Tag Archives: loans

4 Tips for Going Solar in 2018

by NiamhWymark356 Posted on January 1, 2018

Shares

Solar energy production has skyrocketed in recent years in the United States. With more than 49 megawatts of installed solar capacity, there are now enough solar panels to power 9.5 million homes, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.

Are you interested in getting on the solar bandwagon? Ultimately, determining if it is financially savvy to go solar depends on numerous factors, including the cost of electricity in your area, the price and output of the solar system, and available solar energy incentives.

Is 2018 a good year for you to go solar? Here are some tips on making an informed decision.

Understand Your Local Net Metering Laws

Net metering laws require power companies to bank excess credits for solar electricity fed to the utility grid for later use by the homeowner. For example, let’s say your solar panels generated 10 kWh of excess electricity for the grid during a sunny day and then you consumed 10 kWh of electricity at night. Under net metering laws, you would neither owe money nor be reimbursed for this power, given that you provided as much power as you later consumed.

In 2015, 43 states had net metering laws. Now, only 38 states do. In some areas, solar homeowners are not rewarded at a retail rate for the excess power they supply. Find out what the laws are in your state to better understand the return on investment of your solar system. In some areas where net metering laws are changing, existing solar system owners are grandfathered in under the old system. If the new rules haven’t taken effect yet, you still might be able to get compensated under the old, higher rate.

Consider Solar Equipment Warranties

Solar product warranties vary among manufacturers, and they are an important consideration before installing a solar system. Equipment warranties can protect you, making solar a safer long-term investment. Ask your solar installer or conduct independent research to determine product warranties, as they can vary widely by manufacturer and product. Recently, some manufacturers have been setting themselves apart by offering exceptional warranties.

Solar panel warranties, in particular, are an important consideration, as they are typically the most expensive equipment in your solar system. Over time, even the best solar panels produce less energy due to product degradation. Although all solar panels are less effective at generating electricity over time, the degradation rate varies by the panel. Performance guarantees help ensure that solar electric panels are producing at a certain percentage of their original generation capacity after a given number of years.

Currently, many manufacturers guarantee 90 percent production for 10 years and 80 percent for 25 years. Some panel manufacturers set themselves apart by offering stronger warranties. SunPower, for example, leads the industry by offering a 92 percent performance guarantee for 25 years.

Most solar panel manufacturers also protect against defects. Many solar panels have a 10-year equipment warranty on the integrity of the panel. Now, SunEdison, Solaria and SunPower solar panels have a 25-year equipment warranty.

Shop around when installing a solar system to find the best price, warranties and solar equipment quality. UnderstandSolar is an excellent free service that links solar shoppers with top-rated solar installers in their area for personalized solar estimates, and EnergySage allows you to make apple-to-apple comparisons.

Take Advantage of the Federal Tax Credit and Solar Incentives

There is a federal tax credit in effect that reduces the total net cost of a solar system by 30 percent! A tax credit is a dollar-for-dollar reduction in federal income taxes owed, so it is more valuable to the taxpayer than a tax write-off.

If you install a $10,000 solar system, you can qualify for a $3,000 tax credit. This solar incentive will start scaling down in 2020. Keep in mind that some states or municipalities offer incentives for using solar.

Start with Energy-Efficiency Improvements

Although this is not a new development in 2018, it is important to consider whenever someone is going solar. Before sizing your solar system, look for ways to cut your home electricity use. Refrigerators, lighting, electric water heaters and air-conditioners are common electricity hogs. In many cases, it is worthwhile to replace old appliances with high-efficiency models.

Also, explore if you have any vampire loads that suck power even when appliances or electronics are turned off. Home entertainment and office equipment often continuously drain power. Smart power strips are a great solution to stop energy vampires in their tracks.

Consider Solar Loans

As the solar energy industry matures, there are now more solar loan products available than ever before. Solar loans make the most financial sense when the amount you pay on the loan is less than your monthly utility savings. This means that the loan allows you to save money on your solar system from day 1. Make sure to take the loan fees and interest into consideration. A home equity line of credit is another option, and the interest is likely tax-deductible.

Ultimately, the decision to go solar is multifaceted. Many homeowners choose solar because they want to do their part to help stop climate change or to wean themselves off of fossil fuels. Now that the cost of solar has dropped so much, many install solar systems merely for the cost savings. In much of the U.S., 2018 is a good year to go solar.

You Might Also Like…

5 Strategies to Choose the Right Solar Panel Installer

As solar energy explodes in popularity, there are more solar …Sarah LozanovaSeptember 21, 2017

Are Solar Panels Recyclable?

Solar power is now the fastest-growing energy source. In fact, …Sarah LozanovaApril 6, 2017

4 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Going Solar

There are now more than 1 million solar systems installed …Sarah LozanovaJanuary 5, 2017

4 Tips for Going Solar in 2018

Solar energy production has skyrocketed in recent years in the …Sarah LozanovaJanuary 1, 2018

Predicting the Biggest Green Trend for 2018

Although Kermit the Frog once sang, “It’s not easy being …Trey GrangerDecember 29, 2017

Teaching Kids to Love the Great Outdoors (in a World of Video Games)

It’s sad to think that most of today’s children grow …Anna JohanssonDecember 28, 2017

earth911

Original link – 

4 Tips for Going Solar in 2018

Posted in FF, GE, ONA, PUR, Safer, solar, solar panels, solar power, Ultima, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 4 Tips for Going Solar in 2018

Trump’s Biggest Lender Wants New Terms

by KristinWatters Posted on December 22, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Donald Trump’s biggest creditor, Deutsche Bank, is seeking to restructure some of the president-elect’s debt, Bloomberg reports. Trump’s companies owe the German lender at least $364 million, more than half of his total $713 million debt load, and his loans with the bank—a potential source of leverage over the incoming commander-in-chief—pose a significant conflict of interest.

According to Bloomberg, Deutsche Bank is seeking to limit the conflict by removing Trump’s personal guarantee from the loans, meaning that the president-elect would not be personally on the hook if the loans go bad. Trump has also personally guaranteed loans to his second-biggest lender, Ladder Capital Finance, to which he owes $282 million.

Bloomberg cited unnamed sources who indicated that the bank was the party seeking the changes and that delicate restructuring talks are underway. Trump’s personal guarantees have helped him secure low interest rates, and if the guarantees are removed, the bank could compensate by raising the interest on Trump’s loans or asking for other assets to serve as collateral.

Mother Jones reviewed all of Trump’s publicly listed debts earlier this month and found that Trump has four loans with Deutsche Bank: two mortgages on his Miami Doral golf course, a loan on his Chicago tower, and a $170 million loan tied to his brand-new Washington, DC, hotel. All four loans were made through Deutsche Bank’s private bank, a division that caters to high-net-worth individuals and has the flexibility to make loans that the commercial lending side of the firm might balk at.

Documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission by Ladder Capital show that Trump has guaranteed $8 million of his $100 million mortgage on Trump Tower and $26 million of the $160 million mortgage on the 40 Wall Street office tower.

Since his election, Trump has repeatedly faced questions about the unprecedented conflicts of interest posed by his business empire. So far, the president-elect has done little to allay concerns about his business interests. Trump canceled a scheduled press conference earlier this month at which he said he would discuss how he would separate himself from his business, but he also indicated that his solution did not involve divesting himself from his assets. Instead, he suggested he would step back from daily operations. That would do little to insulate himself from conflicts, and it would do nothing to solve the ethical issues created by his loan guarantees, which make him personally responsible if the bank ever deems the terms of the loans to have been broken. Even if he does divorce himself from his business, he can’t separate himself from the guarantees that put his own money on the line—or from the leverage his lenders have over him.

Trump’s relationship with Deutsche Bank when he enters the White House is particularly fraught because the German firm is currently in the midst of a regulatory tussle with the Justice Department. In 2015, the bank paid American and European regulators $2.5 billion in a settlement for its role in helping to rig the interest rate market. Now the bank is negotiating with the Justice Department on an even bigger potential settlement—as much as $14 billion—for its role in the creation and sale of bad mortgage products in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis.

Separately, Reuters recently reported that Ladder Capital may be exploring putting itself up for sale, opening the possibility that Trump’s second-largest lender could wind up in the hands of interests that aren’t necessarily aligned with America’s.

The potential conflicts of interest over the Deutsche Bank loans are separate from concerns that ethics experts have expressed about a possible violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause, which prohibits government officials from receiving beneficial treatment from foreign governments. Those concerns stem from a $920 million loan from the state-owned Bank of China and a coalition of lenders (that also includes Deutsche Bank) to a real estate partnership that Trump is part of.

