#you can apply to have anything you paid into the national pension

[bluemoonrabbit]

Got my Japanese pension refund! Couldn't have come at a better time.

[xhxhxhx]

Do you have any idea what the "Quebec Compact" is? Poipoipoi- 2016 referred to it in post 174408242397 on his blog (about Albertan oil) and all that my searching turns up is stuff about compact cars. He doesn't have an ask box and I don't have a tumblr, but I know you're very knowledgeable about politics so I thought I'd ask. Thank you!

Here’s poipoipoi-2016:

They’re ignoring it because, as of a few years ago, the only province paying net taxes was Alberta (I believe this changed back when oil prices fell).  You know, the Alberta that can only ship oil into the North Dakota fracking regions where the price of oil is very, very low, or, alternatively, ship oil by *trains which periodically explode* to the East Coast at great expense.  

Thanks to the many issues standing in the way of Keystone XL, (amusingly, such as Standing Rock) the USA doesn’t even have enough piping capacity to get *our* Midwestern oil to the Gulf Refineries, much less yours.  

And the only thing worse than Alberta being the only net payer is them NOT being the only net payer.  

Because they’re the only people paying for the Quebec Compact and marginal portions of your welfare state.  

So either start getting good at something other than drilling oil, or build this pipeline that ships directly to that sweet, sweet Asian Premium, or figure out what a 5-10% cut to your welfare state looks like.  

The Quebec compact term is nearly unique to poipoipoi, but the concept is not. Take one of the other uses, from 1905:

The hon. gentleman from North Toronto (Mr. Foster) spoke of the Quebec compact, which is to be found in the British North America Act, and declared that that compact, crystallized into the Confederation Act, did no more than secure separate schools to the minorities in the provinces of Quebec and Ontario.

Foster himself had spoken of “the rights and duties of provinces in these compacts that are made and are merged into a constitution.” In this particular debate, those were the rights and duties that protected Protestant schools in Quebec and Roman Catholic schools in Ontario:

All the Powers, Privileges, and Duties at the Union by Law conferred and imposed in Upper Canada on the Separate Schools and School Trustees of the Queen’s Roman Catholic Subjects shall be and the same are hereby extended to the Dissentient Schools of the Queen’s Protestant and Roman Catholic Subjects in Quebec;

But we can think of the “Quebec Compact” as, broadly, anything in law or policy that is a bargain with Quebec. And because the province has never been securely attached to British North America, the Anglophones have had to make a number of bargains with Quebec.

To get to the heart of this post, though you need to understand that Canada has what are called Equalization Payments, and to understand them, it helps to understand a few things about the Constitution, the welfare state, and some of our Quebec Compacts.

The provinces directly administer Canada’s welfare state, from health to education to welfare. Not much is mandated by the federal government, because most mandates would be unconstitutional.

This stems from the 1867 Constitution, which granted the provinces the exclusive authority over “property and civil rights in the province” and “all matters of a merely local or private nature in the province,” which includes more or less everything, as well as “education” and “hospitals.” 

In 1925 the Supreme Court told the government that Parliament could not limit the working day. In 1935, Parliament passed maximum hours laws anyways, and the Privy Council invalidated them. They were unconstitutional, and that that was that.

That hasn’t changed. Parliament cannot set minimum wages or maximum hours for private businesses. Parliament can and does regulate some businesses through the Canada Labour Code, but the Code is limited to those “within the legislative authority of Parliament,” namely:

(a) a work, undertaking or business operated or carried on for or in connection with navigation and shipping, whether inland or maritime, including the operation of ships and transportation by ship anywhere in Canada,

(b) a railway, canal, telegraph or other work or undertaking connecting any province with any other province, or extending beyond the limits of a province,

© a line of ships connecting a province with any other province, or extending beyond the limits of a province,

(d) a ferry between any province and any other province or between any province and any country other than Canada,

(e) aerodromes, aircraft or a line of air transportation,

(f) a radio broadcasting station,

(g) a bank or an authorized foreign bank within the meaning of section 2 of the Bank Act,

(h) a work or undertaking that, although wholly situated within a province, is before or after its execution declared by Parliament to be for the general advantage of Canada or for the advantage of two or more of the provinces,

(i) a work, undertaking or business outside the exclusive legislative authority of the legislatures of the provinces, and

(j) a work, undertaking or activity in respect of which federal laws within the meaning of section 2 of the Oceans Act apply pursuant to section 20 of that Act and any regulations made pursuant to paragraph 26(1)(k) of that Act; (entreprises fédérales)

If you wanted a pithy summary, you might say that the Canada Labour Code can “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several Provinces,” but not much else. 

We did amend the Constitution twice to expand the federal welfare state. In 1940, we gave the federal government the exclusive authority over unemployment insurance, and in 1964, to grant it a non-exclusive power over old age pensions. (Quebec has operated its own Quebec Pension Plan since 1965, with slightly higher contribution rates and maximum exemptions; everyone else uses the Canada Pension Plan.) 

But the Canadian welfare state is relatively small. It’s the provinces’ welfare states that are big.

The Privy Council wrote that the federalist distribution of powers in the 1867 Constitution was its own form of Quebec Compact:

No one can doubt that this distribution is one of the most essential conditions, probably the most essential condition, in the inter-provincial compact to which [the 1867 Constitution] gives effect. If the position of Lower Canada, now Quebec, alone were considered, the existence of her separate jurisprudence as to both property and civil rights might be said to depend upon loyal adherence to her constitutional right to the exclusive competence of her own legislature in these matters.

This was more or less the bargain the British had struck in the 1774 Quebec Act: British law could not be applied in Quebec. The province was too Catholic and too Roman to handle laws that were Protestant and Common. 

The British had hoped that Lower Canada would be swamped by English settlers, but the Americans were too busy stealing Indian land to bother with Lower Canada. And so, for want of a better option, the British preserved the customs and laws of French Canada. 

The Fathers of Confederation did the same: provincial authority meant Quebec authority, and Quebec authority meant Catholic authority. If the Catholic Church had a hand in it, the provinces would run it: hospitals, schools, property, marriage.

The 1867 Constitution has another catch, though: The provinces might have the authority, but Parliament has the money. 

The Constitution grants the federal government the power over “the raising of money by any mode or system of taxation,” while the provinces had only the power of “direct taxation within the province in order to the raising of a revenue for provincial purposes.”

That “direct taxation” limitation has not proved to be a problem. The Supreme Court decided that the provinces can pass excise taxes, sales taxes, and VATs. It’s not that the provinces can’t raise taxes. It’s that the federal government already did. 

That granted the federal government the power to accumulate immense tax capacity, without limiting its uses. It collected taxes through the 1917 Income War Tax Act until 1949, despite the inconvenient fact that Canada was not fighting a war for most of those years.

Hence, although the federal government cannot get the welfare state it wants by regulations – which are unconstitutional – it can get most of what it wants by bribes – which are not.

The federal government set standards and if the provinces met the standards, the federal government paid them. Hence our 1984 Canada Health Act: “The purpose of this Act is to establish criteria and conditions … that must be met before a full cash contribution may be made.”

The federal government cannot administer the hospitals, but it can offer a large cash bribe to provinces that have insurance programs that cover everything and everyone:

9 In order to satisfy the criterion respecting comprehensiveness, the health care insurance plan of a province must insure all insured health services provided by hospitals, medical practitioners or dentists, and where the law of the province so permits, similar or additional services rendered by other health care practitioners.

10 In order to satisfy the criterion respecting universality, the health care insurance plan of a province must entitle one hundred per cent of the insured persons of the province to the insured health services provided for by the plan on uniform terms and conditions.

The Canada Health Act’s large cash bribe is the Canada Health Transfer, and we have another large cash bribe called the Canada Social Transfer – that one covers colleges and universities, welfare, and childcare – but the most controversial Transfer isn’t a cash bribe at all. It’s an Equalization Payment.

Even after the bribes, the federal government has more money than it can handle, and the provinces are still poor. They still have to pay for things the federal government isn’t bribing them to do – elementary and high schools, police, highways – and some of them have more money than others. So we take from the rich and give to the poor.

Those are our Equalization Payments, and they’re in our 1982 Constitution:

Parliament and the government of Canada are committed to the principle of making equalization payments to ensure that provincial governments have sufficient revenues to provide reasonably comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation. 

These are another sort of bribe. It was one of the bribes that convinced almost all the provinces to ratify the 1982 Constitution – all but Quebec. This bribe was not there for the benefit of Quebec, which was not especially poor. It was there for New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, which were.

That was replicated today: Quebec gets the largest overall payment, but the Maritime provinces get the largest payments per capita. Here’s what that looked for federal transfers in 2014:

Those are for all federal transfers – Canada Health Transfer and Canada Social Transfer included – but the Equalization Payment is two-thirds of PEI’s federal transfer. That’s $2,712 per person in PEI, $2,460 in New Brunswick, $2,016 in Nova Scotia, and only $1,388 per person in Quebec.

Why did Alberta and British Columbia agree to this Equalization Payment scheme? Because the 1982 Constitution gave them something more valuable. It granted the provinces exclusive authority over their natural resources.

92A. (1) In each province, the legislature may exclusively make laws in relation to

(a) exploration for non-renewable natural resources in the province;

(b) development, conservation and management of non-renewable natural resources and forestry resources in the province, including laws in relation to the rate of primary production therefrom; and

© development, conservation and management of sites and facilities in the province for the generation and production of electrical energy.

(2) In each province, the legislature may make laws in relation to the export from the province to another part of Canada of the primary production from non-renewable natural resources and forestry resources in the province and the production from facilities in the province for the generation of electrical energy, but such laws may not authorize or provide for discrimination in prices or in supplies exported to another part of Canada.

In any case, the idea that Albertans are the only ones paying for the Canadian welfare state is ridiculous. Alberta is the largest net contributor to the Canadian fiscal union, but they are not the only contributor, not the only net contributor, and not the only non-recipients of equalization payments. 

British Columbia, Ontario, and Saskatchewan are all net contributors, and neither British Columbia nor Newfoundland nor Saskatchewan receive equalization payments.

Equalization Payments simply raise the provinces’ ability to pay for public services to an average level: less than what Alberta, Saskatchewan, or Newfoundland can pay for themselves, but more than what the Maritime provinces can.

Incidentally, because the Equalization Payment transfer is unconditional, net contributors Alberta are not paying for the marginal welfare state. No province receives a larger payment if they expand their welfare state. They receive an unconditional payment they can use as they please. 

Nor do the provinces receive larger Canada Health Transfers or Canada Social Transfers if they expand their welfare state. Each province receives the same per capita transfer, without adjustments. That’s about $1,400 per person, in Alberta and Prince Edward Island alike.

Alberta is an important part of the Canadian fiscal union, and they make the country richer, but the province is not single-handedly paying for Confederation and the welfare state.

[shirlleycoyle]

America Has Been Through An Opioid Crisis Before

According to most accounts, America’s opioid crisis dates back to the late 1990s. That’s when predatory Big Pharma companies like Purdue Pharma lied to doctors, falsely claiming that opioid painkillers like Oxycontin and Opana were safe and non-addictive. Prescriptions for addictive opioids skyrocketed during the 2000s, sparking an epidemic of drug addiction that quickly spiraled out of control. 

But while this narrative might be convenient, it isn’t the full story, because, devastating though it is, this is not America’s first opioid crisis. Its roots go far deeper. America’s earliest opioid crisis occurred 150 years ago, in the aftermath of the American Civil War, when an epidemic of prescription opioid addiction killed tens of thousands of Army veterans.  

Tragically, America’s vintage opioid addiction epidemic shares surprising and disturbing parallels with today’s opioid crisis, calling into question the familiar stories we tell ourselves about how the opioid crisis began and what it will take to solve the epidemic. 

Doctors have been prescribing opiate painkillers since the Bronze Age, and by the time the Civil War broke out in 1861, opiates were the most commonly prescribed medicines in America. 

During and after America’s bloodiest war, in which 750,000 people were killed with millions of survivors left in chronic pain, Army doctors saw opiate medicines as the most “indispensable drug[s] on the battlefield—important to the surgeon, as gunpowder to the ordinance.” Syringe-wielding surgeons gave morphine injections—cutting-edge technology back then—to dull the unbearable pain stemming from gruesome gunshot wounds and last-ditch, hacksaw amputations.

Doctors doled out opium pills and morphine shots for practically any ailment. Off the battlefield, opium was a surprisingly effective treatment for diarrheal diseases like dysentery, which often hit troops living in squalid conditions. 

Doctors doled out opium pills and morphine shots for practically any ailment.

Naturally, thousands of Civil War veterans got addicted to opiates. Like today, most addiction started with prescriptions. Military doctors introduced soldiers to opium and morphine during the war, and sick and injured survivors simply kept on taking the medicines after leaving the Army. Like today, doctors didn’t prescribe opiate painkillers equitably to white and Black soldiers. Some racist doctors believed their Black patients couldn’t feel pain and didn’t need painkillers, while other surgeons took for themselves the painkillers that were meant for injured black soldiers. Consequently, most Civil War veterans who got addicted were white, a product of the shoddy medical care provided for Black troops.

One surgeon was booted from the U.S. Army in 1864 for abusing opium that was earmarked for the wounded Black soldiers under his care.

There were no regulations on narcotics during the Civil War era, so the drugs were cheap and easy to get. Opium pills, morphine, and hypodermic needle kits were sold in pharmacies over the counter. You could even order them by mail from Sears. Unsurprisingly, addicted veterans were everywhere in post-Civil War America, and the opioid crisis was covered widely in the press.

But those who got addicted quickly turned in the public eye from respectable war veterans to something lesser, being derisively labeled “opium eaters,” “morphine habitués,” and “opiomaniacs” by doctors and the media. Having fought a war over the fate of slavery, Civil War veterans referred to themselves as “opium slaves.” One Union veteran, Joseph C. Darrow of Michigan, wrote that he was prescribed opium after getting sick during the war. In no time, he found himself “a slave to the Habit of using Morphine, with not a ray of hope of ever being emancipated.” 

The outlook for addicted Civil War veterans was bleak. Thousands of ex-soldiers died from overdoses between the war’s end and the early 1900s. Like today, when addicted veterans overdosed, their families and communities were devastated. One teenage soldier, Frank Clewell, left his family in North Carolina to fight in the Civil War. He ended up sitting out much of the war in a POW camp, where he apparently got sick and started taking morphine. Clewell got released when the war ended, but before he could make it home, he died of a midnight drug overdose, alone in a chilly St. Louis hotel room. Clewell’s friends were shocked to discover his corpse the next day, and the death made national headlines. 

Between the 1860s and 1890s, hundreds of medical “inebriety” clinics catering to opioid addicts opened around the country offering addiction care.

Opium and morphine abuse were so common among Civil War veterans that addiction rippled through all facets of postwar American medicine and society. Addiction medicine became big business for the first time in American history, as veterans were desperate for addiction treatments. Between the 1860s and 1890s, hundreds of medical “inebriety” clinics catering to opioid addicts opened around the country offering addiction care. These were America’s earliest drug rehabs. 

But like today’s rehabs, these early clinics were expensive, unreliable, and out of reach for most Americans. The medical care provided at the early rehabs wasn’t very effective, either. Today, the gold standard for addiction therapy, medication-assisted treatment, relies on medicines such as methadone and buprenorphine. But this treatment wasn’t developed until the 1960s, a century after the Civil War. Instead, the methods used to treat Civil War veterans in early rehabs were primitive, usually involving slow, agonizing detox under doctors’ supervision. The idea was to gradually taper down the patient’s usual dose of morphine or opium over a few weeks. Once patients detoxed, they could go back home and get on with their lives.

Advertisement for a Civil War-era drug rehab in Louisville, Kentucky.

This method sounds doable  on paper, but it only worked some of the time. Opioid addiction causes powerful cravings that can potentially strike any time, even years after detox and into recovery. These cravings were so powerful that, without methadone or buprenorphine, relapses were common.

When veterans relapsed and started taking opioids again, they were shamed  and denounced in the media. Any drug addict who relapsed, according to one newspaper, was a sinner who simply “did not wish to be cured.” 

This unsympathetic mentality influenced the government’s approach to the postwar addiction crisis. Grover Cleveland, president during the 1880s and ‘90s, thought addicted veterans—even those who had been war heroes—were simply bad people, and he went out of his way to punish them and their families. 

When a Union veteran, Clinton Smith, fatally overdosed in 1888, his widow Eliza applied for a military pension, like most women in the same situation. The government paid out millions of dollars in pensions every year to the wives of dead Civil War soldiers. But Cleveland thought those who were addicted and their widows didn’t deserve these benefits. He refused to grant the pension to Eliza because her dead husband “was in the habit of taking large doses of morphine.” Cleveland’s condescending , punitive mindset was the norm in the Civil War era, and, according to contemporary media coverage, most Americans agreed that addicted drug users did not deserve sympathy or government help.

The victim-blaming that emerged out of the Civil War era has influenced U.S. drug policy for more than a century. In 2017, an Ohio sheriff made headlines for refusing to let his deputies carry the overdose reversal medicine Narcan. “I’m not the one that decides if people live or die. They decide that when they stick that needle in their arm,” the sheriff explained, echoing President Cleveland’s harsh words from the 1880s. Anti-addiction rhetoric born in the Civil War era is still with us today, as strong as ever. 

The stigma surrounding opiate use meant that addicted Civil War veterans often landed in jails and even mental institutions. Brutal prison wardens had no sympathy, abusing prisoners with drug addictions by forcing them into cold turkey withdrawal. One veteran, Cyrus Harmon, got addicted to morphine to deaden the pain of a half-healed Civil War gunshot injury. Harmon was arrested in Ohio in 1901 and sent to the state penitentiary, where the warden confiscated his morphine. When Harmon entered detox, the warden denied medical assistance, leaving the elderly veteran writhing in agony on the floor of his cell until he seized to death a few hours later. Harmon’s old Army buddies were livid, and they protested his death at the state capital. Today, over a century later, some American jails still refuse to provide medication-assisted therapy to addicted inmates.  

Considering their bleak prospects, most addicted Civil War veterans were desperate to stop using drugs. Like today, however, reputable medical care in rehabs was out of reach for most. So they tried anything, leaving the door open for predatory medical hucksters who invented bogus miracle cures for addiction. These so-called opium “antidotes,” which promised to cure addiction in the privacy of customers’ homes, were pervasive. Newspapers and magazines from the 1870s and ‘80s were loaded with advertisements for these antidotes. People suspected of being “addicts” even received unsolicited postcards—the Gilded Age version of spam emails—hawking these potions. 

Postcard advertising a popular Civil War-era addiction “cure.” Courtesy of Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

Predictably, these miracle cures were too good to be true. Desperate consumers didn’t realize it, but Civil War-era addiction antidotes actually contained opiates. Antidote peddlers promised that their “cures” relied on non-opiate active ingredients, but they lied. So instead of curing addiction, the fake cures actually prolonged it, unbeknown to the customers who shelled out thousands of dollars on the expensive products, only to be left in poverty and still addicted. In an era before the FDA or robust consumer protection laws, there was no check on medical scam artists, who made fortunes profiting on Civil War veterans’ addiction. Today, a new wave of miracle cures falsely promise to cure opioid addiction, evoking Civil War-era opium antidote scams. Dangerous, expensive detox schemes, like the Church of Scientology’s Narconon and Purif and unproven plant-based substances like ibogaine and kratom claim to cure opioid addiction. But customers often end up even worse off than before, just like Civil War veterans who shelled out for opium antidotes.

Doctors never managed to solve the Civil War’s opioid crisis. The tragedy only ended when addicted veterans died off slowly over time. Most veterans never managed to escape addiction, and swallowing opium pills and injecting morphine year-after-year took a major toll on veterans’ bodies and health. The injections left men emaciated, weak, and prone to life-threatening infections. “Morphinists” were notorious for sporting infected skin abscesses caused by dirty needles. (This was before the “germ theory of disease” was widely known, so most people didn’t recognize the need to use clean needles). Decades before the development of modern antibiotics in the 1940s, these infections could be fatal. Eventually, enough addicted Civil War veterans got sick and died or fatally overdosed that ex-soldiers faded from view. 

Engraving of a Civil War-era morphine user, documenting the abscesses that resulted from re-using dirty needles before “the germ theory of disease” became popular

During the early 1900s, Civil War veterans were replaced by other cohorts of drug-users. The pharmaceutical company Bayer introduced heroin around 1900, marketing  the drug as a cough medicine. Heroin  was more than double the strength of morphine, so it quickly became popular among younger Americans who preferred  heroin over less-potent opiates . Soon heroin users began catching the attention of cops in big cities like New York and Philadelphia. About the same time, xenophobes cited opium smoking among some Chinese immigrants—in reality a small problem, compared to medicinal opiate abuse among whites—to justify racist anti-immigration laws, sparking  a news panic over the issue. The racist belief that Chinese opium dens snared white people into addiction also inspired some of the nation’s first drug laws in the 1870s and ‘80s, which were aimed more at upholding racial segregation than actually stamping out opiate use. After the U.S. invaded and colonized the Philippines in 1898, it banned the opium trade, doubling down on racist drug laws and keeping the issue in the news cycle. Eventually, heroin users and opium smokers replaced aging Civil War veterans as the stereotypical American drug addict. By the 1910s, a national panic over heroin abuse and opium smoking sparked the U.S.’s first heavy-handed drug laws. By that point, people began to forget about America’s Civil War-era opioid crisis. 

But forgetting about America’s first opioid crisis helped spark today’s epidemic. Just like after the Civil War, today’s opioid crisis stemmed in part from doctors’ careless overprescribing. Similarly, the lack of effective regulations on the medical marketplace allowed for rampant fraud in addiction medicine, both in the late 1800s and today. In Civil War America, the stigmatization of drug addiction, pervasive victim-blaming, and the jailing of addicted people, proved totally ineffective solutions. These responses only made the post-Civil War addiction epidemic worse.

If American doctors and drug policy makers had taken a hard look at Civil War America’s opioid crisis, they might have learned the lessons this dark history has to offer. Maybe the U.S. could have avoided the tragedy of today’s opioid crisis. Instead, Americans forgot about the U.S.’s first opioid crisis, and we ended up repeating it 150 years later.

America Has Been Through An Opioid Crisis Before syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[a4security]

Acquire the qualified teacher status by completing the various teacher training programs

Getting able to teach in England and Wales can be a generally smooth cycle, particularly in case you're now able to educate and have earlier teaching experience in specific nations. In case you're wanting to work in a school, you should apply for a Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). This is an expert capability for teachers and permits teachers to work across areas in the UK. It is likewise significant to get a QTS in the event that you need to meet all requirements for the teacher pay scale and certain headway and administration openings inside the UK educational systems.

 Teachers who are now ensured to educate in the European Economic Area, Canada, the USA, New Zealand, or Australia may fit the bill for QTS with no further testing or training. Teachers from outside an EEA-qualified state should have three years of teaching encounter and be perceived by an EEA part state.

 On the off chance that you are working in a private or autonomous school you won't really require a QTS. Be that as it may, having a QTS can assist you with making sure about a work, and will mean you will be on the certified teacher pay scale. When you are on the certified teacher pay scale, you will end up being an individual from the Teachers' Pension Scheme, which gives a liberal annuity to retired folks.

 Having QTS will permit you to have greater work openings and area availabilities, so getting your QTS is an extraordinary thought in case you're considering teaching in England and Wales.

 Teachers who qualified in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States need to apply for the QTS before they can be perceived as qualified teachers. Competitors applying to instruct in the UK with Point To Point Education should have QTS to make sure about a work in UK schools.

 Applications for QTS are finished through the NCTL Teacher Service utilizing their online application structure. When beginning your QTS application on the web, you ought to have a couple of things close by first:

 •          Copies of capabilities, with subtleties of those capabilities;

 •          Copies of ID, including your identification and driver's permit;

 •          If your name has changed on your capabilities, authoritative records indicating that name change;

 •          Evidence that you are able to educate in your nation of source.

 Proof that you are able to educate can regularly be checked on the web. Assuming this is the case, be set up to give this data to the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) so they can guarantee that you are authorized to educate in your domain.

 In the event that your Department of Education doesn't give web based checking, you should supply a letter from a perceived authority expressing that you have finished the fitting training, you have fulfilled extra prerequisites including vital experience, and that you are not prohibited from teaching in your nation.

 When this cycle has been finished, you will get a letter affirming you have been allowed QTS, and you are prepared to instruct in England and Wales. Whenever you have acquired QTS, you will end up being a Newly Qualified Teacher, and your training will proceed for one year (otherwise called the trial time frame).

 Having QTS additionally implies you will be paid on the British compensation scale, which gives a base and greatest compensation sum for teachers, contingent upon the neighborhood authority where you educate. You will be qualified for execution audits, and potential salary increases, contingent upon your exhibited competency and accomplishments.

 In the UK, your compensation raises are firmly connected with your exhibition, so the occasions to accomplish salary increases are energizing acknowledgment of difficult work and devotion.

 Working in schools in the UK likewise accompanies numerous occasions to advance in your vocation, including turning into an office head, a main specialist, or in any event, moving into a position of authority. For teachers who are hoping to bring their energy and aspiration into their school climate on another level, the Ambition School Leadership program distinguishes qualified, roused teachers who are prepared to step into positions of authority and set elevated requirements for their schools.

 This program gives grants and advancement occasions to teachers to improve their initiative aptitudes, make a positive administration model in their schools, and help decrease instructive disservice for all understudies, paying little mind to foundation.

 Inspiration will in general variety positive results, and the other way around. So attempt and discover something positive, in any event, during the negative occasions.

 Keep in mind, the capacity to live and work abroad isn't available to everybody, and you truly are fortunate to be in this position. Things won't generally turn out well for you, however they don't at home by the same token. An inspirational attitude will help you continue pushing ahead and searching for arrangements rather than issues.

 Positive certifications and a feeling of appreciation can help stay quiet about any nerves and pressure. They're likewise an extraordinary method of reminding your oblivious psyche about the magnificent chances not too far off before you.

 On the off chance that something awful happens you can regularly utilize it as a learning experience. You're in good company, by the same token. There's consistently another person out there experiencing something very similar, so don't be terrified to connect.

 A long time from now, you will have stunning recollections of your time teaching abroad – and the not exactly astounding pieces will have blurred out of spotlight. Meanwhile, an inspirational mentality will assist you with getting transient difficulties.Plenty of individuals have ability. The ones who capitalize on their vocations are the individuals who figure out how to put dissatisfaction behind them and continue to push ahead.

 As people, we are continually learning, and blunders are important for that. Indeed, even the most senior teachers and headteachers will commit errors or experience times when things didn't turn out well for them. The main exercise is to move past the issue as fast as could be expected under the circumstances and search for the positives.

 So adhere to your solid schedules, keep in contact with your new organizations and attempt to be as ground breaking as could reasonably be expected. Try not to become mixed up in recriminations or harp on anything you can't change. What's happened is before.

 You can construct flexibility by being such an individual who gives everything a go, and afterward sorting out what worked for you. Meanwhile, keep your own and expert hover engaged with your life as they may have a recommendation to evade it sometime later. To know more about the course and to avail the best training go to

bit.ly/3lnLeCe.

[knightavery]

flood insurance in california

BEST ANSWER: Try this site where you can compare quotes from different companies :quotesdeal.net

flood insurance in california

flood insurance in california. If you re at fault for a car accident, the minimum required by law would be 25/50/25. Find an affordable CA car insurance policy in CA that covers your vehicle, if your insurer can’t. Save hundreds on your driver’s license in CA by skipping exam prep. Sign up for automatic discount programs for responsible behaviors like good grades. Insurance discounts may vary by state. See the insurance policy for available states. California s minimum auto insurance coverage is $20,000 bodily injury liability per person, $40,000 bodily injury liability per accident, and $10,000 property damage liability per accident. Liability car insurance will help pay for expenses such as up to $80,000 for repair of injuries or property damage resulting from an accident for each individual covered by the policy. California requires uninsured motorist protection on $20,000/$40,000/$10,000 limits for bodily injury liability and. flood insurance in california.  We are in your backyard, a good property insurance company! Do they have your property if in your garage and in my driveway?  Do they provide anything that will injure an occupant but that will fall through if you hit an animal?  Will they tell their insurance adjusters, when and if it is in an accident that they will not cover, and will do the same things they do? This is a common scenario and one that we see alot of. So in the section below we will explore. In this section we will cover everything from the list of things that would make them think this would cause damage. Our experience with the insurance guys and the information that the insurance companies could offer is what has saved our life. In the sections below we will examine what the insurance companies would have the ability to cover. So what is the best way to find your insurance provider? For example you can also check out more information . But what is the best way to find. flood insurance in california and can lower your premium in a few areas. However, if you don’t have insurance, there’s no place to find that information on Google. If you decide to get a car insurance policy through GEICO and you don t want a car insurance company to sell you a policy, your best bet will be to contact the GEICO Insurance Agency. This agency has access to all of the insurance companies GEICO sells, so they can do a lot of the prearranging, filing, and pricing. Check with an agent to see how they can provide insurance for you and your family. If you are eligible for this subsidy, you usually will receive a 6-month insurance policy as an annual subsidy of GEICO car insurance. That means this individual plan was for two-year straight, without any accidents. That means an owner would qualify for a reduced monthly premium when they paid full policy mileage, which increased to an annual income. Check with your agent to see if they can.

Flood Insurance Service and Claims

Flood Insurance Service and Claims can help with any type of insurance problems. Call us for an affordable today. If you’d like to have a contact to speak to a free commercial insurance advisor, call The Helper 913-551-2588 with a phone number that can answer your questions and can help you get a quote before you apply. Call with one of our licensed insurance experts to speak to a free commercial insurance advisor. We are available to assist with all business-related concerns when you find them. For help on a commercial insurance plan, call Helper 913-551-2588 or . Helper Insurance Services is an independent insurance agency located in Lexington, Kentucky, that offers businesses insurance, homeowners insurance, and condo insurance for small business owners. Our team of licensed professionals has over 100 years of experience providing personalized insurance services to businesses and individuals for both commercial and personal insurance needs. We have a wide range of business insurance products from commercial policies to homeowner and pet insurance. For Business,.

We ve got you covered for flood insurance.

We ve got you covered for flood insurance. The best price can really set you on a path to savings, and that means adding auto, home, life and health insurance at the same time.  Our website, our mobile apps and the , and we also have some great financial and insurance services we are able to provide.  Call our customer service line if you want to speak to someone on the phone today and we ll be glad to do everything in our power! We have had many good experiences with Progressive Insurance, and this is the first insurance company we ve had on our mission of making insurance easy.  We re very happy who we are and would highly recommend you! We re one of the first insurance companies we ve been contacted with to offer with auto liability insurance at low prices.  Progressive has been our customer of choice for over 10+ years and has consistently been providing you, your family and your home with a great service every time they need it or want to come. We work.

Flood Insurance: Get the answers you re looking for.

Flood Insurance: Get the answers you re looking for. Nationwide makes it easy for you to find dependable auto insurance in South Carolina. We can show you options so you can choose the coverage that s right for your needs, goals and budget. Find out which discounts can be applied to your policy by applying online for a quote or speaking with your local agent. Nationwide offers a range of car insurance discounts that can help lower your monthly premium, you may be eligible for these exclusive discounts below: When you have Nationwide as your insurance provider you can bundle your car insurance policy with home, renters, boat, and multi-car. By protecting your property with Nationwide, you can save money and simply your life. Insurance terms, definitions and explanations are intended for informational purposes only and do not in any way replace or modify the definitions and information contained in individual insurance contracts, policies or declaration pages, which are controlling. Such terms and availability may vary by state and exclusions may apply. Products underwritten by Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company and Affiliated Companies. Not all Nationwide.

Auto Insurance

Auto Insurance Coverage Type Basic Plus Premier All $10,000 death benefit .

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Insurance Provided by Farmers Insurance ExchangeG. All New York Life A New York Life Insurance CoCompany For over 140 years, United Financial has been a leading member of the nation’s leading pension system. We have insured over a million families that we have paid millions if not a whole lot of money every year, every year, to our customers. If your family is in a financial crisis, or at the end of your life or your company is under threat, United Financial could be able to help. Our insurance policies include a number of high-value, high-value policies that do not only cover your business losses but also provide you with better coverage at a lower price. We believe the type of insurance to fit your specific needs is important for your long.

Insurance Products

Insurance Products.com does not provide insurance and we do not represent any specific insurance provider. Information provided on this site does not constitute an insurance quote and is not a binding agreement. There is a variety of benefits for individuals and their families in purchasing health insurance. This guide will explain what they need to know about . It will also show  the basic benefits you get when looking for insurance. Most people in the United States buy their health insurance from their workplace. The health insurance is designed to cover services and treatment in the case of a malpractice suit for professional negligence, negligence of negligence, or discrimination. You are covered to treat or not treatment in the long run, the medical treatment is covered for the benefit of everyone in the healthcare system who gets health insurance. We can provide you with medical care that is provided without charge so that your health and future needs continue forever. The health care law and rules are written in the individual health policy (HPA).

Do I need flood insurance?

Do I need flood insurance? If you bought an insurance policy this year, you may be wondering why your home insurance policy won’t cover flood. We’ve gathered the facts below, but we’re going to go over why it’s a wise thing to do when you buy . Our goal is to provide you with all the answers you need and more in less than a minute. If you live in a flood area and you don t have flood insurance, you may be entitled to a large amount for your policy if you live near the coast or a state or jurisdiction that gets inundated by floods frequently. Here at Auto Insurers Choice, our attorneys are specialists behind the wheel. If you live in a flood area, it might be prudent to purchase flood insurance. The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) helps provide money to the federal and state government in the case of major flood areas. Flood insurance can be expensive, but the cost of regular insurance can also offset the cost of damage to.

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Life Insurance

Life Insurance, you are given a choice of which car insurance company you choose. They may give you a small rate or it may be the best rate, depending on the terms of your policy. But you will need to keep reading to get a feel for their rating structure. Below is a list of other ratings from different industry experts to help determine which insurance plan you may qualify for. Insurance for a student is available at many colleges and universities. Here is a breakdown of the type of insurance coverage you can choose from in the United States. You can also use the car insurance company calculator below to get a more basic and easy-to-navigate idea about what to look for. There are numerous options for car insurance for students. There are several types of coverage, depending on your policy and requirements and limits. There is no maximum coverage, and you won’t have coverage, so it will depend on your car insurance policy. One of the most common examples is . Most insurance providers offer optional coverage.

About Insurance.com

About Insurance.com. All rights reserved. This marketplace is part and parcel of Insurance. Life insurance helps build and care for money if you were involved in a car accident, but not everything that happens — or doesn’t happen, for example. Life insurance isn’t just for emergencies, and in the meantime, other people, like your spouse and children, might be struggling financially through the aftermath of your accident. If you or your family members are still looking for the best financial health of their lives, one strategy might be to consider buying a life insurance policy directly from insurers. Here are some of the strategies discussed at the most basic level: If you’re planning to take out life insurance and use the money as you go to end of life, the best policy for those who’ve decided on the purchase is to use the life insurance as you save for the rest of your life.

[radhikaschauhan]

Benefits Of Filing ITR Even When Income Is Below Exemption Limit

To keep updated about their income and income tax return, a form must be submitted to the income tax department. Income tax return (ITR) is a form that is filled by taxpayers to know about their income and tax payable in the Income Tax Department. Generally, ITR has 7 forms, and the person has to choose in which category he belongs to. It is every individual’s duty, a member of the Hindustan Undivided Family (HUF).

Basically, a taxpayer to file an ITR before a specified due date. If a person files after the due date, he is charged with a penalty by the Income Tax Department. The information about income in ITR includes all the money that a taxpayer has earned in a particular financial year (1st April of that year to 31st March of the next year).

Now, in this article, we will read about the benefits of filing ITR.

The Income That Is Shown In ITR Can Include

Income from salary

Income from house property if he owns a house

Income from business

Income from capital gains

Income from lottery gains and some other sources.

Benefits of filing ITR, even when income is below the exemption limit

Why Should I File ITR?

It is our duty to file an ITR as a citizen. The tax calculated has to be paid within the prescribed limits, or else you may end up paying the penalty.

Benefits Of Filing ITR Even When Income Is Below Exemption Limit

1. To Claim A Refund

When you have paid any extra tax in the previous financial year, you can claim a refund from the Income Tax Department. Also, to claim a refund under section 80D and section 80C for medical health insurance policies, you have to file an ITR. You can also use this to claim a refund under section 90A, 90, and 91. When you are a foreigner, you can avail of an option called “double taxation avoidance agreement” with this ITR form.

2. As Proof Of Income

Income Tax Return is also called as “Sahaj,” and it contains all the income details of an individual. This form acts as proof while applying for a loan. Also, it uses to compensate for things if any misfortune has happened in the taxpayer’s house.

3. Faster Visa Approving

While applying for a visa, the ITR form is beneficial because it checks the individual’s income and details with this form. You can avoid hassle for three years with a copy of your returns.

4. Loss Is Carried Forward

When your business is too low because of losses in the previous years, your tax liability is reduced and carried over your losses to lower the capital gains or taxable income dues. This happens only when you file an ITR, or else the government can’t help you out with your losses.

5. To Avoid Penalties

When you avoid filing an ITR, you may pay penalties up to Rs.10,000. This statement was implemented from the FY2017-18. Although it is only Rs.1000 for the taxpayers whose salary is less than 5 lakhs, every taxpayer must file the income tax return. It is the duty of every individual to support the nation. According to section 234A, 1% of interest is added to the due tax amount every month. This happens when you don’t file for an ITR.

6. A Proof To Banks

ITR is used as proof to provide any loan from the public or private bank. Because bank managers have to know all the borrower’s details to check whether they could pay the money within the specified time or not, it makes work easy for bank employees.

Many banks ask for ITR forms for at least three consecutive years, and some lenders will definitely ask for your ITR forms. Sometimes, when you buy a high valued land, the related documents are sent to the IT department to cross-verify your money by looking into ITR forms. So it is required to fill the ITR forms.

7. As A Residential Proof

ITR is also treated as residential proof because the ITR receipts are sent to your registered address when you apply through offline mode. It is also used as proof while applying for a credit card. Banks can reject your credit card if you have not applied for ITR.

8. As An Income Proof To Freelancers

Freelancers or independent professionals generally don’t have Form-16. The only form they can show as proof of income is this ITR form.

9. For Government Tenders

If a person wishes to fill a government tender as a part of his business, then he has to show his ITR forms from the past three to four years as a proof whether you are eligible for this tender or not. This not actually a strict rule, but nowadays, government officials are asking for these ITR forms.

Why Has E-Filing Become More Craze?

Any taxpayer can sit at home and file an ITR form whenever he is free, and there is no waste of time to travel to submit his documents. So e-filing has become more popular nowadays as the government decided to digitalize everything. The income tax department has created a website to file an ITR form online. So the benefits that come with e-filing are;

i. Ease In Documentation Verification

To verify a document for approval of anything is mandatory, but because of poor connection, it has become hectic work for an individual to get his documents verified. So the income tax department helps you prepare your income chart through online mode, which is very important while applying for a loan. An ITR form will contain all the information in detail so that bank can verify it.

ii. Ease In The Filing

You can easily fill an ITR form either by yourself or by a professional. It consumes less time, and so it is not hectic work to do by an individual. The only thing you have to do is log in to the website and fill in all the required details and then submit them. An ITR-V form is generated as an acknowledgment, and this has to be submitted within 120 days of filing your returns.

You can see all the returns filed by you in the previous assessment years on your website. You can easily download the excel sheet that contains all the details of your income. The only thing you have to do is remembering your PAN card number and your birth date.

Better security with e-filling rather than paperwork; you can also have proof of receipt. Easy to do than offline work.

The type of ITR that can be filed by a taxpayer depends upon the category he belongs to.

Various Types Of ITR forms

So now let us discuss the various ITR forms that can be filed:

1. ITR-1

Taxpayers whose income is less than 50 lakhs are eligible to file this ITR form. The income can include salary or pension, from one house property, and some other sources mentioned in the form.

But below mentioned taxpayers cannot file this ITR-1 form:

Total income exceeding 50 lakhs

If Income from the agricultural sector exceeds Rs.5000.

If you have tax on capital gains.

A person with a business or professional income is not eligible to file this form.

If the taxpayer is the director of the company, then he is not eligible to file this.

If your income includes equity shares during a financial year.

Owning foreign assets or foreign income.

If you are a non-resident of India.

2. ITR-2

Taxpayers who are individual or a part of the Hindustan Undivided Family (HUF) can file this form if you don’t have any profit or loss of income from business or some profession. Generally, who is not eligible to file ITR-1 can file this. A person who has income from more than one house property and income from other sources and the total income should be greater than 50 lakhs.

Following are the taxpayers who are eligible to file ITR-2:

Whose income is more than 50 lakhs

Whose total income includes the income of his spouse or child of the assessee.

When agriculture income exceeds Rs.5,000.

When income includes foreign assets and foreign income.

When a taxpayer is a non-resident and resident not ordinarily resident (RNOR).

Who is not eligible?

A taxpayer whose total income is from business or profession.

3. ITR-3

This form can be filed by an individual or Hindustan Undivided Family member when the income is inherited from a business or profession.

Persons having income from;

When he is an individual director in a company.

If a person has unrequited shares in the business sector during a particular financial year.

The income of a person in the firm.

Total income of the person >50 lakhs.

4. ITR-4 Or Sugam

Any individual or a member of HUF or any member in the firm (except LLF) can file this form if he/she has a business or profession. This form also includes people who have opted for a presumptive income scheme as per section 44AD, Section 44ADA, and Section 44AE of the Income Tax Act.

Who is not eligible to file this form?

A person who has a total income of more than 50 lakhs

A person who has a loss in business.

Owning a foreign asset and income from more house properties.

If the person is the director of a company and has unlisted equity shares during the financial year.

5. ITR-5

ITR 5 is for firms, LLPs (Limited Liability Partnership), AOPs (Association of Persons), Bois (Body of Individuals), Artificial Juridical Person (AJP), Estate of deceased, Estate of insolvent, Business trust and investment fund.

6. ITR-6

This form can be filed for any company except those listed in section 11 (except those listed for religious property or charitable). This is filed only through online mode.

7. ITR-7

Companies which wish to get refund under section 139(4A) or section 139(4B) or section 139(4C) or section 139(4D) or section 139(4E) or section 139(4F).

Return under section 139(4A) is for properties that come under charity or religious purposes.

A political party can file returns under section 139(4B) if total income exceeds the maximum amount, not chargeable to income tax.

A news agency can file a return under section 139(4C), scientific research organization, fund, or any educational institution or other medical institution.

Return under section 139 (4D) can be filed by any college or university which doesn’t need to get lost under these sections.

Return under section 139 (4E) can be filed by every business to avoid a loss by these sections.

Under section 139 (4F), the return can be filed by any investment fund referred to in section 115UB.

Who Is Not Eligible To File An ITR?

If any individual or a HUF member whose age is less than 60 years has a total income of fewer than Rs.2.5 years are not eligible to file an ITR. Similarly, if a person’s age is 60 to 80 years with a total income less than Rs.3 lakhs is not eligible.

If he/she is more than 80 years with a total income of fewer than Rs.5 lakhs, they are also not eligible to file an ITR. This is because it might become difficult for them to pay the tax with less income. So the government has taken this decision. Remaining any individual who doesn’t belong to this category are requested to file an ITR or penalty is issued.

Who Is Eligible To File An ITR?

For all individuals (<59 years) whose income is more than Rs.2.5 lakhs. For senior citizens (60-79 years) whose income is more than Rs.3 lakhs and for very senior citizens (>80 years) whose income is more than Rs.5 lakhs. Note that income is calculated before any deductions because of their loans and some other exemptions under section 10.

Every registered company which generates income regardless of loss or profit in the respective financial year.

If any person wants to claim a refund because of excess tax paid in the previous years.

If an individual wish to interest in the assets that are present in foreign countries.

Foreign companies that get benefited while investing in India.

NRIs who earn more than Rs.2.5 lakhs in a single financial year.

Documents Required To File An ITR?

It is essential to submit every document while filing an ITR, or else your request will be canceled, and then if it becomes late, you might end up paying the penalty.

So get ready with the documents that are required while filing an ITR. The documents are;

i. Bank and post office savings account passbook, PPF account passbook.

ii. Salary slips, Aadhaar card, PAN card.

iii. Form-16 issued to you by the employer. This form contains details of salary paid and TDS deducted. If any, interest certificates from banks and post office.

iv. Form-16A if TDS deducted on payments like fixed deposits, recurring deposits other than salary.

v. Form-16B from the buyer if you have sold a property, showing the TDS deducted on the amount paid to you.

vi. Form-16C from your tenant if any TDS is deducted on the rent received by you.

vii. Form-26AS shows the details of taxes deposited against your PAN like TDS deducted by banks, employer, or other organizations from the payments paid to you, advanced taxes deposited by you, etc.

viii. Proofs to claim under a health insurance policy under section 80D and 80C.

How To Check ITR Status Online?

You can check your ITR status easily by following these below options:

Option 1

a. Under this option, you can check your ITR status without logging in.

b. Click on the ITR Status tab present on the extreme left of the e-filing website.

c. Then you are directed to a new website where you have to provide your PAN number, ITR acknowledgment number with the captcha code that is given.

Later, after all these steps, the status of your ITR is displayed on the screen.

Option 2

a. Here in this option, you can check ITR status by logging in.

b. Login to the e-filing website and click on the option “view returns/forms.”

c. Then select income tax returns and assessment year from the dropdown box.

d. Then the status of your filing is displayed on your screen. Now, make sure that you have informed the income tax department about your ITR form filing every year within the specified date.

How To Download An ITR?

You can file an ITR either through online or offline mode. But today’s generation chooses to file through online mode as this is easy and fast.

Step-1: Go to the income tax e-filling website.

Step-2: Click on the “View Returns/ Forms” option to view your e-filled tax returns.

Note: If you are new to the website, then register into the website by providing the necessary details.

Step-3: Details of all the years for which returns are filed is displayed then.

Step-4: To download the ITR-V, click on the acknowledgment number. Begin download by selecting that option.

Step-5: To view your downloaded document, provide your password. The password is your PAN no. with your birthdate.

To e-verify the return through Aadhar OTP or Net-Banking OTP. If the taxpayer doesn’t wish to verify the returns, then the ITR has to be sent to CPC Bangalore within 120 days. After doing all these steps, income tax acknowledgment is developed.

FAQs

1. How do I correct my ITR if I had made a mistake while filing?

You can correct your mistake by filing a revised return. There is no penalty generated while filing a revised return. You have to file it before completing the assessment year by the assessment officer, or you have to file at the end of the applicable assessment year, whichever is earlier.

2. What happens if I miss filing an ITR?

If you miss filing an ITR, then you have an option to file a belated return by the end of the applicable assessment year. There are also various penalties to be paid depending upon your annual income and how late you are applying.

3. How much would it cost to get my taxes filed by an authorized e-filing intermediary?

There are no fixed charges to this step, but it is said that rates are higher for more complicated income tax returns like capital gains, returns of self-employed or business individuals under section 44AB, etc.

4. Can I file for an ITR without a PAN card?

The answer is No. The essential document that is required for filing an ITR is the PAN card itself. Even in e-filing, you have to provide your PAN number along with your birthdate to download a form.

5. I have forgotten to file my ITR form for FY 2019-20. Can I still make a delayed filing this year?

You can no longer file an ITR for the previous year if this financial year has been started. If you get any notice from the Income-tax department to pay, you can file for an ITR. But because of this outbreak, the covid-19 income tax department decided to extend the due date to file an ITR to November 30, 2020.

6. Is TDS refundable?

Yes, by filing a return of income form, you can claim the return of taxes deducted. Any individual or organization can file these returns.

Via http://invested.in/benefits-of-filing-itr-when-income-below-exemption-limit/

source https://investedin.weebly.com/blog/benefits-of-filing-itr-even-when-income-is-below-exemption-limit

[bigyack-com]

Your Money: A Hub for Help During the Coronavirus Crisis

If your income has fallen or been cut off completely, we’re here to help. This guide will connect you to the basic information you’ll need to get through this, including on government benefits, free services and financial strategies.If there’s something you need — or something you can offer that large numbers of people can access — please write to hubforhelp@nytimes.com. Ron and Tara will respond to every message they can.

How unemployment insurance works

The coronavirus outbreak has already handed many people sudden drops in income, if it hasn’t dried up completely. Anyone who has experienced this or is worried they might needs to understand unemployment benefits.How they work and how much they’ll help depends a lot on where you live. The program is jointly run by the federal government and states.States have their own eligibility rules about how many hours you must have worked or how much you must have earned, and over what time span. Benefits are generally a percentage of your income over the past year, up to a certain maximum, but states set their own rules — and some are more generous than others. Typically, though, unemployment replaces about 45 percent of your lost income.Most states pay benefits for 26 weeks, but some have pared that back: Michigan, Missouri and South Carolina pay benefits for 20 weeks; Arkansas pays for 16; and Alabama pays for 14. Five states — Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Idaho and North Carolina — have sliding scales tied to unemployment levels.Many states only cover full-time workers, and some have made it more difficult for temporary workers to get coverage. Gig workers are also unlikely to qualify because they’re largely considered self-employed.One important note: You might not even have to lose your job to qualify. If you’re quarantined or have been furloughed — and you’re not being paid but expect to return to your job eventually — you may be able to get benefits.

Where to get free financial planning help

Many financial advisers are offering free phone sessions to people whose incomes have fallen, no matter where they live.The XY Planning Network of advisers has a spot on its search webpage for “Coronavirus help” and will be adding names to it as people sign up. There are already dozens.We’ve heard from the following planners or firms who want to help as well: Daren Blonski, Wesley Botto, Jill Isbell, Fairlight Advisors, Ted Klontz, Andrew Komarow, Brandt Kuhn, Anna N’Jie-Konte, Elizabeth Lundstrom, Kevin Mahoney, Howard Morin, Maddi Napier, Kimberly B. Ogden, Alan Rhode, Matt Rinkey, Dawn Santoriello, Chris Saxton and Alex Wilson.We’ve included links to their sites so you can see their experience and credentials. Nearly all of them are certified financial planners, a designation that requires continuing education and passing a difficult exam.

How consumer lenders are helping

On Sunday, Goldman Sachs and Apple told Apple credit card customers facing hardship that they could skip this month’s payment. They won’t have to pay interest, either.We asked the biggest card, mortgage and auto lenders whether they would allow customers to do the same thing. American Express and Capital One said they would. If their customer service representatives claim ignorance, point them to this item and let us know if they still don’t help.Bank of America, Barclays, Ford Credit and General Motors Financial will allow skipped payments, but interest will still accrue.We could not get firm commitments from Bank of America, Citibank and Wells Fargo.And Ally Bank, a big bailout beneficiary during the last economic downturn? They would not match the offer from Goldman Sachs and Apple.

Ways to keep the lights on and the phones working

Some utility providers are offering to stop cutting people off for nonpayment.A number of large internet companies have agreed not to terminate residential or small business customers who can’t pay their bills: AT&T, Comcast, Cox, RCN, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon. A full list of companies is available on the Federal Communications Commission site.It is not yet clear whether companies want customers to call to invoke this relief and provide proof or whether they will offer it automatically to everyone. People who need help should call and ask.A number of water service providers have either suspended shut-offs for nonpayment or don’t shut service off for late payments generally, according to a ProPublica roundup. They include Atlanta; Birmingham, Ala.; Long Beach, Calif.; Los Angeles; Newark; New York City and St. Louis.In Washington state, the main Seattle area utilities are suspending cutoffs as well. In addition, the provider of electric and water service in Seattle is allowing people to self-certify their recent income reductions in order to qualify for at least half off their bills.In California, Pacific Gas and Electric has, until further notice, stopped shutting off its services to consumers and businesses who have not paid.In New York, Con Edison also has temporarily suspended any electric and gas service shut-offs.If utilities in other areas follow suit, they are likely to publish alerts somewhere on the top of their websites or in the news release section of their pages.

How student loan relief may help, or may not

President Trump said he was waiving interest on tens of millions of student loans held by the federal government until further notice. But here’s the catch: Monthly payments are not actually going to decrease.Instead, people will pay the same amount they are currently. The difference is that the full sum will go toward the principal on their loans, according to a Department of Education spokeswoman.That means they could pay their loans down faster, but they won’t have more money in their pockets now.The biggest benefit may be to borrowers who have paused their monthly payments because of hardship, or may in the future. In student loan terms, this is known as forbearance. Normally, the interest on their loans would continue to pile up, but that won’t happen during the waiver period.The waiver will not apply to student loans issued through state agencies and private lenders, including Sallie Mae. Other loans that are not part of the waiver program include the majority of Federal Family Education Loans, which are mostly held by commercial lenders, and school-held Perkins loans.And if you take the tax deduction for student loan interest? The waiver might raise your tax bill, Forbes reported.

What a shady sales pitch looks like

Sometimes you can tell by the exclamation marks. One email sales pitch arrived with the subject line: “The Coronavirus may be Fatal — to Your Retirement Savings!”It may be tempting right now to buy into anything offering safe returns. But now is when you’re most vulnerable — and you have to scrutinize any sales pitch more carefully than ever.The sales pitch above involved an annuity. Not all annuities are ill-advised, but they’re often confusing. Some can provide retirees with a pension-like stream of income, which can bring peace of mind at a moment like this. But there are many kinds — some with unappealing attributes — and they can be offered by brokers collecting commissions of up to 8 percent, so they have plenty of incentive to close a sale.“One of the things you don’t want to do is buy them when you are emotional,” said David Lau, founder and chief executive officer of DPL Financial Partners, which helps financial advisers find insurance products for their clients. “Now is not the time to rush out and buy an annuity because you are feeling panicked.”Fixed-index annuities, for example, can keep most of your money locked up for many years, accessible only if you pay a painfully high surrender fee. You might also hear about buffer annuities, which allow investors to capture some gains, while curbing some, but not all, losses. Then there are variable annuities, which may promise guaranteed income. They are essentially a portfolio of investments tied to an insurance policy, which can be expensive.“If you need more than the back of a cocktail napkin to explain the math, I’d be concerned,” said Mark Cortazzo, a financial planner and founder of Annuity Review, a service that analyzes annuity policies for a flat fee.Mr. Lau suggested focusing not on what is being pitched, but on the problem you’re wanting to solve. If you want a guaranteed stream of income or to ensure you have enough to cover your fixed expenses, that’s a concrete goal you can keep in mind as you read the fine print.

How to prep for refinancing your mortgage

Mortgage rates are very low right now, so it’s a great time to refinance. But that means everyone else is trying to do it, too.Lenders are being swamped by requests, and you can only lock in a low rate for so long. And if you don’t get everything done during the lock-in period, your lender might charge you a fee to extend it.Communicate constantly. It sounds simple, but check your voice mail and your spam folder. Don’t miss a request for a document. And respond right away.Pick your rate and go. Don’t get distracted by changing rates, and know how to find them. The best rates don’t always show up on aggregator sites, so contact your current lender directly. And once you find the rate you want, be careful not to miss your chance by shopping around some more.Ace your appraisal. Print out listings of comparable properties for your appraiser, who might not know your area well. If you remodeled, provide before-and-after photos and paperwork.Avoid dumb credit moves. Lenders often check your credit report more than once during the application process. If there have been inquiries or new debt, they come back to you with questions, which slows things down.“Don’t open up any new auto loan, credit card or any new credit while this is in process, period,” said Bill Banfield, an executive vice president at Quicken Loans, the nation’s largest lender. “People get very excited about refinancing and suddenly want to go out and buy a new BMW.” Read the full article

[sztupy]

Múltkor elfelejtettem, de persze megint írt a házimunka

Dear Zsolt,

Today, EU citizens in the UK and UK nationals in the EU have more certainty about their future following an agreement on citizens’ rights between the UK and the EU Commission.

Since the outset of the negotiations, the Prime Minister has been clear that safeguarding the rights of people who have built their lives in the UK and EU was her first priority.

Today’s agreement delivers that commitment and follows months of negotiations with the EU. It will help the millions of EU citizens who have made their lives in this country, as well as UK citizens living in the EU, plan for the future as valued members of UK society.

It means that EU citizens living lawfully in the UK and UK nationals living lawfully in the EU by 29 March 2019 will be able to stay and enjoy broadly the same rights and benefits as they do now.

The agreement includes that:

Close family members will be able to join after the UK has left the EU. This includes spouses, unmarried partners, children, grandchildren, dependent parents and grandparents. Children born or adopted outside of the UK after the 29 March 2019 will also be covered.

People will be able to be absent from the UK for up to five years without losing settled status, more than double the level of absence allowed under current EU law. There will be the same reciprocal protection for UK nationals living in the EU.

Professional qualifications (e.g. doctors and architects) will continue to be recognised where these are obtained before the date of the UK’s departure from the EU.

It will be easy to apply for settled status and there will be a full right of appeal.

Those EU citizens who already hold a valid Permanent Residence document will be able to have their status converted to settled status free of charge.

This agreement also provides certainty on healthcare, pensions and other benefits. It will mean that EU citizens who have paid into the UK system can benefit from what they’ve already put in and continue to benefit from existing coordination rules for future contributions. Those covered by the agreement will be able to continue to receive healthcare as they do now.

There will be a transparent, smooth and streamlined process to enable EU citizens to apply for settled status starting in the latter half of next year for two years after the UK leaves the EU – from 2018 to 2021.

You can read more about settled status and citizens' rights here. We will keep you up to date with more details, including the cost, opening date of the scheme and documentation you are likely to need, in the first half of 2018. It will be much simpler and quicker than applying for Permanent Residence, so EU citizens do not need to do anything at this stage.

This page will be kept up to date with the latest information: Status of EU citizens in the UK: what you need to know.

We will write again to update you next week.

TL;DR: miért vagy még mindig itt?

[keywestlou]

COLLEGE LOANS A PROSTITUTION MOTIVATOR

College loans are an issue in the 2020 Presidential election. Borrowing easy. Repayment a back breaker.

The system will be recorded as one of history’s major rip offs. It is geared so everyone benefits except the student. Everyone consisting of the government, private lenders, and universities.

One example of the system’s abuse is the way universities handle a facet of the student borrowing experience. The more a student borrows, the more that person’s cost for an education increases.

Cato Institute economist Neal McCluskey spells it out thusly: “The basic problem is simple: Give everyone $100 to pay for higher education and colleges will raise their prices by $100, negating the value of the aid.”

Students are plagued by pay back of the loans.  Some loans in excess of $200,000. Whether $50,000 or $200,000, impossible for most.

Access to huge sums of money is required. Most post college graduation jobs pay insufficient amounts to handle repayment at any level.

Some female college students and graduates believe they have found a better way. Prostitution. By their way of thinking, a more reasonable and sophisticated approach.

On July 14, 2016, I published an article covering the “new” female repayment program. Titled: The New Prostitution. Following it is set forth in its entirety. Draw your own conclusions as to the righteousness of what is occurring.

THE NEW PROSTITUTION

Bernie Sanders argued for a free college education in the recent primaries. College is expensive. Tuition a back breaker. Rent a killer. Borrowing resulting in long term debt.

There is a new phenomenon in the country. It has become increasingly popular in recent years. Considered trendy.

It is referred to as the girlfriend experience. Ladies selling their bodies for a fee. The ladies generally college girls or in their 20s. The men rich.

No pimps or street corners involved. The ladies use the internet to make contact.

The ladies sell their bodies in order to pay tuition, student loans, rent and some to afford designer labels.

The girlfriend experience is the new prostitution economy.

The experience is not a meet, quick bang and thank you m’am. More is involved. The men want the perfect short term girl friend. Well groomed, cultured, classy, able to converse about anything. A lady that never brings her personal problems to the relationship.

The time involved may be an evening, a day, a weekend, a trip.

The men are older. Decidedly so. Generally 40 to 60 years. Affluent. Money no object to them.

The wages of sin are pretty good. All over the place. The price generally set forth in the site ad. Anywhere from $400 an hour to $2,000-$5,000 an evening. Some higher.

One young lady in South Africa offers herself for $42,000 an evening. She will travel anywhere. I cannot conceive what she can do for that kind of money.

The lady friend of today is the sugar baby of yesterday. The men, the sugar daddies of yesterday. Interestingly, both labels still apply.

Most arrangements last 1-3 years. A weekly meeting. A set figure in advance. Many contract for $5,000 a month. That is $60,000 a year. One hundred eighty thousand dollars over three years.

The ladies generally have 2-3 sugar daddies they provide service for during the course of a week.

The money earned astronomical. Described as an allowance.

The men seek a cultured sexual relationship with a much younger lady. The ladies view the relationship as a job. They do it for the money. No emotional entanglement involved.

The men view the women as sex objects. Whores. Beneath them. Though the ladies are treated with respect at all times.

Most of the men involved are married. They receive from the younger ladies that which their wives fail to provide.

In addition to the agreed remuneration, there are perks/incidental gifts. Extra cash, shopping sprees, jewelry, travel. Benefits of a high end easy life.

The ladies kiss. A no no in the prostitution trade. Men do not kiss the ladies and the ladies not the men. The relationship of sugar daddy/sugar baby is closer and different. The relationship more than that found in other prostitution situations. Kissing is expected and welcomed.

The parties meet via the internet. The leading site is SeekingArrangement.com. More female subscribers than men by a 10-1 ratio. The ladies in their ads set forth their asking price. Men, their net worth.

The ladies are listed free. The men pay $44.95 per month. For an additional $1,200 paid by the man, Seeking Arrangement offers a Diamond Club. The Diamond Club verifies incomes and net worth for the ladies.

Other oft mentioned internet sites are SeekingMillionaire.com and SeekingBillionaire.com.

The feminist movement has mixed feelings. To some, it is empowering. The ladies are entering the work force. The sex industry. Others consider it slutty.

Some maintain the ladies involved are oppressed. Many of the sugar babies have a contrary opinion. They believe those working for $7 an hour are the oppressed ones.

The business world has found a new way of not paying new or entry level employees. They call them interns and make them work for nothing. A sugar baby does not have to tolerate such an experience.

2014 found a large spike as regards the ladies. Especially in southern states. The University of Austin had the greatest growth. Two hundred twenty seven percent.

The top four universities in every area reported were Georgia State University, Kent State University, Arizona State University, and New York University. Number one was New York University.

A top ten listing of cities with the highest density of daddies showed Atlanta #1 and Austin #10.

The ladies are sometimes referred to as hidden hos. Websites such as Seeking Arrangement as convenience stores for adulterers. More dignified, a virtual brothel.

I wish to venture a personal opinion.

Prostitution is illegal in the United States, except for Nevada. Whether sexual activity constitutes a crime is dependent on the services provided. If something more than sex is provided, the acts are not viewed as prostitution. The something more such things as house cleaning or companionship. All difficult of proof.

