shirts” discredits the memory of 9/11 victims in the way you’re accusing Obama of doing. The green community service projects that will come out of GIVE will improve the nation as a whole. Yet you have the gall to say that “undeserved” communities would be served. Considering your seeming obsession with denigrating the “Hip Hop Caucus Advisory Board,” are you trying to show us your racism? If so, you’re succeeding.

The fear mongering is yours

Douglas next references an essay by Columbia history professor Eric Foner. Foner writes, “I’m not sure which is more frightening: the horror that engulfed New York City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the White House.” Then you attempt to confuse readers by invoking the rhetoric of Ward Churchill, who claimed the people in the Twin Towers deserved to die. Last I checked, Ward Churchill does not represent Obama administration policy, nor does it represent popular opinion in any way. A National Day of Service is honorable, a signpost on the way toward a better America. At the very least, it’ll be an outlet to help curb the rampaging obesity rate. All voluntary, of course. Not mandatory. It’s an outlet to do well and be active.

Obama makes reasonable associations, Douglas froths at the mouth

[apply_button float="right"]

So making the World Trade Center Memorial  ”a high-tech, multimedia tutorial about man’s inhumanity to man, from Native American genocide to the lynchings and cross-burnings of the Jim Crow South, from the Third Reich’s Final Solution to the Soviet gulags and beyond” is in some way inaccurate, Mr. Douglas? Was it not intolerance that led to the tragedy? How is that hijacking the somber remembrance of those who died? If anything, those who died join in the stand against intolerance and hate. It is yet another reminder that America needs something like a National Day of Service. Those who died are honored BY acts of service. It’s not a “Republican” or “Democrat” day; it’s a day that honors the best in humanity – the spirit of service. That is a just cause… there is a poetic justice in what GIVE makes possible. It is emergency money to empower those who want to serve but didn’t have the means to do so before.

Serving the greater good

Douglas ends his screed by labeling the National Day of Service “not a noble national service,” but “a cold, calculating national disgrace.” I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t think you understand what it means to be an American. The right to choose to serve others on a National Day of Service (or any other day, for that matter) is a true sign of humanity. Latching on to the baseless complaint that adding noble action to the memorial of the fallen is political grandstanding is not only misguided, but it is bitter to the point of being unpalatable. However, you do have the right to your opinion, being an American. How do you honor the fallen, Mr. Douglas?

Related Video: