My Personal Finance Blog

In 2008, products that contain lead continue to arrive from China and appear everyday on American store shelves. The purchase of many of these products can result in a variety of potential health risks to the unsuspecting consumer. The danger inherent in the lead in the product is not identified on the product label. The consumer has no knowledge until a product is recalled that the product even contained lead.

Last year in America there was an extensive list of consumer products, made in China, that were recalled. The 2007 product recall list for high lead content included the following items: jackets and overalls, bracelets, key chains, children’s rings, easels, paint, lunch boxes, necklaces, and wooden toys.

In 2008, imported products containing high lead content continue to be found on store shelves. So far this year the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) product recall list includes Hobby Stores Easter egg containers, X Force Commander Jet Airplanes (sold at the Dollar Store), children’s medal jewelry sold by the Pecoware Company, children’s memory testing cards from Riverside Publishing, children’s sketchbooks from eeBoo Corp, and various children’s educational products from importer RR Donnelley, of Chicago, Ill. The product recall list also includes products with high lead content in various children’s garden rakes, toy banks, and jewelry. In fact, at this point everything on the retail store shelf made in China, even if it has not yet been recalled, is an item that the consumer should assume probably contains lead.

In addition to products containing lead on the store shelves, a new concern for the consumer has surfaced in the dentist office. It has recently been reported that dental crowns, veneers, bridges, and dentures made in China and other foreign dental labs may contain lead. Since about 20% of restorative dental products are outsourced to foreign dental labs, including China, it may be a good idea for consumers to check with dentists to insure that their restorative dental care does not include dangerous amounts of toxic lead from products produced in foreign labs. The FDA currently monitors only a small amount of imported dental products for compliance to its standards.

The problem for the American consumer is that government agencies involved in product oversight have not been properly funded by the federal government. Indeed, the Consumer Product Safety Commission was created in 1974 to insure product safety for the American consumer. However, since its creation, imported products from China into the United States have increased over 300%, but the budget for the CPSC has been slashed to less than half of its original 1974 budgeted amount.

Consider that the CPSC began with 800 employees in 1974. Today, it only has 420 staff members with just one employee monitoring imported toys. It is an agency overwhelmed and therefore the American consumer should not expect it to protect them from all the lead products on American store shelves imported from China. It is evident that many current products containing a high content of lead on American store shelves will never be properly identified or recalled.

The truth is that the world of globalization is presenting increased risk to the American consumer and the natural environment as it provides ever higher profit margins for large national and multi-national corporations. In an effort to increase profit margins by taking advantage of cheap, unskilled labor, an American company contracts China to make a product. This action reduces the cost of making the product to the company and, in effect, may out-source American jobs to mainland China. The product is made by the Chinese and imported back into the country where it is sold on American store shelves. The product is often made with cheap components such as lead paint. The imported product may not be reviewed by the CPSC because the Commission has not been properly staffed. Therefore the product may never be found to contain a high content of lead or ever be recalled.

If a product is discovered with lead, the product is then recalled by the company and apparently the lead somehow just disappears. Hopefully, in the next few years lead won’t be found in our landfills and contaminate the environment. On the other hand, if the product is not discovered to contain lead, but does, it is never recalled. It eventually gets sold to a consumer and the lead content in the item places the buyer’s health at risk. When the product is eventually discarded, it will end up in a landfill and the lead will contaminate the environment.

In an effort to finally address the problem, the United States House and Senate have both recently passed consumer protection bills. The Senate bill nearly doubles the budget of the Consumer Product Safety Commission from $88 million next year to close to $160 million in 2015. It bans lead in all but trace amounts in children’s toys, and it also gives the agency new authority to levy stiff fines against companies that balk at product recalls.

In effect, federal lawmakers have just begun to take the problem of imported lead on consumer products seriously. The new 2008 Consumer Protection Bill also bans lead on children’s toys. That sounds like a great idea until we realize that lead paint has been banned on children’s toys in the United States since 1978.

The solution to faulty consumer products is not politics, new law, or regulation. It is simply providing the money and the authority necessary for the CPSC to do the job it is supposed to do in an age of high consumer product imports and globalization. The federal government spends more than $400 billion per year in grants. In addition, Congressional pork-barrel spending was estimated to be $29 billion in the fiscal year 2006 alone. (Citizens Against Government Waste). A few million dollars to address the problem of lead in imported consumer products has always been available. It is about time that Congress has acted to provide the money necessary to begin to adequately staff the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Indeed, it is Congressional action long overdue to protect the American consumer and the environment from dangerous imported consumer products that contain high levels of lead.