Original post:

Trump’s Biggest Lender Wants New Terms

Posted in FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Trump’s Biggest Lender Wants New Terms

Meet the VIPs for Trump’s Big Speech Tonight

by PhilMcNish51795 Posted on July 22, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

In the leaked version of Donald Trump’s acceptance speech, he rails against special interests, big donors, and elite media figures as the puppet masters behind Hillary Clinton. But waiting backstage and seated in the luxury boxes at the Quicken Loans Arena as he delivers his big address will be the very type of people he denounces.

According to a copy of the speech obtained by the Washington Post, Trump will blame America’s problems on special interests, as he has done throughout the campaign:

…These interests have rigged our political and economic system for their exclusive benefit. Big business, elite media and major donors are lining up behind the campaign of my opponent because they know she will keep our rigged system in place.

They are throwing money at her because they have total control over everything she does.

She is their puppet, and they pull the strings. That is why Hillary Clinton’s message is that things will never change.

But an official guest list for the VIP boxes at the fourth and final night of the Republican National Convention, first published by Bloomberg on Thursday afternoon, includes billionaire mega-donors such as Las Vegas casino owner Sheldon Adelson, Wisconsin roofing supply mogul Diane Hendricks, and the Amway scions of the DeVos family. (If Trump’s puppet master line sounds familiar, it’s because he once mocked Marco Rubio as “a perfect little puppet” of Adelson, who was believed to prefer the Florida senator.)

Adelson, Hendricks, and the Devoses will be situated in Suite 125 at the Quicken Loans Arena, located directly behind the podium where Donald Trump will make his acceptance speech, where they will be joined by:

Joe Craft, the CEO of coal company Alliance Resources.
Wilbur Ross, a billionaire leveraged buyout king who owned the coal company involved in the Sago Mine disaster.
Woody Johnson, heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune and owner of the New York Jets who was the finance chairman of Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign.
Anthony Scaramucci, a New York hedge-funder who leads Trump’s outreach to Wall Street.
Steve Mnuchin, a banker and Trump’s campaign finance chairman.
Todd Ricketts, owner of the Chicago Cubs, who was a major bankroller of the #NeverTrump movement. (A source told Bloomberg that Ricketts was attending as a supporter of the party, not Trump.)

This luxury box will also include a handful of Trump’s closest political allies, such as governors Chris Christie and Rick Scott.

In another suite, hosted by Mnuchin, key Trump business and political allies will huddle. The list includes Phil Ruffin, Trump’s partner on his Las Vegas hotel; billionaire Andy Beal, a banker, mathematician, and poker player; Tom Barrack, the Los Angeles billionaire investor who is heading an effort to raise money for a pro-Trump super-PAC; Harold Hamm, a natural gas fracking mogul who Trump is said to be considering for Energy secretary in a potential Trump administration; and…Nacho Figueras, an Argentinean model and polo player.

In another suite, Rebekah Mercer, the daughter of hedge fund billionaire (and former Ted Cruz backer) Robert Mercer. The leaked documents show Mercer (and a bodyguard) will be joined by five guests, including Steve Bannon, the chairman of Breitbart News, Matt Boyle, the conservative website’s Washington editor, and other Breitbart staff.

If Trump starts to rail against NAFTA, another suite may fall a little silent—one invitee is Dennis Nixon, CEO of Laredo, Texas-based International Bank of Commerce, whose website hails him as “instrumental” in the passage of NAFTA. Nixon’s guests include IBC executive Eddie Aldrete, vice-chairman of the National Immigration Forum, an immigration reform group, as well as Noe Garcia, a Washington D.C.-based lobbyist who represents the Border Trade Alliance.

The final VIP suite includes Annie Dickerson, a key advisor to hedge funder Paul Singer, who has made his dislike of Trump very clear. Dickerson led the unsuccessful fight last week to include more pro-LGBT-friendly language in the RNC platform, a major issue for Singer, who strongly supports LGBT rights. Dickerson’s listed guest is former Bush adviser Dan Senor, who made news last week when he tweeted about recent conversations with Indiana governor Mike Pence where Pence complained about Trump. (Senor says he won’t be attending.)

The full guest list for the VIP suites is below.

