Greg Saunders

Hey Peachtree City...can you smell it in the air??? No...Sinuses again, huh? Okay I'm talking about Spring! Come on this is Georgia folks, we just had our snow and we are looking at a beautiful and sunny 75 degree weekend. We all can use the vitamin D folks! Well, if you hadn't recognized it yet then I can't suspect that you've recognized your W-2 in that huge pile of mail on your counter....Yes now you've got it. It's tax time again, hurrah! So long, bulky coats, ugly boots & mercilessly dry skin! Hello, Spring & tax season!

Alright...if you are like me getting organized for my CPA can be a pain in the butt. Especially with collecting and keeping up with all those receipts. Every year I keep saying that I am going to come up with a better system. Oh you too? There is help...and we don't even have to go see Oprah either!

The solution may be to check out one of those services that organize all your receipts for you. Yeah...that's the ticket. May I suggest shoving your receipts in an envelope or just leaving them in your shoebox and mail them to pixily.com. Pixily.com is an on-demand document management service that helps you aggregate, organize, find,and share paper and electronic documents. Pretty much the service scans all your receipts and documents, then allows you to securely search for them online by date, totals, business or store name ect. How cool is that? Of course, this type of organization does come with a price but there are plans to fit your budget too!

Okay so you are on a shoe-string budget this year. Most of us are. How about scanning your own receipts with a NeatReceipts Scanner? The scanner and software combo allows you to scan in your receipts and export them to Quickbooks, Excel, Word, Money and even Acrobat. By the way, I head that its even great for storing all those business cards we can collect in a years time. The price for eradicating the clutter from your home and mind is between $150 and $250. Well worth the investment wouldn't you say?

Still a little financially challenged at this point? Okay, I'm going to give you the real low, low...how about free! Check out the Evernote application. What is Evernote? Evernote allows you to take snapshots of your receipts, track notes and ideas...even voice notes. Also for you guys with the IPhone and IPOD touch, Evernote turns them into your external brain. Why did we ever need our own? Not only that it synchronizes them to your desktop, IPhone or Ipod touch. Did I mention that it also organizes them by their appropriate IRS categories.

So now that I've pretty much taken the ax out of tax......you can spring into action with a little more pep in your step at tax time. You Accountants and CPAs will love seeing you again and who knows....maybe all this organization may be a change for the better. Okay now say it with me, "No More Shoe Boxes.!" Now let's hope Uncle Sam doesn't rain on your parade.

Okay Peachtree City...I'll admit I was watching the President address Congress the other night along with millions of other folks. Although I have to say, I kinda felt like a kid waiting for the tooth fairy to come. But instead of replacing one of my pearly whites with a shiny new coin, I was looking to replace the financial woes of the economy with at least a glimmer of hope.

The news media was buzzing as many folks talked about how President Obama has a great plan while
other pundits felt that the Obama Recovery plan was pretty ambitious. His plan to rebuild, recover, and move America out of this depression is a $3 trillion-plus blueprint focused on education, health care, and energy. Not to mention reforms to our banking industry which will include another $250 Billion more on top of the $700 Billion in TARP funds. Hence the introduction of the new Capital Assistance Program! (CAP)

Alright folks, now you know I did my homework. I went to check out the white papers for CAP at www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/reports/tg40. So what the heck is the CAP? Stay with me now....the CAP replaces the TARP! The CAP was developed to allow some transparency and oversight of the banks by auditing the assets of the banks and insuring that they actually have the capital requirements. So what if banks don't have sufficient capital? More on that in a minute! The CAP has two core elements: The first being an assessment to determine if any banking institutions needs to establish additional capital buffers during this period of heighten uncertainty. Secondly, is access to all qualifying financial institutions to contingent common equity provided by the government as a bridge to private capital in the future.

Okay, I'm good with that! If I understand this right....after this assessment, each bank, the Treasury, and more importantly, investors should have some sort of idea what shape banks are in and how much capitalization would be needed. Okay team I'm with you so far......it's making dollars and sense to me now. I'm Mr. Investor and Uncle Sam is going to provide me an audited statement which accurately depicts the financials and status of the banks. Hmmmm! What say you Mr. Private Investor?