More than 15 nations world wide have legalized prostitution. Included are New Zealand, Austria, Belgium, Columbia, Denmark, Ecuador, Germany, France and the Netherlands.

Sometime in the early 2000s, Germany legalized prostitution. The reason/excuse was to give dignity to the women. Also provide a means by which the ladies had rights, pension plans, and hospitalization coverage.

The real reason was Germany wanted to tax prostitution. They taxed it at every level of government and form of participation. Germany has made a ton of money and continues to do so.

The ladies have not benefited as anticipated. The reason being the influx of immigrants from Europe’s eastern block and North Africa. Too many new prostitutes. Prices for services rendered dropped dramatically. The old story of supply and demand.

The United States has moved swiftly in the past ten years in certain areas. Same sex marriage, transgendered  accepted in the military, marijuana legalized.

Marijuana is not yet legal in every state nor via federal law. It will be in the next 5-10 years.

I see prostitution on the same path as same sex marriage and marijuana approval. Legalization. The government will approve legalization because of the large tax dollars prostitution brings.

Legalization is coming. You can bet on it. In 10 years or less.

Enjoy your day!

COLLEGE LOANS A PROSTITUTION MOTIVATOR was originally published on Key West Lou

[johnmauldin]

Your Pension Is a Lie: There’s $210 Trillion of Liabilities Our Government Can’t Fulfill

In the US, we have two national programs to care for the elderly. Social Security provides a small pension, and Medicare covers medical expenses. All workers pay taxes that supposedly fund the benefits we may someday receive.

The problem is that's not actually true. Neither of these programs is comprehensive.

The End of Government Entitlements

Living on Social Security benefits alone is a pretty meager existence.

Medicare has deductibles and copayments that can add up quickly. Both programs assume people have their own savings and other resources (I wrote about this in detail in my previous issues of Thoughts from the Frontline). Despite this, the programs are crucial to millions of retirees, many of whom work well past 65 just to make ends meet.

This chart from my friend John Burns shows the growing trend among generations to work past age 65:

Having turned 68 a few days ago, I guess I’m contributing a bit to the trend

Limited though Social Security and Medicare are, we attribute one huge benefit to them: They’re guaranteed. Uncle Sam will always pay them—he promised. And to his credit, Uncle Sam is trying hard to keep his end of the deal.

Uncle Sam’s Debt Nightmare

In fact, Uncle Sam is running up debt to do so. Actually, a massive amount of debt:

Federal debt as a percentage of GDP has almost doubled since the turn of the century. The big jump occurred during the 2007–2009 recession, but the debt has kept growing since then. That’s a consequence of both higher spending and lower GDP growth.

In theory, Social Security and Medicare don’t count here. Their funding goes into separate trust funds. But in reality, the Treasury borrows from the trust funds, so they simply hold more government debt.

Today it looks like this:

• Debt held by the public: $14.4 trillion

• Intragovernmental holdings (the trust funds): $5.4 trillion

• Total public debt: $19.8 trillion

Total GDP is roughly $19.3 trillion, so the federal debt is about equal to one full year of the entire nation’s collective economic output. That total does not also count the $3 trillion-plus of state and local debt, which in almost every other country of the world is included in their national debt numbers.

Including state and local debt in US figures would take our debt-to-GDP above 115%... and rising.

Just wait. We’re only getting started.

$210 Trillion Worth of Unfunded Liabilities

An old statute requires the Treasury to issue an annual financial statement, similar to a corporation’s annual report. The FY 2016 edition is 274 enlightening pages that the government hopes none of us will read.

Among the many tidbits, it contains a table on page 63 that reveals the net present value of the US government’s 75-year future liability for Social Security and Medicare.

That amount exceeds the net present value of the tax revenue designated to pay those benefits by $46.7 trillion. Yes, trillions.

Where will this $46.7 trillion come from? We don’t know.

Future Congresses will have to find it somewhere. This is the fabled “unfunded liability” you hear about from deficit hawks. Similar promises exist to military and civil service retirees and assorted smaller groups, too.

Trying to add them up quickly becomes an exercise in absurdity. They are so huge that it’s hard to believe the government will pay them, promises or not.

Now, I know this is going to come as a shock, but that $46.7 trillion of unfunded liabilities is pretty much a lie. My friend Professor Larry Kotlikoff estimates the unfunded liabilities to be closer to $210 trillion.

Pensions Are a Lie

Many Americans think of “their” Social Security like a contract, similar to insurance benefits or personal property. The money that comes out of our paychecks is labeled FICA, which stands for Federal Insurance Contributions Act. We paid in all those years, so it’s just our own money coming back to us.

That’s a perfectly understandable viewpoint. It’s also wrong.

A 1960 Supreme Court case, Flemming vs. Nestor, ruled that Social Security is not insurance or any other kind of property. The law obligates you to make FICA “contributions.”

It does not obligate the government to give you anything back. FICA is simply a tax, like income tax or any other. The amount you pay in does figure into your benefit amount, but Congress can change that benefit any time it wishes.

Again, to make this clear: Your Social Security benefits are guaranteed under current law, but Congress reserves the right to change the law. They can give you more, or less, or nothing at all, and your only recourse is the ballot box.

Medicare didn’t yet exist in 1960, but I think Flemming vs. Nestor would apply to it, too. None of us have a “right” to healthcare benefits just because we have paid Medicare taxes all our lives. We are at Washington’s mercy.

I’m not suggesting Congress is about to change anything. My point is about promises. As a moral or political matter, it’s true that Washington promised us all these things. As a legal matter, however, no such promise exists. You can’t sue the government to get what you’re owed because it doesn’t “owe” you anything.

This distinction doesn’t matter right now, but I bet it will someday. If we Baby Boomers figure out ways to stay alive longer, and younger generations don’t accelerate the production of new taxpayers, something will have to give.

If you are dependent on Social Security to fund your retirement, recognize that your future is an unfunded liability—a promise that’s not really a promise because it can change at any time. 

Get one of the world’s most widely read investment newsletters… free

Sharp macroeconomic analysis, big market calls, and shrewd predictions are all in a week’s work for visionary thinker and acclaimed financial expert John Mauldin. Since 2001, investors have turned to his Thoughts from the Frontline to be informed about what’s really going on in the economy. Join hundreds of thousands of readers, and get it free in your inbox every week.

[the-record-columns]

Sept. 11, 2019: Columns

A forgotten father-in-law

The grave marker for Albert L. Hamby in the cemetery of Stony Hill Baptist Church in Purlear

By KEN WELBORN

Record Publisher

Anyone who reads this space knows I like to write about mother-in-laws.

For a guy who has managed to get married every time he turns around, I have lots to choose from. 

Father-in-laws, however, are another matter entirely. My relationship with them all was good to downright wonderful.  I have often written stories about my favorite father-in-law, Dr. William L. Bundy.  He is the one with whom, I by far, spent the most time, both during my stint with his daughter, and thereafter—when he would make me feel good by still introducing me as, "Kenneth, my son-in-law."

But today, I want to talk about my first father-in-law, Albert Hamby. Al for short.

Yes, the husband of my famous mother-in-law of the family reunion/burning hot dogs.

Albert was born in1916 in the Purlear area of Wilkes. While his education was very limited, Al had a talent for sizing up a stand of timber like no other, and made a good living doing just that. He was a World War II Army veteran who was on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944.  While he was pretty closed mouth about the war, later on he did share one story with me.

And one only.

It was several days into the Normandy invasion and he was among thousands of troops fighting their way inland.  Al, like all his brothers, was a crack shot with his rifle, an ability borne of hunting the forests of Wilkes from his early childhood. He was proud, he said, that when he sighted in on a target, he knew it was going to be a deadly hit most every time.

To that end, his story begins. Again, his aim was deadly and as he approached a dead German soldier he had just killed, he thought about getting a souvenir or two. He said he had walked by several men he knew he had just shot, but never stopped and for the life of himself, he couldn't say why he stopped this time. A German Luger pistol was an oft taken prize and he took one off that soldier.

Then he saw a wallet in a coat pocket. He took it out, opened it up, and his life changed forever that day. Thinking about retrieving some German money, he instead was struck like a bolt of lightning by a photo of the soldier, his wife, and his three children staring up at him. Albert said he threw down the wallet and the gun and ran to another place for cover.  For seven days he didn't fire his rifle. When there was someone who might notice, he said he pretended to be on guard and prepared to fire, but never did.

All he could see was those five folks staring up at him in that wallet as if from a grave, and the realization that the soldier he killed was doing just what he was doing—as he was taught, and as he was told.

At some later point, as he basically went through the motions of being a soldier until an artillery round came so close to him that the sound of the explosion practically deafened him and killed several soldiers near him. From that moment on, he resigned himself that it was kill or be killed, and resumed being an active soldier for the duration of the war.

I don't know why Albert Hamby was on my mind this morning. Perhaps it was the fact that today is September 11, or that this year is the 75th anniversary of D-Day, but he is a good man to remember any day.

While I was still married to his daughter, Albert sold off his logging equipment and got all his affairs in order.  He then told his family he just didn't feel well, and it turned out he had a massive brain tumor that robbed him of his life in 1974.

He was just 57 years old.

He was the proverbial good old country boy.

His handshake was his bond.

He was proud of his service to his country.

He signed a note to help a scrawny son-in-law buy a car.

He died too soon.

                                                 Albert Lee Hamby

                                       May 29, 1916-March 24, 1974

                                                      Rest in Peace

Incentive to kill

By AMBASSADOR EARL COX and KATHLEEN COX

Special to The Record

Most would agree that crime doesn’t pay, and they would be right, unless the reference is to jailed Palestinian murderers and terrorists.  You see, if a Palestinian murders a Jew and is captured, tried, convicted and incarcerated by the fair and impartial Israeli judicial system, they and their families will receive hefty lifetime monthly payments from the Palestinian Authority. There’s something very wrong with this picture. 

As a reference point, almost 16 years ago, Palestinian terrorists from Gaza carried out two consecutive suicide attacks in Israel; one at a bus stop near a hospital and military base and the other at a cafe on a busy street in Jerusalem. A total of 75 Jewish people were injured, some losing limbs and eyes, and 16 others lost their lives. Since that time, the Palestinian Authority has paid 3,248,900 NIS (New Israeli Shekel) in financial rewards to those who carried out these two attacks.  In U.S. dollars, that equates to more than $800,000.  To put this in a context to which all can relate, that’s more than $32,000 per year for 25 years with no end in sight. Quite a nice retirement pension and this is in addition to the payments received by the families.

Among the victims of the cafe attack were Dr. David Applebaum and his daughter Nava, who was to be married the day after the attack. American-born Dr. Applebaum was chief of the emergency room and trauma services of Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Medical Center and a specialist in emergency medicine. Before the attack he had just participated in a symposium where he taught terror-trauma procedures to medical professionals. It’s important to note that Israeli medical professionals treat the victims of suicide (homicide) attacks as well as the perpetrators, if they survive their evil deed.  Ironically, in the emergency room, the innocent victims may be receiving treatment right next door to the person who perpetrated the crime and Israeli doctors do not discriminate.  Their job is to save lives and they do it well.  Any judging is left to God and the justice system.  

Alon Mizrachi, the security guard at the café, was killed when he identified the suicide bomber and shoved him toward the door just as he exploded. While Mr. Mizrachi died, his quick actions saved many others. Alon Mizrachi was the uncle of Ziv Mizrachi, an IDF soldier who was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in November 2015.  There is virtually no one in Israel who has not been impacted by Palestinian terrorists in some way yet the olive branch of peace is constantly extended only to have the Palestinians trample it underfoot.  

The PA has vowed to continue paying martyrs and terrorists and has even taken their “pay for slay” program to a higher level.  Those who manufacture the suicide belts used by the terrorists now also receive monthly salaries of 7000 NIS or approximately $1750.00 USD per month.  The average Palestinian could work a 60 hour work-week and not earn this much!  

So, back to the question of, “Does crime pay?”   The answer is yes, crime does pay if you happen to be a Palestinian who wants to kill Jews. 

Payments to terrorists are guaranteed by Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (a.k.a. Abu Mazen) and his Palestinian Authority (PA). In addition to guaranteeing terrorists in Israeli prisons a monthly salary, the PA passed the “Law of Prisoners and Released Prisoners” act which prohibits the PA from signing any peace agreement that does not include the release of all the Palestinian terrorists being held in Israeli prisons and this includes the murderers.

The world is insane to expect Israel to live side by side with such evil-minded people.   The days are long behind us when we could count on people, especially our elected officials,  to “do the right thing.”   Those who know the truth have a duty and an obligation to speak out in support of Israel by using our voices, our pens, and our votes.

 Pass the Pawpaw Please

By CARL WHITE

Life in the Carolinas

Carolina days in late summer provide us with humid warm weather, afternoon showers and the anticipation of a colorful fall season.

This time of the year also provides a forgotten or little know tasty treat.

As with all things, there are those “in the know” who are glad our largest native American fruit remains somewhat elusive. It means less competition in finding and consuming this vintage delicacy.  

In case you haven’t guessed, I’m talking about the Pawpaw fruit. While it is grown in about half the nation, due to its short harvest season, ease of bruising and short shelf life, the pawpaw is not found in common grocery stories. You may find them at local farmers markets and even then, only for a few weeks during the year.

I have had the opportunity to introduce the curious fruit to several people this year. Some have said that it will take some getting used to and others have proclaimed their profound gratitude for the introduction. To me, the Pawpaw has the blended flavor of a mango, banana and pineapple.

A few words of wisdom to those new to the Pawpaw: It’s a bit like a custard. It’s important to pick them when they are ripe. They are best when the flesh is yellow and soft, but not too dark and mushy, unless that’s the way you love them.

It’s flexible and can be used in just about anyway you like. It’s like anything else, you just need to experiment and see if you find something that works for you. Pawpaw ice cream is a favorite of many. A cup and half of mashed Pawpaw, two cups of cream, two cups milk, a cup of sugar, a teaspoon of vanilla extract and five egg yokes. Apply your ice cream making method and then you will have an amazing treat.

For those of a certain age, the Pawpaw Patch Song will bring back memories. The Pawpaw Patch Song has several regional versions. This is one of more common versions of the youthful folk song:

Where, oh where is pretty little Susie?

Where, oh where is pretty little Susie?

Where, oh where is pretty little Susie?

Way down yonder in the paw-paw patch.

Come on, boys [or girls, or kids], let’s go find her,

Come on, boys, let’s go find her,

Come on, boys, let’s go find her,

Way down yonder in the paw-paw patch.

Pickin’ up paw-paws, puttin’ ‘em in her pockets,

Pickin’ up paw-paws, puttin’ ‘em in her pockets,

Pickin’ up paw-paws, puttin’ ‘em in her pockets,

Way down yonder in the paw-paw patch.

It’s hard to say how many Pawpaws you can get in your pocket because they vary in sizes.

Dr. Greg Reighard, a Professor in the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences at Clemson University, is conducting research on Pawpaws. Clemson Musser Fruit Research Center has a good size grove of Pawpaw Trees with a variety of cultivars. The fruit can be small or up to a pound or more. So, you might only get one of those in your pocket.

While the flesh is good to eat, you should not eat the skin or the seeds. A lot of research is being done on the tree leaves and bark as they seem to have anti-cancer properties.

Another note of nature wonderment; The beautiful Zebra Swallowtail Butterfly comes for the larvae that take its primary food source from the leaf of the Pawpaw tree.  

Please pass the Pawpaw; It’s warm outside and I need to make some ice cream.

 Carl White is the Executive Producer and Host of the award-winning syndicated TV show Carl White’s Life In The Carolinas. The weekly show is now in its 11th year of syndication and can be seen in the Charlotte market on WJZY Fox 46 Saturday’s at noon and My 12. The show also streams on Amazon Prime. For more information visit www.lifeinthecarolinas.com. You can email Carl at Carl@lifeinthecarolinas.com

[thechasefiles]

The Chase Files Daily Newscap 8/30/2019

Good Morning #realdreamchasers. Here is your daily news cap for Friday, August 30th, 2019. There is a lot to read and digest so take your time. Remember you can read full articles via Barbados Today (BT), or by purchasing a Weekend Nation Newspaper (WN).

