BY JAMES "BIRD" GUESS Credit cards do not put people in debt, financial decisions that people make is what put them in debt! On May 22, 2009, President Obama signed The Credit Card Holder’s Bill of Rights Act into law, which could potentially help people become debt free quicker. This new legislation will dramatically help the roughly 50% of American consumers who have charged nearly $1 trillion, and carry an average balance of $8,000. Twenty percent of those who carry a balance are paying more than 20% interest on that balance. Most of the new legislation will not become effective until early 2010, but it will finally use some common-sense methods regarding interest rates. For example, it prohibits lenders from increasing interest rates on existing balances (stuff you already charged) unless you are more than 60 days late on your bill. And if you actually fall behind on paying your credit card bill and the rate is increased, the lender must restore the lower rate if you have paid your bill on time after six months. Also, borrowers are required to have periodic payment history reviews by their lenders and have their rates decreased if indicated by the review. This may be hard ...

Here are the sights from the Belmont Hotel Dallas and "Get Into the City" last week.  Plenty of food, plenty of fun, and congrats to Starsky and Kristin Hall who won a free night stay in a Garden Suite.  They are celebrating an anniversary this week.

By James "Bird" Guess So we know that only 10 percent of Spruce graduates were college ready in reading and math last year, and the school has been rated academically unacceptable for the past four years. Anything else? Oh wait, the kids don’t care about education and their parents did not either, so they are simply repeating the cycle, they live in a severely economically disadvantaged community, the kids fight frequently and there is no hope. If students do not pass the TAKS Test this spring, Spruce could potentially be closed like similar schools in Austin or Houston, or be restructured into all boys or girls schools. Let’s get all the negative statistics and comments off our chest and focus on what really matters: Empowering the students, parents and the COMMUNITY! For far too long the students have ingested nothing but negativity regarding their failing test scores, potential school closing, and how they may become failures in life. This is a recipe for student disaster. And if the students feel they are failures, they will soon act as failures and pursue alternatives to high school, which has made them bitter and uncomfortable instead as a place of learning, growth and inspiration. We must understand that ...

BY JAMES "BIRD" GUESS Wall Street investor conman, Bernie Madoff, made off with billions of investor’s money and on December 10, 2008, he confessed to orchestrating an estimated $65 billion “ponzi scheme,” that is considered the largest act of investor fraud ever by a single person. On March 12, 2009, Madoff appeared in court and pled guilty to 11 felonies. He faces a maximum sentence of 150 years in prison, and will also have to pay mandatory restitution and fines estimated at $170 billion. After prosecutors froze Madoff’s accounts and seized his business and personal assets, they accounted for only $830 million. Prosecutors are expected to investigate members of Madoff’s family as well. Former investors who contributed to Madoff’s investment funds, who profited and cashed out, may be asked to return some of their “false profits” to remaining investors in order to make them whole. Despite the billions in losses, fines, and public outrage, Madoff did not implicate any other person who may have known or helped him pull off this sophisticated scam, instead he went out solo. What!! Are you telling me one man pulled off the largest investment scam in history by himself? Yeah right! Federal investigators definitely have their work ...

By James Guess, Dallas South Contributor Is it not ironic, that the game of free-market capitalism, the economic system responsible for creating the wealthiest country in the world, is now the culprit for the financial collapse of America’s $13 trillion economy? Foreign leaders around the world have called out American style-capitalism as the reason for the worldwide economic slump. In hip-hop culture, there is a saying “don’t hate the player, hate the game,” but in this situation I must say, “we cannot hate the game, we must blame the players.” So who's to blame? We could start with the Federal Reserve, who kept money cheap by lowering interest rates below 2 percent from 2001-2004 and sparked sales of sub-prime mortgages. Beginning in 2001, sub-prime mortgages were a $200 billion industry, representing less than 10 percent of the mortgage market. By 2004, the industry more than doubled to roughly $600 billion and its share of the mortgage market increased to 18 percent. However, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was only trying to jumpstart the economy after 9/11, so I think he deserves a pass. Next up, borrowers with poor credit history promised to pay and agreed to the exotic mortgages issued by mortgage brokers only to default ...

By JAMES "BIRD" GUESS Obamanomics: The Financial Breakdown of How President Barack Obama Plans to Repair America’s Shattered Economy In an attempt to repair the economy and potentially create up to 3.5 million jobs, President Obama has proposed an economic stimulus plan that would cost taxpayers $825 billion. The House of Representatives recently approved the plan, and now it awaits a vote in the Senate. The terms will more than likely be negotiated and revised to satisfy both House and Senate politicians. President Obama is hoping to have a final version of the plan on his desk by mid-February so he can sign it into law and immediately start the spending spree. Why does President Obama believe spending $825 billion will help repair the economy? Well, President Obama’s plan is based on an economic philosophy called “Keynesian economics,” which states when an economy is in a downturn and consumers are not spending, the government should spend money to make up for the decline and create jobs. The people who obtain these government sponsored jobs will spend the income they receive on other products and services, and in return help create more jobs and more spending. As a result of the increase in spending, ...

  BY JAMES "BIRD" GUESS “Remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth” -- Deuteronomy 8:18 What does the Bible have to say about money? Many people may consider the Bible to be only a book detailing Jesus’ teachings and the principles of Christianity, while ignoring other real-life issues of money and wealth. You may be surprised to know, according to Biblical historians Craig Hill and Earl Pitts, the New Testament contains approximately ten times as many verses regarding money and credit as it does salvation and faith. The New Testament contains 215 verses on faith, 218 verses on salvation, and 2084 verses discussing stewardship and accountability for money and finance. It appears that money and wealth is an important issue addressed in the Bible, and must continue to be addressed by all Christians. Could it simply mean that GOD wants you to get your money right? In these trying economic times, when we are asked to handover 10% of our income to support “GOD’s house,” some Christians may cringe when they have to dig deep into their pockets or pull out their checkbooks to pay tithes. You should consider tithes the greatest investment of all time because ...

BY JAMES "BIRD" GUESS While Southern Dallas continues to receive the majority of attention from real- estate developers and city officials, West Dallas, an area of 23,000 residents waits anxiously in the economic background for change. There is hope for this area of Dallas, although poor performing schools and an uneducated workforce have led to persistent poverty (44 percent of residents below poverty level), run-down real estate, and tenured drug dealers. It is no wonder that 66 percent of the residents age 25 or older lack a high school diploma and a jaw-dropping 95 percent have less than a college degree. Four years ago, I clearly remember selling hip-hop clothing to the local residents from the trunk of my car at the Inwood/Hampton road car wash. It was there that I witnessed a community in chaos. However, after delivering a speech to roughly 70 juniors and seniors of L.G. Pinkston High School last month, it was there, approximately a mile from that same car wash, that I witnessed that change is coming to West Dallas. L.G. Pinkston has become a Career Pathways School, which allows students to earn college credit from their chosen field of Law, Public Safety, Health Science, Architecture, and Construction while still ...