DV.load(“https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2997232-RNC2016-SuiteGuestList.js”,
width: 630,
height: 500,
sidebar: false,
text: false,
container: “#DV-viewer-2997232-RNC2016-SuiteGuestList”
);

RNC2016-SuiteGuestList (PDF)

RNC2016-SuiteGuestList (Text)

Read more:

Meet the VIPs for Trump’s Big Speech Tonight

Posted in Anker, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, organic, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Meet the VIPs for Trump’s Big Speech Tonight

A Supermarket Tabloid Company is Funding Chris Christie’s Super PAC

by LonaB76xjlyw Posted on July 31, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

The pro-Chris Christie super-PAC America Leads raised $11 million in the first quarter of 2015, according to filings released by the Federal Election Commission on Friday. Controversial hedge-fund manager Steven A. Cohen gave $1 million. Cleveland Cavaliers owner (and Quicken Loans chief) Dan Gilbert gave $750,000. Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone and WWE magnate Linda McMahon each dropped $250,000. New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon dropped $100,000 that his team’s fans dearly wish he’d spent on an outfielder.

Oh, and it’s hardly the biggest donation on the list, but America Leads also got $10,000 from an unusual source—a media company. The check came from American Media Inc., the parent company of supermarket tabloids like the National Enquirer, OK!, and Star; and fitness publications like Men’s Fitness, Muscle & Fitness; and Flex. What’s the Christie connection? In June, the governor named American Media Inc.’s chairman, David Pecker, to his presidential leadership team.

We can’t speak for Flex, but the normally scandal-happy Enquirer has been bullish about Christie’s chances. Last April, it published an “EXCLUSIVE!” boasting that the governor’s White House dreams were “alive” because “American politics is full of comeback stories.” And in February, it published another item touting Christie’s chances despite “hatchet job” corruption claims.

See original: 

A Supermarket Tabloid Company is Funding Chris Christie’s Super PAC

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Oster, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on A Supermarket Tabloid Company is Funding Chris Christie’s Super PAC

Martin O’Malley Tries to One-Up Bernie Sanders With Promise to End College Debt

by AlannahVarghese Posted on July 8, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

As they vie to emerge as the progressive alternative to Hillary Clinton, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley are racing to stake out territory to Clinton’s political left.

In April, O’Malley endorsed a $15 minimum wage. Sanders did the same within days. On a recent swing through Iowa, Sanders went beyond Clinton’s support of paid sick leave to endorse guaranteed vacation time. O’Malley, meanwhile, stumped on his opposition to the Trans Pacific Partnership, an enormous trade deal that has become a bête noire for liberals and labor groups. Clinton supported the deal as secretary of state, but has hedged on the deal as a presidential candidate.

Now, O’Malley has an answer to Sanders’ plan for tuition-free public college: a series of proposals to eliminate debt for students at all colleges, public and private.

The dueling proposals come after an aggressive push to place student loan debt at the center of the Democratic primary agenda by liberal advocacy groups, notably the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. The effort received a boost when Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) endorsed an unspecified path to debt-free college earlier this year. Clinton intends to roll out a student loan plan later this month.

O’Malley outlined his proposal Wednesday at Saint Anselm College, a Catholic liberal-arts school in New Hampshire. Under his proposal, all graduates with federal loans would automatically have their loan repayment schedules tied to their incomes, giving lower-income graduates more time to pay back the loans. (Currently, graduates must opt into income-based repayment and meet certain requirements.) Graduates with debt would be able to refinance their loans at lower rates, and students with private loans would be able to refinance into federal loans with lower rates. The plan also calls for states to tie tuition rates at public colleges and universities to the state’s median income.

The pitch comes several weeks after Sanders argued for taxing certain Wall Street transactions and using the profits to eliminate $70 billion of tuition and fees at state-funded colleges.

O’Malley’s student debt plan is in line with his stated strategy to show up Sanders with a more detailed liberal platform. (In June, O’Malley called Sanders a “protest candidate.”) Their contest has also led to sparring among several outside groups. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee called Sanders’ plan for student debt “narrower” than O’Malley’s, which closely follows the group’s vision for debt-free college. And in June, a super-PAC supportive of O’Malley paid for ads directed at voters in Iowa that hammered Sanders’ record on guns. One ad spotlights Sanders’ vote against the 1993 Brady Bill, which required federal background checks of gun purchasers. Sanders shot back that the National Rifle Association has given a D- to his voting record.