FIGHT OVER BANK FEE –More than a year after a legal fight began over a $5 bank fee, the matter is yet to be heard by the Fair Trading Commission (FTC). And attorney Chester Sue is not letting up, no matter how paltry the amount is, insisting that if he does not get a hearing before the FTC soon, he will revert to his original plan to go to the High Court.In May last year, the lawyer made known his intention to challenge Republic Bank over its charging of $5 as a maintenance fee. The customer of more than 30 years had maintained that the court would have to tell him he was wrong to not pay the money.Yesterday, he said that in May 2018 when it first came to light through the Weekend Nation that he intended to take legal action, he received an invitation to take the matter before the FTC. “Given the cumbersome High Court civil procedures and the tardiness of having matters dealt with there, I thought going before the Fair Trading Commission would have been less procedural and the matter would have been quickly disposed. Alas, I have been so wrong,” Sue said.(WN)

PENSION PRESSURE FOR ST. JOHN MAN –Wayne “Ricky” Gibbons of Gall Hill, St John, has suddenly lost his $750 pension which Government replaced with a $24 monthly cost of living allowance. And he doesn’t understand why, since the Government said it would reverse the decision.Gibbons spent more than two decades watching over the Queen Elizabeth Hospital as a security officer until it took its toll and he was forced to retire medically unfit with severe back problems. He agreed to take the gratuity and reduced pension and also applied for the invalidity benefit from the National Insurance Scheme.“At the time, I didn’t know I could apply for invalidity, but two doctors advised me to do it and now that is pretty much all I have. Anyone in a similar situation to me, who wasn’t as lucky to get that advice, would only be getting that cost of living allowance,” he said.Gibbons’ story got worse shortly before Tropical Storm Dorian passed, when a driver lost control and slammed into his parked vehicle on his property.(WN)

STILL NO WORD FROM GOVERNMENT ON OUTSTANDING BENEFITS– Scores of Barbadians on National Insurance disability benefits, who are eagerly awaiting the restoration of their pension from the treasury, are growing restless with Government as another deadline approaches without word from authorities. Leaders of at least two local trade unions say their members, after getting little reassurance from workers at the Treasury Department, have come to them, desperate to find out if anything can be done on their behalf. Last July, after numerous delays, Minister in the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Ryan Straughn announced that Barbadians receiving their pensions would have the money, which was slashed back in May, repaid retroactively. “We haven’t heard anything either and our members have been making calls to the Treasury and they have said that they have not received any instruction to restore it. So I am a little bit perplexed that the thing has not been restored just yet,” said acting General Secretary of the National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) Delcia Burke. She told Barbados TODAY, efforts by union officials to provide more clarity have been futile, because treasury workers will only give information to people who are affected. “…But our members are calling us. Minister Colin Jordan said it should be paid by the end of August, but so far nothing has come and I cannot tell you why,” added Burke. The union leader said the near four-month impasse continues to severely affect the livelihoods of the deprived pensioners. “If you are accustomed to a particular amount of money and you understand that money will last till you reach 67 and all of a sudden it is snatched away from you, obviously you would not have budgeted for the loss of that money. So it has been having a very negative impact on people right now. “People have not been able to complete a number of payments. Some people are having difficulty paying their rent and obviously they have to cut down on things like food and toiletries. We would have written to the Ministry of the Civil Service asking for an intervention or at least an explanation. But so far, we have not heard anything,” said Burke. “Pay the people as soon as possible,” the union leader urged. Affected pensioners have recently been contacting Barbados TODAY and popular call-in programmes to voice their frustration at the situation. The issue came to national attention when Janice Harris mounted a one-woman protest outside the Houses of Parliament in May. When contacted, Minister of Labour Colin Jordan said the matter was now squarely under the supervision of his counterpart in the Ministry of Economic Affairs Ryan Straughn. However multiple efforts to reach Straughn were unsuccessful. Meanwhile, General Secretary of Unity Workers’ Union, Senator Caswell Franklyn accused Government of trying to save money on the back of the poor. “These [pensioners] are people who cannot work anymore and are entitled to receive their invalidity benefits under the National Insurance Act. Those benefits are payable until you reach pensionable age. It is not a pension right now and Government has no reason other than dishonesty to cut it. It has never been done before but in this current climate, they are trying to save money on the backs of the people,” he told Barbados TODAY. Franklyn also questioned Government’s decision to write-off thousands of dollars in taxes for members of the business community, while disadvantaging working-class citizens. “It is hurtful. Nobody voted for this and nobody expected that this Government would be so cruel to the very people that voted for it,” said the union leader.(BT)

WHARTON TAKES THE WHEEL – A spokesman for route taxi and minibus workers is the new chief executive of the public bus company, the Transport Board. Fabian Wharton, a former manager of telecom giant Cable and Wireless, was until recently a representative for a new association of public service vehicle workers. In a statement, the Transport Board noted Wharton held different regional positions at C&W, where he was responsible for the consolidation of the data centres resulting in a reduction in operating costs. He was also integral in the retooling of human resources leading to increased productivity and was a key component in the renegotiation of all external contracts. Wharton said in the statement: “I am looking forward to working alongside the team at the Transport Board and excited at the opportunity to continue the excellent work that the Chairman, Board of Directors and Management have been doing.” Chairman Ian Gooding-Edghill and the board have declared that Wharton brings a diverse knowledge base to the management team. Wharton is to begin his tenure on September 1.(BT)

DLP WELCOMES OLD GUARD –There is still a place in the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) for members of the Freundel Stuart cabinet according to recently re-elected President Verla Depeiza. In fact, the party leader feels no threat in the face of consecutive challenges by outspoken former Minister of Culture, Stephen Lashley for leadership of the party which suffered an embarrassing 0-30 defeat at the May 2018 polls. Speaking to Barbados TODAY for the first time since she was confirmed as head of the party, Depeiza says she expects to receive challenges from fellow party members. “They [former DLP ministers] were shying away, but by virtue of their history, they’re all members of general council. All former MPs are members of this party, so they’re entitled to come and participate,” said DePeiza in a brief response to questions about the party’s former leaders. When asked whether she felt threatened by the return of Lashley and other familiar faces like former Prime Minister Stuart and former Minister of Tourism, Richard Sealy at major party events, DePeiza said: “You can only threaten something that belongs to you. The presidency doesn’t belong to me. I will work in my position and my record will speak for itself. That is it.” DePeiza was re-elected President at the party’s 64th Annual General Conference held last weekend and it was widely reported Lashley once more withdrew his bid on the eve of the elections. Since June, when the party’s election process started, DePeiza said she expected to be challenged by Lashley. With her new mandate, Depeiza told Barbados TODAY work still needed to be done to “shore up” the party internally. “If we are strong at George Street, then we can face the country better. But we are tightening up our processes and of course candidate selection has to take place,” she said. According to the president, the DLP was focused on completing its strategic development plan, which involved a number of groups and committees. During the party conference, Former Senator Irene Sandiford-Garner retained the post of first vice president out of a field of nine candidates. Simon Alleyne was elected as second vice president, Andre Worrell as third vice president and Nicholas Alleyne as fourth vice president. “I am very happy,” said Verla, when questioned about her new team. “We have a mixture of youth and experience and that is important for any dynamic organisation so you can see the succession plan. We will switch roles during the year. We will have people acting as spokespersons, people in more administrative roles, but everybody will have the opportunity to work in different capacities in relation to the first vice president. According to Depeiza, the group, supported by the party’s general council, would seek to hold Government accountable on numerous pressing issues ranging from the country’s social services to the economy. “The country is in the doldrums. We have spent the last 15 months spinning top in mud. We have made no progress on any fronts. The Barbados Labour Party when in opposition had a six-month checklist and they have achieved none of those objectives except to improve the foreign reserves. But they have improved their foreign reserves by not paying their bills,” said DePeiza, who described the steps as “retrograde”. “Everything else, including the social services, is in chaos, with the benchmarks and time limits constantly being moved. They keep shifting the goalposts and you keep hearing different dates for implementation. So I don’t have any confidence. I don’t know how much confidence the country can have in a situation like that where you are constantly pushing and shoving and 15 months in, they still don’t seem to know what to do to run the country.”(BT)

BOLDEN FAMILY HOME TO BE FIXED –After fearing their run-down home would not withstand the impact of a passing storm, a St Philip North family has been visited by their MP, who has promised to have their home fixed. But they may have to wait as the Government agencies tasked with restoring their homes lack the cash to finish the job, the parliamentary representative has conceded.  A day after the Bolden family’s plight was highlighted by Barbados TODAY, MP Dr Sonia Browne visited their home today and found a house in bad shape and in urgent need of attention. She said a check with the Rural Development Commission revealed that “a few houses were built but a lot of them fell into disrepair.” The MP told Barbados TODAY: “There is no guarantee that after a hurricane that house will stay up.  “The house will be built over but I can’t say how soon this will be done. But her name is in the system.” Dr Browne said that there is irreparable water damage. She said: “All I can do is try to pull it through but there are a few houses in St Philip North which are like that.  “There is also a problem with a burst pipe but I called the relevant auhorities.” On Tuesday, a Barbados TODAY team came across Beverley Bolden whose dilapidated timber home had become a house of horror as she prepared for Tropical Storm Dorian. She said: “All the back is breaking away.My daughter didn’t sleep the night Tropical Storm Dorian passed because she thought it was going to blow off.  “I would like the whole house fixed because it is too far gone.  “When it rains, the water comes in from the side.” Bolden, who lives with her pensioner mother and a mentally challenged son pleaded for assistance. Browne said help is on the way as both rural and urban development commissions have been contacted but the only setback is a lack of funds. She said: “I spent a good piece of money on this house already. The face sink, piecing together the wood so it wouldn’t break apart but I spent thousands on the house.”(BT)

“MUMMY I GONE” – A St George mother, puzzled by the disappearance of her young adult son, is longing to see his face again. Crying out that her body was feeling tired from worrying about where Rahim Juwan Ward, 22, could be, Barbara Dorant Layne told Barbados TODAY at her Cottage Grove, St George home the only way she would begin to feel better was if she got some form of closure. “Everyday as it goes by, for me, it gets harder because the days are longer. And I still don’t know where he is. No concrete evidence, nothing. “At least I think I would feel better if I get closure, whether he come dead or alive, I would get closure. I want to see him,” Dorant Layne said. Then addressing her missing son directly, she said: “Rahim, if you can hear me, come home. I would please like him to come home. “Calling his phone and it keep going into voicemail up to yesterday morning, after that it just cutting out.” Dorant Layne said what she believes to be a nightmare started around 2 a.m. last Saturday when police knocked on her door and informed her that there was a shooting in St Andrew and her son was in the victim’s company. The injured individual had to receive medical attention, she said, but her son has not been seen or heard since. She recalled that the last time she saw her son was after 5 p.m. on Friday when he told her: “Mummy, I gone”. She said she knew he was headed to his grandmother’s house at Walkers Valley, where he was raised and where most of his friends live. According to Ward’s grandmother, Virgene Dorant, he left her house around 9:30 p.m. Dorant Layne further explained that the mother of Ward’s one-year-old daughter heard him around 10:30 p.m. when he sent her a message via WhatsApp asking what his daughter was doing. As she held her granddaughter, she told Barbados TODAY: “I am at a loss as to what transpired. I don’t know if he get shoot, if he dead, I don’t know anything. “For me, this is a situation that I cannot deal with because I don’t feel comfortable with him out there and not knowing where he is. I can’t sleep, I just cannot sleep. “This is his daughter. She is only a year, and I don’t know where Rahim is. This is taking a toll on me, I just can’t deal with it. I do not know where Rahim is.” The mother of two described her son as private and confidential. She said though he was secretive and genuinely quiet, there were times he was jovial. “Rahim didn’t have any problems, I telling you,” she said. “Rahim was one of those children that was happy and he had everything on a platter. Rahim didn’t have to worry about nothing. “I made sure everything was there for him, and if I didn’t do it, my mother was Rahim’s backbone. “I raised Rahim without a father. My husband raised my son and he is not his father. “My mother made sure that Rahim get the best like any child. I really don’t know the circumstances surrounding his disappearance, I really wish I knew.” Dorant Layne said that she did not know her son, an accounts assistant at the Barbados Public Workers’ Cooperative Credit Union, to be involved in any trouble though she acknowledged disliking the company he keeps. But she said she has never received a complaint about him. She said: “My problem is certain people he associate himself with I didn’t like it. “But that fella that get shoot, I do not know this fella. I have never seen him. “The only friends I know belongs to Raheim are the ones he raise up with, out by my mother. I only moved here in 2005.” Ward, who is about six feet tall, of medium build and of light brown complexion, was wearing a long black jogger’s pants with white stripes at the sides, and a black shirt and black slippers. Police at District ‘B” have appealed for information on the young man’s whereabouts, asking the public to contact the station at Boarded Hall at 437-4311, police emergency 211, Crime Stoppers at 1-800-Tips (8477) or the nearest police station. (BT)

MISSING ARNOLD HUSBANDS – The Royal Barbados Police Force is seeking the public’s assistance in locating a missing man. He is 60-year-old Arnold Carlos Husbands, of No. 31, 1st Avenue Pillersdorf Development, St Michael.Husbands was last seen about 3 p.m. on Tuesday, August 27, by his aunt Rosina Clarke, 81, of the same address, when he left the residence to go for a walk. He has not been seen since.At the time, he was wearing a red and yellow shirt, long black pants and a blue and white scarf around his head.Husbands is 5 feet 9 inches tall, with a dark complexion. He has a medium build and is clean-shaven with greying unkempt hair. He is missing top and bottom teeth from the front of his mouth and wears spectacles. He has scars to the back of both of his upper arms.Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Arnold Carlos Husbands is asked to contact the District ‘A’ Police Station at 430-7242/7246, Police emergency at 211, Crime Stoppers at 1-800-TIPS (8477) or the nearest police station.(WN)