What say you Mr & Mrs taxpaying citizen? Well...we are all feeling the pinch! But, just so you know the much needed funds started flowing the other day from the stimulus but as bad as states needs those funds now our Governor Sonny Purdue like Louisiana Governor Bobby Tindal are mulling over whether or not to take the funding. Now before you get up in arms.... this is not about Republican or Democrat politics or agendas. This is an American crisis for God's sake! Ask Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger who just laid off 20,000 workers and was quoted as saying that he would take anyone money that did not want it! Shame on you Bobby, you received all those funds from Katrina and the last time I checked, Louisiana could use the money! Governor Purdue...I know that the Sen. Isakson homebuyer plan was stripped from the recovery package and we can debate the issues...but shouldn't the biggest concern be for the people in Georgia? Ask Mike Thurmond how long he can expect to continue unemployment benefits without taxes being raised?

Folks, the reality is that home sales in the US slumped 5.3% in January, the weakest since July 1997!
Rajeev Dhawan, Director of the Economic Forecasting Center at Georgia State University, predicts Georgia
will lose another 143,100 jobs in 2009. That's almost twice the roughly 90,000 lost in 2008. Even so...with
with housing prices reaching Filene's basement bargain prices, we could actually see home sales on an upward swing.....Well that is if folks could only get a loan!

So where do we go from here now that we have CAP? Is nationalization of the banks and socialize health care next? Dare you say it? Not Chairman Bernanke! But some noted economists think its the only way to deal with the trillions of dollars of toxic assets. Heck the Government is about to own 40% or so of Citigroup and they own large percentages of others entities such as AIG. By the way, it should be noted again that US taxpayers bailed out Citi and got $45 billion of preferred stock which reportedly represented 40% of the company. However, I noted somewhere in my readings and research that if Citi's common is worth $10 billion and the US were to just convert all $45 billion to common, given their current stock price....taxpayers would own just about 80% of the company! Okay, when in doubt...check it out! (Start getting use to doing your own due diligence.) Yes, can you say de facto... So what's really happening Citi? Will public scrutiny provide the can of whup-ass to combat all the skulduggery. Only time will tell!

As Madea would probably say, ..."looks like we taxpayers gettin got!" Certainly she would get the getters before she gets got...or at least confront them with her glock. Just kidding! That thinking got Madea 5 to 10 in jail and even worse a session with Dr. Phil! Anyway, just food for thought. If it would have been my decision I think I probably would have let the banks crash and burn just like other mismanaged corporations that fail. But the great thing about capitalism is that out of the dust and ashes arises another entity more poised to provide better stewardship. However, it does make you chuckle to think that financial institutions can be well managed by government.

In the meantime folks...keep a smile on your face, a kind word on your lips, and hope in your heart. Your resolve as well as your reserves if you have them, will be tested. And no...I haven't seen a "great" plan to assist homeowners who are either on the brink of foreclosure or currently underwater in their homes. But the truth of the matter is that life will go on for us and we will survive and recover from this. Who knows, we may all be better for the simple fact that this was a huge wake up call to us all.

Additionally, what we are finding out is that we all actually have more in common that we think. We all want the American dream...a home, good family life, an education, good job and the hope for a brighter tomorrow! So one by one let's do what we can do. I remember hearing that necessity was the mother of invention. Small businesses and entrepreneurship have been the backbone of this country. This is our country folks....Let's find the good and some common ground. Hopefully some ingenuity, common sense and camaraderie will help clear a path toward recovery.

Hey Peachtree City...the other night I was a part of the millions of music lovers checking out the 51st
Grammy Awards when suddenly it hit me. The music of Bono & U2, Coldplay, Kid Rock, Jennifer Hudson & others was a true reflection of life as we know it with all its struggles, successes, & failures. Yep, music is the mirror of our souls and right now its crying out for the humanity in us all.

So you don't think there is a direct correlation between music and the impact it has on life and our economy? Read on! Getting ready for the Grammys I ran to the kitchen for refreshments. My wife's version of the Beatles "Long and Winding Road" was the song playing in my head. Maybe it was a reminder of all the financial hardship we are personally faced with and that road to recovery seemed long and winding. I could hear the announcer reading off the long list of featured artists and then.......I saw it! The latest edition of Fortune laying on my counter...or should I say Mis-Fortune with the cover featuring the "New Jobless." Just earlier in the day I remembering my wife reading the stories to me...it was absolutely sobering! I couldn't help but to stop and look at their faces.