Still, early polling shows Sanders winning the majority of likely Democratic primary voters and caucus-goers who aren’t backing Clinton. In New Hampshire, where O’Malley released his college plan, Sanders trails Clinton by an average of 15 points, a margin that keeps shrinking. O’Malley, meanwhile, is hovering around 2 percent in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Original article:

Martin O’Malley Tries to One-Up Bernie Sanders With Promise to End College Debt

Posted in Anchor, Cyber, FF, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Martin O’Malley Tries to One-Up Bernie Sanders With Promise to End College Debt

Repeat After Me: Competition Is Good. Competition Is Good.

by EveretteLavalli Posted on January 6, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Did you know that companies facing no competition are likely to charge you more? It’s true! But in case you’d like a bit of evidence for this truism, Binyamin Appelbaum directs our attention to a clever study of mortgage rates from the Chicago Fed. It turns out that when the federal government authorized the mortgage refinancing program called HARP, they set up the rules in a way that discouraged anyone from participating aside from the original lender. This meant that, effectively, the original lender had little or no competition for the refinanced loan.

The results are shown on the right. The HARP rules took effect for mortgages with a loan-to-value ratio of 80 percent or higher. Private label mortgages, which didn’t fall under the new rules, show a normal range of interest rate spreads at all LTV values. Loans backed by Fannie Mae, which did fall under the new rules, show a sharp discontinuity upward precisely at an LTV of 80.

In other words, at exactly the point where lenders faced no effective competition thanks to HARP rules—i.e., Fannie-backed loans with an LTV of 80 or above—interest rate spreads suddenly increased by about 0.2 percent. Without competition, lenders were free to charge a little more, and they did.

I know: you’re shocked. And in case you’re tempted to think that 0.2 percent doesn’t really seem like that much, the authors point out that it adds up fast: “While the anti-competitive features of HARP may appear to have curtailed borrower gains by relatively small amounts, they resulted in sizable increases in profitability for a subset of lenders. These results further highlight the importance of restoring full competitiveness to mortgage refinancing markets.”

Quite so. Competition is good. We’ve paid less and less attention to this over the past few decades, and we do so at our peril. It’s the heart and soul of capitalism.

View this article – 

Repeat After Me: Competition Is Good. Competition Is Good.

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Repeat After Me: Competition Is Good. Competition Is Good.

Wall Street Wants to Lend You Money to Fight Climate Change

by berrywood1 Posted on April 22, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

This story originally appeared in The Atlantic and is republished here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The latest series of reports from the United Nation Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned in stark terms the catastrophic consequences of the world’s governments’ decades-long foot-dragging on limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

But what can you do? For one thing, fix up your damn house. That furnace, from the Reagan era, the inefficient water heater, the drafty windows? They’re directly contributing to climate change. Homes consume 22 percent of the US’s energy and, along with commercial buildings, account for 10 percent of the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions.

The chances of the US government enacting a carbon tax, emissions trading scheme or taking other sweeping action to tackle climate change may be next to nil. But thanks to an innovative new initiative from financial conglomerate Citi, the Pennsylvania state treasury and non-profits, homeowners across the country soon will be able to tap a $100 million fund to instantly secure low-cost loans to do everything from installing solar panels on their roof to replacing that roof. Contractors will authorized to offer the loans, meaning no need to deal with state or local bureaucrats who will administer the program.

It’s just another example of how financial innovation has become key to getting the green tech innovations dreamed up in Silicon Valley into the hands of homeowners as well as prompting them to undertake low-tech efforts like insulating their attics.

“There’s no question that energy efficiency technology has outpaced the financial technology,” Cisco DeVries, chief executive of Renewable Funding, an Oakland, California, company that designs green energy-financing programs, told The Atlantic.

Renewable Funding later this year will begin to securitize the loans–called Warehouse for Energy Efficiency Loans, or WHEEL–and sell the securities to pension funds and other investors. That will generate a cash flow to fund further energy efficiency improvements.

“What we’ve set up is an indefinitely scalable program,” says DeVries. “We can purchase loans and securitize them and the more we do it, the cheaper the funds become. This has no limit to its capacity.”

It will certainly need to scale. According to a 2009 McKinsey study it’ll take $229 billion to cut home energy use by about a third.

Still, until WHEEL most homeowners faced with spending five figures on just replacing their windows either had to tap home equity lines or their high-interest credit cards to pay for such improvements. And people tend to make energy efficiency fixes piece-meal, replacing the hot water heater when it breaks, for instance.

The availability of a five, seven or 10-year loan would encourage people to obtain energy audits and comprehensive upgrades to their homes. The payoff is lower energy bills that would help pay back the loans.