TIME SERVED –The final two of six Guyanese drug traffickers are homeward-bound after the Barbados Court of Appeal, using its “discretion” released them based on the time already served for trafficking cannabis and cocaine into the island 14 years ago. The court gave each convict credit for time spent on remand and “bundled” the drug offences according to section 22(1) of the Interpretation Act, Cap 1. Chief Justice Sir Marston Gibson in dismissing the appeals against the “safe and satisfactory” convictions noted that there was no lurking doubt about their guilt and that trial “reached a conclusion that is unassailable”. Today’s ruling brought a nine-year appeal to an end in what Chief Justice Gibson described a “legendary” case involving 464.5 pounds of illegal drugs which came to a close today. However, the Court of Appeal allowed the appeals against the December 2009 sentences in the cases against Lemme Michael Campbell and Rohan Shasti Rambarran and varied the sentences “in our discretion to time served”. Today’s 94-page decision handed down by Sir Marston came over three years after the court heard the appeal which was lodged back in 2010. Six persons were arrested, tried and convicted of importation, possession, trafficking of 91.3 kilos of cannabis and 119.4 kilos of cocaine on November 29, 2005. The illegal substances were discovered in 16 hollowed-out logs and two suitcases when lawmen executed a search at the residence of Christopher and Dianne Bacchus. The husband and wife never appealed and have since been released from prison along with two other appellants Somwattie Persaud and Gavin Wayne Green. At the start of today’s proceedings, the Chief Justice declared that the case deserved the description legendary for several reasons. “It was the longest trial in recent memory, and perhaps in the entire history of trials in this country to occupy the High Court of Barbados. The trial took some 14 weeks, resulting in ten volumes of trial transcript consisting of 4,656 pages, a summation volume of 545 pages, and a mitigation and sentencing volume of 136 pages, for a total of 5337 pages of trial transcript,” he stated. In addressing the appellant Rambarran who was represented by attorneys Sir Richard Cheltenham, QC, and Shelly-Ann Seecharan, the Chief Justice pointed out that the trial judge in sentencing stated that he was the “principal or mastermind” behind this illegal enterprise making arrangements to ensure that the illegal drugs were shipped to Barbados. He was then sentenced to 15 years for importation of cannabis; 20 years for importation of cocaine; 15 years for possession of cannabis; 20 years for possession of cocaine; 25 years for trafficking of cannabis; 30 years for trafficking of cocaine. The sentences were to run concurrently from December 11, 2009. In the case of Campbell, who had Arthur Holder and Kendrid Sargeant as his attorneys, Sir Marston reminded the sitting that the sentencing judge indicated that ‘you played a major role in the execution of these offences and there was a high degree of sophistication employed in getting these drugs in Barbados’. He was sentenced to 15 years for importation of cannabis; 20 years for importation of cocaine; 15 years for possession of cannabis; 20 years for possession of cocaine; 20 years for trafficking of cannabis; 25 years for trafficking cocaine. Those sentences were also to run concurrently. However the island’s top judicial officer said the court “must emphasise, therefore, that we do not, indeed cannot, say that the trial judge erred since the rules which we now apply did not exist for the trial judge’s benefit during the sentencing”. Those rules are that a convicted person must be credited their full time spent on remand. “Nonetheless, it is now settled law . . . to be utilised in a pending case are the current rules and not those extant at the time the original determinations were made in the case itself. It suggests an uncomfortable level of retroactivity more often seen in legislation which expressly states that as its purpose. “The fact that the sentences were imposed upon appellants Rambarran and Campbell some two years before a court decision by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) does not deprive them of the right to full credit for the time which they spent on remand prior sentencing,” he stated. He explained that there was also another rule which must be retroactively applied and it involves the “bundling” of offences of trafficking, importation and possession of drugs – according to section 22(1) of the Interpretation Act, Cap 1 of the Laws of Barbados which stated that an offender is not to be punished twice for the same act or omission. As such the court dismissed the importation and possession of cocaine and cannabis charges and focussed on the trafficking charge of both substances. Stating that the court was unable to find evidence that Rambarran was the mastermind or central actor, the sentence was adjusted and began at a starting point of 20 years for trafficking cocaine and 15 years for trafficking cannabis. After taking several factors into account the sentence was adjusted downward to start at 15 years for trafficking of cocaine and ten years for trafficking cannabis. His four months served on remand were then deducted leaving Rambarran with 14 years and eight months for trafficking cocaine and nine years and eight months for trafficking cannabis – to run concurrently from the date of sentence, December 11 2009. The Chief Justice further stated that there was no indication that the case against Rambarran and Campbell was “sufficiently different” in relation to their role or execution of the offence but were “however different to the other four who have all been released from custody”. Campbell got the same starting sentence as Rambarran but after taking in several considerations it was adjusted downwards to 15 years for trafficking cocaine and ten years for trafficking cannabis. His four years and 11 days spent on remand were then deducted leaving him with ten years, 11 months, 19 days for trafficking cocaine and five years 11 months, 19 days for trafficking cannabis, also to run concurrently from December 11, 2009. “We, therefore, conclude that the just thing to do is to vary the sentences to time served and direct the release today of appellants Rambarran and Campbell,” Sir Marston said before the two were escorted out of the Supreme Court by three immigration officials and a representative from the Guyana Consulate.(BT)

BIG DROP IN TRAFFIC VIOLATIONS – Police are recording a drastic reduction in traffic violations and a smaller decrease in the number of road accidents. And this has come in for praise from a well-known road safety advocate.Speaking at the National Consultation on Traffic Management at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre on Wednesday night, Sergeant Jennifer Gibson, of the Royal Barbados Police Force’s Research Department, revealed that while 13 323 traffic offences were reported between January and July last year, only 8 777 were reported for the same period this year. She, however, could not provide a reason for the decline.In terms of accidents, 4 671 were reported between January to July 2018, while the number for this year stood at 4 344. Gibson said the most significant reduction occurred in May in which there were 598 recorded accidents this year compared to 708 last year. “Overall, we have three territorial jurisdictions where we capture accident information, which are the Bridgetown, Northern and Southern Divisions,” she said. “Bridgetown tends to have the most traffic accidents by virtue of commercialisation and it is the most traversed area.(WN)

POLICE SEIZE GUNS – The Antigun and Gangs Unit of the Royal Barbados Police Force is currently conducting investigations into the discovery and seizure of five firearms. The discovery was made on Tuesday at the compound of an established courier company.Police have not released the name of the company, explaining that investigations are at sensitive stage.The cargo in which the firearms were discovered had entered the island via the Grantley Adams International Airport. (BT)

WANTED MAN ARRESTED, WILL APPEAR IN COURT TOMORROW ON GUN CHARGES– Wanted man Jakobe Talik Germain, 22, 8th Avenue, New Orleans, St Michael will appear in court tomorrow on gun and ammunition charges. Germain was apprehended by police today at an apartment at Balmoral Gap, Hastings, Christ Church.He is charged with possession of a firearm without a valid licence to do so and possession of 13 rounds of ammunition also without a permit. These offences occurred on Sunday, July 28, at Ashby Alley, Nelson Street, St Michael.Germain is expected to appear in the District ‘A’ Magistrate’s Court.  (BT)

OBSERVATION FOR RUM THEIF – A 23-year-old will spend the next three weeks at the Psychiatric Hospital being assessed on his suitability to be a candidate for Verdun House. Dequan Kaream Bobb, of Garden Land, Country Road, St Michael will make his next appearance before Magistrate Graveney Bannister on September 18 when a report is expected to be handed over to the District ‘A’ Traffic Court. Bobb pleaded guilty to entering Desta’s Bar and Deli between August 18 and 19 and stealing $1,385 in items including 28 bottles of rum, seven packs of snacks, a bottle of tobacco and 27 bottles of assorted beer, belonging to Desta Baptiste.(BT)

ADDICT “ANYTHING FOR A HIT” – Not only did he sell his shoes in order to purchase his drug of choice, but a 30-year-old today told a Bridgetown magistrate that he would sell about anything to get that next hit. Everton Rommell Brathwaite walked into the District ‘A’ Traffic with only a pair of white socks on his feet and no shoes which he told Magistrate Graveney Bannister that he had sold. Brathwaite, of Kew Road, Bank Hall, St Michael made the disclosure as he told the magistrate about his addiction with cocaine and cannabis. He had moments before pleaded guilty to five burglary charges and was sentenced to 30 months in prison. He was ordered to undergo drug rehabilitation and counselling while serving his time. Brathwaite admitted that he entered Crumbz Bakery twice between August 1 and 11 and stole drinks and cash totaling $373.50 to belonging to Curtis Todd. He also pleaded guilty to robbing Deborah Phillips-Small of a handbag and its contents and cellular phone on August 11, total value $790.. The convicted man further admitted to entering the residence of Marilyn Bacchus as a trespasser on July 20 and stealing a $900 boom box and a $400 cellular phone. It is alleged that he had a sword at the time. Esther Goddard also became his victim when he stole $300 cash and a pencil case from her on August 10.(BT)

RILEY’S BACK AT THE HELM –Conde Riley achieved last night what many batsmen have failed to do – keep out a yorker from Joel “Big Bird” Garner. The one-term president of the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA), who had previously lost two elections to the giant former West Indies fast bowler, was returned to the position after registering a comfortable victory by a margin of 86 votes during the 17th special meeting of members at Kensington Oval.Before a standing room only turnout on the second floor of the 3Ws Stand, Riley, a retired investment banker, polled 198 votes, while Garner, who served as BCA president from 2007 to 2017, received 112 votes. There were two spoilt votes.Given the interest in the election, the start of the meeting was delayed by almost an hour to allow members to register, and after the polls closed at 7 p.m., chairman of the BCA’s elections committee, Carlyle Carter, announced Riley the winner just before 7:30 p.m.The 66-year-old Riley, who was first elected to the BCA board in 1996, and served as Garner’s first vice-president for the majority of his predecessor’s tenure, attributed his re-election to the work of his board of directors over the past two years. (WN)

LORDE CAUTIONS BAJAN ATHLETES – Chairman of the National Anti-Doping Commission (NADC), Dr Adrian Lorde, is sending a stern warning to Barbadian athletes, urging them to be extremely cautious about using non-prescribed medication. His comments came just days after Jamaica’s sprint sensation Briana Williams tested positive for a banned diuretic.The 17-year-old World Under-20 double sprint gold medallist and Jamaica’s national junior record holder in the 100 metres, returned two positive samples for hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ) following tests by the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission.The drug, which is on the list of banned substances by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), is used to reduce fluid, swelling, treat high blood pressure, to mask other banned substances and for weight loss. “I want our athletes to be very careful of whatever they ingest. We usually advise them not to take supplements because we cannot guarantee the supplements contain what they say they have in. That is a big issue where anti-doping is concerned. Sometimes they have in stuff that might not be on the list of ingredients. It extends to over-the-counter medications as well,” Lorde said during an interview with NATION NEWS. (WN)

NO PROMOTION AT POSTAL SERVICE – Members of the public are asked to note that the Barbados Postal Service (BPS) is not party to, or associated with a promotion scam offering a S10 Samsung phone, presently being circulated on social media. The scam has been drawn to the attention of the Postmaster General, who has denied the involvement of the BPS in the promotion. (BGIS)

RENAME GOLDEN SQUARE FOR NATION’S HEROES –Pan African activist David Denny has proposed that Golden Square, considered the flashpoint in the July 1937 Disturbances which helped usher in profound social change in Barbados be renamed National Heroes Square. It was at Golden Square that National Hero Right Excellent Clement Payne addressed crowds agitating for improved conditions in the then British colony before being arrested and deported to Trinidad, triggering the riots. Denny, who made the suggestion during an interview with Barbados TODAY, suggested such a change would also mean that Heroes Square would no longer be home to the statue of British naval hero Admiral Horatio, Lord Nelson. He declared: “[Heroes] Square could return to the name Trafalgar Square. I am not comfortable with our National Heroes Square housing Lord Nelson. Our National Heroes Square should represent the heroes of Barbados.” Denny also suggested that once Heroes Square was moved to Golden Square, several monuments should be developed in the area, to recognize the leaders of the 1937 riots and the Easter 1816 Rebellion. He told Barbados TODAY: “We should develop it as a place where Barbadian people can go and pay respects to those fighters of the 1937 period who would have led the process for our emancipation process in Barbados, and that would have helped to bring about the labour organisations and the political parties that would have been able to chart the course for Barbadian people.” During last year’s Day of National Significance on July 26, Prime Minister Mia Mottley suggested it was time to say goodbye to the old National Insurance Building, which neighbours Golden Square. The Prime Minister contended that Golden Square, the venue for many of Payne’s historic speeches, was steeped in unpleasant surroundings. She also said that the derelict building, located in “a prime space in this city”, also blocked the view of Independence Square.Denny, who said he agreed with Prime Minister Mottley’s comments, noted that he believes that other Pan Africanists and the general public would support his proposal. “I don’t think Barbadian people are comfortable with our National Heroes Square accommodating Lord Nelson. Lord Nelson is not a hero for Barbados,” Denny said. (BT)

That’s all for today folks there are 122 days left in the year Shalom!  Follow us on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram for your daily news. #thechasefiles #dailynewscaps #bajannewscaps #newsinanutshell

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New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/business/brexit-healthcare-worries-for-brits-in-spain/

Brexit healthcare worries for Brits in Spain

Image caption “We love the Spanish way of life – bowls in the morning followed by a long lunch,” says Sue Davies

British nationals who have retired to EU countries may no longer have their healthcare costs covered by the NHS in the event of no-deal Brexit deal, reports Vishala Sri-Pathma.

The British love affair with Spain dates back to the 1970s when package holidays first became popular. Since then they’ve visited in their millions, with many even taking the leap to move from Britain to make Spain their home.

There are 300,000 British-born migrants living in the country. For many of them the appeal is clear. During the years when the pound fared well against the euro, their money went a lot further in Europe than it did in the UK.

Along with the 300 days of sunshine in large parts of the Spain, the decision to move has been an easy one for many Brits.

“We love the Spanish way of life, bowls in the morning followed by a long lunch,” Sue Davis tells me after playing a match at the Benavista Bowls Club in Estepona on Spain’s Costa del Sol. Originally from Kent, she moved out to Marbella to retire 13 years ago and voted remain in 2016.

Image caption Currently expat pensioners can get treatment reimbursed by the NHS under an EU-wide deal

Sue is not alone in her pursuit of the Spanish retirement dream. There are about 70,000 British pensioners in Spain, many of them living on this part of the coast. They enjoy a sun-filled lifestyle in seaside towns, with breakfast menus featuring fry-ups instead of tortillas – and no Spanish required.

But uncertainty over what Brexit will mean for them now threatens their way of life and many are concerned they might have to return to cold, damp Britain.

Their main worry is healthcare payments. Currently pensioners can get treatment reimbursed by the National Health Service in Britain under an EU-wide set of reciprocal arrangements.

Pensioners who have paid in to the UK’s national insurance system for the qualifying number of years benefit from the S1 reciprocal healthcare rules if they retire in EU/EEA countries or Switzerland.

Image caption About 70,000 British pensioners live in Spain

A S1 certificate is available to anyone in receipt of a state pension, and to some workers who are sent overseas on a temporary basis by their UK employers.

The system currently saves the NHS about £450m a year. In 2017, a senior health department official told a parliamentary select committee that Spain charges an average of £2,300 for every pensioner it treats, compared with £4,500 charged by the NHS.

Yet there are no guarantees that this arrangement will continue under the Prime Minister Theresa May’s proposals to protect the rights of EU citizens, including the 1.2 million Britons living elsewhere in the EU.

London has said the S1 certificate may no longer be valid after 29 March 2019 – depending on what other countries decide to do in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

The UK government is currently advising expat Brits in the EU to register for access to healthcare in the EU/EEA country they live in, as some residents may need to be a long-term resident or to pay social security contributions to access free or discounted healthcare.

If you are in the process of applying for residency in an EU/EEA country, the UK advice is to take out separate health insurance.

Image caption “If we don’t get that healthcare payment lots of us will have to go home,” says Malcolm Buckley

Malcolm Buckley, originally from Halifax in Yorkshire, worries he might not be able to make ends meet if his healthcare payments are not covered. “I will have to return to Britain, the healthcare payments are important, without them I can’t afford to live here,” he tells me.

“We have no idea about what is going on. I feel like I’ve been disenfranchised for 30 years from the UK, the time I’ve lived away.

“I wasn’t even allowed to vote in the referendum. If we don’t get that healthcare payment lots of us will have to go home.”

Another blow to the British in Spain has been the falling value of the pound. “It’s (Brexit) costing me great amounts of money in my pocket,” one bowler says as he lines up the balls for the next game. “I’d like to sees the exchange rate to go back to what it was six years ago – but that’s wishful thinking.”

There are some fears about pension payments as well. Under Spanish law, citizens cannot hold dual citizenship. Some pensioners worry this might mean they’ll lose their right to a British pension and subsequently not see the benefits of decades of national insurance contributions.

Image caption “When I voted to leave I didn’t think it would change anything,” says Yvonne Stone

Yvonne Stone, 62, is one of the younger members of the club and tells me she voted for Brexit: “I’ve been here for three years and have no plans to go back to the UK – but it will depend on what happens.

“When I voted to leave I didn’t think it would change anything for my rights to live here. We like it here and we don’t want to go back but if I don’t get my pension we might not have a choice.”

Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has said he wants to secure all rights for British citizens in Spain regardless of what happens. London and Madrid have already signed a deal ensuring voting and working rights for respective migrants – but healthcare is not mentioned in this agreement.