Now I'll have to admit that after watching a few episodes of the new hit series "Lie to Me", I've been more observant of people in general. The series features Dr. Cal Lightman, the world's leading deception expert who studies facial expressions and body language to discover if someone is lying. I looked at each picture and there it was...the cold stare in their eyes, the raised eyebrows, pursed lips, and even the lines in between their eyebrows. There was no lying about it! Despite their degrees, successes, and even social lineage, life had dealt them the proverbial kick in the butt! They were all facing major setbacks and it seemed like the buzzards were circling looking to finish them off by picking what ever flesh was left on their bones...ughhh!

Suddenly the Grammys came back on and I hear a girl singing that she had kissed a girl and yeah...she liked it! Wow, it reminded me of how perversely music has impacted our society. What was not acceptable when I was growing up had now become the norm! Then came the next commercial break talking about the Big Bang Theory. Well...it wasen't the George Lemaitre discussion on the model of the universe. Instead it was about 2 physicist with "beautiful minds" that can't interact with people...especially women. What were they thinking!! That's why God invented facebook, myspace, and all the other social-networking sites. The average facebook account has 100 friends...Get a life and a account dudes!

Oh back to the Grammys...song of the year was an old Jimmy Paige song called, "Write a Letter." sung by Robert Plant...remember Led Zeppelin! Reminded me of the folks on Capital Hill...seems like ole habits like rock & roll never die! Loved the Carnival Cruise commercial....it featured the Todd Rundgren "I don't want to work song." Tell that to the 1.8 million folks that got pink slips. More than likely you'd be cruisin for a bruisin bro! Then there was Dino getting the Lifetime achievement award. Remember the "RAT Pack"....Sinatra, Martin, Davis, Bishop, and Lawford? Yeah grab a drink, light up a square, and enjoy the discourse. Ok the singing too! Talk about cultural role models! We all wanted that vicarious lifestyle. But wait...the new Rat Pack? Jay-Z, TI, Lil Wayne, and Kanye West? Hmmm...life has really changed my friends! But then the music is always changing but maybe there is still a chance it can bring us together or at least bridge some gaps. Thanks Paul, Beatlemania lives on! Makes you wanna hold someone's hand, right!

Wow..check it out! John Mayer received the award for best song, "Say what you need to say." Seems to be a sign of the times. We just can't seem to say what we need to say to our kids or trust what a lot of folks are saying. Talk to the hand....Yeah, whatever dude. Then I heard it....What a huge song...."How Come I End Up Where I Started" is the mega hit from Radiohead. Kinda sounds like our guys on capital hill meeting on how to bailout our economy. Hmmm...maybe its just life coming full circle! My mama always told me 'what goes around comes back around". Got an idea! Can you just imagine the net worth of all the folks in that room! Music sales averaged about 6.4 billion in the US and 27.2 billion world-wide. Talk about being able to jump-starting the economy. Hey don't complain. We put those music guys on superstar pedestals, gave then the bling-bling, MTV, BET, VH1 and all the paparazzi. Hey our elected officials get the same treatment. We gave them CNN, CNBC, talk radio, and access to the Internet. Yeah, we gave them our money and trust too, right?

Then to top it off. Can you believe it! A domestic brawl between 19 year-old superstar Chris Brown and Rhianna kept them from attend and performing on the awards. Not a problem, back from Rehab was 45-year old Whitney Houston to make her Grammy debut. Will we never learn how to sit down and discuss things before they blow up into an all out and out war? Why all the anger! Can't we just all get along? Sam Jackson says we should all collaborate....You damn right! Moving on...Justin Timberlake sang about traveling on this same road too long. "You mean before we are all dead and gone," raps TI. Yeah with all the financial prowess in our country you would think someone could get us out of this mess. But greed and money are powerful bedfellows.

By the way, did you know President Obama is a 2x Grammy winner? Yep, just goes to prove the power of the spoken word. Knowledge is the power to incite change...well at least potential power. True change comes only from putting the word in action!

Hey guys...remember the good ole days when we listened to the sounds of the 4 Tops and greats like Neil Diamond? There is a new word for that time and place now and its called "nostalgia." Well its impossible to bring those days back and just maybe the good ole days weren't so great for all of us anyway. Besides nobody respects or listens to their elders anymore. Yeah...old sweet Caroline, good times never seemed so good.