There is no doubt that debt relief programs are perfectly operated with the help of debt settlement companies and since these companies are reformed, people are applying for debt relief through these companies. Reason for going through these companies is that ordinary consumers are not aware of financial terminologies. Even most of the people here do not know what they are paying in shape of minimum amount and will they be successful to clear their loan by only paying minimum amount? This is lack of information and lack of management of consumers that they pay but they have no interest to know even about markup rate.

Debt settlement companies perform multiple services for consumers suffering due to debt. They do not only offer negotiation services but nowadays they are also providing counseling services through which they guide people to manage their income and expenditure account. They also guide people how to pay their installment to avoid bad debt and to maintain credit score.

The basic problem is how to find a legitimate debt negotiation company that not only solves the debt problem but also helps to g0uide you. When the debt settlement programs were launched, many debt negotiation companies came into existence but all were not legitimate. Many companies ruined the happiness of people by taking upfront fees and prolonged the processes until the consumer opt for bankruptcy. This was observed by government officials and they made some changes in the debt settlement company’s act which was known as consumer debt settlement protection act. According to this act if your debt doesn’t settle, you do not have to pay to your debt settlement company. The concept of any kind of upfront fees in the mind of consumers and settlement companies was cleared after the launch of this consumer protection act.

Now whenever a consumer applies for a debt relief company, he does not have to pay any charges in advance. Due to this act all those companies which were involved in fraudulent activates, are out of the market and once again people are opting for settlement processes. This act is also decreasing the ratio of bankruptcy and people are gaining trust over companies.

As 2010 draws to a close and the dawn of a new year beckons, those in the life settlement industry look forward with renewed optimism. By most accounts, the life settlement industry’s bottom is behind us and the secondary life insurance market is now in the process of recovering. How much and how fast is still to be determined. However, below are the Top 10 Predictions For Life Settlements in 2011.

1) Secondary Market To See Increased Buying. As everyone knows, capital has been slowly reentering the market but it is still off the highs experienced prior to the Great Recession. Much of the activity in 2010 was focused on tertiary trades and investors looking for distressed policies or portfolios. As those opportunities become less available in 2011, capital will be redirected to secondary market activities and policy origination.

2) Private Equity Will Arrive: As the investment banks and other types of investors left the market in 2009 and 2010, everyone has been anxious to identify the next big player. Much attention has been paid to Private Equity and in 2011 it will arrive. Rumors have been swirling that PEG’s have been looking for acquisitions of established market players and have recently started funding some providers.

3) Small investors will make a splash: Many have been waiting for institutional investors to flood the life settlement market with capital, while forgetting that high net worth individuals and family offices in aggregate have the potential to play a serious role. With an eye towards diversification and predictable returns, expect accredited investors and family offices to be active buyers, as never before, in 2011.

4) Higher Life Settlement Broker Utilization In the past, it has been relatively easy for producers to act as de facto life settlement brokers. However, new industry best practices suggest life settlement brokers are preferred as intermediaries for policy owners interested in selling their policy. Not only are brokers more able to source small pockets of capital, but more stringent licensing, regulatory and compliance requirements make it difficult for anyone but brokers to effectively navigate the landscape. 2011 will see producers more likely to refer cases to brokers than try to handle them autonomously as they may have in the past.

5) Continued Push Towards Regulation While approximately 20% of the states remain unregulated, the writing is on the wall that change is imminent. Some of the key unregulated states already have legislation in the works and consumer protection is a hot button issue that resonates with legislators. Expect the trend of consumer friendly life settlement regulation to continue in 2011.

6) Agents and Advisors Will Have To Address Life Settlements Like Never Before In 2011 expect numerous states to adopt the new NCOIL model act requiring carriers to notify consumers of the life settlement option when policies are to be surrendered or allowed to lapse. Agents and financial advisors that previously didn’t consider settlements in their practices will now be forced to address the issue as carriers drive policy holders with questions and inquiries to those on the insurance front lines.

7) Greater Focus On Information Security For too long, sensitive insured and policy owner information has been transmitted between agents, brokers and providers using insecure methods such as email. In 2011, as industry best practices demand secure data transfer, expect much higher utilization of specialized life settlement software such as Settlewerx and others.

Smaller Providers While the big players aren’t going anywhere, expect the trend of boutique providers serving smaller pockets of money and niche investors to continue into 2011.

9) Asian Investment US and European investors are the stalwarts of US life settlement investments. In 2011, expect to see more capital coming from Asia and the Middle East, which are relatively untapped sources of investment capital. Newly established offices and initiatives in that part of the world should begin to produce new funding sources in the coming year.

10) Broader Buying Parameters While cherry picking great policies at a discount was the name of the game in 2010, expect 2011 to bring a broader approach to buying. With increasing competition for policies, buyers will have to consider cases that might not have otherwise received bids in 2010.