Until further agreements are reached between the UK and individual EU member states, the UK is advising people to follow this latest guidance to ensure they are fully prepared for any unexpected healthcare requirements in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

[idontevenwannaknow]

Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program

It notes that there are division of energy employees occupational illness compensation additionally exceptions in the Social Safety Act for sure federal workers, ministers, and others. Regulatory capture occurs when a state company designed to act in the general public interest as a substitute acts to advance the interests of an important stakeholder group. Requires the President, within a yr and a minimum of every four years thereafter, to enter into a joint settlement with the National Academy of Public Administration and NAS to conduct a coverage assessment of climate change mitigation and adaptation options. In order for a claim to be accepted below dose reconstruction, NIOSH must find that there is at least a fifty percent chance that the claimant’s most cancers was caused by occupational radiation exposure. An additional 151 cases have been denied after dose reconstruction, because NIOSH establishedthat the chance that the claimant’s cancer was associated to their work with radioactive supplies at lower than fifty p.c. It permits eligible claimants to be compensated without the completion of a NIOSH radiation dose reconstruction or willpower of the likelihood of causation. Dose reconstruction is used to determine whether to compensate veterans for different diseases. Nationwide, nearly two-thirds of the instances involving dose reconstruction have been rejected by the Labor Department.

The availability of claimant data and the need to rework some circumstances in view of new claimant info or modifications to scientific methodologies involved in figuring out exposures also can have an effect on processing instances. The directive requires every intelligence neighborhood agency to determine policies and procedures that prohibit retaliation and to create a course of by means of which the company's Inspector Basic can assessment personnel or safety clearance selections alleged to be retaliatory. September 2013 and in December 2013. CNG expects to use the remainder of the online proceeds for capital expenditures and general company purposes. On account of the tip of the CTA cost, the CTA regulatory liabilities are labeled as present regulatory liabilities as of December 31, 2013 and the regulatory assets not related to the CTA are reclassified as long-time period regulatory belongings. These rights had been subsequently removed through the 2013 NDAA (handed previous to Edward Snowden's disclosures) and now not apply. I have been requested to testify because of my prior expertise with implementing comparable programs in the past.

All different Native Distribution Adjustment items haven't any impression on Berkshire’s results of operations since they are a pass-through. Adjustments in these assumptions might have a material impact on pension and other postretirement bills. Changes to earnings and expense items related to distribution have a direct impression on web income and earnings per share. UIL Holdings’ annual earnings tax expense and associated effective tax fee is impacted by variations between the timing of deferred tax non permanent distinction exercise and deferred tax recovery. No, you do not want an legal professional. The U.S. Benefit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) uses agency lawyers within the place of "administrative regulation judges" to decide federal employees' whistleblower appeals. Supervisor pay may be suspended in conditions the place there was a whistleblower reprisal or other crime. If a chimney technician providers your house and he falls off your roof and has a significant harm, guess who's required to pay for his medical bills and misplaced work? Principal Accounting Charges and Providers.

In spring 2017, we carried out a web based survey of 2000 Albertans who had engaged in paid employment in the province in the course of the past 12 months. Requires lined entities to offer financial assurance to EPA to demonstrate that they've the assets to be in compliance when the term offset expires. UI’s credit score rating must decline two ratings at Commonplace & Poor’s and three scores at Moody’s to fall beneath investment grade. Each employees compensation program is an funding. Countermeasures harm compensation program. Virginia Workers’ Compensation Commission staff carry employees' compensation. The Kentucky determination founds unconstitutionality on a distinction between the vast majority of employees and a very small minority, teachers. Should you had been injured whereas working at the Oak Ridge Division of Vitality facility or different energy-associated organization, contact the EEOICPA attorneys of the Regulation Offices of Tony Farmer & John Dreiser. Reasons for not refusing unsafe work are similar: not wanting to be a troublemaker, feeling no one would take it critically anyway, stress to maintain working and never realizing about the correct to refuse. The PC1-IC and PC2-IC applications are for power firms within gasoline distribution, energy transportation, power development, renewable power, agricultural cooperative, and utilities segments.

Do You Know How To Protect Your Body From Radiation Poisoning?

The dangerous radioactive fallout spewing from the damaged Japanese nuclear reactors is developing energy workers compensation program a need for excellent HEPA electronic home air cleaners and HEPA air cleaners to guard families and business from breathing radioactive dust. In Japan the Government told people inside fallout area to be indoors to isolate themselves from the radiation outside. The fact is that this is simply not enough! Homes and buildings are certainly not airtight and outside air will undoubtedly penetrate inside! Quality portable HEPA air cleaners or HEPA air cleaners having a high rate of air exchange by the hour is necessary to keep the indoor environment clean and clear of radioactive dusts that can induce cancers and also other health conditions.

The concept of Grid Parity is definitely the 'holy grail' inside solar industry with solar supporters extolling the necessity for government action to make sure the photovoltaic (PV) industry evolves into a viable competitor to fossil fuel producers. Detractors of the thought of a potential grid parity have traditionally asserted that solar won't contend with fossil fuel energy on price because of the costs associated with installing and PV plant.

What is quite crucial now could be to learn from your recent food contamination issues and search into how one can prevent these pollutants and toxins from entering the human body, and in addition what can be done to get rid of the detrimental body toxins which have already accumulated inside the body. Think of food issues like a turning point for healthy diets, it'll be the true secret of success to diet and weight loss. Eben has not been alone in partaking this poison. The radium craze broke out during the early 1900s, and was promoted as being a miracle cure for anything from acne to impotence. It's value as a placebo was likely amplified by the fact that it had been the only "medicine" that glowed at nighttime; a unique pizazz that undoubtedly captivated people generating it simple to trust the miraculous claims. For three decades, doctors along with the public alike heralded the seemingly endless health improvements of consuming radioactive water. Each NORM, together with having it's radioactive half-life, even offers a substance's biological half-life. The substance's biological half-life measures how much time it will take an appearance to eliminate half of the radioactive substance. There is a lot more variability on this measurement than there is in our first measurement, mainly because it all depends not merely for the isotope, but also the route the isotope took in to the body.

[poofandnub]

Corporations now own 15 percent to 20 percent of America’s 26,000 pet hospitals, and consolidators, copying the model pioneered by VCA, are buying them fast. (Banfield is one of the few big businesses building its own clinics; the rest are rolling them up.) In 2014 a chain of 250 hospitals called National Veterinary Associates was purchased by Ares Management for $920 million. In 2015 the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan spent $440 million to buy a pet hospital group. Last May, VCA spent $344 million for a group of 56 hospitals pooled together by a smaller consolidator for the express purpose of flipping them. In the past 15 months, Mars has bought two hospital groups for undisclosed amounts, adding more than 100 clinics to a portfolio that already includes 950 Banfield locations. “The individual ownership of veterinary hospitals in America? It’s got one more generation,” says Bill Folger, a former board member of the American Association of Feline Practitioners. “Maybe two.”

This is all happening despite laws in most states banning corporations from owning veterinary practices. As old-fashioned as it may sound, the idea behind the laws was that doctors employed by corporations might have a harder time exercising independent judgment on behalf of patients; commercial interests could intrude. Nonetheless, there’s a reason states allow complicated ownership structures—called management service agreements—that get around these laws: It’s what the doctors want. When it’s time to retire, vets expect to be able to sell their practices at the highest possible price, and these days that typically means selling to a corporation. “Just remember,” Antin says, “in every state we’re in, even the person who runs the state association, they’re a practicing doctor, and they want the freedom to be able to get value for their practice.”

Antin says he and his brother Art didn’t know anything about veterinary medicine when they started VCA in 1986 with a friend, Neil Tauber. But they did know how to run a health-care business. They’d made a small fortune with an outpatient surgery chain in the early 1980s. In pet care, they saw an opportunity to apply modern management techniques to poorly run, undercapitalized hospitals that could benefit from economies of scale. Today, VCA employs 3,000 veterinarians and owns 750 hospitals. Robb Animal Care Center was somewhere around the 200th purchased by the chain.

VCA’s most important acquisitions, though, have been labs; the company combined about a dozen testing facilities to create Antech Diagnostics, the industry’s biggest laboratory. Antech does bloodwork and other tests for more than half the country’s animal hospitals and accounts for 41 percent of VCA’s operating profit, according to the company’s financial statements. Fuller puts it this way when he speaks to investors: “Diagnostics is what grows the industry.”

More testing can sometimes provide more certainty; it almost always makes medicine more expensive. The cost of veterinary care has risen even faster than the cost of human health care, more than doubling since 2000, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Independent vets have to balance the cost of covering every possibility against the risk of using more restraint. The corporations lean toward a maximalist approach. Diane Petrillo, a registered nurse from New Haven and a former client of Robb’s, tells a story about how this was taken to absurd lengths last May when her VCA vet wouldn’t renew a prescription for her cat’s lifesaving blood thinners unless she paid $450 to repeat an echocardiogram that 12 months earlier had shown a deadly heart defect. “You already told me he’s never going to come off the meds, so why not just give it to him?” Petrillo asks.

The answer to that question may lie in VCA’s annual financial reports, which say the company’s business strategy is “to leverage our existing customer base by increasing the number and intensity of the services received during each visit.” When I ask Bob Antin what he thinks about that language and Fuller’s statements to investors, he waves it off. Those communications, he says, are meant for a financial audience and don’t affect VCA’s veterinarians. “A veterinarian? The last thing they think of is, ‘I’ve done five of these today. Can I do six of them tomorrow?’ That is the single last thing a veterinarian thinks, and if that kind of person exists, I don’t see them.”

But those people do exist, precisely because of the pressure VCA puts on its doctors, according to Wendy Beers, a veterinarian who resigned in 2014 from a VCA hospital in Albany, Calif. “Every month they would print out things to say how many packages you sold, how many procedures you did,” she says. “And if they came out and said, ‘This month we want everyone to do 20 heartworm tests,’ and you only did eight, well, next month you have to do better. I don’t feel when they’re lecturing us that their chief interest is to make sure animals get the best care.”

[goldstonefinancialgroupil]

What Could National Stimulus Relief Mean for You?

The post What Could National Stimulus Relief Mean for You? is available on: Goldstone Financial LLC

On March 27, 2020, President Donald Trump signed into law the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, a historic $2 trillion stimulus package designed to provide economic relief to Americans affected by the coronavirus pandemic, which by now includes every single person in the country, not to mention around the world.1

While everyone has been impacted in some way by the presence of this virus, there are those who may not benefit from this legislative relief. We’re happy to help you work with your current household income and expenses to establish a financial strategy designed to give you confidence in your financial future. Please contact us to schedule a consultation.

The CARES Act is scheduled to pay out stimulus income for eligible Americans. The amount will be based on several factors, much of which is determined by your most recent tax return. If you’ve already submitted a 2019 return, that will be the basis of the payment; if not, the government will determine your benefit from your 2018 tax return. Note that the CARES Act has scheduled only one stimulus payment per person, although the debate over future payments continues in Congress.2

The amount will be based on tax filing status and reported adjusted gross income (AGI):

Single filers with an AGI of $75K or less will receive $1,200; the amount will be reduced for those who earn more, phased out at $99K

Married joint filers with an AGI of $150K or less will receive $2,400; phased out at $198K

Heads of households with an AGI of $112.5K or less will receive $1,200

Those with qualifying children under age 17 will receive up to $500 for each child

Anyone claimed as a dependent by another taxpayer will not receive any stimulus money. Unfortunately, this criteria means young adults age 17 to 24 who have not earned enough money to file their own tax return in the past two years, and who can be claimed as a dependent on someone else’s tax return, will not receive a stimulus payout. Also, anyone who earned more than the thresholds on their last return but have since lost their job are not eligible for an immediate payout. They may, however, qualify for a rebate when filing their 2020 tax return.3

If you’ve previously provided the IRS your bank information for direct deposit, you don’t need to do anything to apply for the payout; payments are scheduled to be automatically deposited in late April.4

The CARES Act also enhanced unemployment insurance eligibility and payouts to include part-time and self-employed workers. The new legislation provides an extra $600 weekly payment (only through July 31, 2020), in addition to the weekly benefit amount eligible employees already receive under state law, and increases the maximum number of weeks individuals may receive benefits.5

The supplementary benefit is also available to people who were already receiving unemployment benefits. Qualified applicants include those who can’t work because of quarantine restrictions, whether voluntary or imposed. Note that employees who can work from home or are receiving employer-paid sick leave are not eligible for unemployment benefits.6

Federal student loan payments are automatically suspended for six months until September 2020 (private loans and FFEL loans excluded), although borrowers may continue making principal payments if they want. During this time, no interest will be charged on the loan balance.7

To give individuals the opportunity to recover from market losses, required minimum distributions from IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s and other non-pension retirement plans are suspended for the whole of 2020.8

The new legislation established a charitable deduction of up to $300 for people who don’t itemize.9 The law also bans landlords who have a government-backed mortgage (e.g., Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac) from charging penalties or evicting tenants unable to pay rent during this period.10

Content prepared by Kara Stefan Communications.

1 Ashlyn Still, Heather Long and Kevin Uhrmacher. The Washington Post. March 27, 2020. “Calculate how much you’ll get from the $1,200 (or more) coronavirus checks.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/coronavirus-stimulus-check-calculator/. Accessed March 30, 2020.

2 Ibid.

3 Terry Nguyen. Vox. April 15, 2020. “Why millions of college students and young adults won’t get a stimulus check.” https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/4/15/21222170/stimulus-checks-dependents-excluded. Accessed April 17, 2020.

4 Ashlyn Still, Heather Long and Kevin Uhrmacher. The Washington Post. March 27, 2020. “Calculate how much you’ll get from the $1,200 (or more) coronavirus checks.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/coronavirus-stimulus-check-calculator/. Accessed March 30, 2020.

5 Evandro Gigante, et al. Proskauer. April 5, 2020. “CARES Act Expands Unemployment Insurance.”

https://www.lawandtheworkplace.com/2020/04/cares-act-expands-unemployment-insurance-benefits/. Accessed April 9, 2020.

6 Kevin Drum. Mother Jones. March 30, 2020. “Here’s a Quick Primer on the New, Expanded Unemployment Benefits.” https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/03/heres-a-quick-primer-on-the-new-expanded-unemployment-benefits/. Accessed March 30, 2020.

7 Zack Friedman. Forbes. March 28, 2020. “Federal Student Loan Payments Will Be Suspended Through September 30.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2020/03/28/student-loans-payments-suspended/#1c1958881b10. Accessed March 30, 2020.

8 Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP. March 30, 2020. “CARES ACT– Impact on Tax-Qualified Retirement Plans.” https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/cares-act-impact-on-tax-qualified-36905/. Accessed March 30, 2020.

9 Leslie Albrecht. Marketwatch. March 30, 2020. “The $2 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill encourages Americans to donate to charity.” https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-2-trillion-coronavirus-stimulus-bill-encourages-americans-to-donate-to-charity-2020-03-30. Accessed March 30, 2020.

10 National Housing Law Project. March 28, 2020. “Summary and Analysis of Federal CARES Act Eviction Moratorium.” https://www.nhlp.org/wp-content/uploads/2020.03.27-NHLP-CARES-Act-Eviction-Moratorium-Summary.pdf. Accessed March 30, 2020.

We are able to provide you with information but not guidance or advice related to state or federal benefits. Our firm is not affiliated with the U.S. government or any governmental agency and does not provide tax or legal advice.

We are an independent firm helping individuals create retirement strategies using a variety of insurance and investment products to custom suit their needs and objectives. This material is intended to provide general information to help you understand basic financial planning strategies and should not be construed as financial or investment advice. All investments are subject to risk including the potential loss of principal. No investment strategy can guarantee a profit or protect against loss in periods of declining values.

The information contained in this material is believed to be reliable, but accuracy and completeness cannot be guaranteed; it is not intended to be used as the sole basis for financial decisions. If you are unable to access any of the news articles and sources through the links provided in this text, please contact us to request a copy of the desired reference.

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