Three years in the works, WHEEL is based on a successful Pennsylvania program and initially is available in that state and Kentucky. DeVries expects California and other states to be added by the end of 2014 with nationwide coverage in 2015.

View original: 

Wall Street Wants to Lend You Money to Fight Climate Change

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, green energy, LG, ONA, Oster, PUR, Radius, solar, solar panels, The Atlantic, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Wall Street Wants to Lend You Money to Fight Climate Change

VIDEO: Elizabeth Warren Calls for Closing Loopholes for the Rich to Cut Student Loan Debt

by ReinaldoKirklin Posted on February 13, 2014

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

On Wednesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called on her colleagues in the Senate to reduce interest rates for Americans crushed by student loan debt, and pay for it by closing tax loopholes for the rich.

Last summer, after a rancorous debate, Congress passed a law setting interest rates for new student loans for undergrads at 3.86 percent for the coming year. (Rates were set to double to 6.8 percent.) However, the legislation did not cut interest rates for those who took out the same type of loan before July 1 of last year. Americans who financed their education earlier than that are paying off debt with interest rates of 7, 8, or 9 percent. On Wednesday, Warren joined Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) in a speech on the Senate floor to highlight her plan to introduce legislation that would allow Americans with high-interest student loan debt to refinance their loans at the new rates being offered to first-time borrowers this year.

“Refinancing those old loans would lower interest rates to 3.86 percent for undergraduate loans,” Warren said. “This is real money back in the pockets of people who invested in their education. Real money that will help young people find a little more financial stability as they work hard to build their futures. Real money that says that America invests in those who work to get an education.”

Warren proposed that the rate cut be paid for by closing tax loopholes for the rich. “Right now, this country essentially taxes students—by charging high interest rates that bring money into the government—while at the same time we give away far more money through a tax code riddled with loopholes and let the wealthiest individuals and corporations avoid paying a fair share,” Senator Warren said. “We can close those loopholes and put the money directly into refinancing student loans.”

The senator said the Buffet Rule—part of a tax plan proposed by President Barack Obama that would eliminate tax loopholes for the wealthy to ensure that billionaires pay at least as much in taxes as their secretaries—would be a good place to start. Many of the wealthy end up paying a lower tax rate because they earn income through investments, for example, which is taxed at the capital gains rate of 15 percent. Meanwhile, an average head of household who makes $50,000 pays about 25 percent of her income in taxes. The Buffet Rule would require millionaires to pay an effective tax rate of at least 30 percent of their gross income.

Last year, during the debate over what to do with skyrocketing student loan rates, Warren introduced her own bill that would have cut need-based undergrad loan interest rates to the same low 0.75 percent interest rate that banks pay to the Federal Reserve for short-term loans. The bill was never brought up for a vote. Warren voted against the compromise plan that Obama signed into law in August, which allows interest rates on undergrad loans to fluctuate all the way up to 8.25 percent.

Link:

VIDEO: Elizabeth Warren Calls for Closing Loopholes for the Rich to Cut Student Loan Debt

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on VIDEO: Elizabeth Warren Calls for Closing Loopholes for the Rich to Cut Student Loan Debt

Everywhere in the World, Governments Heavily Regulate the Home Mortgage Business

by s02xc3x Posted on January 17, 2014

Mother Jones

Yesterday I wrote about problems with the mortgage finance market, which are mostly due to the fact that private lenders aren’t interested in funding 30-year fixed-rate mortgages on their own. There’s just too much risk. This means that if we want the mortgage market to revive, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac need to start guaranteeing these mortgages again in the same volumes they used to.

One obvious response to this is that the 30-year fixed mortgage wasn’t handed down on stone tablets from Mt. Sinai. It was an invention of the New Deal. Other countries get by just fine without them, and so can we. We should just get the government out of the mortgage market entirely and let banks make whatever kinds of loans they want.

We could do that. But it’s well to keep in mind that although other countries might not have outfits like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, they do have plenty of government regulation of the mortgage loan market. If you’re curious about how mortgages work outside the US, Michael Hiltzik provides a useful rundown of Canada here. Other countries work differently, but the principle is the same: there’s always supervision of some kind. Getting rid of Fannie and Freddie is a defensible option, but that doesn’t mean you’re getting rid of government regulation. You’ll just end up with different government regulation.

Read more:

Everywhere in the World, Governments Heavily Regulate the Home Mortgage Business

Posted in FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Everywhere in the World, Governments Heavily Regulate the Home Mortgage Business