Because most of the time, they run on such a small scale that they can evade the authorities. These schemes can be very complicated to run even when they’re done a very small scale. A Ponzi scheme is different from a pyramid scheme – where the system involves getting victims to unknowingly sign on more targets.

A Ponzi scheme and the other hand is run by a single person who runs the whole show.  They don’t rely on investors down the line to rope in new people. The chief fraud who starts it all – Madoff in this case – ropes in new people his own, and uses their money to pay off everyone who came before him. So basically, enterprises like the Madoff Ponzi scheme will only work when there is an unlimited supply of new investors willing to believe in the spiel of the head fraud.

A scheme like this will falter when the chief person is unable to find any new victims after a while. In the Madoff Ponzi scheme, Bernie Madoff made it run as long as he did by making everything look like he was bringing in returns for his investors that were not unlike what an investor would see investing in a Dow Jones-enlisted company or something.

The major stocks bring in reasonable rates of return – not killer rates. The Madoff Ponzi scheme worked by appearing respectable and promising dependable returns and not very high ones. He made his investors think that he was investing their money in standard stocks and making good bets. When there were only reasonable returns to pay investors with, Madoff was able to keep the show going without coming under too much strain.

He also evaded the attention of the authorities by remaining low-key. He would personally rope in the wealthy investors who weren’t all that happy keeping in touch with the authorities, themselves. He kept all his paperwork up to date, and he kept his operation clean looking.

Things fell apart for him when in the financial crisis of 2008, everyone wanted to liquidate their assets and he couldn’t, because he never invested the money.

To make sure that you don’t fall for a Ponzi scheme look for any signs that they make it difficult for you to withdraw your money. Very high rates of return when they don’t really explain their business model really well.

A post from: Great Articles

They sometimes call chapter 13 bankruptcy a debt reorganization for the way the courts help you reorganize your payments so you can manage things.  Most people, when it comes down to filing for bankruptcy, really hope that the courts will allow them to file under Chapter 7. When that happens, the courts give them a complete free pass out of paying off any of their debts. They can skip out of court free of everything.

Under chapter 13 though, you don’t get to escape anything. What the courts will do is to make it possible for you to pay things off on your salary in due course. Of course, you do get a certain amount of freedom from your debts. Whatever you can’t pay off in this way over five years though, the courts will completely excuse.

The good thing about filing Chapter 13 bankruptcy is that the courts won’t touch your property. Under chapter 7, they only excuse your debts insofar as your home your car and your gold fillings don’t make enough money to pay people off when they’re sold.

When you file Chapter 13, you first come to court and give them a list of everything you owe – the loans you’re behind on, the ones that you’re behind on and so on. You also give them a list of everything you have coming – your income, your assets, your investments and everything.

The courts will look at all of this, and ask you if you have a plan for paying all of this off over five years. You will show them how with your income, once you take reasonable living expenses away, you can pay things back in a certain number of years. The courts may or may not accept your plan.

There are rules about how much debt you can have if you want to file chapter 13. These figures keep changing over time. So you would do well to take a look first to see if the bar is too low for you.

Now the courts do allow you living expenses. They only ask you to pay your debts off with whatever disposable income is left over afterwards. What kinds of living expenses do they allow though?

They’ll allow you to, shelter, medicine, clothing and alimony,and child support (oh joy!). But that’s about it.

A post from: Great Articles

You have your choice of either kind of bankruptcy filing open to you. However, you do have to make sure that you choose something that the court will accept. If your trustee should have a problem with your choice of section under which to file, the court may decide to side with the trustee and throw your application out. Then, you’ll have to go back and file under the correct chapter.

Usually, you will get your application thrown out if you file under Chapter 7 even when you have some money to pay off at least some of your debts. The court will determine that you should not file under chapter 7 and ask for all your debts to be forgiven.

Basically, you choose chapter 7 if you are almost completely broke. The court will take whatever possessions or money you have, and use those to pay off your creditors. The courts will only allow you to file under this section if you have practically nothing for them to work with.

If you had at least something that they could construct a debt payment plan with, they push you to go with chapter 13 instead. Almost 100% of the time, people who have their chapter 7 filing accepted have no assets or savings whatever for the courts to use to pay any creditor off with.

But sometimes, they’ll accept your chapter 7 application even when you do have some money. They will do this when your debts are too great for your assets or savings to mean anything. This happens sometimes with people who have very steep medical bills.

So basically, a chapter 7 vs chapter 13 comparison shows you that chapter 7 is only for those who are in truly dire straits. It offers the most forgiveness, and it’s reserved for people who really need it.

The other choice, chapter 13, shows up as the right way to go for people who have a few assets and you don’t want the courts to use them all to pay people off. If you have a home that you don’t want confiscated, chapter 13 is where you have to go. For personal property protection, chapter 13 wins out in the chapter 7 vs chapter 13 comparison score.

For your chapter 13 application to be accepted, you need to have a certain amount of money at least so that the court has something to work with. Basically, the rule is that if you have as much money as you have assets that you don’t want to sold, the courts will then accept your application.

Declaring bankruptcy is a huge thing. It can be very important that you choose the right kind of chapter to file under. Go the wrong way, and you will either have your time wasted by having court throw your application out, or the courts will confiscate all your property even when you don’t want them to do that.

A post from: Great Articles

One thing that most people don’t realize is that student loan debts do not go away easily. You can not get out of them by filing for bankruptcy. You can, however, do some things to have your debts forgiven. If you are permanently disabled, this may be a reason you can get out. If you do certain volunteer things, you may get out from under some of it. If you want to see about these things, contact your lender and see if there is anything that you may qualify for so that you can get some of your debt forgiven. Don’t rely on it though, as it does not happen very often.

Another thing that you should know about student loan debts is that you do have options for holding off payment for a period of time, but this is not always a good idea. When you do this, typically through something called an economic hardship or through forbearance, you still accrue interest during this time. You have the option of making interest only payments in some cases, but this does nothing to reduce your initial debt. Talk with someone at your loan company about the best option for you if you are unable to meet your monthly payment obligations so that you don’t run your debt up even more.

Those that are unable to pay their student loan debts are often out of options and don’t know what to do. The bad news is that this is one thing that can be attached to or garnished from your wages. This means that up to 25% of your check can be deducted each pay period to repay your debt. In most cases one loan can take up to 15% and any others have to settle for 10% so that no more than 25% can be taken, but this is a huge amount of money to miss each week. You can get out of this, but if you aren’t make your payments as it is, this option is not going to be easy for you.

These are all things to think about when going into student loan debts. Some people have no problems paying off their loans, but you don’t know what your future holds. The advice here might be to try to minimize the amount you have to borrow as much as you can so that you are not under so much debt from student loans that you can never hope to pay it off. Your credit could be damaged, which means things like new car and home loans will be out of the question. It is easy to sign the papers, but not always so easy to live with the consequences, so think hard about what you should do first.

A post from: Great Articles

The actual cost of bankruptcy, as in legal fees and paying a lawyer, varies for each case. There are some lawyers that take less and some will charge you more. That is something that you have to find out by calling various lawyers in your area to see what they charge. Some cases are more complex than others, which are obviously going to cost you more. If you know someone who has filed and has not had issues talking about it, you can ask them who they used and what they would recommend. Find out how they came out of it as a result too, which may help you make up your mind.

When you file, you are not going to get all of your debts discharged. Some people can, but there are some that many have that are immune from bankruptcy. If you have student loans, they will stay with you. There are a few other types that are also going to remain on your credit and that you will still be liable for after you have filed. Consider this in the cost of bankruptcy. If student loans are your biggest problem, this may not be the answer for you. You’ll have to work with your lenders for some type of resolution that either lowers your debt or extends the payments if at all possible so that you can afford them.

The cost of bankruptcy is your credit. You will have this on your score for up to ten years. There are many lenders that will look at this as you are a person that is not responsible with money, and also a person who racks up large amounts of debt and then finds a way out of paying those debts. There are some things you may not get because of your bankruptcy. If a company fights you in court over getting their particular debt dismissed, those may too stay on your credit. Many companies don’t fight it, but there are some that will do it.

There is a good cost of bankruptcy however. There are some lenders that look at bankruptcy in a different way. Because you can only file for bankruptcy every ten years, they know that if they lend to you, you can not file again right away. They may then offer a high interest rate loan in some cases. You can not count on this though. Most people end up being okay though, as long as they take the time to learn why they were so deeply in debt, what mistakes they made to get there, and then learn how to better manage your money.

A post from: Great Articles

Is all the panic really justified? Are muni bonds on the brink of disaster? Perhaps not. It appears upon closer inspection that muni bonds are as safe a way to invest your money tax protected as they ever were. They may be a slower way in which to make your fortune; but they are dependable as nothing else. If there’s anything we’ve learned from the financial meltdown from three years ago, it is that there is nothing, but absolutely nothing, that you can completely rely on as dependable. Even the best funds had their reputations swallowed up by the debacle. Is there something here that we need to know about as far as muni bonds are concerned?

Why exactly do we believe that muni bonds are ironclad? It’s because they get investment grade ratings. Any state that has its rating slashed to something below investment grade, that certainly can be a warning. Well-informed muni bond investors  always keep in mind that just as with real estate, there is no one rule for the whole market. If muni bonds take a dive in one area, there will always be opportunities that come up in other areas or regions. Have Muni bonds ever actually been defaulted on? Have municipalities or states actually refused to repay their obligations? These kinds of things have happened from time to time; but since the government stands behind its bond issues, ultimately, bondholders are made whole again from one source or another. That’s what happened when Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was unable to pay its bondholders in 2010. The state though came in and made good on the city’s word. This is what you need about the different kinds of Muni bonds there are and how to pick the safest ones.

General obligation bonds are the safest ones. They have the government’s complete backing. The government promises to pay you back no matter what happens. They can raise taxes to do it, for instance. Assessment bonds are backed by taxes as well – property taxes, specifically. And these are very safe too. When it comes to revenue bonds though,  there certainly is a certain amount of risk at play. Revenue bonds for the government count on certain streams of revenue coming in the future to pay you back. If the government issues bonds to build a bridge and hopes to pay it back out of the tolls it collects, it can be in trouble if the building of the bridge takes longer than it expects or if there isn’t enough traffic to make the kind of income planned for. You’ll need to do a certain amount of research to make sure that the specific government body behind the issue of those bonds makes promises that it can keep.

Lebenthal On Munis: Straight Talk About Tax-Free Municipal Bonds for the Troubled Investor Deciding "Yes...or No!" Average Rating: 4 total customer reviews...

Handbook for Muni-Bond Issuers (Bloomberg Financial) Average Rating: 2 total customer reviews...

The Fundamentals of Municipal Bonds, 5th Edition Average Rating: 6 total customer reviews...

A post from: Great Articles