Holiday Greeting Terms of Service

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all and a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2012, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great (not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country or is the only America in the Western hemisphere), and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, or sexual orientation of the wishee.

Limited Warranty:

This wish is limited to the customary and usual good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first.Holiday is not intended to, nor shall it be considered, limited to the usual Judeo-Christian celebrations or observances, or to such activities of any organized or ad hoc religious community, group, individual or belief (or lack thereof).

DISCLAIMER:

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting the following terms: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher at any time, for any reason or for no reason at all.

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It’s hard to pinpoint who has the highest credit limit in the world when there are some people who use cards that essentially have no credit limit. There are credit cards out there so exclusive, and so prestigious, used by the rich and powerful, that there isn’t a formalized limit to what they can spend on the card. As long as the bills are paid, the users of these cards can pretty much charge whatever they want.

Some of the cards with these non-existent limits come with hefty annual fees, but they are considered symbols of status. Some of them are such exclusive status symbols that you can only use the credit cards if you are invited to do so. Here are the top 10 credit cards with the highest limits, and greatest exclusivity, in the world:

10. Chase SapphireSM Chase offers the SapphireSM card for those who are particularly moneyed. There is no spending limit for this particular card (although there is a downgraded “regular” Sapphire for the rest of us), and it comes with the ability to rack up bonus points like you wouldn’t believe. Like so m

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Results of a recent survey by Dun & Bradstreet, confirm that demand for credit in Australia has continued to drop, and nearly a third of households are expecting to experience a degree of difficulty meeting their repayment obligations.

The Dun & Bradstreet Consumer Credit Expectations survey shows fewer Australians intend to apply for credit in the September quarter than expected to in the June quarter. Nineteen per cent of respondents said they would apply for credit in the September quarter, down from the 27% who indicated they would do so in the June quarter.

While the number of survey respondents who believe that they will struggle to meet their repayments has declined slightly, 30% still indicate they will face difficulty fulfulling their credit obligations. Nearly half the surveys respondents said any RBA interest rate rise would have a serious impact on their family budgets.

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Recently released data suggests that more than 120,000 jobs were added in November, which lowered the unemployment rate to 8.6 percent, CNNMoney reports.

This is certainly encouraging news. Our Chicago bankruptcy lawyers hope that many of the seasonal workers who were hired in retail and by companies producing consumer goods can hang on to those jobs as we get into 2012.

But for many others, jobs have been scarce. Many people have spent months or even years attempting to get a steady income. For millions of Americans, unemployment benefits have been what they live on. But whether a person is newly employed or still struggling to find work, it’s likely that credit has been a crutch that is close to breaking.

Without steady income, people have relied on loans and credit cards to get by. This is a disaster waiting to happen. If the consumer has no income, they are likely getting bombarded with calls, e-mails and letters harassing them and making threats against them. If people happen to have a job, they may be in the process of having their wages garnished.

One initial benefit of filing for bankruptcy is that it stops creditors from hounding consumers.

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This Europol criminal threat assessment (pdf document OCTA 2011: EU ORGANISED CRIME THREAT ASSESSMENT) is fascinating. It covers everything including drugs, smuggling, human trafficking and weapons.

But the financial section is what caught my eye. I have been vocal for years that it is time for banks to offer payment cards with only a chip and with no magnetic stripe. The detainment of the stripe is a classic case of building a compromise product based on the needs of the minority.

The EU is the world’s largest market for payment card transactions. In 2009 organised crime groups derived more than 1.5 billion euros from payment card fraud in the EU.

Now that we are almost in 2012, and 3 years later it is a safe bet that number will be higher. In my view it is unconscionable that banks permitted this to occur while the solution to a large percentage of that crime lies in their hands, while they hide behind regulations created by the card companies (ie themselves). That cost is a net cost and loss to society in some way, and it has to be covered by consumer and social costs at some point.

Some more statistics that are astounding but not at all surprising. (

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