Then there is the Big Easy. Musically Robin Thicke and Lil Wayne reminded us again of all your pain. Yeah,New Orleans was underwater much like most of our homes now in this economy from the hurricane called "Devaluation." Don't worry this hurricane can't distinguish between the good and the bad, rich or poor, color, religion or national origin. Greed and mismanagement has fueled its winds of destruction across our great land. Oh but we hear you too young America...Rap music is here to stay! Some may not understand your evolution but your plight is far-reaching. I wonder....does the future look somewhat like the past or is it our attempts to prop up old archaic ideologies.

Hmmm...Robert Plant's collaboration with country singer Alison Krauss called "Raising Sand" was the album of the year! I guess it may be true that you can't go forward unless you understand your past. Duly noted! Folks, we have a lot to learn about ourselves and each other. Maybe Robert Plant is right..you gotta raise some sand sometimes to make a point about what is right and fair. However, when you think about it....the world and its economies are really interwoven. The walls and barriers are slowly coming down. We truly are all brothers and sisters.

But like you didn't know it, our economy Like Amy Winehouse needs some immediate rehab. And if you know anything about the 12 step rehab program you don't replace one drug with another. There is a physical and psychological dependency. But it will involve stripping or peeling everything back to the core. It means admitting our short-comings making amends and moving forward in a new direction. We all have to take some personal responsibility for our lives. For some it may mean developing other skill sets and for a lot of us it may even mean starting over. But I believe that there is a power greater than ourselves that will answer our prayers and restore our hope. Its a new day America! Thanks Stevie Wonder for the constant reminder that love, caring, and sharing are what truly makes us all a divine instrument!

Hey Peachtree City, how do you spell R-E-L-I-E-F, well I'm not actually certain at this point but may I at least suggest that you exercise some time away from the gloom and doom of CNN and the other local networks. How many times do we have to be beaten over the head with what is clearly evident....the economy sucks right now! Ok, everyone inhale....now exhale. There you go! See even the air seems fresher because there may be a few less ions of carbon due to fewer cars and trucks on the the road. See, I guess you are feeling a little bit better already.

Now, let look at the recent turn of events. The Obama team made it pretty clear the other day that company CEO's benefiting from TARP money (our tax dollars) should cap their salaries at a mere $500,000! Wow, what backlash followed from Wall Street after that announcement. "Shameful" was the word President Obama used for the billions in bonuses paid. Can you believe that these guys actually had the cohones to even complain about the caps! Now had you or I drove the business we were running into the ground I can assure you that we would be not even be around to see any further compensation.....period! Yes, we are captive audiences as it seems like the whole global economic train is coming to a shocking and sudden halt!

So what's really going on! We are watching as the Bernie Madoff's are slapped on the hand while companies like Panasonic, Macy's, Sprint, GM, Time-Warner and others that are now fighting for survival and laying off folks by the thousands. Even Delta now the world's largest airlines after its merger with Northwest reported loss in 2008 of $1.4 billion. And..yes the war on terror. Oops, President Obama has officially expelled that terminology....the Iraq war has cost $2.4 trillion over the period 2001 - 2009 according to Homeland Security Research. Of course, this does not include the hundreds of thousand of our brave soldiers that will now be dependant on Uncle Sam to assist them with war-related disabilities!

So where am I going with this you say? Also, what is the correlation to the current market? Okay folks here it is......it comes right back to accountability! But who should we hold accountable. Heck...who can we even trust anymore? Is President Obama's $900 Billion dollar stimulus package the defibrillator to jump start the economy again? Well according to a well know twentieth-century British economist John Maynard Keynes....YES IT CAN! His theory which challenged the modern day orthodoxy stated that a slump (okay.. a depression) is simply a short-run problem resulting from a lack of demand. Further, if the private sector was not prepared to spend to boost demand, then the government should instead by running budget deficits. When times were good again and the private sector started spending, the government could cut back spending and pay off the debts they accumulated in the downturn. His idea was to balance your budget in the medium term but not in the short-term.

Whew...I hear the lot of you classical economist already! Where is the equilibrium factor! Further, I know folks we are around $6 trillion dollars of debt that need to be paid or eliminated some kind of way. However, one of Keynes famous quotes pretty much make a poignant statement about the focus on short range policies, "In the long run we are all dead!." Amen brother if we don't find something that works soon!