With the broader economy improving and capital returning to the markets, 2011 promises to be an improved life settlement environment. For those that were able to survive the past two tumultuous years, they will hopefully be rewarded with a fruitful 2011.

In 1934 The United States enacted into federal law The Communications Act of 1934. The law replaced the Federal Radio Commission with the Federal Communication Commission. The law also transferred the regulation telephone service from the Interstate Commerce Commission to the Federal Trade Commission. The law remained intact for almost sixty years, when in the early 1990′s; the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 was enacted. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 was an amendment to The Communications Act of 1934.

The Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) is a federal law that was created due to increased consumer concern and complaints. These complaints were lodged through the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The complaints were made in regards to the use of telephones for solicitation purposes. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act is the primary law in the USA pertaining to telephony. The law governs the conduct and use of the telephone, mainly pertaining to solicitations. These solicitations primarily are referred to as telemarketing. The TCPA restricts many of the methods of solicitations. These restrict the use of automatic dialing systems. ADS are the IVR or prerecorded voice messages. It also restricts the use of SMS text messages received by cell phones. There are limitations and requirements that restrict the use of fax machines to send unsolicited advertisements. The act deals with specific technical requirements for auto dialers, fax machines, and voice logging systems. Within the act, there are provisions that require the identification and contact information of the solicitor must be displayed in the method of contact.

Unless the recipient has given prior express consent, the TCPA and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules under the TCPA generally require:

Solicitors may not call residences before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m., local time.

The solicitor must maintain a “Do Not Call” (DNC) list, which must be honored for 5 years.

Solicitors must provide their name, the name of the person or entity on whose behalf the call is being made, and a telephone number or address at which that person or entity may be contacted.

Solicitation calls cannot be made to residences with artificial voices or recordings.

Calls cannot be made with artificial voices or recordings to cell phones or to any service in which the recipient is charged for the call.

Prerecorded or auto dialed calls cannot engage two or more lines of a multi-line business or to any emergency number.

In a related section, unsolicited advertising faxes are also prohibited.

In the event of a violation of the TCPA, individuals are entitled to collect damages directly from a solicitor for $500 to $1,500 for each violation, or recover actual monetary loss, whichever is higher.

The TCPA was designed to limit the annoyances of unwanted intrusion on businesses and consumers that go along with unsolicited marketing. The Federal Communication Commission uses its authority under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) to enforce the restriction or limitation of the use of the telephone for unsolicited marketing. The FCC established and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have worked tirelessly to ensure that no one misuses or intrudes on another’s privacy or personal property. Together in 2003 the two agencies established a national Do-Not-Call Registry. This national registry covers the entire United States and its’ territories. The registry is a list of individuals who do not wish to be bothered by solicitors. The rules apply to all telemarketers. Any company, with the exception of pre-approved non-profit organizations must adhere to these rules. These laws apply to interstate and intrastate telemarketing calls. It is illegal for companies or their telemarketing representatives are not allowed to call a person whose phone number is on the registry. These are blanket rules with very little exceptions. Because of this registry consumers are able reduce the number of unwanted sales calls to their homes. This action has virtually crippled most type of business to consumer telemarketing. Telemarketing companies must answer for the actions of their predictive dialers. Fax marketing and junk fax have been virtually eliminated through the actions of the TCPA.

While the laws do restrict certain freedoms, they also protect the privacy and respect the time of the consumer. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act is a protection against unwanted annoyance. The law has forced companies to explore alternate means of marketing and has greatly affected the multi-billion dollar outbound telemarketing industry.

If you were hesitating to take up a settlement deal due to the lack of legitimacy, now it is the right time for you to start the game because with the federal debt settlement consumer protection act debt settlement is legitimate & reliable as it was never before.

The new settlement laws are such it allows the debtors of more than $10k in debt to simply enter in to a settlement deal with out even paying any initial payments. In the early stages, debt settlement was well in used but debtors always had the question over the reliability of the settlement companies with which they are working. On this ground certain debtors got caught in to the hands of fraud settlement companies who make money from the pain of the debtors.

But now the settlement industry has approached a new episode becoming rather legitimate and reliable due to the federal debt settlement consumer protection act implemented by the government. This new act includes the establishment of Federal Trade Commission; the institute in charge of debt settlement companies. All the settlement companies in the market need to get registered in this and if not they will be perceived as illegal companies. Thus finding a reliable settlement company is simple as you only needs to find companies which are registered in FTC,

And since the new law doesn’t allow any settlement company to charge their customers before their debts get settled at least in half, leaving little chance for fraud companies to trap desperate debtors. Therefore with these new laws, settlement is rather safer and legitimate approach for debt relief!