Okay so maybe you did or didn't survive economics (or even took Econ) related to Keynesian economics but these policies basically called counter-cyclical demand management policies specifically state that when economic activity is depressed the government should spend more and when the economy is booming the government should cut costs. Before you shoot the messenger, I'm not saying whether this is sound strategy or even it it makes sense! Just presenting another side outside of conventional thinking. Continuing on....Keynes argued that the solution to a economy in depression was to reduce interest rates and for the government to invest in the infrastructure which is part of the present day Obama package. Keynes stated that the injection of income results in more spending in the general economy which in turns stimulates more production and investing. These activities ends up basically "stimulating," a chain of events who's total increase in economic activity is a multiple of the original investment. That my friend is what is know as a money multiplier. More on the money multiplier at another time.

So what an I concluding? Maybe nothing....maybe just planting the seed for thought! However what I
am saying is that in this time of financial and credit confusion do your homework. Additionally, maybe its time for us to study other options to these problems and issues.....Clearly the same thinking that got us into this mess cannot get us out! We all have been affected in some shape or form. So do your homework but at least be open-minded to other strategies and ideas that may defy traditional thinking.

By the way, this crisis has also presented us with a great opportunity to talk to each other more and help out when and where we can. I hope you are taking that opportunity to do something good in your neighborhood! Now that's change we can all be a part of!!!

Hey Peachtree City, recently I was checking my Citi credit card account to see when my next due date was going to be as my wife and I try and budget things every month. My wife has had her Citi account about 13 years and I'd had mine about 5 or 6 years. During that time we have never been late with a payment. As a result, we had been rewarded with great interest rates of 6.740%. That is until I looked at my January statement and it had gone up to almost 25%!

Of course like most folks I was pissed off to the highest pisitivity! How could this be? I immediately called my wife and she instructed me to also check her account. Just months before CIti has reduced her credit limit in half without notification. Of course I checked and to my chagrin she had the same increase to almost her account.....almost 25%.

We immediately got on the phone and called Citi for an explanation. Their response was canned something to the effect that Citi had to start raising folks interest to cover the cost of them doing business! Come on.... that was a serious bunch of municia I told her! Well...that's the gist of what I said. My minimum payment had actually tripled...What did we do? I'll get to that in a minute. Oh yeah baby....now its personal! You might as well have stuck me up by putting a gun to my head and taking my wallet. In my mind Citi was that same thug on the street only with a suit and tie! If that's suppose to make me feel better!

Remember back at the end of September Citigroup bought out Wachovia for $1 per share or $2.2 billion dollars! Citi then got basically the same deal that The Fed Reserve established with JP Morgan Chase when it took over Bears Stearns. Citi would assume the first $42 billion in losses from Wachovia and would pay the FDIC $12 billion in stocks & warrants. The Feds would take everything else over that amount!

Okay, I'm calming down now so I can finish this story. Well...normally January always brings a Christmas hang over as most folks find out the true cost of the holidays. Now they are about to find out just how much that have really been scrooged! January will catch most people off guard as struggling banks are trying to cut risk are sending out millions of letters (some after the fact) informing customers that their credit limits have been cut....and SURPRISE - its not just folks with less than favorable credit struggling to pay bills. Its also affecting customers with perfect credit! Can you imaging the embarrassment at the register when your purchase is denied. Not to mention the fact that your credit has just taken a hit equivalent to that of an opposing quarterback on a blitz from the Pittsburgh Steelers on a below zero day....Yeah,its gonna hurt and for some it may know you down. For others it may knock you out of the game!

So what did we do you say? There is a little now option that you can use...simply opt out! What that means it that we did not accept the new higher rate. Its almost usurious to me at this point! As a result, Citi will return our cards to a variable rate...ours happened to be 5.99%. Now this is a variable rate and it could go up or down. Didn't seem like a problem now with the current state of the economy. Anyway, we would maintain that rate until our cards expired. At that time, the company would close out accounts but we would still be able to pay off our cards at the lower variable rate.

So make sure you check those credit cards bills and try and keep those balances at about half of your limit. If you are making a major purchase, maybe 10% to 15%. By the way, in case you didn't know there is a NEW FICO Formula! That's right FICO 08, is latest version of the FICO scoring model being rolled out. How does it impact you? Depends....more on FICO 08 later!